Impossible Places (7 page)

“As near as we’ve been able to figure, the guy went on a junk food binge to end all junk food binges. It was like he couldn’t control himself. As if he had no resistance to the stuff, no resistance at all. Like the Polynesians who were suddenly exposed to European diseases to which they had no built-up immunity.

“You know how much air they cram into this junk. Ordinarily it doesn’t give you anything except maybe a little gas now and then. But he was downing the stuff so fast it must’ve blocked his colon. Then he choked on it, and with no escape valve, as it were, the pent-up gas, well—he just blew up. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“You ain’t alone, ol’ buddy. Wonder what made him do it?”

“Beats me.” The coroner shrugged, finishing his notes. “He’s got all the signs of someone who’s been force-fed, except that he obviously did it to himself. Like a French goose on the pâté line. And I thought I knew every way a person could commit suicide.” He shook his head ruefully. “This is one business where you don’t get a kick out of learning something new.” He put his pen to his lips. “What the hell am I going to list as ‘reason for demise’?”

The cop looked thoughtful. “If it was up to me I’d put down ‘Accidental’ and leave it at that. It’ll get you off the hook until something better turns up.”

The assistant coroner looked resigned. Then the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He scribbled on the pad, showed it to his friend.

“I can’t turn it in this way, of course. The boss’d have my ass.”

The officer looked down, smiling in spite of himself.

CAUSE: Death by Twinkie.

They shared a chuckle. The coroner pocketed his pad. As he turned to leave he noticed a slightly torn but otherwise undamaged package on the floor. Reaching down, he rescued a couple of orphaned creme-filled cupcakes with garish orange icing, passing one to his friend. With a wink the cop bit deeply into his own.

The sensation as the thick-cremed, sugar-saturated, calorie-rich crumbly mass slid down his throat was indescribable.

FITTING TIME

When I was growing up (again), my mother’s best
friend in the neighborhood was a lovely lady named
Adrian Anderson. Her husband, Johnny, was a tall, easygoing presence of Scandinavian-derived Minnesotan
stock who happened to work in the business of motion
pictures. Johnny was a wardrobe master. The walls of his
modest den were covered with signed photos from some
of the biggest names in Hollywood whom he’d dressed
for multiple pictures.

Among these was one Elvis Presley, noted star of motion pictures and sometime singer. After certain pictures,
Johnny was required to dispose of certain no longer
needed items of attire. The result was local garage sales
of no uncertain significance. As a teenage boy, I was of
course above such déclassé bourgeois enterprises and
blew past them on my way to the local touch football
games with nary a glance.

One day my mother presented me with a pair of white
jeans she had bought at one of Johnny’s sales. She noted
that they had been worn by Mr. Presley, and even mentioned the particular picture. I was no fan of Elvis, but
the pants were nice, and I wore them until I wore the legs
out. Then I cut them off at the knees and used them for
beach shorts. Eventually, I threw them away.

To this day, my wife has never forgiven me for this—
nor has any woman who has ever heard the story.

Rohrbach was in a particularly good mood as he rode the elevator to his office. He was alone except for Spike. No mother actually named her newborn Spike, of course, and his Spike was no different. His real name was Nicholas Spianski, but at six foot six and three hundred and twelve pounds, Spike seemed a much better fit. An ex–semipro tackle, he’d been Rohrbach’s principal bodyguard for six years. Rohrbach had several bodyguards, of whom Spike was the only one who accompanied him everywhere. Rohrbach needed several bodyguards.

He was publisher and editor-in-chief of the
Truth
.

You’ve seen the
Truth
. It slaps you in the face every time you check out of your local drugstore, or supermarket, or twenty-four-hour convenience store. You’ve probably watched its half-hour syndicated television counterpart that airs between ten and twelve at night. It’s hard to miss, the
Truth
is.

LOCH NESS MONSTER
Attacks Scottish Schoolbus,
Eats Six Children Before Horrified Driver’s Eyes!

I HAD ELVIS’S LOVE CHILD—
And He’s A Serial Killer,
Distraught Mom Says!

Aliens Kidnap Alabama Town— Two Twelve-Year-Old Girls Impregnated by Horrible Extraterrestrial Slugs!

No, that last one can’t be right. The
Truth
would never use a word as big as
impregnated
. But you get the idea.

As a going commercial concern, the
Truth
was a roaring success. It made a great deal of money for its stockholders, its employees, and most flagrantly, its devoted editor-in-chief. Rohrbach was quite a happy man. The only people who were not happy about the
Truth
were the unfortunate targets of his writers’ scurrilous inventions, but there was little they could do about it. If they ignored the paper, it published even more outrageous stories about them, and if they sued and won, the paper got free publicity and several new stories out of the lawsuit. The
Truth
was a no-win situation for its victims, and a win-win for Rohrbach.

