The Comedy is Finished

by Donald E. Westlake

  Change the world. Eric changed me, and then he went away, his work unfinished. If he’d even been killed, if he’d died along with Paul and the others, it would be easier to forgive. What did it matter that he had abandoned her unwillingly, only because he’d been captured and put in jail? He had swept her beyond the point of no return, that was all that mattered, and then he had gone away.

  Take an interest? Yes. She did have an interest after all. She raised her eyes, finally, to gaze at the giant television screen, where the program was about to begin, where the government was about to announce whether or not they would release Eric Mallock. Let him go, you bastards, she willed at the screen. Let him go so I can kill him. And then myself. That last journey they would take together.

  After the usual station identification the screen abruptly went black, and a male voice spoke: “Ladies and gentleman, the following is a special news event program for which Channel 11, Metromedia, has donated its time and facilities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Channel 11 is honored by this opportunity for public service.”

  The black screen then gave way to a view of the FBI man, Wiskiel, standing in front of a pale blue curtain; on the huge screen of the living room he was a powerful, intimidating presence. He stood silent and blinking a few seconds, apparently waiting for something, then all at once started to speak:

  “I am Michael Wiskiel, Deputy Chief of Station, Los Angeles office of the FBI. I have been in charge of the Koo Davis investigation, and I am now addressing myself to his captors. You have demanded that I remain in charge, so I’m here, but I’m not the man who can answer your other demands. Deputy FBI Director Maurice St. Clair has flown out from Washington with the government response. I assure you I’m still in charge of the investigation even though Director St. Clair is the man who will talk to you in the course of this program.”

  Having finished, Wiskiel stood where he was, gazing solemnly at the camera. Peter, laughing, said, “A television star is born.” But the evident tremble in his voice foiled his attempt to dispel the nervous gloom created by that overwhelming presence.

  “I don’t like that TV,” Joyce said. “The picture’s too big.” Which was true.

  “Quiet,” Peter said. He and Ginger were seated at opposite ends of the long beige suede sofa, while Joyce was curled on the fur rug at Peter’s feet.

  On the screen, Wiskiel had been replaced at first by more blackness and now by a picture of a man seated at a desk. This was evidently a set, a suitable location already existent in some corner of Channel 11’s studios and employed now not for effect but convenience. The desk was wood and fairly ornate; the man behind it was seated on a padded swivel chair, and in the background were shelves filled with old-fashioned books, in sets. The man himself was probably in his late fifties, heavyset, with a red-complexioned rugged face gone to jowly fat. Sheets of typing paper, evidently a script, lay neatly squared on the green blotter before him, held at their edges by his blunt thick fingers. Looking up at the camera from time to time with small angry eyes, but speaking in a gravelly voice devoid of emotion, the man read the script:

  “I am Deputy Director Maurice St. Clair of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The terms you have given us for the release of Koo Davis call for our release of ten so-called political prisoners. Let me say right now, at the outset, that Koo Davis is an American institution of whom all Americans are proud, and that the government of the United States and the Federal Bureau of Investigation will do anything within our power to see that no harm comes to Koo Davis, up to and including the agreement to any reasonable or possible ransom demands. We are not slamming the door. But I must also say that this initial demand is neither reasonable nor possible, and that we simply can’t meet it.”

  There was a stir in the living room, but no one spoke. Joyce’s expression was shocked, Liz was taut, Ginger pained, and Peter affronted. But none of them made a sound.

  “I promise you this is not a trick, or a ploy. We are prepared to negotiate in good faith. But, in order to do so, we’ll have to prove to you that our inability to meet this demand is not our fault, and we’ll have to make it clear to you what we can and cannot do. For this reason, I’m going to have to speak to you specifically about each of the ten individuals you have named. Even though you presumably already know these individuals, I will have to describe each one briefly; you will soon see why.”

  “For the wider audience,” Ginger said; a kind of fatalistic humor in his voice. “Something very bad is about to happen, Peter.”

  “Shut up,” Peter said.

  On the screen, Deputy Director St. Clair had been replaced by a black-and-white photograph of a scruffy young man in a jacket. The picture was apparently a blow-up form an ordinary snapshot, with the graininess and grayness of such blow-ups. The young man, whose otherwise bland face was decorated by a wispy dark beard, squinted in sunlight; behind him farm buildings could be seen.

  “Norm Cobberton,” said Joyce, at the same instant that Deputy Director St. Clair’s voice sounded again, speaking while the screen still showed the photograph:

  “This is Norman Cobberton, thirty-four, currently serving twenty years to life at the Federal Correctional Facility at Danbury, Connecticut. Cobberton, in the late nineteen-sixties, engaged in union organizing activities among migrant farm workers in the plains states and the American southwest. His activities included such crimes as arson and other destruction of property, as well as the organizing of so-called goon squads to attack and intimidate non-striking workers.”

  St. Clair himself reappeared on the screen, still reading his script: “Early this afternoon, Cobberton was interviewed at Danbury. This is his response.” St. Clair looked up at the screen, his stubborn eyes gazing without forgiveness at the audience for two or three seconds before the scene switched.

