The Israel Bond Omnibus (46 page)

Bond was pulling on his trenchcoat. “We’re wasting time. Let’s get the hell home.” He swore to the mocking moon over the church spires: I’ll get revenge for all of this. The insolent moon jibed back:
“I’m from Manakoora. You Gotta Show Me.”

Neon dragged on his Raleigh. “You’re not going back, Oy Oy Seven. Mem Echod order. You’ve a job that starts right here in London town.”

Up your foggy day, Bond grumbled to himself.

“And...” Neon moved to the door... “if I’m not mistaken it starts this second.”

A bronzed, gaunt man in a double-breasted sharkskin suit with rakish fins protruding from the armpits entered. His face was distinctly Arabic, proud, barbaric, distinguished by a hooked nose. A yellow fez perched atop his grey locks. “Israel Bond, I am Ben-Bella Barka, Grand Vizier of Sahd Sakistan. Please come with me. Your duties commence at once.”

“Goddamnit! What the hell is going on in M 33 and 1/3? Are they trading me to the Arabs for Suez and thirty oilfields?”

Neon smiled. “Something like it, sir. M. has consented to have you act as the Secret Service of Sahd Sakistan on a temporary basis. You are to guard King Hakmir’s son who is in a ticklish spot, untested and surrounded by enemies. The new monarch was specific in requesting you. Ben-Bella Barka found him living here and contacted our P.M., who agreed to the deal.”

“Deal?” Bond kicked the wall, dislodged three coats of Sherwin Williams and a cheap reproduction of a Kim Novak painting. “This is lunacy! The big show’s going on in Israel; they’re bumping off our Double Oys, crippling our Number One, and I get sent on some f— tinhorn assignment! Listen, Ben-Ball Breaker or whatever your name is... what’s in this for my country?”

The mouth was taut and cold. “A great deal, Mr.
Boor
. In return for guarding His Majesty, Sahd Sakistan, a believer in
realpolitik
, is going to be a force for your nation’s welfare in the United Nations. Our alignment with you on key issues will lure the Asian states from their ties with the Arab bloc and perhaps even convince our Middle Eastern neighbors to end their unprofitable obduracy. There is more at stake for you in Sahd Sakistan than in Tel-Aviv, no matter how horrendous your present tragedy.”

“He’s right, Oy Oy Seven,” Neon asserted and Bond knew it. “M. says I’m to be your assistant.”

Bond’s shoulders slumped. “Where is His Majesty?”

“He is having his fitting for the coronation. Come with me, gentlemen.”

Ben-Bella Barka’s block-long Rolls took them to an address in fashionable Mayfair and parked in front of a glittering salon on Darn Cat Mews. They got out and walked the block to the entrance. Several English shopgirls with delicate tea biscuit complexions tittered and blushed as the darkly handsome Israeli favored them with a cavity-free grin, an elegant bow and several sure-fingered probes. “His Majesty is in Monsieur Pierre’s suite, gentlemen.”

And in Monsieur Pierre’s arms, it developed. The designer, clad in a purple toga and hunter’s-green Jamaicas, held the tiny monarch to his heart.
“Mon roi, mon amour... je t’adore....”

Then a wild eye caught Bond’s bemused face and a spidery hand pushed the Frenchman’s face aside cavalierly. “Split, you disgusting Frog! Here’s the real stuff in life to cling to—my sweet Super-Jew....”

Sahd Sakistan’s new monarch looked like the cat about to swallow the aviary. With a frenetic series of ballet leaps he vaulted to Bond and threw his fragile arms around his neck. “Oh, blessed spirit of Oscar Wilde, it’s the beefcake bonanza, the Eldorado of erectility, the mother lode of musculature, and it’s mine, mine, mine....”

Bond had groaned as soon as he had been able to take a good look. His heart hit his heels as he recognized the elfin Negro with the Dick Van Dyke beard, horn-rimmed glasses and Courrèges dress and white boots, who had been tapped by destiny to rule a nation.

Baldroi LeFagel!
[36]

Snap out of it, Oy Oy Seven! The philosophical mood, not the dress. There’s a job to be done for M., Eretz Israel and the ruler of Sahd Sakistan. You’re on the secret service of His Majesty, the Queen.
[38]
Thank heaven Neon’s working out all right. Smart young kid, even suggested he’d go on ahead and case the joint because we shouldn’t be seen together.

Bond finished with the base makeup and Maybelline eye shadow. Not bad. I could never be one of those truly
beautiful
girls, but I’m undeniably...
interesting.
A touch of Tangee on my cruel, sensual lips and it’s off to Soho with Baldroi LeFagel and an evening at King Baldroi’s own nitery, the Gayboy Club.

LeFagel was a vision in crinoline and lace when Bond stopped by to fetch him. “I feel so Scarletty O’Hara tonight... magnolias by moonlight... warm winds whipping whatever part of the slaves ol’ Massa missed in the afternoon....” He suddenly stared at Bond.... “Why, you’ve turned, you’ve turned!
O mirabile dick, too!
Glory, glory....”

“Cool it, LeFagel. This is just a disguise. Don’t get your hopes up.”

