by Mel Gilden
The day was fine and the sun was warm on my face, a face that lately had seen too much darkness. I enjoyed it all for a moment before I said, 'What's happening, Hookini?'
He smiled and said excitedly, 'This is positively the most...' His voice trailed away with his smile, and he said, 'You want to see a trick?'
'That's a good one with the pigeons. Ever been to the Magic Palace?'
'What's that?'
'It's where all the magicians hang out.'
'Wow,' he said, imagining the place.
'Want to go?'
'Sure.'
'You'll have to wear a suit and tie.'
'OK.' He didn't sound certain. He probably hadn't worn an outfit like that since graduating from high school.
I walked out onto the beach, further scuffing my shoes on both sides with that special sand they have in Malibu, and watched Whipper Will give his surfbot a long, wild ride. When the self-congratulatory shouting was over, I said, 'I'll need a suit and tie for Captain Hook. We're going to the Magic Palace.'
For a moment, he looked at the top hat. Then he turned back to me and said, 'I guess you know what you're doing, dude. But they only take members.'
'We'll work something out.'
He handed his control box to Bingo, and walked with me to the house. We took Captain Hook into the master bedroom, and Bill came in to watch. Will excavated deeper and deeper into his chest while Captain Hook stood there smiling, and thank Durf, not making any more pigeons.
At last Will pulled three white shirts out and threw them onto the bed. Even in that room, thick with the musk of humans, those shirts smelled like something special—a little like dust, a little like wet laundry, and a little like advancing age.
As if he were doing a magic trick himself, Will flourished a plastic bag up off a grey and white pinstripe suit, and told Captain Hook to put on the coat. Smiling like a goof, the Captain did as he was told, and stood there in the suit coat and noisy Hawaiian shirt, looking like a half-painted wall. Will pulled the coat straight, touched the shoulders, and stood back to get some perspective on the problem. 'It'll do. He'll look like a gorilla at the opera, but it'll do.'
Captain Hook wore his new clothes all afternoon, kind of awed by them, acting as if they were made of gold. I showered and changed, ate some more and slept some more, and after a while actually stopped feeling as if I'd been crumpled and thrown, and had missed the waste-basket. Just for the fun of it, I even did a little thinking.
It was a long shot that Pele and Lono were at the Magic Palace, just as it had been a long shot that they were the ones to search Busy Backson's apartment. But during my flight with Medium Rare and Rupee Begonia, I had seen Pele and Lono dressed in fancy clothes, sitting in a room full of people drinking and doing magic at round tables. I had never been inside the Magic Palace, had never heard of it before Detective Cliffy mentioned it, but imagining the place had a room just like that would not be difficult.
Besides, Pele might wear that white number because she knew how good she looked in it, but Lono was not the type to wear a tie unless he was forced to. They'd both arrived in Malibu dressed more for a backyard barbecue than an audience with the queen. But you needed a coat and tie to satisfy the Magic Palace dress code. No blue jeans allowed.
The sun sank into the Pacific, doing a lot of fancy decorating with the clouds, with the darkness and the stars, a wind came up. It was warm and came in gusts, as if someone were opening and closing an oven door. Red Wind, Chandler had called it, a wind that makes strange things happen.
When it was fashionably late, I loaded Bill and the Captain into the car, the Captain riding Bill's usual shotgun position, and Bill in the back seat. The going home traffic had mostly gone home, but the air was wild that night, and you had to drive for all the half-bright boys with expensive cars as well as for yourself.
We went out PCH to the Santa Monica Freeway and got off at LaBrea. Then north along the S-curves that had probably been a cow path when Los Angeles was young, curves that nobody had taken the trouble to straighten out. On the other side of the running sore Hollywood had become, Bill told me to turn right at Franklin, a street that was too narrow for the weight of traffic it normally carried; but that didn't keep the half-bright boys from racing from red light to red light, stopping at each one with an angry squeal of brakes.
