The Comedy is Finished

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Wore myself—out—gimme a minute.”

  “All right. One minute.”

  His eyes again closed, Koo breathes hard, struggling for strength and hoping somebody will pick up that message. Surely Lynsey will get it, won’t she? Jesus, somebody better get it.

  “Don’t go to sleep.”

  “I’m not asleep.” Koo opens his weary eyes, focuses with difficulty on the messy script. “All right—let’s put it—in the can.”

  Mark starts the machine and Koo reads, slowly and painfully, his voice a grating whisper. “It is now—noon—and I have been—given my medicine—the twenty-four hours—will be up—at six o’clock—if the ten—aren’t released—by then—my medicine will be—taken away from me—again—until the demands—have been met—announcements—on the radio—will reach the people—who are holding me.”

  That’s all. Koo lies back against the pillows, watching as Mark rewinds and then listens to the tape, making sure it’s all right. There’s no expression on Mark’s face as he removes the script and pillow from Koo’s chest, and when he stands to leave Koo whispers to him, “They won’t, you know—they can’t—you are—gonna kill me.”

  Mark shrugs. “Either way. It doesn’t much matter to me.”

  “But why? Jesus Christ, man—you act as though—you got a grudge—against me.”

  “Not at all,” Mark says. “It’s the system I hate. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “But it does,” Koo insists, fired now by an irrational conviction. “It is me—what did I—ever do to you?”

  Mark gives him a look of contempt and walks away toward the door, out of Koo’s sight. But there’s no sound of the door opening and Koo listens, wondering what’s coming next. After about ten seconds, while the hairs have been rising on the back of Koo’s neck, with the silence behind him unnatural and eerie, Mark suddenly reappears, transformed. The cold white face is now hot and red, the hands and arms are trembling, the lips are actually writhing with hatred. This is the rage, out on the surface now, and Koo is utterly terrified of it. This is no fooling, this kid really is death on its way to happen to somebody.

  Even Mark’s voice is different, a strangled snarl. “You want to know what you ever did to me? All right, I’ll tell you. You fathered me.”

  Koo has no idea what he means; terror keeps him from understanding much of anything. All he can do is stare at the kid and shake his head, mute with fear and ignorance.

  Mark leans down over him, controlling himself, managing to speak more calmly. “I’m your son,” he says. Then he straightens, gradually becoming again the restrained cold hater. Hefting the cassette in his palm, he says, “I’ll go deliver your message to the folks.” And this time, he does leave the room.

  14

  When Lynsey, who had slept for a few hours but was not refreshed, arrived at Police Headquarters a little after two P.M. to hear the latest tape—which had been delivered by a small boy to a local black-community radio station—Jock Cayzer met her at the office door and shook her hand, saying, “I want to apologize, Ms. Rayne, for that business with the tracking device.”

  “I don’t blame you, Inspector Cayzer,” she said, which was perfectly true. The bluntness of the action, its immorality, its hypocrisy and its assumption that everybody else is stupid; she recognized those hallmarks and knew where to place the blame. It was exactly the kind of thing she’d feared from a Watergate tough guy like Mike Wiskiel. Casting that to one side, as not worth discussing, she said, “You told me there was a new tape.”

  “Let’s wait for Mike Wiskiel to get here,” he said, “and all listen to it together.”

  “Wiskiel!” She felt her face tighten, in shock and distaste. “Why on earth would he be here?”

  “That’s on the new tape,” Cayzer said, and she was surprised to see that he was grinning; he was enjoying this. “Seems our kidnappers like working with an old established firm,” he said. “One of their demands is, Mike get put back on the case.”

  “As the devil they know?”

  “Could be that’s it,” Cayzer said, and glanced over as the door opened. “Here’s Mike now.”

  She turned toward him with a frozen expression, and was surprised to see in him a kind of boyish awkwardness and sheepish-ness. Moving quickly toward her, he said, “Ms. Rayne, I owe you an apology.”

  The directness of his capitulation startled her, but she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. She said, “You owe Koo a lot more than that.”

  “I hope to make it up to him. And to you.”

  “But not with more shabby tricks.”

