'Broadscale' something."
"There's no such word as Broadscale," someone pointed out. "Or place, either."
"There's a Broad Sound, though," someone else said, punching keys on a laptop.
"It's near Rockhampton in Australia, near the Great Barrier Reef. Maybe that's a
radio or stereo speaker, not a scale."
"And what, that last picture is us and him throwing a beach ball back and forth?" Fogerty scoffed.
"Well, then, maybe it's supposed to be 'Broadsword,' " one of the other wonks said. "The damn RebuScope's screwed up before. Maybe he wants to see some sword demos from one of those Medieval-nutcake groups."
"It's 'I want to see a Broadway play,' " Angus said firmly. "I'm sure of it."
Fogerty muttered something vicious-sounding under his breath. Why the ambassador had chosen to use a gadget as ridiculously hard to understand as the RebuScope for his messages to us was a mystery, but most of us had gradually developed a
sort of resigned acceptance for the procedure. Fogerty, who dealt with the gadget more than anyone except Angus, roundly hated the thing, and seemed to be running systematically through his vast repertoire of multilingual curses in regards to it. "All right, fine," he said. "We'll take him to a Broadway play.
Smith, get on the horn and find out who the hell we talk to about doing that."
I cleared my throat. "You don't need to call the White House, Mr. Fogerty," I said. "I know some people on Broadway."
"We're not interested in pretzel venders, thank you," Fogerty said tartly, gesturing at Smith. "We need a producer or theater manager or—"
"I know all of them."
Fogerty stopped, his gesturing hand still poised in midair, and turned his head to look at me. "You what?" he asked.
"I know all of them," I repeated. "Up until a year ago I was working with one of the top set designers on Broadway."
It was, and I'll admit it, an immensely soul-satisfying moment. The whole bunch of them just stood there, professionals and wonks alike, staring at me like something that had just crawled out of the primordial ooze and asked whether the Metro Blue line stopped here. All except Angus, that is, who had a faint but knowing smile on his face. Obviously, he was the only one in the group who'd bothered to read the FBI's rundown on me after I was booted aboard.
Fogerty recovered first, in typical Fogerty fashion. "Well, don't just stand there, Lebowitz," he said, waving Smith forward with his phone. "Let's get to it."
The first step, I decided, would be to figure out which Broadway offering would be the best one to take the ambassador to see. I put in a call to Tony Capello, theater critic, and we spent fifteen minutes discussing the current crop of plays and musicals in town.
Actually, the first twelve of those minutes were spent talking over the old times when I was a lowly carpenter and Tony was chief gopher for a succession of minor choreographers. I would have cut off the reminiscences earlier, except that the delay so obviously irritated Fogerty. When I finally got Tony down to business, his advice was instant and unequivocaclass="underline" "And Whirred When It Stood Still," currently in previews at the St. James.
"So what's the play about?" Fogerty asked when I relayed the recommendation.
"According to Tony, it's pleasantly harmless froth," I assured him. "Nothing that'll confuse the ambassador or put human beings in a bad light. At least, not in any worse light than plays typically do."
"Assuming he understands it at all," Fogerty growled, gesturing to his overworked secretary. "Lee, better have someone vet it anyway, just to be on the safe side. All right, what about this St. James Theater? It's on Broadway?"
"Well, actually, it's on West 44th Street," I said. "But it's—"
"West 44th Street?" Fogerty echoed. "He wants a Broadway play."
"It is a Broadway play," I told him stiffly. "The St. James is in the theater district, half a block off Broadway itself. It counts. Trust me."
He glowered, but apparently decided he'd shown enough ignorance for one conversation. "Fine," he grunted. "Let's just hope it counts with the ambassador." The manager at the St. James, Jerry Zachs, was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. "You must be joking," he said, looking back and forth between Fogerty and me. "Bring that behemoth into my theater? Who's going to pay for the fifty seats it's going to cost me?"
"Oh, do try not to go off the deep end here, Mr. Zachs," Fogerty said, his voice hovering between imperious and condescending. "We won't have to remove more than nine seats at the most to fit him in."
"Sure—to fit him in," Jerry shot back. "What about these seats in front of him you want left empty?"
"That's only another twelve seats," Fogerty told him. "Four rows by three seats—"
"I can multiply, thank you," Jerry growled. "I can also multiply by ticket prices and see I'm already out about a grand and a half. And what about all the seats right behind him where no one's going to be able to see? Huh?"
Fogerty shrugged. "Fine. We'll put his entourage there."
"At full price?" Fogerty lifted his eyebrows. "Don't be silly. They won't be able to see the show from there. How do you expect to charge full price?"
Jerry's complexion was edging into a soft pink, which from my experience with him was a dangerous sign. "I'm sure we can work something out," I jumped in before he could say anything. Fogerty had a virtually unlimited budget to work with, but he could go all chintzy at the oddest moments. "What's important is that the ambassador be treated like the VIP he is."
"That's right," Fogerty said, apparently believing I was on his side here.
"The Fuzhties have a great deal to offer humanity, Mr. Zachs, and the more favors he owes us, the sooner he'll start coming across with some of this magic technology of theirs. This is just one of those favors."
" 'The play's the thing,' " I said in my best soliloquy voice, " 'Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.' "
Fogerty frowned at me. "What?"
"Hamlet," I said.
"Shakespeare," Jerry added acidly. "He's done some plays and poems and stuff."
"Thank you," Fogerty said, matching Jerry's acid pH for pH. "I have heard of the man. The point is that I can requisition your theater, no questions asked, like it or lump it. So you might as well like it. Anyway, you should be honored to have their first ambassador in your theater."
"Besides, think of the great publicity," I reminded him. "You'll be able to use photos of the ambassador in all your future ads and—"
"Wait a minute," Fogerty cut me off, his face suddenly stricken. "He can't use the ambassador as a cheap come-on. This is a serious diplomatic mission."
"Oh, I don't know," Jerry mused, picking up the cue and running with it.
"When the King of Sweden came here, he let us use his name in some of our promotionals. I don't see how this is any different."
"Of course it's different," Fogerty snapped. "And if you even think about trying to take advantage of him that way—"
"Taking advantage?" Jerry asked mildly. "You mean like a six-hundred pound government gorilla trying to gouge a poor innocent theater manager on ticket prices?"
Fogerty glared daggers at both of us. But he didn't have time for a fight, and we all knew it. "Fine," he bit out. "Full ticket prices for the whole entourage."
"And full payment for the crew handling the alterations?" Jerry asked.
"We'll be doing it all ourselves," Fogerty gritted. "My people are already downstairs, waiting for the green light."
"Well, then, I guess I'd better give it to them," Jerry said, reaching for his phone. "A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Fogerty."