CHAPTER 6
The Haunted Casserole
The helmet was damaged but how extensively was hard to determine. One thing was certain, it was filled with Dooley Duck, who’d become a global icon. Rampant sexuality had broken out across the entire Vitessa stable of eidolonic characters and human stars. Ratings for some programs soared while the fortunes of others plummeted toward extinction. And so the inexplicable phenomenon continued to ripple through the Vitessa Cultporation.
Carny dressed Kokomo up for dinner in genie pants, a silk shirt, and a smoky-quartz-blond wig. Bean Blossom didn’t approve and sat sideways in her forklift with a pained expression on her face. The girl was suddenly coming out of her shell and now that the shell was broken, Bean Blossom wondered if Kokomo could ever fit back inside.
“Do you know about Fuzzy Wuzzy?” Clearfather asked, and the girl grinned and slapped her thigh just like Edwina Corn. “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy . . . was he? Was he bare?”
“Oola boola, sasparoolya. You take chocolate, I’ll take vanoola,” she crooned in return, but as she said these words in her singsong green-eyed chatter, Clearfather heard below them, “God does not know things because they are. They are because he knows them.”
Carny watched their visitor closely, thinking about the fate that lay ahead. Now having seen the Chief in action and Bean Blossom in submission, she could no longer maintain the theory that her stump-legged cohort was the real leader, however cunningly masked. There really was a Parousia Head—or something like her—and she had designs on Clearfather. Carny was uneasy. She hadn’t felt so unsure since the death of her daughter.
Dinner was served at a long table. Tuna-fish casserole and pink lemonade. The thought that they might try to drug his food had occurred to Clearfather, but he was so hungry he’d have eaten horse dung. The flashes of pain and cross-channel blurring supported his fear that he was brain-damaged. Yet he didn’t think his ability to comprehend the undermessage of the Disciplinarians or Kokomo was a symptom of this. And the concept of injury didn’t explain his psychic abilities, although he didn’t think of them as “his.” They seemed to flow through him in moments of sexual arousal, fear, or anger. Do I have any control? he wondered. Could I move some silverware? Or a piece of bread?
Dixie leaned over to load herself another serving of casserole. But when she levered her slab of tuna crisp free, she found the piece of bread stuck to her forearm. Clearfather smiled. Kokomo’s eyes flickered. He spotted Lola about to sip her lemonade.
“Don’t think twice, it’s all right,” Kokomo chirruped.
“Shit!” Lola spluttered, her crotch soaked.
“What?” Clearfather asked, feeling relaxed and even a bit cheerful.
“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”
Hairy Mary lost the grip on her glass. “Damn!”
“What’s wrong?” Bean Blossom scowled. “This isn’t the children’s table.”
“How many times can you subtract six from thirty?”
“No more riddles,” Bean Blossom commanded.
“Once,” said Clearfather. “Then it’s no longer thirty.”
He noticed Haka groping for the casserole and nudged it out of reach.
“What falls but never breaks, breaks but never falls?”
The dish lurched back and Haka put her big hand straight into the mush.
That’s odd, thought Clearfather. I didn’t do that.
“I said no more riddles,” Bean Blossom croaked.
“Day and night,” he answered.
Sadie Lady’s plate was clean and empty but for her fork. He eased the fork around in a clockwise rotation.
“More party tricks?” Bean Blossom huffed.
The fork suddenly rotated counterclockwise all the way around the plate.
“Please stop this exhibition,” Bean Blossom said.
A square of casserole struck her in the face.
“I didn’t do that,” Clearfather insisted.
“No?” Bean Blossom boiled, wiping the dribble from her cheek. “Then who did?”
Kokomo’s exit green eyes flashed at him with conspiratorial delight.
My God, he thought . . . we’re two of a kind.
But what kind?
CHAPTER 7
The Hope of a Traitor
When Carny went to check on Bean Blossom, she found the little titan sufficiently recovered to be instructing Martha One Tribe and Fanny Anny. Bean Blossom broke off the briefing when Carny entered.
