There was a quick round of polite applause, and they set to—
And upstairs, Bambi clung to Papa Schimmelhorn, and asked him again when the F.B.I. would come.
“Gustav-Adolf alvays comes home for supper,” he assured her. “Soon they are on der vay. If they arrife before she comes upshtairs to get der serum, ve are okay. You are sure she cannot find it before then?”
Bambi nodded tearfully. “I—I dumped it in the soup,” she sobbed.
“Gott in Himmel!” he cried out. “Bambi, do you realize vhat you haff done? Dot soup they are now maybe serfing! In a few minutes der Mafia all vill know! Und then vhat happens?” Bambi moaned dolefully—
And in the dining room, the Godmother stared at Goofballs hand, holding its silver spoon a foot away. She glanced aside at his lady’s too-deep décolletage—surely her skin had not hung in such crepe creases when she first came in? Surely the flesh on her full arms had not hung so revealingly from her large bones? She looked from left to right. She saw gray hair where there had been black. She heard the shrill, senile cackle of Cousin Albrecht’s laughter— And suddenly she knew just what had happened. She knew instinctively just how the serum worked—and how it worked on whom. She knew that for the second time in her life a man had tricked her—the same man. Rage and pure horror animated her. She stood. She called to Romeo. He had noticed nothing. He came to her. “Take your two boys,” she ordered, in a voice no follower of hers could disobey. “Get up to Bambi’s room right now. Don’t wait for anything. Wipe out that Schimmelhorn—I don’t care how. And finish Bambi too. Then bring their heads or something down to me!”
Gesturing to his men, Romeo left the room hurriedly. Now certain other lesser folk started to realize that something strange was going on. There was commotion: shouts and frightened exclamations and runnings back and forth. Only the company around the table noticed no change, detected nothing wrong.
The noises carried to the prisoners on the second floor. They heard the heavy running footsteps of Romeo and his boys, the scraping of a key inserted in the lock. Bambi whimpered pitifully. Papa Schimmelhorn braced himself against the door—
And suddenly there were a dozen shots outside, some cracking sharply from pistols and revolvers, more booming from buckshot-loaded riot guns.
“Vot did I tell you?” cried Papa Schimmelhorn exultantly. “Comes der cafalry!”
* * * *
The Mansion was invested, assaulted, occupied in minutes, the morale of its defenders shattered by what had happened to their leaders. In no time, law officers were everywhere. Romeo and his surviving fellows had been taken into custody. Papa Schimmelhorn and Bambi had been rescued and brought downstairs. Finally, with everything secure, Mama Schimmelhorn was escorted in to greet her husband and to view the victory.
The dining room was a distressing sight, for the S.O.D.O.M. Serum worked as swiftly and relentlessly with people as with mice. Around the table sat, and stood, and capered a group of aged men and women strangely and pathetically overdressed, their finery hanging from their wasted frames. A third of them had fallen to the floor or collapsed over their place-settings, having obviously just perished of old age. A few others were quite as obviously about to. Mr. Quicklime, toothlessly drooling now, was fumbling foolishly with a Tokarev automatic, which an agent gently took away from him. The Godmother, all Medusa, stood handcuffed to an enormous deputy, cursing in a variety of unknown languages.
Mama Schimmelhorn strode in between two agents. “Veil!” she exclaimed at the sight. “So dot’s vhat Vomen’s Lib iss all about!” She caught sight of her husband. “You should be ashamed,” she said. “Is not enough you play vith naked vomen. Now you make silly shenanigans vith old people!”
Beaming, the Agent in Charge came up to her. “Thank God you called us, Mrs. Schimmelhorn!” he told her fervently. “You have performed a great service to the community and in the cause of law and order and clean government. This Canicatti woman’s committed every crime in the book—murder, dope, blackmail, you name it. Now, thanks to you, we have her dead to rights!”
“That’s God’s truth!” echoed a state investigator.
“Vot for?” asked Mama Schimmelhorn. “Running an old folks’ home without a license!” He slapped his notebook. “Failure to provide adequate medical assistance. No licensed dietitian on the premises. No certified gerontologist. Hell, we’ll get her on about twenty counts. This is the sort of job you really get convictions on!”
