Part 26 (1/2)

”Wilco,” Despond said tersely. ”Anything else?”

”He thinks he might remember the name of her next customer. She mentioned it to him. We might get that, too.”

”Let's hope so,” Despond said and clicked off. He sat back in his chair and addressed the three agents in his office. ”The guy we've got-what's his name? Naismith-is probably the next customer. We'll check the two descriptions of the girl against each other and get a much more accurate picture than the CIA has, since they're working from only one description.”

But fifteen minutes later, he was staring in puzzlement at the chart which had been chalked on the blackboard:

DESCRIPTIONS OF SUSPECT.

First Witness Second Witness Second Witness Height 52 52 55 55 Weight 90-100 lbs 90-100 lbs 110-115 lbs 110-115 lbs Hair Black Black Blond Blond Race Negro Negro Caucasian Caucasian Name or alias Bonnie Bonnie Sarah Sarah Scars, etc.

None None Scar on throat Scar on throat Age Late teens Late teens Mid-twenties Mid-twenties s.e.x Female Female Female Female

A tall, bearish agent named Roy Ubu said thoughtfully, ”I've never seen two eyewitness descriptions match exactly, but this this ...” ...”

A small, waspish agent named Buzz Vespa snapped, ”One of them is lying for some reason. But which one?”

”Neither of them has any reason to lie,” Despond said. ”Gentlemen, we've got to face the facts. Dr. Mocenigo was unworthy of the trust that the U.S. government placed in him. He was a degenerate s.e.x maniac. He had two two women last night, one of them a Nigra.” women last night, one of them a Nigra.”

”What do you mean that little sawed-off b.a.s.t.a.r.d is gone?” Peter Kurten of the CIA was shouting at that very moment. ”The only way out of his room was right through that door, there, and we've all had it under constant surveillance. The door was only opened once when DeSalvo took out the coffee urn to have it refilled at the sandwich shop next door. Oh...my... Peter Kurten of the CIA was shouting at that very moment. ”The only way out of his room was right through that door, there, and we've all had it under constant surveillance. The door was only opened once when DeSalvo took out the coffee urn to have it refilled at the sandwich shop next door. Oh...my...G.o.d...the...coffee...urn ...” As he slumped back in his chair, mouth hanging open, an agent with a device that looked like a mine sweeper stepped forward. ...” As he slumped back in his chair, mouth hanging open, an agent with a device that looked like a mine sweeper stepped forward.

”Daily sweep for FBI bugs, sir,” he said uncomfortably. ”I'm afraid the machine is registering one under your desk. If you'll let me just reach in and...uh...that gets it ...”

And Tobias Knight, listening, heard no more. It would be a few hours, at least, until their man in the CIA was able to plant a new bug.

And Saul Goodman stepped hard on the brakes of his rented Ford Brontosaurus as a tiny and determined figure, das.h.i.+ng out of the Papa Mescalito Sandwich Shop, ran right in front of the fender. Saul heard a sickening thud and Barney Muldoon's voice beside him saying, ”Oh Christ, no ...”

I was at the end of my ropes. The Syndicate I could see, but why the Feds? I was flabbygastered. I said to that dumb c.u.n.t Bonnie Quint, ”Are you a thousand percent sure?” I was flabbygastered. I said to that dumb c.u.n.t Bonnie Quint, ”Are you a thousand percent sure?”

”Carmel,” she says. ”I know the Syndicate. They're not that smooth. These guys were just what they claimed. Feds.”

Oh, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus with egg in his beard. I couldn't help myself, I just hauled off and bopped her in the kisser, the dumb c.u.n.t. ”What'd you tell them?” I screamed. ”What'd you tell them?”

She started to snivel. ”I didn't tell them nothing,” she says.

So I had to bop her again. Christ, I hate hitting women, they always blubber so much. ”I'll use the belt,” I howled. ”So help me, G.o.d, I'll use the belt. Don't tell me you didn't tell them nothing. Everybody tells them something. Even a clam would sing like Sinatra when they're finished with him. So what'd you tell them?” I bopped her again, Christ, this was terrible.

