'I've been thinking about that,' said Bezam. 'Yeah. Something with fancy pillars out in front. And my daughter Calliope plays the organ really nice, it'd make a good accompaniment. And there should be lots of gold paint and curly bits-'
His eyes glazed.
It had found another mind.
Holy Wood dreams.
- and make it a palace, like the fabulous Rhoxie in Klatch, or the richest temple there ever was, with slave girls to sell the banged grains and peanuts, and Bezam Planter walking about proprietorially in a red velvet jacket with gold string on it
'Hmm?' he whispered, as the sweat beaded on his forehead.
'I said, I'm off,' said Throat. 'Got to keep moving in the moving-picture business, you know.'
'Mrs Planter says you've got to make more pictures with that young man,' said Bezam. 'The whole city's talking about him. She said several ladies swooned when he gave them that smouldery look. She watched it five times,' he added, his voice rimed with sudden suspicion. 'And that girl! Wow!'
'Don't you worry about a thing,' said Throat loftily. 'I've got them under contr-'
Sudden doubt drifted across his face.
'See you,' he said shortly, and scurried out of the building.
Bezam stood alone and looked around at the cobwebbed interior of the Odium, his overheated imagination peopling its dark corners with potted palms, gold leaf and fat cherubs. Peanut shells and banged grain bags crunched under his feet. Have to get it cleaned up for the next house, he thought. I expect that monkey'll be first in the queue again.
Then his eye fell on the poster for Sword of Passione. Amazing, really. There hadn't been much in the way of elephants and volcanoes, and the monsters had been trolls with bits stuck on them, but in that close up . . . well . . . all the men had sighed, and then all the women had sighed . . . It was like magic. He grinned at the images of Victor and Ginger.
Wonder what those two're doing now? he thought. Prob'ly eating caviar off of gold plates and lounging around up to their knees in velvet cushions, you bet.
'You look up to your knees in it, lad,' said the horseholder.
'I'm afraid I'm not getting the hang of this horseholding,' said Victor.
'Ah, 'tis a hard trade, horse-holding,' said the man. 'It's learning the proper grovellin' and the irreverent-but-not-too-impudent cheery 'oss'older's banter. People don't just want you to look after the'oss, see. They want a'oss-'olding hexperience.'
'They do?'
'They want an amusin' encounter and a soup-son of repartee,' said the little man. 'It's not just a matter of 'oldin' reins.'
Realization began to dawn on Victor.
'It's a performance,' he said.
The 'oss-'older tapped the side of his strawberry-shaped nose.
'That's right!' he said.
Torches flared in Holy Wood. Victor struggled through the crowds in the main street. Every bar, every tavern, every shop had its doors thrown open. A sea of people ebbed and flowed between them. Victor tried jumping up and down to search the mob of faces.
He was lonely and lost and hungry. He needed someone to talk to, and she wasn't there.
'Victor!'
He spun around. Rock bore down on him like an avalanche.
'Victor! My friend!' A fist the size and hardness of a foundation stone pounded him playfully on the shoulder.
'Oh, hi,' said Victor weakly. 'Er. How's it going, Rock?'
'Great! Great! Tomorrow we shoot Bad Menace of Troll Valley!'