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was the one. This time I had to use all three machines, and the
last one took its time, each red light going out only after a
baffling read-out of digits on a numeric display. I guess it
was doing something arcane with codes. But the door opened, and
I didn't hear any alarms. You wouldn't, of course, but you keep
your ears tuned anyway. We went through the door and found
ourselves in a small room with the Grand Council of Flacks.
Or with their heads, anyway.
The heads were on a shelf a few meters from us, facing
away toward a large screen which was playing It Happened At The
World's Fair. They were in their boxes--I don't think they
could be easily removed--so what we saw was seven television
screens displaying the backs of heads. If they were aware of
our presence they gave no sign of it. Though how they could
have given any sign of it continues to elude me. Wires and
tubes grew out of the bottom of the shelf, leading to small
machines that hummed merrily to themselves.
Brenda was looking very nervous. She started to say
something but I put a finger to my lips and put on my mask. She
did the same, as Cricket watched us both. These were plastic
Halloweentype masks, modified with a voice scrambler, and I'd
gotten them mostly to calm Brenda; I didn't expect them to be
any use if it came to the crunch, since security cameras in the
hallways would surely have taken our pictures by now. But she
was even less sophisticated in these things than I, and
wouldn't have realized that.
Cricket had had her hand in a coat pocket since we entered
the first corridor. The hand started to come out, and I pointed
over her shoulder and said "What the hell is that?" She looked,
and I took one of the wrenches off my equipment belt and
clanged it down on the crown of her head.
It doesn't work like you see it on television. She went
down hard, then lifted herself up onto her hands, shaking her
head. A rope of saliva was hanging out of her mouth. I hit her
again. Her head started to bleed, and she still didn't clock
out. The third time I really put some english on it, and sure
enough Brenda grabbed my arm and spoiled my aim and the wrench
hit her on the side of the head, doing more damage than if
she'd left me alone, but it also did the job. Cricket fell down
like a sack of wet cement and didn't move.
"What the hell are you doing?" Brenda asked. The scrambler
denatured her voice, made her sound like a creepoid from Planet
X.
"Brenda, I said no questions."
"I didn't plan on this."
"I didn't, either, but if you crap out on me now I swear
I'll break both your arms and leave you right beside her." She
faced me down, breathing hard, and I began to wonder if I could
handle her if it came to it. My record with angry females
wasn't sterling, even when I had the weight advantage. At last
she slumped, and nodded, and I quickly dropped to one knee and
rolled Cricket over and put my face close to hers. I felt her
pulse, which seemed okay, peeled back an eyelid, checked the
pupils. I didn't know much more first aid than that, but I knew
she was in no danger. Help would be here soon, though she
wouldn't welcome it. I picked up the goofball that had rolled
out of her limp hand and put it in my own pocket. I showed
Brenda a photo.
"Look through those cabinets back there, find one of
these," I told her.
"What are we--"
"No questions, dammit."
I checked the fourth and most expensive electronic burglar
tool I'd purchased, which had been functioning since we entered
the Studio. All green lights. This one was busily confounding
all the active and passive systems that might be calling for
help for the seven dwarfs on the shelf. Don't ask me how; all I
know is if one man can think up a lock, another can figure out
how to pick it. I'd paid heavily for the security information
about the Studio, and so far I'd gotten my money's worth. I
went around the shelf and stood between the screen and the
Council, saw seven of the infamous Talking Heads that had been
a television feature from the very beginning. I chose the Grand
Flack, and leaned close to his prim, disapproving features. His
first reaction was to use his limited movement to try and see
around me. More interested in the movie than in possible danger
to himself. I guess if you live in a box you'd have to get
fairly fatalistic about such things.
"I want you to tell me how to remove you from the shelf
without doing any harm to you," I said.
"Don't worry about it," he sneered. "Someone will be here
to arrest you in a few minutes."
I hoped he was bluffing, had no way of knowing for sure.
"How many minutes can you live without these machines?" He
thought it over, made a head movement I interpreted as a shrug.
"Detaching me is easy; simply lift the handle on top of
the box. But I'll die in a few minutes." The thought didn't
seem to bother him.
"Unless I plug you into one of these." I took the machine
Brenda had located and held it up in front of him. He made a
sour face.
I don't know what the machine was called. What it did was
provide life support for his head, containing things like an
artificial heart, lungs, kidneys, and so forth, all quite small
since there wasn't that much life to support. I'd been told it
would sustain him for eight hours independently, indefinitely
when hooked into an autodoc. The device was the same dimensions
as his head-box, and about ten centimeters deep. I placed it on
the floor and lifted the box by the handle. He looked worried
for the first time. A few drops of blood dripped onto the
shelf, where I could see a maze of metal pins, plastic tubes,
air hoses. There was a similar pattern of fittings on the
transport device, arranged so there was only one way you could
plug it in. I positioned the box over the life support and
pressed down.
"Am I doing it right?" I asked the Grand Flack.
"There's not much you could do wrong," he said. "And
you'll never get away with this."
"Try me." I found the right switches, turned off his voice
and three of the television screens. The fourth, the one that
had been showing his face, was replaced with the movie the
group had been watching when we arrived. "Let's get out of
here," I said to Brenda.
"What about her? What about Cricket?"
"I said no questions. Let's move."
She followed me out into the corridor, through the door
where we'd met Cricket, down more hallways. Then we rounded a
corner and met a burly man in a brown uniform who crossed his
arms and frowned at us.
"Where are you going with that?" he asked.
"Where do you think, Mac?" I asked. "I'm taking it into
the shop. You try to run ten thousand of these things, you're
gonna get breakdowns."
"Nobody told me nothing about it."
I set the Grand Flack on the floor with the movie side of
the screen facing the guard; his eyes strayed to the screen, as
I'd hoped. There's something about a moving image on a
television screen that simply draws the eyes, especially if
you're a Flackite. I had one hand on my trusty wrench, but
mostly I flipped through the papers on my clipboard in a bored
manner. I came to one page--it seemed to be an insurance policy
for Cricket's apartment --and pointed triumphantly to the
middle of it.
"Says right here. Remove and repair one model seventeen
video monitor, work order number 45293a/34. Work to be
completed by blah blah blah."
"I guess the paperwork didn't get to me yet," he said, one
eye still on the screen. Maybe we were coming to his favorite
part. All I knew was if he'd asked to see the paperwork I'd
have held the clipboard out to him and beaned him with the
wrench when he looked at it.
"Ain't that always the way."
"Yeah. I was just surprised to see you two here, what with
all the excitement with Silvio gettin' killed and all."
"What the hell," I said, with a shrug, picking up the
Grand Flack and tucking him under my arm. "Sometimes you just
gotta go that extra kilometer if you want to get a head." And
we walked out the door.
#
Brenda made it almost a hundred meters down the corridor
and then she said, "I think I'm going to faint." I steered her
to a bench in the middle of the mall and sat her down and put
her head between her knees. She was shaking all over and her
breathing was unsteady. Her hand was cold as ice.
I held out my own hand, and was pleased to note it was
steady. I honestly hadn't been frightened after I detached the
Flack from his shelf; I'd figured that if there was any point
where my devices might fail, that would be it. But I was aided
by something that had helped many a more professional burglar
before I ever tried my hand at it. It had simply never been
envisioned that anyone would want to steal one of the council
members. As for the rest . . . well, you can read all these
wonderfully devious tales about how spies in the past have
stolen military and state secrets with elaborate ruses, with
stealth and cunning. Some of it must have been like that, but
I'd bet money that a lot of them had been stolen by people with
uniforms and clipboards who just went up to somebody and asked
for them.
"Is it over yet?" Brenda asked, weakly. She looked pale.
"Not yet. Soon. And still no questions."
"I'm going to have a few pretty damn soon, though," she
said.
"I'll bet you will."
#
In order to save time I hadn't had her get any more
costumes to stash along our getaway route, so we simply peeled
off the Electrician duds and stuffed them into the trash in a
public rest room and returned to the Plaza in the nude. I was
carrying the Grand Flack in a shopping bag from one of the
shops on the Platz and we had our arms around each other like
lovers. In the elevator Brenda let go of me like I was poison,
and we rode up in silence.
"Can we talk now?" she asked, when I'd closed the door
behind us.
"In a minute." I lifted the box out of the bag, along with
the few other items I'd saved: the magic wands, the dark
glasses, the goofball. I picked up a newspad and turned it on
and we watched and read and listened for a few minutes, Brenda
growing increasingly impatient. There was no mention of a
daring break-in at the Grand Studio, no all-points bulletin for
Roz and Kathy. I hadn't expected one. The Flacks understood
publicity, and while there is some merit in the old saw about
not caring what you print about me so long as you spell my name
right, you'd much prefer to see the news you manage out there
in the public view. This story had about a thousand deadly
thorns in it if the Flacks chose to exploit it, and I was sure
they'd think it over a long time before they reported our crime
to the police, if they ever did. Besides, their plates were
full with the assassination stories, which would keep their
staff busy for months, churning out new angles to feed to the
pads.
