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  “It’s just dandy,” she said, hot and determined, “that the network is begging us for one more show. Wonderful. But we are walking until they give us a script worth doing, Howie. I know you hate this, but trust me. Your buddy Tim Stock isn’t here today. There is not one person here that you have to please,” she said, staring him down, “except me.”

  Fate Finkelberg’s thin, tanned body, encased in its zebra-striped halter top, quivered with anger. Chef Howie knew when to stay quiet. Like me, he must have caught a glimpse of the cartoon thermometer, its bright red mercury now past the point of stopping. We watched it throb almost to the top and then, under the pressure and heat of Fate’s enormous ambitions and bitter disappointments, explode.

  Chapter 7

  We’ve got some serious news,” Artie Herman said. “Very serious, so please settle down, people.”

  The entire staff of Food Freak was assembled in the executive producer’s office. They were gathering there, on the third floor, by the time I got back to our building. I never made it back to my office, in fact, but instead joined the throng as we marched up the flight of stairs and found spots to perch, some leaning, others standing or sitting around his large quarters. I had never been in Artie Herman’s office before and he and I had met only briefly. I was impressed by the art on his walls, mostly enlarged stills taken from famous old-time commercials. A large portrait of that cartoon imp, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, took the spot of honor behind Artie’s desk, while a colorful frame featuring a blow-up of Lassie eating Pro-Patties hung over the credenza.

  “First, a little background,” Artie said, as the group settled down. “You all know how proud I am of this show. We’ve done what no one else has done. We’ve made a game show number one.”

  No one rushed to correct Artie Herman. No one bothered to remind him of all the quiz shows that had been at the top of the ratings heap fifty years ago. No one mentioned the new monster reality games like Survivor, or dared to whisper the names of such recent game champs as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or Weakest Link. The little man with the white curls who had created Food Freak could be forgiven for a little Freak chauvinism.

  “We have done a wonderful job this season. Wonderful,” he said, beaming at us. “We deserve a lot of credit. We worked damned hard. Now you all know, we were set to wrap the show last week. You all know that. But when the network asked me, ‘Artie, will you save us one more time? We need one more episode of Freak.’ What was I going to tell them? Should I have told them no? Of course we could do another show. It’s our pleasure and our responsibility to do another show. Sure it is. We want to help.”

  Artie Herman was in his seventies, a man who had made a fortune, so I had heard, in the advertising game back when television was just starting out and when Madison Avenue doted on its creative kooks. With his soft jowls and his frizz of tight white curls, Artie Herman struck me as a jolly elf, the type who hosted kids’ cartoon shows. He spoke with a charming accent, part Brooklyn, part lisp—like a fey Henny Youngman. The rumors had it that despite his office artwork, he had not actually created those famous campaigns. But then, lots of gossip was mean.

  Artie stood in front of his desk and slipped his manicured hands into the pockets of his khakis. “Here’s the thing, my dears. Here’s the thing. We’ve been hit with some pretty rough news today. That’s why I called you all in here.”

  The staff was alert. According to our production schedule, we were all due on the soundstage in about ten minutes, to start taping today’s show.

  “I’m sorry to tell you two sad things. Well, the first isn’t really so sad,” he amended. “First, we must cancel the taping today.”

  Everyone from the most senior lighting director to the youngest runner looked shocked. Murmurs of surprise circulated among the forty or so staffers present.

  “It’s a shame, sure,” Artie said, responding to the reaction. “A shame. But you must understand, it is no one’s fault. Chef Howie called me from his trailer. He was not feeling well. He really was a sick man. This happens, sometimes. Not, God willing, too often, you understand, but it happens.”

  Sick? I looked at Greta, who gave me a slight nod.

  So that’s how it was to be explained. Perhaps I actually had a talent for this business. I felt a mixture of thrill and queasy.

  “Sick?” The question came from Food Freak’s director, Pete Steele, who was leaning against the door frame, cool and aloof.

  “All of a sudden, Pete, yeah,” Artie said, his voice sounding very sincere. “What are you gonna do? So we’ll see how he is, and we’ll reschedule. Nothing to it. Don’t worry.”

