The Israel Bond Omnibus (26 page)

“Don’t move, Bon Ami. Just keep perfectly still and do what I tell you,” said Bond in a low tense voice. He had seen the loathsome thing crawl out of a crack in the adobe ceiling and make its way to a spot about a foot over the consul’s head.

It was a tarantula.

Black, hairy, big as a dinner plate.

Bond felt his body shaking. Only M. and the section psychiatrist knew of his Melmacophobia, a fear of awakening in the dead of night to find dinner plates crawling all over his body.

The wasp had seen it as well; zoomed near it.

“I think Dame Nature will resolve our problem,” said Bond, his hand clutching the front end of his wing-tipped Florsheim cordovan, which he had planned to use to squash the huge arachnid. “The wasp and the spider are mortal enemies.”

But the combat never came. The wasp alighted next to the tarantula. The two creatures undulated their feelers, actually touched. As though it had received some message, the wasp made a beeline for the open window and disappeared into a hibiscus bush.

“Kill the goddam, filthy, ugly thing, Bond! Crush it... squash it to smithereens!” It was little Nochum Spector, white as a sheet done by new-improved Blue Cheer. He saw the quizzical expression on Bond. “Damn it, you phony hero! Scared of a spider? I’ll kill the f— thing myself!” Nochum jumped on a chair; swung his own shoe violently. It caught the lifted front legs which bared the fangs. The tarantula thrashed about in its death throes, fell with a plop into the corner of the room. “Kill it! Squash it!” screamed Spector again and lifted his pipe-cleaner of a leg to administer the quietus.

“Hold it!” Bond snapped. He pushed Spector away rudely; coldly watched the spider’s ever-weaker struggles. Pulp oozed out of its side.

“Don’t be so impetuous, Nochum,” he said. “I do believe we should look at this first.” He made a sudden pinching movement, wrested something from the top of the crushed tarantula.

Said Bond, scrutinizing a tiny disc about the size of a jellybean held between his forefinger and thumb, “I saw something on its back catch the light and gleam as it fell. This. What do you make of it, Itzhok? We can use that Technion know-how of yours right now.”

Ben Franklin took the object, held it up to the light. A low whistle left his lips. “You won’t believe this, gentlemen. It’s a tiny transistorized listening device!”

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Spector said. “I can’t stand those damn hairy things. I wanted to crush it into a paste.” Contrition was on his peach-whiskered baby face.

Bond did not comment on his apology.
“Gottenu!
On this damn island even the bugs are bugged!” And heard Zvi’s appreciative bellow.

“An interesting problem and I wish we had time to delve into it further, Mr. Bond,” said Bon Ami. “But you lads have been called in for a reason, a damn important one. Let us continue.”

Bond lit a Raleigh; made an effort to push a few stray thoughts he’d been gathering out of his mind for the present. “Go on, Consul.”

“Our country’s problem is here.” His hand fanned out on one side of the island. “This is WET, West El Tiparillo. This Star of David represents Israel’s Peace Corps facility, Camp Kuchalein, which, as you see, is perilously perched on Mount Maidenhead, overlooking the jungle-covered Valley of the Blind. There is a famous motto coined by our own M. about this place. ‘In the Valley of the Blind an optometrist shouldn’t set up an office altogether.’”

“The old biddy’s always coming up with crap like that,” Nochum butted in.

Bon Ami ignored it. “The problem is this: We were asked to send a Peace Corps unit by General Wesson y Oyl because of the impressive record our people have made in Africa and Asia. For a while things went well. The natives, a poverty-stricken, superstitious lot, at first accepted us. We helped them grow food scientifically, tended to their sick, set up schools, cousin’s clubs, dance studios, garment factories; in general, made our presence welcome on West El Tiparillo. Until a few weeks ago. Then scurrilous rumors began circulating throughout their villages that we were there to exploit them. An old native man who died of natural causes despite the efforts of our Dr. Marvin Browndorf was said to have succumbed to evil magic. Three of our volunteers were wounded by nocturnal snipers. Our potable water was spoiled by poison dumped into a well. Thank heaven, we had the foresight to put in an ample supply of seltzer. The worst happened two nights ago. A little boy was kidnapped from near his village; this note left behind. Read it, Bond.”

