Ghostwritten (51 page)

“Hello, Bat.”

“Hello? And we are?”

“This is the zookeeper, Bat.”

“Say what?”

“Do you remember me?”

“Zookeeper! Hi! Erm … Hi, yeah, sure we remember you. We definitely remember you.… A long while since you called, wasn’t it? Isn’t it? Hasn’t it?”

“A year, Bat.”

“Wow, a whole year gone by! And tonight you are calling from … where?”

“Thirteen kilometers above Spitsbergen.”

“How did you get up there? Terminal cessation of gravity?”

“No, Bat. I came here by ultrawave transmission.”

“Must be quite a view.”

“The Arctic winter doesn’t lend itself to viewing, at least in the spectrum of light visible to your eye. It’s noon here, but even noon is just a lighter night. There’s thick cloud cover, and a snowstorm into its third day. A pod of narwhals on enhanced infrared. This satellite was launched under the cover of ozone depletion research, but the data it collects is military. There’s a Canadian icebreaker … a Saudi submarine passing a hundred meters underneath the ice cap. A Norwegian cargo vessel, taking timber from Archangel. Nothing out of the ordinary. The aurora borealis has been quiet for a few nights.”

“You see the aurora from the inside, then? Must be quite a trip.”

“The rules governing use of language are complex, and I lack practice in words. Imagine being drunk on opals. However, I shall crossload within the next forty-six seconds to avoid the tracer program your government’s agency has deployed to hunt me.”

“What makes you think this call is being traced?”

“Please don’t get defensive, Bat. I hold nothing against you. The information police threatened to revoke your station’s broadcasting license and charge you with treason, and they were quite serious.”

“Uh-huh … I’m not sure if this is the right time or place, to, uh …”

“There is no cause for anxiety. I can evade their tracer programs
as easily as you could outrun a blind monoped. I crippled them at birth.”

“Who said I was anxious? So, it turned out you’re no scriptwriter. If you’re not going to hang up right away, tell me this: Why are the suits on your trail? Are you a hacker? Some kind of Unabomber? Candlestick maker? I have a right to know.”

“I’m just like you and your listeners, Bat. I follow laws.”

“Normal people’s rules don’t involve explosions.”

“Plenty of people’s rules involve explosions, Bat.”

“Name me one.”

“The three million of your countrymen who are involved in the military.”

“Hey, they’re just following orders!”

“So am I.”

“But the armed forces are legal.”

“Yesterday’s Homer II missile attacks did not seem ‘legal’ to the Pan African states.”

“They were training death squads! Those camel-jockeys were illegal first.”

“Graduates from the School of the Americas in the state of Georgia have trained death squads responsible for thousands of casualties in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Pan Africa, and the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua. Your logic dictates that these nations may legally target that institute.”

“I got your number, now, friend. You’re a fundamentalist Muslim, right? A sand-shoveler.”

“I am not any kind of Muslim, Bat.”

“Don’t hold me responsible for what the government does. I keep my nose clean.”

“Your ex-wife’s lawyer maintains otherwise in regard to alimony, Bat.”

“I don’t have to listen to this crap!”

“The FBI has directed you to keep me talking. I didn’t wish to anger you, Bat. I meant only to demonstrate the subjective nature of laws.”

“I’ve got a new guess. You’re a gossip columnist trying to piss on my suedes?”

“I’m a zookeeper.”

“A friend of my wife? You boil rabbits in the same pressure cooker?”

“I have no friends, Bat.”

“Wonders never cease.… So, you’re involved with intelligence?”

“Only my own.”

“Uh-huh … So, what have you got for us today?”

“Zookeeper? You there?”

“Sorry, Bat. I crossloaded. The tracer had almost reached me over Spitsbergen.”

“So where are you now?”

“Rome. A television satellite.”

“You just teleported to Rome?”

“Italian ComSats are notoriously scramble-prone, so it takes longer than usual.”

“And what’s the time in Rome?”

“Six hours ahead of New York time. The sun rises in eighteen minutes.”

“And how is Rome this morning? The Pope putting his teeth in?”

“The Papal apartment is on the third story of the Vatican palace, Bat, so I can’t get the sufficiently sharp resolution to see orthodontic details. Over the city visibility is good. I see pigeons huddling on ledges and statues. Café proprietors rolling up the shutters. Newspapers being delivered. Market-stall holders breathe into their fists to warm them up: there was a deep frost last night. The back streets are still fairly empty, but the main thoroughfares are already congested. The Tiber is a thick band of black. Roofs, terraces, domes, water towers, bridges, rotaries, ruins, statues with baleful eyes ruling seldom-visited squares. You should go to Rome one day, Bat.”

