THE FEELIES Read online

  Renfield leaned back in his chair. "Is that the announcement?"

  Deutsch laughed. "Oh, no, Madison. That was just a minor confession. My announcement is something else again."

  BY THE TIME THEY HAD REACHED THE foyer, it had all become very brisk. Wanda-Jean, the other three Dreamroad contestants, and Bobby Priest were surrounded on all sides by a loose phalanx of aides, network bodyguards, and hotel security. Wanda-Jean felt as though she was riding on a wave of nervous excitement. She wasn't sure whether her nerves or her excitement were the stronger. On one hand she was about to go through the tension and thoroughly degrading exposure of another show. On the other, being in the middle of this small, urgent crowd of men in dark suits and uniforms made her feel wanted and important.

  Heads turned as they came out of the elevators. The entourage closed up as they made their way past the long reception desk, the deep armchairs, the hanging plants, and the small fountain. Although people stared there was no other response inside the hotel. The customers of the Sanyo Hyatt had too much credit to get in an uproar over TV celebrities. Outside on the street, however, it was a whole different thing. Cops and more hotel security men were holding back a milling, pushing mob that filled the entire pavement in front of the hotel.

  The "Wildest Dreams" party hesitated just inside the automatic glass doors of the hotel. Two limousines drew up outside. The cops had their clubs out, and were only with difficulty keeping the crowd off the cars. Wanda-Jean stared at the surging crush in horror. For the first time since she had been involved with the game show, she was physically frightened. She looked at the nearest security man in some alarm.

  "Why don't they take us out through the back way? Won't it save all this trouble and fuss?"

  "I think they like the fuss, sweetheart. They figure it's good for business."

  A police sergeant, just outside the glass doors, signaled to the squad inside. The doors opened, and everyone moved out. The first few steps were slow and tentative. Then they hit the air and it started in earnest. The security formed into a flying wedge. They were off and running, hands clutched. She was swamped by the noise of the crowd but, at the same time, couldn't make out a word they were saying. She couldn't even judge their mood. Did they hate her or love her? Were they grabbing at her to show their affection or tear her apart? The fingers were clawed, the faces were distorted. They slammed into the cops with furious, violent determination to get through. They seemed unwilling to give up, even when the cops moved in with clubs swinging.

  There was a brief moment when Wanda-Jean thought they were going to get to her. Then the broad back of a network man moved into her line of vision as he put himself in the way of the rush. A middle-aged woman, with two-tone orange and pink hair and inch-thick makeup, howled something before a cop grabbed her and swung her bodily away. Absurdly, Wanda-Jean had a picture of her open mouth imprinted, almost photographically, on her memory. There had been flecks of orange lipstick on her teeth.

  They were almost to the cars and out of the worst of it. A teenage girl tried to duck under a cop's arm. He seized her by the hair but, in so doing, left a space for a short chubby figure of undecided sex to force its way through. It had thick, moist, sagging lips set in a bland, doughy, piggy-eyed face.

  It held a plastic spiral-bound book in its hands. It opened this as though offering it to Wanda-Jean for inspection and dropped to its knees. Wanda-Jean had to stop dead to keep herself from falling over it. For a fleeting instant, she had a good look at the inside of the book. It was crammed with pictures of her, pictures of Wanda-Jean, presumably taken from a TV set. They showed her in the most contorted, obscene, and humiliating poses.

  Wanda-Jean knew there must be people who did bizarre obsessive things because of some celebrity fixation. It just seemed incredible it could be done to her. She was totally spooked for a second. What else were people doing? She jerked away and collided with a bodyguard. She was lifted off her feet and virtually thrown in the back of one of the waiting cars. She fell in a heap on Brigitte and another contestant. The door slammed. She saw the kneeling figure bowled over by a headlong rush. Both he and his book of pictures were trampled underfoot. Hands beat on the windows and roof of the car. The driver gunned it away. Everyone was jerked into the back of the seats. They were wrapped in the smell of old leather. Almost miraculously they broke free of the crowd. Ahead of them a police car with three sets of sirens broke up the downtown traffic.

