He sounded embarrassed. "I couldn't figure out a way to.

"And the romantic element is so familiar it's tiresome. A shower scene comes from a washed-up imagination."

That was tough, I knew, but I waited to see how he'd take it. If he turned out to be the sensitive type, I wasn't going to get anywhere.

"Yeah. Okay. Maybe I did rely on a lot of other movies I'd seen."

His response encouraged me. "The humorous elements don't work. I don't think comedy is your thing."

He squinted.

"The ending has no focus," I continued. "Was your main character right or not? Simply leaving the dilemma up in the air is going to piss off your audience."

He studied me. "You said you liked the story."

"Right. I did."

"Then why do I feel like I'm on the Titanic?"

"Because you've got a lot of craft to learn, and it's going to take you quite a while to master it. If you ever do. There aren't any guarantees. The average Guild member earns less than six thousand dollars a year. Writing screenplays is one of the most competitive enterprises in the world. But I think I can help you."

"…Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"We met just last night. I was your waiter, for God's sake. Now suddenly I'm in your house, having lunch with you, and you're saying you want to help me. It can't be because of the force of my personality. You want something."

"Yes, but not what you're thinking. I told you last night -this is strictly business. Sit down and eat while I tell you how we can both make some money."

"This is Ric Potter," I said. We were at a reception in one of those mansions in the hills near the Hollywood Bowl. Sunset. A string quartet. Champagne. Plenty of movers and shakers." Fox is very hot on one of his scripts. I think it'll go for a million."

The man to whom I'd introduced Ric was an executive at Warners. He couldn't have been over thirty. "Oh?"

"Yeah, it's got a youth angle."

"Oh?" The executive looked Ric up and down, confused, never having heard of him, at the same time worried because he didn't want to be out of the loop, fearing he ought to have heard of him.

"If I sound a little proud," I said, "it's because I discovered him. I found him last May when I was giving a talk to a young screenwriters' workshop at the American Film Institute. Ric convinced me to look at some things and…I'm glad I did. My agent's glad I did." I chuckled.

The executive tried to look amused, although he hated like hell to pay writers significant money. For his part, Ric tried to look modest but unbelievably talented, young, young, young, and hot, hot, hot.

"Well, don't let Fox tie you up," the executive told Ric. "Have your agent send me something."

"I'll do that, Mr. Ballard. Thanks," Ric said.

"Do I look old enough to be a 'mister?' Call me 'Ed.'"

We made the rounds. While all the executives considered me too old to be relevant to their 16-25 audience, they still had reverence for what they thought of as an institution. Sure, they wouldn't buy anything from me, but they were more than happy to talk to me. After all, it didn't cost them any money, and it made them feel like they were part of a community.

By the time I was through introducing Ric, my rumors about Ric had been accepted as fact. Various executives from various studios considered themselves in competition with executives from other studios for the services of this hot, new, young writer who was getting a million dollars a script.

Ric had driven with me to the reception. On the way back, he kept shaking his head in amazement. "And that's the secret? I just needed the right guy to give me introductions? To be anointed as a successor?"

"Not quite. Don't let their chumminess fool you. They only care if you can deliver."

"Well, tomorrow I'll send them one of my scripts."

"No," I said. "Remember our agreement. Not one of your scripts. One of mine. By Eric Potter."

So there it was. The deal Ric and I had made was that I'd give him ten percent of whatever my scripts earned in exchange for his being my front man. For his part, he'd have to take calls and go to meetings and behave as if he'd actually written the scripts. Along the way, we'd inevitably talk about the intent and technique of the scripts, thus providing Ric with writing lessons. All in all, not a bad deal for him.

Except that he had insisted on fifteen percent.

"Hey, I can't go to meetings if I'm working three-to-eleven at the restaurant," he'd said. "Fifteen percent. And I'll need an advance. You'll have to pay me what I'm earning at the restaurant so I can be free for the meetings."

I wrote him a check for a thousand dollars.

The phone rang, interrupting the climactic speech of the script I •was writing. Instead of picking up the receiver, I let my answering machine take it, but I answered anyhow when I heard my agent talking about Ric.

"What about him, Steve?"

"Ballard over at Warners likes the script you had me send him. He wants a few changes, but basically he's happy enough to offer seven hundred and fifty thousand."

"Ask for a million."

"I'll ask for nothing."

"I don't understand. Is this a new negotiating tactic?"

"You told me not to bother reading the script, just to do the kid a favor and send it over to Warners because Ballard asked for it. As you pointed out, I'm too busy to do any reading anyhow. But I made a copy of the script, and for the hell of it, last night I looked it over. Mort, what are you trying to pull? Ric Potter didn't write that script. You did. Under a different title, you showed it to me a year ago."

I didn't respond.

"Mort?"

"I'm making a point. The only thing wrong with my scripts is an industry bias against age. Pretend somebody young wrote them, and all of a sudden they're wonderful."

"Mort, I won't be a part of this."

"Why not?"

"It's misrepresentation. I'd be jeopardizing my credibility as an agent. You know how the clause in the contract reads – the writer guarantees that the script is solely his or her own work. If somebody else was involved, the studio wants to know about it-to protect itself against a plagiarism suit."

"But if you tell Ballard I wrote that script, he won't buy it."

"You're being paranoid, Mort."

"Facing facts and being practical. Don't screw this up."

"I told you, I won't go along with it."

"Then if you won't make the deal, I'll get somebody else who will."

A long pause. "Do you know what you're saying?"

"Ric Potter and I need a new agent."

I'll say this for Steve -even though he was furious about my leaving him, he finally swore, for old time's sake, at my insistence, that he wouldn't tell anybody what I was doing. He was loyal to the end. It broke my heart to leave him. The new agent I selected knew squat about the arrangement I had with Ric.

She believed what I told her – that Ric and I were friends and by coincidence we'd decided simultaneously to get new representation. I could have chosen one of those superhuge agencies like CAA, but I've always been uncomfortable when I'm part of a mob, and in this case especially, it seemed to me that small and intimate were essential. The fewer people who knew my business, the better.

The Linda Carpenter Agency was located in a stone cottage just past the gates to the old Hollywoodland subdivision. Years ago, the "land" part of that subdivision's sign collapsed. The "Hollywood" part remained, and you see that sign all the time in film clips about Los Angeles. It's a distance up past houses in the hills. Nonetheless, from outside Linda Carpenter's stone cottage, you feel that the sign's looming over you.