The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian)

by Robert Sheckley

  VICO

  30

  Vico said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “The money for the sailboards. The money for Sr. Falcone.”

  “Ah, the money! Yes, I pay it!”

  “You paid it? When?”

  “Excuse me, I don’t mean I already did pay it. I mean that I intended to pay it. Excuse me, my English not so good.”

  I let that go. “Can you pay it now, Mr. Vico?”

  “Well, of course. That is, I suppose I can. But it may take a little while. A matter of days. Then of course I am going to pay.”

  “Vico,” I said, “I’m not a cop, and even if I were, I couldn’t arrest you in this country. There’s no case against you in France. But we have our ways of getting deadbeats like you to pay up or wish you had. Have you heard of the newspaper treatment?”

  “No, what is that?”

  “We take out ads for a couple of weeks in your local newspaper, alluding to your debt and asking you when you are going to pay up. If this fails, we assess how much damage you caused our client and then we make that much trouble for you.”

  “In my case,” Vico said, “that will be unnecessary. I have the money right here.” Vico took out his billfold and removed a check. He showed it to me.

  I looked. I saw a check drawn on the Banco de Bilbao for two million pesetas and change. It was made out to Frankie Falcone.

  “I see the check,” I told him. “Why don’t you give it to me for Frankie, and we’re square.”

  “If only I could!” Vico said. “But at present I have no money in this account. But I will have in a few days. I’ll give it to you to give to your client this weekend, and time payment after Saturday.”

  “Why must we wait until then?”

  Vico’s eyes glowed. “Because Saturday is the day of the sailboard main event race in Honfleur harbor. Cash prizes. For first place, it comes to nearly twenty thousand dollars. I can win it, Sr. Hobart. I’ve already taken two first in Majorca, and one in Barcelona. I know that’s not the big time, but it’s good. I know who’s racing here. I can beat them.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all pretty iffy.”

  “Of course it’s iffy,” Vico said. “I am a man who lives by translating fantasies into realities. The rise of any poor boy to top matador or jockey or sailboarder is beset by impossibilities.”

  I had no answer for that. Far be it from me to claim that the unlikely never happens.

  “And think of the publicity for Falcone boards,” Vico said. “When I win, it’ll put Falcone boards on the world sailboarding map. Mr. Falcone will have to hire a factory to keep up with orders. How can you pass up such a chance?”

  How indeed? And in fact, what other chance was there? I might be able to find a local lawyer and institute proceedings against Vico. But where would that get me? By the time the law had it sorted out, Vico and the boards would be long gone.

  “Saturday,” I said, “I will be in Paris.”

  “Then it will be my pleasure to come see you.”

  So I wrote out the name of my hotel for him. It really was time I got back.

  HONFLEUR, ROMAGNA

  31

  My next caller was not long in arriving. It was evening, a few hours after Nigel’s departure. The Palma-Orly flight had been delayed. I had finished le grand plateâu des fruites de mer—also known as the seafood dinner—at the hotel, and strolled down to the harbor for my evening constitutional. I wasn’t entirely surprised when someone waved to me from a sidewalk café table, and called out, in the unmistakable accents of New Jersey, mother of corruption, “Hey, Hob! Come over and have a drink.”

  It was Tony Romagna. He had doffed his dark blue mafia suit and was now wearing a beige lounge suit with red piping along the lapels, the sort of thing they sell in the Short Hills Travel Boutique for affluent tourists in New Jersey. In it, Romagna looked like a beige whale with red piping on his fins.

  “Hi, Tony,” I said, sitting down at his table. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “I heard this was a historical town,” he said, smiling easy.

  “You’ve picked a good place,” I told him. “Did you know that Honfleur dates from the eleventh century? I’d especially recommend the church of Sainte-Catherine, and the shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.”

  “That sounds pretty nice,” Romagna said. “Actually, I was hoping to run into you here.”

