It was madly unbelievable, fantastic and unreal—and yet so very real. It was show business.
Curt Lake paced the inner office. He sat before the typewriter, pecked at the keys, paced restlessly once more. He ripped off his tie. He drummed on the window, swore fervently, and opened his shirt. Suddenly he was back at the machine and talking to himself. His fingers began to pound. When he finished, shortly before noon, he had a pile of manuscript.
Joe asked in a hoarse whisper: “Script finished?”
“Script?” Curt Lake’s voice was thick with scorn. “It’s tripe.”
Listening to the Sue Davis show come out of Vic Wylie’s radio that afternoon, Joe suffered. It was tripe. There was no spice, no spirit, no punch. Lines and speeches that went on and on until they had gone on for thirteen and a half minutes. Then they stopped. Vic was right; the curtain was corny. He shut off the radio and went home.
Kate Carlin brought him a glass of hot milk. “Throat pain much, Joe?”
He shook his head. There was no pain. That was the maddening phase.
“Did I imagine the show was bad to-day?”
“It was very bad.” Talk was an effort. “They had to build a new script in a hurry. To-morrow’ll be better.”
To-morrow was no better. He sat in on the dress, and it was torture not to be at the mike reading the Dick Davis part. It was torture to listen to dialogue that had become lifeless and spiritless. Vic Wylie’s eyes seemed sunken.