by Gahan Wilson
He turned and pulled the portfolio to him, studying the photograph, then the one on the facing page, then flipped back and forth through all the other pages showing pictures of the demonstration.
‘Have all the faces in the photo of this crowd blown up, Mr Ashman; use all your tricks of computer rectification,’ Bone said. ‘Mr Weston and I will want a good close look at all of them.’
He glanced up at me and I shook my head.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t notice anybody else, but maybe they were there and just being cuter.’
Bone gave the side of his nose a series of little taps to indicate his brain was whirring so fast he could hardly stand it, and then he shook his head in dismissal.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘That part will have to wait. What about the bellboy? I know there’s almost nothing left of him proper, but have you come across anything else regarding him? Some leavings?’
Ashman nodded, then turned and raised a hand and the marine who had been standing inside the door—they’d added a second, interior one since the business of the bomb—stepped forth smartly and handed him an envelope.
‘He got into the working area of the hotel by wearing the uniform of a parcel carrier,’ he said. ‘We’re checking out the firm, but I’m pretty sure it was just another trick outfit, and of course we’re having the uniform combed over. This was found in the shirt pocket. It doesn’t make any sense to us, but maybe it will to you.’
Out of the envelope he took a flat plastic sack containing a bright little folder, all spread out with both sides visible.
‘Look it over, only please leave it in its protective wrapping. We want it untouched for the lab boys.’
He put it on the table and Bone and I hunched over the thing.
‘Good grief,’ Bone gasped, studying it with more or less the same expression of shock an ordinary man might wear while looking over a color folio of Jack the Ripper’s victims. ‘Weston, what is this dreadful place?’
‘It’s Waldo World,’ I said. ‘It’s where you take your children if they’ve been very good and you love them. People cross the continent to do it. They come from foreign lands.’
Bone pointed indignantly to the photo of a huge sculpture proudly displayed in the center of the pamphlet’s opening fold.
‘And this extraordinary object?’
Ashman sat up even a little straighter than usual, staring in shocked disbelief at Bone and then at me.
‘He doesn’t know?’ he said.
‘He doesn’t know,’ I said. ‘He’s led a sheltered life. Only murderers.’
Ashman cleared his throat and then turned a palm at the picture of the hundred-foot-high plastic duck, which all the world but Enoch Bone and maybe some undiscovered Amazonian Indians knew, standing on its huge, golden base just within the gates of Waldo World, across the Hudson in New Jersey, waving a welcoming wing at the throngs of incoming customers, and opening and closing its beak in time to the ‘Lucky Duck’ song.
‘It’s Quacky,’ Ashman said. ‘Quacky the Duck.’
Bone winced at the sound of the name both times Ashman made it.
‘He’s an animated cartoon character,’ I said. ‘Created back in the early thirties by Art Waldo. He also made up the Pirate Parrots, the Elegant Elves, and I won’t go on naming them because I see it’s making you sick, but they formed the basis of Waldo Films, Inc., which turned into Waldo Productions, Inc., which has become one of the biggest and most successful Inc.s in the country. I’m afraid finding this pamphlet in the bellboy’s pocket ties them all into the case.’
There was a little silence except for Bone breathing audibly through his nose, which is one of his more emphatic ways of indicating irritation, and then Ashman cleared his throat again, which was coming across as one of his ways of indicating extreme nervous tension.
‘There’s something written in some funny language on the other side,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have our linguistic people study it, but you might as well have a look.’
Bone flipped it over.
‘It’s Romanian,’ he said. ‘You won’t have to bother your linguists for a simple translation, Mr Ashman. It says, succinctly, “Memorize Map.” There is also a little mark, a neat x, at the intersection of, I am sorry to say, Walter the Whale Way and All-American Avenue. I am afraid you are right, Weston, and that this is unavoidably pertinent and that we must look into it, however distasteful it may be.’
‘It looks that way, sir,’ I said.
