Mike Nelson's Death Rat!

by Michael J. Nelson

  “Hello, everyone,” Jack said, looking around.

  “I’m sure they say hello back. We do it this way so we don’t have to have someone from the waitstaff standing here invading our privacy. Now, tell me all about Holey, Jack. Tell me everything about it.”

  Jack started with what he knew, which was very little. “Well, there’s good fishin’ there. And I know—”

  “Jack, do you remember a work of mine from some time ago called ‘Wash Me Lower’?”

  Jack recovered quickly from being interrupted. “Yes! Yeah, I remember that,” Jack said, happy to be able to tell the truth.

  “Do you remember the spoken-word part of that, after the second chorus?”

  “Um . . . I . . . I don’t think so. But the hour is advanced, and I’m pretty tired, so—”

  “It goes like this: ‘If you gotta ask what I want, baby/then you ain’t been listening/no no no no no no./Why’n’cha throw away that loofah, sugar loaf/Grab the big sponge, honey sweet.’”

  Jack cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows, trying to disguise his embarrassment as a method to stay awake. King Leo did not notice.

  “‘And ooooooooh, wash me lower.’ And then I scream a little, and the bass and drums kick in, and I say, ‘Get down, make it fat, hit me with that holy rat.’” King Leo added special emphasis to the last three words. Jack stared at him with eyes wide. “Is that the freakiest thing you’ve ever heard?” King Leo asked. Although Jack thought that it was easily one of the five or six most disturbing things he’d ever heard, he thought better of telling King Leo that. As he was formulating a safe reply, an elderly man in white gloves and topcoat entered and presented them their drinks.

  “Thanks, Pops,” said King Leo.

  “Mm-hmm,” said the man, who then turned to Jack. “And, hello, sir,” he said, then left quietly.

  Jack sipped his drink, and though he did not find it unpleasant, he was unable to identify even what neighborhood of flavor it resided in. Was it fruity or somewhat hoppy? Blandly alcoholic like a vodka, or was there a mellow heat in the undertones suggesting brandy? He simply could not tell. King Leo licked off a white mustache of Down Under Snowball. “You like it, Jack?” he asked.

  “I think so, yes,” said Jack.

  “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. This is big. Big, big, big, big. Something’s coming. Do you feel it?”

  Jack thought about it. “I don’t think so, no. Not yet anyway. Perhaps if you explained what it is, I could keep a lookout for it?”

  “Something. Something’s coming. Got to get to Holey, Jack. Got to get there,” said King Leo, narrowing his eyes. He finished off his drink and sat staring straight ahead, past Jack’s right ear. “I’ll have another, please,” he said quietly and held out his glass.

  Jack shifted in his chair. “Um, sure,” he said tentatively. “What’s in a Down Under Snowball again?”

  King Leo shook his head. “No, I was talking to the waitstaff.”

  “Ah,” said Jack. “They’re listening in.”

  “You said on the radio that Lynch claimed it was God who saved him. Now, you obviously researched this thing up, down, over, under, this way, out the other side—what do you think. Do you think it’s true?”

  Jack stalled by saying, “Well,” and taking a very big gulp of his Yank Me, Crank Me. He swallowed laboriously and then lightly smacked his lips. “Mm. Very good. Very nice flavor,” he said, looking with a good deal of interest into the interior of his glass for a moment before looking up. “Well,” he began again, “as you know, a lot of solid research has been put into it, and we’re no closer to getting a decisive answer to the whole God question, so it’s not surprising that this one unexplained animal-attack rescue . . . um, doesn’t yield a definitive answer either. . . .” He took another sip of his drink and virtually recreated his previous stall. “Mm, that has some very unidentifiable taste to it. What’s in it, do you know?”

  King Leo looked at him penetratingly. “I don’t know Jack, but I’ll find out.” He kept his eyes on Jack and did not move.

  Jack waited for something to happen. “Well, it’s not important,” he said after a moment.

  “Now, back to—”

  A phone on an intricately carved, eight-sided Moorish table rang sharply, and King Leo rose and picked up the receiver.

  “Yes?” he said. “Uh-huh. Okay.” He hung up and returned to his spot in front of Jack. “Vodka, Old Milwaukee beer, Country Time Lemonade, and Mello Yello,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?” said Jack.

