Better even to bury his nose in a book. “Says here,” he announced, “that they have moose in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve never seen a moose. ’Cept for that one with the squirrel, anyway.”
“I have,” said Everett, without looking down.
“You? Where? In St. Louis?” Angelo sniggered.
Angelo at least had the satisfaction of seeing Everett’s annoying smile turn into a slightly annoyed frown. “St. Louis has a zoo, you know. But I saw the moose in Yellowstone.” He looked down at the map. Yellowstone was a long way from St. Louis. “You’ve been to Yellowstone?”
Jono glanced his way. “So, this is like a rerun for you?” Angelo flipped through the book. “How about Mt. Rush-more?”
Everett nodded.
“Devil’s Tower?”
“Yup.”
“Chicago.”
“Ya.”
He flipped back a few pages. “Wall Drug. Bet you haven’t been to Wall Drug.”
“Uh-huh.”
Angelo sniffed and put the book down in his lap. “What, did you get bitten by a radioactive travel agent?”
“Nah, it’s just that we took a vacation every year. My folks didn’t have a lot of money, but we’d all pack up our tents, camp stoves, and sleeping bags in the car and hit the road, traveling on the cheap, a different place every year. We came west a couple of times, even though I never saw Seattle before this. We ate plenty of cut-rate hot dogs cooked over campfires, but we got to see a lot.”
Angelo tossed the guidebook onto the dash. “I always suspected you of being a Boy Scout, but this confirms it. Tell you what, you can be our tour guide. Next time we stop, I’ll see if I can get you a little hat and a megaphone.”
Jono threw a map at him. “Ease off, Angelo. Just because you didn’t have a bleeding perfect childhood is no reason to take it out on Everett.”
Everett chuckled. “I can take care of myself, Jono. Anyway, no offense. Angelo is just being Angelo. But, if you could drown him out with some tunes, I’d be really, really grateful. I thought you guys were the ones who wanted the stereo.” Angelo nodded. “Sounds good to me.” The stereo was beyond arm’s length, but he stretched the skin on the fingers of his right hand out and snapped it on. They were in the middle of a commercial for some powder that claimed to cure jock itch.
Everett groaned. “Oh, man, I don’t need to hear this before I eat. Change it.”
Angelo reached for the tuning knob, turning it a hair to the right. An announcer identified this new station as being talk radio.
A bridge of bouncy piano theme music started, and a voice boomed from the speaker. “ Welcome back to this hour of The Walt Norman Show/ Walt Norman, he’s an earful for the everyman!' ’
Angelo leaned forward to turn the knob again.
“Wait!” said Everett. “Turn it back.”
Angelo growled up at him. ‘ ‘What? Thought you wanted to drown me out with tunes.”
“I’ve heard of this guy. Let’s listen for a minute.”
Angelo realized that the guy on the radio, this Norman guy, he guessed, was saying something about mutants. “... registering mutants is a good idea, yeah. I mean, if I have to register my little popgun, I guess somebody who shoots death rays out of his eyes shouldn’t have a problem with that. But the reason the politicians want to register mutants is so they can round them up and use them against us. It’s like, ‘Hello, IRS hot line? I just want to ask... You know already? Form 1138. And—and, you know about that business trip to Vegas, that I didn’t get any closer to the convention than the eighteenth green? But I... What? No, I have nothing against telepaths in the IRS. I do? Well, thanks for setting the record straight. Here, let me think something else for you. You get that? Yes, I did mean your mother.” Several people could be heard laughing in the background. Evidently Norman wasn’t in the studio alone. “I'd say to give her my best, but then—I already did. ’ ’ More laughter.
‘ ‘Ladies and everymen, our producer, Trent McComb, who spins the dials and twists the wires that make it all happen. Trent, are you worried about them getting mutants in the IRS?”
The voice that answered was the same one that had announced the program. “I thought they already were mutants, Walt.”
Laughter. “I have to give him a straight line once a day,” explained Norman drolly, “it’s in his contract.”