  “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “You’re not so hard to find, Hob,” Romagna said. “Creature of habit, aren’t you?”

  “When I choose to be,” I said, giving him a subtle look. “What do you want, Romagna?”

  Romagna’s broad face took on a serious look. He knocked over a wine glass, reinforcing his image of clumsiness, and said, “You’re looking for Alex Sinclair.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “I’m not admitting anything,” I told him. “But what if I am? What’s it to you?”

  “I’m looking for Alex, too,” Romagna said.

  “Somehow, Mr. Romagna, that doesn’t surprise me as much as you might think. Quite a few people seem to be getting interested in Alex.”

  “Do you know yet where he is?”

  “I wouldn’t be sitting in Honfleur if I knew that. And you wouldn’t either.”

  “But you do expect to find him?”

  I nodded. “The Alternative Detective Agency always gets its man.”

  “How would you like to work for me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What do you pay? Do you offer Major Medical? Is there a pension plan? What do you want me to do?”

  “Obviously, I want you to find Alex.”

  “I’m already doing that.”

  “Yes, but for a different client. When you find him I want you to tell me first. I could run him down myself, of course—I’ve got plenty of connections in this town—but why should we duplicate our efforts?”

  “That wouldn’t be fair to my present employer,” I said.

  “Maybe not. But it would pay you well. And save you a lot of trouble.”

  “How well and what trouble?”

  “I’ll give you a flat five thousand dollars if and when you tell me where to find Alex.”

  “I like nice round numbers like that,” I said. “Now tell me about the trouble.”

  Romagna smiled. For a moment he looked like a beat-up Rubens angel with blue jowls. “No trouble at all, if you play along.”

  “Mr. Romagna, I really need to know more than you’re telling me. Who are you; whom do you represent; why are you interested in finding Alex?”

  Romagna lurched to his feet, put down a handful of bills on the table more or less at random, straightened his whale suit.

  “Five thousand dollars if you cooperate,” he reminded me, as if I needed reminding. “Unending tsouris if you don’t. You can get in touch with me at the Ritz. Do yourself a favor. Don’t get dead.” He strolled off.

  I watched him cross the square and get into a chauffeured Peugeot 404. I watched him drive away. I noted down the license plate number, though I had no idea what to do with it. Then I finished the rest of my coffee. When the waiter came by, I paid for the drinks out of Romagna’s bills, left a suitable tip, and pocketed the rest. Waste not; want not.

  RETURN TO PARIS; JUANITO

  32

  i caught the morning train back to Paris the next day, well satisfied with how things were going. Perhaps I hadn’t made much progress on finding Alex or getting Frankie reimbursed for his sailboards; but at least the projects looked like they were going forward and might even be turning into paying propositions.

  With the prospect of Romagna’s five thousand dancing before my eyes, I took a taxi from Montparnasse Station to the Forum des Halles.

  It was one of those days that Paris produces every now and then: blue sky of a tremendous lucidity; formal white clouds scattered here and there in perfect taste by the Master Designer; the Seine a glittering silver
snake flowing beneath the Pont Mirabeau, Pont de Grenelle, Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Pont d’Iéna, the elegant bridges that segment its length.

  It was a resplendent day. The crowds were out in force. In the Forum and on the broad terrace in front of the Beaubourg, two musical groups were vying for attention. One group was dressed in the national costume of Brittany and was doing folk dances. The other group was South American, and was composed of two lead guitars, a bass guitar, and a soprano guitar.

  I’m a fool for a good huapanga, so I went over to catch their number. I recognized Juanito, the Paraguayan bandleader from El Mango Encantado. He had on one of those frilled white shirts with puffy sleeves.

  Slipping his maracas into his belt, he flashed me a big smile. “Meet me after this set, ’Ob. I have news for you about Alex.”

  “You got it,” I said. “I’ll be having a drink at the Père Tranquile.”

