"It is rewrite," Isuzu said calmly. "Character names are same. Some other things changed."
"But where's the little boy, Johnny? I don't see any lines for him."
"That character die on page eight."
"Dies! He's the focus of the story. My character is just the catalyst," Bronzini shouted. He pointed to a page. "And what's this crap here? This tank fight?"
"Johnny die in tank fight. Very heroic scene. Very sad. Defends home from Red Chinese invader."
"That wasn't in my script either."
"Story improved. Now about Red Chinese invasion of Yuma. Set on Christmas Eve. Much tinser. Many carors sung. Very much rike American Christmas story. It very beautifur."
Bronzini couldn't believe his eyes. He was reading a scene in which Christmas carolers were blown apart by Chinese shock troops throwing hand grenades.
"The fuck. Why don't you just call it Grundy IV and be done with it?"
"Nishitsu not own Grundy character. We try to buy. Owner refuse to serr. It important you not wear headband in this firm. Rawsuits."
"That's the least of your problems, because I'm not doing this piece of regurgitation. If I wanted to do Grundy IV, I would have signed for Grundy IV. Savvy?"
"You sign for Christmas story. We wirr firm same."
"No chance, sake breath."
Jiro Isuzu's blank eyes narrowed at Bronzini's epithet. Bronzini raised a placating hand. "Okay, okay, okay, I take it back. I'm sorry. I got carried away. But this isn't what we agreed to."
"You sign contract," Isuzu told him blandly. "If there is something in contract you not agree to, take up with rawyer tomorrow. Today you talk to Indian chief. Make him agree to arrow firming in varrey."
"Indian chief?"
"Rand needed in Indian reservation. Onry place to firm. Chief say yes, onry if you ask personarry. We go to meet him now."
"Oh, this just gets better and better."
"I am happy you say so. Cooperation essentiar to maintain shooting schedule."
Jiro Isuzu smiled as Bartholomew Bronzini leaned against the van and set his broad forehead against its sun-heated side. He shut his eyes.
"How could I get into a situation like this?" he said hollowly. "I'm the world's number-one superstar."
"And Nishitsu soon to be world's number-one firm company," Izusu said. "You wirr have new, greater career with us. American pubric not care for you anymore. You wirr talk to chief now?"
"All right, all right. I've always been as good as my word. Or my signature."
"We knew that."
"I'll just bet you did. But as soon as I can find a phone, I'm firing my agent."
Chapter 5
Most babies are pink at birth. A few are as red as a crab.
Dr. Harold W. Smith was blue, He had blue eyes, which the doctor who had delivered him did not consider unusual. All human babies, like kittens, are born with blue eyes. Blue skin was another matter. At birth, Harold Smith-he didn't become a Ph.D. until much later in life, although it was a matter open to debate among his few friends-was as blue as a robin's egg.
The Vermont obstetrician told Smith's mother that she had given birth to a blue baby. Mrs. Nathan Smith politely informed him that she understood all babies cried at birth. She was confident her Harold's disposition would improve.
"I don't mean that he's a sad baby," the doctor said. "In fact he's the most well-behaved baby I've ever seen. I was referring to his medical condition."
Mrs. Smith had looked blank.
"Your son has a minor heart defect. It's not at all rare. Without going into the pathological details, his heart is not pumping efficiently. As a result, there's insufficient oxygen in his bloodstream. That's why his skin has that faint blue tinge."
Mrs. Smith had looked at her little Harold, who was already sucking his thumb. She firmly pulled the thumb out. Just as firmly, Harold stuck it back in.
"I thought it was these fluorescent lights," Mrs. Smith said. "Will he die?"
"No, Mrs. Smith," the doctor assured her. "He won't die. And he'll probably lose that blue tint in a few weeks. "
"What a shame. It matches his eyes."
"All newborns have blue eyes. Don't count on Harry's staying blue."
"Harold. I think Harry sounds so ... common, don't you agree, Doctor?"
"Er, yes, Mrs. Smith. But what I'm trying to tell you is that your son has impaired heart function. I'm sure he'll grow up to be a wonderful boy. Just don't expect much of him. He may be a little slow. Or he may not develop as soon as his friends, but he'll get along."
"Doctor," Mrs. Smith said firmly, "I will not allow my Harold to be a slacker." She pulled his thumb from his mouth again. After she had turned away, Harold availed himself of his other thumb. "He is heir to one of the most successful magazine publishers in this country. When he comes of age, he must be able to fulfill his responsibility to the Smith family, tradition."
"Publishing isn't very strenuous," the doctor said musingly. "I think Harold will do fine." He patted Mrs. Smith on one bony knee with a familiarity the New England matron resented deeply but was too well-bred to complain about, and walked away thanking his lucky stars that he had not been born Harold W. Smith.
He winced at the small slap that sounded from her room. Mrs. Smith had caught Harold sucking on his other thumb.
Harold Smith's eyes turned gray within a matter of days. His skin remained blue until his second year, when, as the result of exercises his mother insisted he perform every day, it assumed a more normal hue.
Normal for Harold Smith, that is. Mrs. Smith was so pleased with his fishbelly-white complexion that she kept him indoors so he wouldn't lose it prematurely.
Harold Smith never went into the family publishing business. World War II had broken out and he went off to war. His cool, detached intellect was recognized early on and he found himself in the OSS, working in the European theater of operations. After the war, he switched to the new CIA, where he remained an anonymous CIA bureaucrat right through the early sixties, when CURE was founded by a young President only months before he was cut down by an assassin's bullet.
Originally set up to fight crime outside of constitutional restrictions, CURE had over the course of two decades grown into America's secret defense against internal subversion and external threats. Operating with a vast budget and unlimited computer resources, Smith was its first and so far only director. He ran CURE as he had always done, from his shabby office in Folcroft Sanitarium, CURE's cover and nerve center.
The desk had not changed in those years. Smith still held forth in the same cracked leather chair. The computers in the basement had been upgraded several times. Presidents had come and gone. But Harold Smith went on as if embalmed and wired to his chair.
If Smith could have been accused of having sartorial concerns, a person meeting him for the first time might have assumed that he selected his gray three-piece suit to go with his hair and eyes, both of which were a neutral gray. The truth was that Smith was by nature a colorless and unimaginative person. He wore gray because it suited his personality, such as it was.
One thing had changed. As he grew older, Smith's youthful pallor had darkened. His old heart defect worsened. As a consequence, his dry skin looked as if it had been dusted with ground pencil lead.