It was a rough piece of parchment: “You will never see your Pablito again, Mr. and Mrs. Garcia. His blood will be offered to our pagan god as part of a Passover ritual. Be thankful that we of the Israeli Peace Corps have chosen his body to sacrifice on the altar.”

Bond’s chin pulled up belligerently. “Damn it! It’s that vilest, basest of those pristine anti-Semitic canards! The lie that we must spill the blood of a non-Jewish child for Passover. Who’s behind this, Bon Ami?”

The moonface shrugged its brows, “Anyone of the groups I mentioned—Peking, Moscow, Castro. They all have a deep interest in undermining us. We’ve shown the poor people of the
barrios
that progress can be made without the dear old hammer and sickle being shoved down their throats. Naturally, the Reds don’t love us for that. Take a closer look at this map; you should become well acquainted with the terrain around Camp Kuchalein.”

“What’s this cross near the Peace Corps camp?” quizzed Itzhok.

“That’s a convent, OLEO. Our Lady of the Eastern Order. Nice folks. They’ve been working unofficially with us on many projects. It’s right on the top of the peak, if you’ll notice. Halfway down is this point, cc, a summer colony for mediocre artists and musicians called Camp Camp. Weirdos. We don’t bother with ‘em too much. And here is the valley...” the pointer tip rested on a representation of a pagoda. “Stay the hell away from this place.”

“Why?” said Bond.

“It’s a bad place, the Temple of Hate. Run by a Chinaman named Dr. Nu. Quite unique, really. He operates a year-round resort for hate groups from all over the globe. ‘Come here to hate at a special rate,’ he advertises. All the pariahs pop up at his place: the Birchers, the KKK, Black Nationalists, some neo-Nazi groups from Deutschland.”

“Our trouble could be coming from there, you know,” Zvi said thoughtfully.

“Maybe. But until we know for sure stay away. Now, you boys will head out for Camp Kuchalein in the early bright. You can join a burro supply train that leaves from in front of the consulate at 5 A.M.”

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Bond was in action again, hurling his cordovan at a black thing that skittered up through the crack and out of sight. “Another one of those creepy eavesdroppers! Bugged just like the spider. It was a roach this time, big bastard, about three inches long.”

“Now hold on, Oy Oy Seven,” said Bon Ami with annoyance. “They can’t all be wired for sound.”

“I’ll bet my
tuchas
it was,” said Bond. “Whoever is behind this now knows where we’re going. I smell trouble.”

Bon Ami smiled, a teacher patronizing an excited kindergarten pupil. “Maybe. But I want to talk to you alone for a minute, Bond. You’ll excuse us,
boochereem?
See you tomorrow at 5.”

Alone, Bon Ami turned to Bond, a serious shadow on the dark side of the moonface. “I have some bad news. This came for you.” He pulled a large package from a closet. “It’s from Lavi HaLavi. Came in this morning’s pouch from Tel Aviv.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“HaLavi. He’s gone off the deep end again.”

“Oh,
Gottenu!
No!”

“Afraid so, Oy Oy Seven. According to a communication, he had just finished assembling this package for your personal use when he started to foam at the mouth. But here’s the dispatch. Read it yourself.”

“To Oy Oy Seven: Subject—Lavi HaLavi.

“At 8 P.M. yesterday the QM of M 33 and 1/3, who had just completed a number of combat devices, walked into M.’s office unannounced and began to berate her for not giving a laxative to an overstuffed chair in the corner. ‘It is in pain,’ he said. ‘Badly needs a cleanout.’ He then accused her of refusing to accept his ‘brilliantly simple’ plan for protecting our nation against any attack. It was, he said, the installation of a geodesic dome over the entire country with an elaborate air conditioning unit underneath. ‘Not only will our land be safe from intruders, but we will never have another soccer game cancelled by rain.’ At this point, M. pressed Alarm Aleph and three men in black hoods took him away to our branch’s rest home, Foam Rubber Acres, in Galilee for treatment and a long period of seclusion.

