by Ron Goulart
“Are those clues to anything, Jake?” inquired Tappenzee.
After scanning the departed actress’s bedroom, Jake moved out into the hall. “How many codes are there on the Captain Texas decoder?”
“Gee, you really are taking an interest in the show,” said Ganpat while he and his partner trailed Jake back into the living room.
“Eight codes is the answer,” said Tappenzee. “You set the dingus for any number from one to eight and that lines up the letters and numbers in diff—”
“I’d like undiluted silence for a few minutes,” requested Jake. He dropped into a snugchair that faced the bright calm Pacific.
“Sure.” Ganpat sat, tentatively, on the edge of a swingsofa.
Tappenzee settled near him. “You going to go over the events of today in your mind to—”
“Hush,” advised Jake, digging out the decoder that had originally been among the stuff Bullet Benton had carted off from Poorman’s Harvard.
Using the decoder and his electropen, he got the message unraveled in just under five minutes.
It said, “We have H. Pace. Keeping in S.A. until after Moon. S.S.”
Jake said, “Damn.”
CHAPTER 17
HILDY COULD SEE DOWN through the seethru floor, quite easily since she was sprawled out on it with her arms strapped behind her, and watch the big processing plant at work. Large quantities of nunca beans were being trucked in and converted, by way of a complex and noisy method, into fuel oil. Each pale green truck had the Newoyl sign on its sides and top. Out beyond one of the open doorways of the factory she saw a wide road that came cutting through the dense jungle.
“South America someplace,” she told herself. “And, damn it, Jake has no idea where I am.”
Wiggling, she got into a sideways position and scrutinized more thoroughly the room she’d awakened in some five or so minutes ago.
There was nothing much to see. Grey plaz walls, one door with no inside handle, no windows. Not a single piece of furniture, nothing much in the way of dust,
Whoever’d tossed her in here had taken her shoes, and along with them the miniature escape kit she carried in a heel compartment.
The door hummed for a few seconds, then slid open.
Screwball Smith, smiling, came in. Accompanying him were a thick-set young man and a lean silver-haired young woman. Smith was still decked out in yellow and scarlet. Both the others wore glojeans.
“I never apologize,” said Smith, crossing the room and stopping beside the sprawled Hildy. “You and your husband intruded, you got hurt. That’s the way things go.”
“Very practical and businesslike,” said Hildy. “You’d be surprised how few murderers are.”
“I never get angry either, so don’t waste time needling me, Mrs. Pace.” He sat down, crosslegged, on the floor. “Any idea where you are?”
“Newoyl has seven plants in South America to process nunca beans. This is one of them.”
“Actually we now have nine. You’re in the newest one, near our plantation in the wilds of Panazuela.”
“Business is picking up,” said Hildy.
“We’ve been arranging things so it would,” Smith said, his smile broadening.
“And what are you going to arrange for me?”
“I’m never moved by emotional displays either,” he told her. “So don’t bother sobbing, screaming and pleading when I inform you we’re going to be killing you.”
Nodding, Hildy said, “When?”
“Not until I return.”
“From the moon?”
He laughed. “Very good, Mrs. Pace.” Smith got to his feet. “You’ll be questioned some while I’m away. When I get back, in about four days’ time, I’ll arrange your death.”
Hildy said, “You’re part of Novem.”
“Yes.” He tapped the side of his skull with a forefinger and produced a faint metallic bong. “There are five of us. Should’ve been six, but we could never convince Palsy to join with us. We left her alone until she decided to contact Odd Jobs, Inc.”
“Then you killed her.”
“We felt some regret there, since she had one of the prof’s implants and might’ve been useful.” He shrugged his checkered shoulders. “But we’d given her more than enough chances and she remained stubborn. Actually, as you know, the five of us have done quite well without her.”
“Don’t feel bad about Palsy, she obviously brought it on herself by defying you.”
“Both you and your husband have reputations for being wiseasses. I can’t say I enjoy that sort of thing.”
