Soma Blues

by Robert Sheckley

  “Well, we almost made it,” Ralphie said. “I coulda brought us down this hill in about two minutes. Wanna try anyway?”

  Hob looked at the hill, which was pitched at an angle that looked impossible even for a downhill skier, and thanked his lucky stars they hadn’t arrived five minutes earlier.

  “What I want you to do now,” Hob said, “is take me, slowly, to where the hotel road joins the San Mateo road. I’m too late to catch Bertha, but somebody I know is sure to come along.”

  Ralphie drove back over the hills to the main road, and then down it to where the hotel road crossed. He seemed sorry that the adventure was over. But the thousand peseta note that Hob gave him, and the extra five hundred he threw in for good luck, cheered him considerably. Ralphie took off in a cloud of dust and a sparkling of gravel; Hob found a rock by the side of the road and sat down to wait.

  It took a little time to regain his equilibrium after that ride. But after his heart rate had returned to normal, he was able to enjoy the day—a perfect Ibiza summer afternoon, warm but not sultry, with a light breeze blowing and the salt tang of the ocean not far away.

  A taxi passed, filled with people Hob didn’t know. He dug around in his pockets, found a crumbled pack of Ducados that he had transferred from his clothes in London, found a book of matches with three matches left, lighted up, and relaxed in the sun. It was peaceful there, and Hob had had a difficult night. He decided to close his eyes for just a moment. …

  “Hey, Hob!”

  Hob woke up with a start. He was surprised at himself, drifting off like that. But the warm comforting glow of Ibiza sunshine, the lisp of leaves in the nearby trees, and not even a ripple of rain, had lulled him to sleep in spite of himself. Now, looking up, he saw a battered Citröen station wagon stopped in the road alongside him. Peering out from the driver’s seat was the good-natured face of his friend Juanito, owner and cook of Juanito’s Restaurant in Santa Eulalia.

  “Hello, Juanito,” Hob said. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I’m catering the appetizers for the hotel party,” Juanito said. “This is the second load the boys and I are bringing in.”

  There were two waiters from Juanito’s restaurant in the backseat of the station wagon. Hob knew them by sight. They exchanged nods.

  “And what about you?” Juanito said.

  “I’m working on a case,” Hob said.

  Juanito’s eyes grew round, and he nodded slowly. For any of the permanent foreign community to do anything resembling work was notable.

  “Does your case bring you to the hotel?” Juanito asked. “Not that I’m trying to be nosy …”

  “No problem, Juanito,” Hob said. “I’m on a case which requires me to attend the new hotel party. Unfortunately I don’t have an invitation, and I missed Bertha, who was going to take me in.”

  “You’ll need an invitation to get in all right,” Juanito said. “They’re pretty careful at the gate. If I could be of any help …”

  “You could do one of two favors for me,” Hob said. “When you’re inside, you could find Bertha and tell her I’m out here on the road. Maybe she could come out again and get me in.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Juanito said. “What’s the other?”

  “I scarcely dare suggest this,” Hob said, “but if you could see your way clear to bringing me in as a waiter …”

  Juanito nodded. “It’s an important case, Hob?”

  “Very important.”

  “Then I’ll take you in myself. You haven’t got proper clothes, however.” He looked at Hob, eyes narrowed, taking in George’s gardening togs, which seemed far more eccentric in Ibiza than in England. Then he turned to one of the waiters in the back. “Enrique, you’re about Hob’s size. Would you mind changing clothes with him and missing the party?”

  “What about my overtime pay?”

  “I’m sure Hob will reimburse you.”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll double whatever you were going to get. And as for you, Juanito—”

  Juanito waved a hand. “Don’t even consider paying me. This is the most exciting thing I’ve had happen since I left Salt Lake City.”

  The exchange of clothes was made behind a convenient bush. Enrique’s waiter’s outfit fit Hob tolerably well, except for the waist, which was three inches too wide. But Enrique had a cummerbund, which held everything up nicely.

  Juanito said, “Enrique, you don’t mind walking back into San Mateo? I’ll pick you up when I leave.”

  “A walk will be a pleasure on a day this. You’ll find me in Bar La Legión.” To Hob he said, “Try not to get blood on my clothes, Mr. Detective.”

  Hob said he would do his best to avoid that. And then they were on their way to the hotel. The guard didn’t even look at Hob or the other waiter. He had already seen Juanito on his first time through, and now he just waved him past.

  “We’re in,” Juanito said. “What now?” He had driven the Citröen around to the kitchen entrance in back.

  “I’d appreciate your finding me some light work to do. I need to look around, see if I can find Nigel. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

  Juanito shook his head. “But I’ve been in the kitchen just about all the time. Would you like to carry a tray of hors d’ouevres around?”

  “That would suit me just fine,” Hob said.

  Juanito had prepared half a dozen trays of appetizers back in his restaurant. Now he, Hob, and the other waiter, whose name was Paco, carried them into the hotel kitchen. There Juanito set up an assortment on a big serving tray. Hob walked into the main hotel area carrying pimientos rellenos de merluza, canelónes de legumbres, gambas con huevos rellenos, gambas al ajillo, and Juanito’s specialty, stolen from Chef Gregorio Camarero, boquerónes rellenos de jamón y espinaca.

