Sirens, p.6
Sirens, page 6
"See where the girl is. The man with the rodent's eyes began to move
through the room, passing the white-faced maid and butler as if they did
not exist. He was perhaps a yard in front of James when there was
movement from the kitchen alcove. Rachel was coming. She was a
dark-haired girl of perhaps thirteen with a fiercely beautiful face that
already appeared to be somewhat rugged. Her clear blue eyes were very
large. They took in the entire scene at once. Something had taken
possession of the man with the rodent's eyes. The muscles in his arms
jumped as he swung the muzzle of the AKM up to track the movement. His
finger grew white against the trigger and a vein stood out high up on
his forehead. James, half facing him, saw the look of unadulterated
hatred suffuse his face like an excess of blood. In that instant, James
broke into a run, thrusting his body between Rachel's emerging form and
the black mouth of the AKM. But the air was no longer clear. It buzzed
with the flight of steel-jacketed bullets flashing from the mouth of the
automatic rifle. Heather, standing transfixed by the sofa's end, heard
James call out her name, very loudly, very clearly, just before his body
was pierced by the bullets, sent hurtling backwards off his feet, into
Rachel's mid-section. She staggered backwards, caught at him, his weight
too much for her. He slid heavily down her body, lay crumpled in a pool
of his own blood, is eyelids fluttering. The bearded man's brown eyes
watched Rachel carefully. ',' he said. ' daughter of the prime minister
of Israel.' With that the spell that had kept Heather immobile abruptly
broke and she rushed across the room. The tall woman beside 54 -.4 man
madea move to stop her but the man pushed ot aside, grabbed hold of
Heather's wrist with his A as she flashed past, whirling her around in a
tight ' cried out, came face to face with him. stared into her eyes,
studying whatever it was he found the left-hand breast pocket of my
blouse,' he said e gov Heather cried. ' husband's been shotv the pocket
you'll find a cheroot. Put it between my stared at him. ' you out of
your mind! My husband's may die,' the bearded man said, ' I don't get my
smoke bastard as I say,' the man told her, tightening his grip on her
@So that she winced in pain. ' is a lesson you must one of many.' eyes
darted around. She stared at James and bit her lip. last, she did and,
slowly, brought her hand up to his dipped her fingertips into his breast
pocket. She brought cigar, a long thin black cheroot, placed it
carefully his lips. light it,' he said, never taking his eyes from hers.
struggled a little, her hair flying and he said, ' d is waiting for you,
living out the last moments of his aps.' er's hand went back inside-his
breast pocket. She back the cover to the chrome lighter, held the flame
just tip of the cheroot until he had it going to his satisfaction. inned
at her and she saw the gleam of the gold jackets e front teeth. ',' he
said. ''s much better.' ed while she returned the lighter to his pocket.
me go,' Heather said again. ' said you would glanced around the room,
drinking in the pinched up- faces one by one. His expression clearly
showed his ous pleasure. en I'm finished with what I have to say.' This
time he not look at Heather. He was addressing the room. 55
'Gentlemen,' he said slowly, chewing on his cheroot, ', you are all now
hostages of the Palestine Liberation Organization. You are helpless. All
resistance is futile. What security you once possessed is now entirely
gone.' There was a gasp from Susan Morgan. ' hold the villa; we hold
you. Mr. Secretary of State, Mr. Ambassador, let me say now your worth
to the outside world is far more than it is to us here.' As he spoke,
his voice took on colour and resonance, a richness that made what he
said impossible to dismiss or take lightly. ' are involved in a war -
and, make no mistake, we are all involved - a war of freedom and
justice. The Palestinian people have been robbed of their homeland -
their very birthright - by the Zionist interlopers. ' are here to gain
back the land that is rightfully ours.
The PLO must be recognized by Israel and the United States as speaking
for the Palestinian people; we are their will. Our land must be restored
to us; thirteen of our brothers, tortured by the Zionists, must be
released from their incarceration in Jerusalem. All this must happen or
you will die. But' - he lifted a forefinger -'if you co-operate with us
all will be well; no one will be harmed.' Once again he looked around
the room. ' am El-Kalaam. It is a name you will come to be familiar with
during this time. And, if you are fortunate - if your governments are
wise - you will come to bless it for it will not be the name of your
executioner.' With that, he let go Heather's wrist and she ran, full
tilt, to where James lay half conscious on the floor at Rachel's feet.
"Idiot! You should have called me - even in the studio.' ' ... well. I
know how you are when you're with Chris.' Maggie Mcdonell's deep blue
eyes stared with reproach from the fragile oval face: the porcelain skin
with its fine dusting of freckles. Her hair, which she wore long, was
the colour of butterscotch, and permed so that it looked electrified.
