The Ignored (33 page)

I burst into the shop. A bell rang above the door, but only Philipe
turned to look at me.

“I’ve found something,” I said.

“What?” He put away the card in his hand, placing it back on the rack.

“I have a line on a new one.”

“A new what?”

“A new terrorist. Someone Ignored.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. He glanced behind me, over my shoulder.
“Where is he?… She?”

“He. Joe Horth. The mayor of Desert Palms.” I held up the newspaper.
“Here.”

“Desert Palms?”

“Next town over. From what I gather, it’s even more exclusive than Palm
Springs. It’s newer, not as well known, but it’s full of heavy hitters.”

He took the page from me. “Let me see that.” Philipe looked at the
picture, read the story, and I saw excitement spread quickly across his face.
“He’s going to be giving a speech at the Desert Disabled Foundation dinner
tonight. Celebrities always show up for charity events like this. They get free
publicity and look like they’re good-hearted humanitarians.” He folded the
paper. “This guy may be able to give us an in with one of them. You’ve stumbled
upon something here. This is good. This is really good.”

“Where is the dinner?”

“Some place called La Amor. Seven o’clock.” He put the paper in his
pocket. “We’ll find out where it is. We’ll get some monkey suits. We’ll be
there.”

The dinner was invitation only, but we crashed La Amor with no problem.
There was a uniformed man stationed at the door to keep out nonmembers and
non-invitees, but we easily walked past him and immediately found seats at the
bar.

The restaurant was big and looked like a nightclub out of some forties
film. Tables were arranged in an amphitheaterlike semicircle radiating outward
from a stage on which an orchestra played jazz standards. Ceiling lights were
dim, and individual art deco lamps shed illumination on the tables. Waiters wore
tuxedos. Waitresses wore short skirts.

Philipe had been right. Charities did bring out the big guns. Bob Hope
was there. And Charlton Heston. And Jerry Lewis. And a host of other lesser
lights all conspicuously visible among the noncelebrities.

We sat together at the bar, watched the proceedings from afar, hearing
only snatches of conversation—most of which had to do with the work of the
foundation—as one couple and then another came up and ordered drinks.

As always, we took our cue from Philipe, and he remained strangely
quiet. It seemed almost as though he was awed being in such a place, with such
company.

Dinner was served, although since we didn’t have a table we didn’t get
to eat. The orchestra stopped playing, took a break, and the clink of glasses
and silverware, the low hum of conversation, took the place of the music.

The bartender set up drinks on trays for waiters to take to the tables,
and we stole some for ourselves.

Halfway through dinner, the speeches began. The speakers were uniformly
boring and almost indistinguishable from one another. First the president of the
foundation spoke. Then the founder. Then a local business leader who’d raised a
lot of money. Then the father of a disabled boy.

Then Mayor Joe Horth.

We all focused on the stage as the mayor stepped to the podium and began
speaking. The other guests paid even less attention than they had to the other
speakers. That was expected, though, and not surprising. What was surprising was
what the mayor had to say.

He started off praising the Desert Disabled Foundation and its cause,
stating how much he had enjoyed working with all of the people attending the
dinner. Then he said that he regretted that this would be the last foundation
event he would be attending as mayor. He had decided to resign.

The announcement was clearly meant to be a surprise, but it was met with
indifference. No one was listening.

We were listening, though, and I could tell by the look on Philipe’s
face that he had noticed the same thing I had: the mayor did not want to leave
office.

Philipe turned toward me. “What do you think it is?” he asked. “A
scandal?”

I shrugged.

“He’s being forced out. He doesn’t want to leave.”

I nodded. “I think so, too.”

He shook his head. “Weird.”

There was a commotion near the door. An excited buzz began in that
section of the room and spread to the rest of the restaurant, and like a wave
moving outward, heads turned toward the door. A phalanx of large tuxedoed men
pushed the crowd back, and between the bodies I could see a familiar round head
nodding to the assembled dinner guests.

