center stage on their set.
“What’s up?” Neal asked.
Candy shook her head.
Jack Landis stood stock-still, looked at the hushed audience, then said, “You’re probably wondering where Candy is.”
The audience assented.
“So am I,” Jack said.
There was some nervous laughter in the crowd.
“Earlier today,” Jack continued, “I stood in the shadow of the Alamo and thought about those brave men who stood up for what they believed-and died for it.
“Well, I’d rather die than tell you what I have to tell you, but that would be the coward’s way out, and I guess I wouldn’t want to go out a coward. The ghosts of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett would haunt me.”
“What’s he doing?” Karen asked.
“They’re playing the card,” Neal said.
“What?”
“Watch.”
Jack looked directly into the camera. “What I have to stand up and say is that I did have an affair with Polly Paget.”
The audience gasped.
“Holy shit,” Karen said.
“Miss Paget seduced me in my office in New York…”
“Lying sack of crud,” Polly said.
“… and I regret to say that I fell to temptation. The affair was short-lived, but it happened, and I am deeply, deeply sorry.”
“He’s good,” Neal said.
“He sold used cars in Beaumont,” Candy said.
The camera zoomed in for a tighter close-up as Jack’s eyes brimmed with tears. His voice broke as he blurted, “I have betrayed you. I have betrayed you. I have betrayed my family… my audience… and my God…”
He broke down, dropped his head into his hands, and sobbed. His shoulders heaved up and down as members of the audience wept and cried, “No!” A woman in the front row fainted and had to be carried out.
The camera eased back to a head-and-shoulders shot as Jack struggled to compose himself, then continued. “I have decided to take a leave of absence from my duties at FCN.”
More shouts of “No!”
Jack continued, “I want to use that time to seek spiritual counseling and take a long hard look to find out just who is this man named Jackson Hood Landis.”
He bowed his head.
When he lifted it, he tightened his jaw, aimed his focus an inch higher, and said, “One thing I know about Jack Landis, though…
“ ‘He’s not a rapist,’ ” Neal murmured.
“He’s not a rapist,” Jack said. “That charge is utterly, completely, and absolutely false. I’m sorry to say that Miss Paget is a far sicker individual than I ever thought, and when I told her that I was going to end our relationship, she made up this horrible story for revenge. She told me that’s what she was going to do, and that’s what she did.”
“In your dreams,” Polly growled.
The camera tightened in on Jack’s tear-streaked face.
“One word more,” he said, “to my beloved wife, Candice.”
The tears poured down his face and little snot bubbles came out of his nose as he stared into the camera and choked out, “Candy darling, I know I’ve hurt you… but I love you… and if… you could ever find it in your heart… to forgive me…”
He broke into sobs, shook his head, and walked off the stage.
A stentorian voice announced, “And now, on FCN, ‘Flipper’!”
Jack Landis came off the stage.
A weeping apprentice handed him a towel and said, “That was beautiful, Mr. Landis. Deeply moving.”
“Fuck you,” Jack said.
He wiped the sweat off his face and walked out of the studio.
“Wow,” Karen said over strains of “They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning.”
“We’re hosed,” Neal said. Jack’s virtuoso performance had just taken Polly’s cards out of her hands.
“Why did he do that?” Polly asked.
“They’ll get instant polls,” Neal said, “and see how it went over. If the public bought it, they can rebuild FCN without dealing with you.”
You, who basically told Carmine Bascaglia to stick it up his ass.
“So?”
Neal didn’t want to tell her the whole truth. It wouldn’t do her any good. He knew that it might not happen right away, but it would happen. Sometime after Polly faded from the headlines, sometime after she tried to rebuild a life, someone would come and snuff it out.
“And you know Flipper, Flipper lives in a world full of wonder…”
He picked up the ringing phone.
“He was great, wasn’t he?” Ed gloated.
“He was terrific,” Neal admitted.
Ed said, “Listen, the client decided to enter an agreement with Mr. Landis, and he doesn’t think he can go forward with Ms. Paget in good faith.”
“Good faith, Ed?” Neal scoffed. “Are you reading from a card or something?”
“If Ms. Paget decides to pursue her litigation, of course that is her right,” Ed continued. “But it would be a conflict of interest for our attorneys to represent her.”
Now it’s a conflict of interest?
“So Friends’ role is finished,” Ed said. “Mr. Kitteredge asked me to thank you for your good work, apologize for any inconveniences, and instruct you to stand down.”
“That’s an oxymoron,” Neal observed. “Stand down.”
“You’re not hearing me, Neal. The job is over. Go home.”
“Let me make sure I have this straight,” Neal said. “We pick Polly up because we think she’s useful, then when she’s served our purposes, we throw her to the sharks. Is that it?”
“She shouldn’t have gotten greedy,” Ed answered.
“Yeah, wanting the truth.”
“Do you think we could protect her if we wanted to?” Ed asked. “When are you going to grow up?”
“I’ve grown up,” Neal said. “I’m packing. We’re out of here. The job’s over, like you said.”
He hung up and looked back at the three women who were staring at him.
“Hey.” He shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
So we might as well do it right now.
By the evening news, Jack had become a figure of sympathy, and Polly got the wrong end of the media’s magic wand as she slid from sexy victim on the run to love-crazed psycho female in a single afternoon.
The radio talk shows led it off. Calls started at about four to three for Jack and then jumped to two to one in his favor when the men got to their car phones at rush hour.
The afternoon papers rushed WHERE IS CANDY? sidebars onto the JACK CONFESSES headline stories, and the evening news commentators opened with, “ ‘I have betrayed you,’ said restaurant and media magnate Jack Landis today as he admitted an affair with a vengeful Polly Paget. Landis firmly denied, however, allegations of rape” before cutting to footage of Jack’s tearful television address.
By nighttime, “Jack’s Confession” parties had broken out on college campuses all over the country. Students who habitually set their VCRs for “The Jack and Candy Family Hour” invited friends, made popcorn, consumed massive quantities of beer, and howled uncontrollably as they reran the “I have betrayed you” segment, until