More piano music. Norman continued. ‘ ‘And the melodious tones on the piano of Mrs. Dale, America’s grandma.” Somebody played a tape of wild applause. “Mrs. Dale, do you know about the mutant agenda?”
What seemed to be a sweet voiced old woman answered. “No, dear, but if you hum a few bars, I’ll do what I can.” More laughter.
Angelo turned the volume down, but not off. “That’s the happiest bunch of bigots I’ve ever heard. 1 bet they’d be a real gas at a lynching.”
“Who is this blighter?” asked Jono. “Is he in Seattle? If so, I’m glad we left.”
Everett leaned forward, so he could more easily talk with the others. “You guys never heard of him? He’s nationally syndicated. Really popular, I guess, depressing as that is.” Jono shook his head. “Never heard of ’im.”
Angelo sniggered. “He don’t play on those morose public radio stations you always listen to.”
Jono raised an eyebrow at him. “Or that gang stuff you listen to either.”
“I have,” Angelo said, “eclectic tastes. Which do not include any station that would be caught downwind of this
guy-”
Everett leaned back in his seat, gazed out at the scenery, and sighed. “See what you’ve been missing?”
Driving cross-country in Dog Pound’s vintage pink Cadillac convertible had seemed like a cool idea when they’d first come up with it, but romantic notions had a way of crumbling on the open road. As they’d crossed the Columbia River into the dry, dusty wastes of eastern Washington, the reality of the Caddy’s broken air conditioner had set in.
They were living, thought Recall, as he sprawled across the backseat dabbing blue zinc oxide on his nose, on sunblock and bottled water. He pulled out the little map book. The larger Washington/Idaho map had blown away when Dog Pound had tried to read it seventy miles back, and the detail in the smaller book left something to be desired.
He peered at the squiggle of narrow lines, and looked up skeptically at the two-lane road they were on. ‘ ‘Pounder, are you sure you read this map right? Shortcuts make me nervous. We could get lost out here and they wouldn’t find our bleached bones until the next potato harvest.”
“Famous potatoes,” said Chill, from the driver’s seat.
“I think so,” said Pound. “I mean, it looked okay on the other map. Let me see that one again.”
Recall handed him the map.
Chill looked in the rearview mirror and grinned. “Worried about missing your girlfriend, Recall?’ ’
Recall hunkered down in the seat to avoid Chill’s seeing the heat he could feel in his cheeks. “I’d like to see her again, yeah. You got a problem with that?”
Chill laughed. “Love hurts, m’man. But I’m an eternal optimist anyway. What does your secret inner compass tell us?” Recall closed his eyes, thought of Paige, and tried to visualize where she was. He could clearly see the interior of the big RV, a bench seat at a dining table, matching curtains on the window, somebody’s Captain America coloring book. (What was that about?) Outside the window, blank. “I’ve never really tried to use my power this way before.” He held out his extended finger and moved it around like a dowsing rod until it was pointing over his shoulder and the back of the car. “I think we’re getting farther away. Pound, are you sure this is right?”
“There’s a freeway junction up ahead,” offered Chill. “This has got to be 1-90.’’
Recall frowned at Dog Pound. “Well, make sure we get on it going east, okay?”
Chill reached down to the seat next to him and pulled an aluminum can from its little plastic harness. As he held it up, a
coating of frost formed on the outside. “Have a soda and cool off. We’re back on track.”
Recall took the can and held it gratefully against his forehead. He looked at the endless irrigated fields around them. Mobile sprinkler gantries sprawled across the landscape like giant metal centipedes, some of them spitting plumes of water with the force of fire hoses. “You think these are potatoes? I suppose, as Devo spud-boys, we should be thrilled.”
“Famous potatoes.” Chill repeated the slogan, which they had discovered on Idaho license plates even before crossing the line from Washington. “Sad when that’s the biggest thing you’ve got to brag about.” He seemed to notice something, leaned forward, and tapped his index finger against a gauge on the dash. “Pound, when’s the last time this thing had its radiator looked at? We’re running hot.”
