Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky Read Online Free PDF

Varnie?”
        “ Executive producers, if you please!” snipped Mr. Varnie.
        “What’s the difference?”
        “Really!” Mr. Varnie drew himself up to his full height. (He almost reached my chin).
        “I take it an executive producer is just that – an executive? An ordinary producer does all the hard work.”
        “Not in this case, Mr. Whoever-you-are!”
        I decided to ignore him. “Your executive producers, Mr. Kent and Mr. Varnie – ”
        “Mr. Kent’s gone back to his office!” interposed Mr. Varnie in what could only be described as a disparaging tone.
        “Your producer, Monty Fairmont – ”
        “ Line producer would be a better word!” snapped Mr. Varnie.
        “Not in this case – as you yourself would say!” quipped Fairmont, a balding, chubby-cheeked guy in a blue dustcoat.
        “That makes three,” I continued. “Plus your sponsor, Mr. Tunning. Which one of you is Mr. Tunning?” I already knew he was the lean, cadaverous gent in the celebrity, dark glasses – but I wanted him to say something. “I am! It is me!” he replied, with more than a fair trace of an Italian accent.
        “So we now have five cards, counting Mr. Frobisher?”
        “You didn’t count me!” snarled Sedge Cornbeck.
        “Or me,” added a little whippersnapper who couldn’t have been much more than twenty years old.
        “And you are?”
        “Trevor Holden. Everyone calls me Trev .”
        “What do you do?”
        “A bit of everything. Mostly I help out as assistant director.”
        I must have looked blank (which I was), because he added, “I held out with the directing. The signals are relayed to me on the floor from Monty and Ace in the booth.” He pointed upwards.
        “Some say that our Mr. Kent is his uncle,” added Sedge Cornbeck with more than a trace of malice in his voice.
        “He’s not my uncle! I got this job on my own merits, not because anyone’s pulling any strings!”
        “Sez you!”
        “Boys, boys!” I interposed. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we start fighting amongst ourselves! So to reiterate: I’ve written down – in no particular order – Sedge Cornbeck, our star; Oscar Varnie, executive producer; Trevor Holden, youth useful; Brian ‘Bingo’ Frobisher, floor manager; Peter Tunning, sponsor; Monty Fairmont, producer; Art Kent, executive producer (whom I imagine is now in his office, being an executive); and Miss Spookie Williams, production secretary. What does a production secretary do?”
        “Anything and everything,” she replied.
        “Anyone else receive one of these little cards?” I prompted.
        “I never look at my mail until after the show !” came an oh-so-lardy-dah voice on my left.
        “And you are?”
        “Your director, if you please. And you’d better get used to that idea, Mister Manning , and not slouch all over the place like you did this morning. Our viewers like to see other faces occasionally, besides your own! ”
        “If I did that, I apologize. It was unintentional, I assure you.”
        “Hark him ! Unintentional? ”
        To hell with him! “And what’s your name?” I asked, pencil poised.
        A deep intake of breath from at least five or six throats. But no answer from Mr. Lardy-dah.
        “I can’t add your name if I don’t know what it is!” I persisted.
        “It’s on the credits,” began Brian “Bingo” Frobisher, my floor manager friend.
        I gave my usual reply. “Never read credits!” I said.
        The silence was deafening – as Groucho Marx would say.
        Who would give in first? Not me! I resolved.
        My new-found friend, Frobisher, the floor manager, tried to break the ice: “He told you: He’s our director, Ace Jellis.”
        “Thank you.”
        But Ace Jellis was determined to have the last say. “Well, what’s