Waiting for the Galactic Bus (31 page)

“Is that tomorrow’s headline or is it not?” Veigle crooned into his headset. “Camera two on Char... beautiful. Now split one and two.”

Roy and Charity now, split screen. Charity raised her head to Roy, equally racked, fighting to hold her feelings in check.

“Never top this,” Veigle knew. “Never.”

“Roy. Oh, Roy —” Charity struggled and lost. The words splintered, sputtered, roared into a raucous gut-hoot of hysterical laughter.

“Never... in all my li-life,” she gasped. Out of control, clutching at her ribs, Charity collapsed on the floor by Leon’s feet. Spastic, beyond control, she grabbed for something, anything to keep her this side of lunacy. She hung on to Leon, came away with his package squeezed to her own heaving chest. For a fifty share of Below Stairs and Topside, Charity Stovall imprinted her judgment on the cosmos.

“Y-you gotta be the b-biggest asshole that ever died.”

Charity surrendered to a fresh onslaught of coughing and hiccups. Sadly, Veigle drew the finger of doom across his throat. “Cut, for Christ’s sake.” He glared balefully at the monitor, prompted to murder before his practical side came to the fore with an angle. “Save her tape,” he growled into the headset. “We can sell it to the opposition.”

Meanwhile, back at madness, Charity held out Leon’s package to Roy, still sputtering. “Listen: even the groceries are laughing at you.”

Roy charged at her. “What’re you, crazy? This is going out
live —”

“Hear it, Roy?” She jittered on the edge of fresh hysterics. “Even the bag is laughing.”

Roy tore the bag out of her grip and threw it aside, raging. “You don’t laugh at me. You ain’t so much, you goddamn whore.
You don’t laugh at me —”

—
while Nancy Noncommit talked into a headset in a steely whisper: “Veigle, we’re still rolling.”

“I know.” His voice oozed confidence again, buttered with delight. “We’ll hide at least one tape. Did I say fifty share? Sixty! This belongs to eternity.”

“Nobody laughs at me!” Roy raised his fist to batter the laughing truth from Charity’s mouth. Before the blow could launch, he was caught by the collar and flung violently backwards on his butt, gaping up at Woody Barnes. Not a protracted gape. Into that classic study in astonishment, Woody hurled a juicy burrito with unerring accuracy and a
splat!
that would have thrilled Mack Sennett.

Incoherent with fury, Roy clawed at his holster and brought up the huge Luger. “Shoot’em all, Drumm! Every mother —” Point-blank at Woody’s face, he squeezed the trigger.

There was a sharp report but not much else. A baby-pink flag unfurled from the pistol barrel, bearing the rubric: BANG!

Those few guards who had presence of mind to obey his final-solution order rather sheepishly discovered similar flags fluttering from their weapons, advertising
MCDONALD
’
S
 
—
BILLIONS
SERVED
.
Milt Kahane raised his hands in praise of celestial genius.

“Boss, Prince, I love you. The universe is sane, after all.”

Then — acute hearing and traumatic memory wiped the joy from Milt’s face. His eye shot to Leon’s package, now busily ticking. He groaned with horrible prophecy. “Barnes... listen.”

“YES! LISTEN!” His hour come round at last, Leon Pebbles, man of destiny, did not slouch toward Bethlehem but sprang to it atop the table, package held high with maniacal triumph. “I told you bastards the day would come. The day of total efficiency. Minimum paperwork and everyone sees the end product of his labors. FIVE SECONDS — BOOM!”

A frenetic five seconds, most revealing of character. Accounting personnel, used to doing nothing without directives, did just that. Elvira ducked behind the bar, mourning her freshly laundered tablecloths. Woody dove for Charity, upending a table for cover. Bug-eyed, Roy swerved for a second to Drumm for advice he’d never have time to heed, then hurled himself at Florence to protect the last, best pure Wasp piece of tail in the universe. Milt grabbed Essie and launched them both toward the deck —

“INCOMING!”

COYUL
TO
BARION
:
PLEASED
TO
REPORT
CHARITY
VERY
READY
,
VERY
BEAUTIFUL
.

BARION
TO
COYUL
:
THEN
PULL
THE
PLUG

COYUL
TO
BARION
:
LOVE
TO
.
ALL
BEST
,
XXXX

    33   

All this significance — what
does it mean?

Reeking of smoke and burrito, Roy Stride booted open the door to Coyul’s salon and invaded with Drumm behind him. He’d left his Luger behind, not trusting any weapon that read BANG instead of doing it. Right now his fury was a more formidable threat.

“Where is he?” Roy fumed. “Where’s the Devil?”

“Ah, Mr. Stride. Just a moment.” Coyul paused to feed a notation to his computer with two fingers, orchestration with the remaining three. “We were expecting you. Good of you to be prompt.”

Roy dismissed the ineffectual little man with one contemptuous glance. “I got no time for you, pussy. Wanta see the Honcho, you got it? The Devil.”

“The term is considered gauche, old boy,” said Drumm, whose flat American accent waxed suddenly British.

“True,” said Coyul. “I prefer simply Prince.”

Seething with his recent humiliation, Roy didn’t connect at first. Not this nerdy little wimp in a business suit. “Don’t shit me, man.”

“Wouldn’t think of it. Sit down.”

“Fuck I will!”

“Over there.” With no effort of his own, Roy floated swiftly toward and into a designer chair, unable to leave it. “All right, Barion.”

Two men entered the salon — one dark, about Roy’s size, who looked like he didn’t have a single spot in his body without steel springs, the other big as a Redskin lineman in jeans. One of those blond college jokers he always saw in soft-drink commercials, making out with prime tail. Fucking big fag with muscles. He sat down across from Roy.

