“You’re a liar, I said,” the fat man snarled, breathing heavily in Foster’s face. “It’s March! You’ll either admit it’s March, or—or—”
But Foster had had enough. He pushed the fat man away and had taken two steps when a tingling shock raced through him and the small, cold, spot of clarity sprang into existence within his brain.
The jukebox started to play; “Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative.”
“It’s March!” the fat man yelped. “Isn’t it March?”
“Yes,” Foster said thickly. “It’s March.”
All that night the song-title blazed in his mind. He went home with the fat man. He drank with the fat man. He agreed with the fat man. He never used a negative. And, by morning, he was surprised to find that the fat man had hired him as a songwriter for Summit Studios, simply because Foster didn’t say no when he was asked whether he could write songs.
“Good,” the fat man said. “Now I’d better get home. Oh, I am home, aren’t I? Well, I gotta go to the studio tomorrow. We’re starting a super-musical April second, and—This is April, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s get some sleep. No, not that door. The swimming-pool’s out there. Here, I’ll show you a spare bedroom. You’re sleepy, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Foster, who wasn’t.
But he slept, nevertheless, and the next morning found himself at Summit Studios with the fat man, putting his signature on a contract. Nobody asked his qualifications. Taliaferro, the fat man, had okayed him. That was enough. He was given an office with a piano and a secretary, and sat dazedly behind his desk for most of the day, wondering how the devil it had all happened. At the commissary, however, he picked up some scraps of information.
Taliaferro was a big shot—a very big shot. He had one idiosyncrasy. He couldn’t endure disagreement. Only yes-men were allowed around him. Those who worked for Taliaferro had to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
Foster got his assignment. A romantic love song for the new picture. A duet. Everyone took it for granted that Foster knew one note from another. He did, having studied piano in his youth, but counterpoint and the mysteries of minor keys were far beyond him.
That night he went back to the little downtown bar.
It was just a hunch, but he thought the jukebox might be able to help him. Not that he really believed in such things, but at worst, he could hoist a few shots and try to figure a way out. But the jukebox kept playing one song over and over.
The odd thing was that nobody else heard that particular song. Foster discovered that quite by accident. To Austin’s ears, the jukebox was going through an ordinary repertoire of modern popular stuff.
After that, Foster listened more closely. The song was a haunting duet, plaintive and curiously tender. It had overtones in it that made Foster’s spine tingle.
“Who wrote that thing?” he asked Austin.
“Wasn’t it Hoagy Carmichael?”
But they were talking at cross-purposes. The jukebox suddenly sang, “I Dood It,” and then relapsed into the duet.
“No,” Austin said. “I guess it wasn’t Hoagy. That’s an old one. ‘Dardanella.’ ”
But it wasn’t “Dardanella.”
Foster saw a piano at the back. He went to it and got out his notebook. First he wrote the lyrics. Then he tried to get the notes down, but they were beyond him, even with the piano as a guide. The best he could achieve was a sort of shorthand. His own voice was true and good, and he thought he might be able to sing the piece accurately, if he could find someone to put down the notes for him.
When he finished, he studied the jukebox more closely. The broken panel had been repaired. He patted the gadget in a friendly way and went away thinking hard.
His secretary’s name was Lois Kennedy. She came into his office the next day while Foster was tapping at the piano and helplessly endeavoring to write down the score.
“Let me help you, Mr. Foster,” she said competently, casting a practised eye over the messy pages.
“I—no, thanks,” Foster said.
“Are you bad on scores?” she asked as she smiled. “A lot of composers are that way. They play by ear, but they don’t know G sharp from A flat.”
“They don’t, eh?” Foster murmured.
The girl eyed him intently. “Suppose you run through it, and I’ll mark down a rough scoring.”
Foster hit a few chords. “Phooey!” he said at last, and picked up the lyrics. Those were readable, anyway. He began to hum.
“Swell,” Lois said. “Just sing it. I’ll catch the melody.”
Foster’s voice was true, and he found it surprisingly easy to remember the love song the jukebox had played. He sang it, and Lois presently played it on the piano, while Foster corrected and revised. At least he could tell what was wrong and what was right. And, since Lois had lived music since her childhood, she had little difficulty in recording the song on paper.
Afterwards she was enthusiastic.
“It’s swell,” she said. “Something really new. Mr. Foster, you’re good. And you’re not lifting from Mozart, either. I’ll shoot this right over to the big boy. Usually it’s smart not to be in too much of a hurry, but since this is your first job here, we’ll chance it.”
Taliaferro liked the song. He made a few useless suggestions, which Foster, with Lois’s aid, incorporated, and sent down a list of what else was needed for the super-musical. He also called a conclave of the songwriters to listen to Foster’s opus.
“I want you to hear what’s good,” Taliaferro told them. “This new find of mine is showing you up. I think we need new blood,” he finished darkly, eying the wretched songwriters with ominous intensity.
But Foster quaked in his boots. For all he knew, his song might have been plagiarized. He expected someone in the audience to spring up and shout:
“That new find of yours
