The Israel Bond Omnibus (40 page)
Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
They heard the whine of the elevator, then the doors opened and a wheelchair bearing Gerda Sem-Heidt was pushed across the green-and-black swastika-patterned carpet by a dwarf in a dunce cap and a medieval jester’s outfit with tinkling bells on his pointed shoes.
Gerda Sem-Heidt fixed her mustard-yellow eyes upon her twitching husband, then let them scan the other directors. She was a wizened crone of seventy-three who bore a startling resemblance to the witch in the cartoon
Snow White
. Her hands were bony, clawlike, empty of rings, with extra-length fingernails which the dwarf set about honing to razor sharpness with sandpaper. Her face was chalk white, which made the yellow eyes and vein-blue lips appear even more hideous. Virtually bald, she concealed her few wisps of yellowish-white hair with a fiery orange-colored muskrat wig. Her cadaverous body was covered by a red and white J. C. Penney housedress and her unstockinged, bean-shooter feet were ensconced in Kitty Kelly’s Mexicali Rosen
huaraches
. And there was something else on her body, revealed by the deliberately opened housedress.
As the directors saw it their sullen Nordic faces turned a sickly greenish hue. She watched their reactions with a smile. No matter how many times she displayed it, they could never become used to it.
Gerda Sem-Heidt was the proud possessor of a plastic heart.
Dr. Holzknicht alone was undisturbed as he viewed with clinical detachment the exposed components in their transparent styrene housing, the action of the atria and ventricles, the unoxygenated blood changed to bright red by the lungs. It was he who had installed the device after a seizure that left Gerda paralyzed in both legs and close to death. The plastic heart drew its power from an external electromagnetic coil hooked into a transistor battery that never left her lap. The same coil toasted her English muffins of which she had a constant supply in her pockets. Now she grew bored with her shocking little game so she closed her housedress. “Let us continue, gentlemen. I want to hear Dr. Holzknicht’s summation of ‘Operation Alienation.’” To the dwarf: “Locksley, a muffin,
bitte
.”
Dr. Ernst Holzknicht, a slightly built man with a bland face and the large forehead of the scholar, cleared his throat. “Fellow directors, as you know, I am not only a surgeon but a diplomate of the Schisselzelmknist Institute of Advanced Psychiatry. It was my good fortune to assist occasionally our Führer (the men’s right hands shot up in a robotlike heil) during those phases of the war that called for an understanding of the mentality of the Third Reich’s enemies. When our beloved co-chairmen, Heinz and Gerda Sem-Heidt, whom we all served with unquestioning loyalty in those glorious, fulfilling days at the Schweinbaden Concen—er, Detention and Cultural Rehabilitation Center—asked me to mount a plot against the Juden”—several of the directors growled; Gerda spat into Locksley’s puckered apple of a face—“I accepted their challenge with strength through joy. In our previous sessions we have discussed the psychological factors which are involved in ‘Operation Alienation.’ Now it remains only to carry out the physical extirpation of these installations”—his hand swept across a map of North and South America and Western Europe containing thousands of locations denoted by pins—“and Phase One will be complete. Then in a few days we should begin noticing the inevitable results. Thousands of field men will be taking surveys on synagogue and Jewish organizational attendance, United Jewish Appeal contributions, Catskill Mountains and Miami Beach resort bookings, El Al aircraft and Zim Line cruise ship reservations, etc. I have not the slightest doubt that we shall witness a drastic decline in all of these activities. Now I shall yield to Heinz Sem-Heidt, who will outline the personnel problems.”
Heinz Sem-Heidt pushed his hands down hard on the armrests of his chair to hoist up his three-hundred-pound body. “There are no personnel problems, mein lieber Doktor. In this world, happily, there is never a shortage of Jew-haters. (Laughter and applause.) It was a simple matter for our sub-agents who combed the locations marked on our map to find disgruntled individuals willing to attach a Calgonite charge to the wall of a Jewish-owned business. There are five thousand key targets on the three continents, which means the total cost to TUSH, at one hundred dollars Amerikanische per incident will be approximately a half-million dollars. My winnings at
la guerre
alone should cover that cost.
“It is an ingenious plan and we are beholden to our dear colleague. The repercussions felt by the State of Israel will avenge TUSH for many indignities, not the least the murders of our dear Führer (the men heiled again) and our top assassin, Torquemada LaBonza, at the hands of Secret Agent Israel Bond. Our stock will rise on the Espionage Exchange when the Arab world observes that we have caused the virtual withering away of Israel and Judaism without resorting to armies, nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And, as a not inconsequential subsidiary benefit, we shall enjoy the destruction of M 33 and 1/3, the Israeli secret service, and M., the disgusting old harpy we now know is its Number One. And who knows? If Wotan and Thor are smiling down on us, Oy Oy Seven will also be found in the rubble. Gerda, my sweet, do you have any comments to make?”
“Put the plan into being.” The blue lips smiled, but there was no mirth on the face or in the mad-dog yellow eyes. It has been a most satisfying day, she mused. A Jewish agent hangs from his thumbs dead in the cellar; my dear doktor has crafted a plot to bring the verminous Jewish state to its knees. A most satisfying day....
For a moment she seemed years younger, “The Bitch of Schweinbaden” of the happy, rewarding days. It was not for nothing that those few who escaped her clutches to tell the tale never referred to her as Gerda. To them she was and always would be “Auntie” Sem-Heidt.
3 Trenton, I’m Coming!
Executing a picturebook LeMans turn, he swung the majestic old 1938 Vance-Packard, the automobile of true status seekers, over the instep of the CITGO attendant, shouting, “You’re a gasser!” as the man fell stricken against the high-test pump (the witticism, he knew, would do much to assuage the pain from the mashed foot) and headed out of the restaurant stop onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Destination: Trenton, New Jersey, place of his birth.
