Dead Space

by Lee Goldberg

  But Nick wasn't astonished. Not by the redwood bridge that arched over a dark pond full of colorful fish. Not by the gentle breezes wafting through the lush vegetation. Not even by the authentic pagoda he was sitting in, that had been shipped by boat, piece by piece, from Japan. He shrugged, as if he'd seen a thousand offices like this before.

  The only thing that astonished the bushy-bearded, pony-tailed scribe was the limitless boundaries of his own, immense talent. After all, it was Nick Alamogordo who penned such blockbusters as Carnalville and Full Frontal Force, which made an international movie star out of Sabrina Bishop, TV's Agatha's Niece. When Bishop, as a government assassin, opened her shirt and nursed the injured cop she loved back to health with her breast milk, she earned a place in movie history. Siskel and Ebert accused Nick of stealing the idea from Grapes of Wrath. Didn't those two jerks know an homage when they saw one?

  "I thought this was your office," Nick growled, "not a fucking Benihana."

  If Odett was offended, he didn't show it. Odett stood across the table from him, swiftly cutting raw fish fillets into thin, translucent slices. He kept his eyes on his work, consciously ignoring the aromatic tufts of hair that fluffed out the open collar and short-sleeves of Nick's loud, Hawaiian shirt.

  To Nick, Clive Odett resembled a Doberman who rose up on his hind legs one day and miraculously morphed into a man in Brooks Brothers slacks and a white sweater.

  "This is my sanctuary," Odett whispered, as he always did, to make sure people listened. "This is where I feed my body and my soul." He carefully arranged the wafer-thin slices into the shape of a rose and slid the assorted sashimi platter in front of Nick.

  "You're feeding both of them on my ten percent," Nick took a handful of sushi in one of his hairy paws and shoved it into his mouth, dribbling rice into his beard. All this Zen and sushi shit didn't impress Nick one bit. Odett was a salesman, and lately, not a very good one.

  Zita glided in from garden with two hot sakes, a fish fin aflame in each.

  "What the hell is that?" Nick asked.

  "A fugu fin, Mr. Alamogordo," she replied, "In Japan, it is considered an aphrodisiac."

  She was as pretentious as her boss. Nick decided to put them both in their place.

  "Maybe your boss needs to toast a trout in his drink to get a boner," Nick sized her up. "I just got to look at you, Pita."

  "Zita," she hissed, gently placing the sake in front of each man before disappearing again into the brush.

  "Bring me a beer," Nick called after her, admiring her ass, his lips tingling.

  Odett tenderly placed a slice of fish on his tongue and savored it. "I understand you had dinner at Drai's last night with Mitch Stein."

  Nick turned back to Odett and popped some more sashimi into his mouth. He wasn't surprised Odett knew he'd met with another agent, every maitre'd and waiter in town was spying for somebody, hoping to earn a favor they could exchange for an audition or a weekend read. The fact was, Nick wanted Odett to know.

  "I fucked my wife last night, too," Nick said. "What's it to you?"

  "You finished writing Cop A Feel over the weekend, and I haven't seen it," Odett said. "Mitch has."

  "He liked it, too," Nick rubbed his tingling lips. Zita's ass must have made a strong impression, which wasn't unusual. What was weird was that those impressions were usually felt further south. "Mitch thinks I can get $2 million for it."

  "Does he?" Odett took a sip of sake.

  "Of course, that was just his opinion of my rough draft," Nick popped another piece of sashimi into his mouth. "It'll take another month or two to polish it up before I can put it on the market."

  "Two months. That would be when your contract with us expires," Odett took the knife, and carefully cut along the grain of the fillet, making six fine, tissue-thin slices. "You wouldn't be holding the script back until you sign with someone else?"

  "I'm a slave to the creative process. It's finished when it's finished," Nick shrugged. "If that happens when I'm represented by you or someone else, well, that's just fate."

  Nick believed that Cop A Feel, the harrowing story of a cop battling sexual addiction while undercover as a male stripper, was not only his best script yet, but could nab him an Oscar.

