Buzz Cut (36 page)

Wait till that damn TV show was finished so she could disembark, get back to inventing her life.

She had nothing to say to her father. Thorn was wrong. Confronting him would prove absolutely nothing. She wasn't running away from him anymore. She couldn't care less about him and his new wife. She couldn't care any fucking less if she tried.

It was almost nine. One of the cameras panned across the crowd showing all the chairs taken. More than half the two thousand passengers in attendance. A hubbub as the stage lights cranked up. The image on the screen shifted to the helicopter shot, a wide panorama of the
Eclipse
at anchor, the cameraman panning to the right across the harbor, showing the distant hotels. A camera check.

Another camera took over, showing Lola perched on a tall director's chair, legs crossed, wearing a bright red pant suit, hair drawn back tight, swirled around into a bun. Pearl necklace, pearl earrings. Looking trim and sexy, the top two buttons of the pants suit undone, exposing her sun-freckled cleavage as she leaned forward to chat with some of the lucky folks in the front row. Smiling at them, full of charm. Harlot. Trollop. Slut.

Butler Jack watched the spectacle on his handheld TV, cramped in his nook. Around him were arrayed the portable VCR and the microphone, phone unit and the miniature Magnavox autopilot, each unit spliced into the appropriate wires. All of them switched off for the moment. The ship at rest in the calm bay.

This time tomorrow it would be done. The cataclysm. All the televisions in the world would speak his name. Two-inch headlines. Tuesday his name would be echoing in every corner of the globe. The man who rose from the bottom of the ocean floor, the rogue wave, the tidal surge, the great wall of water rushing toward shore. He would be more famous than Lola, more famous than Morton. They would know his name, speak it with awe. Butler Jack, who stole millions from one of the richest men in the world only to give it all away to thousands of the poorest.

There he was, on the brink of triumph, and wouldn't you know? His balls had gotten worse. They'd begun to swell, probably from the position he'd been forced to assume for these last twenty-four hours. Lying down, cramped, working out the final details. They were back to tennis balls. Darkening. Tender. Every minor movement sent a wallop through his belly. He was nauseous. A hot twist in his gut as if someone had plunged a dagger there and was thumping the handle.

But even more troubling than his testicles was the woman who'd come into the chapel an hour ago. She was praying out loud. Kneeling at her pew and speaking to God or her dead husband, Butler wasn't sure. She seemed to have the two mixed up. Asking him to help her, explaining she was down to her last three dollars. Lost the rest last night on the slots. Money her husband had left her, sentimental money she'd been using to gamble with all these years and now it had dwindled to just those three dollars. Holding up the hotel envelope for God to see. And she didn't know what the hell to do. Should she wager those precious three dollars, risk losing them, and thus lose all connection to her husband? Should she set it aside, a last remembrance of her spouse? Or perhaps she should donate it to some needy cause, or scatter the dollars overboard? She wept. An old woman with steel-gray hair, a dark blue dress with tiny white flowers. Butler shifted aside a ceiling tile an inch or two to spy on her as she sobbed.

It was always the little things. Butler's Law. The little details fucked you up. Microscopic dust. A fleck of rust that fouled the connection, one small screw working loose. It was an old woman talking to God or her husband. An old woman down to her last three dollars, praying in the chapel for divine help. A woman who would have to be killed, dragged somewhere else. Complicating things. And it was his testicles. Little things becoming big things. Hurdles growing large, threatening to fuck up years of work.

His balls hurt so bad, the thought passed through his mind, maybe he should take the dagger, cut them off. Testicles. The Greek word was
orchis
,
orchid,
from the shape of the flower's tuber.
Orchidectomy
being the technical term for castration. Cutting away the orchid's roots. Or in the Latin,
castrare,
from
castus,
which meant pure. Castration being used on the eastern slaves to keep the women pure.
Castus,
as in the caste system, to keep the races pure. Cut off their economic balls. Emasculate them. Purify them. Keep them in their place. And there was the other Latin term,
testiculus,
which referred to the ancient practice of swearing an oath by putting a hand on the nuts. Over the centuries the balls evolved into the Holy Bible. Testimony required a hand on the Testament. I hereby swear on my sacred nuts.

