The Order of Odd-Fish

by James Kennedy

  “So humiliating,” said Audrey. “There’s no call for that.”

  Fumo’s ostrich’s claws released Zam-Zam, who hung in the air for a second, scrabbling at emptiness—then he fell, plunging into the water far below. Zam-Zam’s ostrich hid itself in a corner of the arena, gurgling with embarrassment. Fumo’s ostrich hobbled as Fumo spread her arms wide, basking in the applause.

  “Obnoxious,” said Audrey. “No grace at all.”

  “I’d like to know who’s Fumo,” said Jo. “I’d like to take her down a notch.”

  “Victory!” shouted Fumo as her bloodied ostrich limped miserably under her.

  Jo couldn’t watch any more; it made her too angry. “How’s Ian doing?”

  “He seems to be on top of things,” said Audrey. “Let’s go over there and get a better look.”

  Ian was back at his booth. A small crowd had formed around him, and he was quickly paying out the money for the bets, too absorbed in his task to glance at Jo and Audrey.

  Audrey whispered in Jo’s ear, “Look, look—Oona Looch.”

  Oona Looch had arrived during the duel, carried on a gaudy throne. She was a mannish, square-jawed woman, about sixty years old, mammoth but not fat, a stout giant of muscle and bone. Her bald skull was gouged with scars, her nose and ears seemed nailed on, and her smile revealed she had no teeth at all. Her voice was a low rumble and her laugh sounded like a dozen old men clearing their throats at once. Four big, bald, tough-looking women carried her throne.

  Jo said, “Who are they?”

  “Oona Looch’s daughters,” whispered Audrey. “Almost everyone in the mafia is related to the Looch family. She has fifty-two daughters, and they all look exactly like her. She’s always pregnant…. She barely notices when she gives birth. The babies just pop out and beat up the first guy they see.”

  “Who’s the father?” said Jo.

  “Whoever Oona wants,” said Audrey. “There’s her current husband, Fipnit. Poor sap.” Jo noticed a skinny little man trailing behind the throne, continually wringing his hands and looking about nervously.

  “Nothing like a night at the fights!” thundered Oona Looch. “The smell of sweat! The smell of blood! The smell of ostrich poop! It’s all good! Give us a kiss, Fipnit!” She grabbed Fipnit, whipped him around like a rag doll, and covered his face with her huge lips; then she spat him out. “God, you taste terrible! Why am I married to you?”

  Fipnit could only answer with a series of soft meeps and whimpers.

  “You disgust me, Fipnit!” shouted Oona Looch. “You don’t do anything for me as a woman. You don’t know how to treat a lady! One of these days, Fipnit, I’m gonna sit on you! And then I’ll forget about you…. Maybe a few weeks later I’ll pick you out of my behind and say, ‘Well! There’s Fipnit! So that’s where he went!’ Then I’ll throw you away. What a tragic end to a beautiful romance!”

  “Meep,” said Fipnit.

  Meanwhile, there was a disturbance at Ian’s booth. A gangly man in a yellow waistcoat was gripping the table with shaking fists, pleading with Ian, “You’ve got to give my money back. It’s all I’ve got, please.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have bet it,” said Ian.

  “Give it back, kid. C’mon—it can be like the bet never happened.”

  “Beat it,” said Ian.

  “I’m a close personal friend of Oona Looch—she lets it slide from time to time for me—it’s no big deal, you can ask her. Just help me out this once. This is my last chance!”

  “Next!”

  The man seemed about to walk off—then lunged for the cash box, snatching it away. Ian immediately jumped over the table, tackling the man, and they rolled on the floor, wrestling. The man pinned Ian down, but just as Oona Looch’s daughters were about to jump in, the man pulled out a black tube.

  “Nobody move!” shouted the man. He was crying, his hands were shaking, but the tube was aimed straight at Oona Looch. “If that’s the end of my life, it’s the end of yours, Oona Looch! You ruined my life! I have nothing! NOTHING!”

  A screech, a flash like a thousand flashbulbs popping, and the air filled with flying dust; an earth-shaking jolt, as though the entire mountain were about to collapse; nobody could see; Jo felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach—the dust-choked air was filled with stumbling bodies bumping into each other, screams, yelps, shouts of panic: “What’s going on?”—“Get him!”—“Protect the Looch!”

