I WALTZED WITH A ZOMBIE

by Ron Goulart

Introduction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is pretty much responsible for my career, such as it is, as a writer. I was about sixteen when I bought the premier issue from the newsstand at my local drug store in Berkeley, California. The title of that very first issue was just plain Magazine of Fantasy. Encouraging to me, since the science fiction I was trying to write back then was not very strong on science but did all right when it came to fantasy. They changed the title with the second issue, but I kept buying it anyway. I’d already been buying pulp sf magazines, but F&SF seemed a step above the pulpwoods. More like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, after which it was modeled.

And it now and then had a story by my then-idol, Ray Bradbury.F&SF also introduced me to such writers as Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, and Alan Nelson. And more serious chaps like Richard Matheson. Another thing I found fascinating about the magazine was the fact that it was edited in my home town by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. McComas I’d never heard of. Boucher’s work, however, I knew pretty well, having read most of his mystery novels and his detective novel reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle (the title of the column was “The Gory Road”) and listened to the weekly Sherlock Holmes radio shows that he cowrote (they starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce). Now if you’re a teenage boy who aspires to writing science fiction and you know there’s the editor of an sf magazine living right smack in the same town as you do, you try to figure out how to meet him. Just sending in a story by mail, and including return postage, didn’t seem enough.

I was still mulling this over some months later, when I saw a small notice in the book section of theChronicle announcing that Boucher was going to be teaching a once-a-week class in writing at his home every Thursday night. The address was on Dana Street, up fairly near the campus of the University of California. It was the same address as the editorial offices of the magazine. I signed up. It cost $1.00 per night. My mother advanced me the money each week and my dad, since I’d flunked my first driving test, drove me there and picked me up. Boucher usually had about eight or ten pupils in attendance and, sitting at a card table in the center of his living room, he’d read one of the submitted stories and then discuss it and listen to the students’ comments. He’d usually make it through three or four stories each week. The room was ringed by cases that contained books, many of them by him, his collection of seventy-eight r.p.m. opera records, and, as I recall, at least two Edgars that he’d won from the MWA. Those statues of Poe fascinated me and I vowed to win at least one myself. I’m still working on that, although I have had two nominations.

The first time Boucher read a science fiction story that I’d submitted, he asked me afterward if he could hold it to consider forF&SF. That was exactly what I was hoping for. Turned out they never bought that planet yarn, and it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I made it into the magazine. Time passes much faster for me now, but then three years seemed like a hell of a long time to wait. My first sale was a reprint of a parody of letter columns in sf magazines that had appeared in the UC humor magazine. I was paid $25 and from that moment I considered myself a professional writer. A few months later Boucher and McComas bought a brand new story that I tried on them.

Since then I’ve branched out into mysteries and nonfiction and added books to my list. But I figure if I hadn’t discoveredF&SF when I did and hadn’t had the nerve to sign up for Boucher’s course, I might be a retired English teacher living in El Cerrito or Walnut Creek. On the other hand, I might be relaxing in a villa on Lake Como, living on the residuals from a long string of top-rated sitcoms.

One never knows.—Ron Goulart

It was the only movie ever made starring a dead man. This was back in the late spring of 1942 and Hix, the short, feisty, and unconquerably second-rate writer of low budget B-movies, was one of the few people who knew about it. He’d hoped to turn the knowledge to his advantage. But that didn’t quite work out.

His involvement commenced on an overcast May afternoon. He was pacing, as best he could, his diminutive office in the Writers Building on the Pentagram Pictures lot in Gower Gulch.

Carrying his long-corded telephone in one hand and the receiver in the other, he was inquiring of his newest agent, “In what context did Arthur Freed use the word ‘tripe,’ Bernie?”

“He applied it to your movie treatment, the one I was foolish enough to let you cajole me into schlepping over to MGM,” replied Bernie Kupperman from the Kupperman-Sussman Talent Agency offices over in the vicinity of Sunset Boulevard. “The full sentence was, ‘How dare you inflict such a load of tripe on me, Bernie?’”

“That’s not so bad. He could have called it crap instead of tripe.” Hix, his frizzy hair flickering, halted just short of an unstrung mandolin that lay in his path.

“Actually, Hix, he did, but I never use that kind of language over the phone.”

Sighing, the short screenwriter set his telephone down on his wobbly desk atop a scatter of glossy photos of starlets, drafts of scripts, three old issues of Whiz Comics, and a paper plate that once had held a nutburger. “Alas, that’s the curse of being ahead of my time with my ideas.”

“Two weeks ahead isn’t that far,” suggested his agent. “Oh, and Freed, hardly using any profanity at all, did mention that he’d heard that Val Lewton is planning to do a picture with the same title over at RKO.”