  "Does this mean you won't be signing with us?" Odett inquired casually.

  "You only package my scripts with your actors and your directors," Nick knocked back his sake. "That severely limits my playing field and diminishes my price. There are other actors and directors I'd like to work with. Mitch Stein can get me Scorcese."

  Odett studied Nick for a moment. Ten years ago, Nick and a number of other high-profile screenwriters were represented by The Quill Group, a boutique agency for writers founded by Martha Dale. She doted on them like a loving grandmother. They were all fiercely loyal to Dale, resisting all attempts at wooing them away. That was, of course, until her freak accident, jogging into a tree shredder. Her agency crumbled after they buried her in 68 individually wrapped pieces and her roster of loyal clients were looking for representation. The Company was there for them in their time of need.

  Back then, Nick was earning low six figures for originals, and even less for rewrites. But under Odett's guidance, his spec scripts regularly sold for $1 million. And he didn't do rewrites for any price.

  Now, Nick was getting cocky. He thought he could leave. He was wrong. "You've done very well with The Company," Odett whispered.

  "I could do even better," Nick whispered back, just to show him he was onto his stupid game. Fucking salesman.

  Odett realized that Nick was operating under the old-fashioned notion that the agent worked for the artist. Apparently, Nick hadn't heard that Odett had changed all that. Odett didn't get clients work, he allowed them to work, all he asked was a small part of the immense reward. That, and lifetime servitude.

  "I see," Odett motioned toward the pond. "You know what those fish are?"

  "Piranha?"

  "Puffers. Tetraodontoidei, to be exact. The Japanese call them fugu. I have them flown in live from Tsukiji every week."

  "Nice to know the $300,000 in commissions I gave you last year were well spent," Nick snorted, "even if it wasn't well earned."

  "The fugu are very territorial, can enlarge to twice their size when threatened, and have teeth so sharp, they can bite through coral," Odett touched the tip of his knife to the fillet. "It's a delicacy the Japanese have been enjoying for 1500 years. A true connoisseur favors the delicate flesh beside the liver."

  "That's real interesting, but I need an agent, not a sushi chef." Nick licked his lips, which reminded him again of Zita's ass. "Where's Zita with that beer?"

  "The beer won't help. The tingling in your lips is from the fugu," Odett said, almost inaudibly. "It's caused by the poison."

  Nick looked up slowly in disbelief. "Poison?"

  "That's what gives the fish its flavor and its charm," Odett said. "Of course, we run the risk of dying suddenly of respiratory paralysis."

  Nick stood up and backed away from the table, desperately rubbing his lips, realizing that Odett wasn't pretentious, he was crazy. "You poisoned me?"

  "It's entirely natural, I assure you. The toxin is found in the organs. The trick is killing the fish and removing its organs before any of the poison gets into the bloodstream. Even then, a slip of the knife can contaminate the whole fish. That's why a fugu chef must be specially trained and licensed."

  "Are you?" Nick squeaked, backing away until he bumped into the bridge.

  "No, it's just a hobby," Odett took another piece of fugu and ate it slowly, savoring every morsel. "But I must admit, I've lost interest in eating anything else. Where's the excitement in pasta?"

  Nick looked at his reflection in the pond, and saw bits of rice clinging to his beard, like maggots feeding on a corpse. "Call a paramedic."

  "If you were going to die, you would have already," Odett turned to see Zita emerging from the trees with more hot sake, fins flaming like birthday candles.
"Of course, anything can happen in two months."

  "Are you threatening me?" Nick retreated over the bridge.

  Odett blew out the flaming fin and sipped his sake. "I'm saying I don't eat pasta."

  * * * * * *

  The mahogany display case in UBC president Don DeBono's office contained a pristine copy of every single issue of TV Guide. There was an identical display case, with another complete collection of TV Guides, in the living room of his Hollywood Hills estate.

  When he was a kid, there was no greater thrill than getting the new TV Guide each week. He would rush down to the mailbox, grab the issue, and hurry back to his room to read every listing. He'd sit on his bed, making notes on dozens of papers spread across his Flipper bed sheets.

