Episode 122, originally published 18-Feb-99

You've Got Tail

Will Paul tail a scare?
Where will Jack scare up some tail?
What scares Steve about Cole's tale?
What will stopping Jill's scarey dog entail?

Katherine enters her home carrying a bag that says "Genoa City Museum Shop" on the side. Just then, Jill's dog comes racing in, barking up a storm as if she were an intruder. Kay drops the bag and we here the sound of something very fragile breaking inside. Just then, Jill enters. "Katherine, could you please be quieter when you enter?" she asks snidely. "The noisemakers in the bag woke me from my nap." "Those noisemakers," Katherine replies, "were some very expensive items I just purchased at the museum." Jill peers into the bag. "Expensive?" She laughs. "You got ripped off. They look broken to me." Katherine fumes. "They weren't broken until your dog charged at me." Shirley enters and says to Katherine, "You know how to stop a dog from charging, don't you?" Katherine is agitated, but takes the bait. "No, I do not know, actually--how, pray tell, do you stop a dog from charging?" Shirley grins suddenly. "I thought everyone knew--You take away his credit card!" She pats the dog all over and says "Good dog... Good dog..."

In the kitchen, Katherine is hanging over Esther's shoulder as she cooks. "Is it almost ready?" she asks. Esther pushes her back a bit. "Mrs. C, I can hardly concentrate on cooking with you hovering over me that way. Can't you go wait in the dining room like you used to?" "No, Esther, I cannot. The dog is in the dining room. This is the only safe place to be." "Mrs. C., why do you let them get you this way? Why even care about keeping this house if you're going to resign yourself to being a prisoner like this?" Katherine is surprised by Esther making such an astute comment and stops to think. "You know," she says finally, "you're right--you're absolutely right." She goes to leave through the back door. "Are you going somewhere?" Esther calls to her. Katherine stops and says, "I'm going to fight back." Esther looks at the other door. "Don't you have to go that way to fight back?" she asks. Katherine says, "Later. First, I have to prepare." And she exits.

"Here she comes," Shirley says to Jill as she looks out the window, presumably seeing Katherine pulling up. "Well, don't just stand there by the window or she'll see you," Jill says. "Shall I cue the dog?" Shirley asks. "Cue him?" Shirley nods. "He's a union dog. The only kind I'm allowed to work on--he only barks on cue." She grabs a clapboard from next to the couch and slams it shut. The dog comes barking as Jill sits back on the couch to watch the fun. The door opens, but it's not Katherine that enters first. A man enters with a tiger on a leash. The tiger takes a look at the dog and starts to drool hungrily. The dog whimpers and goes and hides in a corner. "What's the matter with your dog?" Jill asks. "Why isn't he defending us?" Shirley shrugs. "I don't think it's in his contract--probably not a union tiger. Sorry. Rules are rules." Katherine follows in and looks around proudly. The man with the tiger leads it off to one side and stands at attention by the door. "Thank you," Katherine says with a smirk on her face. "Is that cat going to stay here?" Jill asks. "For a time," Katherine says. "How long?" Jill asks. "For as long as it takes--how long will the dog be here?" she asks.

In John Silva's office, Jill is wearing a hole in the carpet as she walks the same tight circle over and over again. "Can you BELIEVE the nerve of that woman, John?" "Well, you did start it, Jill." "Whose side are you on, anyway?" "Yours, but--Jill, can you take some friendly advice?" "I don't think I'm going to like this..." "Jill, bringing the dog into the house, it was--well, it wasn't gracious." "Gracious? Gracious! That woman stole my life from me. My Phillip. My house. My--and you want to talk to me about Gracious? I think it's gracious of me not to have bought a bull elephant and had him stomp the life out of the old witch. Which, actually--" "Jill..." "John, relax, you know me better than that. I'm not going to do anything that would get blood all over those nice carpets Phillip left for me." John sits and shakes his head, trying not to laugh. She stops and looks at him, irritated. "You're laughing." "Of course I'm laughing, Jill. It's a pretty comic situation--you two pathetic old women, each just as much in the right as wrong. Each determined to hurt the other, and in the process--what? Hurting only yourselves." Jill crosses her arms in front of her and turns away from him. "But she deserves it. And I don't." "You're sure." "And you're not?" "Of course I'm not." "Then this time I'm quitting." "You can't quit. You're the client." "Then I'm firing you. John, you won't sleep with me and you won't tell me what jungle animal I should buy to respond to Katherine's tiger. I need someone who believes in my cause. Someone who will fight for me."

