A Pagan's Nightmare (26 page)

Nerves aflutter, Lanny dropped his can of soda on the counter. He quickly picked it up, saying, “Yeah, sure… I know.”

The cashier took his five and handed him his change. “Your change is two dollars and sixty-seven cents.”

“Whose face is on the new—” Lanny glanced down at the ones in his palm. “Oh, never mind.”

“Looks very authentic, doesn’t he?” the clerk said, smiling.

Lanny stepped backward to the door, his eyes still on the bills in his palm. “Yeah… just like, um, the real thing.”

Outside in the heat again, Lanny took deep breaths and tried to stop shaking. He didn’t want to stuff the new bills into his
pocket, yet he knew he needed to continue to pose or risk getting sent back to Havana and the paint brigade. And somewhere
in the back of his mind, Lanny knew that those fifteen gallons purchased under disguise had saved him nearly a hundred bucks.

He drove quickly to the interstate and sped north. As Orlando became Ocala, and Ocala became Gainesville, and Gainesville,
Valdosta, he fought sleep. He stayed awake by lowering his windows and letting the air slap his face. Miles later he began
wondering if DJ Ned, MC, and Crackhead were again whitewashing graffiti, and if so, were they listening to the Former Donald
whisper yet another daring escape plan? Lanny hoped so;he missed his friends.

Just after 10:30 p.m. he reached Atlanta, where he merged onto 1-85 north and took exit 99 past Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen.
A mile down the road he turned into Miranda’s apartment complex.

In front of building G sat her light blue VW Jetta. A light came on inside her first-floor apartment.

Lanny didn’t even make it all the way to a parking space. He threw his gear shift into park and ripped off his seatbelt.

No way! How did she get
…?

Lanny leaped out of his Xterra and sprinted toward the door.

Right after I turned down the 8K option offer from Mylan Weems and submitted Larry’s story to three other studios, something
unexpected happened, something akin to the final minutes of an Ebay auction. A 12K offer came in. Then a 17.5K offer—which
I almost urged Larry to take, just so I could make a few shekels in commission. But my phone kept ringing—independent film
people, a startup firm, and Mylan himself. The conversations were sometimes so short that I’d forget who I’d spoken with last.

“Hi, Ned, what about 26K?”

“Um, we’re weighing options. But thank you.”

“Ned, my main man! How’s 35K look?”

“Can I think about it overnight?”

“West Coast greetings, Nedster! Mylan here. Take a swat at 54K?”

I adapted quickly to the lingo. “Nice, Myle-baby. Lemme talk to Larry.”

“Me again, Ned. We can go 72K.”

“That’s
very
generous of you.”

In the life of a literary agent, there is no sweeter phrase than
bidding war

I asked Producer Number Four what had suddenly gotten his interest up. He said that a clean-but-irreverent story might have
wider appeal than he’d originally thought.

I said, “hmmm,” and thanked him for his next offer.

Mylan called me a third time and expressed his growing interest in the project, complete with compliments and the fact that
he was holding all calls so that he and I could talk.

I told him I had two other producers on hold, and that I would get back to him.

I’ll never forget Mylan’s parting compliment. He said, “Ned-baby, today I’m an Israelite, and Larry’s story is a golden calf.”

My job as Agent Orange was threefold: to shine the calf, to arbitrate
the bidding war, and to bring maximum benefit to my client. To my delight, all this shining and arbitrating and benefit-maxing
was taking place even before any of us had received the balance of Larry’s ending.

Not that we had to wait much longer. While I sat in my 22nd-floor office, phone to ear, Larry wandered in. He’d come by every
day for the past week, asking questions, hoping for good news. Today was a Tuesday, and he stood over my desk, arms spread
wide, eyebrows raised.
Well?

I covered the receiver with my hand. “Larry, you’ll have to wait outside in the break room. I’m on the phone with L.A. This
second producer has me on hold for a minute—we’re in discussions.”

