“Can’t stand it anymore,” Oni number one pronounced with a snarl. “I need a bottle.”
Paul felt one of them cast a spell, and suddenly, there was a bottle of tequila being passed from Oni to Oni, each taking a big belt in turn.
“I prefer an Irish Whiskey myself,” Oni number four remarked airily. “Let’s have a bottle of that too.”
Oni number two released Paul’s arm and swung him around, bringing Paul close, face to face. Paul gagged and jerked backward.
“Listen, wizard,” the Oni barked. “Behave yourself and we’ll let you have a drink too. In fact, we’ll let everyone here have one! Okay, guys? Drinks for everyone!”
A bottle was shoved into Paul’s hand.
“Drink up, wizard! Drink and be merry, before we take you to Ruggiero! Come on, be a man! Let’s party! Everybody! Oh, and let’s have some music!”
Using their magical powers on the police and the bus passengers, the Oni gathered everyone together, first in the parking lot, and then moving everyone into the bus terminal itself. The alcohol flowed freely in a variety of different spirits, from beer to various hard liquors.
Unfortunately, Paul was not able to sneak out. The Oni kept tabs on him and offered him drinks which he was not allowed to refuse. Since he had previously never drunk anything stronger than wine, the alcohol quickly went to work on his system, and in less than a half-hour, he too was rip-roaring drunk, trading jokes and stories with Oni number three.
• • • •
Paul awoke with a start, feeling terrible and disoriented. He was cold, his stomach churned wildly, his throat burned, and his head pounded in sync with his heartbeat. He felt like every pore of his body was screaming in pain. And the noise! It was like thunder, it was so loud!
He discovered too that, much to his dismay, he was lying face-down on a laminate floor.
“To quote Dean Martin, ‘You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on,’” he muttered in a whisper. When he raised his head up to look around, he was greeted with an unexpected sight.
The party was still going on. And it was much bigger than before, too.
It would seem that the original group of bus passengers and Mexican police officers were pretty much all on the ground around him, sleeping it off, just like he had been. The ones still standing and dancing and drinking with the Oni were newcomers--those that had arrived on later buses or passersby snagged by an Oni spell. Paul noted too that there was an inordinate number of police at the party. No doubt, every police officer in the city had come to investigate and become trapped here.
Abe no Seimei had been correct. The Oni had a remarkable ability to party down, making every other party animal that Paul had ever known look like a piker by comparison.
“Ah, awake again, I see,” boomed an Oni’s voice. “Come, you need a drink!”
Paul shook his head. “Food first. Then, we will see.”
“YES!” the Oni shouted. “You are right! This party lacks food! What a brilliant idea, wizard! I prefer sashimi (raw fish) and tsukemono (pickles), myself. But I know Yuji likes kibi dango (dumplings), and Haneul, that barbarian, will want Ojinguh Bokum (stir-fried spicy squid). Humph, everyone knows that squid is best eaten raw!”
Paul gulped but managed to keep a forced smile on his face. “That sounds wonderful. Say, as the bus was coming into town, I saw a Sushi Mexicano store, not far from here, either. Just the place to pick up a few of those dishes you mentioned.”
The Oni looked confused. “But we can portal anything we need—”
“Ah, but is it fresh?” Paul persisted. “Is it handpicked? Don’t you want the best?”
“But of course—”
“I’ll just pop down the street and select it myself.”
“But—”
“I’ll be right back, trust me. Just imagine how good it will taste.”
“Well,” the Oni said, sounding doubtful. “If you promise to hurry.”
“Cross my heart. I swear, I’ll go as fast as I can,” Paul honestly promised him. “Oh, I’ll need my money back, please, to buy the food with.”
“Money? Oh, you’re an honest wizard, heh? Very well.” And the Oni dug a wad of cash out of a pocket, the same money he had taken from Paul earlier that day.
As Paul headed off down a random street, the Oni called after him, “Get plenty! There’s another bus pulling in and we will need lots of food!”
