Feeding frenzy, p.11
Feeding Frenzy, page 11
Remo shrugged. He watched as the dead man’s limp liver-colored stomach was excised, sliced open, and the contents removed and set on a stainless steel tray. It was a milky mass that looked like nothing remotely edible.
“If the virus kills after forty-eight hours, will you find any bugs?” Remo asked.
“Probably not. Carapace material is usually impervious to stomach acid, but that damn bug is almost one hundred percent digestible.” Esterquest was picking the mass apart and smearing samples on a glass slide. He looked at it through a microscope.
“No bug parts that I can see.”
“Then he didn’t eat the bugs.”
Esterquest looked up and smiled knowingly.
“Oh, there’s still the bowel contents to look at, yet.”
Remo’s face fell. “That part I think I can skip.”
“Everyone has their limitations. Myself, I’d prefer to forgo a bowel incision. Even with a face mask, built-up gasses are the worst.”
Remo started to go.
Esterquest called, “Oh, there is one other thing.”
Remo turned. “Yeah?”
“Even though there was no viral agent in their stomachs, there was something funny in their blood.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Never saw anything like it before. And without an electron microscope, and a whole range of testing dyes and the like, I can’t pursue it any further.”
“Oh,” said Remo.
As he started to go, the man called after him, “Next time you’re in town, drop by again. Maybe we can compare notes some more. Lord knows an old poison oaker like me could use the company.”
Remo noticed the man’s colorless eyes flick to a framed picture of a smiling young woman with curly hair.
“Wife?” Remo asked.
Esterquest nodded. “Be gone six years in October.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m used to death in my business.”
“Ever figure her out?”
Esterquest didn’t look up. His no was barely audible.
“Catch you around,” said Remo, shutting the door after himself. A hissing of released gas came distinctly through the door and Esterquest, his voice once more buoyant, exclaimed, “Gahh! I hate this part. But it’ll be worth it if you give up all your secrets, my silent gray friend.”
Remo left the funeral parlor in a better mood than when he had gone in. It was good to come upon unexpectedly, someone who was really excited about his work. Even if the nature of that work wasn’t always so pleasant. Funny how someone who deals in death all the time should find in that a way to make his life more interesting.
Remo reflected that he and the undertaker were in the same business. Death. Except Remo was more of a manufacturer and the undertaker a packager of the final product.
The town was pretty quiet once Remo got out into the fresh air. There was no sign of the press and Remo wondered if they had simply camped out at Nirvana West. He wasn’t looking forward to going back to that clowns’ nest.
On the other hand, maybe Nalini would be there.
As Remo started for his car, from down the road came the blare of rock music. It was loud. It was very loud. And it was coming this way fast. It sounded like some idiot teenager had his car stereo cranked up to one-hundred-fifty decibels.
As Remo got his motor going, he saw in his rearview mirror a big RV barreling through town. It was painted red, white, and blue and the too-loud rock was blaring from a loudspeaker mounted on the roof.
“Damn, another politician,” muttered Remo, gunning into reverse and peeling out one step ahead of the approaching RV.
On the way back to the motel, Remo spotted the Master of Sinanju walking along, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his sky blue kimono. Remo stopped and rolled down his window.
“Going my way?” he asked cheerfully.
Chiun looked at him with a wrinkling nose and disdainful eyes. “Have you showered?”
“No,” Remo admitted.
“Then I am not going your way, unclean one.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be that way.”
“You smell worse than before,” Chiun said pointedly.
“I just attended an autopsy.”
“Then it is doubly important that you shower,” sniffed the Master of Sinanju, hurrying on.
Remo let him go. He drove past, watching the one who taught him Sinanju in his rearview mirror with unhappy eyes.
“Every time I meet somebody I like, he’s gotta pull this tired old crap,” muttered Remo.
