Part 41 (1/2)
How will he answer that one? Rebecca wondered; just then the phone rang. Rebecca wondered; just then the phone rang.
Turning down the TV sound, she lifted the phone and said, ”Yes?”
”I can tell by your voice you're the kind of woman who fully meets the criteria of my value system,” fully meets the criteria of my value system,” said August Personage. ”I want to lick your a.s.s and your p.u.s.s.y and have you p.i.s.s on me and-” said August Personage. ”I want to lick your a.s.s and your p.u.s.s.y and have you p.i.s.s on me and-”
”Well, that's a most amazing story, Inspector Goodman,” the interviewer was saying. Oh, h.e.l.l Oh, h.e.l.l, Rebecca thought. Saul's expression was so sincere that she knew he had just told one of the most outrageous lies of his life.
The phone rang again. With a pounce Rebecca grabbed it and shouted, ”Listen, you creep, if you keep calling me-”
”That's no way to talk to a man who just saved the world,” Saul's voice said mildly.
”Saul! But you're on television-”
”They videotaped that a half-hour ago. I'm at the Las Vegas Airport, about to take a jet to Was.h.i.+ngton. I'm having a conference with the President.”
”My G.o.d. What are you going to tell him?”
”As much,” Saul p.r.o.nounced, ”as an a.s.shole like him can understand.”
(In Los Angeles, Dr. Vulcan Troll watched the seismograph move upward to Grade 2. That still wasn't serious, but he scratched a note to the graduate student who would soon be replacing him. ”If this jumps to 3, call me at my house.” Then he drove home, pa.s.sing Dillinger's bungalow, humming happily, thankful that the rioting was ending and the Guard being withdrawn. At the lab the graduate student, reading a paperback t.i.tled Carnal Orgy Carnal Orgy, didn't notice when the graph jumped past 3 and hit 4.) Danny Pricefixer, waking in Ingolstadt, glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. Noon. My G.o.d My G.o.d, he thought; sleeping so late was a major sin in his system of morality. Then he remembered a little of last night, and smiled contentedly, turning in the bed to kiss Lady Velkor's neck. A huge black arm hung over the other shoulder, and a black hand, limp in sleep, held her breast. ”My G.o.d!” G.o.d!” Danny said out loud, remembering more, as Clark Kent sat up groggily and stared at him. Danny said out loud, remembering more, as Clark Kent sat up groggily and stared at him.
(”Smiling Jim” Treponema, at that moment, was navigating a very dangerous pa.s.s in the mountains of Northern California. Strapped to his back was a 6mm Remington Model 700 Bolt Action rifle with 6-power Bushnell telescope; a canteen of whiskey was hooked to one side of his belt, and a canteen of water to the other. He was perspiring from labor, in spite of the alt.i.tude, but he was one of the few happy people in the country, since he had been nowhere near a radio for three days and had missed the whole terror connected with Anthrax Leprosy Pi plague, the declaration of martial law, and the rioting and bombings. He was on his yearly vacation, free from the sewer of s.m.u.t in which he was submerged forty-nine weeks of the year-the foulness and filth in which he heroically struggled daily, risking his soul for the good of his fellow citizens-and he was breathing clean air and thinking clean thoughts. Specifically, as an avid hunter, he had read that only one American eagle still survived, and he was determined to be immortalized in hunting literature as the man who killed it. He knew well, of course, how ecologists and conservationists would regard that achievement, but their opinions didn't bother him. A bunch of f.a.gs, commies, and s.m.u.tnuts: That was his estimate of those bleeding-heart types. Probably smoked dope, too. Not a man's man among them. He s.h.i.+fted his rifle, which was pressing his sweat-soaked s.h.i.+rt uncomfortably, and climbed onward and upward.) Mama Sutra stared at the central Tarot card in the Tree of Life: It was The Fool.
”Pardon me,” the little little Italian tree said. Italian tree said.
”This is getting ridiculous,” Fission Chips muttered. ”I don't intend to spend the rest of my life in conversation with trees.”
”I'm a tree worth talking to,” the dark-skinned tree with her hair in a bun persisted.
He squinted. ”I know what you are,” he said finally, ”half tree and half woman. Ergo Ergo, a dryad. Benefit of cla.s.sical education.”
