Callahan's Key

by Spider Robinson

  “You’re really stupid,” she told him.

  He stared at her, slowly worked out that he was in fact being addressed, and dissed, by an infant. Even with all he had to think about already, this outraged him. Or perhaps he was just panicked, operating on drug logic. In any case, he plumbed new depths of stupidity: he lifted his gun and shot Erin.

  She giggled. “That tickles,” she informed him.

  Nikky, the Duck, and I all leaped at the same instant, and were barely in time. Between us, we were just able to restrain Zoey. My wife is a large lady; it took everything we had, and we might not have managed it if her forebrain had been functioning at the time. She bit me on the ear and drew blood without realizing it. I got hold of her face and held it a couple of inches from mine until her eyes focused and I could see she recognized me, and then I said very urgently, “We do not have time to dick around with disposing of bodies just now.”

  She closed her eyes momentarily—then nodded and slumped. We let her go at once, and I turned back to my guests.

  They were backing away, very slowly—but froze once I was looking at them again. Rambo wasn’t even bothering to gesture talismanically with his Webley; it hung forgotten at his side. Baldy’s scalp was so pale, it seemed to glow, and his swastikas blazed like embarrassment on his white cheeks. He snapped out of his trance, cracked his piece, took a speedloader from some pocket…then saw my expression and dropped both on the floor.

  “I am very, very sorry,” he said sincerely.

  “So am I,” Rambo said, “even though he did it.”

  “I got excited, you know?” Baldy said. “I thought it was a midget.”

  “You’re an asshole,” his partner told him.

  “No argument. And I really am very very very sorry.”

  “Not yet,” I told him. “But you will be.”

  “You’re gonna take our souls now, right?”

  Beside me, the Lucky Duck emitted that wonderful honking laugh of his. “What do you figure the market value of these two souls might be?”

  “Two rubles?” I hazarded.

  He looked at me. “There’s no need to insult them.”

  I shrugged. “Do I need a reason?” I turned back to the cowering pair. “Your souls I condemn you to keep. But we’ll have your clothes.”

  They gaped.

  “All of them.”

  Both of them, as one, looked to Zoey. Whatever they saw in her eyes made their knees start to tremble. Baldy turned to Rambo. “Shoot me,” he begged.

  “Me first,” Rambo said, and lifted the Webley toward his own head.

  Erin got him square in the eye with a jet of high-pressure hot water from the hose in the sink behind the bar. He dropped the gun and started tearing at the fastenings of his coat, crying, “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry—” After a moment Baldy followed his example.

  After a while I moved forward to collect the guns. The pair backed away as I approached, shedding items of clothing as they went.

  “Can I look at the guns, Daddy?” Erin asked.

  “Sure, honey,” I said, and brought them to her, reloading the Magnum for her before setting it down within her reach.

  Even half naked in the midst of total confusion and terror, this got to Rambo. “You’d give a loaded gun to an infant?” he asked me.

  “Somebody gave one to you,” I said. “Keep going.”

  He glanced at Erin, who was struggling to lift the Webley—fumbled with shirt buttons—said the hell with it and tore the thing open.

  It was reasonably safe, would have been even if Erin had been a normal baby. Everyone in the room—except the two stripping penitents, Tesla, and the Lucky Duck—was bulletproof. The rest of us had all long since been impact-shielded by Mickey Finn, that cyborged Filarii warrior I mentioned earlier. I myself had once personally tested the shielding by setting off a nuclear weapon at arm’s length, and it worked just fine. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a little: it was only a homemade pony-yield nuke, strictly kiloton-range stuff. But I wasn’t worried about stray .44 slugs.)

  A little while after that, we sent those fellows on their way, traveling considerably lighter than when they’d arrived. When we last saw them, they had none of the stuff they’d arrived with—not even Baldy’s nipple rings. But since it was twenty below out there, and the sun was setting by now, we didn’t send them out totally naked. Each was tastefully attired in a little strip of plastic, locked very tightly around his thumbs behind his back, doing just what it was designed to do: secure a bag of garbage. And, of course, each now wore a label as well: the word “LOOTER” in large capital letters, written across his belly in indelible laundry marker. No idea what ever became of either of them.

