Steel Beach (39 page)

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 possessions, 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 waited for that to die down. “I’m not unsympathetic,” I continued. “I used to be one of you. Well,
better
, but one of you.” That got me some derisive shouts, a few laughs. “I know none of your editors will take no for an answer. So I’ll give you a break. In fifteen minutes this door will open, and you’re all free to come in. I don’t guarantee you an interview, but this idiocy has got to stop. My neighbors are complaining.”

I knew that last would buy me exactly no sympathy, but the promise of opening the door would keep them solidly in place for a while. I waved to them, and switched off the screen.

I told the door to open up in fifteen minutes, and hurried to the back.

A previous call to the police had cleared the smaller group out of the corridor back there. It was not a public space, so I could do that, and the reporters had to retreat to Texas, from which they could not be chased out, so long as they didn’t violate any of the appropriate technology laws by bringing in modern tools or clothing. That was fine with me; I knew the land, and they didn’t.

I came out of the cave cautiously. It was full night, with no “moon,” a fact I’d checked in my weather schedule. I peered over the edge of the cliff and saw them down there, gathered around a campfire near the river, drinking coffee and toasting marshmallows. I shouldered my pack, settled all my other items so they would make no noise, and scaled the smaller, gentler slope that rose behind the cave. I soon came to stand on top of the hill, and Mexico lay spread out before me in the starlight.

I started off, walking south, keeping my spirits up by envisioning the scene when the hungry hordes poured through the door to find an empty nest.

For the next three weeks I lived off the land. At least, I did as much of that as I could. Texas or Mexico, the pickings could be mighty slim in these parts, partner. There were some edible plants, some cactus, none of which you’d call a gourmet delight, but I dutifully tried as many of them as I could find and identify out of my disneyland resident’s manual. I’d brought along staples like pancake batter and powdered eggs and molasses and corn meal, and some spices, mostly chili powder. I wasn’t entirely on my own. I could sneak into Lonesome Dove or New Austin when things started getting low.

So in the morning I’d eat flapjacks and eggs, and at night beans and cornbread, but I supplemented this fare with wild game.

What I’d had in mind was venison. There are plenty of deer and antelope playing around my home, even a few buffalo roaming. Buffalo seemed a bit extreme for one person, but I’d brought a bow and arrow hoping to bag a pronghorn or small buck deer. The discouraging word was, those critters are hard to sneak up on, hard to get in range of, if your range is as short as mine. As a resident of Texas, I was entitled to take two deer or antelope each year, and I’d never bagged even one. I’d never wanted to. You can use firearms for this purpose, but checking them out of the disneyland office was a process so beset with forms in triplicate and solemn oaths that I never even considered it. Besides, I wondered, in passing, if the CC would allow me such a lethal weapon in view of my recent track record.

I was also allowed a virtually unlimited quota of jackrabbits, and that’s what I ate. I didn’t shoot any, though I shot
at
them. I set snares. Most mornings I’d find one or two struggling to get free. The first one was hard to kill and the killing cost me my appetite, but it got easier after that. It was just as I “remembered” it from Scarpa. Before long it seemed natural.

I had found one of the very few places in Luna where I could hide out until the Silvio story cooled off. I calculated that would take about a month. It would be a year or more before the whole thing was old news, but I was sure my own part in the travesty would be largely forgotten sooner than that. So I spent my days wandering the length and breadth of my huge back yard. There wasn’t a lot to do. I occupied myself by catching rattlesnakes. All this takes is a certain amount of roaming around, and a bit of patience. They just coil up and hiss and rattle when you find them, and can be captured using a long stick and a bit of rope to loop around their necks. I was very careful handling them as I couldn’t afford to be bitten. That would mean either returning to the world for medical treatment, or surrendering myself to the tender mercies of Ned Pepper. If you call up an old Boy Scout manual and read the section on snakebite, it’ll curl your hair.

Once a week I’d creep up on the entrance to my old back door. By the second week there was no one there. I went over to my unfinished cabin and counted the reporters camped nearby. They had figured out where I was, in a general way. I’m sure somebody in town had reported my stealthy shopping trips. It stood to reason that, having abandoned my apartment, I’d show up at the cabin sooner or later. And they were right. I did plan to return there.