  Wanda-Jean pulled herself up and peered out of the car window. People on the sidewalk were stopping to stare at them as they raced past with their police escort. At least she was going to the show in style.

  RALPH WAS HURLED BODILY AGAINST A plate glass window; it didn't shatter. Right in front of him a man was being clubbed to the ground. The woman in the blue coat had vanished. The CRAC squad was out of their van, employing the only answer they had to any kind of disturbance, which was to break heads. On the other side of the glass, rich folk were drinking cocktails and eating an early dinner before taking in a show. They stared in blank amazement at the violence on the sidewalk. Ralph was only two feet from a fat woman who had frozen in shock with a forkful of creamcake halfway to her mouth. There was only the shock of the unexpected in the drinkers' and diners' faces. There was no real concern or outrage. What was going on beyond the glass might as well have been happening to another species on another world.

  Ralph slid along the window toward a doorway that would afford a minimal protection. He rolled into it. The violence was streaming past him. People were running, shrieking, doing anything to get away from the clubs of the police. Two CRAC officers grabbed a woman and dragged her off to the van. The only mercy was that, so far, they hadn't used gas. Suddenly there was a helmeted, gas-masked cop in front of his doorway. Seeing Ralph, he raised his club.

  Ralph cringed. "Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!"

  The cop paused and lowered the club. "Get out of there!"

  Ralph ducked past the cop, who shoved him roughly. Ralph started running. He didn't look back. He ran blindly with the rest, sharing their terror. There were cops in front of the RT station-there would be no refuge in there. Then he was in the atrium, along with a number of others. He looked back. There were no cops in sight. He spotted the woman in the blue coat. She was walking around in a daze. There was blood on her face from a cut forehead. Ralph hurried over to her.

  "Are you alright?"

  The woman looked at him in complete mystification. It was only after a number of seconds that recognition dawned. "It's you."

  "Right."

  "You helped me through the crowd."

  "Are you okay?"

  "Why did they have to do that?"

  "You're bleeding."

  The woman put a hand to her forehead. She looked surprised at the blood on her fingers. "I'm bleeding."

  "You want to go to the emergency room?"

  She shook her head emphatically. "I don't like those places."

  "You ought to get someone to look at that cut."

  "It'll be alright. What I'd really like is a drink."

  Despite himself, Ralph grinned. "Now you're talking."

  "OKAY, SO YOU WIN AGAIN."

  Sam put down The House at Pooh Corner and reached for the TV's on/off switch. The cat watched him with absorbed interest. A picture spread out across the screen. The color shimmered for a moment and then held steady. It was much too green, but Sam didn't bother to adjust it. He didn't really like watching TV. To be precise, he didn't like to have to concentrate on it. Most of the time he would turn it on and just let the sound and vision wash over him. With that attitude, it didn't matter whether the color was balanced or not. He frequently told himself he only turned it on for the sake of the cat. In fact, when Max wasn't eating or pestering Sam in order to eat, he was asleep. Sam attributed a great deal to Max. Much of it was his own imagination.

  "So remember, with Securicare, you know who's there."

  It was an ad for a closed-circuit doo
r scanner. The scene was a spick, orderly B+ home. A trim, attractive housewife responded to a set of door chimes. The picture cut to the exterior of the same house. Standing on the doorstep was a sinister figure. He wore the typical close-cropped hair, earring, the black nylon jacket and heavy boots of a kid from a welfare gang. He wasn't, however, built like any juvenile Sam had ever seen. He had the physique of a block position ball player. His eyes were red-rimmed and a scar ran down his left cheek. Between thick chubby fingers he held a length of boat chain. He was every B + 's nightmare of rape, robbery, and terror.

  Sam looked at Max the cat. "They sure do run some crap."

  Max yawned. The picture was back to the housewife. The music held its breath as, unaware of the horror on the step, her hand went to the door latch. Then the picture froze.