  “When?” Pete sounded just a little peeved. “I’m not available for the next two days. I’m already committed to Bloopers.”

  “Don’t worry, Pete. I understand that. Greta will figure out the schedule, won’t you, Greta?”

  We all watched Greta nod.

  “Good, okay then,” Artie said. “And of course you all get paid for a full day.” There were some sighs in the crowd. “Sure. Of course. We have insurance that covers all of these costs in the case of a talent getting sick, so we won’t be losing any money. Good. Then the next order of business, before I let the crew go home, is to tell you more disturbing news. This really hurts me and I know you will all be concerned, too, but I found out this morning very disturbing news about our good friend and writer, Tim Stock. For the past week, he could not be reached. And, well, we are getting worried.”

  Not the first on the staff to be told, now was he? I looked back at Greta, sitting next to Artie’s desk. Greta liked to hold her cards tight to her petite chest, but at some point she had had to break the bad news to Artie. Of course, our office staff knew that Tim was out of contact, but everyone else in the room, from the cue-card woman to the props guy, was startled.

  “What happened?” Pete Steele asked.

  “We, uh, don’t know all the details, of course,” Artie said, in his phumfering way. “Sure, it’s a shock to us all. Tim is like my own son. He’s never missed a day of work on this show since the first day we went into development, over a year ago, and it was just Greta and Tim and me. He’s a champ. He needed a vacation after all the work we loaded on him. He deserved a break, so maybe he went away on vacation. Sure. But that doesn’t explain why no one can find him at all. So I had to tell you. It’s a shock.”

  Greta spoke up for the first time that meeting. “Let’s not get worried yet. Tim left before we heard from the network last week. He didn’t know we had been asked to do one more show. He’s probably…I’m sure he’s just fine. But we’d like to hear from him. If anyone has any information, Artie and I would be extremely grateful.”

  I looked around to catch Quentin Shore’s reaction. After all, he’d just received a postcard from Tim Stock. As I scanned the group, all murmuring now, I realized with a start that Quentin was not present.

  “Okay, so that’s it,” Artie said, looking old and tired. “You can all go home. Greta will reschedule our taping. And our darling Susan…,” he said, looking over the crowd and finding the first PA, Susan Anderson, sitting on the floor by his coffee table, “ah, there you are, my dear—Susan will phone each of you with your new call times for the taping.”

  Susan gave a little wave.

  “What about the contestants?” Nell asked.

  “They’ve been sitting in makeup for over two hours,” Stell added.

  “Tell them to clear their schedule this week. We’ll let them know when we need them back,” Greta said. “And of course, we’ll prepare an entirely new script for the next taping, just to be careful.”

  How smoothly she played the game. I suddenly had that whooshy feeling that a bishop must get when he finds himself scuttling diagonally all the way across the chessboard. There he is, startled to find himself landed on such a dangerous square.

  In this game, moves upon moves were in play. First, Greta moved me into range of the Finkelbergs. There, I tempted Fate to make a move. Soon, Fate
was agitated enough to capture her favorite chess piece, Howie, and take him right out of the game. Artie Herman knew how to respond to losing his star piece. He sidestepped the facts and called it a sick day. Greta was quite a player. Using this gambit, she protected our secret about the office break-in, canceled taping without losing the show a cent, and made it possible to discard our possibly tainted script, without ever appearing to have made a move at all.

  And before anyone else could raise a loud gripe, Artie announced, “That’s all. Let’s go home.”

  Conversations picked up as the three stage managers and sound engineer, the art director and set decorator, and the others cleared out of Artie’s office. As I had been the only one there who hadn’t known Tim Stock, I was not included in the wash of gossip and concern as it spread over those who had obviously been close to Tim. Jennifer Klein, the other staff writer, looked paler than usual, and Jackson and Kenny, the two assistant PAs, were huddled together, talking.

