“Yes, she is,” I said. “One that was brought about by the negligence of one of your crew members.”
“That's not true,” Brad said. “That woman worked for Featured Creatures.”
“Which worked for you,” I said. “You hired them, Brad. The legal line of responsibility goes right back to you.”
“I think that could be argued,” Brad said.
“You could try,” I said. “It'll take you about two years to get a court date. In the meantime, I'm sure our legal department could probably hold up the start of your production a couple of weeks. Maybe a month, if we have to.”
“You're a real son of a bitch,” Brad said.
“Hey,” I said. “I'm not the one trying to screw someone in a coma.”
Brad decided to try another tactic. “Tom, look. It's not a matter of me not wanting to do right by Michelle. You know I want to.”
“That's good to hear, Brad,” I said.
“But now we're paying two actresses for the same part. We have to have some economies of scale going on here.”
“So you're paying Charlene Mayfield $12 million?” I asked.
“Well, of course not that much,” Brad said. “But we're paying her quite a bit.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Well, I can't really discuss it,” Brad said.
“Hmmm.” I said. I buzzed Miranda. “Miranda, how much is Charlene Mayfield getting for
Earth Resurrected?
” I asked.
“Two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars,” Miranda said. “According to her agent, who I just called.”
“Really,” I said. “Do we know if she's making any gross points?”
“Of course she isn't,” Miranda said. “Although she's apparently getting a point on the net.”
Net points are a promise of the percentage of profits the film makes, should it ever make it into the black; as opposed to gross points, which are a straight percentage of the film's haul at
the box office. Since studio bookkeeping is such that even a film that makes a quarter of a billion dollars in domestic box office can run deeply into the red, net points are rarely if ever givenâthey're what you're given if you're gullible, stupid, or the screenwriter.
“A whole point on the net,” I said, looking directly at Brad.
“That's right,” Miranda said. “That'll be worth at least a case or two of Fresca.” I thanked her and signed her off.
“Wow, Brad, $275 thousand,” I said. “Aren't you the generous one. That's nearly as much as you're going to pay for your second-unit catering. Good thing I had Miranda listen in on the conversation and double-check that salary for us.”
“That was a dirty trick,” Brad said.
“It's not dirty, it's called looking out for my client's well-being.”
“Is it about your percentage?” Brad said. “Because if it is, I'm willing to deal. What if I said you could keep your ten percent, clear? No questions.”
I rubbed my forehead. It was barely 1:30, and I was tired already.
“Look, Brad,” I said. “What say we cut the shit, because I'm having a really bad day, and you're not making it any better.”
Brad blinked. “All right.”
“Good,” I said. “The fact of the matter is, you're not getting the twelve million back. The way I figure it, since you are the one who indirectly put her into the coma, it's the very least you can do. It's possible that if we took it to court, you might get that money back. But in the meantime you will have tanked your entire movie production. What is it budgeted at? Eighty million? Ninety million?”
“Eighty-three million, counting salaries.” Brad just about spat the word
salaries
.
“Eighty-three million against twelve million is a bad bet any day, Brad. And that's not counting the money you're going to throw down the lawyer hole.
Our
lawyers are on staff.
We
don't pay them any extra. And, of course, we're not even talking about the countersuits we'll throw back at you for negligence and violation of contract. Not to mention the
other
suits that will be filed against you by the studio and your other investors if you close down production. Make no mistake, Brad, you're going to get fucked. You won't be able to sit for a year.”
Brad bristled, which is exactly what I wanted him to do. I'd gotten into the sensitive area where males feel threatened and will make stupid, macho statements just so they'll feel their balls are still attached. I was hoping that Brad would grope for his testicles.
Sure enough, he did. “Don't you threaten me, you little asshole,” Brad said. “If you want a court fight, I'll give it to you. You'll spend so much time giving depositions you'll forget what the sun looks like. Don't think I don't have what it takes to win this.”