‘Very well, then,’ said Bone. ‘I can, for the nonce, by his appearance, tentatively accept our ersatz bellboy as a Romanian, but the lack of a necessary accent and the abruptness of the inscription lead me to at least wonder whether the writer is also a Romanian, and I will be curious to learn, Mr Ashman, if your linguists share in my suspicions.’
He turned my way and gave me a long, sympathetic look.
‘I deeply regret inflicting this on you, Weston,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I must ask you to visit this horrible place and give it a thorough looking over,’ he said. ‘Paying particular attention, of course, to the absurd intersection marked on the map.’
‘One does what one must, sir,’ I said and turned to Ashman. ‘Can you set me up as a reporter doing a cover story on Art Waldo for Folks’ Magazine? That ought to make me enough of a VIP to get access to just about anything there without alarming any potential assassins lurking in Ducky Nests and Elf Castles.’
‘Sure,’ said Ashman. ‘Who knows? Maybe they’ll even give you a Golden Duck pin! I entered a contest for one of those when I was a kid, but all I got was a consolation prize, a crumby little picture of Waldo which I tore up and later wished I hadn’t. Of course my heart was broken. Will you loan me yours if you get one? It’d really impress my kids.’
‘Only if you can sing the “Lucky Duck” song,’ I said.
‘L-U-C,’ he said, ‘Lookie and see . . .’
‘K-Y-D,’ I joined in, ‘Yessir, by gee——’
‘Stop’!’ said Bone. ‘This instant!’
So we did.
— 4 —
THEY’D STOPPED GIVING OUT Golden Duck pins a long time ago—say about when Ashman had reached seventeen—and taken to handing out little plastic cards like everybody else, so his heart would be broken again; but I did get a badge with Quacky’s picture on it, big as life, reading ‘Honored Guest,’ and figured one of his agency’s passport technicians could bleach my name off the thing and forge his in its place and that way his kids would respect their dad.
The card, along with a big, bright, duck-yellow bag full of pamphlets and folders was pressed on me along with a hearty handshake from the large, muscular hand of Frank Nealy, the head of Waldo World’s public relations team. Nealy was going gray and bald, on the short side but built broad, like a bouncer, and he’d worked up quite a sweat waiting for me by the gate—I didn’t think they’d fool around with a cover story in Folks’ for bait—in spite of his seersucker suit.
‘Hi, there, Mr Bowen,’ he said, as I’d decided to give Mr Bowen of Elmsville a trip to Waldo World as a last treat before he expired completely, ‘the arrangements we made on the phone are all set: You’re going to take the quick tour, though I want you to feel absolutely free to come back anytime you feel the need for a longer one, and then you’ll have lunch with Mr Waldo. Mr Waldo is a great admirer of Folks’, you know, and mighty pleased at your interest!’
Nealy was a good PR man because he left no doubt at all I was the most important person in the world and that his life was complete now that he’d met me.
‘Here’s our very own Quackycart, Mr Bowen,’ he said, leading me over to a duck-shaped vehicle with a polka-dot awning, ‘and a VIP Quackycart, no less. Our driver and guide will be Debbie, here, because she’s one of our best.’
I realized asking for Debbie’s last name would be a serious breach of etiquette, and so I just gave her a bright smile back as she snapped me a smart salute off the duck bill of her Quackycap, which I
learned could be bought, in a slightly tackier version, at any of the many stores and boutiques in Waldo World. I, of course, had one in my big yellow bag already, being a VIP.
Debbie was a tiny blonde with tennis legs and very cute; not cute like the little forest animals that helped Goldilocks in the famous animated movie of the same name, not cute like the harmless little squirrels and chipmunks and chickadees; Debbie was cute like one of Waldo’s more dangerous small cartoon animals such as Flicky the Bat, who the Witch liked in Rapunzel, or the mean baby wolf in Red Riding Hood. Debbie was like one of Waldo’s loveable little predators. I couldn’t have told you how I knew all that, I just did.