  It’s amazing how easy it is to pick up information if you know where to hang out. I think I can say without exaggeration that I am one of the most skilled hangers-out in the western hemisphere. It’s a talent like any other, of course, and it’s main ingredient is patience.

  “So hi there, keed,” Juanito said, twenty minutes later, leaving his buddies to pass the hat. “How you been keepin’, huh?”

  In addition to the ruffled shirt, Juanito was wearing black skintight bullfighter pants, Nike running shoes, and he had a blue and white polkadot bandanna knotted casually around his neck like Jon Voigt in Midnight Cowboy. This time he gave me his boyish grin rather than his Apache scowl.

  “Listen, ’Ob, you still wanna get in touch with Alex?”

  Juanito’s big grin and shiny eyes told me that this was going to cost me. Maybe dearly. Ain’t nobody love you like the guy who’s going to take you off.

  I temporized. “Well,” I said, “I’m not exactly looking for him. I mean, I’d like to see him as long as I’m in Paris anyway, but if I don’t, well, it’s no big deal, you know what I mean?”

  Juanito’s face fell. I could see the adding machine in his brain taking thirty percent off the price he was going to ask me for his most probably bogus information.

  “Come on, ’Ob,” he said, putting up the grin again, “I know you gotta find Alex and it’s worth something, isn’t it?”

  I allowed as how there might be a few francs in it, nothing to get excited about, but something.

  “What’s it worth to you if I can take you right to him?”

  “Can you?” I asked.

  “Not just yet, ’Ob, but soon. But first you gotta tell me, what’s it worth to you.”

  I favored him with a hard look. “Juanito, if you can lead me right to Alex without a whole lot of crapping around, I’ll give you two hundred dollars American and I’ll do you a favor.”

  “What favor?”

  “I won’t tell the gendarmes you haven’t got a green card.”

  He looked just ever so slightly poleaxed. “How you know about that?“

  “I don’t reveal my sources.” Nor my lucky guesses.

  “Make it five hundred, OK? I got people to take care of.”

  I was going to tough it out, but then I figured, what the hell, it’s someone else’s money, because bribes paid in the line of duty are chargeable to the client, or possibly to both clients, if it turns out that way.

  “All right,” I said. “When do we do this?”

  “Meet me tonight in front of Sainte-Eustache. You know where that is?”

  “Of course I know. What do you take me for, a tourist?” I could always look it up.

  “OK, see you then.”

  “Wait a minute; what time?”

  “Let’s make it midnight, OK, ’Ob?”

  “Fine,” I said. “But just do me one favor, OK?”

  “Sure, ’Ob,” he said, smiling and looking a little puzzled.

  “Stop calling me ’Ob. You’re South American; you have no excuse for not aspirating. Try it, H-O-B.”

  “ ‘-O-B,” Juanito said.

  “Much better,” I told him. “Hasta mas tarde.” I walked away thinking, midnight, hmm; wonder if that means anything.

  VICO IN PARIS

  33

  Later in the afternoon I was sitting on a bench near the Seine when who should show up but Vico. He sat down on the other end of the bench and didn’t say anything.

  This was Sunday. I remembered that yesterday had been Vico’s race in the sailing contest in Honfleur. This was the day Vico was supposed to pay me Frankie Falcone’s money for the boards, assuming Vico had won. By looking at him I couldn’t tell how it had gone. He didn’t have the bright-eyed look of a winner. Nor did he have the down-at-the-ears look of a loser. Under the circumstances, I decided to ask.

  “So how did the sailboard contest go?” I asked him.

  “I am not interested in your jokes,” Vico said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know very well.”

  “No, I do not know,” I told him. “What am I supposed to know?”

  Vico glowered. “You know that I did not compete in the Honfleur race.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Because you stole the boards,” Vico said. His face contorted. He sobbed, “Oh, you bastard! My big chance, and you can’t even trust me for a few lousy hours!”

  “Somebody stole your boards? How? When?”

  “They were supposed to have been brought to the hotel from the airport. They never arrived.”

