The Israel Bond Omnibus (8 page)
Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
“Allah Akbar!” Achmed cried. “There is none but Allah and Mohammed is his servant. But tell me, how did you learn of the matter?”
“It is not for you to question Goy, Jew. Be satisfied that we have observed and are pleased. How did you manage to introduce the creature into this inhospitable Zionist stronghold?”
“Simple, excellency.” Achmed Jew’s voice was tinged with self-importance at his cleverness. “I brought it in a refrigerated truck which stops regularly at the Kahn-Tiki kitchen after, naturally, disposing of the driver and his cargo. Then I led it up the freight elevator. The stupid operator was made to believe it was a tipsy guest heading for a private masquerade party on the eighteenth floor.”
“You show hidden fires, Achmed Jew! Splendid! Now you will meet me at the indoor pool adjacent to the solarium. I have instructions regarding the Israeli philanthropist.”
“By the nose hairs of Nasser!” Achmed cried delightedly. “Am I to be given the signal honor of destroying this dog?”
“Silence! Son of a pock-marked pickpocket! You will learn in good time. Saalum aleikum.” The caller hung up.
The tense YENTZ agent could hardly believe his ears. He let go an irrepressible squeal. Surely Gamal Goy must think he, Achmed, was worthy indeed to have proffered such a monumental assignment. He chortled merrily at the name—Gamal Goy. And who said we Arabs lacked subtlety? Then he realized something else! Virtually the entire conversation with his superior had been conducted in English, a language Achmed was totally unfamiliar with. What a magnetic man Goy must be to draw a foreign tongue out of me!
Moments later he stood by the poolside, his nostrils assailed by the stench. Then he recalled he had been told it was filled with Mother Margolies’ Activated Old World Chicken Soup. Stinking Zionist offal!
It was dinner time. The pool was deserted. A creepy feeling pervaded him, his own footsteps echoing against the moist, steamy walls gave him a sense of unease. Lighting a Rameses, he waited.
He pricked up his ears. He heard other footsteps reverberating through the man-made fog. Then silence.
“Achmed Jew!”
The harsh voice, sounding strangely disembodied. But from where?
“Goy?”
“No Goy, Jew! This is Jew, Goy!”
That voice! Achmed whirled, his hand sliding into his coat.
Dreck! Dreck!
Two slugs from a Tzimmes-88 tore past him, missing by a foot. But in spinning to answer the misdirected shots with his Sphinx-77, Achmed slipped on the wet tiles, his head cracking the pool deck. Stunned, his temporal parietal area gashed badly, he toppled into the pool. For a few seconds there was a strangling, gurgling sound. Then his struggles ceased.
A cold smile on his face as he watched the bloody eddies mingling with the tender bits of plump Rhode Island Red fowl, Bond came down from the high diving board, his vantage point for the shooting. The Tzimmes-88 still smoked in his swollen right hand. Justice had cried out for a chauvinistic killing with a good Jewish gun this time. Nothing fancy. Just a plain good Jewish killing. His lips spoke mockingly to the bobbing body of the drowned Yemeni: “Gamal Goy greets his desert brother, Achmed Jew. May there be many dark-eyed houris to greet you in your warriors’ heaven—all of them with yaws—you bastard!” (But I really must get back to the practice range, he warned himself once more).
Flicking off an imaginary dust spot on the lapel of his Dino tuxedo, the model favored by leading stars of stage, screen and television, Bond took out his Nippo, lit a Raleigh and watched the smoke become part of the pool’s mist. He pulled the wick out, placed it in his ear and spoke into the bottom of the lighter.
“Zvi?”
“Shalom, Oy Oy Seven.”
“Have you disposed of the bear’s body?”
“Yes, Oy Oy Seven. It has been sliced into bits. Every cat in the Catskills will have an unexpected treat tonight. And as you requested, I am having the skin made into a coat. How are your wounds?”
“Better, thank you. The hotel doctor dressed the lacerations, thinking he was ministering to a very poor skier. As for the pain, it’s bad, but bearable. The Excedrins are definitely helping. You see, I had this pain that felt like two billygoats were pulling my head asunder, so in a case like this when I need big relief...”
