Pipsqueak (21 page)

Chapter 30

A 
ngie told me later about the series of events that unfolded onstage.

The lights came down, the Uptown Belles did their fanfare and left the stage. Princess Madeline and her pal Compton Stiles followed, making a brief introductory welcome, assisted by a nonmusical and teleprompted appearance by Speed Wobble, who for the moment were there just to hype their music segment later in the show. “So without further ado . . .”

Then the curtains at the back of the stage parted to the tippity-tap of a snare drum, followed by some tinkling ivories, full lights, and blaring horns. The Swell Swingers were building up a head of steam. As the lights came up on the band, fulgent Scuppy was shimmying center stage. Applause swelled from the audience, and Scuppy rewarded them with a Hollywood wink. Angie noticed a music stand not far behind him. On it was a row of three dull, black spheres, sized from navel orange to small lime. A wee redheaded mallet was in the top pocket of Scuppy’s cream dinner jacket.

The dancers reemerged from the wings in sequined zoot suits, and a dance routine started to take shape at the band’s feet.

As the band wound up its intro, Scuppy danced over to the spheres, and with an impish grin he gave each a tap.

My Angie was no fool. As soon as Scuppy appeared onstage, she registered that I hadn’t returned to my seat and knew something was up. Angie stuck her fingers in her ears but noticed a ripple effect across the heads in the audience. She described it as a mass twitch that nobody but her seemed to notice.

That’s when Scuppy started to sing “Blinking Light,” the retro anthem we’d heard at the Gotham Club.

He’d gotten to the first refrain when there was some commotion in the orchestra pit, but Angie couldn’t make out what it was.

From over the whir and peal of the motors, rotors, cables, and shafts in motion, Nicholas and I heard an excited murmur behind us.

“Maybe we should try the next switch,” Nicholas said as we looked over our shoulders. The entire orchestra pit, replete with excited musicians, was sinking into the far end of the room. Our abductees hungrily scanned the unfamiliar surroundings for any sign of either culprits or escape.

“Wrong elevator.” I threw the first switch past the
STOP
position into the
UP
position, the resultant jolt tossing musicians from their seats and toppling more than a few music stands. Horns collided with clarinets, and a pair of cymbals slid into the kettledrum.

“Allow me?” Nicholas brandished the fire hydrant.

Angie later recalled that no sooner did the orchestra pit go quiet than it suddenly got louder again, and heads of musicians with tousled hair and fists of sheet music appeared over the rim of the pit.

The Swell Swingers saw something was amiss but played on.

The Uptown Belles were all on their backs on the floor, fans high and waving, when they suddenly submerged like so many synchronous swimmers. A flash of confusion—a shade of red—swept over Scuppy’s face as he watched the Uptown Belles disappear below the boards in an unscripted stage direction.

Peter put a hand on Angie’s forearm. “What’s going on down there?” he growled.

According to Angie, that was the moment she knew for certain that I was okay.

“Oops,” Nicholas and I said collectively, putting the platform of sprawled, feather-floundering Belles into reverse.

It was at this point that anybody paying attention got the idea that something was wrong. With ample hand gestures, camera operators spoke rapidly into their microphones. Electricians and gaffers jogged down the side aisles toward the back of the arena.

Heads among the audience swiveled, interchanging quizzical glances.

The Swell Swingers’ tempo began to falter, but Scuppy urged Rob Getty and the band back into rhythm, belting out the refrain as he danced over to the three spheres, his red mallet poised.

Angie put her fingers in her ears again.

Scuppy no sooner hit the first sphere than he and his ensemble began to sink below stage. He stumbled, grabbed the music stand, and all three spheres tumbled to the floor. The Uptown Belles reappeared on all fours.

“Got ’em!” Nicholas shouted as the platform overhead lowered, a dropped drumstick clattering down and landing at our feet.

Off to the side, on the gantry leading from the stage door, footsteps clanked into view in the person of Mortimer, followed by Detective Tsilzer, two electricians, several uniform cops, and a gang of men in dark suits, earmuffs, and radios.