“What I hear is that Lewton and his heavy-handed director Tourneur are probably both about to get the bum’s rush out of the studio before they have time to make another clinker like Cat People.” Hix gazed at a spot on the far wall where a window would’ve been if his office actually had a window. “More importantly, Bernie, Lewton’s flicker is entitled I Walked with a Zombie, while my proposed blockbuster enjoys the far superior title of I Waltzed with a Zombie.”

“Even so, Hix, we—”

“Furthermore, pal, Lewton’s movie is going to be just another trite lowbrow effort aimed chiefly at the Saturday matinee crowd, mostly pubescent boys who flock into movie palaces to eat popcorn, whistle at Rita Hayworth, and pass gas,” he pointed out. “My effort is a big budget musical, the very first horror musical comedy ever conceived by man.”

“So far nobody—”

“Face it, buddy, the concept of a Technicolor musical in the horror genre is, well, both brilliant and unique.” When Hix’s head bobbed enthusiastically, his frazzled hair fluttered. “Were I given to hyperbole, I’d dub it super-colossal.”

After a few silent seconds, his agent told him, “Estling over at Star Spangled Studios wants you for another Mr. Woo quickie.”

Hix sank down into his slightly unstable swivel chair, sighing again. “As a potential Oscar winner,” he complained, “I ought to be working for somebody who’s not as big a moron as Estling.”

“He’s offering five hundred bucks more than you got for Mr. Woo at the Wax Museum.”

“Okay, tell him I’ll write it,” said Hix. “But keep pitching I Waltzed with a Zombie.”

“Only if it doesn’t look like it’s going to result in my suffering bodily harm.”

Hix hung up and slid the phone toward the edge of his desk. “Twenty-nine smash B-movies since I came here six years ago and they still treat me like a hack.”

The telephone rang.

“Mr. Hix’s private office,” he answered in, he was quite certain, a very convincing imitation of a very polite British servant.

“Listen, Hix, I’ve got to talk to you.”

“That can be arranged, Marlys,” he assured her. “Still unhappy about how things are going for you at Paramount? You’ve only been under contract for a little over three months after all.”

“I still haven’t been cast in one darn movie, Hix,” Marlys Regal told him. “But this is something else, something maybe worse. Can you meet me in the Carioca Room at the Hotel San Andreas on Wilshire at five?”

“I can, sure. But what exactly—”

“Listen, besides writing a whole stewpot of movies that are always on the lower half of double bills, I know you’ve done some amateur detective work now and then.”

“I wouldn’t apply the word amateur to my work in the ‘tec field, kid. In fact—”

“You also know a lot about spooky stuff, occult matters?”

“We’ve been keeping company for well over a month. In that time you must’ve deduced that I’m an expert in the field.”

“Particularly zombies?”

“Well, sure. My as-yet unsold epic musical is about…. Whoa now. Are you hinting that you know something about real life zombies?”

“I am, yes, and I’m afraid I could be in trouble.”

“So, tell me exactly what—”

“Nope, it’s too darn risky to say any more from where I am right now. Meet me at the Carioca Room. Bye, darling.” She ended the call.

Cradling the receiver, he stood up and lifted his umber-colored sport coat off the eagle-topped coat rack to the left of his desk. As he shrugged his way into it, frazzled hair vibrating, he made his way to the door. “If I crack a zombie case,” he said, grabbing the dented doorknob, “I can get some terrific publicity for I Waltzed with a Zombie.”

The green and scarlet parrot behind the long teakwood bar was alive. He swung on his gilded perch in his gilded cage, now and then squawking out what were probably Brazilian curses. The other parrots, the ones perched high in the fake banana palms that decorated the dimlit Carioca Room, were stuffed.

Arriving about ten minutes after five, Hix stopped near the bar and scanned the surrounding South American gloom.

“Still busily turning out crap, Hix?” asked an overweight writer who was occupying a nearby stool.

“I’ve recently been promoted to writing tripe, Arnie.” Eyes narrowed, he looked again at the surrounding tables. There was no sign of Marlys.

After swallowing the rest of his Manhattan and plucking the cherry from the bottom of the glass, Arnie said, “Buy you a drink, old buddy?”

“I’m meeting somebody.”

“Anybody I know?” he inquired, biting the cherry.

“I’m hoping for Carmen Miranda,” Hix answered. “My doctor advised me to get more fruit in my diet. I figure if I eat her hat, I’ll—”

“Marafona,” cried the parrot, agitating his golden cage. “Marafona.”

Marlys Regal, smiling very faintly, had just entered the cocktail lounge. She spotted Hix, gave him a minimalist wave before crossing to an empty table next to an almost believable palm tree. Before sitting down, she looked back toward the doorway. She was a very pretty young woman in her early twenties, slender and, at the moment, a redhead.

