Dean Ing - Soft Targets

by Soft Targets(lit)

  "A whole raft of 'em," the comedian put in. Everett nodded; he knew the general idea but would not rob D'Este of his moment.

  "Charlie has seduced the best talents he could find to plan graphics, that's me, and situations, that's Rhone-according to Rhone. Of course it's ironic because Charlie is NBN, Rhone is an ABC captive, and for the nonce I'm doing CBS sets. I don't know how Charlie beguiled his old enfant terrible," he smirked at Althouse, "to cross tradi-tional lines in this madness." Everett, who knew it had been the other way around, kept silent. "As for me, I couldn't resist the challenge."

  "Or the retainer," Althouse drawled in a murmur designed to carry.

  The splendid D'Este ignored him. "While Charlie and Rhone brainstormed their little skits, I've been inventing Charlie's logo for the new character. A cartoon of the sort of loser who-how did you put it, Rhone?"

  "Rates no respect," the younger man supplied. "If he tried dial-a-prayer he'd get three minutes of raucous laughter.

  "Well, my logo will peer out at the world from Charlie's backdrop like a malediction. I really ought to sign it. Behold, a very proper Charlie!" With this fanfare, Dahl D'Este spun the sketch pad around and awaited reactions.

  Everett was thankful that he did not need to surrogate approval. The sketch was, somehow, the face of Charlie George as an enraged Goya might have seen him. Yet the surface similarity was unimportant. Splashed across the paper in hard sunlight was a stylized symbol of repel-lence. The head and shoulders of a vicious imbe-cile faced them as it would glare out at untold millions of viewers. The face was vacuously grinning, and gripped a fuzed stick of dynamite in its teeth. The fuze was short, and it was lit. In redundant arrogance, just exactly enough out of scale as though reaching toward the viewer, was a time-dishonored gesture: the stink-finger sa-lute.

  Laughter welled up from the group and gey-sered. Althouse raised his beer in obeisance.

  "Ah,-about the monodigital scorn, Dahl," Charlie wavered, darting a look at Everett.

  Althouse held his hands open, cradling an invisible medicine ball. "C'mon, Charlie, it's perfect." He too risked a sidelong glance at the FCC Commissioner. "And for its public use, our precedent was a recent vice-president."

  D'Este: "Of which net?"

  "Of the United bloody States," cried Althouse in mock exasperation. "And Rockefellers built Radio City. Yes it's naughty, and yes it's safe!"

  "I'm inclined to agree," said Everett, "if it's done by a questionable character for a crucial effect. Chevy Chase, ah, had a finger in that deci-sion."

  D'Este leaned the sketch against the solar panels. "A proper Charlie," he repeated, then looked up quickly. "Did you know that British slang for a total loser is a veddy propah Chahlie?"

  "Poor Dahl," sighed Althouse. "Did you know that we picked the name `Charlie George' in 1975 because semantic differential surveys told me they were the outstanding loser names in the English-speaking world? Bertie is good, 0llie is better; but Charlie George is the people's choice."

  "Thanks for nothing," Everett chortled. "I always wondered why citizens band jargon for the FCC was `Uncle Charlie'." Althouse affected surprise, but not chagrin.

  Charlie looked back into the middle-distance of his past. "I wasn't too keen to change my name from Byron Krause to Charlie George," he re-flected, "until I thought about that poem."

  Althouse saw curiosity in Everett's face and broke in. "I tacked up my doggerel on a sound-stage bulletin board, and Charlie saw people react, and bingo: Charlie George." He squinted into the sun as though studying some sky-written stanza, then recited.

  "Heroes all have lovely names,

  Like Vance, or Mantz, or Lance-or James;

  But authors elevate my gorge

  By naming losers Charles-or George.

  There's no suspense on the late, late show:

  Big deal the bad guy's Chas., or Geo.

  Goof-offs, goons, schliemiels and schmucks:

  Georgies every one, or Chucks.

