Lady Slings the Booze
Page 1
Few authors are as acclaimed and outrageous as Spider Robinson, and few books as eagerly awaited as a new novel in his popular Callahan series. Callahan’s Lady introduced Mike Callahan’s wife and her remarkable establishment. Now step back and watch your head as…Lady Slings the Booze.
Welcome back to Lady Sally’s, where the world’s oldest profession takes some out-of-this-world new twists. Beyond its welcoming red lights (a nice classical touch) lies an erotic playground where puns drop as often as undergarments, and adults of all species and persuasions enthusiastically indulge in license, liberties, and the pursuit of a really good time.
Only the most interesting characters hang out at Lady Sally’s, like Quigley, the jinxed private dick who is about to get lucky; Arethusa, the telepathic blonde who is twice the woman she appears to be; and The Phantom, alias The Little Man Who Wasn’t There, who leaves his inexplicable signature on the tattooed flesh of The Living Autograph Book…
So come up and see Lady Sally sometime. You’re sure to respect yourself in the morning.
Books by Spider Robinson
TELEMPATH
CALLAHAN’S CROSSTIME SALOON
STARDANCE (collaboration w. Jeanne Robinson)
ANTINOMY
THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS
TIME TRAVELERS STRICTLY CASH
MINDKILLER
MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS
NIGHT OF POWER
CALLAHAN’S SECRET
CALLAHAN AND COMPANY (omnibus)
TIME PRESSURE
CALLAHAN’S LADY
COPYRIGHT VIOLATION
TRUE MINDS
STARSEED (collaboration w. Jeanne Robinson)
KILL THE EDITOR
LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE
The quote that appears on page 1 is from the Rockford Files episode “Chicken Little Is a Little Chicken,” by Stephen J. Cannell, ™ & © 1975 Universal City Studios, Inc.; reprinted by permission of Universal Studios and the author. All rights reserved.
LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE
An Ace Book
Published by The Berkley Publishing Group
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
The name “Ace” and the “A” logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.
Copyright © 1992 by Spider Robinson
Book design by Caron Harris
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
First edition: November 1992
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robinson, Spider.
Lady slings the booze / Spider Robinson.
p. cm.
I. Title
PS3568.03156L3 1992
813'.54—dc20
91-44375
CIP
ISBN 0-441-46928-0
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated, with respect and gratitude, to
David S. Alberts, D. M. Bennett, James Buckley, Larry Flynt, Ralph Ginzburg, Maurice Girodias, Alvin Goldstein, Bob Guccione, William Hamling, Hugh Hefner, E. H. Heywood, Jack Kahane, Ed Lange, Charles Mackey, Marvin Miller, Edward Mishkin, Lew Rosen, Barney Rosset, Samuel Roth, Harold Rubin, Henry Steinborn, George Von Rosen
and all the courageous others who served or risked prison time for the right of all Americans to possess and enjoy pornography (literally: “writings of harlots”—such as this story) and other erotica.
• Acknowledgments •
This book contains homage to (or, as Woody Allen says, “outright theft from”) Donald Westlake, John D. MacDonald, Leslie Charteris, Stephen J. Cannell, Roy M. Huggins, Juanita Bartlett, Raymond Chandler, Robert Parker, Marco Vassi, and John Cleve. In addition to them, and to all those heroes cited in this book’s dedication, the author wishes to thank:
—G.P. Putnam’s, the first major mainstream American publisher to print a work deemed obscene by many (Vladimir Nabokov’s LOLITA in 1958);
—Philip José Farmer, Robert A. Heinlein, and Theodore Sturgeon, who created the first sf characters with genitalia and a disposition to use them;
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, the only magazine editors in contemporary sf who were willing to serialize any of the Lady Sally McGee stories;
—Susan Allison and Peter Heck of Ace Science Fiction (corporate descendent of the above-mentioned G.P. Putnam’s), who published those stories in book form;
—my agent Eleanor Wood, who got Susan and Peter to pay more than they wanted for the privilege;
—David Myers, who turned me on to Nikola Tesla, with Margaret Cheney’s remarkable biography TESLA: MAN OUT OF TIME (Laurel, 1981), and the Jugoslavian film Nikola Tesla (with Orson Welles as J. P. Morgan!);
—Mary Mason and Mike Doellman, who provided other invaluable research data pertinent to this book;
—Amos Garrett, Harry Connick, Jr., Holly Cole, “Spider” John Koerner, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Dexter Gordon, and the entire catalog of Holger Petersen’s Stony Plain Records and Tapes, which music kept me sane and productive during this book’s creation;
—Richard “Lord” Buckley, for having stomped upon this sweet, swingin’ sphere;
—and of course, my wife Jeanne and daughter Terri, sine qua nihil…
This book would not have been possible (or near as much fun) without all these people and their ilk.
A harlot with sincerity and a square egg:
they both do not exist.
—Japanese proverb
Writing is not necessarily something
to be ashamed of.
But do it in private,
and wash your hands afterward.
