“I wouldn’t mind,” the skinny one said.
“I think my cousin might be out back,” I said. I started around the house to the back and just as I came around the corner I saw Sinclair coming out of the barn. His eyes were wide open and he was running.
“George,” he said. He came up to me. “Boy, are you in trouble.” He sounded pretty pleased about it.
“What trouble?”
“My father called the police. They’ve had an alarm out for you.”
That didn’t surprise me too much. “I’m surprised,” I said.
“Listen, Sinclair, where are your parents?”
“Mother is at the library club luncheon. She won’t be back for awhile. And my father is down at the school— who are all these people?”
I looked around. Woody, the photographer, and the two P.R. guys were coming around the house. “Well, look, Sinclair,” I said. “You know how I was going into New York all the time. It was to make a record.” So I explained a little bit about George Stable, The Boy Next Door, and how these guys wanted to take pictures of me for a magazine, and Sinclair’s eyes got bigger and bigger. Then he began to pout, and just as everybody was gathering around he said, “It sounds like the worst sort of cheap commercial enterprise.”
“Oh, it is,” the skinny P.R. guy said. “At least we’re praying that it will be.”
“Cheap, anyway,” the round one said. “Let’s hope it turns out to be commercial, too. Who’s this object?”
“This is my cousin Sinclair,” I said.
“Aha,” the round one said. “The gas man. Give us two dollars worth and where’s the men’s room?”
“Tell him to clean the windshield and ask him for a map,” the skinny one said. “Also the coffee machine doesn’t work and does he take Diner’s Club cards?”
“Shut up, you guys,” Woody said.
I could see that Sinclair was getting pretty sore. Next to being a star and getting in a magazine his perfectness didn’t amount to very much. The thing that worried me was that he’d have a tantrum and throw everybody off the place. I didn’t mind about that; but I didn’t want it to happen until Uncle Ned got home from school and recaptured me. “Listen, Woody,” I said, “I’ve got to talk to you.” We walked over to the side. “The thing is,” I said, “Sinclair’s sore about me being a star and all that. He might try to prevent us from taking pictures. So what I think, it would be a good idea if you could butter him up a little bit.”
Woody stared at me. “George, there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”
“No, no,” I said. “It’s okay, I just don’t want to have a big fight with him.”
He frowned at me. Then he said, “Okay,” walked back over to the group, and flung his arm over Sinclair’s shoulders, which I didn’t think was going to please Sinclair very much. “Sinclair, George tells me you’re a pretty smart kid, and I wonder if you’d mind helping us out. We want to take some pictures of George around the place and of course since it’s your house you ought to be in some of them.”
Sinclair looked confused. He kept trying to start the pout across his lips, and he’d get it going all right, but halfway there it would stop and retreat.
Woody took his arm off Sinclair’s shoulder and looked down at the ground. “Of course, you might have some objection to having your picture in Teen Hit or Vocal Star.”
That got to him. “Well, I don’t know—”
“And then when George gets to be well known, we might need somebody to come down to New York from time to time to advise us. You know a lot more about small town life than we do. It could be pretty helpful.”
“Well, I’d have to think about that—”
“Oh, sure you would. Talk with your father. It’s hard to say how much money would be involved.”
That sunk him. “Of course I’m an excellent flute player,” he said. “My teacher says I’m the best pupil he’s had for years.”
“Well, there you are,” Woody said. He turned to the P.R. guys. “It’s just amazing the way we keep turning up these terrific talents in out-of-the-way places. Isn’t it, you guys?”
“I keep fainting from the shock,” the round one said.
Woody gave him a look, but it didn’t matter because Sinclair was nailed down. “Well, all right,” he said, “but I think we ought to hurry before my parents come back. Not that they’d mind me being in a magazine, of course, but it might upset them to have a lot of strangers around.” Sinclair was picking up the idea of lying pretty fast.
But of course I was in no rush to get it over with, and I began to think of ways of stalling. The photographer and Woody and the P.R. guys began walking all over the place as if they owned it, picking out good backgrounds for shots. I sort of lagged along taking my time. They took some shots of me washing the dishes and mowing the lawn and fooling around in the barn and sitting on a pile of logs that Uncle Ned had for the fireplace. Then they took me out front and had me pretend to be polishing the Rolls-Royce, except that they shot it from an angle so you wouldn’t know it was an expensive car like a Rolls.
By this time of course a crowd of kids had gathered out front of the house, mostly kids from around who were friends of Sinclair’s. They stood staring at the Rolls and watching me get photographed. It was star time all right. It felt pretty good and naturally I acted casual and made jokes with the P.R. guys and called Woody “Woody” so that the kids would realize I was pretty important and could call adults by their nicknames. Of course Sinclair tried to put on an act, too, but he didn’t know how. Instead of acting cool and casual, as if he was used to the whole thing, he ran around boasting and saying, “George is a big star and I’m going to play flute in his group, and we’re going to be in a magazine,” which was very uncool, especially as he wasn’t going to be in a magazine.
It went on like this for a couple of hours and still Uncle Ned didn’t show up. I was getting worried, and I kept suggesting new ideas for pictures, but I knew I couldn’t hold out forever. Finally at around three Woody said to the photographer, “What do you think?” and he said, “I guess I’ve got enough.”
