he threw a ball of paper at me. It bounced off the glass and landed in the corner, near a filing cabinet. It was a forced gesture, a fake, and we both knew it.
Selina put the call through as I got to the door of my office.
âIâve looked at everything youâve sent us and it looks like our kind of thing,â the producer said. I hadnât caught her name. âIâm happy to go to a production meeting with it. Who else can you get us apart from the medallist? Could we get other people who were involved? Maybe some family? A mentor?â
Yes, always yes. Keep them on the hook. âWeâve got plenty to choose from. I can line them up for you. Thereâs people at the firm for a start. A couple of the partners. I can get you the partner Ben reports to, who was in the building at the time. And the one who got hit on the head. Heâs still got a scar.â
âA visible scar?â
âSure. Heâs got practically no hair.â
âExcellent.â
âHarry Potter at fifty. Thatâs what people have said. Itâs a jagged sort of scar going back from his forehead.â
âWe like that,â she said.
By the end of the call, I had another âPROBABLEâ to write up on the whiteboard. I turned in my seat to write it, then swivelled back around to find Max Visser in my doorway in sky-blue lycra bike shorts, genitals like a pressed pigeon.
âHey, good work,â he said, looking at the board, the stink of exertion starting to infiltrate the room. Sweat ran from his chin and his elbows and dripped onto the carpet. âAustralian Story, hey? Thatâs the TV show?â
âThatâs the one.â I pushed and rolled my chair back behind my desk and away from his anatomically correct crotch. âIf it works out theyâll probably wantyou and Frank, so maybe we could have a talk. Once youâre . . . ready.â
âReady? Oh, yeah.â He looked down at the vibrant Gatorade shirt that stuck damply to his stomach, pink flesh showing through the white parts of the lycra. âOne of my kids is sick, so I started off the day at home. Thereâs a shower at the other end of the floor. Did they tell you that?â
âNo. Well, I donât want to keep you from it.â
âYeah, right. Thereâs a place near here where they make great coffee. Why donât we go there once Iâm decent and Iâve checked there arenât any fires needing putting out?â He retreated, leaving a dark damp patch on the floor.
Ben was still the issue. I could line up all the interviews and prep Max and the others without a fuss but, without getting Ben worked out, I had only trouble ahead. I put the cap on the pen, held back from the next call.
Selina was waving her hand in front of her face as I approached her work station.
âPhew, man sweat,â she said, as if it was still coming back at her, like a disturbed hive of bees. âHow is it that itâs okay to wear that stuff, just because thereâs a bike involved? Allegedly. Sometimes I turn round and, there it is, a face full of package. I swear he sneaks up on me. How do men think that, just because itâs got the name of some European bank across it, itâs acceptable? Blog about that some day, would you? Heâs also got a totally white pair. Is anything more wrong than white lycra? Does anyone look good in white lycra? Brazilian dancers donât look good in white lycra.â
âYou should see my floor where he sweated. Itâs like I just got a puppy.â
She laughed. She pushed her chair away from her keyboard, and turned so that she was facing me. She had three photos on her desk, two of fluffy white cats and one featuring her, probably drunk, hugging a man with a shaved head and thrusting her hand towards the camera to show off an engagement ring with a splinter of diamond. The thrust put her hand out of focus, and the diamond was
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