Butler had an idea. Smiling to himself as it took form. He squirmed to his right, reached out his hand, and inched aside the ceiling tile. He wormed closer, grinning. He brought his mouth near the slit, pushed his voice deep into his throat, trying to give his tenor some resonance, turn it into a bass, saying "Give your money to the poor."

The woman swung around but there was no one else in the chapel. Butler watched her trembling. Her hand holding the envelope fluttered in the air.

"What?" she said softly. "What did you say?" Staring at the pulpit, the cross behind it.

"The poor," Butler intoned. "Give your money to the poor."

He slid the ceiling tile back in place, rolled onto his back. Had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle his chortles.

As he lay there, eyes streaming with tears, he turned his head and glanced at the two-inch TV screen. His gaze freezing on the picture. He stopped breathing, bent close. Blinking, wiping his eyes. Not believing what he saw though it was happening right there on the little square of light. Monica in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a work shirt, sitting in the chair next to Lola as the female director counted backward to ten.

***

"What the fuck does she think she's doing! Get security. Where's fucking security?"

Rafael was doing a little war dance off to the side of the stage set, a jig like his bladder was about to burst. One arm windmilling as he yelled, the woman director shushing him, counting backward, five to four, to three, two. And Thorn tapped Rafael on the shoulder as Monica got comfortable in the slingback chair. Thorn giving her a smile as she settled in.

"You rang?" Thorn said to Rafael.

"You're security?"

"Right-o."

The theme song blared over the speakers. The red applause light blinked rapidly and the passengers responded with faithful good cheer. Rafael hissing through all of it, hissing at Thorn to get that fucking girl off the stage.

Lola had shrunk back from Monica, looked like she might tip over backward in her director's chair.

"Well, then fucking do something. Get her off there now. Do your fucking job. She's not supposed to be up there."

As the applause was dying down, Lola's recorded voice began to narrate a sketch of their voyage so far. All the fun they'd been having. A video clip played on all the monitors. A wide-angled helicopter shot of the beautiful ship, an expanse of blue sea around it, then showing several lush interior views of the Starlight Room, close-ups of plates of gorgeous food, moving on to the Galaxy Nightclub, the tall showgirls strutting, feathers and sequins, Lola describing the first-class entertainment. Quick shots of Brandy Wong, Dale Jenkins, Beverly Mitchell and her backup group.

The woman director, in a pair of blue jean overalls and a black T-shirt, was staring across at Rafael and Thorn, hands spread out in front of her like she was about to catch a basketball. What the fuck?

"Come this way, Rafael," Thorn said.

"Whatta you, crazy? Go get that fucking girl off the stage, man. Do your goddamn job or I'll have your ass up on charges."

"Come on, Rafe. Let's shuffle on back here, talk it over."

Getting a good solid pinch on Rafael's trapezius muscle, twisting it, stealing all his California insouciance, pointing him toward the Ritz Bar, a red leather nook at the rear of the Sun Deck. Shoving him along. Thorn hated to do it. Hated to use intimidating physical force on this guy. Certain he was getting more bad macho karma by resorting to it. But hey. It was probably way too late for this go-round. He'd just have to give it a harder try next incarnation.

"I like that jacket, Rafe. It's very hip."

"Hey, fuck you, man. Get your goddamn hands off me. You're dead, man. You'll never work in this industry again. You're fucking dead."

"Whatever you say, Rafe. You're the man."

"And you're fucked if you don't get your goddamn hands off me right now."

"Not hands, Rafe. One hand, that's all it's taking for you. Just one hand."

Rafael tried to shrug out of Thorn's grip, but it didn't work. A few hundred yards overhead, the shiny black helicopter layered the air, whumping like some giant disembodied heart.

"Hey, fuck you, man. Fuck you."

"You know, you might consider taking a martial arts class when this is over. An important TV hombre like you, you can't afford to let people come up to you, push you around like I'm doing. If you want, I could recommend a class I know. It's a bunch of ladies, but I guarantee it'd toughen you up. Turn you into a stud."

