“Raoul,” Watt said suddenly, “what’s this man trying to do?”
“He is trying to break his contract, of course,” St. Cyr said, turning ruddy olive. “It is the bad phase all my writers go through before I get them whipped into shape. In Mixo-Lydia—”
“Are you sure he’ll whip into shape?” Watt asked.
“To me this is now a personal matter,” St. Cyr said, glaring at Martin. “I have spent nearly thirteen weeks on this man and I do not intend to waste my valuable time on another. I tell you he is simply trying to break his contract—tricks, tricks, tricks.”
“Are you?” Watt asked Martin coldly.
“Not now,” Martin said. “I’ve changed my mind. My agent insists I’d be better off away from Summit. In fact, she has the curious feeling that I and Summit would suffer by a mésalliance. But for the first time I’m not sure I agree. I begin to see possibilities, even in the tripe St. Cyr has been stuffing down the public’s throat for years. Of course I can’t work miracles all at once. Audiences have come to expect garbage from Summit, and they’ve even been conditioned to like it. But we’ll begin in a small way to re-educate them with this picture. I suggest we try to symbolize the Existentialist hopelessness of it all by ending the film with a full four hundred feet of seascapes—nothing but vast, heaving stretches of ocean,” he ended, on a note of complacent satisfaction.
A vast, heaving stretch of Raoul St. Cyr rose from his chair and advanced upon Martin.
“Outside, outside!” he shouted. “Back to your cell, you double-crossing vermin! I, Raoul St. Cyr, command it. Outside, before I rip you limb from limb—”
Martin spoke quickly. His voice was calm, but he knew he would have to work fast.
“You see, Watt?” he said clearly, meeting Watt’s rather startled gaze. “Doesn’t dare let you exchange three 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,”
