First of all I clear my throat to let them all know I have a few words to say.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “excuse me for getting up here like this on the stage of the CELESTE GASCOYNE MATERNAL MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM named after my dear mother who died fifty years ago giving her life to the very city we happen to have the honor of living in right this very moment, and it is an honor. That as a matter of fact is what I want to talk to you about tonight.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that because about then somebody shakes up a beer bottle and shoots it at the ceiling which gets a lot of people pretty damp and makes them noisy, but I decide to go on anyway.
“As you know our city is being screwed up at the moment by somebody who shouldn’t be allowed to go on with it and you know I’m talking about none other than Police Commissioner O’Mallollolly.”
Well at the mention of his name I expect to get some sort of rise and am ready to put up with it but there’s not a damned sound besides the general racket down there that’s getting worse and worse. As a public speaker I know damn well I’m not a Jesus Christ but I know also I’ve heard worse so I figure the problem is that these people have all gone and stupefied their minds with liquor and not in a few cases with sex. This pretty well leaves me flapping my flippers high and dry but I can’t stop there.
“Now if this O’Mallollolly is not stopped dead in his tracks, folks, hey folks, you’ll find pretty soon that if you just only want to take even a drink or go to bed with your wife you’ll have to ask him permission or pay a tax.”
That catches a few but not very many. Sometimes you wonder what they do want.
“Now folks I hate to bring this up really but I’m afraid the way you’re behaving here now is almost irresponsible and careless and it’s undermining the free enterprise system which has made our city what it is. Now let’s all turn over a new leaf and quietly leave the building those of you who are not on the evening shift, and those of you who are would you please get back to your offices and let’s put out an edition of the Herald which’ll save democracy for our children and other future generations.”
About this point I don’t think anybody can hear a damn thing because everybody’s blabbing to his neighbor like it’s the last chance they’ll ever have. And then there’s some tables at the side with beer cases on them and for some reason underneath them’s become a popular place to be and all you can see is a jumble of uniforms and ladies’ garments. Well I don’t know what I’m doing up on the stage frankly except the view’s better, but that’s not what I want at the moment so I sort of amble off to the stage door and am rather pissed off that not one person seems to notice that I’m leaving, me who’s been paying their salaries all these years.
Out in the hall there are more policemen than ever and drinking, all of them, like fish and not a few pissing against the walls. Pretty hard to keep my temper about that one but what can I do? Might as well get out of here while the getting’s still good so I catch the service elevator and push the fifteen button and up she goes. Almost tempted to stop by the URBAN-SUBURBAN WATER AND TELEPHONE COMPANY offices but what’s the use now and I pass that up and get out on fifteen. The floor’s still pretty quiet and I hop through my office and up the stairs to the roof and flick on the heliport landing lights and pack myself into the chopper bubble. I start her up and she turns over nicely and smooths out, gauges okay, and I wait a minute for the temperature to rise to Operating.
This gives me a moment to think and what really gets me is not having to pull out of GASCOYNE CENTER because after all whatever they do I still own the damn thing, but why they’re letting me run around like this with nobody chasing me and nobody really giving a damn about anything. I’d be a damn fool if I didn’t say, Okay O’Mallollolly you’ve won this round, but the idiot doesn’t seem to know it or how to take advantage of it and it’s pretty clear he’s messing things up so badly he couldn’t get elected as City Birdbath Superintendent. Maybe nobody’s in charge here, but that’d be just too good to be true and it doesn’t figure at all. But something’s the matter somewhere and I’d sure like to know where.
