Over the next two years, Tammy Terrill made a half- dozen direct-to-video and pay-per-view films as Suzy Suzuki, including and her favorite, where she got to lift a guy up by the scruff of his scrotum and drop him bodily into a car crusher—with a little help from the FX department.
No one at the University of Indiana ever caught on.
But when Tammy graduated, doors were slammed in her face everywhere she went.
"What's wrong with me?" she moaned at the end of six months of rejected resumes.
"Take a look around," her TV agent told her. "Deborah Norville's career just crashed, taking the whole perky-young-blonde trend with her."
"How could she? Didn't she know she was the Great Blonde Hope?"
'"Golden Lads and girls all must...' I think you know the rest. Anyway, the hottest thing going now are Asian anchorettes. That leaves you out."
"My maternal grandmother was one-eighth Asian," Tammy ventured.
"What was her last name?"
"Tanaka. They tossed her butt into an internment camp during WWI." "That was WWII."
"I got the initials right, didn't I?"
"Listen, Tammy, how do you feel about a name change?"
"To what?"
"Tamayo Tanaka. It's legit. The name is in the family, just lying around unexploited. We update your resume, put you down as Japanese-American and you have your second chance."
"With this hair and these baby blues?"
"Squint."
Tammy squinted. Her face became a cream puff with sapphires for eyes.
"Can you read a cue card like that?"
"I can't even tell if you have one nostril or two."
Her agent sighed. "Well, it was a long shot anyway. Even with a wig, you'd never pass."
"Yeah, that kind of stuff only worked for Myrna Loy."
The agent's glum expression got interested. "Myrna Loy? I remember her. Thirties actress who got her start playing Chinese types. After she drank that well dry, she came out as a Caucasian and had a whole new career."
Their eyes met, collided, ricocheted and locked together with a growing but nervous interest.
"You know, they can do amazing things with makeup these days," Tammy said.
"You'd have to lead a double life," the agent warned.
"I could go undercover as myself!"
"What if you got caught?"
"Then I'd be the story! I'd go through the roof."
"We could sell your story. Sultry Japanese reporter unmasked as com-fed Iowa farm girl."
"I'm from Indiana," said Tammy.
"Flays just the same in Peoria. Let's give it a whirl. If it doesn't pan out, you're still Tammy Terrill."
"No, I'm going to be the next Cheeta Ching."
Four years and six local markets later, and she was on her way to a face-off with Ned Doppler on "Nightmirror."
"It's the American dream come true," she murmured, touching up her slim eyebrows. "It doesn't matter who you are, you can go anywhere you want in life if you just play by the rules of the moment."
"Eh?" asked the cabbie, who was some kind of Hindu.
"Someday your kind will get their turn," she said, snapping her compact closed.
Then they were at the studio, and it was time for Tamayo Tanaka's moment of truth. More or less.
A network page greeted her inside the studio, and she was taken to a soundproof booth where she was seated on a plain chair. A camera dollied up so close the glassy lens almost kissed the tip of her nose. The tally light wasn't on, so she relaxed and said, "When do I meet Ned?"
"You don't," she was told.
"Ever?"
"You'll be up on the screen with the others so it looks like he's talking to all of you at once," the busy technician explained.
"Where are the others?"
"The booths on either side."
"Shouldn't we be seated all together?"
The technician shook his head. "We did that in the early days. Had too many on-camera punch-outs and hair pulls. Just think of the camera as Ned's face and you'll do fine."
The technician shut the soundproof door before Tamayo thought to ask, "What others?" Didn't she own the story? Who else was there? And how important could they possibly be?
All at once, she could feel the flop-sweat oozing up through her pores, pushing aside her facial makeup. The network lights were a lot hotter than affiliate lights.
would have given his pension to avoid it all.
"Nightmirror" was no place for the mentally un- nimble. He'd seen bureaucrats mousetrapped live and sweating by Ned Doppler more times than he could count. He did not want to be one of them.
But when "Nightmirror" called, even the director of the FBI had to answer. Especially with the nation lurching toward panic and needing answers.
The President of the United States had personally put it to him this way: "You go on."
"The Bureau's investigation is in its earliest stages," he protested. "We'd be at risk of tipping our hand."
"What do you have?"
"We're still sorting it all out, Mr. President. But the mail-truck bomber in New York has been identified from dental records as the suspect in the string of re- lay-box explosions. Guy named A1 Ladeen."
"You go on. Otherwise, I'll have to. And I don't have any more answers than you do."
"Yes, sir," said the director of the FBI, realizing that he had been demoted to sacrificial lamb.
took his seat in the remote broadcast booth that was in reality not thirty feet from the set where Ned Doppler nightly deconstructed guests with a twinkle in his eye and a stiletto up his sleeve.
It was a problem. But it wasn't a big problem. All Doppler had was rumor and half-assed reportage.
Damon Post had the two mightiest tools in a bureaucrat's arsenal—the ability to stonewall, and utter and total deniability.
They should be more than enough to hold off the smug bastard for thirty minutes, minus commercials.
Then the strident "Nightmirror" fanfare began, and the red tally light eyed him warningly.
meditation room in their Quincy, Massachusetts, home, Remo Williams and the Master of Sinanju both reached for the clicker at the same time, Remo to switch from the overfed Bev Woo and Chiun to shut off the set for the evening.
"I want you see what they're saying on 'Nightmirror,' " Remo explained.
"It is your bedtime," Chiun argued.
"Smith said to stand by in case we have to fly out on short notice."
"Which is why you need your five hours of sleep."
"I'm not sleepy and I want to know what the latest is, the same as the rest of America."
"I cannot sleep with this machine yodeling, so I will watch with you."
"You just don't want me sneaking a peek at the nice Bev Woo."
"I would tolerate this so long as you do not seek out the false wiles of Tamayo Tanaka."
"Not a chance," said Remo as the "Nightmirror" fanfare started to blare and the cobalt blue computer animation went into its inevitable cycle.
Ned Doppler's puffy face came on.
"Tonight on 'Nightmirror'—Bomb scare. The terror in Manhattan. With me are the postmaster general of the U.S., Damon Post, Gunter Frisch, director of the FBI, and Tamayo Tanaka, the woman who may have broken the story of the bizarre link between a hitherto-unknown terror group and one of the oldest and most respected organs of our government, the United States Postal Service."
"Argh," said the Master of Sinanju, tearing at the cloudy puffs of hair over each ear.
"Let's hope our names don't come up," Remo said unhappily.
"First a recap of the day's events. At approximately 12:20 EST today, simultaneously in Oklahoma City and midtown Manhattan terror struck. The vehicle—men and equipment of your postal service. And tonight in Boston, a postal worker with the vaguely familiar name of Mohamet Ali leaped to his death before TV cameras and a crowd of witnesses. Are these events connected? What does it mean? Joining us in our Washington studio is the man heading the investigation, Gunter Frisch. Mr. Director, what can the FBI tell us?"