Somebody Else's Music(70)

“The Mercedes is in the driveway, parked facing out to the street,” Jimmy Card said. “And it’s automatic transmission. You don’t have to do anything but turn on the engine, step on the gas, and go forward until you hit the road. Then you turn right and go forward until you find the whatever it is—”

“Andy’s Body Shop and Garage,” Mark said, sounding thoroughly exasperated.

“The thing is,” Jimmy said, “we’re trying to make it easy for you. If you bang up the car a little, it can be fixed. But at least you’ll get where you’re going.”

“Right,” Gregor said. He took the keys Liz Toliver held out to him. Then he went out of the living room, into the kitchen. “Why don’t you all go back to the living room,” he said when he realized that the rest of them had followed him, even Geoff, who had that bright, bright look on his face that children get when the grown-ups are doing something very, very fascinating. “There’s no point in letting them catch you at the door.”

“Somebody has to lock up after you,” Mark said.

“I’ll do it,” Jimmy said.

“Stuff it,” Mark said. “You’re the prize turkey in this turkey shoot. Mr. Demarkian?”

“Ready,” Gregor said.

Mark DeAvecca undid the bolts and locks on the kitchen door and pulled it out so that Gregor could pass.

As soon as he did, there seemed to be a thousand people rushing the building at once.





2


It was both worse and better than he had expected it to be. It was worse, because the crowd was far more aggressive than he had counted on. He had seen crowds like this before. He’d been in the entourage of presidents—in an official capacity—and he’d had a number of clients with “high name recognition.” He’d never been near anything this wild. What he couldn’t put out of his mind was the one time he had allowed Bennis to take him to a rock and roll concert, to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform in Philadelphia. It had been an eerie evening, full of an energy and anger he had never been able to trust. This was like that, except that there was no overlay of good feeling and anticipation. People were just revved up and angry as hell, and as he made his way to the car they pushed against him and pulled at his clothes. It was like swimming in mayonnaise. Gregor found himself forgetting what it was he was supposed to be trying to do and just plowing along.

Gregor had just started in on the kind of mental nattering that drove Bennis crazy—what did it mean, for instance, that a former rock and roll star got more press and more exposure than any public policy initiative floated by the United States Congress?—when he reached the door of the car. The day was overcast and just a little chilly. The clouds overhead were black and heavy. Now a wind kicked up and it began to rain, softly but steadily, in large scattered droplets. Gregor made his way around the car by holding on to metal all the way, so that when photographers pushed cameras into his face and set off their flashes, it didn’t matter if he was blinded. He got to the driver’s side door and took out his keys. For the last five years, he’d been nagging Bennis and everybody else on Cavanaugh Street to lock their cars and lock their doors. Now he wished Liz Toliver hadn’t been so conscientious. There was more than one key on the ring she had given him. There were dozens. He was scared to death he was going to drop the ring on the ground and spend the next half hour trying to figure out which key went into the car door lock.

He got the car open. He got behind the wheel. He got the door closed after him. There was a photographer lying across the hood in front of him, pointing a camera at him through the windshield. The photographers seemed to be taking pictures of anybody and anything. Gregor got the key in the ignition and let the motor roar. He looked down at the instruments and saw, with some relief, that they weren’t too confusing. “D” would be “drive,” and “P” would be “park,” which is what the indicator pointed to now. He stepped hard on the brake and got the automatic gear thing shifted to “D.” He lifted his foot a little and the car began to roll. The photographer hopped off the hood. Half a dozen people scattered away from his front end. He was afraid to step on the gas. He might roll over one of the reporters. It was a relief to see that they pulled away from him as he came along the drive.

The good news was that it was much easier to handle the car than he had expected it to be. Getting out of the driveway was no problem. Except for one small correction with the steering wheel, all he had to do was roll forward. He got to the road and put on the brakes again. He turned the steering wheel before he started to move, and then, as he did start to move, he had to let up on it a little. He knew he couldn’t just bump along the road at a roll, the way he had along the driveway, so he put his foot on the gas a little and waited to see what would happen. He picked up speed. None of the reporters or photographers was getting into a car to follow him. He wondered why not.