Chapter Seven #2
“Good girl,” Mort said.
Soon Mike made the rounds with our microphones.
“I’m sorry about your friend Ray,” I told him, as he attached my lavalier.
“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like we were best buddies or anything, just that I thought he was a good guy. A great part of the team.”
“What about the man who’s replacing him?” I gestured toward the console where Ray had sat.
“I don’t know him well enough yet to tell. A couple of the guys have worked with him before. They said he seemed okay.”
“It certainly takes a large staff to produce a game show,” I said.
“If you think this is a lot, some of the big, established shows have three times the crew we do. This is more of a skeleton crew, although if the show is a success, I imagine they’ll bring on more staff.”
“So tell me, who are some of the other people sitting behind the consoles?”
He looked up to the long bank of crew members busy at their stations. “Well, you got the three writers.”
“The people who wrote the questions?” Seth asked.
I looked up at the two women and one man, their faces lit by the reflection of the screens in front of them.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “They also function as judges, if there’s a question about whether an alternate answer might also be correct, or how something is phrased. Although I heard that’s one of the responsibilities that they’re talking about splitting up once the show gets off the ground.”
“And next to the writers?” I asked.
“Lucy. She operates the game board. Makes sure all the questions are typed in correctly and displayed at the right time.”
“You never think of that when you watch game shows at home,” Mort said. “The questions just kind of pop up.”
“That’s how you can tell she’s doing a good job,” Mike said.
“The guy next to her, behind the big console with all the screens, he determines which camera feed the audience will be seeing. Kind of like what Ray was doing, but for video. It’s a busy job when we go live, but he also tries to keep up during the morning taping.
The feeds of all the cameras and microphones are stored, and they can switch gears in postproduction, but there’s not really a whole lot of time for that.
Better to sort it all out live, then tweak it later if they need to. ”
“I thought that was the director’s job,” I said.
“So did I, when I started,” Mike said. “His job title is actually associate director. I guess Evelyn wanted to be free to move around the room and look for stories. Tell the cameras where to focus.” Mike looked uncomfortably around the room. “Excuse me. I’ve got one more table.”
Just minutes later, the roll call to check the microphones began, and we were off and running.
The first category turned out to be Colorful Lakes and Rivers, and Maureen nearly let out another squeal, apparently overjoyed that another of her study ideas might help our team.
I thought we did well, if the scribbling of my teammates was any indication.
Thankfully, the question about which tributary of the was known for its unusually dark color was easy to figure out with just a rudimentary understanding of Spanish.
This was followed by a playful category involving the names of Snow White’s dwarf friends.
The final category was Sitcoms, which was best left to Mort and Maureen, who were both much more current with pop culture.
When it came time to discuss our answers, there was little debate about the lakes and rivers.
“So,” I said, “we’re going with Yellow River, Black Sea, Blue Danube, the White River, Emerald Lake, the Blackwater River, Rio Negro, the Blue Nile, Cano Cristales, and Red River?” The last had really been a clue about a John Wayne movie, and both Mort and Seth were positive about their answer.
“Wait,” Seth said. “For the Danube, did they want the name of the river or the waltz?”
I looked at my shorthand notes of the question. “The river.”
“Then better change it to just Danube,” Seth said. “A bit of a trick question, that.”
The others concurred, so I crossed out “Blue.”
“And Cano Cristales fits the category because…?” Maureen said.
“It’s often called the River of Five Colors,” Seth said. “It’s in Colombia.”
Maureen turned a questioning gaze to me, and I felt my cheeks color. South America had been my beat, and I had no idea. I grimaced apologetically.
The questions about the dwarfs were a bit more challenging and more fun.
“Which dwarf name can be applied to a Washington Irving character after a meeting with a mysterious Dutchman?” I read. “Sleepy.”
When my teammates looked blank, I said, “Rip Van Winkle?”
“Oooh,” came the response.
“Which dwarf name best represents the second youngest March sister from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women?” I read. “That’s hardly fair. She’s much too complex to narrow down to one adjective.”
“Well,” Maureen said, “we’ve got Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, and Sneezy left, if that helps.”
“Of those, it can only be Bashful.” I wrote it on our answer sheet.
“Wait a second,” Maureen said. “I don’t know that I’d call Amy bashful. If anything, Beth is the bashful one.”
