Yossarian now eased himself alongside one of these men posing as a statue and asked, sotto voce:
"Where the fuck is he?"
"How the fuck should I know?" the man shot back, hardly moving his lips. "Ask her."
"The cocksucker won't come out of his office," said the woman, without moving hers.
There was no information to account for the delay.
Meanwhile, the festivities progressed. Coordinating the multiple movements of equipment and supplies and the divisions of personnel was as exacting a procedure as a military invasion in the Arabian Gulf, with a lower margin for observable error. Experienced logistical experts from Washington were dispatched to work with McBride and executives on the Planning Committee of Milo Minderbinder's Commercial Catering, Inc.
Strategy was mapped out in the Operations Room of C.C. Inc. and put into action in the kitchens and shops there, as well as in the extensive food rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the facilities of the numerous nearby food shops with storage room and processing machinery enlisted for the emergency. Because the designers of the PABT building had not anticipated a future in the catering business, they had failed to include kitchens, and it was necessary to effect alliances with numerous individual food establishments in the vicinity.
On the day of the event, the principal caterers would start, Yossarian saw, and did start, Yossarian also saw, arriving at the terminal hours before sunrise, and the inner areas of the floors to be utilized were occupied by armed men in civilian attire and sealed off to the public.
By 7:30 A.M. fifteen hundred workers were on station in assigned places and moving into action.
By 8:00 an assembly line constructed by a corps of engineers had been set up in C.C. Inc. to make the canapes and other small sandwiches, and for the trimming and slicing of the smoked salmon. Work there did not cease until four hundred dozen of these tea sandwiches had been completed and dispatched.
By 8:15 sixty cooks, seventy electricians, three hundred florists, and four hundred of the waiters and bartenders had reinforced the original landing parties in both places.
By 8:30 crews began scrubbing the fifty bushels of oysters and fifty bushels of clams, boiling two hundred pounds of shrimp, and making fifty-five gallons of cocktail sauce.
By 9:00 A.M. the tables, chairs, and furnishings were arriving at the terminal, and electricians and plumbers were on site for the extensive work required, while back at C.C. Inc. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the choppers were attacking and cutting up at record speed the vegetables for the crudites: a thousand bunches of celery, fifteen hundred pounds of carrots, one thousand and one heads of cauliflower, a hundred pounds of zucchini, and two hundred pounds of red peppers.
By 10:00 A.M. all one hundred and fifteen thousand red, white, and black balloons printed newly wed were bobbing triumphantly over all the passageways of the bus ramps and the doorways of all the side and main entrances.
At noon the electricians had completed hanging the special chandeliers.
At 1:00 P.M. the portable toilets were delivered and set up unobtrusively in their designated places. There were over thirty-five hundred of these portable toilets, all in pastels of the season, more than one for each guest, behind the false fronts of millinery boutiques for women and haberdashery boutiques for men, and the guests took note with a frisson of enchanted awareness that no person would have contact with a toilet previously tainted through use by another. Each of the units was hurried away instantly and invisibly through egresses in the rear by stevedores, teamsters, and sanitary engineers to be trucked out, loaded on waiting barges in the Hudson River, and carried to sea with the ebbing tide to be thrown into the ocean, with no one any the wiser until a day or so later; the foresight with the individual Portosans was another hit of the genteel bacchanal, and many guests crept back twice, merely for the novelty of the experience, as though riding for a second time on a diversion at a germ-free amusement park. "Why didn't anybody else ever think of that?" was an expression repeated frequently.
Early in the afternoon, at 2:45 plus 10, five tons of ice were delivered as ordered, and as the clock struck 3:00, two hundred waiters, then two hundred more waiters, when the first contingent had advanced and cleared out of the way, then two hundred more when these latter two hundred had pushed into the area and fanned out, all began setting up tables, while the remaining six hundred held in reserve were icing down white wine, water, and champagne, and setting up supply posts of one hundred and twenty service bars on the main and second floors and on the spacious third floor too, where loud music and wild dancing were scheduled for the late hours.
