The Frumious Bandersnatch (32 page)

I told them Tamar Valparaiso was going to be the next big singing sensation.

 

THIS KID WORKED
in the shop just around the corner from our office. I used to stop in there after lunch almost every day. Just before I went back upstairs. Lorelei Records. I checked out the product, the displays, told this kid what was hot for us this week…

Avery Hanes.

That's his name.

Told him what was coming down the pike, what he should be on the lookout for. Tamar Valparaiso, I told him. Coming in May. The album is called
Bandersnatch.
That's the title song, “Bandersnatch.” Watch for it. We'll be doing a terrific video. Watch for it. Tamar Valparaiso.

One day…

Avery didn't care how he spent my money, of course, well, you know how young people are, nothing's impossible to them. All these big ideas about massive in-store promos, and TV ads, and subway posters, and ads on the sides of busses, ten cities, twenty cities, a hundred cities! He was talking about millions in advertising and promotion alone, a prohibitive approach, really, on top of everything else we'd be doing.

At first, we met in my office. He'd come up on his lunch hour, and we'd discuss his ideas. I like to encourage young people, I'm very good with young people. And he was so…
enthusiastic,
do you know? One day, he said something about five minutes of fame, fifteen minutes of fame, whatever it was, Andy Warhol's famous saying. He said if only we could do something that could give Tamar just those fifteen minutes of fame, was what it was, then the rest would follow. Like if she broke her leg onstage during a concert…

“But she won't be doing any concerts till after the album release,” I told him.

“Or got hit by a bus…” he said.

“Oh sure, hit by a bus.”

“Do you remember when this writer Ira Levin wrote a book called
A Kiss Before Dying,
where the last chapter is this girl gets pushed off the roof? Well, right after the book was published this girl in real life fell off a roof someplace in New York, and she had a copy of the goddamn
book
in her pocket! Something like that, you know?”

“Sure, we'll push Tamar off the roof.”

“Come on, Barney…”

He was calling me Barney by then.

“…I'm talking about something spectacular. Something that will make headlines.”

“Like what?”

“Like she gets smacked around by some goon in a disco…”

“No, no.”

“…or somebody's stalking her…”

“That won't make headlines.”

“…or she gets kidnapped or something,” Avery said, and we both looked at each other.

There's that moment, you know?

There's that moment when you realize this is it.

Avery suggested fifty thousand dollars as the ransom, but I said we'd never find anyone to do it for that kind of money, so he said, “Okay a hundred, how does that sound?” and I said that still sounded too low, one minute he's talking about spending ten million dollars in as many cities, and now he's down to a hundred grand! I told him that would sound phony as hell, and besides, no one would risk a kidnapping for a lousy hundred thousand dollars! So we batted it back and forth until we hit on two-fifty, which was, after all, a quarter of a million dollars, a not unreasonable asking price for someone who was not yet a star.

I don't think he was playing me, do you think he was playing me? I mean, I don't think he knew all along that he was the one who'd be doing the actual kidnapping, I don't think he was bargaining for a higher fee. There was an innocence about Avery…well, he double-crossed me later on. But at the time, I think he genuinely was just so enthusiastic about the idea, just
into
it, you know, working with me to find what would sound like a reasonable ransom demand, not too low, not too high, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars had just the right
ring
to it, the way the whole idea seemed absolutely
right.

But then we faced the reality.

Never mind the fifteen minutes of fame. Who were we going to find who'd risk getting caught doing something as serious as a kidnapping? And who could we trust to keep quiet
if
they got caught? Who could we trust not to say that Barney Loomis of Bison Records had engineered the kidnapping of his own young recording artist?

“You could trust
me,
” Avery said.

I looked at him.

“I'd do it,” he said.

Little touch of sarcasm there, Carella thought. Be careful, Nellie. He'll spook and tell you to go to hell, no more questions.

“A dead one,” Nellie said.

And Loomis buried his face in his hands and began sobbing again.

BERT KLING
felt uncomfortable because the comic was telling jokes about black people. Even holding hands with Sharyn Cooke, even sitting at a table with her and Artie Brown and his wife, Kling felt uncomfortable. Maybe that was because he was the only white man in the place.

This was a black comedy club uptown in Diamondback, highly recommended by Brown, seconded as a good idea by Sharyn, who now seemed to be enjoying the black comic's interpretation of an addict hitting on his mother for money.

“Like this is the first time the poor woman has heard this hard luck story, you know whut I'm sayin?” the comic asked. “Mama, I just needs a li'l bread to tide me over till mornin, Mama, I'll pay you back then, I swear on Grandma's grave, may she rest in peace.”

Laughter.

Even from Artie Brown, who'd dealt with a few addicts in his lifetime.