“You all right?” the redhead asked.
“I feel the way I did when I woke up in that cannery in Hoboken and found that this is what the Tongs had done to me,” BB grumbled, indicating her maimed legs. “I understand you took prompt action.”
“She’s resting. Psych readings show her normal level of distortion. He’s been given the sedative.”
“I want him gone, Carny. Martha’s going to tune up the hearses. The sooner we see the back of him, the better.”
“Maybe,” the redhead nodded. “But what about Kokomo? You’re not thinking things can just go back to what they were?”
“When he’s gone, she’ll return to normal.”
“But for her, normal has been damaged—lost in her own mind. She can relate to him. And we’ve all found out something about her we never knew.”
“What could you possibly be thinking?”
“I don’t know.” Carny sighed. “But Kokomo doesn’t belong here. Not now. However painful it is to admit it.”
“Painful?” cackled Bean Blossom. “Painful is having your legs inserted in a mulching machine on half speed, so wired up on gecko-starfish amphetamines you can’t black out. Don’t tell me about pain. And don’t do anything silly or I swear, Carny—as much as I once loved you—and as much as I admire you still—I’ll teach you about it. You leave Kokomo alone and execute the plan as per our orders.”
Carny nodded, but she knew that there was no turning back. Neither Clearfather nor Kokomo was meant to be moved like a chess piece. That was the Vitessa way and only evil could come of it. Besides, the duo’s abilities suggested just how precarious such a strategy might be. If Kokomo’s powers were derived not from Clearfather but something in her that he’d awakened—how would she react the next morning to find out he was gone? Carny put a com in to her ex-husband, the message blinking back and forth through empty apartments, vehicles, and safe houses—his screening network of false premises and fake IDs. Then she went to check on Clearfather.
He was woozy—and truth be known clogged with casserole—but his eyes lightened when he saw Carny.
“Is she all right?”
“Why do I know you don’t mean Bean Blossom?” Carny replied.
“You must be psychic,” Clearfather answered—and the redhead grinned.
“Don’t be too hard on BB. She’s got Bentworth’s Condition and Combat Fatigue—and Short Woman Syndrome. But Kokomo’s resting peacefully. She’ll be fine. She’s had quite a lot of excitement today. Do you have this effect on everyone you meet?”
“Sort of,” Clearfather said.
“What are your plans?” Carny whispered, pulling him behind a pillar.
“I was going to wait and see what this Parousia Head knows about me. But I want to get back on my journey, to follow my map. My next stop is in Texas.”
“Who gave you the map?” Carny asked.
“I don’t know,” Clearfather answered. “Don’t know what it’s supposed to lead me to. I only have fragments of memories . . . I’m not sure it’s even my past. But I have the map and I’m going to see the journey through, Parousia Head or not.”
Carny smiled sadly. This odd man, who looked familiar sometimes—much older than his thirty-odd years—and at other moments childlike and fresh like Kokomo—he inspired emotions in her she thought she’d lost.
“You can’t go back on the bus again, although with the tracking device gone you won’t be so
easy to find.”
“I’ll walk if I have to,” Clearfather replied.
“It’s not that,” Carny said. “Tomorrow Parousia has ordered that you be taken.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know the ultimate destination, but you’re going to be smuggled out in a coffin. We run what appears to be a funeral home. Good business with the high-rise cemeteries now. It’s one of several fronts we use.”
“A coffin?” Clearfather groaned. “I’ve got to get to Texas.”
“What’s in Texas?” Carny asked.
“I don’t know. But if I don’t go, I’ll never know . . . and that might be the answer.”
“What about Kokomo?”
“Would she come to Texas . . . and beyond?”
“As far as I know she’s never been anywhere except her own mind. But I think she’d go with you anywhere. You’re connected somehow.”
Clearfather thought a moment. “I think you’re right. I see myself . . . somehow . . . in her.”
