The Universe Twister (49 page)

"Where've you been keeping yourself?" Lafayette demanded as he took the proffered chair. "I haven't seen you in a year or more."

"Take a tip from a pal," the Red Bull said sadly as he poured wine into O'Leary's glass. "Stay away from dem hick jails."

"You haven't been up to your old tricks?" Lafayette demanded in a severe tone. "I thought you'd reformed, Red Bull."

"Naw—dey nabs me on account of I was astride a nag which it had some udder mug's brand on. But, geeze, youse know how all dese bay mares look alike on duh parking lot."

"I warned you about your casual view of property rights," Lafayette said. "The first night we met—right here at this very table."

"Yeah—I picked duh spot for duh sentimental associations," the big man acknowledged. He sighed. "Youse had duh right idear, chum: youse give up duh cutpurse racket and went straight, and now—"

"Are you back on that old idea?" Lafayette said sharply. "I was never a cutpurse. I don't know how you got that impression—"

"Dat's right, pal, don't admit nothing." The Red Bull winked, a grotesque twisting of battered features. "It'll be our little secret dat youse used to be duh Phantom Highwayman, duh dream spector o' duh moors."

"That's a lot of rubbish, Red Bull," Lafayette said, sampling his wine. "Just because the first time you saw me I was wearing a coat of claret velvet and breeches of brown doeskin—"

"Yeah, an' dey fitted wit' never a wrinkle, right? An' dey come up to your thigh. An' yuh had a French cocked hat on your forehead, and a bunch of lace at your chin—"

"That doesn't mean a thing! It just happened to be what I conjured up—I mean," he corrected, seeing that he was about to complicate matters: the Red Bull would never understand the Focusing of the Psychic Energies. "I mean, I actually intended to wear a gray suit and a Homburg, but something went a little awry, and—"

"Sure, sure, I heard all dat sweet jazz before, pal. Anyways, I seen by duh papers dis would be a night when duh moon would be like a ghostly galleon, and duh wind would be a torrent o' darkness, an' all, so I sez—"

"Will you come to the point?" Lafayette snapped. "It's actually long after my bedtime, and—"

"Sure, chum. Drink your wine whilst I fill youse in. It's like dis, see? I'm ankling along duh pike, on my way back from duh burg where dey hung duh frame on me, an' I'm overtook by nightfall. So I seeks shelter in a cave an' in duh morning what was my surprise to find duh rock I was using fer a piller was ackshully a neat little cask like, you know, a safety deposit box."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. So, I'm shaking it around a little, and duh lids falls open. And guess what's inside?"

"Money? Jewels?" Lafayette hazarded, swallowing more wine. It was poor stuff, thin and sour. Too bad Central was keeping that Supressor focused on him; otherwise they could have just as easily been drinking Château Lafite-Rothschild . . .

"Naw," the Red Bull said disgustedly. "Dere was just some kind o' gadget, like a combination can opener and hot-patch kit. Only it looks like it's broke. I'm about to t'row it away, when I notice duh lettering on duh bottom."

"What did it say?" Lafayette inquired, yawning. " 'Made in Japan'?"

"Take a look fer yourself, pal." The Red Bull dipped a set of scarred knuckles inside his grimy leather jerkin, withdrew a small apparatus of the approximate appearance of a six-inch-high patent coffee maker—or possibly a miniature jukebox, Lafayette corrected himself. There was a round base, painted a dark red, surmounted by a clear plastic box inside which were visible a maze of wires, wheels, levers, gears, tiny bits of colored glass and plastic.

"What in the world is it?" he inquired. "Why, those look like condensers and transistors—but that's silly. No one's invented transistors yet, in Artesia."

"Great, chum!" the Red Bull exclaimed. "I knowed youse would have duh straight dope!"

"I don't have any dope, straight or otherwise," O'Leary objected. "I haven't the faintest idea what the thing is." He turned it around, frowning at it. "What does it do, Red Bull?"

"Huh? Beats me, bub. But what I figger is, it's gotta do
some
thing nifty—and all we got to do is dope out what, and we're in business!"

"Nonsense." Lafayette pushed the apparatus away. "Red Bull, it was nice seeing you again, but I'm afraid you're wasting my time with this Rube Goldberg. Are you sure you didn't cobble it up yourself? I never saw mechanical and electronic components jumbled together like that—"

"Whom, I?" the Red Bull said indignantly. "Pal, I wouldn't string youse! Like I says, I find duh gimcrack in duh cave, an'—"

"Phooey, Red Bull." Lafayette finished his wine and pushed the mug back. "I'm going home and to bed, where I belong. Drop around some evening and we'll talk over the good old days when I was a poor, homeless boob, with no friends, no money, and a death sentence hanging over me."

