He had to wake up. Open the eyes, force the eyes open, make the eyes open. Listen to that damn loud girl, listen to her, concentrate on the words of the song, force the mind to work.
“Good night, good night.
“We turn out every light;
“The party’s done, the night’s begun,
“Good night, my love, good night.”
It was dark, blue-gray dark, and his eyelids were terribly heavy. He forced them up, wanting to see, wondering why the singing girl and the blue-gray dark.
Oh. The television set. All the lights in the room were off, and the shades were drawn against the night-glow of the city. Only the television lit the room, with shifting blues.
As he watched, the girl stopped singing and bowed to thunderous applause. And then he saw himself, striding across the stage, smiling and clapping his hands together, and memory came flooding back.
He was Don Denton, and this was Wednesday night, between the hours of eight and nine, and on the television screen he was watching The Don Denton Variety Show, taped that afternoon.
The Don Denton Variety Show was, in television jargon, live-on-tape. The show that he was watching now was not a kinescope of a previously presented program, nor was it motion picture utilizing the cutting and editing techniques of film. Since it was neither, since it had been run through just as though it actually were going on the air at the time it had been performed, it was a “live” show, even though it had actually been recorded on videotape three hours before airtime. Union requirements and other factors made it and more feasible to do the show between five and six than between eight and nine.
At the end of the show, at nine o’clock, an announcer would rapidly mumble the information that the show had been prerecorded and that the audience reaction had been technically augmented — a euphemism for canned laughter and canned applause — and so honesty and integrity would be maintained.
Denton watched all his own shows, not because he was an egotist — though he was — but out of a professional need to study his own product, to be sure that it at least did not deteriorate and, if possible, to see how it could be improved.
Tonight, after finishing the show, he had had dinner at the Athens Room and then had come home, where he now was, to watch the show. He was alone in the apartment, of course; he never permitted anyone else to be in the place while he was watching one of his shows. He had come home, changed into slacks and sport shirt and slippers, made himself a drink, flicked on the television set, and settled himself in the chair with the specially-built right arm. The arm of this chair was a miniature desk, with two small drawers in the side and a flat wooden workspace on top, where he rested his notebook.
Across the room, the eight o’clock commercials had flickered across the television screen, and then the opening credits of The Don Denton Variety Show had come on. He had watched and listened in approval as his name was mentioned by the announcer and appeared on the screen three times each, and then the fanfare had blared forth, the camera had been trained on the empty curtain-faced stage, and through a part in the curtain had come the tiny image of himself, in response to a thunderous burst of applause from the tape recorder in the control booth.
He had frowned. Too much applause? The studio audience’s efforts were — jargon again — “technically augmented” in the control booth, and the augmentation tonight might have been just a little too enthusiastic. He had made a note of it.
The image of himself on the television screen had smiled and spoken and cracked a joke. Sitting in his chair at home, Don Denton had nodded approvingly. Then the image had introduced a girl singer, and Denton had turned over the pad to doodle awhile on its back. And then—
Yes. Now that memory came back, too, and he understood at last how he had been hurt. The apartment door, off there to his right, had suddenly opened, he remembered that now, and he...
He turned annoyed. The show was on, damn it, he was not to be disturbed. They all knew that, knew better than to come here between eight and nine on a Wednesday night.
The only light came from the hall, behind the intruder, so that he — or she — was silhouetted, features blacked out. It was January outside, and the intruder was encased in a bulky overcoat, so Denton couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman.
He half-rose from the chair, frowning in anger. “What the hell do you—?”
Then there was a yellow-white flash from the center of the silhouetted figure, and the beginning of a thunderclap, and silence.
Until he heard the girl again, singing too loudly.
He’d been shot! Someone — who? — had come in here and shot him!
He sat slumped in the chair, trying to figure out where in his body the bullet might be and the extent of the damage. His legs ached, with a throbbing numbness. There was a clammy weight in his stomach, pressing him down, nauseating him. But the bullet wasn’t there, nor in his legs. Higher, it was higher, higher...
There!
Inside the chest, high on the right side, a burning core, a tiny center of heat and pain radiating out to the rest of his body. There it was, still within him, and he knew it was a bad wound, a terribly bad wound...
A crowd applauded, and he was startled. He focused his eyes again, saw himself again on the television screen, stepping back and to the side as the comic came out — “It’s a funny thing about these new cars...” — And just to the right of the television set was the telephone on its stand.
He had to get help. The bullet was still in his chest, it was a terribly bad wound, he had to get help. He had to stand; he had to walk across the room to the telephone; he had to call for help.
He moved his right arm, and the arm seemed far away, the hand a million miles away, pushing through thick water. He tried to lean forward, and the pain buffeted him, slapping him back into the seat. He gripped the chair arms with hands that were a million miles away; he slowly pulled himself forward, grimacing against the pain an the effort.
But his legs wouldn’t work. He was paralyzed below the waist, nothing but his arms and his head were still working. He was dying, good God, he was dying, death was creeping slowly through his body. He had to get help before death reached his heart.
He tugged himself forward, and the pain lashed him, and his mouth stretched open in what should have been a scream. But no sound at all came out, only the strained rush of air. He couldn’t make a sound.
The television set laughed with a thousand voices.
He looked again at the screen, the comic leering there. “Please,” he whispered.
“ ‘That’s all right,’ she says,” the comic answered. “ ‘I got an extra engine in the trunk.’ ”
The television set roared.
Bowing, bowing, on the screen, the comic winked at the dying man, laughed and waved and ran away.
Then the unwounded image of himself came back, tiny and colorless, but whole and sound, breathing and laughing, alive and sure. “That was great, Andy, great!” The image grinned up at him from the screen, asked him, “Wasn’t it?”
“Please,” he whispered.
“Who do you suppose we have next?” the image asked him, twinkling. “Who?”
Who? Who had done this? He had to know who had done this, who had shot him, who had tried to murder him.