Little did I suspect at the time that this would be the final episode of Serpientes Y Escaleras.

Ever.

That my life—everyone’s life—would change. Irrevocably change.

I hope that got your attention!

At least the show ended with an exciting and unexpected climax.

But that also meant that my grand plan would not be be happening. Not in the manner I had envisioned it.

However, as was often the case on the eve of such auspicious moments in history, many of the players were woefully unprepared. Take me. At the top of the show, my biggest concern was who kept stealing the chocolate bars from my snack drawer.

I made a mental note to investigate the matter later. I took a deep breath and did my best to focus on the show. That was difficult because things started off so slowly, mostly because Sal picked the most uninteresting pair of contestants imaginable.

Darlene and Helen were charming older ladies. Adorable, to be sure, but about as enticing as ordering two bran muffins for dinner.

Usually, Sal did a better job selecting two contrasting types.

Of course she was off her game. Frightened of August and his, well, predilection for murder. And then there was the whole mind-melding business. I had made it a point never to ask about that part of her job. But I knew it could be harrowing for Sal to connect so intimately with other people, especially when those people were swimming about in a sea of their own negative emotions. I wasn’t really up on matters of second-hand psychic trauma, but I’d seen how it could take a toll on her.

As much as chaos and madness had their place on the grand buffet table of life as presented on our show, the fact was, things had veered too, too far off course. This murder business was getting in the way of our important work. And August had become too distracting.

As such, I had expected Sal to stick with the plan and choose August as one of the evening’s contestants so we could send him on his way for good. I had convinced myself Sal would pull through for the greater good.

Unfortunately, she stuck us with these two benign cat ladies.

I did hold onto the flimsiest of hope one might turn out to be an embezzler or cannibal. But who was I fooling?

In short, my dear Sal had balked. Indecisive at that important moment.

No do-overs on live TV.

She was also shaky from too much drink last night. And quite possibly she’d downed a couple of quick ones behind her curtain before stepping on stage.

Of course, Sal’s reaction to the current tone of the work place was completely reasonable. Fear and paranoia, that was the normal response to skulking danger and escalating homicide.

Although such internal turmoil hadn’t found a purchase in the psyche of Silverio Moreno. Probably I should work on cultivating those more tender attributes. Not just fear, but grief, anguish. We’d suffered losses here in La Vida Tower. True, Hal and I were never close. But shouldn’t I feel, well, an empathetic twinge? Maybe it would have been different if we’d been left a body to deal with—something other than that short video clip Morris had brought to my attention. Instead, the remains of poor Hal just went away. Poof. Like our nightly pair of contestants.

Maybe Hal would come back to us. You know, resurrected. What a thought! Appear in one of those arrival pods and join our studio audience.

And there was the matter of Lydia. It was beginning to look like August had gotten to her as well. Like Hal, she was not one to skip a day of work. I wondered, would her body turn up? There was not much of her, so skinny. But because she was lanky, I would think it’d be a challenge to stow away her corpse.

I will miss her. Unlike Hal, I felt more of a connection with Lydia.

We shared similar outlooks on life.

Kindred values.

From Lydia’s perspective, people were always redeemable. She never gave up on anyone. I like to think I, too, had that indomitable altruistic impulse.

That was when I realized I had begun to think of Lydia in the past tense. Did that mean my grieving process had already begun?

I bet Dr. Lydia Hetzel herself would be able to answer that question. Too bad her counsel was no longer available.

She had possessed a nice balance, Lydia did, of the analytic and the intuitive. When Rose came for her initial interview, she displayed great intelligence and boy did she knock that hoodoo test out of the park with her Fitzroy score. But Lydia saw other, more nuanced qualities in Rose. Particularly kindness and loyalty.

Empathy. Yes. That was what Lydia saw. She had felt it lacking in our show. I was beginning to see things her way.

I looked over at Rose. She stood in a dim blue pool cast by the overhead light grid, intimately connected via Sal’s brain to Helen. Rose was reliving a moment in Helen’s life when she found herself walking up to the opened casket containing the body of her father.

Rose’s eyes were red and she twisted something that wasn’t there in her hands. Paisley bandana would be my guess.

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And then she—meaning Rose, channeling the memory of Helen—spat into that imaginary casket.

Rose. What a natural!

From the first day I knew she’d show us some serious performance chops. But I was most interested in Rose’s past. I always researched those who applied to work on the show. And her dead brother got my interest. She had an agenda, I was sure of it. A secret agenda, the best kind! And she was curious. I saw it that first day. Her eyes taking in everything.

I practically swooned during that interview, whispering to Lydia we must hire her. Curiosity is in such short supply these days.

And when Sal told me last night that Rose’s dead brother had already been on our show as a contestant—over a year ago—I saw Rose in a different light. Not just some driven, obsessed spy come to tear apart the upper floors of La Vida Tower in search of the truth, but maybe, just maybe, she had a deeper role in my work. A role—dare I say it?—of a metaphysical nature.

The two of us, I had told myself, would have to sit down for a serious conversation.

But you’ll recall, I said this was the night everything changed. In a sense, ended.

Back to the show. Rose had moved on to act a scene from the life of our other contestant, Darlene. There was Rose, turned perfectly toward Camera Two. She was mimicked jumping rope and snapping gum, the perfect portrayal of a seven year old girl.

I’m glad Michael hadn’t chosen to portray that scene. It would have been unintentionally comical.

I found myself looking at August. I didn’t care for the way he was looking at Rose. I didn’t care for it at all.

