The Late Great Show!

By Gary K. Wolf

Welcome back to the amazing fantasy world of Roger Rabbit creator Gary K. Wolf.

This time, instead of Toontown, it's Los Olympus, California. New glitzy mountaintop home of the Greek Gods.

The story kicks off when Tilly Hunter comes to ornithology expert Professor Jason with a strange request. She wants him to find her son's father. A talking swan.

Jason knows his birds. Swans don't talk, nor do they seduce women. This was Godly work.

Years ago, the Gods ruined Jason's life. Jason's ready for some payback.
Jason takes the case.

He finds himself caught up in a tempestuous and incestuous celestial soap opera. The star is Big Ben Bolt, formerly known as Zeus. Big Ben's's been there, done that, and wants to do it again. Big Ben's wife Hera always wins, no matter who suffers. Their daughter Demi, nasty-tempered Goddess of Love, won't take no for an answer.

It's the murder, intrigue, and godly shenanigans of classic mythology tempered with a hefty dose of modern satire.

Jason's ready and willing to die to fulfill his quest. The Gods are more than willing to let him. Can Jason bring the Gods to their knees before they bring him permanently to his grave?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary K. Wolf
• Release date: Oct 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619374089

Gary K. Wolf

As the celebrated author of the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, Gary K. Wolf gained fame when his literary vision of humans cohabitating with animated characters became a reality in the $750 million blockbuster Disney/Spielberg film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The film won four Academy Awards and launched a multiple-picture screen writing deal for Wolf with Walt Disney Pictures. In addition, his ideas inspired Toontown, the newest themed land at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland. He is now a full time science fiction novelist and screenwriter.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Jason’s house shook. Not the rumbling, side-to-side roll of an earthquake. This was a single, sharp, cracking wallop, like a giant woodsman had taken an ax to the building’s foundation.

Jason’s birds launched into a cacophony of whistles, trills, caws, and warbles, fluttering in frenzy against their wire cages. Birdseed sprinkled out of feeding hoppers and pitter-patted to the floor.

Jason’s steel-nibbed fountain pen and his pad of yellow paper, containing the first draft of his new article for The Oological Bulletin, tumbled off his desk. The pen landed in his lap, leaking a blue-black stain onto his wrinkled khaki pants.

Once upon a time, after these attacks, Jason would stand on his front lawn, shake his fist and shout curses at the Heavens. How dare the supposedly benevolent gods inflict this continual punishment on innocent beings? What had we on Earth done to deserve such harsh scolding?

No more. He had given up his raging protests. Nobody up there listened. Not to him, not to anybody.

Jason checked his birds.

His red-whiskered bulbul bled from a scratched leg. Jason halted the flow with styptic powder. His cactus wren had the twitters. Jason restored her composure by stroking her neck with his finger. He treated her to a sliver of fresh apple. The rest of his birds were fine.

Jason’s portable television sat atop his filing cabinet. Two eye bolts and a bungee cord secured it to the wall. Jason turned on the local news.

An on-scene reporter stood in front of a red-hot, four-thousand-pound volcanic boulder. The massive rock had flattened the Los Olympus County courthouse. An interviewer captured the public sentiment. We don’t stop pissing off the Big Guys, stated Mr. Average Man-In-the-Street, this whole town’s gonna wind up one big gravel pit.

A quarter inch of volcanic ash coated Jason’s office window. He levered the glass open a crack and looked out.

Los Olympus regulated building height. Three stories maximum. Nothing blocked Jason’s view of California’s only active volcano, Mount Hellfire. The smoking pyramid puckered the horizon, spewing puffets of steam and ten-pound stones out of a gaseous rim. The volcano looked like a petulant god-child smoking a cigar and spitting peas.

Jason closed his window, shutting out the world. He settled in at his desk and resumed work on his article.

Somebody knocked on his door.

Odd. Nobody ever came to see him. Except for his assistant, Gloss, who wouldn’t show up either if she wasn’t getting paid to. Which was fine. Jason preferred solitude. Go away!

The knocking intensified.

Come in. It’s open, he muttered testily.

His visitor was a young woman with smooth, flawless skin and doe-brown eyes. Her inexpensive but tastefully chosen clothes emphasized her classic proportions and shapely legs. Jason’s hermit thrush, entranced by the woman’s flowery woodland perfume, serenaded her with a mating whistle.