Again they thanked her. They informed her that nurses and doctors were on the way to care for the victims of the Godmother’s neglect. They assured her that letters of appreciation would be sent to her at least from the Governor and Attorney General.
Generously, she told them that Bambi Siracusa also deserved credit. “Und now,” she stated, “I take Papa home.”
“We’ll drive you,” the Agent in Charge told her respectfully.
Papa Schimmelhorn was whispering in the ear of an ancient but robust Chinese who had come out of the kitchen, and who was listening to him with every appearance of delight. “On Herr Chong it vorked,” he announced to all and sundry, “because he iss full of vinegar like me!” The room was emptying. The mafiosi had all been removed. The Godmother, squalling hideously, had been led away.
Mama Schimmelhorn’s eyes flashed fire. She lifted her umbrella threateningly. “Ve go!” she announced.
“Goodnight, Bambi,” Papa Schimmelhorn said sadly.
“You are a nice girl, Bambi,” declared Mama Schimmelhorn. “Soon you come ofer und ve drink some tea.” She shooed her husband to the door. “So now der serum iss all gone?” she asked him when, for a moment, they were out of earshot.
Papa Schimmelhorn, conscience-stricken, stuttered apologetically that it was a shame, that he did not mean to use it all, that had he even dreamed the way things would turn out, he would never have hurt Mama’s feelings by chasing so many lidtle pussycats.
“So,” she said, “now you are sorry because you liff fife hundred years und Mama liffs maybe only ten, nicht wahr?”
He blew his nose unhappily into a red bandana handkerchief.
“Veil, shmart guy, I find out something in der basement you do not know.” She reached up and grasped him firmly by the ear. “Your serum, dunderkopf, is not chust a S.O.D.O.M. Serum. It iss a C.O.YV. Serum also.”
“Vot iss, a C.O.W.?”
“It iss a serum for Clean Old Women vith lots of vinegar,” said Mama Schimmelhorn. She smiled grimly. “Papa, ve shtay together now a long, long time!”
SCHIMMELHORN’S GOLD [Part 1]
DEDICATION
For T. R. Fehrenbach, who wrote so informatively about The Gnomes of Zürich, and for my old friend Alan L. Harvie, who first suggested that Papa Schimmelhorn should work for them.
I.
The Gnomes of Zürich
It certainly was not malice aforethought that led Papa Schimmelhorn to apply his genius to the (more or less) Black Arts. Having solved, to his own satisfaction and for the most practical purposes, such abstruse scientific problems as time travel, the manipulation of small black holes, shuttling to and from alternate universes, and the restoration of an entire planet’s stolen manhood, the suggestion that he might have to be concerned with magic would have seemed utterly absurd to him.
Indeed, at least in the very early stages, he exercised no choice in the matter. The first critical decisions were made by a solidly established Swiss banker and by Mama Schimmelhorn, who respected solidly established Swiss banks and bankers as profoundly as she did her church and Pastor Hundhammer, who was also peripherally involved. (She, of course, did not know that Fräulein Philippa von Hohenheim, of whom she had never heard and of whom she would strongly have disapproved, would be intimately associated in the enterprise.)
It all started when Anton Fledermaus, the Schimmelhorns’ grandn
ephew, delivered a shipment of bullion to Dr. Gottfried Rumpler, president and owner of G. Rumpler & Co., the most prestigious of all Swiss private banks, on Zürich’s Bahnhofstrasse. He really was no longer Little Anton, the pudgy, pimply lad whose parents had thankfully deported him to the Schimmelhorns’ tender care some years before. He had matured: his complexion was now fresh and clear; much of the culture of Eton and Oxford had rubbed off on him (though a bit indirectly), to say nothing of the good manners of such aristocratic Chinese as Horace Pêng; his sturdy frame filled his magnificently tailored Italian silk suit to perfection. Now, facing Dr. Rumpler across the latter’s overly modest desk, he basked in the reflected glory of his employers, Pêng-Plantagenet, Ltd., the world’s greatest conglomerate, and in his own self-esteem as their Director of Special Services, a position that involved such chores as escorting several million Swiss francs’ worth of gold from Hong Kong. Like all good Swiss, Little Anton regarded Dr. Rumpler with immense respect. He saw a tall and massive man in his mid-fifties, with thick graying hair, a noble nose, a deep voice, and a strict military bearing; and he did his best to conceal his own pleasure at the realization that the Herr Doktor had sized him up and appeared to regard him quite as respectfully.