I was not the most popular guy in town when I waited to turn left. My opportunity came, and I gunned the car up a steep driveway that led to a covered drive where very clean-looking young men were parking cars. I traded the Belvedere for a square of cardboard, then walked out from under the small roof and stood there with Bill and Captain Hook, looking up at the Magic Palace.
The wind was strong up here, making the trees thrash with crashing noises and playing catch with whatever was loose, which included my hat, Captain Hook's hair, and smoke from some very unlikely volcanoes. The perfume of night flowers fought hard against a harsh, boisterous smell from the centre of the Earth, and lost.
In the clear, warm air, the Magic Palace rose above us, all spires and gables and fancy bric-a-brac. It may have once been a private residence, or it may have just been built to look that way. Well-placed lights sprayed up the sides in narrow fans, making the dark places look mysterious, as if they hid secrets that might pounce on you when your back was turned. Above the Magic Palace were the dancing fires of the Hollywood Hills, adding a sinister, shimmering quality to the lights and shadows that even a clever decorator had not been able to create.
Far away in the other direction, the lights of the city were a spill of glass beads that ended suddenly at the blackness of the ocean.
'Are we going in?' said Captain Hook.
We went in. The lobby was small, lined with books, and very quiet after the furious activity of the air outside. In one corner, a very pretty woman wearing a blue dress made of clouds sat behind a small wooden desk. You could have read by the shine of her bright red lipstick. Her dark hair was piled high, and had a stick through it to keep it together. She smiled, and gave us her full attention.
I said, 'We're not members, but the Great Hookini, here, is a visiting magician.'
Captain Hook grinned, and poured pencils from a small can he took from her desk. He reached into it, and pulled out a brown and white rabbit three times its size. He put the rabbit on the floor, where it hopped to a corner and wiggled its nose at us.
The receptionist applauded politely, but I got the impression she had seen better. She said, 'Does the Great Hookini know any of our members?'
'He knows Pele and Lono.'
The perfectly formed curves other eyebrows went up. They stayed up while she watched us and spoke softly into a telephone. A moment later, she put her hand over the receiver and said, 'Lono says he never heard of the Great Hookini.'
'Great kidder, that Lono,' I said, and took the phone from her, 'Lono?' I said into it.
'Who is this, please?'
'We met once. Medium Rare introduced us.'
Through the receiver I heard music and laughter and the clink of glasses. Lono said, 'Who is this Medium Rare?' His voice was cautious as a man peeking around a corner.
'I guess folks from Yewpitzkitziten have short memories.'
A sharp intake of breath might have been static on the line. He said, 'Ah, yes. Hookini. My old friend. Please let me speak to the girl again.'
I handed the telephone back to the receptionist. A moment later, she relieved me of thirty bucks—ten bucks apiece, even for Bill—and said, 'Walk over to the wall, say the magic words, and you can get into the club.'
'What magic words?'
'A guy like you should never be without magic words.' They didn't need to pay for electricity if they had her smile. Bill and the Captain and I went to the wall. 'Go ahead, Bill,' I said. 'Say magic words.'
Bill saluted, gathered himself together as if he were going to blow the wall down, and said, 'Open sesame.' The wall of books swung open.
Chapter 28
&nbs
p; The Troubles Of A
Sufficiently Advanced Race
THE Magic Palace was trickier than a lawyer's promise. On one wall was a mirror that didn't reflect anything but the room behind you. A small chamber to one side held an invisible string quartet playing Mozart on very visible instruments. Farther on, on a table, inside a glass globe, a shrivelled head made of green smoke was singing requests. At the moment, it was rendering 'Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life'. Captain Hook wanted to make studying each thing his life's work. It was unfair for me to keep him moving. I was unfair. Each room was done in a different colour of flocked wall paper. I was looking for the green room.
It was through a dark hallway in which green, glowing bats swooped at you and some crazy guy laughed. It was along some stairs that looked square and true, but weren't. You thought you were walking down, but were really walking up. It was through a doorway so low, it might have been built just for me.
