“I don’t want to kill,” I said. “Anyone.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.” But, again, that secret something inside me agreed with the reasoning of Philipe’s argument, thought it was a justified course of action.
“I don’t either,” Tim said. “Why don’t we just find a female celebrity and rape her?”
“Why don’t we kidnap a celebrity and hold him hostage?” Mary suggested. “We’ll get a lot of publicity that way. And we won’t have to take a life.”
“We’ve all taken lives,” Philipe said in a cold, hard voice. “You all seem to conveniently forget that. We’re not virgins here. None of us are.”
“But some of us have learned from our mistakes,” I said.
“What do you want to do, then? Nothing? Big change calls for big action—”
“What change? Who are we fooling here? You think killing someone famous is going to change who or what we are? We’re Ignored. We’ll always be Ignored. That’s the fact, jack, and you’d better get used to it.”
Around us, the crowd cheered wildly as Shamu jumped through a series of fiery hoops.
“Celebrity,” Philipe said with disgust. “That’s the very concept we’re fighting against. That’s the very core of our complaint. Why should some people be more recognized than others? Why can’t everyone be noticed equally? The ironic thing is that killing a celebrity makes you a celebrity in this sick society. Mark David Chapman? We know that name because he killed John Lennon. John Hinckley? He tried to kill Ronald Reagan and was obsessed with Jodie Foster. James Earl Ray? Lee Harvey Oswald? Sirhan Sirhan? If we kill a celebrity, someone big enough, we will strike a blow against the enemy camp, and we’ll be known, we’ll be able to let people know we exist, we’re here.”
“If we’re caught,” Pete said quietly.
“What?”
“We’ll only have a forum if we’re caught. That’s the only way the media will pay any attention to us. Otherwise, we’ll be just as unknown as ever. The police probably get stacks of letters claiming to take credit for something like this. Even if we sent a letter or made a phone call, it would just get lost in the shuffle.”
It was obvious Philipe had not really considered that aspect, and it threw him for a second, but he recovered almost immediately. “Then Mary’s right. We should kidnap a celebrity. That way we could let the cops hear his voice, know he’s alive. Then they’d pay attention to us. We’d threaten to kill the celebrity unless our demands were met. That would get us some results.”
“We could videotape him, too,” I suggested. “Send the video to the cops.”
Philipe turned to look at me, and a slow smile spread across his features. “Good idea.” He grinned at me and I found myself grinning back, and the old magic was there. Suddenly we were a team again.
The Shamu show ended, and after a sustained cheer, people started leaving, getting up, gathering their purses and souvenir bags, streaming down the bleacher steps, maneuvering around us. We stayed where we were.
“So where are we going to go?” Junior asked. “Hollywood? Beverly Hills?”
Philipe shook his head. “Those are for tourists. Celebrities only show up there when there’s a premiere or something, and that would be way too crowded and security would be way too tight. I’m thinking Palm Springs. They live there. They’ll be more accessible, more off their guard.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
Steve nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Philipe looked around the group. “Are we all agreed?”
There was a chorus of “yesses” and “yeahs”, much nodding of heads.
“Tomorrow then,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll pack our stuff and head out to Palm Springs.” He grinned. “We’re going to catch us a movie star.”
TWELVE
Palm Springs.
It was exactly the way I’d imagined it would be.
Maybe a little hotter.
If Rodeo Drive had seemed shabbier than it was supposed to, Palm Springs more than lived up to its hype. The sun was bright, the sky free from smog or clouds, and everything seemed cleaner, clearer, sharper than it did in Los Angeles or Orange County. The streets here were wide, the buildings low and sleek and new, the people good-looking and well-heeled. The only concessions to the season were geometric Christmas tree shapes hung high on the streetlamp posts and occasionally frosted windows on some of the smaller stores. If it was not for those subdued reminders, I probably would have thought it was summer.
We were down to four cars now, and we cruised up and down the main streets—Gene Autry Trail, Palm Canyon Drive—in a single line, looking for a place to set up camp. We finally decided on a bland-looking Motel Six near the freeway, far off the main drag, and we found rooms, dumped our boxes and suitcases, and headed back into town for supplies.
We picked up food and rope and a video camera.
“So where are we going to find our celebrity?” I asked back at the motel. “What are we going to do? Are we going to just look for houses with gates and guardhouses and break in and peek through windows until we spot someone famous?”
“Not a bad idea.” Philipe laughed. “But I thought we’d start by staking out the local nightspots. We might be able to spot someone at a dance club or a restaurant. Then we can follow them home and nab them.”
“What’ll we do then?” Tommy asked. “Bring them back here to the hotel?”
“Maybe,” Philipe said. He thought for a minute. “Or maybe we can find someplace else to live.” He turned to Tim. “This afternoon, I want you and Paul to see if you can find a model home or someplace that’s for rent or… somewhere where we cart stay.”
“What’ll you do?”
“The rest of us’ll split up, walk around, hit boutiques and restaurants, keep our ears and eyes open, see if we can’t figure out where the action’ll be tonight. We may be able to cut down on trial and error just by doing a little local research.”
