To Sail Beyond the Sunset (57 page)

“I talk too much. Not all that tragic, luv. Marriages are made in Heaven, as everybody knows, and my patron priest picked for me just the man Heaven had in mind for me, no possible doubt and you’ll never hear me say otherwise. But when Delmer—my appointed soulmate—fell out of favor at the throne and was trimmed, well, I cried but not too long. Delmer is an altar boy now and quite a favorite among the male sopranos, so I understand. The awkward part is that, since he isn’t actually dead, just trimmed, I can’t marry again.” She looked bleak.

Then she shrugged and smiled. “So Santa Carolita’s night is a big night for me, seeing how closely we are watched all the rest of the year.”

I said, “I’m confused again. Are you saying that things are puritanical here?—except this one night?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean by ‘puritanical,’ Maureen. And I have trouble staying with your ‘Man from Mars’ pose—if it is a pose—”

“It’s not a pose! Dagmar, I truly am lost. I’m not on my own planet; I don’t know anything at all about this place.”

“All right, I’ll throw in with you, I said I would. But it is hard to keep it in mind. Okay, the way things work here—Three hundred and sixty-four days of the year—sixty-five on leap years—everything is either required or forbidden. ‘The Golden Rule,’ the Supreme Bishop calls it—God’s Plan. But on Carolita’s feast day, from sundown to sunrise, anything goes. Carolita is the patron saint of street singers, whores, Gypsies, vagabonds, actors, of all who must live outside the city walls. So on her day—Boss! You’re not going outdoors in
that
outfit!”

“And why not?”

Dagmar made retching noises; I turned to see what the fuss was about. The doctor had gone to shower, had returned still stripped down and sporting the most amazing phallus I have ever seen. It was standing straight up, rising out of a wide, dense briar patch of dark brown curls. It thrust up at least twelve inches from that curly base. Just back of the miter it was as thick as my wrist. It curved back slightly toward his hairy belly.

It “breathed” when he did, bowing an inch at each breath. I looked at it in horrified fascination the way a bird looks at a snake, and felt my nipples grow crisp. Take it away! Get a stick and kill it!

“Boss, take that silly toy right back to Sears Roebuck and demand your money back! Or I’ll, I’ll—I’ll flush it down the pot, that’s what I’ll do!”

“You do and you’ll pay the plumber’s bill. Look, Dagmar, I’m going to wear it home and I want you to snap a pic of Zenobia’s face when she sees it. Then I’ll take it off…unless Zenobia decides she wants me to wear it to the mayor’s orgy. Now get into your costume; we still have to pick up Daffy and his assistant. His goose, although he claims otherwise. Move. Shake your tail, frail.”

“Pee on you, Boss.”

“Has the sun gone down so soon? Maureen, if I understood you earlier, you have not eaten today. Come have dinner with us and we can discuss what to do with you later; my wife is the best cook in town. Right, Dagmar?”

“Correct, Boss. That makes twice this week you’ve been right.”

“When was the other time? Did you find something for Cinderella to wear?”

“It’s a problem, Boss. All I have here are jumpsuit uniforms, cut for me. On Maureen they would fit too soon in one direction, too late in the other.” (She meant that I’m shaped like a pear while she is shaped more like celery.)

Dr. Ridpath looked at me, then at her, decided that Dagmar was right. “Maureen, we’ll see what my wife has that you can wear. It won’t matter between here and there; you’ll be in a robocab. Pixel! Dinnertime, boy!”

“Now?
Wow!
”

So we had dinner at the home of the Ridpaths. Zenobia Ridpath is indeed a good cook. Pixel and I appreciated her, and she appreciated Pixel and was warmly hospitable to me. Zenobia is a dignified matron, beautiful, about forty-five, with premature white hair tinted with a blue rinse. Her face did not change when she saw the mechanical monstrosity her husband was sporting. He said, “What do you think this is, Zen?”

She answered, “Oh, at last! You promised it to me as a wedding present all these many years ago! Well, better late than never—I think.” She stooped and looked at it. “Why does it have ‘Made in Japan’ printed on it?” She straightened up and smiled at us. “Hello, Dagmar, good to see you. Happy festival!”

“Bumper crops!”

