About Indigo: The Cat's Meow
by Lucius Parhelion
72 pages / 19200 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-722-9
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Good jobs were hard to come by in 1930, even in booming Southern
California, even in Hollywood. Fred Doyle was relieved when the chores his
brother Charlie conned him into taking over, serving as handyman and cat
sitter for their landlady's son, accidentally led to decent work with Carl
Belasco, youngest and sharpest of the Production Heads at Metropolitan
Pictures.
But now Fred and Carl are being drawn together by more than painting
woodwork on weekends, trying to keep track of Mr. Flurry the cat, or even
correcting errant movie directors. They’re realizing that a more intimate
and illegal taste they share is turning them toward each other. Too bad that
onlookers, including the ever-conniving Charlie, may notice the growing
attraction before Fred and Carl do.
Given this tangle, a quick trip to buy decorating supplies on romantic
Catalina Island is likely not the wisest of ideas…
Sample
Those first two weeks, Fred spent
much of his time with other accountants in an interesting set of tutorials
about studio practices. The local bookkeeping used techniques about which
his fellow accounting students had talked in hushed and lively tones after a
few drinks at Beta Alpha Psi get-togethers. Such methods were supposedly
distinctive to bookmakers and bootleggers.
"The results are impeccable within the company and truly inventive when
presenting totals to the outside world," was Fred's reported opinion to his
new boss.
"So I'm told. Your job will include checking that invention hasn't landed on
my desk when I need impeccable to do my job. That shouldn't overstrain your
professional conscience."
Fred considered and then nodded.
"Later, I'll turn you loose on individual shoots, so you can get a good
sense of who's doing what and for how much. After a few months, you'll work
for a while assisting a couple of my better line producers with their
projects. You should be able to more or less do their jobs if you're going
to report on them, but right now you don't know enough about what we're
doing here to try."
"Mmmhmm," Fred agreed. He didn't like talking with his mouth full. After
swallowing his bite of egg salad sandwich, he said, "To sub as assistant
producer, I'll need to know a lot more about making movies. Hell, about
movies altogether. I didn't spend nearly as much time at the picture palaces
downtown as I would've wanted. Too busy. Are you going to eat that?"
Carl looked at the roast beef sandwich in front of him with an absent frown.
He was wearing what Fred now had enough proximity to tell was a pricy
double-breasted suit. While the change from waist overalls helped Fred keep
his mind on business, skilled tailoring revealed that Carl had been losing
weight. There didn't seem to be enough problems at Metropolitan Pictures to
account for the shrinkage; Carl's first full slate of talkies was out in the
theaters and, as far as Fred could tell through the mists of studio
bookkeeping, doing very well.
Fred couldn't consider another possibility, that his boss was ill, without a
pang. He had moved past his first carnal interest into the immature
fascination stage, which more time and familiarity should wear down to a
pleasant working relationship with a little extra vim to it. That was Fred's
opinion, at least, and he was clutching it tight. But any of those three
states of mind would've disinclined him to accept whatever was going on here
without some prodding.
"Sandwich?" Fred tried asking. "Yummy?"
He would have predicted a scorching look, but instead he got a level stare,
followed by a deliberate, enormous bite. The, "mmm, mmm, mmm," was
interspaced with chewing.
"Thank Christ. I didn't want to try making airplane noises to get that
hanger open."
This time, Carl followed up a meaningful gaze at the roast beef with one at
Fred's head.