  This setting was clearly institutional. In the background was a pale green wall with a barred window, through which rain obscured the outside world. At a wooden table, on an armless wooden chair, sat a man identifiable as the one in the photograph; but older, and clean shaven, and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. His left forearm rested on the table, his fingers poking and pulling at something invisible, and while he spoke his sad and rather tired eyes watched his moving fingers:

  “I don’t know who those people are who kidnapped Koo Davis.” The echo of the hard-walled room made his words rather hard to understand. “I don’t say they’re wrong. Or right. Everybody does what they think best.” He looked up at the camera, then quickly down again. “What’s best for me is not to go. Even if it’s offered, I mean. I expect to be released in three years, I think I’ve learned a lot, and Americans have learned a lot, too. I intend to go back to the work I was doing before, but I believe this time it’ll be possible to work within the law. Within the system. Cesar Chavez, others, have shown us it can be done.”

  An off-camera voice said, “You don’t want to go to Algeria?”

  “I don’t want to leave the country, no.” Again Cobberton looked at the camera, his expression troubled but determined. “I don’t want to give up.”

  “Traitor!” The word burst out of Peter, as though not of his own volition. “Toady! Coward! Traitor!”

  Ginger slapped the sofa seat between them: “Be quiet.”

  Another black-and-white photograph had appeared on the giant screen, this time showing a fat-faced young woman in her late twenties, with wildly unkempt hair and heavy dark-framed spectacles. The background was indistinct. St. Clair’s voice said, “This is Mary Martha DeLang, thirty-eight, currently serving an indeterminate sentence in a California state prison. A radical theorist, author of several books on left-wing social theory and revolutionary practice, she was convicted in 1971 of smuggling guns to revolutionary friends in a California prison. The friends, and two prison guards, were killed in the subsequent escape attempt. Miss DeLang was interviewed this afternoon.”

  She appeared on the screen, older than the photo but still fat and still with the
same unmanageable wild hair. Gazing intently to the right of the screen, apparently at her interviewer, she said, “I can work here. The book I’ve wanted to write all my life. I’m not an activist, that was an—aberration. Eventually I’ll be released, but certainly not before the book is finished. Nowhere else would I have the—opportunity—I have here. I won’t go.”

  “They bribed her,” Peter said. “They paid her off.” But the others watched the screen, as though he hadn’t spoken.

  St. Clair again, glancing up at the camera then down at his script: “Also on the list is Hugh Pendry, thirty-seven, in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. Pendry’s activities included skyjacking, the planting of bombs in such public places as the American Express office in Mexico City, and direct involvement with guerilla groups in South and Central America. He was briefly with Che Guevara in Bolivia, but returned to Cuba before Guevara’s death. He is serving concurrent life sentences for attempted murder and other crimes. When informed this morning of the kidnappers’ demand for his release, he expressed the hope that the demand would be met. Hugh Pendry wishes to leave the United States for Algeria.”

  “All right,” Peter said, rubbing his palms together, looking left and right. “All right.”

  A picture of a thin-faced frightened-eyed black man flashed on the screen. St. Clair: “This is Fred Walpole, thirty-five, originally a leader in student demonstrations in the New York City area, later responsible for the fire-bombing of several banks in New York and other northeastern states, currently serving twenty years to life in the Green Haven Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Walpole refused to be filmed, but this afternoon he gave the following recorded statement.”

  The picture on the screen remained the same. An anonymous voice, baritone with falsetto overlays, spoke: “I don’t wanna go anywhere. I come up for parole in four, four and a half years. When I get outa here, that’s it for me. From now on, I worry about me. I don’t know those people, I don’t want to know them, I got no connection with them. And I never had anything against Koo Davis.”

  “That could be anybody,” Peter said. “It’s a fake.”

  Joyce, her voice and expression miserable, said, “No, it isn’t, Peter. I’m sorry, I’m dreadfully sorry, but you know it isn’t.”

  “Shut your nasty little faces,” Ginger said, “or leave my house.”

  The picture of Fred Walpole had now been replaced by a color photograph of a priest in front of a church; the priest, a slender black-haired youngish man in black gown and black-rimmed glasses, looked serious, sincere and not particularly intelligent. St. Clair’s voice was saying, “Louis Golding, forty-two, an ex-priest currently serving an indeterminate sentence in a Federal Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania for destruction of government property, was interviewed earlier today.”

  Another institutional setting, another nervous man sitting at a wooden table with a barred window behind him. This man, however, looked almost nothing like the photograph of the priest; his dark hair was much thinner, his face was more drawn and lined, and his plain-rimmed glasses made it easier to see his level intelligent eyes. “I would certainly never leave the United States of America,” he said, with a passionate intensity only increased by the weakness of his voice. “I consider myself a missionary to America, as much as Pere Marquette or any of the other priests who came here three hundred years ago. This is still a barbarous nation. My work is here. When I am released, whenever that may be, it is in America that I must continue my mission.”

  “Well, he’s stir crazy,” Peter said. “You can see that. Can’t you?” Needing a response, he reached out to pat Joyce’s head where she sat on the floor in front of him. “Can’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  St. Clair was on the screen again, looking at his audience. He said, “It was two-thirteen Van Dyke.”

