Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky (6 page)

    “Yes: His last film,
The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock
.”

    “Just answer
yes
or
no
, please!”

    “Did women have the same legal rights as men in Ancient Egypt?”

    “Yes.”

    “James Cagney was proud of his image as a screen tough guy?”

    “No! He regarded himself as a dancer.”

    “Just
yes
or
no
. I’ll eliminate the next person who provides additional information.”

    “Temperance was not one of the major virtues in Ancient Egypt.”

    “No, it wasn’t.”

    “I’m warning you too, professor: Just answer
yes
or
no
!”

    It was good to see Dune-Harrigan on the receiving end of a dressing-down. Hopefully, it would put him off his stride. The tension was certainly getting to me.

    “Greta Garbo often said that she wanted to be alone.”

    I hesitated. My mouth was so dry that I could hardly speak, Frankly, I always thought Greta did say that – often! But there’s a sort of reverse psychology to quiz questions. They are designed to trap the unwary and surely Sedge wouldn’t have asked if the answer was an obvious
yes
.

    “No.”

    “Egyptian men were always clean-shaven.”

    “Yes. Sometimes they wore false beards.”

    “Professor! I warned you against adding comments!”

    “You let Manning get away with it twice!”

    “Very well, but the next person who adds a comment will be eliminated. I mean it… More people have seen
Gone With The Wind
than any other movie ever made?”

    “No!”

    “The Ancient Egyptians played draughts?”

    “Yes.”

    “Jeanette MacDonald did not dislike Maurice Chevalier?”

    I hesitated. Sedge was desperate. Time had run out and his stock of questions was probably near exhausted. He was using an old trick on our addled, exhausted brains. I worked it out carefully. Jeanette MacDonald disliked Maurice Chevalier, no. In fact, she accepted his invitation to stay at his villa in France. Therefore Jeanette MacDonald did not dislike Maurice Chevalier: “Yes!”

    “There were no lawyers in Ancient Egypt?”

    “No.”

    Sedge dropped his notes. “I’m afraid you’re wrong!” he announced. “There were no lawyers in Ancient Egypt.”

    “That’s what I said!” Dune-Harrigan insisted.

    “The question was:
There were no lawyers in Ancient Egypt?
The answer was
yes
, but you said
no
!”

    “Who’s telling me? I protest! I protest! You know what I meant. There
were
no lawyers in Ancient Egypt! The Egyptians didn’t believe in them. They wanted their trials free of rhetoric and false eloquence.”

    Some members of the audience were starting to boo. Sedge held up his hand. “This isn’t the first wrong answer you’ve given me. I let a previous one go by. Temperance was not one of the major virtues in Ancient Egypt. Your answer was supposed to be
yes
, you agreed with that proposition. Your answers were supposed to be a simple
yes
or
no
.”

    Dune-Harrigan pointed a furious finger at me. “His answers weren’t
yes
or
no
!”

    “Manning gave extra information. He didn’t qualify his answers. I have no hesitation in awarding tonight’s $8,000 cash prize to Mr. Merryll Manning. Well done, Merryll!”

    On cue, the crowd revived itself for one final deafening hosanna of approval. Somehow I managed to stand up and walk around to the front of my tatty little table. Sedge was pumping my hand furiously when I felt an odd gust of air between my knees, as if someone had turned on a small but powerful fan for a second or two. But such was the euphoria of victory – coupled with exhaustion – that I thought little of it. When Sedge motioned me to sit back behind my little table (while the camera spun around for the final credits), we found to our surprise the table lying on its side. It was a flimsy thing and perhaps I’d simply knocked it over in my excitement. But when we both moved forward to set it upright we found a ballpoint pen embedded right through the side panel just underneath the table top. 

5

I had no family to share my triumph, no friends or neighbors I cared to rejoice with, so I was alone in my living room when I relived the quiz on Wednesday night.

    You had to admire Sedge’s skill. He gave the show cohesion and pace, producing order from a likely shambles, comparative brightness from almost certain ennui. We whizzed through the dull byways of medieval history at such a crackerjack gallop, the contented guests with their tempting travel tickets to Mount Placid Fulsome Falls Holiday Home Reserve, Idaho, were with us in no time at all.

If viewers got too bored, they’d switch off or turn to another channel and miss all those happy, smiling people extolling the tempting travel tickets to dead-end resorts like Mount Placid Fulsome Falls. Such catastrophes had to be averted at all costs. So what if there are only nine televised questions instead of fifteen? Who’s counting?

Next day I phoned Arthur “Boss” Kent, co-owner and senior executive producer at Kenovarnie’s. “What makes you so sure, I’ll even talk to you?” he asked.

    I took a desperate gamble. “I’d rather talk to you than Miss Oscar Varnie,” I replied.

    He laughed. “We have rules! You’re a contestant.”

    “I’m also a citizen who doesn’t like getting shot at.”

    “An accident! That crossbow gadget will take anything in its stride – sticks, stones, pens, you-name-it. Just some idiot fooling around.”

    “What idiot?”

    “Who knows? Someone from the audience is our best guess.”

    “I’ve a better suggestion: Ex-Professor Carmichael Dune-Harrigan.”

    “Why?”

    “He’s a sore loser. You saw the tape.”

    “What tape?”

    “The full tape! Not just last night’s edited highlights.”

    “I saw what was broadcast. That’s all that counts.”

    “What happened to the out-takes?”

    “What out-takes? This is TV, not
Gone With The Wind
! The original tapes are wiped clean for re-use.”

