The Pat Hobby Stories

  As they left the make-up department Jeff lingered behind a minute.

  On a strip of cardboard he crayoned the name Orson Welles in large

  block letters. And outside, without Pat's notice, he stuck it in

  the windshield of his car.

  He did not go directly to the back lot. Instead he drove not too

  swiftly up the main studio street. In front of the administration

  building he stopped on the pretext that the engine was missing, and

  almost in no time a small but definitely interested crowd began to

  gather. But Jeff's plans did not include stopping anywhere long,

  so he hopped in and they started on a tour around the commissary.

  'Where are we going?' demanded Pat.

  He had already made one nervous attempt to tear the beard from him,

  but to his surprise it did not come away.

  He complained of this to Jeff.

  'Sure,' Jeff explained. 'That's made to last. You'll have to soak

  it off.'

  The car paused momentarily at the door of the commissary. Pat saw

  blank eyes staring at him and he stared back at them blankly from

  the rear seat.

  'You'd think I was the only beard on the lot,' he said gloomily.

  'You can sympathize with Orson Welles.'

  'To hell with him.'

  This colloquy would have puzzled those without, to whom he was

  nothing less than the real McCoy.

  Jeff drove on slowly up the street. Ahead of them a little group

  of men were walking--one of them, turning, saw the car and drew the

  attention of the others to it. Whereupon the most elderly member

  of the party threw up his arms in what appeared to be a defensive

  gesture, and plunged to the sidewalk as the car went past.

  'My God, did you see that?' exclaimed Jeff. 'That was Mr Marcus.'

  He came to a stop. An excited man ran up and put his head in the

  car window.

  'Mr Welles, our Mr Marcus has had a heart attack. Can we use your

  car to get him to the infirmary?'

  Pat stared. Then very quickly he opened the door on the other side

  and dashed from the car. Not even the beard could impede his

  streamlined flight. The policeman at the gate, not recognizing the

  incarnation, tried to have words with him but Pat shook him off

  with the ease of a triple-threat back and never paused till he

  reached Mario's bar.

  Three extras with beards stood at the rail, and with relief Pat

  merged himself into their corporate whiskers. With a trembling

  hand he took the hard-earned ten dollar bill from his pocket.

  'Set 'em up,' he cried hoarsely. 'Every muff has a drink on me.'

  PAT HOBBY'S SECRET

  Esquire (June 1940)

  I

  Distress in Hollywood is endemic and always acute. Scarcely an

  executive but is being gnawed at by some insoluble problem and in a

  democratic way he will let you in on it, with no charge. The

  problem, be it one of health or of production, is faced

  courageously and with groans at from one to five thousand a week.

  That's how pictures are made.

  'But this one has got me down,' said Mr Banizon, '--because how did

  the artillery shell get in the trunk of Claudette Colbert or Betty

  Field or whoever we decide to use? We got to explain it so the

  audience will believe it.'

  He was in the office of Louie the studio bookie and his present

  audience also included Pat Hobby, venerable script-stooge of forty-

  nine. Mr Banizon did not expect a suggestion from either of them

  but he had been talking aloud to himself about the problem for a

  week now and was unable to stop.

  'Who's your writer on it?' asked Louie.

  'R. Parke Woll,' said Banizon indignantly. 'First I buy this

  opening from another writer, see. A grand notion but only a

  notion. Then I call in R. Parke Woll, the playwright, and we meet

  a couple of times and develop it. Then when we get the end in

  sight, his agent horns in and says he won't let Woll talk any more

  unless I give him a contract--eight weeks at $3,000! And all I

  need him for is one more day!'

  The sum brought a glitter into Pat's old eyes. Ten years ago he

  had camped beatifically in range of such a salary--now he was lucky

  to get a few weeks at $250. His inflamed and burnt over talent had

  failed to produce a second growth.

  'The worse part of it is that Woll told me the ending,' continued

  the producer.

  'Then what are you waiting for?' demanded Pat. 'You don't need to

  pay him a cent.'