We ate lunch at a Del Taco, then headed off in our different directions. In our car were Philipe, myself, John, and Bill, and we parked near a series of interconnected shops done up in a Southwestern motif. Next door was a library, and Philipe told me to go there, look through local newspapers and magazines, see if any public events involving celebrities were going on this week.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Golf matches, store openings… I don’t know. Anything. Just look for famous names.”
The other three were going to split up and casually go through the shops. We were to meet back at the car in an hour.
In the library, I went directly to the periodical reading section and grabbed all of the copies of the three local newspapers for the past week. I carried my cache to a study carol against the back wall of the library and started quickly scanning headlines, reading ads, looking at pictures.
On the third page of the fourth paper, I saw a photo that made me stop.
It was a photo of a man. Joe Horth, according to the caption. The mayor of Desert Palms.
And he was Ignored.
I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. There was something in the cast of the features, some familiarity of expression, some essential lack of charisma, that I instantly recognized, that translated even through the blurry black dot pointillism of the newsprint. I continued to stare at the picture. I had never seen a photograph of someone who was Ignored before, and I hadn’t realized that it would appear so obvious.
I quickly read the accompanying article. I knew I should continue to dig through the newspapers for celebrity news, but this was too important to put off, and I tore out the page, folded it in half, and carrying it in my hand, hurried out of the library.
I ran past the fronts of the adjacent shops, looking through the windows until I saw Philipe. He was in a faux antique store, pretending to examine Victorian greeting cards while obviously listening in on the conversation of two trendily dressed young women.
I burst into the shop.
A bell rang above the door, but only Philipe turned to look at me.
“I’ve found something,” I said.
“What?” He put away the card in his hand, placing it back on the rack.
“I have a line on a new one.”
“A new what?”
“A new terrorist. Someone Ignored.”
“Oh.” He looked disappointed. He glanced behind me, over my shoulder. “Where is he?… She?”
“He. Joe Horth. The mayor of Desert Palms.” I held up the newspaper. “Here.”
“Desert Palms?”
“Next town over. From what I gather, it’s even more exclusive than Palm Springs. It’s newer, not as well known, but it’s full of heavy hitters.”
He took the page from me. “Let me see that.” Philipe looked at the picture, read the story, and I saw excitement spread quickly across his face. “He’s going to be giving a speech at the Desert Disabled Foundation dinner tonight. Celebrities always show up for charity events like this. They get free publicity and look like they’re good-hearted humanitarians.” He folded the paper. “This guy may be able to give us an in with one of them. You’ve stumbled upon something here. This is good. This is really good.”
“Where is the dinner?”
“Some place called La Amor. Seven o’clock.” He put the paper in his pocket. “We’ll find out where it is. We’ll get some monkey suits. We’ll be there.”
The dinner was invitation only, but we crashed La Amor with no problem. There was a uniformed man stationed at the door to keep out nonmembers and non-invitees, but we easily walked past him and immediately found seats at the bar.
The restaurant was big and looked like a nightclub out of some forties film. Tables were arranged in an amphitheaterlike semicircle radiating outward from a stage on which an orchestra played jazz standards. Ceiling lights were dim, and individual art deco lamps shed illumination on the tables. Waiters wore tuxedos. Waitresses wore short skirts.
Philipe had been right. Charities did bring out the big guns. Bob Hope was there. And Charlton Heston. And Jerry Lewis. And a host of other lesser lights all conspicuously visible among the noncelebrities.
We sat together at the bar, watched the proceedings from afar, hearing only snatches of conversation—most of which had to do with the work of the foundation—as one couple and then another came up and ordered drinks.
As always, we took our cue from Philipe, and he remained strangely quiet. It seemed almost as though he was awed being in such a place, with such company.
Dinner was served, although since we didn’t have a table we didn’t get to eat. The orchestra stopped playing, took a break, and the clink of glasses and silverware, the low hum of conversation, took the place of the music.
The bartender set up drinks on trays for waiters to take to the tables, and we stole some for ourselves.
Halfway through dinner, the speeches began. The speakers were uniformly boring and almost indistinguishable from one another. First the president of the foundation spoke. Then the founder. Then a local business leader who’d raised a lot of money. Then the father of a disabled boy.
Then Mayor Joe Horth.
We all focused on the stage as the mayor stepped to the podium and began speaking. The other guests paid even less attention than they had to the other speakers. That was expected, though, and not surprising. What was surprising was what the mayor had to say.
He started off praising the Desert Disabled Foundation and its cause, stating how much he had enjoyed working with all of the people attending the dinner. Then he said that he regretted that this would be the last foundation event he would be attending as mayor. He had decided to resign.
The announcement was clearly meant to be a surprise, but it was met with indifference. No one was listening.
We were listening, though, and I could tell by the look on Philipe’s face that he had noticed the same thing I had: the mayor did not want to leave office.
Philipe turned toward me. “What do you think it is?” he asked. “A scandal?”
I shrugged.
“He’s being forced out. He doesn’t want to leave.”
