Turn Left at Mata Hari

Naked as a Jay Bird, Clayton Horne was shaking his head emphatically and Noing into the phone:

"No. Oh, no. I'm sorry, but I really couldn't. No, not a chance. I'd love to help out, but it's impossible. You're asking too much."

"Asking too much??? Are my ears deceiving me? Did you say I'm asking too much of you, Clay? My dear old buddy, I am giving. One of the biggest, hottest, most in-demand screenwriters in the business, namely me, Chesley B. Montague, am offering to cut you in on one half, fifty percent, of my most delicious plum. Did I say plum? It's a peach, a honeydew, a watermelon! I am giving to you one half the loot, one half the credit!"

"Can I call you back? I'm standing here half-showered, dripping all over the floor...."

"Don't call me back. Come over."

"All right. I'll be there in about an hour."

"Fine. Got a pencil? I'll give you the address."

"Chet, I know your address."

"I'm not at home. Too many interruptions there, too many phones ringing, too many persons from Porlock dropping in. I escaped to a motel out here in Laguna. Got a pencil? ..."

• • •

The L'Amour Toujours l'Amour Motor Hostelry, in Laguna, is a mixture of architectural styles. It combines the most grandiose features of Versailles, the Alhambra, San Simeon, the Taj Mahal, Forest Lawn and early Balaban and Katz. It boasts the largest swimming pool in the world, even though an even larger swimming pool, the Pacific Ocean, pounds and roars, forever fortissimo, just outside its windows. The cabins are not known as cabins, nor even as bungalows or cabanas or lodges; they are called havens. The havens are not numbered. Instead, they are named after famous sirens of history, fiction, Scripture and legend--Cleopatra, Pompadour, Semiramis, Scarlett O'Hara, and so on. There is around-the-clock room service. One can pick up the phone and order Wiener Schnitzel à la Holstein at three in the morning (and it will be authentic Schnitzel--ex-Viennese Horst Graustein has put his stamp of approval on it); at any time of the day or night, you can have a barber, a manicurist, a stenographer, a chiropractor, a masseur, a masseuse, a fellatrice, a priest, a minister, a rabbi, an analyst or a tax expert at your beck and call within five minutes. Low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-calorie, diabetic, Lenten and kosher diets are catered to efficiently and without a blink. It is a hotel, a hospital, a bordello, a rest home, a resort, a hideout, a private insane asylum, a genteel prison, and occasionally it was the workshop of Chet Montague.

But they never heard of Chet at the desk. Horne spelled the name, pronounced it in as many variations as he could think of, described Chet physically, and still the girl at the desk shook her head prettily and said, "I'm sorry, sir. There's no Mr. Montague registered."

"But he gave me this address over the phone just this morning."

"I'm sorry."

"Look--is there another L'Amour Toujours I'Amour Motor Hostelry in Laguna?"

"No, sir. There's a Bonjour Tristesse Auto Lodge in Westwood, and we sometimes have a little confusion over that."

"No, he said Laguna."

"I'm really sorry."

"He's very thin, very tall, prematurely gray, wears blue sunglasses and probably orange socks, clears his throat very loudly--like this: HARRRAAAGH!--and at least once an hour he phones down for Bromo-Seltzer."

"That could be almost anyone."

"I guess it could. Sorry I troubled you."

"Oh, no trouble, sir."

Horne wandered away, profoundly puzzled and frustrated. Then, in the geometric center of the lobby, he stopped dead. Déjà vu washed over him like a tropic tide. This had all happened before. When Chet had written the Remembrance of Things Past script. He had registered at the Bel Air Hotel under a different name, to fox producers, agents, creditors, women and others who might try to disturb him via long or short distance ("persons from Porlock," he always called them, after the infamous one who awakened Coleridge from his poetic dream). He had used his unglamorous real name in the hotel register. What was it? Horne frowned and pounded his forehead. What was it?

Then the smog cleared and he walked briskly back to the desk. "Sorry to trouble you again, miss," he said, "but will you please announce me to Mr. Chesley B. Slobb?"