Chapter Eleven
The conventional wisdom was that Thrush Limburger would end up like Morton Downey. His ego is too big, they said. He’s growing too fast. People listen to him just to laugh at him, others insisted. Just you watch, once his ratings start to fall, they’ll find that windbag in some airport men’s room stall, his head shaved, Mirrors of Venus–the symbol for womankind–lipsticked all over his dazed face, babbling that the “Feminasties” are out to get him.
They said that in his first year. They said it in his second. When he jumped to television, they claimed it would be the kiss of death. Thrush Limburger. He’s so “hot” he’s on TV. Ha–ha–ha.
The conventional wisdom said that when a trend or movement or whatever hit the tube, that meant it was on its way out, if not already dead.
Everybody knew it. Everybody except Thrush Limburger, that is. He was already hard at work on his next bestseller, I Told You So, as his red, white, and blue remote broadcast RV rolled into the town of Ukiah, the proud letters TTT NETWORK emblazoned on the side.
“As I speak to you from the rolling hills of Mendocino County,” Thrush boomed into the microphone, simultaneously typing on his portable computer, whose keys were padded so he could write and broadcast simultaneously, “I am struck by how gullible large segments of the American people have become in our electronic age. Let’s take Theodore Soars-With-Beagles–I mean Eagles. Now the press is reporting that he’s a full-blooded Chinchilla Indian. My friends, I have combed every encyclopedia, spoken to noted anthropologists and ethnologists, and they all tell me that there is no such being as a Chinchilla Indian. Now I admit even I had to look this up. I couldn’t be certain. Sure, it sounded funny, but I suppose it’s possible for there to be such a thing. After all, there’s a tribe calling itself the Pontiacs, and they have nothing to do with the auto industry. So let me share something with you.”
Abruptly, Limburger gave his jowly right cheek a slap with his fleshy right hand. The sound was like raw pork chops colliding.
His audience accepted the mushy sound without a qualm. They understood that Thrush Limburger was an excitable fellow. He often drummed his fingers, stamped his feet, and fluttered faxes and newspaper clippings into the open mike. It was part of his on-air persona, he boasted. What he neglected to mention was that Thrush Limburger suffered from a mild form of Tourette’s Syndrome.
Thrush was also on a self-improvement program where if he found himself using a mushy word on the air, he would stop and slap himself in the face as an ungentle reminder that he had committed an inappropriate public utterance.
In this case, the mushy word was “share.”
“Now Theodore Soars-With-Eagles calls himself a Chinchilla Indian,” Thrush continued. “And that is his God-given right. He can call himself a springbok if it so pleases him. But here’s a flash. There are no Chinchillas, except the furry ones women wrap around their necks. At great peril to their well-being, by the way, thanks to the animal rights crowd. For the benefit of the adherents of PAPA and Mr. Theodore Soars-With-Eagles, if you can hear me, my fine feathered friend, the correct tribal name is Chowchilla. Not Chin chilla. Chow chilla. Now I ask you, listeners, how seriously can we take the pronouncements of a self-appointed Indian spokesman if he can’t even get the name of his own tribe right?”
Thrush chuckled throatily, a good-natured sound, even amplified by sound systems all across the nation. “I’ll be back, after this message from our sponsor, Tipple.”
Limburger popped a cassette into the rack, and as his deep orator’s voice extolled the virtues of his favorite soft drink, his haberdasher, and the very loud ties he wore, he hit the intercom button and asked his assistant, “Where are we, Custer?”
“Approaching Ukiah, Thrush.”
“Hot damn. You call that coroner?”
“He says he’ll see you. But not on the air.”
“Why not? Doesn’t he know Thrush Limburger is on three-hundred-thirty stations here and in Canada, one for every blessed pound in his generously proportioned body?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like the press.”
“Press? I’m not the press. I’m the antipress. I’m the truth.”
“He won’t budge, Thrush.”
“Okay, I’m a reasonable man. We’ll do it his way. What we’ll do is a bunch of packaged stuff. Feminasty Report. Furry Friends Update. Liberal Valhalla. The whole works. That should give me time to talk to him, and the audience won’t even miss me–because I won’t ever have stopped talking.”
