The Aluminum Man

by G. C. Edmondson

  Kneeling with his face reflected in the tiny limpid pool, Rudolf suddenly remembered Tuchi. It was too late. Flaherty’s garbage juice came up, accompanied by some oysters Rudolf had eaten three weeks ago. Pale and shaken, he finally staggered into the shower. Only when he was soaping himself did he realize that somebody had undressed him and put him to bed.

  When he came out Lillith was still in bed but room service had left a tray. The dark-haired girl opened her eyes. “Morning, lover,” she said.

  “Am I?” Rudolf asked, “Did we—?”

  Lillith tossed covers from the bed and emerged fully clothed in her working uniform of hot pants and a baggy sweater. Rudolf guessed that answered his question.

  “You really hung one on,” she said cheerfully. “Drink this.”

  “Ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” It wasn’t the most sophisticated line in the world but Rudolf’s delivery had never been more sincere.

  Lillith bullied him into drinking a glassful of some red tinged corpse reviver and within minutes Rudolf had collected himself enough to climb back into the Mohawk’s rumpled suit. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Do you want all the painful details about resisting arrest and how duly constituted officers of the law were suborned into releasing you into the custody of hundred-dollar-bill-sprinkling strangers?”

  Rudolf groaned again. “How did you happen along?” he asked.

  “The eleven o’clock news gave a rather broad hint as to your whereabouts even if one of the guys on the camera crew hadn’t called me for some background material hours before.”

  “Where’s Flaherty?”

  “Home minding the store. What were you actually doing up there with your head in the clouds?”

  Rudolf groaned again. “Am I—?” He decided he’d rather not know. Lillith ate breakfast with a cheerful haste that Rudolf found nauseating. She gulped coffee and said, “Let’s split.”

  Rudolf followed her out of the motel. “Where’s the truck?” he asked.

  “Ten deep in fuzz. You can afford a new one better than a long stay in somebody else’s jurisdiction. You leave anything important in it?”

  Rudolf thought and decided he hadn’t. From the corner of his eye he saw several Indians from the next unit loading bags into an aging car. He remembered being surrounded momentarily by Indians. He peered into the early morning sunlight. It was the janitor of his old school and the other young men he’d brushed off last evening. “John!” he called, “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you. What’re you doing in this part of the country?”

  The old man smiled. Rudolf stepped forward to shake hands and moved too fast. His vision blurred for an instant and he thought he was going to flash the biscuits again.

  “You really got lit up last night,” the old man said. “We’re going to a conference up on the Iroquois reservation,” he continued. “See if we can do something to keep the Corps of Engineers from damming all the treaty land under water.”

  When Rudolf could see again he said, “I’m really glad to see you. So many moochers I just didn’t know you for a minute. Is there anything I can do for—?”

  “Not now!” Lillith said firmly. “We’ve got to move.”

  “Stop in on your way back,” Rudolf said. He fought down another wave of nausea. The Indians went back to loading their car as Lillith caught his arm and led him toward her camper. “Did I see them last night?” he asked.

  “Considering that you were statutorily blind, I doubt it. They saw you. So did everybody else in the monumental traffic jam caused by a truck whose driver I charitably refrain from naming. Will you hurry up?”

  Rudolf wondered how he had ever imagined this dark-haired amazon attractive. What annoyed him most was the way she filled a pair of hot pants. Had he really spent the night in the same bed with her?

  Lillith was backing the camper out into the driveway when a black sedan pulled in to block the exit. Several men who all looked like Riordan got out. “Rudolf Redwolf?” one asked.

  “Will you please move that car?” Lillith yelled, “I’m late already.”

  “You may be later, lady,” one said.

  Lillith came out of the cab with a camera. “In that case Life’s readers may as well know who delayed me.” She began snapping pictures.

  “My left side photographs better,” one cop said. The others ignored her. “Rudolf Redwolf?” one repeated, “You’re under arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “Would you like the charges alphabetically or at random?”

