The Frumious Bandersnatch полностью

“The same sort of black English has its echoes in the word ‘raths,’ ” Jennifer said. “Go to any ghetto in America, you’ll hear African-Americans calling rats ‘raths.’ The same way they’ll use the word ‘mens’ for ‘men.’ Or ‘underwears’ for ‘underwear.’ ”

“I have never in my life called a rat a rath, ” Lucy said.

“Have you ever in your life even seen a rat?” Jennifer shot back.

“Who do you find more attractive?” Sharyn asked. “The redhead or the sistuh with attitude?”

“Is that another trick question?” Kling asked.

“The one place I really detect clear racism is in the use of the words ‘Jubjub bird,’ ” Halliday said. “ ‘Beware the Jubjub bird.’ That is clearly a racist warning.”

Lucy Holden rolled her eyes.

“How do you find that racist?” Candace asked.

“Well, Candy, I don’t know what I’m permitted to say on the air here.”

“This is cable, go right ahead.”

“I’m sure the Jubjub bird refers to the Johnson.”

“The what! ” Sharyn said, and burst out laughing.

“Uh-huh,” Candace said. “Do you agree, Jennifer?”

“Absolutely.”

“That the words ‘Jubjub bird’ as used in the song, refer…”

“Actually, those words are code for the Johnson,” Halliday said.

“Jennifer?”

“Code words for the Johnson, yes,” Jennifer agreed, nodding.

“And what is a Johnson?” Candace asked, and smiled encouragement.

Sharyn was leaning forward now, clasping her knees, her eyes wide, her mouth virtually hanging open. There was a long hesitation. The screen was split into two parts now, showing Jennifer’s face on one half and Candace’s on the other. Jennifer’s face was blank. It suddenly occurred to Sharyn that neither of these two erudite white women knew what a Johnson was. She kept watching the screen, waiting. This was the highest suspense she’d seen on television since the O. J. Simpson white Bronco chase out there in the wilds of Los Angeles.

The camera came in on Halliday again. He looked seriously concerned. “Well,” he said, “as I said earlier, I don’t know what I’m permitted to say here.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Lucy’s voice erupted, and suddenly the screen was filled with her face alone. “The Johnson is a man’s penis!” she shouted in closeup. “As in the expression ‘Slobber the Johnson,’ which means ‘Kiss the…’ ”

“We have to break now,” Candace said at once, her smiling face suddenly filling the entire screen. “We’ll be back in just a moment to pursue the question raised by Tamar Valparaiso’s new video and CD. Is it ‘Race or Rape’? You decide! Stay with us.”

“You want to stay with these fools, Blondie?” Sharyn asked. “Or you want me to take off my unner’wears and slobber yo ole Jubjub bird?”

Kling got up to turn off the television set.

WILLIS FIGURED 317 Byrd Street was six or seven blocks away from the spot on the Ship Canal where two detectives from the Three-One had allegedly drowned a pair of prostitutes who’d accused them of complicity in their illegal evil sex deeds. In a city of contrasts, the newly gentrified Byrd glistened like a rare jewel in a tarnished brass setting. Here there were the coffee houses and the elegant restaurants, the crafts shops and boutiques, the book stores and even a multiplex movie theater. Lining The Canal a dozen blocks away, there were bars that served as whore houses to the hundreds of merchant seamen and sailors who poured into the area every day of the week.

According to the Eight-Seven’s hot car sheet, Polly Olson hadn’t reported her Ford Explorer missing till eight-thirty this morning, a good ten hours after the kidnapping last night. This may have been mere oversight, or it may have been a clever diversion by a woman setting up an alibi. Who me? Involved in a kidnapping? Hell, my car was stolen, I reported it stolen! In which case, Polly Olson might very well have been the woman accomplice on the Valparaiso kidnapping. In which case her two AK-47-toting pals might very well be with her tonight. Willis did not want to get shot tonight.

In fact, he did not want to get shot ever again.

The last time he’d got shot was in the thigh, and he thought that might be the last dance for him, verily, though it turned out he was still here, wasn’t he? And Parker hadn’t been along that night when a punk named Maxie Blaine from Georgia had virtually emptied a nine at the five cops coming through the door, luckily—or unluckily, depending on your viewpoint—hitting the smallest target of them all. Willis had never been in a shootout with Parker by his side, so he didn’t really know what kind of a backup he might make, but if there was going to be any gunplay within the next ten minutes or so, he could think of a lot of cops with whom he’d rather be paired.

Neither did he like what he saw when they got to the entrance door of the building. There was a vertical row of bell buttons with lettered names alongside them and an intercom speaker above them. They would have to announce themselves before they were buzzed in.

Parker knew just what he was thinking.