The Rocketeer

by Peter David

  Cliff watched Sinclair apparently issuing orders to Rusty and Spanish Johnny, and the two thugs nodded in understanding and walked off to do his bidding.

  The thugs who were after Cliff.

  Who wanted Cliff because he had the rocket.

  Which meant that whoever they worked with wanted the rocket.

  Which meant Sinclair was in even deeper than Cliff had surmised.

  He knew it. He knew from the moment he’d seen that Limey creep drop a bottle of champagne to the enemy in that stupid film that he had to be no good.

  Sinclair was seething as Spanish Johnny and Rusty filled him in on what they had learned. It was madness that all this was taking so long. He had been working one end of the operation, that moronic Valentine had been working the other, and Sinclair had assumed that when they met in the middle, the rocket pack would be sitting waiting for them.

  And what did they have? That damned “Cliff” of Jenny’s, the one who had to have the rocket pack in his possession, kept managing through the sheer luck of the stupid to stay one step ahead of them.

  Meantime Sinclair had opted for the next best course of action: to wine and dine the young woman, genteelly prying information about this Cliff Secord—as Johnny said he was called—out of her. It hadn’t exactly been a hardship—she was an unbelievably striking young woman. Indeed, another hope of his had been that his courting of Jenny would draw Secord out of hiding in some sort of jealous . . .

  All the blood drained from Sinclair’s face.

  “The waiter!” he spat out.

  Rusty, not understanding, turned and called, “Waiter!”

  “It was Secord!” snarled Sinclair.

  “What? Where?”

  “Here, you imbecile!” he snapped at Spanish Johnny. “And more the fool I! I saw him only from the back before, so I didn’t recognize him immediately! But Jenny must have . . .” His voice trailed off, and he suddenly realized that Jenny should have been back from the women’s room by now.

  He forced himself to maintain a polite smile, but when he spoke, his voice was laced with iron. “Secord’s here,” he said. “Somewhere around. He’s dressed as a waiter. He has sandy hair and the belligerent attitude of a bulldog. Find him. And find his Lady Luck . . . I think she may have tried to make a dash for it.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “Keep up appearances.” Sinclair smiled thinly. “It wouldn’t do to have Neville Sinclair dashing about like a headless chicken. People will know something’s up, and I think it best for all concerned if we keep a low profile, don’t you?”

  As soon as the two thugs moved off, Cliff saw his way was clear and seized his chance. He left his hiding place and started in the direction of the service hallway. He kept watching over his shoulder and saw that miraculously, the thugs were looking in every direction except his. He had only a short distance to cover until he reached safety.

  And he bumped smack into Lothar.

  “ ’Scuse me,” he said quickly, and stepped around, hoping that the giant didn’t have enough brain power to realize where he’d seen him before. This hope lasted for about a half second as the animal growl from Lothar alerted Cliff and he jumped frantically away from the long and grasping arms.

  His exit cut off, Cliff turned and dashed out onto the dance floor, disappearing into the crowd. While Cliff wormed his way between the dancing couples, Lothar felt no such need for social niceties—he plowed through the people like a bulldozer, shoving them aside and eliciting screams and curses. Male escorts who felt the dignity of themselves or their dates had been trod upon would turn to chastise the perpetrator, but when they saw the size of him, they quietly turned back to their dates, exasperation clearly on their faces.

  Sinclair looked up from his table in reaction to the disturbance and saw the head and shoulders of his henchman cutting a wide swath through the crowd like the dorsal fin of a shark. Immediately he knew what was happening and he half crouched in his chair to try and get a better look.

  “Please,” he muttered, “let something go right.”

  Cliff saw the swinging doors of the kitchen just ahead and barged through them, squarely nailing a waiter with a tray. Dishes went flying and Cliff spat out a quick apology as he kept going. He had an infallible sense of direction, and that told him that a right turn would bring him back and around to the laundry room.

  The waiter, who was on the floor and trying to pull himself together, shouted a curse at Cliff’s departing form as he bent down to clean up the mess, at which point Lothar barreled through like an express train, sending the waiter bellysliding across the floor to get out of his way.