She wore a dust mask to filter the outside air’s volcanic goo. Most women wore them in decorator colors, coordinated with their outfits. Hers was plain white, available at two dollars a hundred from any hardware store.

Jason? Her dust mask gave her voice a husky, filtered quality, which didn’t entirely disappear when she pulled the mask off. The professor who wrote the book? She held up his lone foray into the popular press, Why the Caged Bird Sings. A Household Guide to Avian Psychology. The most charitable review dismissed his book as egghead on bird brains.

He nodded.

I’m Tilly Hunter. She shifted a stack of professional journals to the rear of his rarely used second chair and sat on the forward edge. Her diamond-patterned, black nylon stockings produced a zipping sound as she crossed her legs. I need your help. She twisted her dust mask’s rubber band around her slender fingers. I want you to find my son’s father. She stretched the band so tightly the rubber snapped.

I’m an ornithologist. I study birds. You want one of those private fellows who track missing persons.

No, you’re the one I need. You exactly. You’re my only hope. Please hear me out. She placed her dainty hand in his weathered palm. Her tiny fingers trembled like a brood of frightened hatchlings.

Make it brief.

He disappeared the day I met him.

A very short courtship.

She stood and paced. Her three-inch heels hit the floorboards with the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker attacking an oak tree. Brief but glorious.

Jason got embarrassed discussing the mating habits of any creature that didn’t build a nest and lay eggs. I don’t know where you’re taking this. Your situation is most unlikely to fall into my area of expertise.

Let me finish before you judge.

Jason twirled a finger at her.

I met him a year ago. At the beach. I was feeding crackers to the sea gulls. He came over to me and dipped his face into my cracker box. Her voice resonated with ardor. He was so playful, so soft, so cuddly, so cute. I never believed in love at first sight. Until I met Ducky.

Ducky?

I never asked his name. He never volunteered it. I called him Ducky. The edges of her mouth turned up slightly. He called me his little chickadee. We spent one long, glorious afternoon together. Making love and eating saltines. The memory of her amorous Ducky brought tears to her eyes.

She opened her handbag and removed a fine lace hanky. A month later, I realized I was pregnant. She dabbed droplets of moisture off her cheeks. I don’t know how that could have happened. I’m not naïve. I took precautions.

There are medical options available to women in such a condition.

I don’t believe in abortion. She returned her hanky to her purse. She forcefully snapped her purse shut.

Jason eyed her plain gold ring. You’re married?

She nodded.

How did your husband take the joyful news?

Very well.

An open-minded cuckold.

I told Hunt, that’s my husband, Hunt. His name’s actually Harry, but everybody calls him Hunt. You might have heard of him. The big real-estate developer.

No.

Doesn’t matter. I told Hunt the child was his. He was tickled to death. We’d been trying for years without success. Her shoulders slumped. Then he discovered the truth.

You confessed?

I didn’t have to. The instant Hunt saw my newborn baby boy, he knew. There’s no way on the gods’ green earth that Hunt Junior could be his.

Her voice lowered so far Jason had to lean forward to hear her words. My son’s not like other little boys, Professor. He’s not the same as you and me. He’s…different. She shook her head. Her shoulder-length black hair released a puff of volcanic dust that swirled around her face in a wispy halo. I don’t know how to take care of him. What to feed him, where to buy his clothes, how to comfort him when he cries. He needs to be brought up by others like him, others his own kind.

She reached into her jacket pocket. Her hand emerged clutching a wad of hundred-dollar bills, which she pushed across the desk. This was more money than Jason made in a year. I’ll pay you whatever you want. Find Ducky. Talk to him, tell him about the baby, persuade him to take the child and raise him as his own.

Jason let the money sit. What do you mean when you say your boy’s different?

She handed Jason a baby picture, a three-for-one special marked Sears on the back. Pity the poor photographer. No camera angle in the world would make this tyke look good. Her son was covered with a layer of downy feathers. His back sported a pair of vestigial wings. In profile, he resembled a model airplane wearing an Indian head dress.

My lover was a swan. A gorgeous, elegant, talking swan.

A swan.

That’s why I need you. You know everything about swans.

True. Jason handed back the picture. First and foremost, I know they don’t talk. Or seduce women.

My son’s living proof that one of them does. She curled her lower lip inward. Her lipstick tinted her front teeth blood red. Hunt’s insane with rage. He hired a private detective to find Ducky. Hunt’s vowed to kill him, stuff him, roast him, and eat him for dinner.

