Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
The Israel Bond Omnibus (41 page)
A chunky little room service waiter named Paulo Gunty brought matters to a head. As Bond noticed with relief from the third-story window the van that was to take him and Predpelski to freedom, the little waiter held out a huge candy cane to the lad. “We always bring some sweets and goodies to our younger guests. It is a policy of the hotel.”
“Candy! Candy!” the monster cried with a childish eagerness that made Bond smile a parental smile.
Click!
In a hideous second of revelation Bond knew the truth. Two feet of naked steel shot out of the cane brandished by the little man in the monkey jacket who had played the servile fool until his victims were lulled into complacence. Gunty shouted a fanatical “From Green Bay with hate!” and thrust at Predpelski with the classic
coup de murville
.
Bond hurtled his frame between swordpoint and bobbing Adam Nowicki’s-apple on Polish throat, incurring a nasty slash as it ripped through the trenchcoat epaulet down into his right shoulder. But he’d yanked out the Chris-Keeler, squeezed the trigger and heard the characteristic, silencer-muffled
slut! slut!
and saw two angry holes pop up in Gunty’s forehead. There was an insistent hammering at the door and someone shouted, “Break it in.”
Undoubtedly there were more of Gunty’s cohorts in the hallway, perhaps far too many to handle.
When he saw the stuff in the corner, an inspiration flashed through his mind.
It was piled up in an odiferous mound.
Kielbasa!
The Polish sausage the kid loved best. Links and links of it. Holding his nose, Bond tested the links. Good-o! They were bound by solid, dependable Bangalore twine.
“Here’s our escape route, buddy boy,” he told the whimpering leviathan. “Tie one end around the bedpost and throw the rest out the window.”
He put two more slugs through the door, exulting in a scream. He heard a voice: “Jesus, he just killed the chambermaid.”
Bond looked down. Predpelski had already shinnied down the thick, greasy chain of sausages with amazing agility for one his size and was bolting into the back of the van. Bond started his own descent, his long, tapering fingers around the links in a viselike grip. He was at the second story now, pausing just long enough to chance upon a disrobing brunette and take her phone number, when he spotted the trio of hired killers racing up the street to the van.
Swegroes!
They were the flaxen-haired, lapidus-lazuli-eyed, chocolate-hued descendants of Swedish mariners who decades ago had impregnated the willing women of West Africa’s Hullaballuba tribe. They wore Libby’s split-peajackets, nail-studded Levi Strauss Levi’s and crepe-soled Aleutian bedsocks. Once, on a psychological warfare mission into Jordan where he had dynamited a theater showing an Omar Sharif movie, Bond had come in contact with a Swegro, disguised as an usher, in the employ of the Jordanian league for actors-in-espionage, Mosque & Wig. It had been a hellish minute of combat that left the Swegro decapitated and quite incensed about it and himself with a dirk in his shoulder. A mean lot, Swegroes, far worse than Bulgars, and now he had to get past three of them!
They saw him immediately. Shots rang out, one of which skinned his gun hand and he dropped the Chris-Keeler into the street.
Gottenu!
Unarmed!
There was one chance. He kicked out against the sign HOTEL BOGASLOVSKY, MANHATTAN’S PREMIER RESIDENCE FOR DRIFTERS AND INDIGENTS and, releasing the chain, fell through the roof of the van, crying, “Go! Go!”
Miles away, the van parked at Yankee Stadium, the driver handed Bond the twenty Big Ones. “You’ve pulled it off, Mr. Bond, but then, it’s what we’d expected of a man with your reputation. As for you, Predpelski, sign here on the dotted line. Thanks to Israel Bond, young fella, you are now the middle linebacker for the New York Giants.”
There could have been a third freelance gig, for even bigger money, but Bond had no desire to tail the president of General Motors.
A burst of song from the Vance-Packard’s custom-made Atwater Kent UHF-CIO radio drove the perilous Predpelski affair from his mind. It was a composition that had moved the hearts of Americans from coast to coast and was certain to capture the annual Larry Hart Award for the most meaningful lyric of the year.