LeFagel winked. “I’d much rather get
your
... hopes up, you bonny, brawny thing.” He clasped his hands in a prayerful attitude.

Gottenu!
Bond sighed. The double meanings start already!

As the cab rumbled through the night a blanket of fog lent a sinister touch to the city. Good-o, Bond thought. It’ll be hard to be tagged in this pea souper. He felt his purse, heavy with the comforting weight of the metal object inside, hoping he would not need to use it.

“Say, LeFagel, what’s with the Old-South-by-moonlight getup? A man who’s written such violent anti-white power structure novels like
Up Your Blue Toilet, Mister Charlie
and
Burn, Whitey, Burn in the Fire Next Time
has no right to look like a 19th Century plantation owner’s imperious daughter.”

LeFagel put an orange-tipped Phyllis Morris between his lips. “Oh, I’m over that phase. Not that I’m unsympathetic to my people’s problems, you understand, but if they haven’t got enough sense to better themselves by inheriting Middle East kingdoms the hell with them. Anyway I’m much too involved these days with the real movement, Bondikins.”

“Call me ‘Bondikins’ once more and I’ll kick your tail.”

“And I’ll accept it gladly, as a prelude to better things, of course. The real movement is typified by
One
Magazine, the organ—you’ll pardon the expression—of the most vigorous of all the ethnic groups— us.”

“I’ve seen it. It takes One to know One.”

“Touche! Well, they haven’t gone quite far enough, so I’ve initiated a One World movement of which my Gayboy Club here is the opening gun. Next,
Gayboy
Magazine, our slick entertainment-jammed periodical which will feature our Gaymate of the month—and what a coup it would be if the first centerfold attraction was Hugh Hefner... naked!” The tiny ruler shivered at the very thought. “It’ll also feature our own comic strip heroes, Fagman and Birdie. In our version they’ll
both
be named Bruce. And if the Fagphone should ring, they’ll just never answer it, that’s all. Oh, it’ll be the wildest thing in publishing, sweet Samson, highly departmentalized, too. Our dear senior citizens will have their own section called the Gay Nineties. There’ll be contests on ‘Why I Switched’ in twenty-five words or less with grand prizes like wrestlers and truck drivers. Oh, we’re here.”

Bond felt a sharp pain aft as he guided LeFagel toward the lavender-blue Dilly Dilly door of the club and turned to see an evil grin on the ruddy cabman. By thunder, the man had pinched him! Only his Double Oy training constrained him from punching in the brute’s face. Then Bond smiled. The man had pinched
him
, not LeFagel. No matter which scene I make, it’s
me
they’re after, and he felt somehow reassured and waved back at the driver.

Down winding steps they went, into a dimly lit cellar crowded with tiny circular tables, no bigger than hula hoops, around which were clustered little knots of Gayboy regulars, their lively faces illuminated by candles stuck into Clorox bottles. At a small bar a fierce-looking, mustachioed man smashed his hand in front of the bartender, spilling drinks onto the sawdust floor. “I can lick any man in the world!”

“Our champion, Joan L. Sullivan,” whispered LeFagel. “Superb, no?”

In a pinspot on a miniature stage was a heavily rouged, marceled blond sitting on a stool, his legs crossed. He wore a lavender shirt made of live death’s-head moths, the ends tied at his waist, and the tapered red-satin slacks so popular in this milieu, Transves-Tights. He was singing in a throaty German accent.

“When we crawled in bed one night last week,

“I found we had the same physique.

“You brought a new kind of love to me.”

Sighs and moans ensued. “Willi, you’re fantabulous!” cried a plump onlooker.

“She
is
chi, isn’t she chi?” the admiring king said.

“Who is she?”

“I’ll certainly find out.” LeFagel exchanged a whispered conversation with the plump onlooker, then turned to Bond. “That’s a new one I’ve never heard of. Willi Marlene from East Berlin. She asked my maître d’ if she could go on tonight. Far as I’m concerned, she can go on
any
night.”

“Damn it, LeFagel! Enough with the
fakokteh
innuendoes already.”

“Jealous, jealous, jealous. Admit it. Cat got your tongue? Lucky cat.”

Bond paid him no mind. He was thinking. Willi had asked to perform, Willi from East Berlin. King Baldroi, we may be in trouble right off the bat.

As Willi did a medley of bittersweet songs obviously dear to his enrapt audience, “Blowing in the Wind,” “My Nancy With the Laughing Face,” “Mad About the Boy” and a slow, specialized rendition of “Stouthearted Men,” Bond scanned the layout. On the wall back of their table was a gallery of photographs of world-famous celebrities. “Are they... uh... special, too?”

“ ‘Course, silly Semitic sweetness. The squares would die if they knew. See that one of the big-league ballplayer? He’s a switch-hitter off the field, too. And the nuclear scientist? Right now he’s working on something for us, the Gay-Bomb.” LeFagel pointed a finger. “Like that mural?”

It depicted one of the heroic moments of antiquity, a homosexual holding off hordes of Mongols singlehanded to protect his Greek city-state, the immortal
Fellatio at the Bridge.