When the President of the Rad-Hart Movie Corporation asked to see you, you said yes, even if you were in hospital with a broken leg.
“I’ll be there,” Perry said, and tried to beat Grace Adams to the cut off, but he was a split second too late. She was an expert at terminating a telephone conversation.
Sitting in the Toyota, with the rain pouring down, Perry grimaced.
The interview with Silas S. Hart had not gone how he had expected it to. Perry reached for the bottle and took another swig.
Silas S. Hart and he had always got along well. There was a reason. For the past four years, Perry had provided Hart with original film scripts that had made big money for the Rad-Hart Movie Corporation.
Hart had a reputation for ruthlessness and toughness, but, up to now, he appeared to treat Perry as his son. This surprised Perry as he had heard so many tales about the way Hart had treated other scriptwriters who had failed to make the grade, but to him Hart was like an affectionate father. In his bones, Perry knew this attitude of Hart’s was because he had given Hart four money making scripts. Fair enough, but what would happen if the next script that was already in Hart’s hands turned out a flop?
A couple of months ago, Hart and Perry had talked about a future film.
“This time I want something with blood and guts,” Hart had said. “We now have to give these morons who pay at the box office something to make them wet their pants. How do you feel about it? Do you think you can give me something like that? I want something with lots of action, blood and sex. Go away and think about it. Let me have an outline in a couple of months. Okay?”
“You don’t mean a horror film?” Perry asked.
“That’s the last thing I want. I want ordinary people in a situation that is packed with action, blood and sex. Ordinary people, you understand. A situation that can happen to anyone, like being held hostage, like a bunch of thugs moving into their home, like a drunk driver killing a child and trying to cover up. That kind of situation, but none of those. They’ve been done and done. Think about it. With your talent, you’ll come up with a humdinger. Okay?”
“Sure,” Perry said. You don’t show a lack of confidence when talking to Silas S. Hart, not if you wanted to stay his favorite script writer. “I’ll think about it, and let you have an outline of my thinking. Right?”
Hart smiled. “That’s the boy! And, Perry, it’s worth fifty thousand plus five per cent of the producer’s profit. This will be a big deal for you, and a big deal for me.”
For two months, Perry had struggled to invent an original plot that would satisfy his boss. During those two months, Sheila had been at her worst. Perry had explained to her that he had to invent a plot that would bring in big money, so please relax and give him a chance to think, but Sheila wouldn’t leave him alone. At this time, there was a two week film gala on, and she wanted to show herself off with Perry every night.
“I’m the wife of the best scriptwriter in this goddam city,” she had screamed. “What will those snobs think if they don’t see us?”
The gala sessions went on until three o’clock in the morning, and Perry had come home so drunk that Sheila had to drive. The following mornings he was nursing hangovers, then in the afternoons, while Sheila was playing tennis, he tried to put on paper a slim idea that just might please Silas S. Hart. Finally, drunk, he had typed out the outline and had sent it to Grace Adams.
He was now quarrelling with Sheila so continuously that he ceased to care. As he sat in the Toyota, with rain hammering down on the car’s roof, he thought about his wife. What a stupid sucker he had been to have married her! He had been completely carried away by her vivacity, her sensuality and her youth. The fact that all his unmarried men friends were scrambling for her acted as a crazy challenge to his ego. She hadn’t been easy to win. She had played hard to get. The red light should have warned him what he was in for, but he was besotted, and he had won her against heavy odds.
His first three months, married to her, had been exciting and he had basked in his friends’ envy. At first she was marvelous in bed. He was making big money and was able to go along with her constant demands. Then her demands began to worry him. He had his work. Sheila did nothing except swim, play tennis and yak. God! he thought, what a non-stop yakker! When he was wrestling with a script, she would come into his study, sit on his desk and yak about her girl friends, who was sleeping with whom, what nightclub they’d go to that night, how about a trip to Fort Lauderdale to get some sun? He had pointed out, with growing impatience, that he was working. Sheila had stared at him, then gave him a thin little smile and left him. That was when she moved into the second bedroom.
“You need your work,” she had said, staring at him, her China-blue eyes cold. “I need my sleep.”
Perry had found consolation in a bottle of Ballantine.
When Silas S. Hart had asked to see him, Perry felt like a man driving to his doom. The sketchy outline of his script he had sent Hart, he knew was something any third-rate scriptwriter would have thrown together.
As he rode up in the elevator to the Rad-Hart Movie Corporation’s offices, he cursed himself for sending Hart such utter crap. It was only because of his rows with Sheila and the Ballantine that had made him do it. It would have been much wiser to have admitted to Hart that he just wasn’t in the mood to produce and not to have sent him anything.
He lit another cigarette as he stared through the windshield at the drowning rain.
Hart had given him his usual warm welcome, waving him to a chair, sitting back in his big executive chair, his fleshy, tough looking face smiling.
“I haven’t much time, Boy,” Hart said. “I have to get to LA. There are finks there causing trouble, but I wanted to have a word with you.”
Hart always called Perry ‘Boy’, and Perry believed it was a term of affection.
“Want a drink?” Hart asked. “Don’t say no, because I do.” He pressed a button, and Grace Adams appeared. She was tall, thin, around forty, always immaculately dressed, and her pale face looked as if it had been carved from a slab of ivory. She produced two Scotches on the rocks and went away.
“Well, Boy,” Hart went on, “we won’t talk about this thing you sent me, we will talk about you. Okay?”
“If you say so,” Perry said woodenly. Although he longed for a drink, he let the glass stand on the desk.
“Suppose we start this little session,” Hart said, after sipping his drink, “by me saying you are the best original scriptwriter I have been lucky to have. Together, we have made a lot of money. I consider you a valuable property in my corporation. When I have asked you to deliver, up to now, you have always delivered.” He paused to sip his drink, then went on, “Apart from being a valuable property, I like you. I seldom like the people who work for me, knowing they don’t like me, but I like you.” He smiled, then finished his drink. “Well, Boy, I have been keeping an eye on you. When I have a property as valuable as you, I’m like some woman with a two million dollar diamond. She keeps an eye on it, so I arranged to keep an eye on you.”
Perry picked up his glass and drained it.
“That’s your privilege,” he said, setting down the glass.
“Yes. It seems you have two problems that are interfering with your work. The big one is your wife. The smaller one is drink. Right?”
“I don’t want to discuss my wife with anyone,” Perry said, curtly.
“That’s a normal reaction.” Hart moved his back to a more comfortable position in his chair. “Not with anyone — that doesn’t include me! I’m special, and I look on you as a partner. Now, when a man of thirty eight marries a girl of twenty three, and this man is a real inspired worker, he is in natural trouble. Girls of twenty three want the bright lights of life especially when they have married men with your kind of money. Bright lights and creative work don’t marry, nor does hitting the bottle.”