Black House (Page 20)

"Go, dude." This is Morris’s first real discussion with Henry Leyden, who is every bit the head Morris has been told to expect. Every bit and more. It is no longer so hard to believe that he could have another identity . . . a secret identity, like Bruce Wayne. But still . . . this is just so pimp.

"What we do in our childhood forms as a habit," Henry says in the same soft, totally un–George Rathbun voice. "That is my advice to you, Morris."

"Yeah, totally," Morris says. He has no clue what Mr. Leyden is talking about. But he slowly, shyly, extends the CD jewel box in his hand. For a moment, when Henry makes no move to take it, Morris feels crushed, all at once seven years old again and trying to wow his always-too-busy father with a picture he has spent all afternoon drawing in his room. Then he thinks, He’s blind, dickweed. He may be able to smell pot on your breath and he may have ears like a bat, but how’s he supposed to know you’re holding out a f**king CD?

Hesitantly, a bit frightened by his own temerity, Morris takes Henry’s wrist. He feels the man start a little, but then Leyden allows his hand to be guided to the slender box.

"Ah, a CD," Henry says. "And what is it, pray tell?"

"You gotta play the seventh track tonight on your show," Morris says.

"Please."

For the first time, Henry looks alarmed. He takes a drag on his cigarette, then drops it (without even looking — of course, ha ha) into the sand-filled plastic bucket by the door.

"What show could you possibly mean?" he asks.

Instead of answering directly, Morris makes a rapid little smacking noise with his lips, the sound of a small but voracious carnivore eating something tasty. And, to make things worse, he follows it with the Wisconsin Rat’s trademark line, as well known to the folks in Morris’s age group as George Rathbun’s hoarse "Even a blind man" cry is known to their elders: "Chew it up, eat it up, wash it down, it aaallll comes out the same place!"

He doesn’t do it very well, but there’s no question who he’s doing: the one and only Wisconsin Rat, whose evening drive-time program on KWLA-FM is famous in Coulee Country (except the word we probably want is "infamous"). KWLA is the tiny college FM station in La Riviere, hardly more than a smudge on the wallpaper of Wisconsin radio, but the Rat’s audience is huge.

And if anyone found out that the comfortable Brew Crew–rooting, Republican-voting, AM-broadcasting George Rathbun was also the Rat — who had once narrated a gleeful on-air evacuation of his bowels onto a Backstreet Boys CD — there could be trouble. Quite serious, possibly, resounding well beyond the tight-knit little radio community.

"What in God’s name would ever make you think that I’m the Wisconsin Rat, Morris?" Henry asks. "I barely know who you’re talking about. Who put such a weird idea in your head?"

"An informed source," Morris says craftily.

He won’t give Howie Soule up, not even if they pull out his fingernails with red-hot tongs. Besides, Howie only found out by accident: went into the station crapper one day after Henry left and discovered that Henry’s wallet had fallen out of his back pocket while he was sitting on the throne. You’d have thought a fellow whose other senses were so obviously tightwired would have sensed the absence, but probably Henry’s mind had been on other things — he was obviously a heavy dude who undoubtedly spent his days getting through some heavy thoughts. In any case, there was a KWLA I.D. card in Henry’s wallet (which Howie had thumbed through "in the spirit of friendly curiosity," as he put it), and on the line marked NAME, someone had stamped a little inkpad drawing of a rat. Case closed, game over, zip up your fly.

"I have never in my life so much as stepped through the door of KWLA," Henry says, and this is the absolute truth. He makes the Wisconsin Rat tapes (among others) in his studio at home, then sends them in to the station from the downtown Mail Boxes Etc., where he rents under the name of Joe Strummer. The card with the rat stamped on it was more in the nature of an invitation from the KWLA staff than anything else, one he’s never taken up . . . but he kept the card.

"Have you become anyone else’s informed source, Morris?"

"Huh?"

"Have you told anyone that you think I’m the Wisconsin Rat?"

"No! Course not!" Which, as we all know, is what people always say.

Luckily for Henry, in this case it happens to be true. So far, at least, but the day is still young.

"And you won’t, will you? Because rumors have a way of taking root. Just like certain bad habits." Henry mimes puffing, pulling in smoke.

"I know how to keep my mouth shut," Morris declares, with perhaps misplaced pride.

"I hope so. Because if you bruited this about, I’d have to kill you."

Bruited, Morris thinks. Oh man, this guy is complete.

"Kill me, yeah," Morris says, laughing.

"And eat you," Henry says. He is not laughing; not even smiling.

"Yeah, right." Morris laughs again, but this time the laugh sounds strangely forced to his own ears. "Like you’re Hannibal Lecture."

"No, like I’m the Fisherman," Henry says. He slowly turns his aviator sunglasses toward Morris. The sun reflects off them, for a moment turning them into rufous eyes of fire. Morris takes a step back without even realizing that he has done so. "Albert Fish liked to start with the ass, did you know that?"

"N — "

"Yes indeed. He claimed that a good piece of young ass was as sweet as a veal cutlet. His exact words. Written in a letter to the mother of one of his victims."

"Far out," Morris says. His voice sounds faint to his own ears, the voice of a plump little pig denying entrance to the big bad wolf. "But I’m not exactly, like, worried that you’re the Fisherman."