Get Real

46

DOUG’S HORRIBLE WEDNESDAY actually started pretty well. Marcy and the gang were adding story complications down on Varick Street, the other production assistants, Josh and Edna, were working under an open assignment to come up with other reality subject matter, the debacle that had been The Stand was now filed and forgotten, and the only reason to come into the midtown office at all was that’s where he was expected to be. Also, although he would never have admitted it to anybody, he had the irrational but obsessive conviction that during the daylight hours the apartment was haunted, by people who had lost their jobs.

He was reading Josh and Edna’s latest bad ideas—but they were trying—a little after eleven that morning when Lueen stuck her sardonic head into his office doorway to say, “Your master’s voice.”

“I serve no master but my art,” Doug told her, but went off to see what Babe wanted.

Babe wasn’t alone in the room. Seated facing him across the desk, back to the door, was someone Doug initially took to be a Sikh in a white turban. Babe nodded toward Doug and said to this gentleman, “Here’s Doug Fairkeep now.”

The man uncurled in a savage rising spin to his feet, shoulders hunched, fists clenched, the face he now showed Doug convulsive with rage. He’s not going to punch me, Doug thought in terror, he’s going to turn me into an oil spill.

Then the man’s implacable forward momentum abruptly disappeared, like smoke, and he rocked back on his heels, opening his hands as he said, “That is not him.”

Babe said, “That is Doug Fairkeep.”

“He lied.”

“The man last night, you mean. That’s what I assumed.”

First clearing his throat to be sure he still had a voice, Doug said, “Babe? What is this?” And he now could see that the man was not a Sikh in a turban but some sort of Asiatic in a thick bandage around his head.

“Mr. Mg was staying on Varick Street last night,” Babe said.

“Asleep,” accused Mr. Mg. He was still very angry at somebody.

“A man who apparently didn’t know Mr. Mg was there,” Babe went on, “came in, turned on the light, said he was Doug Fairkeep and that he sometimes slept there when he missed his last train and—”

“Never,” Doug said. “Never any of it.”

“I know that, Doug.”

“Never slept there. Never went in there on my own. Never take trains anywhere.”

“Hit me with piece of iron,” Mr. Mg said.

Babe said, “Mr. Mg was treated in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s this morning, then came up here to tell us about it.”

Doug said, “How’d he get in?”

“He did not break in,” Mr. Mg said.

“Doug,” Babe said, “that’s the part I don’t get. Whoever this was, he has a way to get into Combined Tool without forcing anything.”

“Babe,” Doug said, “I can’t do that. You’re the only one I know can do that.”

“Well, Mr. Mg as well,” Babe said. “Some other of our overseas associates.”

I just told the gang about these Asians, Doug thought. He said, “Babe, do you think it was The Heist gang?”

“Of course I do,” Babe said. “But how could they pull that off? You tell me.”

“I can’t,” Doug said. “What’d they get?”

“Nothing,” Babe said.

“I looked carefully,” Mr. Mg said. “Nothing is gone. The money I put in my suitcase earlier, still there.”

Doug said, “And the, uh…”

“The safe?” Babe shook his head. “If they did look for it, they didn’t find it.”

“I examined,” Mr. Mg said. “Not touched.”

“Well, that’s good, at least,” Doug said, and it was, because if they’d gotten the money Babe would have hounded them all, made their lives a living hell. Then he had another thought and said, “Was it reported to the police?”

“Nothing to report,” Babe said, “Nothing taken, no breaking and entering.”

“I do not talk with police,” Mr. Mg said.

Doug asked him, “What did you say in the emergency room?”

“Fall in shower. Twice.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Mg, I really am, but there’s nothing I can do. Babe, is there anything I can do?”

“No, that’s all right,” Babe said. “Mr. Mg just needed to see you, that’s all.”

“Well, here I am,” Doug said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Mg. Safe flight.”

He turned away, but Mr. Mg said, “Doug Fairkeep.”

Doug turned back. “Yes?”

Mr. Mg nodded. “He knows your name,” he said.

The next problem was even worse, and came in the form of a one-two punch. First the news came, in midafternoon, that with only the one show, The Heist, in production, and with nothing on the air, and with nothing in development, Get Real was being eliminated. Its assets would be folded in with its superior, Monopole, and all of the staff, except for Babe and Doug, would be let go.

Babe had come to Doug’s office this time, to pass along this latest bad news, and was still there when Lueen extended her snakelike head into the doorway and said to Babe, more respectfully than she ever addressed Doug, “Mr. Pockell on one, sir, for you.”

Pockell was an executive with Monopole. Babe stood beside Doug’s desk to take the call, saying, “Yes, sir,” and then, in shock, “What?” and then, in horror, “Oh, no!” and then, in almost unheard-of panic, “I’ll be right there.”

He slammed down the phone and would have run from the office but that Doug said, “Babe? What’s up?”

Babe halted, stared at Doug, and shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any way to save it this time,” he said. “This comes down from way on high. Get Real has no more assets to fold into Monopole. The Heist is scratched.”