Tongue tied

Chapter 8

"You and Thad have got something going," Barner said, as soon as Diefendorfer got up and went to the coffee-shop men's room. "I've got a sixth sense for these things.

It's obvious to me that the two of you are way hot to trot. The sexual undercurrents at this table all during lunch were totally amazing, and I was definitely not included in the orgy. You planning on scoring a little Amish booty, Strachey? So, what's with you and the Irish kid back in Albany? It's an open relationship, or you just go ahead and fool around on the side, or what? Farmer Thad doesn't seem all that married, either, what with the looks being passed back and forth at this table for the past twenty-five minutes. It was really quite a sight to behold. I have to admit, I'm completely turned on by it."

Barner had arrived for lunch, sweating and checking his watch, half an hour earlier. He had informed us that a note signed by the FFF had been delivered to the radio station via bicycle messenger. Typed on a word processor, the note said Leo Moyle was alive and safe, and he would be freed at an unspecified later date, following his stay at an FFF "reeducation farm." No mention of a ransom was made, nor any release through negotiations.

Police investigators had quickly checked the messenger agency, whose dispatcher informed them that the note had been sent by a man in a New York police officer's uniform, and the delivery was paid for in cash. The dispatcher added that he suspected the sender was not a real cop, for instead of an engraving of the New York City seal on his badge, it had a picture of Cher.

Since no negotiations with the kidnappers seemed possible at this point, the police decided-with the concurrence of the J-Bird and of Leo Moyle's nearest relative, a brother in Boston-to announce that Moyle had been abducted and to ask the public for information that could help the investigation. It was also announced that the kidnappers had identified themselves as the Forces of Free Faggotry, "a radical gay organization" that had been harassing Jay Plankton for the past month and a half.

I said to Barner-whose sixth sense, like most people's, was being influenced less by the electromagnetic forces entering his brain than by the electrochemical forces already inside it-"You're reading something into the pleasant, if rushed, luncheon that you and I and Thad just enjoyed that wasn't there, Lyle. I do find Thad appealing. It's true, there's something pleasing to me about a nice-looking, fair-haired, sunburned man who smells vaguely of eggplant and who grew up in a household lacking a Krups latte-maker. Thad represents a combination of innocence and worldliness that I find attractive in a man. But is there anything consciously sexual going on between us-anything as significant as 'looks being passed back and forth,' as you put it? No, Lyle, there isn't. Your intuitive powers have failed you, I'm afraid."

Since Barner had in fact picked up something genuine between Diefendorfer and me, this haughty lecture was unfair. But Barner would not-could not-have approved of Diefendorfer's and my extralegal, borderline-rogue operation to rescue Leo Moyle and reclaim the FFF's righteousness. So he was going to have to remain in the dark temporarily. Tactically, letting Barner believe that Diefendorfer and I were

"way hot to trot" would have had its diversionary advantages. But it would also have left Barner in a state of agitated sexual jealousy at a time when he had work to concentrate on. He might even have gone to Jay Plankton in a snit and had me canned.

Barner said to me, "Either you're lying-an excellent possibility with you, Strachey-or Diefendorfer is coming on to you and you're too thick to see what's happening."

"I don't think so," I said confusingly, just as Diefendorfer returned from the men's room and sat down in our booth next to me.

"So, Thad," Barner said. "Are you heading back over to Jersey now?"

"Yeah, I gotta get the truck back."

"Well, thanks for your help." Diefendorfer had phoned his partner Isaac and come up with a list of some of the former FFFers' last known addresses and phone numbers. I was given a copy of the list too and had promised Barner I'd check out the East Coast people on it, and pass on to him the names of possible suspects in either the harassment, kidnapping or both.

"I'm glad to do what I can," Diefendorfer told Barner. "But I doubt any of the old movement people would kidnap anybody who didn't want to be kidnapped. I've given you the names with the hope and expectation that all of these people will be cleared of any involvement in violent anti-J-Bird activities."

"People can change," Barner said. "And sometimes people you think you can trust can't be trusted at all, it turns out." He looked at Diefendorfer, then at me, then back at Diefendorfer, who looked at Barner, then at me, then back at Barner.