”I just told them I wasn't with this Mocenigo. Which I wasn't.”

”So who did you tell them you were with?”

”I made up a prescription. A midget. A guy I saw on the street. I wouldn't give the name of a real John, I know that could come back against you. And me.”

I didn't know what to do, so I bopped her again. ”Go away,” I says. ”Be missing. Let me think.”

She goes out, still blubbering, and I go over to the window and look at the desert to calm my head. My rose fever was starting to act up; it was that time of year. Why did people have to bring roses to the desert? I tried to contemplate hard on the problem and forget my health. There was only one explanation: that d.a.m.ned Mocenigo figured out that Sherri was pumping him and told the Feds. The Syndicate wasn't in it yet. They were all still running around the East like chickens with their legs cut off, trying to figure who rubbed Maldonado, and why it happened at the house of a straight like this banker Drake. So they hadn't got the time yet to find out that five million of Banana Nose's money had disappeared into my own safe as soon as I heard he was dead. The Feds weren't in on that at all, and the connection was circ.u.msubstantial.

And then it hit me so hard that I almost fell over. Besides my own girls, who wouldn't talk, there were a dozen or two cab drivers and bartenders and whatnots who knew that Sherri worked for me. The Feds would get it out of somebody sooner or later, and probably sooner. It was like a light bulb going on over my head in a comic strip: TREASON, AIDING AND ABEDDING THE ENEMY. I remembered from when I was a kid those two Jewish scientists who the Feds got for that. The hot squat. They fried them, Christ Jesus, I thought I'd vomit. Why does the f.u.c.king government have to be that way about somebody just trying to make a buck? Even the Syndicate would only shoot you or give you a lead enema, but the c.o.c.ksucking government has to go and put you in an electrical chair. Christ Jesus, I was hot as a chimney.

I took a candy out of my pocket and started chewing it, trying to think what to do. If I ran, the Syndicate would guess I was the one who emptied the till when Maldonado was rubbed, and they'd get me. If I didn't didn't run, the Feds would be at the door with a high treason warrant. It was a double whammy. I might try to highjack a plane to Panama, but I didn't know nearly enough about Mocenigo's bugs to make a deal with the Commie government down there. They'd just send me right back. It was hopeless, like trying to fill a three-card inside straight. The only thing to do was find a hole and bury myself. run, the Feds would be at the door with a high treason warrant. It was a double whammy. I might try to highjack a plane to Panama, but I didn't know nearly enough about Mocenigo's bugs to make a deal with the Commie government down there. They'd just send me right back. It was hopeless, like trying to fill a three-card inside straight. The only thing to do was find a hole and bury myself.

And then it was just like a light bulb in my head again, and I thought: Lehman Cave.

”What does the computer say now?” the President asked the Attorney General. the President asked the Attorney General.

”What does the computer say now?” the Attorney General barked into the open phone before him.

”If the girl had two contacts before she died, at this moment the possible carriers number,” the phone paused, ”428,000. If the girl had three contacts, 7,-656,000.”

”Get the Special Agent in Charge,” the President snapped. He was the calmest man at the table-ever since Fernando Poo, he had been supplementing his Librium, Tofranil and Elovil with Demerol, the amazing little pills that had kept Hermann Goering so chipper and cheerful during the Nuremberg Trials while all the other n.a.z.is crumbled into catatonic, paranoid or other dysfunctional conditions.

”Despond,” a second open phone said.

”This is your President,” the President said. ”Give it to us straight. Have you treed the c.o.o.n?”

