Reward for Retief (32 page)

            "Don't know no
Gabby," Boss grunted. "Had a Lippy around here a while back, but old
Worm got him or something," he added indifferently.

            Magnan caught Retief s arm.
"Make him tell, Jim! I know he's kidnapped her, just as he did me! Poor
child, alone and frightened half to death stuffed in some closet or
worse."

            "Why, Benny,"
Gaby's melodious voice spoke up from the outer door. "You really
do
care!"
She came quickly across to Magnan, took his hand and patted it. "I'm all
right," she reassured her patron. "Old Boss here tried to give me a
hard time, but I know him too well for that! Last time I got him pissed off, he
stuck me in that hot dog stand out in the park—but that worked out all right,
too, Benny: you came along and here I am!"

            Magnan gazed wonderingly at
her. She was dressed now in a gown of metallic wine-red and had a fresh
gardenia in her hair. He squeezed her hand. "Now that I know you're all
right, I can deal with this scoundrel," he told her, and turned to face
Boss.

            "You may as well get on
with your fantasy," he ordered. "Just what did you find when you went
inside this neon-lit commercial enterprise you'd have us believe in?"

            "I don't care if youse
believe in it or not," Boss muttered. "This here feller ast me to
tell it, so I was doing like he said, that's all—only there's something funny
going on here: I hadda idea old Worm poked his snout in ..." He looked at
Retief with sudden crafty suspicion. "But that was
you,
fooling
around with my dome, right?"

           
"dont bother your pretty head
," Retief commanded.

            Boss jumped. "There!"
he yelped. "You done it again! Old Worm won't like it when he finds out
you been impersonating him!"

            Magnan looked at Retief in
puzzlement. "What's he talking about, Jim?" he demanded. "How in
the world would a Terran diplomat imitate this fabulous Worm?" He hugged
Gaby as he spoke. She responded with a radiant smile, then freed herself and
said, "I got to get back on the tables, Benny. See you." She kissed
his forehead and was gone. Magnan's "Gaby! Wait!" came too late.

2

           
"IT'S
not hard
," the words which Magnan
recognized as Retief s formed silently in his awareness, "IT'S
just a form of furfling, which you recall dear
old d'ong taught us. holding it to a tight person-to-person beam is the only
difficult part."

           
"Oh,"
Magnan nodded wisely. "Furfling, eh? I'd almost forgotten those silly
tricks. But at the moment, hadn't we better be getting on with it?" He
looked expectantly at Boss.

            "Well, OK," the
latter responded, "so inside, this place turned out to be a billiards
room, which I'm pretty good with a stick, so pretty soon I'm the new owner.
This fella had it before, name of Vince, trieda hustle me, the schmuck. I never
missed a shot." Boss paused reminiscently.

            "Well, after I found
out how good I was, I thought about it and seen there was a little sort of
trick to it: hadda make a pitcher in my head, like, of that ball dropping, and
then sort of
push.
So I got this idea: why not try it on somethin
^,
else besides the spheres, eh? So I was remembering about this holoplay I seen
once, where the Boss had this really class office back o' the club, with these
red carpets and chrome-plated steps and all, so I went inna back room—and there
it was! Am I dumbfounded! I check the built-in-bar, and it's stocked with the
best: genuine Cordon Bleu and Old Smoky bourbon, and Bridgit Terry's potheen,
and Bluebeard's rum, and Marlowe rye, and Scotch that was made by the Tuatha de
Danaan and a hunnert years in the keg, and a cooler fulla real aged Pepsi—the
works! I and my boys had it made! Then one day when I'm onna phone to the
Coast, this strange voice cuts in and yells at me to lay off the seventh order
stuff, which I'm stretching the space/time/Vug continuum pretty thin, it says.
Well, I got to admit I was a pretty cocky guy, with my three Bendeys in the garage
out back, and seventy-two suits in the closet, all cut by a angel and all; used
to giving the orders, not taking 'em, so I up and says back to old Worm—cause
that's who it was, see—which I hadn't heard from him in a long time—rascal
growed since then—anyways, I says, 'you stick to your turf and leave me handle
my own business!' " Boss shook his head and looked at the toes of his
well-shined shoes. "So all of a sudden two mugs which I never seen 'em
before come busting in here and try to get heavy with me. ME! The Boss, and
they're tryna tell me to lay off—started talking all that hot jazz about—what'd
they call it ...? 'Bolixing up the seventh order harmonics' or like that! I
tole 'em I don't play no harmonica, nor no Jew's harp neither—and the onney
order I caller in was for a medium pepperoni pizza, hold the anchovies! Them
bums was nuts!"

            "Yes, yes," Magnan
prompted. " 'Seventh order harmonics'—it's all beginning to make sense.
Pray continue."

            "Well, I taken and
thrown 'em out, and just then old Worm—anyways a little later I found out it
was Worm— done that trick again of getting at me from inside:
have a care,
it says.
you've caused me a triple node-ache ever since
you popped up on my psychonic interface!
It always talks funny like
that. But I tipped wise and started watching close how it done it, and I seen
right off it was doing like when I
push,
onny it give it a little
twist-like,
and I tried it my ownself, back at Worm, and I says,
You stick to your
turf, Junior, and I'll stick to mine, OK?
Now I ast you," Boss peered
anxiously at Magnan, "that's fair enough, right? But old Worm still tries
to gimme a hard time and all of a sudden it gives a little extra
twist-twist,
and my red Wiltons are gone and I'm standing on bare concrete! The nerve o'
the bum! So natcherly, I use the same trick and put it back, and then it fades
out to a dirty pink, and I make it deep purple and then all of a sudden old
Worm folds his hand; I'll never forget it:

           
i perceive that I dissipate my ultra-ordinal energies,
he says,
at an excessive rate, your curious mind,
though untrained
—"hah!" Boss interrupted himself— "And me
with a Trade High School diploma!" is
possessed
of quite extra-ordinary latencies. I shall accordingly ignore you for now, and
deal with the problem later. meantime, I shall temporarily concede to you the
volume of space/ttme/vug you now contaminate, therein to act in the capacity of
my lieutenant. I assign to you an appropriate designation: junior, have a care,
junior
, it tells me, and since then I had no more problems—until the
Embassy big shot comes along and start sticking his nose in, which he's likely
to get it stuffed fulla lint yet!" Boss swept his visitors with a defiant
stare and fell silent.

