The Israel Bond Omnibus (39 page)
Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
DAVE (The Pure American Voice) WEBSTER and MARY McGRAW
Of WQXT, Palm Beach.
OSCAR PETERSON and LUCKY THOMPSON
Two great jazzmen just a furge of a fifkin away from immortality, who could achieve it merely by recording an LP of my... the hell with it! I’m sick of begging.
******
And, of course,
NANCY BROWN
Of Plainfield, New Jersey.
(If your name wasn’t mentioned, there were valid reasons. Maybe you were a Don’t-Bee, ‘stead of a Doo-Bee, a Goofus and not a Gallant. But you have another chance because there’s a fourth and final Israel Bond thriller in the works. So take that Dial shower every morning, warm the world with your tingly MacLean’s smile and support your area National Educational Television station. I’ll hear about it, don’t worry. ‘Cause you see, P. F. Flyers fans, Uncle Sol really loves you. He just wants you to come up to his standards, that’s all.)
“Don’t Quote Me”—Bartlett
1 A King’s Secret Shame
“Ben-Bella Barka.”
The plea tugged its way past the swollen, blackened tongue through the desiccated lips.
The Grand Vizier of Sahd Sakistan looked down with pity upon the sprawled body of the man in the red Macadamia lizard nightshirt whose sweat-drenched head lolled against the virginal softness of the Doris Day foam rubber pillow.
“Yes, my King, O son of jasmine, honey and saccharin, blessed shining scimitar of ten thousand righteous disembowelments.”
“Ben-Bella Barka, I am dying.”
Ben-Bella Barka glanced at the fever chart stapled to the foot of the Bengalese ivory bed made of Consumers’ Union-approved tusks from selected elephant graveyards. The jagged red line was at 119 degrees, the very top of the chart, and ended, still on an upward trend, at a notice which read: CONTINUED ON NEXT CHART.
“I fear as much, leopard of Araby. As it comes to all men in this uncertain world, so must the black camel of death come even to a king.”
“Look, schmuck. Cut out the Westbrook van Voorhis
March of Time
documentary crap and listen to me,” the king muttered. A sudden fit of coughing sent a trickle of blood down the right corner of his mouth. “Speak truthfully to me, Ben-Bella Barka, I command thee. What will befall my country upon my passing?”
Ben-Bella Barka winced at the king’s choice of language. My master has been too often among the infidels, he thought. He tried to avoid the monarch’s eyes as he answered. “Anarchy, O Lord of the Thighs, giver of pleasure to many concubines. You leave no heir. Thus, the Kurds and Wheys will be encompassed in a divisive power struggle, leaving Sahd Sakistan easy prey for the colonel in Cairo and his agents here. The mystery rider will do her best to save us, but who will listen to a mere woman?”
The king sighed. “Sarah Lawrence of Arabia, the beauty whose face no man has e’er seen unveiled.” He coughed again more violently and groaned. “Ai! May Allah spray uncut Clorox upon all carriers of germs! That last spasm split my truss. The end is nigh, my Grand Vizier. Is that cold fish of a German doctor within the walls of this room?”
“He is in the hallway beyond hearing, O roaring lion of a hundred Tom & Jerry shorts. Speak freely.”
“Draw close. I shall divulge to you a secret which I have kept locked in my heart for twenty-seven years.”
Ben-Bella Barka moved quickly to the king’s side.
“I have a son.”
“You jest, O panther of the bulrushes.”
“Nay, I speak the truth. Listen well: Years ago when I was a young man given to wildness and adventure I heeded your advice when you told me to discard my royal raiments and go among the common people as a lowly seller of myrrh and frankincense so that I might learn something of the world outside the palace. I learned many things, Ben-Bella Barka, among them the fact that nobody in my kingdom knew what the hell myrrh and frankincense were and cared even less. In my absence you attempted to seize the throne and I was forced eventually to return and lop off your ears. Do you recall that episode, Ben-Bella Barka?”
“Louder, sire. As you know, I do not hear too well.”
“During that one-year hiatus I became a merchant seaman on a charter boat carrying prostitutes from Calique to New York.”
“Yes, sire. A tramp steamer.”
