Do You Hear What I Hear?
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"This is ridiculous, Will," Laura muttered as they stepped out of their Saturn and into the windswept, chilly streets of Chicago. "You're drawing more attention to us than you would if you were dressed normally."
"Nonsense," Will said airily. This is a perfect disguise." He had resurrected the Hell's Angel look that he had sported at the Winchester Mystery House: a long, black Pocahontas-style wig, mirrored sunglasses, a black leather jacket, ripped jeans, and hiking boots. He had even rubbed shoe polish into his beard so that it was an appropriate shade of ebony. Laura had opted for the more subtle "Celebrity in Disguise" look: a turtleneck underneath her bulky parka, large but not outrageous sunglasses, and her hair pinned up beneath a cheery red baseball hat.
"Which way are we supposed to go again?" Will asked into the wind.
"The Board of Trade is on the corner of LaSalle and Jackson. Remember, where 'the way of the sails' intersects with 'Jack's way'? It's only about fifteen more blocks."
Will moaned. "Fifteen more blocks?! What if we have to make a quick getaway? How can we make a quick getaway if the car is fifteen blocks away?"
"Will, if we're recognized--if Simon starts blaring the Carpenters through the Board of Trade or something--it isn't going to matter if the car is fifteen blocks away, or if we have rocket packs on our backs. Parking the car far away means that, if something happens, we have a better chance of getting back to it and making our escape unnoticed."
"Bleh." Will brightened. "But we needn't worry. Dear Officer Thibodaux is going to be there to help us."
Laura smirked. "You've taken quite a shine to that Cajun, haven't you?"
"I just think he's very sweet," Will answered, reddening. "And very cute."
Laura trudged along in silence for a few seconds. "Isn't he a little short for you?"
Will's eyes flashed. "He's not short. He's compact. He may be small, but he's got a body like a little brick house."
"I think you kind of overwhelm him, Will."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, he's very unassuming. Very meticulous. Very logical. Very quiet."
"So?"
"So. . . you're very loud, very gregarious, very illogical, and you improvise every minute of your life."
"All the more reason we would be a perfect pair. He is yin to my yang; he is a moon to my sun; he is a Desi to my Lucy."
"He looks like a dark-haired version of Dudley Do-Right."
"He does not!" Will paused as they turned a corner. "Well, maybe a little."
"I just remember someone who once said, 'My ideal man is six and a half feet tall, with a chest that could sleep three, long blond hair, high cheekbones, and a pirate-esque look to him."
"Oh, no, no, no, " Will said emphatically. "I'm through with pirates."
"He's very nice," Laura said honestly. "He's just such a radical departure from--oh my God, look at that!"
Six feet away from them, a news stand stood on the sidewalk. The latest issues of popular magazines were strapped to its plywood walls, peeping out from under a protective layer of clear plastic. In the midst of them sat the Weekly World News, with a grotesque, computer generated image of Simon Waterbury's grinning face atop a fat baby's body. The headline screamed "Simon Waterbury's Long-Lost Baby Still Alive!"
Laura reached under the plastic sheeting and snatched up the magazine. "I always thought these rags were completely false! How could they have known about the baby?"
"Well, they're wrong. Didn't we determine that the baby was Lily and Philip's? Look at this one," Will said, pulling out a copy of The Globe. A bedraggled, toothless woman stared out from the cover, which read "Lily Waterbury Alive in West Virginia Trailer Park."
"Oh, sure, I believe that," Laura snorted.
"There sure is a glut of Sooner Than Never stuff," Will murmured.
"It's got to be part of the Waterbury marketing machine," Laura answered absently, flipping through a tabloid. Suddenly, Will let out a short, barking screech. "What's wrong?!" she gasped, clasping his arm.
"A life's dream!" he shrieked. "A life's dream realized!" He snatched up a copy of The National Enquirer and waved it in her face. "We made it into the Enquirer!"
A horrid photo of Will and Laura, taken at the press conference after the Bannermann Castle clue, sat beside a garish yellow headline: "Treasure Hunt Front-Runners Married in Secret Wyoming Ceremony."
"So much for truth in yellow journalism," Laura said, wrinkling her nose. "I wonder if we could sue them for that?"
