Read Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) Online
Authors: Spider Robinson
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Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) (34 page)
Not in fear.
We did not yet realize that he represented our doom.
Just in astonishment.
My first thought was that the yapping apparition who’d visited us twice in the last twenty-four hours had returned for a third haunting, having shrunk herself, shaved her head, and cross-dressed in polyester for the occasion.
But no: he was a male version thereof, not only mustached but bearded as well—so heavily that although he had shaved, he had nine o’clock shadow.
We waited for him to start yapping at us in Ukrainian.
After all, he was regarding a scene at least as bizarre as the two we had offered his female doppleganger.
A bar with a gaping hole in the roof, with three symmetrically placed holes in the floor.
A weird segmented bed floating in mid-air over on one side of the room, containing a naked woman and a newborn infant wearing headphones and apparently playing computer games.
A lot of colossally stoned weirdos in various attitudes of abandon, a lot of unconscious weirdos, and one or two weirdos lazily making love, while what must have looked like a shaved monkey played the piano and a talking dog sang along in a fake German accent.
He didn’t bat an eye.
His eyes swept over the chaos, and settled on me behind the bar.
“Jacob Stonebender?” he said.
His voice was a whining drone, the voice of a bureaucrat.
“That’s me,” I agreed.
“And who might you be, stranger?”
He cleared his throat, twice.
(I subsequently learned that it is spelled, “Jorjhk Grtoskzhnyi.”)
He went on: “I believe you’ve met my Aunt—” and he cleared his throat again (spelled “Nymncka”).
“And these are for you.”
He handed me a stack of papers.
I took them unthinkingly, but I knew on sight that they were bad news.
“What is all this?”
He shrugged.
“A collection of subpoenas, summonses, injunctions, show-cause orders, and notifications of violation.
There’ll be more on the way: this is just what I was able to put together overnight.
Your lawyer can help you sort them all out.”
“Don’t talk dirty,” I said, and made a cabalistic sign to ward off evil which I think he misunderstood and took personally.
“Basically,” he amplified, “they’re your wake-up call.”
“What are you?” I asked.
“Some kind of process server?”
“No,” he said smugly.
“I just decided I wanted the personal satisfaction.
I am a town inspector, and you are history.”
My heart stopped.
“Oh, my
God
…”
“Just about the only authority I can’t prove you’ve flouted,” he agreed.
“I’ve been doing research all night, ever since Aunt Nymncka called me up and told me about this place.
My hard drive crashed a few hours ago, but I got plenty before it did.
As far as I can determine, Mr. Stonebender, you have neglected quite a few little technicalities regarding this establishment.”
There was a general rumble of alarm
“Jake,” Zoey called, “what’s he talking about?”
“Uh—” I explained.
“Trivialities, Madam,” Grtozkzhnyi said.
“Details.
A state liquor license, and Alcoholic Beverage Control Board approval.
County Board of Health approval.
Town zoning variances.
Town building permits.
Separate variances and permits for a residence onsite.
Certificate of occupancy.
Proper setbacks from a state road.
Adequate parking space per square foot of usable area.
Inspection fees.
And all of this over and above the usual—”
“
Jake!
” Zoey interrupted, horrified.
“Didn’t you take care of
any
of that crap?”
“Zoey, I
couldn’t!
” I cried.
“Here, just
look
, for Christ’s sake—”
I bend down and unlocked the safe, took out a stack of paper literally eight inches thick, and slapped it on the bartop.
She paled.
“That’s the paperwork?”
“Hell no,” I said.
“Like he said, the total paperwork involves the state, county, and town, and even a couple of novelettes for the feds.
This is just the town building codes pertaining to taverns.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“And halfway through the first page, I figured why they call it ‘code.’
It makes tax law seem clear.
The last new bar in this town was established eight years ago.”
“Jake,” Doc Webster boomed, “are you telling me that we’ve been running outlaw, all these months?”
“What the hell else could I
do
, Doc?
Even if any of us knew a lawyer—no, worse, even if any of us knew a lawyer who worked for free—just the permits and fees and assessments and bonds and processing charges would have cost…well, never mind, you wouldn’t believe it.
More than I had when I was setting this place up.
