Protesters
lined the sidewalk, waving signs and catcalling.
Grave robbers! Hitler did
it, too! Shame on you! Would you want your grandma to be plastinated?
The
big shots who were shelling out three thousand dollars a plate for this event
hurried past like hedge fund managers doing the perp walk.
The
driver leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Good luck, hot stuff,” he said,
patting my rear. Rico made a dazzling driver. Gone were the earrings, the pony
hawk and the wispy goatee. He looked like a professional chauffeur in his dark
uniform, snappy visored hat, and white gloves, all courtesy of Magenta’s
Halloween costume collection. No one would have guessed that Rico’s usual mode
of transport was a rip-stick. The limousine wasn’t really a limousine either,
merely the biggest, shiniest Cadillac in the Hertz fleet.
“If
that kid puts his hand on your ass again I’m tearing his arm off,” Labeck
growled. I wanted to tell him to
shut up, but my face felt too stiff to talk. My heart pounded against the hard
struts of my brassiere cage and my legs trembled in their boa constrictor
casings as we walked up the steps and into the building.
The museum’s
atrium was all glitzed up for the occasion. White fairy lights twinkled in a
forest of small live trees. Bright, silk-screened banners the size of highway
billboards hung from the museum balconies, each displaying the BodyWorks logo
and the words:
Funded
by the Brenner Foundation
Sponsored
by Senator Stanford T. Brenner
Way
to get yourself publicity, Bear, you intestinal parasite.
We
followed the crowd of tuxed men and gowned women up the staircase to the second
floor and into an enormous room. The suits of armor and the American Indian
dioramas had been deep-sixed for the night and the room had been transformed
into a banquet hall. Dozens of round tables were arranged around the room, set
with porcelain and crystal and lit by glowing candles. An orchestra was tuning
up on a raised platform and the Channel 13 news crew, tipped off by Labeck,
were setting up their equipment in a corner.
Labeck
led me to a table near the center of the room, next to the computer set up for
the slide presentation. With a sleight of hand worthy of David Copperfield, he
shifted the guest placards set there to an adjacent table and pulled out a
chair for me. I sat down shakily, setting my dinky bag atop the table. Who was
the moron who’d decreed that women had to accessorize their evening gowns with
purses so useless you could barely cram a Tylenol into them?
Every
female eye in the room was riveted on Bonaparte Labeck. He looked fabulous, his
tux emphasizing his wide shoulders and trim waist, his white shirt setting off
his ruddy skin. His hair was trimmed, he’d shaved to within an inch of his
life, and his dark eyes glinted with mischief and excitement.
Phase One of
Operation Payback
was accomplished. We were inside and no one had
recognized me.
A
waiter materialized next to us. “Would you folks care for drinks?” he asked.
I
looked up at a grinning Eddie Arguello. He looked splendid, too. His hair was
back to its natural black, his little mustache looked like it had been hair-sprayed,
and his Hombre fumes overpowered the cut flowers. He wore black pants, a white
shirt, and a black bow tie he’d borrowed from a cousin who was a priest.
“Any
trouble?” Labeck asked.
He was talking
out of the side of his mouth, for Pete’s sake. I wanted to kick him.
Eddie
grinned. He set a glass of champagne in front of each of us. “No. I just show
up wearing dark pants and a white shirt, looking like all the other Mexican
waitstaff, and they figure I’m legit. The lady in charge scolds me for not
having my vest, so she digs one out for me.”
“You
look very authentic,” I told Eddie.
Wonderful
smells were wafting from somewhere close by, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to
eat. I’d be happy if I just managed to not throw up. The museum’s kitchen was
inadequate for such a large crowd and the food was being prepared by a catering
staff. I happened to know this because Labeck and I had spent the last two days
researching every detail of the gala, trying to anticipate problems. The
biggest challenge had been finding out which computer the museum would be using
for the show, how powerful its sound system was, and who’d be running the PowerPoint
presentation.
