The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (25 page)

“Not Joey ‘Rip’ Sanger, they won’t.”

John Gully laughed. “You’re a lifer, Mr. Sanger. A product of inertia, collective malaise. Single-minded, stubborn, your own man—sure, all those things to comfort your sense of self-worth, but it’s all an illusion because when it’s all said and done, you toe the line just like the rest of them.”

“Heard about enough of your sermon, preacher. Lay on the steam and let’s roll ’er in to the yards. I’m beat and my ears ache.”

“Sorry, can’t do that, Mr. Sanger.”

With these words, three large men entered the engine room, carrying ropes. Joey groaned a second time. There wasn’t enough left in him to resist. He glared at John Gully as the men tied him up. “Plan to dump me off a trestle?”

“Trestle? As in trestle bridge?” John laughed. “We’re on the prairie, remember? There aren’t any trestles. No, we’ll just hold on to you till things blow over—”

“I won’t blow over,” Joey said. “You’ll have to kill me.”

“Why bother saving you, then? Oh no, we’re not murderers. We’ll think of something, I’m sure. In the meantime, relax, Mr. Sanger. You’ve got some healing up to do. Who took you out, by the way?”

“A cannibal Luddite, I think. With a speech impediment.”

“Ahh, so you’ve met Sool Koobie, then.”

“Who?”

“A Neanderthal. It’s a long story, but consider yourself lucky. He must’ve been well fed; either that or you eat meat three times a day—”

“Damn right I do,” Joey growled. “I ain’t no sussy.”

“Lucky you.”

Joey fell silent. At the moment, he felt anything but lucky. His Sanger Sock had failed. For the first time in generations, it had failed. He was a broken man, and the feeling was new to him, and he didn’t like it one bit.

3.

the table invites

The Habby Modeler’s owner stood uncertainly behind the counter, surrounded by glass-fronted cases containing his military and science fiction model collection. He had one hand behind his back, and his T-shirt was a grayish white with the words
SMALL IS BETTER
emblazoned on it. The man peered at Max through thick glasses, craning his neck and shifting whenever Max edged down one of the rows and out of sight.

Sweat ran down Max’s body, cool under the satin shirt he was wearing. He clutched a folded page of instructions in one damp hand. Habby. What an idiot. Happy, hobby, yeah, right. Cute as cow pies, fella. Shit, I’m running out of time. He checked his watch. He was due at the table at Culture Quo in ten minutes, and then, immediately following supper, they’d all trek off to the annual Awards Night at the Unified Cultural Workers Assembly Hall—otherwise known to city denizens as “the Pyramid.” And then he’d receive his award as Most Promising Artist of the Year, and a check for ten grand.

Hissing in frustration under his breath, Max headed toward the counter, and the sloppy, overweight man behind it. “Technical question,” Max said, smiling.

“Only kind I can answer,” the man replied. “How many King Tigers did Nazi Germany issue in 1944? I know. How close was the V-3 rocket to full-scale production? I know. What size were Patton’s army boots? I know. To what extent did Hegel’s philosophy influence Adolf’s private gardener? I—”

“Yeah, I know,” Max cut in. “You know. But tell me this.” He unfolded the instructions and laid them out on the counter.

“Ooh,” the man said, “Special Edition Klingon battle cruiser—you musta bought that years ago—”

“Yeah yeah, listen. Look here, the instructions says part 6B attaches to part 7A.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, there is no 6B! There’s a 6A, and a 7B, but no 6B! How the hell can I complete my sculpture without 6B!”

“Sculpture? That’s a model.”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re talking to an artist here, not some creepy weasel-faced chip-stuffed pimple factory.”

“Yeah, right,” the man drawled. “Well, did you look in the box? Coulda come loose from the plastic trees.”

“Of course I looked. It’s not there.”

“Huh. Well, sometimes the company screws up. Sometimes a part gets left out. That makes your kit a collector’s item—something wrong?”

Max stared at the man blankly. “Left out?”

“Yeah, sure. Happens all the time. You just have to send for the part. Or, hell, I’ll swap you with one of the newer models—they look neater, anyway. Those guys”—he pointed at the cardboard box—“don’t even know the cruiser’s real name.”

