“Greek tragedy in a biblical story?” Franklin asked, without a smile.
“The elements only,” Fox said, undeterred. “I mean the psychic components. The recurring themes that comprise the psychic and intellectual substrate of the literature of the world from the beginning. And it is all here in this story.”
“What’s it called?”
“Shock Murder,” Fox said. And then he added, “You have to add something for the masses.”
“Uh-huh,” Franklin said.
I sat at my table and had my bacon and eggs. Over in a corner, Mann was talking with Claude and not looking my way. Mann was sniffling and seemed edgy. Sally was nowhere to be seen.
I distantly heard Mann saying, “What time?”
“No later than nine,” Claude responded. “We have the first setup at eight, and then we’ll shoot in the next hour.”
“An hour?”
“It’s a dangerous stunt.”
“That’s what he’s paid for,” Mann said.
Claude went over to see Millie, who was messy as usual. He said something to Millie, and she nodded and made a note in her book. Then Claude came over to me.
“Sorry to hear you’re leaving us,” he said, his face looking appropriately sad.
“I’m not,” I said.
“I thought Mann adiosed you.”
“Greenblatt rehired me.”
“Does the sniffer know that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Must feel good to be in the middle,” Claude said, with a smile. He was often in the middle himself, because a UPM is smack in the center of pressures exerted by the director, the producer, the stars, and the studio. Claude lived with those conflicting pressures all his life.
But I didn’t, and it was true—I didn’t like it. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, you know.”
“Tell me about it,” Claude said. “By the way, can’t we get rid of Fox?”
“I don’t know how. Franklin can close the set, I suppose. That’s the only way.”
“You can’t lay it off on Franklin.”
“It’s the only way.”
Claude shrugged. “I guess we live with him. You heard anything from the lawyers or the insurance people?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I gather there’s still negotiations.”
At that moment, Brenda walked in for breakfast with an elderly man dressed entirely in black: black sport coat, black turtleneck, black slacks, black glasses. It set off his full head of white hair rather spectacularly. He was the flashiest old man I’d seen in a long time.
But that was only half the surprise. The other half was that Brenda never showed up for breakfast in the dining room. She always ate in her room upstairs. And she was never in the company of a male over the age of twenty.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Her shrink,” Claude said. “Flew out from Couch Canyon last night.”