"Of course, sir, right away." She was on the phone in a fraction of a second. "Mr. Slobb? There's a Mr. Horne to see you. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She turned to Horne. "He's expecting you, sir."

"Where do I find him?"

"He's in Agrippina."

"I didn't ask who he's with, I asked where he is."

"Yes, sir. Haven Agrippina. Turn right as you leave the lobby, walk past Salome, Thais, Delilah, Jezebel and Sadie Thompson, turn left at Mata Hari, and you can't miss it. Dig?"

"Dig."

A bellhop who was standing at the desk with an aerosol can of Mennen shaving cream in his hand said, "Sir? This is for Mr. Slobb. Would you like to give it to him? You know, the personal touch?"

"Do I get to keep the tip? All right, I'll take it to him." Clutching the aerosol can, Horne started on his way.

Half an hour later, having taken a wrong turn ("Oops" was all he said upon disturbing a prominent actor and a stunning Negress wearing only gold earrings--the actor, not the Negress), he finally arrived (streaming with sweat, for the day had become very hot) at the door of Agrippina. This time, he knocked.

"Harrraaagh!" a voice responded from within, so Horne entered the haven.

Deliciously icy air buffeted him, seeming to freeze the sweat on his skin. It felt wonderful. So he might catch cold, so he might come down with pneumonia, so he might die, so what? Now, this moment, he was cool. Horne not only approved of air conditioning, he believed in it, as others believe in their religions.

Chet was sitting at a desk, his shoes off, his orange socks exposed like banners, writing on little squares of paper. He looked up as Horne entered, smiled a little lopsided half of a smile and said, "Hi, Pal."

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume."

"Hmm?"

"I could have used a safari to find you." Horne breathed deeply of the cool air and examined the commodious, luxurious haven. He peeped into the adjoining bedroom. The bed had not been made up--the bedclothes were so twisted and rumpled it looked as if there were still someone wrapped in them. Chet slept like a rotisserie. The walls of the living room were decorated with murals depicting episodes in the life of Agrippina. Exquisitely executed panels showed her giving herself to the powerful freedman, Pallas; seducing her future husband, Emperor Claudius; incestuously embracing her son, Nero; poisoning Claudius; and being murdered, in her turn, by Nero--all in the very best of taste. The artist had strived to make her resemble Sophia Loren as much as possible. A small plaque assured the historical accuracy of the murals by claiming they were based on Pierre Francois Hugues d'Hancarville's Monumens de la Vie Privée des Douze Césars.

"Inspiring, what?" said Chet. "They put me in Messalina first, but I wasn't enthusiastic about the paintings of her castrating her ex-lovers, so I had them move me in here. Much more restful."

Horne looked down at the deskful of paper squares. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. "Is this the way you work now, with a pencil, on little slips of paper, like Nabokov?"

"Nabokov uses index cards. No, I'm doing this for my business manager. He wants a complete accounting of everything I spend on postage--I'm a writer, it's tax-deductible. You know. So every time I go to the post office to buy stamps or send off a manuscript, I have to bring along a hunk of paper and write down the amount of postage myself and then the post-office character bangs the slip of paper with a rubber stamp. That makes it official."

"Christ, I know all that. But why are you writing on them now?"

"Look. At the post office, you send off a manuscript and it comes to maybe a dollar and a quarter airmail. You write down a dollar and a quarter in your own handwriting and the guy stamps it. Then, when you get home, you stick in an extra 'one' in front of it and it's eleven and a quarter. That's what I'm doing now. The best part of it all is that I'm using one Federal agency to screw another Federal agency."

"Beautiful. But I thought you were writing a script."

"Waiting for you, pal. What's that in your hand?"

Horne looked down at the aerosol can. "Your shaving cream." He tossed it to Chet. "I thought you used an electric shaver."

"It's not for me. So: You decided to join up with me, did you? Good boy."

"I'm here to talk about it, Chet. That's all. I felt I owed you that, as a friend. But I don't like collaborating. It's pure agony. I prefer to work alone."

