Going, Going, Gone Page 15

  The pre-theatre crowds scattered before us like minnows before sharks. Sad to say I began to realize as we left the subway that if the salesladies had had problems believing Chlo to be of the weaker sex, the hotel dicks were sure to size her up as a drag queen the moment we hit the revolving door. Bust the three of us for loitering before we had a chance to corrupt the three-dollar bills that kept the Astor Bar in business. ‘Follow me,’ I said, guiding the gals down 44th to Schubert Alley. By taking the stage door route I could pass them off as theatre people if anybody asked. Didn’t bump into any watchmen so I steered my escorts into the rear lobby.

  When Times Square became Times Square the poor old Astor was one of the first hotels built, and while it retained a certain raffish charm its glory days weren’t even a memory. You couldn’t have called the joint a flop but it didn’t seem like it’d be that long before they strung up the hammocks. The ceiling was two storeys high, and a balcony ran entirely around the lobby at mezzanine level. There were crystal chandeliers big as a Volkswagen, looked like they hadn’t been washed since the market crashed; the way they swung a little even when you couldn’t feel a draft made you hesitate before doing the mistletoe bit underneath. On the floor were oriental carpets big as a school gym, with long rubber runners thrown over the places two million feet had worn through; near the floor, the walls were full of holes – not rat or mouse holes but where kids had stuck their fingers through the plaster when their keepers had their backs turned. In the past the bellhops would’ve had the dicks lay into the Dynamos with saps if they’d dared to even walk past the place; but you could tell it wouldn’t be long before management finally wrapped its mouth around the gas pipe, and let in sci-fi conventions.

  Doctor Oscar’s flunkies had been hard on the case in preparation for the evening. Not only was his smiling puss hanging down from the balcony in black and white, but they’d stuck one of those chopped-liver busts parked on an oak table in the centre of the lobby. On either side of the grand staircase’s chipped marble balustrades they’d stood up their sandwich boards, the usual eye-catchers.

  ‘Spiritual group?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘Personal growth.’

  She took another gander at the photos of Doctor Oscar. Chlo was tapping the bust with a finger, seeing what it was made of. ‘Growing how?’

  ‘This won’t take half an hour,’ I said, irrationally optimistic. Working my hand into my left trouser pocket – damn Continental cut of this suit – I felt the tube within its triple-thick sleeve. A couple of lounge lizards ankled past, heading upstairs to the meeting, giving her the fisheye all the while.

  ‘What’s done here?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘They’re getting together, pressing the flesh. Cats looking out for fresh pigeons. Now let’s go through the drill,’ I said. ‘Remember what I told you, don’t pay attention to anything they say. I listened to ’em once and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Just turn on the charm and make with the chit-chat, and while you two circulate I’ll handle the dirty work.’ Chlo cracked her knuckles by making a fist. ‘Chlo. You don’t talk. OK?’

  ‘AO.’

  ‘Once I’ve done what I need to do, I’ll give you the high sign. Like this.’ I scratched my ear. ‘Then it’s scootsville to wherever it is you want to take me. Believe me, I’ll be happy to go.’ Chlo swayed slightly from left to right, rocking on her silver heels. ‘And ixnay on the swillage. One toddy, no refills.’

  Eulie looked like she’d bit down hard on a lemon. ‘We’re disalcoholic.’

  ‘Wise decision on your part,’ I said, and saw more characters heading up. ‘Looks like the lambs are ready for the slaughter. Come, ladies, his master’s voice is calling.’

  We made our way to the mezzanine. When we got to the Oregon Room we found ourselves bringing up the rear. At the entrance to the hall two Dynamos were lurking. One was a lantern-jawed Aryan with a blonde crew that was so perfectly flat I figured his barber used a paper cutter. The other was good old Biff Baff Bop, still wearing his orange Perry Como underneath a bright burgundy jacket. If either had had whale appliques he’d have been the toast of Hyannis.

  ‘The Shake-Out awaits,’ Crewy Lou purred, giving us the old Brought to You By Ovaltine voice.

  ‘Walter,’ Burt said. ‘Good to see you. And you’ve brought open minds.’

  I looked behind me, supposing he met my companions. ‘That’s not all I brought,’ I said, starting to go through the door. ‘Where can we –’

  ‘You choose?’ asked Crewy Lou. His complexion was so rosy I’d have liked to compliment the embalmers on a job well done.