"Okay," I said to Brenda. "We're safe for a while. What
did you want to know?"
"Nothing," she said coldly. "I just wanted to tell you I
think you're the most disgusting, rottenest, most horrible . .
." Her imagination failed when it came to finding a noun. She'd
have to work on that; I could have suggested a dozen off the
top of my head. But not for the reasons she thought.
"Why is that?" I asked.
She was momentarily stunned at the enormity of my lack of
remorse.
"What you did to Cricket!" she shouted, half rising from
her chair. "That was so dirty and underhanded . . . I don't
think I want to know you anymore."
"I'm not sure I do, either. But sit down. There's
something I want to show you. Two things, actually." The Plaza
has some charming antique phones and there was one beside my
chair. I picked up the receiver and dialed a number from
memory.
"Straight Shit," came a pleasant voice. "News desk."
"Tell the editor that one of her reporters is being held
against her will in the Grand Studio of the F.L.C.C.S. church."
The voice grew cautious. "And who might that be?"
"How many did you infiltrate this morning? Her name is
Cricket. Don't know the last name."
"And who are you, ma'am?"
"A friend of the free press. Better hurry; when I left
they were tying her down and cueing up G.I. Blues. Her mind
could be gone by now." I hung up.
Brenda sputtered, her eyes wide.
"And you think that makes up for what you did to her?"
"No, and she doesn't deserve it, but she'd probably do the
same thing for me if the situation was reversed, which it
almost was. I know the editor at the Shit; she'll have a flying
squad of fifty shock troops down there in ten minutes with some
ammunition the Flacks will understand, like mock-ups of the
next hour's headline if they don't cough up Cricket pronto. The
Flacks will want to keep this quiet, but they aren't above
trying to get our names out of Cricket since it looks like a
falling out among thieves."
"And if it wasn't, what was it?"
"It was the golden rule, honey," I said, putting on
Cricket's dark glasses and holding up the goofball between
thumb and forefinger. "In journalism, that rule reads 'Screw
unto others before they screw you.'" I flicked the goofball
with my thumb and tossed it between us.
Damn, but those things are bright! It reminded me of the
nuke in Kansas, seeming to scorch holes right through the
protective lenses. It lasted some fraction of a second, and
when I took the glasses off Brenda was slumped over in her
chair. She'd be out for twenty minutes to half an hour.
What a world.
I picked up the head of the church and carried him into
the room I'd prepared. I set him on a table facing the
wall-sized television screen, which was turned off at the
moment. I rapped on the top of the box.
"You okay in there?" He didn't answer. I turned a latch
and opened the front screen, which was still showing the same
movie on both its flat surfaces, inner and outer. The face
glared at me.
"Close that door," he said. "It's just ten minutes to the
end."
"Sorry," I said, and closed it. Then I took my wrench--I'd
developed a certain fondness for that wrench--and rapped it
against the glass screen, which shattered. I had a glimpse of a
blissfully smiling face as the shards fell, then he was
screaming insults. Somewhere I heard a little motor whirring as
it pumped air through whatever he used for a larynx. He tried
uselessly to twist himself so he could see one of the screens
to either side of him, which were also tuned to the same
program.
"Oh, were you watching that?" I said. "How clumsy of me."
I pulled a cord out of the wall and patched his player into the
wall television set, turned the sound down low. He grumped for
a while, but in the end he couldn't resist the dancing images
behind me. If he'd noticed I was letting him see my face he
didn't seem worried about the possible implications. Death
didn't seem to be high on his list of fears.
"They're going to punish you for this, you know," he said.
"Who would 'they' be? The police? Or do you have your own
private goon squads?"
"The police, of course."
"The police will never hear about this, and you know it."
He just sniffed. He sniffed again when I broke the screens
on each side of his head. But when I took the patch cord in my
hand he looked worried.
"See you later. If you get hungry, holler." I pulled the
cord out of the wall, and the big screen went blank.
#
I hadn't brought any clothes to change into. I got
restless and went down to the lobby and browsed around in some
of the shops there, killed a half hour, but my heart wasn't
really in it. In spite of all my rationalizations about the
Flacks, I kept expecting that tap on the shoulder that asks the
musical question, "Do you know a good lawyer?" I picked out
some loose harem pants in gold silk and a matching blouse, a
lounging pajama ensemble I guess you'd call it, mostly because
I dislike parading around with no clothes in public, and
because Walter was picking up the tab, then I thought of Brenda
and got interested. I found a similar pair for her in a green
that I thought would do nice things to her eyes. They had to
extrude the arms and legs, but the shirt waist was okay, since
it was supposed to leave the midriff bare.
When I got back to the suite Brenda was no longer slumped
in the chair. I found her in the bathroom, hugging the toilet
and crying her eyes out, looking like a jumbo coat hanger
somebody had crumpled up and left there. I felt low enough to
sit on a sheet of toilet paper and swing my feet, to borrow a
phrase from Liz. I'd never used a goofball before, had
forgotten how sick they were supposed to make you. If I'd
remembered, would I still have used it? I don't know. Probably.
I knelt beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.
She quieted down to a few whimpers, didn't try to move away. I
got a towel and wiped her mouth, flushed away the stuff she'd
brought up. I eased her around until she was sitting against
the wall. She wiped her eyes and nose and looked at me with
dead eyes. I pulled the pajamas out of the sack and held them
up.
"Look what I got you," I said. "Well, actually I used your
credit card, but Walter's good for it."
She managed a weak smile and held out her hand and I gave
them to her. She tried to show an interest, holding the shirt
up to her chest. I think if she'd thanked me I'd have run
screaming to the police, begging to be arrested.
"They're nice," she said. "You think it'll look good on
me?"
"Trust me," I said. She met my eyes without flinching or
giving me one of her apologetic smiles or any other of her
arsenal of don't-hit-meI'm-harmless gestures. Maybe she was
growing up a little. What a shame.
"I don't think I will," she said. I put a hand on each of
her shoulders and put my face close to hers.
"Good," I said, stood, and held out a hand. She took it
and I pulled her up and we went back to the main room of the
suite.
She did cheer up a little when she got the clothes on,
turning in front of a big mirror to study herself from all
angles, which reminded me to look in on my prisoner. I told her
to wait there.
He wasn't nearly as bad off as I'd thought he would be,
which worried me more than I let him know. I couldn't figure it
out until I crouched down to his level and looked into the
blank television screen he faced.
"You tricky rascal," I said. Looking at the inert plastic
surface of the screen, I could see part of a picture on the
screen directly behind his head, the only one I hadn't smashed
out. I couldn't tell what the movie was, and considering how
little of it he could see he might not have known, either, with
the sound off, but it must have been enough to sustain him. I
picked him up and turned him around facing away from the wall
screen. He made a fascinating centerpiece, sure to start
interesting conversations at your next party. Just a head
sitting on a thick metal base, with four little pillars
supporting a flat roof above him. It was like a little temple.
He was looking really worried now. I crouched down and
looked at all the covered mirrors and glass. I found no surface
that would reflect an image to him if I were to turn on the
screen behind him, which I did. I debated about the sound,
finally turned it on, figuring it would torment him more to
hear it and not be able to see. If I was wrong, I could always
try it the other way in an hour or so, if we were granted that
much time. Let's face it, if anybody was looking for us, we'd
be easy to find. I waved at him and made a face at the string
of curses that followed me out of the room.
How to get information out of somebody that doesn't want
to talk? That's the question I'd asked myself before I started
this escapade. The obvious answer is torture, but even I draw
the line at that. But there's torture and then there's torture.
If a man had spent most of his life watching passively as
endless images marched by right in front of his face, spent
every waking hour watching, how would he react if the plug was
pulled? I'd find out soon enough. I'd read somewhere that
people in sensory deprivation tanks quickly became disoriented,
pliable, lost their will to resist. Maybe it would work with
the Grand Flack.
Brenda and I spent a silent half hour sitting in chairs
not too far from each other that might as well have been on
other planets. When she finally spoke, it startled me. I'd
forgotten she was there, lost in my own thoughts.
"She was going to use that thing on us," she said.
"Who, Cricket? You saw it fall out of her hand, right?
It's called a goofball. Knocks you right out, from what I'm
told."
"You were told right. It was awful."
"I'm really sorry, Brenda. It seemed like a good idea at
the time."
"It was. I asked for it. I deserved it."
I wasn't sure about that, but it had been the quickest way
to show her what we'd narrowly averted. That's me: quick and
dirty, and explain later. She thought about it a few more
minutes.
"Maybe she was just going to use it on the Flacks."
"Sure she was; she didn't expect to find us there. But you
didn't see her handing out pairs of glasses. We'd have gone
down with the Flacks."
"And she'd have left us there."
"Just like we left her."
"Well, like you said, she didn't expect us. We forced her
hand."
"Brenda, you're trying to apologize for her, and it's not
necessary. She forced my hand, too. You think I liked cracking
her on the head? Cricket's my friend."
"That's the part I don't understand."
"Look, I don't know what her plan was. Maybe she had drugs
on her, too, something to make the Flacks talk right there.
