Armageddon Crazy

Mansard stopped at a page in the script. "He's actually going to use 'Love Me Tender'?"

Gadd shrugged. "That's what it says,"

"He's sailing kind of close to the wind, isn't he?"

"He's always attracted Elvi in his crowds."

"But he's never pandered to them before."

The followers of Elvis Presley were another problem that the Faithful orthodoxy had with Arlen Proverb. The Elvi flocked to his shows in droves, out in the open in their scarves and badges, sideburns and sunglasses. There was no doubt that the Elvis cult was a non-Christian belief, and on a number of occasions plans had been hatched at a high level to suppress it. Somehow, though, they had never been acted upon. Elvis was so deep in the psyche of poor white America that even the Fundamentalists were scared to mess with his memory. They seemed to suspect instinctively that they might be dealing with a sleeping giant who, if roused by oppression, might become quite uncontrollable. For Proverb actually to go out of his way to court them was something else entirely, and it would undoubtedly widen the gulf between him and the hierarchy.

Mansard gri

Jimmy Gadd was not smiling. "Do you really think we should be getting involved with him?"

"We've always done Proverb."

"If he's pla

"Nothing nasty can rebound on us. We're just the hired whores. Next month we'll be working for Swan. Sublime to ridiculous. We take no sides. They know they need us more than we need them. In the meantime, we'll give Proverb his four horsemen. Maybe they'll all want monster sky walkers after that. We can get rich and go put on rock-and-roll spectaculars in Australia."

Gadd gri

"Should I start Ma

Kline

Cynthia Kline came out of the heavily protected street entrance to the CCC Astor Place complex and discovered that the combination of the bread riot and the bombing and the official response to both had turned the streets to total chaos. The only traffic that seemed to be moving belonged to law enforcement. Police Pharaohs and prowlers, the deacons' Continentals and their sinister buses with the blind windows and cargoes of unfortunate prisoners, came and went at high speed with sirens screaming and lights flashing. Cynthia had originally intended to take a cab home, but that was clearly impossible. The subway offered no better prospects. It was well past the rush hour, and there were still lines of people waiting to get into the Astor Place station, casting nervous glances at all the police activity. A number of uptown lines had failed, and a lot of commuters seemed resigned to the prospect of spending the night on the platforms. The buses were equally bad. The insides were packed, and still more people clung to the sides and the backrails even though they did not seem to be going anywhere.

Cynthia got a tight grip on her shoulder bag and started out in the direction of Third Avenue. Her clerical auxiliary uniform helped to get her through the knots of officers who filled the sidewalk in front of the building. They all seemed so tightly wrapped, so dangerously primed for violence, and she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. After all her training and even after operating under cover for so long, the proximity of so much armed authority still made her nervous. She would never forget the horrors of '04 and '05 when so many of her friends had vanished.

Things were no better on the corner of Third. Civilian traffic had been waved over to the curb, and even the pedestrians who usually crowded the corners of Third and St. Marks had melted away. She had no more chance of getting a cab than she had of flying in the air. She had to face the fact that she was walking home. As she started north up Third, she wondered how many streets in the twenties would be closed off because of the riot.

"Want a ride, baby?"

Cynthia swung around, ready to tell whomever it was to take a jump. But it was a regular police cruiser that had pulled up at the curb. Two young patrolmen were gri

"Going our way?"

Her instinct was to tell them what they could do with their ride, but at the thought of the long walk to her apartment, she put on an idiotic smile and pushed her voice up half an octave. Experience had taught her that cops were easier to handle if they thought they were dealing with Betty Boop.

"I need to get to Thirty-eighth and Ninth."

"No problem."

"You want to squeeze in the front here with us?"

Cynthia regarded the helmets and riot guns racked and ready between the front seats. Fitting her in was an obvious physical impossibility.

"Too tight a squeeze," she said.

The nearest cop's grin broadened. "You could sit on my lap."

"I think I'll get in the back."

He pretended to be horrified. "A nice girl like you can't sit in there. That's where we put the prisoners."

His partner joined in. "You know? Si

"We've had all kind of scumbags back there."

"Probably diseased."

Cynthia reached for the rear door handle. "I'll manage."

"Suit yourself."

The lock popped. Cynthia opened the door and climbed inside. There actually were some unpleasant-looking stains on the plastic seat cover.

"You asked for it."

"I'll live with it."

"Hold tight."

"I'm holding."

The cruiser took off in a squeal of laid rubber, the scream of its siren, and a blaze of flashing lights. The boys were showing off. They had those plain, scrubbed, unlined faces that seemed to have become so common in the last few years, as if they were manufactured somewhere out in the Midwest, complete with crewcuts, emotionless eyes, and mouths that seemed designed only to leer and sneer. They roared up Third Avenue at high speed. At Fifteenth Street they all but plowed into a bus.

"Goddamn it."

"Had to be on Fifteenth Street."

As they got underway again, the cop riding shotgun swivelled in his seat. "You know about Fifteenth Street?" His leer was back.

The driver sniggered. "Sure she does. I heard some of these clerical auxiliaries even moonlight back there."

Cynthia Kline did not, in fact, know anything about Fifteenth Street and made the appropriate noises. She was certain that the gri

"The dekes have a house on that block. A regular sink of iniquity. It's where they go to have a bit of illicit fun."

"When the strain of being righteous gets too much for them."

The driver laughed. Cynthia found the sound instantly irritating.

"Maybe you shouldn't talk like that in front of the lady. I mean, she's practically one of them."

Shotgun put his face close to the grille that separated the back of the car from the front. "You wouldn't get us into trouble, would you, gorgeous?"

Cynthia shook her head. "I always do my best to avoid trouble."

She was storing away the tidbit of information about Fifteenth Street in the back of her mind. There was no knowing when something like that might come in handy. She might be a damn sight more use moonlighting in a deacon whorehouse than shuffling data on Astor Place. Or maybe not. She could imagine what those repressed bastards might want to have done to them.