“Well, here I am,” Doug said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Mg. Safe flight.”

He turned away, but Mr. Mg said, “Doug Fairkeep.”

Doug turned back. “Yes?”

Mr. Mg nodded. “He knows your name,” he said.

The next problem was even worse, and came in the form of a one-two punch. First the news came, in midafternoon, that with only the one show, The Heist, in production, and with nothing on the air, and with nothing in development, Get Real was being eliminated. Its assets would be folded in with its superior, Monopole, and all of the staff, except for Babe and Doug, would be let go.

Babe had come to Doug’s office this time, to pass along this latest bad news, and was still there when Lueen extended her snakelike head into the doorway and said to Babe, more respectfully than she ever addressed Doug, “Mr. Pockell on one, sir, for you.”

Pockell was an executive with Monopole. Babe stood beside Doug’s desk to take the call, saying, “Yes, sir,” and then, in shock, “What?” and then, in horror, “Oh, no!” and then, in almost unheard-of panic, “I’ll be right there.”

He slammed down the phone and would have run from the office but that Doug said, “Babe? What’s up?”

Babe halted, stared at Doug, and shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any way to save it this time,” he said. “This comes down from way on high. Get Real has no more assets to fold into Monopole. The Heist is scratched.”

47

DORTMUNDER, ignoring the lights, ignoring the boom mike dangling in midair above his head, ignoring the camera brushing his cheek, said, in his tough-guy grunt, “There’s too much tunnel traffic by that place. You can’t keep a getaway car hanging around there.”

Kelp, also hulking over the backroom table, said, “But you gotta have a getaway car, or how do you get away?”

Tiny, who didn’t have to do anything more than go on being himself, said, “If you’re gonna steal a getaway car, while you’re at it steal a pair of walkie-talkies.”

Kelp said, “But people can listen in on those things. You got no privacy.”

The kid, whose television persona was baby-face killer, said, “So talk in code.”

Kelp said, “What code?”

The kid shrugged, “Red sails at sunset,” he said, “means come pick us up now.”

Dortmunder said, “If you’re not gonna give the address, why do code?”

“Then don’t do code,” the kid said. “I don’t care.”

“Cut,” said Roy, and when everybody turned to look at him he beamed upon them all and said, “Fine. Delovely. Everybody take a break now while we reposition the cameras and the walls.” To Marcy, observing behind camera two, he said, “Very nice, Marcy. Played even better than I expected.” Because Marcy was the one who’d worked out the bit about the walkie-talkies and the code.

Marcy blushed in gratitude and pleasure, and the kid led everybody in giving her a nice if ragged round of applause. She was really very helpful, Marcy, very useful to actors who weren’t really actors.

“Okay,” Roy said. To the crew he said, “Position three.” To his cast he said, “Five minutes.”

Dortmunder and the other performers rose and stretched and moved out of the backroom set as the crew came in to move everything around. It was funny how this worked, physically. You felt fine while you were doing it, just going along easy, no problem, but as soon as Roy called cut everybody was stiff and sore, yawning and scratching themselves. Maybe it had something to do with concentration, like when Kelp was examining a safe.

It was late afternoon now, and Roy would have time for only one more setup today. He was trying to fit a lot in because the schedule was that this was to be their last week at the back room or the hall, though the OJ set would stay up for more use later on.

Next week they’d be doing exteriors in this neighborhood. Since they’d use cameras hidden in cars and wouldn’t mind filming civilians who happened to walk by while they were shooting, the term in the television business seemed to be that they were “stealing” the shots. Not exactly.

The gang and Rodney moved toward the comfortable chairs in the OJ set, and all at once the racket of the elevator sounded, receding from their level downward. It faded and stopped, and then started again, and neared, and very soon stopped again.

Kelp looked at Dortmunder. “Stopped on two,” he said. Combined Tool.

“Be ready,” Dortmunder advised.

“Oh, I am.”

It had been agreed it would raise too many suspicions if Kelp were to plead illness or offer some other excuse not to show up here today, but if by chance last night’s Asian were to enter the place he would recognize Kelp at once, so what Kelp would do, in that circumstance, was make himself scarce. “That gippy tummy again,” he said, and shook his head.

They sat comfortably in the false OJ, Rodney distributing cans of Bud, but there wasn’t much conversation. Most of them were waiting for the elevator to do something.

There: racket, racket, racket, getting nearer. “Watch my seat,” Kelp said, and rose, and walked out of the OJ set.

The elevator racket got as loud as it was going to get, and then it quit, and then Kelp came walking back around the edge of the set, shaking his head. As he sat across the table from Dortmunder and in front of his beer, he said, “Not him. Other friends of ours,” and around the corner came Doug and Babe.

From the instant they appeared, everybody could see from their faces that there was trouble ahead. They both looked grim; death in the family grim.

Babe saw the expressions on the group watching him, nodded, and said, “Doug, get Roy in here, will you?”

“Sure,” Doug said. He was carrying an attaché case, which he put on a nearby table.

“Oh, and Marcy.”

“You know, Babe,” Kelp said, as Doug went off on his errand, “every time you come here it’s to shut us down.”

“Those other times,” Babe said, “I was acting out of anger, and I was wrong. This time, I’m following orders, and if those people are wrong, and I think they are, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Doug came back, followed by Roy and Marcy, Roy not concealing his irritation and impatience, but also not noticing the atmosphere in the room. “Babe,” he said, “I must say I have very little time here.”

“Roy,” Babe said, “I have to tell you, you don’t have any time left at all.”

Roy frowned. “What?”

“They’re shutting us down,” Babe said. “In fact, they’re shutting the whole company down. As of now, Get Real no longer exists. This building will go to Monopole. The lease on the midtown offices will be given up. And The Heist will never be aired.”

Roy said, “But you told us the bosses loved it.”

“At Monopole,” Babe told him, “they did. They were already looking for foreign sales. They sent it up to the level above them, Intimate Communications, and those people loved it so much they sent it on up to TUI, even though they didn’t have to, not yet, and TUI ordered everything shut down.”

Roy said, “Remind me. What’s TUI?”

“Trans-Global Universal Industries. They’re into a lot more than television production, and the CEO there now is a man named Gideon, who is a morality crusader. No porn, no excessive violence, no profanity, nothing you couldn’t show a ten-year-old. A dull ten-year-old. Wholesome stories with wholesome morals tucked into their wholesome endings.” Voice dripping scorn, Babe said, “The Heist, it seems, glorifies criminals.”

“So what?” said Kelp.

“It does not,” cried Roy. “It shows the human side of the criminal life. It shows the hard work, the thought—”

“Glorifies criminals,” Babe said. “Once you’ve said those words, that’s like a magic incantation, it’s the end of the discussion.”

Rodney the bartender said, “Because The Heist glorifies criminals, they’re shutting down the whole company?”