“The three o’clock plane,” the stenographer repeated.
Wylie stood lost in frowning thought. Abruptly he motioned to Joe and was on his way back to the inner office.
Six words went around and around in Joe’s head: “The best producer in the city.” His heart was a hammer. Following Wylie, he found himself in the strangest room he had ever seen, a room that spoke of a preoccupation which brushed aside as trivial matters that would have been important to other men. A wide flat desk, that must at one time have been beautiful, was charred with hundreds of black scars as though an absorbed man had carelessly laid down lighted cigarettes and then forgotten them. There was a disordered stack of papers, probably scripts. There was a lustrous radio as badly cigarette-burned as the desk. There were dozens of photographs on the walls—autographed photographs of men and women who were important in radio, in Hollywood, and on the stage. The cushions of chairs and of a settee, badly scuffed and lumped out of shape, suggested long hours of feverish argument when comfort was ignored. But strangest of all was the absence of what had been the highlight of Amby’s office, a dead, unwired, rehearsal microphone.
Or was it, Joe wondered, so very strange?
Wylie, from a swivel chair behind the desk, shot out a command. “Give me your background.”
“Eighteen,” said Joe. “High-school graduate. Four years in high-school plays. Made the cast my first year.”
“So you’ve decided you’re an actor?”
“I don’t know. I hope I am.”
“Anybody in show business give you any encouragement?”
“Ambrose Carver. He’d heard about me and came to Northend High for the June play. He told FKIP to call me in for an immediate audition.”