Ice cubes clink against the swizzle stick of your spinal column, and you start to wonder if this would not be the ideal moment to go home, take a hot shower, and curl up with a glass of chardonnay in front of a friendly computer. However, when one is playing with a tipped trumpet, one does not retreat so easily into the tried and true. You square your shoulders and give the Thunder House door another rap. As you strike it, it creaks open again, and there stands the big Indian with that look of someone who has been reading the Book of the Dead with his eyes closed. Once more, you have the guilty feeling that you are tracking mud onto a prayer rug. Let me explain, you say, making an effort to lubricate the conspiratorial syrinx that you reserve for clients on whom you are trying to push a particularly risky investment. The Indian has scant interest in your spiel. He treats you to a faint, almost pitying smile; hands you a piece of paper, and with the confidence and ease of somebody who is growing accustomed to the act, shuts the door in your face.
TWO P.M.
Built for the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962, the Pacific Science Center remains one of the most handsome structures in the city. Perhaps handsome is too masculine. With its reflecting pools and soaring freestanding arches of swan-white filigree, the Science Center resembles the Taj Mahal if the Taj Mahal had been eaten away from inside by trillions of marble-eating termites so that only a lacy shell remained to blind itself with its own reflection, a snowy honeycomb secreted by angels, and as gleamingly bright in rainy weather as in sunshine. No, the Science Center is more beautiful than handsome, especially when compared to the beige Kleenex boxes that stand on their monolithic and monotonous ends downtown, buildings that would appeal not to the taste of delicate insects but to sewer worms and ogres.
Architecturally, the Science Center is decidedly feminine, although the human enterprise it was erected to honor seems at times to have been rather thoroughly usurped by the very worst facets of the male sensibility. On this rainy Easter Eve, however, activities inside the center have scant connection with profit, property, or power. The focus here today promises to be a small, quiet focus, having more to do with curiosity about small, quiet things than with breakthroughs along yet another path to pay dirt. Not that you wouldnt prefer the latter. But you were directed here by the flyer the Thunder House Indian shoved at you, and, for better or for worse, you have a general idea what to expect.
The flyer announces the annual Reptile&Amphibian Fair, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Herpetological Society. Are toads really slimy? Do boas actually crush their prey? Have all your questions about reptiles and amphibians answered. Gee, Gwen, what are your questions about reptiles and amphibians? Only one comes to mind. Whats the best way to go through life without ever having to encounter such things? On display: more than 100 live non-venomous reptiles and amphibians, from the common to the exotic. You like the non-venomous part. Moreover, an event that lists among its attractions brown-bag puppet-making, featuring turtles and frogs has got to be reasonably innocuous. On the other hand, kiddies adore the creepy and the disgusting. Your worst nightmare has you popping out a little Belford Dunn Junior and watching it play with garden slugs and the contents of its diapers.
The wind has gone on break, and the rain has nozzled itself down to a mizzle-a bit late, as far as your hair and eye shadow are concerned. For some totally illogical and annoying reason, you are feeling self-conscious about the possibility of meeting Larry Diamond in your present bedraggled condition, and you walk slowly, even cautiously, across the Science Centers spacious open-air atrium. Pausing beneath one of the Easter-white arches, you think, If theres a McDonalds franchise in Heaven, this is what it looks like. Then you wonder if, considering Heavens entrance requirements, there are enough customers there to support a McDonalds. And would fast foods not be irrelevant in eternity?
The concept of eternity has always, since you were a child, made you queasy. You can understand how life in the hereafter might go on for an extremely long time. Millions of years. Heck, even billions-or trillions-of years. But to never stop. Never, ever, ever stop! How can there not, sooner or later, be an end? Some people might take comfort in the notion of eternity, but to you it is confounding, overwhelming, even horrific. Forever, in the literal sense, is a shock to the system.