Zvi’s voice cut in: “Yes. But what shall I tell M. about our friend from YENTZ?”
Bond’s grey eyes gleamed as his quick mind prepared to hurl one of his famous jests.
“One can say,” he paused for telling effect, “that Mr. Achmed Jew is definitely in the soup!”
7 “This Can’t Be the Regular Group!”
For once, disposing of a body had proved relatively simple for Bond. Zvi, who had left the Cafe Aw-Go-Go-Already to come to the Catskills and work more closely with him, had wangled a part-time job as an animal trainer with the Ring-A-Ding Barton Brothers & Bill Bailey Circus and Smoker (“The earthiest show on earth”) touring nearby and had brought over a starving Bengal tiger, shoved it into the pool and calmly watched it dine on the Levantine.
Bond, a Raleigh dangling from his lips, commented: “You can always count on fast action, Zvi, when there’s a tiger in the tank.”
Grinning, Zvi again was overwhelmed by Oy Oy Seven’s trigger mind. How does he do it? And why?
“Boy, that tiger is doing a real job. I don’t think Agent D. could have handled this any better.” Then he bit his tongue.
“Agent D.?” A sharp look of interest was on Bond’s face. “Who is Agent D.?”
Zvi stammered. “Forget I ever mentioned Agent D. Please, Oy Oy Seven, please forget it. Means nothing really.”
Agent D.? Zvi apparently had gleaned something from one of M.’s top secret missives. But Bond decided to press the matter no further. His confrere was obviously embarrassed enough.
“Say, Bond,” said Zvi, changing the subject as quickly as he could, “how come you got all duded up in soup ’n fish to bump off this guy? What’s with this whole fashion plate bit anyway?”
Bond looked at him with some asperity. “Look, Zvi. This is a rotten business I’m in ... killing, maiming, stealing, bribing. But damn it, man, there’s no reason why I have to go through all of it like a slob!”
And he spun angrily on his heel, an unfortunate maneuver which released a knife that whizzed by Zvi’s head, lopping off an ear.
“Iz ... I’m sorry I offended you, old friend,” Zvi said to Bond’s departing back, the pain of thoughtlessly hurting a chum far exceeding the minor irritation emanating from the spot where his auditory appendage had been ensconced.
Understandably aggravated by Zvi’s vulgar diatribe against his wardrobe, Bond nevertheless shrugged it off. Zvi, a mere 113 rank holder, could not appreciate men of Bond’s class. Bond’s own idol had been Oy Oy One, a suave, nattily attired operative who had met the fate all Oy Oy holders were destined for—the end of an Arab rope. And faithful to his gentleman’s code, Oy Oy One had insisted that the Egyptian hangman use a Windsor knot. Truly a man to emulate, Bond vowed.
Ten minutes later, reverting to his cover role, Bond found himself delivering the speech to the organization mentioned in M.’s communication and then found himself dragged into yet another conclave by a spry, surprisingly powerful old matron in gold lame evening hip-hugger slacks and blouse, matched regrettably with brown and white saddles. He had given an abbreviated version of his speech to the group, the Molly Picon Golden Age Political Action Club, and with another of his typically gallant (and basically good-hearted) gestures—”Waiter, a bottle of your best Geritol for every lovely lady in the room”—had gained applause and reverence.
Still pain-racked from his mauling, the bored Oy Oy Seven strolled into the Litvak Luau Room where, before a jam-packed audience, West Coast comedy sensation Henny Benny Lenny was holding sway at the microphone, tossing glib patter:
“... geez, what a quiet bunch! I’ve gotten better reaction from a Schick test!”
(Nervous, somewhat light laughter.)
“My God, let’s all hold hands and try to communicate with the living!”
(Even lighter laughter.)
“Are you sure this is the regular group? So this guy falls off the Washington Monument and the cop says, ‘What’s goin’ on here?’ and the guy says, ‘I don’t know. I just got here myself!’”
(Nervous rustlings; no laughter.)
“This can’t be the regular group! Well, let’s try the hip, sophisticated, topical humor right outa today’s front pages, huh? Viet Nam? That’s affecting all of us in these troubled times. Well, these two South Vietnamese soldiers are sitting around in a foxhole under fire from the Commies and the first one says to his pal, ‘I just bought me one of them Italian sports cars—a Cosa Nostra. Underneath the hood is a hood!’”
