The Koo Davis kidnapping was the major news story, the lead-in piece. The newscaster announced the fact of the kidnapping and then the cassette tape was played, in its entirety, while on the screen a photograph appeared, a publicity still; a smiling Koo Davis face, in color, confident and successful.
Joyce hadn’t listened to the tape before it went out, and she didn’t really listen now. This wasn’t her part of the work, and it didn’t interest her to know the details. She was content to be the one who entered the straight world, got the jobs, drove the van away from the studio, delivered the tape to the boy in Santa Monica, made the easy informational phone calls. And here in the house she was the den mother, she made the dinner, washed the dishes, did the laundry.
For Joyce, the group in the darkness around the flickering TV light was like some wonderful kind of camping out. In her childhood, in Racine, where the winters were so long and so cold, “camping out” had mostly meant what were known as “overnights”: half a dozen giggling girls on mattresses or folded blankets on a living room floor, the host parents far away in their own part of the house, the girls clustering together like tiny delighted animals at the dry hidden warm bottom of the world, whispering and shushing at one another, young small bodies in the nightgowns trembling with exhilaration.
It was the group that Joyce loved, the very idea of being part of a group. In her childhood she had been a Brownie, later a Girl Scout and for a while simultaneously a Campfire Girl, also member of a Junior Sodality at church, the 4-H Club, other groups at school and college; and tonight she sat with her feet curled up under her at one end of the sofa, the complete group around her, the television offering its flickering light to the room, and she was back where it had all begun: an “overnight,” with friends. Her hand over her mouth so no one would know, her eyes on the screen without seeing it, her ears ignoring the loping cadence of Koo Davis’ voice, she giggled.
When the tape came to its end—“and they send me home”—the Koo Davis photograph on the screen was replaced by film of an office, where two men stood behind a desk while several photographers snapped their picture and newsmen asked them questions, some extending microphones. A voice said, “In charge of the investigation into the Koo Davis kidnapping is Chief Inspector Cayzer of the Burbank Police. Representing the FBI is Michael Wiskiel, Assistant to the Chief of Station of the Los Angeles office of the FBI.”
“Wiskiel,” Mark said, while an old man in a Stetson said on-screen that they didn’t have much to go on so far. “He had something to do with Watergate.”
“Hush,” said Peter.
The announcer’s off-camera voice had returned: “Agent Wiskiel was asked if the ten named individuals would be released from prison.”
The scene cut from the old man in the Stetson to Wiskiel, a heavyset fortyish man with too much self-conscious actorish good looks. Wiskiel said, “Well, it’s early yet, and frankly I don’t recognize every one of those names, we’re not even sure yet they’re all in prison. If they are, it’ll be up to Washington to make a decision about their release. I don’t know if the kidnappers are watching—”
“We are,” Peter said. Joyce giggled, this time not repressing it.
“—but I hope they realize their time limit just isn’t realistic. I want to get Koo Davis back as much as anybody, but they’re asking for a decision that I just don’t think can be made in twenty-four hours.”
“Send them a finger,” Mark said.
Joyce shivered, not looking toward Mark, trying to make believe to herself that she hadn’t heard him. Mark frightened her whenever she was incautious enough to think about him; he was in the group but not of it, a cold separate presence, an anti-body. As much as possible, Joyce pretended that Mark didn’t exist.
On the screen, Agent Wiskiel was saying, “In the meantime, from the sound of that tape they haven’t up to this point actually harmed Koo Davis, and I’m very hopeful we’ll be able to negotiate some sort of agreement with these people. I’ll have to wait for word from Washington on the details, but it’s my guess we’ll have Koo Davis home and safe in a very short period of time.”
“In a box,” Mark said.
“Hush,” Peter told him, and Joyce flashed Peter a grateful smile, which he apparently didn’t see.
The television scene switched to the news-set in the studio, where the announcer spent some time telling the audience how many famous people had publicly expressed their shock and outrage that a “great entertainer” like Koo Davis had been treated in such a barbarous fashion. An ex-President was quoted as referring to “this man who has brought the gift of laughter to millions.”
Next, the announcer went on to a description of the four people so far identified by the media out of the ten whose release had been demanded, and a picture of each of the four in turn was shown on the screen while a biased inaccurate brief biography was given. One was Eric Mallock, and it was during his biography that Liz’s name was mentioned:
“Eric Mallock, thirty-two, is currently in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg in Kentucky, serving an indeterminate sentence on a number of convictions, including destruction of property and attempted murder. A member of a splinter group from the Weathermen, Mallock was captured in August of 1972 in Chicago when a building apparently being used as a bomb factory blew up, killing two people outright and severely wounding Mallock. Two associates of Mallock’s believed also to have been in the building at the time, Elizabeth Knight and Frances Steffalo, disappeared and have not been seen since, though Federal warrants are out for both women.”
“You’re in the news!” Peter cried, with his sardonic bark of laughter.
Liz made no answer. Looking at her profile, Joyce saw her as expressionless as ever. Joyce envied Liz that coolness. What was Liz thinking, seeing her lover’s face on the television screen after all these years? Nothing showed; and when the picture changed to another face, there was still not the slightest flicker from Liz.
Then, at the very end of the news story, Joyce had her own opportunity to react to a face on the screen; her own. Or was it her own? “The police sketch of the woman calling herself Janet Grey” was plain, glum, anonymous. Peter made another mocking remark, which Joyce was too agitated to hear. Appalled, she thought, Is that what I look like? Gazing at that pale sketch, she felt the heat in her own face as she blushed, and was afraid to look away, lest she meet someone’s eye. If only she had some of Liz’s unconcern.
The blank-faced sketch seemed to stay on the screen forever; then at last it disappeared, replaced by the mobile face of the announcer, moving on to other stories. Rising, Peter switched on a floor lamp and turned off the TV. Obviously pleased with himself, facing the others with his back to the receding-dot light of the TV screen, he said, “They’ll produce. We picked the right horse, and they’ll trade.”
“You shouldn’t have let him do all those jokes,” Mark said. “I told you at the time, make him do it over, without the wisecracks.”
Peter shrugged; Joyce thought he showed astonishing forbearance with Mark. He said, “What difference does it make?”
“Because he sounds like the winner,” Mark said. “He sounds like he’s got us.”
“You worry too much about the appearance of things.” Peter put a hand to his face, stroked his cheek with his fingertips, his expression pained. Joyce recognized that gesture; it meant Peter was troubled, struggling to retain control or composure. Joyce wished Mark would leave Peter alone, he had enough to think about as it was. “The important thing is,” Peter said, “the other side knows he’s alive and well. He’s our trading counter, and he has to be recognizable.”