Not the End of the World (16 page)

But this had been before he met the great man, when he was just a face on TV and a voice on the radio, not a guiding light whose destiny was bound up with his own. Maybe if their paths had crossed back then, he reflected, he’d never have had the accident. But then, wasn’t it the lessons of the accident that provided the insights they had shared that momentous night? Would they have found so much to say to each other without it? Daniel had been rash and impetuous back in those days. He had just felt so boilingly angry, so frustrated by what had happened to Life Guard that he seemed compelled to do something, to strike out. And though he now understood that it had been a mistake, a grave, grave mistake, he also knew that bombing the abortion clinic had taught him two very important things. The first was that God’s will could not be achieved through random acts of wanton violence. The second was the necessity of synchronising your timer device with the watch you are wearing rather than the clock on your garage wall.

‘No,’ he said, into the pillow. ‘I ain’t goin’. I resign. I ain’t gettin’ up. I ain’t even openin’ my eyes.’ Sophie kissed the back of his neck and ran a finger slowly down his spine. ‘Come on, Sarge. You gotta get up. You gotta protect and serve the people of Los Angeles.’

‘No,’ he mumbled, goose bumps and small hairs on his back rising in response to Sophie’s touch. ‘I decided. I don’t even like the people of Los Angeles.’

‘Well you still have to protect our mortgage payments and serve the man holding the note at the bank. Come on, Larry.’ She kissed his neck again. ‘I’m the one should be wanting to stay in bed today. I’m supposed to be teaching Titus Andronicus to thirty wired teenagers. Just what you’d want to calm them down – the Jacobean equivalent of Natural Born Killers.’

‘I thought you said you were gonna do Othello this semester.’

‘Yeah, well, that was before Janet Richardson gave it to her senior class at Truman High.’

Larry turned his face around out of the pillow. ‘Ain’t that the school they had the race riot?’

‘You got it.’

‘Shit. Of course, if you ask me, the real tragedy in Othello is that he didn’t have OJ’s dream team to get him off later.’ Sophie punched him in the back playfully, digging her knuckles in until he giggled. ‘Wise‐
ass,’ she said, giving his buttocks a squeeze. ‘Well, this morning I’d trade your teenagers wound up on Shakespeare – Othello or not – for my Christians wound up on Luther St John. Moral righteousness can be worse than PCP. You just don’t know what these assholes might get up to if they think they’re doin’ it for God.’

‘So the Reverend SJ was whipping up a storm last night, huh?’ she asked, in between nibbles at the back of his ear. ‘He talk about the M word again?’

‘Which one? Miscegenation or Mongrelisation?’

‘Same difference. Did he?’

‘Nope. This was a high‐
profile deal. The networks were doin’ news coverage, and he wouldn’t want that to be the only thing they were talkin’ about. But I’m sure it’s on the agenda some time this week.’

‘So you reckon it’s still a sin?’

‘These guys only revise the sin list to add, honey, never subtract.’ Sophie took his hand and placed it on her belly, swelling from the growth within. ‘Well I guess we’re pretty much condemned,’ she whispered. ‘I sure hope so,’ Larry replied softly. ‘Because if heaven’s full of those mother fuckers, I want my ticket to hell.’ Sophie giggled, burying her face between his shoulder blades and holding his hand tight against her stomach. ‘Shit, well I guess I better get up.’ Larry yawned. ‘Honey,’ she said, moving her other hand around his body until it rested on his thigh. ‘Will you be mad if I make a confession?’ He laughed. ‘How do I know until you’ve made it?’ Sophie drew her left hand up slowly until it cupped his balls through his shorts, at the same time pulling his fingers down away from her stomach and inside the elastic of her panties. ‘I set your alarm an hour early last night,’ she whispered. ‘It’s only just gone seven.‘

Endorphins, hormones and adrenalin were still coursing through Larry’s body for much of the morning, providing a rejuvenating retreat that went a long way towards maintaining his composure while all around him the world had turned into a hyperactives’ kindergarten where some clown had given all the kiddies Gatorade. He could withdraw for a few moments now and again, step outside his thoughts and just be inside his body, feeling the tingle of his skin, the buzz through his muscles, the languid ache in his cock. He wished he could hand some of this stuff round, try and calm everyone the fuck down for long enough to forget whatever they were all so worked up about. He’d thought about St John’s speech, how when you broke it all down there didn’t seem any greater evil in the Legion of Decency’s world than consenting adults getting laid. It struck him that if they’d all worry less about other people getting it on and concentrated on doing it themselves a bit more often, then none of this shit would be necessary. No legions, no banners, no missions. ‘What you doin’, baby?’