“Batman!
“Batman!
“Batman!
“Batman!
“Batman! Batman!
“Batman!”
Unforgettable!
For variety’s sake and Abel Green’s as well, he switched stations.
“... on record against this evil manifestation of man’s inhumanity to man. Mass murder is bad business. It is degrading to its victims. It by no stretch of the imagination does anything to dignify the mass murderer. It removes from society people who have a vast potential in many areas. It causes resentment, economic dislocation, suffering and sorrow. Mass murder must end and that is the unequivocal policy of Station WDULL here in Metuchen, New Jersey. You have just heard our fourth radio editorial condemning mass murder. Of course, any responsible spokesman with an opposing viewpoint will be given equal airtime to reply.”
He changed stations.
“... extraordinary series of events. Following the mysterious explosion that leveled Wishnevsky’s famous bagel and bialy bakery under the Jerome Avenue El in the Bronx come reports of like explosions or bombings—though no deliberate criminality has been yet proven— throughout the country. Two famous Kosher wine companies have had their Brooklyn distilleries blown to bits with three known dead, seven missing and scores injured. Traffic in that unhappy borough is backed up all the way to Michigan City, Indiana. In Manhattan two prominent show business delicatessens on Sixth Avenue went up, hurling tons of sour pickles and tomatoes through a stage door onto the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. In Coney Island a convoy of trucks transporting Nathan’s immortal hot dogs has been wiped out on the Belt Parkway. Chicago’s contribution to the holocaust has been several explosions at bakeries, wine warehouses, dairy product plants and three huge corned beef and pastrami processing centers. Windy City police said the sky there looks like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow is back in business again. Here’s more: like events are occurring in Philadelphia, where a cream cheese plant and dozens of small delicatessens and a number of catering houses were blown up; St. Louis, Detroit, San Francisco, Cleveland, Denver, New Orleans, Miami Beach, the last named a shambles... in short, every major city in the U.S. Reports of additional explosions in all of these cities are coming in so fast the news wires are running behind. There are further reports, unconfirmed, that several major cities in Canada, Western Europe and South America have experienced disasters at the same sort of establishments. A freighter of Panamanian registry, the Hispianola Roll, en route from Halifax to New York, radioed news of an explosion and a raging fire in the hold. Coast Guard vessels are steaming to the rescue; helicopters have airlifted seventeen wounded. We will interrupt for further bulletins. Now back to William B. Williams and more of that great WNEW sound of music.”
For the next half hour Bond relaxed as William B., he of the humorous, dulcet voice, spun some of the Chairman of the Board’s greatest vocals from albums dedicated to young lovers, swinging lovers, medicare lovers, liver lovers, etc. If he had not been so enchanted by the music he might have surrendered to a nagging voice inside (or possibly outside; one could not be sure where nagging voices came from unless one were hopelessly married) that urged him to think, think, think about the bizarre newscast, seek some grand design in the widely spread catastrophes.
The sign on the Trenton Freeway bridge said “SLIPPERY WHEN WET,” followed closely by one that said “NOT SLIPPERY WHEN DRY.” The on-the-ball New Jersey Highway Department would let no driving condition go undescribed, an impressed Bond thought.
He pulled into the driveway of his brother Milton’s town & country clubber at 1919 Starling Dropping Drive in the heart of Trenton’s opulent Hiltonia section, and parked behind Milt’s snappy 1966 Sherpa-Hunza. He banged the solid brass Rusty Warren knocker against the massive Pacific Plywood door. It opened and he was bathed in the love and warmth of home, the not-too-sister-in-lawly kisses of Lottie, the whoops of leaping Rickey, twelve, and a mushy buss from adorable, six-year-old Praline. Milton himself stood strangely apart; a questioning look said: We’ve-got-something-to-discuss, younger brother.
4 “My Boys, They’re Killing My Boys!”
“LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN BEGIN SINNING BECAUSE HE’S MISSING FUN! FUN! FUN!—Mother Margolies.”
The long queue of sun-baked tourists waiting to be admitted into the various divisions of Mother Margolies’ factory outside of Tel-Aviv noted with approval one of her typical Old World proverbs emblazoned on the main gate. “Gosh, eighty-four years old and she still comes up with those golden thoughts,” said a B’nai B’rith president from Wisconsin, fanning his pink, flushed face with Joel Lieber’s authoritative
Israel On $5 A Day
. “I wish we were in there already,” responded his wife. “I’m dying to get hold of her personal recipe for Mother’s Activated Old World Clam Chowder.” Her husband snorted. “Don’t you know the first thing about the dietary laws? Clams ain’t Kosher; they don’t chew their cuds....”
In the private, sealed-off wing of the factory M. watched the throng on her closed circuit TV as she knitted what soon would be Oy Oy Seven’s new paisley shoulder holster. A
geeter boychik
[23]
that Israel Bond, a little sex crazy sometimes and maybe a little too clothes conscious, but when it came to murdering and maiming, a fine person altogether. Oy, such a dirty business this cloak and dagger stuff! What a shame good upstanding fellows like Bond and the rest of the Double Oys had to expend their talents on these nefarious activities when they could be raising families and studying our holy works. But nations must have security forces or they succumb to predators. It’s the way of the world, I suppose, she reflected. I’ve lost my own dear nephew, Nochum, in this filthy enterprise.
M. was worried, deeply so. With the exception of Bond, who was on leave in the United States, all the Double Oys were unaccounted for. Oy Oy Five had gone to Syria to track down a lead on these TUSH people and had failed to call in. If he’d been taken by TUSH and that... that thing, Auntie Sem-Heidt, heaven help him! In M.’s way of thinking, TUSH was as dangerous to the survival of her nation as the American Council for Judaism. Now Double Oys Two, Three, Four and Six were missing—and right here in Israel! They had gone to that little bureau near the Ministry of Defense in Jerusalem to renew their licenses to kill... and never returned! She’d sent the new lad, Neon Zion, to investigate. Where was he?
And what was the meaning of these explosions bannerlined in this morning’s Tel-Aviv
Trumpeldor
? They all seemed to have occurred at Jewish establishments in both the Old and New Worlds and many of them were somehow related to eating and drinking. Certainly, food for thought.
All in all, it was a gloomy day, she thought, putting aside the completed shoulder holster and starting on a trenchcoat for Lazar Beame, her chief of operations; for Israel had just lost a potential friend, King Hakmir of Sahd Sakistan. An Arab, true, but not one of the diehards. Through his Grand Vizier, Ben-Bella Barka, he had made overtures of a peaceful nature to Israel’s ambassador in Paris.
The day wore on. She watched the tourists, Americans for the most part, meandering through the Potato Latke division, the Hall of Kishke, and the new Schaveria and shrieking with delight at the automated conveyor band carrying pots of fresh-made beet soup—“The Borscht Belt,” as Oy Oy Seven had named it. What a wit that lad had!
The buzzer sounded. “M., it’s Quartermaster HaLavi to see you, sir,” said M.’s beauteous secretary, Lilah Tov. “Shall I send him in?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, sir. Have you heard anything about the Double Oys? Op Chief Beame is most concerned.”
“As yet, no. But the one you’re personally concerned with—” M.’s TV focused on Lilah’s blushing loveliness—“is safe, Miss Tov. Oy Oy Seven will be back soon.”
Lavi HaLavi walked through the door. “Shalom, M. I have come to discuss some new devices for the field.” He was an intense, nervous little man with fidgety eyes that seemed afraid to look into hers. The white-laboratory-coated QM had been back in harness just a few days, having spent the last six months at Foam Rubber Acres, the Service’s rest home for distraught personnel. “Oh, I can’t stand it in here!” he cried. “This cold air drives me insane.”