The Fame Game Read Free

street,” she said softly.
    Michelle looked at her oversized wristwatch. “I can’t, I’ll be late for English class again.”
    “You have to be prepared to make sacrifices …” Barrie murmured.
    “Yeah, well I don’t want to get flunked .”
    “Discuss it on the street,” the cop said, and herded the girls into the elevator.
    Gerry watched the cage descend and smiled at the security cop. She remembered very well when she had been like that, and she felt sorry for the kids.
    “This is nothing,” the cop said. “You should have seen with the Beatles. We caught a kid in the air shaft. She almost suffocated.”
    In the suite Lizzie Libra had disposed of the last of the seventy-two pieces of luggage and Room Service had cleared away the breakfast dishes and delivered an enormous order of coffee and Danish pastries. Sam Leo Libra, now dressed in a silver-gray silk suit and a thin silver-gray knitted tie, was arranging the packs of cigarettes in a large Baccarat crystal bowl on the coffee table in front of the couch. The smell of disinfectant floated lightly in the air, mingling with the sweeter smell of the flowers.
    “You get your ass out of here now, Lizzie,” he said pleasantly. “Do you have plans for the day?”
    “I’m going to lunch with Elaine Fellin and then I’m going to my shrink. Then I’ll probably go shopping to recover from the shrink.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Elaine is picking me up here at twelve.”
    “Well, what are you going to do until then?”
    “Would you believe get dressed?” Lizzie Libra marched into the bedroom and shut the door. Then she opened it again and stuck her head out. “My husband,” she said to Gerry sarcastically, “he’s so concerned about me.” She shut the door.
    “I’m not concerned about you,” Libra yelled. “I just want to be sure you get your ass out of here while I’m working.” He turned to Gerry pleasantly. “My wife always works up a mad at me just before she goes to her analyst so she’ll have something to tell him to make him think he’s worth all that money I pay him.”
    “Who’s Mad Daddy?” Gerry asked.
    “If you don’t know now you’ll know soon,” Libra said. “He’s got this afternoon kids’ show on television that the teen-agers have picked up on. He’s turned into their love idol. I’m getting the show changed to a night-time slot, probably midnight, next month. I’ll know for sure in a day or two. Then everybody in the country will know him.”
    “A kiddie show at midnight?”
    “Why not? Did you ever hear of one before?”
    “No, I hadn’t,” Gerry said, embarrassed. There was something about this man that made her feel defensive, as if the idea of a children’s television show at midnight was perfectly plausible, if not a stroke of genius, and it was only her stupidity that prevented her from realizing it.
    Libra looked at his Cartier wristwatch. “Before the people start coming in I’ll fill you in a little about what I do. You can’t expect to learn it all at once, but you can try to keep up or you’ll be no use to me. Do you want some coffee?”
    “Thanks.”
    To her surprise, he rushed over to the table and poured the coffee for her. “Cream and sugar?”
    “Black, please.”
    “Danish?”
    She was starving, but she was afraid it would stick in her throat. “Maybe later, thanks.”
    He handed her the coffee and a napkin. “Sit down. Now, at three thirty we’ll watch the Mad Daddy Show and you’ll see what he’s all about. His wife Elaine will be here to pick up Lizzie for lunch. Mad Daddy’s Christian name, would you believe Jewish, is Moishe—Moishe Fellin. When you meet him in a day or two, call him Daddy. If you call him Moishe he’ll have a coronary occlusion on the spot and I’ll lose a client. I already lost one that way three days ago.”
    “I know. I read it in the papers.”
    “Damn shame,” Libra said. “He was a grand old man and a great talent. You don’t see many like