“I don't doubt that you'd try, Brad. But let me scope out a scenario for you. You go to court to snatch money away from an actor who your own negligence has managed to put in a coma. You tank the film you're working on to do it. Let's say that somehow you manage to win. Fine. You get your twelve million back, and you go back to your offices to get ready to do another movie â¦
and no one will work with you.
”
Brad's eyebrows knitted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean no one will ever work with you again. Actors won't want to work with you, because you've given the clear
signal that you don't give a shit about them. Agents won't want to work with you, because they'll never be sure you won't try to dick their clients around. Studios won't want to work with you because you'll have made it clear that you value your pride over their money. Which is not an attitude they want to know about.
You will never work in this town again.
Never.”
Brad looked like he'd been kicked in the balls. Which, in a way, he had. “You don't know that for sure,” he said.
I leaned forward in my chair, over my desk, close to Brad's ear. “Try me,” I whispered.
I sat back. Brad sat there, stunned, for a good minute. Then he got up, spun out of his chair, stalked around the office a couple of times, sat back down, and started gnawing on his thumb.
“Fuck!” he finally said.
It was over. I won.
Now was the time to get him back to our side. “Brad,” I said. “You don't
want
to have the money back. You think you do right now because you're cheap and you're in a panic. But it's penny wise and pound foolish. In the long run, you're going to look good by letting Michelle keep it.”
Brad smirked. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said.
“Such little faith,” I said. “Try this one on: today, as you may or may not know, I was casually accused of setting up my client for her accident.”
“I watched that in the office, right before I called,” Brad said. “What an asshole.”
“You have no idea,” I said. “What if we say that I set up this meeting in a panic, and begged you to take the twelve million back? That way, from my point of view, any suspicion would be off of me, because I'd have no financial reason to off my client.”
Brad looked at me strangely. “This benefits you, but I'm waiting to see how it benefits me.”
“It benefits you, Brad, because you angrily refuse to accept the money back. How dare I assume that just because Michelle is in a coma, that'd you'd snatch the money back. We can say that in addition to refusing the money, you demanded that if Michelle didn't recover, that I donate the money to brain trauma research. Say, fund a professorship at UCLA Medical School or some such.”
“What
were
you going to do with the money, if you don't mind me asking?”
I gestured to the heavens with my hands. “Damn it, Brad. I don't
know
that she left me her money. Even if she did, I sure as hell don't want it. If it got given to me, that's probably what I'd do with it. Yes, that's what I would do. But my point here isâthis idea came from
you
. You look good because you took a stand for Michelle.”
“And you throw the scent off of yourself.”
“There is that added benefit, yes.”
Brad thought about it. “And you'll say that this is what happened?”
“No, Brad,” I said. “This
is
what happened. At least, as I remember it.”
Brad smiled, even though I'm sure it hurt to do it. “You sure are a piece of work, Tom. All right, keep the twelve.”
“And her gross points.”
“Oh, come
on,
Tom,” Brad said. “Stop with the kicking.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “I'll drop our twelve gross points if you give Charlene Mayfield six.”
“What do you care?” Brad said. “She's not even your client.”
“Brad, you moron,” I said. “They're not from
me
. They're from
you
. Remember the concept: Make Brad Look Good.”
“Oh. All right.”
“Great,” I said, leaned back and closed my eyes. I was getting a headache. When I opened them again, Brad was still sitting there, looking pensive.
“Something on your mind, Brad?” I asked.
“Hmmm? No, just thinking about the accident. It's a terrible thing, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “We've been through this.”
“No, I know,” Brad said. “I was just thinking about why we were having the mask made in the first place.”
“You were going to have her head explode, or something, I thought,” I said.
“Well, not really that,” Brad said. “It's for this scene in the film where the alien overlord is trying to get control of Michelle's bodyâwe were going to have the overlord stick his tentacles in her mouth and ears as a way to get to her brain. Really disgusting, of courseâeyeballs popping and mouth really huge and all that. Obviously we couldn't do any of those effects with Michelle's real face.”