Larry remained planted. “Numbers?”

I nodded. “Yep.” Then I pointed to the door

Larry’s mouth dropped and his eyes nearly burst with excitement. “Then I have to stay, Ned.”

“No, you’ll mess this up.”

“I have to know.”

Again I pointed to the door. “Please.”

“But I have the rest of the ending with me.” He pulled a bunch of folded pages from his rear pocket and dangled them overhead.
“Lemme stay or else you don’t get the ending.”

I put my ear to the phone, heard nothing, and covered the receiver again with my hand. “You’re bribing me? While I’m on the
phone trying to sell your story?”

He shook the pages, waved them in front of my face, teased me with their contents. Then he pulled a CD from his other pocket.
“I saved it on CD for ya too. Please, Ned, I have to know what’s happening. I’m almost out of money, and Miranda is asking
all kinds of questions about my vocational future. Plus I only have twelve dollars of credit left on my VISA card.” He dropped
the pages and the CD on my desk and took a step back. “Please?”

I ceased pointing at my door and gestured instead across the office to my potted plants. “Sit against the far wall between
those
two ferns, tie a handkerchief over your mouth, and don’t make a sound.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. This is too important for interruptions and emotional outbursts. If you want to stay, you have to sit, tie, and
remain silent.”

Larry lumbered over between the potted plants and sat. “Ned?”

“What now?”

“Can I borrow a handkerchief?”

I pulled one from my desk drawer, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it over-handed to him.

Larry caught it in mid-air and sniffed hard. “Is it clean?”

“Yes. Now… shhh.” I put my ear to the phone again but heard nothing. I glanced amused at Larry as he struggled to tie the
handkerchief behind his neck. “By the way, Lar, I can’t believe you let DJ Ned get recaptured and sent back to Cuba.”

Larry pulled the handkerchief down, his excited expression fading to a frown. “Ya know, I really had a hard time with that.
. . what with you being my friend and all.”

“I’m touched.” I set the phone in my lap and reached over to pull a couple sheets off the printer. “Larry, I have something
for you to read while you wait.”

He rose to his feet and came loping back to my desk. “What’s this?”

“Other possible endings,” I explained, and handed him the papers. “Several people whom I’ve let read your story so far—including
my barber, my wife, and that flight attendant I met en route to L.A.—have e-mailed me their version of how the story should
end.”

“But how did they get—”

“I’ve been e-mailing them the chapter files as you gave them to me. They’ve bugged me to death. Plus, I thought one of them
might come up with something that would inspire you.”

Producer Number Two came back on the phone and apologized for the wait.

“Quite all right,” I said to him, motioning for Larry to stay quiet.
He returned to the ferns, retied his hankie, sat on the floor, and began reading.

The producer informed me that his script doctor had just had a brainflash. The two of them were reading the theme park scene
where the parking clerk gives Lanny the clue about “seventy percent of the earth being covered in water.” The script guy then
got hold of a Bible and read the first two verses of the book of Genesis. He set the book aside, thought about it for a while,
and came up with what they thought was the perfect ending.

“I’m tellin’ ya, Ned,” said the producer into my phone, “this could work.”

“I’m all ears.”

He then explained that in the second verse of Genesis, it says, “God’s Spirit hovered
over
the deep.” The producer and his script guy concluded that all spirits—good or evil—must therefore lose their powers
beneath
the deep. So Miranda could be discovered hiding out in a submarine with a crew from the United States Navy, who did not touch
her because they were good and proper sailors under the command of a Christian commander. This ending would satisfy a wide
and diverse audience, the producer explained. It would offer a dash of patriotism and a dash of biblical accuracy, together
with the reunion of the lovers. He said these three points were what the studio wanted to convey—an ending that has something
for everyone.

I put my finger in my mouth and made the
gag me
face to Larry.