‘I’m makin’ a banner. Got a moral crusade to go on.’

‘Shit, you got energy to spare? Put the paintbrush down and come back to bed. Relax. Just get laid and you don’t have to hate nobody.’

‘Ooh, baby, hurts so good. Banners? What was I thinkin’ about ?’ If only. He knew he was ‘gonna have to get down to the PV right away, they’re all having a collective canary’ well before Bannon told him to; before he’d even left for the station house. There were uptight movie‐
biz suits in close proximity with religious fundamentalists, and St John had shaken the jar. That was why he hadn’t wanted to get up. ‘A walk in the park, sir, huh?’ he couldn’t resist reminding Bannon. ‘Hey listen, Freeman,’ Bannon replied, after rolling his eyes. ‘Don’t be wishin’ it to get worse just so you can say, “I told you so.” Right now it’s a storm in a teacup, okay? I want you to calm everybody down, make out it’s no big deal, all right? Show these guys you ain’t worried, and if you ain’t worried, they shouldn’t be neither.’

‘Oh, sure thing sir, I’ll get right on it. What do you want me to use, cannabis? We got some of that down in Evidence you could let me have, maybe?’

‘No, Larry, I want you to use your natural calming influence.’

‘Do I make you feel calm, sir?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Oh sure. Every time I see your ass walk out that door. So get the fuck down to that hotel and I’ll just be calmness personified.’

Paul Silver was not calmness personified. Not that Larry was expecting him to be, having had to flash his badge at the clamouring protesters blocking Damascus Drive before they would move aside to let him take his car up to the hotel entrance. He recognised the slogans on some of the placards from St John’s Epistle to the Caucasians yesterday, and given that most of them were printed rather than painted, he figured neither the speech nor the protest were improvised. ‘UnAmerican Festering Filth Market’ was the favourite, rendered in the same style as the AFFM’s logo. ‘Save the world from celluloid sin’ was also popular.

‘Shouldn’t you guys be across the road with the rest of your Festival of Light buddies?’ he asked a group of them, as he tucked away his badge again. ‘The Light is all around,’ one guy replied. ‘Well, you got that right,’ he’d muttered, shielding his eyes as the protesters vacated the space between his windshield and the infamous PV glare. ‘So aren’t you going to do anything about them?’ Silver asked. They were in the hotel manager’s office, Larry sitting in a chair watching Silver pace back and forth. It looked like his hair was on gimbals, so little did it seem to move as he walked the carpet. Larry kept expecting it to stay still each time Silver turned about‐
face, his head and body pivoting underneath it. ‘Right now, no sir, I’m not. They aren’t breaking any laws. They’ve got a democratic right to protest and they are staying outside the boundaries of the hotel grounds, so they ain’t trespassing.’

‘But they’re intimidating the delegates. Can’t you cite them for threatening behaviour or something?’ Larry laughed a little. ‘No,’ he said, smiling. Bannon knew Larry better than he had given him credit for. He was naturally reacting to Silver’s agitation by relaxing and giving off the impression that there was nothing to worry about. He had been so long in the company of his worries, he’d forgotten how adept he was at riding the storms of other people’s. He began to recognise the two‐
handed dialogue: freaked civilian going hyper, laid‐
back cop amused at the former, and with a galvanised feeling he began to recognise the latter as the old Larry Freeman, finally showing up for duty again after extended compassionate leave. In fact, he suspected that while everybody had been giving him time and space, the therapy he’d really needed was some quality chaos.

‘Think about it, Mr Silver,’ he told him. ‘These people are all pumped up with moral indignation. If I bust any of them, they can add state oppression to the mix, and you’ll have twice as many out front tomorrow. In my judgement, the worst thing you can do right now is react. It’s basic schoolyard psychology.’

‘You’re saying we should pretend like it isn’t happening? We’ve been identified as the source of all evil known to humanity and you’re saying we should just ignore it?’