Drinks
in hands, people were slowly drifting toward their tables. These were
Milwaukee’s elite, people able to pay six thousand bucks a couple to prove what
culture vultures they were. A lot of them I recognized from my days as the
little-nobody wife of a Vonnerjohn scion. Beer barons, floor wax moguls, paper
diaper magnates, politicians, media people—anyone who wanted to see and
be seen and could finagle a tax credit off the cost of the ticket.
Gazing
around, I suddenly caught sight of Vanessa Vonnerjohn a few tables away. She
angled her head in our direction and I quickly ducked behind my menu. When the
seconds ticked by and she hadn’t leaped onto a table, pulled out an Uzi, and
sprayed me with automatic fire, I figured she hadn’t spotted me. I risked a
peek from behind the menu. She was wearing her usual bouffant helmet, freshened
up with a coat of black lacquer for the occasion. What was that thing she was
wearing? A sequined gold tube that flared out at the hips into swirls of
spangled, poufy net. Somewhere a Christmas tree was missing its skirt. She had
defied the fashion
fatwah
decreeing teensy evening bags in favor of a
quilted klunker the size of a mail pouch. What did she have in there—a
boom box? The skulls of her enemies? A grenade launcher?
The lights
suddenly dimmed, the band struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and a
spotlight played on Senator Stanford Brenner as he jogged jauntily up the steps
to the orchestra platform. The crowd rose and applauded.
It
wasn’t as though this guy was donating a kidney, for Pete’s sake—all he’d
done was cough up a chunk of change from the Brenner corporate coffers. He
probably saved his personal piggy bank for thugs and slugs.
“Please.”
Bear held up his arms to quiet the applause. “You’re embarrassing me. And I’m
not easily embarrassed.”
Everybody
laughed. I almost laughed, too. Hand it to him; he knew how to shovel the shit.
I had to keep reminding myself that this was the guy who without a single
twinge of conscience had buried me alive and when that had failed, had ordered
his toadies to burn me to ashes.
“I
assure you I’m not going to talk long. I’ll be quick—that’s what my wife
always says, anyway.”
More laughter. Good
one, Bear.
“And
you can have your dinner while I’m droning on, so you can block me out
and concentrate on your lobster.”
What modesty, what charm, what a crock.
He
cleared his throat and spoke again, glancing down at the cheat cards in his
fist. “BodyWorks is currently the top-selling museum show in the United States
and Europe. Wherever it goes, people marvel at the realism of the bodies. They
ought
to marvel, because the bodies are real. The bodies are carefully preserved
through
plastination,
a process similar to lamination. Each one of these
marvelous sculptures is insured for half a millon dollars.”
That
got the CEOs’ attention. Bear flashed a grin. “Now we’ve all had to endure that
gauntlet outside, those protesters who claim these bodies come from executed
Chinese prisoners. Not true, I assure you. In fact, when I die, I want to be
plastinated, too. They can prop me up at the Yacht Club Bar. My staffers assure
me nobody will be able to tell the difference.”
Laughter.
You’re slaying ’em, Bear.
Eddie
rolled a cart to our table and began handing out salads. “Everything’s set to
go,” he whispered. “I switched the computer program and gave the PowerPoint guy
a hundred bucks to disappear.”
“You’ll
all have a chance to tour the exhibit after dinner,” Bear was saying, “but
right now, here’s a little appetizer.”
Doors
at the side of the room were flung open and two museum staff members rolled in
the appetizer on a wheeled base. The orchestra launched into “Touch My Body,” a
version so white-bread it would have made Mariah Carey puke. A startled gasp
rippled through the crowd as the wealthy benefactors craned their necks, oohing
and ahhing and applauding.
