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was shooting an episode of their series, on the lot. The parklike courtyard outside Frank’s office had been dressed to resemble amental institution yard and extras with narcotized faces did the prefrontal lobe crisscross; dim guppies.
    But to achieve the gritty appearance of a genuine head-farm, all the set decorator had done was place a sign which read EARLEVILLE SANITARIUM AND MENTAL FACILITY in a prominent spot. Alan realized everything else had been left unchanged and was about to comment when Frank screamed out “Fuck!”
    He asked Alan if he wanted to hear the rest of the story. Alan was ready to listen to anything to take his mind off casting.
    Frank paced, cracking knuckles.
    “Okay … so this slide-of-smegma has his agent call me up and tell me we have a ‘star explosion’ on our hands. A supernova is born, right? Our goat-fucker is ‘exploding’ because he sang ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ in front of forty thousand farmers and assorted 4-H wildlife and this agent thinks he’s repping goddamn Elvis’s corpse risen from the grave.”
    Frank looked at Alan and cracked up, zigzagged into madness. The orange spot glowed bright between Frank’s smirking lips and the smoke vacuumed in.
    “So, what’re you gonna do?” asked Alan.
    Frank got buzzed on his com line. “Yeah?”
    “It’s Wayne,” said the secretary, flat-voiced.
    “I’m in Melbourne getting a head transplant,” Frank barked.
    Alan smiled.
    “Tellin’ ya’ Al, these guys are 150-watt assholes. They should shoot guys in the streets if they catch ’em carrying a SAG card. Turns people into fuckin’ vampires.”
    Alan nodded, knowing this would pass. And knowingit would be back, stronger. “Wanna catch a screening next week? New Rohmer film? Singleton has a new one out next Tuesday, too.”
    “Call me.”
    “Right.”
    “Hey, by the way … I heard about the pilot you pitched from my agent. What the fuck is it? Mercenaries on Metamucil, something like that?”
    “One guy. The Mercenary. Gonna take it to the edge if I get a go-ahead.”
    “That’s what I hear. Good luck, man. Andy Singer is a fuckin’ pain to sell a show to. You get a nibble, you did good … you’re in the pink tunnel.”
    Alan smiled. Frank knew him from way back when they were staff drones for “Tits ’n Trans-Am” shows at Universal; he knew how many nerve endings got shoved into pencil sharpeners and lost forever working the prime-time mines, listening to your brain crave oxygen. He knew what selling a pilot meant if it took off. Not just success and recognition.
    It meant a way out, with fifty million waiting on the other side of the guarded wall, sitting in a gold convertible.
    “Alan …”
    Alan turned, heading out the door. Frank pointed a chubby finger. “Keep one hand on the rip cord, huh? It’s gonna get heavy if it pulls numbers. Trust me.”
    Alan said nothing, starting to get nervous. He was about to leave Paramount and start a new contract at Universal, and they’d agreed to pick up negative costs in exchange for a piece of syndication, if it made it to sixty-six episodes. But he was still nervous.
    If Andy green-lighted “The Mercenary,” Alan would have to move fast. He had no star, only a partial pilot story. It could all evaporate if he didn’t pull the pieces together. He began to realize he was afraid of failing.
    And more afraid of being a hit.

casting
    T he guy had a tic. I’m tellin’ you. His fuckin’ cheekbones were doing the Jane Fonda tape through the whole reading.”
    Marty made a face. Producers all had that “antacid commercial” look about them; pained and squirmy.
    “Alan, he’s the best so far. That guy who was the semiregular on ‘Wiseguy’ was like a fuckin’ nightmare. I think he had a sock in his pants.” Marty chiseled a fingernail over shiny psoriasis; nerve mica.
    Alan tilted the coffee into his mouth and washed it over his teeth; a miniature hydroelectric dam gushing brown water. Then, he