The Sex Sphere Page 7

  To the newspaper. To make a stink. Membrane shouldn't get away with this. She bought a Herald Tribune at the next newsstand.

  "I'm hungry for lunch," Tom told her quietly.

  "Me too!" quacked Ida. "Hungwy!"

  "Is Daddy making bombs?" asked Tom.

  "I think he might have to," Sybil said with a shaky sigh. She too was hungry. "We can have lunch in this café, children."

  They were standing under the awning of one of the nicer Via Veneto cafés, a big place called The Glacier. Inside was a huge room with marble columns, and out here under the awning were dozens of tables as well. The chairs were the good kind of lawn furniture, made of thick gray plastic cords stretched between black steel tubes. Sybil plopped down in a chair facing the street, and the children sat down across from her.

  A slender, dignified waiter appeared and they placed their orders. Spaghetti con sugo for the kids, a salade niçoise for Sybil. Fanta, mineral water and a quarter liter of vino bianco. The victuals began arriving almost immediately. Soon they all felt a little better. The sun shone, casting living color-shadows from their drinks onto the clean linen tablecloth.

  "Where is Daddy now?" Tom asked, sucking up a last strand of spaghetti. "I didn't understand what the man said."

  Sybil washed down a forkful of flaky tuna and dark-purple anchovy with a gulp of wine. This was a good salad. She ate a leaf of lettuce before starting her answer.

  "Apparently some gangsters stole Daddy last night. They thought he might be rich, and that we could pay a lot of money to get him back."

  "Aren't we rich?"

  In a way, this was a reasonable question. Here they were spending Easter in Rome. But, on the other hand, home right now was a two-room subsidized apartment in Heidelberg.

  "Rich? Are you kidding? Those gangsters would have wanted more money than Daddy makes in ten years."

  "What will dey do if we can't buy him back?" Ida asked anxiously. Her upper lip was bright orange from the soft drink.

  "Well, now it's different," Sybil explained. "Some other people stole Daddy from the gangsters. Some bad people who want him to make an atomic bomb. It's thanks to stupid Mr. Membrane that they got that idea." She poured more wine and soda and sopped a piece of bread in the juices of her salad. Funny how she could go on eating like nothing had happened. She must be in shock.

  "Bad silly men," said Ida.

  "What if they light off Daddy's bomb? We should go far away!" Tom's round forehead was asterisked with worry.

  "Don't worry, Tom. Daddy wouldn't let a bomb go off with us still here. Let's go to the newspaper office and see if they can help us." She folded the Herald Tribune open to the editorial page and scanned the list of offices. Rome: 73 Viale Giulio Cesare, Susan Spangle, Ed.

  "Susan Spangle," Sybil said out loud.

  "Who's she?"

  "Maybe she can help."

  She paid the check and hailed a cab. Julius Caesar Street was halfway across the city. They went through a park and across a huge square with an Egyptian obelisk. Sybil wished they had time to stop and look at the hieroglyphs. But no. She began to feel a certain irritation towards Alwin. If he hadn't been out staggering around at two in the morning, none of this would have happened. Shit, shit, shit!

  The Herald Tribune office was at a corner near the river, upstairs from a big dress shop. There were about fifteen people working there, and Sybil had to talk to most of them before getting to the boss.

  Susan Spangle's assistant was a fatherly fat Italian named Signor Atti. He even had suspenders and a mustache with waxed ends. He cheerfully agreed to keep an eye on the children while Sybil talked to the boss.

  Susan Spangle turned out to be a smooth-voiced black woman with long straight hair and small features. She wore a black coral necklace with matching earrings. Her dress was a practical-looking pale blue, with buttons up the front and a little collar. Preppy, almost. Her eyes were yellow and older looking than her face. Forty-five, maybe. A tough career woman.

  "Your husband was involved in the killing at the Colosseum this morning?"

  "I hadn't realized there was a killing."

  "Yes . . . are you sure your husband was kidnapped?"

  Sybil told the story of her meeting with Vice-Consul Membrane. Spangle listened carefully, staring at the ceiling with calculating eyes.

  "Is your husband able to build a bomb or not?" she asked finally.

  Just then the kids came charging into the office, Signor Atti hot on their trail.

  "His fat ate a pencil!" Tom shouted excitedly.

