Agnes Among the Gargoyles (46 page)

   "Quicker than what?"

   Rolf slows the limo as two old men in windbreakers cross the boardwalk. "Quicker than taking Surf all the way to Wegeman Plaza. That's always a mess."

   "I don't know what you're talking about," says Ho curtly. "And it is two o'clock in the morning."

   "It doesn't matter. I've been here at four o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the morning. The cars can't get through because of the delivery trucks. It's very stupidly designed."

   "Is it?" says Ho.

   Rolf realizes his
faux pas.
"It looks nice though, the cars and trucks waiting to move outside the hotel. It looks busy. It's exciting."

   Clark Ho raises the partition again. Rolf cranks Elton John back up.

   "Incompetent moron," says Ho.

   The hotel may be undergoing renovation, but the casino is open. Insomniac retirees sit on collapsible stools and pull the one-armed bandits. Five old Italian men drink espresso and play silent poker. A couple of liquored up old dames argue over blackjack strategy. Chambermaids vacuum discreetly, sucking stains right out of the marvelous 3-M Company carpets. And Reverend Lenten Gunn's night watch stands its post. Bibles are held in white-gloved hands. Men wearing cross-and-chalice pins provide small assistance to the chambermaids. At two o'clock in the morning, the splendor of the Palace of Versailles seems wasted on the clientele, who would drink and gamble in an outhouse.

   Without warning, Ho grabs Agnes's arm and pulls her to one side. They hide together behind a bank of Super Payoff nine-wheel slots.

   "That's Tony," Ho whispers.

   Tony has a prissy little moustache and a scar that looks as though the flesh on his head has melted, but otherwise he looks a lot like his architect brother. He wears a leather jacket with fifty zippers and unlaced combat boots. Holding a walkie-talkie, he directs Special Security operations.

   Agnes and Ho take an elevator to the basement. They navigate a maze of corridors, past the kitchens and the huge washers and dryers, finally arriving at a guarded checkpoint. Ho signs Agnes in. She is given a security badge. They pass through a door like a bank vault's and into the central nerve complex of the Palace of Versailles.

   "Welcome to Mission Control," says Clark Ho.

   A wall of television monitors shows the activity in the casino and hotel corridors. Computers monitor the gaming tables; observers are kept apprised of big losers and winners. In another room, behind space-age assault-proof glass, clerks count the day's receipts.

   The technology is blinding, but everything comes down to the transfer of oldfashioned, well-traveled, creased, crummy, dog-eared dollar bills.

   "I will find Ronald," says Ho, and vanishes.

   Ho is gone a long time. Agnes watches the computers for a while, then eats too many doughnuts, then lies down on a leather couch and dozes. Her waking up is not pleasant. She twists and writhes on the couch.

   She opens her eyes. The Great Man is tickling her. He grins sadistically and sits back in his wheelchair. The monkey appears and hops onto his shoulder, chattering madly.

   Agnes sits up. Her body is stiff. She has the sense of having been asleep a long time. "I was waiting for Clark Ho."

   "I sent that traitorous shithead home. We're through."

   Agnes rubs her face. "He brought me out here to talk you out of killing yourself. They told me you were planning to commit suicide at sunrise."

   "It's almost nine," says the Great Man. "I hope you like pancakes; they're on the way."

   Wegeman's wristwatch alarm goes off. The monkey scampers from his shoulder and opens a little zippered case stored in the base of the wheelchair. The monkey takes out a vial, shakes out two capsules, and gives them to the Great Man, who gulps them down.

 "Isn't he amazing?" purrs the billionaire developer. "And he never makes a mistake, either. I think he's an intellectual mutation." He addresses the monkey directly. "Isn't that right, Duck? You're a fucking supermonkey."

   The pancakes are delivered on a trolley.

   "So what's going on?" says Agnes. "Was Clark Ho imagining it all?"

   "That cocksucking Hawaiian prick is one big egomaniac. I told him we weren't going to do any more buildings together, so of course he thinks I'm ready to end it all. My life couldn't possibly continue without him, right?"

