Innocent Blood

Ten

‘Joe says they’re not going to cancel under any circumstances but one more bomb and I think they’re going to cancel,’ Mo said.

‘This is insane. What are they going to do? Put on endless repeats of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm?’

‘Frank, everybody’s running scared. What’s going to happen if they let off a bomb right in the middle of Wheel of Fortune? What if they blow up the new Mission Impossible movie and kill Tom Cruise? The insurance companies are pulling out of movies and television like Napoleon pulling out of Moscow.’

Lizzie Fries lit another More and blew smoke out of her nostrils. ‘Maybe we could introduce a sympathetic Taliban character and have all our women dress in burkas.’

‘In Iowa?’

‘It was only a suggestion,’ said Lizzie. She was sixty-two and skeletally thin, with a puffball of dyed orange hair and a face with striking bone structure but lizard-like skin. She always wore pant suits and frilly blouses, and enormous dangly earrings. In her twenties she had been a comedienne and a singer, and even Lucille Ball had said she was going to be the next Lucille Ball. But drink and pills and four failed marriages had destroyed her looks, even though they had never diluted her corrosive sense of humor.

‘So what’s the score?’ asked Frank. ‘Is there any point in us finishing the next script? If they’re going to cancel, we might as well go play some golf.’

‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ Mo told him. ‘Lizzie and I can manage. We’ll send you the first draft by email and you can tear it to shreds in the privacy of your own home.’

‘I wish. Margot’s thrown me out.’

‘She’s what?’

‘She’s thrown me out.’ Frank explained about the séance and Impressions In White.

Lizzie waved aside a cloud of smoke. ‘Are you sure you didn’t deface those paintings? Me, I can’t tell you how often I wake up in the night with an insatiable urge to paint swastikas and vaginas all over the wall.’

‘It wasn’t me, Lizzie. I don’t know who the hell it could have been, but it wasn’t me.’

‘What about this séance?’ asked Mo. ‘I got to tell you, Frank, it sounds to me like you’re very close to cracking up. Why don’t you stay with Naomi and me for a while, just until you’ve got your head back together?’

‘Oh God, just what he needs,’ said Lizzie. ‘Chicken soup and old Zero Mostel jokes.’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ said Frank. ‘I think I need to spend some time on my own.’

‘You’re not going to do anything stupid?’

‘What, like sit in the bath and drop a hairdryer in it? No, Mo, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just need to rearrange my head.’

He drove to Venice. On the car radio, the chief executive of NBC was repeating his determination not to be intimidated by terrorists.

‘The very first amendment to the American Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and a free media. We at NBC value this freedom beyond the price of gold or rubies. We are not going to allow a maniac minority to destroy the legacy that our founding fathers handed down to us.

‘On the other hand, we are taking every precaution to protect our employees and our property. Everybody who enters an NBC office or studio for whatever reason will be thoroughly searched, and if this causes delay and disruption – well, I’m afraid that’s the price we have to pay for vigilance.’

Newscaster Will Chase said, ‘In spite of these redoubtable words, a wave of blind panic continues to sweep through Hollywood. Extra police and deputies have been brought in to guard all major TV networks and movie studios, including Fox, Universal, Sony, Warner Brothers, MGM/Pathé and Disney at Burbank.

‘Fashionable restaurants and nightspots frequented by movie and TV celebrities are reporting that business has fallen off overnight. At the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Polo Lounge was described today as a “mausoleum,” and Rodeo Drive as a “ghost town.” Personal protection companies are reporting a desperate shortage of bodyguards and security experts available for hire, and Armet, the Florida-based company which produces “discreetly bomb-proofed” cars and SUVs, say they have been inundated with inquiries from Hollywood’s rich, famous and scared.

‘There is no question about it, the TV and movie industry is living in fear, and nobody doubts that there will be another bomb outrage very soon. The only questions are when, and where.’

Frank parked outside Astrid’s apartment building. He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, trying to decide if he was doing the right thing.

He was still sitting there when the old man in the long-billed baseball cap suddenly appeared around the corner, wearing a sagging pair of maroon jogging pants and a faded yellow T-shirt. The old man hesitated for a moment, looking screwy eyed from right to left. He licked his finger and lifted it up as if he were testing which way the wind was blowing. Then he came loping over to Frank’s car and tapped on the window.

‘How’s it going, Frank?’

‘Not too good.’

‘Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good never came of losing your nerve.’

‘I haven’t lost my nerve. I can’t decide what to do next, that’s all.’

‘Maybe it ain’t your decision.’

‘Oh, really? Then whose decision is it?’

‘Fate, karma, call it whatever you like. Sometimes we’re destined to play a part in history and we don’t even know it. In which case all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep on following that road and see where it takes us.’

‘I’m burying my only son on Wednesday.’

The old man laid his hand on the roof of the car. He wore a silver ring on every finger and his nails were blackened and broken. He smelled, too – of urine and alcohol.

