Elimination Night

24

The Talent and the Glory



IT WAS DARK BY the time I left Greenlit Studios. One of those surprisingly cold LA nights—with a huge, bright moon, the kind that follows you around so much, you feel like taking out a restraining order. The coyotes would be out later, I suspected, howling down from the hills. I wondered if Joey would do what he usually did on such occasions, and climb onto the roof of his house to howl right back at them.

Not likely. It had been weeks now since Joey’s relapse, but he still hadn’t returned to his former self. He was clean, at least: Mitch had established this beyond any reasonable doubt—with Mu and Sue acting as round-the-clock enforcers.

But Joey’s funk hadn’t lifted. Which meant he was still—I swear—the most boring judge on the panel. “Yeah, that was nice, man,” went his tediously predictable nightly criticisms. “You did great.” If Project Icon hadn’t been in mortal danger, Ed Rossitto would almost certainly have fired him by now. Ironically, it was the show’s weakness that had convinced Ed against such a radical move. Project Icon couldn’t afford to make itself look vulnerable, not now. A midseason panel rethink would do exactly that. To the likes of Chaz Chipford at ShowBiz, it would be like seeing blood in the water. Instead, the show had to pretend it was still invincible. Hence Wayne’s repeated claim that season thirteen had generated “more votes than any previous season in the HISTORY of our show”—without any acknowledgment that this was possible only because Rabbit had started to count the results of spam surveys and pop-up ads on third-party websites. In reality, the number of telephone votes was down by eighty percent…

I checked the time on my cell phone as I walked out into the parking lot: almost nine o’clock. The place was empty. Just Two Svens’ Bugatti convertible, some crew vehicles, and my bicycle—its frame and front wheel chained to the fence. It was so cold, I had to pull my cardigan sweater tight around me and readjust the belt. Then a rush of air behind me. Turning, I saw Len’s dark green Jaguar, which had come to a halt noiselessly about five feet away. The window was down, framing Len’s Merm between the chrome pillars. Beside him was his wife, the scowling woman from accounts. I remembered her from my first day.

“Good work with that dress,” said Len. “At last, you’re learning. Now let’s hope those tits translate into to some f*cking ratings tomorrow. From what I hear, Sir Harold is due back first thing. We need all the help we can get, Billy the Kiddo.”

“Here’s hoping,” I said, feeling dirtied by the compliment.

“Well, good night. Sleep well in Siberia.”

Len’s grin disappeared behind privacy glass as the Jaguar pulled away. After a few yards, however, the car stopped again. The window reopened. Len had forgotten something.

“Oh, and Bill,” he called out. “I don’t know if you’re going for some kind of ironic dweeb look or something, but I think those glasses are the worst thing I’ve seen you wear to date. And frankly they’re up against some pretty impressive competition.”

“They’re my emergency backup pair,” I protested.

“They’re an emergency in their own right, Bill,” said Len. “For God’s sake, buy some new ones.”

“Is that all?”

“I guess we can discuss those pants another day. That’s a ketchup stain, right?”

I looked down. He was wrong: It was in fact two ketchup stains, but one had annexed the other to form a larger, more influential federation of residue. When I raised my head to explain this, however, Len was no longer there. The Jaguar was already at the studio gate, tail lights on, turn signal flashing.

“A*shole,” I muttered, returned to the task of putting on my helmet. No sooner had I got it on than I became aware of something else behind me. A voice, getting closer.

Couldn’t everyone just leave me alone?

“Bill? Is that you, Bill?”

I turned wearily. The owner of the voice had now almost reached me. “Hey—it is Bill, right?”

“David?” I gasped, my face changing color instantly. It was Bibi’s chauffeur. The hot one. He was dressed in skinny jeans and a puffy, dark-colored sleeveless vest, with a pair of headphones—or maybe they were earmuffs—around his neck. He reminded me of a life-size action figure. Only somehow more perfect.

“How did you know my name?” he replied, confused. Then he remembered. Snapping his fingers: “The ride to Bibi’s, right? In the Rolls. Well, you certainly have a lot of powerful folk chasing after you, Bill. We’re waiting for you on the roof.”

“We?… what are you talking ab—”

“Follow me.”

“But my bicycle.”

“You can bring it with you if you want. But I don’t recommend it. Heh, not where we’re going.”

I took David’s advice and locked it up again, only this time without removing the wheel. Then I allowed him to lead the way, wondering what Bibi could possibly want from me this evening. We traversed the parking lot, left the studio grounds through a side gate, crossed Gower Street, then entered the lower floor of a high-rise parking structure opposite. Two elevators gaped open in front of us. We took the first, with David tapping a button marked “H,” whatever that stood for.

