Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (top novels of all time TXT) 📖

find the one that was treating Michelle. This was followed by calls from fans looking for the same thing. These in turn were followed by both fans and reporters who had found out that Pomona Valley was in fact the hospital they wanted; the reporters were invoking the First Amendment, and the fans their right to know about their favorite star. These were followed by fans and reporters posing as family members. As Michelle had no living family, this didn’t get them very far.

Credit where credit is due: Mike Mizuhara was as good as his word. He had the ICU ward sealed off; everyone who stepped off the elevator or out of the stairwell was greeted by a Pomona city cop, who had a printed list. On the list was the name and, more importantly, the photograph, of every doctor, nurse and staff member who had access to the fourth floor. Anyone who showed up on the fourth floor without permission was quickly and efficiently arrested for trespassing.

By eight am, more than a dozen people, posing as doctors, nurses, or staff, were in the pokey. A couple of them, from the tabloids, tried to bribe the officers. The officers were not amused; they had integrity, and besides, Mike Mizuhara had informed them that any bribe would be matched, plus ten percent; I later learned that Carl, who had bankrolled this effort, ended up shelling out nearly $25,000. The would-be bribers ended up in the pokey like everyone else, their money confiscated as evidence.

One amateur video guy, hoping to sell his tape to the afternoon tabloid shows, simply got on the elevator and, when the door opened on the fourth floor, sprinted down the hall, yodeling, waving his video camera wildly in hopes that a frame or two would later show Michelle in her bed. He was surprised when the cop stationed at the stairwell popped up in front of him. He was even more surprised when the cop shot him with a taser. He was given his props for the attempt, but went to the slammer anyway.

When it became clear that no one was getting onto the fourth floor, more drastic measures were attempted: four people were arrested when they tried to trip the fire alarms to cause an evacuation — three by pulling the fire alarm, one by setting fire to that morning’s edition of the Inland Daily Bulletin and waving it at the smoke alarm. He was caught by an orderly’s flying tackle; the tackle cracked his skull on the floor. He was treated for concussion on the spot, and then transferred to the county jail infirmary.

As Carl suggested, I went into work at the usual time. I took Joshua with me, at his insistence. “I want to do something for you,” he said, though he wouldn’t explain what. On the way in, I flipped through the radio stations. Nearly all the radio stations were talking about Michelle; on one, the DJ was lamenting the fact that Michelle’s possible death brought down the number of people on earth worth screwing. On another radio station, a caller had noted proudly that he had uploaded the faked picture of the three way between Michelle, George Clooney and Gwenyth Paltrow onto every single pornographic Internet newsgroup as a “tribute.”

The entrance to Lupo Associates was swarmed with reporters, camera operators and sound men. As I parked I saw Jim Van Doren near the periphery of the crowd, scanning the parking lot for my car; he spotted it and started moving towards it. Some of the more alert camera operators followed him; within seconds a stampede was coming toward my car.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

“Let me out of the car,” Joshua said. “Then follow me. Get ready to run.”

I hopped out of the car and let Joshua out. Joshua hit the ground running and hurled himself at the oncoming swarm, snarling and baring his fangs. There was chaos as members of the press retreated, screaming, from Joshua’s full frontal assault; suddenly a path miraculously appeared through them. I set out at a sprint. Reporters, torn between being bitten by an angry dog and getting their story, hollered questions at me as they retreated; their sound people desperately swung their boom mikes towards me to catch my response. At least one of the boom mikes connected with a camera operator. I heard a crunch as a $75,000 video camera hit the ground but didn’t stay to watch.

Joshua snarled one last snarl, then raced towards the agency entrance, getting there at the same time as I did. We were met at the door by Miranda, who unlocked it just long enough to let us through, and then pushed it shut again the second we were inside.

I turned around, expecting to see the reporters pressed up against the glass, shouting questions. Instead, there was a riot going on in the parking lot. Apparently the cameraman who got whacked by the boom mike had decided to take the cost of the damage out of the mike operator’s hide. A couple of people were trying to separate the two; the rest, drawn into the melee, were content to start swinging. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching some of the most overly-paid reporters in the country slugging each other, pulling each other’s hair, and kneeing each other in the groin.

“Tom, you should have been a movie star,” Miranda said. “You sure know how to make a hell of an entrance.”

“It’s not me that did all that,” I said, still looking at the crowd. “You can thank my furry friend Joshua over there.”

Off to the side of the riot, Jim Van Doren leaned against a car. He looked at the fight, then turned to look at me. Then he saluted. What a kidder.

“Did you do that, Joshua?” Miranda said, in that voice you use with dogs. “What a good dog!”

Joshua barked happily.