  When the dust settled, Ian was on top of the man. He had jerked the gun away and it had gone off harmlessly, tearing a gash in the rock ceiling. The man whimpered as Ian pried his fingers from the gun. It dropped to the floor with a thunk, and four bald, burly Looch daughters immediately pounced on the man.

  Oona Looch laughed as though she was having the time of her life. “Get me over there! Take me to that kid!” Her daughters carried her throne over to Ian.

  “Look at this kid!” said Oona Looch. “What a kid! We got a hero right here! Who knew!”

  Ian stood baffled and blinking.

  “This kid saved my life!” said Oona Looch. “Whaddaya know! First night on the job! Kid, I doubt Dugan could’ve done any better! Eh?”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Ian, terrified.

  “Listen to that! Cool as you please! This kid doesn’t waste words.” Oona Looch nodded with approval. “I like this kid! This kid’s got moxie! C’mere, Barrows, ever been in a headlock? There you go! How’s that feel, kid, you like that?”

  His face shoved into Oona Looch’s huge breasts, Ian could only make a muffled reply.

  “Get outta here!” said Oona Looch affectionately, shoving Ian away. Then she yanked him back. “Naw, come back, ya big lug! I can see great things for this kid. I owe this kid a favor! You don’t save Oona Looch’s life and not get a favor! Whaddaya say, Barrows, what do you want? The world’s your oyster, you name it!”

  Ian trembled. “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Looch.”

  “Mrs. Looch!” chortled Oona Looch. “Mrs. Looch! What a gentleman! What manners! Some of you bozos should take a page outta this kid’s book! Mrs. Looch, he says! Come on, kid, whatever you want, you say it, it’s yours! One good turn deserves another, eh!”

  “Please, I’m fine.”

  “I won’t hear of it!” roared Oona Looch. “Everybody wants something! C’mon, kid, you name it, don’t leave me hanging here—I can do great things for a li’l scamp like you!”

  Ian said, “Maybe later.”

  “Maybe later! Maybe later, he says! Why do I like this kid so much? This kid, he cracks me up! This kid, I wouldn’t mind keeping him around! Whaddaya say, Barrows? You and me, we can be pals—I’ll take you hunting on the moors, shoot us some moffle-hoppers!”

  Ian stammered, “I don’t—I’d rather not get involved—”

  “Not get involved! Too late, Barrows, I owe you one now, you’re involved! Look at this guy! A noble fella like this, I could use! I can make you a big man in the family, Barrows! Hell, you can be my new husband—Shut up, Fipnit! I blow my nose on guys like you! What the hey, I’ll do it right now!” Oona Looch picked up her husband, pressed him up to her face, and blew her nose all over him.

  Fipnit wriggled in her hand like an earthworm. “Meep,” he said.

  “Well, Barrows?” Oona Looch grinned and flung Fipnit aside. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime proposition! You say the word, this chump gets the boot, and you and I are on our way to married bliss!” She fingered Ian’s chin fondly.

  “I’m very honored, Mrs. Looch,” said Ian carefully. “But—”

  “I know, I know, you’re not ready for marriage, well, heck, I can understand that! When you’re older, Ian, when you’re older, I’ll make you the happiest man alive. Till then, come on, what can I do you for?”

  “Can I…have a while to figure it out?”

  “Sure! Yeah! Why am I so pushy? You take your time, kiddo! Come by chez Looch when you’re ready, and we can talk about rewards. Until then, here’s something to remember
me by.”

  Oona Looch seized Ian and kissed him. It looked like she was eating him; when she was done, Ian staggered back, gasping, as though she had sucked all the air from his lungs.

  “Back to business,” said Oona Looch. “Pleasure before business, I always say. Business can wait, but I gotta kiss my beautiful boys. Now, who tried to kill me? Ah, yes…Snicky!”

  Oona Looch’s daughters hauled the man in the yellow waistcoat—“Snicky,” apparently—up to the throne. Oona Looch palmed his head like a basketball and picked him up.

  “You’ve disappointed me, Snicky,” said Oona Looch.

  “I didn’t mean it,” cried Snicky, his legs kicking and dangling. “I’m just out of money, Oona, it’s all I had, I need to—you see, Oona, don’t you remember the good times, Oona?”

  “Ah, Snicky, Snicky.” Oona Looch sighed. “You let me down, Snicky. But what’s worse, you let yourself down. What happened to you, Snicky? I remember when you were young, God you were handsome, you were going to set the world on fire, weren’t you, Snicky? I looked up to you, Snicky, I was just a little girl then! Why did it have to come to this?…Oh well.”

