21

Wayne leaned back in his leather chair—black calf, cushy—exactly like Mr. F’s behind his desk, and watched Mr. F’s favorite girl up on that big stage singing her heart out.

She was good! Better than she had to be considering all the trouble that Wayne had gone to to make sure she’d win.

Not that he minded. Planting the subliminals and watching them work, now, that he loved. Those judges didn’t have a chance against the messages Wayne was bombarding them with night and day. Though he was worried about how little time he was going to have to program the final judges. They didn’t even check in until tomorrow night. Their tapes were done—Mr. F’s favorite girl walking down that runway with the crown on, over and over and over, the one from when she’d won her state, but they wouldn’t know that. The tape would run, without the sound, mixed into their TV signals. An audiotape he’d dubbed—“and the new Miss America is,” with her name—would play on an endless loop while they were sleeping.

But would it be enough?

Wayne gnawed on a fingernail. He wanted to talk with Mr. F about that. He thought maybe they ought to try some other kind of intervention, though he wasn’t sure what. And then there was that business of that bimbo judge telling that woman reporter there was a voice in her room. A woman who drank that much—you wouldn’t think she’d notice.

Wayne was more than a little worried. He hoped that he could manage to see Mr. F privately—without Dougie—before too long. He’d take him up the tape he’d made of his girl winning, that would be his excuse.

Wayne looked up to the rack where he’d filed the tape.

And then he looked again.

He couldn’t believe it.

Oh, no! Christ on a crutch! No!

There was a blank space there. A big blank space. The tape for the final judges was gone, along with a couple of others.

Which ones? Oh, God. Wayne’s mind was reeling. He searched wildly around the room, flinging over his chair, spilling Coke. Maybe he’d just misplaced them. Maybe he’d taken them down and—but no. Of course he hadn’t.

That’s what had happened when he was locked in the men’s room. He had thought it was just someone playing a practical joke. Then he focused on the equipment rack. Christ Almighty! His best camcorder, a professional deck, a computerized editing controller, and God knows what else were gone!

Action Central had been robbed!

Wayne reached over and grabbed up the two remaining cheeseburgers and stuffed them in his mouth. Oh, God. Mr. F was going to be so furious. And Dougie, Dougie would be jumping up and down.

Oh, yeah, Dougie would wet his pants over this one, all right.

Or maybe it was Dougie who—

“Hello. Hello?” Who was that knocking on the door? “Wayne, it’s Gloria. Are you in there? Could I come in and see you a minute? I brought you a little something.”