“May I say, Herr Fledermaus,” declared Dr. Rumpler, “that it is most gratifying to me personally, and of course to G. Rumpler and Company, to have for a client Pêng-Plantagenet, known and esteemed throughout the world.” He inclined his head graciously. “And I only hope that you, on your part, will find our services and your association with us completely satisfactory.”
Purring, Little Anton assured him that it was quite certain that they would, and he followed up this statement with an extremely apt and learned quotation from Confucius, which was very well received. Then Dr. Rumpler proceeded to question him on such matters as the gold market in the Far East, and jade collecting, and—with a conniving chuckle—on whether the girls of Hong Kong were still as beautiful and, well, obliging as they had been when he had visited the city some years earlier. Little Anton, fully informed on all these subjects, gave him even more information than he had expected, and at the end of half an hour their acquaintanceship had ripened into camaraderie. Dr. Rumpler announced that they were truly kindred spirits; he canceled two appointments; brushing aside Little Anton’s rather feeble protests, he invited him to dinner.
“You will meet my dear petite amie,” he told him, “and also I will ask Fräulein Ekstrom, my secretary whom I am sure you noticed—”
“The blonde girl?” asked little Anton eagerly.
“The same! How do they say in English? We will have a ball!”
Finally, after a guided tour of the bank’s vaults, and of their bullion bars, newly minted sovereigns, nostalgic United States double eagles, and shining krugerrands, together with Miss Ekstrom they rode off in Dr. Rumpler’s chauffeur-driven Citröen. They picked up Brigitte, his petite amie, who giggled and tickled him and called him Rumpli, and were taken to the Rumpler mansion, a model of unpretentious luxury. There, over a superb dinner of many, many courses, Little Anton was plied with fine wines and liquors, with the very welcome attentions of Miss Ekstrom, and with sparkling conversation, into which, of course, a great many very astute questions were unobtrusively sandwiched by the Herr Doktor.
In spite of the fact that everything was going to his head, Little Anton recognized these for what they were, and fielded most of them subtly and politely; and when they got too pointed and too probing, he dexterously changed the subject and told them all about his great-uncle, now well into his eighties, of his undiminished sexual vigor, and his inventions, and how on the conscious level he was really almost stupid—a foreman in a cuckoo-clock factory—but that subconsciously he was a scientific genius, about whom even the great Jung had published several learned papers.
“My friend,” exclaimed the banker, “you are not joking? Do you really mean that your great-uncle, this Papa Schimmelhorn, can solve all these problems? And that the famous Dr. Jung himself has studied him?”
Little Anton assured him that it indeed was so; and then his host was strangely silent for a while, though Miss Ekstrom filled the gap quite satisfactorily. All in all, Little Anton had a bang-up time, and when he left Zürich next day in Pêng-Plantagenet’s imperial-yellow private jet, Miss Ekstrom kissed him a warm good-bye at the airport.
* * * *
It had not taken Dr. Rumpler very long to recover his aplomb and once again take an active part in the conversation, but at Little Anton’s recital of the Schimmelhorn accomplishments he had been hit by an idea so wild, a dream so appealing to the hearts of all Swiss bankers, that it had taken all his manly fortitude to conceal his intense excitement. After he went to bed, he could not rest; his mind was whirling, and even after he managed to go to sleep he kept rolling over and muttering to himself, to the point where his petite amie actually prodded him awake and threatened to go home immediately. They rose at daybreak, and presently he left her sulking and pouting over breakfast and was driven directly to the bank. There he paced up and down all morning, sometimes pounding his fist into his palm, sometimes frowning down at Bahnhofstrasse without seeing it.
“Perhaps,” he muttered, “perhaps it is a mad idea—but what if what the young man said is true? Ach, why not?”