Life was good, if not fair, he reflected as he sloughed off Spike and entered his private office.

It had a spacious view of the Florida coast, of palm trees and blue water and surf. Beat the hell out of working for a real paper in New York or Chicago, he reflected as he settled in behind his desk. It was piled high with paper despite the presence of a computer on one side.

It was not piled so high that he failed to see the man seated in the chair off to his right, next to the concealed wet bar.

Rohrbach froze. The man was tall but not thin, with blond hair and blue eyes. The publisher had never seen him before. He wore unscuffed shoes instead of sandals, freshly pressed trousers, and somewhat incongruously, a florid Hawaiian shirt. His mien was not threatening, but Rohrbach knew from experience you could never tell. How he had slipped inside the editor didn’t know—but he sure as hell was going to find out. And when he did, some unfortunate was going to pay.

The publisher’s hand strayed toward the alarm button located just under the lip of the desk—and hesitated. The visitor displayed neither weapons nor hostility. Calm and relaxed, he just sat there staring back at the publisher, a serious but unintimidating expression on his face. If he’d had a gun or something threatening he most likely would have brought it out by now.

Rohrbach drew his finger back from the alarm and sat back in his chair.

“How did you get in here?”

The visitor’s voice was deep and strong, but not threatening. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I only half believe it myself.”

Rohrbach glowered. Beneath that glower employees and even successful corporate lawyers trembled. “You’ll believe it when I have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

“I only entered. I didn’t break anything. And you can’t arrest me.”

“Really?” Rohrbach was intrigued in spite of himself. “Why not, pray tell?”

“Because I’m not really here, in the really here sense.”

Oh brother, Rohrbach thought. A nut. Harmless, but a nut. Not even radical enough for a back-page squib. He sighed. His schedule was full and he was wasting time.

“I see,” he said slowly. “Well, Mr., uh . . .”

“Johnny,” murmured the visitor. “Johnny Anderson.”

“Well, Johnny, since you’re here, what can I do for you before I have you thrown out by several large people who you’ll also no doubt claim won’t be able to do anything to you?”

“Elvis sent me.”

Rohrbach had to smile. Nothing to start the day like being visited by one of your own headlines. He checked the organizer on his desk. Nothing like starting the day with a good laugh, either, and he had a few minutes left before the morning story conference.

The guy was living proof of what police and newspaper professionals knew well; the real mental cases didn’t look like Charlie Manson. They were regular, ordinary folk just like you and me. Taxpayers and churchgoers and PTA members. Which was how they escaped detection and incarceration until they did something sufficiently drastic to bring them to the notice of their fellow citizens. Like this Johnny here. At least he was harmless.

“I see,” Rohrbach said slowly. “Why did he send you? To deliver a message, no doubt?”

The visitor steepled his fingers. “That’s right. See, he’s sick and tired of all these lies you’ve been printing about him ever since he died. You know the kind I’m talking about. ‘Elvis sighted at diner in Rapid City, Iowa.’ ‘Elvis’s adopted teenage daughter goes on rampage at mental hospital.’ ‘Fans steal Elvis’s body, pharmacist reveals Elvis’s secret drug list.’ Stuff like that. He wants it to stop. He wants you to stop.”

“Sure. Uh-huh.” Rohrbach fought to repress a grin. “Um, tell me something, Johnny. If the King is so upset, why didn’t he come tell me about it himself?”

The visitor shifted in the chair. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t really understand it all myself. Something to do with a gig. So he asked me to help him out.” The visitor smiled. “We spent a lot of time together.”

“Oh, right. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.” Rohrbach rose. “Well listen, Johnny, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got quite a day ahead of me.” The visitor nodded and stood. “I really want to thank you for bringing this to my attention, and I promise you I’ll get right on it.”

The visitor smiled softly. He certainly was harmless, Rohrbach thought. Have to have a talk with the people in the outer office, though. Can’t have strangers just wandering into the inner sanctum whenever they felt like it.

He escorted the tall caller out, shutting the door behind him, and returned to his desk shaking his head. It was a wonderfully wacky world, which was fortunate for him because he had pages to fill.

By charming coincidence one of the
Truth
’s northern California stringers had filed a nice, juicy little rumor suitable for a bottom front-page banner. At the story conference they settled on “Elvis’s Gay Lover Comes Forth in San Francisco! Broke and Dying of Aids!” for a headline. The story was accompanied by several conveniently blurry photos of some poor skeletal figure laid up in a hospital bed.

