Trouble on His Wings (3 page)

“Did she say she
would?”

“She . . . yes, she
said she would. But to think, Johnny, if she's dead, my last word to her was
spoken in anger!” He moped over the picture.

Knowing the suddenness
of Felznick's moods, Johnny waited patiently. He doubted that Louise Felznick
had taken the
Kalolo,
knowing of her activities as slightly as he did,
through the pages of society magazines. Felznick had hair-trigger emotions and
would never pass up the slightest chance to be dramatic about his affairs—after
he had taken care of business. Johnny got a glimpse of the picture. It showed a
tall, languorously beautiful woman posed with a baby.

“I didn't know you had
a kid,” said Johnny in astonishment.

Felznick looked
annoyed. “That's Louise's by her first husband. Name's Jack. I—” and Johnny
recognized by his tone of voice that here was another act, “I haven't got an
heir of my own, Johnny. I haven't got anybody to leave this mammoth business
to.”

“What's the matter
with Jack?”

“Too young to think
about. Not mine. Johnny, when I think of how I've worked and slaved to build up
this business, only to put it into the hands of strangers—”

“Wait'll you get old
before you worry about that,” said Johnny.

“I'm forty-eight,”
said Felznick, looking sad. Another thought struck him and he brightened
tremendously. He grabbed his phone and bellowed for the press relations
department. “Boys, get a release out on Mrs. Felznick. I'm broken-hearted, get
it? She's supposed to be on the
Kalolo
and listed with the missing.
Paint it up big. Dig out some swell pictures. ‘Movie Magnate's Family Feared
Dead!' And lay heavy on that ‘Felznick, brilliant owner of World News.' Okay.”
He hung up and realized that he looked too pleased. “Don't think bad about
that, Johnny boy. It's even possible that she
was
on the
Kalolo
so I ain't lying too much.”

Johnny was seasoned to
press stunts, but he was slightly annoyed that he'd be caught in this one. “You
mean there wasn't any chance she was on it?”

“Hardly any. I booked
the passage so her name's on the passenger list. I'll let it ride two-three
days unless the boys in France find she's still there and
ballyhoo
it. Boy,
that's publicity, Johnny. I need some good publicity. And say,” he cried,
jumping up, “you're soaking wet. Here, have a drink. . . . Have another drink.
That's right.” He yelled into his interoffice phone, “Call my car for Mr.
Brice. Okay, Johnny, that was a swell job. By the way, how did you do it?
You'll get a bonus for this, have anything in the shop. Vacation, anything.”

Johnny took the
drinks. He needed them. Presently the car was announced and he started to the
door, with Felznick pumping his hand and telling him what an asset he was to
the company.

“Anything in the shop,
Johnny. Just ask for it. I—”

“Mr. Felznick,” said a
dried-up little gnome whose rubber apron smelled of bromine.

“Wait a minute. And
Johnny, I can't tell you how much I owe you. This scoop is perfect. In the New
York theatres tonight, before the news is twenty-four hours old. That's the way
to—”

“Mr. Felznick,” said the
gnome urgently.

“What?” said Felznick,
annoyed.

“Them pictures you
sent in. Every roll's been spoiled by sea water.”

“What?”

“And the hand camera
roll was a blank,” added the gnome apologetically.

Felznick assumed a
calm mien. He was never dramatic when he was really mad. “How much did those
films cost?”

“Three thousand
dollars,” gulped Johnny, dismayed at the treachery of the passengers. Too late
he recalled that the rescue ship had pulled almost all of them from the water.
Why hadn't he inspected the condition of the films? And what had Irish done
with that hand camera? It was supposed to show the wreck itself. He was numb
with the shock of the first bad play he had pulled in years. And now Bert
Goddard of Mammoth Pictures would have a scoop for himself!

“Oh, lord,” groaned
Felznick. “Deliver me from fools. Grant! Davis! Thompson! Stephens! Kennedy!
Meet the SS
Birmingham Alabama
at quarantine; you get a plane and get
some shots of the floating wreck; you get some pictures of some families. Kids
crying for daddy, and all that. Come on, let's go!”

“What about me?” said
Johnny cautiously.

“You?” said Felznick.
“You? Go over to Long Island, Mr. Johnny Brice. Just as soon as I get an
assignment that's an ‘assignment,' you'll know what about you.”

Johnny sighed
dolefully, battered by the hurrying crews who raced past him and down the
stairs. “Seven years in the racket and that's the first
bull
.” He shook his
head and moved over the edge of the lake of sea water which had slowly formed
about his feet. He knew very well what Felznick meant when he said
“assignment.” Johnny wouldn't see New York for months. He'd be shot from spot
news to spot news, always on the go, worn out. . . .