“Same tale he tell her ever time he strung out,” the comic said. “He Mama s'pose to believe it now. He goan take that money, friens, and shoot it in his arm or sniff it up his nose. He Mama know that! Y'know whut she should give him? A swiff kick in the
bee
-hine!”

Applause now.

“Now whut's all this fuss about this Tamar whutever her name is, some La-tino name? Ain't she never dance with a black man before? She got to know, you dance with a black man, he goan rape you. Now that's it, man. He just goan get all woody in his pants, and he goan rape you. How many of you ladies here has danced with a black man din't get all woody on you? Am I right? You know whut I'm sayin, ladies, don'choo?”

Everybody laughed again.

Kling was not laughing.

Sharyn looked at him.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said.

“No, what?” she asked again, and squeezed his hand.

He shook his head.

She looked into his eyes.

“Really,” he said. “Nothing.”

But she knew him.

And it was something.

 

THEY HAD BEEN
sitting in Ollie's car, listening to music and discussing the movie, which he couldn't get over.

“It was so helpful to an emerging artist like myself,” he told Patricia. “Character,” he said. “Who'd have thought a person had to worry about character? With all the other things that burden a writer?”

“I'm so glad you enjoyed it,” she said. “I was so afraid you might not.”

“Hey, just being with you would have been enough,” he said.

They were both silent for a moment.

It was now almost midnight, and the rain had let up, so Patricia suggested that maybe they should call it a night. Ollie got out of the car, and came around to her side to let her out. The rain had driven all the neighborhood gangstas inside, so he didn't have to flash the Glock. He took her inside her building, and they waited for the elevator together. They both had to report for work at a quarter to eight, but neither of them seemed aware of the late hour.

When the elevator came, Ollie put out his arm to hold the doors open for her.

“Goodnight, Oll,” she said, “I had a wonderful time.”

“So did I, Patricia.”

“May I take you to dinner this Saturday night?” she asked.

He looked at her.

“Well, you said I should invite you.”

“Ah yes,” Ollie said, doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation. “I would be delighted, m'little chickadee.”

“Well good then,” she said, and raised herself on tip-toes and kissed him on the mouth.

Smiling, she stepped into the elevator.

She waggled her fingers at him as the doors closed.

She was still smiling.

In the softly falling drizzle, Ollie walked back to his car. Sitting behind the wheel, he closed the door against the rain, and put the key into the ignition.

Then, for some reason he could not quite understand, he put his head on the steering wheel and began weeping.

 

“
I KNOW IT'S LATE
,” Hawes said into the telephone.

“What time is it, anyway?”

He looked up at the squadroom clock.

“Almost twelve-thirty,” he said. “But we just wrapped up here, and…”

“Anything I should know?”

“Well, I don't know who's going to release this, us or the Feebs.”

“You cracked it,” Honey said.

“Well…”

“Come on over,” she said. “We'll discuss it here.”

“It's not too late?”

“I don't have to be in till six tomorrow night.”

“Me, neither,” Hawes said. “Quarter to eight, in fact. Should I come over?”

“Sure,” she said. “This might turn into a scoop.”

“It very well might.”

“ ‘Boy Detective Cracks Kidnapping Case.' ”

He visualized her spreading her free hand on the air.

“So…uh…should I come over?” he asked.

“Must be an echo in this place,” she said.

“Are you hungry?”

“Are you?”

“Shall I bring some sandwiches?”

“If you like.”

“I'll see you soon.”

“I'm here,” she said, and hung up.

 

TEDDY WAS AWAKE
when Carella got home at almost two in the morning. She turned on the bedside lamp, and then opened her arms to him, and he went to her and kissed her, and held her a moment longer before he began undressing. Looking at his face, she knew there was something. Everything this man felt showed on his face. She waited until he was in bed beside her, and then she signed
What is it?

“He thought I was the weakest link,” Carella said. She was watching his lips. He saw on her face that she hadn't caught it all. Everything this woman felt showed on her face. This time, he signed it.

He thought I was the weakest link.

Who did?
she signed.

“Barney Loomis,” he said, signing and speaking simultaneously.

I don't know what you mean.

“He asked for me on the case because he thought I'd never in a million years tip to what was going on. He couldn't trust The Squad to be fools…”

The Squad?

“The Joint Task Force. So he picked the weakest link. Me. Detective Steve Carella. His insurance policy. To make sure they got away clean.”

Does this mean you cracked it?

“It means we cracked it.”

Then Mr. Loomis made a mistake, didn't he?

“I guess he made a big mistake,” Carella said, and took her in his arms. “Right from minute one.”

What time do you have to be in tomorrow?
she signed.