“Glad that you recognize that, Brad.”
“We could have used digital effects, but those things are expensive if you want them to look good,” he said, apparently oblivious to the fact that his latex mask had, in fact, just cost him $12 million. He grinned suddenly, a rueful grin. “You know, I could have used that alien overlord right about now.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Oh, nothing,” Brad said, waving me off. “I was just free-associating. If our alien overlord was real, then it wouldn't matter if Michelle was in a coma or not. He'd just suck her brain out, plop himself in, and do the part himself. No one
would know any better. Michelle's not exactly Meryl Streep. Would have saved me money, anyway.”
Brad caught a look at my face. “Jesus, Tom,” he said. “I'm sorry. That was probably not the nicest thing I could have said right about now. Sorry if I just upset you. You all right?”
“I'm fine,” I said. “I'm sorry, Brad. I just had a thought myself.”
The
door to the third floor of Pomona Valley Hospital opened, and I was confronted by the face of Officer Bob Ramos.
“Hi, Mr. Stein,” he said.
“Hi, Bob,” I said.
“Nice dog you have there,” Officer Ramos said.
Joshua did his best stupid dog grin.
“Not my dog, it's Michelle's,” I said. “I thought he might help bring her out of it. You know.”
“Sure,” Ramos said. “I guess we can pretty safely say you don't want Dr. Adams to know about it, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “I'm not visiting at two in the morning just because I'm not sleepy.”
“Got it,” Ramos said.
“By the way,” I said. “I've got something for you.” I pulled out a CD that I'd been carrying under my arm.
Ramos took it. “What is this?”
“You mentioned that your daughter was a fan of Tea Reader's,” I said. “So I thought she might like to have an autographed copy of the CD. See, look, it's even made out to âMaria.'” I didn't tell Ramos that the CD had in fact been autographed by Miranda. The chances of Tea Reader herself doing me a favor these days were slim and fast approaching none.
“Well, that was really nice of you to do that,” Ramos said. “My little girl is going to be thrilled right out of her socks. You're a real stand-up guy, Mr. Stein.”
“It's nothing,” I said. “Glad to do it. Is anyone else in with Michelle?”
“I've been here since midnight and no one's come through except for the nurse,” Ramos said. “You might check with Officer Gardner. She's over at the stairs. Been there since eleven.”
“That's all right,” I said. “I'm just going to pop in for a couple of minutes. You'll let me know if the nurse comes by again?”
“Sure,” Ramos said. “I'll make a lot of noise. Give you enough time to hide the dog in the can.”
“Thanks, Bob,” I said, and then headed down the hall with Joshua.
The door to Michelle's room had been left open. Inside, a cone of light illuminated Michelle, whose bed had been positioned so she was reclining rather than lying down directly. The rest of the room was dark, and the other two beds in the room, still empty, had their curtains closed around them. I closed the door, and then went over to Michelle. She was unchanged: comatose and on a respirator. I felt a fresh wave of guilt.
“Tom,” Joshua said. “I can't do anything from down here.”
“Do you want to get on the bed?” I asked.
“No, that'd be mighty uncomfortable,” Joshua said. “Grab me one of those visitor's chairs and put it near the head of the bed, please.”
There was one near the bed on my side; I wheeled it around to Joshua's side, to avoid him accidentally knocking over the IV. He asked me to turn it around so that the back faced the bed; when I had done so, he jumped up on the chair and propped himself up on the back of the chair, putting himself on a level with the bed.
“That'll probably be close enough,” Joshua said.
“Are you going to be able to reach her?” I asked.
“Sure,” Joshua said. “Ralph's body is totally gone now, you know. It's all me. I can make tendrils now. It still helps to be close, of course. Now I have to figure out where to enter her headâshe's got so many tubes in her. I think I'll go through the ears. This is going to take a couple of minutes, so don't talk to me for a few. I'm going to have to concentrate.”
