Brain Drain Read online

  “No, the story shows.”

  “Soap operas?”

  “They are called that. He particularly likes one called As the Planet Revolves, featuring a person named Rad Rex.”

  “Rad Rex, hmmmm?” said Wanda. “All right. Here’s what we do. First, we’re going to knock them off one at a time. That’s sounder planning.”

  “If you say so, precious. But how will I be able to do that?”

  “You’ve got to give me a little time to handle that. I’ve got something in mind. Rad Rex, hmmm?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE HAD IT, AND IF they wanted it, they were going to pay for it. Dammit, it was that simple to Rad Rex so why wasn’t it that simple to his asshole agents at the Maurice Williams Agency too and those goddam assholes at the network.

  A half hour show, five days a week, fifty–two weeks a year, and every twittering clit in the country must be watching As the Planet Revolves between two thirty and three o’clock every day. Well, if he was going to continue to play Dr. Wyatt Winston—one–time physicist and now a noted surgeon—they were going to pay him for it. That was it. Case closed. Roma locuta est.

  For heaven’s sake, he hoped they didn’t think he was playing that insipid macho twit because he liked to. Money. Pure and simple. And if they didn’t want to pay for it, let them get somebody else. Try Rock or Roddy or Rip or Rory. There were plenty of good actors around.

  Rad Rex stood up from the violet couch and went to the bar in the leather–walled living room to make himself a banana daiquiri.

  He walked carefully, as if he were setting his feet down on two rows of uncooked eggs and trying not to crack them. The overall impression was one of a man who would be at home in ballet slippers.

  He hurt, and it was his own fault. He had put on his dark mustache and dark wig to cover his strawberry–blond curly hair and had gone to a leather bar on the West Side last night and wound up doing a fist number for the rough trade, and he hurt. He would not do that again. This time he meant it. Suppose he had been recognized? Suppose he had wound up with his face smashed?

  He put the drink’s ingredients in the blender, carefully covered it so nothing would splatter on his green suede suit, then turned the switch. He held his hand on the blender as it whirred the drink to life. He giggled. It felt like a vibrator. He giggled again.

  “Vibrators I have known and loved,” he said to himself.

  “How can one love a vibrator?” The voice was metallic and hollow and sounded to Rad Rex as if a wall were speaking to him. He spun around.

  But the apartment was empty. He looked around carefully and felt gooseflesh grow on his shoulders and neck. Empty. But that had been a voice, dammit, a voice.

  He swept his eyes around the living room again, then shrugged. It was getting to him. The pressure of these interminable negotiations over a new contract was just becoming too much.

  Rad Rex poured his drink into a Waterford crystal goblet and took it back to the couch, holding the drink away from his side so the condensation didn’t drip onto his suit. After the negotiations were over, he was going to take a vacation. That was all. He needed to get away. Two weeks would be nice. Maybe Sausalito. Or Puerto Vallarta. Any place where people didn’t watch television.

  Anyplace where he could be free to be he. Where he could be free to be heing–and–heing.

  He giggled again, then stopped, sipped from his daiquiri and spilled a large mouthful all over his green suede trousers when the hollow voice came again: “You have telephone messages.”

  The voice was very close this time and it was metallic. He did not turn around. If the owner of the voice looked like the voice sounded, he did not want to see him.

  “Who’s there?” he said, staring resolutely at his bar, hoping to catch a glimpse of something in the polished stainless steel door of the refrigerator cabinet, as if a reflection would not be as dangerous to him as an eyes–on view.

  “Get your telephone messages,” the voice answered.

  The telephone was at Rad Rex’s right hand. He carefully placed his drink down atop a thin marble coaster on the glass and driftwood table, then pressed the button for the recorder attached to his telephone. As he always did when nervous, he twirled they key he wore on a chain on the left side of his trousers.

  The tape whirred, gabbling excitedly backwards, and then the gabbling stopped and he knew he had reached the end of the message. He pressed the talk button and turned up the volume. He stared in the refrigerator door again but saw nothing. He picked up his glass again and sank back into the couch. The velvet cushions were soft, and they enveloped his shoulders like a lover. It was one of the reasons he had designed the couch just that way. To soothe. To relax. For a moment he forgot the voice he thought he had heard.

