That was not the worst of the injustice that was being done to him. He had composed a new song that was a sure million-copy seller, as all of his songs were since he had become world famous, but the song had not sold a million copies because the bastards who were running things now had yanked it off the market because it was obscene. What the hell did they expect from him anyway, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? It was a clever song, clever as hell; it could have been an even bigger hit than “Pigpen,” the one the cops hated so much. But they had killed it just because it was about a naked woman who gets laid at the finish. Nat Friedman had warned him, but Nat was always warning him because he was a scared little runt and too cautious.
After that had happened he had decided to give a concert; he wanted to look again at an auditorium jammed with screaming, adoring faces; faces that loved him and hung on his every word, every gesture that he made. They would wait for him by the hundreds outside and there would be the business of the paper slips and a bunch of new girls to screw anytime he liked. Nat had booked the concert all right, after advising that they should lay low for a while. That had been like Nat, always timid, always afraid.
He had gotten all dressed up in his trademark costume, let them wait an extra twenty minutes for kicks, and then had come on stage, Marc Orberg in person, to look out at the vast emptiness before him with only a few hundred people gathered down front to hear him sing. They had made a fuss when he had appeared, of course, but the silent mockery of the thousands of empty seats in the big sports arena had been more than he could endure. They couldn’t treat him like that; they had found that out when he had stalked off in a blinding rage.
Nat had calmed him down, had told him to go out and sing so that they wouldn’t have to give all of the money back, particularly on the performance bond that would run into real dough. Just to make Nat happy he had gone back on stage and had sung two songs; if more of them couldn’t come, then that was all that they deserved. The applause hadn’t been loud enough, the screams of delight hadn’t been there, so he had walked out again, this time for good. He had performed; so no one got any money back and that was that. But it hadn’t died there, because the humiliation of it had galled him every hour of every day afterward.
Not one damn girl had been there after the show, not a one to share his six-thousand-dollar bed and there wasn’t another like it in the world.
He smashed a fist into the simulated fur upholstery as he realized once more that he hadn’t been to bed with any kind of a female for days. He wanted a woman, even another of the timid little virgins out for the thrill of a lifetime, and getting it.
And when he had had Nat phone that clown Zalinsky in Washington, because it was high time that Marc Orberg was recognized and rewarded for what he had done, the self-centered fool had had the nerve to refuse to see him.
If he had had anything that he could have smashed, he would have seized it and beaten it against the wall.
Then a forgotten memory flashed into his brain. He had promised, long before any of the invaders had set foot on American soil, that he would be the first to welcome them. Since then, he knew, thousands of them had come and he hadn’t met a one of them.
All right, it was something to do. He would make a big deal out of it somehow, and get some publicity. Pictures on the front page of him shaking hands with the commander, if there was one. All he had to do was to find the right time and place and then have Nat let the press know.
Going to meet a plane at an airport would be no good, flights had been coming in all the time for weeks.
Then he had an idea: there had been something in the papers about clearing a stretch of the Maryland east shore. Enemy amphibious forces were coming in and they were going to hit the beach in classic style. There would be a lot of action during the exercise, thousands of men and a major commander of one kind or another, and he, Marc Orberg, would welcome them! The news media would all be there and millions of Americans would hate the very idea of the unopposed enemy landing. He could ride into town in the commander’s vehicle and shove it right down their throats.
He liked that, he liked it a lot. The idea grew and expanded in his mind until it gave birth to another. When that happened he found release at last from his blinding frustration and the acid anger that was consuming him. With his fame and prestige they would be damn glad to get him — as an active partner in the new government!
Hewlitt could hardly contain himself as Frank pulled his cab away from the West Entrance to the White House and entered the flow of home-going traffic. He sat silently, knowing that he had to, and waited to see if the enforced restraint of the past two days was to continue, but impatience burned within him.
“Did your girl friend put out yet?” Frank asked.
Relief flooded through Hewlitt. “If she doesn’t pretty quick I’m going to get a new girl friend,” he answered. “Have they had you wired?”
“I think so; I picked up some fellows following me and I didn’t like the looks of it. Davy went over the car and found something. He didn’t tell me the details. Anyhow, I think you’re under investigation.”
“How about yourself?”
Frank waited until he had emerged from closely packed traffic. “All right, I think. This morning the thing was gone from the car, so I’m thinkin’ that it was sort of routine, general snooping around.”
“Davy was sure?”
“You better believe it, and he’s a good boy. I told you that.”
“I believe it; right now I’m trusting my neck to him. Frank, I’ve got something: you were right about Captain Scott, I think I can prove it.”
“Let’s have it.”
“When Bob Landers was shot Scott saw Zalinsky and got permission to bury the body — remember?”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t wake up to it until you slipped me that note in a fortune cookie, but normally Zalinsky doesn’t see anybody; he turned down Fitzhugh and a lot of others who are pretty important. But Scott walked right in, and he’s only a captain. And he got a concession on the first try. It doesn’t add up.”
“Now there you really got somethin’, my boss will like that! He tol’ me that Scott might be all right, but maybe not. I’ll get this to him right away before anybody else can get trapped. Anything more?”
“Yes, Fitzhugh wrote Zalinsky’s boss — the premier himself — and offered to negotiate as peacemaker for this country. I haven’t seen the letter, but I don’t need to. Zalinsky sent me to tell Fitzhugh to forget it and to pick up his marbles. The senator took it hard; he thought that he was going to emerge as the savior of the country.”
“Not likely, not him.”
“The Brown hearings are off, which isn’t too surprising. Brown himself is claiming that the Ravirod was O.K. and that the Air Force didn’t know how to fly it.”
“Horseshit,” Frank said. “Now listen, this is important — you ready?”
“Shoot.”
“We’re goin’ to start movin’, you included. I get the word that somethin’ big is shaping up.”
“I’m damn glad to hear it.”
Frank stopped for a light and the conversation remained suspended until they were in motion once more. “I don’t know anythin’ about what it is, but it ought to be pretty good. Now this is orders: you tell Barbara that she’s to move into Davy’s house. An’ she’s to tell Mary to do the same thing. Just as soon as they can work it to make it look right.”
“Frank, how can that look right? They’re both pretty high-class government girls. They just wouldn’t do that!”