She had the bones of a bird - a model's flawless figure with no sharp
jut or heavy line to mar the smooth flow of her flesh. Clothes draped
over her slender form with exquisite perfection. Exhausted, Daina
flopped down on the pale green Haitian Taofa, reached for the long vodka
and tonic Maggie had "for her. She took an enormous draught as if it
were this was serious,' Maggie said. ' mean throwing Mark You should
have called me.' V@ww better off on my own anyway. I wound up at Beryl
's party-' that should have bored the hell out of you.' ' just jealous
because you weren't invited,' Daina said t's only,' Maggie said,
swinging away to pour herself ' I'm not the star you are.' closed her
mouth. She had been about to tell Maggie her night with Rubens. Now she
was not so sure she She recalled the offhand comment he had made.
ting the girls from the women. It made her think of the ,@.,time she and
Maggie had met at a casting call for bit Jor Coming Home. Daina had just
arrived in LA and felt an almost compulsive need to form the kind of
solid ps she had enjoyed in New York. And she had come the prejudice
that she could not do this with anyone who not also newly transplanted.
mfrom St. Marys, Iowa, and I don't know much,' e had told her. They had
hit it off immediately; Maggie to know all about New York, a place she
had always to visit but never had. The comfort of their friendship
,,;,kept the long days and even longer nights of failure and from
collapsing their lives altogether. They had much each other for yet
curiously, never had. ma remembered, too, the day Maggie had burst out
of ",,.'shell one foggy morning as they met for breakfast at a nald's.
Maggie was a rock freak. She had grown up in "'Marys with a transistor
radio glued to one ear, dreaming bursts of thunder, the shouting Greek
chorus of the c kids - which she felt, simultaneoulsy, a part of and
ected from. ris Kerr,' she had said as if evoking a magic spirit. ' saw
perform last night.' And laughed like a little girl until joined her
though she did not yet understand what was 56 57 so amusing. ' band,
the Heartbeats, was at Santa Monica Civic last night. My God, the swell
of the noise when he came out was deafening ... like being engulfed by a
storm. And I thought, Here he is. All the music rushing around inside my
head with a life of its own - a life I gave it because without it I'd've
gone mad alone in St. Marys with my hard-working, dull-as-coal family -
and now here's the man who made it; who made my heart throb so hard it
hurt. Ali, Christ, it was too much 1 ` Maggie's eyes, as bright as
beacons, blinked several times as if the images were running still
behind them. ' first rush of their music was so overwhelming that I
thought, This sex, what rock is all about, that's what our parents were
so frightened we'd pick up. But the music allowed us to vent the
unfocused anger we had when we were teenagers and didn't even know was
part of us. There's a kind of release ...' Her eyes shone as if she were
about to cry. ''m glad you finally got to see him,' Daina said.
"Oh, but that wasn't the end of it.' Maggie's long thin fingers with
their hard unpainted nails touched the back of Daina's hand where it lay
on the cool tabletop. Their Egg Mcmuffins lay cold and congealed between
them like an offering. ' was a party after the concert. The record label
threw it and, y'know, we always have access to those things because you
know how the presence of actors is something like a quotient of their
success. They goggle at us as if we weren@t real or something.
Obviously they haven't found out yet how absolutely insufferable some of
us can be.' Maggie took her hand away and, now that the first torrent of
words was spent, relaxed somewhat, sitting back in her orange plastic
seat, blowing through her rounded lips. ' mean the concert was amazing
enough. It just blew me away. I mean, took at me! Small-town girl,
brought up with miners too tired to have anything on their minds, who
went down early from black lung disease ...' She said this quite
dispassionately without either rancour or bitterness. That was her way.
Inside, at the core of her, Daina knew, her heart had been coated with a
grey grime that no amount of happiness could ever scrape entirely away.
Her father, then her older brother, had died in 58 t that way while
breaking their backs, she said only half . gly, for the company store.
I ... in the midst of all this. e a real-life trip to Oz only - and this
is so curious - at me time during the concert it all got turned around
so that is, this concert, became real life and those years in St. Marys
'were re uced to a dream I once must have had while ill. ' remember the
singles I bought in Des Moines when I t to visit my Aunt Sylvia. I had
to smuggle them into the use .- "I Want to Hold Your Hand".. "Route 66",
"The ppy Hippy Shake". You wouldn't know how it is.' ' can
imagine,'Daina said. ' you can't. You were born and brought up in New
What's America to you but New York and LA? Oh, e, once you mightve seen
Chicago or maybe even Atlanta. t all the rest is just some weird kind of
alien landscape that ts only in stories or films or an atlas.' '
Maggie,' Daina began. ''ve been to ''t matter. It's not the same as
living there. Don't see?' Her voice was anguished now. ' was living in a
oody black coffin of a world, flat and slow and changeless..5ou can't
possibly imagine what that music meant to me. ""And now that I'm here
... Dyou know some mornings I e up and it takes me ten minutes or more
to realize that actually here, that it isn't a dream, that when I turn
my d, open my eyes, I won't see those school pennants hanging ornly on
the wall over my head or my cheerleader sweater ed over the back of the
rickety yvooden chair Gran gave .'Her fingers, interlaced, twisted back
and forth. ' I hadn't St. Marys when I did, I know I'd never have got up
the to do it at all. So I ran - all the way out here.' e're all running,
Maggie,' Daina said kindly. ' of us are doing what we're doing. We're
all searching for a den harness to strap across our shoulders.' She
sighed ly. ' trouble is, we seem to be running in place these aggie had
smiled. ' least it keeps us in shape.' aina laughed, said, ' on. What
happened at the party?' Maggie grinned. ' met, Chris and V She lifted a
slender mimed the movement of a ballerina.
