The Frumious Bandersnatch Read Online Free Page B

Meant you kept the light out of a person’s eyes, unless he was a perp.
    Avery Hanes was about to become a perp in an hour or so, but Officer Knowles didn’t know that yet, and neither did Sergeant McIntosh, at the wheel of the police launch, or Officer Brady, standing in the stern with his hand resting casually on the butt of the Glock holstered on his hip, just in case this guy driving the Rinker turned out to be some Al Qaeda nut determined to blow up either himself or something else, or else some drug runner or something. These days, you never could tell.
    â€œEverything’s fine, Sergeant,” Avery said, because he was the smart one, and he’d seen the stripes on McIntosh’s uniform sleeve.
    â€œSaw you runnin with all your lights off,” McIntosh said.
    The launch was idling alongside the Rinker, which had come to a dead stop on the water.
    â€œOoops. Thought I had them on,” Avery said, and flicked the dashboard switch that turned the running lights on and off, clicking it several times to make sure, and then turning to look at McIntosh with a slightly puzzled shrug.
    â€œI meant in the cabin,” McIntosh said.
    â€œI’ll turn them on if you like,” Avery said. “Such a nice night and all, so many stars, thought we’d take advantage. They shine so much brighter without any lights.”
    â€œWhere you bound?” McIntosh asked.
    â€œBack to the marina.”
    â€œWhere’s that?”
    â€œCapshaw Boats. Fairfield and the water.”
    â€œOff Pier Seven, would that be?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWho’ve you got aboard, Captain?”
    â€œMy girlfriend and my best man. We’re getting married in June, wanted to check out the River Club.”
    â€œNice venue,” McIntosh said.
    â€œYes, sir, it sure is. Might be too expensive for us, though.”
    â€œWell, sorry to’ve bothered you,” McIntosh said. “Enjoy the rest of the evening.”
    â€œThank you, sir. Did you want me to put on those cabin lights?”
    â€œNo need.”
    Knowles turned off the spot. The waters went instantly black. McIntosh eased the throttle forward, and the police launch pulled away from the Rinker. On the stern, Officer Brady took his hand off the Glock’s butt.
    Â 
    J. P. HIGGINS was holding forth on the various types of videos on the air these days. He was Bison’s Executive VP in charge of Video Production, and he was obviously impressing the foreign affiliates who’d been invited to tonight’s launch party. The man from Prague didn’t understand English as well as Bison’s people from London (well, of course not) and Milan, or Paris and Frankfurt, but he was nonetheless hanging on every word because he hoped to learn how to promote the “Bandersnatch” video in his own country, now that the flood waters had subsided, and once the video and the album were released there. One drawback was that Tamar Valparaiso was virtually unknown in the Czech Republic. Well, she was virtually unknown here as well. But that was why Bison had spent a pot full of money on the video, not to mention all the publicity and promotion preceding tonight’s launch party when—in exactly one hour by the Czech’s imitation Rolex watch—Tamar Valparaiso herself would be performing with the very same dancer who’d accompanied her on the video.
    There was a palpable air of expectation.
    Something big was going to happen tonight.
    Just how big, none of the assembled guests could ever possibly imagine.
    Higgins was a man in his early forties, and he liked to think he’d learned all there was to know about video production by the time he was thirty. Convincing the foreigners gathered around him was a simple task. He concentrated instead on trying to sell his savvy to a young black girl wearing what appeared to be nothing but three chain links and a diamond earring, sitting on a hassock alongside