Stuart Kaminsky - Show Business is Murder

Of course, I say. Anything for my dear MacCready.

When I return, he has already tucked into the oysters, the shells are piling up on the tablecloth. I sit down and reach for one of my own, my eyes on MacCready. I watch his side of the plate of oysters disappear as I eat. I don’t want to miss a moment of the great man’s death scene.

And then it begins. His hand goes to his throat, his eyes bulge. I feel my own eyes bulge in response. He begins to shake and I shake with him. His eyes are on me now, and mine on his. His body convulses, racked with spasms. I feel his pain. I clutch at my stomach. MacCready is a blur across the table, writhing. We move together, my rhythm, his rhythm. Locked together in a synthesis of the inevitable. It is glorious, this searing, horrible joining. We cry out and our voices commingle over the table.

He pushes to his feet. His chair crashes to the floor. I try to stand, but the pain is too intense. I grope for the table, but my fingers are frozen claws that will not move. He leans forward, peering into my face. He is swaying over me. But no, it is I who am swaying, not MacCready. I whose entrails are on fire.

I see my hand rise in the air, the fingers grasping. MacCready’s fingers grasp the air across the table, mimicking mine.

My hand clutches my throat. MacCready clutches his. My throat is an oyster shell, being ground and crushed and seared with flame. I can not think. I fall back in my chair, watch my legs jerk and twitch beneath me. Fire engulfs me. I hear the rattle of someone choking. I try to scream but my throat closes on the sound. My arms flail outward, then fall limp at my sides. I search for MacCready, my eyes darting about as if controlled by another. At last they latch onto his solid figure and I understand.

Across the table, MacCready is watching…

THE PHONE RANGand Mitch Renadine jumped a foot. Running across his living room-how had the phone gotten way over there? -he felt as if he were moving in slow motion.

It was his mother calling. “I can’t talk long, Ma. I’m on the bubble.”

“On the bubble? And what does that mean?”

Mitch sighed, not in the mood for a long explanation. “The network is setting up its fall schedule. Some shows have been cancelled. Some have been renewed. But they haven’t decided on Muldoon yet. We’re waiting to hear, one way or the other. Out here that’s called being on the bubble.”

She was outraged. “But your show is in the top twenty, Mickey! How could they think of canceling it?”

Good old Mom. She was the only person in the world who still called him Mickey. Also, the only person who thought Muldoon was a hit.

Yes, the show reached the top twenty-sometimes. But it followed a program that usually made the top ten. That meant millions of people hit the remote control as soon as they saw Mitch’s smiling face. The network assumed that Muldoon was doing as well as it was only because of the strength of its lead-in.

“I love you, Mom. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.” He hung up and checked for messages. No one else had called. Damn.

Mitch stepped out onto the deck and took a deep breath. There was a beautiful view and he had paid dearly for it. Maybe he shouldn’t have spent so much on a house up here in the hills above Laurel Canyon, living like he was already an established star, instead of a near-unknown fronting a rookie TV show.

But damn it, he had paid his dues. He had parked cars, painted houses, done a thousand auditions for a thousand bit parts. And now that he had a starring role-as a tough but caring police lieutenant-why shouldn’t he live like a star?

Like Lou Garlyle, for instance. Mitch looked down the mountain at his neighbor’s estate. Lou lived down the hill, yes, but his home had a pool. And Lou had a live-in servant.

They were stars on the same network, but at opposite ends of their careers. Lou had come to TV after twenty years as a movie star when a string of high-budget bombs left his career flailing. For Mitch, TV was a first chance, for Lou it was a last one.

Now they were both on the bubble, waiting to see if their shows would be renewed. Who would sink when the bubble burst, and who would float.

He wondered where Lou was now. Most days when his neighbor wasn’t working he sat by his pool, drinking.

“I’m so glad these little fellas are back in style,” he had told Mitch one night as he poured another martini. It was the tail-end of one of Lou’s many parties and they were sitting beside the pool. “A few years ago if you ordered anything but wine or spring water in this town they pegged you for a drunk.”

Lou was a drunk, of course, getting smashed almost every night. But to his credit, it had never affected his work. Some critics suggested that that had to do with the quality of his work at the best of times, but you couldn’t argue with good box office and Lou had always had it. Always, that was, until a few years ago, and then he had flawlessly made the jump to television.

“That’s the thing about styles, Mitch,” he had continued. “They can change overnight. Take you and me, for instance.”

“What about us?”

“We’re actors of a certain style.” Lou waved a hand. “I don’t mean a school of acting or anything fancy like that. I mean that you and I are both born to play action heroes. Nobody is ever going to ask jokers who look like us to play Hamlet.” He bent over and picked up a big knife, one of at least a dozen of the ugly things he kept lying around his house.

Lou’s show was called Cutting Edge and he played a bodyguard whose favorite weapon was a throwing knife. He swore he kept them around the house for practice, to look more natural in front of the camera, but Mitch thought it was mostly a publicity gimmick. The photographers loved to show him sitting by the pool, flashing that famous smile and dangling one of those lethal-looking blades like a toy. Mitch had also noticed that at the end of the evening when Lou wanted his guests to leave he could always start tossing blades around.

“How does that relate to style?” Mitch had asked.

“Sometimes action heroes are fashionable. Sometimes sensitive weepy guys are more popular. Four years ago my show went on the air and caught the tail end of the last macho revival. Now your show is fighting against the tide.”

Lou had sipped at his drink. “The big trend today is the so-called reality programming-quiz shows, talk shows, lock-ten-people-in-a-room-and-see-who-cracks shows. That’s what we’re up against, Mitch. You have to know your enemy. And know who your friends are, too.”

“Who has friends?” Mitch retorted. “This is Hollywood.”

The older man laughed. “Touché. Let’s say, at least, that you can have allies. People who share a common goal.” He tossed his knife casually in the air and it came down a few inches from Mitch’s sandaled foot. Mitch made a point of not moving his leg. “Damn. Sorry.”

If we’re such good allies, Mitch thought, why don’t you retire and get the hell out of my way?

THAT HAD BEENback in December, not long after Muldoon was picked up for the second half of the season. Now it was April and Mitch was still waiting to hear if the show would be stay on for another year. And Lou was in the same boat.

His agent called to announce every new blip on the radar. “They cancelled Lucky Day, Mitch.”

“That’s great, Si.”

“Maybe. Not if they’re gonna reshuffle the whole Monday schedule. And they renewed Puppet Wars. ”

“That’s bad.”

“Not necessarily. It’s an 8 P.M. show, so it’s not likely to push us out of our slot.”