She tapped her manicured fingernail forcefully on Jason’s desktop. I love that bird more than I’ve ever loved any man. Don’t let my husband butcher my Ducky.

Chapter 2

Jason parked his green, two-door Ford Sparrow, a car he bought as much for the name as the austere practicality.

Gloss muscled Jason’s cage of homing pigeons out of the back seat.

As usual, her clothing, blue jeans cut off at the knee and a UCLO sweatshirt deprived of neckline, bottom hem, and sleeves, looked like garments tailored with a pair of garden shears.

Gloss was in her final year of veterinary school. She subsisted on a full-tuition scholarship and the minuscule salary she earned from Jason. She could earn twice the pay working at an animal clinic or even a pet store. She stuck with Jason to gain access to his wide-ranging knowledge and amazing intelligence. At least that was the lie she told her friends.

Gloss went off to enter Jason’s pigeons in the monthly outing of the Los Olympus Racing Club.

Cadmus King, a lieutenant in the Los Olympus Police Force, sat on the bumper of his dented Jeep Cherokee. Jason had asked Cadmus to meet him here. Cadmus was glad to oblige. Their rendezvous gave him a rare chance to get out of the city, into the fresh country air. How you doing, Jason? said Cadmus.

Cadmus and Jason met the afternoon Cadmus arrested Jason’s wife Melina for the murder of their two young sons, Alvin and Mack. Their relationship transitioned eventually from brusque interrogatories to enduring friendship.

Gloss returned before Jason could answer. All set, boss.

A whistle blew. Time for the race.

Gloss placed Jason’s cage of homing pigeons on a long table, jury-rigged out of saw horses and wooden planks. The cage brought the total number of entries to twelve. Jason’s birds sported pale yellow bands on their left legs.

At exactly eight a.m., the judges instructed the owner of the first cage to release his birds.

Jason gave each of his pigeons a tiny bit of poppy seed, a preview of the more succulent treats awaiting at the finish line.

Jason’s birds went off at precisely eleven minutes after eight. Jason opened their cage door and personally set them to flight.

The birds circled once overhead and set off at full speed in a straight line for home.

Gloss returned to the Sparrow, carrying Jason’s cage. Cadmus and Jason stayed behind. I’ve got a problem, said Jason. I need your help.

Sure. What’s going on?

Check police records for me. Pull any reports of a talking swan seducing women.

Cadmus stared at him. You’re kidding.

Or perhaps, gods forbid, raping them. We shouldn’t eliminate that.

Seriously? A talking swan?

Jason nodded.

You gotta know there’s only one likely roosting place for that bird. He pointed toward Mount Olympus.

Jason nodded again.



Jason’s Sparrow chugged up Mount Olympus.

The road dead-ended at a brick wall of the size used to keep invaders out of China. A filigreed iron gate blocked the entrance. The central motif consisted of a gold Helvetic letter Z encased in a gold triangle.

A solid gold mailbox sat on an ebony pole just to the gate’s left. Flowing, hand-engraved, vaguely Hellenic calligraphy on the side of the box spelled out the address, 1 Mount Olympus Drive. A solid gold nameplate identified the inhabitant as Benjamin Bolt.

The security system consisted of an enclosed, bulletproof guard shack and a row of gun turrets situated at regular intervals along the wall.

The imposing defenses baffled Jason. Benjamin Bolt was supposed to be instantly accessible to any supplicant, on call, ready to help twenty-four hours a day—a religious truism taught in grade school catechism class. Jason wasn’t surprised that was a lie. So was everything else he had learned in catechism class.

The guard swaggered out of his steel-reinforced cubicle. He wore brilliant white Bermuda shorts, a white turtleneck, a leopard-skin sports jacket, and leather sandals laced up to his knees. His shoulders stretched the width of Jason’s car. They tapered sharply to a thirty-six-inch waist. He carried not a single ounce of fat on his body. Even his earlobes seemed sculpted of solid muscle.

Sorry, buddy, he snarled. Back up and turn around. No garden or house tours today.

Good gods! Jason recognized this behemoth. You’re Tommy Trouble! The son of Hercules and Athena, the Goddess of War, and known professionally as Two Tons of Trouble, he was reputed to be the strongest man alive. He had won the Olympic weightlifting gold medal so often, the Lords of the Rings asked him to step down and give mere mortals a chance.