“Good! You remember. In Manhattan, under the pseudonym of Bernie Seligman, I lived with a handsome, lusty Negro wench named Caldonia Simmons in a boisterous, fetid tenement at 117th Street and Madison Avenue, which, when it was finally condemned by the Board of Health as totally unfit for apartment dwellers, was converted by the city into an elementary school. Those were the happiest, freest days of my life, making uninhibited love to her three times a day and leaning out the fifth floor window to observe the colorful activities of the storied, high-powered Madison Avenue way of life; those distinguished men in smartly tailored grey flannel suits carrying attaché cases filled with heroin. But I digress. Caldonia and I had a love child, a boy named Beaster who has since taken his mother’s name. I would have remained with her always except for her damnable stubborn streak and, thus, one night in a fit of pique I deserted them. She since has borne children by other men, according to our ambassador who was ordered to keep strict surveillance on the boy. A few years ago we lost contact with him. Yet, I know he lives. My son lives! And by the laws of succession he is the king. Find him, Ben-Bella Barka, and see he is rightfully seated upon the throne. Swear this by the beard of the prophet, Allen Ginsberg.”
“This I swear, potentate of the pomegranates, master of ribbon-cuttings and shopping center openings.”
Peace and resignation appeared on the shrunken face. “Ai! It is sworn, and should you abrogate this sacred vow Allah will dispatch myriads of locusts to clog thy giderum. In a little teakwood box under my pillow you will find more information pertaining to my son. As for me, Ben-Bella Barka, because I am an enlightened monarch, let my funeral be devoid of ostentation. I shall be buried in a plain platinum box and laid to rest inside a towering pyramid 10,000 cubits by 12,000 cubebs which need not be built by the blood and deaths of thousands but rather can be ordered prefabricated via the Spiegel catalog. Beside me will be my wives, bedecked in their finest Ceil Chapman black silk VC pajamas, my Cadillacs, gold and jewels, my stereo, my complete set of the works of Harold Robbins, and, for the love of Allah, please put in a humidifier. Ah, my faithful old jackal, I grow weary... the light grows dimmer... and yet I see a spectral face of infinite sweetness calling to me....”
His voice grew faint. Then he pulled up his emaciated frame and stared across the room as though beckoned by a vision from another time, another place.
“Caldonia! Caldonia! What made your big head so ha-a-a-a-r-r-rd!”
He fell back.
Ben-Bella Barka, according to ancient Sahd Sakistani ritual, placed an Oreo cookie over each of the king’s eyes and bound them to the skull with Tuck Tape.
King Hakmir Nittah Chinek, defender of the faith, protector of caravans and president of Mecca Records, was dead.
2 The Bitch Of Schweinbaden
Like an atomic fireball expanding in slow motion, the sun came out of the darkness, painting the Gulf of Aden gold. What had been a gloomy, foreboding shape by moonlight was transformed into a sparkling white villa on the shoreline of the Road of the Feculent Figs in the tiny enclave of Sahd Sakistan which clings to the southernmost tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The villa, ringed by hundred-foot high walls of Masonite-Dixonite, is known to the madcap international jet set as Shivs, the world’s preferred gambling casino. Once the fifty-room estate of a sheik, it was confiscated by the Sakistani government during a revolution that saw the sheik flee to America and eventually become a paid consultant for the Joyvah Halvah Company. King Hakmir, desperate for funds to feed his people, sold the white elephant to Hosmer Crenshaw and Montpelier Melon, the safflower oil cartel barons, who, when they were expelled from an exclusive London gaming club for not being able to recite Kipling’s “Boots,” launched their own in retaliation. Under the Crenshaw-Melon stewardship, Shivs began siphoning away the action from the London club as well as Monte Carlo, Vegas and Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
In the prime of their adventurous lives disaster struck these hearty, Rabelaisian men in 1962. Their stylish two-seater went out of control during Sahd Sakistan’s fourth annual Soapbox Derby and hurled them over a bluff into the sea. Because they had been the very spirit of Shivs, it was assumed the casino would fold. It was saved on the day of their funerals when the grieving widows, in a graveside transaction marked by recriminations and a few well-placed blows with wrenched-off coffin handles, sold Shivs to Heinz and Gerda Sem-Heidt, the husband-and-wife co-chairmen of a mace-and-chain syndicate. The Sem-Heidts mainyained Shivs’ high standards while at the same time broadening its scope to add skat, catch five, knucks, and pisheh-paysheh to the list of attractions which included “the big five,”—chemmy, baccarat, roulette, craps and, of course—
la guerre
.
