The Israel Bond Omnibus (54 page)

“Dobzheh, dobzheh!”
[51]
He collapsed.

His feet thudded into a pudgy back, sending one of the male guests sprawling into the pool, the klonk of skull against diving board fortuitously smothered by the splashes of frolicking guests, and Bond flopped into a Jivaro lounging chair next to a splendidly proportioned auburn-haired enchantress who did not look up as she commented in an offhand manner, “That was my husband, Count Amontillado Di Terrazzo-Crotchetti, you just knocked into the pool. He cawn’t swim, y’know.”

“Pity,” Bond said. Then—”Tracy! Tracy!”

The face was bored no more. “Iz! Iz, my darling!” The wonderfully wanton jet-setter who had shared that memorable summer with Bond at Portofino buried her fine, white teeth into his shoulder, the torn one. “Oh, my darling. You’re hurt. And what are you doing here?”

One of the poolside waiters came to the table. “
Pardonnez-moi
, Countess. This gentleman—” the lips smiled; the eyes were hostile—”is a friend of yours? You are cognizant of the by-laws of Shivs regarding non-members and interlopers.”

“A very dear, dear friend, Valdespino. This is Mr.—” She felt his urgent hand upon her thigh, saw a signal in the grey eyes—”Mr. Dalby, Larrimore Dalby, of Dalby & Ross, my suture future brokers. Good man to know if you’re trying to corner the suture market, Valdespino.”

The eyes remained suspicious. “I have a sorrowful announcement, madam. The count has drowned.”

“A tragic loss, Valdespino. Let’s have a round of drinks to his memory. I’ll let Mr. Dalby order.” She shot Bond a challenging glance.

Still wants to know if I’ve got the old expertise, he mused. He looked at his watch. “Well, Valdespino, it’s 4:30, too early for the Dom DeLuise ’17 which must never be served in the heat of the day, too late for the Armand Ruderman ’25, which is at its effervescent best only between 9 and 11
a.m
., and then only if served within four hundred miles of either side of the International Date Line (her eyes were filled with veneration, the mouth moistening with lust) so let’s just make it two Good Old ‘Arolds, with either the Lavagetto ’38 or the Cavaretta ’40, spiced by Sneakee Pietro, favored by all derelicts of good taste. That meet with your approval, Valdespino?”

“Oui, monsieur. The
drinks
meet with my approval.” He went to fetch them, his cold eyes still on Bond.

He practically italicized the word “drinks,” Bond thought. (He could not know the italicization was literal.) They meet with his approval, but I don’t. He kept looking at the blood on my shoulder. I’m going to have trouble with this little man.

“Bless you for the little white lie, dearest Tracy.” He painted the oval cheeks red with an affectionate squeeze of his bloody hand.

“Oh, it’ll cost you, Iz, don’t worry.” She ran her cool hand over the corrugated muscles of his navel. “What are you doing here anyway, Mr.... uh... Dalby?”

“Freelance writing job. Sneaked in to get some data on a piece to be called ‘Gambling, Armageddon of the Soul,’ which I hope to peddle to
The Watchtower
Magazine.”

“You’re lying, Iz—uh, Larrimore. I’ve suspected for some time you’re one of those secret agents... those nights in Portofino when the shoulder holster pressed against my body as we made love... the times you’d jump up from some nightmare yelling ‘SMERSH! SWISH! TUSH!’ and start firing that damn gun all over the place. I never told you about the killings of bellhops and cleaning women I had to hush up with my husband’s money.”

“Okay, so you know. Keep it down, bright eyes. There are mikes hidden all over the place.”

“If you’re here to probe the evils of gambling, my pet, why don’t you take a gamble and discuss them with me at full length... on my full-length bed? Room 25, second floor.”

“Logical way to get into the subject,” Bond jested. “Let’s away, shall we?” First he took out his Inca-Dinca silver cigarette case and fumbled with a Raleigh so he could keep it open a few seconds longer. The interior mirror caught Valdespino behind a palm tree, popping a capsule between the white and gold teeth. Planting a homer capsule in himself like mine, Bond realized. Señor Valdespino is going to tag me all over the joint. Bet somebody in Shivs at a master controlboard right now is getting a beep-beep-beep on the personal frequency assigned to Valdespino, which tells him Valdespino suspects something. “Second thought, Tracy, I’ll meet you at the room a little later. Keep stoking the home fires, you adorable hellcat.”

“They are now,” she panted. “Don’t you dare forget me, you motherstoker.”

Bond walked toward the villa, smiling at the oafish klomp-klomp-klomp of footsteps behind. A clumsy tag job... you never tag a man in cheapo Father & Son croco-mocs, Señor Slewfoot.

He nodded to the blah guests on the porch, went inside and found the Herr O’ the Hund Cocktail Lounge to the right of the main desk. “Seven and Seven,” he told the sleepy-eyed Bulgro behind the bar polishing the Dixie Cups.

“Fourteen.” Then the man, suddenly aware of the fact he was not being given a math quiz, blushed in the adorable way that all rattled Bulgroes do. “Sorry, sir. I’ll make one up right away.”

“Better make that two Seven and Sevens. I’ve got a friend coming in. Hi, Valdespino,” he said with an airy wave. “Join me for a little drinkie-poo?”

The sheepish waiter decided to brazen it out. “If you wish, sir, though it is against Shivs’ policy for the help to fraternize....”

“No buts about it, old man. I insist. About time hard-working little waiters got waited on themselves, huh?” Bond picked up the two drinks, letting the anti-homer capsule capsule fall from his palm into Valdespino’s. “Down the hatch, fella.” He experienced a thrill as the man drained his drink. He started to down his own when the Bulgro said, “That’ll be three quasars and six, sir.” Bond dug out a five-quasar note and walked over to the bartender. “Keep the change. And here’s an extra colodny just for the way you blush.”

