“Yes, sir,” said Jake Camden. “I’m sorry about the whole mess, sir. I hope you’ll give me another chance.”
Kozlowski pushed Camden back so that he fell onto a couch, rattling the pictures of celebrities, framed awards, and an antique Coca-Cola clock with soda-bottle hands reading 11:32.
“And there your damn lucky too, you slimy piece of sewage!” said Kozlowski. “I’d fire your ass outta here in a minute if I didn’t need some good stories, quick.”
Howard Kozlowski looked like a Polish sumo-wrestler, his muscles bulging from his grapplings with the business and journalistic world. His head looked like a bowling ball with horn-rims, and he was infamous for his outdated three-piece polyester leisure suits. He sat now in his Eames office chair behind a well-waxed mahogany desk, which was cluttered with expensive knickknacks: a diamond-studded cigarette lighter and a gold-embossed pen and pencil set. The man came from purported mob connections, and had started the Intruder in the early seventies in New Jersey, during the upsurge in respectability and popularity of the supermarket tabloid-format. Almost two decades later, any connections with organized crime were mere whispers and tenuous possibilities—Camden suspected that his boss was out and independent ... He made a point of never going to New York City, despite it being the hub of the financial world, possibly because he feared for his life in that territory. But respectability had not mellowed Kozlowski’s business manner—he ran the Intruder and his fortune and his alligator farm with all the savoir faire of a demented banana republic dictator, and he enjoyed seeing his minions kowtow even more than he enjoyed his famous afternoon ginseng enemas, a noisy bathroom tradition that echoed through the shoddy air-conditioning ducts of the single-floor building.
Jake Camden did not doubt that the fuming megalomaniac meant everything that he said. He also knew that—if he could—he would have quit at the drop of a panama hat, grabbed his guitar, typewriter, and blender, and headed for Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. But there were those troublesome debts he still owed to troublesome people.
It was time for some definite brownnosing, even though he despised ginseng. .
“I told you, Koz, I’ve got some great leads,” he said, sitting up. “We’re entering a new phase of the UFO era, man—and I’m in the forefront! Do you realize the amount of interest the New Age is blowing back into the same old stories? Instead of green two-headed creatures from saucers, we have green two-headed creatures from saucers who channel to Shirley MacLaine! The stories that are going to break soon are going to be incredible, I promise. I’ve been talking to our Hollywood snoops, and was close to breaking a story that Rock Hudson got AIDS from Pleiadan leather studs. The amount of interest is just building—and it’s all going to explode into a golden era for the Intruder!”
Kozlowski stared impassively at Camden, holding an expensive South American cigar in one hand. He never smoked them; he just clutched them—probably for effect. Once in a while, he broke them in half for dramatic exclamation points.
“Yeah, and Koz, look, mea culpa on this stuff with your daughter. But, you know, Koz—look, I’m just a lonely, weak man, and she’s a vivacious, sexy, beautiful young lady. I—“
Howard Kozlowski broke his cigar in half, and tossed it at the reporter, showering him with shreds of tobacco. “You say another word about my daughter, and I’m going to forget my stay of execution, Camden.”
“Okay. I understand.”
“I catch you anywhere near her again, you crumb-snot, and the next issue of paper is going to be inked with your blood!” He fell back into his reclining chair, bloodshot eyes looking wearily at his employee. “She’s promised me to be good, and you’re really going to have to help, Jake. I want her with nice boys, boys her own age that go to church—or, heaven help me, even a good decent synagogue! She’s my baby, Jake, and I guess I’m extremely hurt that you would do this to me!”
Camden nodded penitently.
Kozlowski sighed, and shifted in his chair, which squeaked softly. “Seriously, Jake. Circulation is down this year. We gotta start giving readers what they want, and you’re right—they seem to want UFO stories with personal twists. I can’t fault you for the job you’ve done. The Intruder was the leader for years on the latest in UFO stories. But some of the other tabloids are stealing our thunder. Get me that perfect story within the month, and you can keep your job. Otherwise, you’re outta here, amigo.”
“Sure, sir. Maybe if you can clue me in on what kind of stuff you want.”