”Uh, sir, no, sir. We have to find the procurer, sir. The girl can't possibly be alive, but we haven't found her. It is now mathematically certain that somebody hid her body. The obvious theory, sir, is that her procurer, being in an illegal business, hid the body rather than report it. We have two descriptions of the girl, sir, and, uh, although they don't tally completely completely they should lead us to her procurer. Of course, he should die soon, sir, and then we'll find him. That's the Rubicon of the case, sir. Meanwhile, I'm happy to report, sir, that we're lucking out amazingly. Only two definite cases off the base so far and both of them injected with the antidote. It is possible, just possible, that the procurer went into hiding after disposing of the body. In that case, he hasn't contacted another human being and is not spreading it. Sir.” they should lead us to her procurer. Of course, he should die soon, sir, and then we'll find him. That's the Rubicon of the case, sir. Meanwhile, I'm happy to report, sir, that we're lucking out amazingly. Only two definite cases off the base so far and both of them injected with the antidote. It is possible, just possible, that the procurer went into hiding after disposing of the body. In that case, he hasn't contacted another human being and is not spreading it. Sir.”

”Despond,” the President said, ”I want results results. Keep us informed. Your country depends on you.”

”Yes, sir.”

”Tree that c.o.o.n, Despond.”

”We will, sir.”

Esperando Despond turned from the phone as an agent from the computer section entered the room. ”Got something?” he snapped nervously.

”The first girl, the Nigra, sir. She was one of the pros we questioned yesterday. Her name is Bonnie Quint.”

”You look worried. Is there a hitch?” Despond asked shrewdly.

”Just another of the puzzles. She didn't admit being with Mocenigo the night before, but that kind of lying we expected. Here's what's weird: her description of the guy she says she was was with.” The computer man shook his head dubiously. ”It doesn't fit Naismith, the guy who said he was with with.” The computer man shook his head dubiously. ”It doesn't fit Naismith, the guy who said he was with her her. It fits the little mug, the dwarf, that the CIA grabbed. Only he he said she was the second girl.” said she was the second girl.”

Despond mopped his brow. ”What the heck has been going on in this town?” he asked the ceiling. ”Some kind of s.e.x s.e.x orgy?” orgy?”

In fact, several kinds of s.e.x orgies had been going on in Las Vegas ever since the Veterans of the s.e.xual Revolution had arrived two days earlier. The Hugh M. Hefner Brigade had taken two stories of the Sands, hired a herd of professional women, and hadn't yet come out to join the Alfred Kinsey Brigade, the Norman Mailer Guerrillas and the others in marching up and down the Strip, squirting young girls in the crotch with water pistols, pa.s.sing bottles of hooch back and forth and generally blocking traffic and annoying pedestrians. Dr. Naismith himself, after a few token appearances, had avoided most of the merriment and retired to a private suite to work on his latest fund-raising letter for the Colossus of Yorba Linda Foundation. Actually, the VSR, like White Heroes Opposing Red Extremism, was one of Naismith's lesser projects and brought in only peanuts. Most of the real veterans of the s.e.xual revolution had succ.u.mbed to syphilis, marriage, children, alimony or some such ailment, and few white heroes were prepared to oppose red extremism in the bizarre manner suggested by Naismith's pamphlets; in both of those cases, he had recognized two nut markets that n.o.body else was exploiting and had quickly moved in. Even the John Dillinger Died For You Society, of which he was inordinately proud since it was probably the most implausible religion in the long history of humanity's infatuation with metaphysics, didn't earn much less per annum than these fancies. The real bread was in the Colossus of Yorba Linda Foundation, which had been successfully raising money for several years to erect a heroic monument, in solid gold and ten feet taller than the statue of Liberty ten feet taller than the statue of Liberty, honoring the martyred former president Richard Milhous Nixon. This monument, paid for entirely by the twenty million Americans who still loved and revered Nixon despite the d.a.m.nable lies of the Congress, the Justice Department, the press, the TV, the law courts, et al et al., would stand outside Yorba Linda, Tricky d.i.c.ky's boyhood home, and scowl menacingly toward Asia, warning those gooks not to try to get the jump on Uncle Sammie. Beside the gigantic idol's right foot, Checkers looked adoringly upward; beneath the left foot was a crushed allegorical figure representing Cesar Chavez. The Great Man held a bunch of lettuce in his right hand and a tape recording in the left. It was all most tasteful, and so appealed to Fundamentalist Americans that hundreds of thousands of dollars had already been collected by the Colossus fund, and Naismith planned to hop to Nepal with the loot at the first sign that contributors or postal inspectors were beginning to wonder when the statue would actually start rising on the plot he had purchased, amid much publicity, after the first few thousand arrived.

