Laugh Lines

by Ben Bova

  “He’s always on time,” Rita said. She got up from her chair, a vision of Venus, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Harlow, Hayworth, Monroe—and equally cold, unalive.

  “I’ll let you two talk business together,” Rita said.

  Westerly got up and went to the door with her. She stopped just as he reached for the doorknob.

  Without so much as a smile, Rita said, “B.F. won’t mind if we ball, but we’ll hafta keep it quiet from Gabriel. Ron thinks he’s got me falling for him.”

  “Oh,” was just about all that Westerly could manage.

  “Just let me know where and when,” she said.

  He opened the door and she left the room.

  For several minutes Westerly leaned against the closed door, his mind spinning. It’s not me, he kept telling himself. She really said it and that’s the way it is with her. It means as much to her as filling out an application blank at the unemployment office.

  Still his hands trembled. He wished for the pleasant euphoria that a pinch of coke would bring. Or even the blankness of cat, the synthetic hypnotic drug that he started taking when Virginia was still in chemotherapy.

  The phone chimed.

  For an instant, Westerly didn’t understand what the sound was. He had started the day in Rome, stopped in London and now—he remembered Earnest’s instructions on operating the three-dee phone. He went to the desk near the rolling dinner table and picked up the handset. The red button, he mused. Turning toward the strange, squat apparatus across the room, he thumbed the red button.

  The far half of the room seemed to disappear, dissolving into a section of Bernard Finger’s Los Angeles office. The bright blue sky of early twilight was visible in the window behind Finger’s imposing high-backed chair.

  “H . . . hello,” Westerly said shakily.

  “Surprises you, eh?” Finger said back at him. “Just like being in the same room. That’s how good Oxnard’s new three-dee system is. It’s the system we’re using on ‘The Starcrossed” and that’s what’s gonna make it a great show.”

  “I’m glad we’ve got something going for us,” said Westerly.

  “Huh? Whaddaya mean by that?” Finger said.

  Westerly pulled up his chair. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant chat, he realized. “Well,” he said, “I’ve only been here a few hours, but this is the way it looks to me . . . .”

  He outlined what he had heard and seen, from his opening discussions with Earnest through his talk with Gabriel and the accident with Dulaq and its aftermath. He stopped short of telling about his dinner with Rita. Finger looked slightly upset at first, angry when he heard Gabriel’s name, then ultimately bored of the whole litany of problems.

  “You finished?” he asked when Westerly stopped.

  “That seems like enough for the first day.”

  “H’mmp.” Finger got up from his desk and the camera tracked him. To Westerly, it looked as if half his sitting room was shifting around, the walls and furnishings moving, as Finger paced slowly toward a sofa that appeared in one corner and then centered itself in his view.

  Finger sat on the sofa and touched a button that was set into its arm. On the wall behind him, a professional football game suddenly appeared on a flat, two-dimensional wall-sized TV screen.

  “You see that?”

  “Pro football. That’s our competition?”

  Finger shook his head. “That’s our salvation, if everything works out right”

  “What do you mean?” asked Westerly.

  Glancing furtively on either side of himself, Finger said, “This is a private, scrambled connection. If you try to tell anybody about this, I’ll deny it and sue you. I’ll make sure that you never work again anywhere!”

  “What in hell . . . .”

  “Shut up and listen. Part of the money that the bankers put up for ‘The Starcrossed’ is now invested in the Honolulu Pineapples.”

  “The what?”

  “The football team! The Honolulu Pineapples! If they win the Superbowl, Titanic Productions is out of the red.”

  Westerly’s mind was reeling again. For a moment he couldn’t remember if he had brought the pills with him or not. I was going to dump them in the Ganges, but I think I left them . . .

  “I’ll give you the whole story,” Finger was saying, “because you’re the guy who’s got to come through for me.”

  . . . in the zipper compartment of the flightbag.