The boss leaned forward in his chair, and took off his glasses. Little grey eyes stared hard at Camden. “I want a story that will make everyone in those shopping lines buy a copy of the Intruder. I want a story that everyone will not only be shocked at, but will believe. Something personal ... something intense, but startling. Something that will make John Doe stop hauling his Cheerios from his cart, and blink and say, ‘Hey! Maybe the earth is being visited by creatures from another planet!’” The shiny, freckled bald pate wrinkled with his intensity. The grey eyes shone above the tortoise-shell rim of the glasses. Globules of sweat were forming on his temples. “And Jake, I want this story to be backed by facts!”
Camden blinked. This maniac was serious. Maybe he was really in dire need of a break-out issue. The tabloids did scratch and claw for rack space and the attention of the American populace like bratty kids, looking to be noticed. Only what was at stake wasn’t kid stuff: it was the green stuff, the moohlah, the legal tenderloin of life that made a rich man rich and a poor man desperate.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll get you that story,” said Camden, feeling a little more self-confident. “And if I do it within a month, I keep my job.”
“That’s the score,” said Kozlowski, crabbed hand scrabbling at a humidor for another pacifier.
“Chief ... and if I get this big story, can I have a raise? Cost of living and all...”
“You unmitigated asshole! Get the fuck out of my office and get that story or I’ll take back last month’s salary!” The boss was turning a dangerous red.
“Okay. But how about just a onetime bonus then!” Camden said, grinning hopefully. “Of course, the story’s gotta be real good!”
“Out!” cried his boss, and Camden had to duck a thrown copy of Iacocca, Kozlowski’s favorite book. He’d bought a thousand remaindered Bantam hardcovers for a song, and gave one to everybody who came into his office, whether they wanted it or not. “Just be lucky you didn’t get it up the fudge canal!” Kozlowski bellowed as the book splattered into a signed picture of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
“Right,” said Jake Camden, getting out.
From the plush pile-carpeting and leather-and-teak furniture of Howard Kozlowski’s private office, the Intruder building immediately deteriorated into the pure newsroom tacky of yellowed linoleum floors, cheap desks, and cranky fluorescent strip-lighting. Most reporters, copy editors, and editorial assistants were stationed cheek to jowl, like workers in an assembly line. The lucky editors and reporters were assigned to tiny glassed-in cubicles with their typewriters, or, if they cared to bring them in, their own personal computers. The Intruder still hadn’t made the switch to a computerized system yet, despite the complaints of the employees. The boss just didn’t want to pay out the money when the old system worked well enough. True, the Intruder was only a forty-eight-page rag and the stories tended to be so short and bereft of detail that they barely needed editorial attention beyond their initial approval and scrutiny by Joe “the carnivore” Donohue, the Intruder’s lawyer, whose job it was to worry about libel suits and such. But a computer system like many papers had would make the whole process so much more streamlined. Jake Camden, early in his career here, had bought an IBM personal computer with which to write his articles, but last year he’d sold it to help stake a large cocaine deal. The deal had gone sour, and Jake had never been able to get another, but he really didn’t care—the crotchety old IBM correctable the office supplied him with was good enough.
First
thing Jake did after getting thrown out of the chief’s office was to hit the coffee cubicle. He’d been pouring down the stuff all morning, and he needed another cup. He’d gotten in at 8:00 sharp after a sleepless night, and Kozlowski had, in his inimical fashion, kept him waiting until 11:15 for his dressing-down, so that Jake had to wriggle on the barbed hook awhile. During that time, Jake had managed to drink five cups of coffee, urinate three times, and write and rewrite the first page of his report on his Iowa findings ten times, all wretchedly.
Jake plunked a quarter loudly in the Maxwell House can, then pulled the half—filled community pot from the Mr. Coffee Machine and poured himself three-quarters of a Styrofoam cupful. He poured in a steady stream of sugar, dumped in two spoonfuls of Cremora, stirred, and sniffed the heady concoction. Despite his urge to gag (although it was a Maxwell House can on the counter, the secretaries who supplied the thing generally bought generic grind), he took a swallow. It didn’t make him feel any better, but it didn’t make him feel any worse. Jake looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then silently retrieved his quarter, as well as another, and pocketed them.