Arnie nodded. “Cute, but a little too skinny for my tastes,” he observed. “And obviously too good for you.”

“She’s lowered her standards because of wartime shortages.” Hix, his crinkly hair fluttering, went trotting over to the actress. En route he passed out greetings to some of the other customers. “Hi, Chester, you were great in the new Boston Blackie flicker.”

“That crap,” said the actor.

“Tripe,” corrected Hix. “Howdy, Eleanor, loved you in Ship Ahoy.”

“Do I know you?”

As he seated himself opposite Marlys, the young actress asked, “Did you notice anybody watching me as I came in, Hix?”

“Sure, each and every guy, with the exception of Grady Sutton. As I’ve oft told you, kiddo, you’re very presentable.”

“No, seriously. I’m pretty sure I’m being watched.”

He reached across, put his hand over hers. “Okay, so what’s going on wrong?”

“Well, I know something and I figured maybe Paramount wouldn’t want it known. All I really was after was a chance at a good part, you know.”

“Are we talking blackmail?”

“I call it goosing my darn career. Thing is, I’m not sure how they took my proposition and, past couple days, Hix, I have this really spooky feeling they’ve got a watch on me.”

“The time has come, Marlys, for a few more details.”

She inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. “Now this all started before I met you at the Rathbones’ party in April, Hix, so don’t get jealous or hit the ceiling. You see—”

“What’ll you folks have?” asked the buxom blonde waitress who materialized out of the shadows.

The red-haired actress said quietly, “I’d like bourbon and water.”

“Plain ginger ale,” said Hix.

Nodding, the waitress departed.

Resting both elbows on the tropical-patterned tablecloth, Hix suggested, “Get back to your story.”

“Well, before I met you I dated other people.”

“Sure. I’ve been known to do the same.”

“Well, some four months ago I was seeing Alex Stoner and—”

“Stoner? The grand old man of the silver screen? Ain’t he a bit old for you?”

“He was only fifty-six.”

Hix straightened. “Was? According to Louella, Hedda, and Johnny Whistler, the old boy is still above the ground. Fact is, he’s over at your very own Paramount about two-thirds of the way through starring in their big budget historical fillum of the year, The Holy Grail. He’s cast as King Arthur.”

She took another slow breath in and out. “Alex died early in March,” she said in a low voice. “Three weeks into The Holy Grail.”

“So how come he’s still acting in the darn film?”

“They brought him back to life,” she replied.

It was a little over an hour later that Hix got knocked cold by a conk on the head.

He and Marlys had retreated to the small living room of the small cottage that Hix was renting on the ocean side of Santa Monica. The starlet had become convinced that it wasn’t safe to keep talking at a public place like the Carioca.

Pacing the venerable flowered carpet he’d acquired at a rummage sale over in Altadena last fall, Hix was going over what details the young actress has thus far provided. “So you were sleeping with this old coot when he shuffled off?”

Marlys was sitting on the lime-green sofa. “Yes, I woke up at seven in the morning and the poor guy was stone cold dead next to me,” she said. “That was really unpleasant.”

“Tell me some more about what you did next, kid.”

“I was alone at his place in Bel Air. Alex had given his two servants a few days off,” she said. “I was darn certain he had kicked off, so there sure wasn’t any reason to call an ambulance.”

Hix sat on the wobbly arm of his only armchair. “And what about the cops?”

“Spending a night in bed with a dead major movie star doesn’t give you the kind of publicity I need,” she answered. “Besides which, Alex was already partway through shooting the King Arthur flick and I figured Paramount might not care to have his dying made public right away.”

“How come you phoned this guy Wally Needham?”

She looked toward the draped window, frowning. “Did you hear something outside?”

“Relax, kiddo. Nobody followed us here from the Carioca,” he assured her. “Having penned a bunch of Mr. Woo pictures, not to mention three Dr. Crimebuster epics, I know a little bit about how to avoid being tailed.”

Sighing, Marlys continued. “Well, I first met Wally at Schwab’s when I stopped in for a cup of coffee one afternoon a few months ago.”

“Another of your beaus?”

“We were friends, sure. It doesn’t hurt to have a friend who works in publicity at Paramount Pictures.”

“No, that could sure be darn helpful to anybody’s career.” He stood, crossed to the lemon-yellow drapes, and pulled them a few inches open to look out into the approaching twilight. “Nobody around. By the way, I’m not crystal clear on how I can help you rise in show biz.”

“C’mon, Hix,” she told him. “I’m simply fond of you.”

“Wellsir, that’s a relief.” He turned his back to the window. “Explain to me a bit more about what this publicity lad did.”

