In the broadcasting studios, along Royal Street, or in the office of Vic
Wylie Productions, Joe Carlin would have tried to greet disaster lightly
and to put up a front. But the Carlin home was sanctuary. Here, with the
shades drawn and all the rest of the world shut out, he did not have to
pretend. He did not have to carry a fixed smile.
To-night he could not have pretended. Was it to-night he had bought
dinner for Stella Joyce, Lucille Borden and Archie Munn to celebrate
both the selling of a show and his first radio part? Was it only an hour
ago the four of them had been boisterously light-hearted around a table
in the Italian restaurant? That hour seemed ages ago, an hour out of a
long-ago past.
“Stella said we gave them a show,” Joe said, low-voiced, almost as
though he were talking to himself. “Mr. Wylie thanked us from the
control-room—he meant it. He told Arch the audition was a honey. I
thought everything was set.”
Tom Carlin, his pipe filled, neglected to light it. “How were you, Joe?”
“Nobody said I was bad. Maybe I was. Maybe the cast was good and carried
me along.” Joe’s morale was low.
“Would Wylie have given you the part if you were bad?” the man asked
sharply.
Joe thought of the torture of a Vic Wylie rehearsal. “No.”
“Then you weren’t bad. You’re sure Munson liked the show?”
“Mr. Wylie said he fell hard.”
“In other words, if Mrs. Munson didn’t have a nephew—”
Joe said with an effort: “She must think he’ll play the Dick Davis part
better. Sponsors don’t buy shows and scramble them.”
Kate Carlin’s voice was quiet. “You have only Carver’s word for this,
Joe?”
Tom Carlin’s jaws clamped on a cold pipe-stem. “Joe, won’t you go
through some of this same worry and anxiety every time you audition for
a part?”
“Well—”
“I know,” the man said slowly. “It’s show business.” He laid down the
pipe. “Haven’t you had enough of show business?”
Joe tried to find words to explain the unexplainable. Why, after all he
had seen of the tinsel and make-believe, the gay, masquerade lightness,
wasn’t he fed up? But show business was still a land of glamour. He said
uncertainly: “If I do get this part—” That didn’t explain anything,
either. He glanced helplessly at his mother.
“Anything good on the air to-night?” Kate Carlin asked.
Tom Carlin took the hint.
Next morning FKIP’s ten o’clock music program blared at Joe as he walked
through Royal Street. What would to-day bring? He dreaded entering Vic
Wylie’s office; he dreaded staying away. He took a deep breath in the
hall and steeled himself for whatever Wylie would tell him. Smiling, his
hat cocked a little to one side, he opened the door. The bright babble
of light, gay voices met him; Lucille, Stella, and Archie were in their
accustomed corner. He walked toward the corner, and all at once it was
as though he saw his three friends individually and apart, each one
watchful, wary and withdrawn.
Joe’s nerves were tight. He thought: “It’s true; they know.” He hung up
his hat and drawled: “Amby phoned me last night.”
There was an instant of profound silence.
“I thought he would.” Lucille’s voice had become hard. “Little Sunshine
Carver.”
Joe was casual. “How did Mrs. Munson’s nephew get into this?”
“Amby has an idea he’d like to work himself into the Munson store.
Public relations, radio—a nice job. He heard that Mrs. Munson had a
nephew in Baltimore who was ambitious to get into show business. Anybody
want to guess the rest?”
“So the nephew,” Stella fluted, “was brought up here to read to Amby.”
“That must have been good,” Archie Munn commented dryly.
“Anybody want to guess,” Lucille asked, “what Amby told Mrs. Munson?
Well, Mrs. Munson fell for it.”
Joe’s front was perfect. “This Lucille gal should work for a newspaper.
She gets all the news.”
“Amby talks,” said Lucille.
Archie’s deep voice said: “I’d figure myself in until Vic told me I was
out.”
“Has Munson bought the show?” Joe demanded.
Archie Munn shook his head. “Not yet.”
All at once the outer office was brighter, and the charming, crisp talk
all around Joe seemed gayer. If the show had hit a snag, he was the
snag. Wylie wanted him in the part. Violent Vic Wylie was fighting for
him.
A voice called: “Hello there, Pop.”