  Since the days of big Jim Farley,

  Fiction's fiends have been George and Charlie.

  No wonder heroes all seem crass

  To any guy named Geo. or Chas.

  I think I'll change my name, by golly!

  My last name's George. The nickname's Cholly."

  Everett grinned around his swig of beer, but: "Obviously some of your earliest work," D'Este purred.

  "Point is, Dahl, it fitted the image I was after," the comedian insisted. "And it's been good to me. Your logo is great, by the way; it is a proper charlie." He paused. "I want you to release it to the public domain."

  The ensuing moment held a silence so deep, Everett's ear hurt. D'Este broke it with a stran-gled, "Just-give it away? Like some-amateur? No-" and there was horror in his hushed, "-residuals?"

  "Oh, I'll pay, Dahl; don't I always? But I want the thing available with no restrictions, for any medium anywhere, anytime. PBS. Mad Mag-azine. The National Enquirer maybe."

  "Madness. Madness," D'Este said again, aghast, his normal hyperbole unequal to this task. He reached for a beer.

  When Rhone Althouse spoke again it was in almost fatherly tones. "I'm afraid you haven't been listening very closely, Dahl. It's no accident that Charlie and I are planning to spring this idea in different networks. Charlie's the rudder of several steering committees where the power is in some veepee. I have a little leverage in ABC and with any positive audience response we can slowly escalate the trend. IF there's no problem in, uh, certain quarters." He raised an eyebrow toward Everett.

  Everett traced a pattern on the label of his beer bottle, thinking aloud. "There shouldn't be any serious objection from us," he began. "It's in the public interest to pit media against terrorism-and if you find yourselves in jeopardy it won't be from the Commission." He could not keep an edge out of his voice. "Personally I think you've waited too goddam long already."

  "They nearly bagged an FCC man, you mean," Charlie prodded.

  "No. Yes! That too. I can't deny personal feel-ings; but I was thinking of ENG people from three networks, casually hashed like ants under a heel. That's why network execs care. That's why your iron is hot. But so far I don't hear evidence of any broad scope in your plans."

  The comedian bit off an angry reply and Everett realized, too late, that he teetered on the brink of a lecture that none of them needed. Charlie and Althouse had broached the idea months earlier, looking for outside support that he represented. This group comprised, not prob-lem, but solution.

  Althouse rubbed his jaw to hide a twitch in it. "You came in late," he said softly. "You didn't hear us planning to expand this thing into news and commentary. If you've ever tried to apply a little torque to a network commentator, you know it's like trying to evict a moray by hand. I think morning news and editorializing are a good place to start; more folksy."

  "Start what? Boil it down to essentials."

  "It boils down to two points: we turn every act of terrorism into a joke at the terrorist's expense; and we absolutely must refuse, ever again, to do a straight report on their motives in connection with an act of terrorism."

  Everett sat rigidly upright at the last phrases, ignoring the pain in his side. "Good God, Althouse, that really is censorship!"

  "De facto, yes; I won't duck that one. But legally it's a case of each network freely choosing to go along with a policy in the public interest. Wartime restrictions beyond what the gov-ernment demands are a precedent, if we need one. When countries go to war, their media gen-erally follow that model. Why can't a medium go to war on its own?

  "American television has already seen its Pearl Harbor in Pueblo, Mr. Everett. It just hasn't declared war yet. And the National Association of Broadcasters could publish guidelines for independent stations. The NAB is an ideal go-between."

  The issue lay open between them now like a doubly discovered chess game. Everett saw in Althouse a formidable player who had studied his moves and his opponent. "It's unworkable," Everett said. "What'll you do when some
Quebec separatist gang tortures a prime minister? Sit on the news?"

  "Of course not, if it's a legitimate story. The medium can give coverage to the event, sympathetic to the victims-but we must deride the gang as a bunch of charlies, and refuse to adver-tise their motives in connection with an atroc-ity."