‘There’s a reason for everything, Frank. It’s not always a reason we can understand, or a reason we approve of. But there’s a reason all the same.’

‘So what do you think I should do next?’ Frank asked him. He was being bitter, but at the same time he really wanted to hear what the old man had to say.

‘You don’t have any choice, Frank. You crossed the road. There’s no turning back now.’

Frank knew that he was right. He couldn’t go back. Yesterday was closed for business. He sat staring at the Buick emblem on his steering wheel and he could almost feel life’s rug being dragged out from under him.

After more than a minute of silence, the old man coughed and spat. ‘That’s a ten spot.’

‘What is?’

‘Spiritual guidance. Warnings I give for nothing – especially dire warnings; that’s my philanthropic duty. But I’m sorry. Spiritual guidance I have to make a nominal charge for.’

Frank opened his billfold and gave him a twenty. The old man grinned and showed his four mahogany teeth. ‘You’re a generous man, Frank. Your generosity will pay you back one day. Not this year. Maybe not next year, neither. But one day, when you least expect it.’

He went hobbling off along the sidewalk and disappeared around the next corner. Frank told himself that his appearance had been nothing more than a coincidence. After all, he must spend all day panhandling up and down the coast, annoying people. And what kind of spiritual guidance was ‘put one foot in front of the other’? You could get better advice out of a fortune cookie.

Frank climbed out of the car, went across to Astrid’s door and rang the bell. There was no answer so he waited a minute and then rang it again.

‘Who is it?’ said a voice over the intercom.

‘It’s Frank. I’ve come to see Astrid.’

‘Astrid? There’s no Astrid here.’

‘Is this apartment three?’

‘That’s right, apartment three.’

‘You must be Carla. I’ve come to see the girl you share with. I think she must have given me a different name.’

‘There’s nobody here but me.’

‘You mean she’s out? Can I leave her a message?’

‘I mean nobody lives here but me.’

‘Excuse me? There has to be. I visited her yesterday afternoon.’

‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe another apartment. Nobody lives here but me.’

‘Listen – please. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She wears rings on her toes.’

The intercom clicked off. Frank pressed the bell again, and then again, and then again, but Carla wouldn’t answer. He stepped back and tried to look up to the second story, but the dark green shutters were all closed. Eventually he climbed back into his car.

What the hell is happening here? I know I didn’t make a mistake. Not unless Astrid didn’t really share the apartment at all. Maybe she found out that Carla was away in Europe for a few days, and crashed in it without asking.

The trouble was, he had no way of contacting Astrid now. He didn’t know her telephone number. He didn’t even know her surname. It suddenly occurred to him that he might never see her again.

He drove back to Hollywood, to the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Alta Loma Road, a short, steeply sloping street that climbed from Holloway Drive to Sunset.

‘How long will you be you staying with us, Mr Bell?’ the receptionist asked him. She had tightly braided blonde hair and unnervingly wide-apart eyes.

‘I’m not sure. At least a week. Maybe the rest of my life. It all depends on . . . you know . . . fate.’

‘Fate,’ the receptionist repeated. She didn’t seem at all mystified. A lot of rock stars stayed at the Sunset Marquis.

His second-story room was sunny and painted yellow, with splashy floral prints on the wall. He opened all the windows so that the warm midday breeze could blow in, and then he took a can of beer out of the icebox and sat in one of the big stripy armchairs and closed his eyes.

Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good ever came of losing your nerve.

He was woken by a quiet rapping at the door. For a split second he didn’t know where he was, and he thought that it was Margot rapping on the door of his study.

‘What time is it?’ he asked. But of course it wasn’t Margot, and he was still here, in his room at the Sunset Marquis.

The rapping was repeated. He heaved himself out of his chair and went to answer it.

‘Yes?’

‘Room service.’

He opened the door. It was Astrid. She stepped straight past him into the room and did a twirl.

‘Hey! Nice place! She said that I would probably find you here.’

‘Who did?’

‘Your secretary.’

‘My secretary? You called my office?’

‘I went round to your home first but your wife said that you’d packed your bags and moved out.’

‘You saw Margot?’ Or rather, he thought, Margot saw you, with your tight white T-shirt and your tan leather mini-skirt and your tan leather ankle boots with the high spiky heels.

Astrid laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I saw Margot all right. What happened between you two?’ She put on Margot’s snappy don’t-talk-to-me-like-that tone. ‘“I don’t know where Frank is and quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Or words to that effect.’

‘We had another row. It’s the shock, I guess, and the grief. It’s a goddamned mess. It’s going to take us a long time to get over losing Danny.’

Astrid looked in the icebox. ‘You don’t mind if I help myself to a glass of wine?’

‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ He took out a bottle of Chilean rosé, pulled out the cork, and poured her a glass.

She lifted it up and said, ‘Mud in your eye.’ For the first time he noticed that she had a sprinkling of light-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked into his eyes while she was drinking as if she could tell exactly what was thinking.