She got us settled and seat-belted in no time, and while our electric motor was purring us smoothly through a river of kids with their grown-ups, all stuffing themselves with candy and melting ice-cream bars and fast food, all of them party bright with their brand-new banners and hats and huge, stuffed Waldo World toys, she told us about how tall Quacky’s statue is and pointed out the parrot skull-and-crossbone flag flying from the top mast of the Pirate Galleon, and I got the strong impression she was, at the same time, listening to everything we said and watching all we did, so for her benefit, and Nealy’s, and for anybody else who might be curious, I took out a notebook and scribbled in it now and then; as a good reporter should.
This was my very first trip to Waldo World as I am not a father or an uncle or even a family friend, and I remember writing some pretty gushy things like, ‘Never saw so many towers!’ and ‘Giant Cheese even better than on tv!’ so I had a fine time, but there were a number of things I didn’t mention in the notebook, such as that it was difficult at first glance to make any obvious connection between the corner of Wally the Whale Way and All-American Avenue and those nine bloody bodies in the White House, and that Debbie had a neat little holster under her pretty Quackycoat, and that someone in an Ol’ Doc Stork suit always seemed to be somewhere in the crowd within sight of us no matter where we went.
We ended our tour with a trip through the ride of my choice, and that was The Old Hollow Oak because I thought it would particularly irritate Bone, and I couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face getting worse and worse as I told him about the field-mouse burrow in its roots, and Owl’s hollow in its trunk, and the squirrels’ branch huts, and the birds’ nests in the leaves with baby robins coming out of their little blue shells.
Lunch was in a very private, very Gothic dining room on top of the Wizard’s Tower in Elf Castle. It had high walls of what might have been stone and big, dark beams which could have been carved out of ancient oak, though almost nothing in Waldo World was made of what it seemed to be, and they supported a frescoed ceiling showing a dark blue sky full of constellations of golden stars fixed, I was told, in the exact position they held when Waldo first thought of Quacky the Duck.
Tapestries with scenes from Waldo’s most famous movies woven into them hung from each corner, and there were terraces on all four sides from which you could see all of Waldo World without any of Waldo World seeing you because of all the gargoyles in between, and Nealy was showing me that secret view when Art Waldo showed up.
He looked just like he had in the hundred or so pictures I’d seen of him, only maybe a little older than the last set. He was short but hefty, and had a huge head covered with shaggy, iron-gray hair except for a round bald spot on top, just like a good friar in a fairy story, or maybe the imp. He spoke in a voice which was pleasant in spite of being high-pitched and slightly squeaky, paced a lot when he was on his feet, and waved his little bird-claw hands more when he was sitting down, I guess to compensate for the lack of action.
The only sad part about him were his big, heavily tinted glasses, which reminded you about the grisly vision problems that had plagued him since he’d had an accident as a kid and that threatened eventually to blind him entirely, in spite of the numerous medical wonders with which a small army of the world’s most expensive eye specialists had attempted to help him.
The food was good, if a little picturesque. Everything was named after some character or place in a Waldo production, and I could hardly wait to tell Bone about the Dismal Swamp Pea Soup which featured little green alligator croutons and even smaller white ones that looked like tiny, floating skulls.
Waldo was, as reporters say, a good interview, telling lots of interesting stories and telling them well in a style that floated back and forth from enthusiastic to dreamy, and we covered a lot of ground, starting out with Waldo World, then going on to the movies that built it, and by dessert we’d worked our way all the way back to where it all started.
‘I’ll never forget it,’ he said, leaning back in his golden throne at the head of the table and gazing up at the stars on the ceiling. ‘Never. It’s one of those memories you can call up crystal clear. I was sitting on the porch of the farmhouse because I’d done the afternoon chores, and that gave me Pa’s permission for an hour’s doodling and dreaming, and I saw that duck waddle across the barnyard in the bright, Kansas sun, and as I watched I saw—I swear it, I actually saw it, it wasn’t anything at all like making something up—I saw a little, pointy, green hat appear in the air and settle down on its head, and then, just like that, it was wearing a checkered coat with big, brass buttons.’
