by Mick Farren
"You saying that society made you a slut?"
"What gives you the right to judge me?"
"Just doing my job."
Anger was taking over from the woman's fear. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"
Winters was, but he could not admit it. It was as if the woman knew all about his sexual stirrings. She was leaning forward in her seat.
"You can call me what you like, but you'd better remember how well I know you guys. I'm an expert in all your dirty little urges." She half smiled. "You're getting hot right now, aren't you?"
Winters avoided her eyes. The more she talked, the worse the images in his head became. He wanted to grab her there and then. If it had not been for the chaperone, he might have. She leaned back slowly, spreading her legs and stroking the insides of her thighs.
"You'd just love to feel these around you, wouldn't you?"
The chaperone looked at her sharply. "That'll be quite enough of that."
"Someone else just doing their job?"
Kline
Cynthia nervously lit a cigarette. She was scared. It was a kind of fear that she had never experienced before. She knew the breathless fear of life-threatening situations, but this was completely different. It was her first time on television. Her mind grabbed at the obvious details. Would someone out there in the huge TV audience recognize her from the old days? The plastic surgery she had undergone in Montreal before she had been planted in the deacons had not been particularly drastic. She knew it was a risk, but she had been given no instructions to cover such an event. Nobody had suspected that the deacons would decide to make her into a media star. She had sent out the emergency signals that she wanted to talk to her control, but no one had contacted her. She was on her own.
Beneath the details, there was the less complicated fear of the lights, the cameras, and the millions of pairs of invisible eyes watching her through their TV sets. She had been given a four-hour crash course in TV technique. It had not helped too much. She knew what she was supposed to do, but she still wondered if she could do it. Nothing that she had been taught in the PR section on the thirty-fifth floor stopped her legs from feeling like jelly or a sense of nausea from gathering in her stomach. Deacon Longstreet, a somewhat effeminate officer who handled his duties from a position of total cynicism, had tutored her on her public image and the official story that she was a simple country girl who had discovered, quite to her own surprise, that she could handle herself in a tight spot. Even he could not convince her that her mind would not become a complete blank when the camera was pointed at her.
This first ordeal was taking place live on the Vern and Emily show. They were broadcast locally on Channel 9 and distributed by satellite to the rest of the country. Vern and Emily Burnette ran a traditional Christian talk show. They were aggressively downhome, and Jesus played a continuous personal role in their public lives. Emily dispensed recipes, makeup tips, home hints, and advice on pet care. When she and Vern felt the need to leaven the relentlessly cute and folksy with some slightly harder content, they ran exposes of the evils of lust and promiscuity or the demon drink. Vern had a definite mean streak. He would dare prominent sinners to come on the show and, when they did, he would sweat mem without mercy. Vern and Emily were the third-rated show of their kind, following Harry Hollister's Happy Talk and The Ingram Family Hour in the national ratings.
Cynthia had been through makeup and was in the green room waiting for her turn. Everybody seemed to be ignoring her. A researcher had talked her through the interview but then left her to her own devices. She had yet to meet either Vern or Emily. There was coffee and Danish on a side table, but Cynthia was too nervous to eat. What she really wanted was a drink. She mentioned that to a passing production assistant and received a look that was part pity and part contempt.
"Vern and Emily don't like any of their guests going on the air with alcohol on their breath. They're very particular about that."
"I don't want to get drunk; I'm just very nervous. This is my first time."
"I'm sorry, it's one of the rules of the show."
Cynthia made a mental note. Before the next show she did, she would hide a hip flask in her bag.
She was scheduled to go on right after Emily had finished conducting a wedding between a pair of miniature poodles. Their owner did not want the dogs mating without benefit of the Lord's blessing. As Cynthia watched it on the green-room monitor, she was once again convinced that the lunatics really had taken over the asylum. Once the wedding was over, the commercials rolled. After that, Vern would go on and do a solo pitch for their personalized, mail-order Jesus Wave units. When he was through, it would be Cynthia's turn.
