"Just put together a Bleekden-Mueller-Ballon deal with Summit. Today. Glad you asked," said Wanda.
"Great," said the hostess, with a most rewarding gulp, showing her panic at not having invited Wanda in the first place. The anguish of competitors was what made Hollywood worth living in.
"How did you do it, darling?" asked the hostess. "Make a deal with the Mob?"
"Talent, sweetheart," said Wanda, passing up those tempting little bowls of caviar and sour cream, refusing even those crunchies that she normally couldn't resist. She didn't even bother with a midnight snack. She might even become thin.
Of course, there were some worries. Gordons was a find of finds. She'd have to get him signed up, one of those contracts just short of violating the emancipation proclamation. And she'd have to find out what he wanted. Everybody wanted something.
She would handle all that in the morning, she thought. But as she prepared for bed, rubbing her one-hundred-and-seventy-pound, five-foot-four blimp of a frame with Nubody oil that cost thirty-five dollars an ounce-she used a pound a night-she noticed that the door to her bedroom opened quietly behind her. It was Gordons, but now, instead of the white delivery boy's coat, he wore a beige pants suit open to his navel, marcelled hair and a neckchain with half a dozen amulets. She did not ask how he had gotten into her estate or through the electronic guarded door or past the butler. Anyone who could get Bleekden and Mueller through terror in one day could certainly get into her itsy-bitsy eighteen-room mansion.
"Hi, doll," said Gordons.
"You've gone Hollywood, precious," said Wanda.
"I adapt to all situations, love," said Mr. Gordons. "I've done my part in the tradeoff, hon. Now it's your turn."
Wanda turned to uplift her breasts. "Whatever you want," she said. And Mr. Gordons explained, telling his life story and his difficulty with the two humans.
"Oh," said Wanda when it was clear he did not want her. She put on a light fuscia gown with ermine collar.
"You have got a problem there, love," said Wanda. "You say this House of Sinanju has lasted a thousand years? More than a thousand?"
"As far as I know," said Mr. Gordons.
"I like what you tried with their boss, Smith. Good thinking."
"It was an attempt. It did not work. Still, it might if they go back and attempt to free him."
"Well, if you're not exactly a normal man, then I shouldn't feel bad that you don't want me physically."
"Correct. It is not a comment on your sexual desirability, love."
"Let's go downstairs to the kitchen," said Wanda. She had ordered that her refrigerators be cleared of all fattening foods and stocked only with garden vegetables and skimmed milk. Therefore Wanda went to the servants' refrigerator and stole their ice cream and doughnuts.
"Creativity, creativity. How do we get you creativity?" She dunked a chocolate-coated doughnut in the fudge ripple. A crust broke off and she ate that with a spoon.
"I have come to a decision about the creativity," said Mr. Gordons. "I have decided that creativity is a uniquely human attribute, and I have resigned myself to doing without it. Instead, I am going to ally myself with a creative person and use that person's creativity to help me attain my goal. You are that person."
"Of course," said Wanda. "But we need a contract. You don't do anything without a contract. You sign with me for say, sixty-five years, with an option for thirty-five more. Not a lifetime contract. That's illegal."
"I will sign any contract you wish. However, precious, you must live up to the bargain," said Mr. Gordons. "The last person who failed to live up to a deal with me is in a refrigerator, love."
"All right, all right. What you need is creative planning. New thought. Original ideas. Boffo dynamite ideas. How do you kill those two guys?"
"Correct," said Mr. Gordons.
"Cement. Put their feet in cement and drop them in a river."
"Won't play in Peoria," said Mr. Gordons who had heard that phrase used recently.
"Blow them up. A bomb in their car."
"Too common," said Mr. Gordons.
"Machine guns?"
"Stale."
"Find a woman to seek out their strength and then betray them?"
"Biblical themes haven't moved since Cecil B. De-Mille," Gordons said.
Wanda went back to the servants' refrigerator. There was a cold pot roast and cream cheese. She spread the cream cheese on a piece of pot roast.
"I have it."
"Yes?"
"Ignore them. They're nobodies. The best revenge is living well."
"I cannot do this. I must destroy them as soon as possible."
"What business are they in again?"
"Assassins, as well as I can determine from the fragmentary information available to me, sweetheart."
"Let's think a little longer," said Wanda. She thought as she ate the pot roast. She thought about what Gordons could do for her. He could help her sign up everybody. All of Hollywood. All of the New York television crowd. She could run the show. And more. He had those computer papers, whatever he called them. They revealed the existence of some secret killer organization. Wanda Reidel could use that to monopolize the press. She would own Page One. Nobody could get in her way.
"Are you done thinking yet?" asked Gordons.
"How old are they again?"
"The white man is in his thirties. The Oriental may be in his eighties. They use traditions passed on from one generation to the next, I believe.
"Traditions, traditions," mused Wanda. She sucked a sinew of pot roast from a lower tooth. "Join their traditions. Adopt them. You said you were adaptable. Become them. Become what they are. Think like them. Act like them."
"I attempted that," said Gordons. "It was why I did not attack the younger one when I had him alone. I thought of what they would do and I decided that if either of them was me, he would wait to get both his targets together. So I waited, and I failed in my attempt to blow them up."
"Have you tried praying?" said Wanda.
"Sweetheart, loved one, precious," said Mr. Gordons, "you're running out of time before I ram that cream cheese through your vestibulocochlear nerve."
"What's that?"
"Your eardrum, love."
"Let's don't be rash. What else do you know about them?"
"The older one is enamored of the daytime television shows."
"Games?"
"No, the story shows."
"Soap operas?"
"They are called that. He particularly likes one called 'As the Planet Revolves,' featuring a person named Rad Rex."
"Rad Rex, hmmmm?" said Wanda. "All right. Here's what we do. First, we're going to knock them off one at a time. That's sounder planning."
"If you say so, precious. But how will I be able to do that?"
"You've got to give me a little time to handle that. I've got something in mind. Rad Rex, hmmm?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
He had it, and if they wanted it, they were going to pay for it. Dammit, it was that simple to Rad Rex so why wasn't it that simple to his asshole agents at the Maurice Williams Agency too and those goddam assholes at the network.
A half hour show, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and every twittering clit in the country must be watching "As the Planet Revolves" between two thirty and three o'clock every day. Well, if he was going to continue to play Dr. Wyatt Winston-one-time physicist and now a noted surgeon-they were going to pay him for it. That was it. Case closed. Roma locuta est.
For heaven's sake, he hoped they didn't think he was playing that insipid macho twit because he liked to. Money. Pure and simple. And if they didn't want to pay for it, let them get somebody else. Try Rock or Roddy or Rip or Rory. There were plenty of good actors around.