‘I was looking for you,’ he told her. ‘I went to Carla’s place first.’

‘I thought you might.’

‘So why did you make out that you live there when you don’t?’

‘I did live there. It’s just that I don’t live there now.’

‘I see. So where have you moved to?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned.’

She sat down on the couch. Her leather skirt was so short that he could see a triangle of purple lace thong. ‘You’re not old-fashioned, Frank. Not at all. You have wings but you’ve never learned how to fly. You were successful too young, you were married too young, you became a daddy too young. All that responsibility. All that weight. You’ve never had the chance to be you.’

‘Well, that’s not so easy. How can I be me when I don’t even know who I am?’

She reached out and traced a circle around the dimple on his chin, around and around. ‘I think it’s time you found out, don’t you?’

‘It’s Danny’s funeral on Wednesday. Maybe when that’s over . . .’

‘He’s gone, Frank. I know how much you loved him, but you have to start thinking about what you’re going to do next. You.’

‘Yes, I understand that. The trouble is . . .’ He felt exhausted and confused and he was finding it very hard to swallow. They drank their drinks in silence for a while. Then Frank said, ‘We held the séance.’

‘Oh, yes? I was going to ask you about that.’

‘It worked. He did it. Nevile Strange. He actually put us in touch.’

‘You talked to Danny’s spirit?’

‘Much more than that. We saw Danny, actually saw him, standing outside the window. We all did. Margot, Nevile, me, Margot’s friend.’

‘That’s unbelievable. You’re sure it wasn’t a trick?’

‘If it was, I can’t think how the hell it was done. But the worst part about it was that Danny told me that he couldn’t forgive me.’

Astrid carried on stroking his cheek, and then she ran her fingers into his hair. ‘You shouldn’t take it to heart. Nevile Strange is probably a fraud, in any case.’

‘Astrid, I saw Danny with my own eyes.’

‘You thought you did. But maybe he was only a projection, something like that. I mean, he might have looked as if he was standing outside the window, but supposing Nevile Strange was shining an image on to the glass?’

‘It was Danny. Where was he going to get hold of an image of Danny?’

‘He probably didn’t. But you wanted the image to be Danny so you believed that it was.’

‘No, I don’t buy that. It couldn’t have been a projection. Besides, he didn’t have any equipment with him, not even a briefcase.’

‘Maybe he set it up beforehand, outside in the yard. Maybe he hypnotized you.’

Frank got up and popped open another can of beer. ‘I know what I saw, Astrid.’

‘And Danny didn’t forgive you?’

‘No.’

‘So why do you think that Danny didn’t forgive you?’

‘Because I left him in the back seat of my car, didn’t I? Bleeding to death. He called me and called me but I didn’t come.’

‘Maybe Danny’s spirit wouldn’t forgive you because that was a sure-fire way for Nevile Strange to persuade you to go back for another séance?’

He slowly shook his head. ‘I thought I was cynical.’

‘I’m not being cynical, Frank. I’m being realistic. Before you lost Danny, did you believe that dead people could come back and talk to you? Did you believe in spirits?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You believed that when people died, that was it, that was the end of them?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But now you’ve changed your mind, just like so many other people change their minds when they lose somebody they love.’

‘I know what I saw, Astrid. I know what I heard.’

‘If you say so. But Nevile Strange is a very clever man. He knows how to play on people’s expectations. Even the police. Do you really believe that people leave a psychic resonance in their sunglasses?’

‘I’m very tired, Astrid.’

She knelt up on the couch and took his can of beer away from him. ‘You should rest,’ she said, and she started to unbutton his shirt.

‘Hey,’ he said.

She paused for a moment and stared at him. ‘You need this, Frank. You need somebody to take care of you. For once in your life, stop trying to be responsible for everything that goes on around you.’

He could have told her to stop. He could have told her to go and leave him alone. But somehow he couldn’t find the strength, or the will. When she carried on unbuttoning his shirt, he didn’t resist. He just lay back and watched her eyes, as if they would explain why she wanted him so much. But her eyes were as pale blue as ever, as empty as a windy sky, and they gave away nothing at all.

She unbuckled his Gucci belt and tugged out his shirt tails. She smoothed her hands over his bare chest, rolling his nipples between finger and thumb. ‘I love skinny men,’ she said. ‘All those ribs. They feel like Jesus.’

She lifted him up off the cushion and pulled his shirt over his head. Then she kissed him on the forehead, three times. ‘I anoint thee. I anoint thee. I anoint thee.’

She twisted around, lifted up his legs one after the other, and took off his bright red socks. ‘You know what red socks mean? They mean you’re going to travel to hell and back.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘That’s because you’ve never been there.’

Next she drew down his zipper and began to work his pants down over his hips. Under his white Calvin Klein shorts he was stiffening already, but she ignored it until she had taken his pants off completely and bundled them over the back of the couch. Then she sat next to him, and gently laid her hand on his erection. She looked at him and he looked at her.

