The Starcrossed Read online

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. They all look alike to me.”

  Brenda agreed. “Will you be at it much longer?”

  “Almost finished… another ten-fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Can I buy you dinner afterward?” she asked.

  He started to say no, but held up. “I’ll buy you some dinner.”

  “I can charge it off to Titanic. Let B.F. buy us both dinner.”

  With a sudden grin, he agreed.

  He worked in silence for a few minutes, conscious of her looking over his shoulder, smelling the faint fragrance of her perfume, almost feeling the tickling of a stray wisp of her long red hair.

  “Bill?”

  “What?” Without looking up from the control board.

  “Why do you keep coming up here every weekend?”

  “To make sure the equipment works okay,.”

  “Oh. That’s awfully good of you.”

  He clicked the power off and looked up at her. “That’s a damned lie,” he admitted, to himself as much as to her. “I could stay down at Malibu and wait for you to have some trouble. Or send one of my technicians.”

  Brenda’s face didn’t look troubled or surprised. “Then why?”

  “Because I like being with you,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “You know I do.”

  She didn’t look away, didn’t laugh, didn’t frown. “I hoped you did. But you never said a word…”

  Suddenly his hands were embarrassingly awkward appendages. They wouldn’t stay still.

  “Well,” he said, scratching at his five o’clock shadow, “I guess I’m still a teenager in some ways… retarded… I was afraid… afraid you wouldn’t be interested in me:”

  “You were wrong,” she said simply.

  She leaned toward him and his hands reached for her and he kissed her. She felt warm and safe and good.

  They decided to have dinner in his hotel room. Oxnard felt giddy, as if he were hyperventilating or celebrating New Year’s Eve a month early. As they drove through the dark frigid night toward the hotel, he asked:

  “The one thing I was afraid of was that you’d walk out on the show, like everybody else has.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Brenda said, very seriously.

  “Why not?”

  “B.F. wouldn’t let me.”

  “You mean you allow him to run your whole life? He tells you to freeze your… your nose off here in Toronto all winter, on a dead duck of a show, and you do it?”

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  He pulled the car into the hotel’s driveway as he asked, “Why don’t you just quit? There are lots of other studios and jobs…”

  “I can’t quit Titanic.”

  “Why not? What’s Finger got on you?”

  “Nothing. Except that he’s my father and I’m the only person in the world that he can really trust.”

  “He’s your father?”

  Brenda grinned broadly at him. “Yes. And you’re the only person in the whole business who knows it. So please don’t tell anyone else.”

  Oxnard was stunned.

  He was still groggy, but grinning happily, as they walked arm-in-arm through the hotel lobby, got into an elevator and headed for his room. Neither of them noticed the three-dee set in the lobby; it was tuned to the evening news. A somber-faced sports reporter was saying:

  “There’s no telling what effect Toho’s injury will have on the playoff chances of the Honolulu Pineapples. As everyone knows, he’s the league’s leading passer.”

  The other half of the Folksy News Duo, a curly haired anchorperson in a gingham dress, asked conversationally, “Isn’t it unusual for a player to break his leg in the shower?”

  “That’s right, Arlene,” said the sports announcer. “Just one of those freak accidents. A bad break,” he said archly, “for the Pineapples and their fans.”

  The woman made a disapproving clucking sound. “That’s terrible.”

  “It certainly is. They’re probably going crazy down in Las Vegas right now, refiguring the odds for the playoff games.”

  15: THE WARNING

  “You don’t understand!” Bernard Finger shouted. “Every cent I had was tied up in that lousy football team! I’m broke! Ruined!”

  He was emptying the drawers of his desk into an impossibly thin attache case. Most of the papers and mememtoes—including a miniature Emmy given him as a gag by a producer, whom Finger promptly fired—were missing the attache case and spilling across the polished surface of the desk or onto the plush carpet.

  The usually impressive office reminded Les Montpelier of the scene in a war movie where the general staff has to beat a fast retreat and everybody’s busy stripping the headquarters and burning what they can’t carry.