  Just up ahead was the laundry room, and Cliff, heart pounding, was congratulating himself. He had done it. He’d used the rocket pack, gotten there in time, gotten Jenny out of there—and even scored major points on their relationship—and now he was going to make a clean getaway as soon as he had the rocket pack. The image of that giant and that creep, Sinclair, standing in the alleyway in helpless frustration as the Rocketeer blasted skyward, free and out of their creepy clutches, was a pleasing one indeed.

  He burst into the laundry room, spun, slammed the door, and bolted it. It would take just a few seconds to get his gear on, and even if that behemoth caught up to him, Cliff would simply give him a blast of rocket exhaust right in his ugly mug. Then he would . . .

  He turned and screamed.

  Where once there had been only three laundry sacks—with his rocket pack securely in the one on the right—there now sat at least two dozen. The place was lousy with laundry sacks, and buried somewhere in that mountain of burlap was his only means of escape.

  There came a furious pounding on the door behind Cliff’s head and he moaned softly, “Why me?”

  16

  Jenny stood on the curb and waited for a cab to pull up. And as she headed for it, her wrap pulled tightly around her shoulders and her mind working furiously over what Cliff had told her, somebody beat her into the cab. “Excuse me!” she called out, but the cab’s occupant paid her no mind and a moment later the cab pulled out.

  She turned, saw another arriving, made a beeline for it, and another couple practically swiped it out of her hands.

  She knew what it was. Cabbies made no effort to take single women as fares because they figured single women didn’t tip much, if at all. Men were the ones who showed what great guys they were in front of their dates by tipping generously. If Jenny was going to get a cab, she was practically going to have to throw herself in front of one.

  Damn. There was never a big, strong man around when you needed one.

  Lothar threw his big, strong shoulder against the door of the laundry room, annoyed that it had taken him a couple of tries to get through. What the hell were they storing in there anyway? Gold? After another moment, though, it didn’t matter as Lothar smashed through, tearing the door from its hinges. Panting, Lothar charged in like an enraged bull and found . . .

  Nothing.

  Not exactly nothing. There was laundry all over the place, piles and piles, as if someone had gone tearing through the laundry bags and yanked out some of the contents of practically every one.

  Was the little creep hiding somewhere in the midst of all this? Was that his plan? If so, it was a damned stupid one, and Lothar started shoveling through the piles looking for some lump that was more solid than the others, some . . .

  Then he spotted a pair of boots in the laundry chute. Boots just like the type that punk was wearing. Just like the type he was probably wearing at that moment.

  With a roar Lothar leapt for them, and then his roar was drowned out by the ear-shattering explosion. Lothar was blown backward off his feet as the Rocketeer hurtled straight up the laundry chute, out of reach.

  In the second-floor ladies’ lounge, several women were checking their makeup in the mirror. A towel girl brought towels to the ladies from a low cart, and then swung around and dropped the used ones down the laundry chute.

&n
bsp; Enjoying a peaceful and dignified evening out, away from the insanity that working with Julius and the others entailed, Margaret Dumont primped in the mirror and said in an amused voice to the woman next to her, “This place is really going to the dogs. A few minutes ago”—she thought back to the spectacle of that young couple wrestling behind the dolphin statue—“I saw a couple making whoopee in the bushes.”

  Abruptly there was a rumble in the wall behind them, and for a moment all the women thought the same thing—that they were about to be subjected to an earthquake. And then the laundry chute door burst open and out hurtled a jet-propelled, bronze-helmeted man.

  As one, the women screamed as the Rocketeer blew out of the chute, moving so quickly that he couldn’t immediately navigate in the unfamiliar surroundings. And when he tried to look around, his finned helmet sent him in the direction of wherever he was looking. As a result, before he could react he smashed directly into Margaret Dumont. The matronly woman let out a yelp and was thrown backward onto the towel cart, her unwilling assailant right on top of her, completely tangled up in arms and legs and dress.

