I said, “I’m sorry, son, but I have an interview right now. Besides we aren’t casting yet. Come back in a couple of weeks.”
His grin never faltered, being of the more durable kind that you find on farms and west of the Rockies. His ragged sneakers padded across my Persian, and I thought he was going to spring over my desk like a losing tennis player.
“I’m your interview,” he announced. “At least I’m Hillary Hardy, and your girl just told me you’d see me.”
“You—are Hillary Hardy?”
“In the morbid flesh,” he said jamming out five enthusiastic fingers that gulped my hand and jack-hammered until I broke his grip with a Red-Cross life-saving hold.
“Spare the meat,” I groaned. “I have to sign the contract, too.”
“I did it! I did it! They said I was crazy, but I did it the first time.”
“Did what?”
“Sold the first play I wrote.”
“This—is—your first work?”
“My very first,” he said, splitting his freckles with a double row of white teeth a yard wide. “They said I’d have to go to college, and then I’d have to write a million words before I’d produce anything worthwhile.”
If he hadn’t owned such an honest, open face I’d have thrown him out as an imposter right then. The ream of neatly typed pages on my desk would have fooled any agent, editor or producer like myself, on Broadway. The format was professional, the plot carefully constructed, the dialogue breezy as a May afternoon in Chicago and the motivation solidly adult.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Nineteen.”
“And you’ll sign an affidavit that you wrote this play, and it’s an original work?”
“Certainly!” The smile faded a little. “Look, Mr. Crocker, you’re not just kidding about this contract, are you? Is the play really okay?”
“That,” I said trying to restrain my own enthusiasm, “is only determined on the boards. But I’m willing to risk a thousand-dollar advance on your signature to this.” I shoved the papers at him with my fountain pen on top.
He didn’t uncap the pen until he had read the whole thing, and while he pored over the fine print I had time to catch my breath.
His play competed rather well with the high average output of most professionals I knew—not exactly terrific, but a relatively safe gamble, as gambles go on the street of bright lights. Well, I made a mental note to pass the script around a bit before I signed the contract myself. After all, he might have cribbed the whole thing somewhere.
He finished reading, signed the contract and handed it back to me with an air of expectancy. I stalled, “I, uh, will have the check for you in a few days. Meanwhile, you’d better get yourself an agent and an attorney and fix up that affidavit of authorship. Normally, I don’t deal with free-lance playwrights, you see.”
“But I don’t need any agent,” he protested. “You be my agent, Mr. Crocker—” He was studying my reaction, and after a moment he said, “You still don’t quite believe that I wrote Updraft, do you, sir? Now that you’ve met me you want more time to check up, don’t you?”
I said, “Frankly, yes, Hardy. Updraft is a mature piece of writing, and unless you are a genius—well, it’s just business son.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said smiling that fresh-air smile. “And I’ll admit I’m no genius, but I can explain everything. You see, I’ve read 38 books on how to write plays—”
“Tut!” I said. “Format technique is just a fraction of producing an appealing play.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But I’ve memorized all 38 books. What’s more, I’ve been reading and memorizing plays, novels, poetry and history since I was 13. I have a storehouse of—”
“Memorizing?”
“Yes, sir. I’m a student of mnemonics, you know, the art of memory perfection. My real ambition is to develop absolute recall. All my reading and memorizing have been just exercises to expand my power of complete recall.”
“You mean that playwriting is just a hobby?”
“Not—exactly. I need money, lots of it, to continue my research. Psychiatrists come high.”
Well, I suppose good plays have been written for screwier reasons, and I was in no mood to look a gift-author in the mouth. I did passUpdraft around to a brace of critics, and none of them could hang a plagiarism charge on Hardy. So I wrote out his check and started the wheels going on the production.
The boy prodigy dropped out of sight for the time being, taking no further interest in his brain-child. Updraft did all right in the sticks, but it was when we opened on Broadway that it began to coin money.
*
In ten performances we were playing to capacity crowds, and within a month we had to take in the S. R. O. sign. A lucky hit? I thought so at the time. Updraft had a dash of humor, a bit of adventure, a dollop of romance and a gentle little heart tug at the conclusion, but damned if the critics could put their fingers on its money-making essence. They gave it pleasant little reviews and mild compliments, but no more. The cash customers, however, came and kept coming and kept coming!
The morning after the 100th performance I told Ellie to hunt up Hardy and see what he was doing about another play. I could stand to have another hit ready when Updraft petered out.
That afternoon my secretary reported, “He’s in a sanitarium over in Hoboken.”
“Nuts! I knew we should have held back on his royalties,” I exclaimed. “I suppose he’s drunk himself into a—”
“It’s a mental hospital,” Ellie said, “but Mr. Hardy told me he is just there for some experimental psycho-therapy. He sounded quite normal and cheerful.”
Hillary Hardy showed up next morning at my request, and he did, indeed, appear in good spirits. I demanded, “What’s this business of locking yourself up in a looney-bin? Don’t you realize that’s bad public relations?”
He chuckled. “I thought of that. So I’m going under an assumed name. Your girl said you had something very important to tell me.”
“Sure. I want another play,” I told him. “Updraft won’t run forever, you know.”
“Oh, I have plenty of money now, so I won’t have to bother. The people at the sanitarium have become interested in my project, and all I’m spending is board and room there. Thanks to your royalty checks I’ve got quite a pile in the bank.”
“Won’t have to bother?” I yelled. “Here I launch you on Broadway, and that’s all the gratitude I get. Now’s the time to cash in on the reputation of your first play. It’s setting attendance records.”
“Sorry,
