The Frumious Bandersnatch (6 page)

“I'd sure hate to meet you in a dark alley,” Ollie said.

“You would? I take that as a compliment, Oll.”

“You know something?”

“What?”

“Nobody ever called me ‘Oll' before. I mean before tonight. I mean before you did.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well…is that all right? I mean…‘Oll' sounds so natural. I mean…it seems to fit you.”

“Oll,” he said, trying it.

“Oll,” she said, and shrugged tentatively.

“Here's to it,” he said, and raised his glass. “Oll.”

“Here's to it,” she said, and clinked her glass against his.

The band was playing “Tenderly.”

“Wanna dance again?” Patricia asked.

“Yes, I would,” Ollie said.

“You're a good dancer, Oll,” she said.

“Oll,” he said, testing the name again, tasting it like wine.

“Is it okay?” she asked.

“Yes, it's just fine, Patricia,” he said, and led her inside and onto the dance floor.

 

CHANNEL FOUR'S OWN
private motor launch pulled up alongside just as the
River Princess
slowed her speed and lowered the loading platform and ladder on her port side. Somewhat a celebrity in her own right, more for her spectacular legs than for her news coverage, Honey Blair drew a sizable crowd of somewhat-celebrities themselves to that side of the boat, where—followed by her crew of three—she climbed to the main deck, an abundance of leg and thigh showing in the short leather mini she was wearing. Honey was accustomed to dressing somewhat skimpily for her roving reporter assignments on the Eleven O'Clock News, a penchant that made her one of the station's favorites. Tonight, to complement the short blue leather mini, she was wearing calf-high navy leather boots with not-quite stiletto heels, and an ice-blue, long-sleeved, clingy silk blouse, its pearl buttons unbuttoned to show just the faintest shadowed beginnings of her cleavage. Honey normally looked cool and swift and sexy. But in tonight's crowd, she resembled somebody's maiden aunt from Frozen Stalks, Idaho.

Tamar Valparaiso was scheduled to be taped at ten
P.M.
, which would give Honey time enough to get back to the studio, do some quick editing, and get the piece on the air by eleven-twenty, after they'd covered all the local fires, murders, political scandals, and a weensy bit of international news so that the channel wouldn't seem like just another hick television station here in one of America's biggest cities. Honey's taped segment would be followed by Jim Garrison doing the day's sports, which meant that a lot of male viewers in their thirties, a large part of Tamar's target audience, would be watching her do “Bandersnatch” for two or three minutes, after which Honey would interview her, all panting and sweaty—Tamar, not Honey—for another minute or so. That was a hell of a big bite of television time, and don't think Binkie Horowitz and everyone else at Bison didn't realize it.

It was one thing to have the video premiere on all four music channels yesterday. It was another to get coverage like this on one of the big three networks, during the Eleven O'Clock News, no less, following the Saturday night movie. Binkie had every right to feel proud of himself for landing the spot.

Now that Honey was here, Binkie's job was to make sure she was a) comfortable and b) well prepared for the short interview that would follow Tamar's performance. Honey was meticulous about not drinking on the job, so while her crew set up their cameras alongside the polished dance floor where Tamar and her partner would be performing, Binkie plied Honey with rich dessert and hot tea while filling her in on Tamar's background, such as it was.

“She comes from karaoke,” he said, “can you imagine? Used to perform in clubs in southwest Texas, her father's Mexican, you know, her mother's Russian. Nice little background story there, by the way, how they met. He's a vacuum cleaner salesman, her mother's a beautician, this is a real American success story, immigrants coming here from different parts of the world, raising an all-American girl who's poised on the edge of stardom—do I detect a skeptical look on your face?”

Honey raised her shoulders and her eyebrows.

“My dear woman,” Binkie said, “Tamar Valparaiso is like nothing you have ever seen before, just you wait. She is new, she is original, dare I say she is seminal? She already had vibrato when she was eight, she has a five-octave range, and she can sight-read any piece of music you put in front of her, including opera. She's not only going to be the biggest diva to explode on the CHR-pop scene in decades, she's also going to be a big movie…”

“What's CHR-pop?” Honey asked.

“Contemporary Hit Radio,” Binkie said by rote.

“You don't want me to use that word on the air, do you?” Honey asked.

“What word is that?” Binkie asked. “Radio?”

“Diva.”

“Why not?”

“It's derogatory. It's customarily used to describe a temperamental opera singer.”

“Not in rock music, it's not.”

“You really want me to call your girl a
diva?
”

“That's what she's gonna be after tonight,” Binkie said. “Once ‘Bandersnatch' hits the charts…”

“Why'd she choose a Lewis Carroll poem?”

“Ask her, why don't you?”

“I will. Is she smart?”

“Smarter than most of them,” he said, which said it all.

Honey looked at her watch.

“Where's the Ladies'?” she asked. “I want to touch up my makeup.”

It was twenty minutes to ten.

 

BECAUSE PATRICIA
had been leaving directly from work earlier tonight, she'd changed in the precinct swing room and met Ollie at the restaurant. Now, at a quarter to ten that Saturday, she sat beside Ollie on the front seat of his Chevy Impala, driving uptown on the River Harb Highway, watching the lights of a yacht that had stopped dead out there on the water, and was now apparently riding her anchor. Music from a station that played what it called “Smoothjazz” flooded the automobile.

“By the way,” Ollie said, “have you thought of a song you want me to learn for you?”