“Well, he got to Alex’s mansion less than an hour after I telephoned him,” she said. “After making certain Alex was dead, Wally asked me if I’d like to sign a movie contract with Paramount.”

“Provided you kept your mouth shut about Alex Stoner being dead.”

She nodded. “Yes, I couldn’t very well pass up an opportunity like that to graduate out of Poverty Row quickies,” she replied. “Then Wally went into Alex’s office and phoned various people, higher-ups at the studio. I heard him tell somebody, ‘Dr. Marzloff can do it. We’ll use him.’”

“They hired Dr. Sandor Marzloff? Quack physician and phony self-proclaimed sorcerer to the stars?”

“Not so phony, it seems, Hix. He brought Alex back to life, after all,” the actress pointed out. “He told me once that he’d lived for several years in Haiti and learned—”

“You dated him, too?

“We had a few drinks a couple of times. Long before I met you, Hix.”

“Um,” commented Hix.

“I have the impression that Alex Stoner wasn’t the first defunct actor he reanimated,” she said. “In fact … Holy Christ!” She had risen partly off the sofa and was staring past the writer.

Slowly he turned. “Oops.”

Two large men, wearing pinstripe suits and with cloth sugar sacks over their heads had silently entered his living room and were pointing large revolvers at him and the young actress.

“You couldn’t possibly have tailed us here,” Hix told them. “I dodged any—”

“You forget that you’re one of the most famous hacks in Hollywood, Hix,” explained the larger of the intruders. “One of our people spotted you with this dame at the Carioca. We didn’t follow you, we just looked up your address in a phone book.”

“Ah, the price of fame. Now, I suggest you—”

That was as far as he got. The other hooded intruder had returned his gun to its shoulder holster, withdrawn a substantial-looking blackjack from a side pocket and lunged to bop Hix on the skull.

He heard Marlys scream as he was dropping down into oblivion.

Birds were twittering and chirping, in a cheerful Disney-like manner, to announce the advent of a new day. Morning sunshine was beaming in through the opening between Hix’s tacky yellow drapes. With an awakening groan, he sat up on his living room floor.

“Oy,” he observed, feeling suddenly dizzy. “One doesn’t usually experience a hangover after two glasses of ginger ale.”

Then he recalled that a hooded intruder had conked him on the coco last night. Slowly and carefully, he glanced around the small room. It didn’t appear to be in any worse shape than it had been prior to the intrusion.

“Marlys?” he said in a voice that vaguely resembled his own. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Marlys?”

Tottering some, Hix arose to a standing, albeit wobbly, position. He stumbled through the entire rest of his cottage. Outside of a scraggly stray orange cat who’d snuck in through the open kitchen window to explore the substantial collection of dirty dishes in the lopsided sink, there was nobody else in the entire place.

“Shoo,” he suggested half-heartedly as he returned to his living room. “I reckon I better call the police to report—”

His phone rang. It was residing on a sprawling stack of old copies of Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

After swallowing and blinking a few times, he made his way to the telephone and snatched up the receiver. “Forest Lawn Annex.”

Marlys, somewhat breathlessly, inquired, “Hix, dear, are you okay?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“I’m fine, perfectly fine,” said the starlet, inhaling and exhaling. “That whole business last night was simply a misunderstanding.”

“Those hoodlums really meant to coldcock somebody down the street from here?”

“No, silly. See, they weren’t hoodlums at all. But a couple of Paramount Pictures executives.”

“Oh, so? Is that the current style for Paramount execs? Flour sacks over their heads?”

“Actually those were sugar sacks.”

“Even so,” he said. “What in the hell is going on, kiddo?”

Taking another deep breath, the young actress told him, “See, dear, they got the foolish idea that you had kidnapped me. What happened was a sort of rescue operation.”

“Your value to Paramount has apparently increased a lot since yesterday.”

“They reconsidered my proposition and decided it was in the best interests of the studio to comply,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”

“Sounds like.”

“Oh, and I wanted to let you know, dear, that I won’t be able to go with you to that Korngold concert at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday.”

“Are they shipping you off to Guatemala?”

“No, just to Arizona for a few weeks. They’re picking me up at noon,” she said. “I’m going on location. Paramount wants me to play the dance hall singer in the new Randolph Scott Western. It’s a real step up for my career. I get shot in the final reel.”

“A painful place to be shot,” he said. “Now explain what the devil is going on?”

“It turns out that quite a few people at Paramount were unhappy that I was unhappy. So they—”

“I bet you’re going to have to forget all about Alex Stoner and Dr. Marsloff.”