  “Listen to your messages,” came the voice again and Rex felt the gooseflesh on his neck and sat up straight. Dammit, this was absurd. He would turn around and see who was talking to him. Imagine, talking to someone in your own living room—and being, yes, afraid, to turn around and see who it was. He would turn around. Right now.

  He did not turn around.

  He sat there and felt the uncomfortable beads of sweat begin to form on his forehead.

  The recorder spoke.

  “Hiya, Rad, love. Eat anything good lately?”

  It was that bitch again, that Wanda Reidel. If he hated anything in the world, it was nasty hard women who acted like men. This was the third call in as many days. Well, he would not call that woman. Agent problem or no agent problem, he simply would not have anything to do with that woman. Not ever.

  “This is Wanda, precious one, and I’ve been trying to reach you for three days.” The voice turned sad. “And you haven’t called me. I’m beginning to think you don’t love me anymore.”

  The voice paused as if awaiting an answer.

  “Well, we’ll let bygones be bygones,” she said, “because I’m going to do something for you. I know you’re having contract problems, Rad honey, and I’m in a position to help you.”

  Rad Rex sipped his drink. “Sure you are. Probably flat on your back under some network bigshot,” he growled softly.

  “Just listen,” came the metallic voice from somewhere very close to his left ear. He listened.

  “I’ve decided to offer you my services. This will help both of us. First, I’m moving into the New York television market. Second, with my contacts out here on the coast, your next stop is a starring role in films. Celluloid, honey. The real thing. Let’s face it. You’re too good to spend the rest of your life in a doctor’s smock doing five–a–week soaps.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Rad Rex whispered softly. Not softly enough.

  “I will not tell you again, schmuck. Just listen.” The metallic voice again.

  “Anyway, love, Rad darling, we can help each other. I move into the New York market. You get the best agent in the world and my guarantee, my personal, rock hard—that’s the way you like it, honey, isn’t it? Rock hard?—guarantee that your next stop is a film. A budget biggie. No crap. What can those shlubs at Maurice Williams do for you like that? What have they done for you? Remember, sweets, they’ve got a lot of their people on contract with your network. You think they’re going to rock the boat? Fight for you and hurt their other clients?”

  The Octopussy had struck a nerve. It was probably true, Rad Rex thought. Probably true. Those bastards at the agency were selling him out, just to protect some nickel and dimers. Trade off old Rad Rex. Get him to work for spit and the network brass would wink and promise, without ever having to say a word, that they’d make it up to the agency with some of the other contracts coming up for renegotiation. Oh. those dirty bastards. It was true. Rad Rex knew it was true. If only Wanda Reidel weren’t such a pushy bitch.

  “Anyway, love, I’m sending my right–hand man, a Mr. Gordons, to come and see you. He’ll have a contract with him. Sign it like a good boy, and then Wanda will have her crack at that network brass. But remember the
big picture, Rad. The big picture. For you, it’s Hollywood. Significance. Fame. Power. They’re waiting for you, honey.” She paused. “Kiss, kiss. And if it’s really good looking, kiss it for me, too.”

  She laughed a braying laugh, and then the recorder clicked itself off.

  “Cesspool cunt,” said Rad Rex, finishing his drink.

  “That is no way to speak about your benefactress.”

  Rad Rex still did not turn around. “Are you this Mr. Gordon?” he asked, carefully placing his empty goblet on the marble coaster.

  “The name is Mr. Gordons. Yes, I am he.” Rad Rex turned around casually on the sofa, moving slowly, allowing himself to be able to recoil swiftly if he should have to.

  The look of nervous apprehension on his face changed smoothly to a smile when he saw the man standing there. He was in his mid–thirties with light blond hair, carefully curled over his forehead in a Caesar cut. The man wore a tan suede jacket and dark brown linen slacks and open–toed sandals without socks. He was shirtless and his jacket was open, and on his bare chest he wore a huge silver pendant with an equal sign inscribed on it.

