“Mikhail, I’d help you with this, but I’ve got to get back to my studios.”
“Yessum.”
“Don’t say it that way. You’ll do better without me than with. Promise.”
The Mick jogged down the platform steps to the campus. He had no appointment, he’d told nobody he was coming, and he’d been to Skye only once before in his life, on an Ephebus Academy field trip over a year ago when he and a busload of his classmates had fallen asleep at the musical version of Sartre’s No Exit. What to do? Get help, The Mick figured. He waylaid a female squiddie in woolen knee socks, a Scotch-plaid skirt, and a white cable-knit sweater.
“Can you, like, uh—where’s the theology-school dorm?”
The startled Skye coed eyed The Mick critically, but grabbed him by the arm, spun him toward the concrete globe-and-turret of the chapel, and pointed past it through facing columns of oaks. She smelled, he noted, of laundry soap and a popular hairdo mousse: semi-nice.
“Thanx,” The Mick said.
Smite Them Hip & Thigh lived in a divided suite on the third story, or ramp level, of Aquinas-Swaggart Hall, a coed dorm in the theology-school vicinage of the Skye University campus. The Mick walked into this dorm with a resident who, assuming that The Mick was a fellow seminarian, held the door for him. Once inside, he had no trouble finding his heroes’ living quarters because the building was familiar from a photo spread in the Urbanite devoted to the band’s enrollment at Skye and their weird abandonment of touring for the academic life.
Wired, The Mick shuffled quick-time up the dorm’s carpeted interior ramps and arrived outside the third-floor suite labeled 396/398. He rapped. Environmental white noise from an Electrifying Thunderstorms CD poured from the suite’s stereo system. Either that, he told himself, or some wiring was shorting out and the room’s safety sprinklers were busy wetting down the room’s institutional desks and divans.
“Enter,” a male voice said.
The Mick hit the knob key and did so. Except for the stereo system, two upturned peach crates, and a pair of tatami mats, the curved room held no furniture. The Mick recognized the group’s bassist, the white-haired Kanji Urabe, at once. Urabe sat cross-legged on one of the mats, wearing a loincloth. He looked like a skinny Sumo wrestler in the last days of an undistinguished career. Smite Them’s three women—Matison, Suarez, and Kambo—were nowhere in evidence, probably because floor-to-ceiling curtains closed off the entrance to their half of the suite. Krrrrrrr-ak! went the recorded electrical storm. Thunder quaked the walls and floor. Invisible rain pelted down.
“Hey, man,” The Mick said. “ ’S Gregor here?”
Urabe’s eyes bugged out, and their gaze at length came to rest on Mikhail. “No,” he said. More lightning, more thunder, more rain. “Sit.” Urabe nodded at the room’s other mat. “Sit and wait.”
The Mick obeyed. What now? This was a borderline weirdorama scene, but it would have been a mega mind-fogger if he’d tripped in to find Urabe dressed like an Oconee Heights squid-kid watching Leave It to Beaver on a mini-TV. Meditation, on the other hand, seemed proper Urabe, if he just weren’t doing it to a multimiked frog-strangler of a thunderstorm.
Waiting, The Mick heard Urabe accompanying the storm noises with a subliminal mouth buzz: zfffzzzfff. This noise, like the recorded storm, went on and on. The Mick dozed. It could have been a quick nod or a steep plunge. No way to tell for sure. All The Mick knew was that when he next came to awareness, Electrifying Thunderstorms had given way to a CD called Cry of the Loon: faint water sounds and the spooky laugh of the wind-rat itself.
The door opened, and Gregor McGudgeon slouched in hauling two textbooks and a notepad. He wore black: black canvas shoes, black trousers, a black shirt with straplike black epaulets. He knelt at the peach crate near Urabe’s and stuck his school supplies under it. Then, lightly, he perched on the crate edge and stared at The Mick. The Mick, though, was too totally tongue on the ground to explain his presence.
“We don’t do autographs here,” McGudgeon said. “Kanj’ll let just about anybody in. Nothing here worth pilfering, see? But none of us do ’graphs anymore.”
“ ’S fine. Didn’t want one.” This blurt hung there. McGudgeon, perching half on air, studied him while the loons ululated like dueling flautists. “My uncle’s Count Geiger. He needs your—like, you know, the band’s—help.”
“Okay. We’ll pray for him. Hard.”
