Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

“Wheels,” I said, getting an idea. “Wheels could set up a collision scene. I crash into this Gina Velker. ‘So sorry,’ I say, ‘how about a drink.’ Zap! I’m on my way.”

“Very bad.”

“Why, Tall Tommy?”

“Because these Velkers love lawsuits. You’re going to end up in court.”

“I told you the supermarket stuff stank.” Barry plays Mr. Paraquat. “Does this broad own a dog? She’s got to own a dog. Everyone in New York owns a dog. I read in the paper that there are more dogs than people here.”

“Someone must have my quota,” I said. “Why a dog, Barry?”

“We get you the same kind of dog and you walk it on her street. It’s a great way to pick up girls.”

“No dog,” Jack Mac reports. “But the supermarket idea would work if Chick let the broad smash into him!”

They all looked at each other in agreement, which was easy for them, since I was the one who had to take the lumps. Besides, I had other qualms: suppose she didn’t like me?

“Boy, if I knew when I left the house this morning,” Gina Velker was saying across the tablecloth, “that I would almost cripple a star and end up playing Florence Nightingale and having lunch at 21 — wow. Is that Tom Brokaw over there?”

“Who?”

“Tom Brokaw. You know, the Today show? Jane Pauley, Gene Shalit?”

I could have told her I’d never seen the Today show, since I usually sleep till noon or better, but not wanting to rock her boat, I glanced at the next table and whispered to her, “That’s ol’ Tommy, all right.”

It seems all my qualms about my appealing to her were for naught. My luncheon guest was a celebrity junkie, a TV addict, and a professional fan. Instead of a brain, she had a cathode ray tube. Her addiction, however, was a Godsend to the plot, because one of the local channels was re-running the hell out of a sci-fi bomb I made ten years ago. She recognized me when I took the dive in the supermarket and “helped” me to Doc Dranger’s office on the West Side, where my ankle was taped and a cane supplied. (Doc Dranger is a friend of Tall Tommy. He is short on ethics and long on whiplash scams and gunshot wounds.)

When we left Dr. Dranger’s, I kept the hustle in motion by offering her lunch at 21. Although she was OD’ing on bliss, it wasn’t a rubberneck’s awe. She seemed to know that you just don’t stroll into 21 at twelve thirty without a reservation and get seated at Table 3.

“The Benchley corner!” she said after Walter had gotten us settled and the drink order was taken. “Did you know Otto Preminger had a fight here over the film rights to In Cold Blood? Chick, you have clout. But how come we didn’t go to your restaurant?”

“Because a lot of people keep coming up to the table for a smooze, and I wouldn’t have a minute to get to know you better.”

She blushed happily. “Tom Brokaw has a high P.Q., you know,” she said. “What’s your P.Q., Chick?”

“P.Q.?”

“Personality Quotient. You know, like I.Q. All stars have P.Q.’s or else they wouldn’t be stars. P.Q.’s are different from R.Q.’s...”

She went on to tell me about Recognition Quotients (mine was high, according to her) and how, despite Brokaw’s likability, the Nielsen ratings hadn’t been tiptop on the Today show.

I sat there going into a reality warp. Here I was, sitting in a restaurant filled with people who made handsome livings in all forms of communications and finance and who spoke their own trade lingos, and this average housewife sounded just like them. Maybe it came through the air and you absorbed it via osmosis. But the main difference between Gina and the media types and moguls surrounding us was that she believed it all without question. The kid was like a comatose patient hooked up to a vital life support system that pumped fantasy and vicarious involvement into her.

The plan called for me to squire her around town and get our names in the columns — a real press agent push. With her addiction, she seemed like a sitting duck, but I had to test her F.Q. (that’s Fidelity Quotient, folks). I dangled a fix before my heavy user.

“Frank Sinatra,” I said, so low it was barely audible. But celebrity freaks have built-in sonar.

“Where?” Her head swiveled a hundred and eighty degrees east and west, and then she turned sideways to sweep north and south. “Where?”

“Where what?”

“Frank Sinatra. You said Frank Sinatra!”

“Oh, I must have mumbled out loud, Gina. Forgive me. I was reminding myself to give him a call about next Tuesday night.”

“You are seeing Frank Sinatra on Tuesday? Really, Chick?”

“On the contrary, Gina. I won’t be seeing Frank on Tuesday. My date wouldn’t want to go to the United Charities Ball with a guy with a gimpy leg.”

It’s working like an ounce of gold in a bear market. She’s drooling. And she was about to have her credibility sullied with the Providence legal eagle.

“You mean to tell me,” Gina is appalled, “that the girls in your set” (set yet!) “would turn down a fellow for a date because he had a limp? A temporary limp, at that?”