“Gee, we hardly took any pictures of me inside the house. I would think the magazine would want a lot of shots of me making the beds and vacuum cleaning the living room.”
Woody looked at me. “You’re supposed to be The Boy Next Door, not Cinderella,” he said. “Let’s get out of this hick town.”
The photographer began packing his stuff and we started to get into the car. Then at the last minute a kid ran up with a pencil and a piece of paper and asked for my autograph. I gave it to him and that started everybody getting pieces of paper and borrowing pens from each other and asking for my autograph—except the kids my own age, who stood around sneering and making sorehead remarks. I signed my name as slowly as I could, but finally there was nobody left.
“Come on, George,” Woody said.
So we climbed into the Rolls and took off. All the way through town I kept leaning out of the window hoping that Uncle Ned would come along and see me, and send the cops after me. But he didn’t and then we were out on the highway, heading for New York.
All the way down my heart kept sinking lower and lower, because I knew that sooner or later Superman was going to call me in and ask me if I’d delivered the tapes all right. It really scared me.
We got back to the city around five o’clock. The P.R. guys left Woody and me at the Camelot Building, and then took the car back to the rental place. “Come up and let’s have a look at tomorrow’s schedule,” Woody said. So we went up and into the reception room of Superman’s office where his secretary sat. “Is his majesty in?” Woody asked.
“He’s in, but he’s busy,” she said.
“What’s on for tomorrow?”
She picked up a piece of paper and looked it over. “Nothing special. George is supposed to work with Damon Damon.”
Woody slapped me on the back. “Got that, kid?”
“Okay,” I said.
We turned and started to go. Then the secretary said, “George, Superman told me to ask you to stick around for a while. He said he wanted to talk to you about something. He said it was important.”
Chapter
I sat there in the reception room reading Rolling Stone and trying to look bored and restless as if I hadn’t a thing on my mind. It got to be six o’clock and then six-thirty, and then quarter to seven. Finally I said to Superman’s secretary, “Maybe he’s too busy to see me. Maybe I should go home and see him tomorrow.”
“He said he wanted to see you. You’d better stick around.”
So I went on sitting. It got to be seven, and then quarter after, and then suddenly the door to Superman’s office opened and he stuck his head out. “Be with you in a minute, George,” he said. Then he said to the secretary, “You can go on home, Arlene. I’m just going to talk to George for five minutes, and then cut out myself.” He shut the door. The secretary got up, put some stuff in her purse, dithered around for a few minutes, and left. I went on sitting there. It was beginning to get kind of quiet around the Camelot offices. In the distance, I could hear doors slamming and people’s voices off in the distance by the elevators. The voices got fewer and fewer, with long gaps of silence in between. Finally the only noise I could hear was the hum of the air conditioner in the reception room.
It made me nervous to be there all alone. I reached in my pocket and took out my teddy bear key chain. It made me feel better to have it around. I sort of rested it on my knee where I could look at it when I wanted to, and went on reading Rolling Stone. It got to be seven-thirty and then quarter to eight. And finally Superman’s door opened again and there he was. “Come on in, George. Sorry I’ve been so long. I’ll only take a couple of minutes.”
I got up. My knees were weak and my eyes felt sort of blurred. I walked into this room. He shut the door behind me and then he crutched himself over to his desk and sat down. I leaned against one of the chairs in front of his desk. I didn’t feel like sitting down. I sort of had the idea of being able to run if I had to.
“Sit down,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind standing.”
“Sit down,” he said. I sat down. He leaned back, his hands behind his head so that I could see those huge shoulder muscles swelling up, and stared at me out of those blue egg-eyes. “How did the shooting go up in Pawling?”
“Fine,” I said. “I mean I think it did. The photographer said it was okay.”
“Glad to hear it. Now what about those tapes I gave you last night—did they get delivered all right?”
I could feel myself go hot and the sweat start to drip down my side under my shirt. “I guess so,” I said. “The guy wasn’t there, but I left them outside his door. I figured nobody would steal a box of tapes.”
“You sure you left them there, George?” I scratched my head.
“Sure I am,” I said.
“You sure you didn’t take them home with you?” That scared me.
“No, honest, Superman.” He took his hands down from behind his head and leaned forward, staring into my face. “It surprises me to hear you say that, Boy Next Door,” he said in a kind of soft, scary voice, “because when I picked the lock on your old man’s door last night and broke into your apartment, I found the tapes on the dining table.”
I sat bolt still, I couldn’t move my mouth to answer, I couldn’t even think.
“And the reason why I happened to do that, Boy Next Door, was because not long after you left my place with those boxes the guy you were supposed to deliver them to got busted.”
“I didn’t know that,” I sort of whispered. “Nobody answered the door so I figured I’d better take them home.”
“And then what happened, Boy Next Door?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “We went out to the movies and when we came back the package was gone.”
“Too many coincidences there.” He shook his head. “Nope, Boy Next Door. You got to look at it my way. I give you some boxes to deliver and fifteen minutes later the guy you’re supposed to deliver them to gets busted. Kind of funny, isn’t it? And what I want to know is what you did right after you left my apartment.”