  While other kids followed professional sports, traded baseball cards, and argued player stats, he studied a different game, one that was much more exciting. There were only three teams in the major league, each of the domination of prime time television. Their players were weekly series, the penalty for failure was immediate death. How could hitting a ball with a stick compare to that?

  The TV Guide was his report from the front lines. Each time period was a battlefield. He tried to understand the strategies behind each scheduling move and predict the outcomes. Who would win the showdown between Peyton Place and Gomer Pyle USMC? Would Daktari and Girl From UNCLE finally break Combat's hold on Tuesday nights? Why did they move Big Valley against Run For Your Life? Which show would survive?

  Then he'd go to his chalkboard, where he dutifully charted the network schedules, marking the week's winners and losers. He went to sleep each night staring at the chalkboard and woke up each morning to study it again.

  Thirty years later, not much had changed, only now Don DeBono was getting paid for it, tens of millions of dollars. His unmatched programming instincts had propelled UBC from a distant third to a decade as the number one network. Even so, he still felt a thrill when the TV Guide arrived, and putting the latest issue into the mahogany case was a ritual he cherished

  He shifted his gaze away from the mahogany case and back to the executives who sat around the long conference table. All of them were staring at him, waiting for his reaction to the pilot they had just seen: Yasmine Bleeth in Sexual Surrogate, an hour-long drama about a dedicated psychotherapist who helps "people in crisis" by fucking them for $150 an hour.

  In the pilot, she rescues a man from committing suicide, then saves his troubled marriage by helping him overcome his impotence and teaching his wife how to have an orgasm, thereby curing her alcoholism.

  "You want me to buy a series about a hooker?" an incredulous DeBono asked Parnell Buckman, vice president of drama development.

  "She's a licensed, health care professional," Buckman squirmed in his seat. "It's perfectly legal, a compelling side of the medical profession we've never seen on television before."

  "Because it's about a God damn hooker, that's why," DeBono snapped. "What were you thinking?"

  "She's a 30 share, Don," replied Kimberly Woodrell, vice-president of current programming, her eyes burning with razor sharp, Trinitron clarity.

  Her programming instincts were almost as good as DeBono's because he trained her himself. She started at the network as a reader in the TV movies department, summarizing scripts for executives to busy to read them themselves.

  DeBono noticed her when she was the lone voice arguing that the network should make The Last Flight, the harrowing story of a couple who survive a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains and are forced to eat the bodies of their dead children.

  While everyone else was arguing that there wasn't enough story for a movie, that the ending was downbeat, and that script was badly written, Kim's position was that none of that mattered. What was important was the promotional potential. She suggested retitling it They Ate Their Own and hyping the hell out of it. Even if people switched it off, revolted, mid-way through, she predicted they'd still get a 28 share the first hour.

  DeBono agreed with her and made the movie. It got a 35 share. From then on, she became his protégé, moving quickly from low-level reader to top executive in two years months.

  Now she was widely regarded in the Industry as DeBono's secret weapon. Kim developed Valet Girls, a hip sitcom about twenty-something girls eking out a living on the fringes of LA showbiz. The show was the season's biggest new hit. It was impossible to turn on the radio without hearing Alanis Morisette and Melissa Etheridge singing "Blow Me," Valet Girl's catchy theme.

  She also had a body that could give the Pope a hard-on.

  "Sexual Surrogate is perfect counter-programming for Adoption Agency," she said, referring to the MBC's Saturday night powerhouse, a weekly tear-jerker in which adorable kids and are hooked up with loving families by two gorgeous social workers who are actually angels.

  "We can deliver family values and nipples." She added. "What more do you want?"

  "Advertisers," he said. "Because if we put that show on the air, we won't be able to give away the spots. Even those crippled kid charities would turn down the free air time."

  "We've crunched the numbers, Don." Kim glanced at Alan Silver, vice president of research. "Show him the projections, Alan."

  Silver slid a thick binder down the table to DeBono.

