Big Bang Page 4

  “This has to do with a case Jake and I are involved in.” She leaned forward. “I’m hoping you can provide me with some information. If I go after it in the usual way, it’ll take too darn long.”

  “I can’t betray confidences, even for you.” He was watching her gently swinging right leg.

  “You know Jake’s been accused of murder.”

  “Yes, but I’m too discreet to mention it to you.”

  “The information I need has nothing to do with business secrets,” she assured the broker.

  “I am a great admirer of yours,” he acknowledged, still watching her leg. “And of Jake’s as well. Ah, well, then, what the devil. Certainly, I’ll help if I can, Hildy.”

  She smiled, relaxing some in her snug chair. “I’ve been going over, with the new computer system Jake designed, all the data sent to us by Secretary Strump.”

  Turd sank some in his chair. “Don’t tell me anything too secret.”

  “I already told you, when I pixphoned, that we’ve been retained to investigate the Big Bang Murders.”

  “Yes, and I think it’s splendid, splendid and courageous, of our government to attempt to rehabilitate Jake in this—”

  “For cripe’s sake, Ross, he didn’t really kill that poor dippy girl.”

  “Of course. All his friends and admirers, friends and admirers and well-wishers … but get on to how I can help you two swell people.”

  Hildy said, “The government intelligence agencies, ours and those of most other nations, have concentrated on the assassinations that are, seemingly, of a political nature.”

  “And they’ve missed something about the explosion murders that’ve occurred in the private sector?”

  “Right you are,” she said, smiling across at him. “When you compare all the Big Bang deaths, certain patterns, heretofore ignored, pop up. The most intriguing thing is that every single murder, private and public, helped the status of certain stocks.” She dipped slender fingers into a slitpocket in her scant skirt. “I’ve brought a printout of them.”

  Ross Turd III was frowning. “Surely, Hildy dear, you’re not hinting that someone would be so crass as to commit murder, commit a series of brutal murders, simply to influence the stock market?”

  “Not hinting, Ross, stating,” Hildy informed him as she unfolded her list. “The company whose position has benefited most is an outfit called Newoyl. They’re based out West and before I—”

  “Newoyl has been climbing,” he agreed. “The death of Mjomba Bata Mzinga makes Black Africa—22 look much more iffy as a new source of oil, and the blowing up last week of Sheikh Moumic Moutaab also dealt a blow to the cause of real oil. He was the key man in the Federation of Oil Billionaires.”

  “Okay, I looked into who the major shareholders in Newoyl are,” Hildy continued. “It proved to be trickier than I had anticipated. Turns out, after you sort through the fake names and dummy holding companies, that 52 percent of Newoyl is owned by something called Novem, Ltd.” She rested her list on one pretty knee. “This Novem outfit also owns impressive hunks of every other company that’s taken a great leap forward because of the Big Bang killings.”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “Even using the sophisticated, and sort of unorthodox, equipment Jake’s designed I can’t find out a darn thing about Novem, Ltd. Not even an address or a pixphone number that’s legit.”

  The handsome stockbroker cleared his throat.

  “Well?” asked Hildy.

  “This is what you came to me to find out about?”

  Her head bobbed up and down. “It is, yes,” she said. “Now, though, I get the feeling you’re too scared to tell me.”

  “Scared isn’t the accurate word,” he said. “Apprehensive, apprehensive and cautious—”

  “Apprehensive and cautious and chickenshit.” She rose. Walked to his desk. Placed her fists on the desk top, glaring down at him. “C’mon, Ross, this is important.”

  He held up both hands, as though he were afraid she’d come leaping across the desk to pop him one. She had, he well knew, done such things to people. “I honestly don’t know who runs Novem,” he said. “I do know, however, they’re becoming increasingly powerful and secretive. Powerful and secretive and nasty.”

  “How nasty?”

  Turd III rubbed his fingers across his cheek a few times. “Well, people who try to dig too deeply into the true structure of Novem sometimes have accidents; actually they frequently have accidents.”

  “Fatal accidents?”

  “In some cases,” he quietly replied.

  Hildy moved back in the direction of her chair. “Looks like I’ll have to keep digging.”

