The Comedy is Finished

6

Joyce and the others sat in the darkened living room together, all five of them, watching the eleven o’clock news on NBC, Channel 4. The lights outside the house were off, and through the long wall of glass doors at one side of the room moonlight reflected silver-gray from the breeze-ruffled surface of the pool. Beyond the pool and its cantilevered deck the Valley could be seen, a gridwork of dotted light-lines dividing the darkness into comprehensible bite-size chunks, while the greater darkness remained intact, surrounding and above.

The Koo Davis kidnapping was the major news story, the lead-in piece. The newscaster announced the fact of the kidnapping and then the cassette tape was played, in its entirety, while on the screen a photograph appeared, a publicity still; a smiling Koo Davis face, in color, confident and successful.

Joyce hadn’t listened to the tape before it went out, and she didn’t really listen now. This wasn’t her part of the work, and it didn’t interest her to know the details. She was content to be the one who entered the straight world, got the jobs, drove the van away from the studio, delivered the tape to the boy in Santa Monica, made the easy informational phone calls. And here in the house she was the den mother, she made the dinner, washed the dishes, did the laundry.

For Joyce, the group in the darkness around the flickering TV light was like some wonderful kind of camping out. In her childhood, in Racine, where the winters were so long and so cold, “camping out” had mostly meant what were known as “overnights”: half a dozen giggling girls on mattresses or folded blankets on a living room floor, the host parents far away in their own part of the house, the girls clustering together like tiny delighted animals at the dry hidden warm bottom of the world, whispering and shushing at one another, young small bodies in the nightgowns trembling with exhilaration.

It was the group that Joyce loved, the very idea of being part of a group. In her childhood she had been a Brownie, later a Girl Scout and for a while simultaneously a Campfire Girl, also member of a Junior Sodality at church, the 4-H Club, other groups at school and college; and tonight she sat with her feet curled up under her at one end of the sofa, the complete group around her, the television offering its flickering light to the room, and she was back where it had all begun: an “overnight,” with friends. Her hand over her mouth so no one would know, her eyes on the screen without seeing it, her ears ignoring the loping cadence of Koo Davis’ voice, she giggled.

When the tape came to its end—“and they send me home”—the Koo Davis photograph on the screen was replaced by film of an office, where two men stood behind a desk while several photographers snapped their picture and newsmen asked them questions, some extending microphones. A voice said, “In charge of the investigation into the Koo Davis kidnapping is Chief Inspector Cayzer of the Burbank Police. Representing the FBI is Michael Wiskiel, Assistant to the Chief of Station of the Los Angeles office of the FBI.”

“Wiskiel,” Mark said, while an old man in a Stetson said on-screen that they didn’t have much to go on so far. “He had something to do with Watergate.”

“Hush,” said Peter.

The announcer’s off-camera voice had returned: “Agent Wiskiel was asked if the ten named individuals would be released from prison.”

The scene cut from the old man in the Stetson to Wiskiel, a heavyset fortyish man with too much self-conscious actorish good looks. Wiskiel said, “Well, it’s early yet, and frankly I don’t recognize every one of those names, we’re not even sure yet they’re all in prison. If they are, it’ll be up to Washington to make a decision about their release. I don’t know if the kidnappers are watching—”

“We are,” Peter said. Joyce giggled, this time not repressing it.

“—but I hope they realize their time limit just isn’t realistic. I want to get Koo Davis back as much as anybody, but they’re asking for a decision that I just don’t think can be made in twenty-four hours.”

“Send them a finger,” Mark said.

Joyce shivered, not looking toward Mark, trying to make believe to herself that she hadn’t heard him. Mark frightened her whenever she was incautious enough to think about him; he was in the group but not of it, a cold separate presence, an anti-body. As much as possible, Joyce pretended that Mark didn’t exist.

On the screen, Agent Wiskiel was saying, “In the meantime, from the sound of that tape they haven’t up to this point actually harmed Koo Davis, and I’m very hopeful we’ll be able to negotiate some sort of agreement with these people. I’ll have to wait for word from Washington on the details, but it’s my guess we’ll have Koo Davis home and safe in a very short period of time.”