  "With Securicare you don't have to open to look."

  The motion continued again, only the scene had subtly changed. This time the woman's hand was operating the control of a Securicare door scanner. The brute on the step appeared on the machine's small, full color screen. Without hesitation or even any noticeable change of expression, the woman reached for the hall phone, presumably to call for either help or the police. Again the picture froze.

  "With Securicare, you know who's there."

  Sam sighed. "I guess we don't need one of those. We don't have anything worth stealing."

  The NCC logo came up on the screen. The voice over it was urgent. "Tomorrow at ten."

  It was a trailer. A gang of gaunt men, clad in filthy rags and holding makeshift weapons, charged across a bare, sunlit expanse of concrete. Another set of men waited for them in a disciplined half circle. They wore tight black uniforms and visored helmets. They all cradled riot guns or held electric prods at the ready. The ragged mob halted. In the middle of them was a pneumatic blonde in a white plastic nurse's outfit. She was obviously a captive or hostage. Her arms were being forced behind her back and the front of her blouse was ripped to fully expose one breast. There was a close-up of one of the men holding her. He yelled, showing a set of yellow, broken teeth.

  "You better let us through, Molloy, or the nurse gets it."

  A cold voice came from behind a visor. "She knows she's been on her own since you animals grabbed her. I'm going to count to five and open fire."

  There was a shot of the riot guns slowly being leveled.

  "One-two-three-four."

  Fade-out. The voice-over came back.

  "Don't miss May Marsh in another savage episode of 'Penal Colony,' tomorrow at ten, on this channel."

  The NCC logo came back again, only this time it was against a background of shifting, moving patterns of color. They were similar to the ones in the feelie adverts. Loud rock music on the polite side of tension, the kind the old folks liked, fought with a burst of almost hysterical canned applause. After a few seconds, the music won. It was joined by an enthusiastic but disembodied choir.

  "Everybody's dreaming

  Everybody's scheming

  Everybody's got their

  Wildest dreams

  Maybe it's you

  Baby it's you

  Maybe your wildest dreams Really will come tr-u-u-e."

  A heavenly staircase materialized among the swirling patterns. The choir was replaced by an equally enthusiastic voice-over.

  "And now… the man who makes it happen… the man who makes dreams come true… Mister… Bob… bee…"

  Sam hit the channel selector. As he flicked through the seemingly endless selection he looked regretfully at Max. "I'm sorry, cat. I can't watch those game shows anymore, not since Ralph explained how they were fixed."

  BOBBY PRIEST'S VOICE HAD DROPPED to its lowest, most reverent tone. The crowd were hushed. They weren't going to mess up the moment of anticipation. The light had shrunk to harmonize with the mood. He stood alone in a single white-blue spot. The black sequins on his formal suit glittered with every slight movement.

  "Well, my friends, now we come to that moment in the show where the hopes are highest and the pitfalls are deepest."

  He paused to let the spurious drama of the moment sink right home.

  "Waiting outside are four young people. For each one it is another moment of truth on the trail of their wildest dreams. Very soon you and I will know whether each one of them has come closer to that big prize, that lifetime contract for a feelie of their choice, or whether those dreams will have been dashed forever."

  If anyone had cared, right then, to drop a pin, the whole studio would have heard it.

  "Yes, my friends, it's that moment again. It's time for…" His voice lifted. "The Dreamroad!"

  Right on cue the lights blazed up, the audience roared, and Wanda-Jean and her three companions bounced out into the studio. Wanda-Jean made every effort to look as happy and confident as the others. Inside, she felt like a Christian trotting out to meet the lions.

  The contestants wore the usual costumes. The only change was that the numbers on them were in gold rather than red as they had been in the preliminary stages.

  Wanda-Jean didn't doubt they were still made out of the material that inevitably dissolved in water.

  Bobby Priest's voice rose over the shouting and cheering of the crowds in the bleachers. The contestants formed a line beside the host's raised podium. Priest turned toward them with a sweeping gesture.