Israel Bond was going home.
The meal had been as exciting as a Blue Barron recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” There was no doubt in his mind; the world’s safest job was that of a foodtaster for Howard Johnson’s. No, don’t be smart-alecky, he scolded himself. The dessert, frozen baked beans on a stick, had been first rate, the coffee rivaling Horn & Heartburn’s best, and the painting of the waitresses’ faces orange and turquoise to conform to the general decor a cheery touch.
A surge of power from the Vance-Packard, whose 24-cylinder, 8.6 axle ratio, short-stroke, tall-coxswain engine was revved up to maximum cruising speed of 118.9 hectares, sent a chill pulsating through his being. With no strain it hummed past two Cadillacs and an Imperial (all parked on the shoulder for repairs), its 12-ply Firestone tires purring a symphony at that most crucial of the world’s rendezvous—where the rubber meets the road.
Bond stuck a Raleigh between his sensual, Chap-Sticked lips and adjusted the magnifying glass on the Vance-Packard’s visor to entice a goodhearted cosmic ray to veer from its endless course toward galaxies unknown and zero in on the cigarette’s tip and ignite it.
His two-week vacation after the El Tiparillo affair
[22]
had not been prosaic. An old love, Charlene Krosnick, had stolen away from her husband and children to share a night of bliss with him in New York. He took her to see
The Bantu and the Bubby, the musical comedy sensation by top songsmiths Manny Sheldon and Sheldon Manny about a sweet Jewish grandmother who convinces South Africa to abandon its odious policy of racism and appoint a sensitive Negro goatherd as its new prime minister. They dined at romantic, candlelit Nedick’s where a strolling gypsy comes to your table to play your favorite chansons d’amour on his tambourine as the waiter pours the orange drink over ice shavings. She then insisted he take her to see Thunderball, the popular spy movie. “Gosh, Iz,” she sighed as she gazed into the mocking yet tender grey eyes of the secret-agent hero on the billboard. “He kind of looks like... you. Are you really some dashing spy, Iz?” She giggled at the thought. “I hardly think a guy who promotes Mother Margolies’ Activated Old World Chicken Soup would be a swashbuckler, though, would you?” And on an impulse and to tease him she kissed the figure on the advertisement.
“You’re making me jealous, Charlene,” Bond had jested. “But I’m better than he in one place,” and he whisked her via subway to his luxurious suite at Manhattan’s regal Ansonia Hotel where he whispered, “Let there be no puerile shame, no holding back.
Every pore must score
.” As their bodies fused in
score de combat
, he crooned into her fragrant apricot of an ear an aphrodisiacal song based upon the Kama Sutra.
“I’ll be loving you, all ways...
“With a love that’s true, all ways...”
But he had become bored with matchless ecstasy so he had accepted two part-time freelance jobs. The first had been a puff. Through Seymour Feig, an old drinking buddy, he was engaged by a Mr. Farraday to fly to Los Angeles and bring back a certain package. He went there without incident via the “friendly skies of United” (Pan Am’s were indifferent; TWA’s downright hostile, he had been told) but coming back a charming girl in the adjoining seat turned out not so charming after all, covering him with a Chase-Manhattan .38 Banker’s Special and expressing an interest in his attache case. He had been compelled to drive the case against her lovely jaw, breaking it and disabling an operative from the second leading weekly news magazine in America. Back in Manhattan he delivered the flat parcel to the soft-spoken, pipe-smoking Farraday, an agent for the Number One such publication.
“Capital, Mr. Bond! Now, until we release it ourselves, the secret of who will grace our magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ cover is safe, thanks to you.”
He had refused Farraday’s sizable check. “I cannot in good conscience accept payment. My people owe you an everlasting debt. Your magazine’s recent, heralded Essay on Judaism with its generally favorable tone has done more to secure recognition and acceptance for my people than any document since the Ten Commandments.”
After a lump-in-the-throat silence during which he realized he was in the presence of a unique human being, Farraday said, “Is there anything we
can
do that might please you, Mr. Bond?”
“One trifling favor. Have your Show Biz editor do a nice, lengthy feature piece on the gentleman who has taken it upon himself to be my Boswell and chronicle these adventures of mine. And now, sir, may good
Fortune
attend you and may you have
Time
to enjoy it!”
Farraday cracked up. “Geez, that’s hilarious!” and when Bond, eyes atwinkle, zinged in a topper, “Of course, don’t play fast and
Luce
!” he’d literally fallen on the floor.
Assignment Two had been no piece of cake, his torn shoulder testified graphically.
“There’s a frightened kid holed up in the Hotel Bogaslovsky on West 46th Street,” Bond was informed on the phone. “He’s promised to work for us, but if he steps out of that room for sure he’ll be killed.”
“Who’s after him?” Bond wanted to know. It was the kind of question a real top-drawer agent asked.
“There are undercovermen in town representing cliques from Dallas, Minnesota, Philadelphia... many others. They’re ruthless men and if they can’t have him, they swear nobody else will. They tried once in Chicago, even killed his guard, but he slipped ’em. Deliver him to us alive and usable and there’s twenty grand in it for you. Use the code words ‘Flood Formation’ and he’ll let you in.”
The terrorized tot, Bond discovered, was one Casimir Predpelski, aged twenty-two, six feet six, 275 pounds, from Hamtramck, Michigan. Bond spent the better part of a day calming the thumb-sucking Gargantua in Dr. Denton pajamas with a medley of Polish love songs, which included “A Glass of Beer, a Bowling Ball and You” and “Keep Throwing That Dart, in the Dartboard of My Heart.”