“I've been trying to think of one all week,” Patricia said.

“Have you come up with anything?”

“Yes. ‘Spanish Eyes.' ”

“I don't think I know that one.”

“Not the one the Backstreet Boys did on
Millennium,
” Patricia said. “The one I'm talking about is an older one. It was a hit when my mother was a teenager.”

“The Backstreet Boys, huh?” Ollie said.

He had no idea who she meant.

“Even they're on the way out,” Patricia said. “In fact, who knows how long 'NSync's gonna last. These boy bands come and go, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Ollie said.

“But I'm talking about the
old
‘Spanish Eyes,' ” she said, and sang the first line for him. “ ‘Blue Spanish eyes…teardrops are falling from your Spanish eyes…' That one.”

“I'll ask Helen.”

“Who's Helen?”

“My piano teacher. Helen Hobson. Any song I tell her I want to learn, she finds the sheet music for me. I'll ask her to get ‘Spanish Eyes.' ”

“But not the one the Backstreet Boys did.”

“Who did the other one? The one you want me to learn?”

“Al Martino. He recorded it in 1966, I wasn't even born yet, my mother was still a teenager. She still plays it day and night, that's how I happen to know it.”

“Al Martino, huh?” Ollie said.

He'd never heard of him, either.

“Yeah, he was a big recording star. Well, I think he's still around, in fact.”

“1966, that's a long time ago,” Ollie said. “I hope she can still find the sheet music. Lots of these people who were big hits in the fifties and sixties, they just disappear, you know.”

“But lots of them are still around,” Patricia said.

“Oh sure.”

“And better than ever.”

“Oh, I know.”

“The older they get, the better they get. Look at Tony Bennett.”

“You want me to learn a Tony Bennett song for you?”

“No, I want you to learn ‘Spanish Eyes.' Just for me. So you can play it for me when you come up the house.”

“You got a piano?”

“Oh sure. My brother plays piano.”

“I'll be happy to learn ‘Spanish Eyes' for you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“You'll like it. It's a very lovely love song.”

“I like lovely love songs,” Ollie said.

“It's the next exit, you know,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“You get off at the next exit.”

“Oh. Right, right.”

The next exit was Hampton Boulevard, and Hampton Boulevard was one of the worst sections in Riverhead. The population on Hamp Bull, as it was familiarly called, was largely Puerto Rican and Dominican; the local cops joked that around here
English
was the second language. The Hamp Bull Precinct was nicknamed The Dead Zone, and for good reason; it was worth your life to walk around here after dark, even if you were a policeman. Drug-infested and crime-ridden, the ten square blocks encompassed by the precinct were at the very top of the Commissioner's list of Red Alert Areas. Ollie swung the car off at the exit sign, and drove up the ramp.

He said nothing for several moments.

At last, he said, “So this is where you live, huh?”

“1113 Purcell,” she said, and nodded.

“How long you been living here?”

“I was born here.”

“Your folks, too?”

“No, my parents were born in Puerto Rico. Mayagüez. You make the next left.”

Ollie nodded.

Young men were standing on every street corner.

“My brother and my sisters were born here, though,” Patricia said.

“1113, you said?”

“The project up ahead.”

“Got it.”

He pulled the Impala next to the curb. Some young guys wearing gang bandannas were playing basketball under the lights in the playground. They turned to watch as Ollie came around to let Patricia out on the curb side. In a seemingly casual move, he unbuttoned his jacket and flipped it open to show the holstered Glock. Patricia caught this, but said nothing. She watched as he locked the car.

“No wonder you worried about getting raped all the time,” he said.

“Kept me on my toes, that's for sure,” Patricia said, and smiled. “But I've got Josie now,” she said, and patted the tote bag hanging at her side.

“Can I give you some advice?” Ollie asked. “Man to man?”

“Man to man, sure,” she said.

“There used to be a time when the shield and the gun meant something. You flashed the tin, you pulled the gun, it meant something. Which building?” he asked, and offered his arm.

“You gonna walk me home?” she asked, looking surprised. “Gee.”

“If I lived here,” Ollie said, “I'd even walk
myself
home.”

Patricia laughed.

“I'm used to it,” she said.

“That's because you still think the shield and the gun mean something. They don't, Patricia. You flash the buzzer nowadays, it's an invitation for some punk to shoot you. You pull your Glock, that's only telling some punk to show you his bigger AK-47. We're outnumbered and outgunned, Patricia, and there's too much money to be made in dope. So don't count on Josie,
ever,
and don't count on your shield, either.”

“What should I count on, Oll?”

“This,” he said, and tapped his temple with the forefinger of his right hand. “We're smarter than any of them. That's all you have to remember.”

“But throw back your jacket and show the weapon, anyway, right?” she said knowingly.

“With some of them, it still works,” he said.

“Admit it,” she said.

“Okay, it still works sometimes.”

“Who's Steve?” she asked.

“I don't know. Who's Steve?”

They were walking up the concrete path to her red brick building. Some teenage boys and girls were sitting on the stoop, under a lamp swarming with the first insects of the season. One of the boys seemed about to say something, either to Patricia about her splendid tits or Ollie about his splendid girth, but he spotted the Glock and cooled it. Ollie gave him a look that said
Wise decision, lad,
and walked Patricia into the hallway. In this city, especially on Hamp Bull, too many bad things happened in hallways.