The Pied Piper

This is a story many people secretly know yet rarely tell, for reasons that will become clear. It involves a woman whose name is familiar if you pay attention to theater, show business or the arts, but it’s not gossip, not as gossip is usually defined. If you don’t believe it, that’s your business, but it happened and is still happening, whether you (or, for that matter, I) like it or not.

How it began is debated but I’m going to go with the most conventional—and, frankly, most plausible—version, because no one’s ever accused me of being imaginative. Enter a man whose name you also know if you follow finance, especially the greedy, unregulated, world-choking kind, my opinion, but it’s true. The entertainment mogul Gordon Glomming was throwing himself a sixtieth birthday party at the downtown restaurant he co-owned with a Belarussian arms dealer. Gordo’s was one of the city’s fanciest places, and one of the most overrated and over-priced (or so I’ve heard, for how could I ever afford it?). It was located a treacherous two-lane highway across from the river on the very edge of the avenue, as if daring you not to notice. The menu was “fusion,” a mix, I imagine, of cruelly slaughtered animals and preciously prepared vegetables, topped with a stupid sprinkle of foam like someone had spit on a stack of whipped cream—oh, what do I know, but they have to justify the jacked-up prices, so why not that way?

Glomming had taken over the entire place, paying his celebrity, sports and sleazy politician pals to suck up to him, to sing his praises before singing “Happy Birthday.” Guests had been seated inside the circus-tent-sized space, and there were festive sheds outside for the sickness-leery and virus-averse, festooned with bows, balloons and big black-and-white blow-ups of Gordon’s greedy mug. He’d been given a discount price by the mayor to commandeer the right lane of the highway for the feet the restaurant ran, to discourage cars from careening into patrons, the only drawback being the honking of hotheads as commuters were forcibly funneled to the left. Prices were—slightly—lower in these locations and customers made to sign disclaimers in case they were nonetheless killed in a curb-hopping. The newest servers were given this station as a trial by fire. Cora had been last to be hired.

Back then, Cora was blonde, though later (as you know) she’d be everything from a ginger to a brunette and basically bald, depending on her mood. Then she was twentyish, small, freckled and corn-fed, exactly the type who turned Gordon’s head: simple and unspoiled was what he desired. When he picked a Prosecco from the tray she carried—shakily yet touchingly committed to the bit, as they say—Gordon gave her his trademark, saved-for-younger-women smile, crinkly-eyed, compassionate, wise.

“What’s your name?” he asked. Why pretend she didn’t know who he was?

“Cora.” There was a tinkling of flutes as her hands holding the tray trembled, then stopped.

“And what do you do besides this?” Because obviously she was over-qualified.

“Sing,” she said, without hesitation.

With her blaring blue eyes, Cora began a staring contest which, to Gordon’s great surprise, he lost.

“Good for you,” he said, staring at the floor and believing she was barefoot; Cora’s style of sneaker looked like it.

In truth, he had looked away for his own reasons. It wasn’t that the veil of secrecy over rich men’s private lives had been lifted: who would fire him for flirting? And his third wife had left him years ago. It was the prostate cancer which had if not killed at least seriously curtailed his affairs and which he’d only survived with wildly expensive European drug treatments unapproved in the U.S. It was the soft hand on his shoulder that said, why bother if you can only go so far? Gordon loathed limits, at least for himself.

“I better get outside,” Cora said, having lost his attention and bringing his eyes back up but briefly.

“Sure,” he said. “Go ahead.”

As he watched Cora disappear out the double bullet-proofed doors, her glasses balanced brilliantly now, the brief bobble a glitch, he thought: she’d be perfect for Tor, his son. It was his time of life for thinking that, which was okay. The only thing Gordon liked less than limits was a loss. He’d make sure this would be another win.

 

#

 

Tor was sitting at the best table in the place when his father whispered in his ear as softly as when he’d sung him to sleep in childhood. Gordon was a destroyer of worlds but a loving father: weird, right? Not making sense, either: Tor hated Gordon’s guts, considered him completely corrupt, or had ever since he’d been adult (he was twenty-five). Of course, the kid had benefited from his father’s place in the world, with private schools, paid-for apartments, and positions for which he didn’t have to interview. He didn’t deny it yet couldn’t completely admit it, either. In fact, the more contradictory—some would say hypocritical—his life, the more hardened Tor’s attitude toward his dad, as if it was a shield against self-knowledge. So now Tor couldn’t escape physical revulsion, feeling the faint breeze of his father’s breath on his earlobe, floating over a shallow pool of the finest Scotch.