  “The bankers gave me enough money for one series. If it hits, Titanic gets more money to pull us out of debt. Got that? But we’re up to our assholes in bills right now, baby! Now! Not the end of next season, but now!”

  None of this is real, Westerly told himself.

  “So I’m using some of the bankers’ money to keep our heads above water, pay a few bills here and there. And the rest of it I’m betting on the Pineapples. As long as they keep winning, we can keep treading water. If they take the Superbowl, we’re home free.”

  “What’s this got to do with ‘The Starcrossed’?” Westerly heard himself ask.

  “Don’t you understand? The money for the show is already spent!” Finger’s voice was almost pleading. For what? Understanding? Mercy? Appreciation? “There isn’t any more money for ‘The Starcrossed.’ It’s spent. Bet on the Pineapples. The budget you’ve got is all you’re going to get. There’s not another nickel in the drawer.”

  “There’s no money for writers?”

  “No.”

  “No money for better actors?”

  “No.”

  “No money for staff or technicians or art directors or . . . .”

  “No money for nothing!” Finger bellowed. “Not another penny. Just what’s on the budget now. Nothing more. You’ve got enough to do thirteen shows. That’s it. If the series isn’t a hit after the first couple weeks, it’s over.”

  “I can’t work like that,” Westerly said. “I’ve got to have decent material, competent staff . . . .”

  “You work with what you’ve got. That’s it, baby!”

  “No sir. Not me.”

  “That’s all there is,” Finger insisted.

  “I can’t work that way.”

  “Yes you can.”

  “I won’t!”

  “You’ve got to!”

  Westerly got to his feet. For an instant he was tempted to walk over and grab Finger by the throat and make him understand. Then he realized that the man was a safe five thousand kilometers away.

  “I won’t do it,” he said quietly. “I quit.”

  “You can’t quit.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.” Finger’s voice went low and ugly. “You try quitting and I’ll send you some visitors. Guys you owe money to.”

  “Who? The IRS? My ex-wife’s lawyers? They can’t touch me in Canada.”

  “Not them. The guys you bought your goodies from, just before you took off for the far hills. They can touch you . . . oh, brother, can they touch you.”

  Westerly felt a river of flame run through his guts. “You told me you had squared that!” he shouted.

  “I told them that I’d square it . . . after you’d done the first thirteen shows. They’re waiting. Patiently.”

  “You lying sonofabitch . . . .”

  “And you’re a cathead, an acid freak. So what? You do your job and you’ll be okay. You just make do with what you’ve got there. And no complaints.”

  With his eyes closed, Westerly echoed, “No complaints.”

  “Good,” Finger said. “Maybe we can all get out of this in one piece. Even if the show flops, the Pineapples are winning pretty good.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Damned right it’s wonderful. Now you take good care of yourself and have fun. I’m already contacting the right people about the Emmies. They’ll be watching you. Them . . . and others.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re entirely welcome. Good night.”

  Finger and his office abruptly disappeared, replaced
by the rest of the sitting room and the ugly three-dee console.

  Westerly stood without moving for several minutes. Then he stirred himself and headed for the bedroom. The flightbag was on the bed. And inside the zipper compartment, he knew, were enough pills to make him forget about this phone conversation.

  At least, for a little while.

  11: The First Day’s Shooting

  Gregory Earnest sat in the control booth; high above the rebuilt starship bridge set.

  Directly in front of him were the engineers and technicians who ran the complex three-dee holographic equipment. They sat along a row of desk consoles, earphones clamped to their heads, eyes fixed on the green, glowing dials and viewscreens that were the only illumination in the darkened control booth.

  Beyond the soundproof window in front of them, the set was alive with crewmen and actors. Electricians were trailing cables across the floor; cameramen were jockeying their self-propelled units and nodding their laser snouts up and down, right and left, like trainers taking high-spirited horses for a morning trot. Mitch Westerly was deep in conversation with Dulaq, one arm around the burly hockey star’s shoulders. Rita Yearling lounged languidly on her special liquafoam couch, glowing with the metallic sheen of her skintight costume. Ron Gabriel paced nervously around the set, orbiting closer and closer to Rita.

