Vallenti laughed. "So the subject is male?"
Hayes grimaced at his slip. "I guess that narrows the field for you by half.''
Vallenti suddenly leaned forward. He wasn't laughing anymore. It was time to drop the bomb on Hayes-the bomb that was the real point of the meeting. "You want to know what else is bothering us about Project Superstar?"
Hayes looked at Vallenti suspiciously. "I somehow thought that your major concern wasn't that our efforts might fail."
"Are you sure that this whole thing isn't a cover for clandestine work on a death-experience program?"
Hayes's eyes widened. "A death-experience program? Are you joking?"
Either Hayes was genuinely shocked, or he was a consummate actor. Vallenti shook his head.
"I'm not joking. The information is that death-experience research has been resumed. You have to admit that your project would be an ideal cover.''
"But work on the death experience is strictly forbidden after what Jonas did. You know that as well as I do. His attempts to tape through a human death nearly ruined us."
"Someone's messing around with it again."
"It's no one in Special Projects. I can assure you of that."
"Can you be certain?"
"It's my department, damn it. And how can you be so sure anyway?"
"We have evidence."
"What evidence?"
"Supply requisitions."
"How can they prove anything on their own? We've booked out truckloads of live recording gear for the research on Superstar."
"That's what made us think it might be you guys."
"I already told you. It wasn't us."
"There is one other piece of evidence."
"I think I need another martini."
"Three weeks ago there was a execution down in Mississippi. A character by the name of Jamal Vance. He killed five people when a supermarket heist turned sour.''
"What about him?"
"We have a tape and polygraph record of a prison guard who claims to have, along with three others, substituted a gimmicked execution gurney that was capable of recording Vance's feelings from the moment that he was strapped down to it, through the lethal injection, and for twenty minutes afterward."
"Someone made a death tape."
"More to the point, someone has a death tape. Can you imagine what they would fetch on the black market?"
Hayes looked thoughtful, and Vallenti was convinced that if it was someone in Special Projects who had made the tape, the man sitting across the table from him didn't know anything about it.
Finally, Hayes looked up. "What makes you so sure that someone in the corporation did this?"
"Who else would have the technology?"
"In theory, it could be done on the outside."
"But in practice, it'd be just about impossible."
Hayes slowly put down his martini glass. "We are going to have to look into this."
Vallenti sipped his Scotch. He could see that Hayes was thoroughly rattled. That was how he wanted him. "My people already are."
' 'We need to talk to security.''
Vallenti shook his head. "We don't talk to anybody. Not until we know who we can trust."
Hayes sighed and nodded. "Will you call me?"
"As soon as I hear anything more."
Hayes absently picked up the check. "This is a potentially very bad business."
Vallenti nodded. "Don't I know it."
THE SUPERSTAR WAS FAR FROM HAPPY. He slumped petulantly in the deep leather armchair and dug the pointed toe of his handmade Spanish boot into the thick, white pile of the wall-to-wall carpet. The double glazing of the hotel's penthouse suite presented an uninterrupted panorama of the city. Above the brown air layer the sun was warm and bright, and the sky was a perfect blue. A needle-thin rocket liner floated in the clear part of the sky. It was almost at eye level from where the superstar sat. Its wheels were down, its wings were out, and it was drifting in for a landing at Metro-4 airport, the one that handled the big sub-orbitals.
The superstar wasn't interested in the view, the sky, or the passing planes. He was being hassled by his manager in a one-on-one conference. He had already told his manager no way, four times. His manager wasn't inclined, though, to take no way for an answer.
"Listen, no way, Tom. I'm not going to do it."
"That's fucking dumb."
"Dumb or not, I don't like it."
"You're turning down ten million."
"It doesn't feel right."
"Don't you feel you're being a tiny bit irrational?"
"Sure I'm irrational. I'm a genius. If I was an accountant, I'd be logical, but I'm not and I ain't. Okay?"
"Jesus Christ, do you seriously expect me to go back to Combined Media and tell them that the deal's off?"
"You can tell them what you like. That's your problem."
The superstar hooked his leg over the arm of the chair and swiveled around so he was facing away from the manager. He stared out across the city. The rocket plane had gone, but otherwise it was exactly the same. While the superstar sulked, the manager marshaled himself for another attempt at persuasion. He loosened the collar of his fashionably casual lounging suit and ran his fingers through his long gray hair.
"Shall we try again?"
The superstar continued to pout. He was dressed in what amounted to a costly, spangled parody of the uniform worn by the gang kids from the welfare sections. They were, after all, the main solvent honking nucleus of his fans-the ones who consumed his tension tapes and fought their way into his live shows.
The manager's voice was comfortingly soft, more like that of an analyst than a businessman. "You want to discuss it?"
Still the superstar refused to acknowledge him. The manager's voice hardened. "Can you hear me?"
"No."
"You don't want to discuss it?"
"I can't hear you."
"Aren't we being a bit childish?"
The superstar jabbed a heavily ringed finger at the manager. "You might be being childish. I'm not."
' 'What I'm primarily trying to do is to make you very rich."
The superstar didn't say anything, although this time he didn't look away. The manager pressed home his slight advantage.
"You want to be very rich, don't you?"
"I am very rich."
"You could be a lot richer."
"Not this way."
"How long is it going to take to convince you?"
"It's going to fucking take forever. My mind's made up. I won't do it."
"Have I ever pushed you into a wrong direction?"
"Sure you have. What about the Multisong deal? What about that terrible fuckup in Tokyo? You want me to go on?"
"That's hardly fair."
"You railroaded me into both of them."
Even the manager's seemingly boundless patience was starting to fray. "Will you do something for me, as a favor?''
"What?"
"Could you just take the time to explain in a little detail what exactly you have against this offer? It is, after all, the biggest thing you've ever been offered. From where I sit, it looks like the dream of a lifetime."
"From where I sit, it looks like a nightmare."
"Why, for Christ's sake?"
"I don't like the whole idea."
"You'll be the first living entertainer ever to be recorded on a feelie program. People will actually be able to feel what it's like to be you while you're performing. I would have thought your ego would have jumped at the chance."
"Don't knock my ego. It pays for your plastic surgery."
"You're still avoiding the question."