That might have been the best way, come to think of it. The
penalties for . . . well, I guess for headnapping, it's going
to be pretty stiff if they catch me."
"Me, too."
I showed her the gun I'd bought from Liz; she looked
shocked, so I put it away. I don't blame her. Nasty little
thing, that gun. I can see why they're illegal.
"Just me. If it comes to it, you can say I held that on
you the whole time. I won't have trouble convincing a judge
I've lost my mind. Anyway, you can be sure Cricket had some
plan of attack in mind, and she improvised when we entered the
picture. The story's the thing, see? Ask her about it when this
is all over."
"I don't think she'd talk to me."
"Why not? She won't hold a grudge. She's a pro. Oh, she'll
be mad, all right, and she'll do just about anything to us if
we get in her way again, but it won't be for revenge. If
cooperation will get the story, then she'd rather cooperate,
just like me. Trouble was, this story is too big to share. I
think we both figured out as soon as we saw each other that one
of us wasn't walking out of that room. I was just faster."
She was shaking her head. I'd said all I had to say; she'd
either understand it and accept it, or look for another line of
work. Then she looked up, remembering something.
"What you said. I can't let you do that. Take the rap, I
mean."
I pretended anger, but I was touched again. What a sweet
little jerk she was. I hoped she didn't get eaten alive next
time she met Cricket.
"You sure as hell will. Stop being juvenile. First
revenge, then altruism. Those things are for very special
occasions, rare circumstances. Not when they get in the way of
a story. You want to be altruistic in your private life, go
ahead, but not on Walter's time. He'll fire you if he hears
about it."
"But it's not right."
"You're even wrong there. I never told you what we were
going to do. You couldn't be held responsible. I went to a lot
of trouble to set it up that way, and you're an ungrateful brat
for thinking of throwing all my work away."
She looked as if she was going to cry again, and I got up
and got a drink. Maybe I wiped my eyes, too, standing there in
the kitchen tossing down a surprisingly bitter bourbon. You'd
think they'd do better at two thousand per night.
#
When the Grand Flack had had two hours with nothing moving
to look at but the flickering lights cast on the other walls by
the screen behind his head, I stuck my own head into the room,
wondering if I could manage to keep it attached to my shoulders
by the time this was all over. He looked at me desperately. His
whole face was drenched with sweat.
"This series is one of my favorites," he whined.
"So look at the tape later," I said.
"It's not the same, dammit! I've already heard the story
line."
I thought it was a bit of luck to have one of his favorite
soap operas playing just when I needed a lever to pry
information out of his head, then I thought it over, and
realized that whatever was playing at the moment was bound to
be his favorite. He watched them all.
"I missed David and Everett's big love scene. Damn you."
"Are you ready to answer some questions?"
He started to shake his head--he had a little movement
from the neck stump, up and down, back and forth--and it was
like a hand took his chin and forced it up and down instead. I
guess it was the invisible hand of his addiction.
"Don't run off," I said. "I've got to get another
witness." I turned around, and bumped into Brenda, who'd been
standing behind me. She wasn't wearing her mask and I thought
about getting angry about that, but what the hell. She was in
it as an accessory, unless I could make my duress theory stand
up in court. Which point I hoped never to reach.
We pulled up chairs on each side of the big screen and
turned him around so he could see it. I thought this might take
a long time, as his eyes never left the screen, never once
looked at us, but he was quite good at watching the show and
talking to us at the same time.
"For the record," I said, "have you been harmed in any way
since we took you on this little trip?"
"You made me miss David and Everett's--"
"Aside from that."
"No," he said, grudgingly.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty? You need to . . . is there a
drain on this thing? A waste dump of some kind? Need to empty
the beer cooler?"
"It's not a problem."
So I had him answer a few more questions, name rank and
serial number sort of things, just to get him used to
responding. I've found it's a good technique, even with
somebody who's used to being interviewed. Then I got around to
asking the question this had all been about, and he told me
pretty much what I'd expected to hear.
"So who's idea was it to assassinate Silvio?" I heard
Brenda gasp, but I kept my eyes on the Flack. He pursed his
lips angrily, but kept watching the screen. When it looked as
if he might not answer I reached for the patch cord and the
story came out.
"I don't know who told you about it; we kept security
tight, just the inner circle knew what was going to happen. I'd
like his name later."
I decided not to tell him just yet that nobody had told
me. Maybe if he thought he'd been betrayed he'd pull no
punches. I needn't have worried.
"You don't care about whose idea it was, though. You don't
care. All you need is someone who'll admit to it. I'm here, so
I'm elected to break the story, so let's just say it was me,
all right?"
"You're willing to take the blame?" Brenda asked.
"Why not? We all agreed it was the thing to do. We drew
lots to select a culprit to stand up for the crime, and
somebody else lost, but we can work that out, just so I get
time to warn them, get our stories straight."
I looked at Brenda's face to see how she was reacting to
this, both the story itself and the blatant engineering of the
story between me and the man who bought the hit. What I saw
made me think there was hope for her in the news business yet.
There is a certain concentrated, avid-forblood look that
appears on the faces of reporters on the trail of a very big
story that you'd have to visit the big cat house at the zoo to
see duplicated in its primal state. From the look on Brenda's
face, if a tiger was standing between her and this story right
now, the cat would soon have a tall-journalist-sized hole in
him.
"What you mean is," Brenda went on, "you had someone
picked out to go to jail if someone ever uncovered the story."
Which meant she still hadn't completely comprehended this man
and his church.
"Nothing like that. We knew the truth would come out
sooner or later." He looked sour. "We'd hoped for later, of
course, so we'd have time to milk it from every possible angle.
You've been a real problem, Hildy."
"Thank you," I said.
"After all we've done for you people," he pouted. "First
you get in the way of the second bullet. Serves you right, you
getting hurt."
"It never hurt. It passed right through me."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Those bullets were carefully
planned. Something about penetrating the forehead, the cheek,
something like that, spreading out later and blowing out the
back of the skull."
"Dum-dums," Brenda said, unexpectedly. She looked at me,
shrugged. "When you got hit, I looked it up."
"Whatever," the Flack continued. "The second one spread
out when it hit you, and did way too much damage to Silvio's
face, plus getting your blood splattered all over him. You
ruined the tableau."
"I thought it was pretty effective, myself."
"Thank Elvis for Cricket. Then, as if you hadn't done
enough, here you are breaking the law, making me break the
story two weeks early. We never thought you'd break the law, at
least not to this extent."
"So prosecute me."
"Don't be silly. That would look pretty foolish, wouldn't
it? All the sympathy would be with you. People would think
you'd done a public service."
"That's what I was hoping."
"No way. But there's still time to get the right spin on
this thing, and do us both a lot of good. You know us, Hildy.
You know we'll work with you to get a story that will maximize
your readership interest, if you'll only give us a few things
here and there in the way of damage control."
There were a few things going on here that I didn't
understand, but I couldn't get to the questions just yet.
Frankly, though I've seen a lot of things in my career, done a
lot of things, this one was about to make me gag. What I really
wanted to do was go out and find a baseball/6 field and play a
few innings using this terrifying psychopath as the ball.
But I got myself under control. I've interviewed perverts
before, the public always wants to know about perverts. And I
asked the next question, the one that, later, you wish you
could take back, or never hear the answer to.
"What I can't figure . . . or maybe I'm dense," I said,
slowly. "I haven't found the angle. How did the church expect
to look good out of all this? Killing him, that I understand,
in your terms. You can't have a live saint walking around,
farting and belching, out of control. Silvio should have seen
that. Think how embarrassed the Christians'd be if Jesus came
back; they'd have to nail the sucker up again before he upset
too many applecarts."
I stopped, because he was smiling, and I didn't like the
smile. And for just a moment he let his dreamy eyes drift from
the screen and look into my own. I imagined I saw worms
crawling around in there.
"Oh, Hildy," he said, more in sorrow than in anger.
"Don't you oh Hildy me, you coffee-table cocksucker. I'll
tear you out of that box and shit down your neck. I'll--"
Brenda put a hand on mine, and I got myself back under control.
"They'll put you in jail for five hundred years," I said.
"That wouldn't frighten me," he said, still smiling. "But
they won't. I'll do time, all right. I figure three, maybe five
years."
"For murder? For conspiracy to murder Silvio? I want the
name of your lawyer."
"They won't be able to prove murder," he said, still
smiling. I was really getting tired of that smile.
"Why do you say that?"
I felt Brenda's hand on mine again. She had the look of
someone trying to break it gently.
"Silvio was in on it, Hildy," she said.
"Of course he was," The Grand Exalted Stinking Baboon's
Posterior said. "And Hildy, if I'd been a vindictive man, I
could have let you run with the first story. I almost wish I
had. Now I'll never enjoy David and Everett's . . . well, never
mind. I'm telling you as a show of good faith, prove we can
work together again in spite of your backstabbing crimes.
Silvio was the one who suggested this whole thing. He helped
interview the shooter. That's the story you'll write this
afternoon, and that's the story we always intended to come out
in a few weeks' time."
"I don't believe you," I said, believing every word of it.
