Page 143 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Soaked to the Bone

perhaps he was afraid of rivals bugging the furniture, another studio
engaging in espionage to get to market first with a plagiarized plot.
Labelle let him catch his breath.
“There is more?” she asked quietly.
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Tim, but the spell was broken and he
began racing through the rest of the yarn. “It would ruin the
suspense, of course, to tell the reader—or the viewer—what that plan
is until the very end, but, well, I guess you will obtain a draft of the
screenplay if you want one. Anyway, it involves their going to a
harvest festival in Puntarenas, on the Pacific coast. It is like Carnival.
Everyone is in costume. Huge floats draped with fruit and vegetables,
gigantic squash and ears of corn, singing and dancing, brass bands.
Raleigh-Bolle’s men are after them, as are the police, thanks to the
stolen car. Their pursuers lose them in the crowd, where they don
costumes and mingle with the revelers. Ellie’s mask is knocked off,
and before she can recover, she is spotted by the surgeon, who has
joined the chase. He gathers the opposition forces and, after fighting
their way through the crowd, they close in on the succotash pair.
They finally grab the suspects and rip off the masks: they are Costa
Ricans, not the fugitives!”
Tim grinned, thrilled by his hackneyed denouement. “You see, it
was an intentional deception. Orson effectively clones himself and
Ellie, the unwitting doppelgangers designed, as it were, to save their
lives—the same thing Raleigh-Bolle did. Having found another
couple about their size, they donned similar outfits; then Ellie
attracted their pursuers’ attention at a moment when she could
disappear close to the other couple. She and Orson leave the parade
disguised again, this time as part of the maintenance crew cleaning up
the mess. Trucks carry the refuse down to the harbor, where garbage
scows await. As the police and Megalith’s security force go off in all
directions, Orson and Ellie escape on a ferry to Managua, ready to
start a new life. But they know they will have no rest as long as John
A. Raleigh-Bolle is alive.”
That meant leaving it open for a sequel: Clones in Space, perhaps.
Tim was proud of his handiwork, certain that he had found the secret
formula of ‘high concept,’ that is, comprehensibility by the ill-
educated. Labelle Gramercy was inscrutable; could there be deeper
meaning to the story than any of we public pulse-takers were able to

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