”Very good,” said the dryad. ”But when you stop tripping, you're going to crash. You'll remember London and your job, and you'll wonder how you're going to explain the last month to them.”
”Somebody stole a month from me,” Chips agreed pleasantly. ”A cynical old swine named the Dealy Lama. Or another feller named Toad. Bad lot. Shouldn't go around stealing months.”
The tree handed him an envelope. ”Try not to lose that,” she said. ”It'll make everybody in your office so happy that they'll accept any story you make up to explain how it took you a month to get it.”
”What is it?”
”The name of every b.u.g.g.e.r agent in the British government. Together with the false names they use for the bank accounts where they keep all the money they can't account for. And the account numbers and the names of the banks, too. In one nice package. All it needs is a red ribbon.”
”I think my leg is being pulled again,” said Chips. But he was coming down, and he opened the envelope and peered at the contents. ”This is real?” he asked.
”They won't be able to account for the money,” the tree a.s.sured him. ”Some very interesting confessions will be obtained.”
”Who the devil are you?” Chips asked, seeing a teen-age Italian girl and not a tree.
”I'm your holy guardian angel,” she said.
”You look like an angel,” Chips admitted grudgingly, ”but I don't believe any of this. Time travel, talking trees, giant toads, none of it. Somebody slipped me a drug.”
”Yes, somebody slipped you a drug. But I'm your holy guardian angel, and I'm slipping you this envelope, and it'll make everything all right back in London. All you have to do is make up a halfway reasonable lie ...”
”I was held prisoner in a b.u.g.g.e.r dungeon with a beautiful Eurasian love-slave,” Chips began improvising ”Very good,” she said. ”They won't believe it, but they'll think you believe it. That's good enough.” ”Who are you really?”
But the tree only repeated, ”Don't lose that envelope,” and walked away, turning into an Italian teen-ager again, and then into a gigantic woman carrying a golden apple. Hauptmann, chief of field operations for the Federal Republic of Germany's police, looked around the Fuehrer Suite in disgust. He had arrived from Bonn and headed straight for the Donau-Hotel, determined to make some sense of the scandals, tragedies, and mysteries of the previous night. The first suspect he grilled was Freiherr Freiherr Hagbard Celine, sinister jet-set millionaire, who had come to the rock festival with a large entourage. Celine and Hauptmann talked quietly in one corner of the suite of the Donau-Hotel, while the cameras of police photographers clicked away behind them. Hagbard Celine, sinister jet-set millionaire, who had come to the rock festival with a large entourage. Celine and Hauptmann talked quietly in one corner of the suite of the Donau-Hotel, while the cameras of police photographers clicked away behind them.
Hauptmann was tall and thin, with close-cropped silver-gray hair, long, vulpine features, and piercing eyes. ”Dreadful tragedy, the death of your President last night,” he said. ”My condolences. Also for the unhappy state of affairs in your country.” Actually, Hauptmann was delighted to see the United States of America falling into chaos. He had been fifteen at the end of World War II, had been called to the colors as the Allies advanced on German soil, and had seen his country overrun by American troops. All of this made a deeper and more lasting impression on him than the U.S.-West German cooperation that developed later.
”Not my president, not my my country,” said Hagbard quickly. ”I was born in Norway. I lived in the U.S. for quite some time, and did become a citizen for a while, when I was much younger than I am now. But I renounced my American citizens.h.i.+p years ago.” country,” said Hagbard quickly. ”I was born in Norway. I lived in the U.S. for quite some time, and did become a citizen for a while, when I was much younger than I am now. But I renounced my American citizens.h.i.+p years ago.”
”I see,” said Hauptmann, trying unsuccessfully to conceal his distaste for Hagbard's indistinct sense of national ident.i.ty. ”And what country today has the honor of claiming you as a citizen?”
Smiling, Hagbard reached for the inside pocket of the bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned navy-blue yachtsman's blazer he had worn for the occasion. He handed his pa.s.sport to Hauptmann, who took it and grunted with surprise.
”Equatorial Guinea.” He looked up, frowning. ”Fernando Poo!”
”Quite so,” said Hagbard, a white-toothed grin breaking through his dark features. ”I will accept your expression of sympathy for the sad state of affairs in that that country.” country.”