"That's of little interest to me."
"Why?" I said.
"I presume you mean why did he want to die. He was washed
up, Hildy. He hadn't been able to write anything in four years.
That was worse than death to Silvio."
"But his best stuff . . ."
"That's when he came to us. I don't know if he was ever a
true believer; hell, I don't know if I'm a true believer.
That's why we call ourselves latitudinarian. If you have
different ideas on the divinity of Tori-san, for instance, we
don't drive you out of the church, we give you a time slot and
let you talk it over with people who agree with you. We don't
form sects, like other churches, and we don't torment heretics.
There are no heretics. We aren't doctrinaire. We have a saying
in the church, when people want to argue about points of
theology: that's close enough for sphere music."
"'Hum a few bars and I'll see if I can pick it up,'" I
said.
"Exactly. We make no secret of the fact that what we most
want from parishioners is for them to buy our records. What we
give them in return is the chance to rub elbows with
celebrities. What surprised the founding Flacks, though, is how
many people really do believe in the sainthood of celebrities.
It even makes some sense, when you think about it. We don't
postulate a heaven. It's right here on the ground, if you
achieve enough popularity. In the mind of your average
star-struck nobody, being a celebrity is a thousand times
better than any heaven he can imagine."
I could see he did believe in one thing, even if it wasn't
the Return of the King. He believed in the power of public
relations. I'd found a point in common with him. I wasn't
delighted by this.
"So you'll play it as, he came to you for help, and you
helped him."
"For three years we wrote all his music. We attract a lot
of artists, as you know. We picked three of the best, and they
sat down and started churning out 'Silvio' music. It turned out
to be pretty good. You never can tell."
I thought back over the music I had loved so much, the new
things I had believed Silvio had been doing. It was still good;
I couldn't take that away from the music. But something had
gone out of me.
This was a whole new world for Brenda, and she was as rapt
as any three-year-old at mommy's knee, listening to Baba Yaga
and the Wolves.
"Will that be part of the story?" she asked. "How you've
been writing his music for him?"
"It has to be. I was against it at first, but then it was
shown to me that everyone benefits this way. My worry was of
tarnishing the image of a Gigastar. But if it's boosted right,
he becomes a real object of sympathy, his cult gets even
stronger. He's still got his old music, which was all his. The
church comes out well because we tried everything, and
reluctantly gave in to his request to martyr himself--which is
his right. We broke some laws along the way, sure, and we
expected some punishment, but handled right, even that can
generate sympathy. He asked us. And don't worry, we've got tons
of documentation on this, tapes showing him begging us to go
along. I'll have all that wired over to your newsroom as soon
as we iron out the deal. Oh, yes, and as if it all wasn't good
enough, now the real musicians who stood behind Silvio all this
time get to come out of the shadows and get their own shot at
Gigastardom."
"Shot does seem the perfect word in this context," I said.
#
The first part of that interview was almost comic, when I
think back on it. There I was, thinking I had it all figured
out, asking who had planned to kill Silvio. And there he was,
thinking I knew the whole story already, thinking I was asking
him who had suggested to Silvio that, dead, he could become a
Flack Gigastar.
Because Silvio had not come up with the idea
independently. What he had proposed was his own election, live,
into the ranks of the Four. It was explained that only dead
people could qualify, and one thing led to another. The council
was against his plan at first. It was Silvio who figured out
the angle to make the church look good. And it was an act of
suicide. What the Grand Flack would go to jail for was a series
of civil offenses, conspiracies, false advertising, intent to
defraud, thing like that. What sort of penalty the actual
assassin would get, when found, I had no idea.
It scared me, later, that we'd missed understanding each
other by such a seemingly trivial point. If he'd known I didn't
know the key fact before he admitted what he did, I thought he
might have found that little window of opportunity to pay me
back for making him miss his soap opera, some way that would
have ended with Hildy Johnson in jail and the aims of the
church still accomplished. There might have been a way. Of
course, there was nothing to really prevent him from filing
charges anyway, I'd known that going in, but though he might be
devious, he'd never take a chance on it backfiring, knowing the
kind of power Walter would bring to bear if I ever got charged
with something after bringing him a story like that.
Brenda wanted to rush right off and get to work, but I
made her sit down and think it out, something that would
benefit her later in her career if she remembered to do it.
Step one was to phone in the confession as recorded by her
holocam. When that was safely at the Nipple newsdesk there was
no chance of the Flack going back on his word. We could
interview him at our leisure, and plan just how to break this
story.
Not that we had a lot of time; there's never much time
with something like this. Who knows when someone will come
sniffing down the tracks you've left? But we took enough to
carry the head back to the Nipple, where he was put on a desk
and allowed to use his telephone and was soon surrounded by
dozens of gawking reporters listening in as Brenda interviewed
him.
Yes, Brenda. On the tube ride to the offices I'd had a
talk with her.
"This is all going under your byline," I said.
"That's ridiculous," she said. "You did all the work. It
was your not accepting the assassination on the face of it that
. . . hell, Hildy, it's your story."
"It was just too perfect," I said. "Right when I picked
him up, it went through my mind. Only I thought they'd set him
up, the poor chump."
"Well, I was buying it. Like everybody else."
"Except Cricket."
"Yeah. There's no question of me taking the credit for
it."
"But you will. Because I'm offering it, and it's the kind
of story that will make your name forever and you'd be even
dumber than you act if you turned it down. And because it can't
be under my name, because I don't work for the Nipple anymore."
"You quit? When? Why didn't Walter tell me?"
I knew when I had quit, and Walter didn't tell her because
he didn't know yet, but why confuse her? She argued with me
some more, her passion growing weaker and her gradual
acceptance more tinged with guilt. She'd get over the guilt. I
hoped she'd get over the fame.
She seemed to be enjoying it well enough at the moment. I
stood at the back of the room, rows of empty desks between me
and the excited group gathered around the triumphant cub
reporter.
And Walter emerged from his high tower. He waddled across
the suddenly-silent newsroom, walking away from me, not seeing
me there in the shadows. No one present could remember the last
time he'd come out of his office just for a news story. I saw
him hold out his hand to Brenda. He didn't believe it, of
course, but he was probably planning to grill me about it
later. He was still bestowing his sacred presence on the
reporters when I got on his elevator and rode it up to his
office.
His desk sat there in a pool of light. I admired the fine
grain of the wood, the craftsmanship of the thing. Of all the
hugely expensive antiques Walter owned, this was the only one
I'd ever coveted. I'd have liked a desk of my own like that
some day.
I smoothed out the gray fedora hat in my hand. It had
fallen off my head when I jumped onto the stage, into a pool of
Silvio's blood. The blood was still caked on it. The thing was
supposed to be battered, that was traditional, but this was
ridiculous.
It seemed to me the hat had seen enough use. So I left it
in the center of Walter's desk, and I walked out.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
I had to go home by the back way, and even that had been
discovered. One of my friends must have been bribed: there were
reporters gathered outside the cave. None had elected to
actually enter it, not with the cougar in residence. Though
they knew she wouldn't hurt them, that lady is a menacing
presence at best.
My re-arranged face almost did the trick. I had made it
into the cave and they all must have been wondering who the
hell I was and what my business was with Hildy, when somebody
shouted "It's her!" and the stampede was on. I ran down the
corridor with the reporters on my heels, shouting questions,
taping my ignominious flight.
Once inside, I viewed the front door camera. Oh, brother.
They were shoulder to shoulder, as far as the eye could see,
from one side of the corridor to the other. There were vendors
selling balloons and hot dogs, and some guy in a clown suit
juggling. If I'd ever wondered where the term media circus came
from, I wondered no longer.
The police had set up ropes to keep a clear space for fire
and emergency crews, and so my neighbors could get through to
their homes. As I watched, one neighbor came through, his face
set in a scowl that was starting to look permanent. For lack of
anything else to do, many of the reporters shouted questions at
him, to which he replied with stony silence. I could see I was
not going to win any prizes at my next neighborhood block
party. This whole thing was bound to get petitions in
circulation, politely requesting me to find another residence,
if I didn't do something.
So I spent several hours boxing my possession, folding up
my furniture, sticking stamps on everything and shoving it all
in the mail tube. I thought about mailing myself along with it,
but I didn't know where I'd go. The things I owned could go
into storage; there wasn't that much of it. When I was done the
already-spare apartment was clean to the bare walls, except for
some items I'd set aside, some of which I'd already owned,
others ordered and mailed to me. I went to the bathroom and
fixed my cheekbones, left the nose alone because I'd let Bobbie
do that when I could get to him safely. What the hell, it was
still under the ninety-day warranty and there was no need to
tell him I'd broken it intentionally. Then I went to the front
door and let myself appear on the outside monitor. No way was I
going to un-dog those latches.
"Free food at the end of the corridor!" I shouted. A
couple of heads actually turned, but most remained looking back
at me. Everyone shouted questions at once and it took some time
for all that to die down and for everyone to realize that, if
they didn't shut up, nobody got an interview.