Mikhail sat hunched, his fingernails glittering like bruises or reflecting the black of McGudgeon’s clothes.
“So prayer isn’t what you want, then?”
“Uh-unh, not like only, at least. It’s—”
“It’s nasty cash you’re after?”
“Yessir. Operation Uplift. Everybody goes like vapor-lock when it’s time to pay. UC’s copped out, the cops’ve shut their tills, Salonika’s nothing but dogshit PR.”
“I hear you.”
“Uncle Xave’s a culture crit in his spares. You guys pumped him at Grotto East. This Count Geiger lock-in dropped on him later, like from nowhere.”
“Yah, but his righteousness”—McGudgeon appealed to Urabe—“is what, Kanji?”
“Legendary,” Kanji Urabe said. “Already.”
“Legendary. Already.” McGudgeon reached under his crate for his checkbook. Atop the crate, he wrote a check and tore it off. He handed it to The Mick. “Will that do for a decent-seeming start-up?”
The Mick gaped at the figure. He got to his feet. “Jeez. God bless you, Gregor. Really, like forever.”
The loon calls and water sounds ended.
McGudgeon went to the CD player and put on Peaceful Ocean Surf: breaking combers, gulls, foghorns. Then, stripped to a pair of khaki-colored boxer shorts, he sat down gurulike on the mat next to Urabe’s. He nodded a curt don’t-mention-it at The Mick and folded his hands in his lap.
“It won’t bounce,” he said. “The world’s in a terrible state of chassis, boy-o, but, thank the lovin’ Lord, Smite Them’s still solvent.”
The Mick departed. Outside Aquinas-Swaggart Hall, the squid-kids seemed less squiddy, and it occurred to The Mick that when Uncle Xave banked this check, it would become, like early spring collards or even Popeye’s canned spinach, Count Geiger’s greens. . . .
48
Ink-and-Paper Ex-po-zay
The next morning, Xavier proceeded to the Fine Arts section of the Urbanite’s dayroom to discuss with his staff their assignments for the coming week. Pippa had already left to review an exhibit opening at Snapz, a post-yuppie photography gallery at Salonika Plaza, but Donel and Ivie were both busy writing stories.
Xavier detoured into Walt Grantham’s office, which was empty, and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. Alex Meisel came in. Alex was small, dark, and energetic, a Metro/State reporter who, in less than a year, had risen to be Grantham’s fair-haired boy—metaphorically speaking. Alex was agitated, and although he didn’t radiate either anger or pique, he did give off a kind of . . . cheerful anxiety? Anxious cheerfulness? Xavier braced himself. “Uh, hi,” Alex said. “Hello.” Noncommittal. Aloof. Or (a better read on Xavier’s own state of mind) guiltily apprehensive.
“You should know, Mr. Thaxton, that I bear you no personal animosity. I take no pleasure in having my byline on a story that will alter your status here.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Walt’s coming, Mr. Thaxton. He told me to bring you in here for a chat. Funny you dropped by on your own.”
“I wanted something hot.” Xavier lifted his Salonika-Is-a-Salacious-City mug, with its caricature of the mayor hooking on Chattahoochee Avenue. “Unfortunately, this isn’t.” Interesting, though, that Alex should refer to Grantham as “Walt,” but to him as “Mr. Thaxton.” Should he be flattered or terrified?
Grantham came in and gestured Xavier and Alex to a horsehair loveseat that had occupied the Metro/State editor’s office since 1916. “So what does he know?” Grantham asked Alex, pacing in front of his desk and avoiding Xavier’s eyes
.
“Nothing, really. I was waiting for you, Walt.”
“Edify me,” Xavier said. Had they discovered his impersonation of Alex at the Hazeltons’? Alex was sharp, a bloodhound-and-bulldog mix.
Grantham made eye contact. “It’s pretty simple, Xavier: We know. But what do we do with you now that Alex has uncovered the truth?”
“Do with me?” Xavier said. “Suppose I promise not to do it again.”
His colleagues regarded him as if he’d promised to fast permanently. “I wouldn’t have thought you had any significant control in the matter,” Grantham said.
Xavier shifted on the loveseat. “What are we talking about, exactly?” His Suit afforded some insulation, but he still could have been sitting on a sandpaper scroll.