  Earnest’s nose throbbed whenever he saw Gabriel. And a special vein in his forehead, reserved exclusively for passions of hatred and revenge, pulsed visibly.

  “The first take of the first scene,” a voice whispered from behind Earnest.

  He turned to scowl, but saw that the speaker was Les Montpelier, from Titanic. He let his scowl vanish. Montpelier was B.F.‘s special representative, here to lend an air of official enthusiasm to the first day’s shooting. He was higher in the pecking order than the Executive Producer, entitled to scowl but not to be scowled at.

  For a moment neither man said anything. They simply sat there looking at each other, Montpelier’s trim little red beard nearly touching the Canadian’s shaggier black one.

  Then, over the loudspeaker, they heard Westerly’s voice crackle: “Okay, let’s get started.”

  A technician held out the clapboard and shouted, “Starcrossed. Episode One, Scene One. Take One.”

  “We’re on our way!” Montpelier said with almost genuine enthusiasm, as the clapboard cracked and fell apart. The embarrassed technician picked up the pieces and scuttled out of camera range, shaking his head at the broken clapboard in his hands.

  An omen? Earnest wondered.

  Brenda Impanema stayed well back in the shadows, away from the bustling men and women on the blazingly lighted set.

  “Would you like a chair?”

  Startled, she looked around to see Bill Oxnard smiling at her. He was carrying a pair of folding chairs, one in each hand.

  “I won’t be able to see if I sit down,” she whispered.

  “Then stand on it,” he said as he flicked the chairs open and set them down on the cement floor.

  With a grin of thanks, Brenda clambered up on a chair. Oxnard climbed up beside her.

  “I thought you were back at Malibu,” she said, without taking her eyes from the two minor actors who were going through their lines under the lights.

  “Couldn’t stay there,” he replied. “Kept fidgeting. Guess I wanted to see how the equipment works the first day. And I’ve got some new ideas to discuss with you, when you have some free time.”

  “Business ideas?”

  He looked at her and Brenda saw a mixture of surprise, hurt and anticipation in his face.

  With a slow nod, he replied, “Uh, yes . . . business ideas.”

  “Fine,” said Brenda.

  The actors were clomping across the bridge set, pronouncing their lines and fiddling with the props that were supposed to be the starship’s controls. Out of the corner of her eye, Brenda could see Oxnard shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

  “The lights. I told them we don’t need so much wattage with this holographic system. They’re going to wash out everything . . . the tape will be overexposed.”

  “Can’t they take care of that electronically, up in the control booth?”

  “Up to a point. I just wish they’d listen to what I tell them. Once, at least.”

  His teeth were clenched and he looked very unhappy.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said soothingly.

  Oxnard grimaced and jabbed a finger toward the actors. “You don’t use an astrolabe for navigating a starship! I told Earnest and the rest of them . . . why don’t they listen?”

  Mitch Westerly wasn’t worried about the astrolabe or any other technical details. His bead was still buzzing from last night’s high. Faced with the first day’s shooting, he hadn’t been able to get to sleep without help. Which came in the form of pills that floated him up among the stars and then dumped him on the cement floor of the studio with a bad case of shakes.

  Liven it up, you guys! he ordered the actors, mentally. We don’t have time or money for retakes. Put some life into it.

  “We haven’t seen any signs of the Capulet starship since we left Rigel Six,” said the first bit player, pronouncing “Wriggle” instead of “Rye-gel.”

  “Maybe they never got away from the planet,” spoke the second, as if he were being forced to repeat the words at gunpoint. “They were having trouble with their engines, weren’t they?”

  With some feeling! Westerly pleaded silently.

  “I’ll check the radars,” said Actor One.

  “Cut!” Westerly yelled.

  Both actors looked blankly toward him. “What’s the matter?”

