“Shit,” I hiss quietly, looking behind me as I open the sliding glass door to find Grady still zonked out, dead to the world from our toe-sucking foot fest an hour or so earlier.I smirk to think of it, slipping onto the deck before sliding the door shut behind me.
Only too late do I realize I’m buck ass naked!
I answer the phone before it’s too late.“Zelda?”I ask.
“Why are you whispering?”she blurts in her thick accent.
“Because it’s midnight here, that’s why!”
A slight pause.Some paper rustling.A curt voice in the background is asking for a confirmation number.And above all that, I hear the stilted elevator music that plays nonstop in the studio office.Meaning: she’s still at work.At nine PM.“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“No worries.”I sigh, leaning against the railing and hoping one of its slats will hide my withered, emptied, dried out dick should a random hiker come strolling along the path two stories below and happen to glance up at precisely that very moment.“I’m up now.”
“I wouldn’t call except, well ...it’s bad.”
I sigh.Grit my teeth.Prepare for the worst.“How bad?”
“As bad as we hoped it wouldn’t be before I sent you down there on this little fool’s errand of ours.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right,” she confirms.
“They didn’t pick us back up?”I’m trying not to whine, but Jesus.
“Not even a nibble,” Zelda Santiago, Head of Studio Publicity, confirms with a wry, humorless chuckle before shouting at someone nearby, “Hey, careful with that!”
“But why?”I press, struggling to concentrate over the myriad of background noises back home at the studio.
“Said ratings had been down all season, and even that stunt we did with the two-part season finale couldn’t drag them back up enough to justify...”She rustles some papers, muttering to herself on the other end of the line.“What did they say again?Oh yeah, to ‘justify putting good money after bad.’”
“They said that?”
“And more, but Foster would only tell me so much.”
Foster Jenkins.Head of Wild West Studios.Producer ofSmoking Gunsand, before that, the studio’s only other hit,Saddle Soap.“Jesus, how’s he holding up?”
“He’s not,” Zelda grunts over the background noise.“His chauffeur just had to pick his drunk ass up fromHarry’s Hideoutaround the corner.”
I picture the scene and cringe from half the country away.“Ouch.”
Zelda sighs heavily into the phone before continuing.“Yeah, well, listen, I know it’s late, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but since I’ve already popped that particular cherry, I ...have some additional updates?”
“Additional?”I gasp.“What more could there be?”
“I mean, obviously, the grand opening is canceled.”
Despite the late hour and my lack of clothing, I suddenly stand at attention, wide awake and ready to fight or flight.“What?Why?”
“You have to ask?”
“Yeah, Zelda, I do.I mean, I’m already down here.I’m on the ground, raring to go.Front lines.The people here are ready for this.Newspapers, radio, TV, it’s ...it’s...”
“It’s over, Kid.”Zelda’s voice is far from comforting, though it’s hardly her fault.I get that, but still.Then I hear her tough façade crumple slightly.“And since when did you start caring anyway, Kid?Last I checked, I had to force you on that plane to get you down there?”
“Yeah, well ...that was before I met someone ...I mean ...these people!”
“Jesus, Kid.You’re something else.”
