into my drink. Since we’re not on the record, what was your one interrogatory? Let’s start with that.”
“All right,” Cheyney said. “How did you get into the broadcast complex, and how did you get into Studio C?”
“Those are two questions.”
“I apologize.”
Paladin smiled faintly.
“I got on the property and into the studio,” he said, “the same way I’ve been getting on the property and into the studio for over twenty years.
My pass. Plus the fact that I know every security guard in the place.
Shit, I’ve been there longer than most of them.”
“May I see that pass?” Cheyney asked. His voice was quiet, but a large pulse beat in his throat.
Paladin looked at him warily for a moment, then pulled out the lizard-skin wallet again. After a moment of rifling, he tossed a perfectly correct NBC Performer’s Pass onto the coffee table.
Correct, that was, in every way but one.
Cheyney crushed out his smoke, picked it up, and looked at it. The pass was laminated. In the corner was the NBC peacock, something only long-timers had on their cards. The face in the photo was the face of Edward Paladin. Height and weight were
correct. No space for eye-color, hair-color, or age, of course; when you were dealing with ego. Walk softly, stranger, for here there be tygers.
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The only problem with the pass was that it was salmon pink.
NBC Performer’s Passes were bright red.
Cheyney had seen something else while Paladin was looking for his pass. “Could you put a one-dollar bill from your wallet on the coffee table there?” he asked softly.
“Why?”
“I’ll show you in a moment,” Cheyney said. “A five or a ten would do as well.”
Paladin studied him, then opened his wallet again. He took back his pass, replaced it, and carefully took out a one-dollar bill. He turned it so it faced Cheyney. Cheyney took his own wallet (a scuffed old Lord Buxton with its seams unravelling; he should replace it but found it easier to think of than to do) from his jacket pocket, and removed a dollar bill of his own. He put it next to Paladin’s, and then turned them both around so Paladin could see them right-side-up-so Paladin could study them.
Which Paladin did, silently, for almost a full minute. His face slowly flushed dark red…and then the color slipped from it a little at a time.
He’d probably meant to bellow WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?
Cheyney thought later, but what came out was a breathless little gasp:
“ – what – ”
“I don’t know,” Cheyney said.
On the right was Cheyney’s one, gray-green, not brand-new by any means, but new enough so that it did not yet have that rumpled, limp, shopworn look of a bill which has changed hands many times. Big number 1’s at the top corners, smaller 1’s at the bottom corners.
FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE in small caps between the top 1’s and THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in larger ones. The letter A in a seal to the left of Washington, along with the assurance that THIS NOTE IS
LEGAL TENDER, FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. It was a series 1985 bill, the signature that of James A. Baker III.
Paladin’s one was not the same at all.
The 1’s in the four corners were the same; THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA was the same; the assurance that the bill could be used to pay all public and private debts was the same.
But Paladin’s one was a bright blue.
Instead of FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE it said CURRENCY OF
GOVERNMENT. Instead of the letter A was the letter F. But most of all it was the picture of the man on the bill that drew Cheyney’s attention, just as the picture of the man on Cheyney’s bill drew Paladin’s.
Cheyney’s gray-green one showed George Washington.
Paladin’s blue one showed James Madison.
175
AN EVENING AT GOD’S
An unpublished one-minute play auctioned off at the Hasty Pudding Theatre on April 23, 1990 to benefit the American Repertory Theater’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training .
DARK STAGE. Then a spotlight hits a papier-mache globe, spinning all by itself in the middle of darkness. Little by little, the stage lights COME
UP, and we see a bare-stage representation of a living room: an easy chair with a table beside it (there’s an open bottle of beer on the table), and a console TV across the room. There’s a picnic cooler-full of beer under the table. Also, a great many empties. GOD is feeling pretty good.
At stage left, there’s a door.
GOD – a big guy with a white beard – is sitting in the chair, alternately reading a book (When Bad Things Happen to Good People) and watching the tube. He has to crane whenever he wants to look at the set, because the floating globe (actually hung on a length of string, I imagine) is in his line of vision. There’s a sitcom on TV. Every now and then GOD chuckles along with the laugh-track.
There is a knock at the door.
GOD ( big amplified voice) Come in! Verily, it is open unto you!
The door opens. In comes ST. PETER, dressed in a snazzy white robe.
He’s also carrying a briefcase.
GOD Peter! I thought you were on vacation!
ST. PETER Leaving in half an hour, but I thought I’d bring the papers for you to sign. How are you, GOD?
GOD Better. I should know better than to eat those chili peppers. They burn me at both ends. Are those the letters of transmission from hell?
ST. PETER Yes, finally. Thank GOD. Excuse the pun.
He removes some papers from his briefcase. GOD scans them, then holds out his hand impatiently, ST PETER has been looking at the floating globe. He looks back, sees GOD is waiting, and puts a pen in 176
his out-stretched hand. GOD scribbles his signature. As he does, ST.
PETER goes back to gazing at the globe.
ST. PETER So Earth’s still there, Huh? After All these years.
GOD hands the papers back and looks up at it. His gaze is rather irritated.
GOD Yes, the housekeeper is the most forgetful bitch in the universe.
An EXPLOSION OF LAUGHTER from the TV. GOD cranes to see. Too late.
GOD Damn, was that Alan Alda?
ST. PETER It may have been, sir – I really couldn’t see.
GOD Me, either.
He leans forward and crushes the floating globe to powder.
GOD ( immensely satisfied) There. Been meaning to do that for a long time. Now I can see the TV…
ST. PETER looks sadly at the crushed remains of the earth.
ST. PETER Umm…I believe that was Alan Alda’s world, GOD.
GOD So? ( Chuckles at the TV) Robin Williams! I love Robin Williams!
ST. PETER I believe both Alda and Williams were on it when you..umm…passed Judgment,
sir.
GOD Oh, I’ve got all the videotapes. No problem. Want a beer?
As ST. PETER takes one, the stage-lights begin to dim. A spotlight come up on the remains on the globe.
ST. PETER I actually sort of liked that one, GOD – Earth, I mean.
GOD It wasn’t bad, but there’s more where that came from. Now –
let’s drink to your vacation!
177
They are just shadows in the dimness now, although it’s a little easier to see GOD, because there’s a faint nimbus of light around his head. They clink bottles. A roar of laughter from the TV.
GOD Look! It’s Richard Pryor! That guy kills me! I suppose he was…
ST. PETER Ummm… yessir.
GOD Shit. ( Pause) Maybe I better cut Down on my drinking. ( Pause) Still…It was in the way.
Fade to black, except for the spotlight on the ruins of the floating globe.
ST. PETER Yessir.
GOD ( muttering) My son got back, didn’t he?
ST. PETER Yessir, some time ago.
GOD Good. Everything’s hunky-dory, then.