“Whatever happened to Big Charlie Greaves?”
“Or Smiley Weaver. I have not heard of either of them for donkey’s years.” The Professor looked down at the Funked Out Kid’s business card which the receptionist had sent up to him via Walthers. He cackled amusement.
“You know, Kid, I almost had them send you packing. Then the name came back to me. Warren Dempsey Witherson. That is an imposing moniker for a grifter.” He read from the card. “Ph.D., D.D., LL.D., Litt.D. That is rather laying it on thick, By George.”
The Kid adjusted his pince-nez in dignity. “They’re all the McCoy, Professor. I bought those doctorates from some of the top diploma mills in Tennessee.”
The Professor, chuckling still, made them fresh drinks, returned to his chair, shot a quick glance at his watch. “Well, Kid, it is a real pleasure to see you again. If you are in town for a while, we ought to get together some night for some reminiscences. Phone up a couple of curves, get a bit intoxicated, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, ah, how is the taw, Kid?”
The Funked Out Kid scowled at him, then, of a sudden, broke into a whinny of humor which grew in volume.
It was the Professor’s turn to scowl. “Confound it, what is the matter, Kid?”
The Kid let it run down, and pushed his glasses back to the high bridge of his nose with his left forefinger. He shook his head. “That’s a laugh,” he said. “How’s the taw? Professor, did you think I came up here to shake you down for a score?”
“I would not put it that way, Kid. We’re old-timers, By George. Comrades-in-arms. If your taw is in bad shape—” His attitude touched on the pompous.
The Kid grinned at him. “I’m here on business, Professor. What’d you think I’ve been doing these past fifteen years?”
“I would not know. But once a grifter, always a grifter, Kid.”
Warren Dempsey Witherson let his eyes go about the overly swank office. “That doesn’t seem to apply to you, Professor.”
“Like Hades it doesn’t, By George. Kid, I am at the top of the heap in the biggest con since some long departed grifter dreamed up religion and put ninety five per cent of the human race on the sucker list. Motivational Research the double-domes call it. Why, Kid, there is not a manufacturer in Detroit who would decide how much silver trim to put on his mid-year model without consulting Doolittle Research. There is not a perfume house in Paris that would O.K. the pornography of their latest ad campaign without checking it out with my lads.”
“I know,” the Kid said, crossing thin legs. “That’s why I’m here, Professor.”
The Professor looked at him. “By George,” he said. “You do look prosperous at that, Kid. Like you used to in the old days, just after copping a sizable score. What is your line now, the wire, the rag, the pay-off? Do you use a Big Store?”
The Funked Out Kid was whinnying again. “We call it public relations, Professor.”
“Public relations! Kid, I just can not see you, particularly in that Ph.D. get-up you are affecting, running around trying to get columnists to plug some Tri-D starlet just because you have got her to wear one of those new bottomless swim suits.”
The Funked Out Kid shook his head and finished his drink. “Professor, I’m just not getting through to you. Haven’t you ever heard of Moppett, Hastings and Witherson, the top PR outfit on the coast?”
“You mean you’re Witherson, By George?”
“As ever was. No conning columnists for this grifter, Professor. I deal only with top strategy, overall policy on the highest levels.”
“That means, one assumes, you get somebody else to do the work.”
“Of course. I tell you, in this field you couldn’t knock the marks if you tried.”
The Professor brought the bottle of prehistoric Maryland rye from the bar and set it on the coffee table between them.
“Kid, I fail to see where motivational research, interviews in depth, the applying of psychoanalytical techniques to market investigation and the various other jazz we deal with, could tie in with public relations.”
Warren Dempsey Witherson leaned forward to launch his pitch. “It’s a big operation, Professor. My PR outfit and your motivational research agency are just two elements. Also involved are a Tri-D studio, a couple of ad agencies, a couple of toy manufacturers, a TV network and a few more of the boys.”
The Professor looked at him. “Big operation is correct.”
“To make it brief, Professor, we’re going to manufacture a fad. Remember, back when we were youngsters, the Davy Crockett fad? About 1955, it was. Started off as a movie. Before it was through there were being sold more than three hundred Davy Crockett products.”
