Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede - Bradley Denton (best thriller books to read TXT) 📗

me on your TV, though. It was Buddy. My Stratocaster is solid black, and I can’t play it for shit. My fingers bleed. That proves I’m innocent, doesn’t it?” Something else occurred to me. “Besides, why did you assume that I was playing a trick on you? Couldn’t somebody else be playing a trick on me?”

I felt the puff of Sharon’s sigh through the cordless phone. “Oliver, no one would go to this much effort just to… I mean, no one would do this to you. You have no enemies other than yourself. Besides, whether you did it or not, whether you believe you did it or not, you’re still in tremendous trouble. Bruce is listening to the radio—your tape is still jamming the TV stations, you know—and he says that the reports claim you’ve broken in on regular programming worldwide, on every channel that’s been checked so far. They’re describing you as—what is it, Bruce?—‘An obviously brilliant but seriously disturbed computer and video genius.’ And I suppose you must really be a genius if you did what they say.”

I had no problem with the “seriously disturbed” business, but I laughed at the rest. “When it comes to video, I can connect, disconnect, or adjust it before you can blink—with the exception of my stupid off-brand satellite dish. But that’s because I’m a salesman at Cowboy Carl’s Computer and Component Corral in the White Lakes Mall. I sell IBM and Apple clones along with the occasional minicam, CD player, food processor, VCR, and biorhythm-charter. Does that make me a genius?”

“The news media will infer that it does, and so will the FCC,” Sharon replied. “At least, that’s what Bruce says.”

I snorted, a noise I’d practiced since childhood and had down to near-porcine perfection. “What does Bruce know? This is the guy who thinks Eddie Cochran was a World War I flying ace.”

“Oliver,” Sharon said irritably, and for that one wonderful moment I imagined that we were married. “Listen to me. You are in trouble with the law.”

“Deep sewage,” Brace’s voice said in the background. He sounded pleased.

“Gobble it and choke, Bruce!” I yelled. If nothing else, I had learned some snappy phrases during my Relationship with Julie “Eat shit and die, Oliver” Calloway.

“I want you to come over here,” Sharon said.

“What?” Bruce bellowed.

“We have to figure out what to do,” Sharon continued, ignoring her boyfriend’s shout. “If you stay home, you’ll be under arrest by sunrise. But if you cut off your broadcast immediately and come over to my place, maybe Bruce and I can help with a defense to keep you out of jail. Bruce is a terrific attorney, you know.”

“Oh, great,” Bruce said. I heard a thump that must have been Sharon kicking him.

I liked the idea of going to Sharon Sharpston’s apartment and bugging Bruce, but I was reluctant to accept the offer. In the first place, although I couldn’t stop the broadcast, running to Sharon might be seen as an admission of guilt. In the second place, I hated to leave my house empty at night with no one to guard my treasures.

“I’m not your responsibility,” I said.

“You became my responsibility when I allowed you into my therapy group,” Sharon said. “Besides, I’m your friend.”

“Christ,” Bruce said. I heard another thump.

I tried to think of what Mother would suggest in a situation like this. When I had started getting beaten up in grade school, her advice had been to “run and hide.” The difficulty with that had been that there weren’t many hiding places on the treeless playground—and I doubted that there would be many hiding places where the Federal government couldn’t find me either.

So, as attractive as running and hiding was to me (I had done it often during my Relationship), I decided to fall back on Mother’s other axiom, “Whatever works.” In this case, since I was probably going to be considered guilty until proven innocent regardless of what I did, that would mean taking Sharon up on her offer. “I’ll be right over,” I said. “Tell Bruce he can crash on the couch.” I hung up before she could contradict my vision of the sleeping arrangements.

The Sony came back to life without my having touched the remote control. Buddy squinted out at me and said, “Here’s that address again. I guess this Oliver Vale must be the right man for the job.”

I stood up and struck my best John Wayne pose.

“That’ll be the day,” I drawled.

I swaggered into my bedroom wishing that someone would shoot out my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to make the trip to the Spirit Land.

SHARON

Notes on client Oliver Vale, continued…

2/3/89; 2:45 A.M.: Oliver’s transference is becoming pronounced, so offering him refuge in my home may not be good for him. However, incarceration could drive him over the brink into psychosis, and the past five years of therapy would be wasted. I have tried to explain this to my Significant Other, but I fear that he doubts my motives. Bruce, in his natural jealous anger, has even hinted that I am not truly concerned with Oliver’s well-being; instead, he suggests, I subconsciously covet Oliver’s collection of vintage rock and roll recordings. This is untrue. My personal feeling, in fact, is that Oliver’s archives suffer from a serious paucity of Motown.