The mistake was turning his back to Valdespino, long enough for the little man to place a pellet into Bond’s half-finished libation. Bond came back to belt it down, said flippantly, “Nice talking to you lads,” and went back into the lobby. He ambled down a corridor into the casino past a number of guests in Bermuda Schwartz shorts, hot-eyed degenerate gamblers who stuffed farthingales into a battery of machines. One screamed, “I hit! I hit!” and Bond saw the man’s shaky hands receive a pack of Luckies.

He did not know what made him turn his head; intuition, perhaps; whatever it was, it saved his life. The knife whistled by, burying itself into the heart of a rose on the damask-covered wall. His hands flew to his mezuzah, the cylindrical symbol of his faith on a chain around his neck, and, with a long, tapering finger on the Star of David, he aimed it at Valdespino who was pulling another knife from his cummerbund. But the second knife fell from the man’s hand, the Molochamovis-B tipped needle from the mezuzah flew far from its intended mark, killing the unfortunate chap who’d beat Shivs’ one-armed bandit for the cigarettes. Bond and Valdespino were doubled up, their hands clutching their stomachs, water streaming from their eyes. They began a frantic race toward a door with a painting of a haughty cavalier on it, cursing and shoving each other aside. Then they were in the room, felling two elderly gentlemen about to go into the stalls with hammer blows, and, at last, in the stalls, Hickok belt and cummerbund falling to the floor. From the groans of Valdespino and his own Bond knew they had both been victimized by anti-homer laxitive capsules of similar potency.

“Truce,” he gasped and heard a weak, “Oui, monsieur.”

He lit a Raleigh. “Smoke, Valdespino?” He heard a grunt he took to be yes and shoved one underneath the partition along with a blue-tipped Ohio match.

“
Merci
.”

“That’s quite a device you put into me, old man. A Dr. Holzknicht special?”

“Indeed, sir.” Valdespino sighed. “And—oooh—may I compliment you on the efficacy of the one you placed in my drink, sir.”

“Fella named Lavi HaLavi’s responsible for—” He could not finish the sentence.

Some time later, the fight and everything else drained out of them, they were engaged in an amiable chat. Bond admiring the Polaroid photos of Valdespino’s wife and three children his former adversary had passed to him. “Nice young ’uns, Valdespino. Though I’d hate to entrust their future to the kind of megalomaniacs you’ve thrown in with.”

With one of his trenchant analyses of the political forces shaping the world’s destiny, coupled with an offer of a CIA job for 25 percent more than TUSH was paying (plus hospitalization, old-age benefits and a tour of Disneyland; he was sure Goshen would make good on all counts) he persuaded Valdespino to change sides. As they washed up, he told the waiter, “You won’t be sorry, old chap. The CIA can always find a spot for an ugly, clever little knife-throwing fanatic.”

“Mon Dieu!” Valdespino was suddenly pale. “I have been guilty of the worst sort of amateurism.” He made a hasty search through the cubicles. “Look, Mr. Bond, in each roll of ultra-soft, irritant-free Delsey. Listening devices. In Shivs, sir, even the stalls have ears. They have heard my betrayal. It is all over for me. Get out while you can.”

Gottenu!
Bond slapped his forehead. “I’ve also forgotten. My buddy, CIA Agent James Brown, is out there. Now that he isn’t getting the signal he’ll be barging in.”

They headed through the casino to the lobby. Through the loudspeaker they heard shouts in a sort of doubletalk Bond assumed was a code for Shivs’ personnel.

“Mr. Bond, they are ordering their men to get the guests back into the casino on some pretext or other—-free hot milk and Malomar cookies, I think. Which means they don’t want witnesses around when they open the front gate to admit your friend, whom they have spotted. He, too, is a goner. They will cut him down. I have just heard my name mentioned as well, sir, in a most unfavorable light.”

“Got to warn him, Valdespino. Is there any—”

Valdespino would be of benefit no more. He fell on his face, a machete vibrating in his back. Down the corridor flew a trio of Shivs’ house police, two Bulgars and one that looked like a cross between.... What does it matter
what
breed he is, you idiot! Bond swore at himself. Run! Run!

He lurched back into the lobby, firing the mezuzah’s auxiliary needle into the desk clerk’s cheek, the nerve poison doing its job in 1.9 seconds. He crouched behind the front desk, discovered some bars of Camay on a bottom shelf and jammed them into the pockets of his Korvette’s luau car coat. No reason why a secret agent has to have rough, red hands, unless, of course, he’s an Apache, Bond reasoned. When he pushed the bars into the right-hand pocket a long, tapering finger hit the round, hard thing.

Little Rickey Bond’s Superball! Damn it, he’d forgotten to give it back to Milton’s kid after that swell game of catch in Trenton... sixty billion lightyears away. Without knowing why, he let his mind wander back to that catch. He’d seen how Superball, the latest toy sensation, could outbounce by a 50 to 1 ratio the ordinary balls he’d used as a youngster.

He knew now how to warn CIA Agent James Brown, but it might prove fatal. The hell with the risk! With his “Old Wrangler” Ralston Cereal Tom Mix Straight-Shooter knife he cut a message into the ball: TRAP! STAY OUT! BRING HELP! BUY AN ISRAEL BOND! In his mind’s eye he saw the front porch of Shivs facing the front gate, perhaps 600 feet away, and himself as a fourteen-year-old would-be Joltin’ Joe D. back in Trenton, hurling his moth-eaten tennis ball against the porch of his Union Street home in the game known variously as “pinnerball,” “stoopball,” or “porchball.”