  “But who took them? Surely someone must have seen.”

  “A large man in a chauffeur’s uniform. That’s what the porter told me.”

  “Not me, obviously. I don’t even own a chauffeur’s outfit.”

  “You could have employed such a person to steal my boards,” Vico pointed out.

  I didn’t bother pointing out the irony in him accusing me of stealing boards that he himself had stolen from my employer. A guy like that was beyond irony. Instead I asked, “Why would I steal them?”

  “So that you can return the boards to your client Falcone.”

  “Good idea,” I told him. “I should have thought of that yesterday. But I had already agreed to wait. Don’t you remember?”

  Vico shrugged.

  “Vico, wake up,” I told him. “I did not steal your boards. Got it?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether I got it or not,” Vico said. “The problem is not what I think, the problem is what will my partners think.”

  “This is the first time I’ve heard about your partners. I thought it was you against the world in this sailboarding venture.”

  “Well, I exaggerated slightly,” Vico said. “The point is, I do have partners and they do not like this development. Missing the Honfleur sailing trials is bad enough. But what about the other European sailboarding events? Amsterdam next week, and then Garmisch, Lake Constance, Maggiore? It is important that I sail in these events.”

  “I sympathize,” I said. “But you should have paid for the boards in the first place, instead of smuggling them into France on a fishing boat.”

  “You know about that? Mr. Draconian, I made a bad mistake doing that. But I was forced to it. Back in Ibiza, I entrusted my brother, Enrique, who is also the bookkeeper of Marisol, to send Señor Falcone his check. But Enrique went off with it instead to San Sebastián, where he has probably gambled it away by now.”

  “Whatever happened, you didn’t pay. You stole the boards.”

  “I had a panic,” Vico said. “And I was unable to contact my partners, who were traveling to Europe to watch me race.”

  “Partners? You hadn’t mentioned them before.”

  “Well, I do have partners, and I have talked with them and we have decided to pay your client, Mr. Falcone, for the boards now, immediately.”

  “Really? I thought you couldn’t spare a sou until you won a race.”

  “That is technically correct. But my partners have some money, luckily. We don’t blame you, Mr. ’Ob, for taki
ng back the boards. But I really need them now. Hence, voilà, the payment.”

  He removed a thick manilla envelope from an inner pocket and handed it to me. Within was a wad of bills. I riffled through them quickly. There were American and French bank notes, and some Sterling. Quite a bit of everything.

  “How much is here?” I asked.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars. You can pay Mr. Falcone and keep the rest for yourself.”

  “Why would you do that for me, Vico?” I asked.

  “Because I like you, Mr. ’Ob. And because I must have those boards back and you seem to be the key to obtaining them.”

  “I already told you, I don’t know anything about who took your—or rather Frankie’s—sailboards.”

  “All that is understood,” Vico said, with that deadpan softness that Spaniards sometimes get just before they blow the bugle and storm the barricades. “I level no accusations. Just have someone deliver the boards to the following address”—he took out a slip of paper and gave it to me—“in the next forty-eight hours, and everyone will be satisfied.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said, pocketing the money. “But I can’t promise anything.”

  “Please see that the boards arrive at that address,” Vico said. “For your own sake.”

  He rose to go.

  I rose, too. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Not me. I am a nonviolent person. It is my partners that we both must worry about.” He left.

  The slip of paper gave an address outside of Paris. I put it into my wallet. Then I telephoned Nigel Wheaton and arranged to meet him at Harry’s New York Bar.

  “I understand the problem,” Wheaton said, after I told him about my conversation with Vico.

  “Do you think someone could have stolen the sailboards who had anything to do with the rest of this? Or was it random?”

  “Difficult situation, old boy. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  Wheaton smiled and alarm bells went off in my mind. I tend to believe that my friends remain exactly as they were when I saw them last. But I was always wrong. I wasn’t how or who I had been ten years ago; why should they be?