  “You could. …”

  She spun, eyeing him. “Could what?”

  “Talk to the Reverend Gully Lomax.”

  “That sanctimonious fascist? Reverend Gully Lomax, Chairman of the Board of the PlainKlothes Klan.”

  “Him, yes. You have to admit, Hildy, they’re an improvement on the Ku Klux Klan.”

  “They dress better,” she conceded. “But what does the rev have to do with Novem? His name didn’t show up on any of the—”

  “I happen to know, though I wouldn’t like to be credited as the source of this information,” said Turd carefully, “that Reverend Lomax has been trying to buy up Newoyl stock. He hasn’t had much luck.”

  “He might know more than you do about the competition, about Novem.”

  “Exactly, yes, Hildy.” Standing, he brushed his hands together as if he’d just touched something dirty. “Since you can teleport to the national PKK headquarters in Houston in half a jiffy, you might just be able to get some info quickly. That is, if Lomax will talk to you.”

  “He’ll talk to me,” Hildy said.

  CHAPTER 7

  “OKAY, OKAY, WE CAN skip the incense,” said Skullpopper Smith, shaking the smoldering contents of the copper saucer into his living room dispozhole.

  Jake sneezed twice again. “If you’re sure it won’t hinder you.”

  “The incense is merely just for show,” explained the lean, middle-sized black man. He wore a tight two-piece white cazsuit decorated with embroidered moons, stars and comets. A scarlet, gold-tasseled fez perched on his luxuriant hair. “So is this getup I wear.”

  Nodding, Jake asked, “Why does it say Sons of the Desert on your hat?”

  “Because I’m a member of the Laurel and Hardy fan club, schmuck. You ought to know that.”

  “I’m a Wheeler and Woolsey man myself.”

  “I’m surprised, by the way, to learn you have an allergy. I always figured you as invulnerable.”

  “Every hero has a tragic flaw.” Jake wiped his nose on a plyochief and settled onto the seethru glaz sofa filled with fast-swimming tropical fish.

  “Sneezing isn’t a tragic flaw.” Skullpopper sat, crosslegged, on the bare yellow floor near the head of the sofa. “Hildy told me this was a serious emergency.”

  “Obviously, or we wouldn’t have paid double.”

  Skullpopper smiled. “The $10,000 was snug in my Banx account by 11 P.M. last night. Much obliged,” he said. “You might be surprised at some of the rich ladies I number among my clients. Try to stiff me.”

  “What sort of work do you do for that sort of client?” He stretched out on the couch.

  “Get a lot of first love searches.” Skullpopper pulled on purple gloves. “These old squacks screw themselves silly till they’re fifty or so, then they inevitably get sentimental. Want to remember the first lad they ever slipped between the sheets with. By that time, though, what with years of booze and pills and brainstim, they’re too adled even to remember who they boffed last Tuesday let alone thirty forty years back.”

  “Must give you a glow of satisfaction.”

  “Five thousand per recall doesn’t exactly give me stomach cramps.” He placed a gloved-hand on Jake’s forehead. “Been getting a lot of ex-CIA and NSO boys of late, too. This new brainwipe system the government is us
ing on retiring spies, assassins and agents has all kinds of side effects. One international spy not only forgot all the top secrets he knew but also how to tie his shoes. I used my incredible psi powers to unravel his brain.”

  “I want to remember the night of Sunday, December 21 and the hours following.”

  “Know what kind of wipe was used on you?”

  “Something in a gas form.”

  “Those can be buggers.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Want to wager before we get going?”

  “About what?”

  “Whether you knocked off that dame or not. $5000 says you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t, so there’s no bet.”

  Shrugging, Skullpopper said, “I’m going to put you under now. Want to go back and recall your first Xmas first? You in rompers, being carried down in your daddy’s loving arms to see the plaz tree. I get quite a few of that sort of requests this time of—”

  “The tree was real, it was my mother who did the carrying and, no thanks.” The hand felt hot and incredibly heavy on his head.