“In a box,” Mark said.

“Hush,” Peter told him, and Joyce flashed Peter a grateful smile, which he apparently didn’t see.

The television scene switched to the news-set in the studio, where the announcer spent some time telling the audience how many famous people had publicly expressed their shock and outrage that a “great entertainer” like Koo Davis had been treated in such a barbarous fashion. An ex-President was quoted as referring to “this man who has brought the gift of laughter to millions.”

Next, the announcer went on to a description of the four people so far identified by the media out of the ten whose release had been demanded, and a picture of each of the four in turn was shown on the screen while a biased inaccurate brief biography was given. One was Eric Mallock, and it was during his biography that Liz’s name was mentioned:

“Eric Mallock, thirty-two, is currently in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg in Kentucky, serving an indeterminate sentence on a number of convictions, including destruction of property and attempted murder. A member of a splinter group from the Weathermen, Mallock was captured in August of 1972 in Chicago when a building apparently being used as a bomb factory blew up, killing two people outright and severely wounding Mallock. Two associates of Mallock’s believed also to have been in the building at the time, Elizabeth Knight and Frances Steffalo, disappeared and have not been seen since, though Federal warrants are out for both women.”

“You’re in the news!” Peter cried, with his sardonic bark of laughter.

Liz made no answer. Looking at her profile, Joyce saw her as expressionless as ever. Joyce envied Liz that coolness. What was Liz thinking, seeing her lover’s face on the television screen after all these years? Nothing showed; and when the picture changed to another face, there was still not the slightest flicker from Liz.

Then, at the very end of the news story, Joyce had her own opportunity to react to a face on the screen; her own. Or was it her own? “The police sketch of the woman calling herself Janet Grey” was plain, glum, anonymous. Peter made another mocking remark, which Joyce was too agitated to hear. Appalled, she thought, Is that what I look like? Gazing at that pale sketch, she felt the heat in her own face as she blushed, and was afraid to look away, lest she meet someone’s eye. If only she had some of Liz’s unconcern.

The blank-faced sketch seemed to stay on the screen forever; then at last it disappeared, replaced by the mobile face of the announcer, moving on to other stories. Rising, Peter switched on a floor lamp and turned off the TV. Obviously pleased with himself, facing the others with his back to the receding-dot light of the TV screen, he said, “They’ll produce. We picked the right horse, and they’ll trade.”

“You shouldn’t have let him do all those jokes,” Mark said. “I told you at the time, make him do it over, without the wisecracks.”

Peter shrugged; Joyce thought he showed astonishing forbearance with Mark. He said, “What difference does it make?”

“Because he sounds like the winner,” Mark said. “He sounds like he’s got us.”

“You worry too much about the appearance of things.” Peter put a hand to his face, stroked his cheek with his fingertips, his expression pained. Joyce recognized that gesture; it meant Peter was troubled, struggling to retain control or composure. Joyce wished Mark would leave Peter alone, he had enough to think about as it was. “The important thing is,” Peter said, “the other side knows he’s alive and well. He’s our trading counter, and he has to be recognizable.”

“He made fun of us. He’s the star and we’re the stooges.”

“Mark, so what? Would you rather be on top, with the power, or on the bottom making fun?”

“He’s on top,” Mark insisted. “He has the power.”

“Then go downstairs and kick him a few times,” Peter said, obviously annoyed and bored. “Show him who’s in charge.”

Joyce was grateful when Larry chimed in then, awkwardly but earnestly changing the conversation, saying, “Um, Peter, what about the deadline business? What that FBI man said, that they can’t get an answer out of Washington in twenty-four hours. Do you think that’s true?”

Mark said, “They have to be pushed.”

Peter smiled easily at Larry. “We’ll send them another tape tomorrow night,” he said. “And this time we’ll let Mark direct the performance.”

Larry looked disapproving, but didn’t react directly. Instead, he said, “How much time will we give them, really?”

“We don’t know, really. The minimum time possible.”

“I wonder...” Larry said, musing, then said, “Peter? Do you think he’s trainable?”

