"Dream date," Jerry said.
"Not my dream date." Voltan laughed crudely. Jeff said to Harve, "What else do you have for us?"
"We've changed the scene where Mace escapes from the prison on Alar. In the U.S. version, he puts out the guard's eye with the icicle.
In this version, he'll put it out with a cigarette. Alarians only have one eye, so it's no more sightseeing for him."
"I don't think putting out eyeballs with our product. I'm pretty sure that's not what we're looking for."
Harve turned to the producers. "I was told cigarettes had to be integral. How much more integral can you get? Mace gains his freedom with a cigarette. It's a very powerful message."
"I think," Jeff said, "that Nick is uncomfortable with it."
"Okay," Voltan said, "lose the eye."
Harve shrugged.
"By the way," Nick asked, "how are we explaining why the oxygen inside their spaceship doesn't blow up every time they light up?"
"It's the twenty-fifth century," Voltan said. "By then they'll have it figured out."
"We could drop in a line that they mix Freon in with the air supply," Harve said.
"That's good," said Jack. "Would that make them talk funny?"
"Like fags," Voltan said.
"Nah," Jerry said. "That's helium."
The Captain reached Nick in the great white whale on his way to the airport. He didn't sound very good, and there was a lot of static on the line. "I'm in my bass boat," he coughed, "up at the lake in Roaring Gap for a few days. Thought I'd get some fresh air and prove to those idiot doctors down there there's nothing wrong with me that some competent medical advice couldn't solve. I'm beginning to suspect they all got their medical degrees in Grenada. They're saying they want to open me up and stick another pig heart in me. Only good thing about it is you don't have to wait to find a donor. They just go out back with an axe. Oop, hooked one. Call you back."
The phone rang a few minutes later, just as Mahmoud was turning off at Century Boulevard toward LAX. "Sumbitch wrapped me around a log. Felt like a six-pounder, too. Now son, uh, BR tells me the FBI is poking around, asking questions. Can you shed a little light on it for me?"
The Captain's tone took Nick by surprise. He told him everything, except about the hash brownies.
"Huh," the Captain said. "Well, they're probably on a fishing expedition, just like me. But I don't like it. With this Finisterre thing, the last thing we need right now is something like this." There was a pause. "There isn't anything going on I oughta know about, is there?"
"What do you mean?" Nick said.
"Nothing. BR's a little squirrelly."
"What," Nick said, "did BR tell you, exactly?"
"He seems to think we ought to hire you a lawyer. Jewish name. One who got that fellah off was making his clients glow in the dark. Carlinsky."
"I'm not quite clear why you should be hiring me a criminal lawyer."
"Now don't get yourself all in a sweat. Stress is a killer. You fish?"
"A little."
"If you want to take a vacation right now, you go ahead."
"A vacation? With everything that's going on?"
"You know what Winston Churchill said. He said there's never a convenient time for taking a vacation, so go ahead and take it."
Nick sat in First Class grinding the enamel off his teeth and feeling the bands in his neck muscles hypercontracting. He called Jeannette. There was something in her voice, too. She sounded like the old Jeannette, the one who'd shown no interest at all in staying up all night to make him moan.
"My flight gets into Dulles at six," Nick said. "Can you meet it? I need to talk to you."
"I'm really busy," she said. "What do you need to talk to me about?"
"BR talked to the Captain about the situation, you know, about the two people who came to see me—"
"The FBI?"
Terrific. Half the ham radio operators in America were listening in. "All I know is BR called the Captain about my situation and the Captain just called me to suggest I take a vacation."
"I wish the Captain would call me and tell me to go on a vacation."
"That's not really the point. Do you have any idea what it is BR told him?"
"No."
"Do you want to get together later?"
"No." The next sound Nick heard was a recorded voice telling him that if he wanted to make another expensive call from thirty-five thousand feet up, all he had to do was press 2.
He called BR. He was put on hold for eight minutes.
"Yes, Nick?" Again the tone of voice. Had everyone at the Academy been breathing Freon?
"I was wondering what you told the Captain that made him suggest I hire a lawyer and go fishing."
BR cleared his throat. "I thought I owed it to him to bring him up to speed vis a vis this FBI thing."
"I see. Did you tell him anything else?"
"Only what I know."
"Well, what do you know?"
"That the FBI has been taking a very active interest in you. I've gone ahead and retained Steve Carlinsky for you—"
"Oh."
"Look, Nick, the FBI was in here today, again. People are talking. I think at this point we all need some counsel."
"What did the FBI want this time?"
"Nick, I don't think I'm in a position to discuss that with you."
"What?"
"It's for your protection. But, clearly, I have a responsibility to think about the Academy's position."
Nick buzzed for the flight attendant. "Do you know to make a vodka negroni?"
"I sure don't!" she said brightly.
"What I don't understand," Steve Carlinsky said the next morning in his office, the walls of which were taken up with many photographs of famous people posing with him, "is why you waited until now to call me."
Carlinsky was tall and gaunt with close-set eyes that had a look of permanent astonishment. Everything about him was gray, except for a splash of floppy silk bow tie that, in his universe, amounted to almost raffishness. His only passion, aside from billable hours, was said to be wine, which he didn't drink but only collected.
"People make the same mistake with lawyers," he continued, "that they do with doctors. They wait too long. And by then the tumor has… "
"I didn't call you," Nick said. "And how did tumors get into this?"
"I apologize. That was insensitive. In your business, I'm sure you hear more than you want to about tumors. Now, tell me everything. The more I know, the more I can help you."
It was a bit like therapy, only at $450 an hour, more expensive. Carlinsky was a perfect Freudian analyst. He said nothing. When Nick had finished, Carlinsky said, "Though I never would have allowed you to let FBI agents onto your premises without a search warrant, in a way I'm glad you did, because we can use that against them when the time comes."
"When what time comes?" Nick said.
"For a rainy day. Would you like to smoke? I have no objection. Though I never smoked myself, candidly, I think the anti-smoking lobby has accumulated far too much power."
"I haven't been able to smoke since the incident," Nick said.
"We can use that, too. In your line, that's a disability. Now I want you to go back to work, forget about all this, and if the FBI shows up again, would you do me a personal favor and call me? In the meantime, let me make a few calls and see what I can find out."
That wasn't so bad, Nick reflected as he walked the three blocks from Carlinsky's office to the Academy. A perfectly decent fellow, and sensitive.
When he arrived back at ATS, Gazelle came rushing up to him with a phone slip. It said, "Heather Holloway, Moon, URGENT!!!"