The growling grew more intense and then he heard an odd noise—like a soundtrack running backward. Then silence. He reached a bay window and looked out over the grounds. In the barium-silver mist he could make out Warhol’s shape. God, Clearfather thought. He’s ripped the throats out of those poor mastiffs and now he’s dragging one off to eat! Having seen the monster in action, he had no intention of trying to interrupt him now. He turned to head back to his room and passed what he’d thought was a mirror—but this time a giant face rippled up before him.
“All polar bears are left-handed.”
“Is that you, Ainsley? You scared me. I . . . I couldn’t sleep.”
“All polar bears are left-handed.”
“I’ve got a polar bear stuck on my foot!”
“All polar bears are left-handed. The more shrimp a flamingo eats, the pinker it gets.”
“Are you all right?” Clearfather asked. “Your voice . . . has something happened?”
“The more worms, the more badgers,” the Voice said in a fuzz of distortion.
“I’ll get help,” Clearfather said and swept down the hall, dragging the bear rug behind. At least he knew where the elevator was—the crippled son’s studio had to be off that section of the house. Down one hall and left he noticed a glimmer of light. The smell of the Man of Steel was heavy in the air—dead skin cells, single-malt whiskey, and dark tobacco disguised by gallons of Royal Yacht Edwardian Lime aftershave. The door was ajar. He squeezed the ivory ball in his pocket and crept closer. “Ainsley?” he whispered. “Hello?”
He slipped closer, the polar bear rug still clutching his foot. The Steel Man’s odor was very strong now. Clearfather crept closer. The butler’s chrome mask lay on an antique table just inside the room beside the electronic voice collar. The Man of Steel, in pajamas of hand-printed Italian cotton, reclined on his surfboard, smoking two cigarettes. The floor creaked.
“So . . . you’ve discovered my little secret.” The Man of Steel turned, and his voice no longer had the synthetic warble.
“You?” Clearfather asked, glancing back and forth between the mask and the roboframe. “But why?”
“There was a real Hooper,” the Man of Steel panted, lighting up a cigar. “I was forced to accommodate him and supply him with meaningful employment as part of a lawsuit-settled insurance claim. But he didn’t work. The one thing that did work was between his legs. He began balling my wife. I think the mask and the robotic apparatus excited her. One day when he was getting his fluids refreshed, I tried on the mask and fitted myself as best I could into the frame—and enjoyed her in a way she hadn’t really allowed in decades.”
“But didn’t your wife notice . . .”
“I had help,” the Man of Steel puffed, and slipped his hand into the pocket of his pajamas. There was a sound like an automatic garage door opening, and then a swelling began in his crotch—of which the ancient executive was obviously proud. Except that once risen it began to deflate. And then to rise again . . .
“Geez,” said Clearfather. “That’s annoying.”
“You’re telling me!” the Steel King fumed. “I’m afraid if she ever sobers up, she’ll find out the truth. This damn unit’s started malfunctioning and it’s out of warranty. Wieviel harvested it out of a Saudi who died in heart surgery. Gave me a great deal on it, but it’s a devil of a thing to fix.”
“Couldn’t you just take a drug?”
“For about fifty years or so. Then it’s best to go for new equipment.”
The Man of Steel’s hydraulic implant kept rising and lowering.
Clearfather picked up the synthesizer. “You wear this to disguise your voice?”
“And also because I’ve had throat cancer.”
“Oh. So—what happened to the real Hooper? Did you need a new set of lungs?”
“There’s no evidence of anything illegal!” the Man of Steel snapped.
“I bet there’s no evidence, period. And even your wife is happy about it, providing she’s had enough vodka.”
“And ether,” the Man of Steel said. “Ether helps. Hooper has also given me another way of collecting information on the Inheritors.”
“Who? Oh, your family! So behind that mask you spy on them?”
“Don’t get holier-than-thou with me! They’re a weaselly bunch.”
