The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

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The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack Page 25

by Reginald Bretnor


  “And how do we know, Madame,” demanded van der Hoop, “that we will get what we are paying for?”

  “Mynheer,” she said, “I am the big frog in this little puddle. Here, what I say goes—but only here. Once you leave, any one of you can squash me easily—except that when you find I’ve kept my word you’ll see that we can all be very useful to each other.”

  “How can we be sure,” asked Mr. Quicklime’s translator, “that this serum made by Academician Schimmelhorn will not poison us?”

  “It didn’t poison him. It didn’t even hurt his tomcat, who drank a lot of it. And you can sit and watch—I’ll drink it first. Okay?” She surveyed their faces, and read what each was thinking: five hundred years—a future by human standards virtually unlimited, in which to gain experience, amass personal fortunes, maneuver enemies to their destruction, build empires.

  “A million dollars, that is nothing!” said the Generalissimo. “My people are hard-working. But I do not want to buy this serum and then find that more of it is made for any cholo with the money.”

  Abruptly, Medusa showed her face again. “I promise you—” The Godmother spoke softly. “—that no more will be made. Schimmelhorn is too dull-witted to grasp the potentialities of his invention; all he can think of is his pussy-chasing. He’s also much too stupid to realize that I have plans for him. You understand?”

  “Mr. Quicklime says he understands!” the translator cried. “He says is good, yes, yes! He stays to watch. Also he says okay, one million dollars!”

  It took only a few more minutes for all of them to reach agreement, to make their inter-continental calls, to send their coded radiograms. Then Mrs. Canicatti, again the gracious hostess, summoned them to lunch, where they were joined by Bambi and Papa Schimmelhorn, the latter still attired in one of Mr. Canicatti’s striped beach-robes, which was much too short for him. Throughout the meal he discussed his favorite topics, compared the physical endowment and state of preservation of the others—especially Mr. Quicklime’s—unfavorably with his own, and flirted outrageously with the Godmother, occasionally introducing pointed little innuendos about the jolly time they had had in Switzerland.

  Mrs. Canicatti sat through it frozen-faced, and only Bambi, watching, realized that Papa Schimmelhorn’s popularity was dropping to an all-time low—and speculated tremblingly on the dreadful destiny which this might bring not only to him, but her.

  The afternoon dragged endlessly. There was no sign of the F.B.I., and poor Bambi took turns praying to half-remembered saints, worrying about the misadventures which could overtake even an experienced tomcat with several miles to travel, and wishing that Papa Schimmelhorn would at least make some effort to behave decorously and not push quite so hard. He was in fine fettle. He offered to race anyone the length of the pool and back again, and enraged the Generalissimo by beating him and then shoving his head under water. He challenged all the younger men to Indian wrestle, proved to them that none could last longer than thirty seconds against his hairy forearm, and then advised them that they had been enfeebled by not chasing enough pretty pussycats. Finally, at the cocktail hour, Mrs. Canicatti took Bambi to one side and told her, in a flat and absolutely deadly voice, “You—you get that miserable old bastard out of here! You were supposed to keep him simmered down. Take him up to your room, and lock him in. Then get yourself down to the kitchen and help Chong. I’m going up to take a bath and try to get relaxed.”

  Bambi obeyed her mutely, tactfully separating Papa Schimmelhorn from Mr. Quicklime, whom he was pounding on the back, and almost dragging him upstairs. She told him what had happened and what her orders were.

  Papa Schimelhorn embraced her warmly. “It vorks,” he whispered in her ear. “I tell you I am chenius!”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” asked Bambi.

  “I haff worried maybe a lidtle about Gustav-Adolf,” he confessed, “dot maybe he has shtopped to haff a fight or chase a lidtle pussycat. So ve must shteal der serum. Und dot iss vhy I make my Vala angry—you vait und see. How can ve tell vhen she iss in der tub?”

  “Her—her suite is right next door, and I remember sort of how we could hear the water in the pipes. It’ll run quite a while for that big marble tub of hers, and she’ll get in as soon as it gets full.”

  “Okay, ve vait,” said Papa Schimmelhorn.

  “B-b-but I’m supposed to—to lock you in,” she bleated.