  Burt nodded, suggesting to me that I should do as asked. ‘I choose.’ Odd to be my age and needing to say the secret sign to be let into the treehouse but I’ve done stranger. I gave the ladies a nod and they chimed in. The gatekeepers blinked, hearing Chlo’s pipsqueak snarl, but if it troubled them they didn’t make a production number out of it.

  ‘Enter,’ said the buzzcut one. ‘Seize opportunity before it seizes you.’

  The Dynamos didn’t seem to be as dynamic as I’d thought they might be when it came to pulling in the marks. There weren’t more than sixty people in the room. All the Dynamos, like Burt, wore burgundy jackets and looked, to a man, as if they were getting over concussions; they numbered about fifteen. The rest were comparative innocents, the same batch of semi-professionals, executive secretaries, dental hygienists and veterinarians I’d seen back at the HQ.

  ‘Burt, listen,’ I said, ‘I’d like to go ahead and get this taken care of.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ he said. His grin had grown goofier since we’d first met, and I started to think that once you were finally accepted into the Dynamos, the next step was to have the frontal lobes removed. As I looked around the room I marvelled at the fact that this seemed to be a mixer where nobody mixed. If they’d been playing musical chairs earlier, they’d stopped; everybody’d already taken seats in four different rings spaced throughout the big room, which was one of those Louis the umpteenth places with the mirrors and red plush bagnio curtains and little gold cherubs in the corners leering at you. Three of the ringleaders stood in the centre of their circles, looking like they couldn’t wait to start laying down the old zingo. ‘Friends,’ Crewy Lou intoned, creeping up behind us, ‘find seats. Take them.’

  ‘Walter,’ Burt said, stepping away; not a pleasant sight, under the circumstances. ‘Take the opportunity to let your outside command your inside. We’ll take care of matters following the shake out.’

  ‘Really, I was hoping we’d be able to move along,’ I said, the tips of my fingers beginning to twitch. Trying to calm myself I stuck my hands in my pockets and started fiddling with the tube. ‘I had another appointment –’

  ‘It can wait,’ Crewy said, sliding around to interpose his body between myself and Trish’s lobotomized pal. ‘Find seats. Take them.’

  ‘I don’t think you get me –’

  Crewy Lou leaned forward, his eyes as warm as a coyote’s, and repeated his riff. ‘Find seats. Take them.’

  Just at that moment my nerves got the better of me, my brothers, and I pulled a trick that would have shamed a greenhorn. As I jiggled open the tube’s sleeve my finger slid inside, and jarred loose the cap. That cool cool wetness, enough to assure that I’d be sailing like Icarus through the next day and a half. Removing my paw as if I’d set it on fire, I rubbed my hand along the hem of my jacket, but it was too late.

  ‘If you say so.’ The three thousand things running through my mind just then kept me from remembering how long it’d taken to blast off the time I’d tried this stuff before. No question I’d soaked up more this time around. ‘Any recommendations?’

  ‘Sit here,’ he said, pointing to empty chairs in the nearest circle. ‘In my nutshell.’

  Sudden gushers spurted from beneath my arms as I sat but it was too early to know if it was simple nerves or the first symptoms. My chickadees perched on either side of my roost. While Crewy was shedding hi
s red threads I wasted no time laying down the bad news.

  ‘Emergency,’ I whispered, nudging Eulie. My nose was already starting to get cold as the capillaries began to close off.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Glancing up I felt a shakiness coming over me, noting that I could already perceive the pink border outlining each chandelier bulb’s light. ‘I dosed myself. Accidentally.’

  ‘Dosed how?’

  ‘Hallucinogen,’ I said.

  ‘Walter, what’s meant?’ Eulie asked, her lowered hiss loud enough to catch Chlo’s attention as well.

  I nodded. ‘We can’t stay in here long. Get me out if I start –’

  ’Greetings!’ Crewy Lou interrupted. ‘Attention. Focus and concentrate.’ That grin was so fixed he was starting to look like he’d been carved for Halloween. ‘Focus and concentrate,’ the three other ringleaders said, some five seconds after he did. That wasn’t going to help, having the sound noticeably out of sync even before the echo came in. Burt, that nincompoop, was parked in the circle farthest from ours; not a chance I’d be able to make the exchange and get out in time. ‘Open yourself to the shake out, and see what’ll fall out.’ He started to turn slowly in place, giving each one of us the snake eyes, that grin never slipping an inch. ‘As Doctor Oscar says.’ Looking up at the chandelier I watched circular rainbows take shape around every single bulb. On the floor, the carpet’s nub started to deepen. I started to think of Bryce Canyon. ‘Accept the inmost deep within you.’

