Higher Mythology (28 page)

“C’mon,” he said. “I’ve got to watch the door. I can’t keep an eye on you all the time.”

“I do wish you would,” she said with a hopeful expression, not missing a chance to vamp him. Keith grinned.

“Go away, little girl, you bother me,” he said, in his best W.C. Fields voice.

More children came in as the line moved up to make room for them.

Dola did not really understand where they were taking her when they rousted her out of the little room in the cottage. For a change, she was not made to ride in the bumpy truck, but instead in a plush-padded automobile seat with Skinny beside her.

They had been driving for hours. Dola was worried, because she was moving ever farther away from the comforting trace of her people. Boss-lady spared her only the briefest glances over the back of the front seat. Jake didn’t talk to her. And Dola could not understand what Skinny was talking about with his ravings of a contest to find a real shoe fairy.

Her last word on the subject was, “I do not make shoes.” Since then, she sat with her arms folded across her chest, ignoring Skinny’s attempts to make conversation.

The scenery they were driving through was very different than anything she had seen outside of television. She could see for a long way ahead of her. The city was taking over the landscape, brown and gray superseding green. Gigantic buildings thrust up out of the ground, getting more and more imposing as the car approached them.

Inside, she was feeling terrified and small, but she kept a cool exterior, as if she visited Chicago every day of her life. She had listened to the low exchanges between Jake and Mona Gilbreth, but none of it had made her any wiser as to her coming fate. Would she be left alone in this cold city?

The car turned onto a street entirely lined with skyscrapers, veered sharply around a corner, and plunged down into the darkness of a curved ramp. At the bottom of this terrifying ride was nothing more than a parking lot, but strangely secreted underground. Dola was made to alight from the car and walk between Jake and Skinny. She felt like a military prisoner marching between guards.

The only noise in the corridor they walked was their footsteps and breathing. They passed briefly up onto the surface of the city street, up a flight of three stairs, and into a building fronted with gray glass panels and gray glass doors. Jake pushed one of these open.

Massed voices of countless, shrill-voiced children all talking at once struck her ears like the clash of cymbals. The Big Folk hustled Dola through one more door, and she stood at the end of an informal line consisting of a hundred little girls and a hundred mothers and fathers. In the midst of the crowd, she saw Keith Doyle.

She wanted to scream out to him to get his attention, to get her away from her captors. Jake saw her take a deep breath and jammed his huge hand over her face. “You keep quiet until we tell you to talk.” Keith disappeared, and Dola’s heart sank.

The four of them pushed forward through the crowd. Dola tried to struggle loose to run and find Keith. Skinny kept a firm grasp on her arm and tugged her back into line. One father, whom they all but pushed out of the way, looked at her and up at the men. “Listen, guys,” he said, “if she doesn’t want to audition, don’t make her. Sheesh.”

“She could get lost in here if she gets loose,” Mona said. “Hang on tight.”

Pilton looked around in disdain. “She’s ten times prettier than any of these kids.” He pointed. “Look at that one, with the flat face. She doesn’t have a chance. None of them do.”

“Shut up, Grant,” Jake said wearily. “We’re not here to really enter this beauty contest. We’re here to give her back to her folks.”

“No?” Pilton was disappointed. “You
know
she’d win in a second. Why don’t we wait and see what the judges say, then give her back. I want to win the reward.” He looked down at Dola and beamed. “She couldn’t make me a chest of jewels, so I guess she just attracted luck for us.”

Keith popped his head in the conference room door. Tay, by the window, was pacing up and down. The Master sat at the head of the room, his eyes fixed on nothing. Enoch kept looking around, sighing impatiently. Holl was at the table with a large bag between his hands. They all looked up at Keith.

“They’re here,” he said.

Holl tied up the bag, but not before Keith got a look at the contents. He was dumbstruck.

“My God, where did you get all those jewels?”

“Go on,” Holl said urgently. “Hurry.”

The two men kept Dola at one end of the room. She looked up at Diane, who hurried over to hand both of them forms and pencils. The blond woman smiled down on her, but her expression showed she thought Dola was a stranger. Not comprehending, the child felt more lost and alone than she had. Skinny let go to fill in his sheet of paper, but Jake kept his grip.