After an hour or two of this, he sat down decisively and made several discreet phone calls to people of influence and prestige, some in Switzerland, some elsewhere in Europe, and one or two in the United States. Then he waited impatiently for them to bear fruit, absentmindedly transacting a few hundred thousand Swiss francs’ worth of business in the meantime. He had his lunch sent in from his favorite restaurant, ate only half of it, and told Miss Ekstrom, who had come in late and a bit breathless, that he expected important phone calls and was not to be disturbed.
The calls came in at intervals all afternoon. His contacts were unable to confirm all of Papa Schimmelhorn’s scientific triumphs, but by three o’clock he had heard enough to recognize that Little Anton had told him nothing but the truth—and to realize that perhaps his idea was not so mad after all. Very practically, he sat down to consider ways and means, and he began to see that there would be many difficulties in the way, for what he had in mind was definitely out of the normal run of conservative Swiss banking practice. Knowing that he would have to have assistance, he tried to think of people who, because of Papa Schimmelhorn’s proclivities and the highly sensitive nature of the project, might be suitably qualified.
One name kept coming up—Fräulein von Hohenheim’s—and every time he thought of it, he shuddered. He wrestled mightily with his banker’s conscience, with his entire Züricher cultural and religious heritage, but his idea had seized him so effectively that they didn’t have a chance. Presently he called Miss Ekstrom, and told her to put in a call and ask the Fräulein whether she could see him on a matter of important business, either at the bank or at her own offices—that afternoon, if possible.
Miss Ekstrom obeyed him with raised eyebrows, and returned shortly with the news that the lady could give him a few minutes of her time if he was sure the matter really was important and if he would arrive in precisely half an hour.
Dr. Rumpler, unused to such cavalier treatment, especially from a woman, ground his teeth and told Miss Ekstrom to say that he’d be there.
Twenty minutes before the appointed time, he summoned chauffeur and Citröen to drive him the several hundred yards down Bahnhofstrasse, so that at least he would arrive in seemly state, but it was with considerable uneasiness that he entered the small building whose plain bronze plaque read simply, SCHWEIZERISCHE FRAUENBANK, P. v. Hohenheim, Präsident. Shuddering at the very thought of this arrogant feminine invasion of a field always completely masculine, he allowed a lean and hatchet-faced female clerk to lead him, grumblingly, to the confrontation.
Fräulein von Hohenheim was seated at her desk, and she did not
rise to greet him. At his polite salutation, she merely gestured at a chair.
Uncomfortably, he sat down. She was a splendid figure of a woman, with magnificent Minoan breasts, great, dark Minoan eyes, massive coils of bronze-black hair. Arabs inevitably wore their dark glasses when transacting business with her; and now, looking at her, Dr. Rumpler too could not help mentally undressing her—first perhaps the Parisian suit, then ever so gently the Celliniesque golden necklace at her delightful throat, then— But at that point, she caught his eyes and held them with her own—and he was forcibly reminded of a time when, touring Mexico, he had peered into the icy depths of a black well reputed to be bottomless, into which for centuries the native clergy had thrown the virgins whom they sacrificed. He also realized that she undoubtedly knew exactly how his mind had been engaged, and blushed like a Victorian schoolboy.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visitation?” she asked him then, in a voice that was deep, beautifully modulated, and as cold as the eyes that had transfixed him. “In the past, we have transacted all our business less directly.”
“That is correct,” he answered, starting to perspire. “But the matter I wish to discuss with you, my dear Fräulein, is of so confidential a nature, and holds out prospects of so vast a profit, that I must be more than ordinarily frank. You are, I believe, the only person who can help me.” He swallowed hard. “You too are a Swiss banker. You are singularly accomplished and astute. I know, for instance, that you have three Ph.D.’s—one in Economics, one in Business Administration, and one, from a university very little known, in more arcane sciences. I also know—and believe me, this is even more important—that your full name is Philippa Theophrastra Bombast von Hohenheim, and that you are descended from, and named after, our own great Swiss, Philip Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, better known to the world as Paracelsus, the so-called Golden Doctor, the prince of alchemists, whose talent and whose interests you have—er, some people say you have—inherited.”
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