Agent to the Stars | Page 8

you're going to enjoy
this."
"I hope so," I said. "I'm in for the long haul. So who is the client? Is it Tony?" Antonio
Marantz had been caught fondling a sixteen-year-old extra on the set of the latest
Morocco Joe film. It was a bad situation made worse by the fact that the sixteen-year-old
that People's "Most Eligible Bachelor" was fooling around with happened to be a boy,
and the son of the director. After the director's fingers were pried from Tony's throat,
everything was hushed up. The director got a million dollar raise. The boy got a
Director's Guild "internship" on the Admiral Cook biopic that was filming in Greenland
for the next six months. Tony got a stern lecture about the effect that cavorting with
underage boys would have on the asking price of his next role. The crew got lesser but
still fairly rich favors. Everyone stayed bought; It didn't even make the gossip column of
Buzz. But you never know. These things spring leaks.
"No, it's not Tony," Carl said. "Our client is here."
"In the building?"
"No," Carl said, tapping the aquarium that was between us. "Here."
"I'm not following you, Carl," I said. "You're talking about an aquarium."

"Look in the aquarium," Carl said.
For the first time since I entered the room, I took a good look at the aquarium. It was
rectangular and neither especially big or small -- about the size of the usual aquarium
you'd see in any home. The only thing notable about it was the absence of fish, rocks,
bubbling filters or little plastic treasure chests. It was filled entirely with a liquid that was
clear but slightly cloudy, as if the aquarium water hadn't been changed in about a month.
I stood up, looked over the top of the aquarium, and got a closer look. And smell. I
looked over the aquarium at him.
"What is this, tuna Jell-O?"
"Not exactly," Carl said, and then addressed the aquarium. "Joshua, please say hello to
Tom."
The stuff in the aquarium vibrated.
"Hi, Tom," the aquarium gunk said. "It's nice to meet you."


Chapter Three
"How do you do that?" I asked Carl.
"Do what?" Carl asked.
"Make it speak," I said. "That's a really neat trick."
"I'm not making it speak, Tom." Carl said.
"No, I know that. I realize it's not a ventriloquist thing," I said. "What I'm asking is, how
does sound come out of it at all. Jell-O doesn't strike me as the most efficient medium for
sound."
"I'm not really sure about the physics of it, Tom," Carl said. "I'm an agent, not a
scientist."
"This is very cool technology," I said, touching the surface of the gunk. It was sticky, and
resisted my fingertips a little. "I mean, I'm not going to rush out and buy Jell-O speakers,
but it's still very cool. What is it? Something from a science fiction movie? Is our client
doing a film about gelatinous aliens or something?"
"Tom," Carl said. "It's not about a movie. That," he pointed to the aquarium, "is our
client."

I stopped playing around with the gunk and looked over at Carl. "I'm not following you,"
I said.
"It's alive, Tom," Carl said.
The stuff wriggled slightly under my fingers. I pulled them back so quickly I felt a seam
on my suit jacket rip. An inside seam. Near the shoulder. I had paid $400 for the jacket,
and it let me down in the first moment of crisis. I focused all my mental energy on
considering that jacket seam, because the only other thing to think about at the moment
was that thing in the tank. The jacket seam, that I could handle.
Finally, after a few minutes, the words came, something that, I think, covered the
enormity of the situation and what I was experiencing in my head.
"Holy shit," I said.
"That's a new one on me," said the aquarium gunk.
"It's just an expression," Carl said.
"Holy Christ on a pony," I said.
"So's that," Carl noted.
"Ah," said the gunk. "Listen, do you mind if I get out of this box now? I've been it all day.
The right angles are killing me."
"Please," Carl said.
Thank you," said the gunk. A tendril formed off the surface of the gunk and arched
towards the conference table, touching down close to the center of the table. The tendril
wobbled slightly for a second, then thickened tremendously as the gunk transferred itself
out of the aquarium through the tendril. When the transfer was over the tendril
reabsorbed into the main body, which now sat, globular, on the conference table.
"That's much better," the gunk said.
"Carl," I said. I was keeping my distance from the gunk. "You'd really better