by James Morrow
“Big difference.”
“Not these days. The cat’s away, Tommy. No eyes on us. The Tablets of the Law: fizz, fizz, gone, like two Alka Seltzers dissolving in a glass of water. Be honest, don’t you feel it too? Don’t you find yourself dreaming of your friend Miriam and her world-class tits?”
“I won’t pretend things haven’t gotten confusing around here.” Thomas gritted his teeth so hard a tingling arose in his right middle ear. His musings concerning Sister Miriam had indeed been intense of late, including the features specified by Weisinger. He’d even, heaven help him, given them names. “I’ll admit the Idea of the Corpse threatens this ship.” Wendy and Wanda. “I’ll admit we’re in the throes of Anno Postdomini One.”
“Fizz, fizz—I can think any damn thought I want. I can think about picking up a Black and Decker needle gun and drilling my Aunt Sarah’s eyes out. I’m free, Tommy.”
“You’re in the brig.”
Weisinger dipped a Carpco coffee mug into the cistern and, raising the water to his lips, drank. “You wanna know why I scare you?”
“You don’t scare me.” The kid terrified Thomas.
“I scare you because you look at me and you see that anybody here on the Val could find the freedom I’ve got. Joe Spicer out there could find it. Rafferty could find it. Sure you don’t have a cigarette?”
“Sorry.” Thomas sidled toward the door and paused, transfixed by the steel rivets; they were pathological and obscene, boils on the back of some leprous robot. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this sort of work. Maybe he’d better stick with quantum mechanics and his meditations on why God died. He looked at Weisinger and said, “Does it help, talking with me like this?”
“O’Connor could find it.”
“Does it help?”
“Haycox could find it.”
“Anytime you get the urge to talk, just have Spicer send for me.”
“Captain Van Horne could find it.”
“I really want to help you,” said the priest, rushing blindly out of the cell.
“Even you could find it, Tommy,” the kid called after him. “Even you!”
As the shabby and foul-smelling taxi pulled up to 625 West Forty-second Street, Oliver realized they were only a block away from Playwrights Horizons, the theater where his personal favorite among Cassie’s plays, Runkleberg, had premiered on a double bill with his least favorite, God Without Tears. Lord, what a sexy genius she was. For her he would do anything. For Cassandra he would rob a bank, walk on burning coals, blow God to Kingdom Come.
Viewed from the sidewalk, the New York offices of Pembroke and Flume’s World War Two Reenactment Society looked like just another Manhattan storefront, indistinguishable from a dozen such establishments occupying the civilized side of Eighth Avenue, that asphalt DMZ beyond which the sex shops and peep shows had not yet advanced. The instant the three atheists entered, however, a curious displacement occurred. Stumbling into the dark foyer, attaché case swinging at his side, Oliver felt as if he’d tumbled through time and landed in the private chambers of a nineteenth-century railroad magnate. A Persian rug absorbed his footfalls. A full-length, gilt-edged mirror rose before him, flanked by luminous cut-glass globes straight from the age of gaslight. A massive grandfather clock announced the hour, four P.M., tolling with such languor as to suggest its true purpose lay not in keeping time but in exhorting people to slow down and savor life.
They were met by a tall, swan-necked woman in a Mary Astor fedora and a sky blue business suit with padded shoulders, and while she was obviously too young to be Pembroke and Flume’s mother, she treated the atheists less like clients than like a gang of neighborhood boys who’d come over to play with her own children. “I’m Eleanor,” she said, leading them into a small paneled office, blessedly air-conditioned. Posters decorated the walls. PEMBROKE AND FLUME PRESENT BATTLE OF THE BULGE (the four Ts formed by the muzzles of tank cannons)…PEMBROKE AND FLUME PRESENT ATTACK ON TOBRUK (cut into the battlements of a fortified harbor)…PEMBROKE AND FLUME PRESENT FIGHT FOR IWO JIMA (written in blood on a sand dune). “I’ll bet you fellas would like something cold and wet.” Eleanor ambled over to an early-forties Frigidaire icebox and opened the door to reveal a slew of classic labels: Ruppert, Rheingold, Ballantine, Pabst Blue Ribbon. “New beer in old bottles,” she explained. “Budweiser, in fact, from the bodega around the corner.”