“I remember, By George. Coonskin hats, buckskin shirts, flintlock rifles. Davy Crockett records.”
“Right,” the Funked Out Kid beamed in satisfaction. “In all, it was estimated that a third of a billion dollars was spent on that fad.”
The Professor hissed through his dentures.
“And they were amateurs,” the Kid said. “They exploited it hit and miss. Fell into some of the best scores by pure accident. This time, Professor, we’re going to milk our fad like pros.” He took off his pince-nez glasses and shook them at the other.
“We got a new angle, Professor. Most of these fads are aimed at kids. Davy Crockett, the hula hoop, the Space Man fad. But kids don’t have money to spend. Not the way grown up marks do. So this fad is going to be for adults.”
“Go on,” the Professor said. “Confound it, you’ve got me interested.”
“That’s all,” Warren Dempsey Witherson beamed. “We’re all set to go. We’re going to settle on an adult hero, make a movie, write some songs, manufacture a fad like never before, and we’re going to milk it all ways from Tuesday. The winchells won’t know what hit them. And best of all, it’s all legit.”
Professor Doolittle stirred. “By George, it is rather inspiring the way you propose it, Kid. Just who have you decided upon to feature as this adult hero?”
“We don’t know.”
The Professor looked at him.
“That’s where you come in. Professor,” the Funked Out Kid said reasonably.
* * * *
The three were seated at the heavy mahogany table when the Professor bustled in, followed at a trot by Walthers. The three came to their feet until the roly-poly older man took a chair at the table’s end.
At first glance, possibly due to the similarity of their dress, they might have been taken for being from the same mold, but not at second. The heaviest set was wry and bitter of face; the youngest, unsure and unhappy; the thinnest, anxious to please but overly nervous.
The Professor had an informal word for each of his youthful brain trust. “Well, James, how is the ulcer? Are we still on milk?”
Jimmy Leath was still on milk.
“Theodore, how was your vacation? I understand Ruthie picked the spot for you.”
Ted Biemiller grunted disgust. “What chance did I have? After that job we did for United Travels, a man’s got as much chance of avoiding Afghanistan as he has of escaping taxes. Ruth threatened to leave me if we didn’t spend the whole six weeks in Kabul.” He glared at Jimmy. “It’s all your fault.”
Jimmy Leath shrugged. “It’s the way the cards fell. Our depth interviews revealed the predominating motivating factor in travel today is snobbery. And the ultimate in travel status symbol is a spot no one else has been to. It was United Travels who picked Kabul, not me.”
“Lads, lads,” the Professor chuckled. He turned to the last of the trio. “Lester, has Irene convinced you as yet that you should resign from Doolittle Research and take a position a bit more, ah, worthy of your scholarly abilities?”
Les Frankle flushed. “Well, no sir, not yet.”
The Professor smiled at him in fatherly condescension. “I can not quite see her point, lad. Where would your efforts gain greater remuneration than here?”
Les squirmed. “Well, it’s not that, Professor Doolittle.
Irene’s a do-gooder…well, in the best sense of the word. She thinks the fact that the best brains in the country are going into such fields as advertising, sales promotion, motivational research to learn how best to con the consumer—”
The Professor’s shaggy white eyebrows went up. “Con?”
Les said apologetically, “A bit of slang Irene used, sir. It’s derived from confidence man ”
“Indeed. So our crusader, Irene, lacks sympathy for our affluent society, eh? By George, where would you lads be, fresh out of the university, if there were not such organizations as Doolittle Research, ah, to take you in, and give you the opportunity to exercise your fledgling abilities?”
Les Frankle lacked the ability to dissimulate. He said earnestly, “Well, that’s her point, sir. She says that such organizations as this take the country’s best brains, use them while they’re still fresh and trained in the latest techniques, then in a few years discard them for somebody younger and fresher. And by that time the individual is either disillusioned”—he looked at Jimmy—“or has ulcers, or is an alcoholic, or some such.”
“A discouraging picture, By George,” the Professor chuckled. “However, I suppose we should get to business, lads.”