  From the outside, the hotel had appeared to be a large multilevel structure, part of it wood, part fieldstone. The main wing was three stories high, with balconies facing the little valley that the hotel also owned. There were tennis courts and a nine-hole golf course, two outdoor swimming pools, a jai alai court, the only one in the Balearics, and a lot of other stuff Hob hadn’t had time to notice, including a stable. Inside, in the main hotel lobby, there was soft hotel lighting and a lot of blond wood and oversized leather couches and a lot of people standing around with drinks in their hands and talking the sort of bright, witty chatter for which Ibiza expatriates are justly famous.

  So there was Hob, playing at being waiter in a pair of black pants with black satin stripes down the legs and with a waist two or three sizes too large for him and held up with a crimson cummerbund wound five times around his waist, tight enough to keep his pants up, which meant too tight for comfort. And to top it off he also had on a silly little matador-type jacket. He held the big serving tray in both hands—no insoucient balancing on the palm of one hand for him—weaving his slow and awkward way through the densely packed chattering guests in the main ballroom, or whatever they called it.

  Looking around, he observed that the male guests were wearing the latest creations from Hombre or Yes! boutiques, while the women had on a variety of layered white garments with flowing ends that were all the rage in Ibiza that year. And Hob was worrying not for the first time that he wasn’t carrying a gun or knife or other deadly device because his treatment at Arranque’s hands back in London was still clear in his mind. But what the hell; he had prevailed in the past without weapons, and with a little luck he’d do so again. What counted for a lot right now was that he hadn’t run into any of his old friends here so far—and more important, he hadn’t run into Arranque, who was presumably the host. But of course it couldn’t go on like that, not in Ibiza, and so he found himself suddenly proferring his tray of appetizers to someone he knew: Luis Carlos, who owned the Kilometer Zero restaurant on the road to San Lorenzo.

  Luis Carlos gaped at him but couldn’t quite place him. He was not quite sober, of course. His bewilderment was due to the fact that in Ibiza, context is
everything. Luis politely took huevos duros con atún on a napkin and moved on, showing no sign of recognition.

  Hob spotted Arranque across the room and turned quickly so as not to be recognized.

  Hob was feeling curious. It was strange how wearing a waiter’s outfit could affect your very mentality, and so now he found something servile and cringing in his manner, and he quickly overcompensated for it by becoming overbearing and insolent. He was in that mood when he finally ran into Big Bertha.

  “Hob!” Bertha said. “What are you doing in that outfit?”

  “I’m pretending to be a waiter serving appetizers,” Hob said. “Quick, pretend to take one.”

  Bertha picked one off the tray and looked at it curiously. “Is it really an appetizer?”

  “It’s no more a real appetizer than I’m a real waiter. You only pretend to eat it. Listen, have you seen Nigel?”

  She shook her head so vehemently that her large dangle earrings danced and jangled. “Was I supposed to?”

  “You are now. If you see him, tell him he’s in danger and had better get out of here at once.”

  She gave him a curious look. It looked as if she was about to ask him why he couldn’t tell Nigel himself. But luckily she remembered that she knew nothing about the private detective business, nodded, and moved on.

  2

  Nigel was in the second-floor gallery, the jewel of Arranque’s eye, the place where he planned to show class. The corridor was a hundred and sixty-five feet long by twenty feet wide, illuminated by recessed overhead lighting that was pretty good for showing you where you were walking but not very good for showing off the pictures. Not that there was much to show off. The pictures were not much to look at. But they were indeed genuine oil paintings, framed, and Arranque was proud of himself for having acquired them.

  Nigel was not so proud of his part in the acquisition. These paintings, chosen from the odds and ends of Posonby’s warehouse stock, framed and lighted like masterpieces, had seemed a funny idea back in England. Now, in Ibiza, where every second person was an art critic and half the foreign community was made up of aspiring painters, it seemed not funny at all. It had suddenly occured to Nigel that he would be judged on these works, not Arranque, who couldn’t be expected to know any better.

  Nigel had three men working with him, Arranque’s men detailed to the task. One was on a ladder, trying to hang the painting; another was holding the painting’s lower edge; and the third was following up with dust cloth and feather duster. Nigel had set it all up with his usual care, using a ruler and a right angle, making sure that everything was well squared away. His heart sank a little as he looked at the painting he was hanging now. It was a fruity Italian landscape drawn in the worst possible taste, and filled with fountains, hills, cypresses, a shepherd, a shepherdess, and even a fawn, yet.

  “A little bit more to the right,” Nigel said. At least he could ensure that they were hung straight.

  “Look,” Nigel said to the third man, “you have to go to a window and beat out the dust cloth. Otherwise you’re just transferring dust from one painting to another.” The man gave a surly nod and continued exactly as he had been doing.