Naismith was a small, slight man and, like many Texans, affected a cowboy hat (although he had never herded cattle) and a bandito mustache (although his thefts were all based on fraud rather than force). He was also, for his nation at this time in history, an uncommonly honest man, and, unlike most corporations of the epoch, none of his enterprises had poisoned or mutilated the customers whose money he took. His one vice was cynicism based on lack of imagination: he reckoned most of his countrymen as total mental basket cases and fondly believed that he was exploiting their folly when he told them that a vast Illuminati conspiracy controlled the money supply and interest rates or that a bandit of the 1930s was, in a sense, a redeemer of the atrophying human spirit. That there was an element of truth in these bizarre notions never crossed his mind. In short, even though born in Texas, Naismith was as alienated from the pulse, the poetry and the profundity of American emotion as a New York intellectual.

But his cynicism served him well when, after reporting certain strange symptoms to the hotel doctor, he found himself rushed to a supposed U.S. Public Health Service station which was manned by individuals he quickly recognized as laws laws. This is an old Texas word, probably an abbreviation of lawmen lawmen (Texans don't know much about abbreviating) and is as charged with suspicion and wariness, although not quite so much rage, as the New Left's word (Texans don't know much about abbreviating) and is as charged with suspicion and wariness, although not quite so much rage, as the New Left's word pig pig. Bonnie Parker had used it, eloquently, in her last ballad: Someday they'll go down together They'll bury them side by side For some it means grief For the laws a relief But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

That about summed it up: the laws laws were not necessarily fascist Gestapo racist pigs (words largely unknown in Texas), but they were people who would find it a relief if bothersome and rebellious individualism disappeared, however b.l.o.o.d.y the disappearance might be. If you were ornery enough, the laws would bushwhack you-shoot you dead from ambush, without a chance to surrender, as they did to Miss Parker and Mr. Barrow-but even if you were merely a mildly larcenous hoaxter like Dr. Naismith, they would be much cheered to put you someplace where you couldn't throw any more entropy into the functioning of the Machine they served. And so, recognizing laws, Dr. Naismith narrowed his eyes, thought deeply, and when they began their questioning, lied as only an unregenerate old-school Texas confidence man can lie. were not necessarily fascist Gestapo racist pigs (words largely unknown in Texas), but they were people who would find it a relief if bothersome and rebellious individualism disappeared, however b.l.o.o.d.y the disappearance might be. If you were ornery enough, the laws would bushwhack you-shoot you dead from ambush, without a chance to surrender, as they did to Miss Parker and Mr. Barrow-but even if you were merely a mildly larcenous hoaxter like Dr. Naismith, they would be much cheered to put you someplace where you couldn't throw any more entropy into the functioning of the Machine they served. And so, recognizing laws, Dr. Naismith narrowed his eyes, thought deeply, and when they began their questioning, lied as only an unregenerate old-school Texas confidence man can lie.

”You got it from somebody who had body contact with you. So either you were in a very crowded elevator or you got it from a prost.i.tute. Which was it?”

Naismith thought of the collision on the sidewalk with the Midget and the weasel-faced character with the big suitcase, but he also thought that the questioner leaned heavily on the second possibility. They were looking for a woman; and, if you tell the laws what they want to hear, they don't keep coming back and asking more personal questions. ”I was with a prost.i.tute,” he said, trying to sound embarra.s.sed.