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Show FICTION WEATHER AHEAD 1M IWS 1 iM By JOHN H. HOSE 11 B Corner I , , , Ji;.t J H The counter man reminded Harv of someone he knew a brilliant man whose life had been destroyed by a selfish, beautiful woman. as his, which explained why we in the East didn't know about it. J decided to see Elsa. "She wasn't available at home, so I started to make the rounds in pursuit, finally catching up with her at "The Players.' She wasn't alone. I sent word to her table that I would like to see her, and in a few minutes she joined me. "I told you she was beautiful, Stu. When she sat down beside me, I almost forgot what I had wanted to talk to her about. She was loaded with diamond doo-dads, and in each one I could see Mark's money reflected. re-flected. That snapped me out of the trance and into the purpose of our tete-a-tete. "I told you she was tough, too. Brother! She was hard as nails. No, she'd not seen Mark in a month. Why? After all, a girl has to look out for her future. And Mark had been troublesome. Stuffy about her friends. I asked if the guy she was with belonged in that category. She merely shrugged. I got the idea. I rather pointedly asked her how 'TPHE plan settled down on the bumpy field, and jolted to a halt . . . the explanation for the unscheduled un-scheduled stopover was simply the cryptic statement, "Weather ahead!" The stewardess had no information in-formation about the length of the layover, so we walked across the field toward the town. Harvey Allen Al-len and I were bound for the coast on a brief business trip, seeking a new contract for one of our major network productions. We walked along the main and only street of the little town until we came to a small restaurant. It was dark and cool inside after the heat and glare of the midafternoon New Mexico sun. Settling in one of the tiny booths which lined the wall, we ordered some lunch. Except for the counter man and a tired looking waitress, the place was empty. I noticed Harv staring intently at the man behind the counter. I glanced up, but the fellow was a stranger sonal attention to some, of the really real-ly important clients. "It was on one of those trips that he met Elsa Armstrong. Did you ever see a bouganvillea in bloom, Stu? Or a hibiscus? That's what she was like. A lovely, fragile beauty, and that's an inadequate description. de-scription. But she was smart, too. Smart . . . and tough when it came to getting places." Harvey twirled the iced tea glass, clinking the ice cubes against its hard surface as he reminisced. Then he continued, "She wasn't an actress; even In those days talent was an important item, but Elsa's only talent consisted con-sisted in looking so beautiful it hurt. Strangely enough, she didn't want to be a star. Elsa was hunting something entirely different. She wanted money and position. Mark had both, and Elsa took him like Grant took Richmond. The first thing I knew, I was back in New York and Mark had taken charge come, if she and Mark were through, her bills continued to come into the office. Another shrug; Mark owed her something for the way he'd acted, she felt. "My personal opinion was that he'd acted pretty generously toward to-ward her. Too generous, from the shape both he and the firm were in. I said so. And I nearly choked when she agreed with me. Yes, she was very candid about the whole thing. Very candid, indeed. I almost al-most gagged. I gave her a brief idea of what I thought of her, adding that we weren't paying any more bills. Without further ceremony, I left. "When I got back to Beverly Hills, Mark was awake, sober, and sick as a dog. I told him I'd seen the books . . . and Elsa. I told him a lot of other things, too. Boss or no boss, I got the whole works off my chest. But it wasn't Mark Stevens Stev-ens I was talking to. It was the beaten, wasted shell of a man I once knew and respected. He took it all without a word. When I finished, fin-ished, he just sat there, nodding his head foolishly. I walked out in disgust. I never saw Mark Stevens again. "The rest of the story you've to me. I "Know him?" I asked. Harv had a genius for knowing people everywhere every-where . . . and remembering them. "He reminds me of someone," he answered. The girl came with our lunch, and we ate quietly for a few moments. Harvey continued, then, asking, "Did you ever know Mark Stevens?" Stev-ens?" I sipped at my iced tea before replying. "Nope; he was before my time. But, of course, I've heard about him. Who hasn't? Isn't he the chap some Hollywood glamour gal took over the hurdles?" Mark nodded. "Elsa Armstrong. The face and figure that launched a thousand hopes! Elsa the beautiful. beau-tiful. Elsa the magnificent." He lifted his tea glass in toast, "Hail, Elsa! Destroyer of men