I nodded. “I think so, too.”
He shook his head. “Weird.”
There was a commotion near the door. An excited buzz began in that section of the room and spread to the rest of the restaurant, and like a wave moving outward, heads turned toward the door. A phalanx of large tuxedoed men pushed the crowd back, and between the bodies I could see a familiar round head nodding to the assembled dinner guests.
Frank Sinatra.
He was in the open now, coming toward us, smiling and heartily shaking hands. Bob Hope was suddenly next to him, saying something, and Sinatra was laughing. He put a friendly arm around the comedian’s shoulder, then shouted an enthusiastic greeting to an elderly man seated at one of the upper tables. The man waved back, shouted something unintelligible in return.
“Sinatra,” Junior said, impressed. He looked excitedly toward Philipe. “Let’s nab him.”
“Wait a minute.” Philipe was still staring intently at the podium, where the mayor was being lectured by three imposing-looking men in their early to mid fifties.
“Sinatra!” Junior repeated.
“Yeah.” Philipe waved him away distractedly and stood, moving through the crowd toward the podium. Curious, I followed.
The three men gathered around the mayor were obviously very wealthy, obviously very powerful, and they were openly treating Horth as though he were a flunky, a servant. We could not hear what was being said, but the attitudes were obvious. The mayor was obsequious and subservient, the businessmen commanding and authoritative. No one save us was paying attention to them, and they knew it. This was a private scene being played out in public, and it had the feel of a commonplace occurrence. I felt sorry for Joe Horth and angry on his behalf.
Philipe moved closer, stepping almost right up to the podium. The mayor turned, saw him, saw me, and gave a small start. He instantly turned back toward the businessmen, pretending to give them his full and undivided attention.
“The bar!” Philipe shouted. “Meet us at the bar!”
The mayor gave no indication that he heard.
“We can help you! We’re Ignored, too!”
At that word, “Ignored,” Joe Horth whirled to face us. The expression on his face was unreadable. He was distraught, obviously, and agitated, but there was also hope and what looked like a wild sort of exhilaration mixed in there. He stared at us. We stared back. The three men, obviously sensing from the mayor’s behavior that something was amiss, looked into the crowd at us.
Philipe turned quickly, grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me back toward the bar. “Come on,” he said.
A moment later, we were with the others. “Sinatra’s up there at that big table,” Junior said, pointing. “Bob Hope’s with him and so’s some other famous guy but I can’t remember his name. I say we take ’em all.”
“We’re not taking anybody,” Philipe said.
“But I thought we wanted publicity.”
“We wanted publicity so we could draw attention to the plight of the Ignored, so we could help others like ourselves. Not so we could become famous. We were going to use the attention to throw a spotlight on a problem that, no pun intended, has been ignored until now. I don’t know if the rest of you picked up on this, but it’s obvious to me that our friend the mayor is being forced out of office by some high-profile money men because he’s Ignored. I guess they want someone in there who’s a little more charismatic, who can get more attention for them. What we have here is a chance to help someone who’s Ignored, to do some real good. What we have here is a chance to keep one of us in a position of power.”
I had not heard Philipe speak so idealistically for a long time, and a small thrill of excitement passed through me.
This was why I had become a terrorist.
“Joe Horth can do more good for the Ignored as mayor of Desert Palms than publici
ty from any kidnapped celebrity could. This is real progress. This is a real coup.”
I looked toward the podium. One of the businessmen had left. The other two were still lecturing the mayor. “Do you think he’s offed his boss yet?” I asked.
Philipe shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He watched Horth. “There’s something different about him. I’m not even sure he has to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t understand it, but I believed him.
It was nearly half an hour later that the mayor came walking up to us at the bar. He was nervous and sweating, and he kept looking behind him as if to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He was obviously surprised to see so many of us. He kept staring at Mary.
“Glad you could join us,” Philipe said, extending his hand.
Horth shook it. “Who… who are you guys?”
“We’re Ignored,” Philipe said. “Like you. We call ourselves Terrorists for the Common Man.”
“Terrorists?”
“And we’ve come to help you out.” He stood, and the rest of us did, too. “Come on. Let’s go back to our rooms. We have a lot to talk about. We have a lot to discuss. We have a lot to plan.”
Dazed, confused, the mayor nodded, and all fourteen of us walked unnoticed through the crowd, past the doormen, and outside into the cool night air.
THIRTEEN
As I had, as Junior had, as Paul had, as Tim had, Joe Horth fit in with us perfectly. We were instantly close. He knew us, we knew him, and although in the past that immediate camaraderie had always made me feel warm and good and nice, watching it work this time, being so acutely aware of it, gave me the creeps.
What were we?
It always came back to that.
We brought Joe to our motel, but he immediately suggested that we come with him to his house, and there was no argument. While the rest of us packed, gathered our stuff, Philipe talked to him about the terrorists, explained what we were about, what we hoped to accomplish. The mayor listened eagerly, enthusiastically, and he seemed genuinely excited by what Philipe had to say.
The Ignored Page 25