“How can they leave a part out? What the hell am I going to do? I need a sculpture right now, in the next five minutes.” Max’s gaze cast wildly around the store, fixed at last on the finished models behind the man.

Scowling, the man said, “I don’t sell my World War II stuff, and even if I did, it’d be damned expensive.”

“I can pay it. Give me that tank—”

“Like hell I will. That’s a Swedish S-tank. Piece of garbage on the battlefield, but it’s a collector’s item.”

“I’ll pay anything.”

“Not the S-tank.” The man still had one hand behind his back, and seemed to be working at something there.

“Well, what do you have that you’ll sell?”

“Assembled? Well, I got two copies of the submarine from that old TV series in the Sixties. Remember
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
?”

“Imaginative title,” Max snapped. “Let’s see the damned thing.”

“Well, the one I’d sell has had some, uh, improvements on it. I did it when I was a kid, you see. Not even a serious collector yet, you understand—”

“Let’s see it!”

The man reached with his free hand under the counter and pulled out a long plastic submarine, its nose dish-shaped. On its underside were four wheels. “I stuck a motor in it,” the man explained. “Nickel-cadmium batteries, probably still runs. Let’s check—”

“I don’t care if it runs, you asshole. How much?”

“With an attitude like yours, asshole, two hundred bucks, firm.”

Max pulled out his wallet and tossed down one of his many credit cards. “Fine.”

“We don’t take credit cards,” the man smirked. “Cash. No check, either. Cash.”

“Scumbag, I’m a Nacht—recognize the name?”

“No.”

“The Nachts are in lingerie. Filthy rich.”

“Yeah, well, I’m outa that phase. I still want cash.”

“Fine!” Max pulled out a wad of bills. “You just fucked up my supper, prick.” He counted out ten twenties, slapped them on the table, then had to wait while the man counted them again, all with one hand. “Got a gun back there or something?” Max asked.

“I wish. Sometimes my anus closes right up. I gotta work it loose again, or everything backs up, if you know what I mean. You want me to wrap it?”

“Uh, no. A box will do.”

“Yeah but there’s some highly breakable protuberances—”

“Do I give a shit? I paid for it. It’s mine. I can do what the hell I want with it. Now, hand it over.”

The man had found a long flower box, but he now draped his arm protectively over it, his eyes wide, dribbles of sweat running down from his greasy hair. “I made it,” he whined. “You’re not supposed to break it.”

“Just a joke, friend,” Max said, smiling. “Honest. I’ll take good care of it. Now, can I have it, please? I’ve got a dinner date with a table.”

“You’re dating a table? Cool.” The man pushed the box toward Max, who snatched it up. “Hey!” the man shouted as Max rushed to the door. “I’m loosening up!”

Six minutes later Max reached the door of Culture Quo. The restaurant was packed with pre-Awards patrons, and the air was humming with feigned excitement. Max pushed through the lineup, jabbing recalcitrant SOBs with the flower box until he stepped clear.

And there it was. The table. Where he’d dreamed of sitting, there in the company of greatness, or at the very least self-importance. And the empty chair—two of them, in fact—and Brandon Safeword gesticulating as he pontificated to his adoring audience consisting of his wife, Penny Foote-Safeword, and Lucy Mort. Max blinked uncertainly as he approached. Brandon’s head looked too big, and Lucy’s too small, as if someone had been messing with the camera lens through which Max observed—not that he was observing these details through a camera lens. Even so, what met his eyes seemed strangely skewed.

“Ahh, Maximillian!” Brandon called out. Many heads turned, the conversations at the other tables stilling for a brief moment as eyes fixed on Max, who arrived at the table and pulled out a chair and then sat down. “Excellent timing, my boy,” Brandon said. “We were just about to order.”

Penny thrust a menu into Max’s hand. He set down the flower box, edged it with a foot under his own chair, then turned his attention to the menu.

Lucy’s voice came out as a tiny squeak. “I’ll have the feral garden salad, wheat stir-fry with birch bark plain on the side, and a double lite alcohol. Thanks.”