  “But you couldn’t have taken everything out of Titanic’s cash accounts,” Montpelier said, trying to remain calm in the face of Finger’s panic.

  “Wanna bet?” Finger was bent over, pulling papers out of the bottommost drawer, discarding most of them and creating a miniature blizzard in the doing.

  Montpelier found himself leaning forward tensely in his chair. “But we still get our paychecks. The accounting department is still paying its bills. Isn’t it?”

  Finger straightened up and eyed him with a look of scorn for such naivete. “Sure, sure. You know Morrie Witz, down in accounting?”

  “Morrie the Mole?”

  “Who else? He worked out a system for me. We keep enough in the bank for two weeks of salaries and bills. Everything else we’ve been investing in the Pineapples. Every time they win, we bet on ’em again. The odds keep going down, but we keep making sure money. Better than the stock market.”

  “Then you must have a helluva cash reserve right now,” Montpelier said.

  “Its already bet!” Finger bawled. “And the Pineapples play the Montana Sasquatches this afternoon…” He glanced at the clock on his littered desk. “They’re already playing.”

  “Shall I turn on the game?” Montpelier asked, starting to get up from his chair.

  “No! I can’t bear to watch. Without Toho they’re sunk.”

  Montpelier eased back into the chair.

  “Yes!” Finger burst “Turn it on. I can’t stand not knowing!”

  He went back to rummaging through the desk drawers as Montpelier walked across the room to the control panel for the life-sized three-dee set in the corner.

  “The Pineapples still have their defensive team intact,” Montpelier reasoned. “And Montana’s not that highscoring a team…”

  He found the right channel and tuned in the game. The far comer of the office dissolved into a section of a football field. A burly man in a Sasquatch uniform was kneeling, arms outstretched, barking out numbers. The crowd rumbled in the background. It was raining and windy; it looked cold in Montana.

  The camera angle changed to an overhead shot and Montpelier saw that the Sasquatches were trying to kick a field goal. The ball was snapped, the kicker barely got the kick past a pair of onrushing Pineapple defenders, who ruined their orange and yellow uniforms by sprawling in the mud.

  Again the camera angle changed, to show the football sailing thrugh the uprights of the goal post. The announcer said, “It’s gooood!l” as the referee raised both arms over his head.

  Finger groaned.

  “It’s only a field goal,” Montpelier said.

  “So as the teams prepare for the kickoff,” the announcer said cheerily, “the score is Montana seventeen, Honolulu zero.”

  With a gargling sound, Finger pawed through the attache case. He grabbed a bottle of pills as he yelled, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” and poured half the bottle’s contents down his throat.

  Montpelier turned the game off, just catching a view of the scoreboard clock. Only eight minutes of the first quarter had elapsed.

  He turned to Finger. “What are you going to do?”

  His face white, Titanic’s boss said softly, “Get out
of town. Get out of the country. Get off the planet, if I can. Maybe the lunar colony would be a safe place for me… if I could qualify. I’ve got a bad heart, you know.”

  Like an ox, Montpelier thought Aloud, he asked, “But you’ve been through bankruptcy proceedings before. Why are you getting so upset over this one?”

  Raising his eyes to an unhelpful heaven, Finger said, “The other bankruptcy hearings were when we owed money to banks. Or to the government. What we owe now, we owe to the mob. When they foreclose, they take your head home and mount it on the goddamn wall!”

  “The gamblers…”

  Finger wagged his head. “Not the gamblers. I’m square with them. The bankers who backed us on ‘The Starcrossed.’ It’s their money I’ve been betting. When the show flops they’re gonna want their money back. With interest.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Yeah, ohhh.” Finger knuckled his eyes. “Turn the game on again. Maybe they’re doing something…”

  The three-dee image solidified, despite annoying flickers and shimmers, to show an orange-and-yellow Pineapple ball carrier break past two would-be tacklers, twist free of another Sasquatch defender and race down the sidelines. The crowd was roaring and Finger was suddenly on his feet, screaming.

  “Go! Go! Go, you black sonofabitch!”