“Honest, Superman, I didn’t do anything, I just went to the address.”
“Oh, come on, Boy Next Door.”
“I swear I didn’t do anything,” I blurted out. “I didn’t even know there was cocaine in them until—” I stopped, because I knew I’d maybe got myself killed with this mistake.
He sat there at his desk staring at me with his big egg-eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long time, he just stared at me. And then he said in that soft voice, “How did you know what was in those boxes?”
“I wanted to listen to my tapes,” I whispered. I felt cold and frozen so I couldn’t move.
He stared at me some more. Then he said, “Nope, Boy Next Door. About three minutes after you left my place you called the police and gave them the address from the package, and they went down there and busted that guy. Now I want to know the whole story. And if I don’t get it, Boy Next Door, it will not be well with you.”
I just stared at him. What could I say? It didn’t much matter anymore whether he believed me. Now he knew that I had seen the cocaine. The one thing about Superman was that he couldn’t run: if you could get away from him he couldn’t catch you. And the thing was, could I leap out of the chair and make a dash for the door? Why not? Of course he might have a gun in his desk—there was no way of knowing. A big executive like Superman would always have some excuse for having a gun; that he had to carry around a lot of money all the time or that people were always trying to steal his recording secrets. So there was a danger in that. But then I remembered that Superman had been in jail. It seemed to me that somebody who had been in jail wasn’t allowed to get a gun permit. Of course to somebody like Superman, having a gun permit wouldn’t matter very much, if he decided to get one. But still, it seemed to me worth the chance to make a dash for the door.
“Come on, Boy Next Door. Let’s have it.”
“It’s the truth,” I said. Feeling so frozen and scared the way I was, I wasn’t sure that I could even get moving. I began count to three to myself. He leaned back in his chair. I got to three. I just stood up and swiveled out of the chair and raced for the door. It seemed to be miles away, like in one of those dreams when you keep running and running and can’t seem to get anywhere. Then I was there, lunging for the door handle. I twisted it. It didn’t turn. The door was locked.
“Turn around, Boy Next Door.”
I turned around. Superman was still sitting at his desk, but he was holding out in front of him a metal contraption that at first I didn’t recognize. Then I saw what it was—one of his crutches. Except that something was different about it. The rubber tip was gone from the end; instead, there was a sharp point, sharp as a spear.
“Interesting looking thing, isn’t it, Boy Next Door,” he said. He turned it a bit sideways, so I could see it better. “You see how it works? That leg part of the crutch looks solid, but it isn’t. Inside of it there’s a spring and this lovely looking piece of aluminum rod with a nice, sharp point on it. All I have to do is touch this tiny lever here to release the spring, and zing—out shoots the rod at a pretty good clip.” He patted it admiringly. “My own invention. Oh, I don’t want to make too much out of it. It isn’t terribly accurate beyond fifty feet. But usually that’s close enough.”
I just stared at him. I remembered about the man Damon had told me about, who’d got murdered the time Superman had got busted. He’d been killed with some sort of spear thing, Damon had said.
“All right, Boy Next Door. Come and sit down again. We haven’t finished talking.”
I went back to the chair and sat down again. Slowly he pushed the spear gun crutch across the desk, until the point of it was touching my shirt.
“I didn’t do anything, Superman.” I reached my hand in my pocket to feel for my teddy bear key chai
n. It wasn’t there. I tried the other pocket—and then I remembered that it had been sitting on my knee when Superman had come into the reception room. It must have fallen onto the floor when I stood up. That made me feel more scared. I wished I had it.
“Boy Next Door,” he said softly, “if you so much as wiggle I’ll run this through you.”
I nodded again. I was too scared even to talk.
“Okay, Boy Next Door. It’s truth and consequences time.”
I nodded again. I still couldn’t speak. I just sat there, stiff and rigid.
“I’m going to ask a few questions,” he said. “And if I don’t get the truth, you get the consequences. Each time I don’t like your answer I’m going to make a little hole in you. And if I were you, Boy Next Door, I’d be careful how I answered, because if you get too many little holes in you, the blood will all leak out. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Answer.”
“I understand,” I whispered.
“Okay, Boy Next Door. How’d you find out I was dealing coke?”
I couldn’t speak. I was too scared.
He gave the spear gun a little push, so that the point pricked my skin.
“I didn’t know. Honest.”
“Come off it, Boy Next Door.”
“Honest, Superman,” I whispered. “I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t tell the cops.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” he said.
“Please, Superman, I didn’t know anything. I just wanted to hear my tapes.”
“That’s why you took them home?”
“No, I took them down to where the address said. I really did. I rang the bell six times, but nobody answered.”
He grunted.
“It’s true.”
“Nobody answered the bell, that much I know is true,” he said, “because he was on his way to the station house.” He sat and thought about it for a minute. “But I don’t get the rest of it. How did you know I was dealing?”
“I didn’t know,” I croaked.
“Cut the crap,” he snarled. He gave the crutch another little shove, pricking my skin again, but a little deeper this time. “Truth or consequences, Boy Next Door.”
Rich and Famous Page 11