“You’re forgetting. You’ve got a date.”
“Have I?”
“Miss Quest. You pick her up at her house at seven o’clock. Here’s the address.”
“What would Byron and I do without you?” Simon pocketed the typewritten slip. “Let’s go out and get a drink now, anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing. “I punch a time clock. And Mr Ufferlitz mightn’t like it if I just walked out... You’ll come back, won’t you? Mr Ufferlitz wanted to see you again before you left. I think he wants to tell you how to act with Miss Quest. In case you can’t find out for yourself.”
“You know,” said the Saint, “I like you.”
“Don’t commit yourself until after tonight,” she said.
Byron Ufferlitz, of course, as he had carefully explained to the Saint, was too smart to have fallen for a salaried producer’s job at one of the major studios. What he had negotiated for himself was a major release — he did his own financing, and saved the terrific standard mark-up for “overhead” of ordinary studio production. He had his offices and rented facilities at Liberty Studios, a new outfit on Beverly Boulevard which catered to independent producers. Opposite the entrance there was a cocktail lounge whimsically named The Front Office, which would unmistakably have suffered a major depression if a hole had opened across the street and Liberty Studios had dropped in. But ephemeral as its position may have been in the economic system, it fulfilled the Saint’s immediate requisites of supply and demand, and he settled himself appreciatively on a chrome-legged stool and relaxed into the glass-panelled décor without any active revulsion.
He had a little difficulty in getting service, because the lone bartender, who looked like a retired stunt man and was actually exactly that, was having a little dialogue trouble with the only other customer at that intermediate hour, who had obviously been a customer with more enthusiasm than discretion.
“He can’t do that to me,” declared the customer, propping his head in his hands and staring glassy-eyed between his fingers.