by Ben Bova
“You got laid off?” I asked.
“Not yet—but it’s coming. This place will be closing its doors before the fiscal year ends.”
“It’s not that bad,” said Wisdom. “We still have the Air Force work. As long as they’re shooting off cruise missiles, we’ll be in business.”
Rohr grimaced. “You know what gets me? The way the whole project was scrapped, without giving us a chance to complete the big bird and show how it’d work. Without a goddamned chance.”
Kurtz said, “Congressmen are scared of people getting sterilized.”
“Not really,” I said. “They’re scared of not being on the right bandwagon.”
All three of them turned toward me.
Rohr said, “Next time you dream up a project, pal, make it underground. Something in a lead mine. Or deeper still, a gold mine. Then Congress won’t have to worry about cosmic rays.”
Wisdom tried to laugh, but it wouldn’t come.
“You know,” I said slowly, “you just might have something there.”
“What?”
“Where?”
“A supersonic transport—in a tunnel.”
“Oh for Chri—”
But Wisdom sat up straighter in his chair. “You could make an air-cushion vehicle go supersonic. If you put it in a tunnel you get away from the sonic boom and the air pollution.”
“The safety aspects would be better, too,” Kurtz admitted. Then, more excitedly, “And pump the air out of the tunnel, like a pneumatic tube!”
Rohr shook his head. “You guys are crazy. Who the hell’s going to build tunnels all over the country?”
“There’s a lot of tunnels already built,” I countered. We could adapt them for the SSST.”
“SSST?”
“Sure,” I answered, grinning for the first time in weeks. “Supersonic subway train.”
They stared at me. Rohr pulled out his PDA and started tapping on it. Wisdom got that faraway look in his eyes. Kurtz shrugged and said, “Why the hell not?”
I got up and headed for the door. Supersonic subway train. That’s my ticket. I’m going back to Washington, I knew. And this time I’ll bring Lisa with me.
Introduction to “Vince’s Dragon”
No matter how serious the problem under consideration, it is always amenable to humor. Sometimes laughter can accomplish more than moralizing. In 1729, for example, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” applied the scalpel of satire to the heartbreaking despair racking Ireland at that time.
Modern (and future) crime is a serious matter. But we don’t have to take it completely seriously all the time. “Vince’s Dragon ” is unserious in two ways. First, it is a fantasy, which by nature is a form of literature that disdains to deal with the real world, and therefore need not be considered to be very serious.
Second, the characters in this story are deliberately drawn to show the absurd side of the underworld. Let s face it: Most of the guys I knew in South Philadelphia who ended up in the Mafia were not the best and brightest lights of the community. They were driven by ruthless greed and an utter disregard for the rights of others. They could be fearsome, and they often were. But they were unconsciously funny a lot of the time, too.
“The Godfather” and “The Sopranos” don’t show you the whole story.
Vince’s Dragon
The thing that worried Vince about the dragon, of course, was that he was scared that it was out to capture his soul.
Vince was a typical young Family man. He had dropped out of South Philadelphia High School to start his career with the Family. He boosted cars, pilfered suits from local stores, even spent grueling and terrifying hours learning how to drive a big trailer rig so he could help out on hijackings.
But they wouldn’t let him in on the big stuff.
“You can run numbers for me kid,” said Louie Bananas, the one-armed policy king of South Philly.
“I wanna do somethin’ big,” Vince said. with ill-disguised impatience. “I wanna make somethin’ outta myself.”
Louie shook his bald, bulletshaped head. “I dunno, kid.You don’t look like you got th’ guts.”
“Try me! Lemme in on th’ sharks.”
So Louie let Vince follow Big Balls Falcone, the loan sharks’ enforcer, for one day. After watching Big Balls systematically break a guy’s fingers, one by one, because he was ten days late with his payment, Vince agreed that loan-sharking was not the business for him.