“We know you’re Count Geiger. In one sense, we’re proud of you. In another, confused and chagrined. Alex is writing a story”—Grantham swiveled Alex’s computer screen toward Xavier—“that will tell the public of our discovery. But courtesy, simple decency, demanded that we tell you first, Xavier.”
“I also wanted your reaction,” Alex said. “For the record.”
Xavier got up so that he could read the characters glowing on Mr. Grantham’s monitor: “URBANITE FINE ARTS EDITOR IS ALSO LOCAL HERO COUNT GEIGER / Unbeknown to his fellow journalists or Salonika at large, / at night Xavier Thaxton has been leading a storybook existence / of brave and stalwartly proportions.”
A fist to the solar plexus. Xavier said, “I’d change storybook to comic-book.”
“So it’s true,” Grantham said. “You’re playing vigilante in tinfoil peejays.”
“How long have you known?”
“We had a call yesterday from your waiter at the Zapotec on the night of Blanche Lebeck’s near mugging,” Alex said. “He confirmed allegations brought by the restaurant’s cashier and—”
“Allegations? Is it a crime to fight crime? Is it a crime to try to show the rainbow to yahoos and felons?”
“Easy, Mr. Thaxton. What I meant was, many people—patrons of the Zapotec, a costume seller in Satan’s Cellar, a city cop—have told me that Count Geiger is the same person who writes ‘Thus Saith Xavier Thaxton.’ They didn’t volunteer this information, but more or less admitted the possibility under direct questioning.”
“Yours, I take it.”
“Yessir. Except for this ex-waiter at the Zapotec. He wanted to get something off his chest. I drove to his place and talked to him for over an hour. You’re definitely Count Geiger, Mr. Thaxton. The people with you at dinner that night were Bari Carlisle and your nephew Mikhail. The rescue at Bridgeboro Station occurred only minutes after you left the Zapotec clad in only—”
“This,” Xavier said, jerking his tie loose and unbuttoning his top three shirt buttons. “My tinfoil peejays.”
“Right,” Alex said. “The rumor, confined and small-scale, has been circulating for several days, but your waiter—Sidney Ray Yorke—pegged it for me. What you see there,” gesturing at the monitor, “I wrote last night.”
Xavier turned to Grantham. “You’re going to reveal the Count’s secret identity? You’re going to expose me?”
“It’s not very secret, Xavier, and if the Urbanite doesn’t, the TV dinks will. Our credibility will be trashed if the bozos at WSSX beat us to this ex-po-zay. Imagine it, Xavier: the vacuum tubes scooping the ink-and-paper guys when Count Geiger is an ink-and-paper guy. We’ve got to run Alex’s story. On the front page. Tomorrow.”
“Sorry, Mr. Thaxton.” Alex was a nappy-haired dynamo with eyes like a poked-up cocker spaniel’s. “Nothing personal.”
“And after I’m exposed? The Urbanite keeps a living comic-book stalwart on as its Fine Arts editor?”
“Again, Xavier, it’s an issue of credibility. That wouldn’t go. We’ll elevate Pippa to the editorship. You’ll, uh, you’ll be separated—”
“Separated!”
“—with three months’ pay and our profoundest thanks for a job well done.”
Xavier sat back down on the horsehair loveseat, almost hoping that its malaligned bristles snagged his Suit and drew blood. Could a grown man who was neither an actor nor a circus performer make a living wearing tinfoil pajamas? Gregor McGudgeon of Smite Them Hip & Thigh had given the Count a generous check, every cent of it pledged to reform programs for perpetrators of crimes, remediable incivilities, or gauche aesthetic lapses. Xavier had a savings account, an IRA, a condo share, and two small certificates of deposit, but those were nearly the extent of his assets. To put the matter in perspective, Grantham had just fired him, and all he’d ever aspired to do was to write arts criticism for a metropolitan audience.
“I’m fired,” Xavier said. “For doing good.”
“You’re let go. When the resulting furor blows over, we may be able to rehire you in a, um, special capacity.”
“ ‘Ask Count Geiger,’ ” Xavier said. “ ‘The Stalwartly Gourmet.’ ”
“Do you cook?” Alex said.
“I’m ruined,” Xavier said. “I won’t be able to go on living where I live, or shopping where I shop, or eating where I eat. Soul-suckers will overrun me.”
“Superhero groupies,” Alex said. “Could be worse.”
