The Comedy is Finished

3

“So here I am on the bricks,” Mike Wiskiel said. He felt goddamn sorry for himself. “Lemme tell ya, Jerry, the worst word in the English language is the word ‘retroactive.’ You can forget all about ‘it might have been’ and ‘nevermore’ and all that crap, the word is ‘retroactive.’ It’ll fuck ya every time.” And he swallowed another mouthful of vodka and tonic, while Jerry chuckled his friendly, agreeable, meaningless realtor’s chuckle.

Mike Wiskiel was a little drunk, at four in the afternoon; not for the first time. He’d spent the morning talking to women who’d sent in eleven bucks for a scalp-invigorator that when they’d tried it made their hair fall out, and by lunchtime he’d seen enough bald women to last him the rest of his life. So he’d come here to the club for a quick game of tennis and the Daily Special lunch—today it was avocado followed by abalone, washed down with a Napa Riesling—and then he’d run into Jerry Lawson in the bar and here he still was, sitting at a table by the tinted-glass windows, having another little drink, at four on the clock in the pee em. And at this moment he and Jerry were the only members present in the bar.

Jerry Lawson was a real estate agent, and probably Mike’s closest friend out here, apart from the people at the Bureau. Mike had met him—Jesus, almost a year ago—when he’d been transferred to the L.A. office and had made the exploratory trip to find a new house for Jan and the kids. He’d walked into the real estate office on Ventura Boulevard, and the first thing he’d ever said to Jerry was, “I know you from someplace,” and he remembered thinking, Jesus, maybe this guy is on the hot list. But Jerry had gripped and said, “I’m the guy shot June Havoc in The Sound of Distant Drums,” and wasn’t that L.A. for you? Your real estate man turns out to be a one-time actor.

And a good friend. Jerry had found them a perfect house, up in the hills in Sherman Oaks, and had even put up Mike’s name for his country club, El Sueno de Suerte, here in Encino. Of course, it’s true that in Los Angeles realtors keep in closer touch with their former clients than elsewhere, since the average turnover of a middle-level-and-up house in that city is two and a half years, but Mike was convinced in this case it was more than the usual business friendship. He and Jerry enjoyed tennis together, drinks together, poker and barbecue and a good laugh together, and the wives got along, and even the kids from both families didn’t seem to hate each other one hundred percent of the time. Jerry’s friendship had helped a lot to soften the blow of having been transferred out here through no fault of his own. After all those years, back on the bricks.

He repeated it aloud. “Back on the bricks. I tell ya, Jerry, I had it made at the Head Office, it didn’t matter who the Director was. They knew I was a reliable man, they knew I was loyal, they knew I delivered. ‘I don’t want excuses, I want results,’ that’s what the Director used to say, and nobody ever heard an excuse from me.”

“I know,” Jerry said sympathetically, though he could only know what Mike told him. “You got your nuts in the wringer, that’s all. That’s all that happened.”

“Retroactive,” Mike said, dealing with the word as though it were a pebble he was moving around in his mouth. “ ‘Do this,’ they said, ‘it’s your patriotic duty.’ ‘Oh, yessir,’ I said, and salute the son of a bitch, and I go do it, and when I come back there’s some other son of a bitch in there and he says, ‘Oh, no, that wasn’t patriotic, it was illegal and you shouldn’t of done it.’ And I say, ‘Why I got my orders right here, I’m covered, I got everything in black and white, this is the guy told me what to do,’ and they say, ‘Oh, yeah, we know about him, he’s out on his ear, he’s in worse trouble than you are.’ So that guy’s ass is in a sling and my nuts are in a wringer and Al Capone is up there at San Clemente in a golf cart. And who’s loyal now, huh? Who do you trust now, the shitter or the shit-upon?”

“It’s a tough racket,” Jerry said. He was a terrific sounding board, he never confused the conversation with a lot of dumb suggestions.

“You’re fuckin A,” Mike told him, and turned to point at Rodney the barman. “Twice again,” he called, and the beeper in his jacket pocket went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. “Shit,” Mike said, under the noise of the machine, and reached to shut it off.

Jerry looked interested. “The office?”

“More fuckin bald women,” Mike said, and twisted around the other way to holler over at Ricci the waiter, “Bring me a phone, will ya, Rick?”

