Waiting for the Galactic Bus, page 20
Roy’s mouth worked. His eyes tried to deny what they saw even as he realized that dictators like anyone else could be caught with their image down. His colorless complexion went even paler; to Essie Mendel, the whole picture was a contradiction in obscenities.
“You’ve got to have good coloring to wear black,” she whispered to Milt. “He looks like mayonnaise on my cocktail dress.”
Roy managed to escape from Florence’s possessive grip but found only part of his voice — a sort of squeak. “What the hell — are you crazy coming here?”
“Well may y’arsk, dearie. Got tired of sitting on me Khyber in front of the goggle box all day, nuffin to do but watch me gentleman friend prance all over town.”
“Christ, will you cool it?” Roy hissed between clenched teeth. “This is Charity!”
“Not with me, luv,” Florence vowed with gale-force lung power.
“Christ, you dumb — it’s my fiancee. Charity Stovall.”
“Ow, lumme! A course! Where’s me’ead?” Forthright and unabashed, Florence strode to Charity, offering her hand. “Sorry, dear. Needn’t take on: just business with me and Roy. Cash and carry, hands across the sea and that. Florence Bird. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” Charity didn’t know what to say, nor did she trust herself to try. “I was just leaving.”
“There’s nice.” Florence beamed. “Lor, what’s on in the high street outside? Pushed this way’n’ that by bleedin hordes of telly men, and look at this hat what I bought just yesterday, all bashed in. Lot of right brutes, got no respect for a lady.”
“Telly?” Her meaning galvanized Roy Stride. “You mean television?”
“Don’t I just?” Ruffled, Florence inspected the damaged hat. “Weren’t for that nice Mr. Veigle, wouldn’t’ve got in here’tall.”
Drumm made a sound like a man dying under a curse. “Veigle...”
Roy cast about wildly. “Drumm, do something!”
Too late. Whatever blitzkrieg strategy sprang to Drumm’s mind, Eddie Veigle was already sweeping through the doors, the double-breasted, brusquely confident point for a flying squad of BSTV technicians, some shouldering cameras, others paying out cable for a makeshift monitor control, grips and makeup people in their wake, Nancy Noncommit bringing up the rear.
“Well, well, well,” Veigle purred. “Everybody’s here. Who’s minding the revolution? Char, the mystery star and Florence Bird.” Veigle couldn’t resist a chuckle of pleasure. “Perfecto. A fifty share. Even Topside won’t be watching anything else.”
“HOLD IT!” Drumm tried in vain to stem the stampede of technicians around him. The guards weren’t much help. Hoping for some more television exposure, they started straightening uniforms and hats. “You can’t do this, Veigle. This is an official government rescue.”
“My Polish grandmother had such a rescue,” Essie muttered. “One kiss from the magic mamzers, she turned into soap.”
“Oh, this is a class act,” Milt sighed. “History as drama: what do we get? Reruns.”
A camera focused on Drumm; a light meter flirted near his mustache. He was becoming spastic. “THE LEADER FORBIDS THIS!”
“How?” Veigle chortled from his monitor. “This is news, lovey. Ratings, I told you Char couldn’t move without me. You don’t want to work with Veigle? Okay, Veigle works without you. Cue Nancy.”
Freshly primped by her hovering makeup woman, Nancy Noncommit spiked herself beside Florence and turned to the camera with blank-eyed authority. “This is Nancy Noncommit at the Club Banal. The suspected other-woman scandal shadowing Roy Stride broke here a few minutes ago when, acting on an anonymous tip —”
With malicious emphasis, Veigle mouthed it to Drumm: Me, Drumm-bum.
“— BSTV news broke the story in a deluge of disclosures. We found the Leader, his fiancee, Char Stovall, and the other woman, Florence Burns —”
“That’s Bird, y’little git.” Florence moved firmly into frame, nudging the smaller anchorwoman aside, flashing a toothy smile at the camera. “Florence Bird from Lambeth, and lor yes, we been together ever so long.”
In the backwash of the storm, Woody and Char stuck close together. “Char, who is this Veigle guy, anyway?”
Charity’s expression was not easily decipherable. “Whatever he is, he just hit the fan.”