Thankfully, Keith reappeared. The Boss-lady bustled up to him, and her voice was still audible to Dola half a room away.

“Well?”

“Ms. Gilbreth, what a pleasure to see you!” Keith said out loud, turning from side to side to see if he could attract anyone’s attention. None of the parents or children in the room had any time for anyone else’s concerns.

Mona turned pale.

“Shh,” she begged him, covering the side of her face with one hand. “No names,
please
! I’m ready to make the exchange.”

Keith looked back over her shoulder at Dola, and winked. “How do I know that you’ll let her go when we give you the ran—the package?”

“Don’t be a fool! This has all gone on too long. Now, come on. Give me … what I asked for.”

Keith peered sideways and nodded. A boy with blond hair came out of an alcove where he had been waiting, concealed. He showed her a bag. He hefted it, and it shifted with a sound like clattering dice.

Mona’s eyes widened with greed. “Good!” She reached for it. The boy drew back.

“We want the girl released first,” Keith explained.

“No!” Mona said. “I want to be out of here first. I don’t want anyone to associate me with you or anything else. And I’m holding you to your word—no persecution in the press, now or ever!”

“Sure,” Keith said, ostentatiously raising his hands to shoulder level. “Whatever you want.” Seeing his signal, Lee advanced upon her with his notebook in hand, camera slung over arm, his dark face earnest.

“Ms. Gilbreth? Ms. Mona Gilbreth! I’m Lee Eisley with the
Indiana Daily Star
. Can I have a word with you?”

“You lied!” Mona shrieked at Keith. “You promised no press!”

“I’ve got nothing to do with him,” Keith said, giving Lee a puzzled look. “He’s here covering the human-interest story.”

She spun on her heel, and drew a sharp vector with a red fingernail toward the door. The big muscle-man grabbed Dola and started to hustle her outside. The Master and the others flew out of their hiding places.

“Hey,” said one mother, watching them run past, “they’re not auditioning boys, too, are they?”

With a sweet, regretful smile, Candlepat abandoned her interview with the casting director’s assistant and ran toward the others, rolling up her sleeves. The assistant ran after her.

“Wait!” she cried.

Brendan, emerging from the media director’s office, ran up to Keith. “Wasn’t that Ms. Gilbreth?”

“Uh, no!” Keith said, not wanting Brendan in the middle of things. “Hey, there’s Paul in the doorway. I think he’s looking for you.”

“He is?” Brendan turned around. The door had drifted shut. “I’d better get in there.”

Keith waded through the dozens of children wondering what was going on and out into the foyer, where a peculiar kind of fight was going on.

The skinny man who’d beaten up on him at Gilbreth’s factory was under attack by Holl, Candlepat, and Enoch. Marcy and Diane were flailing at the bigger man with their clipboards, while Tay wound up a handful of air and flung it straight into the man’s solar plexus.

“That’s for being greedy!” he cried. “And that! That’s for keeping my girl.”

Battered and groaning, the big man doubled over in pain.

“What’d you do to him?” Keith demanded in a frantic whisper.

“Gripes,” Tay said in satisfaction. “He’ll be no use the rest of today, tonight, and as long as it’ll hold.”

“That,” Holl said, gumming together Pilton’s back teeth, fingers and toes, “is for the air sprite, and for Frank Winslow whose heart you broke.”

The skinny man promptly fell over onto the floor and tried to help himself up, with his hands glued together into flippers.

Mona saw that she was getting the worst of the disagreement. Children, little children, were beating up her two bodyguards. It was time to get out. No more easy cooperation, she vowed, hustling the child toward the doors. She would take the girl to the backwoods of Montana and chain her up with mountain lions, and move her from place to place so those lying Doyles would never find her again. She dodged past the two black men. The dark-haired girl tried to get in her way. Like a linebacker with the ball, Mona held on to Dola and made for the gray glass doors.

“She’s getting away!” Candlepat shrilled.

“No!” Keith yelled.

He grabbed Holl’s shoulder and threw an illusion with all his strength and will on the nearest gray glass panel. A door handle shimmered into existence, and the handles on the doors seemed to vanish.

Mona grabbed for the sole visible doorknob and threw herself against the door to get it open. Nothing happened. She hammered on the panel, wondering if it was stuck. In the momentary delay, the small woman with the big glasses advanced upon her and threw herself almost into Mona’s arms.