But Larry wasn’t looking at me. He was busy reading the endings e-mailed in from the readers, including the one from Zach,
who had returned to Auburn for the start of college football season. This may or may not have swayed his attempt at a proper
conclusion.

Oddest to me was the fact that only one of these readers thought Miranda would be in the apartment.

Big Ed turned in the shortest rendition. He thought no way would Miranda be in her apartment. Instead, she had time-traveled
to 1944 and was shivering and lost on the beach at Normandy, where a burly sergeant named Big Ed rescued her in the middle
of a
cold, dark night. After reuniting Miranda with her long lost boyfriend, Big Ed was presented the medal for bravery from President
Roosevelt.

Rocco—who, along with his turbo cologne, stopped by my office at least twice a week—said Miranda could not be in the apartment,
simply because a dashing commercial real estate agent named Rocco had just sold the complex for big bucks. He was turning
it into high-priced condos, which he would sell to yuppie Atlantans who were willing to take out interest-only mortgages in
order to feed their materialism. Miranda would eventually turn up at the marina aboard the
Sanitized 2,
wearing gold chains and diamonds she’d found while on a deep-sea dive. Lanny would mooch off of her and they would settle
into a high-priced condo in West Palm Beach, which would be sold to them by—you guessed it—a dashing realtor named Rocco.

Zach also thought Miranda would not be in the apartment. She would be found working as a roadie for the Dave Mathews Band,
who incidentally had come out with a hit song called
Zealots Marching.
In a surprise twist, Dave himself fell for Miranda, but Lanny rushed behind the stage after a sold-out concert, dropped to
one knee, professed his love for Miranda, and won her back. They got married in the chapel at Auburn, the day after Auburn
beat Alabama 56 to 3 in the Sugar Bowl. My son, the romantic.

The young waiter who was studying theatre at Georgia College also e-mailed me. He said no way would Miranda be in the apartment.
He thought Lanny and DJ Ned and MC Deluxe would first need to reunite. They would develop their newly acquired acting skills
and form an acting troupe comprised solely of posers. These posers would come up with a hit Broadway show that featured amplified
sounds of the noises people make while eating. The name of this production would be
Chomp.
The threesome would tour the world and earn millions from the royalties off
Chomp;
then they would use these monies to bribe Marvin’s guards into revealing where Miranda was hidden—in an abandoned theatre
in Taos, New Mexico.

Angie was the only person who thought Miranda would be inside the apartment. Angie said the perfect ending would be if Lanny
discovered Miranda sitting on the carpeted floor and reading
Mere Christianity,
by C.S. Lewis. Miranda would give the book to Lanny, who would immediately pronounce C.S. brilliant, convert, and become
the maintenance manager of Charles Stanley’s mega-church in Atlanta. Lanny and Miranda would eventually have four kids, two
of them identical twins. Girls, Angie insisted.

The flight attendant who twisted her ankle had e-mailed me from the Houston airport. She said Miranda could not be in the
apartment when Lanny arrived. He would keep searching for awhile—and his perserverance would pay off. He would discover that
Detour Airlines was actually a secret government agency storing all the unfortunate ones in underground caves near the Gaza
Strip. Miranda would find an ancient shovel in her cave, tunnel out, then hitch a ride on a camel to the Persian Gulf. There
she would sneak aboard a container ship filled with Arabian health food, hide out on the ship for five weeks as it made its
way to Jacksonville, then meet Lanny at sunset on Cocoa Beach. They would lay in the surf and kiss as waves lapped over them,
just like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in
From Here to Eternity.

Larry yanked off his hankie and whispered from between the plants that he liked this ending a lot and wished he had thought
of it. Then he said, “No, mine is better. But I could see Hollywood going for this kiss-in-the-surf thing.”

I hung up the phone after jotting down the third producer’s generous offer;then I thumbed through my Rolodex for Mylan Weems’s
number. I loved a good bidding war, and now I would give Mylan one last shot.