  Snicky’s skull popped like a grape.

  “Yep, life’s funny,” said Oona Looch, wiping Snicky’s brains off her hand. “Now take me home, girls, I think I’ve had enough excitement for tonight. And I think I can trust the rest of you to behave yourselves?”

  Jo looked around the room. The gangsters mumbled, “Yes, Oona Looch. Sorry,” like shy schoolchildren.

  “Good then. God bless ya, I know you’re all good kids, deep down. Well, I’ve gotta go home and do my needlepoint, maybe get some loving from Fipnit. Come along, Fipnit!” Oona Looch’s daughters picked up her throne and carried her out; Fipnit scampered alongside like a dog. But just before she left the Dome of Doom, Oona Looch turned to Ian and said, “Remember, Barrows! I owe you one!” It almost sounded like a threat.

  As soon as Oona Looch was gone, Jo and Audrey flew to Ian’s side. He was still wiping Oona Looch’s slobber off his face, looking winded.

  “Are you all right?” said Jo.

  “Yes. No. I think so,” said Ian. “I never thought…”

  “What?”

  “I thought my first kiss would be different from that.”

  “She’s taken a shine to you, Ian,” said Audrey. “I’d be careful.”

  Jo said, “Unless you want Oona Looch to be your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend!” protested Ian.

  The all-night party at the Dome of Doom was just beginning, but Jo, Ian, and Audrey were ready to go home. Jo noticed, though, that they were treated with more respect now that Oona Looch had favored Ian.

  But when they went to the elevator, a hostile voice came out of the darkness.

  “I heard you disapproved of my fighting style.”

  Jo turned and saw Fumo, the Sleeping Bee, still in full costume, flanked by her seconds. Jo couldn’t see Fumo’s face, but she was no longer speaking through the buzzing voice box. The voice was familiar.

  “Yes I did, Fiona,” said Jo. “If I was your ostrich, I’d turn around and bite your head off.”

  Fiona Fuorlini’s face poked out of her Fumo costume. “What do you know about dueling, Odd-Fish?”

  “At least I know how to take care of my ostrich. You didn’t deserve to win.”

  Fiona said, “If you dueled me, I’d smear you all over the arena.”

  “What are you saying?” said Jo hotly.

  “What do you think I’m saying?” said Fiona.

  “What, you don’t have the guts to come out and say it?” said Jo, hopping around on one foot as she wrenched off her shoe.

  “Jo, don’t!” exclaimed Audrey.

  It was too late. Jo hurled her shoe at Fiona. The shoe struck Fiona in the face.

  “Consider yourself challenged!” said Jo.

  Everyone in the area stopped talking. All eyes turned to the little space where Jo and Fiona stood across from each other.

  Jo glanced over to Audrey. “Isn’t that how it’s done?”

  “I was kidding about the shoe,” said Audrey.

  KEN Kiang was quite pleased with himself.

  He had been in Eldritch City for only two months, but his project—to outwit the Belgian Prankster, to disrupt his plans, to overthrow his infernal machinations—was unexpectedly succeeding.

  It had not always been so. At first his situation had been desperate. Ken Kiang had followed the Belgian Prankster’s lengthy, seemingly senseless instructions on how to find Eldritch City, and after weeks of exhaustion and frustration, he finally arrived—but he had nothing. No money. No friends. Nowhere to live.

  All he had was the Belgian Prankster’s packet, and a strategy.

  Ken Kiang’s first goal was to find a job, to support himself while he schemed against the Belgian Prankster. He answered an ad in the Eldritch Snitch and got a position as a clerk at the Municipal Squires Authority, working for Commissioner Olvershaw.

  It was a tedious job. It took a small army of clerks to manage the paperwork for receiving quest submissions, approving quests, and assigning quests to squires. Ken Kiang settled into the drudgery of his new career, filing documents nobody would look for, making copies nobody wanted, and writing reports nobody would read.

  He was disgusted by the other clerks, who shamelessly groveled to Commissioner Olvershaw at every opportunity. The sound of Olvershaw’s wheelchair creaking down the hall made all the clerks work ever more furiously, panicked that Olvershaw would catch them in a moment of idleness. But after Olvershaw passed, the clerks nearly swooned with joy, and then quarreled over who was Olvershaw’s favorite, for they idolized the commissioner as much as they feared him.