Peter seemed amused. “Koo Davis? You want to orientate Koo Davis in dialectical materialism?”

“An intelligent brain is capable of seeing truth,” Larry said.

“Then give it a try,” Peter suggested. Joyce saw that he was mocking Larry, and that Larry knew but didn’t care. “Spend time with him tomorrow,” Peter said, “discuss the theory of labor. How much is a man worth who tells jokes for a living?”

“All men are worth the same,” Larry said.

Peter gave him a sly look. “More and more, Larry, your politics sound like religion.”

Mark said, “I’ll go look at Davis, check him one last time tonight.”

He means to do something cruel, Joyce thought, looking at Mark’s face, grim and angry behind the heavy beard. She was glad when Larry said, “I’ll go with you.”

Mark gave him a venomous look. “You can go instead of me,” he said, and walked away, toward his bedroom.

“Leave Davis alone for tonight,” Peter said. “He’s all right down there.”

“I didn’t want Mark to see him alone.”

“I know, Larry.”

Liz abruptly got to her feet, saying, “Mark’s right, we should push them, get this over with. Phone that number they gave, put Davis on, let Mark twist his arm. When they hear Davis holler, they’ll start to move.”

Peter shook his head, like a patient tutor with a backward pupil. “In the first place, they’d trace the call. In the second place, if we start with high pressure, where do we go from there? We begin calm, and we crank it up a bit at a time. If they stall we can still go way up. We can let Mark slice off his ears, for instance.” Peter chuckled, a low comfortable sound. “Can you imagine that round neat head without ears?”

Joyce, who preferred to be silent, was driven to speech now, saying in a pained voice, “You aren’t serious, Peter.”

“Of course not,” Peter told her, speaking easily, but Joyce watched his face and eyes, and she thought he might very well be serious, if the circumstances were right.

Liz said, “Peter. Do you want to fuck?”

He seemed to consider the question, without much enthusiasm. “Possibly.”

“All right, then. Goodnight,” Liz said, and walked from the room. Smiling slightly, Peter followed her.

Leaving Larry and Joyce. Open sexuality had been a postulate in the Movement in the early days, sexual relationships as a statement of political belief, so these five people had long ago completed the round of all the possible heterosexual couplings. But sex had long since faded as a primary factor with any of them; these days, only Liz would raise the subject in public, and particularly in that aggressive way.

The introduction of sex in that manner and these circumstances left Joyce embarrassed and uneasy. She didn’t want Larry to feel obligated to make the same offer to her; she had no illusion that he might actually want to have sex with her. Casting about for a new topic, glancing over at the TV screen, she said, “Larry?”

“Yes?”

“Did that look like me?”

“Not a bit,” Larry said. He sounded surprised at the question. “To tell the truth, I thought they did those things better.”

“It must have looked something like me.”

“I’ll tell you want it looked like,” Larry said, coming over and sitting at the other end of the sofa. “It looked like a category of person which includes you, but it didn’t look like you. It looked like someone who might be you for two seconds from a block away, but then you’d say, ‘Oh, no, that doesn’t look like Joyce at all.’ ”

“It’s not that I’m being vain.” Joyce was always afraid people would think her too feminine. “It was just that she looked—dead.”

“It wasn’t accurate,” Larry told her. “I promise.”

She offered him a quick grateful smile. “Thank you.” Then, looking at his earnest face, all the doubts she tried to keep buried came rushing into her mind, and she cried, “Larry, is it really going to work? Will it all come out somewhere?”

“Of course.” He was surprised, and it showed. “We’ve had victories,” he said. “We’ll have more.”

“Yes,” she said, concealing her doubts.

But he leaned closer, saying, “Do you mean you fight without believing in the inevitability of success? Don’t you know, historically, we must win?”

“Yes, of course. It just seems so long sometimes.” Then she smiled at him, knowing he needed the reassurance more than she did. “And I seem so short. Goodnight, Larry.” She patted his knee, and got to her feet.

“Good night, Joyce.”

“Don’t bother about Davis tonight,” she told him.

“No, that was just to protect him from Mark. He’s all right down there, he’ll keep until morning.”