Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop

Author:Michael Bishop [Bishop, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, science fiction, General
Publisher: Fairwood Press
Published: 2012-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

37

Mikhail Menaker for the Defense

Even at staid Ephebus Academy, The Mick had his sources. Before his last class was over, he heard from his friend Truitt Gustavson, who’d heard from Juliana Coniglio, who’d caught the story from a report on WPNK Rok Radio, that Tim Bowman, former editor in chief of Uncommon Comics, had seriously wounded Urbanite critic Xavier Thaxton in an early-morning shooting incident.

“Holy fuck!” cried The Mick in his sixth-period physical-science lab, at a work station with a wide array of electronic equipment.

“Mikhail,” Mr. Hulet said. “Show some restraint, some respect for—”

“Stuff that, Mr. Hulet! Gotta go!” He grabbed the radiation-detection device that he’d assembled under Mr. Hulet’s supervision and bolted: down the tiled hall, out the glass doors, along West Azalea Avenue, dodging pedestrians, to the condo on Franklin Court. Tim Bowman had shot Uncle Xave? That was like, well, learning that your best friend has just run over the fucking family dog. On purpose.

Lugging his Geiger counter, The Mick burst into the apartment to find Uncle Xave sitting in his bathrobe in front of—this was a real boggler—an episode of For Love Designed. He had taped it, no doubt. He was alive, no jive.

“You’re home early.” Uncle Xave checked his watch and used the remote to click off both the TV and the VCR. “Caught me, didn’t you?”

“Bowman shot you?”

“Three times.”

“Why?” The Mick was confused, about two unrelated matters. “Why” —nodding at the TV— “were you scanning that? You hate laundry dramas.”

“I tape them for Bari, Mikhail. Sometimes I watch a couple just to, I don’t know, reestablish contact.”

The Mick sat. What if Uncle Xave had been dead or critically wounded? In either case, the flat would have been empty after The Mick’s panicky dash from Ephebus. Why, he wondered, hadn’t he peeped Uncle Xave’s condition before rushing home?

“Why aren’t you worm waffles, unc?”

“My assailant’s bullets took a coffee break an inch away from my intestines. They couldn’t go the distance.”

Setting his Geiger counter down, The Mick paced. “Why?” He shook both fists like maracas. “Why?”

“Why couldn’t they go the distance?”

“Why’d Timmy Bowman try to desoul you? How’d you manage to rip his cord?”

“The same views that chased you into Salonika’s stews”—guiltily examining his hands—“displeased Mr. Bowman. His response to them, as I’d expressed them in ‘Thus Saith Xavier Thaxton,’ had a longer lead time, though.”

The Mick considered. His uncle’s column on the “cynicism” inherent in the monthly presentation of UC’s stalwarts—particularly such newcomers as the DeeJay, Gator Maid, and Count Geiger—had been about the snootiest criticism The Mick’d ever had the thrashed-out luck to fume over. No wonder the great but bugfuck T. B. had shot his uncle Xave. On the other hand, that had been weeks ago. Months.

“It was Finesse who canned Bowman,” The Mick said with as much diplomacy as he could muster. “Why didn’t T. B. shoot that stingy codge?”

“No offense, kid, but some of Mr. Bowman’s logic circuits aren’t reliably wired.”

“Maybe. But if I’d’ve been near when your sappy head-dreck ’bout UC’s brand-new stalwarts came out, I’d’ve shot you.

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