  Joyce started, a sudden tremor through her entire body as though an electric charge had just thrummed through her. Peter, his hand still resting on her hair, frowned down at the top of her head, saying, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Ssshh, listen.”

  St. Clair was reading his script, “The next person on the list, Abby Lancaster, thirty-three, a leader of rent strikes and anti-landlord demonstrations in New York City, also leader of a movement for free subways in New York City, now in a New York State Correctional Facility, convicted of arson, assault, destruction of public property, and other crimes. Miss Lancaster also refused to be filmed, and refused as well to allow a recording of her voice. Following our agreement not to show any picture of her on this broadcast, she made the following signed statement, in the presence of two witnesses who have personal knowledge of her identity. This is the statement: ‘I, Abby Lancaster, no longer believe violence can ever produce lasting good. I will become eligible for parole in ten months’ time. It is my hope to receive parole, and to continue the career in social work I misguidedly deviated from several years ago. I have no desire for further notoriety.’ That’s Miss Lancaster’s statement.”

  Peter closed his eyes. The hand that had patted Joyce’s head rubbed his cheeks. Ginger watched him, eyes glinting.

  Another photo appeared on the screen, a serious-looking young black man with an exaggerated afro. This seemed to have been cropped from some larger group photo, a graduation or team picture or some such thing. St. Clair’s voice said, “This is William Brown, thirty-three, currently serving a life sentence in the New Jersey State Prison at Rahway for murder in the first degree. Brown, originally a Black Panther, later joined one of the more militant offshoots of the Panthers and was convicted of murdering two Black Panther leaders in 1969. Other black militants had tried him in absentia in their own kangaroo court, found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. He turned himself in to the authorities for his own protection. When informed this afternoon of the prospect of leaving prison and going to Algeria, Brown stated that he would be agreeable.”

  “All right,” Peter whispered, but he went on rubbing his cheeks.

  Liz gasped as the next photograph appeared on the screen: a dark-haired, recklessly grinning, handsome young man. St. Clair’s voice said, “This is Eric Mallock, thirty-three, serving an indeterminate sentence in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Kentucky. He was captured in 1972 when his bomb factory in Chicago exploded. He has been convicted of second-degree murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, assault, arson and other crimes. He was interviewed this afternoon at Lewisburg.”

  Liz covered her eyes with a rigid hand, but at the sound of Mallock’s voice she lowered the hand and gazed unblinking at the screen.

  Another institutional setting, but this time the man was seated on a metal folding chair in front of a tan tile wall. He sat bent forward, elbows on knees, eyes looking at a presumed interviewer to the camera’s left, hands gesturing between his knees as he spoke. His was recognizably the same face as before, but blurred by a smoothness of flesh; he’d apparently put on thirty or forty pounds since that earlier picture had been taken. The recklessness was gone from his mouth and eyes, and his hair was neater, more controlled. He said, “It’s hard for me now to understand myself as of several years ago. I made mistakes, criminal mistakes. The cause I was working for was not wrong, I think most Americans realize that now, but my methods were wrong. The desperation I felt, some of my friends felt, I don’t know if we were right, if change would have come about no matter what we did. All I know is, we all claimed we were prepared to pay the consequences; as for me, when the time came I found I wasn’t prepared to pay the consequences. My first few years here were very difficult. Now I feel differently. I don’t know what the future holds, I’m just living day by day. I’ve been very active in forming various prisoner programs here, I started a very successful bookkeeping course, I work on the prison newspaper. There’s still a lot to be done here, every-where—I suppose in Algeria, too. But not for me. If those are my friends out there—” and for the only time he glanced directly at the camera,
his eyes and here-and-gone grin a quick faint echo of that former recklessness “—and I suppose they are—” he returned his gaze to the interviewer, the somber mask again firmly in place “—I appreciate their intentions, I wouldn’t presume to say whether they’re right or wrong, but I think they ought to go on without me.”

  Liz closed her eyes and lowered her head, covering her face with her hand.

  Mallock was followed by a black-and-white news photograph of an angry demonstration scene. The focus was on two uniformed policemen struggling with a stocky bushy-haired moustached man flailing about himself with a sign on a long stick. St. Clair’s voice said, “This is Howard Fenton, thirty-nine, convicted of tax evasion and related offenses. He is currently in the Federal Correctional Facility at Danbury Connecticut, where he was interviewed this afternoon.”

  They were shown again the same room where the first prisoner, Cobberton, had been interviewed. The man sitting at the table this time was a somewhat older and thinner version of the man in the news photograph. His speech was rapid, the words jumbling together, his hands jittering in the air as he spoke: “I don’t know who these people are. They’re nothing to do with me. I’m nonviolent, that’s my whole point. The whole military establishment has to be dismantled. I will not pay taxes or obey any other federal law while this government continues to support a huge military machine. And I certainly won’t be tricked into leaving this country. I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing isn’t a scenario dreamed up by Army Intelligence. It would go right along with their paranoid view of life.”