“Would you look after her?” Carny queried. “She may have—powers—but she still needs help. She could relapse. She could . . . who knows?”
“What do you know about her?” Clearfather asked.
“Bean Blossom was a Federal agent. Undercover job went wrong. When she was recovering, her path crossed Kokomo’s and she adopted her. That’s all I know.”
“So you want me to—”
“I don’t know what I want you to do. I just know that if that girl belongs anywhere, it’s with you. You two have to work it out from there.”
“I’ll look after her,” Clearfather said—and the way he said it convinced Carny. She led him back to his cot in the shipping container.
“Do you have any money?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Clearfather.
“I’ve put a call in to my ex-husband,” she said. “I think he’ll help you.”
“Why?” Clearfather asked.
“Because of me,” the redhead replied.
“Why do you want to help?”
“I don’t honestly know,” Carny answered. “I just know it’s the right thing to do.”
“You see,” said Clearfather. “You have a map, too—even if you don’t know what it means. What does your husband—ex-husband do?”
“He’s a Pentecostal preacher supposedly—but he’s really a people smuggler. Makes trips to Mexico. Due for one soon. If he hasn’t left yet, he’s your ticket out of here. He could get you across the border.”
“That’s not where the map leads,” Clearfather said.
“You have more to think about than just yourself now. If it came down to choosing between the map and her, which would you choose?”
“I can’t answer that,” Clearfather replied. “A part of me feels as though I’ve only been alive a couple of days. I’ve got to take one crossroads at a time.”
Good Lord, thought Carny. What am I doing letting two such dangerous innocents loose with Vitessa closing in?
“All right,” she said. “You’ve been given a sedative, as you’ve probably guessed—so you have to listen carefully. Tomorrow morning I’m going to give you a muscle relaxant so you’ll really appear doped. You’ll be taken out through a tunnel that leads to the funeral home and placed inside a coffin in one of our hearses. We always use decoys. I’m driving the decoy hearse, only I’m going to tell Martha and Fanny there’s been a change in plans. Kokomo will have to be in the coffin already.”
“What’s going to happen to you? You won’t be very welcome when they find out.”
“No,” the redhead agreed. “I’ll play that by ear. I might catch a ride over the border with Jacob. Be ready for anything when you wake up.”
CHAPTER 8
AWOL
The situation back at Fort Thoreau had become ecstatic—flowers blooming wildly, birds nesting with manic industry, and people quite frankly fucking like rabbits—or “Doing the Dooley” as it was now being called.
Jesus, thought Aretha, is this more of Clearfather’s doing? It wasn’t like Pandora hysteria—all mucus and degradation until exhaustion set in. This was a mass resurrection of physical happiness. Aretha felt all the lonelier and more lustful as a result. It had been almost two years since his last dalliance—two years of media jamming, reverse neuroconditioning, and drug detox nursing. Now to be wading around in this hormonal swamp—well, it wasn’t conducive to getting much work done. And there was plenty to do. The big Fight was weighing on his mind and making his heart soar all at once. What was his son thinking—feeling? He was going to face Xerxes McCallum, the Corpse Maker, alone in a boxing ring! Time was running out and Aretha still had no definite idea how he was going to get out west. In addition to all the usual risks, flying meant passing through the tight sphincter of Vitessa security. How they’d love to nail a resistance member of his standing. He’d given thought to taking the Greyhound but now with the breaking news out of Indianapolis, that didn’t seem like a good idea. The word was out about their mysterious visitor and Vitessa was massing for action. Full details had not surprisingly been suppressed in the mainstream TWIN news but from everything they could gather, there’d been a chase. That an organization had tried to help Clearfather didn’t surprise Aretha. There were other resistance groups scattered throughout the country and the world. They might even have been the ones responsible for Clearfather in the first place. In any case, the more Aretha thought about making it to LosVegas, the more he was forced to consider the delicate issue of approaching his wife. One of their operatives, who’d recently been murdered in Brooklyn, had done some fieldwork for the drag queen on the sly, so he knew that Eartha was still living at their old town house on 81st and Riverside Drive. He didn’t know anything else about her life, but she was still there. He hadn’t seen or contacted her since he’d joined the Satyagrahi and dropped out of sight. She might shoot him—and a part of him felt he deserved it. But he didn’t know who else he could trust.
