“Oh, joy.” I skimmed through the sheaf of printouts she handed me. Half of it was from kooks, and the rest was from vamps who wanted to share their problems with another vamp and had seen my name in the papers. Vampires are not very well organized.
“Anything interesting?” Catarina asked sweetly.
“One correspondent writes, ‘Dear Ken, I don’t know who else to ask. I am a vamp. I am hopelessly in love with my best friend’s wife. If I go for her neck when we are in bed together, do you think it will affect my relationship with my friend? Signed Lovestruck.’ ”
“ ‘Dear Lovestruck,’ ” Catarina suggested, “ ‘put a stake in it.’ How are the lawsuits against us progressing?”
“Schenectady Chamber of Commerce, et al. is moving along at breakneck speed.” I explained to Trixie, “When Prince Genghis’s Rodent ships were massing over Schuyler’s World and the police were off the streets, the citizens of Schenectady patriotically removed items from the stores that Prince Genghis’s hordes might have been tempted to steal. Unfortunately, they were rather dilatory about returning them, and as a result the shop owners are suing everyone they can think of, including me.”
Since I couldn’t reach any of my pockets, I handed my mail back to Catarina. “Well, that used up three minutes. What else can we do while we’re waiting?”
“We could tell stories,” Trixie suggested.
“I have one,” Catarina volunteered before I could object. She proceeded to tell us a story about a pair of street entertainers who only spoke to each other in limericks. When one of the two failed to come up with an appropriate couplet to warn his partner of an oncoming road grader, the next day’s headlines read, “A Hitch in Rhyme Paves Mime,” thus reinforcing my belief that puns are not humor, but instead constitute a socially acceptable form of guerrilla warfare.
Moments later we heard the door whistle. “Okay,” I whispered. “This is it.”
Trixie raised her hand. “Miss Lindquist, I have to—” “Hold out as long as you can, Trixie. And please, no talking until it’s safe,” Catarina said quietly.
Seconds later we heard loud footsteps directly overhead, only partly muffled by the layers of flooring. For a few seconds I stopped breathing.
Suddenly, the trapdoor opened. Mjarlen peered inside. “Sorry,” he whispered, “it was tee meter reader. Tee Special Secret Police are on t’eir way.”
“Right,” I said, clutching my chest. Catarina smiled and took my hand. Trixie squirmed on her chair.
A few moments iater we heard the door whistle again. This time we could make out three or four sets of footsteps tramping through the house. After an interminable wait, Mjarlen finally rapped the ancient all-clear signal.
“Some mysteries are difficult to fat’om,” Trixie said, trying not to wriggle. “ ‘Shave and a haircut’ I understand, but what is ‘two bits’?”
Catarina winked at me. “Two small coins, which represent the price of putting up a good outward appearance.” Grimly, I prepared myself.
"“Indeed,” Catarina continued, “it is said, ‘If the two bits, wear it.’ ”
Fortunately, Mjarlen opened the hatch a few seconds later. I boosted Trixie and Catarina out. While Trixie headed for the little girls’ room at flank speed, got our food out of the trunk and threw lunch together, after which Mjarlen led us in a few choruses of the Notre Dame fight song and brought out a game called Bible Trivia that Father Yakub had left him. Fortunately, we weren’t playing for money.
The Plot Inspissates
That evening, as Trixie drove us to the tavern where Blok was supposed to meet us, I complained to Catarina, “I’m not whining about the result, but don’t you feel the tiniest bit guilty telling Mjarlen he had the abridged version of the Bible? St. Paul’s letter to the Cretan drivers— ‘Red means slow, green means go, and yellow means hit the gas’?”'
“It was ‘St. Paul’s Letter to the New Yorkers’ and the word I used was ‘cretin,’ not ‘Cretan.’ ” She pulled her sunglasses down. “I had to talk him out of coming somehow. He’s risking too much as it is.”
“True. Did you get any mail from Father Yakub?” “Just a quick note.” She smiled. “He says that with all the Rodent immigrants, Schenectady is getting to look more like Plixxi every day. The mayor and city council are worried about the increase in literacy. It could cost them their jobs.”