Emily bustled into the green room followed by the dogs' owner, a makeup girl who was attempting to powder her off, and a gofer carrying the two poodles. The dogs seemed to have become completely hysterical and were busily trying to bite the kid.
"So you must be little Cynthia."
Cynthia did not quite know how to react to being called little by someone who scarcely made five one in four-inch heels. The chubby hand that was extended in greeting was weighed down by no less than four huge diamond rings. Any one of them was probably worth enough to keep the average family for a couple of years.
"I heard that you're pretty handy with a gun."
Cynthia did her best to look shy and awkward. It was not hard. "I just did what I had to do."
"There's only one way to treat criminals, honey."
Emily Burnette was a fat cherub losing the fight against flab. The worst bulges were concealed by the folds of a loose-fitting blue dress that was cut like a surplice. Her makeup was layered on with a trowel, and her false eyelashes were so long that Cynthia could not see how they did not impair vision. She bid the poodle owner a gushing farewell and then turned her attention back to Cynthia.
"Now don't you worry about a thing, my dear. Just ignore the cameras and all the folks out there. You and me are just going to sit ourselves down and have a nice friendly chat."
Emily took Cynthia firmly by the hand and towed her out of the green room, down a corridor, and through the double doors that led into the dark, cavernous hangar space that was the studio. Apart from the single camera that was pointed at Vein, everything was concentrated on the sitting room set where Emily conducted what she liked to call her little chats. When they were both seated and micromikes had been attached to then-clothes, the cameras moved in. Cynthia knew that she was going to be rendered mute. The floor manager was counting them in.
"Three, two, one, and – "
Emily Burnette's face formed itself into its famous on-screen smile. Her voice also changed to the high, chipmunk squeak that was her public trademark.
"We have a little lady with us today who did something that most Americans only see on TV. Let's have a big Vern and Emily welcome for Deacon Clerical Auxiliary Cynthia Kline."
The applause light flashed, and there was a wild yell from the studio audience seated in a half circle of banked bleachers. One whole section was given over to an entire troop of red-and-white uniformed Young Crusaders. The remainder of the crowd was liberally sprinkled with the regular teenage yahoos who provided a noisy rooting section when Vern launched into one of his political diatribes. They were waving the stars and stripes and crucifix banners and howling their approval. Cynthia found them scary. Emily gave them a few seconds to blow off steam and then silenced the crowd with a single gesture.
"Cynthia here is a brave little girl. She's attached to the crime control unit here in New York City and, a few days ago, as part of her normal duties, she was riding in the back of a police cruiser when the car was called to a violent street disturbance in one of the less pleasant sections of the city. A large gang of third world thugs attacked the car, and although the two officers fought bravely, they both died defending the car and themselves."
There were angry boos and catcalls from the bleachers. The yahoos were shaking their fists. Emily held up an ac
knowledging hand.
"Believe me, I now how you good people feel, and I just hope those brave officers are resting in the bosom of the Lord."
There were shouts of amen. Emily moved quickly along.
"Now, I know that if anything so terrible happened to me I would have been hiding under the seat. Not Cynthia, though. She must be one of the pluckiest little gals around. She just snatched up one of the fallen officers' guns and started blasting. She drove off the subhuman mob, killing a few in the process. Now how about that?"
The yahoos were roaring. Emily let them rip for a while and then turned to Cynthia.
"So weren't you scared out of your wits, my deal? I know I would have been."
Cynthia was amazed at how easily she found her voice. "Oh, I was plenty scared, but when I saw the two officers go down, I just did what I had to do. I guess you could say it was like the old-time pioneers who first opened up this great country. In the normal run of things, it was the menfolk who did the fighting but, if something happened to the menfolk, then the women picked up the guns."
"So you think that you've inherited the spirit of our pioneer women?"
Cynthia did her best to look helpless. "I really don't know. It all happened so fast, I didn't have time to think about anything. Like I said, I just did what I had to do."