‘You’re not used to this, are you?’

‘No.’

‘It’s about time you allowed other people to take charge of you, once in a while. You can trust them, you know.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘If I told you, you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me.’

She leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the nose, and then on the lips. ‘First of all, I want you to enjoy being with me.’

‘Then what?’

‘That’ll do for now.’

Without explaining herself any further, she pulled down his shorts, so that his cock rose up into the air, steadily beating in time with his pulse. She took hold of it in her left hand and squeezed it hard, so that the glans turned dark purple and the opening gaped.

‘Eve was tempted by an apple,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I prefer plums.’ She stuck out her tongue and licked him all around, until his glans gleamed with her saliva. She lifted her head and stared at him, and there was still a trail of saliva connecting the tip of her tongue to his cock.

Then she ran her tongue all the way down his shaft until she reached his tight, wrinkled balls. She lifted each of them up in turn, and took them between her lips, and gently sucked them. Frank slid his fingers into her hair, but she gave an impatient little shake of her head to indicate that it was her turn first, and that all he was supposed to do was lie back and enjoy it.

She slid her tongue upward again, then opened her mouth wide and swallowed his cock so deeply that he thought it was going to choke her. She sucked him up and down, the tip of her tongue pattering, and he closed his eyes. God, what’s happening to me? In the midst of all this grief and unhappiness, bliss.

And it wasn’t just the erotic feelings that she was giving him. It was her closeness, and her flowery smell, and the fact that she was caring for him. He had never cried during love-making before, but now the tears were sliding from his eyes as he became overwhelmed with emotion. She gave him a last lingering suck, and then she sat up, still holding his cock in her left hand, her lips shining and her face bright.

‘You’re crying,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘I knew that you would.’

With her right hand, she wrestled off her T-shirt, revealing a lacy purple bra. ‘I’ll let you do that,’ she said hoarsely. He reached behind her to unfasten it and her big round breasts fell out of the cups with a deliciously complicated double sway. The areolas around her nipples were as wide as fallen rose petals, and the same faded pink color, edged with brown.

He tried to hold her breasts in his hands, but she pushed him away. Instead she leaned over him, so that her nipples just brushed his chest, and swung them from side to side, until they crinkled and stood up.

Every time he tried to raise his hands to touch her, she forced them back down. He felt a rising frustration, but at the same time he was growing more and more aroused. His heart was pumping so hard that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, and he was actually trembling.

Astrid pulled down the zipper of her leather mini-skirt and let it drop down on to the carpet. Now she was wearing nothing but her thong and her ankle boots. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You can take this off, too.’

She climbed back on to the couch and sat astride him so that the thong was right in front of his face. He hesitated, but she waited for him, looking down at him, steadily breathing.

He looked back up at her. ‘I don’t know whether I can do this.’

‘Then don’t,’ she said, but she didn’t move.

He took hold of her waistband. Her stomach was rising and falling and he could feel her radiated warmth against his forehead. He knew that whatever he decided to do now, it would change everything. His life would never be the same again.

‘There’s no turning back, Frank,’ Astrid told him.

He rolled down the thin elastic and pulled down her thong. She’d had a Brazilian-wax and was completely hairless, like a ripe pink fruit. Her lips were slightly parted and he could see that she was already glistening wet.

Again he tried to touch her but again she snatched his wrists and levered his arms away. ‘Now, then. I want absolute submission.’

‘I’m not used to this.’

‘Exactly.’

She took hold of his cock and angled it between her legs. All the time he was looking at her, trying to understand why she was doing this, but she gave nothing away. She waited for a very long moment, her lips enclosing his glans, but only just, her head back, staring at the ceiling. Then she slowly sat down, so that Frank sank into her, as deep as it was possible to go, and she let out an aahhhhhhhh of satisfaction.

When he woke up again it was already growing dark. The sky was the color of royal-blue ink, the cicadas were chirruping, and he could hear people splashing and laughing in the pool below. He sat up in bed and pulled at his cheeks to stretch his dehydrated skin.

‘Astrid?’

She appeared in the bedroom doorway wearing a white fluffy hotel bathrobe and holding a glass of wine. Her hair was sticking up at the back and she was smiling.

‘You’re awake, then?’

‘I don’t think I’ve slept so good in days.’

She sat down on the bed beside him and ran her hand through his hair. ‘You needed it. You’ve been needing something like this for a long time.’

‘I guess I ought to feel guilty.’

Her robe had fallen open so that he could see the curved underside of her breast. She gave him a lingering kiss on the lips. ‘So do you?’

He thought about it, and he suddenly began to understand that he could tell her the truth. It had been a long time since he had been able to do that with Margot. He had never lied to Margot about anything serious, like how much he loved her. But he had told her again and again how impressed he was by her paintings, and how much he liked her friends (particularly that wiry-haired busybody Helen Mitchell, and her catarrhal husband, Byron) and how delicious he found her pasta with salmon and Pacific pesto. And somehow all of those small, inconsequential untruths had crept up year by year like ivy over a fairytale window and stifled their life together.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sad, but I don’t feel guilty.’