“Yours truly, Dr. Hans Pippikel, section psychiatrist.”

Bond’s head rocked left-right-left-right with incredulity. Poor Lavi! Wacked out again. Easy to understand why. If I had to conceive the fantastic weapons and missions he does, I, too, would be bouncing around at Foam Rubber Acres every six months.

But Lavi had given the last ounce of his brain power on Bond’s behalf. This was no time to wallow in pity. Whatever there was in this package was for use by a man licensed to kill.

“
Shalom
, Bon Ami. You’ll be hearing from me.” And he walked into the steaming street.

Heavy of heart, his mind troubled by the new developments, Israel Bond, HaLavi’s package under his arm, trudged down Calle Cugat on his way to the Nino Valdez. I’m in for it now, he thought sardonically. Now I must tackle the whole damn Communist world, rescue a kidnapped child from God knows where or the Peace Corps will be subjected to a Latin blood bath, and ferret out a traitor. He’d had some thoughts about that last item during the consul’s briefing. Nochum? “A phony hero” he called me. Does he hate me that much? How anxious he was to mash the spider! And that crack about M., his own aunt, “an old biddy.” Is all this enough to pin the tail on the donkey? Then there was Anna, lovely, wanton, constantly inflaming his every red corpuscle. Could she really be trusted? And, if so, what’s in the cards for her and me? Marriage? But I have sworn to my late sainted mother to stand under the traditional wedding canopy with a daughter of Zion. Would Anna convert? And is the Paradise Wedding Hall in the Bronx all booked up?

This whole damn thing sounds like a teaser for next week’s
Peyton Place,
he told himself. Back to work, Oy Oy Seven.

At the intersection of Calle Desi-Lu and Cinco de Virginia Mayo he saw a boisterous crowd pushing its way into a large, obviously new, building. A neon sign flashed on and off: “FREEZERIA.”

Bond quickly realized what the place was. Freezerias—the mushrooming slumber palaces in which reposed the recently dear departed.

The concept of freezing the dead, until that glorious day when an ever-improving medical science could discover the curse for the various maladies that had shuffled them off this mortal coil, then unfreeze and cure them, was spreading all over the world. He had once read an article on the subject which listed a price range of $8,000 to $50,000 for the cost of freezing your dear Uncle Seymour a few hours after clinical death. It was like anything else in life, he imagined. You get what you pay for. For eight grand, he reckoned, the best you could expect would be to have Uncle Seymour thrown in with the Sara Lee cheesecakes at the local A & P. But for fifty big ones... ah, then you got the individual freezer with fresh flowers placed on the chest everyday, the weekend outings by a family come to see that all was well (“Mummy, he’s smiling”.... “Why not, precious? He’s just sleeping until the big Reveille Day, that’s all”... “Gee, you know, Syl, I think he actually gained weight. The old boy looks good”), the plug guard (for that kind of money surely one was entitled to have a man guard the plug; who could tell when some enemy who owed Seymour a bundle would yank it and leave Uncle to rot?) and the emergency generator in case of power failure. And, Bond surmised, today’s four-letter obscenities would have no sting at all in fifty years. The truly shocking four-letter words of future generations would be “melt” and “thaw.” And the most despicable epithets—“mother-melter,” “father-thawer.”

Death. It’s on my mind. Why? asked Bond of himself. There was an answer from his inner voice: Because this lousy island smells of death.

The smell of death was in Anna’s nostrils, though she did not recognize it as such. It encroached slowly upon the scented bath powder she had used to sweeten her body in preparation for another lunar field trip with this darkly handsome Israeli of hers. While dusting the peaks of her fine breasts, she became aware of it. Garlic. The odor of garlic.

Then she saw the grinning golden mouth in the mirror. Just as she was about to scream, she heard the voice: “You are going to die, my lovely one.” And even though terror-stricken, she began to laugh, irrepressible peal after peal.