All the Creedish that Adam killed.
"Those are the ones," the gun says.
The mouth says, "The police think maybe you did all the killings to make yourself famous. Overnight, you went from being a fat ugly housecleaner to being a religious leader, and tomorrow you'll be accused of being the country's most successful serial killer."
The gun says, "Successful probably isn't the right word."
I say, I wasn't all that fat.
"What did you weigh?" the gun says, "And be honest."
On the wall it says, Today Is the Worst Day of the Rest of Your Life.
The mouth says, "You were fat. You are fat."
I ask, So why don't you just kill me now? Why don't you put some bullets in your gun and just shoot me?
"I have bullets loaded," the gun says, and the barrel swivels around to point at my face, my knees, my feet, Fertility's mouth.
The mouth says, "No, you don't have any bullets."
"Yes, I do," the gun says.
"Then prove it," the mouth says. "Shoot him. Right now. Shoot him. Shoot."
I say, Don't shoot me.
The gun says, "I don't feel like it."
The mouth says, "Liar."
"Well, maybe I wanted to shoot him a long time ago," the gun says, "but now the more famous he gets, the better. That's why I killed the caseworker and destroyed his mental health records. That's why I've set up the stupid phony bottle of chlorine gas for the agent to sniff."
I was only a pretend insane pervert with the caseworker, I say.
Scratched on the wall it says, Shit or get off the pot.
"It doesn't matter who kills the agent," the mouth says. "The police will be right on the fifty-yard line to arrest you for mass murder the second you step off camera."
"But don't worry," the gun says. "We'll be there to rescue you."
Rescue me?
"Just give them this miracle," the mouth says, "and there should be a few minutes of chaos so you can get out of the stadium."
I ask, Chaos?
The gun says, "Look for us in a car."
The mouth says, "A red car."
The gun says, "How do you know? We haven't stolen it yet."
"I know everything," the mouth says. "We'll steal a red car with an automatic transmission because I can't drive a stick."
"Okay," the gun says. "A red car."
"Okay," the mouth says.
I couldn't be more not excited. I say, Just give me the miracle.
And Fertility gives me the miracle. The biggest miracle of my career.
And she's right.
And there will be chaos.
There will be complete pandemonium.
At eleven o'clock the next morning, the agent is still alive.
The agent's alive at eleven-ten and at eleven-fifteen.
The agent's alive at eleven-thirty and eleven forty-five.
At eleven-fifty, the events coordinator chauffeurs me from the hotel to the stadium.
With everyone always around us, the coordinators and reps and managers, I can't ask the agent if he's brought a bottle of Truth, The Fragrance, and when he plans to sniff it next. I can't just tell him not to sniff any cologne today. That it's poison. That the brother I don't have and that I've never seen has got into the agent's luggage and set a trap. Every time I see the agent, every time he disappears into the bathroom or I have to turn my back for a minute, it could be the last time I see him.
It's not that I love the agent that much. I can easily enough picture myself at his funeral, what I'd wear, what I'd say in eulogy. Giggling. Then I see Fertility and me doing the Argentine Tango on his grave.
I just don't want to be on trial for mass murder.
It's what the caseworker would call an approach/avoidance situation.
Whatever I say about cologne, the entourage will repeat to the police if he turns up choked to death.
At four-thirty, we're backstage at the stadium with the folding tables and catered food and the rented wardrobe, the tuxes and the wedding dress hanging on racks, and the agent is still alive and asking me what I plan to proclaim as my big half time miracle.
I'm not telling.
"But is it big?" the agent wants to know.
It's big.
It's big enough to make every man in this stadium want to kick my ass.
The agent looks at me, one eyebrow raised, frowning.
The miracle I have is so big it will take every policeman in this city to keep the crowds from killing me. I don't tell the agent that. I don't say how that's the idea. The police will have their hands so full keeping me alive, they won't be able to arrest me for murder. I don't tell the agent that part.
At five o'clock, the agent is still alive, and I'm getting strapped into a white tuxedo with a white bow tie. The justice of the peace comes up and tells me everything is under control. All I have to do is breathe in and out.
The bride comes over in her wedding dress, rubbing petroleum jelly up and down her ring finger, and says, "My name is Laura."
This isn't the girl who was in the limo from the day before.
"That was Trisha," the bride says. Trisha got sick so Laura is being her understudy. It's okay. I'll still be married to Trisha even though she's not here. Trisha is the one the agent still wants.
Laura says, "The cameras won't know." She's wearing a veil.
People are eating the food brought in by the caterer. Near the steel doors that open onto the sidelines, people from the florist are ready to hustle the altar out onto the football field. The candelabras. The bowers covered with white silk flowers. Roses and peonies and white sweet peas and stock, all of them brittle and sticky with hair spray to keep them stiff. The armload of silk bouquet for the bride to carry is silk gladioli and white poly-silk dahlias and tulips trailing yards of white silk honeysuckle.
All of it looks beautiful and real if you're far enough away.
The field lights are bright, the makeup artist says, and gives me a huge red mouth.
At six o'clock, the Super Bowl begins. It's football. It's the Cardinals against the Colts.
Five minutes into the first quarter, it's Colts six, Cardinals zero, and the agent is still alive.
Near the steel doors that open into the stadium are the altar boys and bridesmaids dressed as angels, flirting and smoking cigarettes.
With the Colts on their forty-yard line, it's their second down and six, and the post-event scheduler is briefing me how I'll spend my honeymoon on a seventeen-city tour to promote the books, the games, the dashboard statuette. Founding my own major world religion isn't out of the picture. A world tour is in the works now that the pesky question about my having sex is covered. The plan includes goodwill tours to Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Argentina, the British Virgin Islands, and New Guinea, with me getting back to the United States in time to see my first child born.
Just so there's nothing left to guesswork, the coordinator tells me the agent has taken certain liberties to make sure my wife will have our first child at the end of my nine-month tour.
Long-range planning calls for my wife to have six, maybe seven children, a model Creedish family.
The events coordinator says I won't have to lift a finger.
This will be immaculate conception, as far as I'm involved.
The field lights are way too bright, the makeup artist says, and smears my cheeks with red.
At the end of the first quarter, the agent comes by to make me sign some papers. Profit-sharing documents, the agent tells me. The party known as Tender Branson, to be hereafter known as The Victim, grants the party hereafter known as The Agent the power to receive and distribute all monies payable to the Tender Branson Media and Merchandising Syndicate, including but not limited to book sales, broadcast programming, artwork, live performances, and cosmetics, namely men's cologne.
"Sign here," the agent says.