At four the musicians were setting up at their bandstands and dance floors.
By five, fifty dessert buffets had been erected securely and the twelve hundred or more security guards from the city, federal government, and M & M Commercial Killings, Inc. had taken up positions on the high ground of the terminal. Outside, trucks with units from the National Guard were on watch for disturbances from protest groups that might be in dissonance with the celebratory mood of the gala.
After the hoisting, lowering, and cutting of the wedding cake, there was more dancing and congratulations. For the several finales, everyone mingled together in the Great Hall from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where still more tables were heaped with dessert confections of spun sugar.
There, before the party dispersed into smaller, friendlier, almost conspiratorial groups, a number of toasts were offered to the Minderbinders and Maxons and short speeches made. Greed was good, proclaimed one Wall Streeter in risk arbitrage. There was nothing wrong with waste, boasted another. As long as they had it, why not flaunt it? There was nothing tasteless about bad taste, roared another, and was cheered for his wit.
"This was the kind of event," crowed a spokesman for the homeless, "that makes one proud to be homeless in New York."
But he turned out to be fake, a spokesman from a public relations firm.
The formal end of activities was signaled by a sentimental repeat of the "Redemption Through Love" music played by all five of the bands for the evening, the violinist and her four clones, and the earlier orchestral recordings, and many there locked arms shamelessly and hummed the melody boisterously, as though in a wordless rendition of the newest replacement of "Auld Lang Syne" or that other immortal popular favorite, "Till We Meet Again."
For those madcaps and hell-raisers who had chosen to linger on to bowl in the alleys on the second floor or dance the night away or otherwise avail themselves of the fascinating attractions and facilities of the bus terminal, a third meal was provided at each of the auxiliary serving stations remaining open all night, and this, as displayed on all screens, was in store:
ALTERNATE MENU
Fricassee de Fruits de Mer
Les trois Roti Primeurs
Tarte aux Pommes de Terre
Salade a Bleu de Bresse Gratinee
Friandises et Desserts
Espresso
Yossarian, still musing on the Alternate Menu, was next startled to see himself speaking to the video cameras for a network television show in white tie and tails between Milo Minderbinder and Christopher Maxon and saying:
"The wedding was the highlight of a lifetime. I don't think any of us here will live to see anything like it again."
"Holy shit," he said in the flesh, and hoped his laconic irony was obvious.
There was little doubt that Minderbinders and Maxons had that night boosted the Port Authority Bus Terminal into the forefront of great catering halls for the close of the century and the dawning of the new one. Everyone leaving was given a colorful brochure published jointly by PABT and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with which PABT now had so many interests in common. For as little as $36,000, anyone in the world could engage space for a party in either place.
It was anticipated that most guests would depart at 1:00 A.M. They did, and the million, one hundred and twenty-two thousand champagne tulips there as s
ouvenirs and door prizes were quickly depleted. A younger, livelier bunch stayed on to bowl, eat, and dance madly to the recorded music provided by an all-night disc jockey on the floors above. Eventually, those who still could not tear themselves away went to sleep on sturdy clean cabana lounges moved into the ticketing areas or bedded down in one of the emergency stairwells, where new, unused mattresses had been laid out on the landings and stairs. When they awoke, there was fresh orange juice for them at the juice bars and pancake-and-egg breakfasts in the coffee shops. The stairwells had been emptied and scoured thoroughly; instead of disinfectant, the odors in the air were of aftershave lotion and designer perfumes. For the stairwells, a one-legged woman with a crutch was hired to go wandering about mumbling she'd been raped, but she was a minor actress with a pretty face that had modeled cosmetics, and a shapely leg that had modeled panty hose. A large, gracious, maternal black woman with moles that looked cancerous and a rich contralto voice hummed spirituals.
