ming.

DeeDee was so incredibly beautiful that the law of compensation would
force one to expect incredible stupidity as well. One was not
disappointed. DeeDee's neurons didn't know _anything_. She had heard of
emotions, and under St. Cyr's bullying could imitate a few of them, but
other directors had gone mad trying to get through the semantic block
that kept DeeDee's mind a calm, unruffled pool possibly three inches
deep. St. Cyr merely bellowed. This simple, primordial approach seemed
to be the only one that made sense to Summit's greatest investment and
top star.

With this whip-hand over the beautiful and brainless DeeDee, St. Cyr
quickly rose to the top in Hollywood. He had undoubted talent. He could
make one picture very well indeed. He had made it twenty times already,
each time starring DeeDee, and each time perfecting his own feudalistic
production unit. Whenever anyone disagreed with St. Cyr, he had only to
threaten to go over to MGM and take the obedient DeeDee with him, for he
had never allowed her to sign a long-term contract and she worked only
on a picture-to-picture basis. Even Tolliver Watt knuckled under when
St. Cyr voiced the threat of removing DeeDee.

* * * * *

"Sit down, Martin," Tolliver Watt said. He was a tall, lean,
hatchet-faced man who looked like a horse being starved because he was
too proud to eat hay. With calm, detached omnipotence he inclined his
grey-shot head a millimeter, while a faintly pained expression passed
fleetingly across his face.

"Highball, please," he said.

A white-clad waiter appeared noiselessly from nowhere and glided forward
with a tray. It was at this point that Martin felt the last stiles
readjust in his brain, and entirely on impulse he reached out and took
the frosted highball glass from the tray. Without observing this the
waiter glided on and presented Watt with a gleaming salver full of
nothing. Watt and the waiter regarded the tray.

Then their eyes met. There was a brief silence.

"Here," Martin said, replacing the glass. "Much too weak. Get me
another, please. I'm reorienting toward a new phase, which means a
different optimum," he explained to the puzzled Watt as he readjusted a
chair beside the great man and dropped into it. Odd that he had never
before felt at ease during rushes. Right now he felt fine. Perfectly at
ease. Relaxed.

"Scotch and soda for Mr. Martin," Watt said calmly. "And another for
me."