  “My people tell me those are the ingredients of a proper Yank Me, Crank Me.”

  “Oh, right. Well, I’ll have to make them at home some time. Have a Yank Me, Crank Me party. Very good.”

  “You were telling me if you believed it was God who rescued Lynch,” said King Leo, fixing his eyes on Jack.

  “Right. Well . . .” Jack sensed that King Leo was looking for an affirmative answer, and, hoping to end their meeting expediently, he gave one. “I think so, yes,” he said, then added, “Absolutely,” just to be safe.

  “Forgive me, Jack, but I think you’re wrong,” said King Leo bluntly.

  “Well. Wouldn’t be the first time, that’s for sure.”

  “I think he was saved by the one Funka-Lovely-Creative-Spirit-Being, the Rodent of Dee-vine Power. That’s what I think,” said King Leo importantly. Jack waited for him to smile, but it didn’t happen. “It was his spirit that gave Lynch new life and a new beginning, pushed him into another level of consciousness,” King Leo said, taking a sip. “That’s what this whole world needs, to be pushed by the Rat of Dee-vine Power into another level of consciousness. If we could manage that as a nation again, as a world, then I think we would truly be great. So. What do you think, Jack? Do you think it could have been the one Funka-Lovely-Creative-Spirit-Being, the Rodent of Dee-vine Power?”

  “Well,” Jack said, “maybe we’re just splitting hairs, semantically. Probably talking about the same thing.”

  “Yes!” King Leo shouted, startling Jack enough that a good portion of his remaining drink sloshed onto the leg of his khaki pants. “I knew it! It’s coming! Through the power of music, my music, we will connect with the Rat of Dee-vine Power.”

  “How will that work, exactly?” Jack asked.

  “You seek answers where there are none, Jack. That is so very lower-self of you and nothing to be ashamed of.” Jack nodded his basic agreement. “It will be a musical extravaganza such as has never been seen by our time or by any time. Our concession will do well, too,” he said, his eyes far away. “It’s time for a revival. We’re going to Holey, Jack. You and I. You’ll be my guide.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a good guide. I get lost finding bathrooms at unfamiliar restaurants. And with all my interviews, I don’t have time for much of anything, let alone a revival.”

  “We can do satellite video and radio uplinks from Funkabus, my touring cruiser. You won’t miss a one.”

  “Sorry, but my agent’s got me on a tight schedule, and—”

  “Who’s your agent? Fetters?” Jack nodded. “No problem. He’s an old friend. We used to shop for Italian cotton T-shirts together. I’ll take care of it.”

  “No, really. Thank you anyway,” Jack said as he dabbed his pant leg with a wet cocktail napkin. King Leo rose, came to his side, and hugged him clumsily with what seemed like an inappropriate amount of affection.

  “Please, Jack. Come with me,” he said, and squeezed Jack more firmly around the shoulders.

  Jack was relieved to discover that King Leo was no longer as overheated as when they’d first embraced, but the body-to-red-leather-pants contact that the hug was causing was entirely too much for Jack’s continued comfort.

  “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. Let’s do it, you and I. Let’s go to Holey,” King Leo pleaded, pulling Jack’s head closer to his bare stomach. Jack’s desire to be far away overcame his extreme reluctance to agree.

  “Okay,” said Jack without ent
husiasm.

  “Good,” said King Leo. “It’s coming, Jack. And we’re going to be there to see it.”

  “All right then,” said Jack, disentangling himself from King Leo. “I think I’m gonna get going.”

  “I would helicopter you home, but they tell me I can’t at this hour. Is it okay if I send you in one of the limos? The coach driver is off at two.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And I’ll be contacting you soon to arrange our triumphant arrival in Holey.”

  “Okay,” Jack said through a panicked smile. He felt as alarmed as he imagined Ponty felt most of the time, and this thought alarmed him even more.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gus Bromstad did not have to wait long in the austere lobby of Den Institut Dansk before Thorkild Blixen, secretary to the institute’s president, Stig Stou-Thorup, glided into position in front of him and spoke coolly.

  “Come,” he commanded. Without waiting to see if Bromstad was following, he accelerated back out of the lobby, barely leaving a slipstream. Bromstad hurried to keep up.