"I've said all I'm going to say about the death of
Silvio," I told them. There were groans and more shouts, and I
last one took its time, each red light going out only after a
baffling read-out of digits on a numeric display. I guess it
was doing something arcane with codes. But the door opened, and
I didn't hear any alarms. You wouldn't, of course, but you keep
your ears tuned anyway. We went through the door and found
ourselves in a small room with the Grand Council of Flacks.
Or with their heads, anyway.
The heads were on a shelf a few meters from us, facing
away toward a large screen which was playing It Happened At The
World's Fair. They were in their boxes--I don't think they
could be easily removed--so what we saw was seven television
screens displaying the backs of heads. If they were aware of
our presence they gave no sign of it. Though how they could
have given any sign of it continues to elude me. Wires and
tubes grew out of the bottom of the shelf, leading to small
machines that hummed merrily to themselves.
Brenda was looking very nervous. She started to say
something but I put a finger to my lips and put on my mask. She
did the same, as Cricket watched us both. These were plastic
Halloweentype masks, modified with a voice scrambler, and I'd
gotten them mostly to calm Brenda; I didn't expect them to be
any use if it came to the crunch, since security cameras in the
hallways would surely have taken our pictures by now. But she
was even less sophisticated in these things than I, and
wouldn't have realized that.
Cricket had had her hand in a coat pocket since we entered
the first corridor. The hand started to come out, and I pointed
over her shoulder and said "What the hell is that?" She looked,
and I took one of the wrenches off my equipment belt and
clanged it down on the crown of her head.
It doesn't work like you see it on television. She went
down hard, then lifted herself up onto her hands, shaking her
head. A rope of saliva was hanging out of her mouth. I hit her
again. Her head started to bleed, and she still didn't clock
out. The third time I really put some english on it, and sure
enough Brenda grabbed my arm and spoiled my aim and the wrench
hit her on the side of the head, doing more damage than if
she'd left me alone, but it also did the job. Cricket fell down
like a sack of wet cement and didn't move.
"What the hell are you doing?" Brenda asked. The scrambler
denatured her voice, made her sound like a creepoid from Planet
X.
"Brenda, I said no questions."
"I didn't plan on this."
"I didn't, either, but if you crap out on me now I swear
I'll break both your arms and leave you right beside her." She
faced me down, breathing hard, and I began to wonder if I could
handle her if it came to it. My record with angry females
wasn't sterling, even when I had the weight advantage. At last
she slumped, and nodded, and I quickly dropped to one knee and
rolled Cricket over and put my face close to hers. I felt her
pulse, which seemed okay, peeled back an eyelid, checked the
pupils. I didn't know much more first aid than that, but I knew
she was in no danger. Help would be here soon, though she
wouldn't welcome it. I picked up the goofball that had rolled
out of her limp hand and put it in my own pocket. I showed
Brenda a photo.
"Look through those cabinets back there, find one of
these," I told her.
"What are we--"
"No questions, dammit."
I checked the fourth and most expensive electronic burglar
tool I'd purchased, which had been functioning since we entered
the Studio. All green lights. This one was busily confounding
all the active and passive systems that might be calling for
help for the seven dwarfs on the shelf. Don't ask me how; all I
know is if one man can think up a lock, another can figure out
how to pick it. I'd paid heavily for the security information
about the Studio, and so far I'd gotten my money's worth. I
went around the shelf and stood between the screen and the
Council, saw seven of the infamous Talking Heads that had been
a television feature from the very beginning. I chose the Grand
Flack, and leaned close to his prim, disapproving features. His
first reaction was to use his limited movement to try and see
around me. More interested in the movie than in possible danger
to himself. I guess if you live in a box you'd have to get
fairly fatalistic about such things.
"I want you to tell me how to remove you from the shelf
without doing any harm to you," I said.
"Don't worry about it," he sneered. "Someone will be here
to arrest you in a few minutes."
I hoped he was bluffing, had no way of knowing for sure.
"How many minutes can you live without these machines?" He
thought it over, made a head movement I interpreted as a shrug.
"Detaching me is easy; simply lift the handle on top of
the box. But I'll die in a few minutes." The thought didn't
seem to bother him.
"Unless I plug you into one of these." I took the machine
Brenda had located and held it up in front of him. He made a
sour face.
I don't know what the machine was called. What it did was
provide life support for his head, containing things like an
artificial heart, lungs, kidneys, and so forth, all quite small
since there wasn't that much life to support. I'd been told it
would sustain him for eight hours independently, indefinitely
when hooked into an autodoc. The device was the same dimensions
as his head-box, and about ten centimeters deep. I placed it on
the floor and lifted the box by the handle. He looked worried
for the first time. A few drops of blood dripped onto the
shelf, where I could see a maze of metal pins, plastic tubes,
air hoses. There was a similar pattern of fittings on the
transport device, arranged so there was only one way you could
plug it in. I positioned the box over the life support and
pressed down.
"Am I doing it right?" I asked the Grand Flack.
"There's not much you could do wrong," he said. "And
you'll never get away with this."
"Try me." I found the right switches, turned off his voice
and three of the television screens. The fourth, the one that
had been showing his face, was replaced with the movie the
group had been watching when we arrived. "Let's get out of
here," I said to Brenda.
"What about her? What about Cricket?"
"I said no questions. Let's move."
She followed me out into the corridor, through the door
where we'd met Cricket, down more hallways. Then we rounded a
corner and met a burly man in a brown uniform who crossed his
arms and frowned at us.
"Where are you going with that?" he asked.
"Where do you think, Mac?" I asked. "I'm taking it into
the shop. You try to run ten thousand of these things, you're
gonna get breakdowns."
"Nobody told me nothing about it."
I set the Grand Flack on the floor with the movie side of
the screen facing the guard; his eyes strayed to the screen, as
I'd hoped. There's something about a moving image on a
television screen that simply draws the eyes, especially if
you're a Flackite. I had one hand on my trusty wrench, but
mostly I flipped through the papers on my clipboard in a bored
manner. I came to one page--it seemed to be an insurance policy
for Cricket's apartment --and pointed triumphantly to the
middle of it.
"Says right here. Remove and repair one model seventeen
video monitor, work order number 45293a/34. Work to be
completed by blah blah blah."
"I guess the paperwork didn't get to me yet," he said, one
eye still on the screen. Maybe we were coming to his favorite
part. All I knew was if he'd asked to see the paperwork I'd
have held the clipboard out to him and beaned him with the
wrench when he looked at it.
"Ain't that always the way."
"Yeah. I was just surprised to see you two here, what with
all the excitement with Silvio gettin' killed and all."
"What the hell," I said, with a shrug, picking up the
Grand Flack and tucking him under my arm. "Sometimes you just
gotta go that extra kilometer if you want to get a head." And
we walked out the door.
#
Brenda made it almost a hundred meters down the corridor
and then she said, "I think I'm going to faint." I steered her
to a bench in the middle of the mall and sat her down and put
her head between her knees. She was shaking all over and her
breathing was unsteady. Her hand was cold as ice.
I held out my own hand, and was pleased to note it was
steady. I honestly hadn't been frightened after I detached the
Flack from his shelf; I'd figured that if there was any point
where my devices might fail, that would be it. But I was aided
by something that had helped many a more professional burglar
before I ever tried my hand at it. It had simply never been
envisioned that anyone would want to steal one of the council
members. As for the rest . . . well, you can read all these
wonderfully devious tales about how spies in the past have
stolen military and state secrets with elaborate ruses, with
stealth and cunning. Some of it must have been like that, but
I'd bet money that a lot of them had been stolen by people with
uniforms and clipboards who just went up to somebody and asked
for them.
"Is it over yet?" Brenda asked, weakly. She looked pale.
"Not yet. Soon. And still no questions."
"I'm going to have a few pretty damn soon, though," she
said.
"I'll bet you will."
#
In order to save time I hadn't had her get any more
costumes to stash along our getaway route, so we simply peeled
off the Electrician duds and stuffed them into the trash in a
public rest room and returned to the Plaza in the nude. I was
carrying the Grand Flack in a shopping bag from one of the
shops on the Platz and we had our arms around each other like
lovers. In the elevator Brenda let go of me like I was poison,
and we rode up in silence.
"Can we talk now?" she asked, when I'd closed the door
behind us.
"In a minute." I lifted the box out of the bag, along with
the few other items I'd saved: the magic wands, the dark
glasses, the goofball. I picked up a newspad and turned it on
and we watched and read and listened for a few minutes, Brenda
growing increasingly impatient. There was no mention of a
daring break-in at the Grand Studio, no all-points bulletin for
Roz and Kathy. I hadn't expected one. The Flacks understood
publicity, and while there is some merit in the old saw about
not caring what you print about me so long as you spell my name
right, you'd much prefer to see the news you manage out there
in the public view. This story had about a thousand deadly
thorns in it if the Flacks chose to exploit it, and I was sure
they'd think it over a long time before they reported our crime
to the police, if they ever did. Besides, their plates were
full with the assassination stories, which would keep their
staff busy for months, churning out new angles to feed to the
pads.
"Okay," I said to Brenda. "We're safe for a while. What
did you want to know?"