“Now what?” I nudged Nicholas.

Before Nicholas could reply, we were distracted by something else falling from the platform, an outstretched hand clutching air in its wake.

It was a small, opaque sphere, a little bigger than a Ping-Pong ball. Charcoal gray and spinning, it fell very slowly at first, like a feather that might just float away.

“Nicholas!” I pointed at the sphere. “Your ears!” I shouted at him, plugging my own with my fingertips.

The new arrivals on the gantry saw me pointing and froze when they saw the falling sphere. Everybody knew it for what it was.

I held my breath as I watched the sphere pick up speed. But it was still falling no faster than a hanky when it struck a pulley.

The feather turned into a bullet. When it hit the pulley, it suddenly ricocheted like a gunshot. You couldn’t see it, only hear it as it twanged off a vertical shaft, chinked off the floor, pinged off the wall, clanked off the gantry, twanged off another shaft, and suddenly slowed in an arc toward the ceiling. It was like one of those hard rubber Super Balls, seemingly defiant of gravity. I could feel the vibration from the sphere in my joints and solar plexus. The descending squad on the gantry was doubled over, clutching their heads. Except Mortimer, who had his fingers in his ears and an evil eye on me.

Completing a wide, lazy arc through the air, the sphere hit the concrete floor next to the metal stairs. There was a flash of blue light and a concussive force that hit me like a bucket of warm water. In fact, for a few moments afterward, it felt exactly as if I were soaking wet. I didn’t actually hear anything, because my hands were clamped over my ears. But a haze of smoke hung in the air, and as it lifted, the point of impact was a lattice of fine cracks in the concrete. Next to that, the metal stairs were warped like they’d been subjected to extreme heat. No debris.

The platform overhead jolted with a clatter to a stop, and the musicians started to stumble off, some bleeding from their ears. Scuppy pushed past them to the police and wheeled a finger down at Nicholas and me. If looks could kill.

“Them! They ruined the show—arrest them!” he shouted, the vein on his forehead wriggling like a night crawler. The uniform cops were still recovering from the sound of the bouncing sphere and couldn’t hear him. The dark suits seemed only concerned with pushing past the musicians and onto the platform. Mortimer rushed forward, and Scuppy Milner grabbed him by the lapel. “Get them!”

Angie reports that the sudden disappearance of the Swell Swingers, the jumble of Uptown Belles, and the dismay of technicians had the audience at the verge of some mass reaction. What hung in the air was a sense of imminent danger, as though anyone or anything might suddenly fall through the floor, victim of the Great New York Collapse. Some of the men in the audience stood, searching the perimeter for an escape route, and ushers standing by the exits pulled at their bow ties uncertainly. Women collected their purses, bracing for what might happen next.

Then came the sound of the sphere exploding below stage. A deep thud shook the whole building. A fading dissonance followed, a cross between a distant bell tower and resonating stemware. Five thousand people jumped to their feet and turned. A rush for the doors was on.

Many would argue—or agree—that success in the entertainment realm is not so much the result of an excess of talent as it is a keen sense of timing, of recognizing opportunities for what they are and capitalizing upon them. Celebs during interviews sometimes betray modesty and refer to this aptitude as luck.

Many would also argue that riots are ephemeral phenomena. As easily as they can be triggered, they can just as easily be thwarted. The catalyst to either is often something simple: a shout, a car honk, a flashing light. The stage was set for stampede and tragedy at the crowded Savoy Revue.

A pair of spotlights targeted the air over the stage. Sharp white beams shot from the back of the auditorium to the stage, and at the pivotal, decisive moment, all eyes turned away from the doors. Lowering slowly on invisible wires, dressed in butterfly outfits, were masters of the stage and sleight of hand: Glenn and Keller.

“And for our next trick . . .” Keller’s oaken voice boomed.

Mortimer reached into his coat.

