The Ego Machine

words with me, for fear I'll let something slip. No wonder he's trying to put me out of here—he's skating on thin ice these days.'

Goaded, St. Cyr rolled forward in a ponderous lunge, but Watt interposed. It was true, of course, that the writer was probably trying to break his contract. But there were wheels within wheels here. Martin was too confident, too debonaire. Something was going on which Watt did not understand.

'All right, Raoul,' he said decisively. 'Relax for a minute. I said relax! We don't want Nick here suing you for assault and battery, do we? Your artistic temperament carries you away sometimes. Relax and let's hear what Nick has to say.'

'Watch out for him, Tolliver!' St. Cyr cried warningly. 'They're cunning, these creatures. Cunning as rats. You never know—'

Martin raised the microphone with a lordly gesture. Ignoring the director, he said commandingly into the mike, 'Put me through to the commissary. The bar, please. Yes. I want to order a drink. Something very special. A—ah—a Helena Glinska—'

* * *

'Hello,' Erika Ashby's voice said from the door. 'Nick, are you there? May I come in?'

The sound of her voice sent delicious chills rushing up and down Martin's spine. He swung round, mike in hand, to welcome her. But St. Cyr, pleased at this diversion, roared before he could speak.

'No, no, no, no! Go! Go at once. Whoever you are—out!'

Erika, looking very brisk, attractive and firm, marched into the room and cast at Martin a look of resigned patience.

Very clearly she expected to fight both her own battles and his.

'I'm on business here,' she told St. Cyr coldly. 'You can't part author and agent like this. Nick and I want to have a word with Mr. Watt.'

'Ah, my pretty creature, sit down,' Martin said in a loud, clear voice, scrambling out of his chair. 'Welcome! I'm just ordering myself a drink. Will you have something?'

Erika looked at him with startled suspicion. 'No, and neither will you,' she said. 'How many have you had already? Nick, if you're drunk at a time like this—'

'And no shilly-shallying,' Martin said blandly into the mike. 'I want it at once, do you hear? A Helena Glinska, yes. Perhaps you don't know it? Then listen carefully. Take the largest Napoleon you've got. If you haven't a big one, a small punch bowl will do. Fill it half full with ice-cold ale. Got that? Add three jiggers of creme de menthe —'

'Nick, are you mad?' Erika demanded, revolted.

'—and six jiggers of honey,' Martin went on placidly. 'Stir, don't shake. Never shake a Helena Glinska. Keep it well chilled, and—'

'Miss Ashby, we are very busy,' St. Cyr broke in importantly, making shooing motions toward the door. 'Not now. Sorry. You interrupt. Go at once.'

'—better add six more jiggers of honey,' Martin was heard to add contemplatively into the mike. 'And then send it over immediately. Drop everything else, and get it here within sixty seconds. There's a bonus for you if you do. Okay? Good. See to it.'

He tossed the microphone casually at St. Cyr.

Meanwhile, Erika had closed in on Tolliver Watt.

'I've just come from talking to Gloria Eden,' she said, 'and she's willing to do a one-picture deal with Summit if I okay it. But I'm not going to okay it unless you release Nick Martin from his contract, and that's flat.'

Watt showed pleased surprise.

'Well, we might get together on that,' he said instantly, for he was a fan of Miss Eden's and for a long time had yearned to star her in a remake of Vanity Fair. 'Why didn't you bring her along? We could have—'

'Nonsense!' St. Cyr shouted. 'Do not discuss this matter yet, Tolliver.'

'She's down at Laguna,' Erika explained. 'Be quiet, St. Cyr! I won't—'

A knock at the door interrupted her. Martin hurried to open it and as he had expected encountered a waiter with a tray.

'Quick work,' he said urbanely, accepting the huge, coldly sweating Napoleon in a bank of ice. 'Beautiful, isn't it?'

St. Cyr's booming shouts from behind him drowned out whatever remark the waiter may have made as he received a bill from Martin and withdrew, looking nauseated.

'No, no, no, no,' St. Cyr was roaring. 'Tolliver, we can get Gloria and keep this writer too, not that he is any good, but I have spent already thirteen weeks training him in the St. Cyr approach. Leave it to me. In Mixo-Lydia we handle—'

Erika's attractive mouth was opening and shutting, her voice unheard in the uproar. St. Cyr could keep it up indefinitely, as was well known in Hollywood. Martin sighed, lifted the brimming Napoleon and sniffed delicately as he stepped backward toward his chair. When his heel touched it, he tripped with the utmost grace and savoir-faire, and very deftly emptied the Helena Glinsak, ale, honey, creme de menthe, ice and all, over St. Cyr's capacious front.

St. Cyr's bellow broke the microphone.

* * *

Martin had composed his invention carefully. The nauseous brew combined the maximum elements of wetness, coldness, stickiness and pungency.

The drenched St. Cyr, shuddering violently as the icy beverage deluged his legs, snatched out his handkerchief and mopped in vain. The handkerchief merely stuck to his trousers, glued there by twelve jiggers of honey. He reeked of peppermint.

'I suggest we adjourn to the commissary,' Martin said fastidiously. 'In some private booth we can go on with this discussion away from the—the rather overpowering smell of peppermint.'

'In Mixo-Lydia,' St. Cyr gasped, sloshing in his shoes as he turned toward Martin, 'in Mixo-Lydia we throw to the dogs—we boil in oil—we—'

'And next time,' Martin said, 'please don't joggle my elbow when I'm holding a Helena Glinska. It's most annoying.'

St. Cyr drew a mighty breath, rose to his full height—and then subsided. St. Cyr at the moment looked like a Keystone Kop after the chase sequence, and knew it. Even if he killed Martin now, the element of classic tragedy would be lacking. He would appear in the untenable position of Hamlet murdering his uncle with custard pies.

'Do nothing until I return!' he commanded, and with a final glare at Martin plunged moistly out of the theater.

The door crashed shut behind him. There was silence for a moment except for the soft music from the overhead screen which DeeDee had caused to be turned on again, so that she might watch her own lovely form flicker in dimmed images through pastel waves, while she sang a duet with Dan Dailey about sailors, mermaids and her home in far Atlantis.

'And now,' said Martin, turning with quiet authority to Watt, who was regarding him with a baffled expression, 'I want a word with you.'

'I can't discuss your contract till Raoul gets back,' Watt said quickly.

'Nonsense,' Martin said in a firm voice. 'Why should St. Cyr dictate your decisions? Without you, he couldn't turn out a box-office success if he had to. No, be quiet, Erika. I'm handling this, my pretty creature.'

Watt rose to his feet. 'Sorry, I can't discuss it,' he said. 'St. Cyr pictures make money, and you're an inexperien—'

'That's why I see the true situation so clearly,' Martin said. 'The trouble with you is you draw a line between artistic genius and financial genius. To you, it's merely routine when you work with the plastic medium of human minds, shaping them into an Ideal Audience. You are an ecological genius, Tolliver Watt! The true artist controls his environment, and gradually you, with a master's consummate skill, shape that great mass of living, breathing humanity into a perfect audience….'

'Sorry,' Watt said, but not, bruskly. 'I really have no time—ah—'