“Not Wilton.”
“He’s a junkie and a pervert. I couldn’t trust him as far as you could throw him!”
“That’s because Theodore and Simon(e) got him addicted to Pandora.”
“My point exactly! Eat the wounded, bury the aged! You have no idea what it’s like to live for fifty years thinking that every day could be your last!”
Clearfather had been trying desperately to work his foot out of the bear’s mouth and finally kicked the rug free with a jolt. It flew up and struck a Ming vase, knocking it to the floor, where it shattered, spilling out what looked like soot.
“That was my first wife. And a priceless vase!” the Steel King gulped. “But I don’t suppose it matters now. Just go on and get the job done.”
“I’m . . . sorry,” Clearfather said. “W-what job?”
“Why, killing me of course. Isn’t that what a hired assassin is hired for?”
CHAPTER 12
Spizzerinctum
“You can make an ass of yourself but you can’t make an assassin of me,” Clearfather said. “I just came in here because I thought Ainsley sounded sick. Remember Loyal Ainsley? The Number One Contender?”
“Success rates for throat-throttle attack by solitary cheetahs range from ten to forty percent,” Ainsley droned.
“I’d like to meet him.”
“No.”
“Introduce me and I won’t breathe a word about you being Hooper.”
“No. Please.”
“I won’t leave otherwise. I swear. And everyone will know.”
“Oh . . . shit,” the Man of Steel groaned. He levered forward and steered the surfboard into the adjoining room. In a corner was a white-screened area like a phosphorescent cocoon. “Pull back the curtain.”
“Ains . . . ley?” Clearfather began, but faltered when he saw the empty space.
“He is not there . . . he has risen.” Brand sighed and burst into a fit of sobbing, which made the continued excitement of his penile implant seem even more ludicrous.
Clearfather heard the Voice say, “If beavers sense danger, they whack the surface of the water with their tails, signaling to the rest of the family to seek hiding places.”
“I don’t understand.”
“His database includes the complete text of L. H. Morgan’s classic The American Beaver and His Works. This,” wailed the Father, “is all that’s left of my Son!” He pointed to the installation of computers. “Dingler—next door—designed it. The man’s a genius—a bastard but a genius. We distorted the face so the family wouldn’t know.”
“Ainsley’s not . . . sick? He’s dead?”
“His body . . . is,” the Man of Steel admitted. “But his—personality—lives on in this system, and now he’s dying again before my eyes. His body was damaged then—but now it’s his mind!”
“A full-grown giraffe’s heart is as big as a basketball,” Ainsley piped up.
“Cyberdementia,” sniffed the Steel Man. “Dingler injected an accelerating Asperger’s Syndrome into the CPU and triggered it when I refused him membership into an elite golf club of which I am the president.”
“When’s the last time you played golf?”
“Twenty-two years ago. But that’s not the point.”
“Carefully observe the normal to detect the abnormal,” Ainsley chirped.
“Can . . . can you . . .”
“Unplug him?” the Father asked. “Yes. But I’m not ready yet. What a bitter end! Look there.” The Steel King pointed out the window.
Clearfather saw the doors to the car barn opening and closing madly. So that was how Warhol had gotten out.
“Dingler linked h
im into the home management system. I’ve disabled part of it, but I don’t dare tamper with any more. Good thing this part is on a separate system.”
“Wait a minute,” said Clearfather. “I thought Ainsley was injured—”
“Eighty-eight years ago. He had spizzerinctum!” the Steel King blubbered.
“What’s that? A disease?”
“No! It’s the essential American trait. Gumption. Go-get-’em. The drive to go head-to-head and always keep your chin up. Ainsley was full of it.”
“But when did he actually die?”
“Eighty-four years ago,” the Man of Steel whispered.
“What? Do you mean to say that he’s been dead—that the rest of the family has believed—that he’s been this living—ghost—all this time?”