“You got it, Thrush.”
· · ·
When the RV pulled up before the Esterquest and Son funeral parlor, the rear door popped open and Thrush Limburger lumbered out, the sound of his own canned voice following him in.
He was inside not ten minutes. He came out like a rogue elephant, jumping to the driver’s side window and bouncing happily. The entire van rocked on its heavy-duty shocks.
“I got it!” he chortled. “I figured it out! This is perfect. This is amazing. Only Thrush Limburger could just roll into a town and crack open something that has stumped official Washington.”
“You always say official Washington is made up of lukewarm chowderheads,” said his assistant, behind the wheel.
“I was right then and I’m right now, Custer. Let’s get on to Nirvana West, pronto. I want to bust this thing wide open from the environmentalist whackjob ground zero. Damn, am I good.”
The red, white, and blue RV roared out of Ukiah trailing a long coil of carbon monoxide.
And all across American, the voice of Thrush Limburger proclaimed, “My faithful listeners, you are about to be rewarded for your loyalty to this show. In the months to come, you people are going to be able to boast that you were among the discerning multitudes who heard Thrush Limburger debunk the HELP crisis for all time. That’s right, while you were listening to my Democratic Hall of Shame via the magic of audiotape, your tireless servant was lifting up rocks and digging up the unpleasant muck under them. And guess what I found? What I always find. What you expect me to find. Dramatic pause here.” Thrush cleared his throat with a sound like a steamroller grumbling and lowered his voice, knowing that millions of Americans, already on the edge of their seats, would lean closer to their radios. “I found...the truth. And it shall set you free!”
With that, Thrush Limburger popped in an ad cassette and leaned back in his chair, his pudgy hands folding over his ample belly. A self-satisfied smile crossed his broad, open features.
· · ·
Cody Custer was Thrush Limburger’s chief of staff, gofer, and when necessity arose, his personal driver. Thrush Limburger did not drive. He liked to say that he had been too busy to stop and learn how. But the truth was, at three-hundred-thirty pounds, getting behind the wheel of even a Lincoln Continental was an effort for Thrush Limburger. Besides, the steering wheel always left a red crease in the rolls of fat surrounding his navel.
So he didn’t drive. Cody Custer drove for him.
Two minutes out of Ukiah, a tape cassette came through a slot that connected the driver’s cab with the RV body, and Thrush Limburger’s voice said, “When we get there, put this out over the PA speaker. That ought to attract a huge crowd.”
“Right, Thrush.”
As he piloted the TTT Network RV to Nirvana West, Cody Custer wondered how even his brilliant boss could pierce the veil of media fog that surrounded Human Environmental Liability Paradox. Sure, Thrush was a genius in his way, part philosopher, part showman. And his book had been number one on the bestseller list for three months, except for that black period when Madonna’s overhyped nonbook had knocked it to the number two slot. But Thrush hadn’t been inside that funeral parlor for more than ten minutes. Less.
Cody Custer’s musings were interrupted when, coming around a sharp bend in the road, he was confronted with a set of California Highway Patrol saw horses.
He started compressing the brake pedal. The big RV began to slow. Rubber smoked and squealed.
There was a CHP black-and-white unit and a motorcycle, he saw, parked off on the shoulder of the highway.
Three CHP officers in suntan khaki and calf-high black boots approached. They looked grim behind their mirror shades.
Cody Custer returned their grimness with a polite tone. “Hi. This is the Thrush Limburger mobile broadcast van. Is there a problem?”
“Going to Nirvana West, sir?” one officer asked.
“That’s right.”
“We’re warning all traffic going into the area that there is a chance this HELP plague is getting contagious.”
“My boss will laugh at that. He says there’s no such virus.”
“It’s our duty to warn you of the dangers of proceeding, sir. This is the only roadblock between here and Nirvana West.”
“We’ll go ahead.”