  Ken Kiang scorned the clerks’ craven ways and made it a point to slack off, even yawn ostentatiously, whenever Olvershaw rolled by his office. He had hoped his devil-may-care attitude might broaden the other clerks’ worldview, but the clerks just shook their heads at Ken Kiang, wringing their hands and murmuring, “Olvershaw…but Olvershaw…oh, oh, Olvershaw!”

  Ken Kiang’s meager salary obliged him to live in one of the subsidized boardinghouses set aside for city clerks, a dingy dormitory in the unfashionable neighborhood of Bimblebridge run by Eleanor Olvershaw, the commissioner’s spinster sister. The dormitory was already full of boarders, but Ms. Olvershaw let Ken Kiang sleep in the kitchen, behind a partition, in the corner where a garbage can used to sit.

  And yet the tiny space suited him. “Some might say I’ve ‘come down’ in the world,” he reflected. “But actually I’ve simplified my life. I’ve stripped away all distractions. Now I can really concentrate on defeating the Belgian Prankster. I’m on top of the world!” Ken Kiang huddled in his moth-eaten blanket and quietly giggled.

  “No giggling after ten o’clock,” snapped Ms. Olvershaw.

  All the lodgers at Ms. Olvershaw’s boardinghouse also worked at the Municipal Squires Authority. Ken Kiang loathed them all. The worst time was Friday nights, when the other clerks came shouting boisterously into the kitchen, dressed in their “good” suits, the smell of pomade and cheap cologne wafting offensively from them. They pounded on Ken Kiang’s partition, trying to get him to join them for a “big night on the town.”

  “Come on, Ken! We know you’re in there!” The flimsy partition rattled under their knocking. “We’re going to paint the town red. What do you say?”

  No! Ken Kiang’s mind was on loftier matters! Every night he opened the Belgian Prankster’s packet and laid the hundreds of papers out on his mattress. The papers specified his role in the Belgian Prankster’s grand plan to destroy Eldritch City. He was directed to perform countless small acts of sabotage, all around the city: a bolt loosened, a wire cut, a key stolen, a file destroyed. Each action was nothing in itself, but taken together, they would make the seemingly solid metropolis into a house of cards, which one push in the right spot would send into collapse.

  Ken Kiang admired t
he Belgian Prankster’s elegant plan. It was genius, and it would work. But he had no wish to destroy Eldritch City—and he had every desire to defy the Belgian Prankster.

  So Ken Kiang subverted the plan at every opportunity. He tightened the bolts, replaced the wires, duplicated the keys, backed up the files. But the Belgian Prankster was not so easily beaten. Later Ken Kiang would find his own countermoves themselves inexplicably countered. Ken Kiang knew he was but one cog in an unthinkably complex scheme; perhaps the Belgian Prankster’s agents were monitoring him; perhaps the plan was so perfectly conceived that the sheer force of circumstance frustrated his attempts to disrupt it. Ken Kiang countered the countermove of his countermove, and the battle was joined.

  Eldritch City became for Ken Kiang a vast, complex chessboard, the stage for an exhilaratingly complex game between him and the Belgian Prankster. He analyzed the Belgian Prankster’s master plan, and for each of its objectives he devised a strategy to thwart it. But soon Ken Kiang found he was both cat and mouse in a bewildering showdown with the Belgian Prankster, in which strategies of ever greater sophistication were deployed, canceled, reversed, appropriated, adapted, and foiled; pawns sacrificed, attacks repulsed, fortresses stormed and captured, treaties signed and betrayed, retreats faked and traps sprung, territory gained, lost, besieged, divided, despoiled, and exchanged—it was a shadow world, of infinite levels of deceit and disguise, of decoys that were Trojan horses full of more decoys that were red herrings in non-mysteries that had neither a solution nor a problem, concerning people that didn’t exist in a place that was nowhere in a situation that was impossible! It was a five-dimensional smorgasbord of invisible meals, and he was both chef and guest at a dinner party for which the guest list was both infinite and zero! Ken Kiang’s mind reeled. The battleground was the ordinary streets and buildings of Eldritch City, and yet the battle itself was undetectable to the untrained eye, for the smallest detail—a broken lightbulb, a misplaced book, an intercepted letter—made all the difference in a war no less savage for its almost excruciating subtlety.