‘Sad?’

‘Sad for Danny. Sad for Margot. But it’s like breaking a piece of precious china, isn’t it? No use trying to stick it back together again. Best to remember it the way it was, when it was perfect.’

‘Do you want me to stay tonight?’

He reached into her open bathrobe and caressed her bare shoulder. This time she didn’t try to twist herself away.

‘What do you think?’ he asked her.

Astrid did things for him that night that he had fantasized about but never had the nerve to try, not with Margot. She seemed to have no inhibitions at all, and an endlessly burning sexual hunger. Each time he turned over and tried to sleep, her hand crept over his hip and started to pull at his cock yet again, and her tongue paddled in his ear. ‘Not tired yet, are you?’ she breathed.

Sometime shortly after midnight she was kneeling astride his face, her back arched, gripping the bedposts while he licked her and her juice coursed down his chin. At two in the morning she wriggled her finger into his anus while she bit the skin of his scrotum until it bled. At four thirty he was taking her, doggy fashion, grunting, on the bedside rug. At a quarter after six, when the sky was already light, she climbed on top of him again and made love to him in dreamy slow motion.

She woke him again just after eight, lying heavily on top of him and nuzzling his neck.

‘Not again, Astrid,’ he begged her. ‘I’m bushed.’

‘Don’t worry, you poor old man, I have to go. I’ll see you again tonight.’

He tried to turn his head around. ‘How can I get in touch with you?’

She kissed him once, twice, three times, then she climbed off him. ‘You can’t. I’ll get in touch with you.’

‘Astrid . . .’ he said as she hooked up her bra.

‘You’ll have to trust me, Frank.’

‘Look, I’m not asking for commitment. I’m just asking where I can phone you, in case something comes up.’

‘Ohhh,’ she teased, sitting down next to him and squeezing the sheet in between his legs. ‘In case something comes up, huh?’

He kissed her. ‘You’re extraordinary, do you know that?’

‘I’m no different from any other girl, Frank. It’s just that you’ve forgotten what girls are really like . . . That’s if you ever knew.’

Frank watched her as she finished dressing and brushed her hair. ‘You make me feel . . . totally different.’

‘I know.’ She gave him the gentlest of kisses on the forehead, then left him. After she had gone, he lay back on the bed and stared at the swirling plaster patterns on the ceiling, thinking of The Process.

Of course the sands of Present Time are running out beneath our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum, ‘What are we here for?’ is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. ‘What are we here for?’ But the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. We are here to go!

Tuesday, September 28, 3:27 P.M.

‘How’s it going, people?’ Garry Sherman breezed into the so-called ‘hospitality suite’ at Panorama-TV with a makeup towel still tied around his neck. His hair was as black as crows’ feathers; his suit was sapphire blue and his face was orange.

His three guests were sitting around a small Formica-topped table eating sandwiches and barbecued chicken legs and drinking wine out of plastic cups.

‘You’re all way too polite,’ Garry grinned. ‘You haven’t started throwing food at each other yet.’

‘Actually, we’ve been getting along like a house on fire,’ drawled Jean Lassiter. She was a handsome fiftyish woman with silvery bouffant hair. She was wearing a salmon-pink suit and strappy silver shoes.

‘That’s not what I want to hear,’ said Garry in mock disgust. ‘I want aggression! I want tantrums! I want overweening egos!’

‘Oh, I think you’ll get plenty of contention,’ said Dr Fortensky. ‘Just because we’re all nice people doesn’t mean we don’t have very strong differences of opinion.’ Dr Fortensky had a bald, suntanned dome of a head and the kind of huge yellow-tinted designer glasses that had been popular in the mid-1980s.

‘That’s right,’ put in Sara Velman. ‘So far we haven’t even been able to agree what sexual domination actually is. Is it handcuffing your lover to the bedpost and whipping him with wet spaghetti, or is it making him iron his own shirts?’ Sara Velman had glossy brunette hair, fashionably chopped, and a highly groomed assertiveness that came from being the Vassar-educated only daughter of a very wealthy family.

‘Give me the handcuffs and wet spaghetti every time,’ said Garry.

A bespectacled young studio assistant opened the door and said, ‘Two minutes, Mr Sherman.’

Garry went to the mirror on the opposite side of the room, jutted out his chin, and closely inspected each of his profiles in turn. ‘OK, I’m going to introduce you to our studio audience one after the other. I’m going to say a few highly flattering words about your respective books, at which time your book covers will appear on the screen. I’m going to ask each of you in turn what you think about today’s subject: Women on Top. After that, I’m going to invite you to rip each other to shreds, and I don’t care how outspoken you are or how riled up you get, short of getting out of your seat and socking each other on the nose. This isn’t the Jerry Springer show – besides, my budget doesn’t run to bodyguards.