“I’ll take a Rheingold,” said Oliver.
“Pabst for me,” said Barclay.
“Ah, the pseudo-choices of late capitalism,” said Winston. “Make mine a Ballantine.”
“Sidney and Albert are in the back parlor, listening to their favorite program.” Eleanor removed the beers, popping the caps with a hand-painted Jimmy Durante opener. “Second door on the left.”
As Oliver entered the parlor in question—a dark, snug sanctum decorated with pinup photos of Esther Williams and Betty Grable—a high, attenuated male voice greeted him: “…where they discovered that Dr. Seybold had perfected his cosmo-tomic energizer. Listen now as Jack and Billy investigate that lonely stone house known as the Devil’s Castle.”
Two pale young men sat on opposite ends of a green velvet sofa, holding Rupperts and leaning toward a Chippendale coffee table on which rested an antique cathedral radio, its output evidently being supplied by the adjacent audiocassette player. Noticing their visitors, one man slipped a cigarette from a yellowing pack of Chesterfields while the other stood up, bowed politely, and shook Barclay’s hand.
On the radio, a teenaged boy said, “Great whales and little fishes, Jack! Can you imagine some foreign nation having all that electrical energy for nothing? We’ll be reduced to a pauper country!”
Barclay made the introductions. Because the moniker “Pembroke and Flume” seemed to suggest a cinematic comedy team whose trademarks included the physical disparity between its members—Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy—Oliver was taken aback by the impresarios’ similarity to each other. They could have been brothers, or even fraternal twins, a notion underscored by the matching red-and-black-striped zoot suits hanging from their elongated frames: Giacometti bodies, Oliver, the artist, decided. Both men had the same blue eyes, gold fillings, and blond pomaded hair, and it was only through concentrated effort that he distinguished Sidney Pembroke’s open, smiling countenance from the more austere, vaguely sinister visage of Albert Flume.
“I see Eleanor found you some brews,” said Pembroke, ejecting the cassette. “Good, good.”
“What were you listening to?” asked Winston.
“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Really?” said Flume with a mixture of disbelief and disdain. “You’re not serious.”
Whereupon the partners threw their arms across each other’s shoulders and sang.
Wave the flag for Hudson High, boys,
Show them how we stand!
Ever shall our team be champions,
Known throughout the land!
“There are better programs, of course,” said Flume, lighting his cigarette with a silver-plated Zippo. “The Green Hornet: ‘He hunts the biggest game of all—the public enemies who try to destroy our America!’”
“And Inner Sanctum, if you’ve got really strong nerves,” said Pembroke.
Flume faced Oliver squarely, taking a long drag on his Chesterfield. “I’m told your organization wishes to purchase our services.”
“I was quoted a figure approaching fifteen million.”
“Were you, now?” said Flume cryptically. Obviously the dominant partner.
“Could you tell us more about the target?” asked Pembroke eagerly. “We don’t have a clear picture yet.”
Oliver’s blood froze. Here it was, the moment when he must explain why obliterating a seven-million-ton corpse that didn’t belong to any of them was a necessary course of action. Opening his attaché case, he removed an 8 × 10 color photo and balanced it atop the radio cabinet.
“As you know,”
he began, “the Japanese have always been self-conscious about their height.”
“The Japs?” said Flume, looking perplexed. “Indeed.”
So far, so good. “According to the Freudian interpretation of World War Two, they sought to expand horizontally in compensation for their genetic inability to expand vertically. As scholars of that particular conflict, you’re undoubtedly familiar with this theory.”
“Oh, yes,” said Pembroke, even though Oliver had invented it the previous Tuesday.
“Well, gentlemen, the stark fact is that, at the beginning of this year, a team of Japanese scientists over in Scotland found a way to expand vertically. By exploiting the latest breakthroughs in genetic engineering, they’ve grown the Asian of the future—the gigantic humanoid creature whose prototype you see in this picture. You with me?”
“Sounds like a rejected Green Hornet script,” said Flume, coiling the gold chain of his zoot suit around his index finger.
“They call it Project Golem,” said Barclay.
“Most golems are Jewish,” said Winston. “This one’s Japanese.”