  He shook his head, obviously becoming more sure of himself. “Ms. Rayne, please,” he said. “Just a minute. Let me make it clear what I’m apologizing for. You were right about the other side, and I was wrong. You had them pegged for how smart and tough they really were, and I underestimated them.”

  “You were dishonorable,” she said, both surprised and re-angered that he didn’t yet understand the problem. “It doesn’t matter that you lied to me,” she went on, though in fact it did, “the point is you gave your word to those people and you went back on it. If Koo is going to be safe at all in their hands, they have to feel they can trust us.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, stubbornly shaking his head. “That isn’t the case at all. The legal principle is, a promise made under duress carries no force. It’s my job to get Koo Davis back and bring his kidnappers to justice. If I’m forced to promise I won’t give the job my best efforts—if my choice is either make the promise or risk harm to the victim—I’ll promise on a stack of Bibles if they want, but I won’t live up to that promise for a second, not if I get a good shot at them.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Staring at him, she said, “So you’re still just as dangerous for Koo as ever.”

  “No, I don’t believe I am. I told you, I was wrong before, and to be honest I hate being wrong. I’ll be a lot more cautious in the future.” He essayed a very tentative, very small, somewhat apologetic smile. “And I’ll give a lot more weight to your opinions from now on, too.”

  “Not as to whether you’re more honest than they are,” she said, “but only if you’re more clever.”

  He was insulted and it showed. “If I have questions about my honesty, Ms. Rayne,” he said, “I’ll inquire of my own conscience.”

  Startled, she looked at him wide-eyed for a few seconds, then abruptly said, “I’m sorry. You’re right, that was impertinent of me.”

  Wiskiel seemed surprised by her apology, but then he relaxed into a grin, saying, “The funny thing is, Ms. Rayne, at bottom we’re both on the same side.”

  “I’ll try and remember that,” she promised, and finally her own face softened into a faint smile of acceptance. She would never see eye to eye with this man, but in fact they were both interested in the same result, and he was doing the best he could within his preconceptions. There was no point prolonging the squabble with him.

  He stuck out his hand. “Truce?”

  “Truce.” His handshake was firm, as it had been yesterday.

  Jock Cayzer, who had watched the scene with undisguised amusement, now said, “You two ready to listen to this tape?”

  “Let’s,” Lynsey said. “I’m looking forward to hearing why they want to go on dealing with Mr. Wiskiel.”

  “So am I,” Wiskiel said.

  The three of them trooped into the workroom, where the technician had the tape already in position on the machine. He started it, and a sudden stir of unease and shock touched them all at Koo’s first words: “This is—what’s left of—Koo Davis—speaking to you—from inside the whale—”

  That was not the famous Koo Davis voice. This tattered croak was barely above a whisper, the panted breath rapid and harsh, the sound altogether that of utter exhaustion and illness. Looking across at Mike Wiskiel, Lynsey saw that he too was shocked by it, jolted out of ignorant complacency.

  From the machine, the pain-wracked
voice went on: “I wanna say hello—to Lily and my sons—Barry and Frank—and especially—Gilbert Freeman—my favorite host—in all the world—and now I got—a script to read.”

  A pause. Clicks on the tape. The voice again:

  “It is now—noon—and I have been—given my medicine—the twenty-four hours—will be up—at six o’clock—if the ten—aren’t released—by then—my medicine will be—taken away from me—again—until the demands—have been met—announcements—on the radio—will reach the people—who are holding me.”

  There followed a brief rustling silence, and more clicks, and then the familiar harsh voice spoke out, startlingly loud and aggressive after Koo’s labored faintness:

  “Put Mike Wiskiel back in charge. We’ll negotiate with no one else. He understands us now, he won’t make the same mistake again. We don’t want to have to train any more FBI men. And Wiskiel knows we’re serious. Six o’clock is the deadline.”