Armed robbery? Vince had never held a gun, much less fired one. Besides, armed robbery was for the heads and zanies, the stupids and desperate ones. Organized crime didn’t go in for armed robbery. There was no need to. And a guy could get hurt.
After months of wheedling and groveling around Louie Bananas’ favorite restaurant, Vince finally got the break he wanted.
“Okay, kid, okay,” Louie said one evening as Vince stood in a corner of the restaurant watching him devour linguine with clams (white sauce). “I got an openin’ for you. Come here.”
Vince could scarcely believe his ears.
“What is it, Padrone? What? I’ll do anything!”
Burping politely into his checkered napkin, Louie leaned back in his chair and grabbed a handful of Vince’s curly dark hair with his one hand, pulling Vince’s ear close to his mouth.
Vince, who had an unfortunate allergy to garlic, fought hard to suppress a sneeze as he listened to Louie whisper, “You know that ol’ B&O warehouse down aroun’ Front an’ Washington?”
“Yeah.” Vince nodded as vigorously as he could, considering his hair was still in Louie’s iron grip.
“Torch it.”
“Burn it down?” Vince squeaked.
“Not so loud, chidrool!”
“Burn it down?” Vince whispered.
“Yeah.”
“But that’s arson.”
Louie laughed. “It’s a growth industry nowadays. Good opportunity for a kid who ain’t afraid t’ play with fire.”
Vince sneezed.
It wasn’t so much of a trick to burn down the rickety old warehouse, Vince knew. The place was ripe for the torch. But to burn it down without getting caught, that was different.
The Fire Department and Police and, worst of all, the insurance companies all had special arson squads who would be sniffing over the charred remains of the warehouse even before the smoke had cleared.
Vince didn’t know anything at all about arson. But, desperate for his big chance, he was willing to learn.
He tried to get in touch with Johnnie the Torch, the leading local expert. But Johnnie was too busy to see him, and besides Johnnie worked for a rival Family, ‘way up in Manayunk. Two other guys that Vince knew, who had something of a reputation in the field, had mysteriously disappeared within the past two nights.
Vince didn’t think the library would have any books on the subject that would help him. Besides, he didn’t read too good.
So, feeling very shaky about the whole business, very late the next night he drove a stolen station wagon filled with jerry cans of gasoline and big drums of industrial paint thinner out to Front Street.
He pushed his way through the loosely nailed boards that covered the old warehouse’s main entrance, feeling little and scared in the darkness. The warehouse was empty and dusty, but as far as the insurance company knew, Louie’s fruit and vegetable firm had stocked the place up to the ceiling just a week ago.
Vince felt his hands shaking. If I don’t do a good job, Louie’ll send Big Balls Falcone after me.
Then he heard a snuffling sound.
He froze, trying to make himself invisible in the shadows.
Somebody was breathing. And it wasn’t Vince.
Kee-rist, they didn’t tell me there was a night watchman here!
“I am not a night watchman.”
Vince nearly jumped out of his jockey shorts.
“And I’m not a policeman, either, so relax,”
“Who . . . ?” His voice cracked. He swallowed a
nd said again, deeper, “Who are you?”
“I am trying to get some sleep, but this place is getting to be a regular Stonehenge. People coming and going all the time!”
A bum, Vince thought. A bum who’s using this warehouse to flop . . .
“And I am not a bum!” the voice said sternly.
“I didn’t say you was!” Vince answered. Then he shuddered, because he realized he had only thought it.
A glow appeared, across the vast darkness of the empty warehouse. Vince stared at it, then realized it was an eye. A single glowing, baleful eye with a slit of a pupil, just like a cat’s. But this eye was the size of a bowling ball!
“Wh . . . wha . . . ?
Another eye opened beside it. In the light from their twin smolderings, Vince could just make out a scaly head with a huge jaw full of fangs.
He did what any man would do. He fainted.
When he opened his eyes he wanted to faint again. In the eerie moonlight that was now filtering through the old warehouse’s broken windowpanes, he saw a dragon standing over him.
