The Comedy is Finished

of his movies, and shot the scene in this room.

The room was plain but comfortable, with maroon cloth on the walls, low overstuffed swivel chairs, dark carpeting, soundproofed ceiling, built-in bar sink and refrigerator, several small low tables, and in one corner a door leading to a small lavatory, with shower, sink and toilet. In readiness for Koo Davis, the refrigerator had been stocked with simple foods, more ready-to-eat food was stacked on the shelf above it, some plastic plates and cups and spoons had been placed on a table, and even a plastic decanter filled with inexpensive Scotch had been provided.

Once they were all in the room, Larry pulled off the burlap bag, and Peter looked at the familiar face of Koo Davis. His sense of accomplishment was so strong that this time he had to bite his cheeks not to ease tension but to keep himself from smiling.

Davis had had a nosebleed, which had stopped, leaving smudges of brown under his nose and along his left cheek. He looked frightened but cocky, as though he’d decided his game plan was to tough it out.

Larry, of course, reacted big to the nosebleed, saying, “Oh, we’re sorry about that! Your nose!”

Davis looked at him in mock astonishment. “You’re sorry about my nose? If you’ll notice, you took the whole body.”

Peter said, “If you’ll notice, you’re in a room with one door, which we’ll keep locked. You have food there, drink there, and a toilet over there.”

Glancing around, Davis said, “Okay if I open the window?”

“This isn’t a joke,” Liz told him. She had removed her sunglasses, and her eyes and voice were as hard as her nude body.

Davis grinned at her. “I’ll be able to identify you later on,” he said. “Anyway, I’m looking forward to the lineup.”

“That fine, Koo,” Peter said, permitting himself a small grin. “You keep your spirits up.” To Liz and Larry he said, “Come on.”

Davis, suddenly less jocular, said, “Do I get a question?”

Amused, Peter said, “Which question? Why? Who? What?”

“I thought kidnappers didn’t want to be recognized. Unless they figured to kill the customer.”

Jumping in, looking very intense, Larry said, “We’re not going to kill you, Mr. Davis.”

“Assuming things go well,” Peter said. “Assuming everybody is sensible, Koo, including you.”

“That’s a big relief,” Davis said. Terror was pulsing just beneath his cocky surface, like a kitten under a blanket. “As long as I go on being sensible, I’m okay, right? I mean, sensible like you people.”

“That’s right,” Peter said.

3

“So here I am on the bricks,” Mike Wiskiel said. He felt goddamn sorry for himself. “Lemme tell ya, Jerry, the worst word in the English language is the word ‘retroactive.’ You can forget all about ‘it might have been’ and ‘nevermore’ and all that crap, the word is ‘retroactive.’ It’ll fuck ya every time.” And he swallowed another mouthful of vodka and tonic, while Jerry chuckled his friendly, agreeable, meaningless realtor’s chuckle.

Mike Wiskiel was a little drunk, at four in the afternoon; not for the first time. He’d spent the morning talking to women who’d sent in eleven bucks for a scalp-invigorator that when they’d tried it made their hair fall out, and by lunchtime he’d seen enough bald women to last him the rest of his life. So he’d come here to the club for a quick game of tennis and the Daily Special lunch—today it was avocado followed by abalone, washed down with a Napa Riesling—and then he’d run into Jerry Lawson in the bar and here he still was, sitting at a table by the tinted-glass windows, having another little drink, at four on the clock in the pee em. And at this moment he and Jerry were the only members present in the bar.

Jerry Lawson was a real estate agent, and probably Mike’s closest friend out here, apart from the people at the Bureau. Mike had met him—Jesus, almost a year ago—when he’d been transferred to the L.A. office and had made the exploratory trip to find a new house for Jan and the kids. He’d walked into the real estate office on Ventura Boulevard, and the first thing he’d ever said to Jerry was, “I know you from someplace,” and he remembered thinking, Jesus, maybe this guy is on the hot list. But Jerry had gripped and said, “I’m the guy shot June Havoc in The Sound of Distant Drums,” and wasn’t that L.A. for you? Your real estate man turns out to be a one-time actor.

And a good friend. Jerry had found them a perfect house, up in the hills in Sherman Oaks, and had even put up Mike’s name for his country club, El Sueno de Suerte, here in Encino. Of course, it’s true that in Los Angeles realtors keep in closer touch with their former clients than elsewhere, since the average turnover of a middle-level- and-up house in that city is two and a half years, but Mike was convinced in this case it was more than the usual business friendship. He and Jerry enjoyed tennis together, drinks together, poker and barbecue and a good laugh together, and the wives got along, and even the kids from both families didn’t seem to hate each other one hundred percent of the time. Jerry’s friendship had helped a lot to soften the blow of having been transferred out here through no fault of his own. After all those years, back on the bricks.

He repeated it aloud. “Back on the bricks. I tell ya, Jerry, I had it made at the Head Office, it didn’t matter who the Director was. They knew I was a reliable man, they knew I was loyal, they knew I delivered. ‘I don’t want excuses, I want results,’ that’s what the Director used to say, and nobody ever heard an excuse from me.”

“I know,” Jerry said sympathetically, though he could only know what Mike told him. “You got your nuts in the wringer, that’s all. That’s all that happened.”

“Retroactive,” Mike said, dealing with the word as though it were a pebble he was moving around in his mouth. “ ‘Do this,’ they said, ‘it’s your patriotic duty.’ ‘Oh, yessir,’ I said, and salute the son of a bitch, and I go do it, and when I come back there’s some other son of a bitch in there and he says, ‘Oh, no, that wasn’t patriotic, it was illegal and you shouldn’t of done it.’ And I say, ‘Why I got my orders right here, I’m covered, I got everything in black and white, this is the guy told me what to do,’ and they say, ‘Oh, yeah, we know about him, he’s out on his ear, he’s in worse trouble than you are.’ So that guy’s ass is in a sling and my nuts are in a wringer and Al Capone is up there at San Clemente in a golf cart. And who’s loyal now, huh? Who do you trust now, the shitter or the shit-upon?”

“It’s a tough racket,” Jerry said. He was a terrific sounding board, he never confused the conversation with a lot of dumb suggestions.

“You’re fuckin A,” Mike told him, and turned to point at Rodney the barman. “Twice again,” he called, and the beeper in his jacket pocket went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. “Shit,” Mike said, under the noise of the machine, and reached to shut it off.

Jerry looked interested. “The office?”

“More fuckin bald women,” Mike said, and twisted around the other way to holler over at Ricci the waiter, “Bring me a phone, will ya, Rick?”

The phone came first. Ricci plugged it into the jack under the window, then went off to get the drinks while Mike phoned the office.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Extension twelve.”

A few burrs, and then: “Agent Dodd.”

“Mike Wiskiel here. I was just buzzed.”

“Hold on, Redburn wants you.”

The drinks arrived while Mike was holding on, and he signed for them with the receiver tucked in against his shoulder. Jerry said, “What’s up?”

“Dunno yet.”

Ricci took the tab away, Mike slugged down about a third of the new drink, and the voice of Chief of Station Webster Redburn came on the line: “Mike? Where are you?”

“At the club, Wes. I spent all day on that mail fraud case, I just came in for a little late lunch.”

“Forget the mail fraud and lunch,” Redburn said, and went on to tell him what had happened. Mike’s eyes widened as he listened, and he knew there’d be no more paperwork, no more routine slog,