“You would be required to do some small services for me - talking people into being bad, badmouthing organized religion, collecting a few stray souls for me - just small things. The rest we can discuss after you’re dead.”
“Now you really sound like the Devil.”
“Sounding like the Devil is not the same as being the Devil. Not in this state, anyway. Read the law books if you don’t believe me. I’m just an ordinary super villain, like everyone else. I am not the Devil.”
“Oh no, of course not,” I said. “Anybody can make me run faster.”
I thanked him for the offer, but said I guessed I’d pass on it for now. He shrugged, lit another cigarette, and opened his pocketbook to examine the wailing moth-like creatures he had in there. I recognized one of them. It was my Uncle Phil.
“Hi, Uncle Phil.”
“Hello, Frank. Would you like to make a nickel? Get your Uncle Phillip out of here and he’ll give you a shiny new nickel.”
I turned to the Devil. “Does he have any money in there? Nickels or anything?”
“No.”
That settled that. I continued around the room talking with the various super villains, always making it sound like I was a new member who was just making conversation.
“Have you been trying to kill me?” I would ask, casually. “I’m just curious. Or we could talk about the weather, if you like. The weather’s been trying to kill me too. Is that your doing? My name’s Frank, by the way.”
All of them denied being the man I was looking for, but suggested it might be one of the other members: Professor Kryptonite over there, or Colonel Awful, perhaps.
I excitedly checked out each new lead, but kept coming up empty. Finally, when I started being pointed back to the same people I’d already talked to, I gave it up and started to leave.
The aged doorkeeper helped me on with my coat and said he couldn’t help overhearing the question I’d been asking, since I had asked it so many times and with such growing anger, and he hoped I wouldn’t mind him taking the liberty of sticking in his two cents, but the person I was looking for might be Overkill.
“Who?”
“Professor Overkill.”
I looked back into the room. “Which one is he?”
The doorman shook his head ruefully and explained that Overkill wasn’t a member of the club. He had been denied membership on numerous occasions.
“The members don’t agree with his methods, sir. They feel he tends to overdo things. They feel his work is too broad. So his many applications have been rejected.”
I asked where I might find this Overkill, pressing some money into his aged hand to help him remember.
“His application forms state his residence as Revenge Island, sir,” he said, throwing the quarter away. “That’s right out in the middle of the lake. The island that appears to be frowning.”
I thanked him and asked if there was a special word I had to say to get out of there. He said there wasn’t, so I left.
I spent the next few days trying to get to Revenge Island. It was easy to find. It was the only angry looking island in the lake. But it was impossible to get to.
There were no boats for hire, so I tried swimming there, but remembered after I had gone 50 feet, straight down, and had been lying face down on the bottom for awhile, that I couldn’t swim.
My jet pack could have gotten me to the island easily enough, of course, but I couldn’t approach the super villain that way. It would look like The Flying Detective was coming to get him and wring his filthy neck. That was the last thing I wanted him to think. So that was out.
I tried chartering a plane, but apparently the super villain was one step ahead of me. Once the plane got up in the air, it started buffeting around violently and then went into a dive. I worked my way forward to the cockpit. The pilot was gone. I couldn’t figure out the controls, didn’t even know where to start, so I went back to my seat and read a magazine until the plane crashed.
After doctors took the casts off my legs, and worked the tubes out of my nose, and hammered my rear end back into shape, I tried mailing myself to the island in a package. I had a buddy who worked down at the post office help me with the operation. But I wouldn’t pop for first class postage, so I had to go junk mail. I got to the island before the end of the month, but they tossed me out unopened. I was in a garbage can for almost a week before a truck picked me up.
All these attempts were made more difficult because I had to constantly keep my eye out for the super villain’s minions. They were still out looking for me, as determinedly as before, but, to my relief, there had recently been a change in tactics. Now they weren’t trying to kill me, they were just trying to capture me. I guess once you’ve tried to kill somebody 138 times and he’s still not dead, it’s time to try something else.
So now all the time I was trying to find a way onto the island, I had to avoid a series of clever Rube Goldbergian traps. Remember that game “Mouse Trap”? It’s like I was living in one of those. The Deluxe Version. I’d start to open a door, for example, and the minute I turned the knob, the door would swing up and everything around me would start moving, and baskets would start being lowered onto me to trap me. I’d have to drop the cheese and make a run for it.
Fortunately, the traps were all a little too clever. They seemed to be designed to trap a mastermind. I wasn’t a mastermind. I just wanted that piece of cheese. So they didn’t work on me.
Then it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t be trying so hard to avoid the people who were trying to capture me and take me to where I wanted to go. That didn’t make much sense, when I thought about it. If I would just let them capture me, it would help everybody out. We could all stop working so hard.
I tied myself up in a gunny sack, and left me in the middle of the street. Nothing happened, so I wrote “Burly” on the sack and got back in.
After a couple of days, the super villain’s creatures spotted me. They walked up to the sack, read what it said, looked at each other, shrugged, then picked me up. I offered no resistance.
