THE VOICE-OVER ANNOUNCER WAS saying, “Well, boys and girls, thus far it’s been an exciting Xmas Day for Captain Texas and his friends. You’ll remember that in yesterday’s thrilling episode Captain Texas, freed from a foul Guatemalan jail after charges that he’d exposed himself at a recent Girl Scout Jamboree in this quaint little country had been proven false, encountered the mysterious Madame Scorpion, who’s been turning up under such strange circumstances of late. The mysterious Madame Scorpion revealed, shortly after the captain had invited her to share his posh hotel bedroom with him, that she couldn’t because she didn’t believe in incest. Yes, boys and girls, Madame Scorpion is none other than Captain Texas’s long lost mother. You’ll recall that some months back the captain’s power-mad father, Captain Texas, Sr., the lecherous solar power tycoon, admitted that he had been under the influence of powerful mind-altering drugs back when he made the particular donation to the sperm bank that resulted in the conception of our brave champion of truth and justice, Captain Texas. The captain has, ever since those startling revelations were made to him in the fever-ridden reaches of the Amazon River a few months back, been searching and seeking, in between bouts with Dr. Venial, often dubbed ‘The Most Dangerous Man In The World Today,’ for his lost mother. He knew only that she wore on her ring finger a strange serpent ring which glowed mysteriously in the dark. You can imagine, boys and girls, the captain’s surprise and elation when he saw that same ring glowing on the finger of the attractive mature woman he’d been planning to have a roll in the hay with. Yes, and if you’d like a ring just about like the one Captain Texas’s mother wears, a ring that actually glows in the dark and contains a built-in dog whistle good for summoning at least eighty-seven different breeds of dog, then be sure to have a pen or dictabox handy at the end of today’s show. There’ll also be a message in code for all you members of Captain Texas’s Secret Rangers. So have your decoders handy, too, boys and girls. Wellsir, back to our story. While the captain is renewing his friendship with the mother he has never known, his scoundrel of a father has succeeded in luring Leroy and Lena, the captain’s two daring and loyal teen-age companions, into a brothel on the outskirts of the Tijuana Sector of Greater Los Angeles. Thereat the old tycoon offers them staggeringly large sums of money if they will perform certain disgusting sex acts with him. Let’s listen. …”
“Gallopin’ gollywogs!” exclaimed the young actor portraying Leroy. “I will not dress up in my sister’s frilly lace underthings, sir.”
“$100,000 and fifty shares of. …”
Backstage in a dim stretch of studio floor two bouncy curly-haired young men were sitting in canvas chairs on each side of Jake.
“You did very well in rehearsal,” said Bill Ganpat, one of the two senior script writers.
“I know,” said Jake, who was dressed in a secret agent costume.
“You have a real flair for kid opera,” said Bill Tappenzee, the other senior writer. “We’re really delighted you popped in when you did and agreed to fill in on this guest spot for us.”
“When we heard Rance Keane had sprained his ankle at the last minute,” said Ganpat, “we were really afraid we might not have anybody for today’s celebrity walkon. Sometimes it’s tough to get a last-minute sub down here to our private island studios in time. Then there you were.”
“You’re nearly as big a celeb as Rance Keane,” said Tappenzee.
“I’d place myself as slightly bigger.”
“Nope, we ran you through our Personalityscope and you test out at 6.2 points behind him, but that’s plenty good enough for us,” said Ganpat.
Tappenzee said, “I’d like to make a teeny suggestion, Jake.”
“Go ahead, Bill.”
“When Honey shoots you with the lazgun, don’t take quite so long to die.”
Sitting up in his canvas chair, Jake said, “I died in six seconds, fellows. Considering that, I managed to put in a hell of a lot of pathos.”
“Try,” suggested Ganpat, “to die in four.”
“In four I won’t have time for the eyebrow business,” Jake told him.
“It’s a brilliant bit,” said Tappenzee, “but we’re in danger of running too long on this and the directors are bitching, Jake. So when you actually do it for the cameras, just flap your arms and flop over. If you could scrunch it into three seconds, boy, that would be even nicer.”