“Her name is Cora,” Gordon said.

In the fog of the dimly lit restaurant, Gordon’s thick, pointing finger was a lighthouse beam. It landed on the slight blonde waitress being reassigned from outside and about to take his table’s orders.

Gordon had set up Tor before, with dull debutantes and the dutiful daughters of business associates, all as acquisitive as he. He expected this was one more attempt to reintroduce his values in the person of yet another prospective daughter-in-law. It sizzled Tor’s behind.

“How can I help you?”

Cora’s voice cut through the corny murmurs and canned music of Gordo’s like a real person in a room full of robots. He couldn’t characterize its quality except it was human and hers alone. Suddenly, he considered their names, Tor and Cora. They were nearly one vowel apart, the missing letter the origin of the alphabet. With the letter added to Tor, he became a Japanese tiger or a Jewish book of wisdom; subtracted from Cora, she was the basis of life, the center of Earth. All parts of them were essential and connected; they knew each other in nature. This woman would be different.

Tor looked at tonight’s special menu, also boiled down to basics: steak or chicken or curry and kale.

“I’ll have the veggie option,” he said, praying it would please her and sensing it was destined to.

“Good choice,” Cora said, smiling at him long enough to let him know she had planted this item in his mouth merely by appearing. Then she swiveled to take the requests of others—bankers, statesmen, movie stars—beside him.

“Made up your minds?” was all she asked them, which made a difference to Tor.

He heard the ringing of a distant bell, like one announcing an angel had gotten its wings in the old movie. Were he and Cora angels, made of only water and air? Then Tor realized it was a fork tapping against a glass, followed by his father’s grating voice.

“Okay, everybody!” Gordon said into a cordless mic, as if calling to order a morning meeting, with equal parts arrogance and disapproval. “It’s time for the birthday boy to shoot off his mouth!”

Servers had been instructed to stop during his speech, and Tor saw Cora standing by the double doors, staring at his father as if at an ancient species of which she had heard but never seen. She didn’t return Tor’s look, smile or wink, and he decided it was just discretion.

“You know, in Korea, reaching sixty is called a Hwangap, which means a time of wisdom,” Gordon used the research someone he had paid provided. “I hope that here, in my humble way, I have…”

Soon, amid the gentle chuckles and appreciative applause came another sound: laughter so loud, harsh, and shrill it was more hysteria than hilarity. When it didn’t subside and in fact grew stronger, Tor realized it was someone, many people, shrieking. Their cries rested on a foundation—what recording people called a “bed”—of scurrying; small, multitudinous feet were shooting across the floor, followed by the scrambling and screaming of human beings, retracting their torsos onto chairs and tables, cracking glasses and plates, along with still more screams.

“Help!” a rich person yelled.

“Rats!” someone richer replied.

Around and beneath him, Tor saw the marble floor appear to shake. He smelled a dizzying mix of fur, feces, and the river.

Tor’s father was nowhere to be seen, having either been smothered or stampeded by his frightened, grossed-out guests. Rising as if hypnotized, Tor waded through what seemed black bubbles of a tar pit; all references in his mind were now to nature since encountering Cora. He reached the place’s picture window, tinted and sun-resistant, in a failed effort to foil the elements of Earth, and peered through. Outside, rodents were rolling like waves of dark wheat in the wind, forcing patrons to burst from their safe enclosures and flee. He flung the doors open.

Tor thought the rats must have emerged from gaps beneath the sheds, having created what he’d heard called “harborages” in the damp and empty spaces, like squatters raising families in abandoned areas. He knew Gordon had reluctantly allowed diners on the sidewalk and not bothered with decent drainage or frequent inspections. He couldn’t imagine so many pests had been born in so short a time: they easily out-numbered humans they were out-running. A bigger force must have been afoot, more powerful than people, except perhaps for Cora and him? Could that be possible? (This is what Tor may—might as well—have thought.)

While he was wondering, Cora went to work, off the books or pro bono, strictly from a superior sense that others needed saving. Having assumed the vacated role of leader, she stood in the center of the room. And sang.

There were no words, only music. Cora expressed notes more beautiful than any ever heard on a stage. Tor traced them to a sound found only in the environment, coaxed from it by Cora, hers the only way to hear it; he could not have whistled it if he wished. It had been born in her body and would die after emerging in the rotten air of Gordo’s.

The customers didn’t know what to make of it. Yet the rats responded.