(Barely audible rustlings.)
“Uh, let’s talk about civil rights, which is affecting all of us in these troubled times. So this NAACP picket meets Roy Wilkins and he says, ‘Geez, Roy, is my wife neat! I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak and by the time I came back she’d made the bed!’”
(SILENCE.)
“No civil rights bits, uh? This must be a KKK crowd—Kosher, Kishkes and Kreplach. That was a fastie I just thought up. I wish I hadn’t.”
(Even lighter silence.)
“Uh—automation. We’re all affected by automation in these troubled times. So the first robot says to the second robot, ‘I’m bowlegged; my old lady is knockkneed; when we stand together we spell OX!’”
( )
“Well, I guess this ain’t the hip, sophisticated crowd that digs topical humor right outa today’s front pages. Well, if that’s the case, let’s get back to the old jokes, folks. Hey, I made a rhyme—jokes, folks! Geez, I’m a poet and don’t know it. But my feet show it. They’re Longfellows!”
(Some response this time ... of a sort. A ringsider vaulted onto the stage and hit the funmaker across the mouth with a whisky bottle.)
“Well, goodnight, folks, and God bless youse. Youse have been a wonderful audience and I just wanna say I’m a veteran, with three sons who are Rabbis, who loves his mom, America and all she stands for, and my old dog, Timmie. My dog is so old that his fleas just went on medicare. Nothing, huh? Well, goodnight!”
And the peppery comedian walked off to the strains of “I Know That You Know,” grinning, spitting out his teeth and whispering to a stagehand, “Tough crowd at first, but I finally got ’em.”
Too bad, Bond thought. He was a hilarious chap. The frequent cabareting Bond had been exposed to as part of his P.R. role had made him rather an expert on funnymen. This one was first-rate. But the crowd had been impatiently waiting for a message from Dr. Loxfinger, who had agreed on a brief personal appearance to show an anxious Jewry he was alive and well.
Bond, too, felt a stirring at the prospect of hearing one of Loxfinger’s messianic pronunciamentos. He had seen the seventy-six-year-old savant in the newsreels, of course, even there experiencing the galvanism of the man. Now he would feel it first hand.
The honor of the introduction rightly belonged to porcine Schuyler Kahn, now on stage beaming beatifically.
“Ladies and gentlemen ...”
As though a needle had been lifted from a phonograph, the murmuring ceased abruptly.
“My lovely wife, Estrellita Kahn, your co-host at the Kahn-Tiki and the only woman I’ll ever look at ...” there was hearty applause; the love between the Kahns was well known to their regular patrons. (Estrellita rose, shouted, “I feel the same way about you, Schuyler, sweetie!” which triggered another wave of applause and laughter.) “Estrellita and I feel truly blessed tonight. Our hotel, the Kahn-Tiki, your Jewish haven in the hills, where homebodies can dance, sing, love, and eat like—you should pardon the expression—pigs! (riotous laughter) at reasonable, God knows, rates, which next year will have the Catskill Mountains’ only individual handball courts and sauna baths in each and every room (lusty cheers) ... our hotel has been granted the esteemed honor of hosting a giant of Judaism this day. He has graced our magnificent Wahine Dining Room with his presence, the only dining room in the mountains that features high-calorie saccharine (more cheers) and—and a French mother dee!! Well, I ain’t up here to plug (chuckle) the Kahn-Tiki, your second home. I’m here to humbly present the greatest Jewish gentleman I ever seen—and, believe me, Schuyler Kahn in his role as owner of the best Class B hotel in the mountains has met them all... I have become personal, intimate, best friends with all of them… Al Jessel, Georgie Jolson, Sophie Bryce and Fanny Tucker, those ice-cold mamas… the Ritz Sisters, those wonderful Marx clowns; Frodo, Bilbo, Dildo, you name ‘em, I know ‘em. I say the greatest Jewish gentleman of them all is the gent I’m gonna present now. Without further ado, here is Dr. Lazarus Loxfinger!”