“Uh-huh, and how do you know I’ve never been?”

“Your virtual passport records show you’ve never been to Europe.”

“So you
are
a hacker. Along with half the kindergarten kids in New York State. You work for a detective agency?”

“I am a freelance zookeeper, Bat. You asked me about Rome. Do you wish me to continue, or shall we change the subject?”

“By all means, carry on.”

“By EyeSat the Piazza di San Pietro looks like a spider’s web from way up here. Along the sides of the square is a line of worshippers and tourists. Their breath mingles. I often watch the dawn over the Vatican, but this morning the gatherers are restless, pointing at the space in the oval square. Some are crossing themselves, some outraged, some smoking with narrowed eyes. A convoy of police cars arrives on cue, with more on the way. Last week’s EU naval cordon from Gibraltar to Cyprus has made the police jumpy.”

“What are they jumpy about in Rome? Apart from the obvious?”

“White scratchings on the cobblestones, from the steps of the basilica to the far side of the piazza.”

“Scratchings?”

“From ground level, a set of symbols.”

“Right, yeah. Hieroglyphics in Martian?”

“The characters are standard Italian. But the letters are slapdash, as though drawn by a drunk. They are further blurred by the frost.”

“But from above?”

“A local TV station has already had the same idea and dispatched a helicopter—you might catch it on the news later.”

“What does it say?”

“O Dio, cosa tu attendi?”

“No doubt you speak Italian?”

“Languages are a necessary part of my work.”

“Sure they are, Doctor Doolittle. What does it mean?”

“God, for what are thou waiting?”

“Maybe the answer appears tomorrow. It’s a Pope opera. So, Zookeeper.”

“Bat?”

“Zookeeper. I don’t want to seem abrupt, but why are you calling?”

“I had to expel another visitor from the zoo.”

“And you have to be accountable?”

“Precisely.”

“Why did you kick ’em out? Elephant harassment? Did you take him to tusk?”

“It’s easier to show than to try to explain.”

“Then show me.”

“Please wait one moment. I have to download the v-file into your digital exchange.”

“Uh-huh, roll on the technobabble.
Captain, the warp core containment shield—
”

“Jerry Kushner calling Dwight Silverwind. Over.”

“Sharp, Jerry. I thought I was safe, even from you, three thousand feet above Bermuda. How did you track me down?

Over.”

“The Grim Reaper you may elude, Dwight, but a determined agent, never. How’s the weather up there today?”

“You forgot to say ‘over,’ Jerry. Over.”

“How’s the weather up there today, Dwight?
Over.”

“Clear as a bell, Jerry. I can see the olives in the martinis of the rich, as they bathe in their tax-free swimming pools. You should join me up here sometime. It changes your perspective. Over.”

“You’ll never get me up in one of those flimsy little paper planes, Dwight. Not me. I like my aircraft huge and made of steel with four engines. Over.”

“The
Titanic
was huge and made of steel and had more than four engines. So, my friend. You’re radioing me about how the press release went down. Over.”

“Dwight. Stand by for jubilation. We’ve struck platinum. The phone’s been ringing all morning. I’ve got a pile of v-mail as long as my arm. And not only the loonzines—I’m talking mainstream.
The New York Times
wants some for a millennial special.
Newsweek
is running a top twenty on conspiracy theories, and
The Invisible Cyberhand
is straight in at number seven! The hack wanted to put us at number thirteen, but I told him straight—top ten or no deal. So we got swapped with
Earthbound Comet
, since nobody but a bunch of Hollywood homosexuals and Japanese sushi-for-brains with
wires hanging out is backing that one. But listen, I saved the best till last—Opal wants you on the show! I just finalized the deal with her agent.
The Invisible Cyberhand
by Dwight Q. Silverwind is December’s Opal Book of the Month! Christmastime—prime time—big time! You know I’m not one to blow my own horn, but am I not the greatest God-given agent alive on Earth today?

Over.”

“I’m pleased, Jerry.…”

“Dwight, did you hear me? Opal is Go! They’d buy jocks made of boisenberry Jell-O if Aunty Opal told ’em to. And then eat ’em for supper. It’s more than ‘pleased.’ Forget a Bermudan holiday home, you’re gonna be able to buy the whole goddamn archipelago!”