The temp’s up to Operating and I try to remember how to wiggle the controls to get off the ground, seemed easy when I did it last with the guy teaching me how to fly. First I rev up the motor and change the pitch slightly and I can feel her wanting to lift and that seems right so I fool around with the rear rotor control and rock her back and forth a little. Finally I pull back on the throttle and pitch and the rotor chops into the air with a good solid whomp-whomp and up we go, straight up. I get about fifty feet up and hold it so I can straighten out a funny tilt I’ve got in the nose and also a sideways leaning that’s pretty uncomfortable and bad for the balance. I fool around with the rear rotor some more and get the tilt fixed but too far and now the tail droops and the damn thing’s going backwards and for some idiot reason instead of undoing what I just did I play around with the main throttle and pitch and the thing just goes backwards faster straight into what I just remember is there which is the radio-TV tower. I hear a bang-bang and a zzzz noise and then a crunching and crashing and screaming and then twang-twang as the main rotor gets into the act. Suddenly the whole thing flips over on its back and there’s this horrible crashing and thumping and the nose falls and the thing comes to a sudden stop, nose down with a wrenching metal noise and it’s dead quiet except for the wind whistling through the holes in the plastic bubble.
This is a fine kettle of fish to be in but all I can do is push open the side cockpit door and look down and it seems we’ve somehow got attached to the tower about seventy feet up, very firmly I hope but damned if I’m going to sit inside with a stopwatch to see how long the thing holds.
I reach outside and grab some rungs or struts or something, I can’t tell because the light’s not too good, and start to pull myself out of the machine. About this point something gives a lurch and I’m forced to choose right now between the tower and the chopper and of course choose the tower but can’t seem to pull myself out and then there’s another lurch and so I say hell with the tower and pull myself back into the cockpit and decide to wait until the thing settles down, fastening my seat belt just in case.
Good thing I do because without the slightest warning the thing begins to fall like somebody just let go. I clasp my hands together and try to think of something besides flying and then there’s this big clang and everything’s dead quiet and I can hardly believe it but the thing’s landed square on its feet. I unfasten my seat belt and pull myself up out of the seat which has collapsed to the floor and push myself out of the bubble and take a look at the wreck, and that’s about all it can be called anymore. Another twenty-five grand down the drain, as they say, damn expensive day this one. But besides having a sore ass I’m all right which is the thing that counts.
I limp over to the stairs and down to the service elevator and hop in that and get her down to the basement as fast as she’ll go and then I duck into the tunnel locking it behind where it occurs to me what with my pocketful of Ritz crackers I could stay down here a hell of a long time, but the trouble is that’d be a little boring and I think what I really need is to get out of town and take a little vacation.
I pop out of there then as fast as my sore ass permits and find things looking up in the ANNEX TWO LOT because the Kaiser’s still there apparently unharmed and the cop cars and Porsche are all gone, strange indeed. I climb in the Kaiser and boy does it hurt to sit down, and I fire her up and scoot out the fire exit and barrel down the alley and swing back onto Ben Hur Boulevard and head for the hills. It’s almost dark now and the rush hour traffic’s just about off the streets and everybody going home to wonder why there’s no TV tonight.
I slip her in the fast lane and run her up to sixty and hope some damn fool won’t decide to make a left turn in front of me. About now I figure O’Mallollolly’s got himself into some deep trouble and maybe somebody else’s taken over Police Tower but I won’t know about that until
I find somebody to replace that sneak Chester and next time I’m going to have things a little more decentralized. For my vacation what I ought to do is go north to the capital and brief one of the boys there and send him down here to take over and straighten things out and get them ready for when I can come back and run things like they were. Just then Marge calls so I know at least the phone company hasn’t cut off my private long-distance circuit, things aren’t so bad after all.
“Hi Marge what’s new?”
“Well dear I’m up in Condor’s Crag now and I don’t like the looks of the place.”
“Are you alone?” I ask.
“Well yes I hope so,” she says. “I left Tom Rasper down in the bar.”
I’m glad about that and I’m glad she’s talking again.
“There’s something creepy about this place,” she says, “and you know, somebody’s living here now.”
“You’re kidding. How do you know?”
“Well there’s all sorts of stuff in the icebox and the bed’s been slept in and there’s an electric razor in the bath and this morning’s Times right here in the main living room and there are hot coals in the fireplace.”