  A second later the Rocketeer, Margaret Dumont, and a towel cart blasted out onto the upper mezzanine, plowing through tables and bowling over a couple of men waiting for their dates. People dove out of the way as Margaret Dumont kicked and screamed and demanded to be treated in some manner in accordance with her status.

  The cart slammed to a stop against a railing, ejecting the Rocketeer out over the club as he lost his grip on Dumont. The embattled actress sailed in a rather impressive arc before impacting with one of the full-size palm trees that gently broke her fall. It also gently broke at the base with a rather loud snap, and Margaret Dumont was deposited into one of the pools of water.

  She sat up, sputtering and spitting up water, and noticed that people were laughing and pointing and actually even applauding. They probably thought it was funny. Julius would have thought it was funny too. She never did understand Julius’s sense of humor and now, looking around at the amused faces, she decided she didn’t understand anybody’s sense of humor anymore.

  Meantime the Rocketeer, barely in control, zoomed over the heads of musicians, bouncing off a wall and ricocheting back across the room like a pinball.

  Now the speeding rocket man couldn’t help but draw attention away from the drenched Dumont, and people were shouting and pointing, a few diving for cover. More, though, were standing and pointing and crying out, “It’s the flying man!” “The guy in the papers!” “The Rocketeer!”

  The Rocketeer caught a glimpse of that Sinclair creep and darted toward his table. He was eminently pleased to see the actor fall to the floor to get out of his way and then high-tail it toward the mezzanine. Let him know who was boss, that was for sure. But then he realized that he couldn’t just keep buzzing around the inside of the club. Someone might get hurt—either clubgoers, or himself, if someone got lucky with a gun. He was fast, but not bulletproof.

  Cliff, desperate to find a way out, cut his thrust by half and did a series of touch-and-go hops across a group of tables, scattering dishes and setting fire to napkins and tablecloths.

  It was at that point that patrons realized that the flying man either might not be in control, or, worse, that he might be dangerous. That was when panic began to set in, and the fickle crowd, rather than hang around and admire the pyrotechnics, leapt to their collective feet and began to stampede for the exit.

  Eddie Valentine, up in his office, heard the alarmed screams and shouting. He went to the window and all he could see was a surge of people, his nice, sedate club transformed into an orgy of chaos. “What the hell?!” he snarled.

  He ran out of his office and was immediately caught up in the floor of panicked patrons. He fought his way back toward the main room, gasping and shoving, his feet being mashed into the ground and his ribs and stomach being pummeled. He was going to be black and blue the next morning, he knew, and as far as he was concerned, whoever had caused this nightmare was going to be blacker and bluer.

  Jenny stood on the curb in utter frustration, about ready to give up and just hoof it home, even though it was miles.

  And then a cab pulled up.

  And no one was in it.

  And no one was around.

  She couldn’t believe it. She looked around one more long moment, unable to accept that finally, after umpteen tries, she wasn’t going to be shoved, pushed, manhandled, or tossed to one side.

  She started for the cab, triumphant, and then a tidal wave of people poured out of the South Seas Club, all shouting and screaming and all wanting cabs. Jenny was lost in the crush.

  The Rocketeer made another pass over the musicians, who were now trying to flee along with the patrons. He bumped into the giant plaster clam shell, tipping it shut. Six musicians were trapped in the mammoth mollusk, their arms and legs protuding and flapping around helplessly. “Sorry!” called Cliff, not that he could be heard through his helmet or over the sounds of his rocket and the screaming.

  Sinclair shoved his way through to Rusty and Spanish Johnny, who were helplessly watching the Rocketeer zip around and make a shambles of things. They were thugs, that was all. They could function perfectly if given orders, but if a new situation arose, they were paralyzed until someone told them how to handle it.

  That someone was now Sinclair, who snapped to Rusty, “Get those doors closed! We’ll trap him like a fly!” And then he spun toward Spanish Johnny and said, “Shoot him down! Now!”