"Who cares? I just think that--"
The squat, flannel-clad proprietor of the news stand came around the corner of the shack, scowling at them. "Youse guys gonna buy anything?" he fumed in a thick Chicago accent. "This ain't a library, you know."
Laura grabbed the magazines from Will's hands and replaced them tidily on the shelf. "Sorry," she breathed. "We were just looking."
She turned to Will. "Let's go meet Dudley Do-Right."
They strode off into the mid-morning. The clouds above them foreboded snow. The news stand's owner squinted after them for a moment, turned to look at The National Enquirer, and then groped in his deep pocket for his cell phone.
*****
"What I heard," Jilian Dobbs said, leaning back in her chair, "was that Simon and Lily had a child. Philip Huffmann felt betrayed because he was having an affair with both of them at the time. So he killed Lily."
David Nimoy sighed. Another weekly meeting to determine new angles on a story for which there was no news, no new developments, in almost a month. All the press had to go on now was hearsay and rumor.
Phil Bradley, his executive producer, leaned in to the table. "Where did you 'hear' that? Because I saw it at the grocery store check out. In a tabloid."
"I think they did publish that theory in one of the tabloids," Jilian sniffed. "But I heard about it in an Internet chat room."
Phil scowled. "What about that freak in Indiana? Has he spoken with anyone?"
"All he'll say," drawled Ruthanne Drillman, "is that he is doing the Lord's work by putting everything he knows about Simon Waterbury on the Net. But he hasn't updated his site since mid-November."
"The Lord's work, my ass," Phil breathed. "Maybe he's working with Gilbert and Dial. Maybe they're in cahoots with him, and the whole Christian thing is a sham."
David's brow furrowed. "I doubt that."
Phil turned toward David, ready for battle. "And just where are Gilbert and Dial, Mr. Nimoy? You haven't been doing so hot on keeping tabs on them."
David looked Phil squarely in the eyes. "They haven't been seen since the week after the riot in Nebraska. No one's heard anything from them."
"Maybe the Men in Black got them," Bill Rudolph, from the New York office, volunteered.
"The who?!"
"The Men in Black. There's this other rumor floating around that Gilbert and Dial have been getting followed by these suspicious-looking toughs for over a year."
"Where the hell do you people get ahold of these rumors?" Phil shouted, smacking the conference table in frustration. "This isn't news! This is gossip!"
Jilian Dobbs straightened in her seat. "The New York Times ran a story this morning saying that Simon Waterbury told an 'industry insider' that for all intents and purposes, the Sooner Than Never contest is over. That there is no way the money could be found with so little time left."
Phil grimaced. "Well, then, I guess we start thinking about autopsies. We can milk this thing for a good three months of programming into The New Year."
Everyone groaned.
"When is he calling it off? Officially, I mean," Phil demanded of his staff.
David cleared his throat. "Simon Waterbury and Vesper Shillington will be turning off the Sooner Than Never billboard in Times Square at 12:30 am on January 1 if the prize money is not claimed by midnight. He says he's donating the money to some yard art museum in Virginia."
"We'll need a special unit to cover that specifically," Phil said decidedly. "The network is planning 24 hours of New Year's Eve countdown, but I want a special unit devoted to Waterbury. Nimoy!"
"Yes, sir."
"You're in charge. I want a retrospective on the contest, a montage of pictures, the whole nine yards. We'll stick it in the 1 am time slot."
"Yes, sir." David flipped through his day planner. New Year's Eve was little more than two weeks away.
Wherever Will and Laura were, he hoped that they were working quickly.
*****
Will yawned, loudly. A shadow of a smirk darted across Officer Jack Thibodaux's face. Laura flashed Will a warning look and pressed a finger to her lips, then pointed at the tour guide.
The tour guide, a petite Japanese woman in an impeccable navy blue suit, paused briefly after Will's yawn. Then, she continued, as if she were relating an epic romance or the most breathless adventure tale of all time.
"The fourth floor of the Board of Trade houses the center of all our activity: the trading floor." You could actually hear the italics in her voice, Will thought tiredly. "The original trading floor was situated in a three-story room and covered 19,000 square feet. The height was later reduced by one-half to make room for the first trading floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which is now located across Van Buren Street." Her arm flashed out from her side in a wide, swiping gesture, indicating the precise direction of Van Buren Street. A gaggle of teenagers in the tour group tittered.