The others were closing in around the three of them. Mona was cornered.

“She’s perfect!” the casting assistant cried, dropping to her knees beside the little girl. “How could you
think
of leaving before we saw this absolutely enchanting child? I think that Walter would love to see you. Wouldn’t you like to stay for an interview, Miss?” she asked the blond child.

The little girl looked to Keith Doyle for guidance, who nodded violently. The little girl nodded violently, too.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “Wouldn’t that be nice, Ms. Gilbreth?”

“Ms. Gilbreth, how about an interview?” Lee said, raising his camera, and focusing for a picture.

“Take it and go, Ms. Gilbreth,” said a low voice behind her. She felt something shoved into her fist.

Wide-eyed, Mona recognized the voice of H. Doyle, and looked down at the child-sized being behind her. The family resemblance was there, including the strangely deformed ears. But he was so small.… Her mind refused to accept any more conflicting data. He pushed open one of the real doors for her. Panic-stricken and overwhelmed, she clutched the bag and shot out of the room. As soon as they could, the two men followed her.

The casting assistant took charge of Dola and led her back into the main hall, chatting in enthusiastic tones about her coming audition.

“You look so real, as if you were a real fairy,” the young woman told her.

Diane whispered in Keith’s ear. “Do you know, she’s been zinged, and she doesn’t even know it?” He caught her sly grin and returned it.

As they returned to the hall, Keith watched as slowly, inexorably, Paul Meier reached for the packet of papers left on a chair and started to read them. Enoch’s spell was effective, and right on target. Brendan came up to confront Keith.

“That
was
Ms. Gilbreth I saw!” Brendan said. “I’d better go to her. She’ll think I didn’t notice she was here.”

“She just left, Brendan,” Keith said, shaking his head.

“Well, I’ll catch her. Be back in a moment.” He started to follow her, but Paul Meier came up behind him and took his arm in a firm grip.

“Brendan, can I talk to you? It’s about these pamphlets you wrote up on the Gilbreth campaign. I didn’t know she was president of Greenpeace. And this stuff about her PhD in chemistry—don’t you know anything about ethics? Or research? Do you know what putting out false information does to PDQ’s reputation? I want to have a little word with you in the conference room. Do you have a moment?”

Blanching, Brendan let himself be led away.

Still talking, the casting assistant came up to Keith. “Was Dola here with Ms. Gilbreth? Who’s her guardian?”

Tay started forward, but Keith pushed in front of him. “I am. I’m her … cousin.”

The young woman beamed. “Keeping it all in the family, eh? Well, come on. Scott has got to see this girl.” She went on at length about how perfect Dola would be for the layout, and how perfect the makeup job was that someone had done on her. Keith Doyle agreed with everything she said.

“And the Tinkerbell outfit, just adorable,” the assistant gushed, escorting them past the crowd and into the office.

“This old thing?” Dola said, astonished. “I’ve been wearing it for two weeks!”

“Well, it’s got such authenticity, doesn’t it?”

Scott, by contrast, had only one sentence to say to Dola.

“Do you want the job?”

Dola, having gone from incarceration in a lonely cabin to having the world make a fuss over her, was delighted to agree to anything Keith Doyle was so happy about. “Oh, yes! But what is it?”

“Great,” said the tall man with the mustache. “Shooting begins Monday. You come here. Contracts. Here. We want you to sign right away. You have an agent?”

“No. Do I need one?” Dola asked, looking up at Keith, who glanced it over.

“Between you and me, Scott,” Keith said, “is this an honest contract?”

“It’s okay,” Scott said. “It’s fair. Standard form. How about it?”

“It’s okay,” Keith said, handing a pen to Dola. In careful, Palmer penmanship, Dola signed ‘Dola Doyle’ on the line.

“Pretty name,” Scott said, accepting the document. “Eupipinous.”

“I think you mean ‘euphonious,’” Dola corrected him gently.

“Hey, smart little kid.”

“It runs in the family,” Dola said, with a sly upward glance at Keith. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

“Well, the part’s filled,” Scott said, leaning back in his chair and smoothing his mustache, “although I think the artist had someone particular in mind all along, didn’t you, Keith?”