  Greta Greene caught up with me in the hallway. We were surrounded by those who were leaving, shuffling down the stairs, and she pulled me gently into the small supply room off to the right. We huddled next to the large copy machine and found a tiny bit of privacy.

  “Madeline,” she said, “great work. I mean it. You saved my life.”

  “I hope it all turns out well,” I said. “Chef Howie is sick?”

  “Insurance claim. They always say the star is sick. Who can argue? Fate made her protest gesture and now she can cool off. It was just perfect.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. There was nothing wrong with those recipes. She’ll calm down.”

  “But what’s really going on with Tim Stock?” I asked, finding myself uneasier about the fact that he still hadn’t been found. “Is he in Las Vegas? Have you heard anything new?”

  She pulled a distracted hand through her shortcropped blond hair. “Nothing. I’m really getting mad. Why hasn’t he checked his messages? I’ve left so many, the tape is full.”

  “Talk to Quentin,” I suggested. “He just heard from Tim.”

  “What?” Greta looked more startled than I would have expected. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what he claimed, but then I didn’t see him in Artie’s office.”

  “Artie,” Greta said, shaking her head. “Artie took the news hard. He got emotional. Artie’s a sweet old guy in many ways. He’s been very attached to Tim. He was close to tears when I told him that Tim wasn’t answering any of our pages or messages and we just didn’t know what was up.”

  Everyone suffers when someone goes missing. It’s the terror of not knowing how to respond. Has something horrible happened? Is the missing person in need of our help? Or has it only been some mix-up? Some thoughtlessness. Some missed communication. Should we rush off in rescue mode, or simply accept the fact that we’d been stood up? The anxiety of waiting to find out which is the appropriate response, fear or anger, can be excruciating.

  The hallway outside the supply room had cleared. The staff had disbursed.

  “Look,” Greta said as I was about to leave, “hold on for another second. We still have a problem. Tim’s office.”

  I thought about the papers and files and books lying everywhere.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Greta said. “It seems more like a crime of opportunity, doesn’t it? Someone, some contestant or someone else who shouldn’t have been within fifteen yards of our writers’ department, saw the door ajar…”

  I winced in a ladylike fashion and Greta patted my hand and continued. “Anyway, they grabbed the chance to take a look around. I don’t know if they were after the script or just looking to snatch a wallet. Whatever it was, they made that mess as a cover-up and got out of there fast.”

  I nodded, considering it.

  “The thing is…I can’t just call maintenance to clean it up. The office has obviously been trashed and the fewer people around here who know about it, the better. You’re the only one I can turn to.”

  “To clean up the office?”

  The chess master nodded. “Can you stay late and take care of it? Please?”

  “Oh, man.”

  “I know. It’s vile. But let me think…Why don’t I throw in a bonus? How about a perk?”

  Hollywood was famous for throwing around outrageous perquisites, extra little luxuries above and beyond one’s salary, when they wanted to butter someone up. Stars often demanded them in their contracts: bowls of M&M’s with the green ones removed, fresh tulips in the dressing room, or a stretch limo to take them to work. A limo. Being picked up for work each morning in a limo could be nice. That is, if I didn’t live only five minutes away in the hills of Whitley Heights, and if my street wasn’t so narrow and twisty no self-respecting stretch could climb up it.

  “I need your help so badly, Maddie. I’m moving on to bribery.” Greta grinned at me. “I have an idea. I’ve heard you complain about the filthy old furniture in Tim’s office.”

  I had renewed respect for how Greta managed to work her way up the ladder of life. “You’d get rid of the sofa from hell?”

  “It could be arranged. And I might be able to find something more suitable to replace it.”

  “It’s tempting. And I’d like to help you. But that office is a nightmare.”

  “Look, you don’t have to do this alone. Maybe you know someone who could help you. Just no one from here.”

  At last, Greta sparked my interest. “You’ll pay them?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I mean in money, Greta, not by tempting them with Naugahyde love seats.”

  “On the payroll! As our fourth PA. Done. Who do you know?”