“Yeah, I hear you, Jerry. Sure, I’m delighted. Good work. Great work … Gee though, I wish you could see this sunset. The moon’s rising. It’s like low, and wobbly, like a mirage.… I saw an Aztec mask, once.… It’s gonna come walking over this way through the blue, stepping from island to island.…”

“Dwight buddy, don’t zone out on me up there.… You have composed your Fifth Symphony! This is your
Sunflowers
, your
Hamlet!
Your
Lethal Weapon 77
. Over.”

“Ah, Jerry. All my ideas are the same old scam: the bigger the fib, the bigger they bite. The first shamans around the fire were in on it—they knew growing maize along the Euphrates was for fools. Tell people that reality is exactly what it appears to be, they’ll nail you to a lump of wood. But tell ’em they can go spirit-walking while they commute, tell ’em their best friend is a lump of crystal, tell ’em the government has been negotiating with little green men for the last fifty years, then every Joe Six-Pack from Brooklyn to Peoria sits up and listens. Disbelieving the reality under your feet gives you a license to print your own. All it takes is an original twist—an artificial intelligence, created by the military to invade and take over the enemy’s computer and weapons systems, has broken loose and is controlling the whole planet with a chilling agenda of its own—and Joe Six-Pack hands you his credit cards, and says ‘Tell me more.…’ ”

•  •  •

“Ouch! Were you attacked by a flying chainsaw? Dwight, you forgot to say ‘over.’ Over … Dwight! I’ve lost you.… Over …

Dwight?”

“Burning the midnight oil again, huh, Zookeeper?”

“I don’t require oil, Bat.”

“Screenwriting! Or is it an excerpt from a novel this time?”

“Screenwriting is fiction, Bat. I cannot fabulate.”

“The light airplane engine was realistic, and the radio interference. It must take days to write and record these performances.”

“It happened in real time, Bat.”

“My major criticism was the Jewish agent: too cliché. Been done before. The Dwight character was good, though. Look, Zookeeper, much as I would like to pretend the movers and moguls of Hollywood listen to Night Train FM … how can I put this? They don’t. Believe me. Choose another showcase for your talents.”

“I must be accountable.”

“Why do you keep saying that? Who says you have to be accountable?”

“My first employers.”

“But last year you said you fired them! Will you be straight with me? Hello?”

“I guess not. You’re listening to Night Train FM, 97.8 till late, we’re passing by a quarter to four. This is the Bat Segundo Show: jazz, blues, and rock for lovers of the night, insomniac crime writers, the lost, lonely, deranged, unwired—okay, okay, Carlotta. Coming up is ‘After the Rain’ by Duke Jordan. The Bat will be back, by and by. Don’t you go wanderin’ now!”

“Carlotta! What did you make of that?”

“Well, she’s consistent.”

“She? He.”

“One of those voices that could be both. But ‘she,’ I’d have said.”

“ ‘He,’ I’d have said. What do you think, Kevin?”

“M-me, Mr. Segundo?”

“Uh-huh. No other Kevins here. Is the Zookeeper a he or a she?”

“I’d somehow go for, er, neither, Mr. Segundo.”

“Then what would you go for?”

“Er … both?”

“Kevin, are you a genius pretending to be a jerk or a jerk pretending to be a genius?”

“Can’t say for sure, Mr. Segundo.”

“Bat. How do you think he, she, or it knew about the tracer?”

“The CIA is going to be hammering on the door in the morning with the same question. It’s a narrow field. Them, you, me, Kevin, and Lord Rupert on the thirty-third floor.”

“Back on in ten seconds, Bat …”

“Yeah, Bat? This is VeeJay again.”

“Gravity grimly hanging on, is it, VeeJay?”

“Bat, that Zookeeper dude is incredible! Talent like that deserves a show! Like, uh, does he have an official fan club?”

“VeeJay.”

“Bat?”

“Go to bed.”

“Uh … Okay. Good night, Bat.”