  Spanish Johnny, relieved at having been told what to do, pulled out his .45 and started firing into the air, trying to draw a bead on the Rocketeer. Stevie and yet another thug, Monk, took the shots as a signal and they also opened fire. A hail of lead now filled the air of the South Seas Club.

  Outside the club, Jenny heard the shots and ran to one of the porthole windows. Then she ducked back reflexively as a helmeted man buzzed past, a blur propelled by some sort of rocket on his back . . .

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed, remembering everything that Cliff had told her and realizing just who that blur was. “Cliff—!”

  She ran for the main door, oblivious of the bullet that blew out the window she had just been peering through. She got to the doors just as they were slammed shut and locked by some thuggish man with red hair. Her pulling on them did nothing.

  Cliff rocketed around the club, bouncing off walls and tearing through decorations. Everywhere he went there would be another of the thugs, sealing off another possible escape route. They were also blocking off the handful of patrons who had not managed to get out before the main doors had been sealed, and Cliff felt anger and mortification that more innocent people were getting caught up in this crazy game of his.

  The cloths that the rocket had ignited began to smolder and burn, and smoke began filling the club.

  Below, Cliff could see a man in a suit arguing with Sinclair. The man was shouting, “Goddammit, Sinclair! Stop!” At least the guy seemed concerned about the welfare of others, and had the moxie to shout at the crazed actor.

  But Sinclair bellowed back, “Keep out of this, Valentine!”

  “You’re wrecking my club!”

  “Put it on my bill!”

  The Rocketeer angled down and then up, and a stray bullet shattered Eddie’s mermaid tank. It was exactly the wrong move. A thousand gallons of water cascaded forth like a tidal wave, and riding the crest of the wave was a startled and somewhat terrified little mermaid. Sinclair leapt adroitly out of the way, but Valentine was bowled off by her and sent tumbling to the floor.

  Cliff spotted, out of the corner of his eye, the giant emerging from the service door with clothes singed and hatred in his piglike eyes. Knowing that he had to stay out of the grip of those massive arms, the Rocketeer angled in the opposite direction, swooping under the mezzanine and sliding the length of the bar, knocking glasses and bottles in all directions. Glass shattered all around like a series of grenades going off.

  At the end o
f the bar was an escargot buffet table, the centerpiece of which was that snail ice sculpture. The Rocketeer slammed into it at full speed, tipping the table, and snagged the eye stalks of the half-ton ice snail. His mind moving even faster than his rocket, Cliff immediately saw the possibilities, and an instant later had transformed the snail into an icy rocket sled that was anything but sluggish. Clutching firmly onto his escargo-cart, the Rocketeer shot toward the main exit, which no one was watching because it had been locked and bolted. He left an icy slime trail behind. Anything or anyone getting in his way was going to be mowed down in a very ignominious fashion.

  “He’s got a battering ram!” shouted one of the gangsters.

  Sinclair, his patience taxed beyond endurance, tossed aside all notions of discretion and grabbed the .45 out of Stevie’s hands. He opened fire on the speeding snail, bullets chewing into it and spraying crushed ice into the air.

  The eye stalks that served as the Rocketeer’s handles snapped off, and Cliff veered, swooping out from under the mezzanine and arcing high across the floor.

  The snail kept going, hurtling on its own. It smashed through the doors, unstoppable in its half ton of velocity. The grateful remaining patrons now streamed through the reopened door . . .

  And unseen by the Rocketeer, one plucky young woman, shouting, “Cliff!” shoved her way in and ducked behind a column, searching the smoke for some sign of him.

  In the meantime, the Rocketeer spotted another potential escape route, a window situated toward the top of the club. Sinclair looked up, saw the means of escape, and also saw the fishnet hanging over the ceiling. Not wanting to take the time to explain what he wanted done, Sinclair grabbed the tommy gun from Monk and opened fire on the support ropes as the Rocketeer swooped to make his escape.

  Cliff glanced down disdainfully in the direction of the machine gunfire. Figures that it was Sinclair aiming the thing, he thought smugly. The Limey creep hadn’t even come close to hitting him.