No Harm Trying, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I

Pat Hobby’s apartment lay athwart a delicatessen shop on Wilshire Boulevard. And there lay Pat himself, surrounded by his books—the Motion Picture Almanac of 1928 and Barton’s Track Guide, 1939—by his pictures, authentically signed photographs of Mabel Normand and Barbara LaMarr (who, being deceased, had no value in the pawn-shops)—and by his dogs in their cracked leather oxfords, perched on the arm of a slanting settee.

Pat was at “the end of his resources”—though this term is too ominous to describe a fairly usual condition in his life. He was an old-timer in pictures; he had once known sumptuous living, but for the past ten years jobs had been hard to hold—harder to hold than glasses.

“Think of it,” he often mourned. “Only a writer—at forty-nine.”

All this afternoon he had turned the pages of The Times and The Examiner for an idea. Though he did not intend to compose a motion picture from this idea, he needed it to get him inside a studio. If you had nothing to submit it was increasingly difficult to pass the gate. But though these two newspapers, together with Life, were the sources most commonly combed for “originals,” they yielded him nothing this afternoon. There were wars, a fire in Topanga Canyon, press releases from the studios, municipal corruptions, and always the redeeming deeds of “The Trojuns,” but Pat found nothing that competed in human interest with the betting page.

—If I could get out to Santa Anita, he thought—I could maybe get an idea about the nags.

This cheering idea was interrupted by his landlord, from the delicatessen store below.

“I told you I wouldn’t deliver any more messages,” said Nick, “and STILL I won’t. But Mr. Carl Le Vigne is telephoning in person from the studio and wants you should go over right away.”

The prospect of a job did something to Pat. It anesthetized the crumbled, struggling remnants of his manhood, and inoculated him instead with a bland, easygoing confidence. The set speeches and attitudes of success returned to him. His manner as he winked at a studio policeman, stopped to chat with Louie, the bookie, and presented himself to Mr. Le Vigne’s secretary, indicated that he had been engaged with momentous tasks in other parts of the globe. By saluting Le Vigne with a facetious “Hel-LO Captain!” he behaved almost as an equal, a trusted lieutenant who had never really been away.

“Pat, your wife’s in the hospital,” Le Vigne said. “It’ll probably be in the papers this afternoon.”

Pat started.

“My wife?” he said. “What wife?”

“Estelle. She tried to cut her wrists.”

“Estelle!” Pat exclaimed. “You mean ESTELLE? Say, I was only married to her three weeks!”

“She was the best girl you ever had,” said Le Vigne grimly.

“I haven’t even heard of her for ten years.”

“You’re hearing about her now. They called all the studios trying to locate you.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“I know—she’s only been here a week. She had a run of hard luck wherever it was she lived—New Orleans? Husband died, child died, no money…”

Pat breathed easier. They weren’t trying to hang anything on him.

“Anyhow she’ll live,” Le Vigne reassured him superfluously, “—and she was the best script girl on the lot once. We’d like to take care of her. We thought the way was give you a job. Not exactly a job, because I know you’re not up to it.” He glanced into Pat’s red-rimmed eyes. “More of a sinecure.”

Pat became uneasy. He didn’t recognize the word, but “sin” disturbed him and “cure” brought a whole flood of unpleasant memories.

“You’re on the payroll at two-fifty a week for three weeks,” said Le Vigne, “—but one-fifty of that goes to the hospital for your wife’s bill.”

“But we’re divorced!” Pat protested. “No Mexican stuff either. I’ve been married since, and so has—”

“Take it or leave it. You can have an office here, and if anything you can do comes up we’ll let you know.”

“I never worked for a hundred a week.”

“We’re not asking you to work. If you want you can stay home.”

Pat reversed his field.

“Oh, I’ll work,” he said quickly. “You dig me up a good story and I’ll show you whether I can work or not.”

Le Vigne wrote something on a slip of paper.

“All right. They’ll find you an office.”

Outside Pat looked at the memorandum.

“Mrs. John Devlin,” it read, “Good Samaritan Hospital.”

The very words irritated him.

“Good Samaritan!” he exclaimed. “Good gyp joint! One hundred and fifty bucks a week!”

II

Pat had been given many a charity job but this was the first one that made him feel ashamed. He did not mind not EARN-ing his salary, but not getting it was another matter. And he wondered if other people on the lot who were obviously doing nothing, were being fairly paid for it. There were, for example, a number of beautiful young ladies who walked aloof as stars, and whom Pat took for stock girls, until Eric, the callboy, told him they were imports from Vienna and Budapest, not yet cast for pictures. Did half their pay checks go to keep husbands they had only had for three weeks!