  “You lock me in und go downstairs mit der Chineser cook. Maybe in fife minutes you come up again, und unlock. Vhen I go out und get into her rooms, you follow me. I keep her busy till der safe iss open. It takes how long?”

  “M-m-maybe a minute, m-m-maybe two. It’s a lead-pipe cinch, and once I saw her opening it and caught the first two numbers. B-but I’m scared!”

  “Don’t vorry!” He clasped her to his bosom. “Alvays you can trust Papa Schimmelhorn!”

  She did as she was told. She locked him in and, hurrying to the kitchen, greeted Chong, a tall, elderly Chinese whom the Godmother had known in her Shanghai days. When asked how she could help, he pointed at a simmering kettle on the stove and informed her courteously that, in a few minutes, she could stir the soup. Its fragrance told her that it was a famous lobster bisque of his own invention, but she was in no mood to appreciate his artistry. Hastily, she told him she’d just remembered something and she’d be back directly, and rushed upstairs.

  Papa Schimmelhorn was waiting for her. “Listen!” he whispered.

  Bambi listened, and heard the murmuring of the pipes. They waited. Presently it ceased. He beckoned her over to the door, and peered out cautiously. No mafioso was in evidence. Then he tiptoed massively down the hall to the door she indicated, and opened it without a sound. She pointed tremulously at another door leading off the sitting room. It was partly open, and from behind it came the sounds of soft music and a muted splashing.

  “H-her bathroom” Mutely, Bambi formed the words, and she pointed nervously at the framed WANTED poster on the wall.

  Papa Schimmelhorn urged her on towards it. He himself gained the bathroom door, pushed it just a little.

  “Who’s there?” called the Godmother.

  Coyly, he peered around the edge, and spied Mrs. Canicatti seated luxuriously in the sea of bright pink bubbles in her marble bath. “Peek-a-boo! Und I see you!” he cried out cheerily.

  “Get out of here!” Caught off balance, the Godmother was not yet at her fearsome best. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m in the tub?”

  He chortled. “Naturlich! Dot’s vhy I came! Ach, Vala, remember how in Schvitzerland sometimes ve took a bath together aftervards?” Sighing sentimentally, he dropped the beach-robe from his enormous shoulders. “How you vould rub der soap on me und I—”

  At that point, Medusa did not flicker. She came on full force. The Godmother rose to her full height, dripping, and it was obvious that she was indeed well preserved.

  “How beautiful!” exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn. “Chust like Venus on der Half-Shell, only not so shkinny. Und vot a lofely tub, mit marble, und enough room inside for both of us. It vill be chust like old times!”

  The last thing Mrs. Canicatti wanted at that moment was an uproar. What started as a scream of hideous rage she managed to compress into a banshee cry distinguished, not for its volume, but for its chill lethality.

  In the bedroom, Bambi heard it just as the wall safe opened for her. She panicked. Almost dropping the precious pickle-jar, she pushed the safe quickly shut, shoved the picture of Lucky Looey back over it, and then, clutching the serum to her capacious breast, took off. All she could think of was that the Godmother must not find her there—that she must somehow gain the safety of the kitchen, where she had been ordered to remain. Down the back stairs she ran, luckily unseen. Chong had his back to her, busily chopping something with his Chinese cleaver. She glanced round desperatel
y—and suddenly heard masculine voices in the hall. Without a second thought, she unscrewed the top, emptied the contents of the pickle-jar into Chong’s lobster-bisque, and dropped the jar itself behind the stove. By the time Goofball and Romeo entered, she was stirring desperately away, flushed and perspiring as though she had been at it for some time.

  They came in—and a shrill bell pealed, twice and twice again. “Jeez!” grunted Romeo. “Mrs. C. sure wants somebody up there. Listen at her!”

  “We better get right on it, like!” Goofball agreed, and they took off, leaving Bambi even more frightened than before.

  Meanwhile, in Mrs. Canicatti’s bathroom, Papa Schimmelhorn had continued to appeal to his one-time inamorata in terms of a passion she obviously did not reciprocate.

  Standing there wet and naked, she cursed him in Russian, Chinese, and Sicilian, pointed her finger at the door, and said, “Get…out…of…here!”