As Jill storms out of John's office, she passes a pay phone in the hall. She stops and looks through the yellow pages, muttering as she does so we'll know what she's looking at. "Lambs, Laptops, Lassos, ah, here we are, Lawyers." She scans the page with her eyes, catching on an ad she reads aloud. "Expert lawyer. Works entirely pro bono. Willing to go to ends of earth and spend huge amounts of cash for even the smallest client. Never lost a case." She smiles smugly. "Perfect," she says, pulling out a scrap of paper from her purse to write down the information. "I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner."

Paul and Cricket are home. Paul is going over his checkbook. "What's this payment for $3000?" he asks. "Isn't that the amount it costs to fly to Madison from Genoa City on the Concorde?" Cricket asks. "Oh, right," Paul says. "Wait, I already recorded this. Why is it here twice?" "Oh, it's probably more than that. I was once a day almost every day for a while." "But here there are two trips on one day." She smiles and kisses him. "Well, I did say `almost every day'. On the other days, I was going twice a day." "Sweetheart, you do know we make only finite money, right? How are we ever going to pay for this?" "Paul, it's ok. If we're having trouble making ends meet, I'll just take on more cases." "But you don't charge people for your cases, and that will just incur more expense." The phone rings and she picks it up. "Christine Williams.... Oh, hello, Mrs. Abbott. No, you're not calling at a bad time. Just a second." She covers the receiver and says to Paul. "Could we talk about this another time? I've got a new client." Then back into the receiver she says, "Sure, we could get together. My office? Well, that's a little stuffy, don't you think? Why don't we meet in New York? I know of a nice little deli.... Great. See you there in half an hour." She hangs up. "New York?" he asks, tapping the checkbook. She smiles. "I just knew you'd be pleased..." "Pleased?" "That I didn't pick Paris. See, I CAN control expenses. Anyway, I've got to run, ok? See you in a couple of hours."

Just as Cricket leaves, the phone rings and Paul picks it up. It's his detective in Madison. "I've got the dope you wanted on that Millie dame," he says. "I faxed it to you." "Great," Paul says. "Should I follow up on this?" the detective asks. "Nah," Paul says, "I'll take it from here." "Are you sure? 'Cuz I'm right here and it's a free phone call." "No, really, I don't mind," Paul says, and hangs up. Then he looks back at his checkbook and sighs. "Damn! I can't believe that woman just spends money on trips like it's nothing. Doesn't she ever think about the cost of things beforehand?" But with no answer on the horizon, he shrugs, closes the checkbook, and heads for the GC Airport to catch the next plane to Madison.

Seemingly only moments later, Jill and Cricket meet at a small deli in Manhattan. "Can you help me, Christine?" Jill asks. Cricket smiles. "Don't you worry, Mrs. Abbott. I know Michael's every move, and I promise you, I'll have him eating out of the palm of my hand." "But what if--" Christine places her hand gently on Jill's. "Relax, Mrs. Abbott. I've been through this with Michael before. I know the drill." Jill closes her eyes and says, "Thank you, Christine. Thank you. You don't know what a relief it is to know that there'll finally be some action." "Oh, believe me, Mrs. Abbott, I'll be just as relieved as you."

The next day, Michael is at his desk working when he hears the sound of his office door rustling. "Christine," he says, standing. "Won't you come in?" He motions to the couch, where she seats herself. "I take it you've got a new client?" he asks. She nods. "Who is it this time?" he asks. "Jill Abbott," she replies. "You're sure you really want to do this?" Michael says. "Absolutely," she says. "I'm ready to go to the mat for her." He smiles. "The mat it is," he says, locking the office door as she pulls a mat out from under the couch. The two dive hungrily into each other's arms, but the camera turns to look out the window. As the scene fades, we hear Cricket says, "I want to make a motion." And he replies, "And I want to respond to your motion." The scene fades out.

* * * Half Time * * *

Back from commercial, the camera is trained on the screen of a computer console, which is displaying what we imagine is a picture of a nude woman. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your personal tastes, parts of the image are fuzzed out, presumably by the CBS censors. The camera draws back to show Jack's head crashed on the keyboard in front of the screen. Suddenly there is noise from behind. Brad. "Jack, I can't believe you. You're supposed to be up preparing for the overthrow of the company and I come in to find you've `exhausted yourself' looking at pictures of naked women on the Internet." Jack sits up, the waffle pattern image of the keys he's been using as a pillow continuing to be visible on his nose well into the conversation. "Hmm? Brad? What?" "Jack!" Brad says anxiously. "What if Victor had come in and seen you with those images on your screen? He'd have fired you in a moment and then where would our little plan be?" Jack is starting to regain a sense of focus. He looks to Brad and then to the screen and then back to Brad. He shakes his head. "No, he would not have fired me, Junior. And no, I was not up all night `exhausting myself' on internet porn sites. Maybe that's all it takes to exhaust you, but as for me it takes a real woman and quite a lot of hours to exhaust what I've got to offer."