He smiled and took a long pull at his iced tea through a straw with the pirate flag on it without once looking down.
‘And then I heard him talking, Mr Bowen,’ he said. ‘And it was Quacky talking in Quacky’s voice. But at the same time it was me talking. Eleven-year-old me.’
‘And what were you saying, Mr Waldo?’ I asked.
He looked straight at me.
‘We were saying, “Here I am, everybody! Here I am!”’
He smiled and stood and then we all stood, too, just like you do when a judge stands in his court or, I suppose, just like you do when a king stands in his castle. After a moment of silence on all our parts, he turned and wandered out onto the terrace, walking in a kind of a trance.
He’d been using Quacky’s voice when he’d quoted the duck. He was, of course—always—Quacky’s voice in the movies. It was a firm rule in Waldo Productions, Inc., I had heard. His smile, just then, had had a lot of Quacky in it, too. I stared after him.
‘You’re very lucky, Mr Bowen,’ said Healy. ‘Mr Waldo doesn’t often tell that story. You’re a very fortunate man.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I began, ‘I’m very impressed.’
But then I heard Waldo talking out on the terrace, apparently to me, so I joined him.
‘And over there,’ he was saying, and I have to admit what I heard next really brought me up, ‘over there we’ll put the White House.’
‘The White House?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, turning to me. ‘You’re the first to know, Mr Bowen. It just recently came to me that we’ve created enough American Presidential Waldobots to hold an exhibition of their own, and it wouldn’t be any problem at all to fill whatever gaps that might create in History Hall, since we’ve accumulated a regular crowd of backups. Why, we’ve got all the Academy Award winners Waldoboted in storage, just to give you one example.’
Of course I knew about History Hall with its robot look-alikes, called Waldobots, of the famous and infamous of now and then. You and the kids passed a caveman creating fire at its entrance, and an astronaut putting his foot on the moon at its exit, and in between the family might see just about anybody who was or had been anybody, all of them moving and talking, from Columbus planting the flag, to Dillinger being gunned down by G-men, to the Beatles at their prime.
I’d seen just one Presidential Waldobot, the first one: George Washington. It’d been on special display during a tour some years ago on its unveiling, and I’d only caught a look at the thing because I’d been shadowing a serial murderer who had taken his kids on a day off to see it, and though it was only a computerized contraption with its hands and head covered with plastic skin and the rest of it with a padded period
costume, you could almost have believed it was old George himself, if you hadn’t looked close and seen the goose-quill pen didn’t quite touch when he signed the Constitution.
But Waldo had perfected George and then gone on to build all the rest of them who were important enough to memorize in school, and now they were all on display at History Hall, and if you were in fourth grade and your teacher heard your folks had taken you to Waldo World and you hadn’t insisted on improving your mind by viewing the Waldobots, you’d be in trouble when it came to grade time, so Waldo’s idea was rock solid because when the Presidential Waldobots made their move there wouldn’t be a school kid in the country who would dare skip badgering his parents to pay to visit the mechanical chiefs of state in their brand-new White House, doubtless full-scale, which would sit on what was now a New Jersey marsh.
‘Would you like to see our newest Waldobot, Mr Bowen?’ he asked, turning to me with a bright smile. ‘It’s President Parker, and we’ve just finished him off!’
I told him I definitely would, so the two of us left the top of the Wizard’s Tower by means of an elevator concealed in a buttress, and when we got out on the ground floor, Waldo pressed the beak of a tiny gargoyle of Quacky, mounted at the junction of the low ceiling and the opposite wall, and a swell secret panel opened on a large wardrobe closet filled with costumes representing at least twenty different cartoon characters. Waldo leaned forward, selected a Phil the Phantom suit, and began to slip it on.
‘I always wear one of these outside,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I’d never get anywhere for signing autographs, but it just generally makes it easier to get from place to place. Want to try one?’
I tugged a few sleeves and turned a few masks and the next thing I knew I had taken out and was holding what looked to be the very same Ol’ Doc Stork suit I had been catching glimpses of all that morning.