“Hmm. Yes it does look like somebody’s living there doesn’t it?”
“Well what do I do dear if he comes in?”
“Make up a story, that’s all Marge.”
“Well what really bothers me is I have the feeling he’s around here watching me now. You know how thick the forest is right up to the house and how the wind blows all the time, it’s impossible to be sure you’re alone. Well really dear I’ve seen the place and it’s in very good condition and now I think I really ought to get back down to the main road before it gets too dark.”
“Okay Marge.”
Then she sort of gasps.
“What’s the matter Marge?”
“The closet door’s opening!” she whispers.
“Just a mouse probably,” I say.
“No! Ah!” she says.
“What?”
“A body!”
“What?”
“A body just fell out of the closet!”
“Well don’t just stand there, go see whose it is,” I say.
The receiver goes clankety-clank and I turn on the air horn and blast through a red light and miss just by inches the whole goddamn fire department. I pick up the rearview and see they’re going the other way down Ben Hur toward downtown and I stick my head out the window and about drive in to the curb when I see smoke and flames roaring out of the top of GASCOYNE CENTER like a Roman candle, but no sweat since the thing’s insured. I hear receiver noises and Marge’s back on again.
“Good God,” she says, “it’s O’Mallollolly!”
“What?”
“Yes! Dead!”
“How?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Hmm,” I say and that one doesn’t seem to make any sense at all and then I remember the last time I saw him was in the battle for Police Tower almost eight hours ago and when I heard him on the radio his voice was recorded, so there was time for him to go up to Condor’s Crag or be carried up there, well that takes care of him.
“Dear I’ve simply got to get out of here, I don’t like this at all.”
“Of course Marge, but first could you look around for a few clues?”
“Ohmygod!”
“What now?” I ask.
“I’m looking out the big picture window and the sun’s just going down way up here and there’s something like a horrible creature standing by the telephone pole, how ghastly it is! What should I do?”
“Keep calm and don’t move. Tell me what it looks like Marge.”
“Well in this light it looks sort of greenish grayish about the height of a man and it’s standing on its hind legs actually quite erect. It’s got long black curved claws.”
Of course, it’s the giant tree sloth I think.
“And,” she goes on, “the thing is holding a pair of wire cutters in its claws.”
“Don’t worry Marge it’s only some Harvard man dressed up as a giant tree sloth.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of dear. I think I’m going to scream.”
“Don’t do anything rash Marge, keep calm.”
“It’s climbing the telephone pole! It left its claws behind.”
“Well don’t worry Marge a man dressed up like a giant tree sloth probably feels like acting like one now and then.”
“He’s near the top of the pole now, near the wires. Dear I think he’s going to cut the wires. Ohmygod!”
“What?”
“There’s a man crouching about thirty feet away with a high-powered rifle with a telescope on it pointed right at the thing on the pole!”
“Yes, yes?”
“The creature’s reaching for the wires. No, he’s put the cutters into one hand and with the other he’s taking off his head.”
“Oh?”
“There it comes,” she says. “Ohmygod! It can’t be! It’s Rufus Roughah!”
Well I guess the bastard did cut the wires after all because that’s the last I hear of old Marge, nothing to worry about since she’s pretty resourceful and should be able to take care of this one like she’s done the rest. But what pisses me off is that I’ve gone and spent all that money sending her up there, hotel bills and expensive meals, and then it turns out that Roughah’s alive and so the place isn’t up for sale. But wait a minute, supposing he does get bumped off by the guy with the rifle? Everything’ll be back where it was and the place will be for sale, okay.