"And I conquered.' 59 I V, @),Asg& shook her head. 1 was',so bloody
disdainful at first. yuow, I'd heard about how sleazy these rock parties
can become when they decide to get down; so ','Daina Whispered. , I -
Now Maggie put on an upper-class English accent.
-But one ultimately gets bored with slumming.' She giggled, dropped the
stylization. ' we left.' That was the beginning and, a week later, she
had moved in with Chris, out here in Malibu with the gulls crying and
the somnolent surf's constant slide and hiss, the women with bobbing
breasts jogging down the beach in search of a pickup with fame and, deep
in the night, the soft lowing sounds of the whales. ', but that bastard
deserved to get thrown out on his ass,' Maggie said now, taking a sip of
her drink. ''re well rid of him, Daina. I guess I can tell you now I
never fancied Mark much.' ' didn't?' ' suspected him. His politics ... I
don't know. That kind of altruism is too pure to be real.
And he was so good with his rhetoric ... so goddamned slick. He can talk
his way in anywhere! Daina nodded. ' is how, I suppose, he was able to
shoot in Southeast Asia.' , almost done, isn't it? The film.' ' guess
so. He had just come back from putting on the finishing touches.
Shooting's over and he had time to -' She took a long convulsive pull on
her drink. ',' Maggie said, ' me freshen that.' She took the empty glass
out of Daina's hand, went about pouring the liquids. ' about the mess
but when Chris's in the studio recording everything gets turned upside
down.' ''s the new album coming?' Daina accepted the filled glass. It
chilled her palm. Maggie gave her a quick smile that faded out all too
soon. ' to tell at this stage. Everything's so jumbled about still.' She
had always used a number of British idioms.
Daina imagined it came from her love of English rock and roll. always,
you know, a great deal of tension when they the studio. The pressure to
create is enormous and, some of them are still pretty irresponsible.
Naturally, to Chris to round them all up and get it going.' She sat in a
deep chair, put her glass against her cheek, closed qes for a moment.
Vas dark in here, even with the scattered lamps on. Daina could hear the
gentle hiss of the Pacific but in ' absolute stillness now that their
voices had ceased. across from Daina with her eyes shut, Maggie seemed
elost the vitality of life. Daina looked away, at the s Persian carpet
covering the floor, a complex pattern of deep greens and sapphires,
earth browns black so dark it seemed infinite. The walls were enamelled
broken here and there by a Calder, a Lichtenstein and, usly, a Utrillo,
all originals. Along the opposite wall amonstrous component stereo
system including reeland cassette tape decks and a pair of mammoth
fourspeakers, all of studio calibre. ie's eyes abruptly opened and she
leaned forward, her glass down on the curved ebony coffee table. Her p
assed over the wheat rolling papers, the plastic bag of . wet forefinger
rubbed along the surface of a small ground-glass sheet, picking up the
traces of the white r. She rubbed the coated end along the pink ridges
of It was, to Daina, a curiously obscene gesture. ' ought to loosen up a
little and, try some.' But she was -absorbed to see Daina's negative
reply. ggie ran her hand along the table edge. She had picked bat
quintessentially LA habit of touching things with the of her hands in
order not to mar the gleaming surface iong, manicured nails.
She sighed. ' the way A. to be when we were starting out? We were both
so then; both so ... equal.' aggie, you can't expect -' ut welre not any
more, are we?' She gave Daina a sharp ''ve changed, goddamnit! Why did
that have to F for God's sake V 60 61 'But I don't belong in
commercials,' Maggie wailed. ''s demeaning. Christ, it's not acting at
all! I just posture. It's garbage!' She picked up the large silver
lighter between the heels of her hands, flicking the flame on and off. '
am sick to death of waiting for something real to come along.
I'm going nuts 1, ''m sure you've talked to Victor,' Daina said calmly.
"What's he say?' ' tells me to be patient, that he's getting me what he
can.' She got up, searched about the room as if she had an excess of
nervous energy that needed venting. ''ve had it, Daina. I mean it. I
need someone to do something for me.' She returned with a small glassine
bag, dumped white powder on to the ground-glass square. Daina watched in
silence as her friend snorted the coke. Maggie turned to her, sniffing.
"What do you think I should do? Fire Victor, maybe?' ''s a good agent,'