The phone came first. Ricci plugged it into the jack under the window, then went off to get the drinks while Mike phoned the office.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Extension twelve.”

A few burrs, and then: “Agent Dodd.”

“Mike Wiskiel here. I was just buzzed.”

“Hold on, Redburn wants you.”

The drinks arrived while Mike was holding on, and he signed for them with the receiver tucked in against his shoulder. Jerry said, “What’s up?”

“Dunno yet.”

Ricci took the tab away, Mike slugged down about a third of the new drink, and the voice of Chief of Station Webster Redburn came on the line: “Mike? Where are you?”

“At the club, Wes. I spent all day on that mail fraud case, I just came in for a little late lunch.”

“Forget the mail fraud and lunch,” Redburn said, and went on to tell him what had happened. Mike’s eyes widened as he listened, and he knew there’d be no more paperwork, no more routine slog, no more bald women and low-IQ bank robbers and stolen cars, no more day-by-day boring bullshit, not for hours, not for days, maybe even not for weeks. “So get there fast,” Redburn finished.

“I just left,” Mike told him, and cradled the phone.

Jerry looked as inquisitive as a cat who’s just heard a noise under the refrigerator. “What’s up?”

“A james dandy,” Mike told him. “Somebody put the snatch on Koo Davis! Would you believe it?” And, getting to his feet, he downed the rest of his drink and trotted from the room.

I need this, Mike told himself. I gotta do good on this one. Fuzzy from that last vodka, he sped east on the Ventura Freeway while a golden future opened up before his bleary eyes; if he did good on this Koo Davis thing. Yes, sir. They’d have to transfer him back to Washington then, they’d have no choice. Back where he belonged.

Yes, sir. Old Mike Wiskiel, fucked over because of Watergate, kicked out of D.C., rescues Koo Davis from the kidnappers! Talk about your media blitz! Mike could see his own fucking face on the fucking cover of Time magazine. “Tough but tender, FBI man Mike Wiskiel counts persistence among his primary virtues.” Writing the Time article in his head, pushing the speed limit, not quite grazing the cars to left and right, Mike Wiskiel raced to the rescue.

The gate guard at Screen Service Studios gave Mike’s ID a very careful belligerent screening. Mike didn’t need this shit; he was more sober now, but the buzz of vodka was steadily souring toward a headache. He said, “Locking the door now the horse is gone, huh?”

The guard glared but made no remark, simply handing back the ID and saying, “Soundstage Four. Past the pile of lumber up there and around to your left.”

Mike grunted, and drove cautiously forward. The speed bumps weren’t that good for his head.

Following the guard’s directions, Mike soon saw a large black number 4 painted on an otherwise featureless gray wall, above a gray metal door. Several cars, most of them official-looking, were parked in a cluster along the wall, and two Burbank cops were standing together outside the door, chatting in a bored way and looking around for stars.

There weren’t any stars, not right now. Except for the two Burbank cops there was nobody in sight. Mike didn’t know those two—his acquaintanceship among the bewildering multiplicity of police forces in the Greater Los Angeles area was very low—but he waved to them anyway as he drove by, looking for a place to park. They responded with flat looks, and when he left the car and walked back these Burbank cops also gave his ID a tight aggressive inspection. Mike said, “I understand the snatch took place about three-thirty, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then that was the time to check ID. One thing you’re not gonna get right now is the kidnappers sneaking back in here disguised as FBI men.”

They both looked sullen. One of them said, “You could be a reporter.”

“Flashing Federal ID? I’m some fucking stupid reporter.” And he went inside.

Almost any of the other agents in the Los Angeles office, with their local police contacts, would have been better qualified than Mike to be liaison on this case, except that the victim was Koo Davis; a famous name, a celebrity, and a man with lots of official friends back in D.C. No one lower-ranking than Assistant to the Chief of Station could possibly be sent to cover the first day, when legally the FBI’s connection with kidnapping—a state, not federal, crime—was advisory only; which was why it was Mike’s baby. And his big chance.

He had no idea, on walking into Soundstage Four, whether the local law would welcome him with open arms or closed faces, but it turned out he was in luck. The local man in charge, a tall leathery old duff called Chief Inspector Jock Cayzer, seemed both friendly and competent, and started right off by saying, “FBI, huh? Good to have you aboard.”