"Who doesn't? But the thing is this. I'm supposed to turn in this draft on Thursday--"

"What??? That's less than a week away!"

"Don't you think I know that? I couldn't get at it before, because I had a couple of TV jobs to finish. You've got to help me, buddy."

"Well, I don't know, Chet...."

"I'm depending on you! If you let me down, I'm sunk. The studio will sue, the Guild will drum me out."

"What's the project?"

"Tamburlaine the Great."

"The Christopher Marlowe play?"

Chet nodded. "In two parts, like my ass."

Horne groaned. "Oh, no, Chet, I couldn't. Not another sword-and-sandal opera. Have a heart. I just got through with that Invader of Moscow thing. If I write one more battle scene--"

"Buddy, that's why I need you. Hell, I can handle the dialog myself. It's all there in Marlowe--all I have to do is thin it out a little. But while I'm taking care of the gum-beating department, you've got to handle the battle scenes for me. I've never written a battle scence in my life. Wouldn't know how. But you've been there and back, you can do it in your sleep."

"Chet--"

"Is it going to hurt you to get a credit on another major movie? We'll be up there together--screenplay by Chesley B. Montague and Clayton Horne--hand in hand, like Kaufman and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Laurel and Hardy...."

"Chet--"

"And the money. I'm getting a flat hundred Gs for the job. I split it down the middle with you--that's fifty grand. You're still in a moderate bracket, so even if the Feds take out a third, and ten percent for your agent, one percent for Motion Picture Relief Fund, one and a quarter for the Guild, minus Social Security and state tax and the rest of it, you'll still wind up with almost half of that fifty--that's twenty-five grand clear. For six days' work."

"I'll do it."

"You've got a heart as big as all indoors." Chet reached for the phone. "Dear? This is Mr. Slobb in Agrippina. Will you please send up typewriters for two? And a couple of reams of paper. Thanks, doll."

"Isn't this pad a little on the expensive side?" Clay asked.

"I'm making the studio pick up the tab. It's one of the few places in town where I can get a little peace, undisturbed."

As if that were her cue, a sleepy-eyed girl with tousled black hair blossomed slowly in from the bedroom, yawning, dressed in a transparent black brassiere and nothing else.

"Oh," she said, "I didn't know anyone was here." She turned around, not with particular speed and certainly not in panic, and started to return to the bedroom, giving Horne a long glimpse of a sweet, perfectly made, lyrical ass, as symmetrical as an inverted valentine heart. "I'll put something on," she said, through another yawn.

"Come back here," Chet ordered. "There's no need for formality. This is an old, close, dear friend of mine." She meandered back into the living room. "Sweetie, this is Clayton Horne. Clay, Prudy Tippet."

Clay soberly shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Tippet."

"Call me Prudy. Very glad to know you, Clay. Chet's told me a lot about you. He says you're very witty. Can you make me laugh?"

"That depends," said Clay. "Are you ticklish?" He groped for her ribs. She pulled away, giggling.

(continued on page 192) Mata Hari (continued from page 130)

"Chet, honey," she said, "did they ever send that shaving cream?"

"By special courier. Here it is."

"Groovy. Well, I'll see you boys later. I'm going to improve my tan."

"I may be wrong," said Horne, slowly circling her and examining her from every angle, from uncombed hair to suntoasted toes, "but I honestly can't find a single inch, anywhere, that needs improvement."

"You're sweet," she said, then turned her back on him, removed her brassiere with an air of what seemed (incredibly) to be maidenly modesty, and Clay heard precisely three short hissing spurts from the aerosol can. When she turned around, her three most censorable items were covered by a triad of puffy white clouds. She explained, with a shrug: "I didn't bring along a bikini, and they won't let you sun-bathe in the buff here." Then she walked out onto the patio and stretched out in the baking bright rays of the sun.

