The Buttondown Boys at Creepsville High

Into my office burst Bud Gordon, his martini-bright eyes crackling wildly. "Un-finger the ulcer switch, Coach, I've just had the greatest idea since socialized sex!"

My first instinct was to leave by way of the window. In seconds I could be all over Madison Avenue and tomorrow's Daily News. That's one of the fringe benefits at Fowler & Hawkes -- TV producers get windows 15 floors up for emergency jumping. And any time Bud Gordon has one of his ideas, an emergency is sure to follow.

"Mac, I figured out how we can save the Kane account and increase the billing!"

"Did you have lunch or a fix?"

"I had a goddam inspiration! We can -- say now, there's a live one!"

I joined him swiftly at the window. The girl in the department store dressing room across the street was removing her blouse. I groped behind me for the phone and dialed Headline Harry Watson's extension. "Action stations -- window 3!"

"What a built!" Bud breathed.

Harry came sprinting down the hall. "Ad Biggies Nabbed As Peeping Toms," he said, elbowing between us. "Wow, dig that!"

The girl finally bought a green dress and Bud turned regretfully from the window. "Mac, I know you're all shook up over Killer Kane's threat to move his account ..."

"Not really. My stomach lining peels off every year at this time."

The agency was in a real bind on Kane's Chewing Gum. Old man Fowler had put it to us as clear as sunlit gin: we were doing OK with Min-T-Chu (The Gum With The Oriental Flavor) but now Kane was about to come out with a new brand. If this Brand X didn't get off the ground, Kane's yearly sales would fall below the United Chicle Company's. Any year that happened, the tumbrels rolled down Mad Alley. Agency-devourer Sylvester H. Kane already had the names of six shops lettered on his office wall, like kills on a fighter plane. The buzz was that F&H would be No. 7 unless we came up with a real gasser within the week.

Kane was keeping Brand X on the launching pad because of what the lab had said about it. Bud read from the report: "'Can't claim parity with competitive brands flavorwise.'"

"English translation: it tastes lousy," Harry put in helpfully.

"Ah, but that's just it!" Bud cried. "Taste is strictly subjective. One man's Courvoisier is another man's Castoria. All we have to do is show the Killer that people like his new gum and he'll go with it tomorrow."

"Grand," I said, "then we'll move a couple of pyramids and settle the Arab question. Sounds like a fun afternoon."

"Relax, dad, I've got it all angled out." Bud had begun chewing rapidly on his ever-present wad of Min-T-Chu, a sure sign that something far gone wild was about to be born. "Here's the drill. We pass Brand X around to a bunch of high school kids -- that's where the gum market is. We go upstate somewhere and get real kid-type kids. The gum is in plain wrappers, no labels. In the station wagon we hide a camera and mike, so we get pic-and-track on their reactions. Then we edit out the clinkers, splice the raves together, and lay it on old Kane for a whole reel."

Harry was on his feet applauding. "It'll flip him! He'll think the whole world loves the damn stuff! Gum king ups budget; F&H to handle new line."

What the hell, I thought, at this late date what have we got to lose. Mercifully, I didn't know the answer then. "Ok," I said, buzzing for Barbara the Body, queen of the secretarial pool. "Round up a crew," I told her, "location shooting and we leave Monday."

"Yes, Mr. MacClure," she whispered huskily, ducked around Bud's pinching hand, and got right on the phone.

So Monday, there we were. In an upstate town some 292 miles from the city, or roughly four hours the way Bud drove that station wagon. After the first 10 miles, I just kept my eyes shut. Mikur Zabukover, Vienna's gift to cinematography, was white to the lips, which he kept wrapped around the happy end of a bottle of Scotch. "5 Killed In Thruway Crash As Jet Fails To Take Off," Harry groaned as we roared past Albany. Ernie, Mikur's assistant cameraman, crouched on the rear floor, trying not to scream.

But we made it. Late in the day we peeled off the Thruway, bounced over several miles of blacktop, and there was the town.