  “I can call Holly Nichols. I think you know her. She works with me at the catering company. She’s been looking for a temporary gig until our busy season.” I used my most optimistic phrasing. “Maybe Holly is still available. What’s the salary?” I was hoping Holly could pick up a few hundred dollars for one evening’s tidying up. I felt so responsible for the business slowing down and all of us having to scramble.

  Greta always clenched tightly on to the show budget’s purse strings, but she was pretty much out of options here.

  “How much?” I picked up my cell phone.

  “I’ll pay her one thousand dollars for one night’s work.”

  Had she just said one thousand dollars? That couldn’t be what I heard.

  “Okay, okay. Twelve hundred. But that’s it, Madeline.”

  “You’re offering twelve hundred to face that mess?” I asked, quickly adjusting to the inflated numbers and protecting my protégée.

  “All right. I’ll give her fifteen hundred. Are you happy now?”

  “I’ll call her,” I said.

  “You are amazing.” Greta gave me a little hug. “And while the two of you clean up in Tim’s office, just be careful.”

  I stopped dialing and paid attention.

  “We think we know what’s going on, Maddie, but we don’t all the time.”

  That was for sure. Since I’d been working on Food Freak, I felt I didn’t really know what was going on most of the time.

  Greta put her hand on my arm, kindly. “Sometimes it’s just a string of bad things, random and annoying, you know?” she suggested hopefully.

  “I really hope you’re right,” I said. But we both had our doubts.

  The producer of Food Freak walked me out of the little supply room and down the stairs into the now empty hallway outside our offices. Everyone on the staff had been eager to take advantage of their surprise day off. “I won’t let anything harm this show,” Greta said. “I’ve still got a few moves left.”

  And so had I. I punched the last number into my cell phone and waited to hear Holly pick up the phone.

  “Yo!” Holly’s husky voice came over the phone, breathless from whatever she was doing, whether it was from step aerobics or chasing her kitten around her apartment, I couldn’t be sure. Ever since she had broken up with her b
oyfriend several months back, Holly had become a homebody.

  “Are you able to meet me here, at the studio? Right now?” I asked. “You’ve got a command performance on the lot, if you want it. Nothing improper involved, just schlepping.”

  “No way,” she squealed.

  “Way. And while we’re cleaning up my new office, we’re going to be doing a little snooping around. Are you up for that?”

  “Sure.”

  “I have a feeling that just about nobody has been telling me the truth around here, Holly.”

  “Big surprise,” she said. “Hey, Mad, this is, like, it, you know? The phone call. My big break. ‘Come down to the lot, Miss Nichols.’ And I’m all, like, ‘I’m ready for my close-up.’ ”

  “Right. Cool, isn’t it? Oh, and don’t forget to bring a mop.”

  Chapter 8

  What a dump,” Holly said.

  “Especially from that angle.” I looked down at her. Holly was on her hands and knees making neat piles of manila envelopes on the floor.

  “From any angle,” she suggested. “But maybe it looks better when it’s straightened up.” Holly reacted to my doubtful expression. “Worse?”

  “You wouldn’t think it was possible. I know.”

  Holly Nichols sat and looked at me. As a creative soul, she often dressed as if to pay back her parents a hundredfold for sending her to a private girls’ school that required uniforms. Tonight was no exception. I smiled at what Holly had considered the right thing to wear for this occasion, an evening of playing janitor in a frumpy office on a closed television studio lot. Her long, lean legs were covered in snug, white silk capris slashed with lime-green stripes. Not many women could handle the illusion of width such a horizontal pattern projected across the posterior, but Holly Nichols, thin as a wisp, managed to look stunning, if offbeat. Her white crop top exposed a lovely midriff. She had kicked off her lime-green sandals and I noticed she was wearing several toe rings and a fresh pedicure in matching lime. In this dazzling outfit, more suited, perhaps, for a disco party at some Palm Springs country club than housekeeping, Holly began straightening the books that were flopped all over the floor, their spines splayed, and placing them into neat piles. She sorted them quickly into stacks of cookbooks or trivia books or foreign phrase books. “It sounds like this missing Tim guy is the key to the whole thing.”