The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Bambi got with it.

  “We’re really going to have to hurry,” continued Mrs. Canicatti. “I’m giving a big house-party, Goofball, and it’s going to be bigger than I thought—though it won’t last too long. I want you to round up my top boys—” She enumerated five of her most wanted men. “and they can bring their chicks. You can keep enough of the rest around to guard the grounds, but tell ’em nothing and send everybody else away on jobs until it’s over. Oh, and tell Chong tomorrow night we’ll have an all-out banquet.”

  Goofball grunted obediently.

  “Okay, then. I’m going up to undress. And then I want to meet our senior citizen.”

  Humming a pretty tune, she took the stairs two at a time, quickly secreted the pickle-jar in her personal wall-safe, bathed, powdered, scented, touched her beautifully groomed hair approvingly, and slipped into the housecoat. It showed a great deal of her, and she went downstairs again elated. Her plans for a quick financial killing and for adventure of a different sort were practically complete, and they were progressing famously. She waved happily to Bambi—

  And abruptly, from behind her, came a piercing feminine squeal, a booming ho! ho! ho! of male laughter, a rush of running feet—and in a flash of flesh-tones and blonde hair, Diane had passed her, closely pursued by Papa Schimmelhorn, beard streaming in the wind, and wearing spectacularly a pair of pink and green striped shorts. He caught up with Diane, who was wearing exactly one pair of shorts less than he, lifted her squealing in his mighty arms, and shouted, “See? I vin!”

  Bambi Siracusa saw the Godmother’s eyes widen as she beheld his masculine proportions—and at once narrow calculatingly and hungrily. At that instant, “Bambi!” he cried out, spying her. “You haff come also to der party? Look, Diane und me, ve play der hide und seek, und I haff von der prize!” He bounced the prize up and down affectionately. “Now ve haff lots of fun!”

  Then, simultaneously, he and the Godmother for the first time really saw each other. He dropped Diane, who squeaked and darted off. His countenance radiated pleased astonishment. He opened his arms wide.

  “Lidtle Vala!” he roared joyously. “My lidtle Vala! After so many years!”

  And, “You!” hissed Mrs. Canicatti.

  For a fraction of a second, her face was a Medusa’s mask of such malevolence that Bambi shuddered, but the expression vanished just as suddenly, replaced by a smile whose artificiality Papa Schimmelhorn obviously failed to recognize. He embraced his lidtle Vala. He held her at arm’s length. “Ach!” he exclaimed. “Chust imachine! Diane, und Bambi, und now you! It is chust like Old Home Veek!” Then he remembered that his prize had fled away, hugged the Godmother once again, promised that he would return to her as soon as he had time, and rushed off in pursuit.

  “My Gawd, Mrs. C.,” cried Bambi, “you know each other?”

  Immediately, the Medusa mask was back, and this time it stayed out. “Know him?” she hissed again. “Know him? That is the only man who ever got it for nothing from Vala Canicatti—for nothing. Not one thin dime! And for a solid week. And then he left me—me!—for a crumby little beer hall waitress. We were in Switzerland, me and my third husband, the one who left me all the money when he fell off the cliff. And that old son of a bitch yodeled at me.” Mrs. Canicatti was now breathing hard under the stress of her emotion; she had abandoned instantly all thought of such legalities as powers of attorney, and Medusa was even more frightening than before. “Bambi, I’ll tell you this—his five hundred years are going to be the shortest ones on record! I’ve got to keep him on exhibit until I pull off this caper. Then back he goes to the ecology!”

  Pale and trembling, Bambi muttered something about how she didn’t blame her.

  The mask dissolved, and at once the Godmother was her cold self again. “He mustn’t guess what’s going on,” she said. “As long as possible, he’s got to keep on thinking it’s just a house-party where he can chase his pretty pussycats. But I don’t think Diane can do the job, not if she lets him chase her naked through the halls. Our party’s got to be respectable. Bambi, it’s up to you. We’ll send Diane back, and you take over. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “If you s-say so, Mrs. C.,” answered Bambi, torn between terror and anticipation and trying hard to keep her cool.

  “It’s lucky the old ape has his mind on just one thing, and you’ve got lots of it. But you’re not just to play around together. I want you to find out about that formula.”

  “You—you mean so you won’t have to have the serum analyzed?”