  “And how are you, Thorkild?” Bromstad asked from a position some five steps behind him. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” Bromstad heard only the small, efficient wisps of friction as Thorkild’s long, gabardine-clad legs converged and diverged. After a moment Thorkild replied.

  “Well,” he said.

  “That’s good. Everything going good at the institute?” Bromstad waited for an answer, but it was clear he had explored the whole of Thorkild’s conversational range. He was ushered into Stig Stou-Thorup’s office and shown an austere and witty chair positioned in front of Stou-Thorup’s desk with its clean lines and, behind it, the clean lines of Stou-Thorup himself. Thorkild withdrew noiselessly.

  Stou-Thorup was a tall man, his blond-brown hair swept back (though a portion of it resisted, making the top of his head look like a cresting wave). His mustache was faint, blond, and neatly trimmed. It appeared to Bromstad as though his face had made only a halfhearted commitment to its facial hair and was ready to recall it should anyone object. He wore a blindingly white shirt and a cool blue tie accented in a fish pattern so subtle as to be nearly undetectable. He smelled clean, like a finely sanded cedar board. Facing Bromstad, in a semicircle around Stou-Thorup’s desk, were four chairs filled with men who seemed intent on looking and acting, as much as was possible, like each other. Stou-Thorup leaned forward over his desk, unsmiling, and addressed Bromstad.

  “Gus Bromstad,” he said, his American accent eerily perfect, in the manner of a Dane who held his dual citizenship in high regard. “You’ve come back to us.”

  “I never left you,” Bromstad said, his voice uncharacteristically lacking that final bit of smoothness for which he was known.

  “You remember Per,” Stou-Thorup said, directing a subtle nod in the direction of a trim blond man wearing exceedingly small granny glasses, which he never seemed to put to use, for he was always looking over the tops of them or wearing them up on his forehead. “Vagns. Jørgen. And of course Ülo,” he said, giving each man a similar nod.

  “Vagns, how are you?” Bromstad asked. Vagns, the only dark-haired member of Stig’s entourage—a fact that seemed to have made him somewhat bitter—moved his head almost imperceptibly in response. “Per. Jørgen, nice to see you again. Ülo,” said Bromstad.

  “Gus,” Ülo responded. He was considered somewhat flighty and loquacious by his mates.

  Stig continued. “Let’s see, the last time I saw you, Gus, you had come here to these very offices to ask for our help, you remember? Now you’re back. Did you come to say hello? To thank us for our help? To bring us a fresh-baked wienerbrød?”

  Bromstad laughed, making the total number of people in the room laughing exactly one. “No. No. The truth is, I do need your help again,” he said.

  Stou-Thorup picked up a pencil and read the side of it before continuing. “Really? I would have thought you’d have wanted to stay far away from us . . . ‘the thick-necked Danes, those inveterate church-skippers.’” Bromstad’s strained smile faded into confusion before being replaced by a look of pained recognition. “Page sixty-eight, paragraph four, Absolutely Dogwood, a Cheatham Imprint book.”

  Bromstad adjusted his fisherman’s cap, feeling perspiration around its brim. “Did I write that?”

  Before Bromstad had finished his sentence, Stou-Thorup continued, “‘Stig Stangerup, a thick-necked Dane with a wide face and misshapen toes, was at all times boiling, or about to boil, a large piece of salmon.’ Page one hundred forty-three, paragraph one, A Dogwood Primer, a Cheatham Imprint book.”

  “Look, Stig, these are jokes. I’m Danish after all. I can say these things.”

  “We at Den Institut Dansk, those of us charged with protecting our precious Danish heritage, are less amused, Mr. Bromstad. You do not nourish our Danish heritage, you—what is the word?—malnourish it. Yes, I should think that is it. You write cheap and demeaning jokes while wearing a hat meant for Greek fisherman. You, Gus Bromstad, as far as I can tell, are not a Greek fisherman. Are you currently dropping your net into the blue Ionian Sea somewhere off the island of Corfu?”

  “Stig—”

  “Are you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then by my reckoning you are not a Greek fisherman.”

  “Stig—”

  “‘Stig Stangerup had the red ears typical of his race, and they stood a good deal away from his head, as though they were embarrassed to be seen with it.’ Page one hundred forty-three, paragraph two, A Dogwood Primer, a Cheatham Imprint book.”