“Beth is the second to youngest March sister,” I said. “Amy is the youngest.”
“How can that be?” Maureen asked. “Margaret O’Brien seemed so much younger than Elizabeth Taylor…”
“Ah, you’re talking about one of the movie versions. I was referring to the book.”
“Did the question ask which one?” Seth asked.
“They did mention the author,” I said. “So I’m assuming they meant the book. Are you okay with ‘Bashful’ as our answer?”
Maureen bit her lip for a second, then nodded.
“Was the next the sports question?” Mort asked.
“Yes,” I said. “NBA head coach of the year in 2000.”
“Doc,” he said. “It was Doc Rivers.”
I wrote it down without debate.
“That leaves us with Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, and Sneezy,” Maureen recapped. “What’s the next clue?”
“The duchess, upon meeting Alice,” I said.
“Alice who?” Seth said. “I think Queen Victoria had a daughter named Alice, but it’s not ringing any bells with a duchess.”
“Could it be?” I asked, then laughed. “Maybe Alice in Wonderland?”
“Wasn’t the duchess the one screaming, ‘Off with her head’?” Maureen asked. “Could she be grumpy?”
“But as I recall,” I said, “when they met, the cook was putting a large amount of pepper into a pot of soup.”
“Sneezy?” Mort said.
I nodded. “Any objections?”
Of course there weren’t, and I wrote it down.
“I’m glad we have an English teacher on our team,” Mort said. “That book was always way too trippy for me.”
“That leaves Dopey, Grumpy, and Happy,” Maureen said.
“The next question,” I said, “was about a fictional ice hockey player turned golfer.”
“I’ve been thinking about that one,” Mort said.
“What’s there to think about?” Seth cut in. “It’s Happy Gilmore. I saw the film myself. Adam Sandler, I think. Put ‘Happy,’ Jess.”
“Wait.” Mort held up a finger. “Remember the category is what dwarf name best exemplifies the character. He might have been named Happy Gilmore, but do you remember what kind of person he was?”
“A bit short-tempered, wasn’t he?” Seth said. “Wait, are you saying…?”
“I think it’s a trick question,” Mort said. “They want you to think of Happy Gilmore, but instead, he was really…”
Maureen looked down at her list. “Grumpy?”
Mort extended his hands, palms up. “Just the way I see it.”
“What if it’s not a trick question?” Seth said. “What if you’re overthinking it?”
After a brief silence, Maureen said, “I like Grumpy. That’s two votes for Grumpy. Jessica?”
“I abstain, which means Grumpy wins.” I wrote it on our answer sheet.
“I hope you’re right, Mort.” Seth rubbed his hands together.
“Me too.” Mort blew out an exasperated breath.
Reviewing the category about sitcoms consisted mostly of Mort and Maureen talking back and forth, until we got to the question about who played Lucy Ricardo’s cousin Ernie.
Seth and I answered at the same time. “Tennessee Ernie Ford.”
When we finished, I checked over my penmanship to make sure all my answers were clearly legible, then looked around, almost a little surprised to see the cameras.
I’d been concentrating so hard on the questions that I’d almost forgotten about them.
And because we had spent more time debating the second category, we were not the first team to finish.
That honor belonged to the Sagebrush Sages.
Seth tapped me on the arm and gestured to Curt and Bert, who were once again having a loud discussion in front of the camera. “I still don’t like their color.”
“We redheads do tend to blush more easily,” Maureen offered.
But as we watched, Bert stopped yelling and clutched at his chest.
Seth immediately headed over, calling “Medic!” on the way.
Curt seemed oblivious to what was happening with his brother. “Hey, no cheating!” he barked at Seth as he gathered his team’s notes and quickly turned them over.
But Seth dropped to one knee and was already taking Bert’s pulse when the medic arrived with his bag.
He pulled out a blood pressure cuff and took a reading, which seemed to quiet everyone at the table.
Irritation and anger melted into concern.
Seth also reached into the bag and pulled out a pulse oximeter and stuck it on Bert’s finger, followed by the medic retrieving a portable EKG machine.
I realized I was staring and deliberately glanced away. The cameras, I noticed, did not.
My gaze swept back to where I knew the row of consoles stood, now swathed in darkness because of the bright stage lights. I wondered if Caseras was still there watching and if he found this turn of events as curious as I did.
I looked back at Bert. Could he be another victim of our poisoner?