Paul half-staggered, half-ran down the street, striving to get as far away as possible before the Oni discovered that they had been tricked. At the first corner, his stomach and spinning head could stand it no longer, and he fell to his hands and knees, vomiting heavily on the sidewalk. Three solid heaves were followed by retching and a bout of coughing.
When it was over, Paul did his best to catch his breath and wipe his face off with a shirt tail. Getting to his feet again was no harder than climbing ten flights of stairs, but he somehow managed. He focused on the next corner, only five hundred miles away, and set out in a lurching jog.
Huffing and puffing like a freight train, he slowed to an unsteady walk and tried to make himself think.
It was mid-afternoon. But he had lost the gold bar. Moreover, the Oni knew where he was…more or less. As soon as they sobered up or as soon as more Oni appeared, they would begin looking for Paul in earnest. So, what was he going to do? How could he get out of the city?
“Merlin?”
“That was too close,” Merlin observed, floating along beside him. “Somehow, they figured out you were on that bus.”
Paul nodded weakly, but in total agreement. “What was your first clue?”
Merlin shrugged indifferently without answering.
“I don’t have my gold bar anymore or my luggage,” Paul whined. “Plus I stink of puke and tequila. I’ve got to do something about that. I need something to use as an amulet.” He shook his head, trying to clear it in order to think, but all it did was made him dizzier.
“I need something,” Paul insisted. “You said that the rarer an element or mineral was, the larger the magical quotient it had.” It was time to explore some of the possibilities. “Let’s see that chart again, the one of the magical quotients of elements versus their atomic numbers.”
A floating hologram of the periodic table materialized in front of him as he walked. He traced backward from the heavier elements toward the left, where the magical quotients were not so dramatic. And he found one that made him blink.
“Tin? Tin is a rare element?” Paul muttered in surprise.
“Not like gold or platinum, no. But still decent in large enough quantities,” Merlin observed.
A smile grew on Paul’s face. As an electrical engineer, he knew of a ready source of tin. Solder contained a high percentage of that metal, together with lead, which according to the same chart, was also a fairly rare metal. Yep, a nice big roll of solder would be just the ticket to suit his purposes.
“Merlin, didn’t we pass a hardware store coming into town?” Paul asked, feeling a bit better about his first trip to Mexico.
• • • •
It was only a mile away, too.
And yet, it seemed to take forever to walk that distance.
The Cain Ferretería (hardware store) was small in comparison to the standard box stores in the U.S. However, it was very well stocked. Paul had no trouble finding a nice spool of resin core solder. However, when he approached the front counter, the sales clerk jerked back in disgust at his appearance and odor. For a moment, Paul was afraid that he would be thrown out of the place and not allowed to make his purchase.
However, the sight of the money in his hand was sufficient for the clerk. The sale was made quickly, and Paul fled the store with all due haste.
Outside, he bolted down the nearest alley, ducking behind a large dumpster.
“Time to do something about my appearance and this revolting smell,” he muttered, removing the solder from its packaging. With a firm grip on it, he said
, “In the names of Christian Scientists, Mormons, and Muslims (teetotalers all), let there be a two foot diameter low energy portal here, with a filter setting for ethanol and...” here, he wrinkled his nose in distaste, “...the stench in my clothes! Let the other end of the portal deposit the elements removed into this dumpster!”
A portal formed above his head, the other end hovering above the dumpster. Tucking his arm in tightly, his end of the portal dropped over him, filtering the ethyl alcohol not only from his clothes, but from his entire body, leaving him immediately free of its effects.
Like a transition from night to day, he felt instantly better and more alert. He took an experimental whiff. Yeah, he smelled a lot better, too.
The key question now was how to escape.
“I need to talk to the CIA guy.”
The CIA agent that Paul had talked to in the Pyrenees Mountains appeared nearby, facing the mouth of the alleyway.
The specter carefully studied the city street through his dark sunglasses for several moments before sighing.
“When they discover that you lied about going for takeout, they will lock down the roads going out of town,” the agent pointed out. “Since there are only six such roads, it won’t take them long. After that, they will search the city until they find you.”
