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Gabriel walked like Cagney through the cafeteria: shoulders slightly forward, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He entered the galley, where a couple of cooks were loafing around a TV set.

“Hey, whatcha doin’ back here?” one of them asked, a black tall enough for college basketball.

“City Health Inspector,” Gabriel replied in his own voice.

The cook towered over Gabriel and waved a frozen dinner-sized fist at him. “What is this? We paid you guys off last week, on your regular collection day.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Those guys are in jail. There’s been a crackdown. Didn’t anybody tell you?”

The cook’s face fell.

“I ought to get your name and number,” Gabriel bluffed, “so that you can be subpoenaed…”

The other cooks had already backed away into the shadows. “Hey wait…” The black man’s voice softened.

Gabriel put on a smile. “Look, I don’t want to make trouble for you guys. I got a job to do, that’s all. Now, how many exits are there from this area… for emergency purposes.…”

Within seconds, Gabriel was riding alone up the tiny service elevator to the kitchen of Finger’s suite.

The door slid open silently and he stepped into the darkened kitchen. He stopped there, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness so he could move without bumping into anything. He heard voices from another room.

“…and according to the computer analysis, doing the show in Canada will save us a bundle of money.” Sheldon Fad’s singsong.

“Whadda’ the Canadians know about making a dramatic series? All they do is documentaries about Eskimos.” The dulcet tones of Bernard Finger, part foghorn and part fishmonger.

“They have commercial networks in Canada,” Fad replied, dripping with honey.

“You seen any of their shows?”

“Well…”

“They stink! They’re even worse than ours.”

Gabriel smiled in the darkness, uncertain whether Finger’s “ours” referred to all of American commercial TV or merely to Titanic’s steady string of fiascoes.

“But we’ll be using our own top staff to run things. The Canadians will be working under our supervision.”

“And the writing? We’re going to put up with Ron Gabriel? That loudmouth?”

“We’ll handle him,” Fad answered. “He’ll be the top writer, but the scripts will actually be turned out by Canadians. They work cheaper and they listen to what you tell them.”

Gabriel’s smile faded. He started moving carefully toward the voices. As he got out of the kitchen and into what looked like a dining area, he could see a doorway framed in light; the door was closed, but light from the next room was seeping through the poor fit between the door and its jamb.

“I’ve even got a start on the theme music,” Fad was saying, with more than the usual amount of oil in his voice. “It’s from Tchaikovsky…”

Fad must have worked the computer terminal, because the opening strains of the Romeo and Juliet Overture wafted into the suite. Finger must have reached the volume control, because the music was immediately turned down to a barely audible hum.

“Now about the production values…” Fad began.

Gabriel kicked the door open and strode into the living room, chin tucked down in his collar, right fist balled in his jacket pocket as if he had a gun.

Fad was standing beside the computer terminal, at one end of a long sofa. Finger was sitting on the sofa. He was so startled that he dropped the glass he’d been holding. Fad jumped back two steps, a frightened Gary Cooper, so scared that the fringes of his buckskin jacket were twitching.

“Okay you guys,” Gabriel said, in his Cagney voice.

“Who the hell are you?” Finger demanded.

“Never mind that.” Gabriel walked slowly toward the sofa.

Backing away from him, Fad squeaked, “Is that a gun in your pocket?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

“What’re you doing here?” Finger asked. His voice cracked just the tiniest bit

“You guys have been making life tough for Ron Gabriel. Now I’m going to give you what’s coming to you.”

Fad looked as if he was going to collapse. But Finger stared intently at Cagney’s face.

“Gabriel,” he said. “Is that you?”

“Who else, buhbula?” Ron took his hand from his pocket and scratched his nose. “Now what’s all this shit about going to Canada?”

“The show’s going to be shot in Canada,” Finger said testily. “If I decide to do the show, that is. And how the hell did you get in here?”

“Whattaya mean, if you decide to do it?” Gabriel shot back. “It’s the best damned idea you’ve seen in years.”

“Ideas don’t make successful shows. People do.”

“Which explains why you’ve got a string of flops on your hands.”

“Goddammit Gabriel!” Finger’s voice rose. “I’m not going to take any of your crap!”

“Go stuff yourself with it, bigshot! I’m a creative artist. I don’t need your greasy paws on my ideas!”

Fad edged around the sofa and tried to interpose himself between the two men. “Now wait, fellas. Let’s not…”

“Where the hell’s the phone?” Finger turned as he sat, searching the room. “I’ll get the security guards up here so fast…”

“You reach for that phone and I’ll break your arm,” Gabriel warned. “You’re going to listen to me for a change.”

“I’m gonna get you thrown overboard, is what I’m gonna do!”

“The hell you are!”

“Fellaaas… be reasonable.”

“Loudmouth creep.”

“Moneygrubbing asshole!”

“Fellaaas…”

It was a cosmic coincidence that at precisely that moment the love theme from Romeo and Juliet started on the computer-directed stereo. Such moments are rare, but they happen.

And precisely at that moment, the most exquisitely beautiful girl Gabriel had ever seen stepped sleepily into the living room, rubbing her eyes. She wore nothing but a whiff of a pink nightgown, only long enough to reach to her thighs and utterly transparent. Her long golden hair was sleep tousled. Her face was all childish innocence, especially the sky-blue eyes, although her mouth was sensuous. Her body had everything the eternal woman possessed: the litheness of youth combined with the soft fullness of newly ripened maturity.

“What’s all the shouting about?” she asked in a little girl voice. Petulantly: “You woke me up.”

Finger scowled mightily and got up from the sofa. “See what you’ve done?” he grumbled at Gabriel. “You woke her up!” To the girl/woman he said soothingly, “It’s all right, baby. We were just having a discussion. I’ll be back with you in a few minutes. You just go back to sleep.”

Gabriel remained rooted to the spot where he was standing. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. His blood seemed congealed in his veins. It was like being petrified, mummified, frozen into a cryogenic block of liquid helium. Yet his brain was whirling, feverish, spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel shooting off sparks in every direction.

She made a little moue with her full, ripe lips and turned to head back to the bedroom.

“Wait!” Gabriel’s voice sounded strained and desperate, even to himself.

She stopped and looked back at him, with those incredible blue eyes.

“Wha… I mean… who… what’s your name? Who are you?”

“Never mind!” Finger urged the girl toward the bedroom with an impatient gesture.

“No, wait!” Gabriel shouted. He unfroze himself and moved toward her. “What’s your name? I’ve got to knowl”

“Rita,” she said, almost shyly. “Rita Yearling. Why do you hafta know?”