The Golden Globe

"I know that," she said, "but I've never understood it. Ninety percent of the Gang are morphed."

"Over morphing suits," Sparky pointed out. "Never completely generated."

"So what? As for getting his face seen, I know he's played parts where it was impossible to recognize his face."

"That's makeup. He doesn't mind that. Forget it, Curly. This is one we can't win." He leaned back in his chair. "And understand this, all of you. It's not one I want to win. Maybe you're thinking my father pressured me into this decision. He didn't. I'd been thinking about it, but I'm not sure I'd ever have had the guts to do it. I'm not as decisive as he is. But believe me, it's time to put Sparky to rest. Character, and series."

"It's still making great ratings, and returns," the accountant pointed out.

"I know it. But I'm not. Personally speaking, it's time, it's past time, for me to move on to something else. It's time for me to stretch myself. And as for hiring a stand-in and morphing my face onto him... you know, I'd feel just shitty about that. I think I'd be jealous. And besides, look how long our replacement Peppy lasted, way back when."

Curly didn't bother to point out that reviving a character who had blown his brains out in front of the television cameras had never been Sparky's brightest idea. She realized it was something Sparky had needed to do, to establish his final victory, and final control, of the man. The revived Peppy Show had lasted three months, and never found an audience.

"Oswald," Sparky said. "Tell me, bottom line, how much this Neptune trouble is going to cost me."

Oswald Abugado, chief legal council to Thimble Theater, was a small, bald man whose bookish demeanor always put Sparky in mind of an accountant. Yasser and Oswald, he thought, had been given the wrong job descriptions by fate's central casting office. To distinguish them, Sparky always used an old mnemonic trick his father had taught him: he mentally placed a white barrister's wig on Oswald, and an inky pen behind Yasser's ear. Abugado was a slave, who probably chose to be as small and meek and bald as he was, and who always wore his studded leather collar. Sometimes his mistress brought him to work at the end of a chain. But he was submissive only to his mistress. In court, he was known as the Piranha: a little fucker with a lot of teeth.

His papers were laid out neatly in front of him, on one corner of Sparky's pool-table-size desk. He shuffled through them.

"I can't give you a hard figure yet," Abugado said. "I've got agents exploring the judge in the Oberoni Bond matter; he seems bribable, but he may be expensive. Let's see now, the assault cases... Houghton has settled for L$300,000, and Myers hasn't said no to the same amount. Plaintiff Kowalski is still refusing to deal, which is understandable, I suppose, considering that Mr. Valentine deprived Kowalski of livelihood, marital consortium, and the use of his legs for six months—"

"But Kowalski's a Holy Healer," Sparky said. "If he'd accepted standard treatment, he'd be—"

"Irrelevant," Abugado said. "In Francisco v. Wang the Tritonian courts, which have jurisdiction, ruled that a victim's religious beliefs qua—"

"Never mind. Pay the man."

"We may have to go to court on that one. Now, in the defamation suit... things aren't looking too good there, either. It doesn't matter if the lady gave him a bad review; that article Mr. Valentine wrote in response is clearly libelous. You can't go around calling a citizen a..." He peered at his papers owlishly, muttered. "Oh, my. Well, he must have been crazy when he wrote this. You really should have a lawyer go over anything he intends to have published from now on, Sparky. It will save you a lot of money. Then there's the taxes, and once again, I hate to bear bad news but it is clear he didn't pay them. It wasn't an oversight, considering the... er, diatribes he sent to the tax authorities along with his blank forms. The total there, with penalties and interest, is—"

"Pay it," Sparky said. "Just pay it. Send me the totals later. And, Oswald?"

"Yes." The attorney looked up from his papers.

"Are you happy here? At Thimble Theater, I mean."

"Oh, yes, very happy."

"Have I ever been uncivil to you, or threatened you in any way?"

"Not that I recall." Abugado was begi

"Oswald, if I ever hear you refer to my father as crazy again, you will be cleaning out your desk ten minutes later."

"Sparky, I never meant—"

Sparky sat back in his chair, and waved it away.

"Consider the whole incident forgotten," he said. "You're doing good work on this, Oswald. Don't worry if you aren't able to get us a good deal; we'll pay whatever is necessary."

"On the tax thing," Oswald said, trying to put a good face on matters but feeling as if he were walking through a minefield. "Usually something can be worked out, but it's very difficult with the written evidence that he intended to completely ignore—"

"Don't be nervous, man. He's guilty, no question. My father never pays taxes; he opposes them, on moral grounds. We've been paying his tax bills the whole time he was away."

"I didn't know."

"Of course not. Now, everybody, thank you for coming, and I'd like to be alone for a while. Curly, give me about an hour."

"There's a story meeting in thirty minutes."

"Reschedule it. Or buy them all a drink, on me, and have them wait."

When Sparky was alone he kicked back in his chair and studied the ceiling for a long time. When he looked down, Elwood had parked his elongated body in the chair Curly had been sitting in. "Feeling a bit frisky today?" he asked.

"Don't start."

"No, really, I thought you handled that real well. You were about to say 'You'll never work in this town again,' weren't you? Do you suppose anybody ever had the stones to make that true?"

"Louis B. Mayer, maybe."

Elwood thought that one over. "Well, I know the son of a bitch would have if he could have. But I never heard him say it. And the trouble is, if he did, whoever he said it to would know he could trot his behind over to Columbia, and Harry Cohn would hire him just to stick it in L.B.'s ear."

"Or Jack Warner. Or Hal Roach. Or Thomas Edison."

"Don't know about Edison. He was a little before my time."

"Heck, Elwood, I thought you helped him build his first camera."

"Met him once. With Henry Ford. They were tight, you know. Edison was old Henry's hero. You know, your father's not really crazy."

"Didn't I just say that?"

"No, you told Oswald never to call your father crazy. And the way you said it, the man knows you really do think he's crazy."

"This is silly. He's crazy, he's not crazy. I know he does foolish things sometimes. But we've got to stick together. I can't allow him to sit there and make accusations. His job is to get my father out of trouble, and he can keep his goddam opinions to himself. Father wouldn't let anyone say bad things about me and get away with it."

"Yeah, but he's crazy."

Sparky burst out laughing, and Elwood chuckled along with him. Then he sobered, and looked Sparky in the eye.

"My old friend," he said. "The last thing I want to do is come between a boy and his father. I've never tried to tell you I like him much, because I don't. But I've never told you what I really think of him, either."

"I don't want to hear this."

"But you can't get rid of me, so you will hear it. I don't think of John Valentine as crazy. Crazed, maybe. Full-grown, he's more impulsive than you were when you were five. Has no more control of himself. He's the most egomaniacal man I've ever seen, and I've seen some doozies. He never does anything in a small way. He loves you, and that means he loves you in a big way, too."