2
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The eyes came first. Eyes the size of Navy dirigibles, with pupils of deep cerulean blue, floating against the backdrop of the gray cumulus. The long lashes curled out almost a hundred feet from the lids. Then the rest of Monica Mitchell's famous face appeared: the flowing yellow locks, the sensuously curved lips, parted moistly from even white teeth. From chin to hairline, the projected image above the city was close to a thousand feet in diameter.
Then, as if the floating countenance wasn't alarming enough, the ruby lips began to move. Monica's sweet-sultry voice, like the first drippings from a jar of honey, overcame the city sounds, and began crooning the syrupy strains of Love Me Alone. Which happened, by no coincidence, to be the title and theme song of Monica's newest epic.
[Illustration: Monica's image--plastered across the heavens--stopped traffic in all directions.]
It was a triumph. Tom knew it the moment he looked down at the crowded thoroughfare eighteen stories beneath the window. Traffic had come to a more than normal standstill. Drivers were leaving their autos, and hands were being upraised towards the gargantuan face on the clouds above.
And of course, Tom's phone rang.
* * * * *
Ostreich's big scowling face was barely squeezed within the confines of the visiphone screen. He said nothing intelligible for two minutes.
"Relax, Chief," Tom said brightly. "I've been saving this as a surprise."
Ostreich's reply was censorable.
"Now look, D. O. You gave me carte blanche with this Mitchell babe, remember? I figured we really needed a shot in the arm for this new picture of hers. The receipts on her last turkey couldn't pay her masseurs."
Ostreich, who had built his firm by establishing golden public images for various industrialists and their enterprises, had anticipated trouble the moment he let the barrier down to admit such unworthy clients as Monica Mitchell. But he had never anticipated that his ace publ