Get Real Read Free

a pleasant-looking guy in his early thirties, with that kind of open helpful manner that people’s mothers like.
     Which didn’t mean he was trustworthy.
    Or particularly swift. He reached the entrance at the far end of the wrought-iron fence, then stood there gaping around, apparently
     not able to figure out who anybody might be, until Dortmunder raised an arm and waved at him.
    Then the guy came right over, big smile on his face, hand stuck out for a shake from several yards away, and when he got close
     enough he said to Dortmunder, “You must be Mr. Murch.”
    “In that case, I got it wrong,” Dortmunder told him. “I’m John. This is Murch. Siddown.”
    Still smiling, Fairkeep put his unshaken hand away and said, “I’m Doug Fairkeep.”
    “We know,” Dortmunder said. “Siddown.”
    So Fairkeep sat down and said to Stan, “I had a very pleasant chat with your mother yesterday.”
    “I heard about that,” Stan said. “Usually, she’s a little better at keeping her lip buttoned.”
    “Oh, don’t be hard on your mom,” Fairkeep said, with a little indulgent smile. “She could tell I didn’t mean any trouble for
     you guys.”
    Dortmunder said, “What
do
you mean for us guys?”
    “I work for Get Real,” Fairkeep explained. “We produce reality shows and sell them to the networks. Maybe you’ve seen some—”
    “No,” Dortmunder said.
    Fairkeep was almost but not quite hurt. “No? How can you be
sure
you never saw even—”
    “John and I,” Stan explained, “don’t do much TV.”
    “I do the six o’clock news sometimes,” Dortmunder allowed, “for the apartment house fires in New Jersey.”
    “Well, reality TV,” Fairkeep told them, regaining the wind in his sails, “is the future. You don’t have these fake little
     made-up stories, with actors pretending to be spies and sheriffs and everything, you’ve got real people doing real things.”
    Dortmunder gestured at Trader Thoreau and its surround. “I got all that here.”
    “But not
shaped
,” Fairkeep said. “Not turned into
entertainment.
”
    Stan said, “Why doesn’t she come sit with us?”
    Fairkeep looked at him. “What? Who?”
    “Your friend,” Stan said, and pointed to where she lurked just outside the fence in crowded pedestrian land, being knocked
     about by elbows and shoulders as she tried to pretend she wasn’t taking pictures with a cell phone. “The fat girl in red.”
    For just an instant, Fairkeep turned as red as the fat girl’s coat, but then he laughed, open and cheerful, and said, “You
     guys are something. Sure, if you want. Where is she?” Not waiting for an answer (because he obviously knew she would be behind
     him to focus on the other two at the table), he twisted around and waved to her to join them.
    She obeyed, but hesitantly, as though not sure she’d interpreted the gesture properly, and when she neared them Fairkeep said,
     “Join us, Marcy. Marcy, this is John and that’s Stan Murch.”
    Marcy perched herself on the leading edge of the table’s fourth chair, but as she opened her mouth to speak a waiter appeared,
     harried and hurried but somehow with a smooth still inner core, to say, “For you, folks?”
    Stan said, “We all want a beer. Beck.”
    Fairkeep said, “Oh, nothing for me, thanks.”
    “You’re paying for it,” Stan told him, “so you might as well take it.” He nodded to the waiter, who was anxious to be off.
     “That was four Beck.”
    Slap,
four paper napkins hit the table and the waiter was gone.
    Stan said, “Marcy, let me look at that phone.”
    “Sure.” She handed him the phone, and he smiled at her as he pocketed it.
    Fairkeep said, “Hey—”
    “While we’re at it,” Dortmunder said, “why don’t you give me that receiver now? It’s there in your right pocket.”
    “My what?”
    “The thing that’s recording us,” Dortmunder said.
    Fairkeep bridled. “I’m not going to give you any company equipment!”
    Stan said, “You know,