21
Rune decided she'd found a great new drug, one that was completely legal and cheap. It was called "awake," and you didn't even take it. All you did was not sleep for thirty hours straight and it sent you right on the most excellent psychedelic trip you could imagine.
Gremlins climbed out of the Sony, dragons swooped down from Redhead lights and trolls had abandoned bridges and were fox-trotting on the misty dance floor of her desk. Weird amoeba were floating everywhere.
It was sixp.m. on Tuesday and the reason for the hallucinations – and sleeplessness – was a small plastic cassette containing a one-inch videotape master of a news story to be shown in a few hours on that night'sCurrent Events program. The story was called, "Easy Justice." The voice-overs were mixed, the leads and countdown added, the "live" portions of Piper Sutton's commentary added.
The tape, which ran the exact time allocated for the segment, rested somewhere in the bowels of the Network's computer system, which acted like a brilliant, never-sleeping stage manager, and would start the segment rolling exactly on time, at 8:04:36p.m. The system would then automatically broadcast the Randy Boggs story for its precise length of eleven minutes, fourteen seconds, which was the Network's version of a quarter hour – a bit shorter than in Edward R. Murrow's time, but back then each additional minute of advertising didn't mean another half-million dollars in revenue the way it did today.
Rune squinted away a few apparitions and sat back in her chair.
The last few days had been a nightmare.
Piper Sutton had been satisfaction-proof. "What's this? What do you call this?" she'd shouted, pacing back and forth behind Rune, who sat terrified, willing her hands not to shake as she typed. "Is this supposed to be fuckingpoetry! Is it supposed to beart!"
Sutton would walk another ten feet, leaving behind a wake of cigarette smoke and Chanel No. 5.
Nothing she'd write could please Sutton. "Is that a fact? Is it supported? Who's your attribution?… What the fuck is this? A figure of speech? 'Justice is like a lumbering bear'? Sure, I know alot of
lumbering bears. Our audience is really going to relate to lumbering bears. Just look out on Broadway, Rune, you see many bears? Come on, babes…"
Rune would write some more then Sutton would lean over and look at the word processor screen, focusing on the words like a sniper.
"Here, let me…," Sutton would say and practically elbow Rune aside.
Tap, tap, tap… The delete code would chop another dozen sentences. Sutton's nails never chipped. They were like red Kevlar.
But finally the story was finished.
Sutton and Maisel approved the completed script Monday night (the twenty-eighth draft). Sutton had recorded her on-camera portions and sent those to editing, along with the clips from Rune's interviews and atmosphere footage. As she was leaving the studio Tuesday morning at onea.m. Rune asked her, "You, like, always spend this kind of time with producers?"
"No, I don'tlike spend this kind of time. Most producers can spell."
"Oh."
Now, though, Rune had nothing to do but try to stay awake and watch the show itself while she fought the sensation that she was levitating. There were a couple options. Her first choice: She wanted to be home watching it with Healy. But he'd gone to investigate a package sitting in front of an abortion clinic in Brooklyn. Another possibility: There was a bar not far from the houseboat – Rune was a regular there – and everybody there would be glad to watch her program (fortunately this was Tuesday so no Monday night sports programs would create difficult choices for some of the regulars).
But that involved standing up and walking somewhere. Which at the moment was a feat Rune believed she was incapable of.
So, she sat where she was – at her desk. There was a nice color monitor in front of her and maybe
– just maybe – Piper and Lee would come and join her. They'd all watch the show together and they'd tell her what a good job she'd done then take her out for a drink at some fancy bar afterwards.
Her thoughts shifted and she found she was thinking of Randy Boggs. She hoped the guards were letting him watchCurrent Events. That thought sounded funny -lettinghim watch, like when she was a kid and she'd begged her parents to let her stay up to read more fairy stories or watch TV.
"Hey, Rune."
She looked up, thinking the hallucinations were getting stranger: Some heavyset guy was disattaching himself from a camera and coming toward her. How did he do that? Like the monster inMien, climbing out of the pipes to eat Sigourney Weaver.
"Rune," he said again. She squinted. It was Morrie Weinberg, the chief engineer of the show. He wore engineer clothes – blue jeans and a black shirt and a tweed jacket.
"Morrie," she said. He was frowning – the first time she'd ever seen him do this. Engineers are usually Rolaids-poppers but Morrie didn't understand the concept of stress. She had an image of him as a lumbering bear and she wanted to laugh out loud.
"What's up?"
"Your segment."
She giggled. "Uh-huh."
"What happened?" His voice fluttered.
The humor was leaving quickly. "Happened?"
"Jesus, how come you didn't get your segment in? 'Easy Justice.' It should've gone into the computer by three. It was already a day late. Wehad to have it there by three. You know that."
Her eyes swept around the studio. Was he saying what she was hearing? "I did. I gave it to Charlie around four. But he said that was all right."
Morrie looked at a clipboard. "This is a problem. It ain't in there now. We got eleven minutes of blank airtime starting at eight-oh-four-thirty-six."
"Check again." Her voice was edged with panic.
"I just did check. Five minutes ago."
"Check again, check again!" No laughing, no lumbering bears, no amoebae. Adrenaline had wakened her completely.
Morrie shrugged and made a call. He held his hand over the mouthpiece and said to her, "Zip."
"How did it happen?"
"The way it usually happens is the producer doesn't get the tape in on time."
"But Igot it in." She ran through her vague memory. She didn't think she'd screwed up. It was too major a mistake even for her. It was like the pilot forgetting to lower the airplane's wheels before landing.
Anyway, there were other tapes. She had a dupe of the final cut. This was an inconvenience not a tragedy.
Her hands were shaking. Morrie listened into the phone again. He looked up and said to her, "All right, your butt is safe so far. Charlie says he remembers you delivering it. He put it in the computer but somehow it's vanished. You have a dupe?"
"Sure."
He said into the phone, "We'll get another one up to you in five minutes." He hung up. "This's never happened before. Thank you, dear Lord, for dupes."
The gratitude was premature. The dupe was missing too. Rune's voice was shrill in panic. "I put it there. On my desk." She pointed frantically to an empty corner.
"Oh, man."
"I put it rightthere."
He stared skeptically at the bald spot.
She said, "I'm not making this up."
"Rough cuts?" Morrie was looking at his watch. "Shit, we don't have time. But we maybe-"
She opened a drawer. "Oh, no," she muttered breathlessly.
He said, "They're gone too?"
Rune was nodding. She couldn't speak.
"Oh, boy. Oh, shit. Eleven minutes of blank air. This's never happened before. This's never happened."
Then she thought of something else and ripped open her credenza.
Theoriginal tape she'd done of Bennett Frost, the new witness, and the dupe ofthat were also gone. All that remained of the story about Randy Boggs were scripts and notes and background interview tapes.