Little Green Men (12 page)

One aspect of the general reaction did perplex him: the amusement over how "obsessed" he had become with UFO's. His answer was: how could you
not
be obsessed after such an experience? Once you knew that the little green bastards had landed, what were you supposed to do, go back to talking about the presidential election? The weather? Did the disciples become "obsessed" when their carpenter friend began turning water into wine and raising people from the dead? Was Columbus "obsessed" by his discovery of the New World?

"Mr. Banion?"

"What?"

'Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes. Where were we?"

"Your lunch tomorrow with the CIA director - it's been postponed."

Once a month, Banion lunched at Langley with the head of the CIA, an old friend and occasional leaker of self-serving tidbits. Hm, odd. The director was regular as clockwork. He had never "postponed" before.

"They called. Apologetic. Hope to reschedule soon."

"How soon?"

"Will get back to us."

In Washington, this was a brush-off.

"You can work on your book. Miss Clark called, said she had some new material for you to look over. Something about French pox."

"The French Revolution will have to wait," said Banion, still smarting over the DCI's cancellation. Who did he think he was, anyway?

"The book
is
due in December. Mr. Morforken has included it in their fall list."

"Well, he can just uninclude it. I've got bigger Fish than Robespierre to fry. You better drop him a note to that effect."

Banion had been, to use the newspaper phrase, besieged with lucrative book and movie offers. His literary agent, Simon Persimmon, a vinegary, intellectual sort of the old school, whose idea of a exciting property was a three-volume biography of George Marshall, now found himself on the receiving end of calls from Hollywood producers, talking astronomical sums of money and breathless with the news that everyone was "hot" for Banion's story. He was at pains to cope. Banion's lecture agent, Sid Mint, was better equipped to deal with such gale-force commerce, but even Sid was having difficulties with Banion's abrupt career transition. The corporate clients were calling in to express, as Sid put it delicately, "concern" about what topic Banion planned to speak on at their upcoming conferences. On the plus side, Sid said he was getting a lot of speech requests, albeit from new clients.

"Persimmon had an offer of three and a half million dollars yesterday," Banion said. Maybe
that
would impress Renira.

She tilted her head thoughtfully.
"Isn't that what they gave the O
. J. Simpson ex-girlfriend for
her
story?"

Why bother?

"Wednesday, interview with German television, lunch speech to the Institute of Paranormal Phenomena, it's at the Exigency. Then four o'clock at Senator Gracklesen's office to discuss your hearings proposal. His aide just called and said he might be held up by a floor debate and would you care to postpone?"

"no."

"Four o'clock, then. Don't forget you've got the symphony dinner that night. Black tie. Bitsey called to remind. You're at Speaker Meeker's table with Mrs. Dalhousie. Mr. Pinch, and the Hinckley Eppersons. She said to remind you that they donated the half million dollars for the new acoustics."

Banion sighed. These symphony things of Bitsey's were torture. He had no ear for music. He was perfectly content to insert a "Mozart's Greatest Hits" onto the CD player and press
repeat.
To
make matters worse, this new conductor was a Fiend for atonality, that is, music that defied humming. Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.

"Friday, breakfast speech to Aetna Insurance. Mr. Mint called and said they're expecting you to talk about the
election.
Lunch at noon, George Herrick at the Metropolitan Club. Then three o'clock, Dr. Hughes."

"Why? I'm not sick."

"He called. He wants to see you."

"What about?"

"I wouldn't know, would 1? He's your personal physician." "Well. I'm fine. I don't need to see him." "He's your doctor, and if he wants to see you -"
"Next."

"Your UFO conference in Austin. Your talk's at ten Saturday morning. Topic: 'UFO's and U.S. Cold War Policy." Your brain trust are beavering away on it."

'Anything else?"

"Miss Delmar called." The calls from Fina Delmar, movie star, had been for Renira the only welcome aspect in all this. Renira was a huge fan. Banion, no moviegoer himself, was only dimly aware of who she was until Renira pointed out that she had won Best Actress for
The
Lobsterman's
Wife
and
Wetly,
My
Darling.
Fina Delmar was a believer not only in UFO's but apparently in any paranormal phenom whizzing down the celestial highway. In her First call, she'd congratulated Banion warmly on his "coming out." She herself, she revealed, had twice been abducted, by "Nordics."

There were very distinct types of aliens, ranging from the Aryan-variety Nordics to the non-Aryan "Grays" and the even less Aryan "Short Uglies." Miss Delmar wanted it clearly understood that she had been abducted by the more urbane, almond-eyed, aristocratic alien type, and not by unchic, hirsute, ogrish homunculi. Furthermore, she had been abducted not in
this
life but in a previous one - in Paris, as it happened, in the late eighteenth century. She had been mistress to Count Bombard de Lombard, supplier of gunpower and snuff to the court of Louis XVI.

Banion told her about his Benjamin Franklin book. Indeed, Fina Delmar knew
all
about the meeting between Franklin and Robespierre, with whom she'd had a brief dalliance,
before
- she emphasized - he got syphilis.

After three somewhat endless phone conversations - Miss Delmar could talk bark off a tree - Banion delegated the Delmar detail to a delighted Renira. who could now Find out what it had been like to work opposite Tony Curtis, Sean Connery, and Peter O'Toole. The two of them spent hours on the phone, somewhat to Banion's consternation.

"She's not sending me that chandelier, is she?" Banion asked suspiciously. She had told him she was sending him a chandelier made entirely of New Age crystals.

