Page 33 of Shadow Ticket
Shaking his head briefly as if something unpleasant just alighted there, “Me, I feel like the village matchmaker. This isn’t the usual collector’s mania.
It’s desire.” Explaining that his client the Count belongs to a secret community of lampadophiles, or persons sexually attracted to lamps.
“You may not have run across it that much in the States.”
“Spend enough time around emergency rooms, you’re apt to see anything. Light sockets, vacuum cleaners, that general diameter, the minute it gets invented, some genius finds a way to put their johnson into it.”
They arrive at a neighborhood of warehouses, corner taverns, cafés and hashish bars, metallic shadows, sounds of mostly invisible train traffic, train smoke in the air, uneven cobblestone pavement which demands close attention when running from or after anybody, where according to Zoltán apport-asport activities may be carried on in safety, cop-free.
A back alleyway, itself a honkytonk district in miniature, entrances and exits both alleyside and out onto the grand boulevard adjoining. The day begins at sundown, and everybody seems to be working at least one extra hustle on the side.
Csopi, who looks after the door, lounging like a shop salesman on the lookout for walk-in business, tips ZvK a friendly nod.
“Saluto,” ZvK getting into a complicated handshake, “agrabla revidi vin!”
The room is turbulent with kleptos conferring in Esperanto, featuring a lot of words ending in u (“Volitive mood,” comments Zoltán, “used for yearnings, regrets, if-onlys…”), hurried exchanges of goods for cash, contraband of all kinds just in from across various borders, loupes flourished like daggers, with a lot of peering up and down through eyeglasses, an unslackening interplay of hands from time-battered to just-manicured, among pockets, sleeves, lapels—traffic, scaled to the human palm and the briefness of time allotted, in antique watches, knickknacks, earrings, finger rings, cigar clippers, lenses, knives, and banknotes of several nations for making change.
ZvK smoothly adjusting a fedora of a pale off-mango shade, an Abdulla in a cigarette holder between his teeth at a jaunty angle, tossing semi-salutes left and right, now and then a gloved kiss, “Yes yes, charmed, I’m sure…
” making his way to a table in back where three cigars seem to’ve been left unlit, unclipped, just sitting.
Hicks goes to pick one up and zzt, like that they all vanish, leaving a fading iridescent halo inches above the tabletop and at Hicks’s fingertips a sensation of cold, reappearing one by one across the room, clipped, lit, and smoldering in the kissers of three genial types lined up in a row, who now lift the hijacked smokes the way somebody you’ve bought a drink for might lift a glass, then proceed to puff on and blow smoke rings together in rhythm as they now approach.
“Pals of yours.”
“Call themselves Drei im Weggla, which in Nuremberg is a local snack, three bratwursts on a roll. We’ve done some business. Here, meet the boys. Schnucki, Dieter, Heinz.”
“We all used to be part of the same act,” explains Schnucki. “Until it became evident that Zoltán really was apporting objects in and out. Which was getting in the way of everybody’s timing—”
“Ruining the gags,” recalls Dieter.
“Plus Zoli couldn’t stay on the beat or in tune,” adds Heinz.
“So everybody agreed that Zoli should go on with a solo career and we’d stay together as a trio.”
“And less obviously as a freelance bodyguard unit.”
“Because,” Dieter a little reluctant, “there were also some Russians, who still keep showing up now and then…”
“Russians,” Hicks nodding, “I guess you forgot to mention them, huh, Zoli.”
“His natural modesty,” Dieter explains, “though the Soviets are unlikely to admit it, they’ve taken a deep interest in the paranormal, especially its potential role in modern warfare.
There’s a narkomat set up specifically, including a secret lab run by Stalin’s chief cryptography genius, Gleb Bokii—”
“Narkomat,” Hicks puzzling, “that’s…a place you go drop in a few coins, open a little door, there’s a reefer, maybe a line of coke…”
“No. No, actually it’s the Russian abbreviation for NARodnyi KOMissariAT, people’s ministry.