Pound looked blankly. “Radiator? That thing up front?” Chill did a double take. “You drive a car twenty years older than you are, and you don’t know anything about engines?” Pound shrugged. “My dad bought this thing for me. He had one just like it in college, and said it was lucky for him. Me, I wanted a Lexus.”
Chill stared at the gauge. “Maybe it will get better once we’re on the freeway.”
But it didn’t. They got a few miles up the road before wisps of steam began appearing around the edge of the hood. They pulled onto the freeway shoulder and piled out. Pound stood, hands in pockets, kicking at bits of broken glass on the pavement, trying to ignore the whole thing.
Chill lifted the expansive hood and peered at the huge hunk of Detroit iron underneath. They were periodically blasted by dust and noise as an endless parade of semitrucks zoomed by. Steam hissed from around the radiator cap. “I could cool this down, but I don’t want to risk cracking the block. Maybe if I do it slow?” He looked back over at Recall. “Hey, find us the nearest gas station.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Chill. I can’t find it unless I know about it specifically, or talk to somebody who does. None of us has ever been here before.’ ’
A grin slowly spread across Chill’s face. “A lot of good you are,” he said. Then he spun and hit Recall in the chest with a slush ball.
Recall howled as ice water soaked through his shirt and ran down his shorts. He grabbed a handful of the slush from his chest and threw it back at Chill. He caught a glimpse of Pound laughing at him, just as another slush ball slapped the other boy in the face.
Pound’s laughter was cut off as about half of the slush went into his mouth. He choked, snorted, and laughed some more.
From behind the car, gravel crunched and popped as a vehicle pulled in behind them. Chill looked around the hood and waved his unfrozen hand to silence them. Pound just snickered at him, until he caught the conccmed look on Chill’s face.
Chill suddenly became aware of the slush ball in his other hand. He dropped it like a scorpion, and tried to shake off the frost that coated his fingers. A figure appeared around the far side of the car and leaned his elbow on the hood.
He was a tall, slender man in his twenties, deeply tanned, his hair trimmed so close to his skull that it was nearly impossible to guess what color it was, an indeterminate stubble. He wore his faded jeans and half-buttoned flannel shirt with sloppy indifference, and the too-big cowboy hat perched on his head uneasily, as thought it might at any moment fall down around his neck. He smiled and there was the devil in it.
He glanced at Chill’s still defrosting hand, but that only made him smile more. “You boys having some trouble today?”
Chill jerked his hand behind him. “Just overheated. We’ll be okay.”
He never took his eyes off Chill. “1 can see that—” he paused, savoring the word “—freak.” He glanced back over his shoulder, then walked on around the car. “Oh, you got your trouble all right. You got your trouble right here.” He made a fist and smacked it into the palm of his other hand.
Pound laughed nervously. He was built like the incredible Hulk’s love child, but he was by nature a gentle soul, not much on fighting. “This guy’s not so bad. We can take this guy.”
But Recall barely heard him. He had stepped back to see the stake-side pickup truck parked behind them, and the halfdozen other young men climbing out of the cab and bed armed with farm tools and tire irons and all the meanness in the world.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Tomorrow on Wake Up America, meet author, musician, and heroic sidekick Rick Jones; Lesley Watt will show us how to liven up a summer party with her gelatin dessert creations; and pediatrician Dr. Wolfe Cody will tell us about a controversial new test that may detect some genetic mutations in the womb.”
—promo spot for WNN
The man known to those around him as Trent McComb sat in his broadcast booth, safe behind mirrored glass, master of all he surveyed. In the studio outside, the number three-rated talk-radio program in the country was being broadcast, and as he sat there, watching, fingertips pressed together in front of him, the entire thing was in his control.
True, he no longer ran the audio board, or played the sound effects. He’d turned those duties over to a full-time engineer nearly a year ago. And true, he no longer answered the phones, or screened the calls. Even if he’d wanted the job, the volume required three handpicked operators to handle it all. Then there was the publicist, the secretaries who handled all the mail, two writers, the talent assistants who kept what McComb privately called the “microphone meat” happy, and the bookkeeper who tracked all the money that just kept inexorably flowing in.
