Bound to happen. A Personage appears for the agency to turn into something.
Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
More out of curiosity than real interest Al and Bill had agreed to see Tom Swineherd, a prominent soap star, heart throb of possibly dozens, and general Face Of A Thousand Products. Whatever it was, Swineherd flogged it. He had the voice, too, and was good looking in a furniture sort of way. His publicist, a gnome called Steve Siddons, had heard of the agency and was hoping that Al and Bill could scare up some new products for Swineherd to get some more airtime.
Swineherd was dressed as if life was one big search for photographers. Siddons was dressed as if paper towels were too flashy. Swineherd made An Entrance, which actually went rather well, since several models in various states of dress were wandering through. Siddons produced a small digital camera and clicked away piously. This did not go unnoticed. There were three witnesses.
Confronted with Carla, who was talking to Dorothy and Jane, he became expansive, like a peacock with a script. He seemed unaware that three very uninterested, and far more dangerously, unimpressed, females were staring at him like he was a drunk at a wedding. Al and Bill had trotted out to greet him and Siddons, and seeing the combination of the three women and their reaction had slunk into an empty office. Joe was dragged in as he passed by.
A silence. Carla asked, in a clipped voice,
“Yes?”
A large and entirely false smile issued from Swineherd. A highly theatrical, but plug-worthy, voice, the sort no decent actor would be buried with, said,
“I’m Tom Swineherd. I’m here to see Mr. Hickey and Mr. Mackenzie. This is Steve Siddons, my publicist. Could one of you lovely ladies tell them we’ve arrived?”
A benevolent beam was duly wasted on the three, who’d simultaneously decided in that moment that life needed some excitement.
“I’ll do it,” said Carla.
“No, I’ll do it,” said Dorothy.
“Never mind, I’ll do it,” said Jane.
“Why do you want to do it?” asked Carla.
“Well, why do you?” asked Dorothy.
“Why do either of you?”
“You know that Al said to tell him when the cleaners arrived.”
“So what makes it necessary for you to tell him?”
“You’re both mad. These aren’t the cleaners. These are the plumbers.”
Swineherd wasn’t quick, but he was by now aware. Siddons was no help, trying to overcome his terror of beautiful women. Swineherd said, desperately,
“Ah, no, I’m an actor……..you might have seen Hormones and Away?”
“Oh, I saw that, I thought I recognized you. You’re that nice girl’s father.”
“No he isn’t, fool, he’s the one that had that affair with that chicken.”
“That was the hunchback. This is the one with the hots for the café owner with the secret dungeon.”
“I didn’t know he was really a plumber.”
“Well, acting is very like plumbing; it’s largely a question of which drain you go down on….I mean, in….”
Swineherd tried to identify himself. He told them every role he’d ever played. He told them again until he wasn’t quite sure of any of it himself. The models returned, and added to the babble. They knew who he was until the three women got them involved.
“No, Carla, he had the sports car and the beach house with the dog.”
“Really, Jane, I know a washing machine when I see one.”
“What’s any of this got to do with telling Al?”
“Are you really an escaped criminal?” asked one of the models, who really wanted to know.
“Let’s ask Al if we should tell him,” said Dorothy.
“What a good idea,” said Jane.
“Should have thought of that earlier,” agreed Carla.
They thundered past.
“He’s not in his office.”
“Nor is Bill.”
“They must have escaped.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, Jane.”
“The gerbils will be so upset,” said Dorothy.
They thundered back.
“They’re not there. Now, who did you say you were again?”
Such was their force of character that they made him repeat it all over again, with further conceptual departures in different directions.
“I didn’t understand why you had to leave that relationship.”
“Which relationship?”
“With Sandra.”
“Sandra?”
“That wasn’t Sandra, it was Herminie.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
They also made the two victims wait. Dorothy “found” Al, Bill and Joe on her fourth attempt. They strolled out, explaining to the three virtuous guardians that they’d been in a meeting. Al looked at Swineherd, who was by now slightly frayed. Siddons hadn’t said a word in the hour and a half this had taken. Al glanced vaguely at them.
“You Swineherd?” he asked Siddons.
“No, that’s him. I’m…(blinks a lot)….Steve Siddons….usually.”
“We didn’t think to ask who the other one was,” said Dorothy.
“Let’s ask,” said Carla.
“We wouldn’t want to pry,” said Jane.
“We can’t let in just anyone off the street,” protested Dorothy.
“Particularly if they’re only pretending to be plumbers,” agreed Jane.
“Might be risky if they turned out to be cleaners disguised as plumbers,” added Carla, smiling like a shark at Siddons.
“Or actors that look like cleaners disguised as plumbers,” said Dorothy, thoughtfully.
“What about cleaners disguised as plumbers that look like actors?” asked Jane.
“Oh, they can’t do that. It’s illegal.”
Swineherd’s slow but occasionally functional brain reacted to that. He now started to look agitated.
“What makes you think I’m a plumber?” he asked, heatedly, his too-fashionable wardrobe wilting somewhat.
“We were expecting a plumber.”
“I had an appointment. I told you my name. You could have looked me up in the appointment book.”
“Oh, so we could.”
“We really should have looked, you know.”
“Let’s look now.”
“Ah, here it is………..Tom Swineherd……..Steve Siddons…..plumbers,” said Carla, triumphantly.
They looked. There it was. Carla wasn’t in the front office for decorative purposes. It was her appointment book. The two men seemed to shrink.
“But…we aren’t plumbers.”
“Well, if you’re not plumbers, or cleaners, just some sort of actors, what are you doing in our book described as plumbers?” demanded Carla.
“They were taking pictures of our models, too, I saw them,” said Dorothy, in an outraged girlish voice which Al had learned meant that life was no longer safe on Earth.
“They be perverts,” said Jane, loudly.
This latter statement penetrated to the models, who’d formed an instinctive crowd scene around the altercation. Fury resulted.
“You took a picture of me in my bra,” accused one.
“Just as well you were in it, Marcia,” said another.
“You give me that camera!” roared Marcia.
Siddons dropped the camera and ran. Swineherd wasn’t so lucky. They cornered him and accused him of deliberately trying to sneak into the agency to watch them undress. Dorothy had picked up the camera and taken a few happy snaps of this procedure.
“Oh look, there’s a video function…..” said Dorothy, happily.
Sally wandered in at that point.
“Oh, how sweet. My girls have their very own lynch mob.”
“You must be very proud,” said Carla, reverently.
“What a breakthrough for models everywhere,” said Dorothy, hands clasped, wide eyed and saintly, in the girlish voice, which cracked up Al entirely and seemed to flatten Bill and Joe.
Amid the background mirth, the models, who were very fit and very energetic, had removed Swineherd’s pants, and the rest of the ensemble, which they duly shredded. They threw his shoes out a window. A somewhat diminished Swineherd retreated to the fire escape. Siddons, being smaller, took less effort but squeaked a lot. He too vanished into the stairwell.
Dorothy had all of this on the video. She grinned.
“You know, Al, I’ve just had an idea for an ad……”