  The Godmother regarded her contemptuously. “So I can make damn sure Mama told the truth. Remember? She said he hadn’t any notion how he made it, and nobody could ever figure out how his inventions worked. Wake up, for Christ’s sake! You don’t think I’d ever let that formula get out, do you? I’m going to live five hundred years, and so are a few guys like Goofball, whom I can handle, and maybe so are you, because you let me know about it. I’m going to peddle whatever we don’t need to these guests we’ve got coming here, for cold, hard cash—but they’re going to swallow every drop of it before they leave. There’s no percentage in letting everybody have it, stupid—not just for quick bucks. This way, after a while the few of us can rule the world! The competition’ll get old and die, but we won’t.”

  * * * *

  The first guests arrived just before the cocktail hour, having had to travel only from Washington, D.C. One of them was Mrs. Canicatti’s Iron Curtain contact; and she immediately sized up the other as someone far above him in the secret apparatus. His eyes were even stonier than those of her own mafiosi, and he seemed more ominous because he spoke no English and kept growling comments in his own Slavic tongue. They showed up carefully camouflaged, riding inside a poodle beauty parlor panel truck which vanished into the estate’s one-time stable before decanting them.

  “He is a Colonel-General of the Special Secret Police,” whispered his subordinate as the Godmother greeted them, “but he remains incognito. You will call him by his code name, Quicklime. He is much interested in what you have for sale.”

  “What an interesting name,” said Mrs. Canicatti. “He sounds like a man after my own heart.” She offered vodka, which they turned down in favor of her most costly Scotch, and then she made it plain that no business would be transacted until the rest of her intended customers arrived. After that, though their glasses were frequently refilled, the conversation languished until dinnertime, when Papa Schimmelhorn—now fully dressed again—showed up attended by a nervous and much-rumpled Bambi.

  Only a man with five hundred good years ahead of him could have displayed so uproarious a joie de vivre in so grim a company. He had told Bambi about his S.O.D.O.M. Serum, giving the tensions of its manufacture as his reason for having forgotten to confess that he was married. He had described the X-rated cuckoo-clock in detail, explaining that he had made it in her honor and as a gift to her; and, deeply touched, she had forgiven him affectionately. Now, in splendid spirits, he described graphically how Gustav-Adolf, confined to quarters and provided with a flea-collar by orders of the Godmother, had disgustedly rejected the cat-box installed for his convenience. He ate with gusto. He drank deeply and enthusiastically. Several times, he walloped Mr. Quicklime on the back, informed him that it vas too bad he vas a cold fish vith no vinegar, and assured him that if he vished to restore his youthful vigor all he had to do vas vatch Papa Schimmelhorn. On each of these occasions, Mr. Quicklime’s subordinate turned pale; and finally, when told to translate, could hardly gasp out the reply that Mr. Quicklime had, in his country, heard much of the achievements of the great Academician Schimmelhorn, that he admired the products of the Academician’s genius, which were incomprehensible to lesser men, but that now, to his infinite regret, he would have to bid the great Academician a warm goodnight.

  As they left the room under the hostile stare of the
dead Chief Justice, Papa Schimmelhorn thumped the table and roared with laughter. “Now I am der Academician I vill tell you how I haff become vun! Vunce in Geneva there vas an academy for die young vomen, und—”

  Sometime later, after intercepting several poisonous glances from the Godmother, Bambi managed to entice him upstairs again. She watched him dismally as he undressed, and for the first time in her adult life experienced a true crisis of conscience. Never before had she met a lover of such prowess, but that was not the most important point. Never, never had anyone, anywhere, made her so much as a special mousetrap, let alone an X-rated cuckoo-clock. She slipped out of her things, sat down quietly on the bed beside him, and started sniffling.

  Papa Schimmelhorn sat up. “But you are crying!” he exclaimed in astonishment. And even Gustav-Adolf, underneath the bed, temporarily stopped his indignant growling.

  Bambi sobbed a little louder.

  He reached for her. She shrank away—and suddenly the whole story poured out of her. She whispered brokenly how Mama Schimmelhorn had phoned, how she herself had called the Godmother, and about the t-t-tea party, and who Mrs. Canicatti really was, and her plans for the S.O.D.O.M. Serum and its ill-starred inventor.

