The Comedy is Finished

people are. They’re nothing to do with me. I’m nonviolent, that’s my whole point. The whole military establishment has to be dismantled. I will not pay taxes or obey any other federal law while this government continues to support a huge military machine. And I certainly won’t be tricked into leaving this country. I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing isn’t a scenario dreamed up by Army Intelligence. It would go right along with their paranoid view of life.”

Ginger laughed aloud. “Oh, what a cadre! What a formidable regiment of revolution!”

Now on the screen was a police mugshot, front and side views of a very tough-looking man. “Finally,” St. Clair’s voice said, “this is George Toll, forty-one, currently serving twenty years to life in the Texas State Prison at Huntsville, convicted of armed robbery and associated crimes. This is his third prison term for felony convictions.”

The screen showed St. Clair again, doggedly reading his script, sliding pages away off the blotter as he finished them: “When Toll was arrested for the crimes for which he is now serving his sentence, he claimed to be a Black Panther and to have robbed banks and other places to obtain money for the Panthers’ legitimate activities, such as their free lunch program in some ghetto schools. The Panthers, however, have consistently denied that Toll has ever had any relationship with them or that Toll has ever donated money to them. His previous felony convictions, also for armed robbery, did not include any claims to have been politically motivated. When informed of the present situation, Toll at once stated that he would be desirous of leaving prison and going to Algeria. However, forty-five minutes before this program began, the Algerian mission in Washington announced that, of the ten names on the original list, Algeria would accept nine, excluding George Toll.”

St. Clair lifted his head to gaze briefly and expressionlessly at the camera, then looked down again at his script: “Of the ten names on the list, only three are willing to accept the arrangement, and of the three only two are acceptable to the Algerian government. Given these realities, we are at a loss to know how to negotiate with you. You can’t want us to force these individuals out of the country if they don’t want to go. You have my personal word for it that none of these individuals has been pressured in any way. What you have seen and heard is their own honest response to the offer that was made them. We ask you not to blame us for this situation, and not to blame Koo Davis. You have our phone number. We are available at any time, day or night, for further discussion. We do not consider this a closed issue. We want Koo Davis back, and we want to emphasize that we are at all times willing to discuss terms.”

St. Clair’s heavy, bleak, angry face remained a few seconds longer on the screen, gazing out at the audience; on the screen in this room it was a huge brooding ominous presence. Then the picture faded to black and the announcer’s voice was heard: “This has been...”

23

Koo stares at the TV screen. “That’s not funny,” he says. The screen is black, but then the Channel 11 identifying logo appears, with the ID jingle. It contains a repetition of the channel numeral, sung by a chorus with an echo effect: “E-lev-en, E-lev-en, E- lev-en.” The echo reverberates and reverberates in Koo’s head, as though the brain has been removed and it’s all empty space in there now. Space Available—Will Divide to Suit.

When a Pampers commercial comes on—“I don’t use Pampers anymore, I use new Pampers”—Larry at last gets up and goes across the room to switch off the set. When he turns back, his movement visually reverberating in all the mirrors, his face looks as agonized as Koo feels; and at least he has the sense not to make any Mickey Mouse hopeful statement. “I can’t understand that,” he says. “Koo, I’m as astonished as you are.”

“I’m done for,” Koo says.

“How could they have turned their backs that way? What’s happened to them in jail?” Larry seems to have latched on to a different aspect of the problem.

Koo’s aspect of the problem is that now he’s a dead man. Any minute now, somebody’s going to come through that door, and it’s going to be all over. If only there’d been a house, a store, even another automobile, when he’d gotten himself out of that goddamn trunk. That was his moment, and he blew it, and now it’s finished.

And it won’t even necessarily be Mark who does the job. Koo has known all along that these people are assholes—granted they’re dangerous assholes, they’re still assholes—but now the whole world knows it. Rage, humiliation, revenge for their defeat; Peter, for example, would kill for much less reason. Liz would kill out of general irritation, and surely there was enough general irritation in that program for anybody’s taste. Larry here might spend the aftermath in a moony post-mortem about whatever happened to the old bunch, but in this house there are killers. And a victim. “I’m done for now,” Koo says.

“No, Koo. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Koo points at the door. “They’ll be coming in.”

“No, they won’t. I promise. I’ll stay right here.” Eager, questing, Larry sits on the bed near Koo, gazing into his face. “Talk to me now, Koo. About you and Mark.”

“No.”

“You said, after the show, you said—”

“No.” Koo can’t talk about all that, his own distress. “There’s no point in it now,” he says. “I’m done for. I’m dead.”

“No, Koo.”

“I’m dead,” Koo says.

24

Lily Davis pushed the Off button in the controls built into her chair arm, and across the room the television image collapsed inward to a descending point, then snuffed out. “They’ll kill him now,” she said, and pushed another button, which caused the wall panel to descend, hiding the built-in TV set.

In this sitting room in the house in Beverly Glen were four people: Lily, her two sons, and Lynsey Rayne. When the drift of the program had become obvious, Lynsey had gotten to her feet and spent the rest of the time pacing up and down the long room, from its broad arched entranceway to the sliding glass doors closing out the flagstone patio and the floodlit lush jungle greenery on the slope beyond. Now she paused in lighting a new cigarette from the last, coming deeper into the room to exclaim, “Lily, how can you say that? How can you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.” Lily gave her a calm look.

Frank and Barry had been seated, not very close together, on the long gray sofa. Now Frank hopped to his feet, with that inanely cheerful smile he seemed unable to turn off, and as he rubbed his hands together like a fly grooming itself he beamed around at them all, saying, “I for one could use a drink. Barry?”

“I think not,” Barry said coolly, that evanescent trace of English accent clicking in his words. “It’s four in the morning, my time. Tomorrow morning. I’m afraid a drink would slaughter me.”

“The reason it’s true,” Lily went on, calm and indomitable, “is because they have been humiliated now. No one can bear to be humiliated; believe me, I know.”

The last phrase made no sense to Lynsey, who therefore first disbelieved and then forgot it, concentrating on Lily’s stated reason. “That isn’t necessarily true. When Patty—”

Frank called, “Mom? Drink?”

“A sherry might be nice, dear.”

“Lynsey?”

“No,” Lynsey said, irritably, annoyed at the distraction and enraged with them all for not being able to concentrate on what was happening to Koo. Then she said, “Wait, yes. Scotch, I suppose. And soda.”

“One Scotch and soda, one sherry.” Frank frisked up the two marble steps and through the archway.

Lynsey struggled back to her sentence: “Patty Hearst’s kidnappers were humiliated, too. That business with