“I couldn’t bear to let him go! I couldn’t live without the thought of one day leaving everything to him. I know it’s hard for you to understand—”
“No,” said Clearfather. “Your masquerade as Hooper is difficult to understand. This is on another level completely. How have you kept this secret?”
“Well,” said the Steel King, trying to regain control (and about ready to rip out his implant). “Maids and nurses were paid to tell stories. And I used a mannequin in bandages. I had photos made. I even hired a ventriloquist at one point. You see, people like secrets and no one really wants to look at a monster.”
“Who wasn’t even there! You build up this labyrinth, so naturally everyone assumes there’s someone or something in it!”
“As the technology became more sophisticated, I was able to do more.”
“And Wilton thinks I’m a magician! Ainsley isn’t just the tragic ghost of your favorite son, it’s code for 24/7 internal AV surveillance.”
“You need to see this from my perspective,” Brand insisted. “I’ve worked hard to build this up. I wasn’t born rich like them. When I was a boy, they used to have the streetlights on at noon!”
“Mr. Brand, you still are a boy. You’ve used this perverse hoax to confuse and manipulate your family for the worst part of a century. Your scheme has destroyed Ernst. And Wilton, a healthy intelligent kid with a great future, is so desperate for love and self-esteem, he’s suicidal. If any of them are half as greedy as you say—you’ve made them that way. Bargaining organs, pitting them against each other! And the most pathetic thing is that you’ve been successful in boondoggling them. Not only do they believe Ainsley exists and is going to inherit everything, they believe there’s something to inherit.”
“How do you know there’s not?” the Man of Steel pouted. “I own forty percent of Professor Chicken! And Simon(e) doesn’t even know.”
“That’s the big prize everyone’s vying for?”
“Plus the antiques!”
The Man of Steel led Clearfather through a set of doors hand-carved from heartwood of Macassar ebony. In one corner was a very realistic waxwork of an aging beauty queen holding a martini glass.
“That’s my second wife,” the Man of Steel indicated. “Compliments of a taxidermist from Alaska.”
As the decrepit former executive surfed past, one of his chemical drip bags hooked something and onto the floor fluttered a photogram. Clearfather bent hastily to retrieve it. It showed a still-old but not obscene image of the Steel Man holding a newborn baby wrapped in blue.
“Is this you and Wilton?”
“Give me that!” the Man of Steel barked, pinching the photo back and stowing it away in some hidden pocket of his robe. “Let me show you something important.”
Brand pulled him into another room in front of a laser-alarm-protected glass case.
“Did you know that in South America there’s a kind of catfish that grabs monkeys out of the trees when they come down to get a drink from the rivers? Theodore Roosevelt’s expedition caught one. When they cut it open, they found a monkey in the belly. This is that monkey.”
“That monkey?”
“Mummified,” the Man of Steel whispered. “Signed by Teddy himself.”
“Theodore Roosevelt signed that monkey?”
“Look closely . . .”
Clearfather burst out laughing.
“Stop laughing! No one laughs at Kingland Morris Brand!”
Just then the Man of Steel’s artificial penis began rotating, which sent Clearfather into hysterics. He stopped laughing only when he found himself face-to-face with a Harpers Ferry flintlock.
“What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“I’m going to lock you in the basement and call Dr. Wieviel. And then instead of just a new liver—I’m going to get a new heart, lungs—who knows? It could be a real smorgasbord,” the Man of Steel gloated.
A thought came to Clearfather as he watched the Steel Lord’s spinning member.
“It might take more than ether to fool your wife about that.”
“Shut up!”
“On the other hand—if you could control it—if you could decide when it went up and for how long—and if you could get a little rotary action—just the right amount at the right time—you might become very popular.”
“What are you saying?”
Clearfather heard voices inside his head . . . Uncle Waldo and Aunt Vivian speaking in the singsong tone used to address children and animals . . . Can we fix it? Yes, we can!