  There was only one Sasquatch left in the scene, closing in on the Pineapple runner. They collided exactly at the Montana ten yard line. He twisted partially free, and as he began to fall, another Sasquatch pounced on him. The ball squirted loose.

  “Aarrghh!”

  What seemed like four hundred men in muddied uniforms piled on top of each other. There was a long moment of breathless suspense while the referees pulled bodies off the mountain of rain-soaked fiesh.

  Finger stood frozen, his fists pressed into his cheeks.

  The bottom man in the pile was a Sasquatch. And under him was the ball.

  “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, alternately turning on the three-dee, watching the Sasquatches hurt the pineapples, and turning off the three-dee. Finger moaned, he fainted, he swallowed pills. Montpelier went out for sandwiches; on Sunday the building’s cafeterias were closed.

  He idly wondered how far the bankers’ revenge would go. If they can’t get B.F., will they come after me? He tried to put the thought aside, but ugly scenes from Mafia movies kept crawling into his skull.

  Finger wolfed down his sandwich as if it were his last meal. They turned the game on one final time, and the Sasquatches were ahead by 38-7 with less than two minutes to play. Finger started calling airlines.

  He set up seven different fights for himself, for destinations as diverse as Rio de Janeiro and Ulan Bator.

  “I’ll dazzle them with footwork,” he joked weakly. His face looked far from jovial.

  The phone chimed. With a trembling hand, Finger touched the ox button. The same comer that had showed the football game now presented a three-dee image of a gray-templed man sitting a a desk. He looked intelligent, wealthy, conservative and powerful. His suit was gray, with a vest. The padded chair on which he saw was real leather, Montpelier somehow sensed. The wall behind him was panelled in dark mahogany. A portrait of Nelson Rockefeller hung there.

  “Mr. Finger,” he said in a beautifully modulated baritone. “I’m pleased to find you in your office this afternoon. My computer doesn’t seem to have your home number. Working hard, I see.”

  “Yes,” Finger said, his voice quavering just the slightest bit. “Yes… you know how it is in this business, heh heh.”

  The man smiled without warmth.

  “I, uh… I don’t think I know you,” Finger said.

  “We have never met. I am an attorney, representing a group of gentlemen who have invested rather substantial sums in Titanic Productions, Incorporated.”

  “Oh. Yes. I see.”

  “Indeed.”

  “The gentlemen who’re backing ‘The Starcrossed.’”

  The man raised a manicured forefinger. “The gentlemen are backing Titanic Productions, not any particular show. In a very real sense, Mr. Finger, they have invested in you. In your business acumen, your administrative capabilities, your… integrity.”

  Finger swallowed hard. “Well, eh, ‘The Starcrossed’ is the show that we’ve sunk their… eh, invested their money into. It goes on the air in three weeks. That’s the premier date, second week of January. Friday night. Full network coverage. Its a good spot, and…”

  “Mr. Finger.”

  Montpelier had never seen B.F. stopped by such a quiet short speech.

  “Yessir?” Finger squeaked.

  “Mr. Finger, did you happen to’ watch the Montana Sasquatch football game this afternoon?”

  “Uh…” Finger coughed, cleared his throat. “Why, um, I did take a look at part of it, yes.”

  The man from New York let a slight frown mar his handsome features. “Mr. Finger, the bankers wham I represent have some associates who—quite frankly—I find very distasteful. These, ah, associates are spreading an ugly rumor to the effect that you have been betting quite heavily on the Honolulu professional football team. Quite heavily. And since Honolulu lost this afternoon, my clients thought it might be wise to let you know that this rumor has them rather upset”

  “Upset,” Finger echoed.

  “Yes. They fear that the money they have invested in Titanic Productions has been channeled into the hands of…” he showed his distaste quite visibly “…bookies. They fear that you have lost all their money and will have nothing to show for their investment. That would make them very angry, I’m afraid. And justifiably so.”

  Finger’s head bobbed up and down. “I can appreciate that.”

  “The proceedings that they would institute against you would be so severe that you might be tempted to leave the country or disappear altogether.”