Creepsville, U.S.A.

A Saturday Evening Post cover come to life, if you can call that life. Square white houses, shady streets, the old steeple clock above the green, and J. C. Penney packing 'em in down at Main and Elm. We cased the high school, then checked in at the Hotel Mohican, a sooty stack of Christian Science Gothic brickwork, with a lobby full of tired Willy Lomans and cheap disinfectant. They called the bar the Pow-Wow Room but we went in anyway. Plastic peace pipes and tomahawks dangled from the wagon-wheel chandeliers and the waitress proudly pointed out to us that the ashtrays were shaped like birch-bark canoes. "And on Saddy nights we all wear, you know, like feathers in our hair."

On top of which, the drinks were lousy.

After dinner, Bud went out to set his trap line.

"Get one with a friend," I called after him.

"Friends, plural," Harry added.

"Yeah," said Ernie, who was still in shock.

"Where's Minnehaha?" Mikur growled. "I'm needing another drink."

Bud was back in two hours with the greatest collection of female oddballs this side of Vegas. Mine was a leggy thing from the Missouri Home for the Tall, and Mikur had a retired WAVE with the build of a gunner's mate, who matched him drink for drink for two hours then tried to set fire to his mustache. But they were all obliging children at heart and the night was passed in carnal conviviality. It was only with the greatest effort that we managed to get set up in front of the high school the next day just as the kids got sprung for lunch.

Our first take came straight from Central Casting: a big blond footballer in a varsity sweater, holding hands with a saucy little chick wearing her hair in a ponytail. Bud gave the tackle his high-voltage smile. "Got a little surprise here for you, Champ. Like you to try this gum -- something new."

Mikur's camera whirred softly in the station wagon behind us as the kid suspiciously unwrapped the gum. Harry had his mikes up to catch The Great Pronouncement. The tackle chewed noisily for several seconds. Then he lightly shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing," he said and walked away with the chick.

I figured my profit-sharing plus unemployment insurance would keep me going until I made another agency contact.

Mikur's face appeared over the tailgate. "Tarrible! Pfui!"

"Cool Juves Chill Hot Idea," Harry said, shaking his head sadly.

"Relax, you guys," Bud said. "Now, here comes a more promising prospect."

The more promising prospect was a tall thin kid with glasses who spit the gum out after two chews. The next couple of candidates wouldn't even try it. It began to look like a long, long day. But then finally came this girl -- the kind of plain Jane who watches the movies at a drive-in -- and she practically went out of her skull over Brand X. That broke the spell. After her we began to hit at a .500 clip and by one o'clock I knew we'd get our footage. Even with the out-takes we'd have enough left to really clobber Kane and his cronies.

While things were going good, I strolled down the block to grab a smoke. At the corner, one of the natives stopped me. He was a skinny character in a green suit and tan shoes, who'd been watching us from across the street. I pegged him for one of the how-do-I-get-a-soft-job-in-advertising-like-yours boys, but his opener curve-balled me: "You guys better beat it," he said. "We've got this turf all staked out."

I just stood there blinking. Finally I managed some words: "Who has?"

"Come on, pal, who else? The Big Boys. Number One."

Slowly, it began to reach me. There'd been a leak. United Chicle had found out we were up here. And so they'd told their agency -- L.L.R.&D., who were the Big Boys, all right, the Number One shop in the business -- to send a man over to run us off. This was the man from Lowell, Lord, Rankin & Dowles.

But that green suit. Those lapels. "You from the local office?" I asked.

"Right. And these are all my kids. So just bust up your little party and get the hell out."

He was being real nasty. And my headache was coming back. And I needed some lunch. "Look, sonny," I said impatiently, "you've been seeing too many George Raft films on the Late Show. Run along now and let the menfolks finish their job."

He stared at me. Looking back into those eyes didn't raise my opinion of L.L.R.&D. any. "Ok, pal," he said in a tight voice, "you want trouble, you got it." And he walked away fast.

