The Plant (29 page)

“Goddam slacker is what he is,” Hecksler said. “A goddam commissary cowboy. Ha! Seen a thousand of em!”

And so he walked down the main corridor as decorously as a nun, passing doors marked WADE EDITOR IN CHIEF, KENTON, and GELB

(that one another Jew, undoubtedly, but not
the
Jew) before coming to one marked…PORTER.

“Yessss,” Hecksler said, bringing the word out in a long and satisfying hiss, like steam.

There wasn’t even any need to pick the lock; the D.J.’s door was open.

The General stepped in. And now…now that he’s in a place where he no longer has to be careful…gosh!

The urine which General Hecksler withheld in the hall goes into Herb Porter’s desk drawers, starting with the lower and working to the upper.

There is even a final squirt for the keyboard of typewriter.

There’s an IN/OUT box filled with what look like submission letters, manuscript reports, and a personal letter (although typed) which begins
Dear Fergus
. Hecksler tears it all up and sprinkles the pieces on top of the desk like confetti.

217

Next to the IN/OUT is an envelope marked GOTHAM COL-LECTIBLES, addressed to Mr. Herbert Porter care of Zenith House, and marked CONFIDENTIAL. Inside, the General finds three items. One is a letter which says, in essence, that the folks at Gotham Collectibles were mighty glad they could find the enclosed rarity for such a valued customer.

The rarity is a Honus Wagner baseball card in a glassine envelope. The last enclosure is a bill in the amount of two hundred and fifty American men.

The General is astounded and outraged. Two hundred and fifty dollars for a yid baseball player? And of course he
is
a yid; Hecksler can pick them out anywhere. Look at that schnozzola, by the jacked-up Jesus! (Unaware that Honus Wagner’s schnozzola is pretty much identical to Anthony Hecksler’s own.) Iron-Guts takes the card out of its envelope, and soon the image of Honus Wagner has joined the other, considerably less valuable, confetti on Herb’s desk.

Hecksler begins to sing softly, a beer jingle: “Here’s to you…for all you do…you des-ig-NAYY-ted Jew…”

There are the file cabinets. He could tip them over, but what if someone below heard the thud? And it seems meaningless. If he opens them, he knows what he’ll find: just more paper. He’s ripped enough of that for one day, by God. Also, he’s getting a little pooped. It’s been a stressful morning (a stressful week, a stressful month, a stressful goddam
life
). If he could find one more thing…one more
meaningful
thing…

And there it is. Most of the stuff on the walls is uninteresting—covers of books the D.J. has edited, photos of the D.J. with a number of men (and one woman) who the General supposes are writers but look to him suspiciously like wankers—but there’s one picture that’s different. Not only is it set off from the others, in its own little space, but the Herb Porter in it has an actual
expression
on his face. In the others, the best he’s managed is a sort of oh-fuck-I’m-getting-my-goddam-picture-taken-again squint, but in this one he’s actually
smiling
, and it is a smile of unquestionable love. The woman he’s smiling at is taller than the D.J. and looks about sixty. Held in front of her is the sort of large black satchel purse which by law only woman of sixty or over may carry.

218

Hecksler croons, “I see me, I see you, I see the mother, of a designated Jew.”

He pulls the picture from the wall, turns it over, and sees the sort of cardboard backing he would have expected. Oh yes, he knows his man: sly tricks in front, cardboard backing behind. Yowza.

Hecksler pulls out the cardboard, then the picture of Herb and his beloved Marmar, which was taken at the twenty-fifth anniversary party Herb organized for his parents out on Montauk in 1978. Iron-Guts drops trou (they go down fast, perhaps because of the large fold-up knife in the right front pocket), grabs one skinny butt-cheek and gives it a brisk sideways yank, the better to present the back door, the tan track, the everloving dirt road. Then the former United States General, who was personally decorated by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, rubs his ass briskly and thoroughly with this picture which Herb loves above all others.

Gosh, what a time we’re having!

But good times wear a person out, especially an
older
person, especially an older
bonkers
person. Enough be enough, as Amos might have said to Andy. The General hauls up his pants, squares himself away, then sits down in Herb’s office chair. He did not pee in this chair, mostly because it never occurred to him, so the seat is nice and dry.

