“And I know just who to go to!” Brenda’s eyes flashed with excitement. “Ron Gabriel!”

Finger’s eyes flashed back. “No! I will not work with that punk! Neverl I told you before, nobody calls me a lying sonofabitch and gets away with it. And he did it to my face! To my goddamned face! He’ll never work for Titanic or anybody else in this town again. I swore itl”

“B.F.,” Brenda cooed into the phone screen, “do you remember the first lesson you taught me about how to get along in this business?”

“No,” he snapped.

“Well I do,” she said. “It’s an old Hollywood motto: ‘Never let that sonofabitch back into this studio… unless we need him.’”

“I will not…”

“B.F., we need him.”

“No!”

“He’s a great idea man.”

“Never!”

“He works cheap.”

“I’d sooner see Titanic sink! And the whole holographic project go down with it! Not Gabriel! Never!”

The image clicked off the screen.

Brenda looked up at Oxnard. “Better cancel the wine,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because we’re driving out to Ron Gabriel’s place. Come on, it’s not far.”

2: THE WRITER

Oxnard and Brenda ran through cold, heavy sheets of rain to her car. Although it was only a few yards from the restaurant door, they were both gasping and drenched as they slid onto the plastic seats and slammed the car doors.

Brenda rubbed at her eyes. “At least it’ll clear away the smog for awhile.”

Sucking in air through his mouth, Oxnard realized that for the first time in weeks there was no perfume smell pervading the environs. And he could breathe without noseplugs.

“Every cloud has a platinum catalytic filter for a lining,” he said.

Brenda laughed as she gunned the car to life. In the dim light from the dashboard, Oxnard could see that her long red hair was glistening and plastered down around her face. It somehow looked incredibly sexy that way.