Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

She reached across the seat to open his door. “Okay shift?”

“So-so. Do a good show?”

“Like the curate’s egg,” she said. “Good in parts.”

Connie had lots of these literary-type things to say. Roy disliked them. “Talk to Chatterton?”

“Not yet.” She had predicted Hal would not agree to put up Roy’s mother. It bothered her to admit she had been wrong about that. “I’ll try this afternoon.”

They wheeled into traffic. One good thing about his prisoner-status in Connie’s car; she was a conscientious driver, she tended to shut up. This left Roy free to think about his script. Whenever he was feeling down, a few minutes dreaming about An Air That Kills would lift him into a state of euphoria.

The movie would open with footage shot from a helicopter. The camera is racing at low level across a wooded area, a blur of dark branches. Now we see open pasture with two horses galloping flat out. The horses are terrified, of course, because the chopper is making a ferocious noise. But the viewers don’t think of that. They’re just watching those elegant stallions running, shoulder to shoulder.

Then the camera lifts and we see the village, the house with the green roof. And we see the boy standing in the open gateway, not waving as a pickup truck raises dust on its way to the paved road.

“You’ll be all right now?” They were in front of the apartment building. She always asked him if he’d be all right.

“Soon as I get the booze and the marijuana. And telephone the gang to come on over.” She drove away, leaving him with a glimpse of her tolerant smile. Roy went inside. He was going to use the telephone, not for anything as sterile as partying. He was going to put a call through to Ellis and Fanny Temple. It was one thing to leave everything to his mother. But what if she could not get through to the president on the day? It would be prudent to prepare the ground.

“This is Royal Flagg speaking. I’d like to talk to Ellis Temple. It’s in connection with the president’s visit next weekend?” He had opened a new barrel of Southern Courtesy and was letting the sweet stuff flow. Asked to wait, he passed the time making faces at himself in the mirror beside Connie’s desk.

A mature female voice came on the line, courteous but brisk. This one could crown him king or send him away with a flea in his ear. “How may I help you?”

“By making available a few minutes of our president’s precious time. Let me explain. I am Royal Flagg. I am the son of Clara Hunter Flagg from Smokey Valley, Louisiana.”

“Keep talking, Mr. Flagg. You mesmerize.”

“When Mike Linford was a boy, he took piano lessons from my mother. Came over to the house every Thursday afternoon.”

“Stop right there, Royal Flagg. You don’t have to say any more. Where is your mother right now?”

“In Smokey Valley. But she has a ticket to fly.”

“Then fly your mother in, by all means. This sounds like a most serendipitous meeting. Make it the second day, the Sunday afternoon. We can fit Mrs. Flagg in for tea.”

Roy’s heart was racing. “And who am I talking to?”

“This is Fanny Temple speaking. I’ll be having you checked out, of course. If all is well, you won’t hear from me. Just come along on Sunday.” Her voice went up a notch. “Your mother won’t mind a few photographs, will she?”

After arrangements were made and he put the telephone down, Roy had to run from room to room, bouncing off furniture. He ended up in the kitchen, where he took a beer from the refrigerator, popped the lid, and sat at the table.

Here was something to tell his father. Ted Flagg had been so good, it was hard to think about him. But once in a while, Roy could stand to remember. He was ten years old and his mother brought him to New Orleans. On a warm afternoon, they stood in the open doorway of Crazy Annie’s on Bourbon Street, listening to the jazz. The music made little Roy feel like marching. His father looked fine back there on the low stage in his white jacket with the black shirt collar open. Then the leader spoke into a microphone. “Here’s something special from Ted Flagg.” Roy would never forget the cathedral hush as his father moved front and center and raised the glittering trombone. He played a lilting, weeping melody that Roy now knew was “September Song.”

When Ted Flagg joined the Stan Kenton Orchestra, it was big news in Smokey Valley. So was the bulletin a year later from Montreal where the band was on tour. The visiting jazzman had closed Champ’s Shoebar on Crescent Street after the band’s two shows that day at the Seville Theater. There was an argument over a woman. Ted Flagg ended up on the pavement, bleeding to death from a knife wound to the abdomen.

At the time, Roy was in Memphis with a rock band called Stella in honor of Stanley Kowalski’s poignant cry in Streetcar. After he read the telegram, Roy told his buddies he was not going on. And he never did again. There was a photograph in his wallet of four leather-clad high-school kids frowning at the camera from around a pool table... all that was left of the band.

Now, past failures and former hesitations were over and forgotten. The future shone clear. His mother would fly in, he would take her to the Temple estate near Santa Barbara. She would shake hands with Mike Linford, as would Royal Flagg himself, without a doubt. And there would be a moment, he would create the moment, when he would tell the president about his script.

Roy was asleep on the sofa when Connie let herself into the apartment. The place was dark. She switched on the overhead. “Shoes off,” was her greeting. Her mind was still boiling from what she had been told an hour ago. The old man bought her coffee in the diner across the street from the studio. She saw his credentials, she believed he was telling the truth.

Roy scuffed the bulky trainers off one at a time and let them hit the floor with an infuriating pause between drops. “Guess who I was just talking to.”

“Elvis? John Lennon?”

“Fanny Temple. She’s agreed to have my mother see Linford. On the Sunday. She loves the idea.”

Connie stared at Roy for a few moments. She played back his tone of voice. This was straight stuff. “Your mother will be thrilled.”

“Better yet. I’ll get to show him my script.”

“Big mistake.”

“What did you think this is about? I’m not going to all this trouble and expense just so Mike Linford and Clara Hunter Flagg can reminisce.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like anything I do.”

“You’re going to take it over. The Temples, your mother, the president — they’re all expecting to remember old times. And there you’ll be, promoting your stupid script. Nobody wants that.”

“Nobody!” Roy’s bellow shook the windows. Connie shrank back as he rose from the couch. “Nobody has ever cared a damn about my screenplay. I’m the only one. Maybe they’ll laugh me off the estate. Maybe they’ll have me arrested.” The face he hung close to hers was a caricature of Royal Flagg. She was reminded of a cat’s face when you take it by the scruff and draw back the skin. His eyes were slits, the nose flattened. “But this is my chance and I’m not letting it go by.”

The apartment was like a library for the next three hours. Connie made herself a sandwich and ate in the kitchen, turning the pages of a magazine. The old man’s disclosure about Roy meant things were going to change. He would probably take off. There were times when she despised men.

Roy sat inside the headphones staring at a basketball game on television. The game ended and he switched off. After ten minutes watching the blank screen, he heaved himself up and went looking for Connie. She was in bed now, face to the wall.