He swivels slowly around and looks out Herb’s window. No view; just a few feet of empty space and then the windows of another office building.

Most of those are covered with venetian blinds, and where the blinds aren’t drawn, the offices are perfectly still. No doubt somewhere in that building, as in this, executives are squeezing in a little overtime, but not in sight of Herb Porter’s window.

The sun comes slanting in on General Hecksler’s face, cruelly spot-lighting his age-roughened skin and the burst veins at his temples; another vein, this one blue, pulses steadily in the middle of his deeply lined forehead.

His eyelids are folded and wrinkled. More and more of them become visible as the General, who has dozed but not really slept in weeks, moves to the border which divides the land of wakefulness from that of Nod.

They close all the way…remain so, looking smoother now…and then 219

they open again, disclosing faded blue eyes which are wary and crazy and most of all tired unto death. He has reached the border crossing—tempo-rary peace lies beyond—but does he dare use it? Does he dare cross? There are so many enemies still, a world filled with scheming Jews, violent Italians, craven homosexuals, and thefty dance-footed Negros; so many sworn enemies of both the General and the country he has sworn to uphold…and could they be here now? Even now?

For a moment his lids take on their former wrinkled aspect as the eyes they guard open all the way, shifting in their sockets, but this only lasts a moment. The voice that warned him in the reception area has fallen silent, but he can still smell a lingering effluvia of gunsmoke, as soothing as memory.

Safe
, that odor whispers. It is, of course, the odor and the voice of Zenith, the common ivy.
You’re safe. Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and you’re
safe for the next forty hours and more. Sleep, General. Sleep.

General Hecksler knows good advice when he hears it. Sitting in his enemy’s chair, turned away from his enemy’s desk (into which he has poured the piss of righteousness), General Hecksler sleeps.

He cannot see the ivy which has already entered this room and grows invisibly around his shoes and up the walls. Smelling gunpowder and dreaming of ancient battles, General Hecksler begins to snore.

April 4, 1981

490 Park Avenue South

New York City

Skies fair, winds light, temperature 55 F.

10:37 A.M.

When Frank DeFelice arrives at 490 Park Avenue South, stepping out of a Checker Cab and tipping a perfectly precise ten per cent, he’s not in the same buoyant mood as George Patella the soft-drink fella, but he’s every bit as preoccupied. DeFelice works at Tallyrand Office Supply on the 7th floor, 220

and he has forgotten some paperwork he needs in order to be ready for the pre-inventory meeting at 9 A.M. on Monday morning. His intention is to simply dash up, grab the inventory summaries, and head back to Grand Central. DeFelice lives in Croton-on-Hudson, and plans to spend the afternoon doing yard work. This Saturday trip down to the city is your basic PITA: pain in the ass.

He takes some vague notice of the man in the sand-colored business suit standing to the left of the door; the man is holding a large attache case and checking his watch. He is young for the suit, but good-looking and well-groomed: blond, blue-eyed. Certainly Carlos Detweiller, who has his mother’s Nordic genes, doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a spic, designated or otherwise.

As DeFelice opens the lobby door with his key, the young man with the attache case sighs and murmurs, “Hold it a sec, would you?”

Frank DeFelice obligingly holds the door and they cross the lobby together, heels clicking and echoing.

“People shouldn’t be allowed to be late on Saturdays,” the young man says, and DeFelice gives an agreeable, meaningless little smile. His mind is a million miles away...well, forty, at any rate, dwelling on various spring bulbs and fertilizers.

Perhaps this run of thought is why he notices a certain odd smell about the young man as they step into the elevator together—a certain
earthy
smell, almost like peat. Can that be some new aftershave? Something called Spring Garden or April Delight?

DeFelice pushes for seven.

“Hit five while you’re at it, would you?” the young man in the sand-colored suit asks, and DeFelice notices an interesting thing: there’s a combination lock on the guy’s attache case.
That’s sort of cool
, he thinks, and that thought leads to another: Father’s Day isn’t that far off. Hints dropped in the right location (to the mother of his children rather than the children themselves, in other words) might not go amiss. In fact—

“Five?” the young man in the sand-colored suit asks again, and DeFelice pushes five. He then points at the attache case.