  “Erin,” Tesla said later, as we were all refreshing ourselves after the rude interruption, “I owe you an apology. Intellectually, I am perfectly aware that you are of high normal adult intelligence. After all, I was present on the night of your birth: I myself helped you interface with Solace, with the Internet, so that we could defeat the Lizard’s dark side and save humanity. I know Solace accelerated the maturation of your cortex, and I’m aware that you’ve been raised with the help of an AI kernel she left behind when she died. But I confess that emotionally, I have continued to think of you as merely a very precocious infant—perhaps because your strength and coordination lag somewhat behind your intellect. Yet you acted more quickly and more rightly than any of the rest of us, just now, with that water hose. I thought we had lost the one in the camouflage gear.” He bowed and kissed her hand. “I shall not make the same mistake again.”

  When my kid dimples, she dimples. “Thank you, Uncle Nikky. When I’m sixteen, I plan to start having sex—would you like to take a number? I can squeeze you in the single digits if you hurry.”

  Tesla was a virgin until shortly after he died. But he’s made up for it since, and he was always a hard man to faze, and besides I think he was born gallant; he took it without blinking, and did not even glance at Zoey or me. “I would be honored, dear lady. You have my phone number,” he said, and bowed again. Then he glanced at Zoey and me…and returned our grins.

  “Okay, that little sideshow just now was fun, but let’s get back to business,” I said. “Nikky, I was going to ask you to explain exactly how the quest for knowledge is going to doom the universe, next, and then what the hell you expect us to do about it—but we can get to all that crap later. Right now, let’s cut to the important part: what’s in it for me?”

  This time Tesla blinked.

  “My standard fee for saving the universe,” I said, “is a bar, and enough money and clout to run it.”

  “Yes, of course, Jake. I told you, all these things will be arranged.”

  “I want ’em now. All of a sudden I’ve had enough of this dump. Enough of Long Island. Hand me the keys to my new cash register, and we can sit around and spend the next ten years figuring out what to do about Armageddon.”

  His mustache went back and forth a few times, as if to scrub something off his lower lip. “I, uh, do not exactly have a site for you, yet.”

  I nodded and held out my hand. “Okay. How about enough money to buy one?”

  He looked pained. “Jake, you know I don’t use money.”

  I sighed. “I’m supposed to save the universe on credit. Didn’t you bring me anything for a down payment?”

  “Yes.” He gestured. “Mr. Shea. Ernie. I brought him back here from Ireland.”

  I felt like an idiot. In all the confusion, I had failed to think through the implications. The Lucky Duck was back!

  The Duck gave me his most insolent grin. He held up his hairy right hand, its hairy fingers clenched in the makings of a fist. A shiny quarter rested atop them. “Call it,” he told me, looking me in the eye, and snapped the coin straight up in the air with his thumb without looking at it.

  As if I needed the demonstration. “On its edge,” I said automatically, kept looking at his mocking grin, and waited for the sound of the coin hitting the f
loor. After a while I got tired of waiting and looked up. The quarter was neatly wedged into a small crack in the ceiling.

  “I win,” I said.

  He spread his hands and bowed, a rude imitation of Tesla’s bow to Erin. “Exactly.”

  I turned to Nikky. “This is all you bring me, to save the universe with. A half-breed pookah with the luck of the devil.”

  “Yes, Jake.”

  I nodded judiciously. “Should be enough. Okay, I guess the first—oh damn, again?”

  Someone else was coming through the swinging doors, trailing snow.

  Like any sensible person, he was swathed in clothing, including a ski mask, only his eyes showing and those in shadow. In stature and stance he rather resembled an orangutan, with slightly overlong arms, reminding me of a guy I knew. He carried a large, very old, very battered suitcase.

  “We’re closed, friend,” I called out.

  “And we’re busy,” the Duck added. “If you want to rob the joint, see the kid with the Magnum over there.”

  Without setting down his luggage, the newcomer shook off his other glove and reached upward. That’s when I recognized him, before he even got the ski mask off: I saw the hand.

  I glanced around and saw that everyone else recognized him too; they were all waiting for me. I took a deep breath, nodded a silent three-count, and we all chorused, at the top of our lungs: “EDDIE!”

  Fast Eddie Costigan nodded, looking more like an orangutan than ever now that his face was visible. “Hiyez,” he said, and waved.

  We swarmed him. Well, all of us except Erin, who had to be content with dialing him up an Irish coffee (she knew his prescription) while the rest of us hugged and pounded and kissed him. He accepted all this stoically.

  Fast Eddie is the greatest piano player alive. Of somewhat lesser importance, he is also the oldest member of the original Callahan’s Place, save for Mike Callahan himself, and after Callahan’s was destroyed by the nuclear weapon I mentioned earlier, he continued to fill the piano chair for me during the short happy life of Mary’s Place. But I hadn’t seen or heard a word of him since the day Inspector Grtozkzhnyi shut us down, almost a year and a half ago.