  "Adoption Agency attracts a solid, female demographic, pulling in 60% of women 18-35 and 88% of women 35-55. Their only male viewers are 65 years old or over, and they probably don't know what they're watching anyway," Silver explained. "The male audience 18-35 is split between Warmongers on DBC, Baywatch Nurses in first-run syndication, and the rest are renting videos. The two sitcoms we currently have in that period bring in our worst ratings and shares of the week."

  That much was true. UBC's Saturday night was a disaster. Lyndon LaRouche campaign specials pulled in bigger numbers than Fast Food and Trick's Question. Maybe, DeBono thought, he should be developing a comedy for LaRouche.

  He made a mental note to find out when LaRouche was getting out of prison.

  "Sexual Surrogate will appeal to the female audience that watches Adoption Agency and bring in the men," Kim argued. "It's a show a college educated, two-income married couple can watch together after putting their 2.5 babies to bed. It's also a great date show for horny kids making out on the couch. Sexual Surrogate actually delivers a dream demographic for advertisers."

  Don DeBono shook his head. "All the women are going to see is a lady with terrific tits who can fuck their husbands better than they do. If we put Sexual Surrogate on the air, women will throw themselves in front of the TV to keep their husbands from watching it."

  He slid the binder back to Silver, unopened. "We have to go after the male audience with a show they won't feel guilty watching," DeBono said. "Warmongers is going into it's fourth year, it's tired and vulnerable to a direct attack. I think Siamese Cop is the show that can beat it."

  "You can't be serious."

  "It's true counter-programming," DeBono replied, "a pure, high-octane, action-adventure."

  "It's a cop with two heads."

  "It's a cop with a difference," DeBono corrected.

  "We're talking the ultimate buddy show," explained Buckman, eager to get back in DeBono's good graces. "One head is an analytical, by-the-book cop, the other head is a gung-ho, ass-kicker with a 'tude. There's built in conflict every week."

  "I can promote the hell out of it," shrieked Nancy Bardwil, vice president of promotion. "Siamese Cops: Two heads are better than one."

  DeBono turned to Buckman. "Tell them they have 13 episodes, on the condition that one of the heads is John Stamos. End of meeting."

  Everyone slid their chairs away from the desk and filed out of the office. Everyone except for Kim, who remained in her seat, glaring across the table at DeBono.

  "You're making a mistake," she said.

  "And you still have a lot to learn about network programming," DeBono rose from his seat and walked up behind her. "But I admire your passion."

&n
bsp; He slid his hands into her shirt and fondled her breasts, feeling her tiny nipples immediately hardening into stones. "God, do I admire it."

  She twisted free of his hands and got up. "Not now, Don. We have some things to discuss."

  If she had any doubts about what she was going to do, his decision to buy Siamese Cop over Sexual Surrogate erased them. His time in television was passing, the Kim Woodrell era was just beginning.

  "I did it, Kim," he said dramatically, as if it was a giant revelation Perry Mason had twisted out of him on the witness stand.

  "Did what?"

  "I left my wife," he said. "We don't have to hide any more. I'm free and unencumbered. We can be the president and first lady of prime time."

  She looked at him standing there, his erection poking against his slacks, and suddenly he seemed so ridiculous. What had she ever seen in this man?

  "I don't think so," she said.

  "Isn't that what you wanted?"

  "What I want is to be the first woman to run a major network," she said.

  "You will be," DeBono said, reaching out for her. "You're my hand-picked successor and love bunny."

  She stepped out of reach. "This is my last day at UBC, Don."

  "What?" He was still holding his hands out, as if waiting to catch something.

  "I'm going to run the Big Network."

  He stared at her in shock. It was like someone trading in a Mercedes to drive a used Yugo.

  "It's not a network," he said. "It's a bunch of third-rate stations sharing bad syndicated programs."

  "Maybe without me it would be," she said. "But I've got the programming savvy to make them a player."

  "You don't have any savvy," he said. "You have my savvy."

  She ignored the comment. "I believe the revival of Beyond the Beyond is strong enough to get the network sampled. And once people see the programming I'm going to give them, they'll never change the channel again."