It
was a horse and rider. Both had been skinned and had parts of their muscles and
skeletons exposed. It should have been repulsive but was oddly beautiful, like
a
da Vinci anatomical drawing done
in three dimensions. Muscles flexed, tendons tautened, sinews stretched, bones
burst from epidermis. The horse, a palomino, was reared up on its hind legs,
his long golden mane and tail preserved. The skeletal rider, whose spinal
column, ribs, and pelvis were exposed, was waving an arm as though he were
about to lasso a runaway steer. Blue glass eyeballs, set into the skull
sockets, were framed by long, real eyelashes. It was beautiful and macabre at
the same time; the Rider of the Apocalypse does the rodeo.
Bear
was hamming it up, stepping down from the stage and sauntering around the sculpture,
hands clasped behind back, playing this for all it was worth. “This looks like
the nag I bet on last time I was at Arlington. No wonder he came in last.”
Laughter.
The VIP bets on loser horses, just like the rest of us. What a swell guy.
“I’d
like to take credit for bringing this show to Milwaukee. We beat out Baltimore,
Los Angeles and”—heartbeat pause—“Chicago.”
Wild
applause. Milwaukeeans
hate
Chicago.
“But
it was our fabulous committee members who were here day and night, working with
the museum staff, who are responsible for this wonderful exhibit. I think the
following presentation will highlight their contributions.”
My stomach
loop-de-looped and my body trembled. Beneath the table, Labeck gripped my
clammy hands in his big, warm ones. Phase two of Operation Payback
was
about to begin.
The horse and
rider rolled away at a snap of Bear’s fingers, a movie screen descended, and
the room darkened. Returning to the stage, Bear started reading from a prepared
script. Eddie Arguello glided to the computer and tapped keys. Slides scrolled
across the screen.
“These
are our hardworking committee members,” Bear narrated.
Wealthy suburban
women, including Vanessa Vonnerjohn, huddled around a table, smiling for the
camera.
“Some of our members flew down to
Miami on a fact-finding mission.”
Apparently the fact they’d found was that
they could charge their poolside room service to the public museum.
“Here we are, discussing our budget.”
Bear and the committee members, enjoying a working lunch at an expensive
restaurant.
“And
here we have—”
A scrawny teenaged boy next to a half-naked man, whose
hand was flung up to block the camera.
The
audience tittered at first, most people believing the photo was a put-on, part
of the show. Bear turned to see the screen, and his face went as pale as his
shirt.
“The boy in
this photo was named Miguel Ruiz,”
intoned a baritone
voiceover—Magenta, in full macho male mode.
“He’s fifteen years old in
this picture. The man in the ugly shorts is an American businessman named
Stanford Brenner. The photo was shot by Miguel’s brother, Luis. Both boys were
off-the-books employees at a Brenner container plant in Janos, Mexico
.”
“Turn that thing
off,” bellowed Bear, squinting against the light, trying to see who was running
the computer.
“Stan Brenner
had another off-the-books activity,”
continued the voiceover. Photos
appeared on the screen in rapid succession, their details now sharp and clear,
thanks to Labeck’s techno-juju.
Grubby-looking
boys working in a laboratory. A big, Anglo-looking man, back turned, appeared
to be supervising.
Boys funneling
small white pills into beer containers.
Boys loading
the containers into Brenner beer semitrailers.
A wild buzz broke
out among the gala-goers. Now
this
was worth three grand a plate!
Cellphones switched on, video cameras whirred, flashes strobed like lightning.
Reporters sniffed the air, smelling blood. The Channel 13 news crew suddenly
sprang to life, their cameras focusing. The news people were going to love this
one; they’d dig their teeth into it and not let go until they’d gnashed every
drop of scandal and skullduggery out of it. Luis Ruiz would have been
delighted.
Bullshit your way
out of this one, Bear, you pusbucket!
“Mr. Brenner’s
lucrative little sideline was producing rohypnol, a potent date-rape drug. Mr.
Brenner shipped the drug across the border into the United States hidden in
beer containers. There it was sold to dealers
—
”