By 4:30 in the morning, the twenty-eight Cosa Nostra carting companies subcontracting through the Washington Cosa Loro with the Commercial Catering division of M & M E & A had removed the rest of the trash, and by 6:00 A.M., when the first of the customary bus travelers appeared, all was back to normal, except for the absence of the hustlers and the homeless, who would remain in forced exile until all was secure.
"That was sly of you," Gaffney said, in praise of Yossarian's little speech.
"I can't believe I said that," Yossarian repented.
"You haven't, yet. Well?" added Gaffney with a wish to know, as they watched on the monitor the crowds in the terminal that had not yet gathered there thinning out sort of wanly and drifting back in pale reflections to the places from which they had not yet come. "Mrs. Maxon seemed satisfied."
"Then her husband will be too. I love all that Wagner music. And I also have to laugh. Do you think the end of Gotterdammerung is a tactful choice for that occasion?"
"Yes. Would you prefer a requiem?" Gaffney's dark eyes twinkled.
"It's turning black again, that God-damned sun," said Hacker lightly, and laughed. "I can't seem to get it out."
"It can't turn black," snapped Yossarian, annoyed by him once more. "If the sun turned black, the sky would be black too, and you wouldn't be able to see it."
"Yeah?" The young man sniggered. "Take a look."
Yossarian took a look and saw that on the central screens, the sun indeed was black in a sky that was blue, the moon had turned red again, and all of the ships in the harbor and the neighboring waters, the tugs, barges, tankers, freighters, commercial fishing vessels, and different varieties of pleasure craft, were again upside down.
"It's a glitch," said Hacker. "We call it a glitch. I'll have to keep working on it."
"I saw another glitch," said Yossarian.
"You mean the President?"
"He never showed up, did he? I didn't see him."
"We can't get him to come out of his office. Here--look." Yossarian recognized the antechamber of the Oval Office in Washington. "He's supposed to walk out, be driven to the MASSPOB building, and take the new supertrain here. Instead, he keeps going off the other way. He walks into his playroom."
"You'll have to reprogram your model."
Hacker snickered again in affected despair and left the answer to Gaffney.
"We can't reprogram the model, Yo-Yo. It's the model. You'll have to reprogram the presidency."
"Me?"
"In fact, he's in there right now," said Hacker. "What the hell's he got in that playroom anyway?"
"Ask Yossarian," said Gaffney. "He's been there."
"He has a video game," said Yossarian. "It's called Triage."
BOOK
TWELVE
33
Entr'acte
Milo lost interest quickly, flew off on business, and was out of the terminal when the alarm went off, not safely underneath it with Yossarian.
"Where is Mr. Minderbinder?" McBride was asking, as Yossarian came through alone to the landing on which he stood with Gaffney.
"Off to get more skyscrapers in Rockefeller Center," Yossarian reported with derision. "Or build his own. He wants them all." Someday, Yossarian thought as they descended the wrought-iron staircase, those monstrous hounds stirring now might really be there; and what a final tricky surprise that would be! They had found all the elevators, McBride told him, exulting. Michael and his girlfriend Marlene had wearied with waiting and had gone far down below with Bob and Raul. McBride had something else to show Yossarian.
"How far is far down?" asked Yossarian, humorously.
McBride tittered nervously, and, shiftily, answered over his shoulder. "Seven miles!"
"Seven miles?"
Gaffney was amused by these yelps of astonishment.
And those were some elevators, McBride went on. A mile a minute going up, a hundred miles an hour going down. "And they've got escalators too, going all the way. They say they go down forty-two miles!"
"Gaffney?" asked Yossarian, and Gaffney nodded slowly. "Gaffney, Milo's unhappy," Yossarian let him know, in a jocular vein. "I suppose you know."
"Milo's always unhappy."
"He fears."
"And what does he fear today? He's got the contract."
"He fears he did not ask enough and is not getting as much for the Shhhhh! as Strangelove is getting for his plane. And they won't even work."