“Listen carefully, Mr. Stride,” Barion began without prelude. “Your future depends on it. To begin with, you’re not dead.”

“Not... Drumm, what the hell is this?”

But even that stalwart’s manner had changed. “It’s the plot resolution, laddie. Do you gentlemen mind if I get out of costume? Awfully tired of it.”

“By all means, Ned.” Coyul’s manicured hands fluttered in gracious assent. “And well done.”

The sardonic Booth clapped slowly. “Applause, applause.”

While Roy gaped, Drumm’s image blurred, sloughing pounds, mustache and toupee, resolving to the fine-trained figure of Edmund Kean. He bowed to Roy. Coyul applauded lightly, presenting a second player.

“And a call for the ubiquitous Wilkes Booth.”

With negligent ease, the lithe figure of Booth went squat and leathery green, quite vivid in Roy’s memory.

“As Damocles.” Coyul applauded. “Marvelous invention, Wilksey.”

“You honor me, Prince. I was also outstanding as Dane.” Another quick dissolve to the romantically tragic form of Charity’s doomed lover.

“We don’t need the entire dramatis personae,” Kean reminded him sourly.

“The laborer is worthy of his hire,” Booth countered with dignity, “and the player of his calls.” The larger-than-life tragedy of Dane became something mundane out of daytime TV in tailored slacks, designer haircut and a Members Only casual jacket. “As Randy Colorad.”

Kean sniffed. “Juveniles were always your forte.”

But Booth was not finished. While Roy stared, a horrible realization dawning, the vacuous good looks of Randy Colorad aged, lined, set into the sensitive and thoughtful image of Ernst Stabler.

“No! I blew you away,” Roy denied. “I saw your fuckin head go six ways from Sunday.”

And again Booth stood before him. “Stabler was my finest work. Deep, thoughtful. I may consider character work henceforth. Nevertheless — John Wilkes Booth at your service.”

Roy had never been that good in school, but some names stayed in the pantheon of memory. “I remember you. You shot Abraham Lincoln.”

“As a soldier of the Confederacy, sir.”

“Stabler was utterly fine,” Coyul appreciated sincerely. “I saw new depths and colors, Wilksey. Restrained, sincere... impressive. One was reminded of Schofield.”

“Thanks, my liege. I believed in what I was saying,” Booth recalled soberly. “Futile, even laughable I might have been in life, but at least in my time life meant something. Your world is a sewer, Mr. Stride. One can almost absolve you for being one of its diseases.”

“Time, Coyul,” Barion put in. “Sorlij and Maj, remember?”

“Right.” Coyul struck his hands together. “Wilksey, I made you a promise.”

“Please, Prince: not
Romeo.”

“Not a whit. We’ll leave that to Leslie Howard. You may remount
Hamlet.”

Booth went down on one knee in gratitude. “Oh, my liege. My Prince —”

“Now, now. Don’t gush, there’s a catch. You’ll alternate Hamlet and Laertes with Ned.”

“You give me leave to kill, sir.” Kean bowed with relish. “After that fruity Dane, I’ll eat this buffoon for breakfast.”

“Will you?” Booth rose to the challenge. “Look to your own ratty laurels, you laboring-class lout.”

“Gentlemen, allow me to finish.” Coyul’s machinations were subtler than they knew. “Ned, you’ll keep Wilkes within the bounds of good taste. And he in turn will teach you to fence like a gentleman.”

“And somewhat less like a dancing bear,” Booth sniped.

“With less mayhem to the scenery,” Coyul hoped, escorting them to the door. “Now off with you both. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.”

“You first, Ned.” Booth stood aside. “You’re considerably my elder.”

“Ah, well — wisdom before folly.” Kean swept out, but Booth lingered expectantly, raising his eyes in supplication. “Max? It’s my
exit.”

The musical leitmotif of genial bonhomie sparkled in the salon. Booth’s amber spotlight washed over him. Satisfied, with a heave of the shoulders, he followed Kean.

“You said I ain’t dead,” Roy blurted. “I don’t get it. What’s all this about?”

“Shut up. You’ll get it. Believe me, you’re going to get it.” Barion’s tone chilled Roy to the bone. His skin began to crawl under that merciless scrutiny. The son of a bitch looked like... eternity.

“You bug me, mister,” Barion said.

“So who the fuck are you?” Roy bluffed. “Look, I’m covered, okay? I got treaties, Topside’s word. No interference. I came here to see the Prince and it’s this little wimp. So no bullshit, okay? Lemme go to the top.”

Barion leaned back in his chair. “You’re there.”

Roy took a moment to digest and discard the absurdity. God did not wear Levi’s. “Not you, man.”

“In your parlance, you got it. As close as you’ll ever get.”

“Hey, listen, I
saw
God close up at the White Rose Motel. He sentenced me —”

“My friend Walter Hampden,” Barion admitted. “Doesn’t act much now but still does an occasional God, Moses or prophet. You’re not dead. Charity’s not dead, nor Woody. You can go home now if you want.”

“Which we would prefer,” Coyul remarked with a tinge of distaste. “The twentieth century is the foulest on record; makes the fourteenth immaculate by comparison. And it has produced, in a country like America, far too many like you.”

“I wasn’t ready for Hitler in 1933,” Barion confessed. “I really didn’t know how to deal with the danger of your kind or your sick needs. We’ve learned since then. Stabler put it nicely, you’re a disease. The worst of what I could never breed out of humans.”

“Though we certainly don’t want to breed it into more,” Coyul extended his brother’s point. “If you married Charity — grisly prospect, but she was ignorant enough to go through with it — we shuddered to think what you’d have done to each other.”