In his office, Steve Connelly sits at his desk reading a book. He closes it and looks up. The camera swings around to reveal Cole is there with him. "I couldn't even follow it," Steve says. "Follow it? What's to follow? It's a true story." "I'm sorry, Cole, but this kind of dreck is third rate--it would never sell. Look at this," he says, opening the book and pointing to a chapter. Cole takes the text and scans it quickly. "Looks wunnerful to me," he says. "It doesn't make any sense to me," Steve says. "Who would ever believe this?" "It's a true story." "Get real, Cole. We read through this person's whole life, we think we know everything about her. And then suddenly we find she has a secret brother? And he has this big secret? And she's involved in it? And what is this about Spain and France? That's just plain confusing." "I'm tellin' ya, Steve, it's all true." "Well, true or not, it has no place in something written by a first-class writer like you're supposedly trying to be--you ARE still trying to be a first-class writer, aren't you?" Cole sighs and nods. "Good boy. And all that stuff about the painting, too." "The painting? Really? That bad, huh?" "It sounds like it was written by someone else--something out of a third-rate soap. It doesn't go." "It doesn't go, so it has to go?" Cole asks. Steve nods.

Back in Jack's office, Brad and Jack are still going at it. "So tell me, Jacko, if it wasn't Miss November there on your screen that did you in, what did?" "I was looking for the spreadsheets for the Forrester deal." "And you thought you'd find them at a porn site?" "Actually, no. I thought I'd find them in his directory." "And...?" "And this was what I found instead." "Pictures of naked ladies?" "That's about it." "Nothing about the numbers?" "Not that I could find. But I do have a new theory." Brad eyes Jack skeptically. "All right, I'm game--what's your theory." "I think there are no numbers. I think Victor went with the Forrester thing just because he likes skin." "Don't you think that's a bit of a stretch?" "Not really. Look at the way he wouldn't go into computers for such a long time--remember how we were using 286 processors for ages after other people had more modern computers?" "Right. So what's your point?" "Suddenly the Internet takes off. Sex is everywhere. And NOW he wants us to upgrade. It's not spreadsheets he's interested in, it's sheets and spr--well, never mind. You get the idea." Brad paces the room pondering. "So you think when Victor is always talking about the bottom line..." Jack grins and nods. "Say, you're not as slow catching on as I always thought, Bradley. There may be hope for you after all."

"So what about the rest of the book?" Cole says to Steve. "Well, this love scene has got to go." Cole again consults the book. "What's the matter there?" "It stinks." "What's the matter with it?" "Well, look--there's no chemistry here. These people have been apart for how long?" "Months." "Ok, so look at this dialog: ``I've missed you.'' ``Show me.'' They fall into bed." "What's the matter with that?" "There's no drama there. No passion." "But that's just the point. It's raw. It's real." "Cole, I don't know where you're getting your material, but if you keep this up, you're going to be out of a job."

"So Victor's hot for the ladies," Brad says, mulling aloud. Jack nods, and says, "The question is whether there's anything we can DO with that information." Brad shrugs. "We could expose him," he suggests in a flippant tone. "Expose him?" Jack asks. "You know, set up a sting," Brad insists. "Bring in someone undercover to help us?" "More like under covers," Brad says, correcting him. "You don't think Victor would see it coming a mile away?" Jack asks. Brad says, "Depends on who we found, I guess..." Both stop to think for a moment. Jack amuses himself idly clicking around in his web browser. Suddenly he finds himself on a news page looking at a picture of Monica Lewinsky. "Wait a minute," Brad says. Jack looks at the photo, then at Brad. "You thinking what I'm thinking, Junior?" "We offer to let her star in our scandal?" Brad answers. "Give the man a cigar," Jack chuckles. Then he adds, "Now we just need a way to get her attention." "How about your sister," Brad suggests. "My sister?" "Sure, her husband's a publisher, isn't he? I'm sure he could wrangle us an introduction. And after that, we'll just let nature and thongs take their course!" Jack smiles. "Bradsky, you're wasting yourself at Newman Enterprises--you really should run for special prosecutor." "Nah," says Brad, "when I play, I play to win."

That's all for this episode. Hope you learned something. Don't miss Episode 123!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.

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