"Odd about suntan," Horne said reflectively. "Years ago, it was a status symbol--it told the world you were a lady or gentleman of leisure, with plenty of time to loll on balmy beaches. Now, and especially in this town, it means your agent can't give you away--it's become the badge of the unemployed. But," he concluded as he studied Prudy through the glass of the sliding patio doors, "this place does have advantages over working at the studio. Like you just said, you can get a little piece, undisturbed."

Chet stretched and yawned, scooping the postage slips into a drawer. "I believe in glamor," he said. "There's precious little left in this town. We were born too late. Thirty years too late. We should have been around in the days when there was a real film colony, when Bob Benchley fell into the pool at the Garden of Allah, and all that jazz. But the Garden of Allah is a savings and loan now...."

"I noticed."

"And armored tanks--not bulldozers, armored tanks!--plowed Hal Roach Studios into the ground to make way for a shopping center. It's a dead town, a running-scared town ... the big studios parceling themselves out in bits and pieces to the independents and selling themselves to oil companies and fighting these internecine wars called proxy battles ... television ... runaway production ... the take-over of the foreign film ... the old-line barracuda producers dying off, one by one ... hell, Sid Freemond is about the only real grade-A monster left in town ... it's sad, sad ... it's enough to drive a man to lick the whipped cream off Prudy...."

"Shaving cream," Horne corrected.

Chet frowned. He picked up the phone. "Dear? This is Mr. Slobb in Agrippina. Would you please send up a can of Reddi-Wip? Thanks, doll."

Horne said, "I grant you, a lot of bloom may have gone from the rose, but you can't say there's no film colony anymore. There is--and we're it. We're the new film colony, the jet-age film colony. We're spread all over Rome and Spain and Yugoslavia and England, as well as California, but we're it, every bit as much as Benchley and Company were it in their day. I'll bet you a gold cigar band that they occasionally bemoaned the fact that they were born too late for the great era of the silent screen. And thirty years from now, other melancholy film colonists will be getting nostalgic about us."

There was a knock at the door and Horne opened it. A bellhop wheeled in two electric typewriters and began to set them up. His eyes caught and held Prudy for a good eight or ten seconds, and he growled in deep appreciation. "Momma mia, she's foaming!" he said, in such rapt devotion that he forgot to count the tip.

"Shall we get to work?" said Chet, when he had left.

"Do you have a copy of the Marlowe?"

"Yes, but you won't need that. While I'm working on the opening sequences, I want you to do the siege of Persepolis. Cut back and forth from Tamburlaine's Scythian forces outside the city wall to the palace of the Persian king, in the beleaguered city. How long has it been since you read the play?"

"Twelve, fifteen years...."

"Good enough. The Persian king's name is Mycetes. Tamburlaine's righthand men are Techelles and Usumcasane. The king's own brother, Cosroe, is in league with the Scythians. Pick it up right after Cosroe says to Tamburlaine: 'Your Majesty shall shortly have your wish, and ride in triumph through Persepolis.' Tamburlaine turns to his buddy and says, 'Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles? Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis?' Then we throw out all the jawboning that follows and cut directly to the big battle. Got it? Go, man."

Horne rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and began spilling words onto it....

Extreme Close-Up--Tamburlaine's Horse. It is neighing--eyes wild, nostrils flared. Pull Back to:

Ext.--A Persian Plain--Day. The horse is spiritedly rearing. Behind the mounted Tamburlaine, the Scythian hordes stretch back to the horizon.

Aerial Shot--Entire Army. We see the center and both flanks--a combined strength of 200,000 mounted warriors--plus catapults, crossbows and all the other engines of war.

Angle on Tamburlaine. He draws his scimitar and raises it high.

Tamburlaine (a battle cry): Scythians!!!

Aerial Shot--Entire Army. A deafening response of "Ay!" from 200,000 throats.

Angle on Tamburlaine.

Tamburlaine: On! To the wall!!!

Aerial Shot--Entire Army. The mass of men, horses and machines lunges forward--moving across the landscape like the crashing tide of a colossal human sea.

Traveling Shot--Tamburlaine. As his horse gallops ahead, he continues to hold the scimitar aloft.