It was a large, no, a huge staff for a radio program, even a national one, and it was all under McComb’s control, and the amazing fact was, it was only the tip of the iceberg.
McComb wasn’t the star of the show, but he considered himself its master. And thus it was all the more upsetting to feel, even for a moment, the empire under his control suddenly slip away.
Through the monitor speaker, turned just to the point of audibility, he could hear “Mrs. Dale’s” end theme music and his own prerecorded announcement closing the program. Through the glass, he could see Walt Norman give his cheerful sign-off and then angrily throw his headset across the room.
McComb reached over and clicked on the monitor microphone in Norman’s studio. Norman was having another one of his tantrums, this one directed at the little studio beyond a glass partition where “Mrs. Dale’s” piano was set up.
Norman stood up suddenly, causing his wheeled office chair to crash against the wall, and stomped toward the door that connected the two studios. He threw the door open as noisily as possible and stood in it, projecting anger with his body language.
“Ever the showman,” muttered McComb, to nobody in particular.
“Listen to me, old woman, if you correct me on the air one more time...”
The woman sagged slightly on her piano bench, and pushed aside the boom that held a microphone near her face, ‘‘You gave out the wrong deadline for the contest. It’s the fifth, not the fifteenth.”
“I know what the deadline is. That isn’t the point. You never, never correct me on the air.”
McComb leaned over and turned on the intercom. “She’s right, Walt. If we cut the contest on the fifth now, we’re going to get complaints.”
Norman turned and stared at the window. “Are you in there, Trent, or is this just another one of your blasted recorded messages? I hate that mirrored thing you’ve put in. Are you watching me for shoplifting or what?”
McComb pushed the talk button. “Walt, I’m just trying to keep things running properly—doing my job.”
He scowled at the window. “What is your job around here, Trent? I don’t know anymore. I don’t even know if you’re here half the time. At least she—’ ’ he jerked his hand toward the other studio “—plays the piano. Sure, I could replace her with a trained monkey, but at least she does something!” McComb paused, getting his anger under control before framing a reply. Finally, “You hired her. She’s your mother, Walt.” ' "
�
�Don’t ever say that where someone might hear you. That’s not public knowledge. She’s just somebody who works here, just like anyone else. Without me, she wouldn’t have a job, none of you would. You work for me, Walt, remember that. We came into this together, but that doesn’t mean we have to go out that way.”
McComb took a deep breath. Of course, he didn’t work for Norman. Both of them worked for the network, and technically neither of them had seniority over the other. But McComb knew how to play the executives, who were increasingly concerned about Norman’s temper tantrums, his on-air mistakes, and his ratings, which had been flat, even slightly declining, in recent months.
He watched as Norman stomped out, slamming the door after him. Betty Norman, known to the public only as radio’s Mrs. Dale, gathered up her sheet music and made an orderly retreat. She paused in the door long enough to glance back at the window. “Thank you for standing up for me, Trent, but he didn’t mean any of it. I’m sure of it. He’s a better person than you think.” But even she didn’t sound convinced.
There was no doubt of who was in control of the show, but like those executives, McComb was concerned about Norman and the ratings. His plans would not be served by his being at the helm of a sinking ship. Norman was potentially expendable, but not at the expense of the show. McComb needed the show for now, and it would provide a useful cover for as long as he could keep it alive.
In the back of his mind, several diverse elements that had been circling each other for days started to close in tighter, taking on the form of a plan. He reached for the phone and punched up one of the WATTS lines. The phone rang several times before it was answered.
Though McComb was ninety-nine percent sure the line was secure, he changed his voice as he always did when adopting this persona, one that was more real to him than the lackey Trent McComb. “Ivan, this is the Expatriate. We must talk.”
Recall sized up the situation, and it didn’t look good. The local who had approached them first, apparently the leader of the group, reached down and unsnapped a scabbard on his belt, pulling out a sizable hunting knife. All the others approaching had makeshift weapons, a pitchfork, a tire iron, a baseball bat, a hunk of metal rod, a length of chain, a pipe wrench. The only good thing he could see about the situation was that there were no visible guns.
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