"This is SO boring," Will whispered to Laura through gritted teeth.
"Be quiet," she hissed, smiling and bobbing her head at the tour guide's endless drone.
"This is the most excruciating tour I have ever been on," Will whispered to Officer Jack.
"Sir?" The tour guide piped, staring at Will. "Do you have a question?"
Will's face reddened. "Nope. No questions here." Laura scowled at him.
The guide batted her eyelashes contemptuously and picked up her heart-stopping story. "In the mid 1970s, the Board of Trade began trading futures financial instruments. Trading volume soared and memberships on the exchange were expanded. A second trading floor was finally added in 1982, measuring 32,000 square feet." She paused dramatically so chills could run up and down the spines of her captive audience. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you just follow me up this short staircase, you'll get to see the trading floor in action." Her eyes suddenly glittered. "Hold on to your hats!"
The guide did an abrupt about-face, and the thirty or so tourists in the group followed, silently, shuffling their feet. Will pulled Laura and Jack back as they began to cross the room.
"I think we are way off on this tour," he whispered. "Simon is merciless, but surely he would never make anyone endure this."
Laura folded her arms. "What precisely do you suggest, O Wise One?"
"Well," Will began, "what about that statue of Ceres on the roof? Simon mentioned that pretty pointedly in the book. Maybe the treasure is hidden in the statue."
"This place is crawling with security, Will," Officer Jack said simply. "There is no way that we could get anywhere near the roof."
"Then where is the clue?" Will fumed. "It's not like they're going to suddenly say, 'And here, ladies and gentleman, on our right, is the latest clue in Simon Waterbury's Sooner Than Never treasure hunt.' I say we strike out on our own."
"They're going to miss us in the tour group," Laura said impatiently. "We need to catch up or we'll get in trouble. And the less attention we get, the better."
"I agree with Laura, Will," Jack Thibodaux said quietly.
Laura and Jack headed for the stairs.
"Did you see those Mennonites in the tour group?" Will called after them. "They were looking at us funny. I think they're on to us, I do."
Laura rolled her eyes, Jack chortled, and they started up the stairs. Reluctantly, Will followed.
*****
Judy Geary sat on the linoleum floor of her kitchen in Evansville, Indiana, her head bowed deeply in prayer. Her husband called to her.
"Judy? Sweet pea? Elijah is crying. He wants his momma."
She didn't answer him.
"Judy? The boy is crying. Go tend to him, woman."
Judy gritted her teeth and ignored him. She heard him stop typing on the computer; the whistles and beeps of the modem-thingy slowed.
Dick strode into the kitchen.
"Darlin', why are you on the floor like a beggar? Your son needs tending."
Judy glanced up at him, revealing her tear-stained face. "Pray with me, husband. Pray with me."
"Aaaw, Judy, you're not still upset with me, are you? I thought we had worked all of that out."
Her voice came in hiccoughing gasps. "I've been praying, Dick. I've been praying real hard. I'm just trying to understand--"
"Honey, there's nothing more to understand. We're doing the Lord's work, that's all. Don't question Him and His mysterious ways."
"But I thought you were hoping that someone else was going to--"
"Judy, New Year's Eve is almost here. I've been praying real hard, too, and the Lord has shown me what I need to do. He has shown me and I will follow His way. The way, the path, the light."
"I just don't know. I just think about Elijah, and me, and what would happen if--"
"Don't cry, honey. We'll get our rewards in the kingdom to come."
"I--I know we will. I'm sure we will. I just--I just don't like having that evil in my house. I just don't."
"Go tend to your son, wife."
"I--"
"Go tend to him."
Judy stood, wiped her running nose with the sleeve of her oversized sweatshirt, and headed toward Elijah's bedroom door. As she crossed the living room, she glanced down at her husband's latest purchase, lying on the sofa.
It wasn't a bit of hardware or software. It wasn't a new modem-thingy, or a new scanner doohickey.
It was a high-powered rifle with an infra-red sight.