You are about to continue your march to the ticket booth, where with great misgiving you will shell out five dear dollars to go wander among tanks of crawlers and slinkers, among clouded salamanders and Illinois chorus frogs, among river cooters, diamond-back terrapins, red milk snakes, island night lizards, hellbenders, mud puppies, and rough-skinned newts, you are about to dip into your endangered capital to finance an excursion into the realm of the relentlessly repulsive when a voice close to your ear says, Time doesnt exist in eternity.
You nearly jump out of your rain-ruined pumps. And when you see his face, so close to yours, you jump again. Eternity is timeless, he continues. Its by definition outside of time. So terms like beginning and end are meaningless.
Your first response is, How dare you sneak up on me before Ive had a chance to go to the womens room and repair myself! But what you actually say is, How did you know what I was thinking?
To which he replies, A little trick I picked up in Timbuktu.
TWO OH-FOUR P.M.
What are you doing here? you ask. It is almost an accusation.
The real question is, what are you doing here? First you refer to the Bozo, then you show up at the amphibian exhibit. Leads me to conclude that you could be on the pad.
What pad? If this is some crude, masculine reference to menstruation, youll be sorry you asked.
The alien pad.
I dont have the foggiest idea what youre talking about. Im a native-born American citizen whose father happens to be from the Philippine Islands. And if you can read my mind, Mr. Diamond, then you ought to know what Im doing here.
He laughs his jungle-movie laugh. If Belford were listening, hed think youd found AndrE. I cant read your mind, Diamond says. The nature of consciousness being what it is, anybody can pick up on other peoples thoughts occasionally, if the thoughts are strong and the person receiving them is open enough. Since Ive been on the pad, Ive found that I can sometimes get into other peoples heads, or into their dreams. He puts his hands on his hips and gives you that leer that could peel the velvet wallpaper off the walls of virtue. But what Id really like to get into is your pants.
You pivot and walk away at a swift clip. If he follows you, youll scream bloody murder. Several families are crossing the atrium, parents blowing the weekly entertainment budget so that their kids can participate in brown-bag puppet-making, featuring turtles and frogs. Surely, some stalwart dad would rescue you from him. The degenerate! The wet willie!
Your soggy pumps have covered less than ten yards, however, when it occurs to you why you came looking for him here in the first place. You stop and spin around. For at least a year you have needed glasses-vanity has blocked your path to the optometrist-but Diamonds ripsaw smile stands out quite clearly in the mist. Where is she? you yell at him. Wheres Q-Jo Huffington?
You mean you dont know?
Hell no, I dont know! What have you done with her?
He starts toward you. You prepare to scream. But the leer-the vulgar comic-has been hooked offstage, and in its place stands a trustworthy and concerned expression, the Hamlet look of a TV anchorman during yet another national crisis. I think you and I should sit down and talk, he says quietly. When you hesitate, he adds, About Q-Jo. Not romance. To tell you the truth, I dont think getting in your pants is a very good idea.
You could not agree more. But all the way to the coffee shop, you cant help wondering what made him change his mind.
TWO-TEN P.M.
You walk in silence, although Diamond seems to be humming under his breath. As much as possible, you avoid looking at him directly, but you observe him sufficiently to note that his eyes have lost much of their savage redness; it must have been the alcohol and the smoke that colored th
em on Thursday. A coarse rye stubble still Ben Days the gaunt plains of his chin and cheeks, however; his long hair still swings like the tail of an Arabian stallion swaying languorously home from stud. He has neglected to change his leather jacket, which seems old and oily, like the skin of a goat; or to remove his golden earring (the drizzle has set gem chips in it); and light passes effortlessly through the frayed areas of his jeans. His snakeskin boots strike you somehow as inappropriate footwear for a visit to a Reptile&Amphibian Fair-with each step, would not a wave of dread echo through the vivariums?-and his tattoo makes you cringe from the uncouthness and immaturity of it, although you dont get a clear look at his tattoo until you are seated across from him in a booth at Pony Espresso.