‘Halfway through we go into a short commercial break and then we open up the floor to questions from the audience, some of which will be dumb and some of which will be stupefyingly dumb. See if you can coax the audience to come up with some personal anecdotes about sexual domination . . . you know the kind of thing – I make my husband fry pork chops in the nude.’

‘What’s wrong with frying pork chops in the nude?’ asked Dr Fortensky.

‘Nothing,’ said Jean Lassiter, ‘so long as you wear a little frilly apron.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Sara Velman. ‘All men secretly want to be women. Under every business suit is a metaphorical garter belt.’

‘OK, then,’ said Gary Sherman, smacking his hands together. ‘Let’s get out there and shake our tambourines.’

He led the way along a corridor stacked with folding chairs and pieces of studio backdrop. At last they came out into the studio itself, under hot and dazzling lights. An audience of over a hundred people were sitting waiting for them, and when Garry walked over to his big white leather chair, there were whoops and whistles and a clatter of applause.

Studio assistants led Garry’s three guests up on to a raised platform, where three white chairs were positioned, with white side tables and glasses of water. The audience stared at them as if they were human exhibits on The Planet of the Apes.

‘Why do we do this? We must be mad,’ Sara said.

Jean flapped her hand dismissively. ‘We do it to sell books, dear. Can you think of a better reason?’

‘Who cares about books?’ said Dr Fortensky. ‘They give us warm white wine and curled-up Kraft cheese sandwiches and our plane fare home. What more could anybody ask for?’

‘Quiet, please,’ said the producer, raising his arm.

Tuesday, September 28, 3:41 P.M.

Outside Studio V, where The Garry Sherman Show was being recorded, Bill Dunphy and Joan Napela were sitting on an Italianate garden bench made of fiberglass painted to look like stone. Bill had tilted his cap over his eyes but Joan had taken her sunglasses off so that she could refresh her tan. She had been on night duty for the past three weeks and thought that she was starting to look yellow.

The lot was almost deserted, except for two stage hands outside Studio III, moving pieces of Greek columns and lengths of scaffolding with a forklift truck. Now that the studio tours had been suspended, the whole Panorama TV complex was eerily quiet. Bill and Joan had only had cause to challenge one visitor today, and he had turned out to be a plumber who had been called to unblock the executive toilets, and got lost in costumes.

‘Three weeks, two days, five hours and forty-one minutes,’ Bill announced.

‘Since when?’

‘Since I gave up smoking.’

‘That’s very good, Bill! You should be proud of yourself.’

‘I don’t have time to be proud of myself. I’m too busy feeling like something the dog sicked up.’

Joan sat up straight and put on her sunglasses. ‘You’ll get over it. One day you’ll go to bed and you’ll realize that you’ve not even thought about smoking all day.’

‘I’ll be dead from overeating by then. I’ve put on seven pounds already, and all I can think of is cheeseburgers. I’m thinking of cheeseburgers right now, as a matter of fact. Triple cheeseburgers, with extra cheese, and a basket of fried pickles on the side.’

Bill had worked for Studio Security for over eleven years. Back at home, he had photographs all over the living-room walls. Bill and Warren Beatty; Bill and Meryl Streep. Bill and Leonardo DiCaprio. He was an ex-traffic cop, a big dog-faced man with a scar down his left cheek. He looked as if he would tear your arms off just for looking at him funny, but in reality he was shy, soft spoken and careful in his ways. His hobby was collecting the tiniest moths.

Joan was small and wiry, with a big nose and frizzy blonde hair. Her alcoholic husband Carl had left her eighteen months ago with two children under five to take care of, and for a time she had held down two jobs – one behind the deli counter at Ralph’s and the other as an office cleaner. But then her best friend’s husband had told her that Studio Security were looking for recruits, male or female, big or little, white or black, and she had astonished herself by being accepted. She didn’t know that she had impressed Studio Security’s personnel manager by the fact that she never stopped talking. People would stop causing trouble just to shut her up.

‘You should try acupuncture,’ she suggested. ‘My friend Lena lost seventeen pounds with acupuncture. Mind you, she lost her husband as well. He said that if he had wanted a human skeleton he would have married Calista Flockhart. Now there’s the inflated male ego for you. He looked like an orangutan in a plaid sport coat.’

‘Acupuncture, that’s when they stick needles in you? I can’t stand needles. Brrr.’

‘Well, maybe you should try hypnotism. Or aversion therapy.’

‘What’s aversion therapy?’

‘What they would do is, they would make you eat triple cheeseburgers all day, every day, so that you never want to look at another triple cheeseburger, ever again.’

Bill shook his head. ‘Sounds great. Wouldn’t work on me. But I sure wouldn’t mind trying it.’

As they talked, a dark blue Mack truck came around the corner of Studio IV, and drove slowly toward them.