  Except for a burst of laughter at the idea of Vala Canicatti as a Women’s Lib leader, Papa Schimmelhorn listened silently. He made no protest at his wife’s course of action, saying only, “Poor Mama! She does not undershtand me or my serum, or how I like vunce in a vhile a goot time.” He was convinced; he was even impressed; but he was in no way dismayed. After she had pointed out the peril into which loyalty to him had plunged her, describing gruesomely the fate of Mrs. Canicatti’s enemies, he reached for her again, dried her tear-moistened cheeks against his beard, and said, “Vhat a shame! Und it could haff been a party chust for fun! Veil, don’t vorry, shveetheart, tomorrow I pretend I do not know, und ve vill get avay.”

  “H-h-how?”

  “Ve send Gustav-Adolf to tell Mama, so she can call der F.B.I.”

  “You mean your—your cat?”

  “He iss a shmart cat,” replied Papa Schimmelhorn, getting out of bed. “He brings der F.B.I., und ve are safed, und also they shtop Vala from playing vith der serum. It iss dancherous.” He found a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Bambi, now you must talk to me like ve are making luff—maybe somevun listens. I write a note.” Dear Mama, he wrote laboriously, while Bambi made appropriate noises,

  I am a prisoner of der Mafia und die Mafia lady tomorrow shteals my serum und sells it, und her hoodlums kill me. So you must phone der F.B.I. und HURRY! To safe my life!!!!

  He signed it XXX Papa, then passed it on to Bambi, who added a PS:

  dear Mrs. Schimelhorn its all true, DONT phone Vala just call in the Feds. Its all TRUE Mrs. Shimelhorn I’ll try to keep her off of him till they get down Love Bambi

  Under the bed, Gustav-Adolf responded churlishly to all entreaties. “What th’ hell is this, chump?” he growled in Cat. “Lugging me to this lousy joint with a goddam pantywaist sandbox, for Pete’s sake! Y’ think I’m queer? You play your own games. I’m gonna stay right here!”

  He reacted the same way to Bambi’s honeyed, “Nice kitty-kitty-kitty!”

  Finally, lying on his stomach, and at the cost of a scratched wrist, Papa Schimmelhorn fetched him forth, still swearing. He removed the flea-collar, wrapped the note tightly round it, and tied it firmly with a thread from Bambi’s pantyhose. Then, ignoring Gustav-Adolf’s imprecations, he replaced the collar, and carried his friend over to the window.

  “Suppose it just won’t open?” whispered Bambi, pulling up on it.

  “A lidtle harder,” whispered Papa Schimmelhorn.

  She heaved. The window opened a bare six inches.

  “So we can’t get away,” she explained fearfully.

  “It iss enough!” He put Gustav-Adolf on the sill; and Gustav-Adolf, uttering one more reproachful epithet, went out into the night. For an instant, he simply crouched there, reconnoitering. Five feet down and perhaps eight feet off, there was a branch. He tensed. He leaped. And he was gone.

  “Now ve don’t need to vorry,” said Papa Schimmelhorn. “Ve can go back to bed.” Bambi allowed herself to be escorted there, but she did not share his resiliency. Again she sat down. “You said your serum’s dangerous,” she whispered. “Why’s that? You—you told me it’d make people live five hundred years!”

  “It iss not good for all people,” he replied patiently. “Only if you are old und full of vinegar like me it vorks. If you are not, first it makes you very qvickly old—but if you get old vithout der vinegar it iss too bad!” He told her about his experiments in vivo with the mice, and about Gustav-Adolf, and how he himself had downed the fateful draught.

  Beside him, Bambi shivered. “I—I wouldn’t like that!” she declared. “Jesus, I never thought I’d sit here prayin’ for the F.B.I., but I sure am now. What’ll we do if they don’t make it?”

  “Ve shteal back der serum.”

  “I don’t see how. She told me she’s locked it in her safe, behind that WANTED picture of old Looey in her bedroom.”

  “I am a chenius, but not at opening safes.” For the first time, Papa Schimmelhorn sounded a bit concerned. “Veil, ve maybe vork it out tomorrow.”