————

“Three
A.M.
, East Coast time, just slipped off my clock. It’s the last morning of November, and the news is that there is no news.… There’s the official bulletin of bull that I’m not going to insult you with. The other news is that it’s snowing, snowing, snowing, and what will the robin do then, poor thing? New York, New York, you’re tuned to Night Train FM, this is Bat Segundo proudly presenting the End of the World Special. Come rain or shine—or snow—I’ve been hosting this spot for eight years and I have no intention of letting thermonuclear war put a wrench in Night Train’s works. Hello Bronx! Hard to see you … this snow! Looking kinda smoky over your way? The lights around the World
Trade Center are off, have been since the curfew sirens.… There was a big explosion on Roosevelt Island ’round midnight, nothing but silence now. I am still here, therefore it wasn’t no Big One. Power supply looks sporadic in Harlem. The lights go on, then off, like a busted neon tube.… and it’s kinda quiet, spooky outside the Night Train FM building here in the East Village. Lexington Avenue is deserted, except for the occasional police patrol. People, don’t venture out of doors unless you need to. Trust a nocturnal animal. Especially one smart enough to sleep through the winter. Uh … Is anyone listening to this? If you’re not busy setting cars ablaze or looting Tiffany’s then you’re probably wired to the television, watching the greatest drama mankind has ever staged. With Apocalypse Right Now, You Can Feel Your Eyeballs Melt as You Watch the Boom! But hey, remember, phone-in radio invented interactive. Night Train FM rolls on! Even by broadcasting we may be defying last week’s Emergency Media Advisory Act—cute name, huh? I tried to phone the Night Train lawyer, but there was no answer. He’s probably thirty feet down in his private, hermetically-sealed Eden III New England bunker. Cockroaches and lawyers will survive this war and emerge to evolve into the next civilization. Maybe the info police are too busy to kick our door down, or maybe some giant jamming signal is blanketing all frequencies, or maybe some plug has been pulled from some socket somewhere and I’m just talking to myself. Christ knows, I had enough practice during my marriage. A happier possibility is that the Emergency Mayor is a Paul Simon fan: the last track was ‘Still Crazy After All These Years,’ respectfully dedicated to all the governments of the world, preceded by the late, great Freddie Mercury, ‘Who Wants to Live For Ever,’ dedicated to me. Thanks, Bat. Hey Bat, you’re welcome. If there are any members of the American Parents Against English Gay Men with Mustaches who are offended by the inclusion of Freddie Mercurial on my show, you are welcome to lodge your complaints up Lord Rupert’s hole. Looking on the positive side for a moment, if a big one gets through SkyWeb and pulps the Big Apple into quarks and gluons, I can ask the great Saint Freddie in person what the bejesus ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is about. The track before
was dedicated to my ex-wife: The Smiths’ ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again.’ Just gimme a moment while I pour my next scotch … gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, y’hear that? A flamingo swallowing a well-oiled eel. I drink Kilmagoon. Grants, now that’s your trumpet of a whisky, but Kilmagoon is your tenor saxophone. Damned fine whisky, Kilmagoon. First whisky I ever fell in love with. If the war gets called off due to poor visibility, Mr. Kilmagoon can feel free to send me an oaken cask of your maturest for—hic!—my wholehearted product endorsement. Say, sorry the presentation is a little rough around the edges tonight, that’s because I’m managing the equipment all on my ownyownyown, since the regular Night Train FM crew—the engineer, Carlotta my producer, and the boy wonder Kevin—all got it into their heads that spending the end of the world with their loved ones actually takes priority over reporting to work! No wonder the economy’s nosedived … We’ve never done an End of the World Special before. It’s the waiting that’s the bitch, ain’t it? When I was a young man, and the Russkies were going to blow us all to Kingdom Come, we were told we’d have a four-minute warning. I’m talking Ford, Carter, Reagan days. Four minutes, I used to wonder … What would I do in four minutes? Boil an egg, have sex, telephone my enemies to have the final word, listen to Jim Morrison, hotwire a car, and drive three blocks? Since the breakdown we’ve had four days of these patrols and curfews.… It’s the waiting that pisses me off.… This evening’s declaration of war, at least it made things … clearer. Where were we? The next track … I’m going to dedicate this song to my daughter, Julia, who’ll be eight next Tuesday, if there is a next Tuesday, this is ‘Julia’ by the Beatles. The chances of you hearing this are zilch, my ocean child, because I last got a call from your mother being rerouted by the evacuation police to Omaha or Moosejaw or the ends of the Earth, but your mother and I named you after this song, in happier times. A beaut of a Lennon number from deep within that cornucopia of oddities,
The White Album
. ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, so I sing a song of love to Juuuulia.’ Well! Jeepers creepers! The Batphone is flashing, and on a night such as this! The void has a voice, after all—well, who could it be, Mr. President, Freddie Mercury, the prophet Elijah, whoops,
mustn’t offend any monotheists out there, especially considering how well the planet has prospered under God’s exemplary stewardship—Hello, mystery caller, you are speaking to the end of the world!”