“Abercrombie?” he asks.

221

“Kmart,” the young man replies, and offers a smile that makes DeFelice slightly nervous. It has an emptiness that goes beyond daffy. The two men journey silently after that, rising in the faint smell of peat.

Carlos Detweiller steps out on five. He walks to the wall where there are arrows pointing the way to the various businesses: Barco Novel-Teaz, Crandall & Ovitz, Attorneys at Law, Zenith Publishing. He is examining these when the elevator doors slide shut. Frank DeFelice feels a momentary relief, then turns his mind to his own affairs.

10:38 A.M.

General Hecksler has sprung the lock instead of forcing it, and Carlos enters Zenith House without considering the unlocked main door suspicious—

he’s a gardener, a writer, and a Psykik Savant, after all, not a detective. Also, he’s spent so many years getting what he wants that he’s come to expect it.

In the reception area he smells garlic and nods briskly, like a man whose suspicions have been confirmed. Although in truth, they are rather more than suspicions. He is in touch with certain Powers, after all, and they’ve kept him ahead of the curve (as mid-level executives such as Frank DeFelice and George Patella might say) in most respects. One of the respects in which they have been a trifle behind the curve has to do with Iron-Guts Hecksler’s current presence in the Zenith offices. Drawing conclusions in matters supernatural is always a risky business, but we might assume from this that the Powers of Darkness enjoy a giggle as much as the rest of us.

Yet does Carlos not smell something other than garlic out here?

Certainly a frown clouds his blandly handsome face. Then it clears. He dismisses the faint whiff of the General’s insanity which his trained nose has picked up as no more than a lingering trace of the receptionist’s perfume.

(What, one wonders, would such a perfume be called?
Paranoia in Paris
?) Carlos moves across the room and pauses. Here the smell of garlic is stronger.
She told them how to keep it in its place
, he thinks, meaning the late Tina Barfield. Did she also tell them that, given a taste of the right blood, such precautions would be useless? Perhaps. In any case, it doesn’t matter. He could 222

care less at this point. Zenith would likely take care of John Kenton given time, but “likely” isn’t good enough for Carlos Detweiller, and he doesn’t have time.

There probably won’t be time to make John Kenton his zombie slave, either, but there should be enough time on Monday morning to cut Kenton’s lying, misleading, thieving heart out of his chest. Carlos has plenty of knives in his Sakred Case, not to mention a new brush-cutter from
American Gardener.
He hopes to use this to remove Mr. John “Poop-Shit” Kenton’s scalp. He can wear it like a hat while he snacks on “Poop-Shit’s” valves and ventricles.

Carlos steps into the hall beyond the reception area and pauses again.

He stands exactly where Hecksler stood when he proclaimed his presence to the empty offices. He notes (not without admiration) the framed book jackets: a giant ant poised over a screaming, half-nude woman; a mercenary shooting down a squad of charging Oriental soldiers while a city that appears to be Miami flames in the background; a woman in a slip in the embrace of a bare-chested pirate who appears to have an erection the size of an industrial plumbing fixture inside his colorful pantaloons; a redeyed lurker watching the approach of a young lady on a deserted street; two or three cookbooks, just for spice.

Carlos thinks with some longing that in a better world, where people were honest, the jacket of his own book might be up there, as well.
True Tales
of Demon Infestations
, with a photo of the one and only Carlos Detweiller on the cover. Smoking a pipe, perhaps, and looking Lovecrafty. That is not to be…but they will pay.
Kenton
, at least, will pay.

The hall looks empty except for the framed covers and the doors to the editorial cubicles beyond them, but the newcomer knows better. “Carlos, you weren’t born yesterday or even the day before,” as Mr. Keen might have said in happier times, times when people didn’t forget who was supposed to win all the card games.

Looks, however, can be deceiving.

With the garlic-rubbed portal behind him, Carlos can easily smell the Tibetan
kadath
ivy he has sent John Kenton, and he smells its true aroma: not popcorn, chocolate, coffee, honeysuckle, or Shalimar perfume but a darker odor, strict and sharp. It isn’t oil of clove, but perhaps that comes closest. It 223