“Got a swim out of it
anyway,” he muttered to himself, climbing into the small studio car.

Chapter
Two

J
UPITER
banged into Mars and
eighty police sirens shrieked down the Milky Way, while Johnny embattled
Neptune, warding off the wicked trident with the Empire State Building. And all
the while, the captain of the SS
Birmingham Alabama
was suspended in mid
air, banging Johnny on the head with a
bung starter
and weeping softly, “I told
you so. I told you so.”

“Oh, my head,” groaned
Johnny, swimming up through murky depths to arrive at last in the bedroom of
his Long Island apartment, mutually shared with Irish.

A patch of chill on
his brow startled him and his lids sprung up to behold, not Neptune, but Irish
sadly messing with an ice bag.

“How's that?” said
Irish.

“Heaven,” whispered
Johnny, closing his eyes again.

“What happened to you?
Where'd you go? How come you went on a bender? You never did that all this
year. Was everything all right? You come in with the help of a cop and a taxi
driver, crying, ‘All is lost! All is lost!' I paid the bill. It was thirty-nine
dollars and twenty-one cents. What'd you lose?”

“Please,” begged
Johnny, pulling the sheet up over his face.

“Where'd you go?”
persisted Irish. “How come all is lost?”

“Will you go away?”
said Johnny.

Irish went away, but
he came back—bringing a tumbler made up of tomato juice and red pepper and
Worcestershire sauce. There was a determined gleam on Irish's small face. In a
moment, before Johnny knew what had happened, Irish had thrown the contents
down his throat. Johnny yelled. He opened and shut his mouth like a dying fish.
And then, seeing that no flames were shooting out of his throat and that he had
not exploded, he sank back into the pillow.

“Now what's lost?”
said the merciless Irish. “What'd you do?”

Johnny gazed
hopelessly upon his helper. He felt too weak to throw a pillow at him and shut
him up. With a weary sigh, Johnny said, “We're in the soup.” He thought about
it for a while, gradually remembering just why they were in the soup, and then
he added, “No pictures. They'd all been soaked in sea water when the passengers
took to the drink. That's it. There wasn't one good film in that batch, and you
. . . let's see . . . you didn't get a shot of the ship from the air.”

“Gosh,” said Irish in
mortified recollection. “Gosh, I forgot. I . . . I was so scared you'd drown, I
didn't think about that hand camera.”

“You'll never make a
cameraman,” said Johnny sadly, overlooking the fact that Irish had been one for
years. “You gotta think about pictures, nothin' but pictures and only pictures
and . . .” he subsided. Finally he turned over with a curse. “To hell with
pictures, to hell with everything. I make one bull in seven years and I get it
hot and heavy. I'm going to quit. That's what I'll do, I'll quit. It's a lousy
life. Two hundred and fifty a week—for what? For tryin' to get yourself killed.
Two hundred and fifty a week to take pictures! To hell with the pictures. I
never want to
see
another picture as long as I live! You hear that,
Irish? I never want to turn another crank! I'll buy a chicken ranch, that's
what I'll do. I'll buy a chicken ranch and do like that salesman said. Two
chickens will get you a million three hundred thousand in two years. That's the
life. No more of this hell and glory. No more of this gettin' up in the middle
of the night rushing off to trouble. Trouble! That's what it is! News is
trouble, and nothin' but trouble. I'm through. I quit. I'm sick of trouble. . .
. Gimme that phone!”

Irish, with grimly
compressed mouth, gave him the phone. It was a direct wire and he snarled,
“Gimme Felznick . . . That's what I said. Gimme Felznick and tell'm this is
Johnny Brice.” With a ferocious scowl, he eyed Irish. “I'll tell him what he
can do with his job. Two hundred and fifty a week for tryin' to kill yourself.
I'll—” His gaze lighted upon a basket of flowers on the bureau behind Irish.
“Where'd those come from?”

“Dunno,” said Irish.
“Here's the card.”

Johnny looked at it.
His brows contracted and he paled. “Read that!”

Irish read, “To Johnny
with all my love in appreciation of giving me such a lovely scoop; Bert Goddard.
PS Don't forget you borrowed a hundred off me last night. Love and kisses.”

Irish was about to
swear, but he heard Johnny at the phone.

“Yes, Mr. Felznick . .
. No, Mr. Felznick. Where? Idaho? But my gosh, Mr. Felznick, how . . . But I .
. . Yes, Mr. Felznick.” He hung up, and dared Irish to say anything. “Get
something packed.”

