"Artemis, it's me." Lucien was saying. "It's me."

Artemis was staring at the man who used to be his brother -- who was now a stranger.

"It's not that strange a thing, you know," Lucien said. "People have lives. People move on. It's me."

The statement shook Artemis from his dazed and confused state.

"Allan, this is no time to get sarcastic," he snapped. "I'm the one that has you by the --"

"Don't say it," interjected Lucien. "And the name's not Allan. If you can't call me Lucien, then don't call me anything."

"Allan, Lucien, who the hell are you, anyway? You're a criminal, that's who you are. A fugitive. But you're going to be my meal ticket, whatever you are."

Let's face it. Lucien's a victim -- but mainly of his own self- deception. How in the hell did he ever think he was going to move from the left coast to the right, trump-up a new name, and put his personal history in the bottom drawer. Please!

The rain on the windows outside the table at which they sat began to get heavier, and the lights of the shabby New Jersey town across the Hudson River began to dim. Artemis and Lucien were practically the only ones in the diner at this hour. The traffic on the West Side Highway raced by. "What I mean," continued Artemis, "is that you're going to pay for me to keep my mouth shut. I've done some research. I know the history. I tracked you down, when even the FBI couldn't, for your information." Lucien winced, but tried not to show it. When Artemis had hinted at blackmail on the phone, Lucien had hoped he was bluffing. But evidently he wasn't.

Artemis had ordered a beer when he sat down, and as the waitress came and set it in front of him, the two long-estranged siblings stopped talking momentarily. When the waitress walked away, eyeing them suspiciously, Artemis went on.

"The fact is, I know about you. I know you've got a great big whopper of a secret -- that I suspect you wouldn't want any of your little advertising agency pals to know about. Something that could put you away for years." He sneered at Lucien and took a swig of beer from the bottle, leaving untouched the frosted mug the waitress had given him.

That was putting it mildly, Lucien thought, with irony. Being revealed as someone responsible for a front-page-headline-making fire, and the death of two innocent people, would bury him. The idea of his past being known by colleagues who liked and respected him filled him with humiliation and dread.

"Artemis, even you wouldn't be rotten enough to do something like that," he said, pretending that he was unaffected by Artemis's threat -- though his heart was racing.

"Try me," said Artemis, in a tone that dripped with both anger and genuine malice -- a malice that Lucien honestly couldn't figure out why Artemis felt toward him. Lucien's eyes filled with tears and he looked down into his coffee cup. Artemis didn't notice his brother was crying. "It's $100,000 and I'm out of your life. That's nothing for a big shot like you," Artemis pronounced. That's one Christmas bonus for you, big guy."

Blackmail's such an ugly word. Accurate, in this case. But still ugly. Yet when you have the ethical standards of Artemis Bagely -- not to mention having seen one too many "B" grade gangster movies on AMC recently -- extortion seems a viable option. Frankly, Artemis's only moral dilemma at the moment is whether he should be demanding more than $100,000. What is the going rate for keeping life-destroying secrets?

"If you think that's the kind of money I get paid, you're crazy," Lucien laughed, wiping his eyes with a paper cocktail napkin. "Not even close."

"I don't give a damn what you get paid," Artemis hissed, finishing his beer and wiping the foam from his upper lip with the already soiled denim sleeve of his shirt. "It's what you're going to give me."

Artemis stood up and began to walk toward the door of the diner. "You'll hear from me," he turned around and said to Lucien, as he walked out the door and into the rainy night.



Not "Spying," Really. "Information-Gathering!"

The next morning, Bernadette DaCapo's office door was strangely ajar, Sydney noticed. Bernadette was totally paranoid, in Sydney's experience, about her phone calls, and always kept her office door shut. Who knew what she was hiding!

So this particular morning, as Sydney walked past the stylish executive's door on her way back from the copy and fax room, Sydney hesitated, pretended to be riffling through the ream of paper in her hand looking for something, and all the while eavesdropped on Bernadette's conversation.