   "So you're not killing yourself?"

   "No fucking way, Travertine."

   "You should call him. He's worried about you."

   "He's worried about his meal ticket."

   "He said you were depressed about everything."

   "I am depressed," says the Great Man defiantly. "My casino's going belly up, my wife is having a mid-life crisis on the tundra, and there are people out there who want to shoot me. And I can't fucking walk! Of course I'm depressed. I'm pissed-off and frustrated, too. But I'm not suicidal. I'm not killing myself. Okay?"

Agnes says nothing.

   There is a gleam in the Great Man's eye. "So ask me what I
am
doing, Travertine."

   "What are you doing?"

   "Come on," he says. "I'll show you."

   Wegeman and Duck lead Agnes down another series of corridors. They pass through steel reinforced doors and wind up in a smaller version of Mission Control, a room about the size of Agnes's living room and so full of electronic equipment there is barely room to turn around.

   Wegeman points to a door guarded by a man in riot gear.

   "Go look where we are," he says. He hands her a T-shirt. "Put this on first."

   The guard allows Agnes to pass. She looks at the T-shirt.

   "Def Leppard," she reads. "I don't get it."

   She puts on the T-shirt, climbs the sort of circular iron staircase you might find in a submarine, and emerges in one of those booths where you throw darts at balloons to win a junky stuffed animal. She is in the far reaches of Coney Island, behind the hotel, where not many people venture anymore. Apparently, the room she was in was some sort of underground bunker.

   Wegeman meets her. He rolls toward her, smiling broadly. He wears a dirty trench coat and straw boater. He holds a cane. His monkey is now attached to a hurdy-gurdy.

   "This is all very
Man from UNCLE,"
says Agnes. "Why am I wearing a Def Leppard T-shirt?"

   "We're in disguise. We're carnies. We're supposed to be the sort of inbred cracker lowlifes who run these concessions. Jeez, Travertine, you really look the part, you know that? You look like you were born with a lump of West Virginia anthracite in your mouth."

   "Gee, thanks," says Agnes sullenly.

   A helicopter hovers just above the roof of the Palace of Versailles.

   "This is our remote security post. Tony's idea. He said it would prevent the hotel's ever being taken over by terrorists. But he was wrong."

   He shows Agnes the latest edition of
New York on $150 a Day.
Agnes reads the entry for the Palace of Versailles:

   After a long battle between the billionaire developer and several local religious groups, it seems that a truce of sorts has been called. The Palace of Versailles has become known as the casino "where the high rollers meet the holy rollers." 24 hours a day, the religious zealots stand at their appointed posts in the casino, overseeing the decidedly secular goings-on and serving as a silent reminder that there are other ways of leading one's life. The zealots are friendly, and will not engage you in conversation unless you approach them first. They are, however, always ready for a stirring debate about man's salvation, so don't start anything you aren't prepared to finish. They are skittish about having their pictures taken; ask first, and be prepared for a refusal.

   The rooms at the Palace of Versailles are not, for the most part, the opulent chambers one might expect. They are simple and functional and good-sized, if a mite antiseptic....

   "They'll never leave, Travertine—I knew it when I read that. When I've got here is a sideshow for the tourists, like those ducks that walk to the fountain in that hotel in Nashville or Atlanta or wherever the fuck it is. But they forgot one thing, Travertine. I decide on the entertainment in the Palace of Versailles. No one else. It's my fucking show."

   Agnes lets him seethe for a while.

   "So where is all this leading?" she asks.

   He touches his finger to his chest. "To my reassertion of self."

   "Good news for the world," says Agnes, but she says it with something approaching kindness.

   He shields his eyes and peers at the hotel. "It's showtime, Agnes. Remember the fireworks we had on dedication day? Well, in a few minutes, you won't."

   Tony Ho leads a formation of Special Security officers toward the Great Man.

   "I have to ask you something," says Agnes. "Do you own
Infertility?"

   The Great man's gaunt neck and pocked cheeks and even his tri-cornered ears—every fleshy surface above his shoulders goes as red as Duck's swollen backside.