A giddy sensation as we rose.

“Are we going to Bibi’s again?” I asked.

David smiled. “Bibi isn’t my only client, y’know,” he said. “I’m in the general transportation business. Celebrities. Politicians. High net worth individuals.”

“So this isn’t about Bibi?”

“You’ll see.”

The doors opened to reveal the top-floor level of the parking structure, the moon hanging there in front of us, huge and solemn. But I wasn’t looking at the moon. I was looking at the large white H-shape in front of me—on top of which was resting a sleek white helicopter, its windshield shaped like the visor of motorcycle helmet. The rotors were spinning. “Here, you might want to wear these,” shouted David over the noise, taking off his ear muffs and handing them to me. “If you wanna talk, plug ’em into the outlet next to you, there’s a mic built into the cord. You’ll figure it out.” Then he pulled open the rear door and helped me inside.

This was insanity.

I’d never been in a helicopter. Then again, this machine didn’t resemble any helicopter I’d ever seen before—not on the TV, not the movies, not anywhere. The cabin, for example, was even more unsparingly appointed than Bibi’s Rolls-Royce—a feat I wouldn’t have thought possible if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Seating was provided by six retrocontoured armchairs in white leather. Under foot: floors made from some exotic timber. And between the chairs was a glowing console, outlined in blue LEDs, which served as both an armrest and a glass-topped champagne cooler. An open bottle was locked in place, next to a single tethered flute.

I was now alone, harness in place, looking out of the vast, bulbous window. David, meanwhile, had climbed in through the co-pilot’s door and was also seated, checking instruments, making hand signals. He still hadn’t told me where we were going, what we were doing, who had organized all this. And by the time I’d plugged in my headset to ask him once more, we were already in the air.

It felt as though we were barely moving.

“Have some champagne,” said David, his voice in my ear. “He bought it especially for you.”

“He? Who’s he? Where are we going? This is crazy, David, you have to tell me now.”

“Relax. You’ll find out soon enough. Drink the champagne.”

I did as he said. It was a midnineties Dom Pérignon, according to the label. Still, I couldn’t exactly savor the taste when I didn’t know what this was all about. Of all the people I knew, who had the means to send for me in a helicopter—this helicopter? Certainly not Len. David seemed to have ruled out Bibi, pretty much. Two Svens? Unlikely, given that he could see me whenever he wanted to at work. Joey? No, he hated helicopters—they made him nervous. And it couldn’t be Sir Harold Killoch, because he was still in Germany. Besides, what possible reason could the Big Corp CEO have for this kind of ego display?

It took perhaps five or six minutes for us to reach the ocean. The aircraft banked. For a moment, I felt suddenly light-headed. Then we turned up the coast—ocean to one side, the lights of Highway 1 to the other. For the first time, I felt wind buffet the cabin. We seemed to be descending, somewhere near Malibu.

Static in my headset.

“Can you see it yet?” asked David.

I looked out of my window. Ocean everywhere now—the color of poured concrete in the moonlight. We must have been a mile or two offshore. Then spots of white in the gray vastness, gleaming brighter as we lost altitude. Was it an island? A boat?

More static.

“He named it The Talent and the Glory,” announced David, answering my question. “Took delivery last week. If you believe ShowBiz magazine—which I don’t, personally—it cost fifty million bucks. The guys I work for say it was more like twice that.”

“Damnit, David, tell me who he is,” I said. By now, I had a pretty good idea, of course.

“Four hundred and four feet long,” he continued, ignoring me. “Forty-eight thousand horsepower. Maximum speed: twenty-eight knots. What we’re about to land on is the basketball court, which he installed especially for his good friend, the president of the United States. Prez was out here on Monday, actually. Amazing the kind of company you can keep when you own a boy’s toy like this.”

The deck was right below us now. Any moment… any moment… bab-da-bump.

We were down.

David climbed out.

My door slid open.

Slowing rotors. Floodlights. Salt in the breeze.

It took me a second to recognize the figure standing there, waiting. Dark sweater, canvas pants… sockless feet in tasseled loafers. Not the usual open-shirted attire. Even the hair threw me off: It was loose and floppy, entirely devoid of product, like he’d just come out of the hot tub or shower. The voice, however—well, the voice was unmistakable. Somehow both oily and hoarse. It brought to mind gin cocktails, dutyfree cigarettes, and carpeted bedrooms from 1985.

“Well, this isn’t quite Hawaii,” it crooned. “But we could sail there in a week or two from here.”

“Nigel Crowther,” I said, dumbly.

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine.”