“Anyway,” he said, “we paid Caroline Sedaka her seven million dollars and then asked her, as a favor to me, would she agree to do the next-to-last question again—and miss it this time—so we could tape the execution we needed to have on our pilot. She agreed. She had her money, what the hell did she care? And that’s what we did.”

The old cripple smiled as he relived the exciting execution. He was preparing enthusiastically to describe the gory details but was quickly deflated when the producer said, “How did you provide for the executed contestant’s family?”

“How did I provide? I promised the contestants, whoever was executed, I would take care of all of his or her beneficiaries.”

“How? How would you take care of them?”

“Financially. I took care of them financially. It wasn’t that expen—” The cripple started coughing. It was such a violent attack he had to sit down on the side of his bed.

The producer inhaled angrily.

He exhaled the same way.

The producer’s mood didn’t help the cripple’s coughing attack. Under pressure to stop, the cripple only coughed more. His spasms were quite phlegmy, causing the producer to squinch up his face with scorn and disgust.

Eventually the cripple recovered his composure and continued. “As I was saying, it wasn’t the biggest expense in the world, not like the grand prize for answering the big question. I would give the executed contestant’s beneficiaries a flat twenty-five thousand dollars to be split up among them, something like that. Remember, the contestants were mostly elderly. None of them had a hell of a lot of money to start with or a lot of relatives still living.”

“Go on. Finish your story.”

“I went back to the studio to retape the correct ending, the ending where a contestant is executed. I had to. The pilot would have been a useless sales tool without an execution. I picked up with Denko and Sedaka in the championship round. Denko beat Sedaka, as planned. Our host asked Denko the big question, the one about the Wall of China. Denko didn’t know the answer because, as I said, there isn’t any. The host said he was sorry, that Denko would have to be executed. Denko wanted to die, maybe worse than any of the others. The guy had been paralyzed from the neck down since he was twenty-six. He was forty-nine back at the time of the pilot. Poor bastard had a diving accident. Dove off a cliff in Baja. Didn’t know the tide was out as far as it was. Smashed into a rock, headfirst. Broke his neck. Everyone told him how lucky he was to be alive. Denko didn’t think so. Anyway, Denko was thrilled when he realized he was going to be executed. He even looked it. I wasn’t sure I liked his joyful expression. Not at that point in the show. I’m going to have to remember to tell the losers to look horrified when they hear they’re going to be executed.”