The turn that Oliver’s delusions have now taken is fascinating, if frightening in its scope. Superficially, the content of his ingenious television broadcast seems to indicate a healthful realization that only he can save himself—because, as frequently noted, he often displays a strong personal identification with Buddy Holly. However, this feeling of identification is in fact a mask for Oliver’s underlying delusion that Holly is his father. Thus, since the broadcast supposedly originates from another planet, I am led to the following preliminary analysis: Oliver sees himself as the savior of his father (_id est,_ as the embodiment of his father’s seed), which by extension implies that he also (rather uncharacteristically, at first glance) sees himself as the savior of all mankind. Id est, for Oliver, Buddy Holly (or perhaps what Holly symbolizes—innocence, freedom, skill, talent, love) = God the Father (who lives in Heaven, here translated as a distant planet); Oliver himself = God the Son (the Savior); and television = God the Holy Spirit (through which the Father’s wishes are communicated and the Son is brought into being).

The barrenness of Buddy/Oliver’s planet may be symbolic of Oliver’s mother. More on this after I interview Oliver and analyze his responses.

I do not know what to make of the “Mr. Sullivan” references. I have never heard of this person, and Oliver has never mentioned him in my presence. (Oliver’s real father?)

The coming legal difficulties may make further analysis haphazard, but to minimize this problem I have decided to refer my other clients to colleagues for the next week.

The Buddy Holly tape has been on television for almost two hours now. Sometimes Buddy/Oliver talks; sometimes he sings (hiccupping strangely); and sometimes he merely stands silently or sits cross-legged on the ground, which appears to be bare rock. Nothing has repeated yet. I have been taping the broadcast for the past forty-five minutes, and I expect that a detailed study will aid me in determining the future course of Oliver’s therapy.

I have only now realized that I should not have told him to come here on his own; I should have gone to him and brought him back. In my surprise and shock at his unexpected appearance on my TV screen, I failed to think clearly. If he hasn’t arrived in another twenty minutes, I’ll drive to his home.

At this moment, Buddy/Oliver (I suppose I should really write “Oliver/Buddy”) is singing a song called “It’s Too Late.” I fear that he is trying to tell me something.

My Significant Other is not providing as much emotional support as I would like. It will be interesting, after this crisis is past, to examine how these and forthcoming events will have affected our relationship.

Bruce persists in referring to Oliver as a “dweeb,” which I find intensely irritating.

RICHTER

The buzz of the telephone woke him a few minutes after 4:00 A.M., Eastern Standard Time. He was not pleased.

“Richter?” a familiar voice asked.

“Yes.” He sat up in bed, uncomfortably aware of his paunch.

“Have you been watching television?”

“No.”

“You should be. Any station.”

Richter touched a button on the headboard, and a fifty-inch flat screen on the far wall began to glow, gradually resolving itself into a gawky boy with a pimple on his chin.

“Are you watching yet?”

“Yes.” The gawky boy began singing “I’m Looking for Someone to Love” in a happy, staccato hiccup of a voice.

The boy was Buddy Holly. Richter remembered him. He wanted to listen to the song, but it would be a bad idea to wake his bedmate while he was on the phone. He turned off the television’s sound.

“It’s on every channel in the world, Richter, including UHF and cable. The regular broadcasts are being wiped and replaced, apparently at the points of transmission. Even the commercial communications satellites are jammed with this thing. None of the video relays, and I mean none, will respond to commands. The Soviets have already protested—only two hours into it! They think we’re doing it to jam Eastern bloc telecasts. But we’re not, because we can’t. And if we can’t, then they can’t either.”

“No,” Richter agreed, acknowledging the obvious.

“We don’t know how to stop it. We don’t even know how it’s being done. Do you know what this means?”

“Yes,” Richter said, and forced himself to add, “I believe so.” He hated to waste time on any words other than monosyllables, but he also hated to be inaccurate.

“Good. You are now a sworn enforcement agent of the Federal Communications Commission. You have the same powers in this capacity as in any other. Understood?”

“Yes.” Richter was perturbed. At his age, with his years of experience, he resented being told anything that he could assume.

“All right. We’ll try to keep other enforcement units out of your way, but we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to stop any local or state agencies that want to poke their noses into things. The suspected perpetrator, one Oliver Vale, was cocky enough to broadcast his identity, so you can begin your investigation at this address.”

Richter listened to the address and scowled. Regardless of its international impact, an investigation with its focus in Topeka, Kansas, was not his idea of a cherry assignment.

“Have you finished your current business?” the voice on the phone asked.

Richter looked down at the young woman in bed beside him. She was awakening, a sleepy smile on her perfect oval face. “No,” he said.

“Well, either finish it immediately or postpone it. This new matter takes precedence. If that smartass hick hacker had stuck to monkeying around with domestic transmission, I’d leave it to the regular FCC goons, but with the Russians all set to piss in our soup, it’s got to be wrapped up fast. Just be sure you find out how he did it, and how to make it stop, before you do anything else. Before you do anything else. Got it?”

“Yes.” Richter’s scowl deepened. With these restrictions, he might have to be in Kansas for an entire day.

“If you need technical assistance, I’ll see that it’s provided. Go.”

Richter replaced the receiver in its slot in the headboard, then threw off the sheet and slid out of bed.

“Going to the bathroom?” the woman asked drowsily.

“No,” Richter said. He bent down to reach under the bed, and his hand closed on his 9mm plastic pistol.