While he is placing his order-and flirting shamelessly with the waitress who is taking it-you sneak a glance at the back of his left hand, the hand that is rattling a pair of sugar cubes as though they were dice, but where you expect to see a deaths head, a rearing cobra, or a grass-skirted hula slut, there is instead a weird configuration of celestial symbols. Since Diamonds attention remains elsewhere (whats so darned interesting about that floozoid waitress?), you help yourself to a longer look. The tattoo depicts three circles, stacked, one above the other. They are a lot like sun symbols, or, rather, variations on sun symbols, for each one is different: the top circle is broken in four places, and its rays are broken also; the middle symbol, the most conventional, resembles a sun drawn by any child with a neat and steady hand, the kind you might have drawn in kindergarten; while the bottom sun, the one closest to his bony wrist, is more elaborate, consisting of two concentric circles emitting double, closed rays that are a lot like petals.
Admiring my skin art, I see.
You flinch, and then, it goes without mentioning, you blush. Not really, you say, trying to sound casual and disinterested.
Would you like to hear about it?
Uh, no. No, I wouldnt. I want to hear about Q-Jo. And that is all I want to hear about, thank you. It is not lost on your central nervous system that it might be sharing a booth with a dangerous maniac. Your hands are all atremble, and you wonder how you will handle your tall vanilla latte without betraying your fear. So far, you have resisted the urge to go to the ladies room to reapply makeup and brush your drenched hair, reasoning that any improvement in your appearance might encourage predatory tendencies. You have, however, removed your sodden raincoat, revealing your reasonably dry, relentlessly tight, black dress.
Q-Jo is your friend?
Yes, you bark. Then it dawns on you that this is the second time, ever, that you have owned up to that friendship. The first time was earlier today at police headquarters. An extra stratum of strawberry surfaces in your blush.
And as far as you know, she hasnt been home.
Thats right.
You have no idea where she is?
No, I dont. The last I heard, she was with you. You muster the courage to stare him in the eye. Now that their capillaries are no longer rupturing, his eyes are deep blue and would be rather nice were they not as mocking as crows and as lecherous as fleas.
Yesterday.
Beg your pardon.
Yesterday. She was with me, as you put it, yesterday afternoon. Q-Jo came to my place to look at slides of a trip I recently made. It was a business arrangement.
Right. And after the business was dispensed with, she decided to stay on. It got, shall we say, social in nature.
Diamond smiles. It is a raw, stinging smile, like a cat scratch. Oddly, there is something forgivable, even likable about it, as if the scratch were made by your favorite kitty and you are convinced it was only playing. Quite the opposite, he corrects you. She left before the business was completed.
Oh, really? You envision him coming on to her in such a gross, twisted manner that even Q-Jo, who is not averse to a pinch of kink, was driven to bolt for the door. So you scared her off.
He smiles again. You feel the claw rake your brow. If she was frightened, which I sincerely doubt, it wasnt by me. Not personally. I wasnt even in the room.
What do you mean?
The waitress arrives with your latte and his almond soda, but you both ignore her.
I mean, Gwendolyn -the way he pronounces your name, like William S. Burroughs ordering a root beer float, sends a shudder through your lungs-your friend and I were looking at slides of Timbuktu, and I excused myself. To go to the bathroom. When I came back, she was gone.
TWO-TWENTY P.M.
Gone?
Gone.
The waitress has set your beverages before you but has not left the table. She is hovering, in fact. You regard her with annoyance-and with pity, recalling the attraction that naive young victims were said to have had to certain serial killers. Diamond regards her as well, which should come as no surprise, but then the way she is hovering, neither of you has much choice.
Hope you guys dont mind, she says apologetically, but the boss is gonna turn off the ball game now. She lifts a shoulder toward the television set on a shelf high above the counter, and you notice for the first time that a Mariners game is in progress on the nineteen-inch screen. I guess the Presidents gonna make an important speech or something.
You scowl at her for confusing you with one of those Cheeto heads who short their potential and downside their IQs watching televised sports. For his part, Diamond winks and says, Go for it, darling. Tune in the ol pufftoad. I could use a laugh.
