“There,” he snapped. “It’s even lit for you. Satisfied?”
Stevenson just stared at it, dumfounded.
“Smoke the damned thing!” thundered the other. Stevenson took a hasty drag while Joseph bent over the trunk and did some diagnostic procedures.
“Did we break Hell’s Own Postbox?” ventured Stevenson after a moment.
“I hope not,” the other man snarled. “And I hope you’re doing some thinking about story ideas.”
“Right.” Stevenson inhaled again. The cigarette did not draw well. He eyed it critically but thought it best not to complain. “Right, then. What sort of story shall we give them? A romance, I dare say.”
“Sex is always popular,” conceded Joseph. He stood, brushed off his knees and took up the yellow lined pad. “Go on.”
“Right. There’s a woman. She’s a beauty, but she labors under some kind of difficulty. Perhaps there’s a family curse, but she’s pure as the snows of yesteryear. And there’s a fellow to rescue her, a perfect gentle knight as it were, but he’s knocked about the world a bit. Not a hapless boy at any rate. And there’s an older fellow, a bad ’un, a dissolute rake. Byronic.”
“Not very original, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” remarked Joseph, though he did not stop writing.
“No, I suppose not. How many ways are there to write a romance? Let’s make it a woman who’s the bad ’un. Tries to lure the hero from the heroine. There’s a thought! A sorceress. Metaphorically speaking. Perhaps even in fact. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
“Sounding good.” The other man nodded as he wrote. “Where’s all this happening, Louis?”
“France. Medieval France.”
“So this is a costume drama.”
“A what? Oh. Yes, silks and velvets and whitest samite. Chain mail and miniver. And the sea, I’m sure, with a ship standing off the coast signaling mysteriously. To the beauteous wicked dame, who’s a spy! Build this around some historical incident. Put the Black Prince in it. Maybe she’s a spy for him and the hero’s a Frenchman. No, no, no—the British public won’t take that. On the other hand, this is for the Yankees, isn’t it?”
“Sounding good, Louis, sounding really good.” The other tore off his written sheet with a flourish. “Let’s just feed it into the moviola and see what winds up on the cutting-room floor.”
“I’m sure that means something to you, but I’m damned if I know what,” remarked Stevenson, watching as the sheet was pulled into the trunk. “How does it do that?”
Joseph did not answer, because the sheet came spewing back at once. He pulled it forth and studied it, frowning.
“What’s wrong? Don’t they like it?”
“Oh, er, they’re crazy about it, Louis. It’s swell. They just have a few suggestions. A few changes they want made.”
“They want something rewritten?”
“Uh… the Middle Ages is out. France is out. Knights in armor stuff is expensive to shoot. They want to know if you can make it the South Seas. Give it some of that wonderful tropical ambiance you do so well.”
“I’ve never been in the South Seas,” said Stevenson coldly. He remembered his cigarette and puffed at it.
“No, not yet, but that’s all right. You can fake it. California’s almost tropical, isn’t it? Hot, anyway. Parts of it. That’s the Pacific Ocean out there, right? Just write some palm trees into the scenery. Now, er, they want you to drop the girl and the guy. There’s just no audience for pure sweethearts now. But they think the evil lady is fabulous. They think the story should mostly revolve around her. Lots of costume changes and bedroom scenes. She plays for power at the court of this Dark Lord guy. Black Prince, I mean.”
“The Black Prince never went to the South Seas either, you know. He was a medieval Plantagenet.”
“Whatever. I’m afraid the distinction is lost on them, Louis.” Joseph gave a peculiar embarrassed shrug. “Historical accuracy is not a big issue here. If we’re going to make it the South Seas he has to be something else anyway. Maybe some kind of witch doctor in a black helmet or something. They just liked the name, Black Prince, it’s got a kind of ring to it.”
“They sound like a supremely ignorant lot. Why don’t they write their own bloody story?” Stevenson muttered. His airy humor was descending fast.
“Now, Louis, don’t take it that way. They really love your stuff. They just need to tailor it to their audience a little, that’s all.”
“South Seas be damned.” Stevenson leaned back. “Why shouldn’t I write about what I know? If France isn’t good enough for them, what about this country? I saw some grand scenery from the railway carriage. Now, wait! What about a true American romance? This has possibilities. Do you know, I saw a man threaten to shoot a railway conductor dead, just because he’d been put off the coach for being drunk and disorderly? Only in America. It’s as good as the Montagues and Capulets, only with revolvers instead of rapiers. Prairies instead of pomegranate gardens. Picturesque barbarism. What about a hero who’s kidnapped at birth and raised by Red Indians?”
“Well, it’s been done, but okay.” The other began to write again.
“And there’s some additional obscurity to his birth… he’s the son of a Scots lord.”
“Gee, Louis, I don’t know…”
“And his younger brother succeeds to the title but emigrates to America, fleeing punishment for a crime he did not commit. Or perhaps he did. More interesting character. Or perhaps—”
“Is there any sex in this?”
“If you like. The brothers fall in love with the same woman, will that suit you? In fact… the girl is the betrothed of the brother who emigrates. She follows him devotedly. While searching for him, she’s kidnapped by the Red Indian band of whom her fiance’s brother is now chief. He falls in love with her. Claims her as his bride. Forced marriage takes place. She’s terrified, but compelled by the mating rituals of man in his primal innocence.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Louis!”
“Let’s see them get that past the scribes and Pharisees of popular taste,” sneered Stevenson, and tossed the last fragment of his cigarette into the fire. “Meanwhile, the fugitive brother has become a frontiersman, with buckskin clothes, long rifle, and quaint fur cap. Gets word that his betrothed has gone missing. Goes in search of her (he’s become an expert tracker too) and finds unmistakable evidence of her singular fate. Swears an oath of vengeance, goes out after the brave who committed the enormity, vows to eat his heart, all unwitting they’re really brothers.”
“We’ve got a smash hit here, Louis.”
“You can cobble on some sort of blood-and-thunder ending. True identities revealed all ’round. Perhaps the Red Indian brother has a distinctive and prominent birthmark. Fugitive brother becomes a heroic guide leading settlers across the plains. Red Indian brother accepts his true identity as a white man but refuses to return to Great Britain, denounces the irrelevancy of the British aristocracy, runs for Congress instead. What about another cigarette?”
“Not a chance in Hell,” Joseph replied, politely enough nevertheless. He ripped out the page he had been scribbling on and fed it into the trunk. “But how’s about a cocktail?” He produced a flask and offered it to Stevenson. “French brandy? You like this. It’s a matter of record.”
“Great God, man.” Stevenson extended his long hand, just as the yellow sheet came curling back out of the trunk. It was covered with dense commentary in violet ink. Both men frowned at it.
“You drink,” Joseph told him. “I’ll see what they say.”
“I can tell you what they don’t like, old chap.” Stevenson took a long pull from the flask. “Ah. The plot’s derivative and wildly improbable. How’s the hero to get kidnapped by Red Indians in Scotland, for Christ’s sake? Disgruntled family retainer makes away with the wee babby and sends it off down the Clyde in a Moses basket, which by some inexplicable chance washes up in the Gulf of Mexico a day later?”