Then suddenly things go wham-bang and fit together and I see what’s been going on for the last couple of days and why O’Mallollolly was at the Mirindaranda Road Roughah place the afternoon of the murder which I see now was a phony put-up job meant to throw me off the real scent which boils down to O’Mallollolly and Roughah getting together secretly using Nancy and Nadine but probably not Dmitri to get me out of the way and fix my wagon by taking over all of Police Tower and City Hall and subverting my own employees at GASCOYNE CENTER and generally messing up the works to get me out of the picture. But something went wrong and O’Mallollolly got kidnapped and bumped off and now probably Roughah too which still leaves me and somebody else I don’t know anything else about.
But I still think it’s a good idea to get out of town for awhile and am about to stop for gas at the Ben Hur Boulevard BIG DADDY SERV-UR-SELPH but damn if all the lights aren’t off and the thing closed up, supposed to be open twenty-four hours a day just like me, so I turn right onto Vieworama Ridge Road and head up over the hill and hold up the rearview and find there’s nobody following. The Kaiser seems to be running real smooth now but all of a sudden near the crest of the hill the temp needle flies over to Boil and I wonder what now. Still I hit the crest all right and start down the other side and expect to see the thing cool off some but it doesn’t so I turn off the motor and coast down to the bright lights of the Mirindaranda strip and turn it back on just before I hit Mirindaranda Road and she catches and is still running, good old buggy.
I catch the Mirindaranda Road signal green and bounce the dip and turn left with the tires squealing and just as I get the thing straightened out six black unmarked Ford sedans shoot out of a side street and I hold up the rearview to take a better gander and see first the little blue Porsche coning next and after that the little red one and last of all a long black limousine which I can’t tell the make of at that distance.
This sort of rattles me and I decide to give them a run for their money and hit the supercharger and run her up to fifty-five which is the fastest you can go on Mirindaranda until you get caught by the signals, but hell with them. Then all of a sudden the old engine starts running really rough and though I can’t see it I know there’s steam coming out of the front because something’s beginning to smell bad, must be out of water dammit, and there’s nothing to do but stop at the BIG DADDY STATION coming up so I scoot over to the right lane and the motor starts knocki
ng and clanging and I hate to think what’s going on inside. It gets worse and something starts screaming and howling like the devil inside, sounds like a rod, so I switch off the ignition and let her coast, only two hundred yards to go. Just then the phone rings and I wonder who the hell it can be.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hello,” says a woman’s voice I don’t recognize, “is this Bernie?”
“Hell no, it’s me GASCOYNE.”
“Who?”
“GASCOYNE!”
“Oh,” she says. “Well you must work with Bernie then—”
I say no but the gasbag doesn’t hear me.
“—and I wonder if you could come over and fix my television set because I don’t seem to be able to get anything on it on any station and I have to stay home tonight because Charles—”
Well I hang up on that one just as I roll up to the BIG DADDY STATION and bounce over the curb and stop her in front of the gas pumps and climb out. Well it’s real smoke pouring out of the hood cracks now and I lean back in to pull the hood latch handle and the damn thing comes off in my hand and the hood stays closed and the paint’s turning black with bubbles and blisters. A couple of attendants run up and turn a hose on the thing but it just makes a lot of steam on top and doesn’t get inside at all.
Then these unmarked Ford sedans start arriving from all directions, must be about fifty of them, some pulling into the station and others stopping in the streets and cops start piling out in uniforms I’ve never seen before. In a second the two Porsches pull up and next this limousine but I can’t see who’s in it because it’s got shades in the back and they’re all down and what really gets me is I’ve never seen that kind of car before and don’t have any idea of what it is and it just sits there and nobody gets out. Looks damned expensive.
I stand there watching the show and wonder what the hell is going on and a bunch of cops get behind the Kaiser and push it into the center of Mirindaranda Road where it finally bursts into flames and lights up the whole place like a Boy Scout jamboree. Then they come back heading toward me who’s just standing there minding my own business and nibbling on a Ritz cracker and they all surround me, hundreds of them there are, and one of them yells, “Don’t kick him in the balls because he hasn’t got any,” which is sure as hell not true but it does save me a lot of pain I will say.
Gascoyne Page 18