Nicholas and I, staring up at the troops on the catwalk, started to back into the corner, looking for a place to run that wasn’t there.

A flash of silver was in Mortimer’s hand, and the next thing I knew that silver came down on Scuppy’s wrists.

Handcuffs.

Milner’s surprise resonated through the room like the ping of the sphere, his jaw unhinged like adjustable pliers. “No, Mortimer. Them, not me!”

Mortimer pulled something else from his pocket, but it was gold, and it was a badge, which he put into display from the top pocket of his jacket.

“But . . .” Milner looked to Tsilzer and the uniform cops for help. All he got in return was the half-lidded stare of men already doing the paperwork in their heads.

“Sorry, Scuppy. Party is over,” Mortimer grunted. He waved the electricians toward the stairs, and in a moment they and their dirty looks were down with us at the switches putting the stage back into one piece. The roar of laughter and applause from the audience was snuffed out as the platforms whirred into place.

The detachment of dark suits filed off the elevator platform with the spheres wrapped in big white pillows and duct tape. Mortimer pointed at us.

“You two. Get up here.” He then turned to Detective Tsilzer and exchanged words. The uniform cops were cuffing the rest of the band.

“He’s a cop.” Nicholas, walking to the steps, shook his head at the ground.

“Can’t be,” I said, picking up my guitar by the neck. “Brute like that? He doesn’t seem the type.”

Nicholas waved a finger at me. “What you know about
types
, Garth, wouldn’t fill a gnat’s bladder.” Or that of a nuthatch, even.

We ascended the steps and stood before the expanse of Mortimer’s back, which blocked our passage. He was talking in a rumbling tone to Tsilzer. When he finally turned around, his moon face puckered into a frown, the short hairs on his neck and that white forehead scar flaring. I realized now that it must have been Mortimer’s back I’d glimpsed at the police precinct when I gave my statement to Tsilzer. He eyed us like a couple of pesky flies mired in his banana split.

“You two monkeys just about screwed the pooch.” He glanced over to where some of the dark suits were seating two spheres carefully into a foam-filled briefcase. “And we lost the Pipsqueak sphere.”

I looked up at his badge. A banner across the bottom read
FEDERAL AGENT
. Across the top it read
NSA
, which either meant Numismatic Society of America or National Security Agency. I didn’t notice any of the telltale stamp fatigue on his tongue, so I assumed the latter.

“What’s this all about?” Scuppy trumpeted.

“Conspiracy, terrorism,” Mortimer barked. “And I’m obliged to suggest you shut your trap until you get a lawyer, Milner.”

Like kids with a truant officer, Nicholas and I looked at our feet and dug our hands into our pockets.

“I was just looking for Bookerman,” Nicholas complained. “If those jokers in cummerbunds hadn’t—”

“Shut up,” Mortimer boomed. “Listen, Palihnic: Bookerman
is
dead. Yeah, Roger Elk and Milner probably killed him, see, once they got wind of the spheres and what they could do. Don’t think you’ll be able to prove it, much less get the insurance money back.”

“Yes, but I saw him in the mud bath,” I ventured. “He was bald, and—”

Mortimer swung his large arm over to Scuppy and grabbed his scalp. There was a tearing sound and a yelp as Mortimer plucked Milner’s hairpiece—a vertically impressive rug—and threw it at my feet like so much barber’s-floor flotsam. No explanation offered, and genius that I am, I didn’t need any. Well, perhaps a slight clarification.

“Bookerman’s nephew, right?” I snapped my fingers.

Mortimer wagged his head, impatient and mocking. “He and Roger Elk were on the Aurora board of directors, cashed out Dad, and bankrolled a push to go national with Fab Form, using the spheres in the ads to get people to buy it. It was so successful that they decided to go a step further. To start a cult to use as a captive consumer base.”

“I still don’t understand. Why start a cult?”

“You haven’t been paying attention, have you?” he sneered, which I gathered meant if I hadn’t figured it out, he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me.