wasted F. Scott Fitzgerald, with dark bags under his eyes, saying, “They ruined me, but they don’t have to ruin you, if only you’ll just play the game—”
Then it was Orson Welles leaning over, whispering into my face, telling me what it was all about.
I also had a talk with Hemingway who said, “When they made For Whom the Cash Register Tolls, I thought it was crap, but the cash register kept on tolling no matter what.”
Humphrey Bogart and Fred Astaire both explained that the TV commercials they’re doing these days are just warm-up exercises, and both planned full comebacks.
“I might want to write a book with you one day, kid,” Bogart said.
Every time the cast changed, the eyeball blinked. It was a projector of some kind.
I even met Donald Duck, whose flippers still had cement on them. He assured me he had no middle name. He was looking for somebody to collaborate with him on his autobiography. The money involved would have been enough to jumpstart the economy of a Third World nation.
“I couldn’t do it without you,” said the duck.
Henry leaned over the table, into the light of the glowing eyeball in my drink.
“That’s the beauty of it, Jerry. Maybe some actors have something to worry about these days, but you’re sitting pretty.”
I faked a smile. “Because there are no holo-whosit-AI writers, is that it?”
“Yes. Precisely. That’s it. Actors, directors, producers, yes, but you’re better off than all them. So start counting your blessings, kiddo.”
“I feel like slitting my throat. Do you think there’s be any virtual blood?”
That was when he hauled me out of there by the collar and threw me back into the car.
“Not on my fifteen percent, you don’t!”
* * * *
So we drove back to Hollywood Boulevard, and on the way it was Henry Jessel who worked his magic on me, not any AI of William Shakespeare or Edward D. Wood or whoever, just my old pal, whom I’d known since he was still in high school and we were both trying to break into paperback science fiction, as if that were the way to make oneself part of the stellar firmament. Just Henry, who did what he does best, and so the ending of my story is a trifle mysterious, a trifle vague, because even I don’t know precisely how he did it, but he is my agent, and agents have mysterious powers, and I guess he just put the whammy on me.
What he did was come up with a really good metaphor for once. It could have been a Zen riddle.
He said, “If everyone is wearing masks all the time, how do you know it’s really them?”
Precisely. There might even be Virtual Publishers in New York, but they weren’t on the same wavelength as the folks in Hollywood, and in fact only agents like Henry could connect the two. Only he knew the secrets of both. Only he could have shown me what he had shown me.
“Your editor is a big Carl Sanderson fan,” he said. “She’s dying to meet him. Maybe someday soon we can all get together.”
That is, if my editor thinks that Carl Sanderson is a 1960s cowboy star made good, for whom books are being ghosted, and Carl Sanderson is a guy with clout, who can call up the aforesaid editor and demand that the whole direction of a storyline be scrapped because he has a better idea, and all the editor can do is meekly pass the instructions on to me—well, then, who precisely is in charge here?
“All you have to do,” Henry explained, “is put on the mask and your editor will never know the difference. Nor will the reading public. What Carl Sanderson wants, Carl Sanderson gets. If you are Carl Sanderson, aren’t you on top of the world?”
Ah Mephistopheles, indeed. He took me to the mountaintop. He showed me all the kingdoms of the world, which he would give me, if only I played along.
“Trust me, I’m your agent,” he said.
I think I sold my soul all over again that night. If Carl Sanderson wanted to be James Joyce, he could be James Joyce, Henry told me. If he wanted to be Edgar Rice Burroughs, he could be Edgar Rice Burroughs. Or anything in between. Just use the magic name. It has that much clout.
“I won’t let the publishers interfere, kiddo. I got connections, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
And for just one horrifying second he seemed to flicker and jerk from side to side impossibly, but I convinced myself that was just a trick of the light.
We parked a couple blocks away from the Boulevard, and hoofed it along the Walk of Fame, counting the stars (You’ll be glad to know they’ve repaired the crack in Elvis’s), and we got to Grauman’s Chinese Theater (which may be under new management but is still Grauman’s Chinese in the hearts of millions) in time for the midnight ceremony in which Carl Sanderson’s footprints and hand prints and the impression of his graviton-blaster were recorded in cement, right next to those of Shatner and Nimoy and all the crowd—and, for that matter, Donald Duck—and afterward I asked him to autograph a copy of Galactic Avengers in the Nebula of Death for me; and he shook my hand firmly and said, “I’m always pleased to meet one of my fans.”
And after that Carl Sanderson entered a whole new, entirely remarkable phase of literary creativity.
DEATH WISH, by Robert Sheckley
The space freighter Queen Dierdre was a great, squat, pockmarked vessel of the Earth-Mars run and she never gave anyone a bit of trouble. That should have been sufficient warning to Mr. Watkins, her engineer. Watkins was fond of saying that there are two kinds of equipment—the kind that fails bit by bit, and the kind that fails all at once.
Watkins was short and red-faced, magnificently mustached, and always a little out of breath. With a cigar in his hand, over a glass of beer, he talked most cynically about his ship, in the immemorial fashion of engineers. But in reality, Watkins was foolishly infatuated with Dierdre, idealized her, humanized her, and couldn’t conceive of anything serious ever happening.
On this particular run, Dierdre soared away from Terra at the proper speed; Mr. Watkins signaled that fuel was being consumed at the proper rate; and Captain Somers cut the engines at the proper moment indicated by Mr. Rajcik, the navigator.
As soon as Point Able had been reached and the engines stopped, Somers frowned and studied his complex control board. He was a thin and meticulous man, and he operated his ship with mechanical perfection. He was well liked in the front offices of Mikkelsen Space Lines, where Old Man Mikkelsen pointed to Captain Somers’ reports as models of neatness and efficiency. On Mars, he stayed at the Officers’ Club, eschewing the stews and dives of Marsport. On Earth, he lived in a little Vermont cottage and enjoyed the quiet companionship of two cats, a Japanese houseboy, and a wife.
His instructions read true. And yet he sensed something wrong. Somers knew every creak, rattle and groan that Dierdre was capable of making. During blastoff, he had heard something different. In space, something different had to be wrong.
“Mr. Rajcik,” he said, turning to his navigator, “would you check the cargo? I believe something may have shifted.”
“You bet,” Rajcik said cheerfully. He was an almost offensively handsome young man with black wavy hair, blasé blue eyes and a cleft chin. Despite his appearance, Rajcik was thoroughly qualified for his position. But he was only one of fifty thousand thoroughly qualified men who lusted for a berth on one of the fourteen spaceships in existence. Only Stephen Rajcik had had the foresight, appearance and fortitude to court and wed Helga, Old Man Mikkelsen’s eldest daughter.
Rajcik went aft to the cargo hold. Dierdre was carrying transistors this time, and microfilm books, platinum filaments, salamis, and other items that could not as yet be produced on Mars. But the bulk of her space was taken by the immense Fahrensen Computer.
Rajcik checked the positioning lines on the monster, examined the