  Westerly strode out onto the set. He felt the glare of the lights on his shoulders like a palpable force.

  “The word in the script is ‘scanners,’ not ‘radar,’ Westerly said, squinting in the light despite his shades.

  The actor shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

  Ron Gabriel came trotting up. “What’s the difference? You’re supposed to be seven hundred years in the future, dim-dum! They don’t use radar anymore!”

  The actor was tall and lanky. When he shrugged, it looked like a construction crane stirring into motion. “Aww, who’s gonna know the difference?”

  Gabriel started hopping up and down. “I’ll know the difference! And so will anybody with enough brains in his head to find the men’s room without a seeing-eye dog!”

  Westerly placed a calming hand on the writer’s shoulder. “Don’t get worked up, Ron.”

  “Don’t get worked up?”

  Turning back to the actor, Westerly said, “The word is scanners.”

  “Scanners.” Sullenly.

  “Scanners,” Westerly repeated. “And you two guys are supposed to be joking around, throwing quips at each other. Try to get some life into your lines.”

  “Scanners,” the actor repeated.

  Westerly went back to his position next to the Number One camera unit. The script girl—a nondescript niece of somebody’s who spoke nothing but French—pointed to the place in the scene where they had stopped.

  “Okay,” Westerly said, with a deep breath. “Let’s take it from . . . ‘Maybe they never got away from that planet.’ With life.” Cat, he said to himself. I’ve got to find some cat or I’ll never sleep again.

  Ron Gabriel was trying not to listen. He prowled around the edges of the clustered crew, peeking between electricians and idle actors as they stood watching the scene being taped. They’re mangling my words, he knew. They’re taking the words I wrote and grinding them up in a cement mixer. Whatever’s left, they’re putting into a blender and then beating it with a stick when it comes crawling out.

  He felt as if he himself were being treated the same way.

  He paced doggedly, his back to the lighted set.

  Farther back, away from the action, Brenda and Oxnard were standing on their chairs, watching.
Off to one side, Rita Yearling reclined on her couch, the one Finger had flown up from Hollywood for her.

  Gabriel stopped pacing and stared at her. If it wasn’t for her, he thought, I’d have walked out on this troop of baboons long ago. Maybe I ought to split anyway. She’s a terrific lay, but . . . .

  Rita must have felt him watching her. She looked up and smiled beckoningly. Gabriel went over to her side and hunkered down on his heels.

  “Nervous?” he asked her.

  Her eyes were extraordinarily blue today and they widened with girlish surprise. “Nervous? Why should I be nervous? I know all my lines. I could say them backwards.”

  Gabriel frowned. “We’ve already got one clown who’s going to be doing that.”

  “What do you mean?” Her voice was an innocent child’s.

  “Dulaq. He’s going to get it all ass-backwards. I just know it.”

  “Oh, he’ll be all right,” Rita said soothingly. “Don’t get yourself flustered.”

  “He’s an idiot. He’ll never get through one scene.”

  Rita smiled and patted Gabriel’s cheek. “Francois will be all right. He can be very much in control. He’s a take-charge kind of guy.”

  “How do you know?” Gabriel demanded.

  She made her surprised little girl face again, and Gabriel somehow found it irritating this time. “Why, by watching him play hockey, of course. How else?”

  Before Gabriel could answer, the assistant director’s voice bellowed (assistant directors are hired for their lungpower): “Okay, set up for Scene Two, Dulaq and Yearling, front and center.”

  “I’ve got to go to work,” Rita said, swinging her exquisite legs off the couch.

  “Yeah,” said Gabriel.

  “Wish me luck.”

  “Break a fibia.”

  She blew him a kiss and slinked off toward the set. Gabriel watched her disappear among the technicians and actors, and suddenly realized that her walk, which used to be enough to engorge all his erectile tissue, didn’t affect him that way anymore. The thrill was gone. With a rueful shake of his head, he walked toward the set like Jimmy Cagney heading bravely down the Last Mile toward the little green door.