Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6)
Page 17
But Old Comedy—Aristophanes’ comedy—is completely different. It’s wild. It turns universes upside down. It creates Cloud-cuckoo-land. People hang fifty feet above the stage in balloons. Old Comedy is what Lysistrata is, and it’s what we’re going to do here tomorrow night. But not just here. Not just in the Auberge itself. No, a lot of the speaking scenes will be done up on the roof garden, where a good many of the cameras are.
But this production is going to utilize the whole town of Bay St. Lucy, and a stretch of beach at least a mile and a half long. It’s going to be epic, and, I promise all of you, unforgettable. Just like the Lissie movement is unforgettable. Let me try to make this as clear as I can: when we think today of ‘Greek Tragedy,’ we think of boring choruses of twelve old men in black robes chanting something. But that wasn’t what the real choruses must have been like, it couldn’t have been. The real choruses—well, wealthy people spent months putting them together and training them. There was wild music and dancing––and we’ve lost whatever records may ever have described them. We have no idea what they must have been.
Still, we’re going to recreate them tomorrow night. There are going to be choruses all over the city tomorrow night, all dancing to rock music and country western music and African music and—and all the music of the world! These choruses will have one thing in common: they’ll all be making their way to the Acropolis, which, of course, is our football stadium. At precisely ten o’clock, Lysistrata will announce from our rooftop here that the Spartans and the Athenians have made peace, and that the Peloponnesian War is over. And at just that moment, a helicopter will land in the middle of our football field. Laurencia Dalrymple will get out of it, and walk to the stage where the fantastic Annie Lennox concert took place today. There she will make the announcement: either forty new women candidates have made it to the ballots for the November election—or they haven’t. I’m sure you know that three referenda are taking place tomorrow. It’s going to be close. Either way, sex strike or orgy, this Lysistrata is going to have one hell of an ending.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN: WHAT THE PICTURE SHOWED
It was as though a virus had been injected into Nina Bannister.
Two hours before the massive festivities—arrival of ships, beginning of dancing and singing, beginning of the Lysistrata production itself—were to begin.
But by then the virus had begun to work.
Working.
Working.
She had one more interview scheduled for five o’clock.
Just before lunch, she called the appropriate people and cancelled it.
She would have walked along the beach, but she could not do so, because there was no beach. There was just a mob of people.
So she simply went home.
She turned off her cell phone, which had been buzzing like a small blue plastic glowing hornet’s nest.
And she paced.
She paced in the living room.
She made herself a sandwich in the kitchen.
She ate it.
She walked out on the deck, watched the marvelous array of ships that were out on the ocean awaiting tonight’s spectacle.
Tonight’s spectacle.
Which was going to be wonderful, unforgettable.
Except…
…except for the ‘something’s not quite right here’ virus.
Then, sitting on the deck, she herself began to hear voices.
That same voice, actually.
The one that came to her as the voice of God must have come to the lunatic who tried to kill her.
“Hello Jane,” she found herself whispering to the deck rail. “Hello, Jane Austen.”
“A mind lively and at ease, Nina.”
“Yes, I know.”
“ A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.”
All right, Nina Bannister…
…think.
Your mind is lively, and always has been.
Just don’t let it be at ease.
Don’t let it be at ease.
What’s wrong?
What doesn’t fit?
What…
And then she saw it.
“No,” she whispered to herself. “No, it’s not possible.”
And it wasn’t.
It couldn’t have been.
So thinking, she walked into her living room, turned on the cell phone, and made a call.
Ten minutes later, Sylvia Morales, dressed casually in dungarees and a Janice Joplin sweatshirt, was knocking at her door.
“Nina?”
She crossed the living room, opened the door, and immediately felt a sense of relief.
Sylvia.
Sylvia instilled confidence.
That quiet smile, those dark eyes..
“Nina, what is it?”
She shook her head:
“I don’t know, Sylvia.”
“Has something happened? I thought you’d be at the Auberge getting ready to watch the play.”
“No, I… it’s just…”
“What?”
“Something I thought of. Something that isn’t right, Sylvia.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are agents scattered everywhere around town. The FBI, the state police, the local guys—there must be a hundred people in Bay St. Lucy. And, I’ve got to tell you, it’s a pretty good crowd. Hardly any incidents to talk about, if you don’t count the marijuana, which we’re ignoring. No, otherwise, it’s just pretty festive.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But something’s wrong. Something just doesn’t fit.”
“What?”
“Sylvia, do you remember the pictures?”
“What pictures?”
“The ones taken at Dulles Airport.”
“Showing Thornbloom and his pilot?”
“Yes, those pictures.”
“Sure, I remember them.”
“I want to see them.”
“Why?”
“Just—one detail.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe I’m not talking about anything. But I need to see those pictures.”
“Well, I’ve got Stockmeyer’s private number.”
“Can he get them to you?”
A nod.