  “But ve could haff such fun.” He shook his head regretfully. “Und you haff such a pretty bottom shtill! Veil, maybe you haff lost der vinegar, und it iss now too late.”

  “GET…OUT! GET OUT, I said!” Mrs. Canicatti was stabbing fiercely at a bell-push. “You are going…to be locked up…in Bambi’s room! And by God, this time my guys’ll see you stay there!”

  “Okay,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, putting the robe on again. “I know vhen I’m not vanted. But it iss shtill a shame!”

  “And that stupid damn Siracusa bitch is going with you! I ordered her to lock you in your cage—and she forgot! Or did you talk her out of it so you could get in here? Anyhow, the two of you can wait in there together—then you’ll find out what I’m going to do to both of you!”

  “Anyhow it vill be fun to shtay vith Bambi,” he remarked philosophically. “Bye-bye, lidtle Vala.”

  He encountered Goofball and Romeo in the sitting room, and within five minutes he and a sobbing Bambi, who had been dragged up from the kitchen to face Mrs. Canicatti’s wrath, were locked in together, with Romeo standing armed guard at the door.

  “You haff der serum?” he asked her.

  She nodded silently.

  “It iss here?”

  “N-n-no,” she whispered. “I—I got real scared. Goofball and Romeo were coming in, so I—I just got rid of it where they can’t ever find it.”

  “Goot!” He patted her. “Now eferything vill be okay. Vala cannot hurt anybody vith der serum, und pretty soon comes der F.B.I. You think maybe she looks inside der safe before?”

  Bambi stifled her sobs. “N-no. I—I don’t think so. She won’t take any chances with it in the open till she’s about to serve it. Then she’ll go get it, with Goofball and a couple others to help keep it safe. I—I h-h-hope!”

  “Don t vorry,” said Papa Schimmelhorn. “Gustav-Adolf brings der F.B.I. For a cat, he also iss a chenius!”

  * * * *

  Gustav-Adolf was, as a matter of fact, much superior to most cats. Having reached the ground, he first availed himself of the great cat-box Nature had provided, then took off on a beeline for his home where, he knew, he would be welcome to sit on Mama Schimmelhorn’s stiff black silk lap and purr, and listen to her comparing him more than favorably to her wayward husband. Unfortunately, however, he was soon distracted by the lilting love song of a little tortoiseshell, whom he found complaisant and for whom, as a memento of his favors, he caught a mouse. In the process, he found it necessary to teach good manners to two lesser tomcats and an intrusive springer spaniel. Then he caught another mouse for breakfast, watched for two hours at a rathole, napped for an hour or two, and went his way after the sun had risen. The day too was full of its distractions, and it was late afternoon when finally he meowed at Mama Schimmelhorn’s back door. Indeed, his entrance coincided precisely with Papa Schimmelhorn’s and Bambi’s attack upon the wall safe.

  “Vhere haff you been, you vicked cat?” demanded Mama Schimmelhorn.

  “With yer old man, that’s where,” Gustav-Adolf said in Cat, and went on to complain about how Papa Schimmelhorn had tried to make him use a goddam cat-box.

  “Poor Gustav-Adolf,” crooned Mama Schimmelhorn. “Und now he comes home hungry? Poor lidtle kitty-cat.”

  “Damn right!” He rubbed against her, purring raucously. “A hunk o’ liver would go down real good.”

  Suddenly, reaching down to pet him, she spied the collar. “Vot iss?” she exclaimed. “Nefer haff ve put a collar on mein Gustav-Adolf! Maybe die Vomen’s Libbers? Und vith a dirty piece of paper—” She pulled the collar off over his head, and untied the thread. “—probably mit cherms!” Then, on the point of tossing the paper in the wastebasket, she glanced at it and frowned. “Ach! A note from Papa? Maybe he makes a joke.” She read it slowly, frowned, read it aloud to Gustav-Adolf. “Vhat does it mean, der Mafia? Und der FB. und I.? Der Mafia iss against der law. I think about it, but first I giff mein Gustav-Adolf some nice beef heart.”

  She sliced up the beef heart, placed it on a platter, and watched with pleasure as it was devoured.