  Rudolf didn’t feel up to facing them either way. Somebody gave him his rights and hammered away until he admitted to understanding basic English. With Lillith snapping pictures he was handcuffed and led to the black car.

  “Expert testimony says there wasn’t a mark on your body but you were in obvious need of medical attention at the time of your legal harassment,” Lillith yelled as the car drove away.

  Rudolf felt his nausea return.

  “What the hell were you on last night?” one of the cops asked, “magic mushrooms?”

  Rudolf didn’t feel up to explaining garbage juice.

  He endured the booking procedures and refrained from vomiting until he was led to a holding tank. Twenty-four hours and three jails later he was feeling better, though still decidedly green when a stranger arrived with a brief case. The stranger was a small, middle-aged man whose physique derived from centuries of systematic malnutrition in some Slavic ghetto. His ferret face suggested that he knew who was responsible for those centuries and that his patience was nearing an end.

  “Who’re you?” Rudolf asked.

  “I’m your lawyer. Bastards kept moving you so much I damn near missed you again.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Of course you don’t. Miss Lasky sent me.”

  Suddenly Rudolf thought how easy it would be for the golden horde to bail him out and spirit him off to never-never land. “Miss who?” he asked.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! The broad you slept with night before last and were too bombed-out to screw!”

  “All right.” Rudolf wondered if any situation would ever occur in which Miss Lasky would not be two jumps ahead of him.

  “Where do we go from here?”

  “Preferably someplace out of range of the illegal but thoroughly visible microphones that’re violating a privileged conversation. You ready to leave?”

  “I guess so.” A turnkey opened the cell and Rudolf followed his counselor down the corridor. At the desk he signed for a manila envelope full of keys, pocket knife, billfold, and money. The lawyer rushed him into a Cadillac and they headed for the edge of town.

  Before Rudolf quite realized what was happening he was in a helicopter. A half hour later the chopper settled down in the middle of the gravel pit. Flaherty came from his lab to see what new disaster threatened. The chopper lifted, leaving Rudolf and the lawyer behind. “Where’s Lillith?” Flaherty asked.

  The lawyer shrugged. “The question is, what do we do now?”

  Flaherty sighed and led the way into his laboratory. “Place’s clean, I think.” He turned on a radio. They found chairs and boxes to sit around it. “Dear boy,” Flaherty said, “I know you meant well but I do wish you hadn’t done it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been sitting here all morning putting things together. Took me the longest time to guess what you were up to. Then I found the missing flask. Even then I thought maybe one of St. Audrey’s crew stole it.”

  Rudolf sighed. “What difference would it make?”

  “I don’t know,” Flaherty said. “In the long run it’ll all work out the same. Nobody keeps a secret forever.”

  Rudolf felt a little twinge of worry. “Are we speaking the same language?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t say. Which flask did you think you were getting?”

  Suddenly the worry was more than just a twinge. “Which one did I get?”

  “The true breeding culture
,” Flaherty said.

  CHAPTER 14

  There was a clarion call of muted money which Rudolf recognized as a Lamborghini horn. He looked out and saw the oriental red car. The top was up. Now why, he wondered, did Pamela have to come out here personally when they could have sent any process server? He strolled warily toward the locked gate. Flaherty and the lawyer watched from the doorway. A man’s head emerged from the right-hand window. “Can we come in?” he yelled. It was St. Audrey.

  Rudolf looked back at Flaherty and the lawyer. “No use locking the stable door now,” Flaherty said. The lawyer shrugged agreement.

  Rudolf unlocked the gate. Looking straight ahead, Pamela drove through and parked next to the shed. They got out and went inside Flaherty’s laboratory. “I’ve come to apologize,” St. Audrey said.

  Wordlessly, Pamela handed Rudolf the incubator.

  Totally nonplussed, Rudolf looked at Flaherty. The Irishman shrugged. Rudolf turned back to St. Audrey. “I don’t get it. What kind of a man are you?”

  St. Audrey turned on his matinee idol smile. “If you cut me, I bleed. I have an aversion to standing bloody but unbowed.”

  Rudolf wondered how he could ever have admired and envied people like this. “I suppose you want something,” he said.