Pop Bartell was among the gay group, the pin-stripe suit without a
wrinkle, his linen spotless. Miss Robb, watching for him, stood up at
her desk.
“I have a call for you from Mr. Vaux, Mr. Bartell.”
The old trouper stopped short. “Tony Vaux? Of course. I’ve been
expecting—” He had to clear his throat. “You’re sure it was from Tony,
Miss Robb?” The quavering voice was stark with a pleading appeal.
“He wants you in at four o’clock to read a part.”
“At four?” Gentle Pop Bartell began to fumble.
Joe could not bear to look on. Lucille Borden, the tough girl of last
season’s _Years of Danger_ show, bit her lips.
“I think I can make it.” Pop Bartell was in control of himself; he had
his front. “I’m sure I can be there at four. Quite sure.”
Not until the old man had departed, gallant and gentle, did Joe turn
back to the room. All the frothy gossip of the loungers had stopped.
“Pop,” Archie Munn murmured, “that was an exit.”
Joe thought: “Tony wants him to read the Ike Totten part in the He
show.” How long since Pop had had a part? The boy experienced an
exhilarating excitement, as though this were happening to him.
The hands of the clock ran out the morning; the inner office door
remained closed as though Vic Wylie had shut himself away.
“Who’s in with him?” Joe asked from a chair tilted against the wall.
“Nobody,” Miss Robb answered.
Joe stood up quickly. “If I could see him for just a moment—”
Archie Munn said: “I wouldn’t, Joe.”
All at once Joe found it hard to swallow. He said: “So Mr. Wylie won’t
talk.”
Lucille drawled: “That’ll be the day.” It was all carelessly off-hand.
But Joe knew the cold, frightening truth. He wasn’t out of the _Sue
Davis Against the World_ show, but neither was the part his. It might
never be his. Lost in worry he strode across the room, strode back.
“Joe’s rehearsing for a walk-on,” Stella said.
Without warning, the strain of carrying a front broke him. “It’s the not
knowing,” he said.
“That’s what always puts the knife into you,” Archie Munn said bitterly.
“Infant,” said Lucille, “we’ve all been there. Not one of us has a sure
part for next season.”
Joe was startled. “But when _Years of Danger_ went off last June—”
“They announced the program would be resumed in the fall. Well, the
sponsor’s changed his mind. Mamma must find herself another meal
ticket.”
Stella’s bird-like voice fluttered: “Casting starts next week.”
All their fronts had momentarily cracked. In that moment Joe Carlin felt
very close to them. He took up the collection for lunch.
“See if you can get me a fat part on rye,” Lucille drawled. They were
gay and casual again. Show business!
Coming back with the food, Joe was all at once conscious that the outer
room had undergone another change. Once more his friends seemed to stand
alone, individual and apart. Once more they had become watchful and
wary.
“A gorgeous day,” Archie Munn said. “I’m going to take a stroll. Who’s
with me?”
Lucille held out her cup. “I can be ready in about five minutes.”
Stella was breathless. “Let’s all go.”
Joe looked thoughtfully from the two girls to Archie Munn. Archie,
ignoring the scrutiny, took his hat from a rack.
“Care to come along, Joe?”
Joe, groping, found the answer. They were trying to get him out of here
and get him out in a hurry. Why? Lucille, in front of the mirror above
the watercooler, patted a stray curl into place. The rapid-fire click of
a typewriter ceased and Miss Robb carried letters in to Vic Wylie. A
voice came from the inner room:
Were in this fight together, Mother. We’re partners. At least—
Miss Robb came back and the door closed.
Archie looked at Stella, shrugged, took off his hat, and placed it back
on the rack.
Joe made a point of carefully, deliberately pouring more coffee. The
Dick Davis part in the Munson show! His part. “Who’s reading, Arch?
Sonny Baker?”
“Mrs. Munson’s nephew.”
They had tried to save him the agony of waiting for the audition to end.
He thought of Vic Wylie. Wylie, hiding behind a closed door all morning
and keeping him locked out. Wylie, calling somebody in for an audition
and telling him nothing. Wylie, whom he had believed in, worshiped....
He dumped what was left of the coffee into the cooler drain.
Archie Munn’s voice was deep in the silence. “Mrs. Munson says her
nephew’s made for the part. She’s repeating Amby, of course. What can
Vic say? That he isn’t? Vic’s never heard him.”
