The Israel Bond Omnibus (67 page)

“Why are they despised?”

“The majority of Japanese are short of stature. We must have somebody to look down to. The Pippu-Skweeku fill the bill ideally. Because of their size they make splendid undercover men. Our files show this particular one was a sub-subagent in Japan for the Terrorist Union for Suppressing Hebrews, which your evil doctor organized.”

“Under what circumstances was he observed by your fisherman?”

“Skwato is attached to the retinue of a
gaijin
, a Danish archaeologist, Professor Igneous Feldspar, who has been carrying on some excavations in Shimonoshima. Feldspar has our blessing, of course, but we routinely plant a man among foreign visitors to assure that their enterprises are not inimical to our interests. Thus, Nikko Tee-Yin was assigned to the Feldspar party. Another fisherman more or less is never suspect in that territory. In the course of nosing about he came upon Skwato, who is helping the professor on his spelunking excursions into a labyrinth of caves even no Japanese has ever explored.”

“This professor chap,” said Bond, struggling to keep his demeanor bland. “What does he look like?”

Sanka heard Bond’s hissing intake of air, saw the sensual lips pull back to expose the rich, red gums kept free of pyorrhea by five hundred Stim-U-Dent massages a day. He laughed. “I am way ahead of you, Izzy-san. You believe perhaps that Professor Feldspar and the hated Dr. Ernst Holzknicht are one and the same? I am sorry to disappoint you, but your description of Holzknicht as a man of medium height, with brown, ‘almost sympathetic’ eyes, close-cropped black hair and the large forehead of the scholar does not tally very well with this.” He handed Bond a clipping from the Mainichi chain’s English edition, banner-lined:
THE GREAT DANE ARRIVES ON KYUSHU, SAYS HE’LL DIG IT THE MOST!
(
Cute line,
a jealous Bond thought.) Accompanying the lengthy article was a photograph taken at the airport in Beppu of a gigantic man with blond curls who must have stood at least seven feet and a sullen-eyed, thirtyish woman, lithe and leggy, whose fruitful charms burst every which way out of a topless hanky-kini. Bond knew that look, that of a woman sexually unfulfilled, who craved the bone-crushing foreplay, duringplay and let’s-do-it-again-afterplay that only he, Israel Bond, could purvey.

“She is his wife, Magma, and they have been married just a short time. Their passports claim Danish citizenship and their credentials appear impeccable. But if you are willing to follow this slenderest of threads, Izzy-san, I shall be happy to accompany you to Kyushu, for by coincidence my next item of state business also takes me to the excavation site. In the same cable Nikko hinted that a discovery of the first rank has been made. On one of their expeditions deep into a cliff Feldspar and Skwato came across a series of scrolls, which Nikko overheard the former say are not inscribed in Japanese. Nikko asked the Dane to let him bring the scrolls to the surface, but Feldspar refused, claiming they have been hermetically sealed so long they might crumble to dust upon exposure to the elements. Nikko further said Feldspar and Skwato of late view him in a hostile light since it was presumptuous of a humble fisherman to make such a suggestion. It could be Nikko’s cover is blown. Nevertheless, I want those scrolls in our government’s hands. If they truly cannot be moved I shall have a portable Xerox machine brought to Shimonoshima and have them copied on the spot. Our next stop, Izzy-san, is the Xerox building, where”—the Baron’s eyes danced—“a surprise awaits you. We go,
hai?”

“Hai,”
Bond said.
Hell, this lingo was duck soup if a guy applied himself a bit.

The Israeli handcuffed to his wrist an attache case prepared for him months ago by Lavi HaLavi, the quartermaster of M 33 and 1/3 whose brilliant devices so often had saved Bond from death.
Pauvre
Lavi, thought Bond in French, the language he often used in contemplative moods.
Pauvre
Lavi, under treatment
encore
in Foam Rubber Acres, the service’s rest
chez
for disturbed personnel, after another of his periodic bouts with madness. Lavi’s latest whackout had come during the Queen show and at present he lay in Galilee crooning fados, those soulful Portuguese songs of unrequited love, and scribbling equations far beyond human comprehension, then airmailing them to mysterious addresses all over the globe. Because of his condition, the little QM had been unable to service Bond with the usual battery of espionage gimmicks. “You will have to go it alone this time,” M. had phoned. “Your main weapon will be your brains,” which comment had made Op Chief Beame laugh himself sick for twenty minutes.

Ginza-Burg’s Cedric was at the hotel entrance and rocketed away on another round of Burg vs. the Japanese people, the twelve-toned
thonk, thonk, thonk
of human anatomies against fenders conducted in Leonard Bernstein fashion by the lone finger on Sanka’s right hand.

“I can’t contain my curiosity, Cocky,” Bond confessed. “How did you end up with one finger? Karate accident?”

Sanka passed Bond a Hi-Lite cigarette. “This finger is the survivor of a rather painful episode dating back to World War Two.”

“And what did you do in the great war, Daddy-san? Lead some bugle-blowing, doped-up banzai wave against the Yanks on Bataan?”

“Alas, no, Izzy-san. How worthy that would have been! I was far from the site of glorious carnage when hostilities broke out. Because of my proficiency in English I was placed in intelligence.”

“I notice you have no problem with the letter
l
, which so many Japanese convert into
r
, as in the phrase rots of ruck.’”