"Hey, wait, pal! You ain't seen what's wrote on duh bottom, which I din't t'row it away when I seen it!"

Lafayette grunted impatiently, picked up the gadget and peered at the underside of the base. He frowned, held it in a better light.

"Well," he exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so? This could be something important. Where did you say you found it?"

"Buried in duh cave. And as soon as I seen duh royal coat of arms, I glommed I was onto something big, right, pal?"

"Goruble's personal cartouche," Lafayette muttered. "But it looks as if it were stamped in the metal with a hand-punch. There's something else . . ."

"What does it say, chum?" The Red Bull leaned forward eagerly.

"Haven't you read it?" Lafayette inquired in surprise.

"Uh—I didn't go in much fer duh scholar bit when I was a nipper," the big man said abashedly.

"It's difficult to read in this light—but I can make out . . . PROPERTY OF CENTRAL PROBABILITY LABORATORY." He rubbed a finger at the tarnished surface; more letters appeared:

FOCAL REFERENT—VARIABLE (FULL RANGE) MARK III

WARNING—EXPERIMENTAL MODEL

FOR USE BY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

"Chee," the Red Bull said reverently.

"Why, good lord," Lafayette said, "I'll bet this is part of the loot Goruble brought along to Artesia when he defected from the Central Monitor Service, twenty-five years ago! I remember that Nicodaeus said they'd recovered a Traveler-load of stuff from the lab he'd rigged up in the palace catacombs, but that the records seemed to indicate there was more that they couldn't find—" He broke off. "Red Bull—that cave—could you find it again? There might be a whole trove of other items there!"

"Dat's what I been tryna tell youse, pal," the former second-story man said aggrievedly. "Oncet I seen I was onto duh real goods, I dig around and come up wit' a whole bunch o' wild-looking gear under duh floor! I can't carry all duh stuff, so I bury it again, and come hot-footing to youse wit' duh whole story."

"Ye gods, Red Bull—this stuff is dynamite! If it fell into the wrong hands—"

"Right, bub! Dat's why I think of youse! Now, duh way I got duh caper doped, I bring in duh stuff a couple choice items at a time, see, and wit' your old contacts from when youse was in duh game, we could soon retire on duh take!"

"Take! Are you out of your mind? This stuff is experimental equipment from a temporal laboratory—where they run experiments in probability, time travel, interdimensional relationships! Start messing with this, and heaven only knows what kind of probability stresses you'd set up! You might shift half of Artesia into some other phase of existence—or even worse!"

The Red Bull was frowning darkly. "What's duh proposition got to do wit' timetables? And you can skip duh cracks about my relationships. I been keeping company wit' duh same frail for five years now, and all we ever do—"

"You don't understand, Red Bull! We can't sell this stuff! It belongs to Central! Goruble stole it! We have to get it back to them at once, before something terrible happens!"

"Listen, pal," the Red Bull said earnestly. "Duh worst t'ing I can see happening is fer some udder slob to latch onto duh gravy, see?"

"Red Bull, try to fix this thought in your mind," Lafayette said tautly. "This thing is potentially more dangerous than an atom bomb—not that you know what an atom bomb is. Just take my word for it that I have to turn it over to the Central authorities at once—if I can get hold of the authorities," he added doubtfully.

"Nix, pal." The Red Bull's immense hand closed around the device resting on the scarred table. "Turn duh goods over to duh bulls, and dey pocket duh spoils fer demselves. Nuts to dat. If youse don't want a slice o' duh action, I'll work duh play solo!"

"No, Red Bull, you still don't get it! Listen—I promise you there'll be a fat reward for turning this in. Say—a hundred gold pieces."

"What about duh rest o' duh trove?" the Red Bull inquired suspiciously, rubbing a calloused hand across his stubbled chin with a sound like frying fat.

"We can't touch it. I'll use the special phone in Nicodaeus' old lab to put a call through to Central, and get an Inspector of Continua in here to take charge—"

"Youse was saying about duh reward. What say to ten grand, cash on duh line?"

"I'm sure it can be arranged. What about it, Red Bull? I'll see that your interests are protected."

"Well—it ain't like duh old days, bub. I still think youse and me would have been a great team, wit' my brains an' your neat tricks, like riding t'rough duh sky an' turning to smoke under duh very noses o' duh Johns—"

"You're talking nonsense, Red Bull. Just trust me: I'll see it to you don't lose by it. Now tell me—where is this cave, exactly?"