"And were you hurt at all?"
Cynthia shook her head. "No, I was in shock afterward, but nobody laid a finger on me. I must have been too fast for them."
"Well, praise the Lord for that."
There were more shouts of amen.
"One thing that I don't understand, honey, is how come you got to be so good with a gun. I mean if, the Good Lord forbid, but if I got myself into a situation like you did, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do. Put a gun in my hand and I wouldn't have the first idea what to do with it."
Cynthia did not believe a word of it. Emily Burnette could probably smile while she killed. Cynthia, however, continued to go with the program.
"Well, Emily, I grew up a country girl with a bunch of brothers, and they taught me to shoot when I was a little girl."
"Maybe the Lord knew what was coming up in your life."
"Maybe. We never know, do we?"
Cynthia was over her stage-fright and starting to feel a little queasy. Talking to Emily was like sucking saccharine. For a few more minutes they went on, Emily asking all the prearranged questions and Cynthia coming out with the bullshit as laid down by Deacon Longstreet. Finally the floor manager signaled to Emily, and she wrapped it up.
"Well, honey, I'm real pleased that you stopped by to chat with us. I know it must have been a terrible ordeal for you and I know that everyone watching will be praying, not only for you, but also for the dear departed souls of those brave officers."
Vern was walking toward them, clapping as he walked. He faced the studio audience.
"Let's have a big Christian hand for this brave little girl. I don't know about you, but I think that she struck a real blow for all of us who are sick of getting pushed around by dope-head atheists and communists and agents of Satan and all the other scum that need to be cleared out of our cities."
The studio audience went berserk right on cue. They were on their feet, stamping and yelling and waving their banners. Cynthia felt a perverse sense of elation. Even though they were manipulated bigots and probably crazy evil, she could not lose the feeling that they were cheering for her. Despite all her instincts, it was a feeling that she liked. She was enjoying the applause.
Speedboat
Johnny Cash was singing 'Ring of Fire'. The Grass Roots Tavern on St. Marks Place had one of the last real coin-operated jukeboxes in the city. Most of them had been destroyed through that terrible weekend two years earlier when the deacons had purged the video games and pinball machines. Some fool in Washington had taken it into his head that video games were the instruments of Satan, and all across the country the dekes had gone to work with a vengeance. The dekes loved anything that involved conspicuous violence and destruction. Unfortunately they had acted with a fairly wide interpretation of their orders, and the jukeboxes had been smashed right along with the other machines. Only an administrative oversight had saved the pool tables.
The Grass Roots Tavern was something of a surviving relic itself. As far as he knew, the low-ceilinged semibasement had been there since the 1950s if not longer. It had always been the hangout for East Side bohemians. In its time, it had seen beatniks and hippies, punks, skinheads, and zippos all pass through its doors. Even though it had been plastered with all the anti-alcohol propaganda that covered the walls of every bar, and the bohemians of the Faithful era had been reduced to petty criminal lowlife, it still managed to retain a few shreds of its traditional atmosphere. The jukebox was one of those shreds.
Speedboat ordered himself a shot of bourbon and chased it with a draft beer. Normally he did not drink hard liquor, but he was tired and tense. He had unloaded the rock records and the pornosoft without too much sweat, and Jook Aroun had come through with the spansules. Speedboat had already moved half of those, and if he kept on going at the same rate, the rest would be gone by later that night. He had over a thousand dollars stashed in one of the secret pockets of his parka, and escape to Canada was close to becoming a reality. He had even run into a piece of luck. A pillhead who had bought his spansules at one of the rat traps had a line on where to get a set of forged travel documents. There was a guy who worked on the lighting crew at the Garden who could give him all he needed to get across the border for twelve hundred. The pillhead had given Speedboat a number, and he had dialed it, though not without a good deal of trepidation. Pillheads were notoriously unreliable, and there was always the chance that the deal might be a setup. Over the phone he had been given a list of instructions that seemed, on the surface, to be the real thing. In five days' time there was going to be an Arlen Proverb spectacular at the Garden. Speedboat was to go there and meet his contact after the show. Normally Speedboat would not have gone within a mile of that kind of Christian freakout, but if that's what he had to do, he would be there. At least it was a public place, which lowered the odds on getting robbed.
