Free Even the Butler Was Poor by Ron Goulart Page A

keep—"
    "Fellows," put in Ben, "I think Les has a splendid idea. Let's get a complete take on this thing and then see about what doctoring, if any, we—"
    "If you want to kiss Les's ass, Spanner," suggested Kathkart, "do it elsewhere. I don't think your boyfriend's reading is right. And keep in mind that I'm really the one who has to be satisfied here. I sure as hell know what makes a good Chumley commercial. And let me tell you, brothers, this ain't it."
    Ben said, "Granted you've sat in on some of the great muffin performances of the century, Barry. Even so, everybody else thinks Pierce is doing okay."
    "Ah, the Sir John Gielgud of silly voices has spoken." Kathkart threw his script to the floor and went striding over to a far corner of the studio. "Les, fire both these assholes and get me two new muffins."
    Ben said, "Come on, Barry, we're all professionals here and—"
    "I'm telling you Pierce's reading isn't right, and yours isn't all that good either, Spanner." He poked a forefinger in Ben's direction and then at the booth. "Get him the hell out of here, Les."
    "Hold it a minute, everybody," advised Beaujack. He came hurrying down out of the booth and into the room.
    Giving Ben and Gardener a quick, rueful smile, he crossed over to Kathkart and started talking to him in a low murmuring voice.
    "Have you worked with Kathkart before?" Gardener asked quietly.
    "Never have, nope."
    "I have—once before." He sighed, rolled up his script and rubbed it across his small chin. "I'm not coming across too swish, am I?"
    "I've never heard an English muffin with more balls," Ben assured him.
    "I would've liked to turn down this particular job, but I couldn't risk ticking Les off. They use me on a lot of other stuff."
    ". . . don't want to annoy him, remember?" drifted over from Les's murmured lecture to the big actor.
    "Okay, okay," muttered Kathkart. "I forgot, Les, I lost my temper."
    "This isn't Shakespeare, old buddy," reminded Beaujack in a louder voice. "Don't take it too seriously."
    "All right, Les, but keep in mind that if I didn't take this goddamn job seriously the agency would have lost the Chumley account a long time ago." Kathkart came stomping back to his mike, squatted, grunted, and scooped up his discarded script with such force that he turned it into a ball of crumpled paper.
    Beaujack tapped Ben's upper arm with his fist. "All your jobs for us won't be this rough," he promised. "Don't hold this against us."
    "Right you are, guy," said Ben in his muffin voice, tugging at his forelock.
    It was a few minutes shy of six-thirty in the evening when they finished recording the three My Man Chumley commercials.

Chapter 13
    Â 
    T hey'd entered Ben's house at about five minutes shy of two that afternoon. Two of them, big men in dark windbreakers and ski masks. They had come down through a wooded area, pines and maples mostly, to the left of his house and slipped in by prying open the sliding glass doors of the living room.
    They were very slick about breaking in, quiet, professional. But, even so, up in the guest bedroom H.J. heard them.
    Her heartbeat accelerated, but she didn't panic. Nor did she for a moment assume that they might just be friends or neighbors of Ben's dropping in for an afternoon cup of coffee.
    I'd better get my butt out of here , she told herself, rising slowly and quietly off the bed where she'd been lying and reading through one of the business ledgers she'd dug up in Ben's study. He really was making over $200,000 a year now.
    She dropped the black-bound book on the unmade bed, and took a deep breath. From the back of a wicker chair she grabbed her maroon sweater. She couldn't hear them downstairs anymore, but she sensed them.
    She flatfooted over to the window and, after breaking a thumbnail on the latch, urged it open, patiently and without noise. H.J. knew, from her earlier thorough casing of the house, that there was a slanting roof just outside this particular window. Poking