The Troubled Air Read Online Free PDF Page A

chair.
    “Clement,” O’Neill said, “I think you’re going to be sorry you made me explain.”
    “What did you expect?”
    “I expected you’d make me explain.” O’Neill smiled wanly. He rubbed his hand over the back of his head and the bristly hairs stood up aggressively. “You’re right,” he said. “We’re not asking you to get rid of those people because they’re bad performers.” He paused. “Clement,” he said soberly, “will you take my word for it that it’ll be better for your peace of mind to stop inquiring right here and let me handle it for you?”
    “I don’t know what the man is talking about,” Archer said.
    “OK,” O’Neill said. “Here it is. All of them are accused of being Communists. The sponsor wants them off the program. Immediately, if not yesterday.”
    Archer blinked and felt that he had been sitting with his mouth open. I must look stupid, he thought irritably. Then he turned to O’Neill. “Once more, please,” he said.
    “They have been accused of being Communists,” O’Neill said without expression, “and the sponsor wants them off the program.”
    “O’Neill concurring?”
    “Hutt concurring,” O’Neill said. “O’Neill just works here. He is not asked to concur or not concur.”
    “Still,” Archer persisted, “O’Neill must have an opinion.”
    “O’Neill has the opinion that he likes to collect his salary every Friday,” said O’Neill.
    “What would you say my position was?”
    “The same as mine.” O’Neill moved uneasily in his chair. “Exactly the same as mine.”
    “Thursday is a tough day,” Archer said pettishly. “I’m tired on Thursday. You might at least have waited till tomorrow.”
    O’Neill didn’t say anything and Archer knew he would have to collect himself, do something, immediately. He rubbed his hand across the top of his head, staring at O’Neill’s broad tweed shoulders and unruly hair.
    “Item one,” Archer said finally, thinking, That’s it, get it down in mathematical order, “Item one, who says they’re Communists?”
    “You ever hear of a magazine called Blueprint?”
    “Yes,” Archer said. He had seen copies of it several times lying in radio producers’ offices. It was a belligerent little magazine, financed mysteriously, dedicated to exposing radical activities in the radio and movie industries. “What about it? I haven’t seen anything about us in it.”
    “Not yet,” O’Neill said. “Come close.” He glowered suspiciously at the bartender across the room. “I don’t want to shout this.”
    Archer hitched his chair a little nearer O’Neill.
    “They sent a letter to the sponsor last week,” O’Neill said wearily, “saying that in their next issue, three weeks from now, they would expose the Communist connections of five people from our program. They also wrote that if before presstime they could have proof the five people had been released, they’d hold the story.”
    “That’s blackmail, you know,” Archer said, “in a very plain form.”
    “They don’t call it that,” O’Neill said. “They say they don’t wish to hurt the sponsor or the industry with bad publicity unless they’re forced to. Anyway, the editor once worked for Hutt and he did it as an act of friendship.”
    “Who appointed them to the job of referee in this game?” Archer asked. “Why don’t they mind their own business?”
    “People have a right to fight against Communism,” O’Neill said patiently. “In any profession. Maybe they’re fanatic about it, but it’s the temper of the time and maybe you can’t blame them too much.”
    “Did you see the letter?” Archer asked.
    “Yes.”
    “What sort of connections did they say our people had?”
    “All of them are mixed up with the usual list of fellow-traveler organizations,” O’Neill said in a low, guarded voice. “You know. The Attorney-General’s list of subversive societies and committees and some California group’s separate little