On top of all these problems, there was the pigeon factor. Just when they were trying to get a clearer idea of what was happening to their ejected guest, their main window of information had closed. Now their data would consist of what they could glean from any trace on the stealth probe or the Corps of Discovery, when and if it ever made contact. Geographical positioning would have to be referenced against satellite fixes—and that would mean running the gauntlet of Vitessa Intel.
Then a fragile notion began taking form again. It was just an excuse to offer the others. But it sounded good. Best of all, he hadn’t been the one to think of it. Dr. Quail had put up the idea. In order to know what was going on with Clearfather, they had to have someone on the ground—right there with him. It was still possible that he was a shadow op gone wrong, but if Vitessa had known about him upfront, he never would’ve reached Pittsburgh. The fact that the attempted interception had taken a while to develop suggested that Vitessa had had to be tipped off—probably by the same mole responsible for the Rickerburn fritz. One thing was certain—his power. Even now, the pigeon-borne Kricket was giving a reading that suggested the aftermath of a local psychic event of seismic proportions.
“That had to be Clearfather,” the drag queen remarked to the dwarf.
“You’re right!” Keeperz said, snapping his stubby fingers. “How could I be so stupid? We don’t need the probes to track him. All we have to do is zero in on the strongest psychwave patterns—and that’s likely to be him!”
“But in order to monitor him, you have to use Vitessa satellites—a big risk.”
“We don’t have to stay logged on,” Finderz countered. “We don’t need continuous positioning when we can pick him up whenever we like.”
“Won’t Vitessa be doing the same?”
“I don’t think they understand yet what they’re dealing with. I mean, we don’t, really. Their first strategy will probably be to close in around his last known position—try to flush out what he can do. The ace they’ve got is that stealth probe—assu
ming they know about it. If it can send out a sustainable signal, they can take him out.”
“Jesus!” Aretha groaned. “There’s still a hope that the Corps of Discovery will make contact and take it on.”
“Like I said,” said the dwarf. “A massacre in the making. As I see it, the only card we’re holding is the map. If he hasn’t regained memory function—and of course he may not have any real memories—there’s nothing else for him to hold on to.”
Aretha felt another pang of regret at how they’d sent him away, even if it had been out of self-preservation. And it made him think again of LosVegas. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving. It would destabilize morale and get everybody paranoid. Finderz was the logical person to tell, but the drag queen didn’t have the nerve to say anything. The dwarf hadn’t spoken about Aretha’s son or the upcoming superbout—but he had mean private radar for those sorts of things.
Still, if Aretha left Keeperz a message explaining how he’d gone after Clearfather—he could even say the order had come from Parousia Head—that would be harder to see through. The dwarf would have to be in a little doubt. Providing Aretha got back in a few days’ time, everything might be okay.
It was radical. It was foolish. But he was willing to take the risk. And if Parousia Head found out and wanted to excommunicate him—well, he was willing to risk that, too. He’d provided loyal service without question for a long time. The Satyagrahi were his adopted family but he couldn’t go on living with the hole in his heart over his real family. He had karmic repair work to do. He just hoped it wasn’t too late. The one issue he couldn’t rationalize away was the nagging question of the infiltrator. It was time to broach the subject with Finderz, and a news replay filtering across one of the monitor walls gave him the opportunity.
“Odd thing about Dingler’s promotion to the head of ChildRite,” Aretha remarked.
The dwarf stilled an image of Dingler during a press conference and moved it to the workbench of his thinkstation. “It’s a bit too much to see as a coincidence,” he agreed.
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