"Nothing," she said coldly. "I just wanted to tell you I
think you're the most disgusting, rottenest, most horrible . .
." Her imagination failed when it came to finding a noun. She'd
have to work on that; I could have suggested a dozen off the
top of my head. But not for the reasons she thought.
"Why is that?" I asked.
She was momentarily stunned at the enormity of my lack of
remorse.
"What you did to Cricket!" she shouted, half rising from
her chair. "That was so dirty and underhanded . . . I don't
think I want to know you anymore."
"I'm not sure I do, either. But sit down. There's
something I want to show you. Two things, actually." The Plaza
has some charming antique phones and there was one beside my
chair. I picked up the receiver and dialed a number from
memory.
"Straight Shit," came a pleasant voice. "News desk."
"Tell the editor that one of her reporters is being held
against her will in the Grand Studio of the F.L.C.C.S. church."
The voice grew cautious. "And who might that be?"
"How many did you infiltrate this morning? Her name is
Cricket. Don't know the last name."
"And who are you, ma'am?"
"A friend of the free press. Better hurry; when I left
they were tying her down and cueing up G.I. Blues. Her mind
could be gone by now." I hung up.
Brenda sputtered, her eyes wide.
"And you think that makes up for what you did to her?"
"No, and she doesn't deserve it, but she'd probably do the
same thing for me if the situation was reversed, which it
almost was. I know the editor at the Shit; she'll have a flying
squad of fifty shock troops down there in ten minutes with some
ammunition the Flacks will understand, like mock-ups of the
next hour's headline if they don't cough up Cricket pronto. The
Flacks will want to keep this quiet, but they aren't above
trying to get our names out of Cricket since it looks like a
falling out among thieves."
"And if it wasn't, what was it?"
"It was the golden rule, honey," I said, putting on
Cricket's dark glasses and holding up the goofball between
thumb and forefinger. "In journalism, that rule reads 'Screw
unto others before they screw you.'" I flicked the goofball
with my thumb and tossed it between us.
Damn, but those things are bright! It reminded me of the
nuke in Kansas, seeming to scorch holes right through the
protective lenses. It lasted some fraction of a second, and
when I took the glasses off Brenda was slumped over in her
chair. She'd be out for twenty minutes to half an hour.
What a world.
I picked up the head of the church and carried him into
the room I'd prepared. I set him on a table facing the
wall-sized television screen, which was turned off at the
moment. I rapped on the top of the box.
"You okay in there?" He didn't answer. I turned a latch
and opened the front screen, which was still showing the same
movie on both its flat surfaces, inner and outer. The face
glared at me.
"Close that door," he said. "It's just ten minutes to the
end."
"Sorry," I said, and closed it. Then I took my wrench--I'd
developed a certain fondness for that wrench--and rapped it
against the glass screen, which shattered. I had a glimpse of a
blissfully smiling face as the shards fell, then he was
screaming insults. Somewhere I heard a little motor whirring as
it pumped air through whatever he used for a larynx. He tried
uselessly to twist himself so he could see one of the screens
to either side of him, which were also tuned to the same
program.
"Oh, were you watching that?" I said. "How clumsy of me."
I pulled a cord out of the wall and patched his player into the
wall television set, turned the sound down low. He grumped for
a while, but in the end he couldn't resist the dancing images
behind me. If he'd noticed I was letting him see my face he
didn't seem worried about the possible implications. Death
didn't seem to be high on his list of fears.
"They're going to punish you for this, you know," he said.
"Who would 'they' be? The police? Or do you have your own
private goon squads?"
"The police, of course."
"The police will never hear about this, and you know it."
He just sniffed. He sniffed again when I broke the screens
on each side of his head. But when I took the patch cord in my
hand he looked worried.
"See you later. If you get hungry, holler." I pulled the
cord out of the wall, and the big screen went blank.
#
I hadn't brought any clothes to change into. I got
restless and went down to the lobby and browsed around in some
of the shops there, killed a half hour, but my heart wasn't
really in it. In spite of all my rationalizations about the
Flacks, I kept expecting that tap on the shoulder that asks the
musical question, "Do you know a good lawyer?" I picked out
some loose harem pants in gold silk and a matching blouse, a
lounging pajama ensemble I guess you'd call it, mostly because
I dislike parading around with no clothes in public, and
because Walter was picking up the tab, then I thought of Brenda
and got interested. I found a similar pair for her in a green
that I thought would do nice things to her eyes. They had to
extrude the arms and legs, but the shirt waist was okay, since
it was supposed to leave the midriff bare.
When I got back to the suite Brenda was no longer slumped
in the chair. I found her in the bathroom, hugging the toilet
and crying her eyes out, looking like a jumbo coat hanger
somebody had crumpled up and left there. I felt low enough to
sit on a sheet of toilet paper and swing my feet, to borrow a
phrase from Liz. I'd never used a goofball before, had
forgotten how sick they were supposed to make you. If I'd
remembered, would I still have used it? I don't know. Probably.
I knelt beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.
She quieted down to a few whimpers, didn't try to move away. I
got a towel and wiped her mouth, flushed away the stuff she'd
brought up. I eased her around until she was sitting against
the wall. She wiped her eyes and nose and looked at me with
dead eyes. I pulled the pajamas out of the sack and held them
up.
"Look what I got you," I said. "Well, actually I used your
credit card, but Walter's good for it."
She managed a weak smile and held out her hand and I gave
them to her. She tried to show an interest, holding the shirt
up to her chest. I think if she'd thanked me I'd have run
screaming to the police, begging to be arrested.
"They're nice," she said. "You think it'll look good on
me?"
"Trust me," I said. She met my eyes without flinching or
giving me one of her apologetic smiles or any other of her
arsenal of don't-hit-meI'm-harmless gestures. Maybe she was
growing up a little. What a shame.
"I don't think I will," she said. I put a hand on each of
her shoulders and put my face close to hers.
"Good," I said, stood, and held out a hand. She took it
and I pulled her up and we went back to the main room of the
suite.
She did cheer up a little when she got the clothes on,
turning in front of a big mirror to study herself from all
angles, which reminded me to look in on my prisoner. I told her
to wait there.
He wasn't nearly as bad off as I'd thought he would be,
which worried me more than I let him know. I couldn't figure it
out until I crouched down to his level and looked into the
blank television screen he faced.
"You tricky rascal," I said. Looking at the inert plastic
surface of the screen, I could see part of a picture on the
screen directly behind his head, the only one I hadn't smashed
out. I couldn't tell what the movie was, and considering how
little of it he could see he might not have known, either, with
the sound off, but it must have been enough to sustain him. I
picked him up and turned him around facing away from the wall
screen. He made a fascinating centerpiece, sure to start
interesting conversations at your next party. Just a head
sitting on a thick metal base, with four little pillars
supporting a flat roof above him. It was like a little temple.
He was looking really worried now. I crouched down and
looked at all the covered mirrors and glass. I found no surface
that would reflect an image to him if I were to turn on the
screen behind him, which I did. I debated about the sound,
finally turned it on, figuring it would torment him more to
hear it and not be able to see. If I was wrong, I could always
try it the other way in an hour or so, if we were granted that
much time. Let's face it, if anybody was looking for us, we'd
be easy to find. I waved at him and made a face at the string
of curses that followed me out of the room.
How to get information out of somebody that doesn't want
to talk? That's the question I'd asked myself before I started
this escapade. The obvious answer is torture, but even I draw
the line at that. But there's torture and then there's torture.
If a man had spent most of his life watching passively as
endless images marched by right in front of his face, spent
every waking hour watching, how would he react if the plug was
pulled? I'd find out soon enough. I'd read somewhere that
people in sensory deprivation tanks quickly became disoriented,
pliable, lost their will to resist. Maybe it would work with
the Grand Flack.
Brenda and I spent a silent half hour sitting in chairs
not too far from each other that might as well have been on
other planets. When she finally spoke, it startled me. I'd
forgotten she was there, lost in my own thoughts.
"She was going to use that thing on us," she said.
"Who, Cricket? You saw it fall out of her hand, right?
It's called a goofball. Knocks you right out, from what I'm
told."
"You were told right. It was awful."
"I'm really sorry, Brenda. It seemed like a good idea at
the time."
"It was. I asked for it. I deserved it."
I wasn't sure about that, but it had been the quickest way
to show her what we'd narrowly averted. That's me: quick and
dirty, and explain later. She thought about it a few more
minutes.
"Maybe she was just going to use it on the Flacks."
"Sure she was; she didn't expect to find us there. But you
didn't see her handing out pairs of glasses. We'd have gone
down with the Flacks."
"And she'd have left us there."
"Just like we left her."
"Well, like you said, she didn't expect us. We forced her
hand."
"Brenda, you're trying to apologize for her, and it's not
necessary. She forced my hand, too. You think I liked cracking
her on the head? Cricket's my friend."
"That's the part I don't understand."
"Look, I don't know what her plan was. Maybe she had drugs
on her, too, something to make the Flacks talk right there.
