Louis delivered his latest bag to the tender mercies of the nearest bartender, clapped them on the back, and departed, staggering only slightly, eyes only a bit redder and wetter than usual. It was a tough dirty job, but somebody had to do it. And none better than the Down Under Trio.
“Sara!”
That had sounded more like a cry for help than a greeting, and when Sara looked around, she saw why. It was Binx Radwell who had called to her, a fog of free-floating angst in the shape of a man. A blond guy in his mid-thirties, Binx Radwell had a more or less normal head and body, except that it was all covered by a quivering padded layer of baby fat. Then equal parts of panic and perspiration had been larded on top of it all, as though he were about to be put on a spit for several hours over an open fire. Given the usual expression in Binx’s eyes, that’s exactly what he expected to happen, any minute.
Sara’s invariable reaction to Binx was helpless pity combined with helpless impatience. Why didn’t he just pull his socks up, for heaven’s sake? Why was he always so afraid all the time?
Well, she knew why. He worked for the Galaxy, that’s why, and he lived with his wife Marcie and their children at the very outer edge of his income; disaster was never more than one false step away. A couple of years ago, in fact, Binx had actually been fired, not because he’d been doing anything worse than usual but merely as an example to the troops. Having been an editor, and very well paid, he’d floundered and wept and semidrowned for a little while, and then the Galaxy had hired him back... as a reporter, at half the salary.
So Binx had every right to look the way he did, which was like an abused child. Giving her pity free rein, reining in her impatience, she said, “Binx, how are you? You look great,” she lied.
“So do you, Sara.” He tried a smile, Binx did, which looked very much like an expression you might see in the display case at the fish market. “Marcie and I are thinking about a separation,” he said, lying right back at her.
“Oh, you and Marcie were born for each other,” Sara assured him.
Binx looked more stricken than ever. “You really think so?”
Looking around, Sara said, “Whose team is this? Not Boy Cartwright, I hope,” she said, naming her least-favorite Galaxy editor.
Within his terror, Binx looked almost pleased, proud of himself. “My team,” he said with simple modesty.
Delighted, Sara said, “Binx! You’re an editor again!”
“After Massa died—”
“What? Massa died?”
Deadpan, he said, “Massa’s in de cold, cold ground.”
Bewildered, not getting it, Sara said, “You’re kidding me.”
“You hadn’t heard? Come over here,” Binx said, taking her elbow, fondling it, leading her to the quietest corner of the room, saying, “It’s true. It happened at the morning editorial meeting. He was yelling at the editors, you know, yelling there weren’t any good stories anymore, pounding on the table and waving that beer bottle around, and all of a sudden, he made the most kind of a jungle sound, all deep and loud and rattly — we could hear it way over at the reporter tables — and flop. Right on his desk, in the elevator.”
Massa, actual name Bruno DeMassi, was the creator and owner and publisher of the Weekly Galaxy, a man of many appetites, most of them gross. “That’s hard to believe,” Sara said. “The Galaxy without Massa.”
“It was so weird, Sara,” Binx told her. “He just lay there face down, arms stretched out, spilling his beer, and he twitched a couple times, and nobody wanted to go near him, and finally Boy went over. You know how he simpers and does that English accent.”
“Oh, don’t remind me.”
“Oh, good, you remember,” Binx said. “Boy said, ‘Chief? Chief?’ And he touched Massa, and then he turned around, and he was very solemn and he put his hand over his heart like Napoleon, and he said, ‘The Chief is with us no more. The Chief is dead.’ And somebody — nobody knows who, just somebody — somebody said, ‘And we have a new Pope.’ And everybody started to laugh.” Binx blinked in remembered amazement. “Nobody could stop,” he said. “It got everybody. There’s Massa lying dead on his desk, and hundreds and hundreds of people laughing. It went all through the building, upstairs, downstairs, people holding their sides, people falling down on the floor, they were laughing so hard. And even when Jacob Harsch came down from the top floor to find out what was going on, nobody could stop. It just went on and on.” Binx slowly shook his head, his sweaty round face pinkly incandescent with the leftover glow of the awe of that transcendent moment.
“Is Harsch running the Galaxy now?” Sara asked. Jacob Harsch had been Massa’s assistant, as cold as Massa had been hot.
But Binx said, “Oh no. He’s out. They brought some people up from hell to run things.”
“Hell? What do you mean?”
“It turned out,” Binx said, “there was some sort of corporation deal, and when Massa died, all this money went to his widow, and a corporation owns us. They’re a Florida real estate development company, so you can imagine.”
“Barely,” Sara said.
“They took their most evil executives,” Binx said, “the ones that snap at sticks you put through the bars of the cage, and they put them in charge of us. Oh, Sara,” Binx said, and fondled her forearm this time, “you got out when the getting was good.”
“I guess so,” Sara said, and they were interrupted at that point by the arrival of Don Grove, the world’s most pessimistic reporter, another former coworker of Sara’s, who this time ignored Sara and turned his doleful countenance on Binx, saying, “I don’t suppose you could use—”
“You remember Sara, Don,” Binx said.
Don considered Sara, considered his answer. “Yes,” he decided, and turned back to Binx. “I don’t suppose you could use the dead woman’s grandmother, got proof the family’s related to Princess Di.”
“We’re spreading that story, Don,” Binx said.
“Oh.” Don nodded at Sara. “Nice to see you again,” he said without enthusiasm, and went away.
Binx looked fondly after his retreating reporter. “Good old Don,” he said. “He’s one of the few things in life that keeps me cheerful.”
“Oh, you,” Sara said. “You’re just sunny by nature.”
7
A little after seven, best friend Cal Denny drove Ray Jones from his home in the Porte Regal enclave out onto 165 north, headed up to the Strip, and turned left. They weren’t in the Acura SNX sports car, since the Sheriffs Department still had that impounded as evidence in the murder case, but Ray had three other cars at the house, so it was the maroon Jaguar town car they rode in, Cal at the right-hand-drive wheel, Ray in the front passenger seat on the left.
Traffic was its usual mess on the Strip, the tourist families inching along, grubby little faces pressed to grubby safety-glass windows, looking for tonight’s thrill. In this direction, they could choose from theaters housing Roy Clark, Mickey Gilley, Jim Stafford, Ray Jones, Boxcar Willie, Christy Lane, Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard, and Ray Stevens, plus wowzer-dowzer attractions like Waltzing Waters (exactly what it sounds like, plus colored lights). White Water (exactly what it sounds like, plus you in an inadequate rubber raft). Mutton Hollow (CRAFTS, CRAFTS, CRAFTS), and a variety of foods much faster but not much more interesting than the traffic.