But the look in Plankton's eye was not one of devilish merriment, or even of guilt. He looked enraged and crazed.
"You're going to get in there with your friends," he said, moving into the room with us, and waving toward the back room with his revolver. "And then I'm going to decide what to do with you. A good possibility is justifiable homicide."
"What would the justification be?" Thad asked.
"I'm in a bad mood," Plankton shot back. "1 low's that?"
"Interesting," Thad said, being careful, I guessed, not to worsen Plankton's mood.
I said, "We're here to rescue you, Jay-to look after your well-being, assuming that's what you want. ' I 'his is a l l in keeping with the terms of my agreement with you and Jerry Jeris. But you seem to have an entirely different idea of my role in all of this that's erroneous. Speaking of roles, it's unclear to me exactly what your role is. Gould you clear that up?"
"Shut your trap and get the hell in there!" Plankton snarled, moving away from the doorway to the back room, and waggling his large firearm at me.
"I guess we're going in there," I told Thad, and he followed me past Plankton, who kept the gun raised and his finger poised on the trigger.
The only illumination in the room was from the doorway we walked through. I could see that the windows had been covered with cardboard on which slogans had been spray-painted. One was FFF Lives! and another was Queer Revenge! It was a movie-of-the-week idea of gay protest, but someone must have thought it could be taken seriously by somebody.
The smell of nail polish was strong in the room, and it was apparent that here was the room where Leo Moyle had suffered his captivity. But as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, who, I wondered, were the two figures bound and gagged on the couch in the darkest corner of the room? I was about to guess out loud when Thad beat me to it.
"Are you Miss Annette?" Thad said to the female, a bosomy, large-haired blond woman whose dark eyes were huge with fright. The other figure was that of a slender man in jeans and a white T-shirt, with thinning hair and black circles around his eyes, which also showed fear. Many tattoos adorned the man's arms, but I was unable to make out what they represented.
The scared woman was not able to answer Thad's question regarding her identity owing to the duct tape pasted across her lower face, and her eyes darted from the J-Bird to Thad to me and back to Plankton and his revolver.
"I'm starting to get the drift of what happened here," I said. "You're not actually party to a gigantic scam, Jay- unless you're a better actor than anybody I know is likely to give you credit for." Plankton's eyes narrowed as he tried to sort through that.
"Instead," I said, "it looks like your kidnapping was not a stunt that you knew anything about. You really were dragged out here against your will from New York and held here by these people and at least two others who aren't here right now. You managed to get loose from your bonds during the night, overpower these two, tie them up, and take possession of the revolver they had held on you and earlier on Leo Moyle.
"You were waiting for the other two members of the gang to return, at which point you would either notify the police, or-once you determined who was behind the operation, the FFF or someone else entirely-you would torment your tormentors for a time before deciding on their ultimate disposition. Am I right?"
"You're digging your own grave, Strachey," Plankton said. "But keep going."
"The part you're getting wrong, however, is this, Jay. Because you were blindfolded, you never saw your captors. When Thad and I walked through the front door just now instead of crashing through it, you assumed that we were the other two kidnap-gang members and that we had been part of an elaborate hoax from the beginning. Well, I 'm here to tell you, Jay, that there has been a wicked hoax, yes. But Thad and I were never part of it. We're only here to expose the monstrous hoax and rescue you."
Plankton was shaking his head with a look of disgust. "What a pathetic wuss you are, Strachey. Christ, you don't even have the courage of your convictions." He indicated the graffiti on the cardboard window coverings, as if Queer Revenge figured importantly in my moral underpinnings. In fact, it ranked far down on my life's wish list, maybe number seven or eight.
I said, "Jay, you've been understandably unhinged by what you've been through. But before you miscalculate badly and randomly redistribute many of the human organs present in the room-and I do understand your impulse to do so-I want to point out a provable fact that is sure to come as an eye-opener to you."
Miss Annette's eyes got even bigger. She knew what was coming.
"Do you know, Jay, who this woman is?"
"Hell, she's some damn, man-hating, ball-breaking lipstick lesbian! Who gives a wet fart who she is?"
"No, you're wrong. Do you know where you are?"
"Shit, no. Where am I, anyway?"
"You're in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in an apartment over Annette Koontz's nail parlor. Miss Annette here is Steve Glodt's girlfriend. Why don't you remove the tape from across what I'm sure is her pretty mouth and ask her who organized and funded the kidnapping operation?"
Plankton stood there and said nothing for a long tense moment. You could see what was left of his operational mental machinery spinning fast. Finally, he said, "Say that again, Strachey?"
"Ask Miss Annette who had what to gain by making you and Leo even madder and meaner than you already are.
Ask her who is in negotiations with GSN for a radio-TV simulcast deal, only GSN wants more 'edge' on the show, more white male anger."
Plankton stood for a moment longer staring at me hard. Then he slowly turned his gaze toward Miss Annette. Her eyes stayed on the automatic, which turned toward her also.
"Is there any truth to that?" Plankton asked her, looking a little dazed now.
She nodded vigorously and said something that sounded like "Eee! Eee!" but was probably meant to be "Steve! Steve!"
Plankton stood for a moment longer. Then he sighed, lowered his gun, and said to Thad and me, "Come here. I want you to look at something."
He found a wall switch, and an overhead light went on. Still holding the automatic, Plankton rolled up his right sleeve. Freshly tattooed on his upper arm was a big heart, and inside it were the words J-Bird Loves Al Gore.
Thad said, "That looks bad, J-Bird. But it could have been worse."
"It was," Plankton said. Then he dropped his trousers, tugged at his boxer shorts, turned and bent over. Tattooed on his ample left buttock were the words "And J-Bird Loves"-and on his right buttock-"George W. Bush Even More."
Plankton yanked his pants up, the gun still in his right hand, and buckled his belt, the gun barrel wobbling dangerously.
"Glodt probably thought you'd think it was funny," I said.
"I don't."
"Apparently not."
Plankton pointed the gun again. "Gome on. We're all going for a ride. The three of us, I mean."
"Why don't you let the police handle this, Jay? They're nearby. I can call them."
"Don't bother. I'll deal with Steve."
"We don't have a car," Thad said. "Somebody dropped us off."
Plankton looked at the tattooed man, who 1 assumed was Damien of Damien's Den of In-Ink-Kwity. '"You got a car outside, you fucking pervert?"
The man nodded and thrust his right hip at us. "(Jet his keys," Plankton said.
I groped inside the man's pocket and came up with a set of keys.
"Which car is it?" I said. "The Rabbit?" He shook h i s head. "The Pontiac?" An eager assent-he wanted us out of there.
"Should I shoot these two before we go?" Plankton said, pointing his automatic, and this led to an outbreak of violent twisting and flopping on the couch. Plankton did not shoot, however. He just snorted and said, "Let's go sec Steve. Steve wanted to deal with GSN, but first he's going to have to deal with me. Bring that box along,"
Plankton said, indicating an aluminum case the size of an airline carry-on bag that lay atop a nearby table. Then, wielding his gun again, Plankton motioned toward the door to the corridor. Thad and I did what the J-Bird seemed to want us to do, which was to lead the way out of Annette Koontz's apartment.