Feeding Frenzy td-94

by Warren Murphy

  Thrush chuckled throatily, a good-natured sound, even amplified by sound systems all across the nation. "I'll be back, after this message from our sponsor, Tipple."

  Limburger popped a cassette into the rack, and as his deep orator's voice extolled the virtues of his favorite soft drink, his haberdasher, and the very loud ties he wore, he hit the intercom button and asked his assistant, "Where are we, Custer?"

  "Approaching Ukiah, Thrush."

  "Hot damn. You call that coroner?"

  "He says he'll see you. But not on the air."

  "Why not? Doesn't he know Thrush Limburger is on three-hundred-thirty stations here and in Canada, one for every blessed pound in his generously proportioned body?"

  "Maybe he doesn't like the press."

  "Press? I'm not the press. I'm the antipress. I'm the truth. "

  "He won't budge, Thrush."

  "Okay, I'm a reasonable man. We'll do it his way. What we'll do is a bunch of packaged stuff. Feminasty Report. Furry Friends Update. Liberal Valhalla. The whole works. That should give me time to talk to him, and the audience won't even miss me-because I won't ever have stopped talking."

  "You got it, Thrush."

  When the RV pulled up before the Esterquest and Son funeral parlor, the rear door popped open and Thrush Limburger lumbered out, the sound of his own canned voice following him in.

  He was inside not ten minutes. He came out like a rogue elephant, jumping to the driver's side window and bouncing happily. The entire van rocked on its heavy-duty shocks.

  "I got it!" he chortled. "I figured it out! This is perfect. This is amazing. Only Thrush Limburger could just roll into a town and crack open something that has stumped official Washington."

  "You always say official Washington is made up of lukewarm chowderheads," said his assistant, behind the wheel.

  "I was right then and I'm right now, Custer. Let's get on to Nirvana West, pronto. I want to bust this thing wide open from the environmentalist whackjob ground zero. Damn, am I good."

  The red, white, and blue RV roared out of Ukiah trailing a long coil of carbon monoxide.

  And all across American, the voice of Thrush Limburger proclaimed, "My faithful listeners, you are about to be rewarded for your loyalty to this show. In the months to come, you people are going to be able to boast that you were among the discerning multitudes who heard Thrush Limburger debunk the HELP crisis for all time. That's right, while you were listening to my Democratic Hall of Shame via the magic of audiotape, your tireless servant was lifting up rocks and digging up the unpleasant muck under them. And guess what I found? What I always find. What you expect me to find. Dramatic pause here." Thrush cleared his throat with a sound like a steamroller grumbling and lowered his voice, knowing that millions of Americans, already on the edge of their seats, would lean closer to their radios. "I found . . . the truth. And it shall set you free!"

  With that, Thrush Limburger popped in an ad cassette and leaned back in his chair, his pudgy hands folding over his ample belly. A self-satisfied smile crossed his broad, open features.

  Cody Custer was Thrush Limburger's chief of staff, gofer, and when necessity arose, his personal driver. Thrush Limburger did not drive. He liked to say that he had been too busy to stop and learn how. But the truth was, at three-hundred-thirty pounds, getting behind the wheel of even a Lincoln Continental was an effort for Thrush Limburger. Besides, the steering wheel always left a red crease in the rolls of fat surrounding his navel.

  So he didn't drive. Cody Custer drove for him.

  Two minutes out of Ukiah, a tape cassette came through a slot that connected the driver's cab with the RV body, and Thrush Limburger's voice said, "When we get there, put this out over the PA speaker. That ought to atttact a huge crowd."

  "Right, Thrush."

  As he piloted the TTT Network RV to Nirvana West, Cody Custer wondered how even his brilliant boss could pierce the veil of media fog that surrounded Human Environmental Liability Paradox. Sure, Thrush was a genius in his way, part philosopher, part showman. And his book had been number one on the bestseller list for three months, except for that black period when Madonna's overhyped nonbook had knocked it to the number two slot. But Thrush hadn't been inside that funeral parlor for more than ten minutes. Less.