“I am aware of the joke,” Sanka said wryly. “It is
hirarious
. No, Izzy-san, the
l
is quite manageable. Hist! L-l-l-inda, l-l-l-ovely, l-l-l-ascivious, l-l-l-o-l-l-l-ipop. It is the
r
I sometimes have weal twouble pwonouncing. To continue, when the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor was made, I was a student at UCLA. As you know, all Japanese went to UCLA. During my stay there the student body consisted of 99.9 percent Japanese—all in intelligence and working in disguise as gardeners—and Jackie Robinson and Kenny Washington. After the attack, the FBI struck with frightening speed, interning every son of Dai Nippon save me.”

“Why not you?”

“A great piece of luck. It so happened I was the house gardener of a film-studio press agent named Seymour Feig.”

“Sy? Hey, he’s an old buddy of mine.”

“So? Well, Mr. Feig knew the authorities were coming for me so he negotiated a fast deal. I would be free in his custody if I agreed to play a series of spitting, gold-toothed Japanese villains in his company’s war movies. I had no choice. It was that or spending years in a barbed-wire enclosure in the desert. Knocking out my teeth and replacing them with gold dentures, I tackled the job diligently, albeit it was simplified by the screenwriters, who gave me one line in each film: ‘Fright Rootenant Armstrong, you ‘Melican pig! Where is your aircraft carrier?’ which I spoke to Van Johnson in Rip the Nip!, Take That, Tojo!, Slap the Jap! and similar extravaganzas. I was bayoneted by Van Johnson, strangled by Van Johnson, pushed into a pit of cobras by Van Johnson and in one film lost four fingers on this hand when an alleged dummy grenade went off. To this day, although I realize he is a most worthy thespian and was only following the scripts, I hate Van Johnson.” The Baron’s eyes were coals of fury. “Of course,” Sanka added in a mitigating manner, “I hold no such dislike for Humphrey Bogart, who, as you know, did the bulk of his fighting in the European theater.”

“You’ll pardon my interruption of an intriguing narrative, Baron Sanka, but we’re being tagged by someone who picked us up near the VIP Bar near Tokyo Tower.”

“So?” said Sanka; a polite way of saying, “Pooh-pooh,” Bond knew.

Bond pointed to Ginza-Burg’s rear-view mirror. “Pink-and-orange two-seater, Kyushu license plates. Looks like a ’67 Sony, one of those combination TV-set-and-car jobs I’ve seen around town. I see you’re amused. This’ll amuse you even more. It has no driver.”

“But this is not possible, my impetuous friend.” When Bond told him to see for himself, he said, “
Hai,
you are correct. Take a right turn at Tiger Tanaka Boulevard, Ginza-Burg, and we shall see if the tag stays on us.”

“If we’re being tagged by an agent being run by an adverse control,” Bond said coolly, “we can do one of several things. One, we can lead the tag to a phony vector point. Two, we can get out of the car and make him tag us on foot. Three, we can flush and challenge him. Four, we can leave him unflushed and unchallenged, somehow contrive to get on
his
tail and tag
him
, hoping he’ll lead us to his base. Five, we can lead him to a ‘safe house,’ ‘mike’ it, find out if he’s working through a ‘cutout’ or a mailbox drop,’ flush the ‘cutout’ and let the tag continue, unaware of the switch. Six, we can lead him into a waterfront dive, where he can do a one-and-a-half gainer.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” yelled Sanka.

“That’s real espionage patois,” said a sheepish Bond. “I don’t know what it means, either, but I thought the possibilities were worth exploring.”

Ginza-Burg was on Tanaka Boulevard now, rolling past
sushi
shops, suntory bars and the Loew’s Mikado, which was double-billing
Marat/Sato
and the prize-winning documentary Hiroshima: Unspeakable Act of War or New Concept of Instant Urban Redevelopment?

“The car is still with us,” Sanka said. “Stop, Ginza-Burg.”

The chauffeur braked the Cedric in front of a slanted-roof shrine dedicated to Frito, the ancient, beloved god of the corn chip. Bond looked back to find that the Sony also had halted, about a hundred feet behind. He lit a Raleigh and made a great show of relaxation designed to make their tag think they’d stopped for some social purpose.

Then his panther’s body uncoiled, the pile-driver shoulders hit the side door, driving it off its hinges, and Bond was diving onto the bonnet of the Sony, his Simon-Garfunkel out and slamming its staccato
protest! protest! protest!
into the windscreen. The tiny auto was in reverse now, its wheels screaming under the burden of Bond’s weight.
Dammit! Where was the driver?

Gottenu!
A gout of flame whizzed out from somewhere in the vehicle and—
thwack
—a slug lacerated its way through his happi coat into his right shoulder. He fell off the bonnet face down into the street, his enriched type-A claret spurting over the asphalt. Some drops seeped into a crack; a wayward seed was fertilized; a bunch of chrysanthemums popped up and grew to a foot in height.

Sanka and Ginza-Burg were out of the Cedric, the former shaking a futile finger at the disappearing Sony, the latter pulling Bond to his feet. “
Gevaldt!
You’ve been hit.”

“Not really,” Bond said mordantly. “The scab from my smallpox shot came off, that’s all.”

“You were right, Izzy-san,” said a crestfallen Sanka. “I have been guilty of underestimating these people, whoever they are. What gall! Shadowing the Number One of the Japanese Secret Service in his own bailiwick!” He stammered the worst thing a Japanese can say about his own negligence.
“Shimatta!”
[78]

Bond’s rejoinder was surly.
“No-shitta!”
[79]

Score another one for the “oppo”!