‘Daddy, be nice,’ Velvet pleaded, but Bruce did not even hear her.

‘That’s the risk you take,’ he continued. ‘Put your case, see if you can beat mine. If you win, you really win: the nation will never forget you or forgive me. If you lose, I honestly don’t think you’re any worse off.’

‘Don’t do it, hon. Your plan’s better. Just make him say the stuff.’

But Wayne was intrigued. ‘Well, I don’t know, babe. I mean, I think we’ve got a pretty good argument here. Let’s face it, half the Republican Party plus just ‘bout every preacher in the country reckons Bruce here’s the devil incarnate…’

For the umpteenth time that terrible night, Bruce allowed himself a moment of hope. ‘Think of your image, Scout,’ he said. ‘What do you want that camera to see? A couple of sullen thugs on a couch, or goodlooking, articulate antiheroes? If you survive all this and avoid the chair, you’ll be on every teen Tshirt in the country. You’ll be able to name your price.’

This was the right button to press for Scout.

‘You really think we’ll be stars?’

‘Of course you will. This is national TV. Win or lose, half the country’s going to fall in love with you. In actual fact you can’t lose.’

‘You want to be a star, baby doll?’

‘Of course I do, honey, but… Oh, I don’t know…’

Meanwhile the outside world was getting impatient, and poor Kirsten, the recordist, crouching in her underwear in front of Bruce’s fireplace, was getting the sharp end of their anger.

‘What the hell is going on, Kirsten?’ The producer’s voice screamed along the cable link and into her headset radio receiver. ‘When are we going to see some pictures?’

The producer completely ignored the delicate nature of Kirsten’s situation, demanding, as TV producers often do, that everyone be told to jump to the command of the cameras. In some ways it was not his fault. He had a whole line of senior producers, editors, section chiefs and channelcontrollers crushed into his ENG truck, not to mention the chief of the LAPD, accompanied by an angry man in a flakjacket who kept muttering, ‘Bullshit. Bulldoubleshit.’ Outside the truck there were countless more police and media operatives milling around, and all of them, inside and out, were demanding that the producer punch up some visuals pronto.

‘What’s going on, Kirsten? Talk to me,’ he shouted into Kirsten’s headset. ‘We have over two hundred stations nationwide requesting footage, and all the majors have crashed into their schedules. We can’t broadcast pictures of the outside of his house for ever. The studio anchors are running out of crap…’

The studio anchors were indeed getting a little desperate.

‘Our cameras are still located outside the Delamitri mansion,’ Larry and Susan were able to confirm for the millionth time. ‘And we have with us an expert on the exteriors of celebrity homes. Doctor Ranulph Tofu, of the New Age Academy of Astral Learning, will be able to give us a reading on Bruce Delamitri’s state of mind, based principally on the colour of his garage doors.’

In the control truck they were tearing out their hair.

‘What are we waiting for, Kirsten?’

The producer got no reply. Kirsten heard him but said nothing, so he kept on shouting, turning up the volume until Kirsten’s head shook.

‘How long does this jerk think we can tie up the networks on his behalf? Ask the asshole what he thinks he’s doing.’

In his desire to make TV, the producer was forgetting that Kirsten was ten feet away from a mass murderer. She rightly felt that to ask the asshole what he thought he was doing was not tactically the right way to go about things. But she had to say something, if only because, after ten minutes of her producer’s voice screaming directly into her brain, a bullet in the head was beginning to look like a reasonable option.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, trying to appear as detached an observer as possible, ‘the people in vision control are asking what kind of timescale we’re looking at here. Just so they can give you the very best coverage they can. They don’t want to lose the audience we’ve built up.’

Wayne looked at Bruce and made a decision. ‘You want to debate me, Bruce? Let’s do it.’

‘And will you let Farrah and Velvet go afterwards? Will you let Brooke get to a doctor?’

‘Maybe. I never know what I’m gonna do, Bruce. It’s my job: I’m a maniac.’

Kirsten finally spoke into her talkback. ‘Stand by in the truck.’ She turned to Wayne. ‘OK, Mr Hudson, they’re ready whenever.’ She was desperate to get out of that room and into some clothes.

‘You ready, Scout?’ Wayne enquired. ‘Ready to be a TV star?’

Suddenly Scout realized the enormity of what they were about to do. She hadn’t checked her hair, her makeup, her clothes… ‘Oh Wayne, I look a sight. Can they send in someone to do makeup?’

‘You look gorgeous, honey. Brooke did your hair just peachy. Are you ready, Bruce?’

‘Yes I am, Wayne.’

‘Can I give control a picture?’ Kirsten asked.

Wayne said she could, and Bill turned his camera on.

‘Speed,’ said Bill. Kirsten flicked a switch. In the control van ten screens jumped into life and the assembled opinionformers finally got what they wanted.

Chapter Thirty Six

‘Jesus!’ The producers and cops whistled as they caught their first glimpse of the little tableau Wayne had created.

‘Stand by to broadcast,’ Brad Murray shouted, forgetting for a moment in his excitement that, within the control truck, etiquette dictated that he should relay his commands via the producer.

Outside, in the grounds of Bruce’s mansion, a hundred hairsprayed anchors alerted the viewing public to the imminence of developments.

‘I believe we should be getting pictures from inside of the Delamitri abode any moment now. It appears there’s going to be some kind of joint statement from the multimillionaire director and his captor, masskilling Mall Murderer Wayne Hudson.’

In the studios, the anchors hurried to explain the situation yet one more time. ‘The ratings computer is fed by a representative sample of the nation as a whole, whose televisions are connected to a central monitor. This monitor can then give an instant picture of what people are watching. Wayne Hudson will be aware, quite literally second by second, how many people have tuned in.’

‘We know that!’ the viewers of America shouted as one. ‘You told us a million times. Get on with it.’

Inside the besieged house, Kirsten informed Wayne that control had a picture. ‘We can go live to air any time.’

‘OK, let’s do it,’ said Wayne.

‘Let’s do it,’ said the Chief of NBC News and Current Affairs.

‘Yes, let’s do it,’ his opposite numbers at the other networks and major cable stations agreed.

‘Stand ready, you guys, in case we have to pick up the pieces,’ the chief of police said loudly to his senior officers, attempting to remind the media types that there were people around who didn’t work in television.

‘We’re live!’ the producer screamed into Kirsten’s ear.

‘We’re live, Mr Hudson,’ Kirsten said calmly, ‘live across America.’

It hardly seemed real, sitting there as they were in Bruce’s lounge. Wayne grabbed Bruce’s remote control and flipped on the TV. Sure enough, there they all were on the screen, the framing exactly as Wayne had wanted it. He tried another couple of channels. There they were again, and again. Scout screamed in embarrassment, and buried her head in her hands. Wayne turned the sound down on the TV but left the vision on: he wasn’t taking any chances that the bargain would be broken.

‘OK, Bruce,’ said Wayne, trying to look calm and collected, ‘you’re the professional. Why don’t you just explain to people what’s going on?’

Scarcely able to believe it was real, Bruce addressed Bill’s camera.