A bunch of mouthbreeders were feeding coins into the jukebox, and the country music was quickly replaced by a dirgelike, modern, no-bop instrumental. It was some doombeam band, probably Flugzeug. Speedboat had nothing but contempt for the doombeams and the way they pretended they were so goddamn subversive. All they did was play around at being self-destructive; at no stretch of the imagination was that going to bring down Faithful and his gang. The bands were a perfect example. They slid by the literal minds of the music censors by playing all instrumental music. They put out a lot of attitude that somehow their hollow, minor chords were going to change the world. To Speedboat's ear, it was nothing more than grim, depressing, industrial noise.
Speedboat ordered another drink. He needed to relax. As Canada came closer to reality, the fear grew that something would go wrong. He would be ripped off on the final deal, or, worse than that, he was somehow being set up for the big fall. Earl the bartender put his shot and beer in front of him.
"What's the matter with you? You look like there's a hellhound on your trail."
Speedboat shook his head. "It ain't nothing. I just got a lot on my mind."
"You got to watch out for that thinking. It can make you crazy."
Speedboat forced a half smile. "Sure."
Earl shrugged. "Barkeep wisdom."
He moved off to serve another customer. An individual who went by the name of Rancid had come out of the toilet and was talking to the mouthbreeders by the jukebox. Speedboat had not spotted him before. The word on the street was that Rancid was a deke snitch, and the smart money said that sooner or later he would wind up dead in a dumpster. Speedboat watched him out of the corner of his eye. Rancid moved from the mouthbreeders to a pair of doomy blondes who worked a sheep and shepherd game up on Union Square. The blondes did not seem to be particularly pleased
to see him, but he persevered. He seemed to be trying to sell them something. As he talked, he glanced in Speedboat's direction a couple of times. Speedboat inwardly twitched. Were they talking about him, or was Rancid watching him? Suddenly he wanted to get out of the bar. He downed the shot in one gulp and took a quick swallow of beer. He left a two-dollar tip and stood up.
Earl nodded. "Leaving so soon?"
"I got to see a guy."
"So take care out there."
As Speedboat reached the door, someone else was coming through – a tall man in a raincoat and an old-fashioned fedora. Speedboat stepped quickly back. The guy had to be a cop. Nobody else would have the gall to dress like that. To his great relief, the man paid him no attention at all and walked on into the bar. Speedboat scuttled off into the night.
He hurried down St. Marks. The whole street was covered in posters for the Alien Proverb revival at the Garden. They were big 3D duraprints of Proverb against a dark, storm-cloud sky. The angry eyes that glared out of the poster seemed to follow Speedboat down the street. At the corner of Second Avenue, he ducked into Gem Spa for a pack of cigarettes and a candy bar. Two meth maniacs, Jetson and Ratner, were hanging out inside. Ratner was nervously flipping through a copy of Life, hardly seeing the pages, and Jetson was staring with bug-eyed concentration at the TV behind the counter and chewing his lip. Speedboat could not imagine why someone like Jetson should be so engrossed in Vern and Emily. It was the kind of chance encounter that Speedboat would have liked to avoid. The pair had a reputation for being dangerous and usually armed. He hoped that he might slip away without them noticing him. As usual, his luck was lousy.
"Hey, Speedboat, we want to talk with you."
They followed him outside.
"We heard you got a bunch of spansules off Aroun."
"We sure could use a few of those."
Speedboat didn't doubt that. They both looked in bad shape. Their eyes seemed about to spin, and their hands were trembling. He began to back away. "You heard wrong. I don't have a thing."