"There's nothing more exciting than a good battle on the screen," said Horne, somewhat later, "and nothing duller on paper." He rose from the typewriter, stretched and walked over to Chet's machine. "How I envy you," he said. "All that dialog. I don't think I've written more than a half dozen words of dialog all afternoon."

Chet yawned cavernously. "They'll make me cut most of it. Not just because there's so much of it. Mainly because it's too rich, too big, too flamboyant. Not 'understated' enough. Never mind the frills, get on with the story. Never mind the frills, get on with the story. Never mind how, or why, tell us what. Any adjectives found on the street after seven o'clock will be shot to death. And that is ungood, I say, ungood! Every damn novel that comes out nowadays is praised if it understates. Have you ever heard a novel praised because it overstates? And yet, what the hell is Moby Dick but one vast overstatement? Or Tamburlaine? We're afraid of our hearts these days, damn it, afraid of crying, afraid of laughing, afraid of losing our cool. The tight smile? Very good. The belly laugh? Vulgar. Nuts to it all. Nuts to The New Yorker, nuts to all sons of bitches who want to amplify the squeaks and stifle the cries. When I want understatement, I'll go to the May Company catalog."

He looked down at his typewriter. "I'm sure tired of writing dissolve to. Maybe I'll switch to melt to. Let's see how that looks." His fingers touched the keys. Nothing happened. "Hey, what gives? Check the plug, will you--did it get kicked out of the wall?"

Horne checked. "Nope. Still copulating with the socket."

Chet clicked the desk lamp a few times. "Deader nor a mackerel." He picked up the phone. "Dear, this is Mr. Slobb in Agrippina. What's the scam on the electricity? ... Well, hell, don't you have any idea when it will be fixed?... All right, listen: Send up a couple of manual typewriters instanter. Thanks, doll." He hung up. "Big power failure. Half of Laguna is without electricity." He shook his fist in the general direction of heaven, snarling, "How like you, God!"

"God is dead," said Horne.

"Yes, and you know why? Because He signed with my agency."

Prudy came in from the patio, her three clouds drastically diminished by the sun, and, after retrieving her bra, headed straight for the bathroom, saying, "Must be a hundred and one out there." Soon, they heard the cool music of the shower.

Horne jerked a thumb toward the sound, saying, "Tell me about her."

"What's to tell? I bumped into her up at the agency. She's shopping around for new representation. Small-town girl from Oregon. Got here on the strength of a beauty contest. Good kid, but a little inhibited."

"Inhibited!!!"

"Got only one note on her sexual piano. Never heard of even the most common variations. Strict Bible-type upbringing, very sheltered. But that's OK. She'll learn."

"I'm afraid she will. Fast. There are plenty to teach her."

"Anything wrong with that?"

Horne shook his head, but vaguely. "Not really. Depends on the girl. Take Lovey Benedict--she's like Prudy in many ways: young, beautiful, ambitious, amoral, promiscuous. But Lovey is tough, very tough, she always lands on her feet. She may sleep around, and sometimes she may do it in a coldly calculated way, strictly for business--but she doesn't let anyone use her. If anything, she uses them. She keeps a precious part of herself to herself--call it her soul, if you like."

"And Prudy?"

"I don't know," said Horne. "She may be the same--but somehow I get a marshmallow feeling from her, like maybe she doesn't have the fiber, the grit to stand the gaff. Lovey will never be destroyed by this town. But this kid might."

Chet laughed. "Whatever happened to the lighthearted Horne of yore? Suddenly you've become The Old Foolosopher. You're actually breaking out in a sweat!" Chet paused, puzzled, and mopped his own brow. "Come to think of it, so am I. What's going on?"

Horne wet a forefinger and held it aloft. "Not on," he said, "off. The air conditioning."

"Oh, God, of course." Chet groaned. "The power failure. We'll roast in here like three suckling pigs."

"Two suckling pigs. You forget, Prudy is limited."

That young lady appeared from the bathroom at precisely the same moment the bellhop arrived with the manual typewriters. She was wearing her bra, as before, and nothing else, as before. "Jesus Christ on a bicycle," said the bellhop, completely forgetting the tip this time.

