FROZEN ROSES From the Cyberfiles of T.A.B. Electronic Entertainment Journalist As Downloaded By Joe Kane   -1-   TO SAY PARIS IS INTERESTING would almost be tantamount to running the risk of putting it mildly. There's the night life for starters: In Paris, the aptly named "City of Lights," this goes on for days at a time.    But while the night life may be vast, hotel elevators tend toward the small. If you had more than one or two valises (rhyme practically with Elysees), you could frankly be in trouble, at least if you wanted them to ride with you, whether out of necessity, sentiment or, that trey chic (tray-SHEIK) word today, whatever.    Three valises had I, the elevator had room for two, and leave it to yours truly to leave what was potentially the most important one behind. Actually, in fairness to accuracy (I'm a journalist if I havenıt already mentioned or you haven't guessed), the two articles successfully removed to my room at the Rue du Jour were valises; the one left behind was less a valise per se (purr-SAY) but a glowing briefcase of the sort commonly seen in noirish (new-R-ish) crime films.    There was indeed some question whether that piece of portable luminescence belonged in my possession in the first place. I had come by it quite by accident. (Nowhere is it in my contract as a far-flung correspondent for the popular weekly tabloid American Inquisitor to be transporting glowing, quite possibly dangerous baggage.) Upon my initial arrival at Orly Airport, I, attracted by its seductive phosphorescence, impulsively intercepted it after it had been laid on the floor by one of a group of a dozen or so identical-looking men in Ray-Bans and trenchcoats speaking, with sotto voce (so-toe-VO-chay) animation, in an English-tinged tongue quite unknown to me. It had become my constant traveling companion for the many hours since‹until that fateful moment when it eluded my grasp.    When I returned to the lobby, wisely trusting the stairs this time, it was‹naturellement! (natural-MOAN)‹only to find it gone. Could I have been shadowed to the hotel by one or more of the bagıs original owners, who then repossessed it during my absence? At that moment I was, as theyıre fond of saying today, totally clueless.    Having seen many movies and presently harboring a database that includes detailed information on thousands more, I suspected the local gendarmes (gend-ARMS) were not to be trusted. I returned to my room to give the matter more thought.    I was gazing blankly at the by now mid-afternoon night life unfolding on the street below, the better to achieve the sort of meditative state conducive to speculative thinking, when the boulevard morphed into black-and-white and who should be seen strolling down it but Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless!    This could probably mean only one thing: the separate reality and cinema database signals in my circuitry had crossed again; dollars to donuts, I had no official business being in Paris at all, a situation that could prove hazardous, if not to my health, then certainly to my relationship with Inquisitor editor Rod Flack, who had probably assigned me to some other locale entirely. (This was an all too common occurrence that, on the upside, resulted in the accumulation of abundant frequent-flier miles.) Thinking "glowing briefcase be damned," I checked out of the hotel, hailed a cab to the airport and, bidding the light-driven city a fond adieu (ah-DO), booked a flight to New York. From there my mission loomed in my mind with bell-like clarity: Grab a connecting flight to Palm Beach, then bus it to the Inquisitor HQ in remote Port Olet, Florida, where I would have my microchips examined and reacquaint myself with my original assignment, if any.    This was accomplished without further incident. --- THE LOVELINESS OF PARIS that had seemed so sadly gay was soon lost in the busyness that is part and parcel of the life of a professional correspondent whose far-flung feeling never completely dissipates even when one is safe and sound on oneıs own home ground. The night security guard, a burly, bearded fellow named Floyd Brewn, demonstrated that he, for one, had not forgotten me when he singled me out in the large deserted late-night lobby.    "You had Mr. Flack pretty riled there," he confided in a slow booming voice reminiscent of Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. "Seems he couldn't quite get a beam on just where the hell you were."    "Welcome to the club," I replied, mustering an air of jocular conviviality that was at that moment about the farthest emotion from my mind. "Does Paris ring a bell?"    "I believe thereıs a famous one over to Notre Dame," said Floyd, a large, overweight crewcut man with thick brows, sagging jowls and little pinpointy eyes masked by the type of foreboding mirrored sunglasses favored by bullying Southern cops in bad Burt Reynolds movies.    