32
Blossoms and thorns of
the media culture
Despite the media cyclone whirling about them, Roy and Drumm fought a brief, sibilant battle.
“Leader, you have to make a statement. The whole thing is out.”
“Not if we shut them up good and quick.”
“We can’t arrest everybody. It’s bad press.”
“We’re getting that now or maybe you din’t notice.”
“The scenario.”
“What?”
“The scenario. I wrote it out. We talked about it as a contingency plan.”
Roy found it difficult to think fast at bay. “Oh. Yeah, I remember.”
“And you must weep, my Leader. For the camera.”
“No.” Roy was adamant. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Roy fidgeted; Drumm pried at the bedrock of deep beliefs where his icons were enshrined. “Ain’t what a man would do.”
Drumm’s little eyes blinked behind their thick lenses. “Why do you think all this is news in the first place? Because you have transgressed? Rather that they recognize it. Not a real man Below Stairs who won’t identify with you. Not a woman who won’t sympathize: he’s human, he’s like us. They will know you for a man of large appetites as powerful men always are.”
Still not convinced: “But why do I have to cry?”
“Because, my Leader, with the macho comes the marshmallow. The emotional response of people conditioned to believe anything they see on television as truth. The camera giveth and the camera taketh away. They will believe your repentance: the good man strayed but anguished for the pain he’s caused. A man gone wrong, but a man throughout.”
Roy began to like the image. “Yeah...”
“Leader, you’ll be more popular than ever, Topside as well as here. Not a dry eye in the cosmos. You heard the Jew Veigle: no one will be watching anything else. We can deal with him anytime; meanwhile we must turn this to our advantage.”
“But I can’t cry.”
“It’s simple. Pull the short hair in your nose, right... there. If that doesn’t work, we have glycerin.”
Roy surrendered to the imperatives of destiny. “Ah, shit. Let’s do it.”
Nancy Noncommit turned to the monitor. “That’s it on the Bird.”
“Okay, where’s Char?” Veigle took center stage, an impresario committed to producing a miracle whatever the cost. “Hey, Stovall! You’re on.”
“No, she’s not. Leave her alone,” Woody fended him off. “Get away from her. She doesn’t want to talk to anybody.”
True: Charity struggled with every appearance of distress. “I — I can’t talk now, honest.” She collapsed in a chair at Leon’s table. “Now, now...”
“Okay, cue the Leader.” Veigle spun around, pointing at Roy. Drumm nudged the reluctant subject forward.
“From the left side only,” Drumm ordered the cameramen. “Cameras three-quarter angle from the left only. Your best angle, sir.”
Thrust into the glaring lights, nose hair tortured into yeoman service, a tearful Roy Stride went on camera — incoherent with shame for a watching cosmos, struggling with the demands of honor. Nancy Noncommit pushed the hand mike close to his face. Hushed, expectant silence.
“I can’t — I don’t know how to say this,” Roy choked. Suddenly he turned away, hands to his face. At the monitor, Veigle talked into his headset.
“Close-up. Get the sweat and tears. I want his pores.”
One more furtive yank at the nose hair filled the monitor with Roy’s moral agony. “What I did — I can’t undo. I just wish —” He stopped, swallowed hard, then went on. “I can only ask the forgiveness of the good people who — who believe in me.”
Once into his role, Roy was surprisingly good. Even Essie was stirred. “It’s sad, Milt. Look at that big English bummerkeh and tell me who’s really to blame.”
“Essie, you make me wish I were alive again. I could be sick all over you.”
“What are you talking? Look at Char.”
Under Woody’s soothing hands, Charity’s shoulders heaved tragically; from the hollow of her cradling arms came the strangled sound of deep emotion.
“But I — I won’t hide anything from my people,” Roy went on valiantly. “I only wish to God I could undo what I’ve done.” He faltered on the verge of fresh tears, then got it out in a ragged rush. “And that I can earn the forgiveness of the fine, good woman I asked to be my wife.”
Roy’s face filled the monitor — agonized, streaked with tears. “My office is new. I was — under a lot, a great deal of strain. Charity — honest to God, Charity —”
“Is that tomorrow’s headline or is it not?” Veigle crooned into his headset. “Camera two on Char... beautiful. Now split one and two.”