Joe was cold. “I thought Mr. Wylie was insisting on his original cast.”
“He’d still have to call the nephew in. Amby’s recommendation doesn’t
mean a thing, but.... Suppose the nephew _is_ made for the part?”
Words ran through Joe’s mind in numb reiteration. “That’s what puts the
knife into you.” Lucille, Stella, and Arch were all seasoned performers,
and yet, at this moment, were any of them better off than he? Didn’t
they all know the feeling of the knife? Hadn’t Arch said so? Ten years
from now he might still be doing what Lucille, Stella, and Arch were now
doing—waiting, hoping for a part. Years made no difference—look at Pop
Bartell. Show business was show business. Show business put the knife
into you, again and again.
There were no sudden, muffled Wylie outbursts from behind the closed
door. Was Mrs. Munson’s nephew so good that an emotional, hair-trigger
producer could close his eyes, relax, and listen to a perfect reading?
Unable longer to sit still and keep a death-watch on a closed door, he
sprang to his feet, walked to a window, and stood there looking down at
the crowds flowing through the street nine stories below.
The street seemed full of ants. Puny, scurrying, human ants bustling in
a ceaseless tide. Ants who didn’t suffer through Vic Wylie rehearsals,
who didn’t know the strain of a sponsor audition, who didn’t see
themselves dropped after they’d slaved to help sell the show.
Stella and Lucille went out; he did not hear them go. Archie Munn stood
beside him.
“I was offered a job yesterday,” the actor said abruptly. “Salary and
commission. I used to be a salesman.”
“Any money in it?” Joe still stared down at the street.
“About sixty dollars a week. I turned it down.”
Joe’s eyes held bitter wisdom. When it got into you, when you ached to
make people laugh and make them cry, nothing else mattered. But ants
would be satisfied with sixty dollars. Ants would never know the feeling
of a knife as they waited in a producer’s ante-room.
He envied ants.
The rattle of a knob, voices, swung him around from the window. The
inner office door was open.
“If I could have had a few days to study the part, Mr. Wylie, I could
have given you a much better reading.”
“I don’t look for a finished performance on first reading.”
“What do you look for, Mr. Wylie?”
“I can’t say. But I always know when I get it.”
“It—it seems to be a good show.”
“I don’t have anything to do with bad shows.”
“If you’d care to have me read something else....”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Well—thank you, Mr. Wylie.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Mrs. Munson’s nephew sauntered through the outer office. About twenty,
Joe thought, and wondered if he’d copied the rakish panama and the cane
from Ambrose Carver. Wylie stood in the doorway, dark and brooding.
“I’ll see you now, kid.”
Joe knew how a man on trial must feel when he rises to hear the verdict
of the jury. _Sue Davis Against the World_ scripts were scattered across
Wylie’s desk. How many had the producer given Mrs. Munson’s nephew to
read? The knife that turned in him now was a cold knife, blue with chill
and frosted with apprehension.
Vic Wylie, behind the desk, enacted a one-man tragedy. He talked to
himself in scorn; he began to laugh—short, savage outbursts of derision.
He put a coy finger under his chin, smirked, and said something in a
falsetto simper. Abruptly he began to growl indistinguishable words. He
picked up the _Sue Davis_ scripts, held them a moment and hurled them at
the desk.
Joe picked them up from the floor.
Wylie stared at him, shook his head so that the reddish hair tumbled
left and right, and ran a hand across his forehead. When he took the
hand down his eyes had grown calm.
“Kid,” he said, “Carver has a knife out for you a yard long.”
All at once suspicion whetted the knife. Joe thought in dismay: “No; it
can’t be.” But suspicion grew. Amby Carver, trying to force Mrs.
Munson’s nephew into the cast, was understandable; through the doting
aunt, Amby hoped to ease himself into a fat Munson job. But why should
Amby have a knife out for him? Wasn’t he one of Amby’s assets? Vic
Wylie, posturing and simpering, began to look like an actor playing a
scene well rehearsed.
“Mr. Wylie,” Joe said with an effort, “there’s something here I don’t
get.”
“You’re afraid you do get it, kid. I don’t fool easy. You’re afraid I’m
using Carver as a stage prop to give you the hook.”
