The Frumious Bandersnatch (5 page)

For now, what he was looking for was some ninety to a hundred weekly spins on each of Clear Channel's twelve hundred stations. Used to be a record could take off with as few as forty, fifty spins a week, without going into power rotation at any of the stations. Nowadays, if you did a sampling of top hits around the country, you came up with 83 spins in Bakersfield, 86 spins in Des Moines, 95 in San Antone, as many as 115 spins in Vegas, and so on. Moreover, the biggest stations tended to utilize high spins early on in a record's life. They'd play a song for a week or so and then conduct random telephone surveys, calling listeners and playing a snippet of the tune for them, asking if they recognized it. If they got a positive reaction, they added the song to their rotation. Binkie's job, though, was to get the damn song played in the first place.

He knew that Bison had to sell 500,000 copies of Tamar's single before they could turn a profit. In their wildest hopes, the “Bandersnatch” single would hit the Top 10 before the album was even shipped. But not too many records achieved that goal. Of the close to 6,500 albums shipped by the major labels the year before, less than two percent of them turned a profit. A lot of time and energy and talent and money—
especially
money—was riding on Tamar Valparaiso's first outing. So where the hell was Honey Blair?

Higgins sidled up beside him, leaned into him.

“Where's the blond cooze?” he whispered.

“She'll be here, don't worry,” Binkie said.

But he
was
worried.

 

IN THE MAIN
stateroom of the
River Princess,
Tamar was starting to get nervous herself. Too many things were bothering her. Would the dance floor be too small or too slippery for her and Jonah to perform the strenuous dance routines that simulated a young girl struggling in the clutches of an animal intent on raping her? Would the audience be sitting too close for Jonah's mask changes to be effective? They'd morphed twelve masks for the video, but tonight they'd be depending solely on a few masks and some dramatic light changes to enhance the effect of increasing menace. Would her tunic, admittedly skimpy to begin with, but certainly intact and pristine, break away strategically when and where it was supposed to, gradually revealing her long shapely legs and firm boobs, but not too much more than that, not with Channel Four's cameras taping her performance.

So many things could go wrong.

Would she be able to hear the lyrics clearly enough through the pickup tucked in her hair? Were the Channel Four sound people any good, and where the hell were they, anyway? She'd hate to be rap-ping “One-two, one-two, and through and through, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!” and instead have the sound from the video telling the cameras and later tonight the world, “ 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Well, she'd got her start in karaoke clubs, she supposed she could lip-synch her way through tonight, which would be sort of karaoke in reverse, she supposed.

But what if somebody had spilled a drink or something squishy and sloppy on the floor? All Jonah had to do was lose his footing and his grip on her—his grip on
himself,
for that matter—for this whole thing to go out the window in three seconds flat, Tamar Valparaiso and the rapacious beast doing a comic pratfall in front of millions of viewers when they aired the tape on the Eleven O'Clock News. Goodbye dreams of rock stardom, goodbye little Russa-Mexicana-American girl making it huge in the big bad city and the wide wicked world.

“How do I look?” she asked Jonah.

“Hot,” he said, the friggin faggot.

Tamar's father used to go to church in Mexico every Sunday morning and pray for something to eat the next day. Tamar's mother was born in a Communist country and didn't know from religion or from praying.

Tamar wasn't praying now, either.

But she was wishing with all her might that after tonight she would be the biggest fucking diva who ever came down the pike. “So don't let anything go wrong,” she whispered to Whomever. Tamar's ambition was to bury J. Lo, bury Britney, bury Brandy, bury Shakira, bury Ashanti, bury Pink, bury Sheryl Crowe and Christina Aguilera and Michelle Branch, bury each and every one of them, bury them all.

Was that such a crime?

 

THE SUBJECT MATTER
had finally got around to ambition and crime.

Ollie and Patricia were sitting out on the restaurant's wide verandah, looking out over the River Harb and the twinkling lights of the next state. Further uptown, they could see the warmer, somehow cozier lights of the exclusive community, Smoke Rise, and yet further uptown the lights of the Hamilton Bridge spanning the river, a yacht coming under the bridge now, all aglow with lights itself, and moving steadily downstream. Patricia was drinking a crème de menthe on the rocks. Ollie was drinking a Courvoisier straight up.

“My ambition is to become first a detective…” Patricia was saying.

“Ah yes,” Ollie said.

“…and next a detective on the Rape Squad.”

“Why the Rape Squad?”

“Because I think that's the worst crime there is.”

“I tend to agree,” Ollie said, although he didn't know whether he actually agreed or not.

Actually, he probably thought killing little girls was a worse crime. But when a woman who looked as beautiful as Patricia did in the moonlight reflected from the water told you she thought rape was the worst crime there was, then it seemed appropriate to agree with her, ah yes.

“Why is that?” Patricia asked.

Not that she doubted him. But he'd seen so much, and knew so much…

“Because it isn't fair,” Ollie said.

“Who says it has to be fair?” Patricia asked, and smiled, and said, “My mother used to tell me that whenever I complained about anything. But you're right. Rape isn't fair. If men had to worry about rape all the time, the crime would carry the death penalty.”

“Do you worry about rape all the time?”