"Back to work," said Chet, and attacked the typewriter.

"Prudy," said Horne, "can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Clay," she said, now flat on her back on the couch, reading TV Guide.

"How come you always keep your brassiere on?"

"Because I'm ashamed."

"Ashamed? You walk around here totally bare of ass, no pants on, nothing, and you wear the bra because you're ashamed? Ashamed of what?"

"Of them. They're too small."

"I don't believe it."

"It's true."

"Let me be the judge."

"No."

"Come on, take it off."

"No, Clay, please."

"Chet? Make her take it off."

"Take it off, honey."

"Oh, all right. But only for a second. There."

Horne said, "But, my darling young lady, you have nothing to be ashamed of. They're charming. Delightful. Heartrendingly sweet and precious."

"You're just saying that," she said, replacing the bra.

"Promise me one thing," said Horne, touching her nose with the tip of his finger.

"What's that?"

Taking a deep breath, he went into his Nose Aria. "That you will never have that beautiful nose removed. It's perfect. Don't let them touch it. A lot of beautiful girls have caught the nose fever and had themselves remodeled into assemblyline cuties, indistinguishable from a million others. A nose is a nose is a nose, and a nose job is a crime when the nose is a great one like yours. Don't allow any smooth-talking Beverly Hills sawbones to obtund it."

"You mean bob it? It's already bobbed."

"Oh."

Chet chuckled through the chatter of his typewriter keys. "Fell right on your ass that time, buddy," he said.

"In fact," said Prudy, "I may even get it rebobbed. But I'm waiting for some studio to pay for it. Also bustplasty."

"I give up," said Horne, and turned to his typewriter. "Anyone mind if I take off my shirt? It's like an oven in here."

"Good idea," said Chet, rising and removing his shirt and then, as an afterthought, his pants. "But not my bra," he said. "My bra stays on."

• • •

By the time the temperature reached 104, both men were sitting buck naked at their typewriters, their loins somewhat sketchily wrapped in towels. Prudy, asleep on the couch, had even removed her bra. She, Chet and Horne were shiny as seals.

"Got a problem," said Chet.

"Me, too," said Horne. "Writer's cramp, a stiff back, sore eyes and my ass is asleep."

"The problem is this. They don't want the tragic ending the play has. Tamburlaine can't be captured and die. On the other hand, they don't want a completely all-out happy ending. It has to be something in the middle. Got any ideas?"

"Who, me? I thought I was hired to write the battle scenes."

"For fifty grand, you can't throw in a fade-out?"

"I'm not anywhere near the end. I don't even know what's happening in this crazy script."

"All I'm saying is this. If you happen to get a bright idea for a happy but not too happy ending, just jump ahead to the end and sketch it in. We can put the jigsaw together later."

"Ok. Might be a nice change from all this battle stuff, at that." Horne pulled a half-completed sheet from his machine and inserted another. "Didn't you say something about Tamburlaine wearing some kind of lucky charm his father gave him?"

"A ruby pendant. It's not in the play, I just stuck it in so we'd have something to play under the credits, as a sort of prolog."

"I'll diddle with that for a while...."

"Oh," said Chet, "one more thing. We need a song."

"A what???? We're not songwriters!"

"No, but the thing is this. They might want to get Robert Goulet for the part."

"For what part?"

"Tamburlaine."

"That's the worst miscasting since John Wayne played Genghis Khan!"

"You're making that up."

"The hell I am. The Conqueror, 1956, RKO. Directed by Dick Powell. Also starred Susan Hayward and--"

"All right, all right. But since when are you a casting director? Naturally, before the cameras roll, they'll get Mercer and Mancini or somebody to do the actual song, but for the script they need some kind of song so they can show it to Goulet. Just the lyrics, of course."

"Oh, boy," said Horne, and began typing....

Ext. Slopes of a Volcano--Long Shot--Day. Tamburlaine addresses the throng. The faithful Techelles and Usumcasane stand nearby.