—WOODROW W. SMITH
Contents
The Dick…
The Jane…
The Spot…
Run, Dick, Run…
See the Spot Jump…
Spot the Son of a Bitch
See Dick Dick Jane…
Black Spot
Dick Sees Spots
The Wrath of Jane
Dick and Jane Are Friends
The Wonderful Wizard
Radio Drama
Gathering Shadows
Miner Disturbance
Half Life
The Car Chase
1. The Dick…
“This game’s over, man! You gotta move your Boss or Rocky’s gonna lay a subpoenie on him; then his Torpedo is gonna smoke your Old Lady, and all your Heavies’ll be doin’ time—except for maybe your Mouthpiece, but Rocky’s Sheriff got him put in the corner—you got nothin’ left but Punks and Junkies: you’re through, Jimmy.”
— ANGEL MARTIN to Jim Rockford, commenting on a chess game, in the Rockford Files episode “Chicken Little is a Little Chicken” by Stephen J. Cannell
IT was noon before they finished scraping Uncle Louie off the dining room table.
So I missed the big Math final at ten, and with all the fuss afterward, everybody feeling sort of sorry for me—and a little grossed out by what had happened to my uncle—Mr. Cathcart never got around to making me make it up, so I ended up passing Math that semester. And it was that very night, after I thought over everything I’d seen and heard of the cops who responded that morning, that I made the decision to become a private detective instead of a cop when I grew up. I’d been trying to make up my mind since I was six. So it was a memorable day. Add all the pluses and minuses and take an average, you’d have to say it was a pretty good day all in all. Kind of rough on Uncle Louie, of course. And it ruined that table. But it turned me away from a life of crime.
Well, serious crime.
Anyway, the point I started out to make
is: can you imagine what I felt like when I came downstairs and saw Uncle Louie like that? Tremendously scared and nauseous and excited all at the same time? Heart banging and buzzing in my ears and dry mouth and shaky knees? Knowing there was really nothing to be afraid of any more, but still scared to death, feeling more like a thirteen-year-old than usual? But at the same time almost happy at getting to see something like that, knowing that now I’d have a real, gruesome, Mike Hammer kind of story to tell all the guys, already planning how to tell it?
Well, that’s just how I felt that night twenty years later, walking up the long curving driveway to that damned mansion.
This was exactly the kind of opportunity I’d been praying for—and I was so scared I was nauseous, or possibly the other way around. Feeling like more of a thirteen-year-old than usual. That particular mix of feelings made me think of Uncle Louie for the first time in years, and I heard going through my head the same words I’d said to myself that morning when I’d found him. God, please don’t let me do anything to fuck this up. This time. I just managed to stop myself short of promising to make a novena again—which I hadn’t even followed through on the last time. I kept walking toward the mansion, concentrating on looking bored.
Just as I was approaching the door, I pressed my left arm against me, intending to take a little comfort from the solid presence of my gun. But there’s something about those trench coats they never seem to mention in the books or movies. There’s a lot of extra material under the armpits that doesn’t really need to be there, all bunched up. I’ve tried a dozen different brands, and they’re all like that. So squeezing the gun was a mistake. And doing it right by the door was bad, because of the black-and-white sitting by the door. Never wake up cops by dropping a .45 on the pavement next to them. Especially not there.
So there was some conversation, and they let me live, and I returned the favor. Reluctantly: the skinny one had a laugh exactly like a mule braying—hee!…hee!…hee!—and the fat one…Well, anyway, by the time I entered the mansion I was flustered on top of everything else.
So if you want to know what the place looks like inside, you’ll have to look it up someplace. I kept telling myself to look around and memorize it for my memoirs some day, but I kept forgetting. I had a lot on my mind. There were a lot of big rooms, I remember, and a lot of stairs, and a hell of a lot of carpet everywhere, so thick it was like walking on a furry sponge mattress. I wanted to take off my shoes. I promised myself I would on the way out.
The butler was black as Lenny Bruce’s humor and so old I wanted to ask him how the boat ride had been. He didn’t offer to take my trench coat or fedora. He moved like that Lincoln robot Disney had at the World’s Fair if there’d been a brownout. He went up stairs one at a time instead of one after the other. He stopped outside a big door with an elaborate frame and turned to me. “You are armed, sir,” he said gravely. It wasn’t quite a question.
“Isn’t everybody?”
He held out his hand. I shrugged…and squeezed my left arm against me. The gun sank an inch into the carpet with a plop.
He waited, without changing expression.
I sighed, and dropped the sap and the brass knuckles on the carpet beside the gun. “Fluoroscope in the foyer?” I asked. “Or just a metal detector? Professional interest.”
He waited patiently, hand still outstretched.
I shrugged again, and added the switchblade to the pile on the floor.
“We are running late, sir,” he said sadly.
I stood on one foot, took the little .22 holdout from the ankle holster, and placed it on his upturned palm. It usually gets by: no metal parts. “The only other weapon I have on me,” I said, “is attached. But I promise not to touch it.”