“The Japs are in Scotland?” said Pembroke.
“The Japs are everywhere,” admonished Flume.
“Thus far they’ve failed to endow their golem with life,” said Winston, “but if they ever do—well, you can imagine the danger such a megaspecies would pose for the environment, not to mention the free enterprise system.”
“Jack Armstrong would shit his knickers,” said Barclay.
“Luckily, the coming weeks afford us a perfect opportunity to stop Project Golem in its tracks,” said Oliver. “Ever since the hot weather hit, the scientists have been looking for a way to freeze the prototype before it putrefies. Then, last Wednesday, they resolved to hook it up to the supertanker Valparaíso and tow it above the Arctic Circle.”
“Valparaíso—that’s not a Jap name,” said Pembroke.
“Neither is ‘Rockefeller Center,’” said Winston.
“I don’t understand why private enterprise must redress this matter,” said Flume. “The United States of America boasts the largest navy in the world. Much larger than Sid’s and mine.”
“Yeah, but you can’t use the American Navy without Congressional approval,” said Barclay.
“The CIA?”
“Good people, but we’d never mobilize ’em in time,” said Oliver.
“This is clearly a job for concerned businessmen like ourselves,” said Winston. “Vigilante capitalism, eh?”
“I’m not a mystical sort of fella,” said Barclay, “but I feel it’s no accident your ship is named Enterprise.”
Oliver took a hearty swallow of beer. “So, what do you think?”
Pembroke shot his partner a pained glance. “What do we think, Alby?”
Flume flicked his cigarette ashes into a pewter tray shaped like Dumbo the Flying Elephant. “We think it sounds pretty fishy.”
“Fishy?” said Oliver, peeling the label off his Rheingold bottle.
“Fishy as the hold of a Portuguese trawler.”
“Oh?”
“We think this thing you want out of the way might be a Jap golem, and then again it might not be.” Flume took a drag, blew a smoke ring. “We also think this: money talks. You mentioned fifteen million. That’s a good start. A darn good start.”
“It’s more than a start,” grunted Oliver.
“Indeed. The thing is…”
“All right—sixteen.”
“The thing is, you’re not asking us to do a normal reenactment. In some ways, this is the real McCoy.” Flume blew two rings this time, one inside the other. “Wars have a way of going over budget.”
“A single strike might not be enough to remove the target,” Pembroke elaborated. “The planes might have to return to Enterprise and rearm.”
“Final offer,” said Oliver. “This is it. Tops. Ready? Seventeen million dollars. For that kind of money, you could stage a goddamn musical of my eighth-grade civics text on the back of the moon and keep it running for ten years.”
Had the impresarios been dogs, Oliver decided, their ears would have shot straight up and stayed there.
“Overlord,” said Flume in a hushed and reverent voice.
“What?” said Oliver.
“Operation Overlord. An old dream of ours.”
“You know—Normandy,” said an equally respectful Pembroke.
“D-Day,” said Flume. “I mean, if you’re serious about seventeen million dollars, really serious, no strings attached, then, with a certain amount of luck—like maybe the job turns out to be a cakewalk, you know, a one-strike affair—well, we’d probably have enough left over for a D-Day. All of it. The diversionary bombings, the amphibious landing, the sweep through France. A risky venture, sure, but I predict it’ll turn a profit, don’t you, Sid?”
“Enough to finance Stalingrad, I should imagine,” said Pembroke.
“Or Arnhem, eh?” said Flume. “Forty thousand Allied paratroopers dropping out of the sky like sleet.”
“Or maybe even Hiroshima,” said Pembroke.
“No,” said Flume firmly.
“No?”
“No.”
“Poor taste?”
“Execrable.”
“World War Two,” sighed Pembroke. “We’ll never see its like again.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” said Oliver. “You can’t just damage the golem—it’s got to vanish without a trace.”
“Korea was a crummy stalemate,” Pembroke persisted.
“We expect you to blast the tow chains apart,” said Oliver, “and send the sucker straight into the Mohns Trench.”
“Vietnam had potential,” said Flume, “but then the hippies got their hands on it.”
“Don’t even talk to us about Operation Desert Storm,” said Pembroke.
“A lousy video game,” said Flume.
