“Why are you kids still lying around in bed? We got a whole day ahead of us and things to do!”
“My husband and I were having a chat.” Susan flicked me a look that would have fried the snakes on Medusa’s head.
“Well, better get up now. You know Floon doesn’t like it when you miss a meal.”
“Who’s Floon?”
“Don’t be stupid, Frannie.” Susan sashayed into the bathroom, closing the door behind her a lot too hard.
“She’s a fine-looking woman, Frannie. You’re a lucky man.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll trade her to you for a few answers.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
Gus walked to one of the large closets and opened the door. He reached for something and pulled out a suit exactly like his– dark, rich, beautiful. A fortune in cloth. “Here, I’ll help you on with it. We gotta get moving. You got the shirt and boots somewhere?”
“We’re wearing the same thing?”
He looked at the suit, briskly brushed the front, and pointed to it. “Frannie, I never imagined a man’s suit could cost ten thousand dollars. That is, until this trip when he gave us this one.” He held up a foot. “And John Wayne wore Lucchese boots like these. If Floon wants me to wear these clothes today, I’ll do it. He paid for them but we get to keep them when the trip’s over.
I got out of bed naked. What else could I do, hold a pillow in front of my package? “Gus, my mind is a little unreliable today, so forgive me if I ask some dumb questions.”
“Will do. Here’s your undies.” He held out a brown box.
Opening it, I pulled beautiful lime-colored tissue paper aside, and stared. “I don’t wear boxer shorts.”
“Today you do, buddy. That’s how Floon works—everything down to the last detail. Those undershorts probably cost more than my first automobile.”
Unhappily, I slid them on. Next came the white shirt, black cashmere socks, and the suit. Luciano Barbera. I’d always wanted to own one of his suits. Yes, I was an old man but could still feel the quality of the material sliding across my skin. ‘This suit really cost ten thousand bucks?”
“Yeah, and Floon bought twelve of them for the men. I don’t want to even guess what he paid for the women’s clothes. Know what he told me? That he paid for them all in ngultrums.”
“What’s that?”
“Bhutan money.” He went back to the closet and took out my cowboy boots. The last pair I’d seen were the orange ones worn by teenage me. At least these were black. Turning one over in my hand, I had to admit that if you had to wear a pair of lizardskin boots these were the ones.
Dressed, I checked myself in a full-length mirror. “We look like rich Texas Rangers.”
“I don’t know what Caz has planned today, but you can bet it’ll be interesting.”
“Caz? Caz Floon? What kind of name is that?”
“Caz de Floon. He’s Dutch. Frannie, if you don’t remember this guy’s name, you are having memory problems. Susan, are you ready in there?”
“In a minute!”
That minute turned into quite a few more, but when she emerged, my third wife looked great. She wore a sleeveless blue summer dress that made her appear years younger and sort of sexy, for an old woman.
“What are you wearing, Susan?” Gus’s voice was not friendly.
“Don’t be a bore, Gus. I don’t like the dress Floon sent. It makes me look like a palm reader at a cheap carnival. Madame ZuZu. I am going to carry the handbag though. It’s very nice.”
His mouth tightened and he took a deep breath before speaking. “Please don’t do this, Susan. You know what’s going to happen.”
They locked eyes. Neither backed off or looked away. You could almost hear the sound of their wills crashing head-on.
“Forget it. I like this dress. Caz de Floon is on an ugly power trip. He has to control everything. He invites his so-called friends to go on little trips with him, but then dresses them up in clothes he chooses and moves them around like they were Barbie and Ken dolls. I don’t like it. At first I thought it was okay but it’s not. It’s perverse. He’s perverse.”
“Yes, but you know what Floon will do when he sees you’re not wearing what he wants. Why create a fuss? It’s not a big deal.”
“To you it isn’t but it is to me. I’m not a puppet. I’m tired of his whims and fits and furies. Everything always has to be his way. When it isn’t, he sulks like a twelve-year-old. God, you’d think being one of the most powerful men in the world would have matured him a bit. I never would have gone on this trip if I had known how he was going to behave.”
“But Susan, Floon’s paying for everything. He gave you women all the same dress because he doesn’t want anyone being jealous of anyone else. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Plus the fact we’ve been living like gods on this trip.”
“Little gods.” She adjusted a shoulder on her dress. “Floon’s little gods who he bosses around as if he were Zeus. Going on this trip was like selling our souls to the devil. Sure you see everything and eat well, but you also have to do exactly what he wants or Floon gets mad. I can’t believe his ‘friends’ go along with this craziness. Screw his power trip—I don’t want to play anymore. Frannie was right—we never should have come. I made him, but now I know it was wrong.”
What I remembered from my last time in the future was Susan scolding me over the phone to stop griping about the trip. Today she wished she hadn’t come. Tomorrow she’d tell me to stop complaining. What happened between today and tomorrow to change her mind? More importantly, what happened today– period?
Who was Caz de Floon, besides one of the most powerful men in the world? How did he fit into my equation? And where was that feather I knew so well? I knew I had seen it up here. I was certain of that.
Downstairs in the lobby Floon’s merrymakers had assembled. The world is full of people standing around. We all do it and we’re used to seeing it. But now and then you see someone standing around looking so damned odd that your brain slams on its brakes and leans on the horn as hard as it can.
Downstairs in the lobby, Floon’s merrymakers were not only dressed identically, but because they came in various shapes and sizes, my first sight of them standing together was a picture that will stay with me until that motorcycle takes off my head.
Of course there was a midget. Or maybe he was a dwarf.
Definitely, a little person, or whatever they are calling themselves these days. His suit fit him perfectly but the cowboy boots made his already-odd walk odder. When he saw me coming out of the elevator he gave a big wave like we were best buddies.
The fortune teller dress Susan had complained about was all over the lobby. The majority of women who wore it were old. This dress might have worked on a twenty-year-old girl with perfect skin, body, and bedroom eyes that melted your underpants. But on these fat and thin white-haired birds, it looked tasteless at best, a cruel joke at worst. I later said to Susan these women looked like the chorus from an old age home’s production of Carmen, God forbid.
“How are you this morning, Frannie?”
I slid my eyes from the fossil gypsies to another man standing a couple of feet away wearing the suit of the day. “Are you Floon?”
He liked that. He opened his mouth and laughed—I guess. It looked like a laugh but he didn’t make a sound. “No, I’m Jerry Jutts. Remember we talked last night. Jutts Desserts? Caz is over there yakking with that big blond.”
The woman he pointed to looked like a sumo wrestler. Easily two hundred round pounds, not including a Grand Ole Opry hairdo that rose up off her head in a frozen yellow cyclone.
I whistled long and low. “Man, you’d need a wrecking ball to knock her down! Is that Floon’s bodyguard? She looks like a female Odd Job.”