Two Tons turned to pro wrestling.

In his title fight, he heaved the defending champion into the crowd with such force he beheaded three members of the audience.

After that grisly accident, Two Tons retired from public view. Supposedly, he voluntarily devoted several years to good works to atone for his mishap.

You follow wrestling? Two Tons seemed flattered to be recognized.

I did as a boy. You were my hero when I was growing up. I used every nickel of my allowance to watch you fight on television.

Two Tons spit with such force that he cracked a nearby rock. Pay-per-view sucks. That’s what I kept telling those slime-ball promoters. Don’t tap the fans. Let the breweries and the cigarette companies foot the tab. Ain’t right asking a working stiff to shell out forty-nine ninety-five of his hard-earned moola to see me thump on a guy’s head. He oughta be able to see me do that for free.

Amen! Jason popped open his glove compartment. He pulled out his observation journal and handed the book to Two Tons. Could I please have your autograph? My wife’s a big fan.

My pleasure. Two Tons pulled a pencil nub out of his pocket and licked the tip. What’s her name?

Melina.

He signed To Melina. Don’t let the bastards pin you down. Your friend, Two Tons of Trouble. He sounded out the words under his breath as he wrote them. Hope she likes what I wrote her.

She’ll be thrilled. She’ll treasure this forever. Jason laid his book on the seat beside him. I came to see your Superior.

Two Tons leaned on Jason’s roof. The car tilted sideways at a stiff angle. The man didn’t realize his own strength. I can’t let you on the premises. Mr. Bolt’s real persnickety about his privacy. You need an appointment.

How do I arrange that?

The Mister keeps a public office in the big temple downtown. Call the vicar. He’ll maybe be able to set you up, depending on the Mister’s schedule and the import of your business. I mean, Mr. Bolt’s a busy man. Something’s gotta be a pretty big deal for you to see Mr. Bolt personal. That don’t happen fast. Last I heard, the waiting list’s twenty years.

The blink of an eye to an immortal. A long time for me.

Them’s the rules. Two Tons gave Jason’s car top a farewell pat that left a visible dent. You be a good fellow and head on back down the hill.

There’s not enough room for me to turn around.

Two Tons picked up the front end of Jason’s car and manually rotated the vehicle a hundred and eighty degrees. You drive careful. Watch your brakes don’t overheat. They get red-hot going down.

Welcome to Paradise, Jason, creaked a female voice. The speaker stood in the shadows of a sprawling banyan tree inside the gate. Jason couldn’t see her face.

I’m Cassandra. She stepped into the light. She stood five feet tall and weighed maybe a half ton more than Two Tons. Her snow-white hair clung to her scalp in wispy patches. Her wrinkled skin resembled a piece of driftwood grooved out by sea water and bleached gray by wind and sun.

I’m sorry, said Jason, not recognizing her. Have we met?

In a way. I’ve been watching you. She held out her hand and showed him its contents. A small crystal ball. You’ve come here because of the murders, she stated without emotion. She walked toward him, lifting the hem of her spotless white robe out of the dirt. Her pudgy, purplish ankles bowed outward under her massive weight. She stood beside his car. Her hand was now empty. The crystal ball had vanished.

Murders? What murders?

Her words had a wa-wa quality to them, as though a malevolent scientist had replaced her larynx with a theremin. They haven’t happened. Not yet. They will. Three men will die.

Who?

An expression of pain, sharp and searing, flattened her wrinkled features. You for one.

What are you saying? I’m going to be murdered?

Two Tons stood behind the old woman, out of her line of vision. He swirled his finger around beside his temple. Don’t pay her no attention. He grasped Cassandra by the shoulders and gently pushed her back toward the gate. Lighten up, Cassy. Nobody wants to hear your crazy predictions of doom and gloom.

Cassandra planted her feet so firmly Two Tons couldn’t budge her. Let him in, Tommy.

He don’t have no appointment.

Benjamin will want to see him. Take my word.

Two Tons shrugged. He opened the gate and motioned Jason inside. Your lucky day, buster.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter 3

Jason found himself literally on top of the world.

Inside the wall, the clouds, the dust, and the heat vanished.

Black and white warblers, yellow-throated and black-whiskered vireos, and Arcadian flycatchers, song birds alien to this locale, fluttered about in joyously melodic abundance.