  Cody Custer's musings were interrupted when, coming around a sharp bend in the road, he was confronted with a set of California Highway Patrol saw horses.

  He started compressing the brake pedal. The big RV began to slow. Rubber smoked and squealed.

  There was a CHP black-and-white unit and a motorcycle, he saw, parked off on the shoulder of the highway.

  Three CHP officers in suntan khaki and calf-high black boots approached. They looked grim behind their mirror shades.

  Cody Custer returned their grimness with a polite tone. "Hi. This is the Thrush Limburger mobile broadcast van. Is there a problem?"

  "Going to Nirvana West, sir?" one officer asked.

  "That's right."

  "We're warning all traffic going into the area that there is a chance this HELP plague is getting contagious."

  "My boss will laugh at that. He says there's no such virus."

  "It's our duty to warn you of the dangers of proceeding, sir. This is the only roadblock between here and Nirvana West."

  "We'll go ahead."

  "I'm sorry. I have to apprise every motorist individually of the risks involved. Health Department regs."

  Now they are taking this too far, Custer thought. Aloud, he said, "My boss is in back, but he's broadcasting."

  "We won't take but a minute of his time."

  "Okay, go ahead and knock. But don't be surprised if you wind up explaining yourself on the air. Thrush loves this kind of weak-kneed stuff."

  The California Highway Patrol officer touched the bill of his uniform cap, and two of them went around to the rear of the RV.

  Custer watched them in his rearview mirror while the third officer watched him with unreadable eyes. Those eyes kept Custer from grinning noticeably. One of the cops had a ponytail tucked up under his cap. Only in California, he thought.

  The two officers were not gone long. But they did get in. Custer could tell by the creaking of the RV springs, caused by the shifting of weight in back. Every time Thrush moved around, the springs complained.

  Only one of the troopers came back. "You're all set."

  "Did he give you a hard time?"

  "No, sir. He was very cooperative."

  "Guess he is in a good mood."

  The sawhorses were set aside and Custer drove on.

  The Tell the Truth mobile broadcast RV lumbered into Nirvana West like a red, white, and blue amphibious vehicle. The loudspeaker was blaring Fed Leppar, known to be Thrush Limburger's favorite rock band.

  That was enough to get the attention of the swarm of press people who were jostling one another for the rapidly dwindling supply of lobster salad sandwiches being handed out at the food service truck. They were eating them as if it were the last food on earth.

  The music stopped when the RV did. Behind the wheel, the driver popped the music cassette and inserted another.

  Fanfare blared. Minicams were rushed to the site. A white limousine arrived and out squeezed Senator Ned J. Clancy, looking worried and working his asthma inhaler often. His aides, seeing this, pressed close in case he started to list.

  And from the loudspeaker, came a hearty baritone.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Thrush Limburger. I have promised that I would come and now I have. You have been yanked. That is, you have been deceived. I have brought you the truth, and it shall set you free."

  The fanfare returned. It was brassy, triumphal, attention-getting.

  And everyone who could, got around to the back of the RV where they expected Thrush Limburger to emerge. Those who had sandwiches brought them.

  But the door did not open. His voice did not come again.

  Behind the wheel, Cody Custer looked at his watch.
<
br />   Someone shouted, "What's keeping him?"

  "Probably in the john," Cody thought to himself. "But he picked a hell of a time for it." He turned on his radio. From the local station normally broadcasting The Thrush Limburger Show, there was only low static.

  He cued up the announcement cassette again, louder this time, and leaned close to the radio speaker to see if Thrush's mike picked it up. It didn't.

  They gave Thrush Limburger three more minutes, then someone walked up and knocked on the door.

  There was no answer.

  Finally, Cody Custer came out with the key to the door. He unlocked it, threw it open, and climbed in.

  There was the miniature soundproof broadcasting booth. There was Limburger's microphone, his personal computer, his size fifty-seven coat draped over his big chair.

  But there was no Thrush Limburger.

  He was not in the john or in his sleeping cubicle or kitchenette.

