“In a heartbeat. Big-money budgets are easier to get these days than small budgets. And not every Death Game will have a hundred-million-dollar winner. On some shows the program won’t have to pay out a thing. Every time a contestant misses the final question and is executed, the show will save fifty million dollars. The more contestants you kill, the more money you save. See? So in the end the program will amortize itself out to being downright economical. Am I right or am I right?”

The producer said grudgingly, “I suppose so.”

“Say you have to go? That’s the door there,” said the cripple, pointing to the bathroom.

“I didn’t say anything about having to go.”

“I thought you just said you had to go.”

“I said I suppose so. You deaf too?”

“As a matter of fact I am. Should be wearing my hearing aids, but they’re too much trouble. Anyway, back in the eighties, when I finally got around to making a pilot show of The Death Game, I had to use all the money I had in the bank. I withdrew every penny and sold every possession of mine and it still wasn’t enough to get good contestants. I had gathered together a kitty worth roughly seven and a half million dollars! Over five hundred thousand dollars of that went for my production expenses. I thought seven million dollars was a lot of money to give away, particularly in the eighties. But it wasn’t enough. The only contestants I could get willing to risk their lives for seven million dollars were the terminally ill.”

“Okay, you’ve covered all that. How did your program work?”

The cripple explained the show’s rules.

The famous television producer stood and paced back and forth in the small space allotted to him in the dirty little room. Again the astute cripple was aware of the producer’s strong interest in what was being discussed. Why else would he be pacing back and forth?

The producer said, “I know this has nothing to do with the laws of the land today, but I find it hard to believe that back then your lawyers didn’t inform you you were doing something very illegal. That they didn’t point out to you the moment you tried to air your pilot program you would be immediately engulfed in massive legal problems. Not only legal problems, but criminal problems as well. You spent seven, no…seven and a half million dollars on a project knowing full well what you were doing was against the law. You did this, when, in the eighties? Except for a few states, euthanasia wasn’t legal in the eighties. What you were doing was committing murder! You spent seven and a half million dollars of your own money to commit murder! Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Then tell me this. Why didn’t your lawyers, who knew as well as you that you were about to commit murder, why didn’t they prevent you from making the pilot? Why didn’t they stop you from your destructive course of action?”