Now Iıve never been one to judge a man by the quality of his breath; letıs just say if you were standing fore of Floyd when he was talking in his wide-mouthed way, a severe sinus condition would not likely be resented by you.    "Looks like you could use some shut-eye," Floyd observed.    The phrase reminded me of red eye, which prompted an unwanted association with the long, sleepless flights Iıd only just completed. My bodily Duracells were clearly winding down. "I think forty winks would be more the ticket for this reporter."     "I could arrange a more permanent rest cure," joked Floyd, indulging now in his irritating habit of whipping out his licensed .357 Magnum and waving it in my face. It was this sort of behavior that reinforced my hunch that Floydıs continued tenure at AQ owed less to a winning personality than to the impressive body count he'd managed to amass at a post that offered relatively few legal opportunities to do so. "Hell, maybe Iıd be doing the world a favor."     "Maybe," I cracked back, though I sensed his professed global altruism was at heart self-serving, "but youıd be doing the Inquisitor a grave disservice. The paper needs all the help it can get or donıt you read."    "I donıt see much of it coming from you, punk," Floyd rejoindered, leveling his weapon in my direction and cocking the big steel hammer.    I'd obviously succeeded in pushing a button but not the one I'd been groping for.    If there could have been a more fortuitous moment for editor Rod Flack to appear, I could not, in that instant, have imagined it. The gangly tab veteran's familiar face, festooned with way post-adolescent pimples, poked from the elevator door. The rest of his body quickly followed suit.    "Just the electronic journalist I wanted to see," he said, defusing what was fast becoming a potentially perilous situation. What I construed as sarcasm soon suffused his voice. "How was the City of Lights?"    "Still burning bright, day and night, last I looked," I replied, trying to make light of the situation. I'd cost the Inquisitor‹and penny-pinching publisher Duncan Bentley‹money again and, at the AQ HQ at least, there were few greater sins.     Flack flashed a look at Floyd, who reluctantly holstered his weapon. "Just keeping him in line for you, Mr. Flack." A fresh wave of foul breath rode his gape-jawed response.    "Getting you to stay put does seem to be becoming something of a problem," said Flack, whose still active pimples tended to react to stress by oozing in public, as they were doing now, spewing (let's not mince words) rivulets of lava-like pus, the visual equivalent of Floyd Brewn's breath.    "I want you to see Doc Hazmat, take two of whatever he gives you to keep you quiescent, and see me in the morning‹8 sharp."    Floyd smirked as Flack returned to the elevator and I headed for the basement. I stopped at Dr. H's office, one teeming with arcane equipment boasting functions beyond my ken. While diplomas lined the walls, all, whether by dint of accident or design, were smudged in their vital areas, so I can't say for certain re his medical qualifications. A small, bent, seemingly life-saddened man who closely resembled the replicant inventor in Blade Runner, the doc rarely had much to say, instead performing his technical tasks in listless but efficient silence, halting only to appraise me now and then with what I interpreted as either a dimly sympathetic or vaguely guilty eye, usually depending upon the degree of pain inflicted. But whatever science he employed once he'd hooked me up to one of his many humming, glowing devices apparently did the trick, as my circuitry felt better immediately.    "There you go," he said, removing the last of the sub-cranial wires and bleakly repeating his customary parting mantra, "sound as a fiddle, fit as an ox."    A familiar drowsiness descended as I walked the winding corridor in pursuit of the windowless studio/office I called home (if only for want of a better word), one cohabitated by my pet alien cat Zontar.    Whatever preconceptions you may have about extraterrestrial felines based on Disney movies you can toss out the window of your choice. For starters, Zontar does not wear a fishbowl helmet. He is somewhat fatter than the average Earth cat, with antennae in place of ears, which are just as cute when you get used to them but then again maybe Iım prejudiced. Though alien, Zontar could hardly be described as any sort of animal "genius," sharing instead very much the same concerns as Earth-grown felines, with eating, sleeping and behaving territorially all ranking high on his activity list. He communicates telepathically in a language only I seem to understand. As for his cellular interstellar transmitter, stored in our common closet, it is hardly what you could term fantastical, based as it is on telecommunication principles used for ages on our own planet, albeit with a far greater range. On matters of Earthly human concerns, Zontar's opinions often border on the outright inane. For example, the other day he told me that pro baseball teams should be split into separate offensive and defensive units, like football. Yeah, right. Goodbye purity of the game!    