With that, Joshua made sure he was securely positioned, and closed his eyes. Then his face disappeared. His snout elongated and became the transparent goo that Yherajks were usually made of. It looked like a glass elephant trunk. The trunk waved in the air for a second, as if tasting the air, and then made its way to Michelle's head. An inch above her face, the trunk split in two; each tendril wandered casually over to an ear, then covered it. Michelle looked like she was wearing headphones that were attached to a headless dog.
The scene was so surreal that I lapsed into mute gawking. It took Joshua to bring me out of it.
“Tom,” he said, “I think we have company.”
“What?” I said.
“Turn around.”
I did. Miranda stood there, a book in her hands. Behind her, the curtain was pulled back from one of the vacant beds. Miranda was looking past me, at the scene of Joshua and Michelle. Her eyes were wide and black, and she had the expression you get when you're seeing something horrifying and you hope you're dreaming.
“Miranda,” I said.
Miranda glanced over at me, not really seeing me at first. Then I could almost hear her brain
click
as to who I was, where she was, and that she, in fact, was not dreaming. She opened her mouth and took a sharp intake of breath. In one more second, I knew, it would come out as the loudest scream I had ever heard.
I leapt at her. I clamped my hand over her mouth and turned her around. Then I picked her up and sprinted to the bathroom with her, kicking, in my arms.
Behind me, I heard Joshua say, in a conversational tone of voice, “If she screams, we're fucked, Tom. Calm her down.” The conversational tone of voice was simply so that it couldn't be heard outside the roomâJoshua's voice was as tense as I'd ever heard it. As I shoved Miranda into the bathroom, I caught a whiff of something rotten and realized that Joshua
was
screamingâjust in his own language. I closed the bathroom door behind me, locked it, and hit the light switch to start the fan.
In shoving her into the bathroom, I had accidentally pushed Miranda into the sink. Her aborted scream went out of her with a
whuff
; her book went flying. She reeled sideways, colliding with the tub. I reached for her to help her regain her balance; Miranda grabbed me, ducked her head down, and
launched herself into my abdomen. It felt like I had been hit by a cannonball, and the impact slammed me up against the doorâI felt myself bounce off of it. I couldn't breathe and went down to the tiles.
Miranda was now pushing me away from the door, trying to unlock it. I lurched up from the floor, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her to the floor with me. On her way down, Miranda cracked me in the eye with her elbow. There was a mushrooming sensation of pain behind my eyeball; I was pretty sure I was going to be blinded for life. But I held on, rolled over on top of Miranda, pinned her arms with my legs, and used my weight to pin her down. Miranda opened her mouth to scream again. I reached down to cover her mouth. Her head dodged sideways and then flicked back; she caught the side of my hand in her mouth and bit down, hard. I had to bite the side of my cheek to keep from screaming myself.
“Miranda,” I said, gritting my teeth. “This is
really
beginning to hurt.”
Miranda let go of my hand; I pulled it up and started shaking it in pain.
“Thank you.”
“Get off of me,
now,
” Miranda said.
“I will,” I said. “But you have to promise me not to scream.”
“Tom, I want to know what the
fuck
that thing was out there.”
“That's good,” I said. “Because I want to tell you. Now I just need you to promise me you're not going to run screaming. Okay?”
Miranda nodded her assent. I gladly collapsed off of her and leaned my back against the door, clutching my hand. I could feel the blood; I wasn't yet mentally prepared to look at it and
see the carnage. Miranda got up slowly, never taking her eyes off me, and perched on the tub; she was preparing to make a hole through me if she had to in order to escape. I had been lucky to catch her by surprise. In a real fight, she could have sent me to the hospital. Fortunately, we were already there.
“Explain,” she said.
“Remember Joshua?” I said.
“The dog?” she said.