That might have been the best way, come to think of it. The
penalties for . . . well, I guess for headnapping, it's going
to be pretty stiff if they catch me."
"Me, too."
I showed her the gun I'd bought from Liz; she looked
shocked, so I put it away. I don't blame her. Nasty little
thing, that gun. I can see why they're illegal.
"Just me. If it comes to it, you can say I held that on
you the whole time. I won't have trouble convincing a judge
I've lost my mind. Anyway, you can be sure Cricket had some
plan of attack in mind, and she improvised when we entered the
picture. The story's the thing, see? Ask her about it when this
is all over."
"I don't think she'd talk to me."
"Why not? She won't hold a grudge. She's a pro. Oh, she'll
be mad, all right, and she'll do just about anything to us if
we get in her way again, but it won't be for revenge. If
cooperation will get the story, then she'd rather cooperate,
just like me. Trouble was, this story is too big to share. I
think we both figured out as soon as we saw each other that one
of us wasn't walking out of that room. I was just faster."
She was shaking her head. I'd said all I had to say; she'd
either understand it and accept it, or look for another line of
work. Then she looked up, remembering something.
"What you said. I can't let you do that. Take the rap, I
mean."
I pretended anger, but I was touched again. What a sweet
little jerk she was. I hoped she didn't get eaten alive next
time she met Cricket.
"You sure as hell will. Stop being juvenile. First
revenge, then altruism. Those things are for very special
occasions, rare circumstances. Not when they get in the way of
a story. You want to be altruistic in your private life, go
ahead, but not on Walter's time. He'll fire you if he hears
about it."
"But it's not right."
"You're even wrong there. I never told you what we were
going to do. You couldn't be held responsible. I went to a lot
of trouble to set it up that way, and you're an ungrateful brat
for thinking of throwing all my work away."
She looked as if she was going to cry again, and I got up
and got a drink. Maybe I wiped my eyes, too, standing there in
the kitchen tossing down a surprisingly bitter bourbon. You'd
think they'd do better at two thousand per night.
#
When the Grand Flack had had two hours with nothing moving
to look at but the flickering lights cast on the other walls by
the screen behind his head, I stuck my own head into the room,
wondering if I could manage to keep it attached to my shoulders
by the time this was all over. He looked at me desperately. His
whole face was drenched with sweat.
"This series is one of my favorites," he whined.
"So look at the tape later," I said.
"It's not the same, dammit! I've already heard the story
line."
I thought it was a bit of luck to have one of his favorite
soap operas playing just when I needed a lever to pry
information out of his head, then I thought it over, and
realized that whatever was playing at the moment was bound to
be his favorite. He watched them all.
"I missed David and Everett's big love scene. Damn you."
"Are you ready to answer some questions?"
He started to shake his head--he had a little movement
from the neck stump, up and down, back and forth--and it was
like a hand took his chin and forced it up and down instead. I
guess it was the invisible hand of his addiction.
"Don't run off," I said. "I've got to get another
witness." I turned around, and bumped into Brenda, who'd been
standing behind me. She wasn't wearing her mask and I thought
about getting angry about that, but what the hell. She was in
it as an accessory, unless I could make my duress theory stand
up in court. Which point I hoped never to reach.
We pulled up chairs on each side of the big screen and
turned him around so he could see it. I thought this might take
a long time, as his eyes never left the screen, never once
looked at us, but he was quite good at watching the show and
talking to us at the same time.
"For the record," I said, "have you been harmed in any way
since we took you on this little trip?"
"You made me miss David and Everett's--"
"Aside from that."
"No," he said, grudgingly.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty? You need to . . . is there a
drain on this thing? A waste dump of some kind? Need to empty
the beer cooler?"
"It's not a problem."
So I had him answer a few more questions, name rank and
serial number sort of things, just to get him used to
responding. I've found it's a good technique, even with
somebody who's used to being interviewed. Then I got around to
asking the question this had all been about, and he told me
pretty much what I'd expected to hear.
"So who's idea was it to assassinate Silvio?" I heard
Brenda gasp, but I kept my eyes on the Flack. He pursed his
lips angrily, but kept watching the screen. When it looked as
if he might not answer I reached for the patch cord and the
story came out.
"I don't know who told you about it; we kept security
tight, just the inner circle knew what was going to happen. I'd
like his name later."
I decided not to tell him just yet that nobody had told
me. Maybe if he thought he'd been betrayed he'd pull no
punches. I needn't have worried.
"You don't care about whose idea it was, though. You don't
care. All you need is someone who'll admit to it. I'm here, so
I'm elected to break the story, so let's just say it was me,
all right?"
"You're willing to take the blame?" Brenda asked.
"Why not? We all agreed it was the thing to do. We drew
lots to select a culprit to stand up for the crime, and
somebody else lost, but we can work that out, just so I get
time to warn them, get our stories straight."
I looked at Brenda's face to see how she was reacting to
this, both the story itself and the blatant engineering of the
story between me and the man who bought the hit. What I saw
made me think there was hope for her in the news business yet.
There is a certain concentrated, avid-forblood look that
appears on the faces of reporters on the trail of a very big
story that you'd have to visit the big cat house at the zoo to
see duplicated in its primal state. From the look on Brenda's
face, if a tiger was standing between her and this story right
now, the cat would soon have a tall-journalist-sized hole in
him.
"What you mean is," Brenda went on, "you had someone
picked out to go to jail if someone ever uncovered the story."
Which meant she still hadn't completely comprehended this man
and his church.
"Nothing like that. We knew the truth would come out
sooner or later." He looked sour. "We'd hoped for later, of
course, so we'd have time to milk it from every possible angle.
You've been a real problem, Hildy."
"Thank you," I said.
"After all we've done for you people," he pouted. "First
you get in the way of the second bullet. Serves you right, you
getting hurt."
"It never hurt. It passed right through me."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Those bullets were carefully
planned. Something about penetrating the forehead, the cheek,
something like that, spreading out later and blowing out the
back of the skull."
"Dum-dums," Brenda said, unexpectedly. She looked at me,
shrugged. "When you got hit, I looked it up."
"Whatever," the Flack continued. "The second one spread
out when it hit you, and did way too much damage to Silvio's
face, plus getting your blood splattered all over him. You
ruined the tableau."
"I thought it was pretty effective, myself."
"Thank Elvis for Cricket. Then, as if you hadn't done
enough, here you are breaking the law, making me break the
story two weeks early. We never thought you'd break the law, at
least not to this extent."
"So prosecute me."
"Don't be silly. That would look pretty foolish, wouldn't
it? All the sympathy would be with you. People would think
you'd done a public service."
"That's what I was hoping."
"No way. But there's still time to get the right spin on
this thing, and do us both a lot of good. You know us, Hildy.
You know we'll work with you to get a story that will maximize
your readership interest, if you'll only give us a few things
here and there in the way of damage control."
There were a few things going on here that I didn't
understand, but I couldn't get to the questions just yet.
Frankly, though I've seen a lot of things in my career, done a
lot of things, this one was about to make me gag. What I really
wanted to do was go out and find a baseball/6 field and play a
few innings using this terrifying psychopath as the ball.
But I got myself under control. I've interviewed perverts
before, the public always wants to know about perverts. And I
asked the next question, the one that, later, you wish you
could take back, or never hear the answer to.
"What I can't figure . . . or maybe I'm dense," I said,
slowly. "I haven't found the angle. How did the church expect
to look good out of all this? Killing him, that I understand,
in your terms. You can't have a live saint walking around,
farting and belching, out of control. Silvio should have seen
that. Think how embarrassed the Christians'd be if Jesus came
back; they'd have to nail the sucker up again before he upset
too many applecarts."
I stopped, because he was smiling, and I didn't like the
smile. And for just a moment he let his dreamy eyes drift from
the screen and look into my own. I imagined I saw worms
crawling around in there.
"Oh, Hildy," he said, more in sorrow than in anger.
"Don't you oh Hildy me, you coffee-table cocksucker. I'll
tear you out of that box and shit down your neck. I'll--"
Brenda put a hand on mine, and I got myself back under control.
"They'll put you in jail for five hundred years," I said.
"That wouldn't frighten me," he said, still smiling. "But
they won't. I'll do time, all right. I figure three, maybe five
years."
"For murder? For conspiracy to murder Silvio? I want the
name of your lawyer."
"They won't be able to prove murder," he said, still
smiling. I was really getting tired of that smile.
"Why do you say that?"
I felt Brenda's hand on mine again. She had the look of
someone trying to break it gently.
"Silvio was in on it, Hildy," she said.
"Of course he was," The Grand Exalted Stinking Baboon's
Posterior said. "And Hildy, if I'd been a vindictive man, I
could have let you run with the first story. I almost wish I
had. Now I'll never enjoy David and Everett's . . . well, never
mind. I'm telling you as a show of good faith, prove we can
work together again in spite of your backstabbing crimes.
Silvio was the one who suggested this whole thing. He helped
interview the shooter. That's the story you'll write this
afternoon, and that's the story we always intended to come out
in a few weeks' time."
"I don't believe you," I said, believing every word of it.
