The Plant. Part 28

April 4, 1981 490 Park Avenue South 9:55 A.M.

Gosh and fishes, gee whillikers, and Katie bar the door! What a time old Iron-Guts is having! Talk about making the best of your time! Talk about your gauzy moon-drenched madhouse dreams made real!

At first he felt some doubt. Disquiet, even. For a few moments there, after he picked the lock of the hallway door (no problem there, he could have done it in a doze) and stepped into the Zenith House reception area, something in the back of his brain actually tried to flash a Code Red. It was as if all those alligator instincts which served him so well in three wars and half a dozen brushfire skirmishes had sniffed something out and were trying to warn him. But a command officer didn't call off a mission simply because of a little trench-fright. What a command officer did was remind himself of his objective.

"Designated Jew," Hecksler murmured. That was his objective. The liar who had led him on and then stolen his best ideas.

Nonetheless he continued to feel that electric tickle of unease, that sense of being watched. Being watched by the very walls, it seemed.

He looked sharply along those walls, keeping his gaze above eye-level and peering with special penetrating attention into the corners. No surveillance cameras. So that was all right.

He sniffed sharply, spreading the wings of his nose, really flaring the old nostrils.

"Garlic," he muttered. "No question. Known it and grown it. All my life. Ha! And..."

Something else, there was definitely something else, but he couldn't get it. Not, at least, in the reception area.

"d.a.m.n garlic," he said. "Like a bore at a party. A bore with a loud voice."

At the portal which lead into the editorial offices, that interior warning voice spoke again. Only two words, but Hecksler heard them clearly: GET OUT !

"Not happening," he said, and issued the Sat.u.r.day-silent world of Zenith House a tight and unpleasant grin that likely would have turned Herb Porter's blood if he'd seen it. "Screaming lone eagle. Suicide mission, if that's what it takes. n.o.body goes home."

A step further and the smell of garlic was gone, as if someone had rubbed the stuff around the doorway. What replaced it was an entrancing odor Hecksler knew well and loved above all things: the tangy, bitter smell of burst gunpowder. The smell of battle.

The General, who had hunched over a bit without even realizing it (the first impulse when going into an unknown and possibly dangerous area, he knew, was to protect the family jewels), now straightened up. He looked around with a mad glare that would have done more than turn Herb's blood; it would have sent him fleeing in a blind panic. After a moment he relaxed. And now, below the bulging eyes, the lips first parted and then began to draw up. They reached the point where you would have said lips must stop and still they continued, until the corners seemed to have reached the level of Hecksler's bulging blue eyes. The smile became a grin; the grin became a bigger grin; the bigger grin became a grimace; the grimace became a cannibal's leer; the cannibal's leer became an insane cannibal's leer.

"Zenith House, I am here!" he thundered into the empty corridor with its faded gray industrial strength rug and its framed book jackets of bosomy maidens and marching giant bugs on the walls. He struck his chest with a closed fist "You house of mockers, I am here! You den of thieves, I am here! Designated Jew, I AM HERE!"

His first impulse, curbed only with difficulty, was to remove his not inconsiderable p.e.n.i.s from his pants and urinate everywhere: on the carpet, the walls, even the framed jacket covers if his admittedly aging p.i.s.s-pump could fling the stream that high (twenty years before he could have washed the ceiling tiles, by G.o.d), like a dog marking its territory. Sanity didn't rea.s.sert itself because there was none left in the haunted belfry of his brushcut-topped head, but there was still plenty of guile. Nothing must appear out of place here in the hallway. Chances that the D.J. would come in first on Monday were mighty slim.

"G.o.ddam slacker is what he is," Hecksler said. "A G.o.ddam commissary cowboy. Ha! Seen a thousand of em!"

And so he walked down the main corridor as decorously as a nun, pa.s.sing doors marked WADE EDITOR IN CHIEF, KENTON, and GELB (that one another Jew, undoubtedly, but not the Jew) before coming to one marked...PORTER.

"Yessss," Hecksler said, bringing the word out in a long and satisfying hiss, like steam.

There wasn't even any need to pick the lock; the D.J.'s door was open. The General stepped in. And now...now that he's in a place where he no longer has to be careful...gosh!

The urine which General Hecksler withheld in the hall goes into Herb Porter's desk drawers, starting with the lower and working to the upper. There is even a final squirt for the keyboard of typewriter.

There's an IN/OUT box filled with what look like submission letters, ma.n.u.script reports, and a personal letter (although typed) which begins Dear Fergus. Hecksler tears it all up and sprinkles the pieces on top of the desk like confetti.