Cayzer had a hard strong handshake. He wore a brown suit and a string tie and a Stetson, and he talked with the gruff slow twang of Texas or Oklahoma, but the deep creases in his face and the knobby knuckles of his blunt-fingered hands said plainer than words that he was the real thing and not one of the million imitations spawned in the Los Angeles area. Despite the strong handshake, and the keen look in his silver-flecked blue eyes, and his strong deep voice, he was surely older than the mandatory retirement age, so his still being here, actively in charge, meant he either knew his business or knew the right people. Probably both. So Mike had better be careful with him.

He knew his business, that much was sure. He took Mike around the building, explaining the situation, and Mike could only agree with everything Cayzer had so far chosen to do. What had happened, Koo Davis had been on stage talking with the studio audience before taping his program, and on his way back to the dressing room—down this corridor, through this door, along that hall—he’d disappeared; probably out this door, leading to this alley. Presumably he’d been snatched, though so far there’d been no word from the kidnappers. On the other hand, the kidnapping (if that’s what it was) had taken place barely half an hour ago: “They might not even be gone to ground yet,” Cayzer said.

As to who they were, and how they might have done it, there were some clues, beginning with that studio audience. In normal movie studio fashion, Triple S was under controlled access, with high walls or fences all around the property and only two usable gates, both manned by private guards. The minute the alarm had reached Cayzer’s office, he had ordered the lot sealed; no one off, no matter who they were or what their reason, and only police and other authorized officials on. The result was, the studio audience that had come to see Koo Davis was still here, undergoing a kind of thrilled boredom. They’d been told what had happened and that they wouldn’t be permitted to leave just yet, so they knew they were involved in a very dramatic moment, but on the other hand they were just sitting there on those bleachers, with nothing to do and nothing to see.

And they were two short. “They keep a headcount,” Cayzer explained. “They get a mob comes to these things, but they only let in the first two hundred and fifty, that’s final, no more and no less. I’ve had three of these studio fellas swear to me up and down and sideways there was exactly two hundred fifty people let in today, and we done our own headcount, and now there’s two hundred forty-eight.”

“So that’s how they got in,” Mike agreed. “The next question is, how’d they get out?”

“I do believe we got a hint on that,” Cayzer said. “Two of my men talked to the fellas on the main gate, asking who come in and out during the ten minutes between Davis disappearing and us closing the place down, and we got one good-looking prospect. A Ford Econoline van, belongs to one of the girls works in the studio offices. The fella on the gate remembered it because she only brings it in on Fridays and she usually leaves later in the day. Girl’s name is Janet Grey, she’s been working here less than two months, she didn’t ask her boss’ permission before she took off early.”

“Sounds good,” Mike said. “You got an address?”

“Down in West L.A. County boys looking into it now.”

“She won’t be there,” Mike said.

Cayzer grinned, making another thousand creases in his face. His eyes were meant for seeing across open miles, they seemed too powerful for small rooms, small concerns. “I’ll be surprised, there’s even such an address,” he said.

Mike said, “What about the family?”

“Well, that’s sort of a problem,” Cayzer said. “Seems Davis’s separated from his wife, she’s out in Palm Beach, Florida. Then he’s got two sons, both grown up, one of them in the television business in New York, the other one lives in London. Your boss said—”

“Webster Redburn.”

“That’s him; Chief of Station. He said his people would see about notification of the family. We got no relatives around this part of the world at all. The closest we can come is Davis’ agent, a woman called Lynsey Rayne. She’s waiting in my office right now for news.”

“We could all use some news,” Mike said. “What’s your next move?”

“I have men searching this whole lot,” Cayzer said. “Indoors and out. Don’t expect they’ll come up with anything.”

“Probably not. These people hit and run.”

“That’s right. Then there’s that audience. I think I might’s well let them go, unless you want them.”

“This is your show,” Mike said. “I’m just an observer.”

“Oh, I think we could work together right from now,” Cayzer said. His grin, it seemed, could develop a sly twist at the left corner. “Less you’d rather wait till tomorrow.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Mike promised, “just let me know.”

“Fine. Think I oughta let that audience go home?”