And then after the cluricaune came on board and money wasn’t so much of a problem, I figured what the hell, we were already open, and we didn’t get much walk-in trade, and maybe we could get away with it—”
“Wrong,” Grtozkzhnyi said with a smirk.
“All right, look,” Long-Drink said.
“Suppose we manage to get the cluricaune back, and we’re flush with fairy gold again.”
He turned to Grtozkzhnyi and tried for a man-to-man, mutual-respect kind of thing.
“How much would it take to make this place legal?”
“I don’t think it could be done,” Grtozkzhnyi said.
“Even assuming that the various jurisdictions were prepared to overlook your audacity in blithely defying their authority, even if you found a lawyer who could get you off on the various criminal charges that apply, there would then arise the issues of penalties, fines and late charges—”
“Come on,” the Drink protested.
“I know two mob-owned joints right in this town: you can’t tell me they spent six months filling out paperwork.
Name a figure, will you?”
“Are you suggesting bribery, sir?” Grtozkzhnyi asked silkily.
The Drink closed his mouth.
“Because if you were, I would have to say that you are neither as connected nor as newspaper-inquiry-proof as the organization you refer to…and furthermore, you are not as dangerous.
All it would take is a single official who, perhaps because you offered offense to his aunt, refused to—”
“Well, that it: I guess we’re screwed,” I said, and my friends, with whom I had so recently been telepathic, understood and kept their mouths shut.
Unfortunately, Grtozkzhnyi read my mind as well.
“—an official who had close friends in Yaphank and Riverhead—”
Damn.
There went any other town in Suffolk County.
“—and in Hempstead—”
Shit.
There went all of Long Island.
We
were
screwed.
“—and in any case, if you had that kind of money you’d be better advised to save it for bail.”
He gestured behind him, and a couple of cops came through the swinging doors, blinking at the chaos they beheld.
So that’s how I spent my daughter’s first birthday in the slammer.
***
How did we beat it?
We didn’t.
Handling interstellar invasion, we had down to a routine by now.
Establishing telepathic rapport, we could manage whenever the stakes were high enough.
Miracles, we were used to.
But not even white magic can defeat an offended bureaucracy.
Mary’s Place closed that day, the day of its greatest triumph, and never reopened again.
What did we
do
about it?
Well, that’s a whole other story…
About the Author
photo by Greg McKinnon
Spider Robinson was born in the Bronx, NY, in 1948, the year Robert A. Heinlein married Virginia Gerstenfeld—and in 2006 he became the only author ever to collaborate with Mr. Heinlein on a novel, VARIABLE STAR.
Since 1973 he has published over thirty-five books, and won three Hugos, a Nebula, the John W. Campbell Award, and numerous other international honours.
He moved to Canada in 1974, and became a Canadian citizen in 2004.
His Callahan’s Place stories inspired the creation of the long running Usenet newsgroup
alt.callahans
and other cybernetworks.
From 1995-2004 he published an op-ed column (“The Crazy Years,” later called “Future Tense”) in Canada’s national newspaper,
The Globe and Mail
.
In 2006 he became the first Writer In Residence at Vancouver’s H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, and in 2010 he was named sixth Writer In Residence at the Vancouver Public Library.
He has written songs with David Crosby and Todd Butler, and recorded original music with Amos Garrett and Michael Creber.
His award-winning podcast
Spider On The Web
has appeared regularly since 2007, and he has been Toastmaster at two World Science Fiction Conventions.
He was married for 35 glorious years to Jeanne Robinson, a dancer, writer and Buddhist priest with whom he co-authored the Hugo- and Nebula-winning THE STARDANCE TRILOGY.
In 2004, they were both separately invited by First Lady Laura Bush to appear at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Since Jeanne’s death in May 2010, Spider has lived alone on an island in Howe Sound, British Columbia.
He suspects his granddaughter Marisa Alegria da Silva might just be the long-awaited Maitreya Buddha, who will bring enlightenment to all sentient beings.
For further information visit
www.spiderrobinson.com
Chapter 2: Too Far, Edna: We Wander Afoot
Chapter 4: I, Madam, I made radio! So I dared! Am I Mad? Am I?
Chapter 5: Ed, Undo Bod, Nude…
Chapter 8: Rettebs, I Flahd Noces, Eh? Ttu, But The Second Half Is Better…
Chapter 9: Now, Ned, I Am A Maiden Won…