“A goddamn mini-series,” said Pembroke.
“Do you understand me?” said Oliver. “The Valparaíso’s cargo must disappear.”
“No problem,” said Flume. “Only we follow U.S. Navy usage ’round here, okay? No ‘the’ before a ship’s name. It’s Valparaíso, not ‘the’ Valparaíso. Enterprise, not ‘the’ Enterprise. Got that?”
Hovering over the photo, Pembroke jabbed his index finger into the carcass’s chest. “Why’s it grinning like that?”
“If you were that big,” said Barclay, “you’d grin too.”
“Any reason to suspect we won’t get a clear shot at it?” asked Flume. “When Scout Bombing Six sank Akagi, Commander McClusky had to put up with all sorts of crap—fighter planes, screening vessels, flak. Valparaíso isn’t carrying any Bofors guns, is she?”
“Of course not,” said Winston.
“No destroyer escort?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Oh,” said Pembroke, sounding vaguely disappointed. “I think we should use TBD-1 Devastator torpedo planes, don’t you, Alby?”
“They’d clearly be the most effective against a target of this sort,” said Flume, nodding. “On the other hand…” Gripped by a sudden reverie, the impresario closed his eyes.
“On the other hand…?” said Winston.
“On the other hand, it was SBD-2 Dauntless dive bombers that actually blew Akagi out of the water.”
“So while the Devastators would work the best…,” said Pembroke.
“The Dauntlesses would be more historically accurate,” said Flume.
“I’d vote for the Devastators,” said Oliver.
“A tough call either way. Shall we leave it to the admiral, Sid?”
“Good idea.”
Flume stubbed out his cigarette in the Dumbo tray. “Naturally this has to be a hit-and-run operation. I figure if Enterprise hunkers down, say, a hundred and fifty miles west of the target, the Nips’ll never know where the planes came from.”
“The last thing we want is for Japan to be pissed at Alby and me,” Pembroke explained. “We’
re gonna need their full cooperation for Guadalcanal.”
“Swing by Shields, McLaughlin, Babcock, and Kaminsky on Wednesday, and they’ll give you a rough draft to shoot past your lawyers,” said Flume. “It’ll probably take a couple weeks to nail down all the details—payment schedules, representations and warranties, the indemnity picture…”
“You mean—we’ve got ourselves a deal?” said Winston eagerly.
“Seventeen million?” said Flume, raising his Ruppert.
“Seventeen million,” Oliver confirmed, lifting his Rheingold.
Two vintage beer bottles came together, clanking in the hot Manhattan air.
“You know what I think we should do right now?” said Pembroke. “I think we should bow our heads and pray.”
A silken breeze blew across the Valparaíso’s stern as Cassie climbed down the ladder and, like Juliet stepping onto her balcony, joined Able Seaman Ralph Mungo in the forward lookout post. The cool air caressed her flesh. Slowly the sweat evaporated from her face. By morning, thank God, they’d be across the thirty-third parallel, the wretched North African summer forever behind them.
Puffing on a Marlboro, Mungo stared out to sea. The waxing moon hung low, fixed in the starry sky like a luminous slice of cantaloupe. Cassie set her flip-top coffee Thermos on the rail, reached into her shorts pocket, and removed the encrypted fax Lianne had intercepted that afternoon up in the radio shack.
Oliver’s love letters, with their mawkish poems illustrated by pornographic sketches, had never truly touched Cassie, but these words cut to her core. Decoding them, she’d experienced something primal, the same variety of awe that Darwin, Galileo, and a handful of others must have felt upon realizing they were shaping the course of intellectual history. True, the particulars were troubling: despite her affection for all things theatrical, she did not like placing reason’s fate in the hands of any organization that would call itself Pembroke and Flume’s World War Two Reenactment Society. (These men did not sound like the saviors of secular humanism; they sounded like a couple of lunatics.) What Cassie found so moving was Oliver’s rationality, the fact that he’d correctly interpreted the body as a menace and immediately swung into action. His insistence on security struck her as particularly astute. Intuitively he’d sensed that if the Vatican got wind of an impending attack, they’d either reroute the mission or erect defenses the Reenactment Society could never hope to penetrate. “This will be my only communiqué,” he’d written near the end.