*****
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our tour of the Chicago Board of Trade. I hope you've found this information as educational, exciting, and invigorating as myself. I will remain here for the next ten to twelve minutes and answer any questions you may have. Please don't forget to visit the interactive exhibits on the fifth floor, and have a joyous holiday season."
Finally, she had stopped. The tour group began to disperse.
"Well," Will breathed, "where do we go now? As I predicted, this tour was a big, hot, steaming cup of nothing."
"I'm guessing that we should head up to the interactive exhibits on the fifth floor," Laura said decidedly.
Will moaned. "That's going to be a dead end, too. 'Please press here, dumb tourist, for the next clue in Simon Waterbury's Sooner Than Never treasure hunt.'"
Jack Thibodaux, who had been quiet for some time, suddenly spoke. "I agree with Laura. Those interactive exhibits can hold a lot of data."
Will's eyes narrowed. "Well, then, Mr. Police Officer, why don't you two go up and look at the dumb interactive exhibits. I'm going to poke around and see what I can find."
He spun on his heel to leave. Laura grabbed his leather-sleeved arm. "Just don't go and get arrested, Will. Watch out."
He dimpled at her. "And you watch out for those Mennonites."
*****
Leia Freitag sighed as Thursday's installment of Days of Our Lives drew to a close. She was in her Thursday outfit, a extravagantly beaded muumuu and a wilted cloche hat.
"Poor Vivian," she lamented. "Poor, poor Vivian. They're going to write her out soon."
"They're going to write her out soon, they're going to write her out soon, they're going to write her out soon," Chad sang, laying spread-eagled in the middle of the floor.
Leia glanced down at him disgustedly. "Shut up, pig."
"Shut up, pig, shut up, pig--" Chad's attention was suddenly drawn to the TV. Footage of last year's New Year's Eve in Times Square darted across the screen, enhanced by overdone computer animation.
"Be sure to join NBC as we count down to the new millennium. . .join hosts Katie Couric and Matt Lauer for an all-star line-up and twenty-four hours of continuous coverage. . . then, join us after the ball drop as Simon Waterbury and Vesper Shillington douse the Sooner Than Never billboard in Times Square, bringing the official close to the contest of the century. . ."
Leia wailed. "Oh, God, what am I going to do?" She slapped Chad's leg with the back of her knuckles. "That's it, drool boy. I'm hypnotizing you again this afternoon."
She pulled herself to her feet and went into the bedroom to change out of her soap clothes.
Chad lay silently on the floor, thinking. The treasure had to be near Vesper. There was no question about that. And Waterbury had always had a flair for the theatrical.
Simon would like nothing more than a last minute dash to the finish line.
A last minute dash to the finish line captured live on every major network, and seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Could it be?
Has it been under their noses all along?
It was a possibility.
A distinct possibility.
He was getting an erection.
*****
More "News and Views."
More "Market Information."
More "Programs and Services."
More "Points of Interest."
More "Architecture: Facts and Figures."
Laura bit her lip as she scrolled through page after page of information on the computerized interactive exhibit. Will was right. This was turning out to be a dead end. Endless pages of financial jargon, watered down for the common man. Stock and futures reports and histories. Tedious money market articles from business magazines. A word-by-word transcript of their awful tour.
She hoped Will was having better luck.
Jack Thibodaux sidled up beside her. "I found," he paused gently, "something that might be of interest to you."
She turned from the monitor. "What? Where?"
Jack's enormous, soft brown eyes rolled up to the ceiling. Laura followed their gaze.
The ceiling was dominated by an enormous skylight, surrounded by a hideous art-deco sculpture of polished chrome and brass. On one side of the skylight was a representation of a bearded man, holding an enormous sheave of wheat. On the other side was an absurdly grinning, powerfully built, politically incorrect Indian warrior, bearing an ear of corn. The words of the national anthem were sculpted in brass around and between the two figures: "Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain--"
Amber waves of grain.
Laura's palms began to sweat. "Jack," she croaked. "Go find Will, please."
Jack leaned in to her. "And another thing. . .what was the name of the red-headed whore?"
"The what?!"
"The whore. In the novel. The woman who gave Lady Violet a lift?"
"Diana."
"And her coachman?"