He didn’t even frown at the crudity. He looked at the pistol, dropped it on the carpet with the rest of the swag, and swept it all delicately to one side with one foot. It left a trail in the carpet.
“While I’m here,” I qualified.
He ignored that too. “Thank you, sir. This way, please. He’s expecting you.”
He opened the door, announced me, stepped aside so I could enter, and left, closing the big door soundlessly behind him.
WELL, you know what he looks like. He looked like that.
“You’re doing okay,” I told him.
He frowned at me. He’d had his mouth open to speak and I’d derailed him. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I just thought you might ask me how you—never mind. What can I do for you?” I was being overeager. The whole trick to being a smartass detective is to let them give you the straight lines, and then come back with the snappy zingers.
He stared at me impassively for a while. Then when he did start to speak again he paused for a moment with his mouth open to see if I was going to interrupt again. I waited for my straight line. I thought about a cigarette, but there was no point: there were no ashtrays visible.
“Are you sure you’re not French?” is what he finally said.
Maybe Bogie could have come up with a clever response to that. The best I could do was to say, “Excuse me?” just the way he had.
“Like in those panther flicks?” he amplified.
I blinked. “Excuse me?” I said again, and I’d like to see Travis McGee do better.
“Not related to that Inspector Clazoo or whatever it is?”
I understood now. It was my destiny to spend the rest of my life saying “Excuse me?” to an old bald Jew with a face like a dissipated elf. All right, so be it. “Excuse me?”
He shook his head. “I guess not. But I could have sworn he was a relative of yours. You’re just like him, Quigley.”
“In what way?” It wasn’t much, but at least it wasn’t “Excuse me?”
“Two ways. You’re a moron. And you’re unbelievably lucky.”
At last I got it. He was referring to that Inspector Clouseau guy in the Pink Panther movies, who keeps blundering his way into success.
Things were looking up, in the sense that he had finally uttered a comprehensible sentence. But it certainly wasn’t a promising start to the conversation. I mean, I had expected a certain difficulty in establishing mutual respect. PIs get used to the fact that most people—and nearly all their clients—privately consider them one or two steps above athlete’s foot in the food chain. But having someone start out by telling me that I was a moron was a sort of new low in customer relations.
And besides, he had it exactly backwards. I’m a genius, with incredibly bad luck.
“You know,” I said, “I just figured out how come you manage to get elected. It’s been puzzling me.”
“Flattering my constituents, you mean?”
“No. Being able to say a sentence like that. It’s your voice. You sound exactly like Elmer Fudd after speech therapy finally conquered the lisp. People want you to succeed. They feel you’ve got it coming, after overcoming forty years of being humiliated by a bunny.”
You don’t ever want to play poker with him. He did nothing at all for ten seconds. But it wasn’t like turning to stone. It was more like he was still listening to me say something, concerning which he had formed no opinion so far. When he did speak, it was as though someone had rolled the tape backwards three lines of dialogue and restarted it.
“Let me give you an example of what I mean,” he said reasonably. “You believe all the crap you read in detective books. That makes you medium dumb as citizens go—but for a licensed private investigator in the City of New York, that makes you compare unfavorably with a newborn gerbil. You’re not only big enough and tough enough to wrestle a gorilla, you’re stupid enough to try. You actually think you can came in here and smartmouth me like a TV private eye, and all I can do about it is hope I catch you red-handed in a felony sometime before the last commercial. Somewhere in your head you know I can wipe myself with your license anytime I want, but still you come in here and get fresh with me. That’s the moron part I spoke of.” He was speaking calmly, illustrating his p
oints with small gestures, sure he could make a reasonable man like me understand. “As to the lucky part…well, that should be self-evident. You’ve lived this long. But as a more immediate example, there is a chance, practically a good chance, that you could end up walking away from this with your freedom, your license and your health. Who could believe such a thing? I know: but there it is.” He spread his hands expressively.
I decided I had established myself as a smartass. A really tough guy deals with intimidation by ignoring it, right? “How?”
“By doing exactly what all the TV private eyes do. By pulling off a miracle, to deadline, by incredible dumb luck—and with absolute discretion. If you don’t, I’m going to cancel the Joe Quigley Show in mid-season.”
And there it was. Exactly the opportunity I’d spent my life getting ready for. A shot.
I could hardly believe it. Ever since I was a kid I’d been waiting to have some big shot threaten me with total ruin if I didn’t solve a big hush-hush case fast. I wanted to kiss him. You’ve never seen anybody look so nonchalant.
“How much discretion are we talking about?” I asked, studying a fingernail.
“You were never here. I don’t know anybody who’d know anyone you know. We’ve never walked on the same real estate, even at different times. Any information you receive from me, or that you turn up as a result of your investigation, is to be between you and me and the principals involved. You will divulge nothing to anyone else. That includes grand juries, city state or federal, judicial or legislative inquiry, and your confessor if any. And one other thing: you will treat La…uh the principal here…with the utmost respect at all times. If she reports to me that you knocked ashes on her carpet—hear me, now—I will make you wish you were on Rikers Island. Do you believe I can do that?”