He said it was really cool!” He put on a big awed smile, probably figuring Sergei would melt from the flattery. “Have you done much box—”
“What do I tell you? Do you hear? Nothing. I tell you nothing happen. My friend here, he trip and fall. It was an accident.”
Meantime, the fat man had begun groaning, and his whisper rose to a low mutter mutter mutter.
“What did he say?” said John Smith.
“He said, ‘That is true. It was an accident.’ ”
A voice from directly above them: “I only wish it had been an accident. But I’m afraid it was no-oh-oh-oh accident!”
Sergei, Magdalena, and John Smith looked up. Sidney Munch was standing over them… in his grossly outsized guayabera… so long, it looked like a dress. He peered down at them intently.
“This is him!” said John Smith. “The man I was telling you about!” He glanced at his spiral notebook. “Mr. Munch! He was here the whole time and told me what happened!”
“It was not a pretty sight,” said Munch. He began shaking his head. He pursed his lips and turned them down glumly at the corners. He expelled a profound sigh. He addressed his words to John Smith: “I don’t know why, but suddenly”—he motioned with his chin to indicate he was talking about Flebetnikov—“he started bellying his way through all these people”—he gestured at the mob of guests—“and came straight at Mr. Korolyov. They exchanged a few angry words and then”—he did the number with the chin again—“swung at Mr. Korolyov, and Mr. Korolyov ducked just like a prizefighter and gave”—the chin again—“such a shoulder in the midsection that”—again the Flebetnikov semaphore—“went down like six sacks a fertilizer!”
Out the corner of her eye Magdalena could see one of the mobile camera units barely four feet away with its red eye on, recording it all all all. She nudged Sergei. He pulled out of the huddle and saw it for himself.
He was seething. He straightened himself up fully erect, looked down at Munch, and stiffened his arm and forefinger and aimed them at the camera and said in a steely voice, “You filming this, too—you ubljúdok!”
His steely voice rose to a shout: “This is your little play! You send your little director over to tell lies to Flebetnikov—to make him mad! Flebetnikov didn’t do this! I didn’t do this! You did this! You make up this lie! This is not reality—this is a lie!”
Munch put on the face of a man who has been terribly wounded by a cruel remark uttered for the sole purpose of hurting his feelings. “But Mr. Korolyov, how can you say this isn’t reality? All of this just happened! Once something happens, it becomes real, and once it’s real, it becomes part of reality. No? Mr. Flebetnikov didn’t pretend to be angry. He was angry! Nobody told you that you had to defend yourself. You decided to defend yourself! And quite rightly! And quite beautifully and athletically, if I may say so. Have you ever been a prizefighter? In the ring did you—”
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” said Sergei. “You listen to me! You don’t run anything that shows me, and you do not use anything I say! You do not have the right! I will sue! And that is only where we begin. You understand?!”
“But Mr. Korolyov, you signed a release!” Munch said in his same hurt voice. “You gave us permission to record whatever you did and whatever you said on our show. We proceeded on your word. We accepted you as a man of your word. You signed the release. It couldn’t have made it any clearer. And certainly what we filmed will show you in a positive light. Mr.”—he gave the Flebetnikov semaphore—“attacked you and you defended yourself with courage and strength and speed and athletic sureness when a man”—Flebetnikov semaphore—“double your size, double everybody’s size, launched a surprise attack, a physical attack. Please think about it! You will want to appear on Masters of Disaster. Miami knows you as a noble, immensely generous benefactor of the museum, of all of South Florida. This program will show the man behind the great generosity. This program will show the world… a real man!”
Magdalena noticed that the reporter, John Smith, was recording all with his digital-recorder ballpoint pen. He was eating it all up every bit as much as Munch. And Sergei? He was deflating before Magdalena’s very eyes. His big powerful blood-gorged neck was shrinking… likewise his marvelous sculpted chest—even his strong, wide shoulders