  "And let's meet the people who are taking a chance on the chance of a lifetime tonight."

  The cameras moved in on the contestants. They all smiled just like they'd been told at the briefing.

  "Wearing number one, it's the fantastic Sammy. Those of you who watched last week will remember just how truly amazing Sammy's been on the Dreamroad. If he gets through tonight he's got just two…"

  He let the momentous fact sink in.

  "That's right, two more shows between him and the big, big prize."

  The cheering rose to an almost deafening volume. Sammy was the current blue-eyed boy of the show. He had the kind of soft sandy hair that just begged to be tousled, and his open freckled face had inspired double page pin-ups in the fan rags. Sammy ducked his head shyly and gave out a toothy grin as the camera pulled him into close-up. The subteen girls in the crowd went even wilder. Bobby Priest let them run on for a while and then raised his hands to cut it off.

  "Okay, okay, that's Sammy. Next to him is Goldie. Goldie's a newcomer, but I'm sure you all remember her from the early rounds. If her luck holds, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of her."

  Goldie came on cute to the camera. She was blonde, petite, and came on cute to everyone, particularly Bobby Priest. Wanda-Jean reflected acidly that she might not be so cute to him once he'd had a go at her.

  "Wearing number three, the girl who doesn't let anyone get in her way. That's right, it's Wanda-Jean!"

  A roar went up from the crowd. At best it could only be described as jovially hostile. Wanda-Jean sneered at the camera. If they were hell bent on forcing her into this bad girl role, she might as well go along with it.

  "And finally, wearing number four, another newcomer starting on the Dreamroad. Let's hear it for Marty."

  Since she wasn't so familiar to the crowd, the greeting was only lukewarm. The girl had an angular body and close-cropped dark hair. Wanda-Jean had decided, the first time that she saw her, that Marty was probably a dyke.

  Bobby Priest looked serious. "And now we've met the contestants, let's get down to the game."

  As on every show, Wanda-Jean and the others had been given the details of the game the previous day. It was a rough one.

  "In tonight's game, the contestants won't be playing against one another, they'll be playing against the clock. It's possible that we'll see all four stay on the trail, or it's just as possible that every single contestant will get knocked out!"

  He put particular emphasis on the last two words. While he was talking, the players were cued to start walking toward the four clear plastic cylinders, about ten feet high, that were the focal point of the
whole studio.

  In the front of the cylinders were small, flush-fitting doors of the same material. The ever-present, silver-clad attendants moved in to open them. Each contestant stepped inside a cylinder. The doors were closed behind them. Bobby Priest once again took over the screen.

  "The contestants are in position."

  The game was a rough one. With the doors sealed, the cylinders started to fill with water. As they slowly filled, the contestants had to solve a problem. They had to rearrange a set of colored squares into a set pattern they had to guess for themselves. It was a race of mind against rising water.

  "Then we'll begin."

  Wanda-Jean looked at the arrangement of squares. There were at least two hundred of them, set in a square form. The squares were evenly divided into red, blue, yellow, green, black, and white. They interlocked on a tongue and groove system. There were enough empty spaces to allow them to be maneuvered vertically and horizontally, but not removed from the frame.

  The floor under Wanda-Jean's bare feet was already covered with a quarter-inch layer of water, and she hadn't even made a move.

  To guess at the correct pattern of colors and then move the squares to conform with it seemed an almost impossible task to complete before the water rose up to her chin.

  Wanda-Jean put out a tentative hand. Along the top of the frame that enclosed the whole puzzle was a set of colored lights. There were fifteen of them, one for each vertical row of squares. At the start of the game the lights were all dead. When the particular row was arranged in the correct order, the light came on. It was the players' most valuable aid; in fact, it was their only one.

  Wanda-Jean started quickly to rearrange the first row. She had made up her mind, at rehearsal, that there was no point in making a blind guess at the overall pattern. The way she had decided to work was to keep switching squares, one line at a time, until the light came on.