  "While you let newspapers scoop you on those details?"

  "Probably-until they get an attack of conscience."

  Everett's snort implied the extravagance of that notion. "A couple of Southern Cal people did in-depth surveys that suggest there's no 'probably' to it, Althouse. Editors will print assassination attempts as front-page stuff even if they know it brings out more assassinations. They admit it."

  "Hey; the Allen-Piland study," Althouse breathed, new respect in his face. "You get around."

  "I've been known to read hard research," Everett replied.

  "And newsmen have been known to modify their ethics," Charlie George responded. "If this amounts to censorship, Maury, it'll be entirely self-imposed. Nothing very new in that."

  "I'm sure this sounds like an odd stance for me to take," Everett smiled sadly, "but I tend to balk at social control. Hell, Rhone, you've studied Schramm and his apostles."

  "Funny you should mention that; I remember something you don't, apparently. Most media philosophers claim that, between simple-minded total liberty to slander and hard-nosed total control over the message, there's something we always move toward when we confront a common enemy. It's called Social Responsibility Theory. We used it to advantage in 1917 and 1942. It's time we used it again."

  That the issue would arise in the Commission seemed certain. It was equally certain that Everett must select a principle to override others sooner or later. He had a vivid flash of recollec-tion: a willowy girl with gooseflesh and a baton, bravely smiling after an hour of parading, ten seconds before her obliteration. "I don't like it," he said slowly, measuring his words, "but I don't like wars on children either. You make God-damned sure this social responsibility doesn't go beyond the terrorism thing." His promise of support, and of its limitation, were implicit.

  "I don't like it either," D'Este spat. "I seem to be part of a media conspiracy I never asked for. Charlie, you didn't ask me here just for graphics. What, then?"

  "Commitment," Charlie said evenly.

  "I'm working CBS specials! How I'm ex-pected to collar newsmen, writers, producers, who knows who else, is beyond me; regular programming is out of my line."

  "Nothing in television is out of your line," Rhone Althouse began, laying stress on each word. As he proceeded, Everett noted the up-swing in tempo, the appeal to D'Este's vanity, the loaded phrases, and he was glad Althouse did not write speeches for politicians. "You're independent, Dahl; you work for all the nets, you know everybody in key committees all over the Industry, and when you lift an idea you pick a winner.

  "Charlie can sweet-talk NBN news into using your logo when there's a place for it-we think-while he develops his satire. You know the old dictum in showbiz; if it succeeds, beat it to death. I'll start working the same shtick in ABC comedy Christ, I'm doing three shows!-and I can drop the hint that this lovely logo is public domain. With any luck, the idea can sweep NBN and ABC both. News, commen-tary, comedy."

  Althouse watched D'Este gnawing a thumbnail, fixed him with a hard stare. "And you, Dahl? Will CBS keep out of the fun for some asinine inscrutable reason? Or will one of its most active-" he paused, the word homosexu-als hanging inaudibly in the air like an echo without an antecedent, "-free spirits, cham-pion the idea from the inside? That's really the only question, Dahl. Not whether you can do it, but whether you will."

  Intending support, Everett put in, "It'll take guts, in a milieu that hasn't shown many," and immediately wished he hadn't.

  "No one corporation owns me, Mr. E," D'Este flung the words like ice cubes. "I don't have to stroke your armor."

  "That's not what I meant. None of you have considered asking the next question," Everett replied.

  Charlie George misunderstood, too. "Ask yourself if it's worth some trouble to keep the Industry from being a flack for maniacs, Dahl. If we don't start soon, ask yourself if you'd like to see the FCC license networks themselves when Congress considers tighter government con-trol."

  An even longer silence. "Madness," D'Este said at last, "but in this crazy business-I have misgivings, but I'll go along." He folded his arms in challenge and stared back at Everett. "Licens-ing? Is that the sword you were brandishing over us, the next question you meant?"

