Buddy Holly Is Alive And Well On Ganymede Part 5

Boog turned back and gestured for me to get off. Reluctant but desperate, I dismounted. He got on and kicked the starter a few times, harder than I could, but Peggy Sue still refused to start.

The siren was getting louder.

Boog whanged on the fuel valve and carburetor with his crescent wrench. I began to like him.

"A bike gets old, c.r.a.p flakes off in the tank," he said as he whanged. He didn't seem to have noticed the siren. "You gotta start using better gas, make sure you don't get none of that alcohol junk, and change the filter screen a couple of times a year. It's like when people get old, they're supposed to eat more broccoli and bran flakes, but their a.s.ses get clogged up anyhow so they gotta take Ex-Lax." He stopped pounding, then gave the starter three King Kong-cla.s.s kicks, twisting the throttle hard.

Peggy Sue roared. Boog dismounted, letting the engine idle down, but stood in my way as I tried to take his place. "They ain't here yet," he said, "so give me a f.u.c.kin' minute. You're heading south, right?"

I nodded. "I've got to get to-"

Boog thunked me upside the helmet with his wrench. "Don't tell me where you're going. If the fuzz ask me, I want to say I don't know. Now listen up: Head west on fifty-four and blast through the first five stoplights. At the sixth light, hang left. That'll get you out of town quick. It turns into a country road that'll take you clear the f.u.c.k to Winfield, and from there it's less than twenty miles to the state line."

He moved aside, and I got onto the bike. "You hand out silver bullets too?" I asked. I would have sped away then, but he still had a hand on the handlebars.

"That ain't the way it is," Boog said. "I got no altruistic impulses." He looked off toward the heart of the salvage yard. "But I was seventeen when that G.o.dd.a.m.n plane went down. Maybe a guy young as you don't know what that means. But the first time I ever felt really good, I was listening to 'Oh, Boy.' I stripped down and rebuilt my first bike listening to 'Tell Me How.' I got to home plate with my first chick listening to 'Maybe Baby.' "

"I understand," I said, and maybe I did. He was the same age as Mother would have been.

"You owe me now," Boog said, fixing his eyes on mine. "You owe me, and you're gonna f.u.c.kin'-A pay me back."

Should have known,I thought. "How much?"

He scowled. "f.u.c.k that."

The siren was no more than a half mile away now. "What, then? What?"

Boog took his hand off Peggy Sue. "Help him," he said, and stepped back.

I sat still for an instant, thinking that I should say something. Then Peggy Sue went into gear and we ripped past the motel, spraying gravel all the way out to U.S. 54.

As we accelerated westward, a wailing patrol car pa.s.sed us heading in the opposite direction. In my mirrors, I saw it swerve into the driveway of the FIFTY-FOUR MOTOR INN REASONABLE RATES. I cranked the Ariel's throttle and ran two red lights. The next four were green. We turned south.

The town gave way to bare hills and dead trees, and a mile from the turn we pa.s.sed an oil refinery.

White tanks like humongous aspirin tablets hulked along the east side of the road, and in their midst stood a complicated tower, all pipes and girders and incomprehensible shapes. A smoking yellow flame burned at its apex, making the thing look like an inverted stars.h.i.+p. This was the source of El Dorado's distinctive smell.

Less than a quarter mile past the refinery, the ramshackle screen of a drive-in movie theater stood with its ribbed back turned to the road, displaying a white marquee with red letters that spelled SKYVUE. On the dead gra.s.s between there and the ditch, satellite dishes sprouted like c.o.c.keyed mushrooms. A sign leaning against one of the dishes read "SkyVue Drive-in Theater and Earth Station Emporium/Theater Closed for the Season/Buy a 200-Plus Channel Dish to Cure the Winter Blahs/All Antennas Built on the Premises/Inquire at Snack Bar." I let up on Peggy Sue's throttle. I was driving past the place from which Mother had ordered the dish that had relayed Buddy Holly's image to my Sony. My chest felt hollow. My head hammered as if with sympathetic vibrations.

I didn't know how or why, but the SkyVue Drive-In Theater and Earth Station Emporium was important to my quest. I downs.h.i.+fted and hit the brakes.

I had just begun the left turn into the theater's driveway when I glimpsed a car with flas.h.i.+ng red and blue lights approaching fast from the city. It wasn't using a siren, and it was still far behind, but I was sure that the Authorities inside had seen me.