Smacking her lips, Penny said, “Were the scampi harvested in dolphin-safe nets? Excellent. I’ll have that, and brown rice plain. No, no appetizer—I’d be stuffed! And a triple lite alcohol plain. Marvelous. Brandon, darling?”

“Oh no, Maximillian first, by all means.”

“Uh, thanks. I’ll have the thirty-six-grain toast, the triticale quiche, and a lite ale, please.”

“Sounds perfect,” Brandon said to Max. “Of course,” he added, leaning over to nudge Max with an iron-hard forearm, “as emcee tonight, the last thing I’d need is all that roughage ringing the old bell below, eh? Hah hah! Ho ho! No, instead, I’ll have the soya prime rib, with wild rice, and wheat milk to preserve my elocution. Wonderful, we’re all set!”

“Where’s Professor Palmister?” Max asked.

“Vanished,” Brandon intoned. “A cause for great concern. Left not a trace of his whereabouts, and believe me, it’s not like him to miss this of all nights. Nine out of the ten incipient award winners come from his class, after all.”

Max glanced at Lucy, who taught at the rival university. Her minuscule face was bent down toward the glass of mineral water in her hands.

“Next year, of course,” Brandon drawled, “the balance will shift, right, Lucy?”

She nodded mutely, not looking up. The purse on her lap was inordinately large, long, bulky, and she reached down with one hand to stroke it a couple times, then reached back up to her glass.

The appetizers arrived. Max had hoped to add to the conversation somewhat, but the thirty-six-grain toast swelled into a glutinous, doughy ball in his mouth, and he was left chewing on his first bite until the main courses arrived. In the meantime, Brandon spoke, “Ever been to the Pyramid, Max? Thought not. A wonderful work of art in itself, housing the city’s finest publicly owned collection of fine art. Well, publicly owned is something of a misnomer, we’d all not hesitate to admit—at least in private, hah hah! The galleries are sealed against pollution, and that includes uninvited people across the board, and the wonder of it is, the Board of Directors ensure that few—very few indeed—are ever invited to peruse the collection. I, of course, have been many times. Truly remarkable. Brilliant work, all of it, packed chock-full with seminal meanings, dire significance, cultural value. There’s even a copy of Penny’s book, stored in an airtight, alarm-fitted cabinet, in a room all its own.”

The main courses arrived. Max managed to swallow down the mouthful of toast and, greatly relieved, permitted the waitress to remove the rest. “Is the collection very large?” he asked. “I’ve seen the building from the outside. It’s huge.”

“There are seven works of art in the Pyramid,” Brandon said. “Each a treasure in its own right. Most of the lottery funding went into constructing the edifice, naturally, and these days into the salaries of the two hundred staff members. A triumph of city planning, the envy of cities the world over.”

There followed five minutes of nonverbal utterances as everyone tucked into their suppers: crunching, slurping, gnawing, nibbling, chewing—mostly chewing, although the loudest sound assailing Max’s ears was the twin cavernous whistles issuing from Brandon’s enormous nostrils. His head appeared to have grown larger since Max first sat down, and each breath Brandon drew in seemed to create a momentary vacuum in the center of the table, followed by a hair-flicking gust. No one else seemed to notice, even though Lucy’s head was pulled and pushed with alarming force, giving her trouble in matching her forkfuls of food with her mouth.

Desserts were then ordered, and when the plates were scraped clean, Brandon leaned back with a loud, atmospherically traumatizing sigh, and said, “We’d best be off, ladies and gentleman. The Pyramid beckons, the Awards await our surprise and delight, and the day’s light fades.”

“Do you think Don’s all right?” Penny asked.

“Oh, I imagine so,” her husband replied as he and everyone else at the table stood. A moment later the patrons at all the other tables also stood. Max retrieved his flower box—he wasn’t sure if he’d need to show an actual sample of his work, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Well,” Penny said, “he’s awfully absentminded. But on Awards Night?”

“Perhaps just another case of acute constipation,” Brandon said.

“But it’s been days!”

“Just like last time, if I recall. Shall we proceed?”

Max reached for his wallet, but Brandon waved a hand. “Nonsense, we have dined on my account. After all, an artist must watch his coin, eh? Hah hah! Ho ho! By God, I’m feeling much better!”