  At this point Arranque entered. He had on some sort of semi-formal resort clothing he’d picked up in Miami—a green plaid afternoon jacket, the green too bright, even the black too bright. He had on tricky Italian sandals completely out of style with the Ibiza style of sandal. There was a light lavender dress handkerchief with red piping around the edges in the upper left-hand pocket of the jacket. The line of the jacket was ruined first of all by Arranque’s shape—a stocky, potbellied shape on which nothing svelte could be fitted except perhaps a giant potholder—and second, by the slight but noticeable bulge in his righthand pocket that might have been caused by a sack of cookies, though Nigel rather doubted it.

  “Ah, Nigel, almost finished, I see.”

  “Yes, Ernesto. Just two more to go. How do you think it looks?”

  “Splendid,” Arranque said. “I’ve been in the Prado, you know, and they have some exhibitions that look no better than this.”

  That was, of course, the most pathetic artistic judgment of the decade—perhaps even the century—but Nigel hadn’t been hired to correct it.

  “I think it looks rather good myself,” Nigel said, referring to the way the paintings were hung rather than the intrinsic merit of that which was hanging.

  “When you’re finished, come down to my office. The boys will show the way. I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

  “That’s nice,” Nigel said, thinking: bonus for a job well done.

  “And by the way,” Arranque said, “a friend of yours is here at the party.”

  “Oh, indeed?”

  “Yes. Señor Draconian has paid us a visit.”

  “That’s nice,” Nigel said. “I’ve been wanting to get in touch with him. Where is he?”

  “He’s downstairs in the main lobby making himself useful passing out the appetizers. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you.”

  Arranque left. Nigel thought to himself, This Arranque fellow has some rough edges, but he’s quite a good fellow in his way.

  Nigel had never been known as a good judge of character.

  3

  When Hob returned to the kitchen, Juanito was warming up the warm appetizers and chilling down the cold ones.

  “Ah, Hob, how’s it going?”

  “Fine,” said Hob.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Juanito said, “there’s something I’d like you to do. Would you help Pepe get some wine out of the cellar? We want the Château Yquem ’69.”

  “Sure thing,” Hob said, “I’ve been wanting a look down there anyway.”

  He accepted the key and a flashlight from Juanito and followed Pepe out of the kitchen to a short passageway, through a door, and down a few steps to another door. Hob unlocked it and led the way into the cellar.

  The place appeared to be quite old, dug for the finca that had been here before the hotel. A string of bare electric bulbs was strung along the walls. Hob found a pull switch and turned them on. By their dim light he could see that the walls were rough-hewn out of limestone, unfinished. The place was cool and dry inside. Nice after the heat of the day outside.

  Working his way along, Hob saw that the cellar extended into a natural rock cavern. The cases of wine and champagne were stacked up along the walls. Hob walked past the last case and shone his flashlight into the darkness beyond. The passageway slanted down, and he could see no end to it.

  “You guys get started,” Hob called to the waiters. “Find the Château Yquem and take some of it up. I’ll be right with you.”

  He continued deeper and deeper into the rock that lay beneath the hotel. After fifty or so feet the cavern began to narrow. It was here that Hob found a pile of boxes covered with a green tarpaulin. It blended so well with the walls that he almost walked past it.

  The tarp had been tied into place around the boxes. Hob untied one of the corners and pulled it back. He found a stack of wooden crates. He got out his Swiss Army knife and, with considerable difficulty, levered up one of the boards, almost cutting his finger in the process. At last he got it and saw that inside, packed in excelsior, were a number of small green objects. Lifting one of them, he shone the flashlight beam on it. Yes, it was one of his green bottles all right. It was filled with a heavy, liquid substance. He shook it. The liquid moved slowly, with a sleepy, luxurious motion that Hob could almost describe as evil. He didn’t think it was a sample size of Lavoris. This was soma.

  Hob replaced the bottle in the excelsior and put the top strip back on. He retied the tarp, leaving it more or less as he had found it. Then he hurried back to the kitchen, bringing the last half-dozen bottles of Château Yquem with him.

  After depositing the bottles in the kitchen for Juanito to open, Hob picked up another tray of appetizers and went out again.

  He could see that some of the guests were already leaving. It
was late afternoon. The real festivities, which were only for the hotel’s backers and special guests, would begin in an hour or so. He still hadn’t found Nigel. But at last he did spot Bertha.

  “Going now?” he asked her.

  “In a few minutes. Do you need a ride?”

  “I can’t leave yet. But I want you to get hold of Ramón at the Guardia Civil barracks in Ibiza. Tell him this is an illegal gathering, and we need the services of him and his men in the patent-leather three-cornered hats.”

  “Hob, have you been drinking? Doping?”

  “No, I’m just high on role-playing. Will you do what I ask? You are working for the agency, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. And frankly, this party is a stone bore anyway. Can I put this canapé back on your tray?”

  “Yes, but don’t let anyone see you. That’s it. Off you go now.”

  4

  Hob, still keeping an eye open for Nigel, wandered around the hotel. He strolled into the Lilac Room and saw Vana, his rescuer from Arranque’s hoods of several nights ago.

  Vana said, “It is good to see you, senhor. There is someone over here who would like to meet you.”