John Scalzi - Agent to the Stars

The Steadicam operator lie sprawled on the pavement, out cold. None of the predominately male crew was paying even the slightest bit of attention to him.

"Oh, look," Don said. "An actual legitimate crisis." He turned to Elliot. "When I get back, I would really like to shoot this scene. Please try to have all your philosophical problems with it resolved by then." He sauntered toward the scene of the accident, angling towards the girl rather than the cameraman.

"Exciting day," I said, to Elliot.

He was gnawing on a thumb, still looking at the script. "Are you sure that this isn't going to be a problem with this? I'm still sort of lost."

"It'll be fine, Elliot. Stop worrying about it. And stop gnawing on your thumbnail. You're going to make your manicurist miserable. Look, you said you wanted to talk. Here I am."

"Yeah, okay," Elliot said. He seemed distracted as we went back to his trailer.

As we entered his trailer, I was greeted by a life-size cutout of Elliot in his "beach volleyball" costume and shades, grinning toothily and holding a bottle of cologne. I had a brief flashback to my earlier conversation with Joshua. "Who's the handsome guy?" I said.

"Oh, that," Elliot said. He bent down to get a bottle of water out of his refrigerator. "The production company thinks we ought to branch out into other markets. So we're making a Pacific Rim cologne."

"Well, if Baywatch can do it, so can you," I said.

"Ours is different than the Baywatch cologne. It's made with real human pheromones."

"You're kidding," I said.

"No, man, really." Elliot reached up into an overhead compartment, grabbed a sample-sized cologne bottle, and handed it to me. "They're actually my pheromones, too."

I unscrewed the top and took a whiff. It smelled like I expected Joshua would smell like if he was left out in the sun too long. "Powerful," I said. "How did they get your pheromones, if you don't mind me asking?"

"They put me on a treadmill and then collected my sweat," Elliot said.

"Sounds delightful," I said.

Elliot shrugged. "It wasn't so bad. They let me watch videos while I exercised. Listen, I think we should see other people."

"What?" I said.

"I think we should see other people," Elliot said.

"Elliot, we're not going steady," I said, putting the top on the cologne and placing it on the near table. "Shucks, we've never even dated."

"You know what I mean," he said. "I've been thinking a lot about my future recently, and I sort of want to explore my options. See what else is out there. Tom, you know there's a lot of wild rumors going around about you at the moment."

"Great," I said, flopping into a chair. "The one week everyone reads The Biz is the week I'm on the cover."

"The Biz?" Elliot said.

"Yes, Elliot," I said. "You remember, the place where you read all those wild rumors."

"I didn't read anything about it," Elliot said. "I heard about most of it from Ben."

I sat up. "Who?"

"Ben," Elliot said.

"Ben Fleck? " I asked.

"Yeah," Elliot said. "You know him?"

"I can't believe this," I said. "I've been cherry-picked by Ben Fleck."

"He said that you've cracked up lately," Elliot said. "That you've been handing all your clients to other agents because of the stress. So I figured, if you're doing that anyway, might as well at least stay in the same company, where they know me."

"Elliot," I said. "I'm not cracking up. I'm fine. And I still want to be your agent. Look where you are now, Elliot. You're doing pretty well for yourself. Which means that I did pretty well for you. You don't just chuck that away because Ben Fleck calls you up and tells you I'm cracking up. You don't even know Ben, Elliot. He's an incompetent agent. Trust me on this one."

"Yeah," Elliot shrugged again. "Well, he says that he can get me into film, that I'm ready for the big film roles."

"Of course he would say that, Elliot. He knows that's what you want. That's what everybody wants."

"Well, what do you think? You think I'm ready for film roles?"

"Sure, some," I said, conveniently ignoring my previous plan to keep him strictly on television for the next season. "But you still need to build your base. You remember what happened to David Caruso when he jumped too soon. He had two flops and then he was squashed."

"Uh-huh," Elliot said. "Look, Tom. I know you don't think I'm a rocket scientist, but I'm not totally dumb. I'm 32 years old. I'm only making $50,000 an episode. I've got another four seasons on my contract. Where does that leave me?"

"With five million dollars?" I said.

"I can make that off of one movie, man," Elliot said. "32 is prime time in the movie business. I've got to strike now. Ben's ready to back me up on this, and I think I ought to take him up on that. You're right, it is what I want. I'm sorry, Tom."

There was a knock on the door. "We're ready, Elliot," Don said, through the door. "Put down that MENSA test and get on the set."

"Elliot," I said. "Think about this, all right? Don't decide anything right now."

"I got to go," Elliot said. "No hard feelings, Tom? It's just business."

It was my turn to shrug. I could see where this was going. "Sure, Elliot. No problem."

"Great," he said, and opened the door. "You know, you can keep that bottle of cologne."

"Thanks," I said. He smiled, closed the door behind him. I picked up the bottle of cologne and stared at it for a minute before I threw it against the far wall of the trailer. It shattered quite nicely.

Ben's administrative assistant, Monica, beamed at me prettily as I strode up.

"Hi, Monica," I said. "Ben wouldn't happen to be in at the moment, would he?"

"He is, but he's with a prospective client."

"Really," I said. "Anyone I know?"

"Do you know any Playmates on a personal basis?" Monica asked.

"Afraid not," I said.

"Then you don't know her," Monica said.

"I'll learn to get past the disappointment," I said.

"That's the spirit," Monica said. "You want me to tell him you dropped by?"

"That's all right," I said. "This will just take a minute." I stepped past her desk and walked into Ben's office.

Ben was sitting at his desk with the aforementioned Playmate in the guest chair. He smiled expansively at me. "Tom," he said. "What a surprise. Have you met Leigh? She's a Playmate."

"Not yet," Leigh piped, "Not until November."

"Something for us boys to look forward too, then," Ben said.

"Hello, Leigh," I said, shaking her hand. "It's pleasure to meet you. Excuse me for just one second, please." I turned, leaned over the desk, and sucker-punched Ben in the nose. I turned back to Leigh, who sat, stunned, watching as Ben yodeled in pain at his desk, holding his bleeding nose in his splayed fingers. I sat on the edge of Ben's desk and smiled winningly.

"So," I said. "Found an agent?"

Leigh ran screaming from the room. I turned back to Ben. He had fingers jammed into his nostrils to staunch the bleeding.

"You fucker," he said. "You broke my fucking nose!"

"You cherry-picked Elliot Young from me, Ben. I don't appreciate that very much. I also don't appreciate what you said about me in The Biz. Those were hurtful words. I was bothered. Since you don't have any clients I want, and I'm not planning to talk to the press, I had to do something to even up our ledgers. I think we're about even now, don't you?"

"You're totally fucking insane," Ben said. "Enjoy your last day as an agent, you asshole."

"Ben, let me make this clear to you," I said. "If you ever stick your nose in my business again, I'm going to work you over with a sledgehammer. I don't mean that figuratively. I literally mean that I will walk into this office, lock the door behind me, pull out a sledgehammer and work on you until your bones resemble gravel. Are we clear?"