The recent climate of apportation in Budapest has drawn their attention, and someone has determined that among the resulting influx of con artists and self-deluded, our own Zoltán von Kiss may be one of very few who’s the genuine article. ”
“And so to discourage any attempts to bring him east,” Schnucki concludes, “me and the boys here have been keeping an eye out.”
“So you’re not really—”
“Well…depending what you mean by ‘really’…”
Into the follow spot now steps a juvenile host in a lounge suit of some pale aqua shade, necktie with a good deal of burgundy and yellow splashed around in a nonlinear way, “And now! once again, as wurst comes to wurst comes to wurst, it’s time to please welcome back the Teutonic! Neutronic! Drei! Im! Weggla!”
Fanfare, wild applause, and here they come, the band bouncing into brass-heavy march time as one by one the trio step up to introduce themselves—
I’m Schnucki!
I’m Dieter!
I’m Heinz!
So glad you could be here, to-night—
Still up-to-those-old monk-ey-shines,
Always good for a laugh, and, a light…
[Schnucki] Now if you smell something funny, and—
[Dieter] It isn’t the smokes—
[Heinz] It’s probably us with—
[All together] Some more crazy jokes!
Folks,
Folks,
just hope we remem-ber, our lines,
Ja, I’m Schnucki!
I’m Dieter!
I’m Heinz!
No, wait, I’m Heinz, and, and you’re—
They fall to bickering, with the band oompahing along, about who’s which, bravos and squeals from the room, which adores them, as the sleekly combed trio, knees turned inward, demurely pretend to cower behind their hats.
The act, Zoltán explains, depends on the abrupt changes of temperature which accompany any apport event.
Without many pauses between, the comical threesome brew coffee, cook strings of sausages, light cigarettes, and hotfoot the shoes of those they feel are not paying close enough attention, breaking now and then into song and dance, along with quick changes of costume.
The finale features a Baked Alaska over which they have first poured brandy, then, nudging and giggling, faking amazement, watched it asport away, waving it bon voyage and waiting breathlessly for it to burst into flames, ignited by the heat of passage, onto the dessert plate of some randomly selected audience member.
“Another first-rate performance, gentlemen,” Zoli lifting his hat respectfully. “How long are you boys in town for this time?”
“That’ll depend on your latest visitor,” Schnucki losing some of his playful expression.
“Az Isten faszára—who is it now?”
“None of the GPU regulars,” Dieter reports, “This one’s clearly high-level. Said to be running a narkomat of his own.”
“Keep on like this, Zoli,” Heinz waving a finger, “somebody’s going to start taking you seriously.”
“I hope you boys can behave yourselves.”
“Hasn’t been easy,” Dieter with a playful grin, “since we were issued the new Schmeissers,” anybody’s guess how much of this is being spoken in fun.
As ZvK will reveal to Hicks later, one of many rumors about Drei im Weggla is that they’re secretly an anti-Soviet assassination squad, whom Stalin and the GPU have been after for a year, but owing to a deep inventory of extra-sensory skills, able to pursue unharmed a notorious career of retro-White mischief.
Suddenly Csopi has showed up at ZvK’s elbow, looking uneasy, muttering in Esperanto, with a lot of that wishful u sound in it.
“The Lamp,” ZvK up on his feet, “he says it’s out in back, and we’d better grab it while it’s still there.”
“Right on your tail, Zoli.”
They arrive about the same time as a roar and throb Hicks hasn’t heard since Milwaukee, from some hotshot on a Harley-Davidson Flathead that Hicks, PI reflexes kicking in, guesses to be Bruno Airmont’s deputy Ace Lomax.
La Lampo Plej Malbongusto, not, as far as Hicks can tell, all that tasteless in appearance, trembles in the grasp of a nervous mug in a low-priced suit, who’s more than happy to hand it over and disappear before Hicks can ask for any backup in dealing with Ace, now off his bike and advancing in a way you could say bodes ill.
“I’ll go get the car,” ZvK whispers. “Back soon.”
“That’d be helpful.”
“Mind the Lamp. If it should decide to apport on out of here again, don’t become alarmed.”
“Ain’t what I’m worryin about right now.”