Tuesday, September 28, 3:47 P.M.

In the studio, the audience were screaming with laughter. Sara Velman had said that women were sexually excited by hurting their lovers, and so Garry had invited her to prove it by hurting him. She had strutted over to his seat and climbed on to his lap. Now she was twisting his ears and pulling his hair.

‘Hey, be careful with the hair, all right? This cost me nearly fourteen hundred dollars!’

One tall ginger-freckled woman put up her hand and said, ‘I love to bite my husband. I give him love bites all over, especially on his tush.’

‘Well, biting your partner is an indication of possessiveness, rather than domination,’ said Dr Fortensky. ‘You want your husband physically marked so that any other woman will know that he belongs to you. It’s like branding a steer.’

Garry said, ‘No, I think it’s simpler than that. I think it’s an indication that she’s not getting nearly enough to eat.’

‘Hurting your lover isn’t necessarily an act of sexual domination,’ put in Jean Lassiter. ‘In my experience, many men are highly aroused by being bitten or scratched or whipped. They want to be hurt. So you have to ask yourself, who is really doing the dominating here? The biter or the bitten?’

‘The scratcher or the scratchee?’ Garry added. ‘The whipper or the whipped?’

Sara Velman suddenly lunged her head forward and nipped at Garry’s neck.

‘Ow! No!’ he protested, kicking his feet. ‘Get off! Honest injun! Honest injun!’

Tuesday, September 28, 3:49 P.M.

The dark blue truck turned right and parked very close to the studio wall. Its side panels were painted with reels of film, and in each frame of film there was chicken or salad or pasta or lobsters. Underneath, in white lettering, it read: A MOVIEBLE FEAST, CATERING SPECIALISTS FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.

Joan picked up her clipboard and ran her finger down it. ‘Here it is. Sixteen hundred hours, catering supplies.’

‘I’ll check it out,’ said Bill, rousing himself off the mock-stone bench. ‘Maybe they can spare us a couple of subs.’

He straightened his cap and walked around the corner. The truck was stationary and its doors were still closed but its engine was running. Bill walked up to the cab and gave the driver a wave. The driver waved back. He was a swarthy-looking guy with dark glasses and a black beard. Sitting next to him was a suntanned girl, around eighteen or nineteen years old, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and a red head scarf. She waved, too.

‘You delivering to The Garry Sherman Show?’ Bill shouted.

The driver cupped his hand to his ear to show that he couldn’t hear.

Bill made a twisting gesture with his right hand to tell the driver that he should cut his engine. ‘Switch your engine off! I have to check your ID!’

But the driver kept the engine running, and both he and the girl went on staring at Bill through the windshield and smiling that same vacant smile. Bill did the twisting gesture again but the driver simply shrugged.

‘Sir! Will you please switch your engine off and get out of the vehicle?’

Still no response. Although he was always easy-going, Bill was beginning to get irritated.

‘Joan!’ he called. ‘Come around here! I think I got me a couple of zombies!’

Joan came around the corner and said, ‘What?’

‘These two are just sitting there. Won’t kill the engine, won’t get out.’

Joan climbed on to the step below the passenger door and tapped on the window with her wedding ring. ‘Excuse me, sir, miss – security. Will you switch off your engine, please, and climb down out of the cab?’

They didn’t even turn to look at her. She tried the door handle but it was locked.

‘What the hell do they think they’re playing at?’ Bill demanded.

Joan climbed down from the step and unhooked her r/t. ‘Gate? Hi, Kevin, this is Joan. We have a catering truck down here at Studio V. A Movieble Feast. That’s right. They checked out OK, did they? That’s fine, but they’ve parked their vehicle around the back of the studio building and they’re not making any attempt to get out of it and make their delivery.’ She nodded, and nodded again, and then said, ‘Repeat that, please.’

‘What is it?’ asked Bill.

Joan clipped her radio back in her pocket. ‘We have to get the hell out of here,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘We have to go into the studio and evacuate it right now, and move everybody as far away as possible.’

Bill stared up at the truck driver and his passenger. The driver gave him another wave, and although there was a diagonal reflection of clouds across the windshield, he thought he could see the girl laughing. ‘You start the evacuation,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with these two clowns.’

‘Bill, they specifically said to get the hell out.’

‘Do like I told you, Joan. I was a cop for twenty-eight years and I never let nobody get away with nothing.’

Bill unfastened his holster and pulled out his .38. Joan hesitated, but he pushed her shoulder and said, ‘Go! OK? Get those people out of there!’

Joan ran off around the corner. Bill lifted up his revolver in both hands and cocked it. ‘OK! Do you understand this? Comprende? I’m asking you to switch off the engine and get out of the truck. I’m asking you nicely.’

Tuesday, September 28, 3:52 P.M.

Joan pushed her way through the swing doors and into the carpet-tiled reception area, which was lined with blown-up photographs of Garry Sherman and Lauren Baker and Whitney De Lano. The receptionist was painting her fingernails and chatting to a friend on the phone.