"Well . . . I dunno, pal," the Red Bull said doubtfully. "Youse is a square mug, an' all, but dis is duh biggest career opportunity dat ever come my way." He rose. "I got to go to duh can," he confided. "Gimme a minute to consider duh angles." He swaggered off toward the rear of the tavern. Lafayette picked up the Focal Referent, Mark III, and stared into the complexities of its interior. It resembled no machine he had ever seen before; it was as though the components of an eight-day clock and a portable TV had been mixed thoroughly and packed into the same restricted space. There was a small, flat button on one side, near the bottom, glowing with a faint, enticing glow. Lafayette poked at it . . .

The Universe turned inside out. Lafayette—clinging to the interior of the vast solid that surrounded the hollow bubble that was the earth—was dimly aware that his body now filled a void of infinite extent, while his eyes, situated at the exact center of reality, stared directly into each other, probing a bottomless nothingness that whirled, expanded, and—

The walls of the room were sailing past, like a merry-go-round running down. Lafayette blinked dizzily, grabbed for his wine glass, took a hearty gulp, sat trembling and drawing deep, restorative breaths. He swallowed a lump the approximate size of a hard-boiled egg, edging as far as possible away from the innocent-looking apparatus sitting on the table before him.

"Oh, you're a genius, O'Leary," he muttered to himself, patting his pocket for a handkerchief with which to mop the cold sweat from his brow. "You give the Red Bull a lecture on the danger of meddling with experimental temporal lab equipment, and then you poke a button yourself, and nearly . . . nearly . . . do whatever I nearly did!"

There was a sudden sound of scuffling, emanating from the direction of the alley behind the tavern. The tapman came around the bar with a stout cudgel in his hand. He halted abruptly, staring at Lafayette.

"We're closed, you," he said roughly. "How'd ye get in here, anyway?"

"Through the door, Tom, as usual," Lafayette snapped. "What about it?"

"Haul ye'r freight, ye scurvy knave." The barman hooked a thick thumb over his shoulder. "Out!"

"What's got into you, Tom?" O'Leary said testily. "Go polish a glass or something—"

"Look, crum-bum—so I open the joint so me old mate the Red Bull could have a quiet rondy-vooz with a nobleman; that don't mean every varlet on the pavement gets to warm hisself at me fire—"

"Some fire," Lafayette snapped. "The A & D used to be a fairly nice dive, as dives go—but I can see it's deteriorated—" He broke off with an
oof!
as Tom rammed the club into his short ribs, grasped him by the back of the neck, and assisted him from the bench.

"I says out, rogue, and out is what I mean!"

As the landlord sent him staggering toward the door, Lafayette caught at one of the posts supporting the sagging beams, whirled around it, and drove a straight right punch to the barman's chin, sending him bounding backward to end up on the packed-earth floor with his head under a table.

"I was just leaving, thanks," Lafayette said, noting as he seized the Mark III from the table that his voice had developed a hoarse, croaking sound. But no wonder, after the scare he'd had, followed by the unexpected attack by an old acquaintance.

"I think you'd better lay off sampling the stock, Tom. It does nothing for your personality." He paused at the door to straight his coat, smooth his lapels. The cloth felt unaccountably greasy. He looked down, stared aghast at grimy breeches, torn stockings, and run-over shoes.

"All that from one little scuffle?" he wondered aloud. The landlord was crawling painfully forth from under the table.

"Stick around, mister," he said blurrily. "It's two falls out o' three, remember?" As he came to his feet with a lurch, Lafayette slipped out into the dark street. A chill drizzle of rain had started up, driven by the gusty wind. The Red Bull was nowhere in sight.

"Now, where's he gotten to?" Lafayette wondered aloud as he reached to draw his cloak about him, only to discover that the warm garment was gone.

"Drat!" he said, turning back to the tavern door.

"Tom! I forgot something!" he shouted; but even as he spoke, the light faded inside. He rattled and pounded in vain. The oak panel was locked tight.

"Oh, perfect," he groaned aloud. "Now he's mad at me—and it was my second-best cloak, too, the one Daphne's Aunt Lardie made for me." He turned up his jacket collar—of stiff, coarse wool, he noted absently; funny, he'd grabbed a coat from the closet in the dark, but he didn't remember owning anything
this
disreputable. Maybe it belonged to the man who had come to clear the swallows' nest out of the chimney . . .