The Loo Sanction

Where the hell was that bobby?

'All we really have are reviewers on varying altitudes of diction. The French school—if one can call that colloidal suspension of spatting personalities a school—works from the principle that cinema is a Gallic invention, the subtleties of which can never properly be mastered by peoples of less fortunate nativity.'

Bullet Head was making his way down the left aisle. Maggie still stood alone in the cone of light.

'Their most insidious export since the French pox has been their capricious insistence that American cinema is greatest at its most common denominator. They have seduced spineless American and British scholars into giving the benediction of serious study to such thin beer as the films of Capra, Hawks, and Jerry Lewis.'

The young driver of the Bentley was moving across the back of the hall toward Maggie! Where in hell was that policeman?

'The situation is no healthier in the United States, where the ranking reviewers operate as petulant social starlets. Snide infighting, phrasemaking, and pantheon building are the symptoms of their critical affliction. Then, of course, you have the Village Blat types pandering to their young readers' assumption that befuddlement is Obscurantism and that technical incompetence denotes social concern. But the greatest burden to American film criticism is that it is resident in the universities and therefore blighted by the do-nots.'

Aloha Shirt stood at the foot of the stage steps on one side, Bullet Head on the other. The young driver had slipped to Maggie's side.

'The East Coast universities devote their attention to obscure films, sequences, and film makers that require the beacon of critical analysis to rescue them from the limbo of deserved obscurity. This symbiotic affair between film maker and critic has entangled them in studies of Vertov and Antonioni that delight small coteries of wide-eyed apostles, but contribute nothing to the mainstream of cinema. The West Coast schools are little better. All hardware and hustle, they produce students in whom the technical proficiency of Greenwich Village is blended with the sensitivity of 'I Love Lucy.' '

The driver leaned over and said something to Maggie. She looked at Jonathan, her eyes wide. He shook his head in answer. The driver took her arm and guided her out the back door. Where the fuck was that bobby?

'And in the center of the continent, insulated by landmass and disposition from contradictory thought, is what might be called the Chicago School of Criticism. Here we find bitter, envious young men who, lacking the spark of creativity, attempt to deny its existence in others by focusing their attention on filmic genres. As though films made themselves, and the men who direct them are no more artists than are they, the leveling critics.'

A question came from the hall. Jonathan glanced into the wings and was relieved to see the dependable bulk of the policeman, his hands behind his back, his eyes on the lights in the grid, stoic and bored. A rock in the storm.

'As a guest in your country, I should say nothing about the state of British film study other than it's well financed and the government seems particularly patient with the several institutions who have been sorting themselves out for years now. I feel sure they will get around to making a contribution to film study by the end of the century.'

Ignoring the applause, Jonathan made quickly for the wings, where he addressed the police officer, who appeared to be surprised at being approached by him. 'There are three men out there, officer.'

'Is that a fact, sir?'

'They've got a girl with them.'

'Have they, sir?'

'I haven't time to explain. Come with me.'

'Right you go, sir.'

A quick glance over his shoulder told Jonathan that Aloha Shirt and Bullet Head had not come onto the stage. The bobby following along, he pushed through the exit doors from the wings and ran down a deserted outer corridor. Echoing footfalls advanced toward them from around the far corner. Jonathan stopped, the policeman beside him. The footsteps continued to near. Then the four of them came around the corner, Bullet Head and Aloha Shirt in front, the driver with Maggie behind. They stopped at their end of the hall.

Jonathan and the bobby walked slowly toward them. 'Let her go,' Jonathan said, his voice unexpectedly loud in the empty corridor.

The policeman spoke. 'Is this the man, sir?'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

Jonathan and Aloha Shirt had spoken at the same time.

'Right you are then!' The big bobby took Jonathan by the arm with a grip like metal.

'What the hell is going on?' Jonathan protested.

'Our car is just outside, officer,' Aloha Shirt said. 'Bring him along, won't you?'

'Come on now, sir.' The officer spoke with condescending paternalism. 'Let's not have any trouble.'

Bullet Head closed the distance between them with a menacing swagger. 'Maybe I should take him. He wouldn't give me no trouble.' He brought his porcine face close to Jonathan's. 'Would you, mate?'

Jonathan looked past the ape to Alpha Shirt, who seemed to be in charge. 'The girl isn't in this thing.'

'Isn't she?'

'Let her go.'

'Can it, buddy,' Aloha Shirt said. The sound was odd: American words with a British accent.

'If you let her go, I'll come with you without trouble.'

Bullet Head sucked his teeth and thrust out his head. 'You're coming along with us no matter what, mate.'

Jonathan smiled at him. 'You'd love me to make a run for it, wouldn't you?'

'You got it right there, chum. I'm sick of chasing your arse around London.'

'But you're not carrying a gun. Fat though you are, I can see you're not carrying a gun.'

'Here, none of that,' the policeman warned.

'I got these, mate.' Bullet Head held out his hands, blunt and vast.

Jonathan turned to the bobby. 'Officer?'

The policeman's politeness was automatic. 'Sir?'

That was it! At that instant Jonathan had it!

For a fraction of a second everything was right—the position of Jonathan's body relative to Bullet Head's, the slight relaxing of the policeman's grip as he answered—at that instant Jonathan could have made it. The heel of his hand into the tip of Bullet Head's nose would have disabled him, possibly killed him if a bone splinter were driven into the brain. He could have been away from the officer with one jerk, and he'd have had Aloha Shirt by the larynx before the driver could react. That would have given him the life of one man between his thumb and forefinger as hostage. Once on the street, he knew he would be an odds-on favorite in any game of hide-and-seek.

But he let it go. Maggie was three strides too far away. The driver would have had her before Jonathan had Aloha Shirt.

Damn it!

'Sir?' the bobby asked again.

Jonathan's shoulders slumped. 'Ah... did you enjoy my lecture?'

'Oh yes, sir. Not that I followed all of it. It's your accent, you know.'

'Come on!' Bullet Head growled, 'let's get it moving!'

The Bentley was parked outside, and behind it was another dark sedan with a driver. As they descended the long sweep of shallow granite steps, Jonathan felt the Kafkaesque anomaly of the situation. They were being abducted with the help of a policeman, in the middle of the afternoon, with people all around.

Maggie was deposited in the back seat of the sedan with a young man who had seemed to be loitering against a postbox, while Jonathan was conducted into the back of the Bentley. Aloha Shirt got in back with him; Bullet Head and the driver in front; and they pulled away from the curb, the two cars staying close together until they got onto a motorway. They picked up speed and started off toward Wessex.