“Gallows humor,” Hildy said. “Do forgive me.”
Smith gestured for the other two to join him. “Mrs. Pace, these folks’ll be looking after you while I’m gone. Frat McGinty, this is Mrs. Hildy Pace.”
The chunky McGinty grunted. “So can I, SS?”
“Not now, Frat.”
“Shit, I don’t see why not.” He’d slid a Teflon-coated machete out from under his tunic.
“Because, asshole, I don’t want her all bloodied up before Dr. Bensen sees her.”
McGinty said, “I’d only just slice her on the bottoms of her feet, SS, and out of the way places like that. I won’t spoil her any. Shit, you’re going to kill her anyhow eventually.”
“After Dr. Bensen is through with his interrogation sessions.”
“Oh, sure, but she’ll be in a coma by then probably,” complained McGinty, rubbing his machete blade along the leg of his tight-fitting glojeans. “It’s nowhere near as much fun when you can’t hear her scream.”
“Remember how you got in trouble back at PMH, Frat?” Smith reminded, taking hold of his associate’s arm.
“Yeah, but that dame was a full prof and I sliced her up with a rare Druid knife from the Boston Museum of—”
“You’ll leave Mrs. Pace alone,” said Smith evenly.
“Shit.”
Smith said, “And this, Mrs. Pace, is Lady Loo Lepper, the famous British socialite you’ve no doubt heard about via the mass media.”
“Who?” asked Hildy.
“Droll,” said the platinum-haired girl, kicking Hildy in the ribs.
“I don’t want you spoiling her either,” warned Smith.
“Really, Smitty, old Bean, you’re a royal pain in the toke,” observed Lady Loo. “I mean, I sometimes wonder why I left wealth and position in jolly old England for a life of nastiness among such swine as you and the Novem crew.”
“You’re to guard her and that’s all, Lady Loo.”
After kicking Hildy once again, Lady Loo strolled away to lean against the far wall. “It’s so bloody dull here, Smitty, old bean. Then when the chance for a bit of fun comes up, you start acting like a preacher.”
Smith squatted next to Hildy. “I wanted you to meet the folks who’ll be looking after you,” he said, smiling broadly. “Bye for now.”
Frat McGinty said, “Ouch!”
“Whatever is the matter, old bean?” asked Lady Loo.
They were both lounging on the broad, shady veranda of the staff house, facing a panorama of sundrenched jungle.
“I cut my damn finger,” Frat replied.
“Well, that’s better than nothing.”
After wrapping a plyochief around his left forefinger, Frat rested his machete across his lap. “Screwball’s been gone a couple hours and Dr. Bensen won’t be here until nightfall. We could fool around with that redheaded bimbo for a while and nobody’d know.”
Lady Loo ran long sharp-edged fingers through her silvery hair and slumped farther down in her neorattan chair. “We’d better not, love,” she sighed. “I don’t really fancy crossing Screwball. Just yet.”
“I still say I could slice her in … Jumpin’ jellybeans!” He popped to his feet, dropping his machete and snatching a kilgun from his holster.
“Whatever is …” The silver-haired young woman turned to look in the direction her companion was staring.
A small man with an improbable h
ead of straw-color hair had come stumbling out of the green jungle. He was making his staggering way toward them, with the seemingly unconscious body of a near naked man over his shoulders.
Cautiously, McGinty went clomping down the wooden steps with his gun at the ready. “Who the frap are you?”
“I’ve found him!” exclaimed the tottering man in a cracked and thirsty voice. “Yes, yes, man, I have actually found him!”
“When did you lose him?” inquired Lady Loo, standing to lean on the veranda rail.
“This may well be,” continued the straw-haired man, “the major find of the 21st century, and, when you consider the century is only a few years old, you’ll realize just how—”
“There’s something important about that tacky-looking gink?” McGinty gestured at the long lean nearly naked man.
“Permit me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Wilhelm Black-Schwartz,” said Steranko the Siphoner. “Of the prestigious Burroughs Foundation.”
