Chapter 13
The stage was set.
Carl Peurter, Alan Govern and Angel were located near the steps of the town hall, an elevation which served as a stage for the singers and the speakers. The television cameras were turning and a newsman was carrying a portable mike around among those who were self-appointed leaders of the protest. Alan waited for the right time, keeping Angel near enough to the mike so that, when the time came, he'd be able to gain the newsman's attention.
Joe Howard, having walked away five pounds in his futile search for Angel, was attracted to the square by the roar of the crowd and the sound of amplified music. In a motel room, a traumatized Stanley Richmond looked at her watch, remembered that she was supposed to be in the town and her firm convictions against war pushed her own selfish concerns to the rear, at least enough so that she left the room, drove to the edge of the square and, carrying her purse, began to edge through the crowd toward the steps. She had a job to do. It was her job to sea that Angel made the speech assigned to her and then to deliver Angel safely back to her father.
But there were so many men; She was pushed by men. She felt their hard, sweaty bodies press against her and she cringed. She wanted to scream and never stop screaming until she was so far away from men that she would never see them again. Yet, her duty to herself, to the world, pushed her forward, moving slowly and with much difficulty through the pressing mob toward the steps where the film tfuck waited, where, if the plan was operating properly, Carl and Alan had Angel primed for her starring role.
Rock and roll music boomed out. The musicians had set up their amplifiers, getting power from the cooperative newsman in the television film tfuck. The cameras turned. The scene alternated between couples dancing happily in the street and cheering, booing faces as some would-be demagogue spoke into the microphones of both the loud speaker system and the television people.
"Maybe we can get one of the little bastards to burn a draft card," one cameraman said to the director, who worked inside the film unit.
"Naw," the director said. "That's old stuff."
Joe Howard, remembering that Angel had been at the center of the mob on the previous day, indulged a hunch and began to work his way toward the steps, approaching them in the opposite direction from Stanley, who was very near now, near enough to see that Angel was there, in a good position. She also saw Carl and her heart pounded with fierce hatred. She clutched her purse tightly.
The music stopped. Carl pushed Angel forward. An excited young man was talking to the newsman, telling the world about his feelings toward the war. He voiced the cliches. Baby burning. Fight the draft. Napalm. Alan Govern, thinking the time right, wanting to get it over, pushed his way to the side of the newsman.
"Hey," he yelled into the man's ear. "I got something good for you."
The excited student was still talking. Alan, veteran of many demonstrations, saw quickly that the kid was wasting his breath. He, the kid, thought he was being filmed for national television. Alan saw at a glance that the cameras were not turning.
"Don't yell in my damned ear," the newsman said.
"I got Angel Tomsk," Alan said. "Jolly for you."
"Igor Tomsk's daughter," Alan said. "The scientist who . . . "
"You'd better not be kidding me, buddy." The newsman said to the excited student, "Hey, knock it off, huh?" He pulled the mike away and faced Alan. He saw Angel behind him. "That's the daughter of Igor Tomsk."
"She has a statement to make," Alan said. "Yeah? What about?"
"She wants to speak against the war," Alan said.
The newsman spoke into the mike. In the tfuck, the director heard his voice. "We got something here, maybe. Kid says she's Angel Tomsk, daughter of that Ruski who flew the coop a few years back. Wanta waste some film on it?"
"We need something," the director said. "What we got so far won't get us thirty-seconds on the evening news and I kinda like it down here in Florida."
"I dig," the newsman said. He spoke to Alan. "Look, let's get the girl up there where we can get a good shot of her." He led the way, pushing through the musicians, gaining the height advantage of the steps. Angel, feeling a numbed acceptance, followed, her arm held tightly by Alan.
"You talk pretty, baby, you hear?" Alan said to her.
At the foot of the steps, Joe Howard stood only a few feet away from Stanley Richmond. Neither of them was aware of the other's presence. Stanley had eyes only for Angel and Alan, high on the steps with the newsman making space around them.
"Are you ready, Miss Tomsk?" the newsman asked politely.
Angel nodded. Alan looked down directly into the face of the blonde and began to yell at Carl. Carl got the message, looked over and saw Stanley. When they had Angel's speech safely on the television film, they'd be through with the gig. It was up to Stanley to take over, then. The girl was a nut, but he didn't care about that. All he wanted was to be sure she was on hand to take Angel off their hands in a few minutes. He pushed his way toward Stanley.