“Where we goin'?” said
Irish.

“Idaho.
Ninety-thousand-acre forest fire, three towns cut off from the blaze. . . . I
knew it. I knew it. He's picked the farthest place he could find, that's what
he's done, the old—” And then he saw the flowers. “Love and kisses! Wait'll I
meet that guy Goddard! Just wait. G'wan! What the hell are you standing there
for? Get something packed.”

Irish looked
embarrassed and backed away from the door he had started through.

Johnny started to
speak luridly, but stopped, startled to behold a lovely young lady in his silk
dressing gown. She came almost timidly to the threshold of the room.

“What—?” began Johnny.
And then, “Oh, so it's you again, is it? Why don't you go home?”

Unable to thoroughly
appreciate that she was getting the brunt of the rage felt against Goddard and
Felznick, she backed up at the snarl in his voice. She wasn't at all sure of
herself or her welcomeness, and her eyes grew suspiciously bright.

“I . . . I haven't any
place to go. I can't go any place! They'd get me. Don't send me away. Please,
Mr. Brice, don't throw me out. I'll be awful good. I'll keep your place clean
and cook your meals. I'll be careful and not get in your way. And I won't eat
much, honest I won't.”

Johnny realized that
he had been very rough and that he was making himself look like a brute. And so
he got rougher, because it made him mad. “I don't care what you do, but get out
of my sight. You . . . you damned
Jonah
! That's what you are, a Jonah. I pick
you up and make the first bull I've made in seven years. And now what? And now
I've got to go to Idaho and mebbe get burned up in somebody's lousy forest
fire. I never had any bad luck until you came along.” Again he realized that he
was taking out his utter wretchedness upon her, that he was using her for an
alibi for his own short-sightedness in not examining those films. And because
it made him hate himself, he roared all the louder. “Beat it, and let me die in
peace!”

Irish squirmed. “He's
upset, that's all. Maybe we better go.” And, so saying, he pushed her out of
the door.

Johnny glumly swung
out of bed and stumbled to his shower. The cold water hit him like bullets and
he gloried in the pain of it. But, while he rubbed himself down, he gradually
smoothed out his temper and dwindled down to muttering only an occasional,
“Idaho!”

He ate the breakfast
Irish had had sent up from the restaurant below, stabbing at his fruit as
though it was Felznick. “Publicity hound,” he growled. “Idaho!”

He
drained his coffee cup, and when he set it back he noticed with detached
interest that there was a note under the saucer. He pulled it out and read it.

Warning. If you don't get rid of that dame and stop
hiding her, you'll
be pushing up daisies.

He blinked at it and
read it through again, to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He turned it over,
pondering upon the identity of the sender.

Irish brought him to
himself. The pint-size was standing in the door with a grip in his hand.

“Look at this,” said
Johnny.

Irish looked at it
with knitted brows. “Who do you suppose sent this? Who'd be after that girl,
huh? Maybe we better ditch her.”

“What?” said Johnny,
getting ugly again. “You make me sick. What kind of a guy are you, anyhow? Somebody
threatens you, so you get scared of your shadow. Haven't you any guts? Somebody
wants to knock off that girl. Huh, I'd like to meet 'em.”

Irish scratched his
head in wonderment. “You couldn't be figured out by Einstein,” he decided. “One
minute you tell her to get out, and then as soon as she gets like dynamite, you
want her to stick around. Contrary?!”

“Shut up,” said
Johnny.

The girl was in the
door again and Johnny looked at her, frowning. “You ever been to Idaho?”

“Why . . . no.”

“You're goin',” said
Johnny. “Got any clothes?”

“No.”

“Irish, go buy her
some clothes. . . . No, wait. That'll never do. Look, somebody might see you
buying them. This place might be watched.”

“Watched?” said the
girl.

Johnny got up and
handed her the note. She gave a start and her eyes grew very round. She
swallowed convulsively. A moment later she had composed herself.

“You're Irish's size,”
said Johnny. “And your hair is short enough to put under a helmet. Irish, go
get her some of your clothes.”

“You mean you'll take
me to Idaho?” she said, with relief.

“Who's after you, and
what's this all about?” demanded Irish.

“I . . . no, I can't
tell you. But you've got to be careful. They . . . they would do anything.”

“What the hell are you
bullyin' her for?” Johnny demanded of Irish. “Go get her some clothes, and stop
runnin' off at the mouth.” He took up the phone and got the airport wire.

“Run out the
cabin
job
, Steve. We're headed for Idaho.”