  He wasn't anywhere.

  Cody Custer didn't have time to be shocked or frantic or anything. He poked his head out of the door and cameras clicked and mikes were thrust in his face.

  "Thrush Limburger is missing!" he shouted. "Somebody call the police."

  Pandemonium broke loose. Everyone wanted a shot at the empty microphone.

  "I knew this would happen," a reporter crowed. "That bag of wind finally broke open and nothing came out."

  There was a scramble for cellular phones.

  From under his coat, Senator Ned J. Clancy pulled one of his own. It had been hanging from a hook sewn into the double-strength lining of his coat. He spoke in low careful phrases. When he was finished, he restored the unit to its hook, exactly where a pistol would be hidden in a shoulder holster.

  "I have an important announcement to make," he bellowed.

  "Senator Clancy has an announcement," repeated his chief aide.

  "Senator Clancy is giving a press conference right now," added another.

  The word spread fast. It passed from mouth to mouth.

  And suddenly Senator Ned J. Clancy was exactly where he wanted to be-in the calm eye of a media hurricane.

  "I have just been in consultation with my aides in Washington," he said, his voice steady as a rock, "who have just drafted in my name a bill that I will personally introduce into the Senate that will mandate research into the causes of, and provide free medical care for sufferers of Human Environmental Liability Paradox, a terrible scourge that threatens all humanity, possibly the worst health threat ever faced by middle-class America. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in supporting this important legislation."

  "What caused you to change your mind, Senator?" a reporter demanded.

  "I did not change my mind, I have been working quietly toward this end for some weeks now, and only wished to announce it at the proper moment."

  "How are you going to fund the HELP bill, Senator?" Jane Goodwoman called out.

  Clancy smiled boozily. "With a value-added tax on the sale of condoms."

  Some reporters actually tucked their mikes and notepads under their arms and broke out into polite applause. They would have cheered, but their mouths were full of lobster salad.

  "What do you have to say about the disappearance of Thrush Limburger, Senator?"

  "My heart goes out to his family-if he has one."

  And so the disappearance of Thrush Limburger became an instant page three item. Senator Clancy's proposed HELP bill led the evening newscasts and was destined to be tomorrow's headline.

  At the edge of the swarm of reporters, Cody Custer tried to tell any reporter who would listen, "I think he was kidnapped. I think Thrush was abducted by his political enemies."

  He was ignored. He was laughed at. Except by those who sneered.

  "Everybody knew Limburger would pull something like this once his ratings started to fall," Jane Goodwoman spat, lobster salad fragments spraying from her rubbery mouth.

  And even Cody Custer began to wonder if the conventional wisdom had been right all along.

  There was no other reasonable explanation.

  Chapter 12

  Remo stopped by the front desk before returning to his bungalow.

  "Water back on?" he asked the desk clerk, who held his red and tender fingers in the air as if afraid to touch hard objects with them.

  "Not yet."

  "Damn."

  "Sorry."

  "Not as sorry as you will be if I don't shower soon," Remo said.

  "The drought is out of our control, sir."

  "Remember my friend with the fast fingers?"

  The desk clerk dropped his tender hand under the counter where it would be safe. "Indelibly."

  "He wants me to shower more than anything in the world."

  "More than he wants rice?"

  Remo nodded soberly. "More than rice."

  "I might be able to scare up enough water for a bath."

  "Start scaring."

  "It'll take a while for the ice to melt, though."

  "I'll be in my room counting the minutes," said Remo, stepping out into the cool California air. He glanced up the road, but the Master of Sinanju was nowhere in sight.

  "Let him play games if he wants to," muttered Remo, going in and turning on the TV.

  He got the top of the hour CNN News.

