RainBo Soft Drinks has its New York offices on the third floor of the building which stands at 490 Park Avenue South. Although small (market share as of 3/1/81: 6. 5%), RainBo is enthusiastic, a young and growing concern. In early April of 1981, the RainBo top brass certainly has something to be excited about: they have gotten the rights (for a price they can afford) to commercially exploit the classic Harold Arlen composition “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” They are tooling up a whole new PR campaign around the song.
On this Saturday morning, executive vice president George Patella (“I'm a knee man” is his favorite singles-bar pickup line... not that he is single) has driven in from his home in Westport because a brilliant concept has come to him in the middle of the night. He wants to memo it and lay it on his superior's desk before noon. And after noon, there's a certain new titty-bar over on 7th Avenue that he's been meaning to check out.
His head full of animated soda bottles dancing over the rainbow in cunning little red shoes, George Patella barely registers the man who follows him in, catching the door and murmuring “Thank you” after George has used his key. All he notices is an older gentleman, in his late sixties or early seventies, handsome in a haggard sort of way, and wearing a green military uniform.
If asked later to be more specific about this uniform, Mr. Patella would be unable to add much, although he is by nature a friendly and helpful man (albeit one with a tendency to put his wedding ring into a rear compartment of his wallet on certain occasions). If his head hadn't been so full of those dancing soda bottles, he might have seen that the elderly fellow with the steel gray brush-cut wore no insignia and no badges of rank. If chivvied into total recall (or hypnotized into it), Patella might have said this of the man who stepped into the elevator with him that Saturday morning: he was wearing a dark green shirt, a black tie held to the shirt with a plain gold bar, and dark green pants, sharply creased and cuffed, over brightly shined black shoes. An outfit of military aspect, in other words, but one that could have been purchased at the Army-Navy store a block over for a total cost of under forty dollars.
It is the way he wears what he has on that gives the impression of military dress; once the older gentleman has pushed the button for his floor (George Patella has no idea which one), he stands perfectly straight and perfectly still, with his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes on the lighted floor-indicator. He doesn't fidget or call attention to himself in any way, certainly not by attempting to chat. And there is nothing in his posture which suggests discomfort. This is a man who has stood so—not quite at attention, but certainly not at ease—many times before. His face communicates that. That, and the idea that he perhaps enjoys such a posture.
All and all no surprise that George Patella, preoccupied with his own concerns (he's too deep within them to even realize he's softly whistling “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”), does not question the man's right to be there. All else aside, the man in the green shirt and trousers radiates that sense of right place-right time. And certainly George Patella does not recognize the man sharing his elevator car as General Anthony “Iron-Guts” Hecksler (U. S. Army Ret.), madman, murderer, and fugitive from justice. Patella gets off on Three to write his memo about the dancing soda bottles. The man in the green pants and shirt stays aboard the elevator car. Patella the soft-drink seller has one last glimpse of the military fella as he (Patella) turns the corner toward the RainBo offices: an elderly gent standing quietly erect, looking straight ahead, hands clasped in front of him, the fingers of those hands slightly bunched by arthritis. Just standing there, just waiting for the elevator to go up, so he can get on with his own business.
Whatever that business might be.
April 4, 1981 Cony Island Skies fair, winds light, temperature 51 F.
9:40 A. M.
As soon as Sandra Jackson and Dina Andrews step off the train, eleven-year-old Dina expresses her desire to go on the Wonder Wheel, which has just resumed operation for another season.
On their way down there, they are huckstered cheerfully from both sides of the mostly empty midway. One cry makes Sandra smile: “Hey, pretty blonde lady! Hey, you little red-headed cutie! Come on over here and try your luck! Make my day!”
Sandra diverts to the Wheel of Chance and sizes the game up. It's a little like roulette, only with prizes instead of money if you win. Hit red or black, odd or even, and win a small prize. Hit one of the triples and win a bigger one. Hit a four-way and win a bigger one yet. And if you should pick a single number and hit, you win the prize of prizes—the big pink teddy bear. All this possibility for a quarter!
Sandra turns to Dina (who is indeed both a redhead and a cutie). “What are you going to name your new bear?” she asks her.
The guy running the Wheel of Chance grins. “Confidence!” he cries. “Sweetheart, that's the best thing in life!”
“I'll name him Rinaldo,” Dina says promptly. “If you win him.”
“Oh, I'll win him, all right,” Sandra says. She takes a quarter from her purse and surveys the numbers, which run from one to thirty-four and include such ringers as FREE SPIN, BYE-BYE NICE TRY, and double zero. She looks at the concessionaire, who is checking out her bod in a way that is thorough without being creepy. “My friend,” she says to him, “I want you to remember that I'm only putting a floor under you. From this point, your season is only going to get better.”
“Gosh, you are confident,” he says. “Well, pick your number and I'll let er rip.”
Sandra lays her quarter down on seventeen. Three minutes later the concessionaire is watching with wide eyes as the pretty lady and her pretty young friend continue to walk down toward the Wonder Wheel, the pretty young friend now in charge of a pink teddy-bear almost as big as she is.
“How'd you do it, Aunt Sandy?” Dina wants to know. She is all but bursting with excitement. “How'd you do it?”
Aunt Sandy taps her forehead and grins. “Psychic waves, sweetheart. Call it that. Come on, let's see what the world looks like from way up high.”
Sometimes life exhibits (or seems to exhibit) an observable pattern. This is certainly one of those times. Because, as the two of them begin to skip hand in hand toward the Wonder Wheel, Sandra Jackson begins to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Dina quickly joins in.
April 4, 1981 490 Park Avenue South
9:55 A. M.
Gosh and fishes, gee whillikers, and Katie bar the door! What a time old Iron-Guts is having! Talk about making the best of your time! Talk about your gauzy moon-drenched madhouse dreams made real!
At first he felt some doubt. Disquiet, even. For a few moments there, after he picked the lock of the hallway door (no problem there, he could have done it in a doze) and stepped into the Zenith House reception area, something in the back of his brain actually tried to flash a Code Red. It was as if all those alligator instincts which served him so well in three wars and half a dozen brushfire skirmishes had sniffed something out and were trying to warn him. But a command officer didn't call off a mission simply because of a little trench-fright. What a command officer did was remind himself of his objective.
“Designated Jew,” Hecksler murmured. That was his objective. The liar who had led him on and then stolen his best ideas.
Nonetheless he continued to feel that electric tickle of unease, that sense of being watched. Being watched by the very walls, it seemed.