“Not exactly forget, just simply keep mum about what I may or may not know,” Marlys explained. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry, Hix. I convinced everybody at the studio last night that—”

“That’s where they dragged you?”

“I went voluntarily once I realized what was up. This is the first time I was at a meeting with so many important movie people,” she said, still sounding a bit breathless. “As I was explaining, dear, I convinced them that you and I were simply shacking up for a one-night stand. I never mentioned anything about Dr. Marzloff or poor Alex to you.”

“There goes my reputation for celibacy.”

“At least you won’t get conked on the noggin anymore…. Gosh, I just looked at the clock, Hix. I really have to finish packing.”

“Well, it’s been swell having this little chat,” he assured the actress. “It’s sure taken a load off my mind.”

“One other thing,” she cautioned. “I don’t think it’d be a wise idea for you to talk to anybody about zombies for a while.”

“The word zombies will never cross my lips again,” he promised. “Bon voyage.”

“Same to you, darling.” She hung up.

Hix cradled the phone, picked up the receiver again, and made a series of calls.

A few minutes past two that afternoon, Hix was seated at one of the huge oaken tables in the vast dining hall of Camelot. He was finishing up the second half of the baloney on rye sandwich he’d found in his box lunch and conversing with the two former chorus girls who were working as extras in The Holy Grail. Like the writer, they were dressed as Hollywood’s idea of Middle Ages peasant folk.

“I hear,” Hix said, setting aside the remnants of his sandwich, “that Alex Stoner has been feeling poorly of late, Exine.”

“You can say that again, sweetie,” she replied as she scratched at her bosom through the coarse gray material of her tunic. “Yesterday they had to do thirty-seven takes of the scene where he’s supposed to be knighting Ray Milland. He kept dropping his goddamn sword.”

“Only thirty-three takes,” corrected the redheaded peasant girl on Hix’s left. “By the way, Hix honey, how come you’re working as an extra on this flicker?”

“I’m really not an extra, Mindy,” he explained, lying. “I’m doing research for an A-budget Hollywood murder mystery George Marshall wants me to script for Alan Ladd.”

Exine observed, yet again scratching her bosom, “That’s good news. It’s about time you quit writing those crappy Mr. Woo programmers.”

“Actually, the Mr. Woo films are considered by many an astute and discriminating critic to be stellar examples of the mystery cinema at its absolute best.”

“C’mon, where the hell would an astute and discriminating critic find a job in this pesthole of a town?” asked Mindy, who was now scratching her bosom, too. “Geez, everybody in the Middle Ages must’ve spent most of their time scratching their boobs.”

Before Hix could provide an answer, a uniformed guard came striding into the immense hall, causing some of the colored banners on the imitation stone walls to flutter. “Okay, kids, nobody’s supposed to eat their lunch in here,” he informed them. “Please, scram.”

“As soon as we finish our after-dinner mints,” Hix assured him.

The plump guard did a take. “Hix? What the hell are you doing in that getup?”

“I’m going through an unexpected slow period in my usually spectacular writing career, Nick.”

“Sorry to hear that, pal. You and the dames better toddle along, though,” advised the guard. “Stoner’s going to do the scene where he addresses the village peasants in about fifteen.”

Hix stood up, gathering the scraps from his meal and dumping them in the white cardboard box. Among the phone calls he’d made earlier was one to a photographer friend at the L.A. Times. He’d asked him to use his connections at Paramount to get him a job as an extra in The Holy Grail in some scenes featuring Alex Stoner. He wanted to see for himself if Stoner acted any differently now that he was dead.

He soon found out.

The fog machines were sending a gray mist swirling across the wide stone courtyard of Camelot Castle. A young extra put her fist up to her mouth and coughed loudly.

“Don’t do that when the damn cameras are rolling, sis,” warned a nearby assistant director loudly.

Hix, standing between a redheaded girl in a Gypsy costume and a bearded fat man who was clutching a shepherd’s staff, was watching a sort of reviewing stand a few yards away. The stand had a wooden throne in the center of a row of carved chairs and was bedecked with brightly colored pennants. He lifted his weathered peasant cap to scratch his frizzy hair.

One of the director’s assistants was assigning some of the bit players to chairs. There were lesser knights wearing chain mail, some ladies-in-waiting, and not one but two jesters.

The door of one of the dressing room trailers that sat just beyond the enormous set now swung open and Queen Guinevere, wearing a low-cut gown trimmed in ermine, regally descended the stairs. The crowd of more than a hundred extras murmured as she was escorted to the stand.

“So that’s Sylvia Thompson,” observed a pretty blonde milkmaid, shifting her grip on her pail. “Not all that pretty in real life, is she?”

“What makes you think this is real life?” inquired Hix.

The milkmaid glanced back at him. “Hix? Have you sunk even lower?”