  The voice stopped, the technician shut off the tape, and there was a brief awkward silence, in which everyone moved slightly, shuffling their feet or clearing their throats. Mike Wiskiel sat forward on the folding chair, elbows on knees, continuing to gaze at the black composition floor, and Lynsey found herself feeling sorry for the man. His nose was really being rubbed in it. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

  But there was something else, something tugging at her mind, taking her attention away from the question of whether or not FBI Agent Wiskiel had learned anything about humility. Turning to Jock Cayzer, she said, “May I hear it again?”

  “Well, sure,” he said. “If you want.”

  “Yes, please.” Then she became aware that Wiskiel was giving her an aggrieved look; did the man think she was just trying to make him feel worse? She explained, “There was something wrong with it. In the first part, before he was reading.”

  Wiskiel frowned. “Wrong? What do you mean, wrong?”

  “Just let me hear it again.”

  So the technician ran the tape back to the beginning, and once again they heard Koo say, “This is—what’s left of—Koo Davis—speaking to you—from inside the whale—I wanna say hello—to Lily and my sons—Barry and Frank—and especially—Gilbert Freeman—my favorite host—in all the world—and now I—”

  “Stop,” she said, and the technician hit the button, and the grainy voice broke off.

  Jock Cayzer said, “Did you get it?”

  “Gilbert Freeman,” she said. “Why would Koo talk about Gilbert Freeman?”

  “Who is he?”

  Lynsey was astonished; you didn’t have to get very far from your own field to discover that fame was relative. “Gilbert?” she said. “He’s one of the most famous directors in the world. He did Chattanooga Chop.”

  Wiskiel said, “A movie director. So what’s the problem?”

  “Koo scarcely knows the man,” she explained. “They’ve met three or four times, at parties or dinners, but that’s all. Why would Koo talk about him now?”

  Jock Cayzer said, “Koo Davis has been in a lot of movies. This fellow Freeman ever direct any of them?”

  “Oh, no. Gilbert is an entirely different sort from Koo, very trendy and hip-artistic. Improvisational. Tricky sound tracks, indirect story lines. Pauline Kael loves him.”

  It was clear that Pauline Kael was another name that rang no bells with either man. Nevertheless, Wiskiel said, “So you’re saying there’s no real link.”

  Lynsey said, “He might as well have talked about the weekend in Reno he spent with Simone de Beauvoir.”

  Wiskiel said, “Okay, I’ve got the idea. Now, what does he say about this fellow?”

  She quoted from memory. “Gilbert Freeman, my favorite host in all the world.”

  “Favorite host.”

  Jock Cayzer said, “Let me see do I follow this. Gilbert Freeman never was Koo Davis’ host.”

  “That’s right,” Lynsey said.

  Cayzer scratched his head with big-knuckled fingers. “I don’t get it. Does he mean Gilbert Freeman is one of the kidnappers?”

  “Oh, he can’t,” Lynsey said. “No, that’s just too silly.”

  “He means something,” Mike Wiskiel said, “that’s for sure. And let me say, that’s beautiful work he did there. He’s sick and he’s hurt, and still he threw a curve ball right past them.”

  “That’s right,” Lynsey said. “And it’s up to us to be up to him, to be as good as he is. He got that out to us, and now we have to do the rest.”

  15

  Koo is listening to a talk on tribal problems in Africa. I don’t believe this, says his internal monologue. I don’t believe this is happening.

  It’s been an hour since Mark dropped his bombshell statement and walked out of here, and Koo’s mind is still reeling. On the other hand, his physical condition has improved steadily, leaving now only a residue of deep weariness, a drained feeling as though the knots of all his muscles have been untied. What he mostly feels like is a flat tire.

  Earnest Larry is saying, “So you see, Koo, the national boundaries are all wrong. Here’s the Luanda tribe, they’re spread over parts of Zaire and Zambia and Angola, and their loyalty isn’t to any of those nations, it’s to their own tribe. Is there any greater proof of the continuing dominance of the imperial powers? The African nations have boundary lines drawn according to which European nation colonized where, when the lines ought to be drawn according to tribal and linguistic groupings. Every single war and revolution in Africa in the last twenty years has been inter-tribal: tribes with no sensible relationship jammed willy-nilly into the same so-called nation. Who profits from that, Koo? Well, let’s look at it.”