of Mark Stevens in particular. Would you like to hear what really happened, Stu?" I lighted a cigar as I replied in the affirmative. Harvey settled back in the booth as he recounted the story of Mark Stevens. "Twenty years ago, this business of ours was just a puppy. And the master of that puppy was Mark Stevens. His was the brain that built the advertising business. You really owe that $150 suit you're wearing to him, Stu. Mark Stevens lifted us out of the mire and into the moola. We all owe him plenty. "Mark built his organization by buying talent where he found it, and he had a genius for finding it. I remember I was doing advance work for Williams' Brothers Carnival Carni-val when I met him. We got together to-gether in San Antonio one night, and the next day I was working for him. Just like that. "I started small writing copy on some accounts that weren't too important. im-portant. And all the time I was watching the master, learning all the little nuances and twists, getting get-ting set for the day he saw fit to move me up a notch. It wasn't long in coming either. The firm was marching, and I was right in step. "After about a year, Mark opened a branch office in Chicago. I went there as copy chief. From that move, both the business and I mushroomed. Dallas, Seattle. Denver, Den-ver, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Five years after that meeting in San Antone, I was head of the San Francisco office. We had branched out all over the country, but this San Francisco outfit was second in importance only to the home office in Now York. "When radio and advertising had a happy marriage, the Mark Stevens Stev-ens Associates really hit the top. We opened a Hollywood office and began handling only the largest accounts. ac-counts. I came down from San Francisco to head the new office, and Mark made almost monthly trips to the rcast to give bis per- - As we strolled back to the airport, air-port, I asked the question that had been in my mind ever since Harvey started that story. on the coast. Or rather, Mark was on the coast and Elsa had taken charge. "I lost track of events then, until un-til one day the auditor came to me with the remark that Mr. Stevens' personal account was in terrible shape. Together we went over it. I decided that the auditor's original origi-nal evaluation was strictly an understatement. un-derstatement. The bills Mark had okayed seemed to indicate that he alone was trying to support half of California's furriers and jewelers. A few days later I began to hear complaints from different accounts that their affairs on the coast were not being handled properly. I decided de-cided to fly out and see what went on. "Mark met me at the airport. He was . . . ah, well . . . definitely definite-ly not in the best of condition. He was unshaven and mussed. The meeting was most embarrassing for me, and I piled Mark into a cab and directed the driver to Mark's home in Beverly Hills. He passed out on the way, and when we got there, I had one rugged time getting him upstairs and into bed, even with the sympathetic and capable help of the cabbie. This done, I returned to Hollywood and the office. "There, I began to ask questions. The answers weren't pretty. Mark hadn't been in the place in weeks. But his bills had. His and Elsa's, that is. Oh, she had a personal account, too. It figured on the books heard, Stu. How he walked out on everything and just disappeared. The company was taken over by the associates; but his genius was gone, and a few months later we folded." Harv snapped open his cigarette case, lighted the smoke casually, indicating that was the end of the story. Finally, I broke the silence to ask, "And what became of Elsa?" "Elsa? Oh, she dropped out of sight shortly afterwards. A scandal scan-dal washed her up in Hollywood." APPARENTLY Harvey was no longer interested in the story or its principal actors. He just sat there watching the counter man, and I was mulling over the details of the story, thinking about how easy it was for a guy to go haywire Just then, one of the airline employees looked in. saw us and announced that the flight would start in twenty twen-ty minutes. We rose to leave. While I paid the waitress, Harv walked over to the counterman and said quietly, "Good luck, friend." As we strolled back to the airport, air-port, I asked the question that had been in my mind ever since Harvey started that story. "Harv, that guy back in the restaurant . was that Mark Stevens?" Stev-ens?" He smiled. "No, that wasn't Mark. Didn't even look like him." "Then why," I asltcd, "did you happen to recall the story of Stevens? Stev-ens? And why did you wish him luck?" "Because, if things haven't changed, there's weather ahead for him," he replied softly. "You see, the waitress in there w.as Elsa." |
