And if anyone found out that the comfortable Brew Crew–rooting, Republican-voting, AM-broadcasting George Rathbun was also the Rat — who had once narrated a gleeful on-air evacuation of his bowels onto a Backstreet Boys CD — there could be trouble. Quite serious, possibly, resounding well beyond the tight-knit little radio community.
"What in God's name would ever make you think that I'm the Wisconsin Rat, Morris?" Henry asks. "I barely know who you're talking about. Who put such a weird idea in your head?"
"An informed source," Morris says craftily.
He won't give Howie Soule up, not even if they pull out his fingernails with red-hot tongs. Besides, Howie only found out by accident: went into the station crapper one day after Henry left and discovered that Henry's wallet had fallen out of his back pocket while he was sitting on the throne. You'd have thought a fellow whose other senses were so obviously tightwired would have sensed the absence, but probably Henry's mind had been on other things — he was obviously a heavy dude who undoubtedly spent his days getting through some heavy thoughts. In any case, there was a KWLA I.D. card in Henry's wallet (which Howie had thumbed through "in the spirit of friendly curiosity," as he put it), and on the line marked NAME, someone had stamped a little inkpad drawing of a rat. Case closed, game over, zip up your fly.
"I have never in my life so much as stepped through the door of KWLA," Henry says, and this is the absolute truth. He makes the Wisconsin Rat tapes (among others) in his studio at home, then sends them in to the station from the downtown Mail Boxes Etc., where he rents under the name of Joe Strummer. The card with the rat stamped on it was more in the nature of an invitation from the KWLA staff than anything else, one he's never taken up . . . but he kept the card.
"Have you become anyone else's informed source, Morris?"
"Huh?"
"Have you told anyone that you think I'm the Wisconsin Rat?"
"No! Course not!" Which, as we all know, is what people always say.
Luckily for Henry, in this case it happens to be true. So far, at least, but the day is still young.
"And you won't, will you? Because rumors have a way of taking root. Just like certain bad habits." Henry mimes puffing, pulling in smoke.
"I know how to keep my mouth shut," Morris declares, with perhaps misplaced pride.
"I hope so. Because if you bruited this about, I'd have to kill you."
Bruited, Morris thinks. Oh man, this guy is complete.
"Kill me, yeah," Morris says, laughing.
"And eat you," Henry says. He is not laughing; not even smiling.
"Yeah, right." Morris laughs again, but this time the laugh sounds strangely forced to his own ears. "Like you're Hannibal Lecture."
"No, like I'm the Fisherman," Henry says. He slowly turns his aviator sunglasses toward Morris. The sun reflects off them, for a moment turning them into rufous eyes of fire. Morris takes a step back without even realizing that he has done so. "Albert Fish liked to start with the ass, did you know that?"
"N — "
"Yes indeed. He claimed that a good piece of young ass was as sweet as a veal cutlet. His exact words. Written in a letter to the mother of one of his victims."
"Far out," Morris says. His voice sounds faint to his own ears, the voice of a plump little pig denying entrance to the big bad wolf. "But I'm not exactly, like, worried that you're the Fisherman."
"No? Why not?"
"Man, you're blind, for one thing!"
Henry says nothing, only stares at the now vastly uneasy Morris with his fiery glass eyes. And Morris thinks: But is he blind? He gets around pretty good for a blind guy . . . and the way he tabbed me as soon as I came out here, how weird was that?
"I'll keep quiet," he says. "Honest to God."
"That's all I want," Henry says mildly. "Now that we've got that straight, what exactly have you brought me?" He holds up the CD — but not as if he's looking at it, Morris observes with vast relief.
"It's, um, this Racine group. Dirtysperm? And they've got this cover of ‘Where Did Our Love Go'? The old Supremes thing? Only they do it at like a hundred and fifty beats a minute? It's f**kin' hilarious. I mean, it destroys the whole pop thing, man, blitzes it!"
"Dirtysperm," Henry says. "Didn't they used to be Jane Wyatt's Clit?"
Morris looks at Henry with awe that could easily become love. "Dirtysperm's lead guitarist, like, formed JWC, man. Then him and the bass guy had this political falling-out, something about Dean Kissinger and Henry Acheson, and Ucky Ducky — he's the guitarist — went off to form Dirtysperm."
" ‘Where Did Our Love Go'?" Henry muses, then hands the CD back. And, as if he sees the way Morris's face falls: "I can't be seen with something like that — use your head. Stick it in my locker."
Morris's gloom disappears and he breaks into a sunny smile. "Yeah, okay! You got it, Mr. Leyden!"
"And don't let anyone see you doing it. Especially not Howie Soule. Howie's a bit of a snoop. You'd do well not to emulate him."
"No way, baby!" Still smiling, delighted at how all this has gone, Morris reaches for the door handle.
"And Morris?"
"Yeah?"
"Since you know my secret, perhaps you'd better call me Henry."
"Henry! Yeah!" Is this the best morning of the summer for Morris Rosen? You better believe it.