"Baker, Kage - The Literary Agent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)

"What's wrong? Don't they like it?"
"Oh, er, they're crazy about it, Louis. It's swell. They just have a few suggestions. A few changes they want made."
"They want something rewritten?"
"Uh ... the Middle Ages is out. France is out. Knights in armor stuff is expensive to shoot. They want to know if you can make it the South Seas. Give it some of that wonderful tropical ambiance you do so well.."
"I've never been in the South Seas," said Stevenson coldly. He remembered his cigarette and puffed at it.
"No, not yet, but that's all right. You can fake it. California's almost tropical, isn't it? Hot, anyway. Parts of it. That's the Pacific Ocean out there, right? Just write some palm trees into the scenery. Now, er, they want you to drop the girl and the guy. There's just no audience for pure sweethearts now. But they think the evil lady is fabulous. They think the story should mostly revolve around her. Lots of costume changes and bedroom scenes. She plays for power at the court of this Dark Lord guy. Black Prince, I mean."
"The Black Prince never went to the South Seas either, you know. He was a medieval Plantagenet."
"Whatever. I'm afraid the distinction is lost on them, Louis." Joseph gave a peculiar embarrassed shrug. "Historical accuracy is not a big issue here. If we're going to make it the South Seas he has to be something else anyway. Maybe some kind of witch doctor in a black helmet or something. They just liked the name, Black Prince, it's got a kind of ring to it."
"They sound like a supremely ignorant lot. Why don't they write their own bloody story?" Stevenson muttered. His airy humor was descending fast.
"Now, Louis, don't take it that way. They really love your stuff. They just need to tailor it to their audience a little, that's all."
"South Seas be damned." Stevenson leaned back. "Why shouldn't I write about what I know? If France isn't good enough for them, what about this country? I saw some grand scenery from the railway carriage. Now, wait! What about a true American romance? This has possibilities. Do you know, I saw a man threaten to shoot a railway conductor dead, just because he'd been put off the coach for being drunk and disorderly? Only in America. It's as good as the Montagues and Capulets, only with revolvers instead of rapiers. Prairies instead of pomegranate gardens. Picturesque barbarism. What about a hero who's kidnapped at birth and raised by Red Indians?"
"Well, it's been done, but okay." The other began to write again.
"And there's some additional obscurity to his birth ... he's the son of a Scots lord."
"Gee, Louis, I don't know..."
"And his younger brother succeeds to the title but emigrates to America, fleeing punishment for a crime he did not commit. Or perhaps he did. More interesting character. Or perhaps -- "
"Is there any sex in this?"
"If you like. The brothers fall in love with the same woman, will that suit you? In fact ... the girl is the betrothed of the brother who emigrates. She follows him devotedly. While searching for him, she's kidnapped by the Red Indian band of whom her fiance's brother is now Chief. _He_ falls in love with her. Claims her as his bride. Forced marriage takes place. She's terrified, but compelled by the mating rituals of man in his primal innocence."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Louis!"
"Let's see them get _that_ past the scribes and Pharisees of popular taste," sneered Stevenson, and tossed the last fragment of his cigarette into the fire. "Meanwhile, the fugitive brother has become a frontiersman, with buckskin clothes, long rifle, and quaint fur cap. Gets word that his betrothed has gone missing. Goes in search of her (he's become an expert tracker too) and finds unmistakable evidence of her singular fate. Swears an oath of vengeance, goes out after the brave who committed the enormity, vows to eat his heart, all unwitting they're really brothers."
"We've got a smash hit here, Louis."
"You can cobble on some sort of blood-and-thunder ending. True identities revealed all around. Perhaps the Red Indian brother has a distinctive and prominent birthmark. Fugitive brother becomes a heroic guide leading settlers across the plains. Red Indian brother accepts his true identity as a white man but refuses to return to Great Britain, denounces the irrelevancy of the British aristocracy, runs for Congress instead. What about another cigarette?"
"Not a chance in Hell," Joseph replied, politely enough nevertheless. He ripped out the page he had been scribbling on and fed it into the trunk. "But how's about a cocktail?" He produced a flask and offered it to Stevenson. "French brandy? You like this. It's a matter of record."
"Great God, man." Stevenson extended his long hand, just as the yellow sheet came curling back out of the trunk. It was covered with dense commentary in violet ink. Both men frowned at it.
"You drink," Joseph told him. "I'll see what they say."