“And who’s your friend?” asked Lady Loo.
“Why, my dear child,” said Steranko as he carried his burden up into the shade near her, “this is the fabled Wild Man of Panazuela.”
“Never heard of him.” McGinty came climbing back up the steps.
“Originally he was known as the Wild Boy of Panazuela.” Steranko dumped Jake down on the planks. “He’s matured considerably since then.”
“He certainly has, old bean,” observed Lady Loo.
Steranko rubbed his grimy hands together. “Do either of you realize what this means? Here you see a feral man, a creature who’s grown up entirely away from civilization, a—”
“Doesn’t matter what he is,” cut in McGinty. “You can’t dump him here.”
“But, my dear sir. …” Steranko swayed, touched his stained forehead and took several tottering steps backward. He collapsed into a neorattan sofa. “You must forgive me, I’ve been nearly a week without food. After I ate the last porter, it’s been very—”
“You’ve been lost in the jungle?” asked Lady Loo, eyes on the sprawled Jake.
“For endless weeks,” moaned the siphoner.
Jake groaned. He had a tangled, matted head of long dark hair and wore a loincloth made of badly tanned animal skin. There was a necklace of monkey teeth around his neck.
Lady Loo poked him with her foot. “Whyever is he in this terrible shape?”
“I have to keep stunning the creature.” Steranko casually took a stungun from an inner pocket of his tan two-piece bushsuit. “Otherwise he attacks and bites.” He started to roll up a sleeve. “I’ll show you the marks he made in my—”
“Watch where you’re waving that gun,” suggested McGinty.
Jake opened his eyes and sat up. “Unk,” he said.
Steranko said, “He speaks neither English, Spanish nor any Indian tongue.”
“So I noticed,” said Lady Loo.
Jake gazed up at her, suspicion and then elation showing on his savage face. “Unk unk!” he exclaimed, making a grab for her ankle.
“That, won’t do,” said Steranko, raising the stungun.
Zzzzzzummmmmm!
“Goodness me,” said Steranko, frowning at the stunner in his hand. “I seem to have missed and hit your colleague, young lady.”
Thunk!
McGinty had toppled over onto his face, his kilgun skating away into deep shadows—
“You blooming halfwit!” Lady Loo cried. “You’ve gone and … oh!”
Jake clamped a tiny silver disc onto her calf. He scrambled up, saying, “Sit down and be quiet.”
“You can stuff … that is … yes, guv.” Her eyes went round and staring as the control bug took her over.
Jake scooped up the kilgun and the machete. “How many guards around this place?”
“Fifteen,” she replied in a dead voice. “In fact, two of them should have stopped you before you got anywhere near this part of—”
“They’re in snoozeland,” said Steranko, chuckling. “Who else is in the main house here?”
“No one.”
Bending, the siphoner took hold of the truly unconscious Frat McGinty. He dragged him, with ease, into the house and came quickly back outside. “Proceed, Jake.”
“Is Screwball here?”
“No, guv.”
“Where is he?”
“En route to the moon.”
Jake nodded, savage locks of hair flapping. “Okay, and where is Hildy Pace?”
“In an interrogation room.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Over the factory.”
Jake said, “You’ll take us there.”
“I will.”
“Who is Novem going to kill next?”
“I don’t know.”
Steranko urged, “Let’s get moving, Jake.”
“Lead us to Hildy now.” He took hold of the young woman’s arm.
She stood. “This way, guv.” Lady Loo, moving a bit stiffly, descended the steps into the yellow glare of the afternoon.
“We’ve done terrifically thus far,” said Steranko as he tagged along.
“And Hildy says I can’t act.” Jake grinned and scratched his bare chest.
CHAPTER 18
JAKE MADE ANOTHER CIRCUIT of their compartment. “I think I’m right,” he said.
Hildy, once again herself, glanced out the multi-layered window at the crisp darkness the Moonshuttle was passing through. “Backtrack a bit before we get to Professor Barrel and the kids from the class of ’99,” she requested. “Explain, in a bit more detail, how you and Steranko located me in the wilds of Panazuela.”