  But what Koo is looking at is his memory of Mark’s face, in those climactic few seconds before he left the room; all those emotions crowding by, furious and bitter and speciously calm, ironical. What in Christ’s name did Mark mean? “You fathered me. I’m your son.” Then he ran out, while Koo was still too stunned to ask him anything, and now the question grows with every second. Is it some lamebrain political credo? Larry here might build some idiotic family-of-man allegory into that ultimate statement—“You fathered me. I’m your son.”—but is that Mark’s style? What is Mark’s style anyway, other than simple brutality?

  Does Larry know what Mark had in mind? If Koo could develop some sort of conversation with Larry, he might be able to ask the question in some indirect way, but the problem is, he can’t think of anything to say. Even without the enigma of Mark distracting his brain it’d be tough chatting with Larry; how do you respond to such half-baked bullshit? Larry knows all these facts and figures, he’s got these set-pieces about African tribes, value-for-labor, child mortality, community responsibility, you name it, but the connections he makes and the conclusions he draws are completely weird. He obviously possesses great sincerity and a strong moral sense, but he’s trying to make virtue take the place of brains. What Larry’s doing, he’s making a pearl necklace using some real pearls, some fake pearls, and imaginary string.

  Jesus Christ, it suddenly comes to him; ever since Larry started talking to him, in the back of Koo’s mind there’s been this feeling, this sense of familiarity, of being reminded of something out of the past, but he’s been ignoring it because it’s ridiculous. How could there have been anything like this before?

  Well, there was something, and the memory has just popped into Koo’s mind, complete and entire, and he’s astounded by it. How long ago did that happen? Jesus, it’s over twenty years, it’s almost a quarter of a century ago. Jesus...

  The place was Korea, January of ’53, Koo’s annual Christmas tour. Korea: that was the good war, maybe the best. For one thing, you could tell the good guys from the bad; also, there was never any chance of the American mainland being involved (Koo still remembers the ongoing silent panic along the Pacific Coast during World War Two, expecting the little yellow men to land at any moment); and besides that the whole damn war was taking place along the same small peninsula. Little danger, no
ambiguity and only minor travel; that’s the way to run a war.

  Or almost. Nothing in life is perfect, and in Korea the imperfection was that nobody was supposed to go all-out. America wasn’t used to pulling its punches in a war—who is?—so there was a certain amount of frustration, particularly after American defeats. Inchon Reservoir, for instance. That was where the rule-changes started; fighting a war without giving it your total effort, and in fact never even admitting it was a war: a police action, that was what everybody was supposed to call it. “I didn’t raise my boy to be a policeman.” You could still joke about such things then; nobody knew they were serious.

  But that was where everything started, and now Koo remembers seeing a bit of it: the beginning. The place was called Campok, a crossroads village in a fold among low steep hills. Damn little of the village was left, and for that matter damn little of the roads; everything in the area had been bombed, shelled, mined and fought over for three years. The hills were like the unshaven cheeks of giants, pocked with shellholes and stubbled with tree trunks and bits of underbrush, all smeared with a scum of wet cold snow. The world was in black and white and olive drab, with the shit-brown herringbone lines of jeep tracks quickly obscured by more of that same endless, wet, drifting, cold, goddamn unpleasant snow. It wasn’t like Christmas snow, deep and soft and somehow friendly and comfortable. It was war snow, tiny glittering wet flakes like bits of ground glass swirling among the low steep hills in the never-ending wet wind, ramming snowflakes in your ears and down your neck, giving the skin of your face the look and texture of dead fish. Your bones ached from it, and for the first time you could actually feel your skeleton, this twisted clumsy trestle inside your skin.

  Carrie Carroll was the blonde that year, a hard-faced broad with a mammoth ass and sexual preferences that tended toward the violent; she liked to be forced a little. Already Koo was too old for all that crap, so by the time they reached Campok he and Carrie were just touring together, doing the shows, traveling in the same helicopters and jeeps, and otherwise leaving one another strictly alone. If Carrie was being forced onto her back by the occasional jeep driver or PIO officer, that was her business—and good for general troop morale as well.