The loveliest of these was Lizzette Starheim, a violet-eyed little blonde with an ill-concealed air of disillusion. Pat saw her alone at tea almost every afternoon in the commissary—and made her acquaintance one day by simply sliding into a chair opposite.

“Hello, Lizzette,” he said. “I’m Pat Hobby, the writer.”

“Oh, hel-LO!”

She flashed such a dazzling smile that for a moment he thought she must have heard of him.

“When they going to cast you?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.” Her accent was faint and poignant.

“Don’t let them give you the run-around. Not with a face like yours.” Her beauty roused a rusty eloquence. “Sometimes they just keep you under contract till your teeth fall out, because you look too much like their big star.”

“Oh no,” she said distressfully.

“Oh yes!” he assured her. “I’m telling YOU. Why don’t you go to another company and get borrowed? Have you thought of that idea?”

“I think it’s wonderful.”

He intended to go further into the subject but Miss Starheim looked at her watch and got up.

“I must go now, Mr.—”

“Hobby. Pat Hobby.”

Pat joined Dutch Waggoner, the director, who was shooting dice with a waitress at another table.

“Between pictures, Dutch?”

“Between pictures hell!” said Dutch. “I haven’t done a picture for six months and my contract’s got six months to run. I’m trying to break it. Who was the little blonde?”

Afterwards, back in his office, Pat discussed these encounters with Eric the callboy.

“All signed up and no place to go,” said Eric. “Look at this Jeff Manfred, now—an associate producer! Sits in his office and sends notes to the big shots—and I carry back word they’re in Palm Springs. It breaks my heart. Yesterday he put his head on his desk and boo-hoo’d.”

“What’s the answer?” asked Pat.

“Changa management,” suggested Eric, darkly. “Shake-up coming.”

“Who’s going to the top?” Pat asked, with scarcely concealed excitement.

“Nobody knows,” said Eric. “But wouldn’t I like to land uphill! Boy! I want a writer’s job. I got three ideas so new they’re wet behind the ears.”

“It’s no life at all,” Pat assured him with conviction. “I’d trade with you right now.”

In the hall next day he intercepted Jeff Manfred who walked with the unconvincing hurry of one without a destination.

“What’s the rush, Jeff?” Pat demanded, falling into step.

“Reading some scripts,” Jeff panted without conviction.

Pat drew him unwillingly into his office.

“Jeff, have you heard about the shake-up?”

“Listen now, Pat—” Jeff looked nervously at the walls. “What shake-up?” he demanded.

“I heard that this Harmon Shaver is going to be the new boss,” ventured Pat, “Wall Street control.”

“Harmon Shaver!” Jeff scoffed. “He doesn’t know anything about pictures—he’s just a money man. He wanders around like a lost soul.” Jeff sat back and considered. “Still—if you’re RIGHT, he’d be a man you could get to.” He turned mournful eyes on Pat. “I haven’t been able to see Le Vigne or Barnes or Bill Behrer for a month. Can’t get an assignment, can’t get an actor, can’t get a story.” He broke off. “I’ve thought of drumming up something on my own. Got any ideas?”

“Have I?” said Pat. “I got three ideas so new they’re wet behind the ears.”

“Who for?”

“Lizzette Starheim,” said Pat, “with Dutch Waggoner directing—see?”

III

“I’m with you all a hundred per cent,” said Harmon Shaver. “This is the most encouraging experience I’ve had in pictures.” He had a bright bond-salesman’s chuckle. “By God, it reminds me of a circus we got up when I was a boy.”

They had come to his office inconspicuously like conspirators—Jeff Manfred, Waggoner, Miss Starheim and Pat Hobby.

“You like the idea, Miss Starheim?” Shaver continued.

“I think it’s wonderful.”

“And you, Mr. Waggoner?”

“I’ve heard only the general line,” said Waggoner with director’s caution, “but it seems to have the old emotional socko.” He winked at Pat. “I didn’t know this old tramp had it in him.”

Pat glowed with pride. Jeff Manfred, though he was elated, was less sanguine.

“It’s important nobody talks,” he said nervously. “The Big Boys would find some way of killing it. In a week, when we’ve got the script done we’ll go to them.”

“I agree,” said Shaver. “They have run the studio so long that—well, I don’t trust my own secretaries—I sent them to the races this afternoon.”

Back in Pat’s office Eric, the callboy, was waiting. He did not know that he was the hinge upon which swung a great affair.

“You like the stuff, eh?” he asked eagerly.

“Pretty good,” said Pat with calculated indifference.

“You said you’d pay more for the next batch.”

“Have a heart!” Pat was aggrieved. “How many callboys get seventy-five a week?”

“How many