  Signor Atti's shirt was untucked. He'd been showing off his stomach.

  "His fat gone eat ME!" squealed Ida, half believing it.

  "Do we have anything on the Green Death group?" Spangle asked him.

  Atti groaned in thought, tucking his shirt in. "Yeeees. They were in Mestre, and then I dunno. Let me go call Magnani."

  Tom and Ida came smearing up to Sybil, merry mouths open with excitement.

  "Is the bomb done yet?" Tom wanted to know.

  Just then the phone rang and Spangle picked it up.

  "Hello. Herald Tribune. Spangle speaking."

  "Yes," affirmative.

  "Yes," neutral.

  "Yes," questioning.

  "Yes," confirming.

  "Yes," inquiring.

  "Yes," listening.

  "Yes," thinking.

  "Yes," transitional.

  "Yes," challenging.

  "Yes," demanding.

  "Yes," capitulating.

  "Yes," concluding.

  "Good-bye, Mr. Membrane."

  "That was your Vice-Consul Membrane," she explained, making a notation on a piece of paper.

  "What did he say?" Sybil asked, her heart sinking.

  Spangle looked at Sybil coolly. "Is it true that your husband was quite active in the anti-war movement? That he helped organize a demonstration against US involvement in Latin America?"

  "I don't see what that has to . . . "

  "And is it true that he was unable to get the necessary security clearance to work on the Streamford Project? Could this have embittered him so much that . . . ?"

  "You can't be serious! Don't you see that Membrane just wants to cover up his blunder?"

  Spangle made a sour little face. "The facts speak for themselves, Mrs. Bitter. Your husband left a note at the Colosseum, a radical manifesto in which he calls himself 'The Anarchist Archimedes.' A weapon with his fingerprints was found near the murdered man's body. Mr. Membrane tells me that . . . "

  Just then Atti came back in, big and friendly as a beer barrel. "I have talked with Officer Magnani. Green Death exploded a refinery in Mestre and may have stolen a truck with reactor fuel. They are involved in the shooting of former University of Rome physicist Lafcadio Caron, which took place at the Colosseum this morning. The officer would like very much to talk with Signora Bitter. He is on his way here."

  "Are the Italian papers breaking the story?" Spangle wanted to know.

  "If Magnani's coming, they'll be here, too. You know how he loves publicity."

  Spangle made some quick notes, and gave Sybil an insincere smile. "I do aim to be fair, Mrs. Bitter. Why don't we organize a little press conference right here?"

  Sybil felt trapped and desperate. She hadn't yet met anyone who cared what happened to poor Alwin. He was becoming an abstraction, a news item, a jaded world's daily frisson.

  "I'm going," she announced. "I'm going back to our hotel. The children need a rest."

  "But what about Officer Magnani?" Spangle protested. "And our press conference?"

  "I'll be at my hotel. Hotel Caprice."

  Before anyone could stop her, Sybil had dragged the kiddies out of the Herald Trib office and down onto the street. She walked a block or two to calm down, and then paused to look around.

  It was a nontourist street parallel to the Tiber. In the mid-distance the hill of the Vatican rose up from behind cheap department stores and dress shops. There was
a big Supercortemaggiore parking garage across the street.

  A street-corner vendor was selling green olives and some kind of white beans. Tom and Ida clamored, so she bought them a triangular wet paper bag full of the fresh olives. The vendor was a very old man with piercing eyes. Sybil wished that her father were there, and decided to call him from the hotel.

  The children nibbled at the olives, spitting most of the meat out with the pits. A taxi stopped. They got in, and the lovely buildings slid past, emptily promising romance and adventure. Sybil felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life.

  There was a traffic blockage on the Via Veneto, so they had to get out a block before the hotel. All sorts of cars and trucks were squeezing in. Some men were carrying lights and heavy TV cameras.

  It wasn't until she stepped into the lobby that Sybil realized that all the people were waiting for her. The manager rushed up to her, oily and excited.

  "Mrs. a-Bitter! Everyone is a-wait for you to make television interview. Come on in a-breakfast room, they got a-lights and action." He leaned a bit closer and raised his eyebrows. Five neatly parallel corrugations sprang into life on his forehead. "You mention a-hotel, say is a-nice, I tear up bill." Two quick, vertical tearing motions.

  "Mrs. Bitter!"

