The Comedy is Finished

That’s the object of this exercise. You will be the man who freed so many of them from prison.”

“That’s right,” Peter said. “That’s the whole task now, to keep as much of it alive and whole as possible, and wait for the next opportunity.”

“Koo Davis is not germane, Peter. He is a tool, a small wedge you’re using to open some doors. His death does nothing for anybody.”

“We can’t lose our credibility,” Peter said, thinking of Mark.

“But you can negotiate. You can be flexible.”

“Within limits.”

“Twenty-four hours isn’t enough time. You know that yourself.”

Peter did. But he also knew that the group in the house was fragmenting. Their stability was gone, they were breaking down. But not yet, they couldn’t collapse yet; Peter had to somehow hold them together just a little longer. After the operation was finished, after Peter had made his way out of the country—in his mind’s eye he saw himself at the airport in Algiers, smiling, shaking hands with the men and women he’d rescued—after this task was done, the others could destroy themselves in any way they chose; they wouldn’t matter anymore. Joyce would undoubtedly surrender to the authorities, for instance, something she’d been wanting to do for a long time. Suicide was the likeliest end for Liz, some sort of violent murder for Mark. Larry would probably be caught by the police while trying to rob from the rich to give to the poor. This idea amused Peter, who smiled. Ginger said, “Something funny?”

“A stray thought.”

Ginger shrugged, then sat back on the stone bench, considering Peter in a thoughtful manner. “I do have one little question, Peter,” he said.

“Yes?”

“That list of people, the ten you want freed. There are some very odd names on that list, my dear.”

“I wanted a spectrum,” Peter explained. “Not just this group or that group, but as wide a range as possible.”

“They look like names picked at random.”

“They almost are. The fact is, there really aren’t that many political prisoners left in this country. We needed a big enough number to make it worthwhile, and I wanted them to represent the whole broad range of resistance and rebellion.”

“Well, try not to turn your back on some of them,” Ginger said.

“I’ll watch myself,” Peter promised. “And you watch yourself, Ginger. Stay in that house in Malibu.”

“Some of the time,” Ginger said, then leaned close again, with his confidential smirk. “But if you hear a little wee splash in the pool tonight, my dear, it isn’t dolphins.”

“Ginger, don’t do it.”

“I’m off, darling,” Ginger said, getting to his feet, patting Peter on the cheek. (Peter winced, trying not to betray the pain.) “Don’t worry about your little Ginger.”

Standing, Peter said, “But I do. You’ve got to keep your cover, Ginger, you wouldn’t be any good at all underground.”

Ginger giggled as though the idea appealed to him. “On the run?” he asked. “With my famous Fender?” And he took an exaggerated macho stance, strumming an imaginary guitar.

“You wouldn’t like it, Ginger,” Peter warned him. “You enjoy first class too much.”

“Oh, but my heart is with the Movement,” Ginger declared theatrically. “What is it to live dangerously? I shall tell you, my dear. To live dangerously is to live in two opposite directions at once. Like the adulterous wife, easing the lover out the back door while the kiddies home from school are entering via the front. You don’t live a lie, my dear, you live a simple one-dimensional life.” Ginger took another dramatic stance: “The Revolutionary! When you get up in the morning, you know precisely who you are, and you never deviate all day long. My dear, I never know who I am. It’s such a wonderful party being me!”

“Don’t spoil it, Ginger. Don’t take too many chances.”

Ginger laughed, clapping his hands together, then winked and said, in a conspiratorial half-whisper, “Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath.”

“Ginger, don’t.”

“Bye-eye.” Ginger wiggled all his fingers at Peter, then danced away toward the upper gate, like a figure from The Wizard of Oz. Peter watched him, worrying, frustrated, helpless to avoid these unnecessary dangers. There was no escape; when Ginger was at last out of sight, Peter turned and walked back down the brick path to the house.

As he neared the house, he saw a pale blue van just driving away down the hill. Joyce was out by the garage, obviously just having seen the person off, whoever he was. Frowning, Peter finished his descent as Joyce walked back toward the house, and they met by the front door. Peter called, “Joyce!”

She glanced at him, weariness in her every feature. “I have to get back to Liz. She still hasn’t grounded.”

“What was that truck?”

“The gas company. A man was looking for a gas leak.”

“He was? Did he find it?”

“No, he said it must be farther up the hill.”

Peter looked away down the drive, as a cold breeze touched his spine. “He did, did he?”

17

Koo awakes. At first he doesn’t understand where he is or what’s going on, but as his eyes focus on the large window with all that water behind it memory returns, frightening and depressing. “So this is Baltimore,” he mutters, but his heart isn’t in it. He shifts position on the couch, then remembers in more detail: He’d been waiting for Mark, half-dreading and half-needing the confrontation, and at some fuzzy time along in there, incredibly, he’d faded away into sleep.

What time is it? His watch isn’t on his wrist, it’s—Where the hell is it? Fear and depression are making him cranky with himself.

The watch is on the end table near his head, reading a little after three-thirty. He’d been asleep nearly an hour; so where’s Mark?

Koo sits up, noticing with surprise how much stronger he feels. He’s been using his pills again for six hours now, and while he’s still weak and nervy he’s in much better shape even than when he’d dozed off.

He’s in such good shape, in fact, that he now has leisure to notice he stinks. All that old perspiration is still stickily on his body, beneath his filthy clothes. He’s also very grizzled, this being his second day without a shave. “I feel like King Kong’s socks,” he says, and gets to his feet.

Whoops; too fast. Rocking briefly under the wave of dizziness, he sits down again, hard. He’s not that healthy, not yet. For the next try he moves more cautiously, pausing to rest after he makes it to his feet. “Wal, sonny,” he says, in an exaggerated old man’s cracked voice, “I may be stupid, but I ain’t the one who’s lost.” Then, in his own voice, he says, “Oh, yes, I am,” and depression settles deeper.

The bathroom is tiny, but it contains a stall shower. Koo scrubs himself briefly, then dons a pale blue terrycloth robe hanging behind the door. In a storage cabinet beside the sink he finds a Norelco electric razor and a half-full bottle of Lectric Shave. He’s feeling chilly, so he shuts the bathroom door while shaving.

These ordinary acts lift his spirits a great deal. The reason he became a comic in the first place is that he has a naturally cheerful view of life. It’s true he’s so weak while shaving that he has to support most of his weight by leaning forward against the rim of the sink, and his hands contain a tremble that was never there before, but by God he’s still alive, and he’s clean, and his health is improving by the second.

Finishing the shave, looking at his clean face in the mirror (ignoring the red eyes in the pockets of gray flesh), Koo says, “Okay, kid, we’ve worked in worse toilets than this. Don’t get all flushed about it.” Then, touching the walls for support, he moves slowly out to the main room and there’s the mean blonde seated in the swivel chair down by the window. She’s wearing dark-lensed sunglasses and a yellow dashiki, and she’s swiveling the chair left