“Sure. He can email them to me on my smart phone. That’s done pretty frequently.”
“Then please, call him.”
“What am I going to give him for a reason?”
“Tell him Nina Bannister likes to look at airports.”
“I’m not sure that will do. But I can tell him there are a couple of loose ends that I would like to tie up. I can also tell him to contact the President of the United States if he has any questions.”
Sylvia made the call.
Stockmeyer was not immediately available.
The two women went outside to the deck to wait.
There, half a mile out, were Nina’s favorite two porpoises, leaping, making their way west toward Hatteras.
They had always, she found herself thinking, betokened good luck.
She needed good luck now.
And so, if her suspicions were right, did Laurencia Dalrymple.
It took an hour and a half for Sylvia’s phone to buzz.
During that time, marvelous things had begun to happen.
Ships—small ships, large ships, boats, barges, floats, and every imaginable form of nautical transportation, began to make their way toward Bay St. Lucy’s beachfront, and these vessels disgorged landing craft, as though the invasion of Normandy beachhead were being reenacted.
Except that these were not soldiers.
These were WOMEN WOMEN WOMEN from not only every state in the union but also seemingly every country in the world.
Here, landing here, a boat filled with Senegalese women, splendidly arrayed in gold and black robes, a huge radio blasting drumbeats as, splashing their way onto the shore and laughing wildly, they
began dancing across the sand and up onto the sidewalk that once had taken tourists toward downtown, and that now was taking half of the world’s female population toward a one-time football stadium.
And there! Another craft filled with Asian women wearing kimonos.
All forming choruses.
All dancing.
As the moon rose.
And Bay St. Lucy’s bacchanal began!
“Has he sent it?”
Sylvia nodded, and handed the smart phone to Nina.
“Here’s the picture. There’s nothing in it we didn’t already know about.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Here, let me see.”
“Take it.”
Nina did, and she looked at it again.
Only this time she looked at it with Jane Austen.
‘Can do with seeing nothing…’
See the whole picture Nina.
See the whole picture!
“Yes. Yes!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“They’ve each got one. That’s how he did it!”
“How who did what?”
“He’s going to kill Laurencia, Sylvia. It’s all worked out just as he planned it. And tonight, somehow, some way, he’s going to kill Laurencia.”
And at precisely that moment, even though she had no way of knowing it, the play Lysistrata began on the rooftop of the Auberge des Arts.
And all of Bay St. Lucy saw on huge screens what all of the nation and the world saw on mobile apps and, in the cases of the very old and infirm, TV screens. Helen Reddington strode forth in her white Athenian robes and met the women from Sparta and Delos and Thebes and Corinth—and told them about the sex strike that would spread across Greece and last until the horrible war between Athens and Sparta would end, and the people would dance in jubilation.
Nina and Sylvia were heading to the airport.
It might happen there.
Sylvia was on her two way radio.
“Put me through to the tower!”
Pause.
And during that interminable pause, the women of Greece were taking their oath:
NO LOVER AND NO HUSBAND AND NO MAN ON EARTH
SHALL ERE APPROACH ME WITH HIS PENIS UP
AND I SHALL LEAD AN UNLAID LIFE ALONE AT HOME
WEARING A SAFFRON GOWN AND GROOMED AND BEAUTIFIED
SO THAT MY HUSBAND WILL BE ALL ON FIRE FOR ME
BUT I WILL NEVER WILLINGLY GIVE IN TO HIM
AND IF HE TRIES TO FORCE ME TO AGAINST MY WILL
I’LL DO IT BADLY AND NOT WIGGLE IN RESPONSE
NOR POINT THE TOES OF MY BEAUTIFUL SHOES TOWARD THE CEILING
NOR CROUCH UPON HIM IN THE HUNGRY LION POSITION
Nor could Nina know that the oath takers—Kalonika and Lampito and Myrrhina and the others––were solemnizing their vows with mutual drinks from the overflowing wine bowl, while Sylvia was shouting into the phone:
“Stop the helicopter! Stop the copter that’s going to take Senator Dalrymple to the football stadium. You’ve got to…damn!”
“What, Sylvia?”
“The helicopter just took off!”
“But Laurencia’s not scheduled to speak until the play is over. And that won’t be for another hour, anyway!”
“Laurencia asked them to take off early. She wants to see all the choruses making their way through town.”
“Can you contact the helicopter pilot?”
“And tell him what? Nina, what the hell is going on?”
“I just…I can’t…I just have this feeling!”
“What feeling? I’m just one little agent, Nina—I can’t order the next President of the United States around because you’ve got a feeling.”
“All right, then come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the center of the world; the Acropolis.”
And they did.
Or at least they tried to.
It was not easy making one’s way through Bay St. Lucy, where all traffic had been banned, and where people of all sizes and shapes and colors and degrees of sobriety were packed together like grains of sand on a flooded beach, if grains of sand on a flooded beach could ever be imagined planning a sand/sex strike if denied sand/gender equity.