It had a long, sinuous body covered with glittering green and bluish scales, four big paws with talons on them the size of lumberjacks’ saws. Its tail coiled around and around, the end twitching slightly all the way over on the other side of the warehouse.
And right over him, grinning down toothily at him, was this huge fanged head with the giant glowing cat’s eyes.
“You’re cute,” the dragon said.
“Huh?”
“Not at all like those other bozoes Louie sent over here the past couple of nights. They were older. Fat, blubbery men.”
“Other guys . . .?”
The dragon flicked a forked tongue out between its glistening white fangs. “Do you think you’re the first arsonist Louie’s sent here? I mean, they’ve been clumping around here for the past several nights.”
Still flat on his back, Vince asked, “Wh . . . wh . . . what happened to them?”
The dragon hunkered down on its belly and seemed, incredibly, to smile at him. “Oh, don’t worry about them. They won’t bother us.” The tongue flicked out again and brushed Vince’s face. “Yes, you are cute!”
Little by little, Vince’s scant supply of courage returned to him. He kept speaking with the dragon, still not believing this was really happening, and slowly got up to a sitting position.
“I can read your mind,” the dragon was saying. “So you might as well forget about trying to run away.”
“I . . . uh, I’m supposed to torch this place,” Vince confessed.
“I know,” said the dragon. Somehow, it sounded like a female dragon.
“Yes, you’re right,” she admitted. “I am a female dragon. As a matter of fact, all the dragons that you humans have ever had trouble with have been females.”
“You mean like St. George?” Vince blurted.
“That pansy! Him and his silly armor. Aunt Ssrishha could have broiled him alive inside that pressure cooker he was wearing. As it was, she got to laughing so hard at him that her flame went out.”
“And he killed her.”
“He did not!” She sounded really incensed, and a little wisp of smoke trickled out of her left nostril. “Aunt Ssrishha just made herself invisible and flew away. She was laughing so hard she got the hiccups.”
“But the legend . . .”
“A human legend. More like a human public relations story. Kill a dragon! The human who can kill a dragon hasn’t been born yet!”
“Hey, don’t get sore. I didn’t do nuthin.”
“No. Of course not.” Her voice softened. “You’re cute, Vince.”
His mind was racing. Either he was crazy or he was talking with a real, fire-breathing dragon.
“Uh . . . what’s your name?”
“Ssrzzha,” she said. “I’m from the Polish branch of the dragon family - “
” Shh . . . Zz . . . ” Vince tried to pronounce.
“You may call me ‘Sizzle,’ ” the dragon said, grandly.
“Sizzle. Hey, that’s a cute name.”
“I knew you’d like it.”
If I’m crazy, they’ll come and wake me up sooner or later, Vince thought, and decided to at least keep the conversation going.
“You say all the dragons my people have ever fought were broads . . . I mean, females?”
“That’s right, Vince. So you can see how silly it is, all those human lies about our devouring young virgins.”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.”
“And the bigger lies they tell about slaying dragons. Utter falsehoods.”
“Really?”
“Have you ever seen a stuffed dragon in a museum? Or dragon bones? Or a dragon’s head mounted on a wall?”
“Well . . . I don’t go to museums much.”
“Whereas I could show you some very fascinating exhibits in certain caves, if you want to see bones and heads and . . . “
“Ah, no, thanks. I don’t think I really wanna see that,” Vince said hurriedly.
“No, you probably wouldn’t.”
“Where’s all the male dragons? They must be really big.”
Sizzle huffed haughtily and a double set of smoke rings wafted past Vince’s ear.
“The males of our species are tiny! Hardly bigger than you are. They all live out on some islands in the Indian Ocean. We have to fly there every hundred years or so for mating, or else our race would die out. “
“Every hundred years! You only get laid once a century?”
“Sex is not much fun for us, I’m afraid. Not as much as it is for you, but then you’re descended from monkeys, of course. Disgusting little things. Always chattering and making messes. “
“Uh, look . . . Sizzle. This’s been fun an’ it was great meetin’ you an’ all, but it’s gettin’ late and I gotta go now, and besides . . . “
“But aren’t you forgetting why you came here?”
