Page 15 - Just Deserts

The Decimator

He pressed a hidden switch. “Miss Spreckle, would you please ask
Cyril Keller to come to my office with the Sunderbar portfolio.”
The candidate looked at his watch; waiting was not his game of
preference. Hathaway apologized.
“Sorry for the delay. Cyril is one of our bright boys; came very
highly recommended from an agency in Hollywood. I hired him as
soon as I knew we had a good chance of getting your contract. His
specialty is cinema; I think he studied it in college. At any rate, he
developed most of what you are going to see today. And he is a great
fan of yours: he insisted on presenting some of our plan himself. But
he won’t stay long.”
Sunderbar straightened up. A fan equaled a voter. But fans had to
be given what they wanted, a projected image of their ideals; voters,
demanding realization of many of those same aspirations, could be
put off with promises. And the politician who made those promises
really existed in the same shadow world of myths and dreams as the
cinema hero: confabulating one with the other was Iconoplast’s
mission.
Keller knocked and entered the inner office, clutching a
videocassette and a large sheaf of miscellaneous documents. Earlier
attempts to slick down his mop of hair and tuck in his shirttails did
not conceal his basic untidiness. He approached Hathaway with great
deference, not looking at Sunderbar until he was introduced. Then he
eagerly shook the movie star’s hand.
“This is a great honor and a pleasure for me,” he gushed, youthful
enthusiasm shining through the thin veneer of his professional
persona. “I saw all your films when I was a child and then I studied
them in school. I just want to say that in my opinion you have made a
real contribution to American cinema.”
“Well, thank you, young man.” Sunderbar flashed his admirer a
brief capped-tooth smile. Keller then extracted an old black-and-
white publicity photo from the portfolio.
“This is my personal property,” he said proudly. “I found it in a
junk store in Hollywood. It’s a collector’s item now. Could you
autograph it for me?”
Sunderbar glanced at Hathaway standing at his desk behind
Keller. The executive rolled his eyes upward and shrugged.
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