The Chrysanthemum Palace

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MONDAY CAME. I HAD a few days off.

Miriam went to a business lunch and I killed time at the studio visiting Dan. I’d completed the outline revisions and turned them in — HBO would probably take a week or so to give a thumbs-up. Hopefully they’d be cool with whatever work I did and would let me start writing the pilot; I was getting itchy. It was all a little easier if you tried not to have expectations. Anyway, I had other worries: Clea and Thad. Being on the lot brought me nearer to my oldest friend and the mystery of her absence. I felt like a dad waiting around during an Amber Alert — utterly helpless.

I strolled to the editing bay to see Nick Sultan. Normally, he’d have already finished; in TV, it wasn’t typical for directors to stick around to supervise an edit. They were hired hands and they knew it. But in this case, Nick was committed and determined. Because of “complications,” the producers had given him more leeway than usual. The room was dark. The first thing I saw on the Avid was Ensign Rattweil, engaged in final combat on the Fellcrum Outback. The action kept digitally rewinding and repeating itself, images broken into millions of shardy, dust mote — sized squares. The dual was incredibly well done — you’d never know a look-alike had been employed. When I asked the editor how they’d managed, he smiled and said, “Movie magic.”

Just then, Nick appeared in the doorway holding a container of Chinese chicken salad from the commissary.

“Did you hear?” he said.

“What?”

“Oh Christ.” He steered me to the hall and whispered, “They just found the bodies.”