  "In Peoria, Illinois, authorities have just announced that Dr. Mordaunt Gregorian, self-styled thanatologist, has just assisted in his twenty-eighth suicide. The victim, forty-seven-year-old Penelope Grimm, was suffering from a severe vaginal yeast infection easily cured with an over-the-counter prescription. Unfortunately, the woman's Christian Scientist beliefs forbid their use. Asked to comment on his latest foray into medicide, as the practice of doctor-assisted suicide has come to be called, Dr. Gregorian said, 'This is a gigantic step forward for the medical community and for women, who no longer need to be terminally ill in order to end their suffering. My toll-free death-line number is-' "

  "Damn," said Remo, grabbing up the telephone. He thumbed the 1 button. Relays clicked.

  Harold Smith answered, "Yes?"

  "It's me and I have a problem."

  Smith's voice tensed up. "What is it?"

  "I'm stuck in California when I should be in Peoria."

  "What is happening in Peoria?"

  "Dr. Doom just executed another sick woman. This time, she wasn't even terminal."

  "I have heard that report. It is very disturbing. This man seems determined to test the euthanasia laws in every state in the union."

  "It's sick, and I should be doing something about it, except I'm stuck here, dodging press and politicians and wasting my freaking time."

  "One moment, Remo. I seem to have left the radio on."

  In the background, Remo heard a hiss of static. It went away. Smith's voice returned, sounding faintly perturbed.

  "Something must have happened to the feed for the Thrush Limburger radio show."

  "Maybe that hippo sat on it," Remo growled.

  "Remo, why are you in such a foul mood?"

  "From the top, I can't shower because there's no freaking water; because I can't shower, Chiun won't have anything to do with me; and I can't do my job because Nirvana West is crawling with political freeloaders and media dips."

  "You have made no progress?"

  "I talked to the local coroner. One of the few sane people I've come across out here. He can't make any sense of it, either."

  "Then you've learned nothing?"

  "No." Remo was looking at the TV and said, "Hold the phone." He grabbed the remote and brought up the sound.

  "What is it, Remo?"

  "CNN just flashed Thrush Limburger's fat face."

  "Thrush Limburger," the newscaster was saying, "had no sooner pulled into Nirvana West when it was discovered that the popular radio and TV personality was no longer on board his broadcast van. When questioned, his driver and personal assistant, Cody Custer, claimed that Limburger had been abducted en route b
y members of the California Highway Patrol."

  "Oh, sure," Remo said skeptically.

  "That may explain the static," Smith mused.

  "Publicity stunt," said Remo.

  "Perhaps not," Smith said thoughtfully. "Remo, I was listening to the Limburger show when you called. He claimed he was about to crack this thing wide open."

  "He also got the last presidential election dead wrong," Remo said sourly.

  The newscast continued. A clip of Senator Ned Clancy was thrown up on the screen. The newscaster was saying, "Shortly after the alleged disappearance of Thrush Limburger, Senator Ned J. Clancy of Massachusetts announced that he would sponsor a bill calling for a four-billion-dollar research program to combat the growing HELP crisis, entirely funded by a value-added tax on condom sales nationwide."

  "It is my hope that the bulk of these revenues can go to ending this scourge, whatever it may be," he said in his broad Massachusetts accent.

  Remo turned off the sound.

  "You hear that, Smitty?"

  "Yes."

  "This is awful fishy."

  "How so?"

  "Yesterday, Clancy was ducking the question of HELP like crazy. You could tell he was worried about what Limburger was going to say and do. Now Limburger's vanished and all of a sudden there's a giant bill in the Senate."

  "It is almost as if Clancy knows Limburger isn't coming back," Smith said slowly. His voice grew sharp. "Remo, can you get to Clancy?"

  "As a matter of fact, I'm in good with his mother's nurse. I can talk to her."

  "Do so," said Smith.

  "I'll get back with you, Smitty," said Remo suddenly, hanging up.

  Remo had spotted the Master of Sinanju through a bungalow window. He threw open the door.

  "Hey, Little Father! I'm headed for Nirvana West. You coming?"

  "Have you showered?" Chiun called back.

  "The ice hasn't melted yet. But before you say no, Thrush Limburger just disappeared."

  "The fiends!" shrieked Chiun, rushing forward, his wide kimono sleeves flapping like the wings of some ungainly bird.