he added vaguely, 'Recognize Finland.'
'I didn't know writers had unions,' said the man. 'Well, if you're
on strike who writes the movies?'
'The producers,' said Pat bitterly. 'That's why they're so lousy.'
'Well, that's what I would call an odd state of things.'
They came in sight of Ronald Colman's house and Pat swallowed
uneasily. A shining new roadster sat out in front.
'I better go in first,' he said. 'I mean we wouldn't want to come
in on any--on any family scene or anything.'
'Does he have family scenes?' asked the lady eagerly.
'Oh, well, you know how people are,' said Pat with charity. 'I
think I ought to see how things are first.'
The car stopped. Drawing a long breath Pat got out. At the same
moment the door of the house opened and Ronald Colman hurried down
the walk. Pat's heart missed a beat as the actor glanced in his
direction.
'Hello Pat,' he said. Evidently he had no notion that Pat was a
caller for he jumped into his car and the sound of his motor
drowned out Pat's responses as he drove away.
'Well, he called you "Pat",' said the woman impressed.
'I guess he was in a hurry,' said Pat. 'But maybe we could see his
house.'
He rehearsed a speech going up the walk. He had just spoken to his
friend Mr Colman, and received permission to look around.
But the house was shut and locked and there was no answer to the
bell. He would have to try Melvyn Douglas whose salutations, on
second thought, were a little warmer than Ronald Colman's. At any
rate his clients' faith in him was now firmly founded. The 'Hello,
Pat,' rang confidently in their ears; by proxy they were already
inside the charmed circle.
'Now let's try Clark Gable's,' said the lady. 'I'd like to tell
Carole Lombard about her hair.'
The lese majesty made Pat's stomach wince. Once in a crowd he had
met Clark Gable but he had no reason to believe that Mr Gable
remembered.
'Well, we could try Melvyn Douglas' first and then Bob Young or
else Young Doug. They're all on the way. You see Gable and
Lombard live away out in the St Joaquin valley.'
'Oh,' said the lady, disappointed, 'I did want to run up and see
their bedroom. Well then, our next choice would be Shirley
Temple.' She looked at her little dog. 'I know that would be
Boojie's choice too.'
'They're kind of afraid of kidnappers,' said Pat.
Ruffled, the man produced his business card and handed it to Pat.
DEERING R. ROBINSON
Vice President and Chairman
of the Board
Robdeer Food Products
'Does THAT sound as if I want to kidnap Shirley Temple?'
'They just have to be sure,' said Pat apologetically. 'After we go
to Melvyn--'
'No--let's see Shirley Temple's now,' insisted the woman. 'Really!
I told you in the first place what I wanted.'
Pat hesitated.
'First I'll have to stop in some drugstore and phone about it.'
In a drugstore he exchanged some of the five dollars for a half
pint of gin and took two long swallows behind a high counter, after
which he considered the situation. He could, of course, duck Mr
and Mrs Robinson immediately--after all he had produced Ronald
Colman, with sound, for their five smackers. On the other hand
they just MIGHT catch Miss Temple on her way in or out--and for a
pleasant day at Santa Anita tomorrow Pat needed five smackers more.
In the glow of the gin his courage mounted, and returning to the
limousine he gave the chauffeur the address.
But approaching the Temple house his spirit quailed as he saw that
there was a tall iron fence and an electric gate. And didn't
guides have to have a licence?
'Not here,' he said quickly to the chauffeur. 'I made a mistake.
I think it's the next one, or two or three doors further on.'
He decided on a large mansion set in an open lawn and stopping the
chauffeur got out and walked up to the door. He was temporarily
licked but at least he might bring back some story to soften them--
say, that Miss Temple had mumps. He could point out her sick-room
from the walk.
There was no answer to his ring but he saw that the door was partly
ajar. Cautiously he pushed it open. He was staring into a
deserted living room on the baronial scale. He listened. There
was no one about, no footsteps on the upper floor, no murmur from
the kitchen. Pat took another pull at the gin. Then swiftly he
hurried back to the limousine.
'She's at the studio,' he said quickly. 'But if we're quiet we can
look at their living-room.'
Eagerly the Robinsons and Boojie disembarked and followed him. The
living-room might have been Shirley Temple's, might have been one
of many in Hollywood. Pat saw a doll in a corner and pointed at
it, whereupon Mrs Robinson picked it up, looked at it reverently
and showed it to Boojie who sniffed indifferently.
'Could I meet Mrs Temple?' she asked.
'Oh, she's out--nobody's home,' Pat said--unwisely.
'Nobody. Oh--then Boojie would so like a wee little peep at her
bedroom.'
Before he could answer she had run up the stairs. Mr Robinson
followed and Pat waited uneasily in the hall, ready to depart at
the sound either of an arrival outside or a commotion above.
He finished the bottle, disposed of it politely under a sofa
cushion and then deciding that the visit upstairs was tempting fate
too far, he went after his clients. On the stairs he heard Mrs
Robinson.
'But there's only ONE child's bedroom. I thought Shirley had
brothers.'