Frank Sinatra.

He was in the open now, coming toward us, smiling and heartily shaking
hands. Bob Hope was suddenly next to him, saying something, and Sinatra was
laughing. He put a friendly arm around the comedian’s shoulder, then shouted an
enthusiastic greeting to an elderly man seated at one of the upper tables. The
man waved back, shouted something unintelligible in return.

“Sinatra,” Junior said, impressed. He looked excitedly toward Philipe.
“Let’s nab him.”

“Wait a minute.” Philipe was still staring intently at the podium, where
the mayor was being lectured by three imposing-looking men in their early to mid
fifties.

“Sinatra!” Junior repeated.

“Yeah.” Philipe waved him away distractedly and stood, moving through
the crowd toward the podium. Curious, I followed.

The three men gathered around the mayor were obviously very wealthy,
obviously very powerful, and they were openly treating Horth as though he were a
flunky, a servant. We could not hear what was being said, but the attitudes were
obvious. The mayor was obsequious and subservient, the businessmen commanding
and authoritative. No one save us was paying attention to them, and they knew
it. This was a private scene being played out in public, and it had the feel of
a commonplace occurrence. I felt sorry for Joe Horth and angry on his behalf.

Philipe moved closer, stepping almost right up to the podium. The mayor
turned, saw him, saw me, and gave a small start. He instantly turned back toward
the businessmen, pretending to give them his full and undivided attention.

“The bar!” Philipe shouted. “Meet us at the bar!”

The mayor gave no indication that he heard.

“We can help you! We’re Ignored, too!”

At that word, “Ignored,” Joe Horth whirled to face us. The expression on
his face was unreadable. He was distraught, obviously, and agitated, but there
was also hope and what looked like a wild sort of exhilaration mixed in there.
He stared at us. We stared back. The three men, obviously sensing from the
mayor’s behavior that something was amiss, looked into the crowd at us.

Philipe turned quickly, grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me back toward
the bar. “Come on,” he said.

A moment later, we were with the others. “Sinatra’s up there at that big
table,” Junior said, pointing. “Bob Hope’s with him and so’s some other famous
guy but I can’t remember his name. I say we take ’em all.”

“We’re not taking anybody,” Philipe said.

“But I thought we wanted publicity.”

“We wanted publicity so we could draw attention to the plight of the
Ignored, so we could help others like ourselves. Not so we could become famous.
We were going to use the attention to throw a spotlight on a problem that, no
pun intended, has been ignored until now. I don’t know if the rest of you picked
up on this, but it’s obvious to me that our friend the mayor is being forced out
of office by some high-profile money men because he’s Ignored. I guess they want
someone in there who’s a little more charismatic, who can get more attention for
them. What we have here is a chance to help someone who’s Ignored, to do some
real good. What we have here is a chance to keep one of us in a position of
power.”

I had not heard Philipe speak so idealistically for a long time, and a
small thrill of excitement passed through me.

This was why I had become a terrorist.

“Joe Horth can do more good for the Ignored as mayor of Desert Palms
than publicity from any kidnapped celebrity could. This is real progress. This
is a real coup.”

I looked toward the podium. One of the businessmen had left. The other
two were still lecturing the mayor. “Do you think he’s offed his boss yet?” I
asked.

Philipe shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He watched
Horth. “There’s something different about him. I’m not even sure he has to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

I didn’t understand it, but I believed him.

It was nearly half an hour later that the mayor came walking up to us at
the bar. He was nervous and sweating, and he kept looking behind him as if to
make sure he wasn’t being followed. He was obviously surprised to see so many of
us. He kept staring at Mary.

“Glad you could join us,” Philipe said, extending his hand.

Horth shook it. “Who… who are you guys?”

“We’re Ignored,” Philipe said. “Like you. We call ourselves Terrorists
for the Common Man.”

“Terrorists?”

“And we’ve come to help you out.” He stood, and the rest of us did, too.
“Come on. Let’s go back to our rooms. We have a lot to talk about. We have a lot
to discuss. We have a lot to plan.”