I leaned back out of the turn, and Peggy Sue accelerated hard, nearly jerking me from the seat. Boog and his crescent wrench had done a good job. If the Authorities behind us were locals, they would have to give up soon because we would be out of their jurisdiction. I hoped.

My att.i.tude had changed from that of a law-abiding citizen to that of a law-breaking fugitive in less than a day. "It's so easy," I told Peggy Sue, amazed.

SHARON.

Notes on client Oliver Vale, continued...

2/3/89; 6:22 P.M.: I gave myself the day off and have slept almost seven hours, so I'm thinking more clearly than I was in the early morning. I believe I know what to do.

I have an advantage over the authorities who are searching for Oliver. I know his psychology, which means that I should be able to predict his actions.

Oliver was last seen heading south. But all of his friends are here in Topeka, and his few remaining relatives live in Des Moines. According to the most recent radio news report, the Kansas Highway Patrol believes that Oliver traveled south only a short distance, then doubled back and slipped into Topeka, where he is now supposedly hiding out. In my opinion, the highway patrol is trying to save face because they haven't caught him yet. If Oliver were in Topeka, he would have come here. Because I asked him to.

He has not come here, which means that he is still heading south. The reason the KHP hasn't captured him is because he's in Oklahoma by now.

Oliver is heading for Lubbock, Texas, the birthplace-and gravesite-of his hero and father figure.

The one thing I can't predict is the route he will take. The only way I can help him, then, is to get to Lubbock first and meet him when he arrives.

It isn't as simple as that, of course, because I also have to get there secretly. I'm sure that I'm being watched, and my telephone might even be tapped. If I were to buy plane, train, or bus tickets, I would be pointing a bright red arrow right at Oliver.

So I'll have to drive, and I'll have to take a route as tortuous as the one Oliver is probably taking. If I canpersuade Bruce to come along-without telling him where we're going, or why-then we can use one of his firm's two Chevrolets, and the authorities might not even realize I've gone until I've reached my destination.

Bruce has just come into the apartment. He's had a tough Friday with a difficult lawsuit, but he says that he is in a good mood because he's taking the weekend off to be with me. He ignores the fact that Buddy Holly is still on our (and everyone else's) TV. He thus also ignores the fact that my client and friend is still in trouble.

I can deal with this, however. I'm no longer fatigued, so I'm not susceptible to useless anger. Bruce is simply being Bruce. And that's fine.

"Let's go away for the weekend," I'll tell him.

"Sounds great," he'll say. "Where to? Chicago? Minneapolis? Denver?"

We'll snuggle on the divan. "Let me surprise you," I'll murmur.

I knowhis psychology too.

RICHTER.

A woman wearing a black sweatsuit met him at the Kansas City International Airport, handed him a keyring with two keys, and walked away without speaking. Richter appreciated that. A slip of paper taped to the keyring was printed with the words "Lot F, Row 17, sixth s.p.a.ce from the fence. Perpetrator has fled area, but investigate residence." Richter tore off the paper and ate it for practice.

The automobile was a black two-door Jaguar equipped with a compact disc player, a police-band scanner, a telephone, and a computerized map display. In the glove compartment Richter found directions to Oliver Vale's home, a driver's license photograph of and fact sheet on Vale, and a leather card case with a card identifying "S. I. Richter" as an agent of the Federal Communications Commission.

Richter skimmed the fact sheet and then started the Jaguar to begin the eighty-mile trip. The disc player filled the compartment with Chuck Berry songs. Richter smiled. If one had to work in the Midwest, this was the way to do it.

He arrived at Oliver Vale's home in the late afternoon, feeling refreshed. His mood soured, however, when two policemen emerged from their cruiser, which was parked in the driveway, and told him that he would have to leave. They looked at the Jaguar suspiciously.

"FCC," Richter told them, and produced identification from an inner pocket of his suit coat.

The shorter officer opened the card case and scowled. "This ID says FBI," he said.

"Yes," Richter said, careful to mask his anger with a calm, measured tone. He was furious with himself for having blundered. He had always been the kind of man who neither made mistakes nor tolerated the mistakes of others. The FCC card case lay heavy in his pocket.

"Oh, you're with both, huh?" the officer said, looking him over. "Guess you're about big enough to betwo people."

"Not enough hair for one, though," the taller officer said out of the side of his mouth.