The green room had a bar that looked as if it had been carved out of a single tree trunk bigger than a two bedroom house. Smiling devils were carved on the front. Along one wall of the room, picture windows looked down the hill onto the lights of Los Angeles. Fans hanging from the ceiling wound up cigarette smoke as if it were grey yarn, and tore it into nothingness. There was still plenty of smoke in the air. I could stand the smoke as long as I had to. All the tables were crowded, and the noise was no louder than you might expect of a roomful of people being charged too much for having a good time.
In one corner, Pele and Lono sat, drinking from coconut bowls. They watched us come, and neither one of them stood up when we arrived. They were not happy to see us, but curiosity was there, keeping their eyes steady and their mouths a little slack. I made introductions. They nodded, and Lono said, 'Is one of you really a magician?'
As if somebody had dropped a quarter into him, Captain Hook said, 'This is positively the most amazing display of magic ever to be seen by mortal man. Observe my empty hand. Observe again.' He opened his hand a second time, and bats swarmed from it, beating their wings against the air with a noise like muffled applause. They flew up through the ceiling and were gone. Nobody else in the room paid much attention. In a place like this, what was another bat more or less?
I said, 'Hookini is good all right, especially considering that last week he was just some guy with a surfbot and a nasty disposition. Then he met a hat on the beach.'
Pele took a casual drink from her coconut shell. For a moment, Lono drummed his fingers on the table. He didn't stop when he said, 'Please sit down.'
There were only two empty chairs. Bill stood between me and Pele, trying to see what was in her bowl. It seemed to bother her, so I let him. When we were all cozy, I said, 'About that hat—'
Lono interrupted me by saying, 'The hat never attacks first.'
'It didn't have to attack at all. You could drop an atomic bomb on that hat and not hurt it. The Captain, here, just threw an old bottle.'
'His disrespect must be punished,' Pele said, not quite managing to clench her teeth while she spoke.
I said, 'We can sit here telling each other what time it is until we look like that singing head in the other room, but that isn't curing Captain Hook—the Great Hookini to you.'
Pele batted Bill in the beak, and ran one finger around the top edge of her coconut shell. She was trying to be cute, but she had too much character for that. Beauty was all she'd ever have, no matter how coy she was with her fingers. Danger radiated from her. She said, 'He might be cured if...' She let the word dangle like an unplugged electric cord.
Lono said, 'Maybe Hookini would like to see a show?'
'Show?' Captain Hook said as if somebody had mentioned dinner.
'The Magic Palace has magic shows all evening long—close up, stage, new talent. All you have to do is get in line.'
'I'm new talent,' the Captain said. He stood up, ready to bolt.
'Go on,' I said. 'Have a good time. I'll be back for you later.'
It wasn't magic, but just the same, I blinked and he was gone.
Pele said, 'What about the bot?'
'He's with me,' I said.
'Tell him to sit down before I melt him into a little puddle.'
'Sit down. Bill.' I patted the chair the Captain had just vacated. Bill was getting settled when a young lady wearing enough green satin to upholster the inside of an egg cup asked me if I wanted a drink. I told her I didn't, and she went away.
Pele licked her lips and swallowed. She threw a glance at Lono, and he tossed it back. She said, 'How did you know we are from Yewpitzkitziten?'
'You're not the only ones in the room who are not of this Earth,' I tapped the side of my nose. 'I recognized your ship the first time I saw a picture of it in the Interstate Eyeball.'
'I told you we came in too low,' Pele said, and socked Lono in the arm.
Lono ignored her. 'Can you help us find our blowfish spine necklace?'
I smiled and said, 'You've been playing out that line too long. We both know your problem has nothing to do with blowfish. You're looking for the slaberingeo spine that goes into your SHIP unit.'
'All right. Yes. Can you help us?'
'Can you cure Captain Hook?'
Lono nodded.
'All right, then,' I said, and leaned at them across the table. 'Tell me all about it.'
'About what?' Pele said. Her hair would begin to glow any minute.
I shook my head, stood up, and said, 'If that's the way it is, I guess I'll be going. Come on. Bill. Let's go find the Captain.' I moved away, but slowly. Behind me, the two of them were having a hurried conversation in a language that sounded like a tape being played sideways.