Next to the IN/OUT is an envelope marked GOTHAM COLLECTIBLES, addressed to Mr. Herbert Porter care of Zenith House, and marked CONFIDENTIAL. Inside, the General finds three items. One is a letter which says, in essence, that the folks at Gotham Collectibles were mighty glad they could find the enclosed rarity for such a valued customer. The rarity is a Honus Wagner baseball card in a gla.s.sine envelope. The last enclosure is a bill in the amount of two hundred and fifty American men. The General is astounded and outraged. Two hundred and fifty dollars for a yid baseball player? And of course he is a yid; Hecksler can pick them out anywhere. Look at that schnozzola, by the jacked-up Jesus! (Unaware that Honus Wagner's schnozzola is pretty much identical to Anthony Hecksler's own.) Iron-Guts takes the card out of its envelope, and soon the image of Honus Wagner has joined the other, considerably less valuable, confetti on Herb's desk.

Hecksler begins to sing softly, a beer jingle: "Here's to you...for all you do...you des-ig-NAYY-ted Jew..."

There are the file cabinets. He could tip them over, but what if someone below heard the thud? And it seems meaningless. If he opens them, he knows what he'll find: just more paper. He's ripped enough of that for one day, by G.o.d. Also, he's getting a little p.o.o.ped. It's been a stressful morning (a stressful week, a stressful month, a stressful G.o.ddam life). If he could find one more thing...one more meaningful thing...

And there it is. Most of the stuff on the walls is uninteresting-covers of books the D.J. has edited, photos of the D.J. with a number of men (and one woman) who the General supposes are writers but look to him suspiciously like w.a.n.kers-but there's one picture that's different. Not only is it set off from the others, in its own little s.p.a.ce, but the Herb Porter in it has an actual expression on his face. In the others, the best he's managed is a sort of oh-f.u.c.k-I'm-getting-my-G.o.ddam-picture-taken-again squint, but in this one he's actually smiling, and it is a smile of unquestionable love. The woman he's smiling at is taller than the D.J. and looks about sixty. Held in front of her is the sort of large black satchel purse which by law only woman of sixty or over may carry.

Hecksler croons, "I see me, I see you, I see the mother, of a designated Jew."

He pulls the picture from the wall, turns it over, and sees the sort of cardboard backing he would have expected. Oh yes, he knows his man: sly tricks in front, cardboard backing behind. Yowza.

Hecksler pulls out the cardboard, then the picture of Herb and his beloved Marmar, which was taken at the twentyfifth anniversary party Herb organized for his parents out on Montauk in 1978. Iron-Guts drops trou (they go down fast, perhaps because of the large fold-up knife in the right front pocket), grabs one skinny b.u.t.t-cheek and gives it a brisk sideways yank, the better to present the back door, the tan track, the everloving dirt road. Then the former United States General, who was personally decorated by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, rubs his a.s.s briskly and thoroughly with this picture which Herb loves above all others.

Gosh, what a time we're having!

But good times wear a person out, especially an older person, especially an older bonkers person. Enough be enough, as Amos might have said to Andy. The General hauls up his pants, squares himself away, then sits down in Herb's office chair. He did not pee in this chair, mostly because it never occurred to him, so the seat is nice and dry.

He swivels slowly around and looks out Herb's window. No view; just a few feet of empty s.p.a.ce and then the windows of another office building. Most of those are covered with venetian blinds, and where the blinds aren't drawn, the offices are perfectly still. No doubt somewhere in that building, as in this, executives are squeezing in a little overtime, but not in sight of Herb Porter's window.

The sun comes slanting in on General Hecksler's face, cruelly spotlighting his age-roughened skin and the burst veins at his temples; another vein, this one blue, pulses steadily in the middle of his deeply lined forehead. His eyelids are folded and wrinkled. More and more of them become visible as the General, who has dozed but not really slept in weeks, moves to the border which divides the land of wakefulness from that of Nod.

They close all the way...remain so, looking smoother now...and then they open again, disclosing faded blue eyes which are wary and crazy and most of all tired unto death. He has reached the border crossing-temporary peace lies beyond-but does he dare use it? Does he dare cross? There are so many enemies still, a world filled with scheming Jews, violent Italians, craven h.o.m.os.e.xuals, and thefty dance-footed Negros; so many sworn enemies of both the General and the country he has sworn to uphold...and could they be here now? Even now?

