Simon thought of looking up his sister, Rachel. According to Calliope, big sissy now worked for Perry Needham Howe, the guy raking millions off that syndicated cop show. Howe had offices somewhere on the lot — probably even knew the Blue Matrix boys. At a certain level of moneymaking, everyone knew everyone.
He decided to head for safe ground: the company store. He bought a Blue Matrix sweatshirt and the cashier told him which stage to go to — asking a guard could have invited trouble. The sparkling backlot had a ritzy Deco theme. He passed a whole block of buildings with wharf-related façades, imaginary fish importers and the like. Rolls-Royces, Hum-Vees and Range Rovers threaded the posh alley-like streets. People drove around in golf carts, as in studio days of yore.
A red ambulance light flashing at the Stage Six door meant they were shooting inside. Simon waited with a small group. When the light went off, they entered the cavernous darkness through gunmetal doors. A girl with a walkie intercepted him.
“May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Hassan.”
The girl was listening to voices in her headphones. She said a few words to the walkie that referred to some humdrum crisis.
“You are—”
“Simon Krohn. Hassan’s a family friend.”
She held the walkie to her mouth, waiting for an audio runway to clear. Finally, she abandoned her efforts and waved him in.
The bridge of the U.S.S. Demeter rose before him like the flagship of an exterminating angel. The legendary players were frozen in grandeur between takes, a tableau vivant for Simon’s delectation. There was Captain Trent Wildwood, with his shock of blond hair and vermilion tunic; the tapir-like Commander Stroth, clacking fingertips poised at ellipsoid console; Lt. Livingston T. Cloud, witty diplomat in residence, a hundred-year-old being encased within the body of a pre-adolescent boy. Someone yelled Take five! and the crew scurried while the actors exhaled, awakening somnambulists.
Simon rounded the set. Before him stretched an aboriginal landscape of lava rock and sand that he recognized as the Fellcrum Outback, sacred burial- and battleground of Vorbalidian gladiators. Grips raised giant blue screens on its periphery. The budding teleplaywright was about to ask directions to Hassan’s dressing room when he saw the imposing figure of the Chief Navigator heading toward him. His face wore the characteristic calcium plating of the Vorbalid race, a dignified mosaic of features that made him resemble a cubist prelate. Mr. DeVore smoked a long thin cigarette and seemed oblivious; he had the judicious, wistful mien of an actor making serious money, at last.
“Hassan?” The shaled head swiveled. “It’s Simon — Krohn.”
The Vorbalid brooded and blinked, cracking a smile. “Well, hello!”
“I hope you don’t mind my dropping by.”
“Well — I’m not sure!”
The smile became a froggy grimace. The actor began to loudly hum, as if preparing for song.
“Scott Sagabond is a friend.”
“Who?”
“Scott Sagabond, one of the producers.”
“He’s not with the show. Left last year.”
“Okay, no estoy es problemo. He was a friend — of my mother’s too. I had an idea for a script, a long time ago, and when I met you the other day, things fell quickly into place.”
“Yes, they did, didn’t they! I can see that.”
“Since my story mostly revolves around you, I wanted to get your input.”
“Revolves around me?”
The girl with the walkie came and stood a few feet away, listening to her headphones. She was waiting for a cue to usher in Mr. DeVore; head slightly atilt, her eyes had the dull, frank look of someone making potty.
“Perhaps,” said the thespian navigator, “we can talk about this some other time.”
“Oh sure! I can come to the house. I saw it in In Style, by the way — your place in Encino? I love the grotto your wife designed. She’s a very talented lady!”
The girl stepped forward. “Hassan, they’re ready for you.”
“Karen, this is Simon Krohn. Actually, he’s my psychiatrist’s son.” The actor sneezed violently but Simon realized it wasn’t a sneeze at all, but a strangled guffaw. Karen grinned, absorbed in finding a free channel.
“Why don’t you send the précis to my agent?”
“But I have a copy with me.”
“Better to send it — Donny Ribkin at ICM.” The Vorbalid was ditching him before Simon could lock on to his coordinates. “But thank you much. Kind of you to drop by.”
“My mother thought it would be a good idea to cut through the normal channels — you know, eliminate the middleman.”
DeVore stopped in his tracks. “Calliope said you should come here?”
Neither of them looked as if they believed it.
“Well, actually, she suggested I drop it off at the guest house for when you come on Wednesday — at five o’clock. Five’s your time, isn’t it?”
“I see. Then let me have it.”
“I can still send it to your agent.”
“Hand it over and I’ll look at it tonight.”
Hassan made his exit, “Heart of Arknes” in hand. Simon crouched at the edge of the Fellcrum Outback, collecting thoughts and breath, amazed at the adrenaline the afternoon had required. On the other side, they readied for camera. The Dead Animal Guy sat cross-legged amidst the rocky purplish wilderness, contented, a solitary celestial soldier. Only the presence of a lone grip, Styrofoam cup in hand, surveying a table of pastries, fruit and trailmix, invaded his fantasy, rooting it in the workaday.
Gliding down Sunset Boulevard. Something in the road. Harpy upon him, hurls him to the ground, scattering teeth to curb like a bloody herd of mah-jongg chips. The dreaming physician ran eastward with the piggybacked cargo, necrotic hands clapped around his neck — trying not to glance down at the wormy holes in the cuticles — apocryphal howling wind chilling him to the bone. Rounding the recurring corner and standing at recurring gate…
On the way to Malibu, Dr. Trott turned over last night’s images; they still had punch. Same dream, of varying degree, for weeks. Tranquilizers didn’t help. He wondered if soon he would be in the grip of agrypnia, the insomniac’s insomnia: total inability to sleep. This disorder, said the literature, fatal if it lasts much longer than a week, is also seen in diseases and intoxications — especially encephalitis lethargica and ergot-poisoning. He felt foolish and anachronistic, the “recurring nightmare” concept itself a throwback to the fifties, to the time of shelters and tailfins and Miltown. The Three Faces of Les.
It was a big blue Sunday and Obie invited him to the beach house for a screening of Teorema. The old friends had had a few whispery, dishy early morning phone chats (Obie saying everyone was full of shit and no one would be able to prosecute, Les trying to believe, scared, needy, unconvincingly cavalier, hanging on Big Star skirts through the incessant hiccups of her call-waiting; just when the paranoia started to recede, Obie would click back on and ask if he had any Percocets. Les would panic, wondering if the feds had tapped the line, and ask, stilted and absurd, if she was kidding. “You know, you should really try to stop being such a fag,” she’d say — so cutting and unnecessary — then take another call and leave him dangling, marooned and punished) but this would be the first they’d seen of each other since the “controversy.”