“Fine,” Stan said. “See you later, Mom.”

As they stepped out of the cab into this diorama of un-moving transportation at its worst, she opened her window to say, “Call Fairkeep, Stan. The rest of your future starts right here.”

2

ONE OF THE PRODUCTION assistants had a problem. A short overweight girl named Marcy Waldorf, a very recent hire, she wandered into Doug Fairkeep’s office at The Stand looking bewildered, which is to say looking mostly like a chipmunk on steroids. She held some script pages in her hand and waved them vaguely as she said, “Doug, I’m sorry, but this just looks to me like writing.”

“Marcy,” Doug said, turning his attention with some relief from the budget for next week’s shoot, “what have you got there?”

“The script I’ve been writing, Doug,” she said, and held it out to him as though he’d never seen a script before. “And it’s just—I’m sorry, Doug, this is writing.”

“That is not writing, Marcy,” Doug assured her, being patient and kind. This was not the first time he’d explained the facts of life to a newbie. “Those are suggestions.”

Marcy now held the pages out in front of herself with both hands, as though she intended to sing them, but intoned instead: “Grace: Why don’t we display the strawberries right next to the melons? Maybe then some people will buy both. Harry: That’s a good idea. Worth a try, anyway.”

“Very realistic,” Doug said, approving. “Very nice. Totally on message.”

Looking over the pages at Doug, she said, “That’s writing.”

“It is not writing, Marcy,” Doug said, “for two reasons. In the first place, The Stand is a reality show, the cameras catching real life on the fly, not a scripted show with actors. The Finches aren’t actors, Marcy, they are an actual family struggling to run an actual farmstand on an actual farm on an actual secondary road in upstate New York.”

“But,” Marcy objected, “they’re saying the words we write, down here in the production assistants’ room, Josh and Edna and me.”

“The Finches often,” Doug allowed, “follow our suggestions, that’s true. But, Marcy, even if they followed your suggestions one hundred percent of the time, you still wouldn’t be a writer.”

“Why not?”

“Because The Stand is a reality show, and reality shows do not have actors and writers because they do not need actors and writers. We are a very low-budget show because we do not need actors and writers. If you were a writer, Marcy, you would have to be in the union, and you would cost us a whole lot more because of health insurance and a pension plan, which would make you too expensive for our budget, and we would very reluctantly have to let you go and replace you with another twenty-two-year-old fresh out of college. You’re young and healthy. You don’t want all those encumbrances, health insurance and pension plans.”

Doug’s secretary Lueen, a cynical youngish woman in training to be a battle-axe, stuck her head in the door and said, “Doug, you got a party named Murch on the line.”

Surprised, Doug said, “She did call? I didn’t think she would.”

“A male party named Murch.”

“Oh, my God, the son! That’s even better.” Putting his hand on the phone as Lueen vacated the doorway, Doug said to Marcy, “You’re a very good production assistant, Marcy, we all like you here, we’d hate to lose you. Just keep those suggestions coming.” And into the phone he said, “Mr. Murch?”

“I don’t know about that,” said a voice much warier than Marcy’s. “My Mom said I should call you, make a meet. Me and a friend of mine.”

“John,” Doug said, remembering that other name, smiling at the phone. Oh, this was going to be a thousand times richer than The Stand. The Gang’s All Here. “Your mother told me all about him.”

“He’ll be sorry to hear that,” Murch said. “For a meet we were thinking about now.”

Surprised, Doug said, “Today, you mean?”

“Now, we mean. Across Third from where you are there’s a sidewalk restaurant thing.”

Doug had often wondered who those people were at those tables on the sidewalk, one lane away from all those huge buses and trucks; it would be like having lunch next to a stampede. He said, “Yeah, I know it.”

“Come on over, we’re there now.”

Oh, of course; that faint noise behind Murch’s voice was traffic. Doug said, “If you’re there anyway, why not come up to the office? It’s a lot more comfortable.”

“We’re already settled in down here. Come on down.”

“Well—” Murch was clearly trying to control his environment, protect himself from the unknown. Didn’t he know there was no self-protection? Apparently not. “Okay,” Doug said. “How will I know you?”

“We’ll know you,” Murch said, which sounded ominous, and broke the connection before Doug could say anything more.

All right; let’s work this out. He called, “Lueen!” and when she appeared in the doorway he said, “Get me Marcy.”

She smirked, just slightly. “Your standards are slipping,” she said, and vacated the doorway.

Rising, Doug shrugged into the soft suede jacket he wore to the office at this time of year, then took a moment to wire himself, with a radio-microphone in his shirt pocket and its receiver in a pocket of the car coat.

As he finished, Marcy appeared in the doorway, now looking like a frightened steroidal chipmunk, meaning she expected she was about to be fired. “You wanted me, Doug?”

“Indeed I did. Do. Have you got your cell on you?”

“Sure.”

“You know that sidewalk café across the street.”

“Trader Thoreau, sure. I can’t afford a place like that.”

“I,” Doug told her, “am going to meet with a couple fellows over there. I want you to leave a minute or two after I do, go down there, and get pictures of them both.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Be discreet, Marcy.”

She nodded, with a fitful smile. “Sure, Doug.”

“Nice clear pictures.”

“Sure.”

Doug headed for the door, patting the receiver in his pocket. “We don’t know each other,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” she said.

3

DORTMUNDER WAS DUBIOUS about this. “What’s in it for us?” he wanted to know, employing the plural form of the motto on his (stolen) family crest: Quid Lucrum Istic Mihi Est.

“Well,” Stan said, “according to my Mom, he’ll wanna pay us.”

“To let him make a movie of us boosting something.”

“That part can’t be exactly right,” Stan said. “We’ll just listen to what he has to say. Is that him?”

They had taken an outdoor table at Trader Thoreau along the line of black wrought-iron fence separating the dining area from the pedestrian-and-vehicle area, which gave them an excellent view of the broad facade of the office tower across the avenue. Out of those doors now had come a purposeful youngish guy in a tan jacket, who paused to peer across at this café, then looked to left and right to see which intersection was nearest (neither), then struck off to his right.

“That’s him, all right,” Dortmunder said. “He’s wired. See him pat the pocket?”

“I see him.”

“I’ll keep him,” Dortmunder said.

“Good.”

Which meant Stan would keep an eye on that building entrance to see what else might come out, while Dortmunder followed Doug Fairkeep’s progress to the intersection, where he had to stand fidgeting while he waited for the light to change.

“Fat girl in red.”

Dortmunder looked, and Stan was right. The girl was young and short and very nervous. Also, that shin-long red coat was too heavy for this time of year, making her look more like a sausage than a person. She too started off to the right, then apparently saw Fairkeep still stuck at the DON’T WALK sign, and veered around to hurry off in the opposite direction so abruptly that she knocked two other people out of their orbits, though neither actually fell to the ground.