Something whizzed by my head, and seconds later a hardy-looking thorn hedge was growing up in front of me. There was a scattered applause. I stopped, and still slowly, looked back at them. Pele was drinking, and Lono was beckoning to me. I wandered back to the table in no particular hurry, and sat down. Bill clambered onto the chair next to me, and began to swing his legs. I put my elbows onto the table and waited.
Lono said, 'You're right, of course. We come from Yewpitzkitziten. Our ships have been coming to Earth for centuries.'
I nodded. 'Some guys are making a good career saying they know you.'
'It's possible some of them do. We pick up a lot of test subjects. We do physical and mental examinations on them, and let them go. That's usually the end of it.'
'Usually?'
Lono leaned into me and said, 'We picked up a female near Hilo and gave her the usual treatment. She was as excited as some we pick up, but not nearly as frightened. When we put her down a few hours later, we discovered that she'd stolen our slaberingeo spine.' He took a long drink, and when he put the coconut bowl down, his hand was shaking. He said, 'You wouldn't happen to have a spare?'
'Not that'll fit your ship, no. I have a sneeve.'
'Ah.' He and Pele both nodded.
Lono went on, 'By the time we found out what had happened, she was long gone. We knew we couldn't get home without the slab spine, so we began to look for her. We were staying at a hotel in Hilo when she called us.' He took another drink. There wasn't enough liquid in there for him to do that. Then the bowls were magic, too. I wondered if they were somehow siphoning brewski out of a bottle behind the bar.
Pele said, 'She had the nerve to offer us a trade.' The thought of it made her growl. Steam rose from her as she spoke. That wasn't just patter. It was real steam, hot enough to roast chicken.
Lono said, 'She would give us back our slaberingeo spine if we would come and speak to a convention of her flying saucer friends. You know flying saucer?'
I said I did.
'We refused to do it,' Pele said. 'It would taint the experiment, spoil everything the Yewpitzkitziten race has been doing for hundreds of years.'
'Also,' said Lono, 'if we made a deal with her, someone would surely find out, and there would be no point in our going home.'
Pele growled again. A soft blue flame was co
ming out of each ear, nearly invisible against the green wallpaper.
'How do you manage?' Lono said.
'Manage what?'
'You look like a Toomler, yet you walk around with no cares.'
'No cares may be overstating the situation just a little. But the truth is, I manage because I tell them my mother took drugs in the sixties. Or that I had an early run-in with toxic waste and nose drops.'
'They believe you?' Lono said.
'Those that don't have kept their lips buttoned so far.'
'Stupid beings,' Pele said.
'Smart enough to find you in Hilo. So you traced her to Los Angeles and ransacked her apartment. If I were a stooge, I might think the police on Yewpitzkitziten would be interested in hearing about that.'
That stopped Lono with his coconut bowl halfway to his lips. Pele glanced at me, but what else was new? Lono put down the bowl and said, 'How would we find her to do that? We never knew her name.'
'No?' I said, using polite interest to jack up my eyebrows.
'You might as well believe me. It's true. We never know their names. This one we called Lulu.'
'Why?'
Lono looked surprised. 'I don't know. She looked like a Lulu, I suppose.'
'Go on, then.'
'There's nothing to go on with. We knew she lived in Los Angeles, so we came here hoping to find the slaberingeo spine. So far we have not.'
'You knew what city she lived in, but not her name?'
Pele's hair was definitely red now, and wavered like fire. She shouted, 'Our studies are extensive, but we had no interest in her name! Forget the name.'
Her voice had fallen into a hole of silence. People were looking at us. She looked back at them, I tried to be invisible. Soon the party continued.
'Even so,' I said calmly, 'nobody I know makes suspects as good as you two.'
'What makes us such good suspects?' Lono said, in a voice as calm as my own.
If I'd had a cigarette to light, I would have done it then. I said, 'You stole that Pantages truck from the loading dock at the Sue Veneer Novelty company.'
Pele shrank into her chair and clutched her coconut bowl as if it were her dolly. Lono just looked grim.