  “What you do now, Jake, is doze off,” said Skullpopper. “I got the power to put you in a trance. Falling asleep won’t be so bad, but once I get in there and use my gift to clear out the effects of the mindwipe, it’s going to hurt. Even though you’re out like a light, you’ll feel it. Some quacks promise painless brainprobing, but that’s a lot of guff.”

  “Guff …” echoed Jake as he drifted down into fuzzy darkness.

  He was aware of nothing for long black seconds. Then lightning began to flash and sizzle, thunder rumbled. His body seemed to be burning, turning to ashes. His skeleton remained, every single damned bone in it throbbing with pain. He wanted to scream, let some of the pain out. His mouth was locked shut.

  Jake kicked, flapped his elbows hard against his sides. The pain was going to kill him, rip his brain right out of his skull. If it went on for one more …

  … audience was seeing an immense undulating American flag. But from Jake’s vantage point backstage he saw instead a forest of legs and buttocks.

  The Girl Commandos, ninety-nine strong, were winding up a medley of war songs that ranged from “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” to “God Bless Our Nuclear Superiority.” Each of the lovely girls, decked out in a star-spangled sarong, held up an electroglo placard that formed a portion of Old Glory. All except the choirmaster, a hefty redhead, who was circling the vast plazwalled operadrome on an impressive mockup skyrocket.

  “That’s Miss Hatchbacker in the second row,” whispered the aged doorman, pointing out onto the vast stage, “blonde lassy holding a star with her left yonker about ready to flop all out of her skimpy attire.”

  Jake spotted the girl he’d flown to Chicago to talk to. “Thanks, Mr. …”

  “Just call me Pop. Fact is, you got to. That’s in my Doorman’s Guild contract.”

  “Okay, Pop.”

  “I wasn’t always a doorman.”

  “A star once?”

  “Nope, but I was the Phantom of the Opera.”

  “Oh, so?” Palsy Hatchbacker had noticed him and nodded, giving him a furtive sideways wink. He grinned one of his less intimidating grins.

  “Wasn’t in Paris, though,” Pop went on. “This was in the Newcastle, Pennsylvania, Opera House. They got the idea they might drum up some interest in their tacky productions if word got around the dump was haunted. It was fun for awhile, then it grew boring. You ever try lurking for eight ten hours a day?”

  “My best time’s an hour.”

  “After that gig petered out I moved along to—”

  “You still handing out that boring flapdoodle about your tedious, useless life, Pop?” inquired a squeaky little voice.

  Without turning, Pop nudged Jake. “Listen to this now, if you want to witness some good-natured kidding.” He chuckled. “Better watch what you say, you termite motel.”

  “I’m not scared of you. You look like the poster boy for terminal cancer.”

  “Hush up, or I’ll turn you into a smorgasbord for woodpeckers.”

  “Who’s this deadpan with you?”

  Jake had long since turned to scan the owner of the piping voice. The voice seemed to be coming out of an ugly little wooden man with frightwig yellow hair, freckles that looked like splashes of blood and a glittering red and white checked suit with a dwarf carnation fastened to the lapel. He was dangling, arms and legs spread wide, from the arm of a handsome dark-haired girl in a dark grey one-piece worksuit.

  “I’m Jake Pace,” Jake said.

  “Are you bragging or complaining?”

  “Woodrow, shame on you,” said the dark girl. “I don’t know what gets into you.”

  “Half the time, sister, you don’t even know who gets into you. Wow, you were so drunk last night when you picked up that skyjockey I thought—”

  “Really, Woodrow, that’s no way to talk to a lady.”

  The dummy spun his head completely around three times. “Where? Where is she? I didn’t hear her come in.”

  Smiling, the female ventriloquist said, “My name is—”

  “Trina Twain,” Jake supplied. “I’ve seen your act.”

  “What was a nice guy like you doing in toilets like the ones we usually play?” Woodrow wanted to know. “Until we got this job I thought a urinal was a required part of niteclub decor. Once in Bridgeport—”

  “Be quiet for a minute, Woody.”

  “If I ever shut up, bimbo, you’re finished. You ain’t going to get by on looks,” her dummy told her. “And as for your figure, I’ve seen better builds on flagpoles.”

