The Comedy is Finished

“That’s good. Are you ready?”

“Do you want me—to, uh—start with personal—things again?”

Mark considers that, then says, “That’s a good idea. You don’t sound much like yourself.”

“I been off my feed.” Koo closes his eyes once more, gathering his thoughts, then opens his eyes and says, “Okay.” Mark switches on the machine, and Koo says, “This is—what’s left of—Koo Davis—speaking to you—from inside the whale—I wanna say hello—to Lily and my sons—Barry and Frank—and especially—Gilbert Freeman—my favorite host—in all the world—and now I got—a script to read.”

Koo drops his head back onto the pillow, gasping for breath, and Mark switches off the machine, saying, “What’s the problem?”

“Wore myself—out—gimme a minute.”

“All right. One minute.”

His eyes again closed, Koo breathes hard, struggling for strength and hoping somebody will pick up that message. Surely Lynsey will get it, won’t she? Jesus, somebody better get it.

“Don’t go to sleep.”

“I’m not asleep.” Koo opens his weary eyes, focuses with difficulty on the messy script. “All right—let’s put it—in the can.”

Mark starts the machine and Koo reads, slowly and painfully, his voice a grating whisper. “It is now—noon— and I have been—given my medicine—the twenty-four hours—will be up—at six o’clock—if the ten—aren’t released—by then—my medicine will be—taken away from me—again—until the demands—have been met— announcements—on the radio—will reach the people—who are holding me.”

That’s all. Koo lies back against the pillows, watching as Mark rewinds and then listens to the tape, making sure it’s all right. There’s no expression on Mark’s face as he removes the script and pillow from Koo’s chest, and when he stands to leave Koo whispers to him, “They won’t, you know—they can’t—you are—gonna kill me.”

Mark shrugs. “Either way. It doesn’t much matter to me.”

“But why? Jesus Christ, man—you act as though—you got a grudge—against me.”

“Not at all,” Mark says. “It’s the system I hate. It has nothing to do with you.”

“But it does,” Koo insists, fired now by an irrational conviction. “It is me—what did I—ever do to you?”

Mark gives him a look of contempt and walks away toward the door, out of Koo’s sight. But there’s no sound of the door opening and Koo listens, wondering what’s coming next. After about ten seconds, while the hairs have been rising on the back of Koo’s neck, with the silence behind him unnatural and eerie, Mark suddenly reappears, transformed. The cold white face is now hot and red, the hands and arms are trembling, the lips are actually writhing with hatred. This is the rage, out on the surface now, and Koo is utterly terrified of it. This is no fooling, this kid really is death on its way to happen to somebody.

Even Mark’s voice is different, a strangled snarl. “You want to know what you ever did to me? All right, I’ll tell you. You fathered me.”

Koo has no idea what he means; terror keeps him from understanding much of anything. All he can do is stare at the kid and shake his head, mute with fear and ignorance.

Mark leans down over him, controlling himself, managing to speak more calmly. “I’m your son,” he says. Then he straightens, gradually becoming again the restrained cold hater. Hefting the cassette in his palm, he says, “I’ll go deliver your message to the folks.” And this time, he does leave the room.

14

When Lynsey, who had slept for a few hours but was not refreshed, arrived at Police Headquarters a little after two P.M. to hear the latest tape—which had been delivered by a small boy to a local black-community radio station—Jock Cayzer met her at the office door and shook her hand, saying, “I want to apologize, Ms. Rayne, for that business with the tracking device.”

“I don’t blame you, Inspector Cayzer,” she said, which was perfectly true. The bluntness of the action, its immorality, its hypocrisy and its assumption that everybody else is stupid; she recognized those hallmarks and knew where to place the blame. It was exactly the kind of thing she’d feared from a Watergate tough guy like Mike Wiskiel. Casting that to one side, as not worth discussing, she said, “You told me there was a new tape.”

“Let’s wait for Mike Wiskiel to get here,” he said, “and all listen to it together.”

“Wiskiel!” She felt her face tighten, in shock and distaste. “Why on earth would he be here?”

“That’s on the new tape,” Cayzer said, and she was surprised to see that he was grinning; he was enjoying this. “Seems our kidnappers like working with an old established firm,” he said. “One of their demands is, Mike get put back on the case.”

“As the devil they know?”

“Could be that’s it,” Cayzer said, and glanced over as the door opened. “Here’s Mike now.”

She turned toward him with a frozen expression, and was surprised to see in him a kind of boyish awkwardness and sheepish-ness. Moving quickly toward her, he said, “Ms. Rayne, I owe you an apology.”

The directness of his capitulation startled her, but she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. She said, “You owe Koo a lot more than that.”

“I hope to make it up to him. And to you.”

“But not with more shabby tricks.”

He shook his head, obviously becoming more sure of himself. “Ms. Rayne, please,” he said. “Just a minute. Let me make it clear what I’m apologizing for. You were right about the other side, and I was wrong. You had them pegged for how smart and tough they really were, and I underestimated them.”

“You were dishonorable,” she said, both surprised and re-angered that he didn’t yet understand the problem. “It doesn’t matter that you lied to me,” she went on, though in fact it did, “the point is you gave your word to those people and you went back on it. If Koo is going to be safe at all in their hands, they have to feel they can trust us.”

“No, ma’am,” he said, stubbornly shaking his head. “That isn’t the case at all. The legal principle is, a promise made under duress carries no force. It’s my job to get Koo Davis back and bring his kidnappers to justice. If I’m forced to promise I won’t give the job my best efforts—if my choice is either make the promise or risk harm to the victim—I’ll promise on a stack of Bibles if they want, but I won’t live up to that promise for a second, not if I get a good shot at them.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Staring at him, she said, “So you’re still just as dangerous for Koo as ever.”

“No, I don’t believe I am. I told you, I was wrong before, and to be honest I hate being wrong. I’ll be a lot more cautious in the future.” He essayed a very tentative, very small, somewhat apologetic smile. “And I’ll give a lot more weight to your opinions from now on, too.”

“Not as to whether you’re more honest than they are,” she said, “but only if you’re more clever.”

He was insulted and it showed. “If I have questions about my honesty, Ms. Rayne,” he said, “I’ll inquire of my own conscience.”

Startled, she looked at him wide-eyed for a few seconds, then abruptly said, “I’m sorry. You’re right, that was impertinent of me.”

Wiskiel seemed surprised by her apology, but then he relaxed into a grin, saying, “The funny thing is, Ms. Rayne, at bottom we’re both on the same side.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” she promised, and finally her own face softened into a faint smile of acceptance. She would never see eye to eye with this man, but in fact they were both interested in the same result, and he was doing the best he could within his preconceptions. There was no point prolonging the squabble with him.

He stuck out his hand. “Truce?”

“Truce.” His handshake was firm, as it had been yesterday.

Jock Cayzer, who had watched the scene with undisguised amusement, now said, “You two ready to listen to