Truth to tell, Vince had forgotten. But now he recalled, “I’m supposed t’ torch this warehouse.”
“That’s right. And from what I can see bubbling inside your cute little head, if you don’t burn this place down tonight, Louie’s going to be very upset with you. “
“Yeah, well, that’s my problem, fight? I mean, you wanna stay here an’ get back t’ sleep, right? I don’t wanna bother you like them other guys did, ya know? I mean, like, I can come back when you go off to th’ Indian Ocean or somethin’ . . . “
“Don’t be silly, Vince,” Sizzle said, lifting herself ponderously to her four paws. “I can sleep anywhere. And I’m not due for another mating for several decades, thank the gods. As for those other fellows . . . well, they annoyed me. But you’re cute!”
Vince slowly got to his feet, surprised that his quaking knees held him upright. But Sizzle coiled her long, glittering body around him, and with a grin that looked like a forest made of sharp butcher knives, she said:
“I’m getting kind of tired of this old place, anyway. What do you say we belt it out?”
“Huh?”
“I can do a much better job of torching this firetrap than you can, Vince cutie, ” said Sizzle. “And I won’t leave any telltale gasoline fumes behind me.”
“But . . .”
“You’ll be completely in the clear. Anytime the police come near, I can always make myself invisible.”
“Invisible?”
“Sure. See?” And Sizzle disappeared.
“Hey, where are ya?”
“Right here, Vince.” The dragon reappeared in all its glittering hugeness.
Vince stared, his mind churning underneath his curly dark hair.
Sizzle smiled at him. “What do you say, cutie? A life of crime together? You and I could do wonderful things together, Vince. I could get you to the top of the Family in no time.”
A terrible thought oozed up to the surface of Vince’s slowly simmering mind. “Uh, wait a minute. This is like I seen on TV, ain’t it? You help me, but you want me to sell my soul
to you, right?”
“Your soul? What would I do with your soul?”
“You’re workin’ for th’ devil, an’ you gimme three wishes or somethin’ but in return I gotta let you take my soul down t’ hell when I die.”
Sizzle shook her ponderous head and managed to look slightly affronted. “Vince I admit that dragons and humans haven’t been the best of friends over the millennia, but we do not work for the devil. I’m not even sure that he exists. I’ve never seen a devil; have you?”
“No, but . . . “
“And I’m not after your soul, silly boy.”
“You don’t want me t’ sign nuthin’?”
“Of course not.”
“An’ you’ll help me torch this dump for free?”
“More than that, Vince. I’ll help you climb right up to the top of the Family. We’ll be partners in crime! It’ll be the most fun I’ve had since Aunt Hsspss started the Chicago fire.”
“Hey, I just wanna torch this one warehouse!”
“Yes, of course.”
“No Chicago fire or nuthin’ like that.”
“I promise.”
It took several minutes for Vince to finally make up his mind and say, “Okay, let’s do it.”
Sizzle cocked her head slightly to one side. “Shouldn’t you be out of the warehouse first, Vince?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, sure.”
“And maybe drive back to your home, or—better yet—over to that restaurant where your friends are.”
“Whaddaya mean? We gotta torch this place first.”
“I’ll take care of that, Vince dearie. But wouldn’t it look better if you had plenty of witnesses around to tell the police they were with you when the warehouse went up?”
“Yeah . . . ” he said, feeling a little suspicious.
“All right, then,” said Sizzle. “You get your cute little body over to the restaurant and once you’re safely there I’ll light up this place like an Inquisition pyre.”
“How’ll you know—”
“When you get to the restaurant? I’m telepathic, Vince.”
“But how’ll I know—”
“When the claptrap gets belted out? Don’t worry, you’ll see the flames in the sky!” Sizzle sounded genuinely excited by the prospect.