“You’re a minor. I’ll bring a contract for your father to sign. Everything open and above-board.”
A real contract, legal and binding, with a real agent! Joe’s cup was full.
A man came like the wind from the glass-walled studio. Joe saw a wild disorder of reddish hair, a tan raincoat trailing along the ground from one arm, a brief-case only partly closed. Somebody cried “Vic!” and the raincoat was jerked up from the ground. The hidden voice went on: “You forgot that script.” A hand went into the brief-case, came out with a mass of papers, and waved them impatiently. Somebody came running from the direction of the glass-walled studios.
“Know him?” Amby Carver asked.
Joe didn’t. “I saw him rehearsing a show.”
“Then,” Mr. Carver said with brisk conviction, “you saw the best producer in the city in action. That’s Vic Wylie. Great friend of mine. Won’t work for any station—produces independently. A great pal.”
The producer was again on his way toward the elevators. His eyes were the eyes of a man with fifty things to do and an hour to do them in.
Amby Carver’s voice throbbed with good fellowship. “Hi, Vic! How’s the boy?”
Vic Wylie looked around, saw who had called the greeting, glanced at Joe and back to Carver—and grunted. The elevator took him down.
“A great kidder,” Amby Carver said jovially. “A rich kidder. You’ve got to understand a guy like Vic. Dramatizes himself. Gets up in the morning and puts on a rôle with his collar. Plays it all day. I’ll bet he’s doing a show with a hard heavy; he’ll be a Simon Legree until the show’s in the bag. To-morrow, if he’s producing a Pollyanna, he’ll be smiling like an angel and God-blessing everybody. A great guy. A great pal.”