They began carrying me off, but I weigh more than I look, so they ended up, as so many people do, dragging me. They took me on a long, circuitous journey. I don’t think I’ve ever said “Are we there yet?” so many times in my life. Eventually we got to a high cliff face. They began to climb, pulling me along behind them on a rope.
“What happens if we fall?” I asked, nervously.
“What do you think happens?”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“Quiet in the sack,” said the leader.
I’d swear that during our journey we went up that same cliff at least twice more. But I can’t be sure. I tried to leave a trail of bread crumbs, but the crumbs just stayed in the sack with me.
Finally we ended up at the 1st Avenue Pier, which isn’t very far from where they had originally picked me up.
While we were waiting for the launch from the island to come get us, I asked why we had spent all that time going up all those cliffs and jumping over those secret chasms. Why hadn’t we just taken the bus here like I always did? They said because they don’t do things that way, that’s why.
When we got to the island, my captors dragged me off the boat, across a couple acres of lawn, up and down a flight of stone steps a few times, then emptied me out into a dungeon.
“How long do I have to stay here?”
“Forever.”
“No, seriously, how long are we talking about?”
They didn’t answer.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I demanded to see the super villain who owned the island. I insisted that I be taken to him immediately.
“You’re not running this dungeon,” said one of the guards.
“Wait a minute, Bob,” said one of the other guards, as the first guard was slapping me silly. “Maybe we better check.”
They went away and came back fifteen minutes later. “You’re not running this dungeon,�
� they said, and resumed slapping me.
Between slaps, I told them that I really needed to talk to their master. It was important. They explained to me that Mr. Overkill didn’t talk to prisoners. He had more interesting people to talk to. Guards, for example.
“But I have important information for him,” I explained.
“I’ll give it to him,” said one of the guards, coming forward and holding out his hand.
“I need to give it to him personally. It’s in my head.”
“Jeff, get a knife. Something in this guy’s head.”
I suddenly didn’t like where this was going. “Uh… wait a minute. I’ve forgotten it now.”
Jeff stopped in front of me, holding the knife. He frowned. “Nothing in your head?”
“No.”
He shrugged and put his knife away.
I decided I needed to get the guards on my side somehow. Sometimes money does the trick. I asked one of them how much he was making.
“$12.50 an hour,” he replied.
I thought about this, then shook my head. “Well, I can’t pay you that much. That’s ridiculous. How about $7.00 an hour?” Then I added: “For three hours.”
This didn’t sound all that good to him. He was having a hard time making ends meet on what he was getting, especially since he had to buy his own keys. I wouldn’t raise my offer, so we didn’t have a deal. The guards left, locking the door behind them. So there went that idea.
I sat down with my back against a wall and pondered my situation. It wasn’t perfect, being imprisoned forever never is, but at least I was on the island.
After I’d been sitting there for about an hour, I noticed there were about a dozen guys in the dungeon with me. It was their loud discussion about how unobservant and ugly I was that finally attracted my attention to them. I took one look at them and was amazed. I was locked up with the most famous detectives in the world.
There was Phillip Manley, the two-fisted film noir detective, who had spent his celebrated career getting beaten up nearly as much as I did. We rubbed our eyes when we saw each other.
Then there was Sherringford Harper, the famous British amateur sleuth. He could tell you your whole life story just by watching you go by in a train. He was like Sherlock Holmes, except without all the trademarks. Anybody could write about him. That’s what I liked about him.
The others in the dungeon were equally celebrated. Among them were: the fattest detective in the world, the thinnest detective, the loudest, and the farthest (he always stood in the back of any room). A lot of them were heroes of mine, who had failed to send me autographed 8X10s when I wrote and asked for them, so I admit I was a little glad they were trapped in here. Serves them right, I thought. On the other hand, hey, I’m in here too.
I asked them what they were all doing here, and they said they had each been on the trail of the dreaded super villain Overkill. But he had bested them one by one.
“He’s a devil, that one,” said the thin detective.
I said I might have met him then, and described my experience at the Super Villain Club. But they said that was probably just the real Devil I met.
“How did he capture you?” asked Harper. “I’ll bet it was something damned devilish.”
“He picked up the sack I was in.”
They were a little disappointed by this, at first. “Well, that’s pretty devilish,” said one, finally.
“Devilishly simple, I call it,” said another.
As clever as he was, they still felt they would get the best of Overkill eventually. But they would have to get out of here first. For this, they had a plan. Actually they had twelve plans, each starring the detective who had thought of it, with the others playing demeaning subordinate roles, often with burnt cork on their faces. No plan had received more than one vote, so they decided to try them all, starting with Harper’s.
He approached me to sound me out on the subject. As the others watched the door for any sign of approaching guards, he knelt down next to me and spoke in a low whisper.
“The safety, indeed the whole future of the world, depends on what you do next.”
I tried not to fart, but it was no use.