  That old stiff strychnine feel swept in along the back of my neck. Soon as Crewy turned to face the far side I started rubbing, trying to loosen the muscles before they had a chance to knot up. Wanting to give Eulie a sign all was okay so far, I winked, twice.

  ‘First,’ Crewy said, ‘imagine this entire room is filled to the ceiling with shit.’

  What was it with these clowns? Rough toilet training was all I could figure. Realizing I’d have to hear this spiel in replay made me feel like I’d puke. Eulie’s face seemed kind of antsy, like she was watching somebody set off fireworks in a dynamite factory. I took a breath, and thought a while of what air felt like, inside my lungs.

  ‘Dig through the shit, through the shit, the shit –’

  The ringleaders sounded as if they were enhanced for stereo, badly, each one of them said almost the same thing almost simultaneously. Even as I grew to like the sound, I made a point to remember that the last thing I wanted to do during the shakeout was open my head up wide enough for something to fall in.

  ‘No adult’s adult while the child hides inside –’

  Tried humming internally, calling up favourite songs to try drowning out the Dynamos, be they ‘Little Maggie’ or ‘Canned Heat Blues’ or the Ted Weems Orchestra playing ‘Cheer Up’, but not a one could get through a chorus without some nitwittery piercing the veil. ‘The jewel is in the shit and the shit is in the jewel,’ ‘Master potential or it masters you,’ ‘Not a cough in a carload,’ that kind of blather. Chlo leaned forward in her chair, her long blonde ropes dangling down, hiding her face. If I stared at her hair long enough I knew I’d see them move like snakes of their own accord. Eulie tapped my arm. I couldn’t tell what she wanted, and she finally stopped. Shadows in the room were two o’clock sharp. Bad sign when I realized I couldn’t remember if minutes earlier there’d even been shadows. Couldn’t help but notice how odd my feet felt, within shoes, and was about to take them off –

  ’Zingo!!!’

  Didn’t like the sound of that; looked up and saw him slapping a red-headed secretary sitting across the way. The faucets let go and she acted like she was going to run off, but her seatmates held her down. Taking Eulie’s little paw in mine I tightened my grip, thinking that might let her know I was having second thoughts. She didn’t act as if she saw me, she was whispering something in Chlo’s ear. It didn’t seem to bother Chlo. Sharp white shafts started poking, longer and longer each time I blinked, out of the lights’ surrounding spectra. Forgetting that I had my eyes open, when I devoted my attention to the circle once more I saw everybody start to look at me, one by one; everybody except Crewy Lou, and he was still ranting on, perfecting that grin. I knew by now my pupils were as big as quarters; and knew that if I closed my eyes, no one would see me.

  ’Zingo!’

  Reopening I saw Chlo watching Crewy really put his shoulder into a punch as he let a middle-aged man, insurance agent probably, have a hard one in the kisser. When Crewy stepped away it looked like he’d tried to put red lipstick on the fellow, but hadn’t quite mastered the fundamentals of cosmetology. Then he feinted to his left, and jumped, and I thought he was coming to try out a new line on me. Sense tried to crawl back into my head but now the opening was too small, and sense gave up. I couldn’t understand why Eulie ignored the subtle facial gestures I was sure I was making. The corners of my mouth began to ache and I realized my grin might be noticeable. At least I’d fade in with the rest of the crowd.

  ‘If you have to beat the shit out of a nonadult,’ Crewy said, ‘in order to drag their child into sunlight, what is needed? What?’

  Jamming a hand into his pants pocket, he yanked out a stopwatch. There’re trails and there’re trails, but this was something else entirely. As Crewy Lou performed that action I saw its progression take place in about fifty individual static frames. Think of a strobe going off in a black-lit room, but without black light. ‘Five,’ Crewy counted off, though as I expected the sound no longer issued directly from his lips. ‘Four.’