I went back to the wagon and told the boys about Greensleeves. Bud laughed. "Threats, yet! United must have scared hell out of L.L.R.&D."

"Ad Mobs Rumble For Upstate Territory," Harry said.

"Maybe we got something hotter than we know," Ernie suggested, which proves once again that from the mouths of babes ...

It happened on the way home. About five miles from the town. Bud had a date in New York so I knew he'd have us back by the time his gal got off the air at 10:30. That meant Mikur could get his stuff to the labs before midnight and we could see the dailies the next afternoon. (continued overleaf)Buttondown Boys(continued from page 18) One quick editing session and we'd have a print for Kane before the week was out. As we spun along through the chlorophyll-colored countryside, Mi-kur hummed little slices of Strauss and for the first time since old man Fowler had pressed the panic button, I settled back and relaxed.

For about 11 seconds.

Then this big black Caddy came roaring up behind us, cut over viciously, and sent us careening into the ditch. I was still picking myself off the floor when the station wagon doors were yanked open and two ex-prelim boys from St. Nick's had guns in our faces. "These them?" one of them called. Two more men had got out of the Cadillac. One was a fat guy wearing a $300 suit and three rings on each hand. The other was Green-sleeves. "That's them," he said, licking his chops.

"Awright," the fat man grunted like a bullfrog, "bring 'em along."

"Now, wait a minute. You're not bringing me anywhere," I said. I was fed up with this jazz. Guns or no guns, no agency-hired goons were going to ----

I woke up in this room. It wasn't my room at the Mohican. It wasn't my apartment in New York. It was a strange room and I felt strange. Especially about the head. Bud's voice reached me dimly: "How you doing?"

"You shouldn't have put me in without a helmet, Coach," I said, bringing him slowly into focus. "Man, I always knew L.L.R.&D. was a hard-sell shop, but this --"

"Leave me cue you in: these are no agency boys. We're up to our dimples in pushers -- the biggest mob in the East."

"Pushers? You mean dope?"

"It ain't puffed rice. That's Creepsville High back there in town, dad. The Norman Rockwell juves have been sniffing the stuff from a dirty spoon for months."

"And the mob thought we were trying to move in?"

"Exactly. And when I tried to explain that it was only chewing gum we had in those mysterious unmarked wrappers, only we had none left to prove it, my, how they did laugh and carry on!" He popped a couple of sticks of Min-T-Chu into his mouth. "This, fortunately, they weren't interested in."

My head threatened to fall off when I stood up. But I made it to the window. We were stuck out in the woods in a gloomy, deserted old house that made Charles Addams' worst look like Leavit-town. "'Charming Victorian,'" Bud quoted, "'21 rooms, including den and crematorium.'"

"Where are Mikur and the others?"

Before he could answer, the door was pushed open and in stepped a meaty, low-slung character with an 18-inch neck and a one-inch forehead.

"My man don't wrestle until we hear it talk," Bud whispered.

"Hello, there!" I cried, smiling big and hoping he hadn't heard Bud.

"Awright, c'mon," growled Java Man, motioning us out the door with his gun. He herded us down a dark, musty hall. Ancient gas brackets reached out eerily from the shadows and red plush was stripping off the walls like neon Spanish moss. Little clouds of stale dust rose from the faded carpet. We went down a broad, sagging staircase and Java motioned us into a small back room. It was empty except for a few old chairs and a bandy-legged table with an old-fashioned telephone on it -- the stand-up kind, with the receiver hanging on a hook.

Behind the table stood the fat man and Greensleeves. Fatso shook his head sadly as we came in. "You guys who don't butt out when you're told. An' handing us all that crap about choon gum ..."

"It was gum," I said hastily. "We aren't ----"

"Trouble is, now you seen too many faces. We can't take no chances with you, you knowut I mean?"

"Well, now look," Bud said, "maybe we can work something out."

"Siddown," Fatso ordered.