  “Nothing more than I’ve ever wanted. I want you on our side.”

  “And how do you expect to achieve that?”

  “Unconditional surrender.”

  “Your building’s fallen down already?”

  The lawyer interrupted with frantic nonsense but St. Audrey didn’t react. “I’m returning your property intact and unused,” he said. “Now will you please call off your dogs?”

  “That’s an unusual request,” Rudolf said. “I’ve never spied on you.”

  Flaherty erupted into roaring guffaws. “Och,” he finally wheezed, “‘tis merry sport t’see the engineer…”

  Rudolf stared.

  “Sure and we’ll take care of the incubator,” Flaherty said. “Now there’s just one tiny little favor you’d be askin’ of us?”

  Through it all Pamela had been staring into the distance, trying for her habitual supercool. “Please, Rudy,” she finally said. “You didn’t have to do that to poor Archie.”

  “Archie?” That was the goddamn Mohawk’s name. “It was him or me.”

  “But you didn’t have to kill him!”

  Suddenly Rudolf knew it was all a shuck. “Save it,” he said. “Even if I had been there it just isn’t in my peace-loving nature to hit that hard. Go frame somebody else.”

  “Nobody’s framing you,” St. Audrey said. “Can we speak freely?”

  “That depends on whether Riordan’s still manning his mikes and cameras over in the swamp.”

  “He’s been gone since we — acquired the incubator. Now don’t worry about homicide investigations,” St. Audrey continued. “I’d much rather call it off. We don’t need more bodies, do we?”

  “I had nothing to do with whatever you’re talking about.”

  “Please, Rudy,” Pamela wailed, “can’t we ever use a bathroom again?”

  Suddenly Rudolf understood that he wasn’t being accused of battery with a coup stick. Now he realized what had happened to the Mohawk. Too bad, he thought. He hadn’t really disliked the bastard all that much. “So you want me to defuse your bathrooms?”

  St. Audrey raised his hands, palms up. “Yes.”

  “No.” Rudolf handed him back the incubator.

  “Your wildest desire,” St. Audrey tempted.

  “Mine enemy’s head on a platter?”

  While St. Audrey stared Rudolf ushered him and his lovely, nubile, red-haired daughter back to their car and out the gate.

  “Let’s go home,” he said when the Lamborghini was gone.

  Flaherty and the lawyer were still in shock. They nodded and Flaherty led the way to a new Plymouth.

  “When’d you get this?” Rudolf asked.

  “Yesterday when Lillith called and said the truck was impounded.”

  Rudolf groaned.

  They arrived at the white house in the village just as another older car was arriving. Rudolf squinted and saw it was the janitor of his reservation school, accompanied by the same younger Indians. “How’d you make out?” he called.

  Old John shook his head. “Can’t beat the white man,” he said. “They’re gonna flood the whole damn reservation.”

  Rudolf gave a disgusted growl. “Come on in. Maybe we can scrape up something to eat.”

  Just as they were going inside the house the phone rang. “Rudolf?” It was St. Audrey’s voice.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d give you your enemy’s head on a platter but my religion forbids suicide. Now surely, there must be some private arrangement possible between us…”

  Looking into the front room where Flaherty exchanged pleasantries with the dejected Indians, Rudolf suddenly knew there was something he wanted. “Come over right now,” he said, and hung up.

  Within minutes St. Audrey was knocking. This time Pamela stayed in the car.

  “Behold my brethren,” Rudolf said, and drew a startled glance from Flaherty. “Help them in their hour of need.”

  “What do they want?” St. Audrey asked.

  Old John explained about the violated treaty and the Corps of Engineers’ dam foolishness.

  St. Audrey dialed eleven digits and spoke briefly.

  The lawyer’s ferret eyes narrowed at the name St. Audrey mentioned. “Hold it,” he said, and grabbed the phone. “May I have your full name, sir?” Even across the room Rudolf could hear the “Who the hell gave you this number?”