"I told her we didn't have room for it. She wants to know when you're coming to California. Wants to throw you a dinner party. Has some people for you to meet."

"Very thoughtful."

"Delightful woman. Did you know that she and Tony Curtis had a
mad
fling on the set of
Taras
Bulba
.
Yul Brynner was
insane
with jealousy."

"Fascinating. What else have we got?"

"We have to decide about the mail."

The mail had become a problem. It was coming in at an alarming rate, thousands of letters a day, from UFO believers, abductees, anyone who'd seen strange lights in the sky, women whose eggs had been harvested, men whose sperm had been extracted, people pregnant with alien babies, people desiring him to know that the lost continent of Atlantis was under Lake Huron, people warning him that the president of the United States had "sold out" the human race to Nordics from the planet Glibnob, people with - Banion sensed - too much free time on their hands. Only a few were skeptical of his abduction experiences. One or two inquired if he had a drug or drinking problem.

It all arrived from the Post Office in large, dirty gray sacks, delivered by bemused or surly mail carriers. The sheer bulk of it was overwhelming. Banion's previous record for mail had been after he wrote the touching column about the death of his and Bitsey's corgi, Romulus - 478 letters. Now, 478 letters would be a slow day. Yesterday, Renira informed him, they had logged 4,000. Well, 80 percent of the American people believed in flying saucers, and now all of them, grateful to have such a credible champion, were writing in to express solidarity, slap him on the back, and say, "Give 'em hell!"

"I don't see, actually, that we need to answer it," Renira said.

"Why not?"

"You'll only encourage them. Do we
really
want them all writing back? They will, you know. We can't handle what we have as it is. Have you seen the upstairs lately? You can't
move.
There's over fifty thousand pieces. And I'm certainly not about to open any of the boxes. God
knows
what's inside. I have a suggestion."

"What?"

"Why not have your brain trust deal with it? Perfect application of their talents. 1 should think the doctor and colonel would salivate to hear all the heartwarming stories."

"You can't ask people of their stature to open mail. Hire some temps if you have to. But 1 want each piece answered. Do a form letter. /'// compose it. And 1 want every person's name, address, phone number entered into a database." He added heavily,
"Thank
you, Renira."

Renira huffed off.

Banion was sitting on the leather chesterfield in Senator Gracklesen's office when the senator walked in, at 5:15, his eyes betraying a flicker of disappointment at finding Banion still there. It was the longest Banion had waited for anyone in many years.

The senator was effusive with apology. A floor debate on an amendment to make tobacco executives apologize in person to the families of any smokers who died of cancer. Senator Bore, of the great tobacco-producing state of North Carolina, was being obstinate. Pain in the ass, but you had to hand it to the old guy, never budged on principle. You look terrific, Jack. How's Bitsey? Now what was it you wanted to see me about? . . .

'Abduction hearings."

"Right." Senator Gracklesen nodded gravely, with all the enthusiasm of a reasonable man being pressed to reopen the investigation into the Kennedy assassination because someone had just found a gum wrapper on the grassy knoll.

"Right." One cheek bellowed pensively with air. "I mentioned it to Kent and John. They think it's an intriguing idea. Maybe next year
..."

Banion handed him a piece of paper. "This is a recent poll taken in the great state of Oklahoma. You'll note that half of your constituents feel that the government is lying to them about UFO's and alien abductions."

Senator Gracklesen furrowed his brow as he studied this unwelcome information, searching hopefully for some asterisk indicating that the margin of error for the figure was plus or minus 100 percent. He had, in fact, "mentioned" Banion's proposal t
o Kent and J
ohn, respectively the Senate majority leader and his chief lieutenant. Their response had been to roll their eyes rotunda-ward and change the subject to their plan to thwart the latest measure to limit political contributions.

"Jack, uh, what's going on?"

"I'v
e been abducted by aliens, and I
want to find out how much the government knows about this. Don't you?"

"Yes, naturally." the senator said, his eyes scanning the document, now desperate to find that asterisk.
'This
poll
was
conducted
at
the State
Hospital
for
the
Cuckoo.

"It's your committee," said Banion. "You don't need permission from those two bad haircuts to hold hearings."

"Hold on," the senator said, now on the firmer ground of his own fecklessness. "We're all trying to sing off the same sheet of music here. The leadership's been cracking down right and left on the mavericking. We're holding on to our majority by two seats. I'm in a horse race myself."

"Yes, with a billionaire software entrepreneur whose biggest-selling computer game is about repelling alien invaders."

"I may have to concede him the stoned teenage vote. Frankly, I'm more concerned about my Hispanic numbers. They hear the word
alien
and they think I'm talking about illegal immigration."

'After the election?" Banion said.

"I don't see a problem with that."

"You'll commit to that on the show this Sunday?"

'Aw, Jack, we don't have to talk about this on TV do we?"

"Then can I quote you in my column? 'Senator Gracklesen
will
hold hearings soon after the election'?"

"You can certainly say . . . that you've discussed it with people familiar with the thinking of people on the committee, and they are willing to debate the pros and cons of hearings along those lines. Yeah, sure, absolutely."

"Wasn't it just
wonderfull!
"
Durleen Epperson asked Banion in a barbecue-sauce Texan accent.

Banion's thoughts were not on Charles Ives's Second Symphony but on Mrs. Epperson's quite amazing bosoms - rumored to be genuine - a good three-fifths of which were resplendently on display. Between them, cushioned downily like a large e
gg, was a twenty-six-carat cabo
chon-cut ruby that must have set old H
inckley back a couple of tanker
fuls of Permian sweet.