Hicks has been keeping Praediger’s PPK heater parked in an inside pocket, undetermined tenths of a second away from being out and aimed before Ace will possibly have dropped him.
However, Ace apparently is encountering some delay in disengaging from his own drapes whatever he has brought along in the way of persuasion, giving Hicks an impossible fragment of time to calculate which will cost him more, an unscheduled victim on his conscience or yet another homicidal personality out somewhere still at large and more motivated than ever to do him in. What a choice.
“You might want to think this one over,” the PPK aimed and steady, “unless your week’s been pretty slow.”
“Go ahead, then, Alphonse or is it Gaston, you need help finding the trigger?”
Hicks motioning with his head. “You mind?”
Ace shrugs and hands over a full-length broomhandle Mauser, which he might not’ve been planning to actually use.
“And how do you unload this piece of artillery here?”
“Bottom of the magazine just pops off.”
“Thanks.” Hicks opens the magazine, dumps out a handful of rounds, pulls back the bolt to eject the last one, gives Ace back the gun.
“That’s ten rounds you owe me.”
“Call it a nickel apiece, we can start a tab if you want.” Hicks lighting a local gasper, handing it to Ace, and lighting up one for himself.
“See if I’ve got this straight, here we’re about to start shooting over some lamp nobody’s seen for more than a minute or two, some funny business too deep and far away to make much sense of, and I just happen to step into your line of fire—”
“Or me into yours. That’s it, pretty much it, nothing to get nervous about.”
“Big relief, thanks.” What has in fact been gathering around Hicks, not fully noticed by Ace, is a peculiar nimbus, likely due to Oriental Attitude, where it’s all the same whether he will now blast Ace into eternity or let him go on with a life in which, from what Hicks can see, there isn’t that much to object to.
Another colleague in the same racket, just happens to be working for a different outfit.
Of which there are already on this ticket more than enough to keep track of.
“You’re the gangster from Chicago.”
“On the schnozzola, pal, bad as they come, worth an El Producto at least, remind me sometime I owe you one of them.”
“How’s ’ose Cubs doing since they traded Hack Wilson?”
“Startin off the season pretty good, lost a couple to Cincinnati, Brooklyn.”
“Hornsby still playing second?”
“Nah, it’s this kid Billy Herman. First time at bat he swings, slams it into the plate, it bounces back up, hits him in the head, knocks him cold.
Meantime the Rajah ain’t playin much, they’ve got him in as manager, the Commissioner’s after him, front office ain’t happy, everybody figures his days are numbered. ”
“Know the feeling.”
“That bad?”
“Looks like I’m going back empty-handed tonight, and it ain’t as if I don’t have enough trouble already.”
“Your boss really wants this lamp, huh.”
“Not that much, the lamp is just an excuse to see me off the roster. Which with his outfit, when you’re dropped, you’re dropped.”
“Wish I could help.”
“Not unless—”
“What.”
“Somebody said you know Al Capone.”
“Couple years back maybe, a little business now and then with pals of his, last I knew some of them could even be still alive, but since he went in the pen I’m not sure how much of an introduction I could guarantee you.”
“And…if I just skipped, tried to, I don’t know, seek asylum someplace…”
“Cops in Vienna tell me they’re after your boss, but any deal you make with them…”
Shaking his head slowly, “Not about to happen.”
A deep rumbling felt more than heard passes through the invisible world and around the edges of this one.
From beyond any zone of civic safety something has begun to pulsate, soul-strumming and growing louder, finishing with a great thump reaching citywide.
Just like that, no more Tasteless Lamp, only the familiar empty volume of post-asport cold.
“Well what in the heck,” Ace after heart rates return to normal.
“Zoli said this might happen.”
“Did he have anything to do with it?”
“No idea. Think they’ll buy the story back at your shop?”
“Sure hope so. What are we supposed to do now?”
“Guess I could be lookin the other way while you make your escape…”
“Soon as you put away that weapon, bid me godspeed.”
“Till you find more ammo, reload, and start shooting at me.”
“Last thing on my mind.” Ace already up on the kick-start pedal. “Next time, amigo.”
“Lookin forward.” But the roar of the bike is all anybody hears.