   "I thought I covered my tracks," he says. "The Czacki Corporation owns Grinnel Publishing, and Wynex owns Czacki, but Wynex is only a subsidiary of Offisquare Partnerships—but what does it matter now? So you know. I just didn't want you to feel guilty for sitting on your pretty ass."

   "I don't know what to say."

   "I owe you, Travertine. If the company doesn't go bankrupt, you can draw your paycheck forever. Ronald Wegeman does not believe in mandatory retirement."

   "I'm completely humbled," says Agnes. "I never imagined someone would buy a company just so I wouldn't have to work."

   "I never imagined I'd get shot," he grunts. "Besides, Sarah likes you. That's the quickest way to my heart."

   Tony Ho and his men arrive at the pop-a-balloon shack. Tony immediately reaches for some darts. Nervously, he pokes the sharp points into his fingertips.

   Wegeman introduces Agnes. As one, Ho's men touch the bills of their baseball caps. Wegeman encircles Tony with his arm.

   "Agnes, this man is a genius with linear shaped charges," he says.

   "What are those?"

   Tony Ho explains: "In layman's terms, explosives whose force can be directed."

   "Are we set?" asks Wegeman.

   "Yes sir. We've just secured our final sweep."

   Agnes looks through a set of binoculars.

 "Everything but the casino's been gutted, Travertine," says Wegeman. "Tony's spent the last few weeks directing those little bobcat bulldozers. We're all set. We're blowing her up, Travertine."

"Imploding her, actually," says Tony.

   "You ever see those movies where the buildings get blown up and just sort of collapse in on themselves? That's what we're doing."

   Tony Ho explains further: about stress points and computer-driven timings and quadrant blasts.

  "You dig, Travertine?" says the gleeful billionaire. "If I can't run my hotel the way I want then maybe there won't be a hotel at all."

   "You're having a temper tantrum," says Agnes.

   "On a grand fucking scale."

   "You're cutting off you nose to spite your face."

   "And it feels real good."

   Tony Ho stiffens. "Mr. Wegeman, the hotel is cleared and sealed."

   Everyone descends into the bunker. Wegeman barks orders into the walkietalkie.

   "I'm all goose-pimply," he tells Agnes. Then, into the radio: "All right, boys and girls. The condition is fuchsia and the code word for engagement is
Nelson
Mandela."

   Tony Ho announces that the computer sequence has been engaged.

   "In ten minutes, the Palace of Versailles will be history," says the Great Man. "The sequence can't be stopped. There's no going back."

   The minutes tick away. The blast technicians throw jargon at each other. Tony Ho watches the monitors. He coordinates the perimeter patrol. The computer clock ticks down. Someone's chair squeaks. Agnes watches the interior of the ruined hotel on the video monitors. The images switch every few seconds. She looks at the corridors and the sauna, what was once the pool, the kitchens and the lobby and the linen room.

   "Holy shit."

   The words sound like a rifle shot. All heads turn to look at the speaker, a blast technician wearing a toupee and drinking a Pepsi.

   "I just saw something," he says. "Men's room, fifth floor ballroom."

   "Punch it up," says Tony.

   The image of the bathroom is locked onto the screen. Every eye in the bunker fixes on it: four stalls and three broken sinks and a paper towel dispenser hanging from the wall by a screw.

   "You're seeing things," says Tony.

   "Wait!"

   There is movement in one of the stalls—the big wheelchair-friendly one at the end. The door swings open. A man and woman are inside.

   Agnes can't believe what she is seeing.

   "She's giving him a blow job," she blurts out.

   "It's the Rollicking Rev," whispers the Great Man.

   It
is
him, the Reverend Gunn himself, dressed in portions of a three-piece suit. He wears a ruffled pink shirt and no tie. In one hand he holds a champagne bottle. His companion is one of his army of nurses. She looks young. She is dressed as a nurse from the waist down. Her generous breasts roll and heave, leaving faint trails on the video monitor.

   Wegeman turns purple. Duck runs and hides.