Richter took back the FBI card and handed over the correct one. He wished that he could simply kill the two policeman, but to do that would be to allow his mistake to have consequences.

The shorter officer sneered as he looked at the new card. "I suppose you're CIA too, ain't you?"

Richter allowed himself a frown, but he said nothing. He put his hands into the pockets of his gray overcoat to keep them from the policeman's throat.

The taller officer reentered the cruiser. "I'm gonna have to call this in for confirmation, Mr.

FBI-FCC-CIA.".

"Very well," Richter said, imagining the two policemen's headless bodies spurting blood onto the ground.

He stood silent while the taller officer drawled into a microphone and listened to the squawks that answered.

"Awright, ten-four on that," the taller officer said at last. He stepped out of the cruiser and squinted at Richter. "Go on in. Dispatcher said he just got word you were comin'." The shorter officer gave Richter a glare, then walked around the cruiser to the pa.s.senger door.

Richter held out a hand. "Key," he said.

The taller officer handed him a key to the house. "Dispatcher says you can pick up a hard copy of our investigation progress report at the sheriff's office, but we don't have much yet. There's nothing here, unless the KBI boys found something." He joined his companion in the cruiser and shut the door.

Richter turned his back on them and walked up the driveway to the house, his shoes crunching gravel.

As he walked, he took latex gloves from his pockets and pulled them on. The locals had probably ruined all but the most obvious pieces of physical evidence, but it didn't hurt to be careful. He was determined that his mistake with the ID card would be his last.

The lights were on in the living room, as was the television set. Buddy Holly was hiccupping and strumming his guitar on the screen. Richter gave the image a cursory glance. It didn't vary in any significant aspect from what he had already seen on his bedroom wall.

A greasy plastic bowl lay on the floor beside a brown recliner, and popped popcorn kernels were scattered on the carpet. Richter picked up a kernel and sniffed it. It seemed ordinary, but he would order a chemical a.n.a.lysis anyway. For now, the only thing the bowl and the scattered kernels told him was that Vale had left the house in a hurry. The rest of the room was tidy.

The items on the coffee table in front of the recliner drew his attention: The latest issue ofRolling Stone.

A water pistol shaped like an electric guitar. A ten-inch crescent wrench. A paperback novel ent.i.tled Power Chord, by an author he had never heard of. A cordless combination telephone/answering machine. A liquor-bottle statue of Elvis Presley. A lucite photo cube containing trimmed magazine pictures of Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and John Lennon. The sixth s.p.a.ce on the cube contained a snapshot of a dark-haired, sad-eyed woman standing in front of a satellite dish.

Richter knew from the fact sheet that this was Vale's deceased mother. Next he examined the telephone. A piece of white tape on the receiver cradle read "Sharon S.: Speed Dial 01, or 234-0793." The fact sheet had said that Vale was a client of a psychologist named Sharon Sharpston, but the piece of tape put a new light on the relations.h.i.+p. Vale was either totally dependent upon Sharpston's counseling, or he was in love with her... which perhaps amounted to the same thing. He would keep her in mind.

Upon playing the answering-machine message, Richter decided that Clear Lake, Iowa, was a possible destination for the fugitive. If Vale had scattered his mother's ashes near there, it was obviously an important place to him, notwithstanding his a.s.sertion that it was "just a field."

Richter went through the rest of the house quickly but methodically. In the living room, dining room, and largest bedroom he found state-of-the-art stereo systems and libraries of record alb.u.ms, tapes, and compact discs. In one of the two smaller bedrooms he found a microcomputer, a laser printer, and shelves containing hundreds of books, many of them devoted to rock 'n' roll history and criticism. In the third bedroom (the windowless one, with a mussed bed) he found posters, concert paraphernalia, a black Fender Stratocaster and amplifier, and a worn hardbound biography of Buddy Holly. Richter let the book fall open three times, and each time it opened to a page containing a photograph of Holly's gravestone. Then, flipping through the book, he came across a photo of the snowy Clear Lake crash site in which hunch-shouldered men stood around the wreckage of the Beechcraft. In the margin someone had written,Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Also in this room, Richter found seven notebooks with stickers listing volume numbers and dates on their spines. The first page of the first volume was signed "Mich.e.l.le Renee Cranston," but each of the others was signed "Mich.e.l.le Vale." Richter skimmed the volumes for thirty minutes.