    “No out-takes? No extra shots of the crowd? Nothing?”

    “You said it! People do want to see
themselves
on TV, and we aim to please. But we only go so far. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of our viewers just want to see Sedge besting our contestants. Sedge Cornbeck versus Contestants Galore! And that’s all but a piffling handful of viewers are interested in.”

    “Not ever-so-tempting travel tickets?” I asked. But Boss Kent had already hung up.

No upstart TV panjandrum was going to give me the royal brush-off. I’d taken my complaint straight to the top and received no satisfaction, so now I resolved to kick in a few heads at the bottom. I was mad as hell.

    Security at Kenovarnie’s was slack to the point of useless. I merely waved to the gateman and all he did was write down the number of my old Ford.

    The parking area was right next to the admin building. I took care to avoid the spaces reserved for Kent and Varnie. These were secured with chains anyway. But the spaces reserved for Tunning (sponsor), Fairmont (producer), Jellis (director) and even Cornbeck (star) were merely designated by removable bits of cardboard set in plastic slots against the wall of the building. I parked in Tunning’s space. He’d be far too busy with tempting travel tidbits to bother visiting Kenovarnie’s on any days that his show was not actually being taped. 

    Unchallenged, I walked down the empty corridors of the administration building and stepped into the cell-like office of Miss Spookie Williams, the fair-haired, impeccably groomed and self-consciously super-cool young lady who interviewed and shepherded contestants.

    True to form, she didn’t act the least bit surprised to see me. She was curious, maybe ever so slightly angry, but not surprised. I don’t go for these superior, debutante-voiced, high society types. Up until now, I’d made a good stab at concealing my animosity. But not any more.

    “What are you doing here, Mr. Manning? You know you shouldn’t be here. It’s against all the rules.”

    “You saw what happened, Miss Williams. I’m the one who was shot at. But nobody wants to do anything about it.”

    “An accident.”

    “How do you know? Better still, how do I know? It was too close – that’s how I know. Someone fooling around and putting his pen in a crossbow, isn’t going to aim it anybody. He’ll point it into the floor, or into a chair, maybe. Just another half-inch, Miss Williams, and I would have found that pen buried deep in my you-know-what, or in my thigh. What do you say to that?”

    “If you feel so certain about it, call in the police. I won’t try to stop you. The cops may close the show and we may be all out of a job, and you’ll stand to lose $80,000 – but don’t mind me, go ahead. Go ahead!”

    “Don’t act the goat! You know my hands are tied tight by that $80,000.”

    “Not just your hands! Your legs, your brain, your mouth! And that’s why you shouldn’t be here.”

    “I intend to settle the matter myself. All I want from you is Dune-Harrigan’s address. It’s not listed in the phone book and AT&T wouldn’t give it to me without a warrant.”

    “Maybe AT&T have a good reason? But the professor works at the university. So ask
them
!”

    “If necessary, I intend to do just that. But the university people could put him on his guard. It saves a lot of wear and tear on my legs and brain if I get his damned address from you.”

    “I don’t see why you single out the professor. That crossbow could have been fired by anyone in the audience.”

    “Ridiculous! They wouldn’t know how to load it for a start. The only two people I’d place in the loading venture are stupid Brunsdon himself, and the ever-so-knowledgeable Professor Dune-Harrigan.”

    “I’m sure it’s not that complicated.”

    “Believe me, it’s not easy for anyone but an expert like Dune-Harrigan.”

    “Who said he was an expert on bows and arrows?”

    “Me! I happen to know him!”

    “You know Dune-Harrigan?”

    “He was my professor at uni.”

    “That’s bad. That’s
very
bad!”

    “What’s the problem now?”

    “All quiz shows – and Kenovarnie’s is no exception – have strict rules against collusion – or what even could be perceived as collusion. Thus friends, family, relatives and even casual  acquaintances of contestants are barred.”

    “Dune-Harrigan doesn’t fit any of those categories. He was my professor at uni. No way could he be considered a friend, a relative or even a casual
acquaintance
. I hate the bastard. And you’ll be happy to know that feeling is totally mutual.”

    “That’s another reason why you shouldn’t be here. Don’t you realize that if Dune-Harrigan got wind that we’d supplied you with his address, he could sue us?”

    “He wouldn’t dare! He’d have to come clean that he’d loaded and fired a crossbow at me with intent to wound – or even to kill me! Even if he didn’t come clean, a suspicion like that would kill his career. So what’s his address now? No more excuses!”

    She made more demurs of course, but finally, she gave me the bastard’s address. She still wanted the last word though. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she grumbled. “What if Sedge or Monty or “Ace” or someone like that saw you? You could always have asked me over the phone.”

   
Like hell I could, sweetheart!
I thought to myself. “There’s something else I want from you. Give me an audience ticket for the next six Monday nights. Now there’s something even Mrs. Oscar Varnie would thoroughly approve of.”

    “Why didn’t you ask
him
then?”

    “I didn’t think of it at the time. But you can run it by any member of the
Strike a Fortune
crew, if you must have an authorization. They’ll all be mighty pleased to see me – you can bet your bottom dollar! But put me in the back row.”

    “As a rule, we only allocate tickets to parties of more than one.”                      

    “So give me
two
tickets then for each show. I’m not shy. I can always grab someone to accompany me. How about you, for instance?”

    “I’ll be busy on the set. But I do have a girlfriend though. Gloria. Do you think you can remember that name? You’ll need to tell it to the doorman.”