“Doing a favor for DeMille.”

The door of another one of the other trailers came flapping open. Alex Stoner, a thin white-bearded man, came stumbling out into the misty afternoon. He teetered on the top step, then went tumbling down to land on a tangle of cables and wires at the set edge.

His ornate gilded crown popped free of his gray head and landed on the booted foot of a wide, broad man dressed as a yeoman.

“Drunk again,” said a chubby friar.

The milkmaid shook her head. “I think the poor guy’s sick. He’s looked like crap since Monday.”

“Booze can do that. I ought to know,” said a husky blacksmith.

Two large men in business suits came hurrying down out of the trailer in the fallen actor’s wake.

“Eureka!” said Hix to himself. “I’ll wager that these two gents are the same pair that broke in on me and the ambitious Marlys last evening.”

They tugged Stoner to his feet, restored his crown.

“Fell … down … getting worse,” muttered the actor.

“Chin up,” advised one of the men. He sounded like the one who’d done the talking last night.

Slowly the two alleged studio executives guided Alex Stoner to the stand. “I’ve got bunions,” the actor was saying in a fuzzy voice. “I never had bunions until Dr. Marzloff worked his—”

“Button your lip, sir,” advised the one who’d bopped Hix.

When Stoner reached the next to the last step of the wooden stairway, his legs suddenly went limp.

The two executives yanked him upright, hustled him over to the gilded throne he was supposed to sit on.

A lean prop man materialized to hand the swaying actor an Excalibur sword made of balsa wood.

Grabbing the sword, Stoner held it high, tip of the blade pointing skyward. “People of Camelot,” he started reciting, “I wish you to join … um … to join me … um … Now, what in the hell do I want these halfwits to join me for?”

Excalibur fell from his now shaking hand. He dropped to his knees. He fell forward and hit the planks with his face, producing a resounding smack. The jeweled crown left his head again, rolled off the stage and landed hard on the cobblestones of the courtyard, losing at least three sparkling fake jewels in the process.

The two executives picked up the now unconscious actor. They deposited him, with a thump, on the gilded throne.

The one who did the talking picked up a megaphone. “Mr. Stoner seems to have had a mild fainting spell.”

From where Hix was standing it looked as though Stoner had ceased to breathe. “They’re going to have to get him back to Dr. Marzloff,” he concluded.

The executive said, “We’ll be escorting Mr. Stoner to his personal physician. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Today’s shooting is canceled. Call casting about what time to show up tomorrow. Thank you one and all.”

When night started closing in on the town of Santa Rita Beach, Hix, wearing dark gray slacks and a black pullover, was stretched out on a patch of hillside forest just above Dr. Marzloff’s small private sanitarium. The address of the two-story slant-roofed place he found simply by checking a couple of Greater Los Angeles phone books. The floor plans of the joint he borrowed from a former singing cowboy who’d gone into real estate after first Republic and then Monogram had tossed him out on his ear. The infrared camera and the night binoculars he got from the same L.A. Times photographer who’d fixed up the extra stint at Paramount. The bagel with cream cheese he’d just finished eating he’d picked up at Moonbaum’s delicatessen while passing through Hollywood en route to this beach town.

By the time the screenwriter had gathered up this assortment of stuff it was nearing seven in the evening. As the evening darkened it also grew increasingly overcast. Parked down in the white-graveled parking lot at the back of the sanitarium was a panel truck with the Paramount Pictures logo on the passenger-side door. There was also a big color poster for The Road to Morocco on the side of the vehicle, with portraits of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour.

Hix, while wiping bagel crumbs off his chin, said to himself, “Dottie Lamour would be perfect for I Waltzed with a Zombie. Sure, we could put her in front of a whole chorus line of sexy girl zombies in tight sarongs. Though maybe Paramount wouldn’t loan her out to MGM or Twentieth after I expose them as employers of dead actors.”

The presence of this Paramount truck indicated to Hix that the defunct actor had indeed been brought back to Dr. Marzloff for a tune-up. The problem was, how many times can you revive the same corpse? Even with voodoo.

There was a large skylight on the slanting left side of the roof. Lights were already on in the room below when Hix had come skulking along to watch the place. According to the floor plans, Marzloff’s laboratory and surgery were below that bright-lit skylight.

A dog all at once began barking, barking in a loud chesty way that indicated a large and mean-minded hound.

Hix swung his glasses in the direction of the new sound. “Ah, only a neighbor’s animal.”

The big Doberman was attached to a log chain on the other side of the high stone wall that surrounded the Marzloff setup.