  “Thank you,” the lawyer said, and handed the phone back to St. Audrey. “Hard to impersonate that voice without some preparation,” he said with a thin smile.

  When St. Audrey hung up a moment later he turned on his full voltage smile and said, “It’s taken care of.”

  This time Rudolf guessed it was.

  There was a round of happy handshaking while Old John and the younger Indians convinced themselves that what they had just witnessed had actually happened.

  “I don’t like to press you,” St. Audrey said deferentially, “but delay could cost another life.”

  The Indians took the hint and began making their farewells. “Wait a minute,” Rudolf said. “How you fixed for money?”

  There was an embarrassed silence. “We’re a little short,” one of the young men admitted. “Had to buy three retreads.”

  “Take our car,” Rudolf said. “We’ll get another.” He gave St. Audrey a piercing look which elicited several large bills. “You guys keep in touch,” Rudolf said, and turned to St. Audrey. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Knew I should have brought the Cadillac,” St. Audrey murmured.

  Rudolf looked at the lawyer. “Can you “call that chopper?” he asked.

  An hour later they were in Northumber, with the exception of Pamela who was driving the Lamborghini home. Rudolf approached the scene of the Mohawk’s demise and poked the door open with a broom. “Tuchi,” he called, “I’ve got it. Tuchi! Are you there?”

  There was no answer. Rudolf tried several more times, then gave up. “We may be here a while,” he said. “How about my first month’s salary?” He glanced at the lawyer whose name he still hadn’t learned.

  “Make it the first year’s,” the lawyer said, “and never say salary when you mean a transfer of capital gains on which the tax has already been paid.”

  St. Audrey winced. The lawyer opened his briefcase and began moving chips from one ledger to another. Flaherty yawned and wandered about the library. Rudolf thought he was going to demand booze but the Irishman stretched out on a couch and went to sleep. Rudolf tried the bathroom again. Still no Tuchi. He returned to the library and idly perused titles.

  The Saints… He rummaged through its pages until he came to St. Audrey. (See Ethelreda.) He turned to Ethelreda (or Audrey) and read: A widow, she married the boy Egfrid, son of
the king of Northumbria; when he grew up she refused to consummate the marriage. The unfortunate Egfrid married again.

  Rudolf stood studying the brief reference. He wondered if St. Audrey knew his shabby origins, then suddenly realized why this estate was called Northumber. It seemed an odd thing to be proud of.

  The lawyer finished his business. St. Audrey seemed to have recovered his cheerfulness in spite of having just signed away several million dollars. “I see you’ve discovered the family skeleton,” he said.

  “Yes,” Rudolf said uncertainly.

  “Have you ever wondered why I would have welcomed you as a son-in-law?”

  “I assumed I had something you wanted.”

  St. Audrey laughed and hooked a dictionary from the shelf. He thumbed through it and underlined a word. Rudolf took the book and read, Tawdry: cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality, so named for cheap and shoddy goods formerly sold at St. Audrey’s fair. Synonyms: brummagem, shlock.

  “You see,” St. Audrey said, “I recognized a kindred spirit.”

  Rudolf realized now that he had been completely accepted into white society. Studying St. Audrey’s mocking smile, he knew he was worthy of the honor. He turned and tried the toilet again.

  This time Tuchi’s triangular head reared up through the toilet bowl. “It’s near,” she said. “I can smell it.”

  Rudolf held out the incubator. “I’ll make you a nice deal for that trap,” he said.

  “Whom do you wish to kill?” Tuchi asked.

  “Uh — nobody. Christ, haven’t we had enough killing?”

  “That,” Tuchi snapped, “is a matter of personal taste.”

  “I want to learn to make that superhard, superductile crystalline stuff.”

  “Oh!” Tuchi stretched a pseudopod and took the incubator from Rudolf. “That’s easy. You don’t need the trap.”

  Flaherty appeared, yawning and blinking from his nap. “You’ll be leaving now, I suppose?” he asked the alien.

  “It will require some time to clean out the drive. Then there is the problem of my family.”

  “You’ll be taking them with you?” Rudolf asked hopefully.