For a moment his lids take on their former wrinkled aspect as the eyes they guard open all the way, shifting in their sockets, but this only lasts a moment. The voice that warned him in the reception area has fallen silent, but he can still smell a lingering effluvia of gunsmoke, as soothing as memory.

Safe, that odor whispers. It is, of course, the odor and the voice of Zenith, the common ivy. You're safe. Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and you're safe for the next forty hours and more. Sleep, General. Sleep.

General Hecksler knows good advice when he hears it. Sitting in his enemy's chair, turned away from his enemy's desk (into which he has poured the p.i.s.s of righteousness), General Hecksler sleeps.

He cannot see the ivy which has already entered this room and grows invisibly around his shoes and up the walls. Smelling gunpowder and dreaming of ancient battles, General Hecksler begins to snore.

April 4, 1981 490 Park Avenue South New York City Skies fair, winds light, temperature 55 F.

10:37 A.M.

When Frank DeFelice arrives at 490 Park Avenue South, stepping out of a Checker Cab and tipping a perfectly precise ten per cent, he's not in the same buoyant mood as George Patella the soft-drink fella, but he's every bit as preoccupied. DeFelice works at Tallyrand Office Supply on the 7th floor, and he has forgotten some paperwork he needs in order to be ready for the pre-inventory meeting at 9 A.M. on Monday morning. His intention is to simply dash up, grab the inventory summaries, and head back to Grand Central. DeFelice lives in Croton-on-Hudson, and plans to spend the afternoon doing yard work. This Sat.u.r.day trip down to the city is your basic PITA: pain in the a.s.s.

He takes some vague notice of the man in the sand-colored business suit standing to the left of the door; the man is holding a large attache case and checking his watch. He is young for the suit, but good-looking and wellgroomed: blond, blue-eyed. Certainly Carlos Detweiller, who has his mother's Nordic genes, doesn't look like anyone's idea of a spic, designated or otherwise.

As DeFelice opens the lobby door with his key, the young man with the attache case sighs and murmurs, "Hold it a sec, would you?"

Frank DeFelice obligingly holds the door and they cross the lobby together, heels clicking and echoing.

"People shouldn't be allowed to be late on Sat.u.r.days," the young man says, and DeFelice gives an agreeable, meaningless little smile. His mind is a million miles away...well, forty, at any rate, dwelling on various spring bulbs and fertilizers.

Perhaps this run of thought is why he notices a certain odd smell about the young man as they step into the elevator together-a certain earthy smell, almost like peat. Can that be some new aftershave? Something called Spring Garden or April Delight?

DeFelice pushes for seven.

"Hit five while you're at it, would you?" the young man in the sand-colored suit asks, and DeFelice notices an interesting thing: there's a combination lock on the guy's attache case. That's sort of cool, he thinks, and that thought leads to another: Father's Day isn't that far off. Hints dropped in the right location (to the mother of his children rather than the children themselves, in other words) might not go amiss. In fact- "Five?" the young man in the sand-colored suit asks again, and DeFelice pushes five. He then points at the attache case.

"Abercrombie?" he asks.

"Kmart," the young man replies, and offers a smile that makes DeFelice slightly nervous. It has an emptiness that goes beyond daffy. The two men journey silently after that, rising in the faint smell of peat.

Carlos Detweiller steps out on five. He walks to the wall where there are arrows pointing the way to the various businesses: Barco Novel-Teaz, Crandall & Ovitz, Attorneys at Law, Zenith Publishing. He is examining these when the elevator doors slide shut. Frank DeFelice feels a momentary relief, then turns his mind to his own affairs.

10:38 A.M.

General Hecksler has sprung the lock instead of forcing it, and Carlos enters Zenith House without considering the unlocked main door suspicious- he's a gardener, a writer, and a Psykik Savant, after all, not a detective. Also, he's spent so many years getting what he wants that he's come to expect it.

In the reception area he smells garlic and nods briskly, like a man whose suspicions have been confirmed. Although in truth, they are rather more than suspicions. He is in touch with certain Powers, after all, and they've kept him ahead of the curve (as mid-level executives such as Frank DeFelice and George Patella might say) in most respects. One of the respects in which they have been a trifle behind the curve has to do with Iron-Guts Hecksler's current presence in the Zenith offices. Drawing conclusions in matters supernatural is always a risky business, but we might a.s.sume from this that the Powers of Darkness enjoy a giggle as much as the rest of us.

Yet does Carlos not smell something other than garlic out here? Certainly a frown clouds his blandly handsome face. Then it clears. He dismisses the faint whiff of the General's insanity which his trained nose has picked up as no more than a lingering trace of the receptionist's perfume. (What, one wonders, would such a perfume be called? Paranoia in Paris?)

