“Linus Major,” said host Rip Puckett, “your question is: This reptile was known for its large sauropods and the lengthening of its fore-limbs relative to its hind limbs. It had chisel-like teeth—twenty-six on each jaw—to fight predators and an extremely long neck for feeding off vegetation on the tops of trees. It stood approximately fifty feet high and laid its eggs while walking, leaving its young to fend for themselves. What is the creature’s name?”

“He knows the answer,” said the producer in the control room. “That bastard knows the answer.”

The producer was right.

“But he won’t say it,” snapped the producer.

The producer was right again. Linus Major shook his head back and forth, a baffled look on his face. Time clicked away…and clicked away…and soon there wasn’t any more.

“I…I’m sorry…I’m really sorry…,” moaned Linus, worried that he might be overacting.

“See! See!” screamed the producer in the control room.

“Too bad…again…Linus,” said the host. “The correct answer is the Brachiosaurus!”

“Bastard,” shouted the producer. “I’ll kill him.”

Several members of the show’s staff and some of the control room technicians turned to look at the producer.

“I’m only kidding, for Christ sake,” he muttered, ignoring everyone, looking through the control room window to the stage.

“That was an easy question,” moaned one of the writers, who had tiptoed up behind the producer. “He should have certainly gotten that one.”

The producer whirled around and shouted, “Stop pussyfooting up to my ear every five minutes to tell me how the contestants should have answered your goddamned question, you stupid faggot.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way,” said the writer, jamming his clipboard into the producer’s stomach, making the producer say “Oof” and knocking him against a bank of monitors. The writer turned and walked out of the control room, yelling as he left, “You can take your fucking job, Mr. Producer, and stick it up your anal orifice.”

The producer ignored the tittering in the control room.

His mind was miles away.

He would have to find some way to prevent a contestant from changing his or her mind on the air. That was the show’s Achilles’ heel, a far more despicable problem than the immediate loss of Major and Wagons. If Elsa Metzger couldn’t sift through the flaws in potential contestants during auditions and get rid of the show’s only cancer, nobody could. Elsa would just have to adopt the old adage: When in doubt, throw them out. Elsa Metzger was the best contestant coordinator in the business. Suddenly the producer hoped he hadn’t frightened the woman into quitting.

“Okay, Billy Constable,” said Rip Puckett onstage, “ready for your second question?”

Billy nodded.

The audience was quiet.

The control room was quiet.

Billy waited in his soundproof booth, wiping sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his sport coat, the same sport coat he had worn on the bus from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to New York City.