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“It would if it had a chance. Look at its eyes.” It quacked, shook feathers in irritation. “It’s rabid. We should shoot it. Do they rent guns here?”

“Are you upset? About David and me starting a family.”

“No, you’ll have all kinds of fun. He’ll be a great dad. Mr. Down-to-earth. He still think the Bible’s based on him?”

A no-red-meat, Nurse Ratchet calm, full of alpha superiority.
“New Age is not a religion. We’ve talked about this, Alan. Why do you make fun of these things?”

“I have total respect for metaphysics. I just think David is a sociopathic bullshit artist, that’s all.”

“He sees the good in you.”

A quartet of tall vegetarians, swathed in white, floated by, nodding. Their long toes crunched on lake path.

“Cynthia, he’s a phony.”

“This isn’t the place to have an argument.”

“We’re having a passionate exchange. Remember passion, or does Dave have a seminar to control that one, too?”

“Can we talk about something else?” Neither made a move. “How’s your agent?”

“Please.”
He was staring at the crystal around her neck. “What is that, kryptonite?”

“Is he doing a good job for you?”

“He’s great. Wishes he’d invented polio so he could’ve signed Jonas Salk and taken a percentage of the vaccine. He still lies on spec.”

“How’s Eddy?”

“Died. Few months ago.”

“Alan, I’m so sorry. But remember—” a happy tape began in her head, “there is no death.”

“Yeah, well this time there was … he was definitely dead. Trust me.”

“How’s your show going?”

“Big.”

“Anyone special you’re seeing?”

“My shrink.”

She breathed deep. A peaceful glow settled. Monarch butterflies sketched orange on sky.

“I love being pregnant. Having a little life inside me.”

“With all due respect … that’s always how much life you had inside you …”

“I’m calm. Not bored. I’ve always said that. Why are you so angry?”

“You and Dave … this how you talk?” He stood up, becoming annoyed, not knowing why. “Like little … tofu drones? Nothing bothers you? You’re ‘at one’ with the fucking birds and these hostile, asshole ducks … and he records his little harp albums and gardens his billowy hair and—”

“Alan,
stop
it!”

“A reaction?” A nasty gleam. “Don’t tell Dave. He’ll take away your juicer privileges.”

“You are so filled with resentment.”

“I think your life is a joke.”

“No. That’s not it.”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Of Dave? Yeah, you’re right. I want white hair that hangs to my butt and my own little New Age seminar business that exploits dysfunctional fuckheads at a grand a throw. I want my own fucking mantra like Dave has. What’s his again? ‘We take VISA’?”

He stared at her stomach and remembered jerking off in the doctor’s office in Encino, seven years ago, feeling absurd, ashamed.

“Just think … all those years of good sperm that got thrown away on flat stomachs and towels. The countless
millions of lives, swept away like counter puddle,” he’d told the nurse who handed him a beaker. She’d been amused despite a slightly offended smile.

When the doctor had called, saying he’d failed the test, Alan heard the continuing force of life as a makeshift infirmary, under the tent of his skin. The dying, the dead, strewn in a condemned ecology.

“Guess I’m a bell curve without a clang,” he’d told the doctor and the guy’d said it could’ve been a lot of things. Career stress was right up there at the top, in his case. It did a pretty good arson-job on sperm, going in with bad-hour flammables, burning those little Alans to death.

Cynthia had watched him put down the phone, slowly moved to hug him. But he’d sensed her disappointment. It was in the slowness of her fingers as they squeezed him. In the way she’d said, “I love you … we’ll work it out,” and her voice was a dosage; an obligation.

Two years later, he’d wanted out and she’d married Dave. Potent, mystical Dave.

“Feel my stomach. Please, Alan? I’d like that.”

He sighed, said no. Felt like an ass, finally agreed; spread fingers over the cotton rise. He smiled but it was for her and he sensed himself leaning slightly away. The idea of something growing inside her was parasitic and repelled him. He didn’t understand why. Maybe all the toilet-plungers in Hollywood who clung to him, with their upbeat dependency, made him despise the idea of anything feeding on something else. Maybe he wanted to be a father; knew it was unlikely. Maybe he just thought Dave was a scumbag and had no right bringing anything vaguely human into the world.