Carlos moves across the room and pauses. Here the smell of garlic is stronger. She told them how to keep it in its place, he thinks, meaning the late Tina Barfield. Did she also tell them that, given a taste of the right blood, such precautions would be useless? Perhaps. In any case, it doesn't matter. He could care less at this point. Zenith would likely take care of John Kenton given time, but "likely" isn't good enough for Carlos Detweiller, and he doesn't have time. There probably won't be time to make John Kenton his zombie slave, either, but there should be enough time on Monday morning to cut Kenton's lying, misleading, thieving heart out of his chest. Carlos has plenty of knives in his Sakred Case, not to mention a new brush-cutter from American Gardener. He hopes to use this to remove Mr. John "p.o.o.p-s.h.i.t" Kenton's scalp. He can wear it like a hat while he snacks on "p.o.o.p-s.h.i.t's" valves and ventricles.

Carlos steps into the hall beyond the reception area and pauses again. He stands exactly where Hecksler stood when he proclaimed his presence to the empty offices. He notes (not without admiration) the framed book jackets: a giant ant poised over a screaming, half-nude woman; a mercenary shooting down a squad of charging Oriental soldiers while a city that appears to be Miami flames in the background; a woman in a slip in the embrace of a bare-chested pirate who appears to have an erection the size of an industrial plumbing fixture inside his colorful pantaloons; a red-eyed lurker watching the approach of a young lady on a deserted street; two or three cookbooks, just for spice.

Carlos thinks with some longing that in a better world, where people were honest, the jacket of his own book might be up there, as well. True Tales of Demon Infestations, with a photo of the one and only Carlos Detweiller on the cover. Smoking a pipe, perhaps, and looking Lovecrafty. That is not to be...but they will pay. Kenton, at least, will pay.

The hall looks empty except for the framed covers and the doors to the editorial cubicles beyond them, but the newcomer knows better. "Carlos, you weren't born yesterday or even the day before," as Mr. Keen might have said in happier times, times when people didn't forget who was supposed to win all the card games.

Looks, however, can be deceiving.

With the garlic-rubbed portal behind him, Carlos can easily smell the Tibetan kadath ivy he has sent John Kenton, and he smells its true aroma: not popcorn, chocolate, coffee, honeysuckle, or Shalimar perfume but a darker odor, strict and sharp. It isn't oil of clove, but perhaps that comes closest. It is a smell Carlos has detected emanating from his own armpits when he has been being strenuously psykik.

He closes his eyes and murmurs, "Talla. Demeter. Abbalah. Great Opoponax." He breathes deep and the smell intensifies, filling his head, making it swim with visions that are dark and full of gusty-cold flying. They are visions of the land to which he will soon be going, the place where he will make his transition from earthy mortal to tulpa, a creature of the invisible world fully capable of returning to this one and possessing the bodies of the still-living. Perhaps he will use this power; perhaps he will not. Right now, such things do not matter.

He opens his eyes again and yes, there is the kadath. It is growing all over the walls and the carpet, thinning as it advances toward the reception area, thick and luxuriant further down the corridor. Somewhere down there, Carlos knows, is the place where the original pot still resides, buried in billowing drifts of green which would be invisible to all those who don't believe in the plant's power. The far end of the corridor looks as impenetrable as a rainforest jungle, buried in growth right up to the fluorescents, but Carlos knows people could walk blithely up and down that corridor with absolutely no idea of what they were walking through...unless, of course, Zenith wanted them to know. In which case it would be the last thing they'd ever know. Basically, Zenith House is now a large green bear trap, spring-loaded.

Carlos walks down the corridor, Sakred Sakrifice Case held at chest level. He steps over the first trailing strand of Zenith, then an entire clot of entwined branches and rhizomes. One stirs and touches his ankle. Carlos stands patiently, and after a moment the strand drops away. Here, on the left, is the office of WADE EDITOR IN CHIEF. Carlos glances in without much interest, then pa.s.ses on to the next door. Here the ivy-growth is much thicker, the strands covering the lower part of the door in zigzag patterns and twining around the k.n.o.b in a loose lover's knot. One strand clings to the upper panel, which is gla.s.s, and streaks across the name like a stroke of green lightning.

"Kenton," Carlos says in a low voice. "You mocker."

10:44 A.M.

In Herb Porter's o ffice, General Anthony Hecksler opens his eyes. The thought that he may have dreamed the voice never so much as crosses his mind. What he has heard is this: Kenton, you mockie.