I changed the subject. “Trixie, you’ve been awfully quiet up there.”
“I have been t’inking about what Mjarlen was saying. For example, what is heaven?”
I looked at Catarina, who pretended to be studying the watermarks on the roof of the car. “Heaven is a place
where you are admitted into the full presence of God,” I said slowly.
“It sounds dull.”
I thought for a minute. “I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but the bonds of marriage are loosed up there.”
“Oh. And what is hell?”
“Hell, as I understand it, is a place where there’s no God, and bureaucracy works the way it’s intended.” Catarina cleared her throat. “There’s the tavern. Trixie, park the car around the comer,” she directed. “If something goes wrong, we’ll ditch it and let Mjarlen pick it up tomorrow.”
Trixie eased us into a spot and then went inside to case the premises. She returned a few minutes later. “Dr. Blok has taken a room. T’ere is a back stairway we can use.” Muffled in our cloaks, Catarina and 1 followed her up to the tavern’s second floor.
“Hide in here while 1 find him,” Trixie said, pointing to the rest room.
We wedged the door shut. Catarina inspected the walls while I discovered the hard way that Macdonalds don’t believe in toilet paper. “The boys here need to improve their aim,” she commented.
“It’s interesting to see how these double-headed things work in practice. How do you want to handle Blok?” “Good cop, bad cop?”
“Can I be bad cop?”
“He knows you.”
“Dam.” I rinsed my hands again. A few seconds later we heard the familiar “shave and a haircut” knock on the door.
Catarina kicked away the wedge and opened it a crack. Trixie gestured for us to follow.
We entered Blok’s room and bolted the door behind us. Blok was waiting for us, dressed in a shabby kilt and a porkpie hat, with his back to us. When he turned, Trixie bowed her head. He ignored her. “Well, Mr. MacKay, we meet again.”
“Happy to see you, too.”
He gestured at Catarina and said sharply, “Bade t’is female to depart. We must discuss matters male-to-male!”
“Trixie and I will just go into the bathroom and powder our noses while you men chat,” Catarina said in a sweet voice that meant the powder she had in mind was gunpowder.
“No!” Blok pointed to Trixie. “Xuexue must stay! I must know if he is veracious!”
“I’m keeping my clothes on,” I said, remembering the last time.
Trixie gave me a frightened look. She pointed at the four-legged stool in the room. “Please sit here.”
Catarina gave me the thumbs-up and disappeared into the water closet. Perching myself on the stool with my knees flexed, I let Trixie slip behind me and rest her elbows on my shoulders. “The fate of the universe may depend on this,” I whispered, “so don’t tickle.”
She nodded, baring her teeth slightly. Taking a cue from Blok, she said, “Please say somet’ing, Ken.” “Something. Hello, I’m Ken MacKay.”
“He is being trut’ful. Please say somet’ing untrue.” “I’m sure Dr. Blok and I can work out our differences like reasonable beings.”
She rested her chin on top of my head. “Now he is lying. You may begin speaking to him, honorable one.” Blok walked toward me with his hands folded behind his back. “Many disquieting portents have been observed since your arrival, Mr. MacKay. Tee stock market is unsettled, and my informants speak of mysterious activity by revolutionary movements.” He stopped a few centimeters away. “I sense great p
eril in you. You have a fair seeming, yet t’at which seems fair can be most foul.” “Uh, care for a breath mint?” I said, pulling the package out of my pocket.
“Tee Special Secret Police have identified you as a deat’less and notorious vampire named James Bond!”
“A base canard.”
“I do not understand. What does t’is have to do wit’ ducks?”
“Never mind. Let’s just say that I am not and never have been James Bond.”
Blok studied Trixie’s face intently, then resumed pacing. “Tee Special Secret Police have also identified a member of your crew named Harry as a notorious vampire named Tarzan.”
“Wrong again, although speech analysis does indicate that he was raised by monkeys.”
Blok stopped in front of me. “I sense a great troubling in you. Supreme Agent Wipo, t’at foolish, foolish being, little knew tee forces he was dabbling in. By t’reatening your destruction in tee Vor’dur, he forced you to call upon unseen powers.”