  “Oh, I’d never.…”

  “A few years ago, in a similar situation, a man who tried to cheat them became so remorseful that he committed suicide. He somehow managed to shoot himself in the back of the head. Three times.”

  What little color was left in Finger’s face drained away completely. He sagged in his chair.

  “Mr. Finger, are you all right? Does the thought of violence upset you?”

  Finger nodded weakly.

  “I’m terribly sorry. It’s raining here in New York and I tend to get morbid on rainy Sunday afternoons. Please forgive me.”

  Finger raised a feeble hand. “Think nothing of it.”

  “Back to business, if you don’t mind. Mr. Finger, there is a series called ‘The Starcrossed’? And it will premier on the second Friday in January?”

  “Eight p.m.” Montpelier said as firmly as possible.

  “Ah. Thank you, young man. This show does represent the investment that my clients have made?”

  “That’s right, it does,” Finger said, his voice regaining some strength. But not much.

  “That means,” the New York lawyer went on, remorselessly, “that you have used my client’s money to acquire the best writers, directors, actors and so forth… the best that money can buy?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Which in turn means that the show will be a success. It will bring an excellent return on my clients’ investment Titanic Productions will make a profit and so will my clients. Is that correct?”

  Sitting up a little straighter in his chair, Finger hedged, “Well now, television is a funny business. Nobody can guarantee success. I explained to…”

  “Mr. Finger.” And again B.F. stopped cold. “My clients are simple men, at heart. If ‘The Starcrossed’ is a success and we all make money, all well and good. If it is not a success, then they will investigate just how their money was spent. If they find that Titanic did not employ the best possible talent or that the money was used in some other manner—as this regrettable betting rumor suggests, for instance—then they will hold you personally responsib
le.”

  “Me?”

  “Do you understand? Personally responsible.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good.” The lawyer almost smiled. “Now if you would do us one simple favor, Mr. Finger?”

  “What?”

  “Please stay close to your office for the next few weeks. I know you probably feel that you are entitled to a long vacation, now that your show is… how do they say it in your business? ‘In the can’? At any rate, try to deny yourself that luxury for a few weeks. My clients will want to confer with you as soon as public reaction to ‘The Starcrossed’ is manifested. They wouldn’t want to have to chase you down in some out-of-the-way place such a Rio de Janeiro or Ulan Bator.”

  Finger fainted.

  16: THE REACTION

  On the second Friday in January, twenty-odd members of the New England Science Fiction Association returned to their clubroom after their usual ritual Chinese dinner in downtown Boston. The clubroom was inside the lead walls of what once had housed MIT’s nuclear reactor until the local Cambridge chapter of Ecology Nowl had torn the reactor apart with their bare hands, a decade earlier, killing seventeen of their members within a week from the radiation poisoning and producing a fascinating string of reports for the obstetrics journals ever since.

  The clubroom was perfectly safe now, of course. It had been carefully decontaminated and there was a trusty scintillation counter sitting on every bookshelf, right alongside musty crumbling copies of Astounding Stories of Super Science.

  The NESFA members were mostly young men and women, in their twenties or teens, although on this evening they were joined by the President Emeritus, a retired lawyer who was regaling them with his Groucho Marx imitations.

  “Okay, knock it off!” said the current president, a slim, long-haired brunette who ran the City of Cambridge’s combined police, fire and garbage control computer system. “It’s time for the new show.”

  They turned on the three-dee in the corner and arranged themselves in a semicircle on the floor to see the first episode of “The Starcrossed.”

  But first, of course, they saw three dozen commercials: for bathroom bowl cleaners, bras, headache remedies, perfumes, rectal thermometers, hair dyes, and a foolproof electronic way to cheat on your school exams. Plus new cars, used cars, foreign cars, an airline commercial that explained the new antihijacking system (every passenger gets his very own Smith Wesson .38 revolver!), and an ail company ad dripping with sincerity about the absolute need to move the revered site of Disneyland so that “we can get more oil to serve you better.”