Bud grinned. "No kidding, we could just ----" Fatso hit him across the mouth. Hard. Bud staggered, the grin frozen on his face. I felt my stomach turn over. Bud sat down slowly, not taking his eyes off Fatso's face. I had never seen his eyes like that before.

Fatso turned to Java. "We're going back to town and clear the place out. We'll phone you when we leave. Soon's you hear that phone, give it to these two and the ones in the cellar. Then cut through the back and we'll pick you up on the highway." He jerked his head at Greensleeves and they left. After a few minutes, we heard a car pull away.

Java set his rod out on the table. He moved the phone next to it. "Listen for the little bell," he said and laughed until his agate eyes were wet. Then he took out a beat-up copy of Boxing magazine and went to work on the crossword puzzle in the back.

We just sat there. Outside, a bird sang. I figured I'd never see a bird again. My stomach felt as if I'd swallowed a cup of hot tar. I wondered how Mikur, Hairy and Ernie were doing down in the cellar.

Bud shifted in his chair. Java's head came up sharply. "Just getting stiff," Bud explained. His eyes still had that strange look in them. But now there was something else ... "How much longer do we have to sit here?"

Java studied his watch, his lips moving. "They'll call in about 20 minutes."

"If they call," Bud said. Java glared at him, then snorted and went back to his puzzle. He struggled with it for a few more minutes. Finally, he shoved it from him in disgust.

"Tough one, huh?" Bud asked sympathetically. "Here, lemme try it."

"Whaddaya, a smart guy?" Java sneered, tossing it to him. "Eight to five you don't finish it."

"You're on for five," Bud said. "After all, what have I got to lose?" That broke Java up. Bud laughed, too. Which left only me. I didn't dig it. "Yuk-yuk," I said.

"Aw, cheer up, Mac," Bud said, and suddenly I noticed he was chomping down fast on his Min-T-Chu. "Look, I've got 21 Across already ..." He held the puzzle for me to read. In the empty squares he had printed "B-E S-I-C-K." Before I could say anything he snatched it back and hastily filled in more blanks. "See, that gives me 14 Down, too." This time he had written "G-E-T H-I-M T-A-K-E Y-O-U T-O C-A-N." I looked at him blankly, then at Java and his shoots-pistol. To be sick wasn't going to take any great acting.

Bud glanced at his watch. "About that time, isn't it?" he asked Java.

"What's a matter, pal, you anxious to get knocked off?"

"No, but suppose they take off without calling? Voom! -- they're in Canada in a couple of hours and guess who's left to explain to the cops?"

"Yeah? And suppose you just shut your face," Java snarled. "They first got to get all that stuff out -- what the hell's the matter with you?"

I had got slowly to my feet, groaning and clutching my stomach. "I'm going to be sick," I muttered thickly.

Java's chair went over with a crash. "Not in here you ain't!"

Bud grabbed my arm. "I'll take him to the can ..."

"The hell you will!" Java shoved him back in his chair. He grabbed up the phone and put it out on the hall floor, shoving me ahead of him. He locked the door, with the wire passing under it, and shouted back to Bud, "Try anything, pal, and I'll blow your goddam face off!"

The bathroom was only a few steps down the hall. Java kicked open the door and I lurched past him and gave a very realistic show of losing my lunch. I took my time about it but when we got back Bud was still sitting there. He began to whistle The Bells Are Ringing. "Very funny," Java said nastily. But he looked at his watch and I could see his lips moving again. When I looked at my own watch I saw the time was more than up. (concluded on page 76)Buttondown Boys(continued from page 20) Nobody said anything. The bird outside started up again. It was all unreal, as though it were happening to someone else. I kept wishing.

Minutes passed. Java scowled and chewed his lip. Bud smiled and chewed his gum. "Gee," he said earnestly, "I guess they're not going to call."

"Halfway to the border by now," I said in a voice I didn't recognize.

"Shut up, both of ya!" Java walked to the window, looking out through the bars. Then he went back to the table and stared at the phone. We all stared at the phone. Inside me, a silent countdown began. 10 ... 9 ... 8 ... Sweat was trickling down my back. 7 ... 6 ... 5 ...