  There was a silence, and presently he felt Bambi creep under the covers next to him. “I—I never told anybody this before,” she said into his ear, “because Augie made me promise never to. He was my boy friend before I married Siracusa, and I guess you’d say he was a safecracker, sort of. Anyhow that’s what they called him at the trial. But it was him that taught me how. He said it was like, well, giving me real social security for my old age. I—I could open up that tin can of Mrs. C’s in no time if I could get at it, but her suite is always locked except when she’s there.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn patted her bottom reassuringly. “Goot! Now I know ve do not need to vorry—only vun more lidtle problem, und tomorrow I vill solfe it!”

  He slept soundly and dreamed many a pleasant dream of chasing pretty little pussycats. Bambi, however, not being a genius and having a more intimate acquaintance with the Godmother and her ways, passed a restless night and rose with deep, dark circles under her brown eyes.

  When she and Papa Schimmelhorn came down to breakfast, they found Mrs. Canicatti in high spirits, greeting them as though her intentions were thoroughly benign. “Well, I can see you really had yourself a ball,” she twitted Bambi. “And I’ve been sort of busy too. Almost all my guests are here already, and they’re eager to meet your Papa Schimmelhorn. Later on, I’ll introduce them.”

  She did not mention that four uninvited guests had come in the small hours of the night, that they had been representatives of a rival Family (tipped off by Howie for a fat fee), and that they had been silently and efficiently disposed of, partly for the edification of Mr. Quicklime, who for professional reasons had been invited to attend.

  Mrs. Luedesing’s Cousin Albrecht had flown in from Zurich, bringing his company’s chief of security, whose personality was reminiscent of Mr. Quicklime’s. His Dutch rival, named van der Hoop, had come over from the Hague, accompanied by his own hulking security chief. And Mama Schimmelhorn, of course, had duly given them the phone number. The one-time S.S. man from South America had not yet arrived, but he was on his way, bringing with him a most important personage. All of them, having access to unusual sources of accurate information, had briefed themselves thoroughly on Papa Schimmelhorn’s inventions, and they were eager to do business.

  The S.S. man showed up just before luncheon, and his companion turned out to be no less a figure than the Dictator-Generalissimo of the small country where he had found refuge. With them came the nation’s Minister of Internal Tranquility, who looked disquietingly like Robespierre.

  They all took each other’s measure instantly, and those not already a
cquainted with the Godmother assessed the situation accurately as soon as they were introduced. She, in turn, wasted no time in leveling with them. Having sent Papa Schimmelhorn and Bambi out to play in the swimming pool, she called a conference in the Chief Justice’s library.

  “Some of you,” she said, over the polished mahogany of his table, “came here thinking you were going to buy the formula for a five-hundred-year serum. You aren’t. Nobody is. Even old Schimmelhorn doesn’t know what’s in it, and—believe me!—no one is going to get a chance to analyze it. The situation’s simple. I won’t try to snow you with a lot of garbage about overpopulation. You are practical men. The entire supply is in this house. There is enough for maybe twenty people. And even twenty people with a five-hundred-year life span could be too many. I will be one of them. A few of my assistants, on whom I can rely, will join me. So will you, unless you turn down the opportunity—something both you and I would infinitely regret.” She paused to let all this sink in. “We’ll be the most powerful and exclusive club the world has ever seen. Our competition will be temporary, but we will not.”

  She sat back and let them buzz. There were questions and hypocritical objections, but from the outset it was obvious that she had made her point. Finally, looking down at his broad, well-manicured fingers, Cousin Albrecht quietly said, “How much?”

  She smiled. “A price each of you can afford. From you, M’sieu, one million dollars worth of S.I V.A. stock. From you, Mynheer van der Hoop, the same amount of stock in your cartel. From His Excellency the President and Generalissimo, from my old friend who was so kind as to bring him, and from my esteemed colleague Mr.—er—Quicklime, one million dollars each, in cash, deposited at my Swiss bank. My fees are modest, especially as they’ll include free doses for your trusted colleagues here.” She beamed at the Minister of Internal Tranquility and the security men, and felt the balance of good will shift in her direction. “You will arrange the transfer of stocks and funds this afternoon. Make each transaction irrevocable,’ to take effect automatically on your return. Tonight we’ll have a banquet to celebrate. Then we shall drink a toast to one another in Schimmelhorn’s liqueur. ‘Long life!’ I think would be appropriate.”