  But what brought the smile was the man’s key. He wore a plain gold key, hanging from a small chain that draped into his left front pocket and while many people wore many kinds of things nowadays which not did not really tell you a great deal about them, the key in the left pocket meant something very specific to Rad Rex. Mr. Gordons was a kindred spirit.

  Rad Rex stood up and smiled, trying to dazzle Mr. Gordons with his display of orthodontia. Yes, Mr. Gordons was a good–looking young man. And he looked soft. It might be nice.

  “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “I do not drink,” said Mr. Gordons. He did not smile back. “I have brought a contract from Wanda.”

  He held up a sheaf of papers in his right hand. Rex put up a hand in dismissal. “Plenty of time to talk about that later, love. You don’t mind if I have one, do you?”

  “Your drinking habits are no concern of mine.” God, it was eerie how the voice was clipped and precise and almost sounded as if it came from a robot. “I have come to have you sign this contract.”

  Rad Rex smiled to himself. He was not going to be pushed into signing any contract. The last time he had been pushed into anything was a few years earlier when a gang of Mafia goons had shown up at his studio and caused labor trouble and raised hell and finally forced Rad Rex to write a message on a picture of himself that was going to a fan. At the time it had been frightening. Later it became silly. The Mafia? For an autographed picture? Ridiculous. But at the time, Rex was scared.

  He was younger then. He would not be pushed anymore. Not by the network, not by Wanda Reidel, not by this Mr. Gordons, no matter how cute he was.

  Rex pushed the ingredients into his blender and made another daiquiri. He turned again to face Mr. Gordons, leaning back against the bar on his left elbow, legs crossed at the ankles, holding his glass in his right hand, away from the suit, eyelids set at sleepy half–mast, faint smile on his lips.

  “I hope drinking is the only vice you don’t have,” he said softly.

  “All right, fag,” said Mr. Gordons. “My tolerance with you is about to end. You may finish consuming your drink and then you will sign this contract.”

  “Hold on, fella,” said Rex. Not fag. He wasn’t going to be called that. Not in his own apartment. “You don’t have to be here you know. I’ll throw you out on your sweet little heinie.” He pointed to the wall behind Mr. Gordons from which hung a karate gi and an assortment of yawara sticks, Oriental hand–fighting implements. “Those are mine, pal. I’m a black belt so just watch it, or you’ll be out on your duff.”

  “I will be no such thing. You will sign this contract.”

  “Fuck off,” said Rad Rex. Forget him. Mr. Gordons’ key was a fake. He was a fake, working for a fake, and Rex was not going to bother with fakes. He carefully unarranged his legs, turned from Mr. Gordons and sat on a stool at the bar. He set his glass down on the wooden bar top. He looked at his face in the refrigerator door. He saw Mr. Gordons move slowly and silently alongside him.

  Let him. Rad Rex would not turn around. He would not dignify this imposter twerp by arguing with him. Let him go back to Hollywood and sink a pork injection into that disgusting Octopussy that he worked for. Let him argue. Let him plead. Rad Rex was immovable, as unchanging as the very gods.

  Mr. Gordons did not try to argue with Rad Rex. He reached his hand in front of the actor and encircled the Waterford goblet. Rex watched the delicate, almost hairless hand settle around the glass. Good. Maybe he was going to loosen up. He turned to look at Mr. Gordons, a small flicker of good–natured hope at the corners of his mouth. Mr. Gordons was not smiling and not looking at him. He was looking at his own right hand on the goblet.

  Crack! The sound startled Rex. He looked back at Mr. Gordons’ hand. The glass had been crushed. The yellow goop of the daiquiri puddled on the bar top. Chunks of expensive crystal sat in the spilled drink, like miniature icebergs in a thick yellow sea.

  Mr. Gordons still had much of the glass in his hand. Rex watched, fascinated, as Gordons continued to squeeze. He could hear the big glass chips cracking into smaller glass chips. God. That was it. The man was a pain freak. A blood nut. His hand must be like hamburger now. The breaking crystal sounded like the tinkle of very small bells very far away.

  Mr. Gordons opened his hand slowly. The expensive Irish crystal was now reduced to a dull white powder, uniform and small, almost like table salt. Gordons dropped the powder onto the bar. Rex looked in astonishment. Mr. Gordons’ hand was unmarked. Not a cut. Not a scratch. Not a drop of blood.