  Pop tapped Jake’s arm. “Number’s coming to its big climax.”

  “That’s where Bobbi up on the firecracker drops her undies and we see she’s got the words and music to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ inscribed on her fanny,” exclaimed Woodrow, rolling his tiny pink eyes at Jake and leering. “And with her backside there’s room left over for the six most popular Xmas carols of the season.”

  “Woody, do be still. You’ll have to excuse him, Mr. Pace,” said Trina, smiling.

  “You’re a damn good ventriloquist,” he said. “Now if your material matched your—”

  “Ventriloquist? This bimbo can’t even toss her voice across those horsey teeth of hers,” Woodrow piped. “I do all my own talking.”

  Up above the audience of five hundred the mock rocket was exploding, splashing thousands of red, white and blue sparks across the dark dome of the high ceiling. Bobbi came parachuting down, waving a replica of the original thirteen colonies flag.

  A moment later, amid much enthusiastic applause, the Girl Commandos came marching off the stage single file.

  Palsy caught Jake’s arm as she went by and tugged him along with her. “I have a half hour before I have to meet some friends for dinner,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t been standing out in the open. Come along, down this ramp.”

  “When I talked to you this afternoon,” he said, following her down a dim-lit ramp which led to an even lower level of the underground theater, “I didn’t get the idea there was any danger in my being recognized.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t,” the blonde-haired young woman said. She reached forward, pushed a swing door open. “I may simply be going bonkers. I don’t know.”

  “You do know something.”

  “Well, yes, I’m certain of that,” she said, hurrying him along a curving corridor. “At least, I think so. Sometimes it all seems possible, but then again I get absolutely certain. In here.”

  He reached around her, opened a thick door labeled Prop Room 24C. “This is where you want to talk?”

  The low-ceilinged room was full of beds, dozen upon dozen of them. Four-posters, camp cots, brass beds, wrought iron beds, hospital cots, hammocks, cradles.

  “I’ll feel safer here than in my own dressing room.” Palsy seated herself on the edge of the quilt-covered brass bed, motioned him down beside her.
“Why were you talking to Woodrow and Trina?”

  “Mostly Woody was talking to me.”

  “I don’t much like her. No, it isn’t exactly that. Trina is okay, but that dummy is such a little prick,” she said. “Except she is Woodrow, too.”

  Jake remembered something. “When you were talking to me on the pixphone this afternoon, someone started to walk into your room. That was Trina, wasn’t it?”

  “The two of them, yes. That’s why I had to get up out of the image pickup area for a minute, to shoo them out,” she said. “Of course, it’s tough to get much privacy in this troupe at all. Ninety-nine girls plus our band. It’s almost as awful as my college dorm was.”

  Jake asked, “What do you know about the Big Bang killings, Palsy?”

  “Maybe something important.”

  “And you don’t want to go to the Federal Police Agency or the National Security Office or—”

  “No, that’s too risky. I have my career to think about,” she answered. “Even seeing you like this may futz up things. Being in a show that’s so bloody patriotic means—”

  “Okay, so tell me what you know.”

  “It has to do with when I was in college, Mr. Pace. I graduated in ’99.”

  “Not very long ago.”

  Palsy insisted, “This isn’t just a schoolgirl fantasy. I decided to contact you because I’ve admired you for some time now. I’ve read about you in Time-Life and Mammon and all sorts of other magazines, seen you on TV being interviewed on such shows as Sleepy Joe Bryan’s Blab! I have the impression you can be trusted.”

  “I can.”

  She took a deep breath. “When I was in college I majored in Commercial Nutrition,” she began. “That’s how I came to know about the process. In fact, there are only a few people who do. I really think it has to be someone—”

  “Whoa now,” he interrupted. “Tell me about this process. What is it?”

  “At first this may sound very silly, Mr. Pace, but … please, we’re having a private conversation.”

  Jake shifted on the bed, saw Trina Twain and Woodrow coming toward them.

  The dark girl said nothing, even the freckled dummy was silent. Smiling, Trina lowered the dummy. In her now visible right hand she held a lazgun. She aimed it right at Palsy and fired.