Conceding that the CIA man was probably right, Paul glanced back in the direction of the bus terminal. “I can’t get out of town before they lock it down?”
The agent shrugged. “Not by bus and not by plane, no. Maybe if you stole a car, you might make it. And then, maybe not. Do you want to risk that?”
Paul turned eastward. He could not see the ocean, but he could smell the salt in the air.
“How about by boat?” Paul suggested inquiringly.
Again, the CIA guy shrugged. “There are no cruise ships that dock in Tampico, nor do Mexicans go much into yachting. Most of the ships in port will be freighters with no passenger berths. And forgive me for saying so, as an escape vehicle, freighters are much too slow.”
Paul couldn’t disagree with the man on that point. Still, the harbor front might make a good place to hide with all the warehouses and such.
“I have always liked ships,” Paul said with conviction. “Which way to the harbor?”
• • • •
Gripping the roll of solder tightly, Paul used one relatively low-energy spell for flying at a sedate pace and another to disguise himself as an airborne seagull (albeit a rather large one). Even at his leisurely speed, it took only a few minutes to land on one of the docks on the north side of the river. From there, he stood deep in thought, watching the nearby loading of one of the freighters.
Rio Panuco cuts in from the Gulf of Mexico across the southeast corner of the city of Tampico. There might be some great places to hide here, but Paul reluctantly concluded that there were no modes of escape. Just as the CIA man had said, Tampico did not seem to have a marina like most cities on the waterfront in the United States would have had. No fast, small boats anywhere in sight. And no slow ones, either.
By now, the roads leading out of town would be cordoned off. There would be no escape that way. And probably none by sea, either. From where Paul stood, the south bank looked more run down, much seamier. He decided to try his luck there.
Another brief bout of flying took him across the river, to land near the front entrance of a salvage yard. Even from where he landed, he saw a veritable treasure house of old junk, most of it apparently from old ships and dockyard equipment.
Paul surprised himself, sensing mental activity in the back of his head, just below his conscience level. An idea was cooking there. Maybe. It remained to be seen if it was a good idea or not. He had been in this situation before, his subconscious working on solutions to difficult problems. More than half the time, the idea generated wasn’t worth the effort, but when it worked, the results were often impressive.
For lack of anything better to try, Paul made the trek down the street and wandered into the yard.
“Bienvenido, Señor. ¿puedo ayudarle? (Welcome, sir, may I help you?)” asked a middle-aged, male voice.
Paul turned and faced the man speaking to him. He was dark, with black hair and eyes and a thick mustache. Short, too. And Paul saw a touch of gray along the temples and age lines around the eyes. Early fifties, maybe.
“No sé. Espero que sí. Veo tantas cosas interesantes aquí. (I don’t know. I hope so. I see so many interesting things here.)”
The Mexican laughed. “Por un gringo, hablas bien el español, casi como un Mexicano. ¿Te gustaría conocer el dueño? (For a gringo, you speak Spanish pretty well, almost like a Mexican. Do you want to meet the owner?)”
“Muchísimo. Gracias. (Very much. Thanks.)”
The black-haired man led Paul to an old building that was very much in need of repairs and a new coat of paint. Inside, the front room nearly overwhelmed Paul. It was hot and stuffy and smelled of mold. Junk was piled high everywhere, leaving barely enough room to navigate to the peeling countertop. Once there, Paul noted with passing interest the oldest cash register he had ever seen in his life.
“¡Eh, antiguo! ¡Tienes un cliente! (Hey, old man! You have a customer!)” his guide shouted.
From a back room behind the counter, an elderly man stepped forth. His hair might have been gray, but his age seemed indeterminate, one of those men who could be anywhere from mid-fifties to late seventies. He carried himself well, giving the impression of strength gained by hard work and experience. Darkened by years in the sun, his face bore heavy wrinkles and several small moles.
Paul liked him immediately. He definitely had character.
The gray-haired Mexican gave Paul an insincere smile as he sized up his potential customer. Paul could tell that the other man was decidedly not impressed.