  "A-Mrs. a-Bitter!"

  "Sybil, honey!"

  "Hey, Mrs. Bitter!"

  Half a dozen reporters came crowding up. Sybil recognized one of them from the Herald Tribune office. They hadn't wasted any time getting over here. Tom and Ida squeezed against her legs, scared of getting stepped on. Sybil let the manager pull her into the breakfast room and seat her behind a table with the kids. Tom pointed at a TV camera. Ida stared, dazzled, into one of the lights.

  An Italian news commentator was talking into a microphone.

  "Badada ladada borra borra Signora Sybil Bitter lo dadada famma donna di badda da dadda da Professore Alwin Bitter ba dadadadad la preterra dinidini buhduh fla ceticini Morte Verdi." This went on for awhile. Finally he flashed a smile at Sybil and posed his question. "Lo quando billo flant flant de budadda cargo cargo flidovi oggi quan deeda dee? Oscorbidulchos volivorco?"

  A slender lady in purple-tinted glasses leaned over Sybil's shoulder and whispered the translation.

  "He asks if you have received word from your husband's terrorist organization. And did he warn you he was leaving?"

  "My husband has been the unwilling victim of a double-kidnapping," Sybil said. Her hands were shaking badly. "They want to force him to build an atomic bomb. This development is entirely the fault of the US Embassy. They have calculatedly used my husband as bait to draw out the terrorists who have the reactor fuel." She paused and took a wobbly breath while the slender lady translated her answer.

  The commentator posed his next question, one for the bambino.

  "Tom, do you miss your father?"

  It went on for another half hour. Sybil wondered numbly if Alwin might see them on TV. As the questions became more technical, she struggled to decide what answers would be best for him. Should the terrorists think that Alwin could build a bomb? Should they think he was in the CIA? If he was worthless they might kill him, but if he was valuable they might never let him go. Finally she started crying. This was, of course, what the cameramen had been waiting for.

  When Sybil and the children got back up to their room, the phone was ringing. She had no intention of answering, but before she could stop him, Tom had picked it up.

  "Hello?"

  A faint voice talking volubly.

  "Yes," Tom said. "She's here." He handed Sybil the phone. "It's Grandma."

  "Sybil!" Lotte Burton's voice was vibrant with emotion. "You poor child. Your father and I just saw you on the news."

  "Oh, Mother," wailed Sybil. "Isn't it awful? They kidnapped Alwin twice, and the US Embassy is trying to frame him as a terrorist. I don't know what to do!"

  "We're flying down, darling. Cortland has already made the plane and hotel reservations. You can move in right now and get ready for us."

  "Move where?"

  "To the Savoy. Room 431. It's a three-bedroom suite."

  "That's bigger than our apartment in Heidelberg!" exclaimed Sybil. "Are you bringing Sorrel?"

  "Of course. Now, move over there and make sure that there's plenty of ice for your father, and three extra pillows for his back." An excited voice shouted in the background. "And he says to get a case of Heineken sent up . . . for you, and for when Alwin gets back. Don't forget the pillows, dear."

  "All right," Sybil said. "Wonderful. When will you get in?"

  "After midnight. Don't wait up." In the background Cortland hollered, urging haste. But Lotte had one more thing to add. "You know, Sybil, it doesn't surprise me a bit."

  "What?"

  "That Alwin would fall in with these people. He's always been the Anarchist Archimedes."

  "It's not his fault, Mother. Really."

  "Cortland's getting a good German lawyer for him. We'll try to have the trial in Heidelberg." Violent, prolonged shouting. "I have to hang up, dear. The pillows. Don't wait up."

  "Of course I'll wait up. How could I sleep!"

  "How are the little ones taking it?"

  Tom and Ida were in the bathroom, refilling the tub. Sybil could hear their voices, earnest as two co-workers in a research lab. SPLOOSH! Something big hitting the water. Not the electric fan!

  "What was that?" screamed Sybil.

  "I'm sorry, Mama!"

  "WHAT WAS IT?"

  "Sybil? Is something wrong?"

  "We got your little bag all wet."

  "My toiletries?"

  "Toilet!" Squeals of laughter.

  "Sybil! What's going on?"

  "Oh, it's all right. The children just dropped my little travel-kit in the bathtub. I thought it was the fan."