She smiled with Zen closure. “We would’ve hurt each other too much.”

“If we’d kept on?”

She nodded. “I love you. You know that?”

“I love you, too.” He suddenly envied her the baby, and he suddenly wanted her to die. And he wanted Dave to suffer.

“Will you come and see the baby? Try to give David a chance?”

Alan hesitated, said yes. In his mind, he saw an infant’s carriage with a dead baby inside. Its bullet-scored body, a hideous dalmation, its face exactly his.

He never spoke to her again.

D
id you hear?”

Silence.

“Jordan … right in the middle of rewriting …”

“I can’t believe you didn’t hear.”

Alan was in the new multisuite production building the studio had given him once he’d made them so much money, they’d gone into toxic-shock and felt generous. His office was huge, with a built-in wall aquarium and a fireplace just like Franky’s. Alan had always teased about the fireplace. But he’d always wanted one.

“Somebody broke into Andy Singer’s house and beat the shit out of him.” Jordan told him it had happened a couple of hours ago.

Alan fell silent. Last time Alan had talked to Andy, he and the megalomaniacal twerp had had a civil knockdown
about the time-slot change, despite Jordan wanting the agency to handle it.

Alan hadn’t been able to wait.

In their heated exchange, Andy’d said he wanted to make the other network’s top shows run out their pants like Cream of Defeat and was sure “The Mercenary” could kill off anything; fun nerve gas. Alan didn’t like the idea and told Andy he wouldn’t agree to the move. The show worked where it was.

He’d hung up on Andy and from what Jordan was saying, Andy’s week went straight downhill from there. The way rumors had it, some crazy had busted into Andy’s two-million-dollar ego-shrine at the Summit, a Disney-perfect gate-guard community just off Mulholland, at around seven this morning.

Jordan said Andy had been terrorized. Tied up; beaten. The whole three-course gourmet service. When Armed Response finally dragged their asses up his driveway and kicked down the door, Andy was a Fig Newton. He’d suffered a nervous breakdown while tied up in the chair and was hastily and confidentially placed in a home for the seriously snow-burned.

“So, now what?” Alan felt bad for Andy, but not that bad.

“So, that’s life. Send flowers. Make nice. Other fronts: I talked to Tony Moore. Loved the meeting. Loved you. Wants to make a movie. How’d you feel it went?”

Alan took a stack of messages from Lauren. All from people who wanted something. He fingered through, handed them back to her. Mouthed for her to take care of it. She nodded. Mouthed back, “Lunch?” He nodded.
She added more wood to the superfluous fireplace and left.

“I’d rather pass.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“You asked me how I felt.”

“Right. I didn’t ask you to pass. Alan, I told him you wanted it.”

“So, tell him I don’t.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Jordan … you and I didn’t even talk it over. You can’t commit me to stuff without asking me.”

“You’re absolutely right.” That was the making-nice part. Alan could hear a manipulative thought coming. “Listen, it’s a huge opportunity.” That was Part One of the thought. “If I may make a suggestion, try it … we can always get you out of it later.” Part Two.

“You packaged us.”

“Who said that?” The answer came too quickly.

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Alan … we have a green-lighted picture here if you say yes. Katzenberg’s been all over me this morning. What difference does it make?”

“You didn’t consult me.”

“Tony Moore can work with any writer in town.”

“Let him.”

“He wants you.”

“Tell him it’s a pass.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

No answer.

“Disney wants to do it if you write it. I remove you, deal gets polio.”

“So, the agency loses the packaging fee.”

No answer.

“This could be a very big picture, Alan. What’s a few attachments?”

“Jordan, point is, I don’t wanna do it just because you make a huge fee off it. And the second point is, you lied to me.”

Jordan sighed. “I get you a great opportunity and all you care about is a technicality? You have a TV perception, I get you a feature perception. You fucking kidding me?”

It wasn’t a conversation.

As Jordan cajoled, pleaded, and apologized, Alan stared at a clown trigger doing a pudgy tour in his wall tank. It stared at him; a wet witness. Then, it swam by a smaller fish and unexpectedly took a big bite out of it. As the wounded fish squirmed, a quarter of its body bitten off, Alan decided not to send Andy flowers.