They moved slowly.
They could, of course, call any of the two hundred or so agents scattered through the town.
But what would they tell them?
That Nina had a feeling?
Nina herself did not know much more than that.
And so they made the Stink Shoppe and Crafts by Laura, where people were buying everything in sight, and where store owner after store owner were saying quietly and to themselves THANK YOU NINA THANK YOU NINA THANK YOU NINA! for making me rich.
And, yes, they did make their way along, glancing also upward at the nearest huge screen where the play had progressed mightily, so that overhead cameras carried by a bright red helicopter were now picturing the Chorus of Old Men being routed by the Chorus of Young Women, a confrontation that took place in Gerard Park, and that ended with the victorious women taking from the men and throwing away, the rotted logs which had served as scatological imagery, being held dragging in front of them as the chorus men had been trained to do.
VICTORY FOR THE WOMEN!
Shouts everywhere, and arms upraised, and HAIL TO THE LISSIES being sung all over town.
And still they made their way along.
Finally, it loomed before them.
The stadium, lights glowing as if this were Friday night and Hattiesburg was in town to take on the Mariners.
“What are we looking for, Nina?”
“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know how he would do it, but…”
See the whole picture, Nina.
See the…
“Yes! Yes, that’s how he would do it!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m a principal. We have to go to my office. But not my office. The new principal’s office!”
“Are you crazy?”
But Nina simply pointed.
Up.
At the new high rise building that was Bay St. Lucy High School.
That had just opened a month ago.
And that towered over the football stadium.
The building she had toured yesterday, shortly upon her arrival.
The building that had seemed completely safe to her.
Then.
Sylvia saw it too, saw all of the windows, and said, quietly:
“I’m making the same mistake. A rookie’s mistake. That’s the high ground. It’s just like the office building that guy shot you from.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But that guy is dead!”
“No he isn’t. A guy is dead. But not that guy! Not our guy! Listen, Sylvia, can you call Moon Rivard?”
‘Sure. I can call anybody!”
“Do it, call them all! Tell as many men as possible to meet us at the main door of the high school! But we’ve got to be sure Moon’s there, because he’ll have a key to get us in!”
Sylvia made the calls.
It took them almost five minutes to reach the building.
Just before they did so:
“Look!” said Sylvia, pointing upward.
“Damn!”
A helicopter was circling the stadium.
The same bus-like cream-colored helicopter that had taken Nina to the Aquatica
The helicopter that was carrying Laurencia,
Moon stepped forward:
“Nina Bannister! The most famous woman we got, or ever had!”
“Moon, open the door!”
“What’s the trouble?”
“I think that…I’m sorry I can’t explain right now. Somebody said something he couldn’t know. And Laurencia’s landing now, and…dammit, just open the door!”
He did so, and Nina was the first one through it..
“Nina!” several voices echoed behind her, “stop
! Don’t go up there!”
But she was already in the stairwell.
It was the library in reverse.
Then she was being chased down stairs.
The prey.
Now she was racing upstairs.
The hunter.
Even through the thick walls of the building she could hear massive cheering.
The helicopter must have landed.
Laurencia must be getting out of it.
Walking toward the stage.
“Don’t let me be too late!” she hissed to herself.
And, as she was doing so, all of the choruses that had now made their way to the Acropolis/Stadium were singing as one—for Lysistrata the Athenian and Lampito the Spartan and Kalonike the Dorian and Myrrihna the Corinthian—had ended the war, the ruinous war, the cataclysmic war—
––and they were now chanting in exultation:
ALAILAI!
BOUND AND LEAP HIGH! ALAILAI!
CRY AS FOR VICTORY!
ALAILAI!
With the last ALAILAI, Nina had opened the door into the fourth floor corridor.
The principal’s office…
…to the right!
Don’t let me be too late, don’t let me be too late, don’t let me be too late…
She hurtled down the hall with Moon, Sylvia and the others now close behind…
There was the door…
She reached forward and shoved with all her might.
It swung open.
And there he was, on the other side of the room, his deer rifle propped on the window sill.
Just as he had planned to do the previous day, when he had visited this office with Nina.
And had seen the perfect view of the stage that had been constructed.
He turned.
There was complete silence for an instant.
Then Nina:
“Dicken! Dicken, don’t!”
He shook his head:
“I have no choice. The voice…”
“There is no voice, Dicken. It’s all in your head. It always has been.”
“I’ve got to kill her. She’s evil.”
“No, she isn’t, Dicken. No one is evil. You have to get help now.”
He shook his head:
“There is no help for me. There can never be. But how did you know?”
“It didn’t fit. I kept going over the whole Thornbloom horror in my mind. And something wasn’t right. Don’t you remember, Dicken? That night in my office after they had grilled you all day. You asked me if I had caught even a glimpse of Thornbloom in the library.”