I said, "Well, let's just find out who's got Leo Moyle and see to it that Moyle is turned loose, and then we can rewrite history if we have to."

"Sounds good to me," Diefendorfer said, getting up.

"Have a nice trip back to Jersey," Barner said. "If we need additional information about the FFF, we'll know where to reach you."

"Sure, anytime."

Outside the coffee shop, Barner drove off in the unmarked NYPD Ford he had left parked in a towaway zone, and Diefendorfer said to me, "I'm not crazy about bamboozling Detective Barner. He seems to be a little bit paranoid to begin with, and we're just feeding his paranoia." "I'm not wild about this either, but rest assured that Lyle's paranoia is a bottomless pit. The two of us will never fill it up. It is not going to overflow dangerously."

"Also, intriguing against people who are basically on our side makes me queasy, too. I can do it for the larger cause, if that's what it takes. But doing it this way does remind me of the guys who came into the FFF in seventy-five and turned the organization into an ego and power trip for themselves. Not that those are our motives. But still. You have no idea what a nightmare that was, and the basket case it turned me into for months afterward. I'd always thought living with the English meant using laundry detergent and doing the twist. My previous experience with human treachery had been pretty much limited to some of the grislier stories in the Old Testament. Then Mel, Lawrence and Alberto came along."

"Who were these people, anyway?" I asked. "They don't seem to fit the definition of righteousness that would preclude their showing up at this late date to harass the J-Bird and kidnap Leo Moyle."

Diefendorfer said, "I don't think we need to worry about any of those guys at this late date. They're long gone from the movement and its aims. Lawrence Piller is a vice president at the Fox News Network. I saw in the Times recently that another of them, Alberto Truces, is a Bush campaign official in Florida. And Mel Stempfle is an orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst who was prosecuted with two of his analysands several years ago in an insider stock-trading scandal."

"No," I said, "none of them seem to be likely suspects in a kidnapping-or people who might send somebody farm manure in the mail. Their MOs sound marginally subtler."

Diefendorfer said, "Farm manure?"

I explained the series of harassing mailings that had been sent to Jay Plankton, including the "excrement for the execrable" package of what had just recently been determined to be llama droppings.

"No," Diefendorfer said, "this is not at all the FFF I knew. I'm more convinced than ever that it's someone else doing all this weird stuff."

"And I guess your group never sold the FFF name and logo to somebody else, like Pan Am did."

"No, and I can't think of anybody in the old group who might have turned into a llama rancher. They were basically urban people. I was the only farmer in the FFF. Of course, now some people raise llamas as pets. They're friendly and docile, and there are quite a few of them around. They're not nearly as exotic as they were twenty years ago.

They're good pack animals for trekkers, and some people raise them for the wool.

Checking out all the llama owners in the Northeast for the source of the llama-manure mailing might take some time, if that's part of your job. Our job, I guess I mean."

"The NYPD is on top of the llama-crap situation, Lyle says, so we may be spared that task. Which is fine with me. I once saw a llama spit in a man's face, and it was not pretty. It's what llamas do on those rare occasions when they get mad or they're startled. It makes the regurgitation scene in The Exorcist look like Swee'Pea dribbling his porridge."

"Swee'Pea," Diefendorfer said thoughtfully. "Is that Popeye's baby?"

"Well, yeah."

"I'm subliterate when it comes to cartoon characters in the movies or on TV. I've caught up a bit, but there are gaps."

"Popeye was a comic strip originally. You didn't have newspapers when you were growing up in Pennsylvania?"

"Not for reading. We kept a stack of the HarrisburgSunday Patriot News in the outhouse for reasons other than information gathering. But it was too dark in there to read, anyway."

"Thad, yours is quite a story. It truly is."

"I know. As you heard, Jay Plankton wants me to tell my story on his radio show. But I can't stand the man and don't plan on having anything to do with him after we clear the FFF's good name. What I do plan to do is come up with better ways than kidnapping and mailing in llama shit to make the J-Bird's life as unpleasant as possible and interfere, if possible, with his professional success."

I said, "Sounds good to me."