He turned to Jimmy Leath. “So what have our depth interviews revealed in the way of an adult hero around which we could build a fad to end all fads?”
The emaciated psychologist bunched his right hand into a fist and rubbed it across his stomach. “On the first level of conscious, rational thought they think in terms of the president, of some top business figure, especially one who’s worked his own way up. If you take in the past they’ll come up with Lincoln, Washington, possibly Jesus.”
Ted Biemiller grunted. “That’s on the rational level,” he muttered. “What happens when we get down to the preconscious, the subconscious?”
Jimmy looked at him and nodded. “Now, that’s another thing. They’ll run everywhere from some Tri-D star, especially one who’s hung on for a long time and always played sympathetic, masculine roles, to some military hero, ranging from Alexander to Custer.”
The Professor was frowning, albeit benignly. “And when we get to the deepest levels of consciousness?” Jimmy rubbed his stomach again and grimaced. “Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Nero, the Marquis de Sade, Hitler .
“Hitler!” Les Frankle ejaculated.
Jimmy nodded. “You’d be surprised how many can identify with someone who exercised absolute power.” The Professor said jovially, “Lads, lads, we are departing from reality. We need someone we can, ah, to use the idiom, hang a halo upon. A gunman or a great sadist of the past, I hardly think would do it.”
* * * *
Ted twisted in his chair and growled, “What about Wyatt Earp? He was a gun thrower but usually on the side of the law.”
“Usually, but not always,” Jimmy nodded. “I thought about him. A good muckraker would soon have our hero all dirtied up. Besides, he’s old hat. He was on TV for years.”
“How about Daniel Boone?” Ted grumbled.
“Too nearly like Davy Crockett. That Wild West That Was bit has been done too thoroughly,” Jimmy said. “At long last it’s on its way out.”
“Amen,” Les murmured.
The Professor looked at him a bit testily. “Possibly you are correct, Lester. But we have been weeks upon this, confound it. What is an alternative?”
Les said unhappily, “I thought of J.E.B. Stuart, the cavalry commander.”
Jimmy said, “The military is always good. Half of the heroes our probes dug up were military. Lots of blood and guts.”
The Professor said, “Lads, remember the qualifications I gave you. This fad is for adults, By George, not children. I submit that if we made a Confederate general our hero we could sell toy sabers to children, Confederate gray uniforms and slouch hats. But that would be about it. Lads, let us start thinking big.”
They sat in long silence.
The Professor looked at Les Frankle indulgently. “Well, Lester, where are these super-brains your good wife, Irene, complains that Doolittle Research is milking?”
Les colored and said unhappily, “Well, Irene had an idea.”
“Irene! My dear Lester, I informed you of the high security nature of this project. By George, what would happen if the nature of the syndicate’s campaign were to be revealed before we even got underway? The public must think this fad spontaneous, By George, or it will never take!”
Les said, “I discuss all my work with Irene, sir. You’ve got to remember that she’s a psychologist, too. One of the best. Her work on—”
Jimmy said, soothing stomach pains with massage, “What’d she suggest? I still say some military figure.”
“Her idea comes under that category—in a way,” Les said. “Jeanne d’Arc.”
“John Dark?” the Professor cackled. “Confound it, Lester, I have never even heard of the gentleman.”
The three looked at him. Ted grunted as though appreciative of a humorous sally. Jimmy closed his eyes, as though his ulcer was on a campaign.
“Joan of Arc,” Les said. He looked at Jimmy. “That gives you your military.”
“A woman,” Ted grumbled. “Not even a woman, a girl. I thought we were looking for a hero.”
The Professor pursed plump lips. “Women spend some eighty per cent of the average family income. Tell us more, Lester.”
Les said, “Well, Irene thinks that Joan has just about everything.” He looked at Jimmy again. “The muckrakers wouldn’t be able to dig up much about her. She was only nineteen and a virgin when they burned her. There’s a lot of sentimental pull in a martyr.” He looked back at Professor Doolittle. “Irene says you could use her sword as a symbol.”
“A symbol?”
“Irene says all the big fads—or movements—have to have a symbol. Davy Crockett had the coonskin hat, the Nazis had their swastika. For that matter, the Mohammedans had their crescent and the Christians their cross.”