“I can explain!”
Blok held up his hand. “Tee first law of power is t’at explanations must not be asked for. I will not do so. Yet, I have listened to tapes of your incantations. Before I dare aid you 1 must know if your fair seeming is but an illusion masking evil, and if tee ancient, awful, blighting forces you evoke to do your bidding are wholesome, or shadows darker t’an any night.”
Blok was on a roll, and at a guess, I was about three somersaults behind. “Can we go over that part again?” “You t’ink I do not understand t’ese matters.” He gazed at me scornfully. “Into some beings is born tee desire to rule, and it eats into t’em as a fire. Such beings, besotted with control of energies beyond mortal comprehension, have long sought knowledge beyond the bounds set by prudence for such seeking. If you vampires have gone along such paths, t’ey may prove to be your undoing. Be not deceived—when such begins to stir which promises no safety in sky, land, or water, t’ose of us who would resist domination must seek allies where allies can be found!”
I whispered to Trixie, “Does he talk like this all the time?”
She nodded, playing with the hair on the back of my neck.
“Look, Doc. I’m just your average, garden-variety vamp.”
“You slew tee shadur and expect me to believe t’is?” “I’d have been in real trouble if Wipo had sicced a couple of CPAs on me.”
“No! You are a channel for power, a doorway t’rough which nameless powers may enter our world, just as it is clear to me t’at vampires are tee secret hand controlling Terra, Mr. MacKay,” Blok said stridently.
“Hey! I resent that!”
“Who governs, t’en? Your legislature and your chief executive? Pishposh! Your legislature is entirely composed of venal hacks, who build day-care centers for whales to atone for past oppression.”
I shrugged. “The civil rights lobby and the tree-huggers are hurting for business.”
“And your chief executive is a middle-aged alcoholic who plays tee xylophone on late night talk shows!” he hissed.
I shrugged. “Democratic government is government by the people and for the people, on the theory that the people ought to get the kind of government they want, good and hard.”
As he was mulling this over, someone knocked sharply on the door and tried to force it.
“Catarina,” I whispered, “if you’re finished powdering, you may want to get out here.”
“Powder corrupts, and absolute powder corrupts absolutely,” Catarina stated as she emerged. “What is it?”
“It is tee police!” Trixie wailed.
Blok threw up his hands in agitation. “T’is is terrible! I cannot be seen wit’ you! I will climb out tee window.”
“We don’t have a window,” Catarina observed.
The police rattled the door and began pounding on it.
“Nice doors. Good dead bolt.” I eyed Blok up and down. “How the heck did the cops know we were in here?”
“Ahh. Er,” Blok responded.
Catarina nodded. Trixie walked over and leaned on his shoulder.
“T’ey were not supposed to be here for anot’er hour!” Blok moaned.
“There’s just no honor among thieves anymore. Is the good doctor in or out?” Catarina asked as the police outside began slamming their shoulders against the door in a rhythmic fashion.
“Who knows?” I shrugged. “Good cop, bad cop?”
Her mouth smiled. “Bad cop. Dr. Blok, do you know what a pinhead is?”
“Yes, of course. I am completely fluent in your childishly simple language,” Blok said dismissively as he walked in circles and wrung his hands in a very human fashion.
“Good. Are you in or out, pinhead?”
“I demand—”
Catarina stuck her hands on her hips. “Ken, we’ve been trying to civilize this planet for seventy-five years, and I say this bunch of warmongers is never going to catch on. We ought to vaporize the place.”
Blok halted, stunned. “What do you mean?”
I tried to ignore the pounding on the door. “Ah, vaporize the place. Not with—the weapon!”
Catarina nodded implacably. “Yes. With—the weapon.” “But Catarina, that would sweep away the innocent with the guilty. Ah, line.”
She held up five fingers with her left hand and made an O with her right.
“Oh, right. Suppose we could find fifty innocent people on this planet. Rather than wipe it out, couldn’t we spare it for the sake of the innocent fifty?”
Catarina shrugged. “Okay. Fifty innocent people, and we’ll let it ride.”
The pounding stopped for a moment, and Trixie ran over to the door to listen.