  "I must hang up. Your father is frantic." Hoarse, angry yelling. "He's worried we'll miss the plane, which is ridiculous. There is no traffic on Good Friday. Did you find time to go to church today?"

  "I didn't have a moment. I wish I had."

  "In Rome there are many churches. I was at the cathedral today. The chants, Sybil. It was indescribable."

  "I may still make it. It's only eight o'clock."

  "Eight? We'll miss our plane!"

  "Good-bye, Mother."

  "Good-bye."

  Chapter Seven: Sex and Death

  Friday afternoon, after we finished talking, Peter showed me around the workroom where the fuel assemblies were waiting. We spent a couple of hours prying the ends off the concrete casings. Now it would be just a matter of pulling out the fuel rods and extracting the pellets of plutonium oxide.

  Just? Airborne plutonium particles are among the most toxic substances known to man. We'd need glove boxes and breathing suits, if not remote manipulators. Back in the office I tried to explain this to Beatrice, but she flew into a rage and called me a coward.

  She made it clear that I'd be shot if I didn't get a bomb together in time for Easter, a bomb for St. Peter's Square. If we all got poisoned in the process of assembling the bomb, it didn't matter; there were others to take our places in the front lines of revolutionary justice. Crazy bitch.

  There was another problem, the business about St. Peter's Square. Presumably Sybil and Tom and Ida would be there. No way I was going to let the bomb go off. I'd show Beatrice who was a coward. For all practical purposes I was already dead. Or nearly so. I only hoped I could still get lucky.

  That evening we watched TV in their little apartment. My passport photo flashed on the screen, then Lafcadio's. Beatrice translated for me. Lafcadio had been running proton-decay experiments in a lab off the Mont Blanc tunnel. There'd been an accident and Zsuzsi Szabo, Lafcadio's beloved co-worker, had been killed. Lafcadio had flipped out and disappeared, stealing a sample of some kind of degenerate hypermatter from the lab. The police were just as glad to have him dead, but the hypermatter was still missing.

  The hypermatter thing didn't seem to inter
est my Green Death captors. They were focused on the factional politics, and on the nuclear explosion we were cooking up.

  The TV news described me as a radical atomic physicist with close ties to the US Embassy. Picture of the Embassy, picture of our hotel. Old news photo of me at a demonstration. Then someone began translating the note Virgilio had gotten me to write.

  Now I realized I'd been framed. Il Archimedes Anarchisti. The TV showed the gun that had my fingerprints on it. According to the news, I'd met Lafcadio to buy the degenerate hypermatter, possibly for CIA use, possibly for the terrorists. I could be a double or even a triple agent. In any case, I had murdered Lafcadio Caron.

  Suddenly Sybil was on the TV screen. Her eyes were desperate and she bit her lips. It was hard to make out her faint voice over the machine-gun rattle of the translator's Italian. For an instant she looked directly out at me, and my heart stopped. Then the bastards put the children on . . . tiny, serious, confused. I started hitting and yelling.

  The three terrorists manhandled me out of their little apartment and left me alone in the office. I smashed a few plants against the wall, then sat down exhausted on the couch. I was supposed to sleep here. All the doors . . . apartment, outer, workroom . . . were locked. I tried to stop thinking, tried to stop seeing Tom's puzzled face.

  After a while I found myself wondering if Peter was getting any off those two women. Imagining various three-ways, I slid my hand into my pants. Sybil, baby. It had been so good last night.

  How was I ever going to get to sleep here on a vinyl couch with death all around me? My back was killing me. My hurt finger and the wounds on my face throbbed. Did I have any cigarettes?

  Going through my pockets I found the little spherelet which Lafcadio had given me. Had that really happened today? Was this the missing sample? The tiny ball glowed mysteriously in the pitch-dark room.

  "Smeep," I went, pursing my lips. "Smeep smeep." The ball grew slightly larger. There were faint patterns on it, like half-seen continents on a clouded planet. I felt a stirring of excitement in my loins. The thing gave off an incredible aura of sexuality. Pheromones—the airborne organic molecules that people give off when they're sexually excited. Invisible little PLEASE FUCK MEs. Leaning over the sphere was like putting my face between Sybil's legs. Without really knowing why, I licked my lips and began smothering the tiny sphere with kisses. I was just so lonely. The sphere grew and became warm to the touch, bigger and bigger. What was going on?