C
orea felt thick tape sealing his mouth. A blindfold covered his eyes, and his wrists and ankles were bound behind his back. He could hear someone walking through nearby brush.

He tried to remember. They had driven. He could recall shifting. Accelerating. Being forced to drive. Driving far. Being told to watch the road, not to look at the man’s face. Could still feel bruised ribs where the man had jabbed him with the pistol barrel and made him answer endless questions. Made him talk loud. Soft.

Now he could see nothing. Could barely remember the man who’d approached him in the underground garage at his Marina condo.

The one who bore an eerie resemblance to him.

He’d forced Corea into his own Ferrari.

It was hot, now. He heard a fire being started. Was it
day? Night? He had no idea. A wind came up and blew sand. He was thirsty. Had to take a leak.

The burning wood smelled good; like memories of campfires when he’d done plays at summer camp. Comedies performed in front of the other kids, who circled the fire and laughed and clapped at the bad parts; the dumb acting.

Pain.

The tape was ripped from his mouth. The blindfold removed. He was blinded by the fire, eyes blinking, watering, overwhelmed by brightness. Smoke. Fear.

Then, he saw him. A dense-looking man dressed in filthy jungle fatigues, staring at him. The man watched him, curiously. Fascinated. Observing every detail of his behavior.

“What the fuck is this …?” Corea asked, voice weak; scared.

The man looked at him.

“… what the fuck is this?” the man repeated, trying to capture the same tone, the speed of phrasing. “What the fuck is this?” He said it several more times. Then, just kept staring, eyes primitive cameras, recording each move and facial expression.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man picked up a rock and threw it hard at Corea, hitting him on the forehead, making it bleed. “… who the hell are you?” the man repeated, a coarse mimic, imitating Corea’s facial expression, as Corea winced in pain.

“You
motherfucker!
”

The man threw another rock. Made Corea’s scalp line bleed. “… motherfucker,” said the man, struggling
with the word, tilting his own head, watching Corea’s pain. Trying to duplicate it, making false noises of pain.

Corea was scared. Was this some crazed fan? Someone who loved the show? Wanted to be just like him?

“Look … I can get you whatever you want. You wanna come to the studio? See my dressing room? I can get you a jacket.” He was looking into the man’s uncomprehending eyes, getting more scared. “Great leather jacket … says ‘The Mercenary’ on the back. Only people on the show can get them.”

The man walked closer, stared at Corea, studied him.

“Smile,” said the man.

Corea was confused and the man poked him with a burning branch from the fire.
“Smile!
”

Corea managed a smile and the man watched him. Reached his dirty hands out and felt Corea’s face as it struggled to smile through pain and fear. The man began to smile, doing it the same way, curling it a bit on one side.

“Who the hell are you?” said the man, duplicating Corea’s voice. “Motherfucker …” Then, the man pulled out a knife.

Corea felt terror. The man grabbed Corea’s shirt front, ripped it open, yanking hard. As Corea watched in horror, the man cut him, watched blood surface.

Corea began to scream and the man screamed the same way, watching and listening to exactly how Corea did it. Their screams echoed across the barren desertscape and animals returned their calls.

Corea stopped screaming, furious at being mocked, and the man cut him again to make him scream more. But Corea refused. The man kicked him in the balls and Corea fell to his knees, groaning, spitting blood.

The man memorized the move and did the same, groaning and falling to his knees. He stood and did it again, then forced Corea up and made him do it over and over. He kicked Corea in the balls harder and Corea stood motionless, eyes shutting, pain shooting. He made no noise, simply collapsing.

The man practiced it over and over, as Corea remained on the ground in agony. The man got down beside him and watched Corea’s facial expressions as pain ground him up. He made the same expressions, the same noises.

Corea fell silent, hating this cruel parody. Refusing to make a sound.

“Cry,” said the man.

Corea couldn’t, eyes dry, body numb.

“Cry!” The man was yelling and began to poke him with the knife tip, making little eyelets that beaded blood. They were all over Corea’s chest. His face. His stomach. Like a horrid pox. The man was about to go lower and Corea forced himself to weep, crying out, screaming, face out of control.

The man was intrigued, moving close.