The fish was on the hook. “Wait!” Blok waved his arms frantically. “T’ere is my sister’s second husband. T’at only leaves forty-nine.”
“Ah, suppose we find five less than fifty innocent people?”
A lightbulb figuratively began to glow over Trixie’s head. “Bible trivia,” she murmured.
“We did not mean it!” Blok protested. “We can be peaceful!”
“Okay, forty-five it is.”
Trixie interrupted. “Tee police are about to use a bench to break tee door down.”
I nodded. “Right. Let’s speed this up. I hear forty-five innocent people, going once. Do I hear ten?”
Blok held his hand up. “Wait! I can find ten!” “Catarina, how about if we cut these folks some slack?”
“If you insist.” She stared at Blok. “Look, pinhead. Your species has one more chance. Are you in or out? If you’re in, we’ll get you out of here and you’ll quit screwing around. If not . . She left her sentence unfinished.
“What do you say, Doc?” I coaxed. “As a special favor, we won’t mention the thirty-two nonexistent agents you’ve been billing Admiral Crenshaw for.”
“In,” he sighed. “I place my fate in your hands.”
The telephone rang. Catarina snatched up the receiver. Then she handed it to me. “It’s for you.”
It was Mickey. “Friend Ken, you won’t believe how difficult it was to get hold of you.”
We heard a massive thud, and the door shook.
“Dr. Blok is not tee only one about to be in,” Trixie observed.
“Uh, Mickey, we’re a little bit busy now—”
“I understand completely. However, we are in a bit of a quandary here, and we elected to solicit your sagacious advice. We sold considerable portions of our companies back to the employees—‘bind not the mouths of the kine,’ as Bunkie put it so eloquently—and now find ourselves in a disadvantageous corporate tax situation. Miss Gwen suggested that we might want to sponsor a television program—”
The pounding increased.
“Do you consider this a wise venture?”
“Sounds great. Need to run! Bye!” I slammed the phone down. “Any ideas?” I asked Catarina.
She took me by the arm and moved next to the door. “Ken, we have no choice. We have to use the death ray,” she said in a l
oud voice.
I blinked at her. “The death what? Ouch! That was my foot you stepped on. Ah, yes. The death ray. Yes, we must use the death ray. We have no choice.”
“Translate for them, Trixie—Blok, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you,” Catarina said quietly, handing them breathing masks from her belt pouch and uncorking what looked like a gas grenade.
Trixie burst into a freehand translation as Blok sensibly dove under the bed.
“But Ken, the death ray is so cruel a weapon to employ!” Catarina declaimed.
The ramming outside lost some of its rhythm.
“Ah, we will make it up to the widows and orphans someday, but the peace of the galaxy is at stake!” I responded, striking an appropriate pose. As Trixie translated, Catarina wedged a sputtering gas grenade against the bottom of the door.
The ramming stopped. I jerked Catarina out of the way as two or three Special Secret Policemen emptied the magazines of their submachine guns through the door. Then we heard a couple of cops drop, and footsteps as the remaining gendarmes pounded down the steps.
“Grab Blok!” Catarina directed, opening the door and scooping up a weapon and some spare clips.
I fished Blok out of his hole, and then Trixie and I followed Catarina down the steps, which ended in a small landing. “Maybe they’re all gone,” I said hopefully.
Catarina plucked the porkpie hat off Blok’s head. Swinging open the door, she cautiously extended Blok’s hat from the end of her submachine gun. A burst of gunfire knocked it away and riddled the back wall, breaking glass on the far side.
Blok gasped and hit the deck, muttering imprecations, while the people inside the tavern pounded on the wall and shouted. “Tee hat cost plenty,” Trixie translated, “and tee tavern owner is telling us to knock it off.”
With Blok clutching my left ankle, I found my movements hampered, so I leaned against the wall to scrape him off. “What now?”
“This requires thought,” Catarina conceded. “About how many cops do we have out there, do you think?” Another torrent of submachine gun fire came pouring through the open door and shot out the lighting.
“Five or six,” I guessed as little pieces of tile and plaster bounced off my head.
VMR Theory Page 10