TheFourofHearts - (EPUB全文下载)

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The Four of Hearts
Ellery Queen
PART ONE
Chapter 1
GOD’S GIFT TO HOLLYWOOD
It is a well-known fact that any one exposed to Hollywood longer than six weeks goes suddenly and incurably mad.
Mr. Ellery Queen groped for the bottle of Scotch on the open trunk.
“To Hollywood, city of screwballs! Drink ‘er down.” He guzzled what was left of the Scotch and tossed the bottle aside, resuming his packing. “California, here I go
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unwept, unhonored, and unsung. And do I care?”
Alan Clark smiled that Mona Lisa smile by which you may know any member of the fraternity of Hollywood agents, fat or thin, tall or short, dewy-eyed or soiled by life. It is the sage’s, the saint’s, the cynic’s smile of pure wisdom.
“All you wacks act this way at first. Them that can take it snaps out of it. Them that can’t
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they turn yellow and go squawking back East.”
“If you’re trying to arouse my ire,” growled Ellery, kicking his prostrate golf-bag, “desist, Alan. I cut my eyeteeth on the tactics of scheming agents.”
“What the hell did you expect
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a Class A assignment your first week on the lot and a testimonial dinner at the Cocoanut Grove?”
“Work,” said Ellery unreasonably.
“Phooey,” said his agent. “It isn’t work here; it’s art. Rembrandt didn’t get his start knocking out the Sistine Chapel, did he? Give y< >ur-self a chance to learn the ropes.”
“By burying myself in that mausoleum of an office they gave me and sucking my thumbs?”
“Sure, sure,” said Clark soothingly. “Why not? It’s Magna’s dough, isn’t it? If the studio’s willing to invest six weeks’ salary in you, don’t you think they know what they’re doing?”
“Are you asking me?” said Ellery, flinging things into the trunk. “Then I’m telling you. No!”
“You’ve got to get the feel of pictures, Queen, before you can wade into a script. You’re not a day-laborer. You’re a writer, an artist, a
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a sensitive plant.”
“Flapdoodle, with onions on the side.”
Clark grinned and tipped his hat. “Pleased to meet you . . . . Just the same, what’s the rush? You’ve got a future out here. You’re an idea man, and that’s what they pay off on in Hollywood. They need you.”
“Magna gives me a six-week contract with an option for renewal, the six weeks expire today, they don’t take up the option, and that means they need me. Typical Hollywood logic.”
“They just didn’t like the contract the New York office wrote. Happens out here all the time. So they let your contract lapse and now they’ll offer you a new one. You’ll see.”
“I was brought out here to do the sto ............

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