            "Do you imagine,
sir," Magnan demanded sternly, "that you can easily intimidate duly
accredited officers of a Terran diplomatic mission?"

            "Old Worm don't mess
around," Boss commented. "It'll flame ya where ya stand without
scorching the carpet, which it don't like no wise guys tryna hassle its very
own lootenant already!"

            "Well, I didn't mean, I
mean, I only meant—" Magnan explained.

            "Mr. Magnan is too
polite to say it," Retief interjected. "But as for myself, I flunked
Hypocrisy at the Institute. You used to be one hell of an astrogator, Captain,
but you're a damn poor liar."

            Boss arranged what he
thought was a dumbfounded expression on his round face, an effort which caused
his bushy eyebrows nearly to merge with his hairline. He pointed a stubby
forefinger at his chest. "You calling me a liar, or what?" he
growled.

            "You got that one
right," Retief confirmed. "You picked up a few tricks, all
right," he went on, "but not by studying the Worm's sub-vocalisms;
the fact is, you're holding a hostage—the real Junior. Worm's talented
offspring, no doubt. That's why Worm hasn't redistributed your component atoms
as a fine dust on the cave floor."

            "Retief!" Magnan
objected. "What possible grounds could you have for that remarkable
accusation? Here in the center of Mr. Boss's stronghold, we're dependent on his
good will, don't you realize that? Why antagonize him?"

            "I guess it's because I
land of liked Junior," Retief told his immediate supervisor. "I think
the captain here took advantage of his good will and inexperience to sucker
him. That about right, Captain?"

           
that IS
precisely cor
—the
unmistakable tones of the Big Voice boomed out, abruptly cut off.

            "See?" Boss
crowed. "Even old Worm ain't saying nothing against me! Now I guess I had
about enough o' you two wise guys!" He started defiantly past Retief, who
put out a foot and deftly jerked it back. Boss hit the red carpet face-first
and looked up with an expression like a spoiled infant gauging the most
effective microsecond to utter a wail.

            "It can't," Retief
told the fallen Boss patiently, "while you have Junior. Let's get back to
your story."

            "Me? I got no
Junior!" Boss started as he climbed to his feet. "Let's see you prove
anything!"

            "That neon sign you
found in the woods," Magnan said, "it didn't by any chance read
'Cloud Cuckoo Club,' did it?"

            "Naw," Boss made a
brushing-away gesture, "nothin like that." He paused as if listening
intently. "Well, maybe," he amended, then, "OK, OK, I get
it!" He put his hands over his ears and looked resentfully at Retief.
"Anyways, I went in, and after I gave this sharpie a few lessons in
cuemanship—"

            "Cuemanship, or
prestidigitation?" Retief asked, as if idly.

            "You tryna say I
cheated the sucker?" Boss demanded hotly, and mimed Wrath Held in
Restraint (732), a weak -c, Magnan estimated.

            "Look here, Mr.
Boss," Magnan spoke up in the reasonable tone of a lynch mob victim
suggesting that his captors quit kidding around now, and join him in a drink.
"You must remember that my colleague and I are after all, men of words,
not deeds, and I'm sure Mr. Retief meant no disrespect."

            "Save that for yer
memoirs. Jest in case you five to write 'em," Boss suggested curtly.
"I clipped that Vince pretty fair and square, almost—anyways, it was all
going to waste—them fellers never knowed what they had—I seen it and I taken it
without hardly no bloodshed! After, the Worm come and faked-up the town around
the club. And I ain't giving it up—not after nigh two hunnert year! I guess the
Statute o' Limitations done run out some time ago. So just you boys beat it
back to yer boss and tell him Goldblatt's Other World is shipshape and
bristle-fashion, and don't need no outsiders coming along to start messing
things up!" As Boss concluded his outburst, his jaw dropped, his eyes
widened, and he slapped his own jaw with a sharp report.

            Magnan drew a deep breath to
begin his assurances that all would be as Boss decreed, but Retief caught his
arm.

            "Don't fold our hand
yet, sir," he urged, then paused as a sensation like a hot needle in his
brain jabbed once and was gone. "Did you feel that?" he asked Magnan.
"A sort of probe, not quite in the audible range."

            Magnan jerked his arm away
from contact. "Do let me be!" he yelped. "It's not you, Retief!
It's something else—it's poking me in the head!" He put both hands over
his ears and screwed his eyes shut. "It's not quite ..."he muttered
between clenched teeth. "No! Stop that!" he yelled. Behind him, Boss
had sunk to his knees and was shaking his head as if dazed.

            "I'll
do
it!"
he roared. "I tole ya I'd do it, and I'm gonna do it!" His eye fell
on Magnan and he leaped at the slender diplomat and seized him in a bear hug,
eliciting a sharp yelp and a lack in the shin from Magnan. As the two
struggled, Retief became aware of a second curious hot-wire sensation behind
his eyes. Vision blurred; the floor turned soft under his feet. Waves of hot
and cold struck him like palpable blows. Now skyrockets were spewing fire in
his mind.