Roy and Charity now, split screen. Charity raised her head to Roy, equally racked, fighting to hold her feelings in check.
“Never top this,” Veigle knew. “Never.”
“Roy. Oh, Roy —” Charity struggled and lost. The words splintered, sputtered, roared into a raucous gut-hoot of hysterical laughter.
“Never... in all my li-life,” she gasped. Out of control, clutching at her ribs, Charity collapsed on the floor by Leon’s feet. Spastic, beyond control, she grabbed for something, anything to keep her this side of lunacy. She hung on to Leon, came away with his package squeezed to her own heaving chest. For a fifty share of Below Stairs and Topside, Charity Stovall imprinted her judgment on the cosmos.
“Y-you gotta be the b-biggest asshole that ever died.”
Charity surrendered to a fresh onslaught of coughing and hiccups. Sadly, Veigle drew the finger of doom across his throat. “Cut, for Christ’s sake.” He glared balefully at the monitor, prompted to murder before his practical side came to the fore with an angle. “Save her tape,” he growled into the headset. “We can sell it to the opposition.”
Meanwhile, back at madness, Charity held out Leon’s package to Roy, still sputtering. “Listen: even the groceries are laughing at you.”
Roy charged at her. “What’re you, crazy? This is going out live —”
“Hear it, Roy?” She jittered on the edge of fresh hysterics. “Even the bag is laughing.”
Roy tore the bag out of her grip and threw it aside, raging. “You don’t laugh at me. You ain’t so much, you goddamn whore. You don’t laugh at me —”
— while Nancy Noncommit talked into a headset in a steely whisper: “Veigle, we’re still rolling.”
“I know.” His voice oozed confidence again, buttered with delight. “We’ll hide at least one tape. Did I say fifty share? Sixty! This belongs to eternity.”
“Nobody laughs at me!” Roy raised his fist to batter the laughing truth from Charity’s mouth. Before the blow could launch, he was caught by the collar and flung violently backwards on his butt, gaping up at Woody Barnes. Not a protracted gape. Into that classic study in astonishment, Woody hurled a juicy burrito with unerring accuracy and a splat! that would have thrilled Mack Sennett.
Incoherent with fury, Roy clawed at his holster and brought up the huge Luger. “Shoot’em all, Drumm! Every mother —” Point-blank at Woody’s face, he squeezed the trigger.
There was a sharp report but not much else. A baby-pink flag unfurled from the pistol barrel, bearing the rubric: BANG!
Those few guards who had presence of mind to obey his final-solution order rather sheepishly discovered similar flags fluttering from their weapons, advertising MCDONALD’S — BILLIONS SERVED. Milt Kahane raised his hands in praise of celestial genius.
“Boss, Prince, I love you. The universe is sane, after all.”
Then — acute hearing and traumatic memory wiped the joy from Milt’s face. His eye shot to Leon’s package, now busily ticking. He groaned with horrible prophecy. “Barnes... listen.”
“YES! LISTEN!” His hour come round at last, Leon Pebbles, man of destiny, did not slouch toward Bethlehem but sprang to it atop the table, package held high with maniacal triumph. “I told you bastards the day would come. The day of total efficiency. Minimum paperwork and everyone sees the end product of his labors. FIVE SECONDS — BOOM!”
A frenetic five seconds, most revealing of character. Accounting personnel, used to doing nothing without directives, did just that. Elvira ducked behind the bar, mourning her freshly laundered tablecloths. Woody dove for Charity, upending a table for cover. Bug-eyed, Roy swerved for a second to Drumm for advice he’d never have time to heed, then hurled himself at Florence to protect the last, best pure Wasp piece of tail in the universe. Milt grabbed Essie and launched them both toward the deck —
“INCOMING!”
COYUL TO BARION: PLEASED TO REPORT CHARITY VERY READY, VERY BEAUTIFUL.
BARION TO COYUL: THEN PULL THE PLUG
COYUL TO BARION: LOVE TO. ALL BEST, XXXX
33
All this significance — what
does it mean?
Reeking of smoke and burrito, Roy Stride booted open the door to Coyul’s salon and invaded with Drumm behind him. He’d left his Luger behind, not trusting any weapon that read BANG instead of doing it. Right now his fury was a more formidable threat.