‘You’ve been identified as the source of all evil known to humanity by a guy who’s gone on national television to say that this whole city’s about to be wiped out by a tidal wave. I’m saying don’t dignify him with a response. As soon as you do that, then you are, in the world’s eyes, taking him seriously. Nobody else is, why be the first?’ Silver ran a hand through his rigid hair. That’s gotta hurt, Larry thought. ‘Well maybe you should ask Tom Wilcox of CineCorp whether he’s taking it seriously, Sergeant Freeman. Because he had red paint thrown over him as he came in the side‐
path entrance first thing this morning, by protesters shouting about violence in the movies. Protesters who, I suspect, had tipped off the news crew that managed to film the whole thing for channel Five’s breakfast bulletin.’

‘Really? I was too busy to catch the news this morning.’ He smiled to himself, just a little, couldn’t help it. ‘Hotel security get these guys?’

‘No, there was a crowd. Hard to see who actually threw the paint. But I’ve also been told by Alice Kilgour of VentraFilm that they had slogans daubed on the walls of their offices in Burbank last night.’ Larry nodded, trying to look sincerely concerned. ‘This Mr Wilcox, is he okay? Does he want to file a complaint?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine so. I’ve been so inundated with calls over this whole Luther St John thing that I haven’t had time to talk to him yet. I think the hotel manager went to see him earlier, sort him out with a shower and a loaner suit.’

‘Well, give him a call,’ Larry suggested. ‘If he wants action, I’ll see him right away. I’ll get straight to it. Otherwise … schoolyard psychology, Mr Silver.’

‘Okay, okay,’ he said, flipping open his electronic organiser and looking up the number of the CineCorp stand. The door opened and a flush‐
faced woman in a tan suit walked in, holding a glinting Coke can to her forehead and sighing loudly. She put down the can and smiled, approaching Larry with an outstretched hand. She was tall, early forties, jet black hair streaked minutely with isolated strands of grey. She looked formidable but attractively approachable with it. ‘You must be Sergeant Freeman,’ she said. ‘I’m Conchita Nunez, manager of the hotel.’ She glanced aside at Silver, but he had turned his back as he muttered quietly into the telephone. ‘Tough morning so far, Ms Nunez?’ Larry enquired. She rolled her eyes and took a gulp from her can, still smiling. ‘Diverting,’ she said. There was a radiance about her features which suggested to Larry that this morning’s events weren’t entirely her idea of a bad time. ‘Can I get you a drink, Sergeant?’

‘No thanks. You look more in need of refreshment.’

‘I’m all hot and bothered. Running around the place, telling people not to panic, but that’s part of the job.’

‘Hey, that’s my job too. Maybe between us we can convince Mr Silver here of the same thing.’

‘Huh!’ she said with a toss of the head. Not convinced. Larry smiled. Silver finished his call. ‘Well?’

‘Tom Wilcox doesn’t want to file a complaint.’

‘So he sees the wisdom in keeping a low profile?’

‘No, not exactly.’ Silver now looked more baffled than perplexed. ‘He says CineCorp have closed deals for just about everything on their slate in the last two hours, for the US and three European territories. He’s apparently got them lining up along the corridor looking for tapes to view, and it’s going to be standing room only at their premiere screening in the AMC multiplex this afternoon. Turns out the buyers are just dying to see what sort of explosive material provoked this morning’s little incident. He says he’s telling the trade press it was “a gift from God”.’ Larry laughed, looking across to Nunez, who waved her hands as if to say she wanted nothing to do with it.

‘You see, Mr Silver?’ Larry said. ‘I know you’re shook up because you could do without this whole St John thing, especially your first year in charge, but it’s here now, the genie’s already out of the bottle, so just ride it. Things are gonna be a little crazier than you anticipated this week, but remember that it isn’t a problem until it’s a problem. Now, what I recommend you do is get out there and walk the floor, talk to the buyers and sellers, make out you think it’s all a great joke. They know your job is to worry about this shit, so if they look at you and you ain’t worried, they ain’t worried.’ Silver sighed loudly. ‘Okay,’ he said, nodding, ‘okay. And I guess that should work for me too. I look at you, you aren’t worried, so I shouldn’t worry.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But when I go down there, I’ll be faking it.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But they won’t know that.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So how do I know you’re not faking it?’

‘You don’t,’ Larry said with a smile, getting up and heading for the door. He had just emerged into the bustle of the lobby when he heard a voice calling his name. ‘Sergeant Freeman, Sergeant Freeman.’ He turned around to see the manager’s assistant running towards him from the stairwell that led up to the offices he had recently vacated. From the pallor of her skin and the fear in her eyes. he could guess it wasn’t that he’d left his keys behind. ‘What is it?’