No matter how scintillating the play in the casino’s other parlors, the patrons were drawn by irresistible impulse at night’s end to the
la guerre
table. The moment of truth was here; all other forms of wagering paled into insignificance. Only the truly affluent are found in the La Guerre Room, for its membership is limited to holders of Account Numbers 1 to 350 at the Suisse Bank de Legumes, which guarantees personal cash deposits of no less than 500 million Bolivian
quasars
or 750 million Ruthenian
colodnys
, and any banker will tell you these are the two most stable currencies on earth.
At
11 a.m
. the doors to the conference room at Shivs swung open, admitting nine of its ten directors. They seated themselves in plush Jamaican poisonwood chairs with matching ottomans and lit aromatic Muriel cigars. There were two places at the head of the table for the co-chairmen—one empty, the other more than amply filled by the corpulent bulk of Heinz Sem-Heidt, who signaled for silence.
“Since our voices can be heard on the sound system in the cellar and my wife can converse with us, we will proceed with the agenda. Herr Zentner?”
A tall blond man with watery eyes stood ramrod straight. “I have the pleasure to report that King Hakmir is dead.” There were murmurs of approval, even handclaps. “We, of course, have sent word to the palace that the directorship of Shivs offers its heartfelt condolences (laughter) and regrets that the valiant efforts of our physician, Dr. Ernst Holzknicht, to save His Majesty, were to no avail. (Louder laughter.) It was most fitting that the good doctor should have attended the king, for it was he who placed the
sivana bacillus
in the king’s Diet Pepsi in the first place.” The directors gave a standing ovation to the smiling doctor, who shook his head with self-effacement.
“A minor but hardly insoluble problem has evolved. From a listening device planted on the fever chart we have learned there is an heir and that Ben-Bella Barka has been ordered to seek him out and enthrone him. The Grand Vizier will be shadowed, of course, and Hakmir’s son eliminated by some regrettable accident. We foresee a rulerless enclave beset by a vitiating power struggle between the Kurds and their traditional enemies, the Wheys, enabling our client from the U.A.R. to take control. Our fee will amount to 900 million
quasars
, plus 10 percent of the royal treasury.”
Herr Zentner sat down to sustained cheering.
An iron voice cut through the collective self-satisfaction and their smiles vanished as though wiped off by an artist’s brush.
“What about the mystery woman? I want her eliminated!”
Heinz Sem-Heidt blanched. “Mein liebchen, Gerda, we are doing all in our power to end her disruptive tactics. I swear to you by Himmler’s pinky ring that before long she will be rotting in the sun.”
The iron voice in the cellar was cold, dripping with malice: “This Sarah Lawrence of Arabia, as she calls herself, for the last year has been preaching unity between the Kurds and Wheys, appealing for an end to antipathy for the sake of Sakistani nationalism. She has led them in sorties against U.A.R. infiltrators. She even urges them to enter upon friendly relations with Israel.” A stream of curses followed. “Who is she? Why is she here? Is she in the pay of the Zionists? I want these answers and the issue resolved immediately!”
Heinz Sem-Heidt collapsed in his chair, his obscenely fat jowls shaking. “You have heard my wife, gentlemen. Put a Condition Black priority on Sarah Lawrence of Arabia. We will hear other reports. Herr Krug?”
“Fellow directors, I wish to report that our fee for capturing Hebrew Secret Agent Moe Zambique, Oy Oy Five, taken in Damascus and brought here for questioning by Gerda, will net us twenty-five thousand Straits dollars when we turn him over to Syria.”
“Twenty-five thousand Straits dollars?” There was rebuke in Heinz Sem-Heidt’s retort. “A pittance. The capture of an ordinary Double-Oy from Israel’s M 33 and 1/3 is worth easily five times that figure. And if we had taken Oy Oy Seven, well....” His hands made a sky’s-the-limit gesture.
Stocky Herr Krug puffed his Muriel. “Yes, but this should be considered what the Americans term a ‘loss leader.’ Let the Syrians have him for that price. They will soon become so highly dependent on TUSH, our Terrorist Union for Suppressing Hebrews, that we can safely raise the ante on each succeeding job.”
There was a long trailing scream from the cellar. As inured to violence as they were, the nine men shuddered.
The iron voice returned: “Gentlemen, let us not concern ourselves with the piddling Syrian payment. Oy Oy Five will be of no use to them now. Please delay any further items until I come to the conference room.”