The Professor said, “By George.”
Ted growled, “What could you sell in the name of Joan of Arc?”
* * * *
Warren Dempsey Witherson hacked his throat clear and said, “What could we sell, in the name of Joan of Arc?”
The Professor refreshed both their glasses. “Kid, you are not up on your history. She is a natural. She hasn’t been done recently in the movies. Not for decades. We shall have to do a super-spectacular, in the Tri-D medium, this time. Some old playwright, Bernard Shaw, did a play on her. It is undoubtedly in the public domain now. We shall revive it on Broadway and send out three or four road shows to boot. Mark Twain wrote a biography of her, in fictional form. It is in the public domain. We shall issue it in a special deluxe limited edition, in regular hardcovers and finally in paperbacks. We shall line-up a top dress house in Paris and start off a Joan of Arc style revival. It is about time women got something brand-new in the way of fashion. They can not think of anything else to reveal.”
“There isn’t anything else left to reveal,” the Funked Out Kid told him. “They’ve revealed everything.”
“We’ll hide it again,” the Professor explained. “The Demure Look. Pageboy hair-do. Heather perfume. Fleur-de-lis designs on everything from textiles to earrings.”
“Flour de Lee?” the Kid said.
“It is kind of a design the old French kings used, according to one of my lads. That is just the beginning. Wait until I unleash all the boys. We shall start a Joan of Arc comic strip, of course. And Joan of Arc dolls for the tots. Then we will have to concoct some items for the Dauphin.”
“The dauphin?” the Funked Out Kid said blankly.
“Jimmy Leath, one of my double-domed lads, suggests we make the French prince her boy friend. Then we shall be able to cop a few scores from the men, too.”
“Can we do that?” the aged grifter said nervously.
“Don’t be a winchell, Kid. They made a hero out of Davy Crockett, did they not? Did you ever read a bio
graphy of that character? We can make a lover out of Charles, or whatever his name was.”
Warren Dempsey Witherson looked at his long-time friend in admiration. “Where’d you get all this background, Professor?”
Professor Doolittle was modest. “I had a secretary do up a brief from the Encyclopedia,” he said. “I shall have it sent around to you.”
“I guess I’ll buy it, Professor,” Witherson said finally. “I’ll take the shuttle rocket out to Frisco in the morning. Get the boys to work. Anything special you can think of?”
“One thing. Have them line up every manufacturer in the country that is set up to turn out swords.”
The Funked Out Kid blinked.
“Little decorative swords, scabbards and belts. A sword about two feet long. In every price range. From a few bucks up to bejeweled deals to go with evening wear. It is our symbol. Kind of a crusader-like cross for a hilt and guard. You will have some boys in the ad outfits who will get the idea. We want to have the manufacturers all sewed up before the wisenheimers begin to jump on our bandwagon.”
* * * *
The conference table was crowded, the room thick with cigar smoke. Walthers was trotting back and forth to the bar.
A large tweedy type, a huge bent stem Kaywoodie in the side of his mouth, was saying. “We’ll have to issue these on various price levels. Make it a status symbol, the amount you’ve blown on your Pilgrimage of Jeanne d’Arc game.”
Somebody interrupted. “I don’t like using them fancy foreign names. What’s the matter with using her right name, Joan of Arc?”
Les Frankle, sitting to one side, said unhappily, “The only record we have of her signature, she signed her name Jeanette” He hadn’t pitched his voice high enough to be heard.
A fat man in the gaudy clothing of the Coast puffed cheeks and rumbled in agreement, “Ed’s right. Using, like, French words and all that’d just antagonize folks back in the boondocks. Make her sound too high falutin’. Let’s call her Joan of Arc.”
The tweedy type closed his eyes momentarily, in pain, and said, “Why don’t we do this? On the game sets peddling for only ten dollars, we’ll call it the Joan of Arc Pilgrimage. But on the sets retailing for twenty-five and up, we’ll use the Jeanne d’Arc name. The people with boodle enough to invest that amount in a game will get an added status symbol in the French.”
The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 14