"Anybody to see me, Emil?"
"Well you know as well as me somebody is, Charlie. The lovin' picture-makin' people 're here. Got a whole staff wit 'em." He leaned close, rolling his eyes shyly. "You gonna give 'em the story of yer bloody life, Charlie?"
Charlie strode toward his shop at the back of the gym.
"Not unless they make me lead man. And you the leading lady!"
He went past a row of smoked-glass doors to the last one with C. JINGLE, TRAINER printed on it, opened it, and went in. As Emil McPhay had said, the room was mobbed with smoking, suntanned Californians. An elegant-looking man rushed forward and jerked his hand up and down.
"Glad ... so glad.... Pictures.... Hope.... Contract.... Of course. Your boy.... Mister Jingle.... Famous...."
Nobody had called Charlie Jingle mister for ten years. In one night, he'd graduated from flop to mister. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the sweat on them. His eyes took in the walls painted their flat, drying green, the racks of tools on them, the pictures of great fighting machines all over them, the electrical diagrams, the Reflex-Analyses Patterns mapped out next to each one. Then he lowered his eyes to take in the grinning, smooth-faced men around him, doing nervous things with their faces and hands. He looked at the man in front of him, his mouth flapping open and closed, contorting this way and that, and suddenly Charlie shut his eyes tight, drew in a blast of air, screwed his mouth open, and yelled "Shaddap!" good and loud.
There was stunned silence. Charlie looked around at them, at their poised, waiting faces.
"Scram!" he yelled, and jerked his finger to the door.
Slowly, the suntanned Californians drifted out of the room, watching him closely lest he maul them or loose another violation of the success story at them. One man broke the spell.