"Samuel."
Wordlessly, Jack pointed to a small placard on a nearby wall:
THE DIANA SAMUEL ATRIUM.
Laura stabbed her finger at the monitor's menu option for "Architecture: Facts and Figures."
Jack left her at a trot.
*****
Will paced the front steps of the Board of Trade, craning his neck skyward to see if he could get a good look at the statue of Ceres on the roof.
Damn. He would have to cross the street.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of squealing tires and a roaring engine. He glanced at the street. A van was careening down LaSalle Street, the small satellite dish on its roof rocking violently.
A spidery Mennonite woman--one of the group which had been in their tour group--stood curbside, waving her arms as if she were attempting to take flight. Her drab woolen shawl had fallen to the sidewalk, and the lacy wimple on the back of her head, detached from its moorings, lay at a rakish and shockingly jaunty angle.
The van, which had "WGN News" emblazoned on its side, squealed to a halt beside her.
"They're in there!" she shrieked, gesturing at the Board of Trade. "They're in costume, but it's them!"
She turned and saw Will.
A bony arm was pointed at him.
"There!" she bellowed, her arm quivering. "That's him! Get him, you fools! Get him!"
A rush of adrenaline surged through Will's system. He flew to the door of the building, yanked it open, and ran inside.
*****
Laura had poured over page after page of architectural data for the Board of Trade, and had found nothing on the Diana Samuel Atrium. She had finally reached the last page of information.
It had to be right, she thought. They had to be in the right place.
Tucked down in the corner of the screen was a small image of the Board of Trade building. The picture was black and white. . .but the statue of Ceres atop the building was a more vibrant shade of white.
With her pinky, she barely pressed the tiny picture.
The screen began to fill with words and images: a streaming video.
A headline from an Omaha newspaper, dated 1947: "GOVERNMENT DETONATES TWO A-BOMBS IN NEBRASKAN PANHANDLE."
Another headline, from the same paper, dated 1968: "US TO SHIP AREA GRAIN TO IMPOVERISHED NATIONS."
Then, a clipping from Variety, dated 1975, "WATERBURY PROMISES BOMBSHELL TO RIVAL WATERGATE."
The monitor seemed to shudder. The screen went black, and then a verse began to appear, line by line, in an ornate golden font:
Laura fumbled in her purse for her notepad and pen, glancing about to make sure no one was watching her. This was the biggest clue Simon had provided yet. . .by far the longest snatch of piss-poor poetry. She had to write it down.
Will's voice came booming across the atrium. "Red alert!" he screamed, jumping down the short flight of steps which led to the exhibits. "We've got company coming!"
Everyone in the hall turned to stare at him. He ran to Laura's side.
"We've got to go," he panted. "Reporters. . .coming this way. . .that damn Mennonite. . ."
She ignored him, furiously scribbling down the poem.
Somewhere in the building, a fire alarm kicked in. The tourists stood still, not certain where to go or what to do. The Board of Trade was becoming quite exciting, after all.
"Ladies and gentleman," a pleasant voice on a speaker system intoned, "please proceed to the nearest exit."
An unseen male voice shouted, "There's a bomb in the building!"
A wave of hysterical screams rose up from the crowd. The complacent tourists were hell-bent on getting out, pushing, stumbling, and falling towards the exits.
Laura's pen slashed across her pad. She hammered down the last line, thanking God that her mother had made her learn shorthand.
A small blue box had appeared on the monitor beneath the poem. The icon read simply, "CLEAR SCREEN AND RETURN TO MAIN MENU."
Laura slammed her fist down onto the screen. The Main Menu appeared.
Above the clanging of the bells and the cries of the tourists, a song filled the Diana Samuel Atrium.
It was loud. It was thunderous. It was a jovial, cheery little tune. It was Maxine Nightingale, resurrected from 70s obscurity:
Will and Laura ran towards a door labeled "EMERGENCY EXIT," which the throngs of teeming tourists ignored as they scrambled towards the main doors of the exhibit.
Be absolutely certain to tune in on
Thursday, December 23,
(aka The Day Before The Night Before Christmas)
for the
positively nail-biting
PENULTIMATE CHAPTER
of
THE WEBSERIAL!
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