“I can fix it,” Clearfather said, and in his mind an image formed . . . the shadow man at the transmitter shack, some mouse-hole radio station operating from a ghost town. It was dusk and the lighted call letters KRMA came on as bright as a Mexican restaurant and the man’s voice said . . . And now a dedication going out to . . .
The voice was lost in the wind but the song came through clear and sharp.
“I can give you back some semblance of manhood and dignity,” Clearfather said. “For a lot less than what Dr. Wieviel will charge.”
“Bullshit! How?”
“Do you care . . . as long as it works?”
“I can’t have you hanging around here knowing what you know.”
“Nothing could make me stay, knowing what I know. You give me some pocket money, then you cancel the liver replacement and agree to never have another organ transplant. Ever.”
“But that’ll mean—”
“Death. Eventually. Yes. But as an end of living, not as a style of life.”
“But—”
“I’m not finished. You do whatever you have to do to fund Wilton’s rehab program—and you stick by him through it no matter how tough it gets. Then you unplug Ainsley and have a formal memorial service that will end the farce forever.”
“But—”
“I’m not finished. You ask for Ernst’s forgiveness. You make Ernst and Wilton your heirs—your wife has her own money. Then you try to fix this place up so that there really is something to leave behind other than twisted memories.”
“That seems a lot to ask,” the Man of Steel said.
“It’s a package deal,” Clearfather replied.
“I’ll tell you what,” breathed the Steel Man. “What say we make this sporting? You win, it’s as you’ve said. I win—and you’re spare parts.”
“What kind of competition?” Clearfather asked.
The Steel King slipped into Hungarian partridge shooting boots and a coat made of ribbon seal. He handed Clearfather a sheepskin jacket and a pair of deerskin moccasins, and then led him outside onto a balcony. In the still morning chill, the stale tang of Szechuan cooking mixed with barbecued pigs’ feet rose from the river, the various aromas blending like the weird PVC pipe tooting of the settlers down on the floodwall. Clearfather gazed out over the estate. On the ground below was a clearing between two stands of just-budding Lombardy poplars, which was filled with rows of snowmen arranged like pieces in an enormous board game. The sun was just beginning to brighten the sky, and the figures made deep blue shadows.
“Isn’t it a bit late in the season for snowmen?” Clearfather asked.
“I could never build s
nowmen when I was growing up.”
“A learning disability?”
“No!” The Steel Man scowled. “It was because the neighborhood was too tough. The gang kids always knocked them down! So now I have them all year long. In the warmer weather they don’t last very long—but they grow back like flowers. Take a closer look—you’ll see they’re not snowmen.”
“By God.” Clearfather squinted. “That’s . . . your wife . . . the Fidget Woman!”
“Yes,” said the Steel King, grinning. “Ernst made a mold of her when she passed out once. I find this therapeutic.”
The Man of Steel pulled a tarpaulin from one of the machines that hurled baseballs for batting practice. He awakened the ignition and proceeded to load it with tiny canisters of fluorescent paint. He sighted down the long plastic ejection tube as if manning an anti-aircraft gun, then proceeded to open fire on the frozen replicas of his wife. Washes of color poofed and splattered. One minute a snowwoman was stark white; the next it had turned the color of a cherry snow cone.
“Now,” he said. “The object of the game is to get the highest number of hits—but you have to get them in every row. You take blue and yellow. I’ve got red and green. We each get three turns.”
Clearfather stepped up to the paint gun and blasted away, turning one of the Fidget Women popsicle blue and two B-vitamin yellow—all in one row.
“Not bad,” the Steel Man conceded, and then scored a head shot and a shoulder hit in the back row. Clearfather responded with two blue heart scores, but on his third shot the canister of yellow paint exploded in midair.
“Tough break,” giggled the Steel King, and proceeded to nail three more virgin snowwomen on the diagonal. “Now you need a hit with every shot to stay in the game. What’s that noise?”
Zanesville: A Novel Page 12