Halting on the staircase so abruptly that the two men collided, Gaffney, to Yossarian's total astonishment, regarded Yossarian with a lapse in his aplomb.
"They won't? What makes you say that?"
"They will?"
Gaffney relaxed. "They do, Yo-Yo. For a second I thought you knew something I didn't. They're working already."
"They can't be. They won't. They gave me their word."
"They break their word."
"They made me a promise."
"They break their promises."
"I have a guarantee."
"It's no good."
"I have it in writing."
"Stick it in your Freedom of Information file."
"I don't understand. They've beaten Strangelove?"
Gaffney gave his silent laugh. "Yossarian, my friend, they are Strangelove. They've blended, of course. Except for the difference in names and companies, aren't they the same? They've had planes going for years."
"Why didn't you ever say so?"
"To whom? Nobody asked."
"You could have told me."
"You didn't ask. Often it's to my advantage to keep things to myself. Sometimes knowledge is power. Some say the ultimate weapon will be good for my business, some say it won't. That's why I'm down here today. To find out."
"What business?"
"Real estate, of course."
"Real estate!" scoffed Yossarian.
"You refuse to believe me," said Gaffney, smiling, "and yet you think you want the truth."
"The truth will make us free, won't it?"
"It doesn't," answered Gaffney. "And it won't. It never has." He pointed down to McBride. "Let's go, Yo-Yo. He has another truth to show you. Recognize that music?"
Yossarian was almost sure he was hearing the Leverkuhn passages again on the speaker system, from the work that had never been written, in a mellow version for orchestra, played rubato, legato, vibrato, tremolo, glissando, and ritardando, sweetly disguised for popular absorption, with no quavering, jolting hint of fearful climax.
"Gaffney, you're wrong about that Leverkuhn, you know. It's from the Apocalypse."
"I know that now. I looked it up and saw I was mistaken. I can't tell you how it embarrasses me to say so. But I bet I do know what you're going to ask me next."
"Notice anything?" asked Yossarian anyway.
"Of course," said Gaffney. "We cast no shadows down here, our feet make no noise. Do you notice anything?" Gaffney asked, as they joined McBride. He was not referring to the guard in the archway on a chair at the elevator. "Do you?"
> It was Kilroy.
He was gone.
The words on his plaque had been effaced.
Kilroy was dead, McBride revealed. "I felt I should tell you."
"I had a feeling he was," said Yossarian. "There are people my age who'll be sorry to hear that. Vietnam?"
"Oh, no, no," McBride answered with surprise. "It was cancer. Of the prostate, the bone, the lungs, and the brain. They have it down as a natural death."
"A natural death," repeated Yossarian in lament.
"It could be worse," said Gaffney, sympathizing. "At least Yossarian is alive."
"Sure," said McBride, like a hearty fellow. "Yossarian still lives."
"Yossarian lives?" repeated Yossarian.
"Sure, Yossarian lives," said McBride. "Maybe we can put that one up on the wall instead."
"Sure, and for how long?" Yossarian answered, and the alarm went off.
McBride gave an immediate start. "Hey, what the hell is that?" He looked frightened. "Isn't that the alert?"
Gaffney was nodding. "I think so too."
"You guys wait here!" McBride was already running toward the guard. "I'll go find out."
"Gaffney?" asked Yossarian, quivering.
"I don't know down here," Gaffney answered grimly. "It may be the war, triage time."
"Shouldn't we get the hell out? Let's jump outside."
"Don't go crazy, Yossarian. We're much safer here."
BOOK
THIRTEEN
34
Finale
When he heard the alarm go off and saw the colored lamps on the mechanism blinking, the President was pleased with himself for having set something in motion and sat back beaming with self-satisfaction until it dawned on him that he did not know how to stop what he had started. He pressed one button after another to no avail. As he was about to call for help, help came crashing in: Noodles Cook, the stout man from the State Department whose name never came readily to mind, his slim aide from the National Security Council, Skinny, and that general from the air force newly promoted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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