Warren Murphy: The Final Reel

He was trying to get a clear look at Remo's face. It seemed to be vibrating in such a way as to make his features unrecognizable. Of course this was impossible. The man rubbed at his eyes, trying to force the blurriness from them. He noted as he did so that a few of the others were also rubbing at their eyes. "Of course he has time," Remo said. "Look at this."

Balancing the black handle on the tip of his index finger, Remo gave the pot's broad bottom a smack. With an audible whir it began to spin in place like a basketball on the fingertips of a Harlem Globetrotter.

"Impressed?" Remo asked.

"Is he supposed to be some kind of street performer?" the mayor asked his aide.

"Sort of," Remo answered as he gave the pot another slap. The whirring made the mayor's ears itch.

"Do you do anything else with that thing?" the mayor asked, childlike interest already waning. "Just one more thing. The Astounding Disappearing Ears Trick. But I need a volunteer from the audience."

"Let's go, sir," an assistant urged. His inability to focus on Remo's face was making him nauseous.

"Not you," Remo admonished. The whirring pot stopped.

There was a metallic gong. All at once the mayor's aide was sleeping on the city-hall steps. "What happened?" the mayor demanded. Another gong. A second man joined the first. "Will a volunteer please step forward?" Remo announced, seemingly oblivious to the gathering pile of unconscious civil servants.

"Stop doing that," the mayor complained to his staff. He nudged one of the men with his toe. Gong. Another man dropped onto the inert pile. "I just gave you an order," the mayor whined as another gong heralded the collapse of a fourth man. The final city-hall worker was pointing at Remo. "I think he's doing it," he announced, concerned, just before the last gong sounded, this one inside his own head.

The mayor stood, dumbstruck, within the slumbering rubble of his personal staff. When he turned to Remo, there was just the first flickering hint of understanding in the backs of his dull politician's eyes.

Remo held the gleaming pot aloft. A smile wrapped his face. "I see we have a volunteer," he announced.

To the mayor the kettle seemed to move with the slowness of a hypnotist's watch. Only when he was engulfed by a darkness more complete than the night in which he stood did he realize that this was an illusion.

It felt as if someone had clamped his head in a vise.

"You will notice, Mr. Mayor," said the street performer, his voice muffled by the pot's interior, "that your ears have completely disappeared. That's the 'astounding' part of the Astounding Disappearing Ears Trick."

Outside the pot Remo examined his handiwork. Too much head fit into too little pot. Mouth, chin and jowls stuck out from below the steel rim. The curved black handle jutted forward like a crooked witch's nose. The mayor's twitching mouth beneath the handle helped further this image.

"Is this a kidnapping?" the mayor asked fearfully.

"Only in the strictest sense of the word," Remo replied. "It's more like a lesson in good mayoring." And, taking Boston's mayor by his handle, Remo led the shaking, kettle-domed official down the broad staircase.

THE LIBERTY RALLY, which took place annually on historic Boston Common, had, over the course of its decade-long life, grown into the single largest prodrug event in the United States. Born of the radical 1960s hippie culture, the gathering managed to each year dump some forty thousand assorted drug addicts, pushers and thieves onto the Common's well-tended green lawns. Thrown into this mix of human flotsam were the requisite soulless teenagers, college-age revolutionary wanna-bes and celebrity activists.

In a land where freedom begat folly and true sacrifice came when daddy refused to give the kids gas money for the new cars he'd just bought them, the Liberty Rally became a focal point of rebellion among a class too strung out to realize how privileged it truly was.

On this first night of the eleventh such rally to be held, the air of Boston had taken on a hallucinatory quality. A smoky fog hung above the park. Even this late in the evening, city workers were still mopping up the remains of the unfortunate birds that had made the mistake of flying through the smokechoked sky above the Common earlier in the afternoon, only to end up as anesthetized splats against the sides of the Prudential and John Hancock Buildings.

When Remo Williams led the disguised mayor of Boston into the midst of the throng gathered on the Common, he was forced to keep his breathing shallow.

Booths had been erected, offering for sale all manner of hemp apparel. Shirts, hats, pants and coats that looked as if they'd been stitched by junkie seamstresses-which, in fact, they had--were laid out for inspection.

The clothing angle was being played up by the rally organizers. But in addition to the garment booths there were many more stands featuring all manner of drugs and drug paraphernalia. In spite of all the various drug activity all around, Remo had yet to see a single police officer.

When they reached the center of the Common, Remo stopped. He released the mayor's handle. "We're here," he announced.

"Where's here?" the mayor asked worriedly. Though he could hear the many voices, the Revere Ware pot planted over his eyes prevented him from seeing where he'd been brought.

Reaching out, Remo used the sharp edge of his index fingernail to score the side of the pot. Once he'd cut a perfect oblong, he used the suction of his thumb to remove the thin piece of curving stainless steel. Beneath the newly formed hole a single worried eye blinked rapidly.

The mayor gasped as he took in the scene. "This is that drug rally, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes, it is," Remo replied. "It's also where you're going to learn how to be a good mayor."

"I am a good mayor," Boston's chief elected official insisted, thinking he'd been kidnapped by one of the gathering's many drug-addicted patrons. "I allow this rally to go on without a hitch every year."

"And therein lies the problem," Remo replied. The people whom the Liberty Rally attracted were the dregs of the dregs. The fashion of the day was distinctly retro. The young men and women who wandered in a smoky haze amid the kiosks wore tiedyed shirts and torn jeans.

Nearby a man hung naked from a tree. Even dangling upside down, the actor was recognizable. He had starred as the dopey yet lovable bartender on Salud, a long-running TV show set in Boston. Since that show had gone off the air, the young man had had an inexplicably successful film career.

"When I was in The Nation vs. Wesley Pruiss, you know, the guy from Gross magazine," the actor was saying to a nude woman who was suspended beside him, "I was stoned straight through production. Didn't hurt my acting one damn bit."

The woman was taking notes. Apparently she was some kind of reporter.

Seizing the mayor by the handle, Remo led him to the tree. He pointed to the unclothed celebrity. "This is a lunatic," Remo explained, his voice that of a patient preschool teacher. "What's wrong with this picture?"

"I don't see anyone," the mayor complained. Remo twisted the handle. The mayor found himself staring into the upturned face of the famous actor.

"Hey, man," the actor drawled. Taking in the mayor's kettle, his idiot's grin-worn straight or high-grew wide. "Hell of a fashion statement," he said with admiration. "You should really wear hemp, though. Sticks with the theme." He turned his attention back to the woman. "Now, where was I?"

"He's naked," the mayor gasped.

"He's also flying higher than Halley's Comet," Remo said. "Both things are against the law." Before the mayor could get his bearings, Remo grabbed the pot's handle. Again he led the man like a dog on a leash through the crowd.