“Did you talk to them about pictures?”

Cayzer looked blank. “Pictures?”

“Snapshots.”

“Well, god damn it,” Cayzer said. “Sometimes I don’t know if I was stupid all my life or if I’m just getting stupid with old age. Come on along, you can ask them yourself.”

Mike followed Cayzer to a large soundstage full of sets and cameras, with an audience-full line of bleachers along one side. A technician gave him a hand mike, and he stepped out into the floodlights, where forty minutes ago Koo Davis had been making people laugh. Now his absence was making the same people wide-eyed with anticipation, and Mike was strongly aware of all those eyes glittering at him out of the semi-dark. He was also strongly aware of the floodlights; they were making his headache worse. His eyes felt as though the pressure behind them would make them pop out onto the floor; and good riddance.

With the bleachers so broad and shallow, the audience was much closer to the stage than in a normal theater, and Mike immediately had the sense that these people were still an audience, still spectators rather than participants. They were waiting for him to amuse them, thrill them, capture their interest.

He did the latter merely by introducing himself: “Ladies and gentleman, my name is Michael Wiskiel. I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, here to assist Chief Inspector Cayzer in his inquiry.” His inquiry; the social niceties are important everywhere. “Now, I imagine some of you nice people are tourists in this area, and all of you have your own lives you want to get on with, so we’ll try not to hold you up very much longer. I suppose some of you brought cameras along today, I wonder if any of you have Polaroids. Anybody?”

A scattering of hands was raised; Mike counted six.

“Fine. So any pictures you folks took today, you’ve already got them in your pocket or purse, all developed and ready to be looked at. I wonder, did any of you people happen to take any pictures while you were out on line, before you got in here, and would those pictures show anybody else in the line?”

A stir in the audience, as two hundred forty-two people turned in their seats to watch six people self-consciously leaf through little clusters of photographs. Four of them eventually turned out to have pictures of the sort Mike had in mind, and ushers brought these photographs to the stage.

Seven snaps. Mike looked at the first, and saw four more-or-less distinguishable people behind the smiling squinting foreground lady who was the obvious subject of the photograph. He called out, “Could we have some light on the audience?” and immediately a bank of overhead spots came up, lighting the audience as though it had become the stage.

“Let’s see now,” Mike said. “Here’s a young man in a pale blue sweater, black hair, wearing sunglasses. Anybody?”

The young man was found, and when he stood and put on his sunglasses Mike matched him to the photograph. Also the lady wearing the white scarf and green polka dots. And also the elderly couple in matching white turtleneck shirts.

And so on through the seven Polaroids. Every identifiable face was still among the two hundred forty-eight. Either the two kidnappers had been very careful or very lucky.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Mike told the audience, when the pictures had been returned to their owners. “So now let me ask about other cameras, where you’ve still got the film inside. Anybody?”

More: thirty-five hands went up. Mike arranged with Cayzer to have police officers collect the film rolls, identifying the owner of each, and promising that the pictures would be developed, all developed prints and negatives would be returned to their owners, and reimbursement would be made for unused parts of rolls.

“Now, one last thing,” Mike said, when the film had been collected. “We’ll want group pictures of you all. If you were wearing something outside on line that you’re not wearing now, like sunglasses or a hat, please wear it in the picture.” There’s something about standing on stage with a hand mike that compulsively brings out the ham in everybody; Mike couldn’t resist adding, “And if you’re here with somebody you shouldn’t be, don’t worry, we won’t say a word to your wife.” The answering chuckle, from two hundred forty-eight throats, delighted him.

While Cayzer’s men took the pictures, section by section, and copied down the names and addresses of everybody present, with their location in each photograph, Mike and Cayzer had a talk behind the set, Cayzer saying, “My people finished their search of the lot. Nothing, nobody, no report.”

“What we expected.”

“That’s right. You want to talk to Janet Grey’s co-workers?”

In a cracking, terrible falsetto, Mike said, “Oh, I just can’t believe Janet would be involved in anything like this. She was always such a quiet girl, she just kept to herself all the time, a very good worker, never made any trouble or called attention to herself in any way.”

Grinning, nodding, Cayzer said, “You just saved yourself an hour and a half. So what do you want to do next?”

“Hear from the kidnappers,” Mike said.