Sometimes I suspect Zontar simply has too much time on his paws. God knows he subscribes to virtually every known magazine and journal under the sun‹except, of course, consistent with his contrary nature, our beloved breadwinner the Inquisitor. (I know for a fact he finds occasional use for the copies I bring in, having discovered more than one issue adorned with his disgusting alien hairball effluvia.) At least I canıt accuse him of being clingy, like some Earth cats Iıve encountered. Indeed, Zontar encourages me to depart at every opportunity; sometimes I suspect he flat-out manufactures some of these errands‹most involve his constant gustatory "cravings"‹just to keep me out of his fur. "Tom Cruise would be a star on any planet in this galaxy" is another stupid opinion of his.    Fortunately, Zontar was fast asleep when I entered‹I could hear his familiar, high-pitched whirring-like snoring in the closet‹so, for the moment, I wouldnıt have to suffer any of his nonsense. Surveying my cluttered 8x10 windowless enclosure (not counting closet and loo) piled high with reading matter, print-outs and computer disks but bereft of other amenities save for PC, TV, VCR, DVD player and minifridge (microwaves can cause circuitry damage), it dawned on me that Zontar had the right idea for a change. Feeling like nothing so much as another piece of useful but minor office equipment, I enshelfed myself on the cot beside my PC desk and called it a night. -     I AWOKE AT NINE IN THE MORNING with the worst breath of the day. I stood up, went to the bathroom, then looked in the mirror, where I appeared much as I had the day before, albeit in a different, less exotic locale. And sans, I anxiously remembered, the glowing briefcase that had been but briefly in my possession. Whether that would constitute a problem or not would likely become clear only as the day, perhaps weeks, wore on.    The effects of actually living in oneıs workplace a dual mix of advantages and drawbacks (not, I suppose, unlike life itself). It was, on the one hand, convenient, especially if your luck with travel tended not to be the best. The "downtime" between waking and working was, as might be imagined, minimalized by my arrangement. Exactly when you were on your "own" time was a question more difficult to answer. However, since publisher Bentley had had a direct hand, as I understood it, in my placement at AQ, I was in no position to be splitting hairs over what portion of my time belonged to him and what to myself. Besides, as a trained objective journalist, such conjecture is none of my concern.    How I received word of my newest assignment proved a good example of the convenience side of my living/work situation. While my office has no windows, it does boast a strategically placed vent that follows a one-way auditory trail to AQ assignment editors Joe Krell and Macho Delgadoıs shared upstairs office. On a clear day I could hear nearabout everything they said. Normally this proved about as exciting as listening to National Public Radio, but on other occasions their musings would have a direct bearing on my immediate future. Krell: "I like. Put Tybeau on it." Delgado: "ELVIS DEAD IN DRIVE-BY?" Krell: "Shit-can it." Delgado: ³MARILYN CONFIDES KENNEDY SECRETS TO MADONNA?" Krell: "Old news." Delgado:  "TO BRITNEY?" Krell: "Maybe. Whattaya got on the geezer beat?"    (Translation and note: Senior citizen interest story. A sizable portion of AQıs dwindling audience are retirees and the otherwise elderly, many of whom reside in the Sunshine State, where the tabloid enjoys its highest circulation.) Delgado: "Some old silent-movie dame is being honored in Hollywood." Krell: "Yawn." Delgado: "Yeah, but it's a natch for the senior cits. Seems she was the center of some bigtime sex scandal WBW." (Translation: Way Back When.) Krell: "Okay, put Jerko on it if he's in working order. Even if the story's a bust maybe heıll disappear again." Delgado: "A no-brainer."    Further assignments, unrelated to yours truly, filtered down the vent, along with comments covering everything from national sporting events to erection-inducing pharmaceutical products to the new receptionistıs hooters, but Iıd heard most of all I needed to know, discounting the details: On the road again por moi (poor-MWAH)! The thought that I'd soon be back on the beat where I belonged went a long way in buoying my spirits and absolving my guilt about missing my morning meeting with editor Flack. Not even Zontarıs emergence from the closet could dampen them.    "I'd help you pack,² he said, " but hunger calls." He let loose a long, luxurious yawn. "Have you that Beluga I ordered?" Stay Tuned For Chapter 2: HOLLYWOOD AND BUST