Joan went up to the counter and snapped, ‘Put me through to the producer! Now!’

‘Say what? I can’t do that, we’re right in the middle of a show.’

‘It’s an emergency; do it now.’

‘Emergency? What kind of emergency? Mr Kasabian will kill me!’

‘Just do it, will you? Or else everybody’s going to get killed!’

Flapping one nail-polished hand, the receptionist did as she was told and handed over the phone.

‘Mr Kasabian?’ said Joan. ‘This is Joan Napela from Studio Security. Yes, Studio Security. I’m sorry, Mr Kasabian, but we have a security situation directly outside the studio and we have to evacuate everybody immediately. Yes, sir, everybody. No, sir, I can’t tell you the exact nature of the situation but we have been advised to clear the building as quickly as we can.’

She listened for a moment, and then she said, ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll come into the studio right now and help to usher people out. If you can try to reassure them that there isn’t any cause for alarm.’

As she handed the phone back, the receptionist stared at her wide-eyed. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

‘Possible bomb,’ Joan told her. ‘Just get out of here.’

‘Oh my God!’ cried the receptionist, and started to gather up her nail polish and her combs and her magazines.

‘I said bomb,’ said Joan in disbelief.

She crossed the reception area and pushed open the double doors to the studio. The main lights had just been switched on, and Milo Kasabian was halfway through making his announcement.

‘If you would all please make your way to the exit doors on either side of the podium, as quickly and as quietly as you can. Once you’re outside, follow the directions given to you by our security staff. Don’t be alarmed, this is only a precautionary measure.’

Garry Sherman was standing up and waving to his audience to come down out of their seats. ‘I knew it! I knew they’d interrupt us once we started talking dirty! That’s right, everybody, head for the doors! No need to panic, they’re only doing it because we’re steaming up their monitors!’

The audience started to file down to the floor of the studio, jostling and laughing. Joan stood by the doors and beckoned them to hurry.

‘What’s up?’ asked an elderly man in a bright-pink polo shirt.

‘Probably a false alarm,’ said Joan. ‘But once you’re out of the studio, turn right, OK, and keep on walking as fast as you can.’

‘Do we still get pizza?’

‘Sure, you still get pizza. Now get going.’

Joan unhooked her radio and said, ‘Bill? We’ve made a good start on clearing the studio. How’s it going with our friends out there?’

‘They’re still not responding. Schaefer’s on his way down here, and he’s called the bomb squad, too.’

‘Bill, why don’t you back off and let the police deal with this?’

‘I am the police.’

‘You were, Bill. Not anymore. This isn’t worth the risk. Come and help me get these people out of here.’

‘Don’t you worry; I can handle a couple of pointy-headed specimens like these two.’

‘Bill? Bill, are you listening to me? Back off – you don’t know what the hell they’re planning to do!’

There was no reply. Joan kept on tugging at people’s sleeves as they shuffled past her, trying to hustle them out of the studio. But Garry had told them that there was no need to panic, and panicking they weren’t. Some of them said, ‘Hey, relax,’ when she caught hold of them, and others were even waiting by the doorway so that their friends could catch up with them.

‘They’ll still serve us pizza?’ asked a large black woman in a spotted turquoise dress. ‘I only come here for the pizza.’

Joan was about to say, ‘Yes, you’ll still get your pizza, but for God’s sake get moving.’ But then the world split open with the most devastating bang that she had ever heard. She was hurled backward through the open doors, colliding with ten or eleven other people, hitting the reception desk at a sharp angle and breaking her neck. More people were thrown out of the studio on top of her, heaps of them – thud, thud, thud, thud – most of them legless or armless or headless.

The explosion blew away the entire back wall of the studio, bringing down the roof. Dozens of people were buried as masonry fell like thunder and scaffolding jangled like the bells of hell. Garry Sherman half-turned away from the blast with his left arm lifted. His arm was ripped out of its socket and the flesh on the left side of his face was blasted off, right to the cheekbone. One middle-aged woman was jammed between the side of Garry Sherman’s podium and the low wall that led to the exit, so that she was shielded from the bouncing lumps of cinder block. But as she tried to climb to her feet, a DeSisti studio light fell from its rigging and dropped on top of her – over fifty pounds of metal at sixty degrees. She lay on her back with this monster in her arms, crushed and burning, and she screamed for nearly five minutes without stopping.

Her screams were joined by scores of others, as well as sobbing and moaning and coughing. Studio V was open to the sky now, but it seemed like twilight because of the dust and the thick black smoke. It was almost unrecognizable as a television studio. There were mountains of rubble everywhere, as well as tiers of collapsed seats and twisted scaffolding. Bodies lay everywhere – bodies and pieces of bodies, some of them barbecue black and others red raw. And everything twinkled and glittered, because all of this carnage was strewn with shattered glass.