  “Vot vill I do?” she asked. “If it iss chust Papa, I know it iss a joke. But also there iss Mrs. Siracusa, who is a good girl.” She thought about it until Gustav-Adolf, having cleaned his plate, began to wash himself. Then she made up her mind. “Okay, because of Bambi better I take no chances. I phone der F.B. und I.”

  She looked the number up, dialed it, asked if she could speak with Mr. Hoover, was told that he no longer was available, and condescended to discuss her problem with someone less impressive. The agent listened to her not-too-clear account of something that sounded like a kidnapping by Women’s Lib or perhaps the Mafia, though she didn’t really think so. Then he asked her to explain the motive. To get her famous husband’s serum, she informed him, which would make people live five hundred years.

  “And what did you say your husband’s name is?” the agent asked.

  “Papa Schimmelhorn,” she told him. “He iss a chenius.”

  Something rang a bell, and the agent transferred the call to his superior. The Agent in Charge also listened politely. Then, having recognized the name, he patiently explained to Mama Schimmelhorn that his office could not take the alleged motive seriously. “Madam,” he said kindly, “I’m sure your husband is a very clever man, but you must remember that after the episode of the so-called gnurrs, a joint Congressional committee investigated the affair and determined this his gnurrpfeife had nothing whatsoever to do with it, and that actually it was nothing more than a plague of lemmings. We can scarcely base any action on the presumed value of another such invention.”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Mama Schimmelhorn. “Lemmings do not eat people’s pants! Und der head of Vomen’s Lib herself beliefes in it—a shmart voman named Val Canicatti, who vears trousers und shmokes cigars. She has taken my Papa to a house party, und now he writes he is der prisoner of der Mafia.”

  There was dead silence at the other end. Then somebody said Whee-ew! and the Agent in Charge was on the line again.

  “Why didn’t you say Vala Canicatti?” he barked.

  “I chust did!” answered Mama Schimmelhorn.

  “Well, never mind. Mrs. Schimmelhorn, you sit tight right there. Don’t phone anyone. Don’t open your door no matter what until we get there. And save that note saying he is a prisoner. I’ll pick you up directly.”

  “But I do not know vhere Papa iss!”

  “Never mind,” he told her grimly. “We do. Let’s hope we get out there in time!”

  Within ten minutes, a car full of F.B.I. agents picked her up, tightly furled black umbrella and all, and sped into the newly fallen night to rendezvous with others of its kind, with sheriff’s deputies, and state investigators, and other less well known enforcement officers.

  She was escorted from her house just as the Godmother’s banquet got under way. The table in the great dining room w
as laid with damask and with Haviland, with precious crystal and fine sterling silver. Rare wines were ready for the pouring. Mrs. Canicatti’s five lieutenants flanked her, uncomfortable in evening dress not worn since Lucky Looey’s splendid funeral, their molls strangely bedecked in spangled evening gowns, extraordinary wigs, ill-gotten diamonds and orchidaceous corsages. Her several guests faced her across the table, Cousin Albrecht and Mynheer van der Hoop striving to suppress superior smiles, the Generalissimo sniffing the air hungrily, and Mr. Quicklime and the rest staring with varying degrees of amazement at the panoply before them. The Godmother herself, attired expensively and in excellent, if somewhat splashy, taste, greeted them and gave the signal for the least to start.

  Two or three minor mafiosi and their girls had been pressed into service as waiters and waitresses. Now they wheeled in a cart bearing a magnificent tureen, and—Romeo presiding—ceremoniously began the service of the soup. “Jesus, Romeo,” one of them muttered as he held a plate, “old Chong sure must’ve been workin’ hard. Boy, all of a sudden like does he look old!” And Romeo answered that was the way it was with Chinamen. “Christ, you can’t tell how old the buggers are by thirty years! Anyhow, this soup smells real good.”

  The soup was served out quickly and efficiently, while the Godmother told them how she had rescued her great chef from his career as a river-pirate, and how he had named this special dish Lobster Bisque a la Vala Canicatti. And she added that she was serving it to them because it was so celebrated, even though she herself was now allergic to the lobster. She would, she said, take her pleasure in watching their enjoyment.

 

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