Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

News gallops in a studio. I didn’t go to my office because I knew the phone would be burning up with calls from Bachmann. I wanted to figure out what I was going to say.

I was listed on the payroll as a gagman but that wasn’t the half of it. Conciliator in Extraordinary would have been better. Bachmann was the boss of B.L.D. Pictures, and some time, way back in the sweet silent days when we turned them out in a week for eight grand, he’d conceived the fairly nutty idea that I was a natural-born peacemaker. He’d never got over it when I’d returned to Hollywood after three or four years of trying to find out what made China go, I’d found Bachmann with a studio slightly smaller than Texas and my old job waiting for me.

I’d worked on five pictures for B.L.D. and gradually, insidiously, almost with my knowing it, Maya Sarin had become my special charge. And what a charge! — it would have taken six men and a boy to keep up adequately with her and Bachmann knew it. His faith in me was touching, not to say sublime.

Death Song was her first picture with Dreier, and in addition to being Chinese technical expert, and a few other ill-assorted whatnots I was supposed to be Sarin’s Spiritual adviser and wetnurse. She could suck up more whiskey in less time than any half dozen longshoremen I’d known in a long experience of longshoremen. I’d done everything I could to avert the inevitable blow-off. So what! — so it’d happened.

I stalled in the Publicity Department a little while and had my shoes shined and got to Bachmann’s office gradually. Sarin was coming out as I went in. I started to say something light and laugh-provoking, and she glared at me like a wounded lioness; I moved to one side and swayed in the wind as she went past.

There was a girl waiting to see Bachmann in the outer office. She had dark red hair and dark brown eyes and a skin like thick cream.

Bachmann’s secretary got up and started for the door of his private office. She said: “Mister Bachmann wants to see you right away, Mister Nolan—”

Bachmann jerked the door open, blasted me with an icy stare, yelped: “Come in here!” The secretary looked worried. She said in a small voice: “May I see you just for a moment first, Mister Bachmann?”

Bachmann snapped “No!” repeated: “Come in here, Nolan.”

I bobbed my head at the creamy-skinned angel, said: “This lady was here first...”

She smiled at me and murmured: “Thank you — I’m in no hurry.” The voice went with the rest of her.

Bachmann looked like he was about a half jump ahead of apoplexy. That was all right with me because when he gets that way he becomes speechless. I gave the angel my best bow and marched past him into the office. He slammed the door and started walking up and down.

In about a minute he got his voice back, shouted: “Well — what are we going to do?”

I was looking out the window. I saw Sarin come out of the downstairs door of the Administration Building and start across the lawn towards the dressing rooms. I said: “How about leaving the picture business flat and going back to cloaks and suits?”

Bachmann looked like a thug and was one of the swellest all-around men I’ve ever known. He couldn’t help it about his pan. He wasn’t paying any attention to what I said. He yelled: “You’ve got to talk to Dreier!”

I nodded.

“Dreier likes you,” he went on. “You’ve got to make him understand that the release date of Death Song is set. It’s sold! It’s got to be finished in three weeks at the outside!”

I nodded again. I was still looking out the window and I saw Sarin disappear into the Dressing Room Building. She looked like she was going somewhere. I said: “You can’t make pictures with a sponge for a star. We’re five days behind schedule. The call was for eleven-thirty this morning because we worked late last night with the mob. Sarin didn’t even get to the lot till four and she was paralyzed...”

I turned to Bachmann. “I think the best thing to do is scrap everything we’ve shot — it’s lousy anyway — and start over with another girl.”

Bachmann lifted his shoulders in such a high shrug that his head almost disappeared like a scared turtle’s.

“ What other girl! You’re talking like an idiot! You know as well as I do that Maya’s name is sold with the picture...”

I went over and looked up at a big photograph of her on the wall, grunted: “Uh-huh.”

Bachmann’s voice kept popping behind me: “You’ve got to talk to Dreier. Maya says he doesn’t like her — that he keeps on riding her and won’t give her a chance to straighten out. She says—”

I heard the door open, Dreier’s soft voice:

“What else does she say?”

I turned around. Dreier came in and closed the door, sank into a big chair.

Bachmann went behind his desk and sat down, too.

Dreier said: “Will you please replace me, Jack? I guess I can’t take it.”

He turned from Bachmann and smiled wearily at me.

Bachmann looked like he was about to do a backflip. Then the old beaten-animal expression crept into his eyes. I knew that look; it’d take a giant of willpower to say no to him when he used it.

He said tremulously: “Carl. You wouldn’t desert me, too?”

Dreier laughed. He was silent a moment and then he said: “No, Jack — I guess I wouldn’t. Not if you’re going to cry about it.” He raised both hands resignedly and brought them down hard on his knees. “What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to Maya.” Bachmann was leaning forward, smiling eagerly. “Reason with her—”

I grinned.

Bachmann glared at me, went on to Dreier: “Make her understand you don’t dislike her — that it’s for the good of the picture — that we’ve all got to cooperate—”

One of the phones on Bachmann’s desk buzzed. He picked it up said: “Yes — what is it?... Please don’t bother me, Miss Chase — I’m busy!” He slammed up the receiver.

Dreier stood up. “All right, Jack,” he said. “I’ll try again.”

“Fine!” Bachmann turned to me. “You go with him, Pat.”

I looked at my watch. It was five-forty. I had to see a dog about a man at six-thirty; I said: “Maya’s off me — I haven’t been able to talk to her for three days. I think Carl can do better by himself.”

Dreier was smiling. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to see the rushes first — last night’s stuff. Then I’ll see what I can do with her.”

He went to the door, turned his tired smile to me. “Want to look at them with me?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t got time — I’ll look at ’em in the morning.”

Dreier nodded and went out and closed the door.

Bachmann was leaning back in his chair glaring at me with elaborate disgust. “A fine smoother-over you’re turning out to be!” he said.

“That smoother-over business is your idea,” I reminded him, “not mine. Me — I like a good fight — I’m the kind of a guy that starts revolutions.”

I gave him a trick grin and bowed out. The creamy angel was still sitting in the outer office. She smiled at me again and I took it and smiled back and almost smashed my kneecap against the door because I wasn’t looking where I was going.

I was still thinking about her when I got into my car, and figuring that maybe the deal with the man and the dog wasn’t so important after all.

Traffic was heavy on Melrose; I cut up Gower and got out of the worst of it but it took me nearly twenty minutes to get to the hotel.

I was getting into the bathtub when the phone rang. The switchboard girl said: “Theah’s a Mistah Hammah callin’, Mistah Nolan...” She kind of crooned it, like: “Theah’s a cotton field a callin’, honey chile.” You could slice that Deep South accent with a dull cleaver.