Here's what she heard. "Hollis? It's me. Bernie." "Me too, sweetie. Me too." "I know. I miss you." "I get in to Great Falls around 5:00 in the afternoon. Will you meet me?" "Okay. I can't wait." Just as the eavesdropping was getting really interesting, a couple of junior account executives strolled by and Sydney had to move on. Where the hell was Great Falls, she wondered as she walked purposefully back to her desk. Wyoming? Idaho? Montana? And what was Bernadette going there for? Who exactly was the "sweetie" she was talking to? And what kind of a cockamamie name was "Hollis"?

Jane Austen she's not. Breathes there an Ivy-educated administrative assistant in Manhattan without a novel or a screenplay in the top drawer. Still, somebody had to pen those Alec Baldwin/Kim Bassinger vehicles -- it might as well be Sydney Chen. Her creative-writing teacheres had always told her, "Write what you know." Her philosophy: "Write what you DON'T know -- and make it up." Duh!

Sydney returned to her desk, sat down, pulled out the spiral-bound notebook she kept in her top drawer and carefully took home in her red-leather backpack each day, and began to jot these questions down -- along with her supposed answers. It would have been easier to type her notes on the computer, Sydney often thought, but the observations she was recording from her see-all/hear-all desk at Hillyer, Jones -- which would some day form the basis of her million-dollar screenplay -- were way too hot to risk anyone else seeing.



Is This Job Worth It? (Is ANY?)

"No, Miss Ames, "no one is answering in the media department. Can I take a message? Yes. Yes. I've got it. Good-bye."

Agnes Ramirez was fielding frantic calls from women's magazines and network scheduling departments. Chewy-Crumbly Cookies had had a disastrous third-quarter, and had just decided to cancel all their fourth-quarter advertising. The word had gone out last week, and now the agency was being besieged by irate media reps. The agency's media department had reacted by asking Agnes to hold all calls -- and she was drowning.

She had three calls on hold and had just hung up from a fourth when a media planner who'd just gone into the conference room off the reception area with a magazine publisher stuck her head out and began to bark at Agnes.

"Agnes," the young woman whined nastily, scolding Agnes, who was at least twenty years her senior, "I specifically asked you for a three-quarter-inch machine, not VHS. We can't play this videotape. Not only that, the phone connection in here is digital. I told you we specifically needed an analog line. What do you expect us to do!"

Agnes didn't have the courage -- and was too well mannered -- to tell the little witch what she'd like her to do. So she simply cast her a dirty look and returned to her console.

"Hello?" she said. "No, I'm sorry, there's no one in the media department at the moment. May I take a message?"



Outta Here.

At that very moment, in the far-off reaches of Queens, Cy Lefkowitz stood -- or more accurately sat -- on the threshold of a new life. In the first-class lounge at United Airlines, he sipped a gin-and-tonic with lime -- the only cocktail he ever allowed himself to imbibe -- and luxuriated in the air-conditioned comfort of the place, looking forward to the lunch they'd serve him once on he was on board and airborne above Jamaica Bay.

So close and yet so far. Cy's departure seems endless -- even to him! And he's not even stuck reading episode 4! But he really is leaving, and to be so close to escaping the tyranny of his life in Manhattan ... yet still here ... is agonizing. Breathe deep, Cy. What could go wrong now? (Don't ask.)

How did people survive airports without having access to the first-class lounges? he thought, sinking back into the leather armchair and putting his feet on the walnut coffee table in front of him, on which the ground-based flight attendant placed a crystal bowl of cashews, with a "Hello, Mr. Lefkowitz." Everybody at the first-class lounge knew Cy, from his extensive -- sometimes weekly -- business travel for the agency to and from the west coast.

He'd gotten so sick of the back-and-forth-to-L.A. thing. But all that was over now. This voyage for Cy was a pleasure trip. And his ticket was one-way.

Over the intercom, a soft female voice intoned the message: "Flight 5009, service to Honolulu, is now boarding at gate B7. Would our first-class passengers, and those needing assistance, begin boarding at this time."

Eagerly -- far more eagerly than he'd ever boarded a plane before -- Cy reached for the carry-on bag he'd placed at his side, slipped on the loafers he'd taken off when he sat down, stood up, finished his drink, and began to walk toward his destiny.