A few did by dying, collapsing on the cold stone floor or along the asphalt outside. The vast majority vamoosed, obeying mysterious orders in the music only they could understand. Commanded to form orderly columns, two, three, and four abreast, they filed out the front door to join those already on the street. From there, they streamed onto the highway, causing one nasty collision or white knuckled near-miss after another, before reaching, diving, and drowning in the river.

 

#

 

Gordon hadn’t gotten killed: he had gone into hiding. Like any self-respecting, self-preservational billionaire, he had fled at a moment of risk, saving himself and letting others take the hit. He had—must have had—some kind of safe room on site, a place on the premises to survive or avoid intruders, earthquakes, or tax collectors. The next day, the restaurant was closed “temporarily, for repairs,” and Gordon had issued a statement regretting the “minor” incident and committing to a “comprehensive” clean-up. It was obvious Gordo’s had been reinvented as a tax loss and was gone for good, along with the dozens of jobs it provided, including Cora’s.

Like so much of this story, the event became a myth, its details blurred and argued about, a rarity in a world where little goes unsaid or seen. (More people soon claimed to have attended the occasion than could have fit into Gordo’s many times over for years on end.) Gordon had helped this process by placing guests’ cell phones in protective pouches and putting the kibosh on coverage at the many media outlets he owned. He checked in with Tor only once, to make sure he was still in one piece, as his text said, and didn’t worry when he received no reply. He made sure Cora’s name—the surname, he learned from restaurant records, was Rein—stayed out of it.

That didn’t mean he forgot; in fact, he was haunted by her and what she’d made to happen. Within days, he contacted Cora in a text with a four-step, unbreachable, embedded security code. It said: “Thank you for all you did, however you did it. You have a beautiful voice. I have a job for you, if you want it. Your friend, Gordon Glomming.”

 

#

 

Tor put down Cora’s device, which she had placed in his hands right after the message came in. He had been ensconced with her in a midtown hotel room since the evening in question, ignoring everyone’s inquiries about his whereabouts and health, not just his dad’s.

Now Cora lay back on the bed, looking too lazy to even ask what the message was. Tor intended to tell her but not right now. He had stayed with other women in this hotel, one of the city’s oldest and best, all mahogany furniture, fresh flowers, and fancy fixtures even to flush the toilet. Now it felt like a treehouse atop everyone in the wild, reachable by just a dropped down rope ladder. Tor saw the sky above her head and not just because they were in the penthouse (and, yes, paid for by his father, and fuck you). Joining Cora in the sheets, just as nude, he thought of their being “au natural,” fitting in French, for love was a foreign language to him. In bed, she had made them into animals to which passionate humans were compared—birds, bees, dogs, and rabbits. Cora didn’t want too much talk, which was also animal. She made nearly no noise, merely parted her lips at the peak of sex, and plugged his mouth with her palm when Tor cried out.

Cora didn’t use razors or deodorant, smelled like she barely bathed at all. It was as if she came from a world before credit cards, belts, shoelaces, socks, over-priced hotels, name anything new you didn’t need—can openers, corkscrews—a world where you just broke the bottle open. Basic, but in the best way, he thought. Tor feared having to know any other kind of person. What could he do to keep her close? What could he say?

“How can I help you?” he asked, since he was her server now.

Cora didn’t answer, yet her eyes rose from staring at her own bare and sweaty stomach to look at him. He knew she was a performer, would that matter?

“I bet my father has a part for you,” he said. “He’s got a big new show coming up. It employs technology to combine the plots in all the movie libraries he owns and uses existing music, played by robots. It has a great part for a leading lady who can sing. I heard they want to get publicity by casting someone human.”

Cora stayed silent. Then she whispered she wanted Tor to turn over. She showed him she approved in a way he thought no machine or any man or woman could imitate, an action he believed was only done in forests in the dark by creatures no one had ever observed. Afterwards, faint, he said…

“I think you should show up at the old bastard’s house unannounced.”

 

#

 

“You should have called,” Gordon said, testily, when his assistant showed Cora into his estate twenty miles above the city. Then he changed his approach to self-effacing.

“I mean, I would have ordered lunch. And the place is a mess.”

Tor had gone ahead to a public park, where he was currently cooling his heels nursing a stone-cold cappuccino. He hadn’t wished to intrude on Cora’s “thing,” as he called it, or he feared his father or knew himself well enough to know he might become emotional or something else.

For his part, Gordon thought he saw stray twigs on Cora’s sleeves and shoulders and—had she trailed in mud, too? No, it must have been the dog: look, Soupy was smitten by her, already in the play position.