When we could hear again, he resumed: “What you do next, is…”
After our ears had stopped ringing and dogs in the next county had stopped barking from what must have been the biggest fart of my career, he tried once more, using a different setup line.
“Listen,” he said.
As I farted along, he began outlining their elaborate escape plan, but I stopped him before he’d gotten very far. I wasn’t interested in getting off the island. I had gone to a lot of trouble to get onto this island. I wasn’t going to leave until I’d talked to Overkill. So they could escape if they wanted to, but it would have to be without me.
“Even if you do get out of this dungeon, how are you going to get off the island?” I asked.
Harper said they had spent the last three months constructing a small sea-going vessel using the only materials available to them.
I looked around the dungeon. “You made a boat out of ants?”
He hesitated, then said: “Yes.” He saw my look and bristled slightly. “Ants float, Mr. Burly. They float beautifully.”
I shrugged and said I wished them luck, but they could count me out. Harper stared at me for a long moment, then nodded grimly and went back to the others. I had a feeling I’d probably never get that autographed 8X10 now.
I woke up the next morning to find that I was alone in the cell. The other detectives had apparently escaped during the night. I saw my chance to get in good with Overkill.
“Guards!” I hollered. “The bad prisoners have escaped! The good prisoner is still here!”
The dungeon door flew open and the guards rushed in. They frantically looked around the dungeon, then rounded on me.
“What do you mean by frightening us like that?” one of them demanded. “No one has escaped.” He pointed at a drawing on the wall of twelve detectives, waving. “The prisoners are right there!”
Well I don’t know where the phrase “As smart as a guard” came from, but it wasn’t coined to describe these particular guards. It took me twenty minutes to convince them that the real prisoners had escaped, which I finally did by erasing one of the detectives. You should have seen the guards’ jaws drop when I did that. That’s the first time I ever saw actual exclamation points and question marks appear above somebody’s head. (In case you’re interested, I felt one of the marks and they’re made of hair.)
One reason it was so hard to get the guards to believe there had been an escape was because they knew it was impossible. The only way to escape from this dungeon was if the guards stupidly left the door open. Which they had, of course, when they ran in. And the door had remained open for twenty minutes while they argued with me about who was still here and who wasn’t. It was at some point during this argument, I found out later, that the detectives had rushed out of the dark corner they had been hiding in and ran through the open door to freedom, carrying their ant-boat.
I told the stunned guards to inform Overkill that the escaped prisoners were probably somewhere out on the lake. There might still be time to catch them. And I recommended that he bring some ant spray.
Within an hour the detectives had been caught and returned to captivity. They had made it to about halfway across the lake before seagulls started eating their boat. The super villain’s security force had re-captured them just before they sank.
“Thanks, Burly,” said Manley, as the detectives were brought back to the dungeon.
“You are quite welcome.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Uh… oh, yeah… so was I.”
The head guard arrived and glared at the detectives. “So! You try to make me look bad, eh?” He turned to one of the other guards. “Put these guys in an even worse dungeon.”
“But, boss...”
“Do it.” He turned to me. “You
, come with me.”
To my amazement he led me through the cell door, up the stairs, and across the lawn towards the huge fortress in the center of the island.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Dinner.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Welcome, Mr. Burly! Welcome! At last we meet. Sit down and have some wine. Dinner will be served shortly.”
I sat down at the end of a long table and looked at my host, the dangerous super villain Overkill. He was considerably smaller in real life than he was in my imagination. Instead of being forty feet high with jackhammers for fingers, he was about five foot four, with standard fingers. He was fiftyish and somewhat pudgy. He didn’t seem all that dangerous up close.
I noticed he was studying me as carefully as I was studying him. I also noticed he had a large gun on the table next to his wine glass. The guards had their guns out too. And there were framed guns on the wall, cocked and pointed at me. This guy wasn’t taking any chances.
Nobody had said anything for awhile, so I thought it advisable to make some small talk.
“I hear they won’t let you in the Super Villain Club.”
His face twisted horribly. He grabbed the top of his head and began shouting: “Kill Maim Frighten Destroy!”
He began smashing plates and glasses, tipped over a nearby serving cart, then pulled up a large stretch of carpet. Then he seemed to get hold of himself. He coughed self consciously.
“Yes, well, I didn’t really want to be a member anyway. Bunch of nonsense, kill destroy. Now, Mr. Burly, I wanted to meet you, because I’m intrigued by your recent actions. Not only did you not take part in the escape attempt by the other prisoners, you actually helped foil it. Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you. I hoped you would see me if I helped you out.”
“Very well. I’ve seen you. What’s on your mind?”
I explained that for quite some time now he had been getting entirely the wrong impression about me. That I was out to foil his plans or something. Few things could be farther from the truth. Or further from the truth, I wasn’t sure which. Overkill didn’t know which one it was either. We decided it didn’t matter. I said that though I had originally been hired to stop him, I was now happily retired. So there was no need for him to view me as an enemy. I wouldn’t harm a fly. I wasn’t the enemy of a fly.
The Exploding Detective Page 5