“I’m sorry. I have to apprise every motorist individually of the risks involved. Health Department regs.”
Now they are taking this too far, Custer thought. Aloud, he said, “My boss is in back, but he’s broadcasting.”
“We won’t take but a minute of his time.”
“Okay, go ahead and knock. But don’t be surprised if you wind up explaining yourself on the air. Thrush loves this kind of weak-kneed stuff.”
The California Highway Patrol officer touched the bill of his uniform cap, and two of them went around to the rear of the RV.
Custer watched them in his rearview mirror while the third officer watched him with unreadable eyes. Those eyes kept Custer from grinning noticeably. One of the cops had a ponytail tucked up under his cap. Only in California, he thought.
The two officers were not gone long. But they did get in. Custer could tell by the creaking of the RV springs, caused by the shifting of weight in back. Every time Thrush moved around, the springs complained.
Only one of the troopers came back. “You’re all set.”
“Did he give you a hard time?”
“No, sir. He was very cooperative.”
“Guess he is in a good mood.”
The sawhorses were set aside and Custer drove on.
The Tell the Truth mobile broadcast RV lumbered into Nirvana West like a red, white, and blue amphibious vehicle. The loudspeaker was blaring Fed Leppar, known to be Thrush Limburger’s favorite rock band.
That was enough to get the attention of the swarm of press people who were jostling one another for the rapidly dwindling supply of lobster salad sandwiches being handed out at the food service truck. They were eating them as if it were the last food on earth.
The music stopped when the RV did. Behind the wheel, the driver popped the music cassette and inserted another.
Fanfare blared. Minicams were rushed to the site. A white limousine arrived and out squeezed Senator Ned J. Clancy, looking worried and working his asthma inhaler often. His aides, seeing this, pressed close in case he started to list.
And from the loudspeaker, came a hearty baritone.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Thrush Limburger. I have promised that I would come and now I have. You have been yanked. That is, you have been deceived. I have brought you the truth, and it shall set you free.”
The fanfare returned. It was brassy, triumphal, attention-getting.
And everyone who could, got around to the back of the RV where they expected Thrush Limburger to emerge. Those who had sandwiches brought them.
But the door did not open. His voice did not come again.
Behind the wheel, Cody Custer looked at his watch.
Someone shouted, “What’s keeping him?”
“Probably in the john,” Cody thought to himself. “But he picked a hell of a time for it.” He turned on his radio. From the local station normally broadcasting The Thrush Limburger Show, there was only low static.
He cued up the announcement cassette again, louder this time, and leaned close to the radio speaker to see if Thrush’s mike picked it up. It didn’t.
They gave Thrush Limburger three more minutes, then someone walked up and knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
Finally, Cody Custer came out with the key to the door. He unlocked it, threw it open, and climbed in.
There was the miniature soundproof broadcasting booth. There was Limburger’s microphone, his personal computer, his size fifty-seven coat draped over his big chair.
But there was no Thrush Limburger.
He was not in the john or in his sleeping cubicle or kitchenette.
He wasn’t anywhere.
Cody Custer didn’t have time to be shocked or frantic or anything. He poked his head out of the door and cameras clicked and mikes were thrust in his face.
“Thrush Limburger is missing!” he shouted. “Somebody call the police.”
Pandemonium broke loose. Everyone wanted a shot at the empty microphone.
“I knew this would happen,” a reporter crowed. “That bag of wind finally broke open and nothing came out.”
There was a scramble for cellular phones.
From under his coat, Senator Ned J. Clancy pulled one of his own. It had been hanging from a hook sewn into the double-strength lining of his coat. He spoke in low careful phrases. When he was finished, he restored the unit to its hook, exactly where a pistol would be hidden in a shoulder holster.
“I have an important announcement to make,” he bellowed.
“Senator Clancy has an announcement,” repeated his chief aide.
“Senator Clancy is giving a press conference right now,” added another.
The word spread fast. It passed from mouth to mouth.