Cora waved off refreshments. He sensed she meant business, which was fine with him, being all business himself.

“Thanks again,” Gordon said, “for what you did at the party,” surprised and regretting he’d said it, for a second thanks (maybe even a first) was for weaklings. Cora brought out bizarre things in him and others, Gordon thought. Had Tor ever asked her out? Maybe it’d be for the best he didn’t. Anyway, more reasons to keep this quick.

“Look,” he said, “as I mentioned, I have an opportunity for you. Not as a, what do you call it? A tip of the hat or whatever.” He was flailing. It was her blinding blue eyes boring into him. They made him need sunscreen. “It’s because you’re good. Gifted. And I think there’s more you can do.” Just blurt it out. He indicated where they were. “I have a rodent problem here, too. Would you be interested?”

Gordon waited, her eyes evaporating him. Unless he was insane, the only answer Cora gave was an angry growl.

 

#

 

In the park, Tor was not just tired of waiting, he’d grown anxious that Cora hadn’t shown up or responded to the many texts he’d sent (after promising himself he wouldn’t). Maybe Gordon was having her read or sing, he thought, even audition for the director—though why would he be there when Gordon hadn’t expected Cora to come? This had been Tor’s bright idea, using the element of surprise to gain the upper hand on Gordon. Why? What had he been thinking? Tor shouldn’t have been underhanded and indirect, it showed insecurity. He’d never defeat his father that way! Tor rose, prepared to head to the house and find out what had happened.

Then he heard it.

Cora’s voice—not speaking, singing—was coming through to him, clear as day, a bell, beer, whatever were the cliches that didn’t begin to capture its power. At first, Tor thought she was approaching and the song her way to celebrate her success, which he had helped her achieve. Then Tor realized it was too loud for that, as if being blasted by a celestial speaker and heard only by him, for no one—families and young lovers around him, enjoying the afternoon—seemed to notice. Yet it wasn’t overhead, in the sky, it was coming from a little ways away, off to the right or left, in the near-distance.

Tor didn’t go where he’d been heading, to the parking lot. He turned in the opposite direction, making for the music, walking deeper in the park, away from other people, until he was alone. As before, the song was wordless, gotten from the ground, eked out of the air, salvaged from the sand at the bottom of the sea, impossible for anyone to perform but Cora. No matter how much money he’d inherit, Tor was also an animal, so he was drawn by it.

He left the ground level of the park and, panting, climbed a craggy incline in pursuit. The music was always measures and miles ahead of him, and he was incapable of catching up. Finally, he found it, at the very top, where there was nowhere to go but down. Tor grabbed for it, going over. As he fell, understanding what had occurred, his last conscious thought was: She doesn’t love me!

 

#

 

So I’d like to believe, anyway. What wasn’t in doubt was what happened next. Following his son’s death, without any public comment, Gordon sold off, broke up, or gave away his entertainment empire; one global mega-company after another was auctioned, handed off or sold for parts. Then he went into seclusion for good. It was said by his spokespeople that Tor had fallen by accident. Others on the outside suggested a second scenario, suicide, though no motive was ever mentioned. Of course, there was the third thesis I’ve just related, one that has taken hold among the most conspiracy-minded, like me.

The evidence was overwhelming. Cora Rein immediately emerged as a new Broadway, movie and holographic darling, starring in every stage, screen and digitized musical, each new song a streamed and downloaded smash. Her voice was decreed a freak of nature, especially since she said—in one of her rare and tight-lipped interviews—she’d never had a lesson in her life. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Yet the reason was not that Cora was admired but that she was feared.

I know what I’m talking about. Last week, I started directing a stage musical with a book based on a storytelling algorithm with a new score composed each night by the audience on screens at their seats. Cora was expected for a meet-and-greet about the lead. She was wrong for the role, the wrong color, age, and accent. From the rehearsal room, I heard her humming down the hall, bringing with her a whiff of water, unearthed elements, and the outside world. There was no knock, the doorknob was simply turned. Before she uttered a word…

“You’ve got the part,” I said.

Laurence Klavan wrote the story collection, ‘The Family Unit’ and Other Fantasies, published by Chizine in Canada. His novella, Albertine, was published by Leamington Books in Scotland. An Edgar Award-winner, he received two Drama Desk nominations for the book and lyrics of Bed and Sofa, the musical produced by the Vineyard Theater in New York and the Finborough Theatre in London. Forthcoming: his story collection, Adult Children, from Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin, and his novella, The Flying Dutchman, from Regal House. His website is www.laurenceklavan.com.