Joe understood that. In show business the ghost walks or the ghost doesn’t walk. A walking ghost is a paying ghost. When the ghost doesn’t walk, there’s no money.
“The cast hasn’t been paid in three weeks,” Stella added without rancor.
Joe was learning—the mask, the off-hand casualness, the front. “Well,” he said, “that’s show business.” His mouth held a bitter taste.
Noon found him at the agency. The Everts-Hall people had an entire floor in a downtown building. The reception-room was a wide, fan-shaped space of floor facing the elevators. The reception clerk telephoned inside. “Mr. Carlin to see Mr. Vaux.” A boy led him to Tony’s room.
The room was vast. There were eight windows, an immense rug, stacks of scripts, shelves of books, some of which might later be dramatized for radio, and a great table of magazines. And there was red-faced Tony Vaux in a vivid pepper-and-salt suit.
“Howdy, Joe. Right on the minute; never keep a curtain waiting.” The inevitable script appeared. “This is a show for the He crowd. A Curt Lake script.”
Joe experienced a sense of confidence, as though he had walked into a room with uncertainty and had found it peopled with friends. Sue Davis was also a Curt Lake script.
“The He crowd want a show that’ll have a man-and-boy pull. There it is. Bush League Larry. A baseball script with two principal characters. Larry Logan, coming off a farm to pitch for a team in an alfalfa county league and old Ike Totten, who lives alone and has one interest in life—baseball. The He crowd may go on the air early in September with a three-a-week. Capitalize right at the start on the growing interest of a coming World Series. In the script we have Larry catch the eye of a scout and be signed for a spring try-out. We’ll run Larry and Ike through the winter on a string of adventure. Larry loses a finger in a hunting accident. Will he be able to pitch with three fingers? There’s your suspense. The script opens with Larry’s arrival at the alfalfa town. I’ll be Ike.”
A man came in with some advertising lay-outs and talked to Tony. Joe had a chance to scan the script:
Sound—Train Coming on to Mike and Stopping at Station