Read Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber for Free Online Page B

through, in an ordinary way. When next morning rolled around and I still hadn’t got hold of her, I had to start stalling.
“She’s sick,” I told Papa Munsch over the phone.
“She at a hospital?” he asked me.
“Nothing that serious.” I told him.
“Get her out here then. What’s a little headache?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
Papa Munsch got suspicious. “You really got this girl?”
“Of course I have.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’d think it was some New York model, except I recognized your lousy photography.”
I laughed.
“Well look, you get her here tomorrow morning, you hear?”
“I’ll try.”
“Try nothing. You get her out here.”
He didn’t know half of what I tried. I went around to all the model and employment agencies. I did some slick detective work at the photographic and art studios. I used up some of my last dimes putting advertisements in all three papers. I looked at high school yearbooks and at employee photos in local house organs. I went to restaurants and drugstores, looking for waitresses, and to dime stores and department stores, looking at clerks. I watched the crowds coming out of movie theatres. I roamed the streets.
Evenings I spent quite a bit of time along Pick-up Row. Somehow that seemed the right place.
The fifth afternoon I knew I was licked. Papa Munsch’s deadline—he’d given me several, but this was it—was due to run out at six o’clock. Mr. Fitch had already canceled.
I was at the studio window, looking out at Ardleigh Park.
She walked in.
I’d gone over this moment so often in my mind that I had no trouble putting on my act. Even the faint dizzy feeling didn’t throw me off.
“Hello,” I said, hardly looking at her.
“Hello,” she said.
“Not discouraged yet?”
“No.” It didn’t sound uneasy or defiant. It was just a statement.
I snapped a look at my watch, got up and said curtly, “Look here, I’m going to give you a chance. There’s a client of mine looking for a girl your general type. If you do a real good job you may break into the modeling business.
“We can see him this afternoon if we hurry.” I said. I picked up my stuff. “Come on. And next time, if you expect favors, don’t forget to leave your phone number.”
“Uh, uh,” she said, not moving.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I’m not going to see any client of yours.”
“The hell you aren’t,” I said. “You little nut, I’m giving you a break.”
She shook her head slowly. “You’re not fooling me, baby, you’re not fooling me at all. They want me.”
And she gave me the second smile.
At the time I thought she must have seen my newspaper ad. Now I’m not so sure.
“And now I’ll tell you how we’re going to work,” she went on. “You aren’t going to have my name or address or phone number. Nobody is. And we’re going to do all the pictures right here. Just you and me.”
You can imagine the roar I raised at that. I was everything—angry, sarcastic, patiently explanatory, off my nut, threatening, pleading.
I would have slapped her face off, except it was photographic capital.
In the end all I could do was phone Papa Munsch and tell him her conditions. I know I didn’t have a chance, but I had to take it.
He gave me a really angry bawling out, said “no” several times and hung up.
It didn’t faze her. “We’ll start shooting at ten o’clock tomorrow,” she said. It was just like her, using that corny line from the movie magazines. About midnight Papa Munsch called me up.
“I don’t know what insane asylum you’re renting this girl from,” he said, “but I’ll take her. Come around tomorrow morning and I’ll try to get it through your head just how I want the pictures. And I’m glad I got you out of bed!”
After that it was a breeze. Even Mr. Fitch reconsidered and after taking two days to tell me it was quite impossible, he accepted the conditions too.
Of course you’re all under the spell of the Girl, so you can’t understand how much