In the interval, a maid had cleared up most of the mess, Oxnard had ordered a bottle of beer for himself and Gabriel had started packing. The two men were in the bedroom when they heard the front door of the suite open and Brenda call, “Ron? Bill?”
“In here,” Gabriel yelled, as he tossed handfuls of socks into his open suitcase.
Oxnard saw that Earnest’s face was red and he was a trifle sweaty. Brenda must have filled his ears but good, he thought.
“What’re you doing?” Earnest asked as soon as he saw the half-filled suitcase on the bed.
“Leaving,” replied Gabriel.
“You can’t go.”
“The hell I can’t!”
Brenda walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down. “Ron,” she said, her voice firm, “I brought him here to listen to your problems. The least you can do is talk to him.”
“I’m talking,” Gabriel said as he rummaged through a dresser drawer and pulled out a heap of underwear.
Oxnard sat back in the room’s only chair and tried to keep himself from grinning.
“I, uh... understand,” Earnest said to Gabriel’s back, “that you’re not, uh, happy with the story material so far.” Gabriel turned and draped a bathrobe over the bed, alongside the suitcase. He started folding it.
“You understand correctly,” he said, concentrating on the folding. The robe was red and gold, with a barely discernible image of Bruce Lee on its back.
“Well,” said Earnest, “you knew when you came here that fifty percent of the scripts would have to be written by Canadians.”
“Canadian writers,” Gabriel said, as he tenderly placed the folded robe in the suitcase. “What you’ve given me was produced by a team of Mongoloid idiots. It’s hopeless. I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave.”
“Watch me.”
“The guards won’t let you out of here.”
Oxnard raised his beer bottle. “Have you ever had your nose broken, Mr. Earnest?”
The Canadian backed away a short step. “Now listen,” he said to Gabriel, “you know that Titanic hasn’t given us the budget to take on big-name writers....”
“These guys couldn’t even spell a big name.”
“...and we’re on a very tight production schedule. You can’t walk out on us. It would ruin everything.”
Gabriel looked up at him for the first time. “I can’t make a script out of a turd. Nobody can. I can’t write thirteen scripts, or even six and a half, in the next couple of weeks. We need writers!”
“We’ve got writers....”
“We’ve got shit!” Gabriel yelled. “Excrement. Poop. Ka-ka. I’ve seen better-looking used toilet paper than the crap you’ve given me to work with!”
“It’s the best available talent for the budget.”
“Where’d you get these people?” Gabriel demanded. “The funny farm or the Baffin Island Old Folk’s Home?”
He snapped the suitcase lid shut, but it bounced right up again.
“Too much in there,” Oxnard said.
Gabriel gave him a look. “It’ll close. I got it here and I’ll get it out.” He pushed the lid down firmly and leaned on it.
“Ron, those are the only writers we can afford.” Earnest said, his voice taking on a faint hint of pleading. “We don’t have the money for other writers.”
Gabriel let go of the suitcase and the lid bounced up again. “As if that explains it all, huh? We go on the air with a public announcement: ‘Folks, please excuse the cruddy quality of the scripts. We couldn’t afford better writers.’ That’s what you want to do?”
“Maybe if you worked with the writers....”
“You won’t even let me meet them!”
Earnest shifted back and forth on his feet uneasily. “Well, maybe I was wrong there....”
But Gabriel was peering at the suitcase again. “It won’t work.”
“I told you it wouldn’t,” Oxnard said.
Brenda added, “Try putting it on the floor and then leaning on it.”
Earnest gaped at her, shocked.
Gabriel picked up the open suitcase and carefully placed it on the floor. “Where’d you get these so-called writers from?” he asked, squatting down to lean on the lid again.
Earnest had to step around the bed to keep him in sight. “Uh... from here in the city, mostly.”