Hauptmann's dislike of this Latin plutocrat grew deeper. The man was undoubtedly one of those unprincipled international adventurers who carried citizens.h.i.+p the way many freighters carried Panamanian registry. Celine's wealth was probably equal to or greater than the total wealth of Equatorial Guinea. Yet it was likely that he had done nothing for his adopted country other than bribe a few officials to obtain the citizens.h.i.+p. Equatorial Guinea had split asunder, nearly plunging the world into a third and final war, and yet here was this parasitical Mediterranean fop, driving to a rock festival in a Bugatti Royale with a host of drones, yes-men, flunkies, minions, wh.o.r.es, dope fiends, and all-round social liabilities. Disgusting!
Hagbard looked around. ”This room is a pretty foul place to have a conversation. How can you stand that smell? It's nauseating me.”
Pleased to be causing some discomfort to this man, whom he disliked more and more as he got to know him, Hauptmann settled back in the red armchair, his teeth bared in a smile. ”You will forgive me, Freiherr Freiherr Celine, I find it necessary to be here at this time and also necessary to talk to you. However, I would have thought this peculiar odor of fish would not be unpleasant to you. Perhaps your nautical dress has led me astray.” Celine, I find it necessary to be here at this time and also necessary to talk to you. However, I would have thought this peculiar odor of fish would not be unpleasant to you. Perhaps your nautical dress has led me astray.”
Hagbard shrugged. ”I am a seaman of sorts. But just because a man likes the sea doesn't mean he wants to sit next to a ton of dead mackerel. What do you think it is, anyway?”
”I have no idea. I was hoping you could identify it for me.”
”Just dead fish, that's all it smells like to me. I'm afraid you may be expecting more from me all around than I can possibly provide. I suppose you think I can tell you a lot about last night. Just what are you trying to find out?”
”First of all, I want to find out what actually happened. What we have, I think, is a case of drug abuse on a colossal scale. And we-the Western world in general-have had too many of those in recent years. Apparently there is not a single person who was present at this festival who did not partake of some of this soft drink dosed with LSD.”
”Treat every man to his dessert and none should 'scape tripping,” said Hagbard.
”I beg your pardon?”
”I was parodying Shakespeare,” said Hagbard. ”But it's not very relevant. Please go on.”
”Well, so far no one has been able to give me a coherent or plausible account of the evening's events,” said Hauptmann. ”There have been at least twenty-seven deaths that I'm fairly sure of. There has been ma.s.sive abuse of LSD. There are numerous accounts of pistol, rifle, and machinegun fire somewhere on the sh.o.r.e of the lake. A number of witnesses say they saw many men in n.a.z.i uniforms running around in the woods. If that wasn't a hallucination, dressing as a n.a.z.i is a serious crime in the Federal Republic of Germany. So far we have managed to keep much of this out of the papers by holding the press people who came here incommunicado, but we will have to determine precisely what crimes were committed and who committed them, and we must prosecute them vigorously. Otherwise, we will appear to the whole world as a nation incapable of dealing with the wholesale corruption of youth within our borders.”
”All nations are wholesale corruptors of youth,” said Hagbard. ”I wouldn't worry about it.”
Hauptmann grunted, seeing in his mind's eye a vision of drug-crazed masqueraders in n.a.z.i uniforms and himself in a German army uniform over thirty years ago at the age of fifteen and understanding very well what Hagbard meant. ”I have my job to do,” he said sullenly.
See how much more pleasant the world is now that the Saures are gone, the Dealy Lama flashed into his brain. Hagbard kept a poker face.
Hauptmann went on, ”Your own role in the incident seems to have been a constructive one, Freiherr Freiherr Celine. You are described as going to the stage when the hysteria and the hallucinating had reached some sort of a climax and making a speech which greatly calmed the audience.” Celine. You are described as going to the stage when the hysteria and the hallucinating had reached some sort of a climax and making a speech which greatly calmed the audience.”
Hagbard laughed. ”I have no idea at all what I said. You know what I thought? I thought I was Moses and they were the Israelites and I was leading them across the Red Sea while the Pharaoh's army, intent on slaughtering them, pursued.”