“Let me write a last ‘Thus Saith Xavier Thaxton,’ ” Xavier said. “And don’t run Alex’s exposé until Monday. I’ll be involved in a major crime-fighting operation on Sunday afternoon. If you blow my cover, you’ll jeopardize a mass arrest unlike any in city history. I’ve already worked out details with the Oconee Bureau of Investigation, the city police, the Chattahoochee County sheriffs department. Count Geiger has, I mean.”
“Four days,” Alex groused. “WSSX could beat us to the draw.”
“They’re too civic-minded to do that,” Xavier said. “Or would be, if they understood the stakes. If they had the story, they’d’ve used it already. So they must not have it.” He appealed again to Grantham. “Keep your sources in the Urbanite’s camp. Offer them complimentary subs, free want ads, answers to crossword puzzles.”
Susan Giono, another Metro/State reporter, popped into Grantham’s office. “Sir, a wrecking ball demolishing the old Busby Building came off its chain and penetrated the roof of Preston Motors. Keeler and Sigalos are arguing over coverage rights.”
“Thanks, Susan,” Grantham said. “We’ll wait until Monday. Least we can do.”
Alex found a palm-sized tape recorder. “Tell me, Mr. Thaxton,” thumbing it on, “how did you come to be Count Geiger? I mean, what happened to produce—”
Xavier winced. “For God’s sake, not now.”
Alex turned off the recorder. “You impersonated me up at Deke Hazelton’s farm. I’ve known for a long time, but I kept the secret. You owe me one, Mr. Thaxton.” He held the instrument toward Xavier again and thumbed it on.
49
Dr. Woolfolk Reacts
Larry Glenn had spent half the morning hobbling back and forth between the garage and the toilet. He was in the toilet now. Juitt banged on its door.
“Elrod,” Larry Glenn said, “I’m sick.”
“Me too. You got my truck but you ain’t doing my free-week-a-month’s work.”
Larry Glenn addressed the bowl, his hands on the wall. He wasn’t goldbricking. He was honest-to-Jesus sick. This fact finally got through to Juitt, maybe because the sound of Larry Glenn’s retching was so clear.
“All right, damn you. Go on home. Git.”
Larry Glenn, white-faced, opened the door. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll try.”
*
“C’mere,” Missy said. “Come see your daughter.” Carrie-Lisbeth was sick too. The fresh slip on her pillow was soaked. She was so feverish, Missy pointed out, that she looked damned-near sunburnt.
“It’s food poisoning,” Larry Glenn said. “It musta been them damn dollar-a-pack hot dogs.”
“That was three days ago. This is a bug. This is the flu.”
“Call ever’body who was here. See if they’re sick.”
Missy telephoned. Claudia and Lulah told Missy they had queasy stomachs and the sweats. Ike was all right. Ricky had complained that morning of a headache, but he’d driven in to work to man his backhoe. It sounded to Missy, though, as if most of the guests at Carrie-Lisbeth’s party were flu victims.
“Food poisoning,” Larry Glenn said.
“No,” Missy said, “but you’d still better take us to a doctor.”
*
Because the go-truck still had no doors, the trip into town was windy, dusty, and hot. Carrie-Lisbeth whimpered most of the way. Larry Glenn felt so bad he started to believe Missy’d been right to insist on going.
The Philippi Clinic, under the direction of Dr. Zane Woolfolk, was a one-story brick building behind the post office. Larry Glenn and Missy looked into the clinic through its glass door and saw the mothers of two of Carrie-Lisbeth’s friends in the waiting room with their daughters.
“I knew it,” Larry Glenn said. “It was them damned hot dogs.”
“It wasn’t,” Missy said. “It wasn’t.” Steeling themselves, they entered the clinic and sat down next to the patients already inside. The three women started comparing their girls’ symptoms. Thirty minutes later, Doctor Zane’s nurse called them out of the waiting room. A lumberjackish-looking man with a close-cropped grey beard and a monocle that he often peered through comically, Doctor Zane invited Larry Glenn to come back with the girls and their mothers, but, because he was male, left him sitting on a folding chair in the hall. When Doctor Zane returned, he said, “Larry Glenn, Missy told me you cut down a medical machine and passed out the blue powder in it to the girls. Is that so?”
“Yessir.” Larry Glenn reached into a pocket and pulled out a clump of the glitter-cake. “It was too pretty to squirrel away. Ever’body should have some, I thought. That’s what a birthday party’s all about.”
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