"Pardon, mum," Simnel barely edged through the open door with a polite knock. "Mr. Colorad is home early after all."
"Great. I really need that. Mr. Vague here - "
"Veigle, baby."
"He says my story is the American dream."
"American dreaming has a high sugar content," Simnel observed, fussing with a shelf of towels. "Spiritual junk food."
"Simnel, I love ya!" Veigle boomed. "Always good for a zinger." The grin petrified as he turned back to Charity. "Now listen, kid - "
"I'm home, lover." Randy Colorad bounded into the bathroom in candy-striped bikini briefs. "Hey, Eddie, what's going down?" He stripped quickly and slithered into the tub. As always, the lighting went commercial bright to accommodate him.
Veigle groaned. "Christ, it's Tennis Anyone. Don't splash on the suit, okay?"
"Miss me?" Randy leered at Charity.
"No. I have a headache. Stay on your own side of the tub. I'm busy. Simnel" - a meaningful glance she hoped Veigle missed - "I'd like the kosher special for lunch and put a rush on it."
"Kosher special. Very good, mum." Simnel modestly eclipsed himself.
"Quit futzing around," Veigle snapped. "I'm talking mega-bucks. Got the contract in my pocket."
"I'm not sure about my future plans," Charity hedged. "I may have to move real quick."
"Char, when you sign with me and this deal goes down, you'll have a pad like this for every day of the week. Listen to this story," Veigle persuaded. "Nice American girl from a small town in the American heartland dies in the middle of her first boff, right? Damned with her lover, Roy Stride, a nobody from nowhere who rises to become a leader of his people Below Stairs." Veigle's organ tones began to sound like a coming attraction in Dolby. "Alone, terrified, she flees across the bleak landscape of damnation - lotsa special effects - one breathtaking escape after another. In color, score by Korngold."
"Oh, shit," breathed the mesmerized Randy. "That is wonderful."
"Just wonderful? It's fucking dynamite. And all the while . . . Are you getting this, Char?"
She smiled demurely. "I'm starting to."
Veigle's voice softened with pathos. "All the while, Roy searches for his high school sweetheart. Pain nothing, wounds nothing, triumph dust and ashes without her. Without ..."
"Without the world in his arms," Randy offered, totally caught up in the magic.
Veigle grudged Randy something like admiration. "That's good. You ought to write jacket copy. The world in his arms." He savored the words, rising, uplifted by the pure helium of his vision. "A best-seller book, a miniseries. A forty share on BSTV."
"I don't wanta get rescued or anything!" Charity wailed.
"Say what?" Veigle blinked, brought back to a world not in anyone's arms. "You're kidding."
"I don't wanta get saved or shot on film or any other way, which it's very easy to do around here even dead. As for Roy and the one time - once in the tacky old White Rose Motel - I had more fun playing gin with Simmy. Now will you please get out of here so's I can get dressed?"
"You're not thinking positively." Veigle took a folded contract out of an inner pocket.
"I am thinking of getting out of here and I am not signing any stupid contract."
"Yes, you are." Veigle speared her attention on one pudgy forefinger. It was very white, white as the rest of his skin, bloodless pale. Everyone was dead here, but under his manicure and hair comb, Veigle looked it. "Listen, you are nobody until I make you somebody, you understand? You don't do a thing without me. Nobody'll look at you twice without packaging. You're his sweetheart, his true love - "
"The hell I am!"
"Listen to him, Char." Randy wriggled closer under the water. "He knows the business."
"I'm sick of the business and everybody trying to give it to me," Charity raged in a spray of water and bubbles. She found Randy's rump by Braille and applied a foot to it. "Get out of here, you horny seal!"
"But I want to hear the end of the story," Randy pleaded. "It's gripping."
Veigle's voice dropped to a husky whisper. "I was just coming to it. The two of you, success hollow without true love, Lazarus at the feast, and then finding each other at last. I see the shot already: both of you on an empty, lonely street late at night. You turn and see him a block away. He turns. Slowly you recognize each other. You move toward each other, faster and faster. Close on him, close on you as the music rises up in the kind of triumph only Korngold can write - the soundtrack alone will go platinum. Two American kids who went all the way down and up again. Underdogs who stumbled, but even after death came from behind to win."
"Oh, shit, Eddie, that's - " Words threatened to fad Randy Colorad. "That's more than good. It's profound."
"And about as real as you are," Charity seethed, near violence herself. "Lordy, would I love a little real. Even a roach in the kitchen."
"No, you wouldn't." Veigle shook his head, sure of himself. "You never did. The world is made up of losers like you who just go on losing. How much did you ever pay for a look at one more? You wanted the prime-time glitz like the rest of the grunions. You begged for it with your snotty little nose pressed up against the screen. Don't kid yourself: without me, without the buildup, you're not even a thirty-second spot on late night."
"I don't want - "
"Who cares what you want, you little twat? We're going to make money out of you! It's inevitable, so relax and enjoy it."
At this tense juncture, Drumm shouldered through the bathroom door followed by an armed Paladin big enough to have been manufactured by the GM truck division, Simnel hovering in their wake. Charity's heart sank. Her goose was cooked. Fur-thermore, she was running out of bubbles.
"At last, Miss Stovall!" Drumm flourished. "My respects and my regrets for your trouble. If these people have harmed you - "
"Sorry, mum," Simnel apologized. "They forced their way in."
"Can we talk without the gun?" Charity appealed. "How'd you get past security?"
"We persuaded 'em, ma'am." The lumbering guard ogled the receding froth over Charity's bosom. "My name's Roy, too. Roy Earl Holub from Yazoo City, Mississippi, and I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. I'd do anything for the Leader."
"If you'll dress, Miss Stovall, we'll escort you to - "
"Hold it, Drumm," Veigle butted in, waving his contract. "She signs with me first. Favor for favor."
"Roy Earl." Drumm motioned to the guard. "Some persuasion for Mr. Veigle."
The rifle trained on Eddie Veigle. He went, if possible, even paler, wilting down onto the stool. "Now, that's not fair. Who tipped you she was here?"
"Fair is what right-thinking Americans say it is," Drumm snapped. "Miss Stovall will have no need of your services."
"Char, this would be a great time for those new stress vitamins," said ever-helpful Randy.
Drumm motioned impatiently. "Miss Stovall, if you please."
"Simmy, how about my kosher special?"
"On the way, mum." Simnel took a giant towel from the rack - only to have it plucked from his grasp by the kosher special, who opened it invitingly for Charity. Her heart leaped: God and the Mounties had arrived in time.