They put the weekly issue to bed the next day, and by the weekend Rohrbach was ready to play. There were many who firmly believed that being a bachelor millionaire in south Florida was one of the planet’s more enviable existences, but you couldn’t party every weekend. Bad for the constitution. So Rohrbach settled for making a day of it Sunday at Joe Robbie Stadium with a couple of friends, where from the
Truth
’s private skybox they watched the Dolphins beat the Bears 24–21 on a last-minute field goal.

It was as they were leaving for the limo that the pain stabbed through Rohrbach’s chest. He winced and clutched at himself. His friend Nawani, who owned a little less than a hundred of the Sunshine State’s finest liquor stores, was by his side in an instant.

“Rob, man, what’s the matter?” He waved. “Hey, get a doctor, somebody get a doctor!”

Even as a crowd started to gather, the pain faded. Rohrbach straightened, breathing hard, his heart fluttering from fear rather than damage.

“It’s okay. I’m . . . okay now.”

“You sure?” Nawani eyed him uncertainly. “Looked like you couldn’t get your breath, man.”

“Just for a few seconds. Felt like my shirt shrank about six sizes. But it’s all right now.”

“Yeah, well, you better see a doctor, Rob. Doesn’t pay to fool around with stuff like that. My brother Salim passed away two years ago. Went just like that. A quick pain, grabbed his chest, and
boom
, he was gone.”

Though still scared, Rohrbach was feeling much better. “I’ll check it out, don’t worry.”

He did, too. First thing Monday morning. The doctor found nothing wrong with him, no evidence of a heart attack or anything relational. “Probably just a muscle spasm, Rob. Happens all the time.”

“Not to me it doesn’t,” Rohrbach told him.

That night he was sliding into the custom, oversized bed at the mansion when he abruptly sat bolt upright.

The visitor was sitting on the lounge next to the built-in plasma TV. “Hello, Mr. Rohrbach.”

There was a six-shot Smith & Wesson in the end-table drawer. Also, Spike was watching game shows two doors down the hall. A buzzer on the end table would bring him running. The bodyguard would make chicken parts of this intruder, only—how the hell had he managed to get inside the estate’s heavily guarded, stuccoed walls?

He was wearing white pants now, with matching white loafers and a pale yellow, embroidered shirt. Far better dressed than the average nut. The kind anyone would be proud to introduce at their next party.

Steady, Rohrbach told himself.

“Are you going to ask me how I got in here again?” the figure inquired.

“No, but I know how you’re going to go out. In cuffs.” He reached for the intercom, watching the intruder warily.

“Chest feeling better?” The man seemed genuinely solicitous.

Slowly, Rohrbach leaned back against the thickly padded satin headboard. “How did you know about that?”

“I told you. Elvis wants those stories to stop. I was his friend; he couldn’t take care of this himself, so he asked me to step in for him.”

“Poison.” Rohrbach was thinking furiously. “At the stadium. Somehow you got something into my drink.” The publisher recalled having downed a number of drinks, not all from the same bottle.

The visitor shook his head. “I’m a very nonviolent individual, Mr. Rohrbach. I couldn’t do something like that. I couldn’t poison a fly, or shoot anyone, or use a knife. I wouldn’t know what to do. All I have any control over while I’m here is that which I know best.”

“Then how’d you hurt me like that?”

“Does it matter? I didn’t enjoy it. But Elvis was my friend, and I told him I’d help out on this. Are you going to stop the stories?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stop them. I promise.”

“That’s good.” The visitor rose, and Rohrbach reached toward the end-table drawer. But the man didn’t come toward the bed. He simply let himself out, quietly.

As soon as he was gone Rohrbach leaped from the bed and locked the door. Then he was on the intercom like paparazzi on a senatorial assignation.

“Spike! Dammit, get your lazy ass in here!”

A half-asleep voice echoed back. “Boss? What’s the trouble, boss?”

“We’ve got an intruder!”

“Intruder? But boss, Security hasn’t said nothin’, and the alarms—”

“Get your head out of your ass! About six-one, blond, white male. White slacks, yellow shirt.
Get on it!
”

The intercom clicked off. Spike was in motion, and Rohrbach pitied the intruder if the bodyguard found him first.

He didn’t. No one did. Security swore that no prowlers had been seen on the estate, and every alarm was quiescent. Rohrbach ranted and howled, but it didn’t do any good. He had the mansion’s security checked and rechecked, as well as warning people at the office. And he put Danziger, one of his best researchers, onto finding out anything he could about a man named Johnny Anderson who just might, just possibly, have once had some kind of peripheral connection, as a dedicated fan or whatever, with Elvis.

The next week, with grim deliberation, he caused to have printed on the inside front page of the
Truth
a story about Elvis’s disfiguring birthmark and the surgery that had failed to cure it, as well as a follow-up on the gay housemate story that purported to show Elvis’s male lover being buried in a cemetery in San Jose.