It had taken twelve days and over two hundred thousand dollars to put the materials in Palm Springs in holiday season. After another five days of furious labor by picked men, Charlie's atrium had disappeared. Now, in its place, was a pond formed by the interconnected trays, holding eleven thousand kilos of water, complete with fountain and a ridiculous naked cherub for lagniappe. In the geometric center of the pond was a gorgeous rectangular dwelling, mostly clear polycarbonate and white aluminum, conforming to Charlie's idea of a three-holer by Mies van der Rohe. Anyone who climbed the new stairs over the berm could see, though not learn much from, the pair of armed churls who kept house there. He could not see into the fake fieldstone bathroom, which hid the stairs leading down to Charlie's original lair.
The pond and the bulletproof plastic house rested on tubular aluminum columns that rose here and there from the atrium floor. Since the house and pond also had translucent floors, Charlie still had some daylight in the place. The sight of the aluminum maze in his atrium only made him madder, more determined to press his peculiar attack on the shadowy bastards who made it all necessary.
At least Charlie could feel secure behind rammed-earth walls, below the liquid armor, and beyond his stolid guards. He churned through his pre-opened mail alone on a warm Saturday afternoon in late December, fighting post-Christmas anomie, wishing there were some way he could tempt Rhone Althouse from his hideaway at Lake Arrowhead. The highly publicized fates of Maurice Everett and especially of Dahl D'Este had reduced Althouse to something that approached paranoia. Surely, thought Charlie, I can jolly Rhone out of this mood. So far, he had been unsuccessful; even Charlie could not cheer a melancholy gagman.
But Charlie found a way, beginning with the package from the office of Commissioner David Engels. It contained an individualized telephone scrambler, and a number with a six-oh-two area code. He called the number. Two minutes later he was struggling with tears of repressed joy, partly because he no longer felt guilt over the Everett affair. The voice on the other end had the right scrambler, and he asked if Charlie still lived in a vacant lot.
"Maury, God damn, you sound terrific," Charlie stammered into the scrambler. He carried the wireless phone extension into his kitchen for a beer, knowing he sounded like a manic-depressive caught on the upswing, caring not a whit. "You weren't? It was all hype, the coma, the kidnapping, all of it?" He listened to the explanation, his expressions a barometer of his moods as he followed Everett's tale.
After twenty minutes, a sobering thought began to nag him. "As much as I like knowing you're skinny and tan and full of garbanzos, why'd you tell me? I mean, how d'you know I'm not another jabbering D'Este, God rest him?" He took a swallow of beer and nearly choked on it. "A JOB? You mean a real, union-dues-paying, NBN-salaried job?" Long pause before, "Nobody has to know your function but me, Maury; hell, even I don't know what some of my retinue do. And if you really want to work for nothing, yeh, I see your point; it'd be legal. But don't blame me if you get zapped for conflict of interest, one day."
The woman was another matter, but: "So long as NBN doesn't realize she's an armed guard. If I pass you off as a situations consultant, she can be your aide; carry a clipboard, gopher coffee, all that crap." He listened for another moment. Then, "I'll have to tell Althouse, you know. He'll see you on the sets anyhow and you won't fool him for long."
Charlie listened again, starting to laugh. "I know what he'll say; having the FCC doing unpaid liaison is like having God cry at your wedding ... All right, then, private consulting; don't go bureaucratic on me now, for Christ's sake."
When Charlie broke the connection, his cheeks ached from smiling. He immediately made a call to Lake Arrowhead, a two-hour drive away, and enticed Rhone Althouse to risk the trip. It was news, said Charlie, too heavy and too light to carry aver telephone lines.
There was heavier news to be shared by the time Althouse drove up in his cover identity, carrying a five-gallon bottle of distilled water into the van der Rohe miniature. As Charlie had spoken with Maurice Everett, a traffic watch helicopter had exploded in midair over South Pasadena while airing its live remote broadcast on a Los Angeles station.
The debris had fallen on a freeway cloverleaf to tangle in the clotted weekend traffic, with eight known fatalities and over thirty injuries, including the chain-reaction wrecks that resulted. Eyewitnesses had seen the faint scrawl of smoke that led from the ground to terminate in the aerial firebloom of metal, fuel, and flesh. Again, the group calling itself Fat'ah clamored for recognition of a direct hit with its SAM. But this time the news services reported no competing claims. On the contrary, both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the more recent Chicano `Raza' group called to make specific denials.
It was hideous news, Althouse agreed, dropping into his favorite chair in Charlie's living room. "But there's a meta-message under it," he said. "It says maybe there's hope now. Three months ago, every unshelled nut in California would've been jostling the others to claim responsibility. At least today they're making a show of clean hands for a pure civilian atrocity." He glanced sharply at Charlie. "Now for the good news I risked my ass for."
Charlie told him.
The Althouse reaction was mixed and thoughtfuclass="underline" "I'll be glad to see Maury when I wander onto the set, but—I dunno, Charlie, all of us eggs in one basket?" He lifted one hand, made it waver in the air.
"If you're going to lay Cervantes on me, try Twain: he said put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket," Charlie retorted, pleased to recall his classics.
"Twain was a lousy administrator," Althouse grunted. "It's getting pretty late in the game for aphorisms, Charlie. You and I and Maury Everett shouldn't even occupy the same hemisphere!"
"Aw, Rhone, don't be skittish," Charlie said gently. "We've started a war, right?" He got an answering nod. "So think of this as a nonstop, floating summit meeting."
"All right," Althouse flashed, jerking a thumb toward the sky, "and you can think of that SAM as a commando raid. We're all crowding into L.A. together, Charlie, and God protect us if this leaks to the wrong people." He donned a horrendous prissy smile, spoke in a nasal saccharine falsetto, "What great big handsome nose-bobbed FCC Commissioner, initials M. E., is hiding out on the set with what terrorist-baiting NBN star? Are they just good friends, or is it one-on-one, fellas?" He dropped the sham and glowered, "That's all you need, bubbe."
"If that should happen, we'd split," Charlie shrugged.
Althouse drew an imaginary line with his forefinger from throat to groin. "You might get split, Charlie. That Fat'ah bunch is getting too close." He stared into the gloom at nothing in particular. "Too damn close," he muttered.
Silently, Charlie scared up a pack of cards. He could think of no better answer.
THURSDAY, 8 JANUARY, 1981:
In the heyday of Paramount Studios it had been easier to locate watering troughs of the grips, gaffers, construction men and engineers who form an utterly indispensable lower echelon of the visual arts industry. Yet every shift of media brought shifting locations, and many a gaudy gin mill has passed through its own eminence to become musty and forgotten as technicians found work, and cheap bar whiskey, in other sections of Los Angeles.
It was Chaim Mardor, moving quietly among the devotees of arts and crafts, who first learned the site of one after-hours bar in current vogue with Industry people. There are many industries north of Wilshire Boulevard, but only one capital-I Industry.
Hakim's instructions to Leah Talith were explicit. "Call me from each location before you make inquiries, Talith. I must know your sequence. These people may have their own security elements and you could arouse interest."