Close Shot--Tamburlaine.

Tamburlaine: Asians! Why do you crouch here in the shadow of Europe? Join me ... and we will cross those mountains! We will weld Europe and Asia into the greatest empire the world will ever know ...!

Angle on Throng. Their faces are illuminated by interest; they are stirred by his words.

Close Shot--Tamburlaine.

Tamburlaine: ... Will you follow me? Let me hear you!

Long shot. A great cry goes up:

Voices: Yes!!!

Tamburlaine: Then mount your stallions and follow my sword!

The members of the throng rush off to their horses.

Group Shot--Tamburlaine, Techelles, Usumcasane.

Tamburlaine: Come: We, too, must mount.

Techelles (suddenly): Master--look....

Techelles points to Tamburlaine's ruby pendant. Tamburlaine, looking down, takes it in his hand.

Insert: The Ruby in his hand. It is curiously dull, no longer glittering, its color darkened and drab. It seems a blob of clouded glass rather than a precious stone. Over this, we hear Techelles:

Techelles (off screen): It is as if the spark within it has died....

Close-Up--Tamburlaine. For a fleeting moment, he seems troubled. But then he smiles.

Tamburlaine: Clouded by the lava fumes, nothing more.

Back to Scene. Usumcasane steps forward.

Usumcasane: Might it be an evil omen?

Tamburlaine (defiantly): I do not live by omens! (Yanks off ruby and dashes it to the ground). I carve my own destiny!

Camera pulls back as he strides to his horse and mounts. His two companions do the same. Already, in the b.g., the multitudes have begun to hum their marching song.

Angle on Tamburlaine, Mounted. He begins to take up the melody of the "Song of Tamburlaine."

Tamburlaine (singing):

Look out, you sands and desertbands, You hills and mountains yon

Look out, you men of distantlands, For Tamburlaine is moving on.

On, on,On, on, Yes, Tamburlaine is moving on.

If friend you be, come ride withme, On you I will not frown.

But if you be my enemy, Then Tamburlaine will ride youdown!

Down, down,Down, down, Then Tamburlaine will ride youdown!

Clear the way! I am coming, I am near, Night or day, Swooping down on wings offear!

And so beware, take heed,prepare To rally or to run.

Come out and fight me if youdare. For Tamburlaine's afraid ofnone.

None, none,None, none, No, Tamburlaine's afraid ofnone!

Ext. Slopes of the Volcano--Long Shot. The combined hordes, with Tamburlaine at their head, cover the landscape as they ride toward the mountains in the near distance. The song has been taken up by this vast legion and the air is thunderous with it. The song swells, a portent of woe to Europe, a hymn of might and conquest.

Traveling Close Shot--Tamburlaine, Mounted. His face glows with a smile of tremendous expectation; the glorious sound of the song fills and nourishes him; he drinks it in. Suddenly ... Whip Pan and Zoom in to an Extreme Close-Up of the ruby on the ground. As we see it again, the triumphal song's climax is marred by a searing dissonance. Like an accusing dead eye, the darkened ruby seems to prophesy disaster for its former wearer.

Slow Fade-out.

"It's beautiful," said Chet, reading the pages over the last bites of a room-service dinner. "You solved all the problems."

"But I'll hate myself in the morning."

"Prudy, don't you want some dinner?" asked Chet of the supine girl on the couch. The only answer was an incomprehensible mumble. "Poor kid. Worn out. All that sun-bathing." Suddenly he looked up alertly, put a finger to his lips and said, "Shhh. Listen. What's that sound?"

"Marlowe spinning in his grave?"

"The air conditioning's on again. Good scene."

The bellhop entered, after a perfunctory knock. "Mr. Slobb?" he said. "Sorry we didn't bring this sooner, but with the refrigerator conked out, we thought maybe it would spoil. But the power's back on now, so here it is." He handed Chet a can of Reddi-Wip.

Chet took it, casting a lingering glance at the slumbering Prudy. "Just in time for dessert," he said.