  He looked at Gordons. Gordons looked at him.

  “I can do the same thing to your skull, fag. Now sign the contract.”

  Rex looked at the pile of crystal dust on the bar. He looked at the unmarked palm of Mr. Gordons’ right hand and he reached over the bar for a pen and began to sign the three copies of the contract without even reading them.

  Wetness collected along his lower back near the base of his spine. He could not remember the last time he had felt that unpleasant moisture.

  Yes, he could. It was that day years before with those Mafia goons who wanted that picture autographed. What was it he had written that day? An autographed picture to a special fan.

  He remembered the inscription because he had done it twice before he had gotten it right. “Chiun. To the wisest, most wonderful, kindhearted, humble, sensitive gift of mankind. Undying respect. Rad Rex.”

  Strange he should think of that now.

  CHAPTER NINE

  GERALD O’LAUGHLIN FLINN SIGNALED the waiter for another round of Bloody Marys.

  “Not me, dearest,” said Wanda Reidel. “One’s my limit when I’m working.”

  Flinn flashed her a smile so bright it looked as if his teeth had been painted with refrigerator enamel. “Oh,” he said casually, “you’re working today? And I thought this was just a social call.”

  Wanda Reidel smiled back, a smile as warm as a codfish’s skin.

  “And you’re as full of shit as a Christmas goose,” she said, still smiling and using the tine of her appetizer fork to pluck a piece of Alaskan king crab from between two right front teeth. “When an agent like me and the number one negotiations honcho for a big network like you get together, it’s always business.”

  The waiter with the name tag “Ernesto” returned with the two drinks. Flinn took them from the tray and put them both in front of his own plate.

  “Would you like anything, dear?” he asked Wanda.

  She looked up at the waiter, a young, well–groomed vaguely foreign man with dark wavy hair and skin with a faint olive tinge.

  “There are a lot of things I’d like,” she said, her eyes fixed on the young waiter’s, “but they’ll have to wait.” The waiter smiled and nodded. He turned away.

  “Just a minute,” she said. He turned back.

  “I’ll have a dish of ice
cream. What kind of ice cream do you have?”

  “What kind would Mademoiselle desire?” the young man asked in flavored English.

  “Mademoiselle, God, Mademoiselle would like rum raisin.” She turned to Flinn. “Do you know I haven’t had rum raisin ice cream in twenty years? Do you know I’d do anything for a dish of rum raisin?” Back to the waiter. “Anything. I don’t suppose you have rum raisin.”

  “We will locate some for Mademoiselle,” the young waiter said and moved smoothly away into the kitchen where he said to the maitre’d in a voice that was all Bronx: “You sure that bitch is worth all this trouble?”

  “That bitch can buy and sell you and seven generations of your family, Ernie,” said the maitre’d.

  “Then I gotta go over to Baskin–Robbins and find some rum raisin ice cream. She wants rum raisin ice cream, for Christ’s sake. Nobody eats rum raisin ice cream. What’s wrong with that tub of shit?”

  “If she wants rum raisin, you find rum raisin,” said the maitre’d.

  As Ernie went to the door, the maitre’d called, “If Baskin–Robbins doesn’t have it, find the nearest Howard Johnson’s. Hurry up. Take a cab if you have to. And while you’re looking, I’ll mix some up.”

  “Mix it up?”

  “I guess so,” the maitre’d shrugged. “What’s in it? Vanilla, rum, and raisins, I guess. We’ll try. But you try to get it first.”

  “How much do you want?” asked the waiter.

  “Better get a gallon. She ate three portions of king crab. That garbage pail’ll probably eat the whole gallon.”

  Back at the table, Gerald O’Laughlin Flinn finished half of the first Bloody Mary and said, “Well, if this is business, what is this business about?”

  “Rad Rex.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Flinn, reminding himself to be cautious. “Very pleasant, fellow, Rad. But he seems to have some inflated ideas of the economics of daytime television.” He looked at Wanda, blandly wondering what the Octopussy wanted with him and why she was interested in Rad Rex. Christ, the fruitcake wasn’t even a stud for her.