Joe’s face reddened. “He’s my agent, isn’t he?”
“Suppose you play in the show. Carver’s commission would be two-fifty a
week. Big money.”
Suppose you play! Wylie had said that. Joe gave up faith and all hope.
“Why should Amby throw two-fifty away?”
“An agent on the level throws nothing away. He’s out to get all he can
for his client. But an agent on the level doesn’t try to call Sonny
Baker back from the coast to blast his client.”
Joe had forgotten Sonny. As suddenly as suspicion had been born,
suspicion died. And he’d practically accused Wylie. His throat grew
tight. Oh, he’d forgotten so much! Amby Carver claiming to be a pal of
all the great and the near-great of radio; shyster Amby Carver putting
him through the burlesque of meaningless auditions. His mother’s voice,
usually soft and low, saying with acid contempt: “That Carver person.”
Lucille Borden bluntly calling Amby a tramp.
“Vic,” Joe said humbly, “try to forgive me.” It was the first time he
had called the producer by his given name.
“Kid,” said Vic Wylie, “there’s nothing to forgive. You were backed into
a corner and you threw a punch. You threw it wild. You don’t know show
business and you don’t know the Carvers. Show business is lousy with
agents. The good ones are worth all you pay them; the chiselers are
rats. You found Carver out and you gave him the ice. You gave him the
ice before an audience the day you let him walk out of here alone. He’s
vain and he’s cheap. You wounded his vanity, and that’s the worst thing
you can do to a heel like Carver. He’ll never forgive you. He’ll toss a
commission over his shoulder any day for a chance to cut your throat.”
The telephone rang.
“Hello. Who? Oh, hello, Tony.” Vic Wylie squared around to the desk and
chuckled with acid humor. “So Mrs. Munson’s been calling you. Isn’t that
nice? Yes, he’s been here; here and gone. Of course I heard him read. In
fact, Tony, I let him read until he ran down. How was he? A nice little
boy who used to be brought into the parlor to speak pieces for the
company. He wanted to know if he didn’t remind me of Clark Gable.”
Sounds came out of the telephone.
Wylie’s voice snapped. “Do you know me, Tony, or don’t you? He can’t
act. He hams every line. I wouldn’t take him if diamonds went with him.
If he had a voice, I might make that voice give something. He’s a blank.
He has nothing.”
The telephone sputtered.
“I know your agency’s in a spot, Tony. I know Munson’s one of your best
accounts. Blame Carver. He sold Mrs. Munson the idea her nephew’s a
knockout. What’ll you tell her? Pass the buck to me. Tell her I said to
ship him back to Baltimore.”
The producer put down the telephone and was somber and silent.
Joe’s heart pounded. “Vic.”
Vic Wylie brooded. “Don’t get any wrong ideas, kid. Don’t think I’m
handing you something because I like you. I wouldn’t be in show business
long if I ran a Vic Wylie Friendship Club. I don’t like Carver any more
than I like a polecat, but if this ham he sent me had dynamite on the
ball, you’d be out.”
Joe’s hands, hidden in his pockets, gripped the lining.
“I’ve cast this show, kid. For my money, it stays cast. You’re playing
the Dick Davis part.”
Lucille and Archie Munn took the breaks in their stride—good breaks or
bad breaks. Joe tried hard to be nonchalant. “I wasn’t sure, Vic.”
Wylie still brooded. “Don’t try to front me, kid; I’ve seen too much of
it. When you deal with me, deal clean.”
Joe said, honest and humble: “I was scared stiff.”
He was no longer scared, and the knife was gone. Archie, Miss Robb told
him in the outer office, had left. He called the house.
“It’s all right, Mother,” he said out of an overflowing heart.
“Everything’s all right.”
Standing at the window, brushing his hat with his sleeve, he looked down
again at the street. There they were—ants. Everlastingly sweating and
toiling through the same crowded runways, doing the same dull tasks
to-day, to-morrow, next month, and next year. No two of his days would
ever be alike; no day would ever be dull. He’d go on the air; his voice
would go out to unseen thousands; he’d make them laugh and he’d make
them cry. He’d know knives again; it was show business. But for every
knife there’d be a supreme moment of glory like this.
He pitied ants.