"I can tell you what they don't like, old chap." Stevenson took a long pull from the flask. "Ah. The plot's derivative and wildly improbable. How's the hero to get kidnapped by Red Indians in Scotland, for Christ's sake? Disgruntled family retainer makes away with the wee baby and sends it off down the Clyde in a moses basket, which by some inexplicable chance washes up in the Gulf of Mexico a day later?"
"Actually they don't have a problem with that part." The other man read swiftly. "But the Wild West business tends to bomb big time. The frontiersman doesn't work for them, either. He can't have a rifle because that would mean he shoots wild animals, see, which is marketing death, protests and threats against distributors, bad boxoffice. They like the sex stuff, though. They just want to know if you can make it the South Seas where all this happens."
Very slowly, Stevenson had another swallow of brandy.
"Why don't your masters send you round to that Herman Melville chap?" he inquired with an edge in his voice. "He wrote some jolly seagoing palaver, didn't he? Why isn't _he _having this dream?"
"Too hard to film his books," responded Joseph. "But, Louis baby, listen to yourself. You're arguing with a hallucination. Isn't that silly? Now, would it really be so hard, changing the plot around a little? That whole primitive mating ritual bit would play just as well in Tahiti, you know. You could even put in -- " he looked cautiously around, as though someone might be listening, " -- Pirates."
"Buccaneers and native women? Who do you propose is going to come see these photo-plays of yours? Not the bourgeois citizens of Edinburgh, I can tell you."
"Well, it doesn't have to be pornographic. Just, you know, racy. Mildly prurient. Nothing criminal. Say your pirate's a fine upstanding young fellow who just happened to get press-ganged."
"Men were press-ganged into the Navy, not into pirate crews," said Stevenson in disgust. "I grow weary of this dream. Why don't you clear off and let the other beasties come back? I'd rather blue devils than this."
"But I'm not a nightmare! I'm a _good_ dream, honest. Anyway, I can't go. I've been assigned to stay with you until I get a usable concept."
"Then I'll leave you." Stevenson struggled to his feet. He gasped for breath and with a determined stride moved out from the fire into darkness; but his legs seemed to curl under him, impossible thin long inhuman legs, and he fell. The other man was beside him at once, leading him back to the fire solicitously.
"Hey, hey, hey, Louis, let's take it easy. I'm here to help you, remember?"
"It's the damned fog." Stevenson was trembling. "I cannot get away from it. Damned wet air. Mountains aren't high enough."
"Gee, that's awful." Joseph settled him down by the fire, put the folded coat back in place under his head, poured another cup of tea. "Maybe you should travel more. Now, you could go to the -- "
"South Seas, yes, I'd guessed you were going to say that," Stevenson groaned. "Look here, what about a compromise? The story takes place on a ship traveling in the South Seas. I've been on ships. I can write about them. Your hero is a strapping young Kanaka who's been carried off by whites."
"A Hawaiian? That's an interesting angle." The other was writing again. "Why'd they kidnap him?"
"They needed crewmen. Theirs died of scurvy, I dare say."
"Shanghaied!" exclaimed Joseph with gusto. " _Love_ the title. Go on, Louis, go on."
"He's carried off on a whaling ship, away from his island home and his aged parents. He's a heathen (this is before the missionaries) but nevertheless naturally virtuous. The drunken behavior of the white sailors fills him with righteous dismay."
"We can show a lot of sleaze here. I like it."
"His ship comes to the rescue of another ship under attack by pirates. Buccaneers have just boarded the other vessel and are in the act of putting passengers to the sword. Among passengers a beautiful young virtuous Scottish girl, no doubt traveling with her minister father. Probably has money too. Our Kanaka performs particularly daring act of rescue of maiden. She falls in love with him, he with her."
"Okay, okay, and?"
"They take him back to Scotland with them and ... stop a bit!" Stevenson's eyes lit up. "It's not just one girl he rescues from pirates, it's _two_! Minister's daughter and a harlot who for some reason's been traveling in the South Seas. Both fall in love with him!"
"Boy oh boy oh boy." The other man fed his notes into the trunk. It spat them back again. He read the commentary. Stevenson, watching his face, gave a sob of exasperation and lay back.
"_Now_ what's wrong with it?"
"They didn't go for the title. Funny. And they don't want the hero to be a real Hawaiian. They like the other idea about him being a long-lost duke or earl or somebody like that. Like, his parents were English and their yacht got shipwrecked when he was a baby or something? And he just looks brown because of the tropical sun? Not really some native guy at all."
"Bigots," said Stevenson with contempt.