From his tiptoes atop a bar stool, the manager manually changes channels. A pitcher dematerializes in the middle of a windup and is replaced, not by an angel-headed reliefer from the twilight bullpen, nor by Dr. Yamaguchi, as you half expect, but by the man to whom journalists who ought to know better still refer as the leader of the free world. Having cleared his throat and fine-tuned his countenance, the President is poised to address that ever-shrinking portion of the population that isnt actively engaged in panhandling, smoking crack cocaine, or bowling.
So, Gwendolyn, as I was saying, when I came out of la toilette, your friend had …
Shhh, you shush him. I want to hear this.
Diamond cocks his head and shoots you a look that could give sarcasm a bad name, a look that, in its every cynical nuance, questions the sincerity of your concern for Q-Jo. Listen, you say, I have a job, I have clients to protect. This could be jumbo.
Be my guest, he says, and lifts his Italian soda. Until now, you thought it impossible that one could drink and smirk at the same time.
Meanwhile, the President is saying how he doesnt wish to minimalize recent disturbing events in our great land. Then, he proceeds to downplay every item on the hellish list: bank failures, credit revulsion, municipal bond defaults, rising national deficit, declining property values, falling oil prices, mortgage foreclosures, unaffordable health care, personal and corporate bankruptcies, water shortages, racial tensions, poverty riots, street crime, the legionary exodus from New York City, and attempts by Hawaii and Vermont to secede from the union. The black cherry atop the cyanide sundae, of course, is the stock market tumble on Thursday. Each of these pesky gophers in the broad green lawns of the American dream can be routed, the President assures his constituents. The grass will sprout sweet and high-though not too high-at the base of our family flagpoles again. Alas, the rebuilding of financial America is going to require belt-tightening, is going to require lower living standards, is going to require (groan!) personal sacrifice. The President has been meeting with his staff of experts day and night, it seems, and they have come up with some brilliant measures to assist us in sacrificing, just in case we cannot sacrifice sufficiently on our own.
Uh-oh, says the coffee shop manager. Get ready to duck.
You would nod in agreement, except that you wouldnt want to be seen nodding in agreement with a man of his low station. You refrain from nodding, but in your minds eye you picture a federal-green tow truck hauling away your Porsche, picture yourself living next door to Q-Jo Huffington until the cows come home. Assuming, of course, t
hat Q-Jo is living. You glance guiltily at Diamond, who grins back at you like an unripe jack-o-lantern carved with a nail file.
The pufftoads going to ask Congress to hike taxes, says Diamond matter-of-factly. Hes going to ask the Fed to increase M-Two. Hes going to press to impose restrictions on foreign investments and blocks on currency exchange. He might even demand that a portion of Social Security reserves and regulated pension plans be appropriated to finance the deficit. Then hes going to do away with the civil service system and fire a whole gang of government employees. And you can kiss the welfare state sayonara. He puckers and makes a loud smacking noise, which elicits a titter from the waitress and a scowl from you.
At this point, the President commences to enumerate his measures, and they are exactly as Diamond predicted, except that the President soft-pedals them until they seem almost benign. He says, for example, that he will suspend, not do away with, the civil service system, and that rather than being fired, the targeted bureaucrats will be temporarily disemployed. Moreover, he suggests that many of these measures need not be enacted if world financial markets put on a happy face come Monday.
You might have looked at Diamond admiringly were not the little strumpet of a waitress already doing that. Was this leaked in advance? you ask. Or can you read his mind, too?
He scoffs. Any dimwit couldve figured it out. I mean what else could he do? Problem is, its too late for a lot of these steps, they shouldve been taken years ago; and doubling the M-Two money supply should never be done at all. Itll drive interest rates over the rainbow. Hope you werent planning to buy any real estate.
Yes, by God, there goes the new condo, passing the Porsche in its haste to get out of your life. Not that you would have a life. Come Monday.
TWO THIRTY-FIVE P.M.
The President closes by imploring Americans to be thrifty and brave.