Serenade - James M. Cain [42]
"Thanks. I'm sorry about that bobble."
"That's what I'm talking about. When you gave me the chance to pull it out of the soup, that was what I call trouping. Anybody can make a mistake, especially when they're shoved out there the way you were, without even a rehearsal. But when you use your head--well, my hat's off to you, that's all."
"They be pleasant words. Thanks again."
"I don't think they even noticed it. Did they, Morris?"
"Notice it? Christ, they give it a hand."
I sat on the trunk, and we lit up, and they began telling me what the production cost, what the hook-up was, and some more things I wanted to know. Up to then I didn't even know their names. The conductor was Albert Hudson, who you've probably heard of by now, and if you haven't you soon will. The manager was Morris Lahr, who you've never heard of, and never will. He runs a concert series in the winter, and manages a couple of singers, and now and then he puts on an opera. There's one like him in every city, and if you ask me they do more for music than the guys that get their name in the papers.
We were fanning along, me in my underwear with my make-up still on, when the door opens and in pops Stoessel, the agent I had been talking to not a week before. He had a little guy with him, around fifty, and they stood looking at me like I was some ape in a cage, and then Stoessel nodded. "Mr. Ziskin, I believe you're right. He's the type. He's the type you been looking for. And he sings good as Eddy."
"I need a big man, Herman. A real Beery type."
"He's better looking than Beery. And younger. A hell of a sight younger."
"But he's rugged. You know what I mean? Tough. But in the picture, he's got a heart like all outdoors, and that's where the singing comes in. A accent I don't mind, because why? He's got a heart like all outdoors, and a accent helps it."
"I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Ziskin."
"O.K., then, Herman. You handle it. Three fifty while he's learning English, and then after the script is ready and we start to shoot, five. Six weeks' guarantee, at five hundred."
Stoessel turned to Hudson and Lahr. "I guess Mr. Ziskin don't need any introduction around here. He's interested in this man for a picture. Tell him that much, will you? Then we give him the rest of it."
Lahr didn't act like he was any too fond of Mr. Ziskin, or Stoessel either, for that matter. "Why don't you tell him yourself?"
"He speak English?"
"He did a minute ago."
"Sure, I speak English. Shoot."
"Well, say, that makes it easy. O.K., then, you heard what Mr. Ziskin said. Get your make-up off, put on your clothes, and we'll go out and talk."
"We can talk right now."
I was afraid to take my make-up off, for fear he would know me. They still thought I was Sabini, I could see that, because there hadn't been any announcement about me, and I was afraid if he placed me there wouldn't be any three fifty or even one fifty. I was down, that day, and he knew it. "All right, then, we'll talk right now. You heard Mr. Ziskin's proposition. What do you say?"
"I say go climb a tree."
"Say, that's no way to talk to Mr. Ziskin."
"What the hell do you think a singer works for? Fun?"
"I know what they work for. I handle singers."
"I don't know whether you handle singers. Maybe you handle bums. If Mr. Ziskin has got something to say, let him say it. But don't waste my time talking about three hundred and fifty dollars a week. If it was a day, that would be more like it."
"Don't be silly. "
"I'm not being silly. I'm booked straight through to the first of the year, and