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Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 31

"This is Nancy Noncommit, BSTV news anchor. Top story this hour: the Paladin search continues for Char the mystery star."

Quick cut to Drumm close-up, smoothing his little mustache. "Below Stairs is simply not large enough to hide a woman of such importance. The Black-Jewish-Catholic-Communist dissidents responsible will pay severely when apprehended. I would also like to say for the record - "

Cut back to Nancy Noncommit:". . . idiot will talk all night." (Sees her camera light on. The blank smile flashes automatically.) "Meanwhile White Paladin guards are combing the streets and residential neighborhoods for any lead to the missing fiancee of Leader Roy Stride. BSTV news is on the spot with one interrogation team."

Outdoor shot of a sleepy-eyed Paladin by a bullet-pocked wall, fondling his rifle. Several bodies lay at the foot of the wall.

TELEREPORTER: "We understand that these people resisted interrogation."

PALADIN: "That is correct. I asked them if they knew where Char was, and they said they was Catholics and didn't give a big rat's (bleep), and I shot them as per the orders that I was given."

TELEREPORTER: "Do you usually have this difficulty with interrogation subjects?"

PALADIN (stroking his rifle absently): "Sometimes, yes, sir. Like this morning someone said he knew where Char was gone to but we was already shooting him."

TELEREPORTER: "Did your superiors consider this hasty?"

PALADIN (frowns in thought, takes a slip of paper from pocket and reads it): "We cannot be blamed for patriotism, but we are working to upgrade interrogation procedures."

And back to Nancy Noncommit: "One thing is certain, Char is difficult to find, especially when you can't get good help. Paladin search parties, ranging across Below Stairs, usually find themselves back at the Leader's Palace. This is seen by Minister Drumm as the work of dissidents. Others suggest the use of a compass."

So it went. Charity lounged in her tub, nibbled lox and admitted a select few neighbors from the building, like the past-life therapist from Venice, California, who volunteered to help her work through historical personalities allegedly seething in Charity's subconscious.

"She says I could've once been Cleopatra," she confided to Simnel over a hand of gin rummy, "but she says that's a very hard life to work through."

"Usually means there's a waiting list." Simnel laid down a deuce on the playing board across the white plateau of bubbles that encased Charity to the shoulders. "Cleo is very popular; never gets a moment's rest. Why not try for Calpurnia?"

"Who?"

"Caesar's wife. As advertised, above reproach."

Charity picked up the deuce. "I don't know. Liz Taylor was so great in the movie. Gin."

"GIN?" Caught with a ruinous handful of points, Simnel forgot himself. "You larcenous wench, you can't have gin this soon unless you're cheating. And you shuffled."

"Sure. Gin."

"You're not playing the game, mum."

"It ain't playing the game. It's winning. Gin."

"If I may say so, Miss Stovall, you never learned that Below Stairs."

"No. I learned that being poor in Plattsville."

The intercom phone buzzed softly. Charity yawned. "Get it downstairs, Simmy."

Simnel withdrew to do his office; shortly thereafter the bathroom phone beeped again. "It's Mr. Veigle again. About business, he says. Wants to come up. He lives here in the building, mum."

"Oh . . . why not," Charity decided, thoroughly bored. "It beats wrestling with Colorad, which I want you to tell him when he comes in that I have a headache."

"Mr. Colorad won't be back until this evening."

"It's a bad headache, it'll last."

When Simnel ushered in Eddie Veigle and added more bubble bath, Charity's head in its red shower cap looked like a maraschino on whipped cream. Veigle struck her as somehow sinister; even in the hot bath he made her feel clammy cold. She greeted him with a noncommittal "Hi."

"No." The bulky visitor shook his brilliantined head. "Absolutely not. We build the image from the first. You're a nice girl from Pottsville."

"Plattsville."

"Never mind. We're creating a product. The word is 'How do you do, Mr. Veigle?' Your parents were poor but they taught you good manners."

"They never taught me anything," she contradicted truthfully. "They didn't even care if I did my homework or not. Look, I'm doing you a favor just letting you in. How'd you find me, anyway?"

"I'm a businessman," Veigle said flatly. "We always know more than the government. And I live here in the building. Word gets around."

Eddie Veigle was moon-faced, bespectacled and deceptively benign, a fat man in a tasteful, perfectly tailored double-breasted gray suit. Next to Veigle, Ronald Reagan looked seedy. His nails were manicured, not one glossy black hair strayed out of place, not even the short gray ones around his ears. He smiled a great deal - just that, Charity discovered quickly, the smile could go bleak and cold as the moor around Dane's castle even as he beamed at her.

"Not even the Paladins know where I am."

"Bet your buns they didn't; not till I got the scenario worked out." Veigle drew a satin-upholstered stool close to the bath and rested his ample buttocks on it. "But they do now."

"Huh?" Charity sat up so fast she had to scoop in extra bubbles for modesty. "SIM-MY!"

"Because now is the right time for you to be found." Veigle inspected the shine on his nails. "Don't worry, you'll make a mint. Wait'll you hear what I've worked out."

Charity felt suddenly very afraid.

"What's the matter, kid? You look like you just lost your last option." Veigle leaned closer, solicitous but still oddly menacing. "The scenario's a winner. First the book, then the movie. That's why we ran the lifestyle segment on you."

"That wasn't me." She needed to escape from him. The vague threat of him filled the whole bathroom. "That was mostly bullshit."

"Look, baby, we're not amateurs. We used the best actress we could find. We had to to get that boondock accent of yours. The dream is what they'll buy."

Charity felt herself trembling in the warm, sudsy water. If he called the Paladins, they'd be here any minute, the same ones that killed the little girl. "I can't write any book. I wasn't good in English."

"Honey, it's a package," Veigle told her as if tutoring a backward child. "I got ten ghostwriters screaming for this assignment. Title alone can't miss. American Dream."

They had the rags to riches, he explained; that was a natural, he loved it, but . . . getting a little, you know, tired. The package needed something else. Market studies showed greater impact when a spiritual element was included.

"That's it A spiritual rags to riches." Veigle's oil and honey tones enriched with revelation. "Look at Colson after Watergate: found God in prison. How many sales? TV movie. Larry Flynt of Hustler magazine: up to his kishkas in a lawsuit, saw the light on a plane trip. "I found God at 35,000 feet". The drunks and druggies who fell from the big time and fought their way back, always

with a book and a movie coming out of it. Goodness is admirable," that deep, insinuating voice told Charity, "but the fall-down is prime time. Jim and Tammy Bakker struggling to be brave on camera. Even the highbrows watched. They made jokes about it, but they watched. Drama, Char!"

Of the names he rattled off, Charity remembered only Reverend and Mrs. Bakker. She'd liked the PTL ministry on TV. He seemed like a nice man, but someone ought to teach his wife how to put on her makeup.

"Now do you get the picture?" Veigle urged. "This is high concept. Every one of those stories was a hit book or a boffo flick. Virtue is nice and sweet, but pain - the fall and redemption are the drama, the money in the bank. And you, doll face, are a mint. I want you to sign with me now."