Small animals—rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, koala bears—frolicked and romped on the roadway.

A burbling stream teaming with salmon, bass, and trout cascaded past in an unending series of waterfalls.

The fragrance of tropical flowers blotted out the oily odor of Jason’s overcooked engine.

This place was Utopia. No other term came close.

Jason put on his sunglasses. He rarely wore them, but he’d never been any place with sunshine this bright.

Benjamin Bolt inhabited a Greek revival palace set in the middle of a lawn the color and texture of the putting greens at an exclusive Scottish golfing resort.

Bolt savored the lifestyle of a feudal lord or a soap-opera character, depending on your historical viewpoint. According to the background research Jason asked Gloss to pull together, gleaned, she told him, from a year’s back issues of The National Enquirer, Bolt lived here with his wife, his sons and daughters, their husbands, wives and children, and multitudinous other family members and hangers-on.

A parking attendant exchanged Jason’s car for a piece of parchment bearing a Roman numeral.

The route to the front door took Jason through a formal garden. He found himself in the midst of a sumptuous lawn party.

Polished marble tables held lavish quantities of exotic food. Wine flowed freely from burnished oaken casks. A quartet—lyre, shepherd’s pipe, reed pipe, and flute—tootled the sort of music played to call in a flock of Tibetan mountain goats.

The party goers were modeling-agency perfect, handsome and beautiful, slender and elegant, with flawless complexions and exquisite coiffures. They had shiny white teeth, sculpted cheekbones, eyes of vibrant, unusual colors, and thick, shiny, flowing hair. All wore spotless white togas.

Jason walked several miles every morning. Thrice a week he lifted weights at the university gym. Surrounded by these bodies, he felt like a lumpy slug oozing through a display of Grecian statuary.

The party goers smoked extra-long, unfiltered cigarettes. Why not? Lung cancer would never afflict this bunch.

They stood or sat in artfully arranged groups. A few stretched out on downy Oriental pillows.

A less jaded observer might label this a gathering of the gods. Jason ranked the affair slightly above a fraternity toga party.

I’m sorry, good sir, said a cooing, girlish voice to his left. You’ll have to change.

An attractive young woman beckoned to Jason from a small marble building that resembled a temple but turned out to be a combination hat-check booth and cabana.

No street clothing, good sir, she informed him politely. Too offensive to the eye.

Jason had been told that about his apparel before though never at this lofty a level.

She handed Jason an armload of folded white material and a pair of leather sandals. She directed him to a changing room.

Jason unwrapped a piece of spotless white linen ten feet long and two feet wide. A picture poster on the wall gave visual instructions for turning the material into a toga. He did the best he could. He wound up approximating a cross between the seconds bin at a fabric store and the mainsail from a naval man-o’-war. At least he now knew the answer to the age-old question What does an Immortal wear under his gown? Not a gods-damned thing.

He hung his underwear, knee-length hiking shorts, denim shirt, and safari vest in an open bay. No door, no lock. Up here, everyone was supposed to function on the highest moral plane. Given his personal belief in the gross inconsistencies of religion, Jason kept his wallet.

A wooden sign nailed to a stake pounded into the lawn informed him that All visitors will behave in a godlike manner. In Jason’s experience, that meant free license to indulge in hedonistic self-glorification while ignoring the agonies of humanity.

You’re new, said the most gorgeous woman Jason had ever seen. Shimmering blonde hair. Eyelashes as delicate as butterflies. Sparkling turquoise eyes. Lips the color of plump, ripened cherries.

Jason’s wraparound toga fit him like a set of window drapes. Hers clung like a swath of off-color graffiti. Jason didn’t need a Good Book to identify her as the Goddess of Sex and Love, or a very close facsimile.

She extended her hand. Come play with me.

What might be your game?

Anything you want. She shrugged her shoulders. Her toga wafted to the ground, leaving her stark naked. She wasn’t the least self-conscious of her nudity.

I’m here on business.

She scrunched her face into an adorable pout. I know, I know. You’ve come to see daddy.

You’re Benjamin Bolt’s daughter?

One of them. I’m Demí. She leaned against a tree, one leg cocked at a ninety degree angle, her chest thrust out, her arms encircling the tree trunk behind her. Jason recognized the basic pose, a yearly staple in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendars that hung on his barbershop’s wall. Enacted by a paid supermodel in a designer Jantzen, the posture possessed