He then plastered his trademark devil-may-care grin on his unusually well-shaven face and strode down the aisle toward his desk, ready to field the curious questions.
“Hey, Jake,” called Quentin Marshall, the celebrity editor, pushing his designer glasses back with a manicured finger. “Serious rumblings in there. Will you still be parking your saucer in the lot outside?”
The activity in the immediate area all but halted, typewriters no longer clacking, voices stilled above telephone receivers, as ears leaned in Jake’s direction. The air-conditioning rattled and cleared its throat, and the smell of ink and paper hung in the air like an ever-present apparition. Jake leaned casually against a UPI wire machine, and winked at Sheryl Stippens, an assistant photo-editor whose desk was covered with pictures of Michael J. Fox in the company of various women. He sipped at his bitter coffee and gave a sly smile to his waiting audience. “Does Liz Taylor go down on Malcolm Forbes?”
“C’mon Camden,” growled Bill Walters, the occult-and-astrology editor, scratching a serious beer gut. “Intruding minds want to know!”
“Well, the old man was a mite upset with me, I suppose. Circulation has been down and he wants a killer story ... And not a lot that sensational has been going on in the UFO field these days.” Jake shrugged blithely and peered over a desk, spying on a list of story ideas, hoping to swipe one.
“Get off it, Jake,” said Sadie Diamond, a fiftyish woman with bluish blond hair and a face like a road map, a cigarette bobbing between her lips as she pulled a piece of paper from her typewriter platen. “You’ve been shtupping his daughter, and everybody knows it. Did you get the can or not?”
Camden sauntered over to the woman’s desk, picked up her pack of Chesterfields and stole one. “Actually,” he said, fitting the cigarette between his teeth. “The old man just wanted a few sex tips. How about a match, sweetheart.”
“My ass and your face,” said Sadie. “Gimme my damn cigarettes back, Jake. I’m sick and tired of you bumming cigarettes. I was hoping the old bird would railroad your bod outta here, covered with tar and feathers!”
“Now, now, claws in, oh, my esteemed and professional co-workers of this august and distinguished publication.” He turned and addressed all those listening. “I am well aware of the envy all of you have for my position as chief reporter on the most important stories of our century. But be assured, Jake Camden’s star is not only still rising, it is discharging all sorts of fascinating life-forms to our planet, all of which deserve front-page coverage! In fact, I predict that very soon a fleet of Pleiadan light-ships will descend on Kiss Grits, Florida, specifically to quell the infighting and bring peace and tranquility to the troubled Intruder.”
Uneasy laughter greeted his words, and the workers turned their attention back to their tasks, their question answered.
Jake tossed the Chesterfields back on Sadie’s desk. “Thanks kiddo. I’ll buy you a tobacco farm in Maryland when my ship comes in.”
Sadie shook her head, going back to her task of weeding through the world news stories for strange human interest stories. “Jake Camden, you’re what the Surgeon General warns about on the packs.”
But Jake was already gone, breezing past his co-workers toward his office near the back, mouth frozen in a rictus around his unlit cigarette. He hummed “People Who Need People” as he walked, nodding or winking to anyone who looked at him. Finally, he stepped into his cubicle, where he placed the Styrofoam coffee cup beside a pile of unanswered mail and messages, and then collapsed in his chair and buried his face in his arms.
A sensational UFO story, backed by facts! Where was he going to dig up one of those? And he had only a month? What the hell was he going to do? Johnny Plentenos was settling for installments on the money due, but if his salary dried up next month, unemployment insurance sure as hell wasn’t going to keep that Cuban machete from lopping off certain necessary appendages.
Camden sighed wearily and rummaged through the mess on the desk, as though somewhere within that heap was hidden treasure. He found no gold, but did find a pack of matches labeled “Gino’s Go-Go—Girl’s Galore.” He lit his stolen Chesterfield and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Jake, sorry to bother you, but that Tim Reilly fellow is calling again,” a voice said from behind him. Jake looked around wearily and saw that it was Betty Norton, the secretary/ assistant he shared with three other reporters. “He claims to have a UFO story for you.” She blinked at him myopically through huge, blue-framed glasses, and Camden was hit by a wave of too much Chanel Number Five.
