After watching films of water-skiers in the Academy of Sports, he bought cups of ice cream, which they ate with little wooden spoons.
“Here’s our spot for the show!” Virginia claimed a bench for the three of them. In the growing indigo of the evening, they could see all the way from the Lagoon to giant George Washington, silhouetted against the Perisphere, surveying the great nation he had sired. As night fell, the buildings of the Fair became so many tracings of brightly lit lines on deepening black. The skyscrapers of Manhattan lit up the horizon. The illuminated fairground trees looked to be glowing from within, from their own inner light.
Bert Allenberry wanted this night to last forever, for all time. He wanted to sit beside Carmen at the Lagoon of Nations, listening to the murmur of the Fair, with her scent of lilac and vanilla stirring the warm air of 1939.
When Virginia collected their ice cream cups and took them to a trash bin, Bert and Carmen were alone for the first time ever. He reached for her hand.
“Carmen,” he said. “This has been a perfect day.” Carmen was looking at him. Oh, those hazel eyes. “Not because of Futurama. Or television.”
“Elsie the Cow?” Carmen said, her breath catching as she smiled.
“Would you allow me to give you and Virginia a ride home when the Fair closes?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. My sister lives too deep in the Bronx.”
“We’ll take a taxi. Then I can drop you off at your place. On East Thirty-Eighth Street.”
“That would be very kind of you, Bert,” Carmen said.
Bert wanted to hold Carmen in his arms, to kiss her, maybe in the back of a taxi on East Thirty-Eighth Street. Or, in room 1114. Better yet, on the one hundredth floor of his building at 909 Fifth Avenue.
“I’m glad I came to the Fair today.” Bert smiled. “So I could meet you.”
“I’m glad, too,” Carmen whispered. Her hand never left his.
Music began to play from speakers hidden around the Lagoon of Nations. Virginia ran back to the bench just as the fountains shot water into the sky, lights turning the geysers into columns of liquid color. Every patron of the Fair stopped to watch. Projections turned the Perisphere into a luminescent ball of clouds.
“Wow!” Virginia loved it.
“Beautiful,” Carmen said.
The first fireworks broke into the sky, bursting into cascading comets, fading to smoke.
That’s when Bert felt a ball-peen hammer strike his forehead. His eyes went painfully dry and scratched terribly. His nose and ears started to run with blood. His legs went numb, and his lower back seemed to separate from his hips. A hot, searing pain shot through his chest as the molecules that made up his lungs began to separate. He had the sensation that he was falling.
The last words he heard were Virginia yelling, “Mr. Allenberry!” The last thing he saw was the fear in Carmen’s hazel eyes.
Stay with Us
MUSIC: “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J
FADE IN
EXT: LAS VEGAS. MORNING
We know this place—the Strip. The casinos. The fountains. But wait…there is a new, huge, luxurious hotel on the skyline.
OLYMPUS.
Bigger than all the others. If you are a Big Roller, you frolic and gamble with the gods at OLYMPUS.
CLOSE ON: EYES OF FRANCIS XAVIER RUSTAN
A.K.A.: F.X.R. Green eyes, flecked with gold, that dance with delight at all they see.
CLOSE ON: COMPUTER SCREENS
Left screen: DETAILED ARCHITECTURAL PLANS, of a vast SOLAR ENERGY COLLECTION FIELD
Middle screen: Google Earth IMAGES of unsettled, bare parcels of land, USGS MAPS, topography CHARTS, and environmental GRAPHS
Right screen: FLOATING IMAGES. A guy catching a marlin, a guy hang gliding, a guy rock climbing, a guy white-water rafting. Steve McQueen in BULLITT. The guy is always F.X.R.
Except for Steve McQueen.
A NEWS TICKER scrolls along the bottom of this screen. Windows pop up with ALERTS and MESSAGES and NOW PLAYING, which switches from LL Cool J to…
MUSIC: “Mambo Italiano” by Dean Martin
A TEXT BOX pops up:
MERCURY: Boss? Breakfast as usual?
CALLER ID shows us MS. MERCURY—Jet-black hair cut short. Slashes of red lipstick.
F.X.R. replies with clicks of his keyboard. F.X.R.: Called it in. Nicholas is bringing it up. MERCURY: Who? F.X.R.: New guy.
INT. SERVICE ELEVATOR—SAME
MS. MERCURY is a stunning specimen, as intimidating as a supermodel. Six feet tall, rail thin, Pilates-shaped physique. Dressed in black on black. She is a woman not to be messed with in any shape or form.
She has read the text, and screams!
What new guy!?
She has been the aide-de-camp for F.X.R. over the last 12 years—a job she lives and breathes every minute of every day.
That a “new guy” is bringing her boss his breakfast is a fact that should never have escaped her!
She is tapping away on a gizmo on her wrist, a large WATCH/COMPUTER— getting MEMOS, TEXTS, SCHEDULES—and finally a series of EMPLOYEE PHOTOS. She swipes the screen until she finds…
NICHOLAS PAPAMAPALOS—19 years old. A look of confusion in his eyes, like a kid starting his very first job ever, which he is.
The elevator doors open and there he is—NICHOLAS PAPAMAPALOS, in the uniform of a room service waiter at Olympus, pushing a table of covered dishes.
(smiling way too much)
Nicky my boy!
Nicky is confused. Why does this tall lady know his name? He enters the elevator.
I’m new here.
You sure are! Look at you in your too-big uniform, with your breakfast order for F.X.R. all ready!
Am I in trouble?
Not yet, kiddo.
How do you know I’m taking this to Mr. Rustan?
Ms. Mercury presses the button for the 101st floor. The doors close and the elevator slowly rises.
Because I know everything that happens at Olympus, Nick-chick. Do you know why?
No. I’m new here.
Let me tell you a little about myself.
(then)
You know what I was doing until three a.m. this morning? Seeing to it that Francis X. Rustan’s collection of one hundred and thirty-two antique motorcycles were moved into a new climate-controlled warehouse, where they will be kept in perfect running order on the off chance that he chooses to someday take one out for a spin. The last time he did that was May of 2013. That he has yet to inspect the new storage facilities for his collection of antique player pianos or the vintage Burma-Shave signs he’s purchased over the years did not deter me from having two dozen men put motorcycles in protective wrapping and gingerly place them in a high-tech garage the size and approximate cost of Bruce Wayne’s Batcave.
(then)
F.X.R. is a very rich man who pretends to be all-knowing and all-seeing when it comes to his vast empire. Accent on, line under, italicize pretends. Here’s something none of his millions of admirers, acolytes, influence peddlers, and brownnosers understand about El Jefe—he couldn’t make his own lunch given a kaiser roll, cold cuts, and a jar of mayonnaise. His head is in the clouds because that brain of his is so damn full of the knuckleheaded schemes that pay off so well. So, we are here—you and I—to make the life he leads possible. I to work twenty-two-hour days at his beck and call. You to prep his meals and taste-test them for poison. I’m kidding. About the poison. Or am I?