  Everett took a long pull at his beer, then set it down. His smile was bleak. "That never crossed my mind, I think Charlie overstated. Here's what I meant: if this idea takes hold, the idea men could be spotlighted, and that means to people like Hakim Arif. I had a brush with their rhetoric, and they weren't even after me. See what it bought me." He peeled his shirt up to reveal the tape that bound the bandage to his right side. Angry stripes, the paths of debris in human flesh, marked his belly and pectorals beyond the tape.

  He hauled the fabric down, regarded the so-bered media men. "We have a lot of questions to thrash out, but none of you can afford to ignore the next one: if you take them all on-Palestinians, IRA, Chileans, Japanese extremists -what are the chances they'll come after you personally?"

  For once, he noted with satisfaction, Rhone Althouse sat unprepared, openmouthed. Preparation would not be simple. Everett made a mental note to talk again with Dave Engels. Surely Engels could recommend someone as a bodyguard. Not a woman; certainly not anyone like Gina Vercours...

  MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER, 1980:

  Hakim's feet were light on the steps as he hurried from the bank. The sheer weight of bank notes in his briefcase tugged at his left arm but failed to slow his stride. Fourteen minutes to rendezvous; plenty of time unless he were fol-lowed. His quick pace was perfectly normal in metropolitan New York City. He checked his timing again before entering the cafeteria. No one followed or seemed to loiter outside the place. He bought a chocolate bar to tempt, but not to entertain, his empty stomach. Slipping the candy into a pocket of his silk shirt away from the newly extended armpit holster, he thought of the pleasures of self-denial. He salivated for the chocolate. Later he would watch Talith eat it. He surveyed the cafeteria's glass front through re-flective sunglasses. Twelve minutes; time to burn. He left by a different exit, moving unobtru-sively down the street.

  It was sheerest luck that the antique store was placed just so, and boasted a mirror angled just so. Hakim spotted the glance from a stroller to the unmarked green Camaro, both moving behind him and in his direction. The stroller drifted into another shop. A tall sandy-haired man emerged from the Camaro, and in a hurry. Hakim's body braced for action.

  He continued his brisk pace. Instead of converging on him they had exchanged tails, which meant he was expected to lead them-whoever they were. They did not move like divinity stu-dents. Federals, probably, judging from the cut of their suits. He tested the notion of the Jewish Defense League, a distinct danger in Manhattan, and felt perspiration leap at his scalp. But their methods were usually more direct, and the tail he had picked up must have mooched around the bank for days. And that meant inefficiency, which implied government. He cursed the over-coat that impeded his legs in November cold, then saw the third-rate hotel.

  The sandy-haired man entered the lobby as Hakim was leaving the stair onto the filthy mez-zanine and wasted seconds on two other pas-sages; seconds that saved him. Hakim found the fire exit, burst the door seal, and slithered past the metal grating to drop into the alley. He sprinted for the street, adjusted his breathing again as he slowed to a walk, then turned another corner and risked a peek over his shoul-der. The Camaro was following with its lone driver.

  Hakim had nine minutes and needed seven. He wanted that rendezvous, not relishing the alternative risks of public transportation to Long Island. Nearing the next corner he noted the lack of pedestrians and made his decision. He broke into a run, turned sharply, ran a few steps,
then turned back and melted into a doorway. He did not want the driver to pursue him on foot and knew this would be the next option.

  A small girl sat on the stair in his doorway at Hakim's eye level, licking fingers sticky with candy, watching silent and serious as he fum-bled in his coat. The silencer slowed his draw. He flashed the little girl a smile and a wink. The Camaro squalled around the corner. Hakim gauged his move to coincide with commitment to the turn, made five leaping paces, and fired as many times. The parabellum rounds pierced glass, cloth, flesh, bone, upholstery, and body panels in that order, each round making no more noise than a great book suddenly closed.