“She could jus? say she shot me offstage and we don’t have to—”
“We love your acting, Jake. Vidsat drama lost a real talent when you became an op,” said Ganpat.
“We’ve got the darn serpent ring offer and a secret message to fit in today.”
“This’ll make my death sort of trivial,” Jake explained. “Now if I had, say, a full ten seconds to expire in I—”
“Oh, gosh, don’t talk like that. Ten secs would ruin us.”
Tappenzee wiped his youthful face with a plyochief and frowned out at the brothel set. “Leroy’s taking a heck of a long time tying Lena up with her garter belt. We’re going to lose time.”
“He took way too long kissing Captain Texas, Sr., too.”
“Yeah, but that was poignant.”
“Poignant? He and that old coot completely upstaged Lena. Lots of the kids watch us just to see Lena’s tits. You know that by the mail we get. And when we gave away an authentic replica of her bra, one that also glowed in the dark, for just five dollars and three plaz Bloaties boxtops, we were flooded with orders.”
“Myself I don’t think her tits are as hot as they were four months ago,” said Tappenzee. “If they keep slipping in the Feedback Ratings, we may have to think about replacing her.”
“Why not just beef up her tits? We did that with Captain Texas’s loyal companion Belphoebe Bissel of the Sexual Investigation Bureau and the faxmail was fantast—”
“She had very popular tits to begin with. And the idea of a teen-ager with tits as large as—”
“I go on in a couple minutes.” Jake stood up.
“Die fast,” reminded Ganpat.
Jake had arrived on the island studios off the coast of Baja California this morning at a little after nine, Southern California Conservative Time. He had a letter from Bunny Thrasher explaining he was checking out security procedures on the island for Foodopoly. When it was discovered that Rance Keane couldn’t show up, Jake agreed to step in. He’d expected that would happen, since he’d bribed Keane to stay away. Acting in the highly successful kid adventure serial would put him close to Honey Chen. After the broadcast he’d see to it he had a few minutes alone with the actress. Then he’d make use of one of the several truth-getting gadgets he carried with him.
A wispy floor director nudged him. “You’re on in ten seconds, Pace,” he whispered. “Try to expire real fast this time.”
“I’ll go for the world’s record.”
“… meanwhile, boys and girls,” the unseen announcer was explaining, “Yasui Nekutai, the controversial lady secret agent, has traced one of Captain Texas’s aides to a steambath in the Pasadena Sector of Greater Los Angeles. Quickly stripping herself naked, thus revealing the body that has dazzled the crowned heads of Europe, the Eurasian beauty, a deadly cheap Japanese import lazgun held in one shapely hand, a skimpy plyotowel hiding her erotic zone, slinks into the steam room just as Agent T14 drops his pants.”
Jake had entered the steamrich set a moment before and, on cue, was dropping his trousers.
Honey Chen, playing Yasui Nekutai, entered. She was a slim girl, a pale saffron hue to her skin, and there was a sneering smile on her pretty face.
She really did, just as the announcer said, have a dazzling body. Jake studied it, getting all the way out of his trousers and reaching for a towel from the wall rack.
“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Phil Cardigan?” Honey asked.
“Why, no, my name is Reisberson,” responded Jake, delivering a rather bland line with deftness and an appealing intensity, he judged.
“Prepare to die, T14!”
Jake exclaimed, making his eyebrows rise dramatically, “How did you know who I am, you devil?”
“I know many things, fool.” She whipped the prop gun from beneath her towel.
Only it wasn’t a prop gun.
The distraction of her sleek naked body didn’t keep Jake from realizing a real lazgun had been substituted for the one used in rehearsal
Zizzzzle!
Jake dived to his right and rolled.
A swatch of wall was sliced away and came falling down through the bluish steam.
Offstage Ganpat was muttering, “You weren’t supposed to duck. The darned scene is spoiled.”