“Where is he?” Roy fumed. “Where’s the Devil?”
“Ah, Mr. Stride. Just a moment.” Coyul paused to feed a notation to his computer with two fingers, orchestration with the remaining three. “We were expecting you. Good of you to be prompt.”
Roy dismissed the ineffectual little man with one contemptuous glance. “I got no time for you, pussy. Wanta see the Honcho, you got it? The Devil.”
“The term is considered gauche, old boy,” said Drumm, whose flat American accent waxed suddenly British.
“True,” said Coyul. “I prefer simply Prince.”
Seething with his recent humiliation, Roy didn’t connect at first. Not this nerdy little wimp in a business suit. “Don’t shit me, man.”
“Wouldn’t think of it. Sit down.”
“Fuck I will!”
“Over there.” With no effort of his own, Roy floated swiftly toward and into a designer chair, unable to leave it. “All right, Barion.”
Two men entered the salon — one dark, about Roy’s size, who looked like he didn’t have a single spot in his body without steel springs, the other big as a Redskin lineman in jeans. One of those blond college jokers he always saw in soft-drink commercials, making out with prime tail. Fucking big fag with muscles. He sat down across from Roy.
“Listen carefully, Mr. Stride,” Barion began without prelude. “Your future depends on it. To begin with, you’re not dead.”
“Not... Drumm, what the hell is this?”
But even that stalwart’s manner had changed. “It’s the plot resolution, laddie. Do you gentlemen mind if I get out of costume? Awfully tired of it.”
“By all means, Ned.” Coyul’s manicured hands fluttered in gracious assent. “And well done.”
The sardonic Booth clapped slowly. “Applause, applause.”
While Roy gaped, Drumm’s image blurred, sloughing pounds, mustache and toupee, resolving to the fine-trained figure of Edmund Kean. He bowed to Roy. Coyul applauded lightly, presenting a second player.
“And a call for the ubiquitous Wilkes Booth.”
With negligent ease, the lithe figure of Booth went squat and leathery green, quite vivid in Roy’s memory.
“As Damocles.” Coyul applauded. “Marvelous invention, Wilksey.”
“You honor me, Prince. I was also outstanding as Dane.” Another quick dissolve to the romantically tragic form of Charity’s doomed lover.
“We don’t need the entire dramatis personae,” Kean reminded him sourly.
“The laborer is worthy of his hire,” Booth countered with dignity, “and the player of his calls.” The larger-than-life tragedy of Dane became something mundane out of daytime TV in tailored slacks, designer haircut and a Members Only casual jacket. “As Randy Colorad.”
Kean sniffed. “Juveniles were always your forte.”
But Booth was not finished. While Roy stared, a horrible realization dawning, the vacuous good looks of Randy Colorad aged, lined, set into the sensitive and thoughtful image of Ernst Stabler.
“No! I blew you away,” Roy denied. “I saw your fuckin head go six ways from Sunday.”
And again Booth stood before him. “Stabler was my finest work. Deep, thoughtful. I may consider character work henceforth. Nevertheless — John Wilkes Booth at your service.”
Roy had never been that good in school, but some names stayed in the pantheon of memory. “I remember you. You shot Abraham Lincoln.”
“As a soldier of the Confederacy, sir.”
“Stabler was utterly fine,” Coyul appreciated sincerely. “I saw new depths and colors, Wilksey. Restrained, sincere... impressive. One was reminded of Schofield.”
“Thanks, my liege. I believed in what I was saying,” Booth recalled soberly. “Futile, even laughable I might have been in life, but at least in my time life meant something. Your world is a sewer, Mr. Stride. One can almost absolve you for being one of its diseases.”
“Time, Coyul,” Barion put in. “Sorlij and Maj, remember?”
“Right.” Coyul struck his hands together. “Wilksey, I made you a promise.”
“Please, Prince: not Romeo.”
“Not a whit. We’ll leave that to Leslie Howard. You may remount Hamlet.”
Booth went down on one knee in gratitude. “Oh, my liege. My Prince —”
“Now, now. Don’t gush, there’s a catch. You’ll alternate Hamlet and Laertes with Ned.”