  'I forgot it!' groaned Mr Banizon. 'Two phones were ringing at

  once in my office--one from a working director. And while I was

  talking Woll had to run along. Now I can't remember it and I can't

  get him back.'

  Perversely Pat Hobby's sense of justice was with the producer, not

  the writer. Banizon had almost outsmarted Woll and then been

  cheated by a tough break. And now the playwright, with the

  insolence of an Eastern snob, was holding him up for twenty-four

  grand. What with the European market gone. What with the war.

  'Now he's on a big bat,' said Banizon. 'I know because I got a man

  tailing him. It's enough to drive you nuts--here I got the whole

  story except the pay-off. What good is it to me like that?'

  'If he's drunk maybe he'd spill it,' suggested Louie practically.

  'Not to me,' said Mr Banizon. 'I thought of it but he would

  recognize my face.'

  Having reached the end of his current blind alley, Mr Banizon

  picked a horse in the third and one in the seventh and prepared to

  depart.

  'I got an idea,' said Pat.

  Mr Banizon looked suspiciously at the red old eyes.

  'I got no time to hear it now,' he said.

  'I'm not selling anything,' Pat reassured him. 'I got a deal

  almost ready over at Paramount. But once I worked with this R.

  Parke Woll and maybe I could find what you want to know.'

  He and Mr Banizon went out of the office together and walked slowly

  across the lot. An hour later, for an advance consideration of

  fifty dollars, Pat was employed to discover how a live artillery

  shell got into Claudette Colbert's trunk or Betty Field's trunk or

  whosoever's trunk it should be.

  II

  The swath which R. Parke Woll was now cutting through the City of

  the Angels would have attracted no special notice in the twenties;

  in the fearful forties it rang out like laughter in church. He was

  easy to follow: his absence had been requested from two hotels but

  he had settled down into a routine where he carried his sleeping

  quarters in his elbow. A small but alert band of rats and weasels

  were furnishing him moral support in his journey--a journey which

  Pat caught up with at two a.m. in Conk's Old Fashioned Bar.

  Conk's Bar was haughtier than its name, boasting cigarette girls

  and a doorman-bouncer named Smith who had once stayed a full hour

  with Tarzan White. Mr Smith was an embittered man who expressed

  himself by goosing the patrons on their way in and out and this was

  Pat's introduction. When he recovered himself he discovered R.

  Parke Woll in a mixed compa
ny around a table, and sauntered up with

  an air of surprise.

  'Hello, good looking,' he said to Woll. 'Remember me--Pat Hobby?'

  R. Parke Woll brought him with difficulty into focus, turning his

  head first on one side then on the other, letting it sink, snap up

  and then lash forward like a cobra taking a candid snapshot.

  Evidently it recorded for he said:

  'Pat Hobby! Sit down and wha'll you have. Genlemen, this is Pat

  Hobby--best left-handed writer in Hollywood. Pat h'are you?'

  Pat sat down, amid suspicious looks from a dozen predatory eyes.

  Was Pat an old friend sent to get the playwright home?

  Pat saw this and waited until a half-hour later when he found

  himself alone with Woll in the washroom.

  'Listen Parke, Banizon is having you followed,' he said. 'I don't

  know why he's doing it. Louie at the studio tipped me off.'

  'You don't know why?' cried Parke. 'Well, I know why. I got

  something he wants--that's why!'

  'You owe him money?'

  'Owe him money. Why that--he owes ME money! He owes me for three

  long, hard conferences--I outlined a whole damn picture for him.'

  His vague finger tapped his forehead in several places. 'What he

  wants is in here.'

  An hour passed at the turbulent orgiastic table. Pat waited--and

  then inevitably in the slow, limited cycle of the lush, Woll's mind

  returned to the subject.

  'The funny thing is I told him who put the shell in the trunk and

  why. And then the Master Mind forgot.'

  Pat had an inspiration.

  'But his secretary remembered.'

  'She did?' Woll was flabbergasted. 'Secretary--don't remember

  secretary.'

  'She came in,' ventured Pat uneasily.

