That lonely man behind the Oriental Brown Derby screen, laughing, on what seemed a hundred nights ago.
The creature who had run away on the midnight streets to enter a graveyard and stay among the white tombs.
“Oh, my God, Roy.” My eyes filled with tears shocked free by the impact, as fresh and new as when the Beast had stepped forth to raise his riven face into the night air. “Oh, God—”
Roy was staring with wild love at his wondrous work. Only slowly did he turn to regard Manny Leiber. What he saw stunned both of us.
Manny’s face was white cheese. His eyes swiveled in their sockets. His throat croaked as if a wire choked his neck. His hands clawed his chest as if his heart had stopped.
“What’ve you done!” he shrieked. “Jesus! My God, oh Christ! What is this? Tricks? Jokes? Cover it up! You’re fired!”
Manny hurled the damp towel at the clay Beast.
“It’s crap!”
With stiff, mechanical movements, Roy covered the clay head. “I didn’t—”
“You did! You want that on the screen? Pervert! Pack your things! Get out!” Manny shut his eyes, shuddering. “Now!”
“You demanded this!” said Roy.
“Well, now I demand you destroy it!”
“The best, my greatest work! Look at it, dammit! It’s beautiful! It’s mine!”
“No! The studio’s! Dump it! The film is scrubbed. You’re both fired. I want this place empty in an hour. Move!”
“Why,” asked Roy, quietly, “are you overreacting?”
“Am I?”
And Manny plowed across the stage, his shoes tucked under his arm, smashing miniature houses and scattering toy trucks as he strode.
At the far stage door he stopped, sucked air, glared at me.
“You’re not fired. You’ll get a new job. But that son of a bitch? Out!”
The door opened, let in a great Gothic-cathedral spray of light, and slammed shut, leaving me to survey Roy’s collapse and defeat.
“My God, what’ve we done! What the hell?” I shouted to Roy, to myself, to the red clay bust of the Monster, the discovered and revealed Beast. “What!?”
Roy was trembling. “Jesus. I work for half a lifetime to do something fine. I train myself, I wait, I see, at last I really see. And the thing comes out of my fingertips, my God, how it came! What is this thing here in the damn clay? How come it gets born, and I get killed?”
Roy shuddered. He raised his fists, but there was no one to strike. He glanced at his prehistoric animals and made an all-sweeping gesture, as if to hug and protect them.
“I’ll be back!” he cried hoarsely to them and wandered off.
“Roy!”
I followed as he blundered into daylight. Outside, the late-afternoon sun was blazing hot, and we moved in a river of fire. “Where you going?”
“Christ knows! Stay here. No use you getting dumped on! This is your first job. You warned me last night. Now I know it was sick, but why? I’ll hide somewhere on the lot so that tonight I can sneak my friends out!” He looked longingly at the shut door behind which his dear beasts lived.
“I’ll help,” I said.
“No. Don’t be seen with me. They’ll think you put me up to this.”
“Roy! Manny looked as if he could kill you! I’m calling my detective pal, Crumley. Maybe he can help! Here’s Crumley’s phone number.” I wrote hastily on some crumpled paper. “Hide. Call me tonight.”