Sitting down opposite her on the tan neoleather seat, he grinned. “Was I or was I not a convincing wild man?”
“If it weren’t for the fact I know your unclothed body fairly well, you’d have fooled even me. But how—”
“I intercepted a code message Screwball Smith sent to Honey Chen.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Dogged detective work,” he answered.
“And the message told you exactly where I was being held?”
“Nope, it only said you’d be in South America until after the moon festivities.”
She shivered, hugging herself. “They meant to kill me, Jake.”
“Yeah, I know.” He crossed the small tan compartment to sit beside her. “I got Steranko to use his illegal tapping equipment to check on the comings and goings between Portland and the Newoyl plants in Latin America.”
“And that gave you the Panazuela location.”
“Actually we only narrowed it down to Panazuela and Ereguay,” he admitted. “Before we hit your factory, we’d pulled the same act over in Ereguay. Went over pretty well there, too.”
“I’m glad you didn’t stop to take bows and do encores. The lad named Frat was intent on slicing me up some.”
Jake said, “Neither Frat nor Lady Loo know much about the inner workings of Novem. All they gave us is the fact that something is planned for the moon during the jazz festival.”
“Screwball Smith’ll be there.”
“So will Honey Chen. Trina is already there.”
“It looks like—”
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Jake moved to the door, flicked the spyhole knob. “It’s Steranko,” he announced.
“I still don’t see why we’re dragging him along, and at first-class rates.”
“He helped save your life, my dear.”
“I’m eternally grateful, but that doesn’t make him the sort of traveling compan—”
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!
“C’mon, c’mon, open wide. I need sanctuary,” said the siphoner on the other side of the door.
Jake admitted him. “Trouble?”
Although Steranko had donned a two-piece yellow suit, he’d retained the straw-color wig that went with his earlier impersonation. His face was flushed at the moment. “I am used to eccentricities,” he said, hurrying into the compartment and shutting the door with an elbow. “But
I sure don’t go in for that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Some of the musicians heading for the moon are sharing this shuttle flight with us,” he explained, sitting, panting. “I was in the men’s room when this perfectly decent looking chap entered and stepped into a cubicle. Intent on combing my wig … I don’t, you know, usually travel with hair and this is something of a diverting novelty … intent of combing my wig, I didn’t notice him until he’d emerged. Only now he was a lady with long blond hair.”
“He’s put on a wig, too?” asked Hildy.
“No, he switched,” said the flustered Steranko. “I realized I was encountering a member of Switchit McBernie’s All Girl-All Boy Orchestra. The whole blooming ensemble is made up of switchsexuals. The one I met is Max-Maxine and His/Her Magic Violin.”
Jake laughed. “Did they pursue you?”
“I gave him the slip, and ran for your compartment.”
“You can hide here for a spell,” Jake told him. “We’ll dock on the moon in about six hours.”
Hildy eyed the siphoner. “You won’t have to stay here six hours, will you? Your plight isn’t that serious.”
“I’d rather kiss a violinist than spend six hours with you, Skinny.”
Hildy smiled. “You’re returning to your normal self, meaning the shock is subsiding.”
Scratching at his wig, Steranko asked, “Did I interrupt a family squabble? Go right ahead on with it, don’t mind my presence.”
“Jake and I were discussing the Big Bang case,” Hildy informed him. “Oh, and I do appreciate your leaving that electronic sinkhole of yours, Steranko, and coming out into the real world to help save me.”
“I was just about the whole rescue mission,” he said, tapping his chest. “Jake was playing Sleeping Beauty most of the time. And, geez, what an implausible wild man. ‘Ung, ung,’ is all he could think to say. I was scared they’d tumble to his feeble—”
“Unk unk,” corrected Jake.
Twining his fingers together, Steranko asked, “Have you told the missus about the possible targets?”
“Was just about to introduce the topic,” said Jake.
“Targets plural?” asked his wife.