One of the musician pushed the public address mike under Angel's chin, bringing a frown from the television newsman. But he couldn't fight it. He said, "Roll 'em." He stood beside Angel and set the scene, on a hunch that this segment of film would be the one used on the evening telecast. He told the camera and the crowd who he was and then he began to tell them who Angel was.
Carl Peurter gained Stanley's side and said, "Where the hell you been?"
She hadn't seen him coming. She looked up into his face and saw the face of the man who had violated her. She shrank back, making an attempt to get away from him. He, wanting only to keep her there so that she could releive them of Angel, grabbed her arm. Stanley screamed.
"I am Angel Tomsk," Angel began, hearing her voice echo back to her from the big speakers which had been set up by the rock and roll musicians, unknows who were at the rally because they thought TV cameras would be there. They hoped that some of their music would be included in the news films when they were broadcast on television.
"Let me go," Stanley Richmond screamed at Carl.
Joe Howard was looking up at Angel, wondering what the hell she was doing making a speech. She didn't seem like the speech making sort.
"I find it necessary," Angel said, her voice amplified into a huge noise which covered the crowd and was recorded by the sound cameras, "to speak out . . . "
"Cool it, Goddamnit," Carl said to the struggling Stanley.
"Let me go, let me go, let me go," she screamed, causing eyes to turn as she dug frantically in her purse, came out with the long, sharp dagger and plunged it with all her strength into Carl's stomach.
"Get that, Johnny," someone shouted to a cameraman, mounted atop the tfuck. "Get that!"
Angel was talking, but no one heard. The cameras turned away from her. A series of screams came from those close to Carl as he fell, trying to pull the dagger from his body. He felt forward, hand clutching frantically at the deadly pain in his gut and he landed squarely on the dagger, driving it even deeper into his vitals.
Joe Howard, near enough to see what was happening, moved without thinking. Several students seized Stanley Richmond and, with so much male force directed at her, she went hysterical, screaming incoherently.
Angel saw Carl fall, saw Stanley, saw and didn't understand. Under stress, she began to hallucinate. She was screaming as Joe Howard, acting without even thinking, came bounding up the stairs.
"Angel!"
"I'll take care of her," Alan said, his mind running behind events, but still clinging to the vague hope of having an opportunity to put Angel back on camera to finish her statement.
Joe hit him lightly, really, but the blow was enough to send him tumbling in a tangle of wires and drums as Alan reeled back into the group of musicians.
"Angel?" he repeated. She was standing stiffly, screaming, her hands at her sides. He slapped her lightly. She closed her mouth. "Joe! Oh, Joe!"
It was enough for him. He felt that it was time to get the hell out of there. He didn't know what was happening, actually, but it was exciting enough to last him for a long time. A man had been stabbed and Angel was up there making a speech, then screaming and it was time to get out of there to a quiet place where he could ask some questions.
He didn't stop to think that it was, really, none of his business. He didn't stop to consider that he, perhaps, was biting off a chunk of trouble. He got out of there, leading Angel firmly by the arm.
There was no hope of getting away through the crowd, which pushed forward out of curiosity to see the fallen Carl Peurter. While Alan struggled to extricate himself from the drums and the musicians cursed him for damaging their property, Joe led Angel up the stairs, into the town hall, out a side door onto a deserted street. Behind them sirens began to scream. He didn't stop running until they had put about two blocks between them and the mob there in the town square. He pulled Angel into an alcove and looked at her, grinning.
"This is getting to be familiar," he began, thinking that it was the second time he'd pulled her out of a mob scene. Her face was slack. A beading of spittle fell from her lax mouth. "Angel?"
She was gone. She wasn't there. He thought it was shock. He tried to shake her out of it. Then he began to worry. When it became obvious that she was in real trouble, he found a doctor in a nearby building and carried her up the stairs, bursting into the waiting room to create a minor sensation among the people waiting there.
"Emergency," he said, breathing hard. "Emergency."
A nurse fluttered around, directing him to carry Angel into a treatment room. She was completely limp. She showed no signs of life as the doctor examined her. He told Joe to leave the room, but Joe stood in the doorway and watched. He told the doctor, in as few words as possible, what had happened.
"It's just shock, isn't it?" he asked, after a few minutes of silence, during which the doctor had been busy.
"I'm not sure," the doctor said. "She shows all the symptoms of catatonia. She seems to have completely witlidrawn from reality."
"My God," Joe said.