  “Now, Stig—”

  “I can laugh just as hard at the shape of my own ears as the next human being, Mr. Bromstad. But I like to keep the circle of people laughing at them to a reasonable minimum. For reasons I can’t fathom, great hordes of people enjoy reading your disrespectful prose, meaning, of course, that whether they know it or not, these great hordes of people are having a good laugh over the placement of my ears on my head.” He sat back and crossed his arms. Jørgen and Per did the same. “That distresses me.”

  “Stig, that’s not supposed to be you,” Bromstad pleaded weakly.

  “Shut up, Gus. Shut up and let me guess why you’re here. Your precious little Dogwood is getting gnawed by a rat—a big, fat rat. Does that square with your thinking, Ülo, Vagns?”

  All four of his associates laughed mirthlessly.

  “It certainly does, Stig,” said Vagns.

  “I think you’ve assessed the situation correctly, Stig,” said Ülo.

  “Jørgen, what do you think? Is that why Bromstad is here?”

  “I think so,” said Jørgen.

  “Ja,” agreed Per.

  “And what would you have us do?” Stig asked.

  Bromstad sighed. “You must know. He’s not who he says he is. How could he have just appeared out of thin air and uncovered such a wild story? I’ve never before heard of this thing, this rat thing that happened in Holey. Have you?”

  “Well, now, there was no Danish settlement in this Holey, so it is of little concern to the institute, but I admit, no.”

  “Then I need you to help me discredit him.”

  “And why in the world would you imagine we would help you?” said Stou-Thorup, his voice rising in pitch.

  “I don’t know. Because I’m Danish?” Bromstad said brightly.

  Stou-Thorup laughed deliberately. “Ha!” he said. “Ha, ha! You are not Danish, no matter how Danish you are. You are as Danish as a muffin pan,” he said, and though Bromstad was aware he was being severely upbraided, he wondered what characteristic of a muffin pan made it particularly un-Danish. “If you were standing in a room full of Finns, Swedes, and Laplanders, you would be the least Danish person there! Danish! Ha!”

  Bromstad let his scolding sink in. “I have not been a good Dane, I’ll admit that. But I have nowhere else to turn. Word is they are going to give him the Dwee Award. I don’t think I could take that, Stig.”

&nb
sp; “And what would that matter to me, do you suppose?” said Stou-Thorup with surprising anger, setting his quasi pompadour to shaking. The room grew silent.

  “I don’t suppose it would matter at all,” said Bromstad, his bottom lip large.

  Finally Stou-Thorup said, “Look at you. Your family comes to the New World, and within several generations you are a wreck of a human being. And you prosper in this country. Blind høne kan også finde et korn,” he said, looking at the other Danes. They laughed bitterly. “Ah, still, you are all that we have. We Danes are seriously and tragically underrepresented in these United States. You, despite your severe and obvious flaws, are the most visible presence we have. We will help you, though you do not deserve it. We will find out about your Mister Ryback.”

  “Thank you, Stig,” said Bromstad.

  “And when it is over,” said Stou-Thorup, ignoring Bromstad, “you will write us a book. It will be filled with Danes, true Danes—strong, noble Danes. Not the red-faced buffoons of your past books. Is this acceptable to you?”

  “Maybe. Yes. It certainly could be. I’ll try.”

  “Though I, too, have doubts that you will be able to turn in something of quality, I need more solid assurances that you will try, or you cannot expect our help,” said Stig.

  “I can do it. Sure.”

  “Good. Then we will shake your Mister Ryback’s tree and see what falls out. Ülo, break out the aquavit, and let us celebrate our alliance.”

  CHAPTER 10

  High noon on an uncharacteristically warm March day in Calhoun Park. A tall man in a cream-colored fisherman’s sweater, holding a brown paper bag, approached a bench occupied by a stiff-looking little man with a bushy mustache and sat.

  “Earl,” he said.

  “What did he say? Does he know?” whispered the smaller man.

  “No. He hugged me, and his pants touched me. It was horrible.”

  “His pants touched you? What does that mean?”

  “Nothing, unless you’re the person who has been touched by his pants. Then it means a great deal.”