“Big babies! Mrs. Johnson, it was sweet of you to come. May I call you ‘Maureen’? And may I offer you some crab legs? Flown in from Japan, like my husband’s new peepee. And what would you like to drink?” A polite little machine rolled up with crab legs and other tasty tidbits, and took my drink order—
Cuba Libre
but omit the rum.

Mrs. Ridpath congratulated Dagmar on her costume: a black, sheer body stocking covering even her head—but missing wherever presence of garment would get in the way at a Saturnalia: cutaway crotch, breasts bare, mouth bare. The result was glaringly obscene.

Zenobia’s costume was provocative but pretty—a blue fog that matched her eyes and did not hide much. Daffy Weisskopf climbed right up her front, making jungle noises. She just smiled at him. “Have something to eat first, Doctor. And save some of your strength for after midnight.”

I think Dr. Eric’s suspicions about Dr. Daffy’s assistant, Freddie, were justified; he did not smell right to me and I apparently did not smell right to him—and I was beginning to be whiff, as I was starting to get into a party mood. As I had requested, that
Cuba Libre
had no rum in it, but I had half of it inside me before I realized that it was loaded with vodka—one hundred proof, I feel certain. Vodka is tricky; it has no odor and no taste…and now I lay me down to sleep—

I think some of those appetizers had aphrodisiacs concealed in them…and Maureen does not need aphrodisiacs. Has never needed them.

There were three sorts of wine at dinner and endless toasts that rapidly progressed from suggestive to outrageous. The little robot that waited on my sector of the table kept the wine glasses filled but was not programed to understand “water”—and Mama Maureen got potted.

No use pretending anything else. I had too little to eat and too much to drink and too little sleep and I never have learned to drink like a lady. I had simply learned how to pretend to drink while avoiding alcohol. But on Carolita’s night I let my guard down.

I had planned to ask Zenobia to permit me to stay overnight in her house…then on the morrow, festival over, I could tackle a city restored to its senses. First I needed a minimum of money and clothes…and there are ways to get both without actually stealing. A female can often wangle an unsecured loan if she hits a male for it who shows a tendency to pat her in a friendly fashion. She can hint pretty strongly as to the interest she is willing to pay…and every female Time Corps field agent has done something like that on occasion. We aren’t nervous virgins; we don’t leave Boondock without being vaccinated against pregnancy and nineteen other things you might catch if a trouser worm bit you. If you are too tender-minded for such emergency measures, you don’t belong in the profession. Females are better than males as Time Corps scouts because they can get away with such things. My co-wife Gwen/Hazel could steal the spots off a leopard and never disturb his sleep. If she were sent after the Rheingold, Fafnir and his flaming halitosis would not stand a chance.

Having acquired that minimum of local money and local clothing, my next move would be a preliminary study to determine: 1) how to get more money in this culture without going to jail; 2) where, if anywhere, is the Time Corps message drop; 3) if the second point is null, where is the dummy front for Hilda’s crosstime black-marketeers? Most of this can be researched unobtrusively either at a public library or in a telephone directory.

All very professional—Instead I got snagged by the proctors and did not do any of it.

Zenobia insisted that I go with them to the mayor’s orgy, and by then I lacked the judgment to refuse. She selected costume for me, too, from her clothes: Long sheer hose, green round garters, high heels, and a cape…and somehow it seemed to me the perfect costume, just right, although I could not remember why I thought so.

I recall only vignettes of the mayor’s party. Perhaps it will help to think of a party given jointly by Caligula and Nero, as directed by Cecil B. de Mille in gorgeous Technicolor. I remember telling some oaf (I can’t remember his face; I’m not sure he had a face) that it was not impossible to lay me—many have tried and most succeeded—but it had to be approached romanticlike, not like a man grabbing a bite standing up at a fast-food joint.

That party and the rest of that night was rape, rape, rape, all around me…and I do not care for rape; one does not meet a better class of people that way.

I escaped from that party and found myself out in the park. My leaving had to do with a pompous ass dressed in a long robe (a cope?) of white silk heavily embroidered in cardinal and gold. It was open down the front with his
Flaggenstange
sticking out. He was so self-important that he had four acolytes to help him with the chore.

He grabbed me as I was trying to slide past—stuck his tongue in my mouth. I kneed him and ran, and jumped out an open window. Ground floor, yes—but I did not stop to find out.

