Timothy Hallinan - Incinerator

“I wouldn’t expect you to know her personally,” Stillman said avuncularly.

“And your expectations would be correct,” I said.

“But you know who she is.”

Indeed I did. Velez Caputo was a svelte, acutely intelligent middle-thirties Chicana who helped 20 or 30 million Americans waste their afternoons five days a week. Into her viewers’ living rooms, with chronological predictability, Caputo brought an unending parade of rapists, batterers, batterees, bigamists, trigamists, transvestites, and people who enjoyed dressing as members of other species, who spent ninety minutes happily calling national attention to what should have been their deepest secrets. And Americans tuned in by the millions to see the country’s newest subculture: the proudly weird.

“I never miss Velez’s show,” I said, “unless I can help it.”

Eleanor laughed, but Stillman was beyond listening. “Velez has a concept, a brilliant concept, one that will make television history. What are the two most popular kinds of shows on the air today?”

“Norman,” I said, sipping my coffee, “how the hell would I know? The last time I watched television, Raymond Burr could still see his feet.”

“True-life crime shows and game shows,” he said promptly.

“That’s depressing.”

“So what do you think Velez’s concept is?” He liked to ask questions.

“A true-life crime game show,” I said. Eleanor held her nose. Bravo looked at her expectantly, waiting for the next move in the game.

“A true-life crime game show,” Stillman said triumphantly. “What do you think?”

“I’m speechless.”

“So do you see where I’m going?”

“To the bank, probably.” I drained the rest of my coffee and held the cup out. Eleanor poured part of hers into it.

“The format’s already in the can. Three contestants, Velez as hostess, of course, footage from some true-life crime with clues planted here and there, three suspects. One of them is the real-life crook.”

I drank the coffee and grimaced. Eleanor, despite her New Age convictions, put enough sugar in her coffee to rot a tyrannosaurus’s teeth.

“The home audience sees one or two clues the contestants don’t see, just to make them feel smart,” Stillman said rhapsodically. “The audience always has to feel smarter than the contestants,” he added, reciting the time-honored dictum of game-show producers all over the world. “The jerks should always be sitting at home slapping their foreheads and swearing over how much money they’d be winning if they were in the studio.”

“And the winner gets a date with the crook.”

“That’s what’s so brilliant,” Stillman said. “The winner gets a reward that’s posted at the beginning of the show. Remember Wanted posters?”

I looked at my watch. If I was going to quit the case, now was the time to do it. “Look,” I said, “you can’t imagine how exciting this is, being on the inside like this. It’s almost as good as having a subscription to Broadcasting. But what’s it got to do with me?”

“Advisers,” he said, a bit petulantly. “We’ll need advisers. Somebody to help us reconstruct the crime scenes, plant the clues, guide Velez in her prompts to the contestants. So whaddya say?”

“I’d say it’s a lot of work for a penny.”

“Twenty-five hundred a week,” he said.

I began to whistle again. Eleanor winced. I can’t whistle on key.

“Three if you work out,” Stillman said, a bit too hastily. “Maybe thirty-five if the show goes.”

“ If the show goes? Norman, have you got a show or not?”

“I told you,” he said, sounding huffy, “the format’s in the can, plus we’ve got Velez. Come on, it’s a certified check. There’s just a few little wrinkles to work out.”

“Like selling it?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “We still have to sell it, of course.”

I waited. He waited, too. While I was waiting, I polished the phone with my shirt. I was working on the earpiece when I realized he was talking, so I put it back to my ear.

“… only exploratory, of course, just to see if you’re interested. You’re at the top of my list.”

“Norman,” I said. “The sun is approaching its zenith. I have a beautiful woman with me. It’s Sunday, for Christ’s sake. Why in God’s name are you calling?”

He put a lot of work into a manly chuckle. “That’s why I thought of you,” he said. “ ‘Sharp,’ I said, ‘the boy’s sharp.’”

“Well, now that we’ve settled that I’m sharp,” I said, “what do you really want?”

There was the kind of silence that liars loathe.

“Ah,” Stillman said reluctantly, “there was one other thing.”

“I thought there might be.”

“First,” he said.

“What do you mean, first? If there’s only one other thing, how can what you’re about to say be first?”

“See?” he said. “See why I called you? ‘Sharp,’ I said. ‘The boy’s sharp.’”

“See?” I echoed. “See how sharp I am? See why I’m going to hang up?”

“Okay, there’s two things. About this dinkus with the lighter fluid.”

“Ah. As a great man once said-Jesus, I think it might have been you, Norman-‘The old penny drops.’”

“You’ll be great on the air. Will you do Velez’s show tomorrow? It’s about the people who track serial murderers. The title is ‘In Death’s Footsteps.’ Or maybe it’s ‘Footprints.’ Whaddya think? A thousand, cash.”

“No. I’m not going on Velez’s show.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Stillman said promptly. “I told Velez you’d say that. What about two thousand?”

“No. And second?”

“Um,” he said. I visualized him shining the buttons on his nautical blazer. Norman owned a yacht solely as an excuse for his taste in clothes and interior decorators. “Has any other producer called you?”

“Norman,” I said unctuously, “is there any other producer?”

“Not who’s worth talking to.”

“So talk.”

“If you get this dinkus,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “you hold back a couple of things for me. There’s nobody who can handle this kind of thing like Norman Stillman Productions. You play ball, we’ll do ninety minutes live on network the night after the dinkus gets jugged. We already got the title.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“‘The Fire Within,’” he said obliviously. “Or something like that. Bring me the right stuff, we’re talking six figures.”

“As in three comma three figures?” Eleanor arched her eyebrows.

“You got it.”

“What’s the first figure?” I asked, just out of curiosity.

“Ahhh,” Norman Stillman said, “that’s a detail. That’s for the bookkeepers.”

“Have your bookkeeper call me,” I said.

“Hey,” Stillman said apprehensively. He was working up to something better, but I didn’t hear it because I hung up.

“Who would have thought it?” I asked. “I get hired to find someone who’s torching the homeless, and people start throwing money at me. Come on, I’ve had cases that began and ended in Beverly Hills, and no one’s ever mentioned six figures before.”

“Six figures sounds good to me,” she said. “You’ve never had this kind of media attention before, either.”

“Public television hasn’t gotten to us yet,” I said, feeling momentarily optimistic.

“It’s their pledge week,” she said. “They’re on documentaries about baby pandas and the giant sea slug. They’re concentrating on endangered species. And Yanni.”

“I’m an endangered species,” I said, taking an emotional nosedive. “I’m in danger of being put out of business.”