“Sí, ¿qué es lo que quieres? (Yes, what do you want?)” the yard owner asked.
“Me gustaría ver lo que tienen. Hay un montón de cosas interesantes aquí. (I would like to see what you guys have. There is a lot of interesting stuff here,)” Paul replied.
The owner exaggerated an eye roll then waved an arm around.
“Junk, you mean,” he corrected Paul, still speaking in Spanish. “Go ahead, look all you want.”
With that, he disappeared back into the back room.
Paul chuckled in complete understanding. So, okay, the man was a bit gruff, but what could you expect when a gringo stops into a salvage yard to window shop?
That embryonic idea in the back of his mind continued to tickle his consciousness. But Paul knew that trying to force it to the forefront wouldn’t work. Better to let it stir around a little more and come out on its own when it was good and ready.
So Paul wandered around the room, poking at the various piles of junk. There were logbooks, compasses, an actual sextant, cracked chinaware, old rope, lanterns, two old windup clocks, sea chests, duffel bags, and a host of other old junk that Paul didn’t even recognize. Some of the items were in decent shape, considering their age, and other items were rotting away in the warm humid air.
Out the dirty, smeared front window, Paul could see tons of other types of hardware in the yard including pipe, conduit, plates from ship hulls, fire hoses, and piles and piles of other junk.
Still, the idea refused to come out to play.
The first man was watching Paul, grinning, amused no doubt by the gringo who didn’t seem to know what he wanted.
Leaning against the far wall was a faded yellow airplane propeller. Airplane items, here? Paul moved closer to the table near the propeller, noting a number of other aviation items. Among them was a very old set of aviation goggles and an old aviators’ cap.
Paul picked both of the items up, studying them.
The idea snapped into place, and Paul almost snickered in delight at the scope and detail of it. Fortunately, he only smiled with a sloppy grin instead of giggling out loud.
He motioned to the salvage worker.
“Do you ha
ve welding equipment here too?” Paul inquired hopefully in Spanish.
• • • •
For the next half hour, the man (whose name Paul learned was Rodrigo) helped gather together the necessary material and take it all to the small machine shop in another building on site. By that time, the gray-haired owner, Jorge, joined the two of them, curious about the gringo’s purchases. He watched as Rodrigo cut and formed some of the metal parts.
“You are charging him for labor, are you not?” Jorge asked his employee, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
“Yes, I am. 200 pesos per hour, the standard charge,” Rodrigo replied with a sly grin.
Startled, Jorge blinked but said nothing.
Paul was not fooled. The standard charge was probably closer to twenty pesos per hour. But he simply smiled.
“And did you pay for all this stuff?” Jorge asked him.
“I did,” Paul responded, handing him his copy of the sales receipt.
Jorge glanced at the paper and returned it. Paul had seriously overpaid for the material as well.
“Let me also say that I have offered a bonus to Rodrigo and to you, sir, if the work can be finished quickly and if it meets my satisfaction.”
Jorge studied Paul for a moment, trying to decide if the gringo was simply nuts or playing a devious game of some kind. “A bonus?”
“Yes, 1,000 pesos. Each.”
The owner frowned, trying to understand why a gringo would make such a ridiculous offer. “Why so much?”
“I like to reward good work,” Paul answered, feeling insufferably pleased with himself, a smug smile on his face.
Jorge had no reply but watched Rodrigo work.
• • • •
The finished device was a bit odd looking, even if Paul did say so himself.
An eight foot piece of 1 inch conduit was at one end, threaded into the center of a small one foot square piece of ¼ inch thick steel plate. On the other side of the plate was welded a one foot section of 8 inch diameter steel pipe, the opposite end of which was open ended.
A hefty old metal funnel—once used by an engineer to keep a Liberty ship’s engine properly lubricated—was jammed into the opposite end of the 1 inch conduit. Halfway down the conduit, midway between the funnel and the square steel plate, a piece of 2×6 wood was bolted to a section of angle iron which itself was welded cross-wise across the conduit.
Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard Page 20