  'Well then by God he's got to pay me or I'll sue him.'

  'Banizon says he's got a better idea.'

  'The hell he has. My idea was a pip. Listen--'

  He spoke for two minutes.

  'You like it?' he demanded. He looked at Pat for applause--then he

  must have seen something in Pat's eye that he was not intended to

  see. 'Why you little skunk,' he cried. 'You've talked to Banizon--

  he sent you here.'

  Pat rose and tore like a rabbit for the door. He would have been

  out into the street before Woll could overtake him had it not been

  for the intervention of Mr Smith, the doorman.

  'Where you going?' he demanded, catching Pat by his lapels.

  'Hold him!' cried Woll, coming up. He aimed a blow at Pat which

  missed and landed full in Mr Smith's mouth.

  It has been mentioned that Mr Smith was an embittered as well as a

  powerful man. He dropped Pat, picked up R. Parke Woll by crotch

  and shoulder, held him high and then in one gigantic pound brought

  his body down against the floor. Three minutes later Woll was

  dead.

  III

  Except in great scandals like the Arbuckle case the industry

  protects its own--and the industry included Pat, however

  intermittently. He was let out of prison next morning without

  bail, wanted only as a material witness. If anything, the

  publicity was advantageous--for the first time in a year his name

  appeared in the trade journals. Moreover he was now the only

  living man who knew how the shell got into Claudette Colbert's (or

  Betty Field's) trunk.

  'When can you come up and see me?' said Mr Banizon.

  'After the inquest tomorrow,' said Pat enjoying himself. 'I feel

  kind of shaken--it gave me an earache.'

  That too indicated power. Only those who were 'in' could speak of

  their health and be listened to.

  'Woll really did tell you?' questioned Banizon.

  'He told me,' said Pat. 'And it's worth more than fifty smackers.

  I'm going to get me a new agent and bring him to your office.'

  'I tell you a better plan.' said Banizon hastily, 'I'll get you on

  the payroll. Four weeks at your regular price.'

  'What's my price?' demanded Pat gloomily. 'I've drawn everything

  from four thousand to zero.' And he added ambiguously, 'As

  Shakespeare says, "Every man has his price."'

  The attendant rodents of R. Parke Woll had vanished with their

  small plunder into convenient rat holes, leaving as the defendant

  Mr Smith, and, as witnesses, Pat and two frightened cigarette

  girls. Mr Smith's defence was that he had been attacked. At the

  inquest one cigarette girl agreed with him--one condemned him for

  unnecessary roughness. Pat Hobby's turn was next, but before his

  name was called he started as a voice spoke to him from behind.

  'You talk against my husband and I'll twist your tongue out by the

  roots.'

  A huge dinosaur of a woman, fully six feet tall and broad in

  proportion, was leaning forward against his chair.

  'Pat Hobby, step forward please . . . now Mr Hobby tell us exactly

  what happened.'

  The eyes of Mr Smith were fixed balefully on his and he felt the

  eyes of the bouncer's mate reaching in for his tongue through the

  back of his head. He was full of natural hesitation.

  'I don't know exactly,' he said, and then with quick inspiration,

  'All I know is everything went white!'

  'WHAT?'

  'That's the way it was. I saw white. Just like some guys see red

  or black I saw white.'

  There was some consultation among the authorities.

  'Well, what happened from when you came into the restaurant--up to

  the time you saw white?'

  'Well--' said Pat fighting for time. 'It was all kind of that way.

  I came and sat down and then it began to go black.'

  'You mean white.'

  'Black AND white.'

  There was a general titter.

  'Witness dismissed. Defendant remanded for trial.'

  What was a little joking to endure when the stakes were so high--

  all that night a mountainous Amazon pursued him through his dreams

  and he needed a strong drink before appearing at Mr Banizon's

  office next morning. He was accompanied by one of the few

  Hollywood agents who had not yet taken him on and shaken him off.

  'A flat sum of five hundred,' offered Banizon. 'Or four weeks at

  two-fifty to work on another picture.'

