Tony Vaux came back from FFOM an hour past his usual time. To-day no booming greeting to the girl at the reception-desk announced his arrival. “I thought you’d be gone, Joe.” He took some papers from his pocket and, preoccupied, tapped them against the other hand.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Joe said. “I heard the show—part of it. Why don’t you make Pop wear glasses?”
“It’s not glasses, Joe. He’s been wearing glasses before the mike since the show went on the air.”
“What is it then?”
“Sonny’s pulling his old trick of stealing the show. Pop follows script faithfully. Sonny reads a cue line and Pop starts to come in. But Sonny ad libs an extra line or two and Pop is left floundering. He never knows whether to come in or to wait. Years ago he’d have handled Sonny, but now he’s too old for that kind of rough-and-tumble. He’s cracking wide open. He’s lost. He’s shot.”
Joe trembled. “Are you standing for that, Tony?”
“I’m not Vic Wylie,” Tony said with bitter regret. “Vic answers to nobody but himself. If he wanted to give Sonny the hook, he’d give it to him. I’m a salaried employee. They give me a script; they expect a production. Pop’s a stooge in this show; Sonny’s the star. Suppose I go after Sonny the way Vic did? How long will I have a show? How long before they’ll have me on the carpet inside? Am I a producer? Then what’s wrong with me? Why don’t I produce? That’s the only question they ask. Why don’t I produce a show?”
Stenographers and office clerks were on their way home; an orchestra of feet shuffled and tapped along the corridor leading to the elevators.
“This can’t go on,” Joe cried in protest.
“It isn’t going to go on. The He people caught me at FFOM; I had to get over there at once.” He opened a drawer of his desk and dropped in the paper he had been tapping against his hand. “Pop’s out,” he said roughly.