Vickie Stoner allowed herself to be propelled along the hallway, oblivious to the carpet, the signs and even the touch of the usher who was finding it difficult to resist a cheap feel, but did because of the possibility of reprisal from Big Bang.
«This is it, honey,» the usher said, pausing in front of a wooden door with a gold star on it. «The Banger's inside.»
«Gotta ball that Maggot,» Vickie Stoner said.
She opened the door and walked inside. The dressing room was actually a small studio apartment, complete with refrigerator, stove, dining nook and bed. Big Bang Benton was in the bed, a sheet pulled up to his chin, staring at Vickie over his almost-black glasses.
«Lock the door, sweetie,» he said.
Vickie Stoner turned and fumbled with the lock button but did not know, or care, whether or not it locked,
«You're a loyal fan of the Old Banger, eh?» Benton asked.
«Do you know Maggot?» she asked.
«Maggot? One of my dearest and nearest friends. A great talent. Truly a star in the firmament of the music world. Why, just the other day, he said to me, he said …»
«Where is he?» Vickie interrupted.
«He's in town,» Benton said. «But why worry about him. We're talking about you and me, the Old Banger.»
«Gotta ball that Maggot,» Vickie said.
«The way to his bed is through mine,» said Benton.
Vickie nodded and began removing her clothes. In almost no time, she was stripped and crawling under the cover where she flopped down on top of Benton's porcine bloated stomach.
After it was all over, Big Bang decided it would be helpful to the girl to get to know her a little better. Perhaps show a little interest in her and let her know the big stars were just folks after all. So he talked to her about his hopes and his needs, his frustrations and his sense of accomplishment at bringing a little happiness into the lives of young America through good clean entertainment.
Before he could discover that Vickie was snoring, the telephone next to the bed rang.
He hesitated before reaching out to the telephone. But he was relieved to find out it was not his bookmaker, but the station's publicity department. He was supposed to meet Maggot later today at Maggot's hotel suite to present him with a gold record for the million-sales of
Maggot's latest and greatest hit, «Mugga-Mugga Blink Blank.»
«Maggot say yes?» Big Bang asked.
«It's all set with him,» the publicity man said.
«Gotta ball that Maggot,» Vickie mumbled in her sleep, after hearing the magic name.
«All right,» Benton said. «When and where?» He repeated the answer. «Hotel Carlton. Fivethirty. Got it.»
He hung up the phone and was reaching for Vickie when the phone rang again.
There was no doubt about who was calling this time. Big Bang let out a heavy sigh, picked up the phone and sat up straight in bed to listen, lest his disrespectful slouching somehow show over the telephone.
«Yeah, Frankie, yeah. I understand.» He tried a chuckle on for size, to lighten the tension. He felt Vickie Stoner stir and reached out a hand for her, but she eluded it, got out of bed, and began to dress. He waved to her not to go as he listened to Frankie. He winked at Vickie. «Frankie, you call at the damnedest times. I'm in the rack now with this sweet little red-headed groupie named Vickie and … I don't know. Wait a minute, I'll ask. Hey, Vickie. What's your last name?»
«Stoner.»
«I know you're stoned. What's your last name?»
«Gotta ball that Maggot,» Vickie said and opened the door.
As the door closed behind her, Benton said, «I don't know. All she said was she was stoned.» Pause. «I don't know. Maybe she said Stoner.»
Then Big Bang listened, listened to what he had just had in his dressing room, listened to what she was worth, listened intently to how some information on Vickie Stoner could not only wipe out his gambling debts but set him up for life, listened intently enough so that when he hung up, he raced naked out into the hall, looking both ways, but there was no sign of Vickie. Only a troop of visiting Girl Scouts from Kearny, New Jersey, all of whom seemed delighted at seeing Big Bang naked, but whose scout leader thought the display was obscene and marched off to complain to the station management.
Vickie was out on the street by that time. Something in her mind told her that Maggot was at the Hotel Carlton but she didn't know how she knew. Must have been an extra-good pill. The secret of all knowledge. Better living through chemistry.
Wobbly but decisive, she headed downtown, where she knew the Carlton was located.
Back at the studio, Big Bang reentered his dressing room and picked up the telephone. He gave the switchboard operator a number to dial and when it rang and was answered, he said: «This is the Banger. Let me talk to Maggot.»
CHAPTER TWELVE
Calvin Cadwallader put the telephone down with a feeling of annoyance pervading his being, yeah, his inner being, right down to his innermost soul. That made him feel delighted. He promised himself that he would describe in great, glowing detail to his shrink the anger and annoyance he had felt, the curious theory being that after being annoyed, if one talked it out, the annoyance could be found not really to have existed.
But for now, there was annoyance. «If you see a red-haired groupie named Vickie Stoner, pick her up. It's important.»
Things like that might be important to Big Bang Benton but Calvin Cadwallader knew better.
He touched his fingers to the sleeves of his brocade dressing gown, then ran his fingers lovingly through his freshly-curled blond hair, wiped them again on his sleeves and returned to the dining room of his eight room suite. The Watt Street Journal was open to the stock prices and Calvin Cadwallader, before he was interrupted, had been checking to see how he was doing.
He was doing very well indeed. That was one aspect in favor of being Maggot. But on the other hand, there were the headaches and the pressures and the feeling of lost identity. That was also because of being Maggot.
The psychiatrist had told him this was normal with someone who was leading two lives, and Calvin Cadwallader believed him because he was the only person in the whole world who loved Calvin Cadwallader for himself, and not just because seven nights a week and some days, Calvin Cadwallader donned terrible clothes and hideous makeup and festooned himself like a butcher shop to appear in public as Maggot, the leader of the Dead Meat Lice.
Maggot put on his white cotton gloves and then began again to run his finger down the columns of stock closing prices. Every so often, he would jot a number down on a light green ledger pad next to him, and then go into a flurry of high-speed calculations, the subject which he had been trained to excel in when he had gone to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That was also where he had first picked up a guitar and forced himself to learn to play it, hoping it would help him overcome the crushing shyness which had been his ever since he had first realized that his globe-trotting parents hated him and wished him dead.
Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice started as a joke, a parody, a one-song routine in an RPI variety show. But someone in the audience knew someone who knew someone else and before you could say «shattered eardrum,» Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice had signed a recording contract.
Fame, fortune and schizophrenia followed. Now Calvin Cadwallader considered both Calvin Cadwallader and Maggot as two separate and distinct persons. He vastly preferred Calvin Cadwallader. Still at times, Maggot was nice to have around because his music had made him very wealthy and he didn't care what Calvin Cadwallader did with the money.
Cadwallader had invested it wisely and well, specializing in oil and mineral stocks, but specifically excluding the string of companies owned wholly or in part by his father. He hoped they all went under, and even though it would have cost him hundreds of thousands, he wrote frequent letters to Congress, urging the elimination of the oil-depletion allowance on which his father's fortune had been built.