The night kept getting colder and darker. In another few minutes Hix would make his careful approach. There was a sturdy drainpipe running up the side of the gray building. Having considerable confidence in his stuntman abilities, Hix was certain he could, under the cover of night, scale the seven-foot-high stone wall, then shinny up the pipe to reach the roof. He’d then, unobserved, snap some news-photo-quality shots of Dr. Marzloff reviving the corpse of Alex Stoner.

He’d turn the pictures over to his buddy at the L.A. Times. He might also give Johnny Whistler, who was easier to reach than Hedda or Louella, a call. True, Whistler had told him never to phone again with his pathetic attempts to get publicity for his mediocre fleapit movies. But this time he had an earthshaking scoop. The subsequent front page stories would result in a hell of a lot of publicity for him. And for I Waltzed with a Zombie.

“I bet,” he said as he rose to start his slow, careful approach to the re-animator’s lab, “we can hire Cole Porter or Irving Berlin to write a Zombie Waltz.”

From up on the hillside the darn Doberman had seemed to be securely attached to a sturdy walnut tree at the backside of the stark white Art Deco house of Dr. Marzloff’s neighbor.

But just as Hix was scrambling over the stone wall around the sanitarium and realizing that his wall-climbing skills had somewhat diminished since he’d turned thirty, he heard a chain snapping and then became aware of an angry, growly sort of barking. It grew ever louder and closer in the overcast darkness of the night.

“Heel!” he ordered quietly over his shoulder. “Sit! Roll over! Play dead!” These were the only dog commands he could recall from the script he’d written for Socko the Wonder Dog Goes to War last autumn.

None of them made an impression on the angry Doberman. Snarling, he leaped for the climbing writer.

He managed to nip the heel of one of the strange shoes that Hix was pretty certain he’d bought down in Tijuana while hung over a few months ago. The dog took a hunk out of the orange-brown Mexican shoe, but Hix was not hurt.

Hix was able to pull himself to the top of the wall. He stretched out there for a moment, facedown, and caught his breath.

The dog continued to growl and jump down there in the darkness. Apparently everyone at the Marzloff establishment was too busy bringing the late Alex Stoner back to life to notice Hix’s less than silent arrival.

The thick drainpipe commenced producing metallic groans when Hix, panting as quietly as he was able, had managed to convey himself up roughly three quarters of its two-story length.

Over on the other side of the stone wall the surly Doberman was continuing to convey his annoyance with a lengthy series of angry barks.

Pausing to again catch his breath, the writer continued his ascent to the slanting roof and the illuminated skylight.

“You’re going to have to expand your exercise plan,” he advised himself as he labored upward. “Playing volleyball once a week with a gaggle of starlets in the Pentagram Pictures parking lot obviously isn’t sufficient.”

At long last—it took him nearly ten minutes according to the radium dial on his wristwatch—Hix reached his goal. Clutching the metal edge of the sturdy gutter, he pulled himself up on to the roof.

Sprawling flat, he inched his way over to the edge of the big skylight. Careful not to go sliding back down the incline of the roof, he prepared to take a look down into the lab/surgery.

“Hot dog!” he exclaimed internally upon noticing that one of the large glass panels in the skylight was propped open, thus allowing him to hear what was being said down below.

A voice that must belong to Dr. Marzloff was saying, in a thick accent that sounded like Akim Tamiroff or Gregory Ratoff on a bad day, “I am no longer optimistic, gentlemen.”

“He’s alive again,” pointed out the Paramount exec who’d conked Hix.

“True, but he’s passed away twice again since you delivered him here to me.”

“I’m not … really … feeling so … hot,” admitted Alex Stoner.

Risking a peek downward into the brightly lit room Hix saw the two large Paramount men standing close beside a white operating table, considerable concern showing on their faces.

Stretched out on the table, looking extremely pale and clad in a white hospital gown, was the late actor. He was groaning in his deep, actor’s voice.

The squat, thickset Marzloff had on a pale blue medical jacket and a stethoscope dangling around his neck. On his bald head he was wearing a voodoo headdress consisting chiefly of chicken feathers, cat fur, and rat tails. In his right hand he held a large hypodermic and in his left a maraca that had tiny skulls painted on it in bright red lacquer.

Stoner said, “Dying once … was bad enough … but dying three more….”

“Four,” corrected the doctor.

The other executive said, “Look, Doc, we only need this guy for one more week and then it’s a wrap.”

“Don’t forget he has to dub a few pieces of dialogue,” reminded his colleague.

“We can always get Paul Frees to do that. He can imitate anybody’s voice.”

“Gentlemen, I very much fear he can’t be kept alive for longer than a few more minutes.”

“We could settle for three days.”

