"James Patrick Kelly - The Leila Torn Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

everyone will love it when Margo shuts him up by sticking a mirror and that little pointy thing into his
mouth."

"A scaler," said Slappy. "It's called a scaler."

"If you say so." Herb's face went blank. "Nobody is going to know that's what it's called, Slap."
"I do." He dropped his shirt on the floor. "Jay will." A clothes snake slithered toward it. "I'll give it to the
ceepees." The snake unhinged its jaw and swallowed the shirt. "Maybe they can tweak a gag out of it."

"Tell them to have Margo stick him with it."

Slappy stepped out of his pants and waved over his shoulder as he headed for the ceepees' den. The
Leila Torn Show was grateful to have talent who still cared about her as much as Slappy O'Toole. He
was a real team player. Of course, he had to be. He wasn't ever going to be spun off to a show of his
own. As the snake ate Slappy's pants, she decided to have her ceepees write him a new warmup set.
Something less personal. Maybe about robots. Or Chinese food.

Herb Katz trudged down to the prop room and opened Anita Bright's closet. She shivered as the
fluorescent light penetrated her dreamspace.

"Thirty minutes, Anita," said Herb. "Time to get dressed."

Anita growled and stretched. She was naked; most of the talent waited for their calls in the nude. It made
costume changes go faster. Two clothes snakes coiled by the makeup table just outside the closet,
waiting to disgorge Anita's underwear and blouse and the indigo Jacquard pantsuit she would wear in the
crime scene. Anita was a detective working out of Homicide, who was Leila's nemesis and sometime
lover. Old Leila. She had a delicious body; there was no question that appropriate curves had always
been part of the show's appeal. But all that taut, creamy skin did nothing for Herb Katz, who was happily
married to Chill Jensen, the band leader in dreamspace, where her talent lived when they weren't doing
the show.

"How's the house?" said Anita, taking a seat at the makeup table.

"A freezer filled with mom and popsicles," said Herb. "Slappy barely got out alive."

"He needs better lines." Anita picked up the bra the snake had coughed into her lap. "We all do." She
slipped it on.

"And the ceepees say they need fresh talent."

"Ceepees come and go," she said bitterly. "This cast has been earning the ratings for seventeen seasons."

"Seventeen is a lifetime in dog years."

In the studio overhead, Kent Turnabout was getting the first big laughs of the episode. The ceepees had
him playing a funeral director, newly arrived from Mars, who hadn't quite adjusted to Earth's gravity. He
flopped unexpectedly into mourners' laps, almost knocked Leila's closed coffin off its stand and then tried
to apologize to it. The laughter pattered against the ceiling of the prop room like rain. "That sounds
promising," said Herb.