The Frumious Bandersnatch

singer like either Jennifer Lopez or Christina Aguilera. There was only one trouble; Patricia had a lousy voice. Even her mother said she had a lousy voice.

“My sister went to Australia last year on one of these tours,” Patricia said. “And…I forget which town it was…”

“You have a sister?” Ollie said.

“I havetwo sisters, actually. And a brother, too. My older sister went to Australia with her husband, and I think it was Adelaide where…”

“Is that your sister’s name?”

“No, that’s the name of the town. At least, Ithink that was the name of the town. Where she had this great chocolate dessert. They have this shop sells chocolate desserts there, you know? And it’s called ‘The Chocolate Slut.’ Isn’t that a terrific name?”

“Great,” Ollie said. “The Chocolate Slut. Perfect. Whatis your sister’s name?”

“The one who went to Australia?”

“Well, yes. Well, both of them, actually.”

“She’s called Isabella. The other one, my younger…”

“Comeon, ” Ollie said, and almost dropped a piece of cake off his fork.

“What?” Patricia asked, puzzled.

“That’smy sister’s name!”

“Get out of here!”

“I mean it. Well, not Isabell-a,but it’s Isabelle. Yes.”

“How about that?” Patricia said, grinning.

“What’s the other one’s name?”

“Why? Do you have two sisters, too?”

“No, just the one. But I’m curious.”

“Enriqueta. It means ‘Henrietta.’ ”

“Do you know what Patricia means?”

“Well…Patricia, I guess. I think it’s the same in Spanish as in English.”

“Iknow what it means,” Ollie said, and grinned knowingly.

“How do you know what…?”

“I looked it up.”

“Get out!”

“It means ‘one of noble descent.’ It’s from the Latin.”

“No kidding?”

“That’s what the book said.”

“Gee,” Patricia said.

“I think it suits you,” Ollie said. “Would you care for another souffle?”

IF THE THREEpeople on the boat had been hired by Central Casting, they’d have been labeled The Hunk, The Pretty One, and The Nerd.

The Hunk was driving the boat.

His name was Avery Hanes.

Tall and somber looking, with curly black hair and dark brown eyes, he was muscularly built—not because he’d ever done time but simply because he worked out regularly. Like the other two, Avery was wearing black jeans, a black sweatshirt, and black running shoes. Later tonight, he would put on one of the masks. But for now he was enjoying the mild May breezes that blew in off the stern of the boat, riffling his hair, touching his face like a kiss. Avery had once worked for the telephone company and then had sold electronics at The Wiz. Then he’d got the job at Lorelei Records on St. John’s Av. The gig tonight was sort of related.

The Pretty One was Avery’s girlfriend.

Some five-feet-six-inches tall, twenty-four years old, redheaded and green-eyed and freckled and lithe and lean and wearing for the job tonight the same black jeans and Reeboks and black sweatshirt without a bra. Her name was Kellie Morgan, and she was here because this had to look like a nice little boating party cruising up the river and not some people intent on mischief. She was here because a pretty face in the crowd had a way of stilling the most dire fears. She was here because her boyfriend Avery had told her this would be a piece of cake that would be over and done with by Tuesday night at this time, and there was nothing to worry about because it was all planned to the minute and no one would get hurt and there’d be a quarter of a million bucks for the three of them to split when all was said and done.

The Nerd had straggly blond hair and intense blue eyes and contact lenses over those eyes. He looked like a man who might be an accountant for a small private firm, while actually he was an excon who’d been paroled only five and a bit more months ago after having done time for 1st Degree Robbery, a Class-B felony punishable by a prison term not to exceed twenty-five years. That didn’t mean Calvin Robert Wilkins wasn’t smart; it merely meant he’d been caught. He wasn’t as smart as Avery, but then again he didn’t have to be. He’d got along just fine until the bad break that night of the bank heist when he got a flat tire during the getaway. He’d tried to ride out the flat, but the tire fell all to pieces and shreds, and suddenly he was riding on the rim with sparks flying and the fuzz gaining, and before you knew it his luck ran out completely and there he was upstate, wearing a number. He’d been paroled from Miramar shortly before Thanksgiving. Until just before Christmas, he’d been working as a dishwasher in a deli on Carpenter Avenue. Then he’d found the job at Lorelei Records, which was where he’d met Avery.

The boat they were on was a Rinker 27-footer powered with a 320-hp Bravo Two that could juice up to almost forty-three miles per at top speed. There was an aft cabin with an oversized mattress, and the dinette seating in the lounge could convert to a double berth, but they didn’t expect to be sleeping on the boat.

If everything went as planned tonight, by this time Tuesday, they’d all be sleeping in their own little beddie- byes.

If everything went as planned.

TOM WHITTAKERwas program director for radio station WHAM. He was telling Harry Di Fidelio—Bison’s Vice President of Radio Marketing—that the question his station recently had to ask themselves was whether they should skew their targets younger or still go for the mother/daughter double play.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” Whittaker said. “With all these new uptempo releases, we all at once had a responsive audience for teen-based pop and hip-hop acts.”

“So which way are you going?” Di Fidelio asked.

“Well, we’ll continue to beam primarily to our twenty-five to thirty-four base. But what we’ve done over the past few months is expand our focus to the eighteen to twenty-four demographic. We’re trying to get away from that image of a thirty-something station. We want our listeners to think of us as dynamic and youthful instead.”

“That makes sense,” Di Fidelio said, and then got down to what Bison was paying him for. “We think Tamar will have a broad base among the thirty-somethings aswell as the younger group. Her appeal is what you might call universal.”

“Oh, hey, she’s terrific,” Whittaker said, gobbling down his second helping of chocolate pate with vanilla bean sauce and raspberries. “What I’m trying to say, though, Barry…may I call you Barry?”

“Harry. Actually, it’s Harry.”

“Harry, right, what I’m trying to say, Harry, is that it was merely a matter of re-examining our goals. A lot of Top 40 stations try too hard to pitch their product to both the kiddies and their parents, and the result is mass confusion. At Radio 180, weaugmented our focus rather than radically change it, and we actually improved our ratings with demos who wanted to feel younger or who just wanted to listen with their kids.”

“ ‘Bandersnatch’ should appeal to both,” Di Fidelio said.

“Oh, hey, she’s terrific. I feel sure she’ll get hundreds of plays on our station.”

If much of what Whittaker was saying sounded like total horseshit, that’s because much of