Joe whispered: “A week or ten days. What’s that?”
“Wylie insurance.” The producer was harsh. “I can’t afford to leave myself out on a limb. Suppose some member of the cast falls under a truck. Can I bring in a new actor and tell him I want him to read like So-and-so? Perhaps he’s never heard So-and-so. I give him So-and-so. Every once in a while I cut a platter. The cast never knows it’s being cut. When I have to recast, the new member of the cast gets a platter diet. Again and again, hour after hour. That’s his part; that’s the voice the audience associates with the part. When he goes on the air, not one in a thousand suspects a new voice.”
Joe’s breathing was rapid and shallow.
Wylie brooded. “Kid, Munson’s dishing out the ice. He says the show’s slipping. It is. It’s doing a nose dive. Five thousand radios have tuned us out in the last three days. When they start to yawn and tune in another station, it’s almost time to ring down the curtain. I don’t like to hand this to you, kid, but you got to get it straight. Show business pays off to the winner. You can’t have bacon and eggs without the bacon. You can’t have a mother-and-son without the son. Munson bought a mother-and-son show. He’s not getting it.”
Joe stared at the platter and was cold. Tony, and now Vic! If he lost the Dick Davis part he’d be making the rounds again, haunting the offices of casting directors, putting on a nice new front every morning.
“Who are you getting, Vic?”
Wylie took his hand away from his chair. “No Baltimore nephew, anyway,” he snarled.
Joe was no longer cold. He had figured the set-up, and he had figured it correctly. Vic had nobody in mind. Tony might fish around and be content to do the best he could with a part, but not Vic. Vic never compromised. You were tops or you wouldn’t do. Where was Vic going to find a juvenile he’d rate tops? Perhaps he’d throw somebody in the part for a week for the sake of the story, so that Munson would have a mother-and-son show. But even a week of that would gripe the violent, temperamental producer.
Royal Street was crowded; Royal Street sparkled. Archie Munn stood in front of the FKIP Building talking to a tall, languid young man who wore his clothing with a careless, studied indifference. Joe nodded and passed, and stopped at the corner to buy a Journal. He was waiting for change when Archie overtook him.
“Better buy two copies, Joe. They give Lu a nice notice.”