Dazed, confused, the mayor nodded, and all fourteen of us walked
unnoticed through the crowd, past the doormen, and outside into the cool night
air.

As I had, as Junior had, as Paul had, as Tim had, Joe Horth fit in with
us perfectly. We were instantly close. He knew us, we knew him, and although in
the past that immediate camaraderie had always made me feel warm and good and
nice, watching it work this time, being so acutely aware of it, gave me the
creeps.

What were we?

It always came back to that.

We brought Joe to our motel, but he immediately suggested that we come
with him to his house, and there was no argument. While the rest of us packed,
gathered our stuff, Philipe talked to him about the terrorists, explained what
we were about, what we hoped to accomplish. The mayor listened eagerly,
enthusiastically, and he seemed genuinely excited by what Philipe had to say.

“We think we can help you,” Philipe told him.

“Help me?”

“Help you keep your job. And you, in turn, can help us. This could be
the beginning of a true coalition. What we have here is the opportunity to give
political power to a group that’s never even been recognized, much less catered
to.”

The mayor shook his head. “You don’t understand. The only reason I have
this job is because I’ll do what they say. And they know it. They want someone
to follow their orders and be as unobtrusive as possible—”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Steve asked.

“Why, our local business leaders and the desert’s most prominent and
respected citizens.” Joe’s voice was sarcastic. “I dared to make a small
decision on my own, without their approval, and that’s why I’m out.”

“We’ll see about that,” Philipe said.

“What exactly did you do?” I asked.

“I broke a tie on the city council and voted to approve funding for a
new Softball diamond at Abbey Park. I was supposed to have tabled the
discussion, held it off until the next meeting, and first asked them how I
should vote.”

“No, you weren’t,” Philipe said. “You did the right thing. And now we’re
here to back you up.”

“I have a meeting with them tomorrow,” Joe said. “Come to the meeting
with me.”

“We will,” Philipe promised, and there was a hint of steel in his voice.
“And we’ll see if we can’t get these guys to back down.”

Joe’s house was a nondescript dwelling on a street of mildly upscale
tract homes. Exactly the sort of place that we found most comfortable. He had no
wife, no roommate, no live-in lover, so all of the rooms were free, but with so
many people the place was still pretty crowded. If we were going to sleep here,
most of us would end up on the floor in sleeping bags.

We were tired, though, and didn’t care about the close quarters. I wound
up sleeping in the living room with Philipe and James and Mary—Mary on the
couch, the rest of us on the floor.

“You think I should go in there and fuck him?” Mary asked as we settled
in.

“Give it a day,” Philipe said. “He needs a little time to adjust.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“Me, you, and Steve will go to this meeting with Joe, scope it out, see
where things stand. Then we’ll be able to decide what we’re going to do.”

“What do you
think
we’re going to do?” I asked.

He did not answer.

We woke up early, spurred by Joe’s alarm, and after all of the showers
had been taken, we headed to the International House of Pancakes for breakfast.
Joe offered to pay, but Philipe explained that we didn’t have to pay, and after
we ate, we simply left.

The mayor took us on a short tour of his city—Philipe, Steve, and I
riding in his car, the others following—and we cruised through downtown
Desert Palms, past the new mall, through the growing section of corporate office
buildings. “Ten years ago,” he explained, “none of this existed. Desert Palms
was a few shacks and stores outside of Palm Springs.”

Philipe looked out the window. “So, basically, these rich guys owned a
lot of worthless desert land out here, and they stacked the city council with
their people and got the land zoned the way they wanted, got the city to chip in
for redevelopment projects, and they got even richer.”

“Pretty much.”

“How did they find you? What did you used to do?”

Joe smiled. “I was the personnel assistant for what passed for city hall
back then.”

“And no one ever noticed you or paid attention to you, and then suddenly
someone offered to support you in the race for mayor and you were treated like a
king.”