In the kitchen he found only appliances, utensils, dishes, and food. In the utility room he found only a washer and dryer. In the attic he found only pink insulation. In the garage he found only a lawnmower and a box of tools that looked new. In the bas.e.m.e.nt he found more rock 'n' roll alb.u.ms and memorabilia, including a computer-generated rendering of Buddy Holly and the Crickets and a black-velvet painting of a fat Elvis wearing a fringed jumpsuit and rings the size of hand grenades.

Richter stared at the painting. It struck him as sad that a man who had once had so much talent had tried to keep on going past his prime. Maybe Holly had been lucky. He hadn't had the chance to become a bloated caricature of himself.

Outside, Richter found a brown lawn, leafless trees, and a satellite dish that looked like the scores of others he had seen during the drive from Kansas City. Upon close inspection he discovered that the aluminum sh.e.l.l that housed the dish's electronics was covered with dents.

He went back into the house and tapped and pounded the walls, searching for secret panels. There were none.

He was finished. In his opinion, this house did not contain sufficient equipment to override either terrestrial or satellite video transmissions. He would recommend that the earth station and microcomputer be dismantled and examined by a technical team, and he would also recommend that the compact discs be scanned for codes, but he didn't think that such measures would yield results. He had smashed the guitar and amplifier himself and had found nothing out of the ordinary.

Also in Richter's opinion, Oliver Vale was not a genius and therefore was not the person responsible for the worldwide TV disruption. However, it was clear that Vale was obsessed with Buddy Holly, so it was possible that he was acquainted with whoeverwas responsible. That was all Richter needed to know fornow, because he was eighty percent certain that he knew where Vale was going.

He left the house, locking it, and walked past the police cruiser without returning the house key to the officers. They glowered at him, and he ignored them.

Once inside the Jaguar, he picked up the phone receiver and punched a long sequence of numbers. His call was answered by the voice that had given him his orders that morning.

"Richter?" The voice sounded agitated.

"Yes," Richter said. "No macroscopic clues as to the how of it, although a tech team should examine household electronics. But I have an idea of where he's gone." Richter's throat began to hurt. For him, this was a long speech.

"Then go get him, and hurry. Circ.u.mstances dictate that you act alone if possible."

Richter wanted to shatter the phone. He had been hoping that he would be ordered back to D.C. "Sir, I think it best that another operative retrieve him. He's fleeing several hundred miles, en route to-"

"Cla.s.sify it!" his superior cried. "This satellite channel may be monitored, and we donot want the Bad Guys getting to Vale first. We had believed that he was nothing more than a hacker, but we were wrong."

"Yes?" Richter prompted.

He heard a rasp of breath. "Richter," his superior said, "preliminary radio telescope data indicate that the primary source of the Buddy Holly broadcast is indeed located on Ganymede. They're picking up pulses that translate into a dork playing an electric guitar. Do you have any idea of the implications of this?"

"Yes," Richter said, starting the Jaguar. He was tired of talking, and of listening.

"It means that an extraterrestrial intelligence has infiltrated our solar system."

"Yes," Richter said. He held the phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder as he put the Jaguar into reverse and backed onto the street.

"And since these aliens-G.o.d,aliens!- have fingered Vale as their contact, then he's either an alien himself or he's been chosen to-Well, h.e.l.l, you saw all those Spielberg movies. So get to him fast, and request backup only if you're in danger of failing. In that event, use a pay phone with a command sequence to keep the information on earthbound lines." The voice paused, then said, "Any reason to think you can't handle this by yourself, old pal?"

"No," Richter said stonily, pivoting the Jaguar so that it faced south.

"Good. Don't fly, whatever you do; too conspicuous. But drive like a demon was chomping at your b.u.t.t.

a.s.sume that this conversation has been overheard. And by the way, there's to be no elimination of Vale.

Understood?"

"Yes," Richter said. He put the Jaguar into first and stepped on the accelerator. The automobile sped forward smoothly.

"Unless he's about to be taken by the Bad Guys, of course." Richter said nothing.

"My G.o.d, Richter, just think of it!Little green men. A tech squad's on its way to examine every molecule in Vale's house, and who knows what we'll find? I don't know about you, but I'm excited!" The phone clicked dead.

Richter hung up the receiver, s.h.i.+fted to second, and switched on the police-band scanner. He wasn't excited. A hacker who could take over satellite transmissions might also be able to generate spurious radio-telescope data.

Richter didn't believe in little green men.