Still in that earnest voice, Bud said, "Seriously, they're giving you the business."

I nodded, not taking my eyes off the phone. "You're the patsy."

"I told you bastidds to shut up!" Java's scowl blackened. The bird sounded loud in the silent room. 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... I was just beginning to think the phone wasn't going to ring, when suddenly Java picked it up. I felt Bud tense beside me. I held my breath. For the longest 10 seconds on record Java stood holding the phone. Then he slammed it down again. "Goddammit!" He came around the table fast for a heavy man and I found myself looking straight into the steel blue eye of the old equalizer. "I ought to blast you punks anyway!"

"Why hang a murder rap on top of everything else?" Bud said quickly. "You can get out --" Java slew the gun across his jaw and he crashed to the floor. Before I could move, the barrel came whipping back and caught me on the ear. Java ran back to the phone, tore it free, and threw it across the room. The door slammed behind him and I heard his footsteps running down the hall. Another door slammed and then all was quiet.

Bud sat up slowly, holding his jaw. "Temper, temper," he sighed. Then he grinned lopsidedly. "You ought to get an Academy Award for that performance down the hall, Mac."

"I'll swap the Oscar for an explanation -- what the hell?"

"What's to explain?" He pointed to the baseboard under the table. "Dig that Smithsonian phone box."

You remember the kind: the bells sit on top of the mechanism box, with the clapper between them. Only packed around this clapper, so solid it couldn't touch the bells, was a thick wad of chewed gum.

I stared at it for a long moment, then headed swiftly for the door. "Hey, where you going?" Bud called.

"Down the hall -- for real!"

Well, I tell you, man, everybody was at Kane's press party at the Mohican. The Killer himself and old man Fowler and about a hundred newspaper and television guys. Flash bulbs popped like champagne corks and champagne corks popped like flash bulbs and Mikur kept showing everybody the rope burns on his wrists where he'd been tied to Harry and Ernie in the cellar. And finally the TV newsmen were ready and Bud told the story again for the 12th time. Only this time, because we were on the air and a few million people were watching, Kane had a question to ask him at the end of it: "Mr. Gordon, may I ask what brand of gum you used so cleverly to save your lives and help bring these criminals to justice?"

Bud's answer seemed to fill the room. "Yes, sir, it was Bubble-O, a product of the United Chicle Company."

The only sound was old man Fowler, quietly choking to death in one corner. One look at Kane's face and I wished I were back with Java. "Bubble-O?" he managed to gasp.

"Yes," Bud answered calmly. "Y'see, I couldn't use our new brand because I needed something to actually cement that clapper in position. Kane's gum stays so soft and chewable. It doesn't harden or become tough. Of course, that's why it's so safe -- won't injure gums, chip tooth enamel, or pull out fillings. Perfect for children for that reason, too ..." And on he went, building the whole Soft'n'Safe campaign right there on the spot, while the cameras sent the message all across this broad land of ours and Kane beamed like a Simonized diamond and Fowler added the billings in his head and I mentally drove my new Mercedes out of the showroom. "... and top it all off by electing a young lady of talent and beauty as Miss Kane's Gum of 1959!" It was TV's longest commercial.

Back in New York the next morning, Bud and I dropped the others off and went directly to his apartment. He was on the phone before I had my hat off. "But, honey, I've been out of town... Sure, baby, you have a right to be miffed ... But now listen, I've got something big for you -- a publicity job with 14 guaranteed nighttime network appearances. Why don't you come on over and I'll tell you all about it. Oh, and Mac's here -- bring your roommate."

"Her roommate?" I protested when he hung up. "I haven't even had breakfast yet!"

He stretched out on the couch with a grand gesture. "Mac, we've got the account, we've got a new campaign, and as of this moment we've got Miss Kane's Gum -- who's worried about breakfast?"

So we didn't worry about breakfast.

An Oddball in a green suit watched the market research from a distance.