“No, the other Joshua,” I said. “Well, actually, yes, the dog Joshua, too. They're both the same person.”
Miranda looked at me very dangerously. I held my hand up.
“Start over,” I said, took a second and then started again. “You remember that secret project Carl has me doing.”
“Yes.”
“The project is about aliens. Space aliens. They had contacted Carl. He wanted me to find a way to introduce them to the world. That thing out there is one of them.”
“Joshua,” Miranda said.
“Yes,” I said. “He was an alien first, and then he took over the body of a dog named Ralph. Long story.”
“What is it doing to Michelle?” Miranda asked.
“He's scanning her brain,” I said. “Trying to see if she's ever coming out of the coma.”
Miranda shook her head violently. “This doesn't make any sense.”
I laughed, weakly. “If you have a more rational explanation, Miranda, I'd love to hear it.” I finally got up enough courage to look at my hand. It was covered in blood; Miranda looked to have ripped out a fairly large chunk.
Miranda noticed it too. “My God, Tom, you're bleeding,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I think I have a black eye, too. Our first fight. Remind me never to piss you off again.”
Miranda came off the tub, helped me up, and walked me over to the sink. She turned on the water and put my hand under it; I just about jumped out my skin from the pain.
“Sorry,” Miranda said. “Sorry about everything, Tom. I just didn't know what was going on. I still don't.”
“What were you doing here, Miranda?” I asked. “The officer at the front said no one was here.”
Miranda shrugged and started soaping the wound, which hurt like you wouldn't believe. “Dr. Adams said that we should talk to her, that it might help bring her back out. I figured I would come read to her. I brought
Alice in Wonderland,
if you can believe it. I got here about eight. Around eleven I got tired. It was a long day. I didn't think anyone would mind if I took a nap.”
The blood had been pretty much washed away; with it gone the wound appeared much less severe than it had seemed. Miranda grabbed a washcloth from the rack near the tub, folded it once, and pressed it over the wound.
“Hold it there for a while,” she said. “It doesn't look that bad. I don't think you'll need stitches.”
“That's a relief,” I said. “It would have been a little difficult to explain how it happened.” It was an attempt at humor, but Miranda wasn't biting. So to speak.
“Tom,” she said. “You said that he was scanning her brain.”
“That's right,” I said.
“What happens then?” she asked.
“Well, if it looks like she'll come out of it, he'll do what he can to help her. He's got the experiences of thousands of his people, Miranda. One of them has to have been a doctor or a scientist that could make guesses on how to do that.”
“What if she has permanent damage, Tom? What if she's never going to come out of the coma?”
I took a deep breath. “Then I'm going to ask Joshua to inhabit her body.”
Miranda drew back.
“What?”
she said, rather too loudly.
“Keep it down,” I said.
“Keep it
down
?” Miranda said. “We're talking about Michelle's life, and now that thing wants to take it so he can have the body? Don't you have a problem with that?”
“Miranda,” I said. “If Michelle's never coming out of the coma, she's
already
dead. Brain dead, at least, with her body kept alive by a machine. She's gone. And if that's the case, then there's an opportunity to make her death at least have some meaning, an opportunity for something historic.”
“It's body snatching,” Miranda said.
“Not any more than organ donation,” I said. “Look, Miranda, the Yherajkâ”
“The what?”
“The people who Joshua comes from,” I said. “They're called the Yherajk. In their natural form, they look like Jell-O globs. People will be terrified of them. But if they could see them in human form first, it would make it easier. We need a Trojan horse, Miranda. Something that will allow the Yherajk to make it through the door of human consciousness without terrifying humanity half out of its brain. Think how you just felt out there; now multiply that by six billion. We need a Trojan horse.”
“The Trojan horse wasn't so great for the Trojans,” Miranda said.
“It's just an analogy,” I said.
“How do you know Joshua won't just say she's not coming
out the coma, so he can get control of the body?” Miranda asked.