Pixel caught up with me in about fifty yards, then slowed me somewhat as he criss-crossed ahead of me. We went into that big park and I slowed to a walk. I was still wearing the cape but I had lost one slipper going out the window, then had kicked off the other at once, being unable to run one shoe off, one shoe on. It did not matter as I had gone barefooted so habitually in Boondock that my feet were as tough as shoe leather.

I wandered around the park for a while, watching the action (amazing!) and wondering where I could go. I did not want to risk the mayor’s palace again; my pompous boy friend with the fancy vestment might still be there. I did not know where the Ridpaths lived even though I had been there. It seemed to me that I must wait for dawn, then locate Grand Hotel Augustus (should be easy), go to Dr. Eric’s office on the mezzanine, and hit him for a small loan. Hobson’s choice, no other option—but not too unlikely as he had brailled me quite thoroughly during dinner. He wasn’t being rude; similar things or more so were going on all around the table. And I had been warned.

I joined in briefly at that esbat—midnight, full moon overhead, and ritual prayers being said in Latin, Greek, Old Norse (I think), and three other languages. One woman was a snake goddess from ancient Crete. Authentic? I don’t know. Pixel rode my shoulder at the service as if he were used to the role of witch’s familiar.

As I left the altar, he jumped down, ran ahead of me as usual.

I heard a shout. “There’s her cat! And there she is! Grab her!”

And they did.

As I’ve said, I don’t like rape. I especially dislike it when four men hold me while a fat slob in an embroidered cope does things to my body. So I bit him. And discussed his ancestry and personal habits.

So I wound up in the hoosegow and stayed there until the crazies from the Committee for Aesthetic Deletions pulled a jailbreak and got me loose.

This is called, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

Last night the Committee was presided over by Count Dracula, the only case of type casting that I saw—this repulsively handsome creature not only wore the opera cloak associated with video vampires, he also had taken the trouble to have a mouthpiece fashioned for him by a prosthodontist; he had dog teeth that came down over his lower lip. At least I assume that they were artificial; I don’t really believe that any humans or quasi humans have teeth like that.

I joined the circle and took the one remaining chair. “Good evening, cousins. And good evening to you, Count. Where is the Old Man of the Mountain tonight?”

“That is not a question one asks.”

“Well, excuse me, please! And pray, why not?”

“We will leave that to you as an exercise in deduction. But don’t ask such a question again. And do not be late again. You are the subject of our discussion tonight, Lady MacBeth—”

“Maureen Johnson, if you please.”

“It does not please me. It is one more instance of your unwillingness to observe the rules necessary to the safety of the Dead Men. Yesterday you were observed exchanging words with one of the hotel staff, a chambermaid. What were you talking about?”

I stood up. “Count Dracula.”

“Yes, Lady MacBeth?”

“You can go to hell. And I am going to bed.”

“Sit down!”

I did not. But all those near me grabbed at me, and sat me down. I don’t think any three could have managed it; they all were ill, deathly ill. But seven were too much for me—and I was reluctant to be rough in resisting them.

The chairman went on, “Milady MacBeth, you have been with us over two weeks now. During that time you have refused every mission offered you. You owe us for your rescue—”

“Nonsense! The Committee owes me! I would never have been in a position to need rescue had you not kidnaped me and shoved me into bed with a corpse, one of your killings, Judge Hardacres. Don’t talk to me about what I owe the Committee! You returned some of my clothes—but where’s my purse? Why did you drug me? How dare you kidnap an innocent visitor to dress up one of your assassinations? Who planned that job? I want to talk to him.”

“Lady MacBeth.”

“Yes?”

“Hold your tongue. You will now have a mission assigned to you. It has been planned and you will carry it out tonight. The client is Major General Lew Rawson, retired. He was in charge of the recent provocation incident in—”

“Count Dracula!”

“Yes?”

“Go hang by your heels!”

“Don’t interrupt again. The operation has been fully planned. Jack the Ripper and Lucrezia Borgia will go with you, and coach you. You can kill him in his bed, or, if you balk, you will be killed as he is killed and the two of you arranged in a tableau that will give substance to the rumors about him.”

The attention of everyone was on the row between the new chairman and me; proctors poured in off the balcony before they were seen. But a voice I recognized called out, “Watch it, Maureen!” and I dived for the deck.