  'How bad do you want this?' asked the agent. 'My client seems to

  think it's worth three thousand.'

  'Of my own money?' cried Banizon. 'And it isn't even HIS idea.

  Now that Woll is dead it's in the Public Remains.'

  'Not quite,' said the agent. 'I think like you do that ideas are

  sort of in the air. They belong to whoever's got them at the time--

  like balloons.'

  'Well, how much?' asked Mr Banizon fearfully. 'How do I know he's

  got the idea?'

  The agent turned to Pat.

  'Shall we let him find out--for a thousand dollars?'

  After a moment Pat nodded. Something was bothering him.

  'All right,' said Banizon. 'This strain is driving me nuts. One

  thousand.'

  There was silence.

  'Spill it Pat,' said the agent.

  Still no word from Pat. They waited. When Pat spoke at last his

  voice seemed to come from afar.

  'Everything's white,' he gasped.


  'WHAT?'

  'I can't help it--everything has gone white. I can see it--white.

  I remember going into the joint but after that it all goes white.'

  For a moment they thought he was holding out. Then the agent

  realized that Pat actually had drawn a psychological blank. The

  secret of R. Parke Woll was safe forever. Too late Pat realized

  that a thousand dollars was slipping away and tried desperately to

  recover.

  'I remember, I remember! It was put in by some Nazi dictator.'

  'Maybe the girl put it in the trunk herself,' said Banizon

  ironically. 'For her bracelet.'

  For many years Mr Banizon would be somewhat gnawed by this

  insoluble problem. And as he glowered at Pat he wished that

  writers could be dispensed with altogether. If only ideas could be

  plucked from the inexpensive air!

  PAT HOBBY, PUTATIVE FATHER

  Esquire (July 1940)

  I

  Most writers look like writers whether they want to or not. It is

  hard to say why--for they model their exteriors whimsically on Wall

  Street brokers, cattle kings or English explorers--but they all

  turn out looking like writers, as definitely typed as 'The Public'

  or 'The Profiteers' in the cartoons.

  Pat Hobby was the exception. He did not look like a writer. And

  only in one corner of the Republic could he have been identified as

  a member of the entertainment world. Even there the first guess

  would have been that he was an extra down on his luck, or a bit

  player who specialized in the sort of father who should NEVER come

  home. But a writer he was: he had collaborated in over two dozen

  moving picture scripts, most of them, it must be admitted, prior to

  1929.

  A writer? He had a desk in the Writers' Building at the studio; he

  had pencils, paper, a secretary, paper clips, a pad for office

  memoranda. And he sat in an overstuffed chair, his eyes not so

  very bloodshot taking in the morning's Reporter.

  'I got to get to work,' he told Miss Raudenbush at eleven. And

  again at twelve:

  'I got to get to work.'

  At quarter to one, he began to feel hungry--up to this point every

  move, or rather every moment, was in the writer's tradition. Even

  to the faint irritation that no one had annoyed him, no one had

  bothered him, no one had interfered with the long empty dream which

  constituted his average day.

  He was about to accuse his secretary of staring at him when the

  welcome interruption came. A studio guide tapped at his door and

  brought him a note from his boss, Jack Berners:

  Dear Pat:

  Please take some time off and show these people around the lot.

  Jack

  'My God!' Pat exclaimed. 'How can I be expected to get anything

  done and show people around the lot at the same time. Who are

  they?' he demanded of the guide.

  'I don't know. One of them seems to be kind of coloured. He looks

  like the extras they had at Paramount for Bengal Lancer. He can't

  speak English. The other--'

  Pat was putting on his coat to see for himself.

  'Will you be wanting me this afternoon?' asked Miss Raudenbush.

  He looked at her with infinite reproach and went out in front of

  the Writers' Building.

  The visitors were there. The sultry person was tall and of a fine

  carriage, dressed in excellent English clothes except for a turban.

  The other was a youth of fifteen, quite light of hue. He also wore

  a turban with beautifully cut jodhpurs and riding coat.

  They bowed formally.