The door to Chester’s luxuriously roomy private bathroom had been opened. The quartet stood in awe of the sight before them, namely, the most powerful man in Hollywood, sitting on the toilet, his mouth agape, his eye balls hanging out of the sockets, his body cooked through and through until nothing was left but a charred, smoldering husk.
“I…I don’t…” Dag struggled for words. “Is he?”
“He’s dead,” Shirley said.
“Right,” Dag replied as he turned to Rudy. “I mean, you’d have to be, right?”
“Don’t look at me,” Rudy said. “I’m not a doctor.”
Dag rolled his eyes. “Wow. The lengths that people will go to avoid responsibility in this game.”
The agent raised his voice and directed it toward the bathroom. “Hello in there! Yoo hoo, Chester! Are you alive? Do you need us to call an ambulance or your personal physician or…”
The movie mogul’s blackened jaw dropped off, then disintegrated into dust upon hitting the floor.
“OK,” Dag said. “I’m convinced. He’s a goner.”
Jordan wept. The agent put his arm around his talent for comfort. “There, there, dear. Please tell me that beast didn’t touch you.”
“He didn’t,” Jordan said between sobs. “But he said things…terrible things…that I’d never work again if I didn’t…if I didn’t…”
“It’s ok, dear,” Dag said. “You don’t need to say it. I get the gist.”
Jordan finished the thought. “…if I didn’t give him a blumpkin.”
Dag appeared confused. “A blumpkin? What in the world is a…”
Shirley scooched up on her tippy toes and whispered into Dag’s ear, causing her boss to recoil in disgust. “Oh, that’s sick! That is sick!”
Hearing no disagreement, the quartet remained quiet as the agent comforted his charge. “I mean, unless both parties are consenting adults and they’re into that sort of thing, but otherwise…no, that is sick! Completely sick!”
“I need to call security,” Rudy said.
“Now wait a minute,” Dag said. “Hold on there. I need to talk to my girl here and make sure she’s got her story straight before you bring in the authorities. What happened, Jordan? How’d you do him in?”
Jordan pushed Dag away. “Me?”
Dag looked around the room. “No one else was in here at the time.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Jordan protested.
“Oh, come on,” Dag said. “You’re among friends. Shirley and I are behind you all the way, right Shirl?”
“One hundred percent,” Shirley said. “That pig had it coming.”
Dag pointed at the associate producer. “And Rudy doesn’t care. Hell, the studio will probably give you Chester’s job, right Rudy?”
Rudy’s eyes lit up as he looked around the office. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Oh man, I’m going to have to call a decorator and make this place my own and, you know a ficus would look positively breathtaking right in that back left corner.”
“You did the world a favor, kid,” Dag said. “We just need to make sure you don’t go down for it. So tell me, what happened?”
Jordan sniffed. “I just…I was just…”
Dag pulled his cigar out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “I get the picture. Pervy McGee here tried to blumpkinize you and you were left with no choice but to pull out a can of hair spray and a lit match and fricassee this chump. Sound good, Rudy?”
Rudy was too busy measuring the drapes.
“I don’t have a can of hairspray,” Jordan said.
“What?” Dag said. “You mean your hair gets that much volume on its own? Bah, no matter. Anyway, I have no idea how you did this but that’s the story we’re sticking with but…oh, you torching an unarmed man probably isn’t going to go over well with a fuzz. We need to plant a gun and…Shirl?”
“Yes, boss?” Shirley asked.
“Can you get an unregistered firearm with the serial number filed off?” Dag asked.
“I’ve got a guy,” Shirley said.
“Stop,” Jordan. “That’s not what happened at all. He told me to wait out here and give him a few minutes to ‘chub up,’ then he started screaming, making all sorts of weird sounds. I was about to run when you all came in and when you opened his bathroom door is the first time I saw him….this way.”
Rudy returned to the group. “I must have a wet bar. I don’t even drink, but maybe my visitors will. Oh, this is going to be fab-u-lous!”
Dag chomped on his cigar. “Faulty wiring.”
“What?” Rudy asked.
“I guess that’s the story we’re going with,” Dag said. “Jordan’s broken from reality and can’t admit to…”
Jordan stomped her foot. “I didn’t do it!”
“It’s fine,” Dag said. “No worries. We’ll find a crooked building inspector to say some idiot plumber accidentally ran an electrical line through the toilet and…”
Dag turned to Shirley. “Are you getting this?”
Shirley punched buttons on her phone. “I’m on it, boss.”
“Call the cops, Rudy,” Dag said.
“Right away,” Rudy replied.
“Oh, and Rudy?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you hear this poor wretch’s last words?”
“Huh?”
Dag flattened out his right hand and held it up against the right side of his mouth. Then, in a squeaky voice, he said. “Booo! Hire Jordan to be the female lead in Chop It Off, boo, I’m a ghost, boo!”
“Meh,” Rudy said as he shrugged his shoulders. “Good enough for me.”
Bookshelf Battle 