"That's of little interest to me."
"Why?" I said.
"I presume you mean why did he want to die. He was washed
up, Hildy. He hadn't been able to write anything in four years.
That was worse than death to Silvio."
"But his best stuff . . ."
"That's when he came to us. I don't know if he was ever a
true believer; hell, I don't know if I'm a true believer.
That's why we call ourselves latitudinarian. If you have
different ideas on the divinity of Tori-san, for instance, we
don't drive you out of the church, we give you a time slot and
let you talk it over with people who agree with you. We don't
form sects, like other churches, and we don't torment heretics.
There are no heretics. We aren't doctrinaire. We have a saying
in the church, when people want to argue about points of
theology: that's close enough for sphere music."
"'Hum a few bars and I'll see if I can pick it up,'" I
said.
"Exactly. We make no secret of the fact that what we most
want from parishioners is for them to buy our records. What we
give them in return is the chance to rub elbows with
celebrities. What surprised the founding Flacks, though, is how
many people really do believe in the sainthood of celebrities.
It even makes some sense, when you think about it. We don't
postulate a heaven. It's right here on the ground, if you
achieve enough popularity. In the mind of your average
star-struck nobody, being a celebrity is a thousand times
better than any heaven he can imagine."
I could see he did believe in one thing, even if it wasn't
the Return of the King. He believed in the power of public
relations. I'd found a point in common with him. I wasn't
delighted by this.
"So you'll play it as, he came to you for help, and you
helped him."
"For three years we wrote all his music. We attract a lot
of artists, as you know. We picked three of the best, and they
sat down and started churning out 'Silvio' music. It turned out
to be pretty good. You never can tell."
I thought back over the music I had loved so much, the new
things I had believed Silvio had been doing. It was still good;
I couldn't take that away from the music. But something had
gone out of me.
This was a whole new world for Brenda, and she was as rapt
as any three-year-old at mommy's knee, listening to Baba Yaga
and the Wolves.
"Will that be part of the story?" she asked. "How you've
been writing his music for him?"
"It has to be. I was against it at first, but then it was
shown to me that everyone benefits this way. My worry was of
tarnishing the image of a Gigastar. But if it's boosted right,
he becomes a real object of sympathy, his cult gets even
stronger. He's still got his old music, which was all his. The
church comes out well because we tried everything, and
reluctantly gave in to his request to martyr himself--which is
his right. We broke some laws along the way, sure, and we
expected some punishment, but handled right, even that can
generate sympathy. He asked us. And don't worry, we've got tons
of documentation on this, tapes showing him begging us to go
along. I'll have all that wired over to your newsroom as soon
as we iron out the deal. Oh, yes, and as if it all wasn't good
enough, now the real musicians who stood behind Silvio all this
time get to come out of the shadows and get their own shot at
Gigastardom."
"Shot does seem the perfect word in this context," I said.
#
The first part of that interview was almost comic, when I
think back on it. There I was, thinking I had it all figured
out, asking who had planned to kill Silvio. And there he was,
thinking I knew the whole story already, thinking I was asking
him who had suggested to Silvio that, dead, he could become a
Flack Gigastar.
Because Silvio had not come up with the idea
independently. What he had proposed was his own election, live,
into the ranks of the Four. It was explained that only dead
people could qualify, and one thing led to another. The council
was against his plan at first. It was Silvio who figured out
the angle to make the church look good. And it was an act of
suicide. What the Grand Flack would go to jail for was a series
of civil offenses, conspiracies, false advertising, intent to
defraud, thing like that. What sort of penalty the actual
assassin would get, when found, I had no idea.
It scared me, later, that we'd missed understanding each
other by such a seemingly trivial point. If he'd known I didn't
know the key fact before he admitted what he did, I thought he
might have found that little window of opportunity to pay me
back for making him miss his soap opera, some way that would
have ended with Hildy Johnson in jail and the aims of the
church still accomplished. There might have been a way. Of
course, there was nothing to really prevent him from filing
charges anyway, I'd known that going in, but though he might be
devious, he'd never take a chance on it backfiring, knowing the
kind of power Walter would bring to bear if I ever got charged
with something after bringing him a story like that.
Brenda wanted to rush right off and get to work, but I
made her sit down and think it out, something that would
benefit her later in her career if she remembered to do it.
Step one was to phone in the confession as recorded by her
holocam. When that was safely at the Nipple newsdesk there was
no chance of the Flack going back on his word. We could
interview him at our leisure, and plan just how to break this
story.
Not that we had a lot of time; there's never much time
with something like this. Who knows when someone will come
sniffing down the tracks you've left? But we took enough to
carry the head back to the Nipple, where he was put on a desk
and allowed to use his telephone and was soon surrounded by
dozens of gawking reporters listening in as Brenda interviewed
him.
Yes, Brenda. On the tube ride to the offices I'd had a
talk with her.
"This is all going under your byline," I said.
"That's ridiculous," she said. "You did all the work. It
was your not accepting the assassination on the face of it that
. . . hell, Hildy, it's your story."
"It was just too perfect," I said. "Right when I picked
him up, it went through my mind. Only I thought they'd set him
up, the poor chump."
"Well, I was buying it. Like everybody else."
"Except Cricket."
"Yeah. There's no question of me taking the credit for
it."
"But you will. Because I'm offering it, and it's the kind
of story that will make your name forever and you'd be even
dumber than you act if you turned it down. And because it can't
be under my name, because I don't work for the Nipple anymore."
"You quit? When? Why didn't Walter tell me?"
I knew when I had quit, and Walter didn't tell her because
he didn't know yet, but why confuse her? She argued with me
some more, her passion growing weaker and her gradual
acceptance more tinged with guilt. She'd get over the guilt. I
hoped she'd get over the fame.
She seemed to be enjoying it well enough at the moment. I
stood at the back of the room, rows of empty desks between me
and the excited group gathered around the triumphant cub
reporter.
And Walter emerged from his high tower. He waddled across
the suddenly-silent newsroom, walking away from me, not seeing
me there in the shadows. No one present could remember the last
time he'd come out of his office just for a news story. I saw
him hold out his hand to Brenda. He didn't believe it, of
course, but he was probably planning to grill me about it
later. He was still bestowing his sacred presence on the
reporters when I got on his elevator and rode it up to his
office.
His desk sat there in a pool of light. I admired the fine
grain of the wood, the craftsmanship of the thing. Of all the
hugely expensive antiques Walter owned, this was the only one
I'd ever coveted. I'd have liked a desk of my own like that
some day.
I smoothed out the gray fedora hat in my hand. It had
fallen off my head when I jumped onto the stage, into a pool of
Silvio's blood. The blood was still caked on it. The thing was
supposed to be battered, that was traditional, but this was
ridiculous.
It seemed to me the hat had seen enough use. So I left it
in the center of Walter's desk, and I walked out.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
I had to go home by the back way, and even that had been
discovered. One of my friends must have been bribed: there were
reporters gathered outside the cave. None had elected to
actually enter it, not with the cougar in residence. Though
they knew she wouldn't hurt them, that lady is a menacing
presence at best.
My re-arranged face almost did the trick. I had made it
into the cave and they all must have been wondering who the
hell I was and what my business was with Hildy, when somebody
shouted "It's her!" and the stampede was on. I ran down the
corridor with the reporters on my heels, shouting questions,
taping my ignominious flight.
Once inside, I viewed the front door camera. Oh, brother.
They were shoulder to shoulder, as far as the eye could see,
from one side of the corridor to the other. There were vendors
selling balloons and hot dogs, and some guy in a clown suit
juggling. If I'd ever wondered where the term media circus came
from, I wondered no longer.
The police had set up ropes to keep a clear space for fire
and emergency crews, and so my neighbors could get through to
their homes. As I watched, one neighbor came through, his face
set in a scowl that was starting to look permanent. For lack of
anything else to do, many of the reporters shouted questions at
him, to which he replied with stony silence. I could see I was
not going to win any prizes at my next neighborhood block
party. This whole thing was bound to get petitions in
circulation, politely requesting me to find another residence,
if I didn't do something.
So I spent several hours boxing my possession, folding up
my furniture, sticking stamps on everything and shoving it all
in the mail tube. I thought about mailing myself along with it,
but I didn't know where I'd go. The things I owned could go
into storage; there wasn't that much of it. When I was done the
already-spare apartment was clean to the bare walls, except for
some items I'd set aside, some of which I'd already owned,
others ordered and mailed to me. I went to the bathroom and
fixed my cheekbones, left the nose alone because I'd let Bobbie
do that when I could get to him safely. What the hell, it was
still under the ninety-day warranty and there was no need to
tell him I'd broken it intentionally. Then I went to the front
door and let myself appear on the outside monitor. No way was I
going to un-dog those latches.
"Free food at the end of the corridor!" I shouted. A
couple of heads actually turned, but most remained looking back
at me. Everyone shouted questions at once and it took some time
for all that to die down and for everyone to realize that, if
they didn't shut up, nobody got an interview.
"I've said all I'm going to say about the death of
Silvio," I told them. There were groans and more shouts, and I