“Not since I became a cop. Not since they let me pack a gun.”

“Are you packing now?” he asked.

“Always,” she said, and tapped her handbag with one painted fingernail. “Even when I go to bed, Josie is right there on the night table beside me. But before? When I was a kid…”

“Josie?”

“The piece. I call her Josie. Doesn't yours have a name?”

“No.”

“Let's name it.”

“Why?”

“Because it's a trusted friend.”

Ollie wondered if the conversation was taking a sexual turn. He knew some guys who named their cocks. Women, too. Gave names to their boyfriends' cocks. Louie. Or Harry. Or Pee Wee in some cases. He didn't think that's where Patricia was going here, but you never knew. He'd held her awfully close on the dance floor.

“I wouldn't know where to begin,” he said. “Besides, I don't think of it as a trusted friend.”

“Have you ever had to use it?”

“Oh sure.”

“Ever kill a man?”

He hesitated.

“Yes? No?”

“A woman,” he said.

Patricia looked at him.

“She was coming at me with a shotgun. Stoned out of her mind. I shot her once in the thigh, she kept coming. An inch closer, she'd have blown my head off. I dropped her.”

“Wow,” Patricia said.

“Yeah.”

“The same piece you carry now?”

“No. This was when I was a patrolman. It was a thirty-eight back then.”

“What do you carry now?”

“A Glock nine.”

“Me, too.”

“Heavy for a woman.”

“Regulation.”

“Josie, huh?”

“Is what I call her.”

“So what should I call mine?”

“You think of a name.”

“Nah, come on.”

“Go ahead.”

“I'm not good at this.”

“How do you know? Give it a try.”

Ollie furrowed his brow.

“What's your best friend's name?” she asked.

“I don't have a best friend,” he said.

“Well…any friend,” she said.

“I don't have any friends,” Ollie said.

Patricia looked at him again.

“Then how about someone you really trust?”

Ollie thought about this for several moments.

Back inside the restaurant, the band began playing again.

“Steve,” he said at last.

“So name it Steve.”

“I don't think so,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I don't know. I guess it wouldn't be professional. Naming a weapon.”

“Do you think I'm unprofessional?”

“Hey, no, I think you're very professional. You're a good cop, and I think you're going to make a very good detective.”

“You think so?”

“I really do. The Rape Squad'll be lucky to have you.”

“What I was saying about rape before…”

“Yes, tell me. Would you like another one of those?”

“Are you going to have one?”

“If you are.”

“I think I'd like one, yes.”

“Good, me, too,” Ollie said, and signaled to the waiter.

“What I was saying is that in this city, rape was a constant concern of mine. Because, you know, well, I was growing up to be fairly attractive…”

“Beautiful, in fact,” Ollie said.

“I wasn't fishing for a compliment.”

“But you are beautiful, Patricia.”

“Well, thanks, but what…”

“A cream dee mint,” Ollie said to the waiter, “and another of these cognacs.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, and walked off.

“What I was trying to say,” Patricia said, “is, for example, as a young girl in this city, I
never
felt safe, never. For example, we're enjoying a few drinks together here, and I feel perfectly safe with you…”

“Well, thank you,” Ollie said, “ah yes, m'dear. And I feel perfectly safe with you, too.”

Patricia laughed.

“But when I was in my twenties, I'd be out with some guy…well, even lately, for that matter, before I became a cop. I mean this isn't something that just goes away, it's a constant with a woman. I'd be having a drink with some guy…”

“How old are you, anyway?” Ollie asked.

“Oh, gee, you're not supposed to ask that.”

“Why not? I'm thirty-eight,” he said.

“I was thirty in February.”

“February what?” he asked, and took out his notebook.

“You gonna write it down?” she said, surprised.

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“So I can buy you a present. Provided it ain't too close to Valentine's Day.”

“No, it's February twenty-seventh.”

“Good. So then I can get you
two
presents,” he said.

“Nobody ever gave me a Valentine's Day present,” Patricia said.

“Well, you wait and see,” he said, and scribbled her name and the date of her birthday in his book.

“Crème de menthe for the lady,” the waiter said, “and a Courvoisier for the gentleman.”

“Thank you,” Ollie said.

“My pleasure, sir,” the waiter said, and smiled, and walked off again.

“Cheers,” Ollie said.

“Cheers,” she said.

They both drank.

“Gee, I
still
feel safe,” Ollie said.

“Me, too,” she said, and grinned. “But what I was saying, Oll, is that before I became a cop, I'd be having a drink with some guy who took me out, or even just standing with some guy who was chatting me up in a bar, and I'd all at once be on my guard. Like don't drink too much, Patricia, watch out, Patricia, this guy may be the son of a bitch who'll rape you, excuse my French, Oll. Or coming home late at night on the subway, cold sober, I'd always be afraid some two-hundred-pound guy was going to pounce on me and beat me up and rape me. I'm five-seven…”

“I know,” Ollie said, and smiled. “That's a good height.”

“Thank you. And I weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. What chance would I have against some guy's been lifting weights in the prison gym? That's why I'm glad Josie's in my bag. Anybody gets wise with me, he's got to deal not only with me but with Josie, too.”