“Not even three hours. I’ve been able, as you know, to have some luck with an initial reanimation. But—”

“I have … a few…” said Stoner, half sitting up on the table, shivering and shaking violently, “…last words … I’d like to thank the Academy for … Aargh!” Falling back with a thud, he died for the fifth time.

“Holy Moley,” said Hix, reaching the borrowed camera out from under his sweater. Surreptitiously, he aimed it at what was going on down in the laboratory.

“C’mon,” ordered one of the executives. “Revive this guy again.”

“I do not believe it would be of any use.”

“Try it!”

Sighing, the doctor adjusted his chicken feather headpiece. “My exclusive blending of up-to-date medical expertise and ancient Haitian voodoo can only do so much.”

“Get going, Doc!”

After administering the shot in the hypodermic to a thin, pale arm of the dead actor, Marzloff began to dance around the body, shaking the maraca and chanting, “Damballah. Ioa. Damballah-Wedo. Gato Preto. Damballah.”

Hix, chuckling silently, clicked off shots. “What an expose this is going to be. I’ll be the darling of the press and … Oh, crap.”

He’d discovered he was swiftly sliding toward the edge of the sharply slanting roof.

Flipping over onto his back as he slid, Hix managed to stuff the big camera under his dark sweater and, at the same time, use his heels to try to brake his descent.

He succeeded with the camera, but he kept sliding ever closer to the drop.

Hix made a grab for the gutter edge as he went over. As he caught it, the jerking halt of his drop sent pain all across his shoulders and back. He hung two stories up for what seemed like more than a minute.

Then he caught hold of the drainpipe and went down to the ground, quite a bit faster than he’d gone up.

Limping, he scurried to the wall. After inhaling enthusiastically a few times, he got himself to the top. He lay stretched out on the stones. Nobody had noticed his departure.

Wheezing, as well as panting, Hix let himself down on the other side.

Waiting for him, silently, was the big mean-minded black and tan dog.

The next morning, the new secretary at his agent’s office pretended she didn’t know who Hix was. “Who?” she inquired in a voice that was both nasal and snide.

“Hix. Bernie’s most successful client.”

“Surely, you’re not John O’Hara.”

“Tell him that terrific idea we talked about has come to fruition. We’re all in the money.”

“I’ll try to contact Mr. Kupperman. Hix, was it?”

After three and a half long minutes Bernie came on the line. “Hix, how many times have I warned you about using profanity with my secretaries?”

“I merely stated my name.”

“She apparently though Hix was a dirty word.”

“A common mistake, yeah. But the purpose of my call is to alert you to dust off my brilliant I Waltzed with a Zombie treatment, Bernie.”

“Why in the heck would I do something like that?”

“Because I am on the brink of turning into an international celebrity due to my exposure of insidious zombie trafficking in Tinsel Town,” he announced. “I’ll be exposing a major Hollywood studio that’s featured a dead actor in a starring role in their latest Technicolor historical epic.”

“Baloney. How can you do that?”

“Soon as I sell my exclusive story to the L.A. Times. And possibly give it to my old pal Johnny Whistler, too.”

“What sort of proof do you have? Photographs would be nice.”

Hix hesitated. “I had a whole stewpot of great shots, Bernie,” he said. “Unfortunately my camera fell out of my sweater while I was running through a section of Santa Rita Beach.”

“Exercising, were you?”

“Well, actually, I was running for my life.”

“So why didn’t you pick up the camera?”

“The ferocious dog that was chasing me over hill and dale stopped to eat the camera. Or at least take a couple of hefty bites out of it,” he explained. “But I can still provide the press with a first-hand account of my witnessing a noted actor being resurrected. An attempted resurrection maybe, because I fell off the roof before—”

“Who was, according to you, being revived? And who was doing this?”

“The actor in question was none other than Alex Stoner, Paramount’s star of The Holy Grail. The first time this old ham died was back three months ago and they—”

His agent made an exasperated sound. “Don’t you read the newspapers, Hix? Don’t you listen to Johnny Whistler’s seven-thirty a.m. broadcast on Mutual?”

“I overslept because … why?”

“Alex Stoner didn’t die three months ago. He died last night of a massive heart attack,” Bernie told him. “Paramount Pictures announced that early this morning.”

“I fell off the roof too soon. Looks like they couldn’t revive him this time.”

“Actually, Hix, they’re burying him at Forest Lawn on Friday,” the agent informed him. “Paramount says they’ve got enough footage in the can to put The Holy Grail together.”

“I Waltzed with a Zombie is still a terrific idea.”

“Tell you what, I’ll try it on Monogram,” said Bernie. “I hear they’re thinking of doing some cheapie musicals. Maybe we can get six thousand dollars out of them. What say?”

Hix was silent for a moment. “Sure, give it a try, Bernie,” he said, and hung up.