  ‘Eulie,’ I said, trying to squeak it out under my breath. When she turned to look at me I know I gaped when I saw her make hundreds of facial expressions, nearly all at once and every one sequential, as earlier described. I’d experienced this effect many times, in milder form – under the influence of any of the LSDs, once after swallowing (to be on the safe side) a baggie full of dried stropharia cubensis, and again following the intake of a number of other derivatives of vegetable agents, notably toloache. But comparing those to this was like comparing automatic vaudeville to 3-D Cinemascope.

  ’You stupid fucking assholes!!’

  Crewy was going into overdrive. While shifting my head to look at the dozens of him I felt the blood shoot down into my feet and then shoot back up twice as high. All the Crewies moved simultaneously, jabbing in all directions, lifting scores of legs. The words didn’t come from them, or underneath them, or above them – they just landed on my ears and tumbled in. As I heard them I perceived the fugal music underpinning speech, neuronic Bach.

  ‘Fed up. Fed up with you. Fucking. Fucking People. Fed. Up. With You People. With. You. You people.’

  I thought I said Eulie, but I didn’t hear myself say it, after the fact, and she gave no sign that anything had distracted either her or Chlojo, both of whom appeared to be watching these dynamic escapades wide-eyed. Their hundreds of faces flowed, slowly, toward Crewy. All ten thousand of him were shifting, floating like gulls, toward me. Then the echo severely kicked in.

  ‘Iffff youuuu. Haave. Toooo beat theeee livinginging. Shitititit out. Of Aaaaa nooooo-nothing –’

  Blue and brown blended into dirty violet as he swerved away from me. Crewy now hovered directly in front of Chlo, who was now vibrating like a tuning-fork. Even so, since she wasn’t moving, per se, I was able to focus in on her, imagining I could see her various aspects merging into one until they actually did so. Once I had her fixed, she and everything around her started to move as if floating through clear syrup. Her jaws moved, slightly, as if she were chewing something. Veins popped out on Crewy’s temples and that bloodless face of his took on the colour of an August tomato. I heard hummingbird wings abuzz somewhere in the back of my head.

  ‘What. Do. You. Do. What. Do. You. Do? Do? What? Do?’ Then Crewy started counting out again. ‘Five.’ An hour passed. ‘Four.’ Another. ‘Three.’

  Then I heard Crewy say the next word:

  ‘Two.’

  The notion passed through my head that old flattop was
getting ready to do something he’d regret.

  ‘One.’

  I felt myself trying to get up, briefly; then sensibly stopped trying. Eulie’s grip tightened on my arm. I started to think about how much I wanted to get down on something soft with her and making with the appassionatta till all the glasses in the cabinet broke.

  ’Response?’

  Some want to know the experience without having the experience, but there’ll never be a way. Most people shouldn’t even think about the experience. But maybe I can give you a hint. Think of the clearest dream you ever had, the sharpness of the colours, the facial expressions of the people drifting through, the fast-shifting backgrounds, everything in reach yet not in reach, the profound silence that falls when nobody speaks. Think how the dream felt more real than life, and as greatly unreal. The non-hallucinatory part of the experience is twenty times as clear, but exactly the same.

  ’Zingo!!!’

  Crewy’s hundreds of arms swung consecutively forward until they suddenly stopped. Chlo caught hold of them somewhere between the wrist and elbow. His and her facial expressions riffled through my line of sight more slowly, a dealer’s casual shuffle. Chlo, Eulie shouted, Nyah. Chlo put her hands around his neck and tightened till you couldn’t tell he had a neck. I wondered what he was thinking.

  Stop her. Oh my God.

  Crewy’s head lolled in her grip like it was made of rags. I heard a crack, thunder after lightning. A black blur passed through my eyes, clouds over the sun, and then saw light glossing over Eulie’s crow-dark hair. When Chlo and Crewy emerged from eclipse she had one hand around his neck and the other clamped down on his shoulder. She roared like winter. Stop somebody said. Judging from her movements it seemed like Chlo was starting to push in two different directions. Her mouth opened, wide and then wider until I thought her head would split apart. Her back teeth were filed to, or capped with, points. Other people in the room seemed to be getting up to dance and I figured they’d be dancing to ‘Venus In Furs’ rather than ‘Telstar’, since I heard both playing. Two long red whipcords shot out of Crewy Lou’s neck. Where did his head go? She took her hand from his shoulder, and there it was, in her hand. She threw it.