"You motherfucker. You're dead, man. You're one dead shithead."

"Hey, I'm doing this for your own good. Getting you out of the line of fire."

Rafael relaxing at little at that. "What fucking line of fire?"

"You'll thank me later. Really, you will."

Rafael stopped resisting, and Thorn steered him down the center aisle, some folks in the audience staring, but no one rose to help the long-haired cutting-edge cohost. His thirteen-year-old constituency must've been down in the game room zapping electronic gremlins.

***

"Morton Sampson asked me to speak to you."

Sugarman stood at the edge of the glassed-in makeshift control room that had been set up a few feet behind the last row. The guy riding a swivel chair looked dubiously at Sugar. Boy was half is age, hair in a rigid flattop like Sugarman had worn his thirty years back. The guy's hands were playing the switches and buttons and levers and toggles on his sound board like it was a cathedral organ, fingers moving the whole time Sugar talked. Only took one percent of his brain to deal with grandpa Sugarman.

"You hear me okay?" Sugar said.

"I hear you fine. Morton Sampson asked you to speak to me. So speak."

"We're going to vary from the script today. Things could get a little weird."

"Weird's okay. We like weird."

"So don't pull the plug. Whatever happens, keep the signal going out. Morton Sampson wants that. You understand? Don't go away to commercial until I let you know it's okay."

"I hear you," the kid said. "Only problem is, I don't work for Morton Sampson. Or you either."

The boy had a thin neck and a small goatee. In his white T-shirt he looked like a beatnik, Maynard Krebs, from that TV show thirty years ago. The kid with a severe attitude, like he didn't realize he was discovering the exact same stuff all over again that Sugar and Thorn and his whole generation had already discovered, and the generation before that and on and on backward to the cave men. Figuring he and his buddies had invented cool. And goatees and flattops and smartmouth back talk. The kid still stared at Sugarman with his fingers nudging the slides and toggles.

"So who do you work for?"

"The network, baby. I answer to New York," the kid said. "If they want to fiddle with the show, they'll tell me. So far they haven't. So we're going on as usual."

"Is that New York in your headset?"

"Yeah," the flattop Maynard Krebs said. "New York, New York, a helluva town."

"Let me talk to them."

Sugarman put out his hand. The kid considered his options for a second or two, rubbed his thumb across the bristles of his goatee. Sugarman tightening up his face, drew out his black leather sap, letting the kid get a look at grandpa's attitude.

"Hey, Kyra, I'm handing off for a second. Head of security wants to talk to you. Yeah. Head of security for the stupid boat. Name is . . ." The kid looked up at him.

"Sugarman."

"Sugarman," the kid said into the small black microphone fixed to his headset. "Yeah, right. We're three minutes till air." He pulled the headset off, saying to Sugar "Talk fast. Three minutes."

Sugarman spoke to the woman named Kyra. She sounded older and smarter than Maynard Krebs. Manhattan plutonium in her balls. Didn't give a rat's ass who he was or what he was up to. Telling him they were on a tight schedule.

Sugarman said he understood that. But he wanted to let her know things might get strange on the show today.

"Strange, how?"

"I don't know exactly. Not obscene or anything. But a little different from the planned activities. It's important you keep running the program. We're trying to flush a guy on the ship here. Get him going. If you pull the plug at the wrong time, we might lose him."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You'll see," Sugar said. "Just don't unplug us, okay? Hold back on any commercial breaks till I give the okay. We're depending on you, Kyra. We got to make it look real."

"I have to know more than this. I can't just override our standard . . ."

"Nice talking to you." He gave the headset back to the kid.

While the kid spoke to Kyra, Sugarman headed up the center aisle toward the stage. Halfway there, he saw Morton Sampson exiting the side door to the left of the set. The big man halted abruptly, staring at Lola and Monica. It took him a second before it registered, his long-lost daughter sitting up there, knee to knee with his new wife. He put a quick hand behind him, balanced himself against one of the life raft stations. Eyes holding to Monica, as she and Lola sat very still in their chairs, not looking at each other. Not talking. Everybody waiting for the director to point her finger.