Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky Read Online Free PDF Page A

myself that I wasn’t afraid of him any more. The old professor hadn’t changed a bit. I’d hoped that thirty years had softened him. I was wrong. His mind was a storehouse of hatred. Every man was his enemy. He didn’t rely just on his brute strength, but catalogued his opponent’s every weakness. He knew my fear of the very grate of his voice.
        No, Carmichael Dune-Harrigan hadn’t changed. He was still the same crazy, menacing, malicious, hideously self-sufficient, evilly opinionated bastard.
     

    2
     
    From the width of the stage during rehearsal, I’d imagined the auditorium a vast barn of a place; but now the houselights were on, I could see I was wrong. What I’d assumed to be the impenetrable gloom of a cavernous hall, was actually a brick wall. There was room for only four rows of audience seats, but spread right across the width of the stage, each row held thirty chairs. In all, one hundred and twenty spectators. No wonder TV producers seemed to have no trouble drumming up audiences for these shows. They provided not only free entertainment but a chance for people to see themselves on TV, and maybe come real close to the stars.
        Less than eight feet from the first row – just room enough for two TV cameras and their operators – we contestants would be seated in a widely spaced semi-circle. The quizmaster’s grandly tinseled podium had its own camera and stood on our left.
        I exhaled a sight of relief. It was good to know these details in advance and not have them sprung upon you at the last minute. I congratulated myself on my composure. I’m not afraid of a maleficent old professor, nor of stupid TV cameras, nor of the awkward angles of the stage. In fact, now that it was lit up and not half-blacked out as it was during our morning rehearsal, the stage looked far less intimidating. If anything, it seemed rather tatty. Although the set decorator had run amuck with tinsel and streamers, it breathed an air of impermanence – a gigantic flower that would bloom into garish life for a single hour a week (actually forty minutes excluding commercials and station identification) and at the end of its run be thrown away into the rubbish, forgotten by everyone – viewers and TV technicians alike – except for one extra lucky contestant. And Professor Dune-Harrigan notwithstanding, Mr. Extra Lucky was going to be me!  
        “Here’s Manning now!” announced Brian “Bingo” Frobisher, my floor manager friend.
        I strode to center stage. An ex-police sergeant knows all the ceremonies and psychology for taking command.
        I beckoned Frobisher, over. “Anyone else get the little cards?” I whispered.
        “Turned up four more, Mr. Manning: Our sponsor, Peter Tunning – that’s him in the celebrity, dark glasses! He got one, and so did Monty Fairmont. That’s him in the light blue dustcoat! And so did Mr. Kent and Mr. Varnie.”
        “What are Tunning’s and Fairmont’s claims to fame?” I asked.
        “Well, Tunning’s our sponsor, as I said. You’ll soon know all about him before the afternoon’s out! Fairmont’s our producer.”
        “Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s Sponsor Tunning’s claim to fame?”
        “He’s an eyetie!”
        “An Italian? He looks far too lean for an Italian, and why hide his eyes with those dark glasses? Why on earth does he wear dark glasses in here? What’s he hiding? But I guess it’s every man to his taste. So how many cards do we have in all?”
        No answer.
        I raised my voice. The small stage was crowded with around fifteen technicians: cameramen, sound recording men, make-up girls and various assistants “I’m a former police officer. I’m investigating these little cards some of you found in your mail this morning.”
        Blank faces all around.
        I was forced to lead the witnesses. “I make it eight cards in all. Your producers, Mr. Kent and Mr.