We had to get rid of that man.

I glance down at Ida’s hastily scribbled note she had passed to me during the commercial break.

You WILL find some way to get rid of this monster TODAY!

Well, I could think of no way to do that today. Ida had to know that as well, but she kept trying to get my attention. And to be honest, I was getting a crick in my neck avoiding all eye contact with her.

Tomorrow. Yes. It would need to happen tomorrow. Send that one on his way. Even if it meant forcing him into a straitjacket and tossing him through one of those doors. Does Raul have any straitjackets? A nice powder blue with white buckles would go well with August’s eyes. And once we shipped him off, we could get to work. Pool our brain power and polish my plan. Door Number Three. Me and Sal and Morris. And Rose, of course. Maybe even Morris’ friend, that elevator girl. I liked her combination of impulsiveness, unflappability, and moxie. That sounded like quite a team!

But first, we had a murderer to deal with.

August was an unusual one. An understatement, if ever there were one. Not everyone was a cold, calculating maniac. He was a rare species. Hyper-perceptive, that man missed nothing. I could tell he had become suspicious. People were behaving differently around him. And he was watching the activity with more obvious intensity. I found it fascinating. I’d never knowingly been able to observe a murderer.

I asked around earlier in the afternoon if maybe someone in the canteen could slip a mickey into his Ovaltine or whatever was his beverage of choice. Turned out, they’d been doing that to all of them since season one. Apparently we drugged all of our audience members. I hate when I find myself out of the loop.

But either our killer spat out the dope, or he was one hardy fellow. Those were not heavy lids above his roving and suspicious eyes. He was wide awake and focused.

Earlier in the show, August caught me staring at him. I decided to give the man a little wink.

He did not like that. Not at all.

Where does this temptation of mine come from? This unhealthy desire for me to go poking at a hornet’s nest?

And then, I wondered, what would I do if August rushed me? Could Valerie and Ed wrestle him to the floor? The man was slim but wiry. I wondered, would my training come back to me? President of the jiu-jitsu club in high school. A whole semester of stage combat at that acting conservatory before I dropped out. And, I was quick for a man of my age. People said it all the time. August might be able to take down a dyspeptic TV director and an undernourished shrink, but he’d never crossed swords with Silverio Moreno, that was for sure.

When I noticed that Camera Three had gone in for a closeup of Darlene, I glanced down to check my watch. The show was coming to a close, and it was time for Sal to call the winner.

And there she went, right on schedule.

“So, audience,” Sal said in a voice pregnant with high expectation. “What’s it going to be for dear Darlene? Serpientes? Or escaleras?”

I hit the button that flashed for the studio audience both words, one after the other. Serpientes! Escaleras! They shouted and swayed in their seats.

And then, at the exact moment Sal cried out—“Escaleras! And it’s Darlene for the win!”—I pushed a switch so that the picture of a ladder appeared at the very instance Sal said it. I was very fast with a button.

Rose beamed down at the seated Darlene. She held out her hand, and helped the woman stand.

Just as Rose began to escort Darlene to Door Number One, I saw August rise to his feet. Valerie and Ed didn’t even notice, they were watching the action on stage.

August stepped onto the stage with a calm and deliberate series of movements.

Sal saw—or felt—his presence. Her eyes opened wide and she spun away from him. Once he made it to the center of the stage, August turned to look at me. I dropped into the classic grappling stance, suitable to defend against any number of offensive moves.

For a second I was convinced the man would leap over my piano and strike, but he only sneered and moved away.

Coward! Also, intelligent enough to recognize a man trained in hand-to-hand combat.

I watched as the mad man side-stepped around Camera Three, and grabbed Rose around the waist. Noticing for the first time that August was on stage with her, Rose screamed and released Darlene.

I had to pivot around my stool and step over the nest of cables at my feet. By the time I freed myself and was crossing the set, August had opened Door Number One and pulled Rose inside. He slammed the door shut.

I was only a second behind them.

I jerked the door back open, all prepared to employ the Brazilian style leg sweep. Keep things low, get him to the ground so Rose could….

The space inside was empty.

I had been too slow, and now they were gone.

If these portal chambers worked the way I understood, they would still be active until the very last second of the show. 7:30.

I could hear the faint hum of a capacitor recharging. Door Number One powering back up—I was sure of it!

I turned around. I saw Morris, up in the booth, standing, uncertain what to do.

And then I saw his uncertainty drop. His production training kicked in as naturally as had my jiu-jitsu training.

Good man!

He pulled the microphone of his headset closer to his lips and spoke into it.

I could see the head of the camera man nod in response as Camera Two rolled in toward me inch by inch, its red light glowing.

I smiled into the lens, took a deep breath, and I adjusted my toupee. I stepped into that empty little room behind Door Number One. But before I could close the door, a girl rushed in to join me.

The elevator girl! Nora.

Had she been hiding in the studio all that time?

Wait! Was it she who had been stealing my chocolate?

“Are we going after them?” she asked, crammed in tight beside me.

Remember what I said about moxie? Oh, yes! Nora was indeed full of the stuff.

I pointed to the camera.

“Smile for the people at home,” I whispered in her ear.

Nora did just that. She put an arm around my shoulder, cocked her head, and presented a pouty smile that celebrities always seem to give the paparazzi. And then she pulled the door shut.

I felt the floor—no, the entire universe—fall out from under us. Nora grabbed on to me tighter as we were whipped into some black and infinite void.