*****

I spoke to the press at noon, like we had planned. Carl had flown in Mike Mizuhara and Dr. Adams from Pomona Valley; all four of us were standing at a podium that had been put in front of the agency’s entrance. Slightly off to one side, Miranda sat, petting Joshua, who sat attentively, waiting for a reporter to get too far out of line. I was told that the press announcement was being carried live on three of the local stations and also on the E! Channel. For some reason, I found this profoundly irritating.

Precisely at noon, I stepped up to the podium, tapped the microphone to make sure it was on, and got out my prepared statement.

“Good afternoon,” I said, because at 30 seconds past noon, it was. “Since early this morning, the media has been filled with rumors concerning the well-being of my client Michelle Beck. It has come time to answer these rumors with the facts.

“First, and most important — Michelle Beck is not dead nor is she near death. Rumors of her death have been irresponsibly spread; let them end here.

“Second, yesterday, at about four pm, Miss Beck was involved in an accident during pre-production work on Earth Resurrected. The accident caused her to be suffocated; first aid was administered at the scene and Miss Beck was then taken to Pomona Valley Hospital, where she remains now.

“Miss Beck has not regained consciousness since the accident, nor is there a timetable for her to do so. After I am done, Dr. Adams, who treated Michelle when she came in, and Dr. Mizuhara, the chief of staff of Pomona Valley, will give a brief medical update on Miss Beck’s condition and will answer questions that relate to her medical condition.

“Those of us who knew her are praying for her recovery and hope that her fans worldwide will also do so. However, we ask that you do not attempt to visit her; she needs rest and quiet. Pomona Valley Hospital and the Pomona Police Department will not hesitate to arrest and prosecute any unauthorized attempts to visit Miss Beck. Please respect this request: it’s in Miss Beck’s best interests.

“Pomona Valley has also requested me to ask fans and admirers to stop sending flowers and fruit baskets — their waiting room is clogged and after this point they will just be thrown out. If you feel you must do something, please write a check to the Pomona Valley Hospital general fund. I know that Michelle would greatly prefer that to flowers — these people are helping her and they deserve all our support.”

I folded up the prepared statement and asked if there were questions. Obviously, there were.

“What will happen to Michelle if she doesn’t emerge from her coma?” asked the reporter from Entertainment Weekly. “Will she stay on a respirator or will she eventually be disconnected?”

“We haven’t even thought about that yet,” I said. “Nor have the doctors at Pomona Valley given us any indication that’s where things are going. Until we know her medical situation a little better, it would be premature to think about it.”

“Who is the one that will eventually make that decision?” asked the anchor of Inside Story. “Her parents or some other relative?”

“Michelle’s parents passed away a couple of years ago,” I said, “and she has no other family. When I got to the hospital, I was told that I was the person to whom she entrusted her emergency medical decisions to. So I suppose if that decision has to be made, I’ll be the one to make it.”

This answer caused a mild stir. I pointed to the reporter from the Los Angeles Times, but before she could ask her question, someone in the back hollered a question.

“Do you think it’s appropriate for you to make that decision?”

Everyone’s head swiveled around. It was Jim Van Doren, of course.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I said, do you feel it’s appropriate for you to be the one that makes that decision? Yes, you’re her agent, but recently, there’s been some questions about your own work and the way you’ve treated some of your clients. Do you really think it’s wise for you to be the one who makes this life-or-death decision?”

Over to the side of me, I could hear Joshua growling lowly. I knew how he felt.

“Listen,” I said. “I never asked to be the one Michelle gave this responsibility to. Drs. Adams and Mizuhara can tell you how surprised I was when I was told about it. Would I have wanted this responsibility? No. Will I refuse it now? No.”

“Uh-huh,” Van Doren said. “Are you the beneficiary of her estate?”

“What?” I said.

“I’m just thinking here,” Van Doren said. “If you’re the person she trusts with her life, you’re probably the person that’d benefit from her death. She just got $12 million for Earth Resurrected; that’s a lot. So are you the beneficiary? Or will that be a surprise, too?”

The crowd of reporters erupted. I just stood there, blinking, stunned that Van Doren could just casually imply that I was a crazed murderer. On the other hand, he was driving me insane, and if he’d been in reach, I probably could have killed him right there. Van Doren just stood there, with a little smile that said gotcha.

I was still gripping the side of the podium when Carl tapped me and gently dislodged me from where I was standing. Miranda came up to me and pulled me back away. Joshua looked up at me worriedly. I heard Carl speaking to the reporters — “Let’s try to keep our eye on the ball, here…,” he began — and then wheeled around into the building.

I stormed into my office and went to my office closet. Miranda came in about a second afterwards, followed by Joshua.

“What are you doing?” Miranda asked.

“Tony Baltz got me a set