Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс, Пикард Нэнси
- Год: 2008
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008». Краткое содержание книги:
Jeffrey pondered this, then his smirk surfaced again. “These guys are idiots? I never pitched anything in my life. They’d be on me like my shorts.”
Jay confided that most were bereft of brain cells. He would coach him on exactly how to tell the story, the little tricks to charm them out of their Guccis. If they wanted to buy the story and the teleplay, they would make a deal with Jay’s agent, who would be in on the scam.
Jay leaned closer, grabbed the Big Red can from Jeffrey, took a swig. Chums. Fellow conspirators. “Think it over, I’ll buzz you tomorrow.” He quickly got up to go.
“Just a minute,” Jeffrey said. “Cool it. What’s the back-end here?”
Money. Always the goddamn money. “I’ll give you points, a percentage, we’ll work it out.” He started out again.
“Not so fast. I got this rotten tough lit teacher, Mr. Haviland? Suppose you write me my next essay assignment for this bozo. Quid pro quo. Huh?”
Jay shrugged. “Quid pro quo. We got a deal — Hunter.”
It was easier than they’d both thought. Jay was his new teacher for a week, his Marine drill sergeant, drumming the story into his head, even how to sit (directly facing the producer, not his clones), no shave, his wardrobe (the scruffy T-shirt and cargo pants were perfecto). Jay was getting the distinct impression that the quid pro quo was more important to his son than the promise of compensation. He was actually beginning to like this California mutant he had somehow, improbably, hatched. The boy’s light-switch, on-and-off smirk seemed self-defensive now, hiding an innate shyness and insecurity.
Jay nervously drove him to the studio for the pitch meeting, parking right inside the gate because the studio cop remembered him from the “old days.” Last year?!
Jeffrey came out an hour later in an ecstatic trance. “They loved it,” he said. “Got a weed?”
“You never know if they loved it. These guys invented duplicity.”
But they did — love it.
Jay’s agent made the deal and he was happily pounding out the script, day and night, on his old Remington. He would never switch to a computer, words had to be driven into the paper, like Faulkner said, nails into wood.
Meanwhile Haviland had assigned Jeffrey an essay, “What is Morality?” Relishing the irony, Jay knocked it out in an hour, an easy two-Pepsi chore.
The producers finally read Jeffrey’s script, liked it even more than their on-lot parking stalls, his prodigy winding up with a multiple assignment on the show. Those bastards, Jay thought, I’ve still got the juice but they’ve forced me to pimp my own flesh and blood.
Jay took his family to Spago for a victory celebration. Wolfgang himself dropped by the table and Jay proclaimed that his boy Hunter was a genius, the newest hot TV writer while he was still in high school, no less. Later a mountain of desserts covered every inch of the tablecloth, gratis.
On the way home, Jay asked his son if he was thinking at all of what he eventually wanted to do for a living. Writing, maybe?
“Nah,” Jeffrey said. “I’d like to be a doctor someday. Do something of value with my life. I hear there’s going to be a real shortage of doctors.”
Boy, did I misjudge this kid, Jay thought. Serves me right for being some kind of shadow father, wrapping him in long-arm-proffered gifts instead of real paternal love.
“That’s going to take a lot of hard study,” Jay said. “Are you prepared?”
“I know it’s hard, but I’m up for it.”
Jay was working on a new script for the show when the phone rang. The voice was scratchy like an old phonograph record. “Mr. Jordan. This is Richard Haviland, your son’s lit teacher?”
“Yes. Sure. Jeffrey’s told me about you.”
“I think it’s important we get together, Mr. Jordan. Are you free to come by the school tomorrow night at eight o’clock? I’ll be working late.”
“Ahh — I think so, yes. Could you tell me what it’s about?”
“That best be discussed when you see me.”
Ominous. “Awright. Fine. I’ll be there.”
Jeffrey was as puzzled as Jay. He had submitted his ghost-written essay, but Haviland hadn’t announced the grades yet or discussed them in class. “He’s the proto-nerd, Jay, halitosis, flatulence, the whole putrid package. Nobody wants to sit in the front row.”
The following night Jay was made even more uneasy by the deserted school building, lights still scowling out of empty offices. Haviland was sitting at a brightly lit desk in a crowd of shadows, a tall, monochrome figure as emaciated as a residual check. Jay felt like a schoolboy, called on the carpet for his unruly class behavior.
“Good evening,” Haviland said. He was no more than forty-five but already graying. He didn’t extend his hand. “We have a problem,” he said, eschewing any formalities.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Your son Jeffrey submitted an essay paper. It was quite obvious he didn’t write it.”
He was going to have to tough this one out. “Hard to believe. My boy’s a very fine television writer. He has a three-script assignment on one of the best series.”
“I know all about that,” Haviland said in his scratchy, slightly condescending tones, “he told me. But I looked you up on the Net. I’m afraid you are the only writer in the family.”
“Afraid?”
Haviland pushed his papers away. “This is a serious offense. I will have to report it to the dean.”
Jay groaned inwardly. So now private schools had “deans.” “You’d have to prove Jeffrey didn’t write it.”
“Easily done. Trust me.”
Stalemate. Mexican standoff. Jay held his ground in silence, trying not to blink. Let your opponent speak first. If that wasn’t one of Machiavelli’s primary rules, it should be. And then he spied the suspicious stack of Hollywood trade papers on the desk.
“I think this problem is more serious than you believe, Mr. Jordan.” He saw that Jay’s eyes were fixated on the stack. “My fiancée’s brother is an associate producer on the series your son is writing for. A most unhappy coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
It was possible Jay’s old, recurring ulcer was ready for its close-up. “So what?”
“I think you wrote Jeffrey’s essay and you also wrote the script he sold to this television show. I would hate to reveal that fact to my fiancée’s brother.”
Jay took his time smiling, letting it slowly uncoil like a snake. “I don’t like to disappoint you, Haviland, but they won’t give a damn. They need good scripts, they have air dates.”
“So I should go ahead and tell him?”
“That would be irresponsible and malicious. I don’t think you’d do that if you were compensated.” Money, always money. “Am I right?”
The teacher met his eyes. “I’m beginning to do a little script writing myself, but it means working mostly nights and weekends. I would like to take a sabbatical and really get the job done. But that would mean I’d have to be subsidized for a while. Are you following, Mr. Jordan?”
“Like a heat-seeking missile.” Thank God he had years of training keeping his anger in check, a necessity in the television snake pit. “What’s the price tag on this ‘sabbatical’?”
“That is open to negotiation.”
Jay already had a plan. “Let me think about it.”
He met the next day with Dave Kramer, the show-runner that his son had his deal with, a stocky young ex-New Yorker who wore the mandatory producer’s beard. “Your son’s doing a great job for us,” he said. “You should be proud.”
Jay said casually, “He’s not writing the scripts. I am.”
Just as casuaclass="underline" “We know.”
It was a brief but very pleasant meeting. As Jay had suspected, Kramer couldn’t give a damn about the masquerade. He had figured no sixteen-year-old, inexperienced kid could write scripts of that quality so it had to be his father, the old, dependable pro.