“That Kansas student, right? Shit, he was calling on Thursday and Friday too. I don’t need a Kansas story ... I got Midwest stories coming out of my wazoo!”
“Looks like a routine abduction, too,” Betty chomped on her double wad of Bubble Yum as she stared down at her notes. “Out parking with his girlfriend near some Kansas field, sees some hovering lights—they go to check it out, they wake up back at their car the next dawn. By the way, the girlfriend called earlier. Named Diane Scarborough. They must really want to talk to you, Jake. Whatcha want me to do?”
“Take down the phone number, tell ‘em I’ll get back to them...” said Jake.
“Yeah. Okay.” A flutter of pink skirt, and she was gone.
“...About the year 2020,” muttered Jake Camden under his breath, as he stared back morosely at the piles of stuff tilting precariously on his desk.
That was the problem with this goddamn UFO reporting. One original idea gets into the general populace’s mind, and whacko! Instant Xerox copies. That’s why you had to stretch the truth some—and often almost fabricate it—to get good copy out of the goddamn phenomenon. But despite his cynicism on this subject, in his heart of hearts, Jake Camden wasn’t entirely sure it was all a pile of brain guano—there were just too many reports that were un-provable, and just too much evidence that something was really going on.
Exactly what was very hard to say, but something.
He sat in his cubicle for a long time, ruminating. As he thought, he scribbled out ideas on his yellow notepad. As he was writing out “Project Blue Ball: Sexual Scandal Amongst UFO-ologists,” he began humming an old English folk song that he’d liked so much on an old Simon and Garfunkel record, finally softly mouthing the words.
“Are you going to Scarborough Fair. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Remember me—“
He stopped in mid-song.
Jake Camden shook his head. Naw, it couldn’t be ...
Still, he was a reporter, and sometimes the damndest things happened.
And if it were true ...
He rolled his swivel chair out of the cubicle, leaning back and forming a megaphone with his hands.
“Yo, Betts! What did you say the name of that Kansas guy’s girlfriend was?”
Chapter 15
Diane Scarborough
was trying to meditate, but it wasn’t coming easily.
She sat on a huge yellow pillow topping a Persian rug near Tim’s balcony, where a jungle of flowers in pots obscured a few marijuana plants. The Kansas sunshine was bright, and puffy cumulus clouds rode above the flat plane like breaths of white mystery pasted on blue cosmos.
Diane took a long breath through her right nostril, paused, let it out, all the while focusing on a small milk-quartz crystal she cupped in a palm. She took another breath through her right nostril, this time attempting to shift concentration on a more receptive chakra. From the stereo, the soft drones of Ravi Shankar’s sitar, underpinned with tablas, encouraged her onward,
Still, she could find no peace. Inside, she still raged at her father.
Damn the man! she fumed, wiping out any sense of inner peace she’d managed to collect on any plane, spiritual, physical, or emotional. Couldn’t he, for once, act not like a scientist, but a loving, caring father? She wasn’t an experiment he’d cooked up in a lab! She wasn’t some complex equation that he had to solve utilizing only modular quadratics! She was flesh and blood and soul, and he was her daddy, and oh! Shit!
“Shit!” she said, standing up and tossing the crystal back into the basket that held a pile of the things. “Shit, shit, shit!” she said, going to the turntable, taking off Ravi and Company.
Tim looked up from the desk where he was sitting, hunkered over an open book. Stacks of other books and piles of magazines tilted precariously on the desk before him, threatening to collapse on his half-eaten bagel and a cold cup of chamomile tea. The odor of yesterday’s marijuana clung to him like a dream. “What’s wrong, kiddo?”
“Oh, I just can’t get into my meditation, and boy, I really need it!” she said, taking out another record and planting the stylus on vinyl. “Birth, School, Work, Death!” by the Godfathers commenced to blast from the Fischer speakers, a grinding explosion of resentment.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 19