A window on the winding staircase looked upon the street, and
glancing out Pat saw a large car drive up to the curb. From it
stepped a Hollywood celebrity who, though not one of those pursued
by Mrs Robinson, was second to none in prestige and power. It was
old Mr Marcus, the producer, for whom Pat Hobby had been press
agent twenty years ago.
At this point Pat lost his head. In a flash he pictured an
elaborate explanation as to what he was doing here. He would not
be forgiven. His occasional weeks in the studio at two-fifty would
now disappear altogether and another finis would be written to his
almost entirely finished career. He left, impetuously and swiftly--
down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back gate,
leaving the Robinsons to their destiny.
Vaguely he was sorry for them as he walked quickly along the next
boulevard. He could see Mr Robinson producing his card as the head
of Robdeer Food Products. He could see Mr Marcus' scepticism, the
arrival of the police, the frisking of Mr and Mrs Robinson.
Probably it would stop there--except that the Robinsons would be
furious at him for his imposition. They would tell the police
where they had picked him up.
Suddenly he went ricketing down the street, beads of gin breaking
out profusely on his f
orehead. He had left his car beside Gus
Venske's umbrella. And now he remembered another recognizing clue
and hoped that Ronald Colman didn't know his last name.
PAT HOBBY DOES HIS BIT
Esquire (September 1940)
I
In order to borrow money gracefully one must choose the time and
place. It is a difficult business, for example, when the borrower
is cockeyed, or has measles, or a conspicuous shiner. One could
continue indefinitely but the inauspicious occasions can be
catalogued as one--it is exceedingly difficult to borrow money when
one needs it.
Pat Hobby found it difficult in the case of an actor on a set
during the shooting of a moving picture. It was about the stiffest
chore he had ever undertaken but he was doing it to save his car.
To a sordidly commercial glance the jalopy would not have seemed
worth saving but, because of Hollywood's great distances, it was an
indispensable tool of the writer's trade.
'The finance company--' explained Pat, but Gyp McCarthy
interrupted.
'I got some business in this next take. You want me to blow up on
it?'
'I only need twenty,' persisted Pat. 'I can't get jobs if I have
to hang around my bedroom.'
'You'd save money that way--you don't get jobs anymore.'
This was cruelly correct. But working or not Pat liked to pass his
days in or near a studio. He had reached a dolorous and precarious
forty-nine with nothing else to do.
'I got a rewrite job promised for next week,' he lied.
'Oh, nuts to you,' said Gyp. 'You better get off the set before
Hilliard sees you.'
Pat glanced nervously toward the group by the camera--then he
played his trump card.
'Once--' he said,'--once I paid for you to have a baby.'
'Sure you did!' said Gyp wrathfully. 'That was sixteen years ago.
And where is it now--it's in jail for running over an old lady
without a licence.'
'Well I paid for it,' said Pat. 'Two hundred smackers.'
'That's nothing to what it cost me. Would I be stunting at my age
if I had dough to lend? Would I be working at all?'
From somewhere in the darkness an assistant director issued an
order:
'Ready to go!'
Pat spoke quickly.
'All right,' he said. 'Five bucks.'
'No.'
'All right then,' Pat's red-rimmed eyes tightened. 'I'm going to
stand over there and put the hex on you while you say your line.'
'Oh, for God's sake!' said Gyp uneasily. 'Listen, I'll give you
five. It's in my coat over there. Here, I'll get it.'
He dashed from the set and Pat heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe
Louie, the studio bookie, would let him have ten more.
Again the assistant director's voice:
'Quiet! . . . We'll take it now! . . . Lights!'
The glare stabbed into Pat's eyes, blinding him. He took a step
the wrong way--then back. Six other people were in the take--a
gangster's hide-out--and it seemed that each was in his way.
'All right . . . Roll 'em . . . We're turning!'
In his panic Pat had stepped behind a flat which would effectually
conceal him. While the actors played their scene he stood there
trembling a little, his back hunched--quite unaware that it was a
'trolley shot', that the camera, moving forward on its track, was
almost upon him.
'You by the window--hey you, GYP! hands up.'
Like a man in a dream Pat raised his hands--only then did he
realize that he was looking directly into a great black lens--in an
instant it also included the English leading woman, who ran past
him and jumped out the window. After an interminable second Pat
heard the order 'Cut.'
Then he rushed blindly through a property door, around a corner,
tripping over a cable, recovering himself and tearing for the
entrance. He heard footsteps running behind him and increased his
gait, but in the doorway itself he was overtaken and turned
defensively.
It was the English actress.
'Hurry up!' she cried. 'That finishes my work. I'm flying home to
England.'
As she scrambled into her waiting limousine she threw back a last
irrelevant remark. 'I'm catching a New York plane in an hour.'
Who cares! Pat thought bitterly, as he scurried away.
He was unaware that her repatriation was to change the course of
his life.
II
And he did not have the five--he feared that this particular five
was forever out of range. Other means must be found to keep the
wolf from the two doors of his coupe. Pat left the lot with
despair in his heart, stopping only momentarily to get gas for the
car and gin for himself, possibly the last of many drinks they had
had together.
Next morning he awoke with an aggravated problem. For once he did
not want to go to the studio. It was not merely Gyp McCarthy he
feared--it was the whole corporate might of a moving picture
company, nay of an industry. Actually to have interfered with the
shooting of a movie was somehow a major delinquency, compared to
which expensive fumblings on the part of producers or writers went
comparatively unpunished.
On the other hand zero hour for the car was the day after tomorrow
and Louie, the studio bookie, seemed positively the last resource
and a poor one at that.
Nerving himself with an unpalatable snack from the bottom of the
bottle, he went to the studio at ten with his coat collar turned up
and his hat pulled low over his ears. He knew a sort of
underground railway through the make-up department and the
commissary kitchen which might get him to Louie's suite unobserved.
Two studio policemen seized him as he rounded the corner by the
barber shop.
'Hey, I got a pass!' he protested, 'Good for a week--signed by Jack
Berners.'
'Mr Berners specially wants to see you.'
Here it was then--he would be barred from the lot.
'We could sue you!' cried Jack Berners. 'But we couldn't recover.'
'What's one take?' demanded Pat. 'You can use another.'
'No we can't--the camera jammed. And this morning Lily Keatts took
a plane to England. She thought she was through.'
'Cut the scene,' suggested Pat--and then on inspiration, 'I bet I
could fix it for you.'
'You fixed it, all right!' Berners assured him. 'If there was any
way to fix it back I wouldn't have sent for you.'
He paused, looked speculatively at Pat. His buzzer sounded and a
secretary's voice said 'Mr Hilliard'.
'Send him in.'
George Hilliard was a huge man and the glance he bent upon Pat was
not kindly. But there was some other element besides anger in it
and Pat squirmed doubtfully as the two men regarded him with almost
impersonal curiosity--as if he were a candidate for a cannibal's
frying pan.
'Well, goodbye,' he suggested uneasily.
'What do you think, George?' demanded Berners.
'Well--' said Hilliard, hesitantly, 'we could black out a couple of br />
teeth.'
Pat rose hurriedly and took a step toward the door, but Hilliard
seized him and faced him around.
'Let's hear you talk,' he said.
'You can't beat me up,' Pat clamoured. 'You knock my teeth out and
I'll sue you.'
There was a pause.
'What do you think?' demanded Berners.
'He can't talk,' said Hilliard.
'You damn right I can talk!' said Pat.
'We can dub three or four lines,' continued Hilliard, 'and
nobody'll know the difference. Half the guys you get to play rats
can't talk. The point is this one's got the physique and the
camera will pull it out of his face too.'
Berners nodded.
'All right, Pat--you're an actor. You've got to play the part this
McCarthy had. Only a couple of scenes but they're important.
You'll have papers to sign with the Guild and Central Casting and
you can report for work this afternoon.'
'What is this!' Pat demanded. 'I'm no ham--' Remembering that
Hilliard had once been a leading man he recoiled from this
attitude: 'I'm a writer.'
'The character you play is called "The Rat",' continued Berners.
He explained why it was necessary for Pat to continue his impromptu
appearance of yesterday. The scenes which included Miss Keatts had
been shot first, so that she could fulfil an English engagement.
But in the filling out of the skeleton it was necessary to show how
the gangsters reached their hide-out, and what they did after Miss
Keatts dove from the window. Having irrevocably appeared in the
shot with Miss Keatts, Pat must appear in half a dozen other shots,
to be taken in the next few days.
'What kind of jack is it?' Pat inquired.
'We were paying McCarthy fifty a day--wait a minute Pat--but I
thought I'd pay you your last writing price, two-fifty for the
week.'
'How about my reputation?' objected Pat.
'I won't answer that one,' said Berners. 'But if Benchley can act
and Don Stewart and Lewis and Wilder and Woollcott, I guess it
won't ruin you.'
Pat drew a long breath.
'Can you let me have fifty on account,' he asked, 'because really I
earned that yester--'
'If you got what you earned yesterday you'd be in a hospital. And
you're not going on any bat. Here's ten dollars and that's all you
see for a week.'
'How about my car--'
'To hell with your car.'
III
'The Rat' was the die-hard of the gang who were engaged in sabotage
for an unidentified government of N-zis. His speeches were
simplicity itself--Pat had written their like many times. 'Don't
finish him till the Brain comes'; 'Let's get out of here'; 'Fella,
you're going out feet first.' Pat found it pleasant--mostly
waiting around as in all picture work--and he hoped it might lead
to other openings in this line. He was sorry that the job was so
short.
His last scene was on location. He knew 'The Rat' was to touch off
an explosion in which he himself was killed but Pat had watched
such scenes and was certain he would be in no slightest danger.
Out on the back lot he was mildly curious when they measured him
around the waist and chest.
'Making a dummy?' he asked.
'Not exactly,' the prop man said. 'This thing is all made but it
was for Gyp McCarthy and I want to see if it'll fit you.'
'Does it?'
'Just exactly.'
'What is it?'
'Well--it's a sort of protector.'
A slight draught of uneasiness blew in Pat's mind.
'Protector for what? Against the explosion?'
'Heck no! The explosion is phony--just a process shot. This is