  When the greeting rite was done, I said, “So what’ve you been up to, Eddie?” and before he could answer, turned to Zoey and mimed the words four words, tops. She looked dubious.

  He didn’t let me down. He brushed past me, heaved his suitcase up onto the bar next to Erin (nodding to her; she grinned back), popped the latches, and flung the lid open. “Got it, Boss,” he said.

  The suitcase was full of cash. Not neat stacks of wrapped crisp bills. Just a heap of used cash in varying denominations and conditions. It was a big suitcase.

  I blinked at the swag, glanced briefly at the Lucky Duck—he was grinning like Daffy—and looked back at the money again. “So you have,” I agreed. “How much is that?”

  “Enough,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “I sure wouldn’t want to ask a snoopy question or anything, but—”

  “Poker,” he said.

  “Isn’t that risky, Uncle Eddie?” Erin piped up, sliding his coffee toward him.

  Eddie looked at her, and slowly shook his head no.

  “Oh,” she said.

  He picked up the mug, said, “T’anks,” and rubbed her head. Then he took a sip, sighed, and turned back to me. “I know it ain’t enough ta bribe Gargle-Name,” he began. “He’s a hard-on.”

  I hated to see him wasting words like that. “Of course not,” I agreed, “but this is Long Island. For half that much cash we could get him and his two immediate superiors transferred to Guam, or fired for buggering sheep.”

  Eddie grinned. “Let’s.”

  I sighed. “This morning I probably would have. I’d still like to. But you came in in the middle, Eddie.” I gestured toward Tesla. “Nikky says we’re on a mission for Mike again.”

  Eddie’s eyes widened. “No shit.”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, we got a ten-year jump on it—but I don’t think we ought to start with bad karma. Besides, I’m thinking of moving out of Inspector Grtozkzhnyi’s jurisdiction, anyway. Things have happened today that make me feel I’ve finally had enough of Long Island. The whole New York area.”

  Zoey smiled broadly. Erin looked alert.

  “How about you, Eddie? That work for you?”

  “Open up someplace else?” Eddie’s face is always a collection of wrinkles, but now they all sort of fractalized. “Where?”

  I took Zoey’s hand. “Any ideas, love?”

  “Someplace warm,” she said.

  “That does sound good,” I agreed. “But where do we find a warm place where all the ornery crackpot weirdo rugged individuals we know could unanimously agree to move to? The warm places in this country are all full of people wearing expensive golf shoes. Or worse.”

  “A challenge,” she agreed.

  “Nikky? Any idea where Ground Zero is going to be?”

  “Not for another few years yet,” he said. “But that need not affect your choice of immediate location. The thing is to make a start, reassemble the group.”

  “Roger that. Okay, anybody—any ideas? We need a place somewhere that’s warm, hasn’t got a whole lot of red tape, and will tolerate extreme weirdness. Anyone?”

  Silence.

  The phone rang.

  “You’re welcome, Stringbean,” the Lucky Duck said.

  Erin bent over the Call Identify box. “Daddy, it’s Uncle Doc! In Key West—”

  Invisible little tongues of fire appeared over every head in the room. As one, we began to grin.

  “Thank you, Ernie,” I said respectfully. “Put him on the speakerphone, honey.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Going South

  “One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is, ‘to be prepared.’”

  —J. Danforth Quayle, December 6, 1989

  “HI, UNCLE DOC!”

  “Well, hello, Erin. How are you, dear? Having fun?” Doc Webster has one of those booming voices that sounds like he’s on a speakerphone even when he isn’t. When he is on a speakerphone, he could pass for the Great and Wonderful Oz. He is a large man, built like a very successful walrus, and it gives his voice a certain resonance and authority. And it probably doesn’t hurt that he was one of the best doctors on Long Island for over forty years, until his recent retirement.

  “Yeah,” Erin assured him. “Some stupid men shot me and Daddy just now.”

  “Really? That must have been exciting for them.” Doc is bulletproof, too. He was there that night. “If your parents need any help disposing of the bodies, I still know some people up there. I could—”

  “Hi, Doc,” I cut in. “Don’t sweat it; we let ’em live.”

  “Really? Hello, Jake.”

  “They did penance. Let it pass; it’s a long story and we have more interesting things to talk about.”

  “You have news, too?”

  “Boy, do I ever. But you first: it’s your dime. Before you start, though, let me introduce the audience. You’re speaking to me, Erin, Zoey, Fast Eddie, the Lucky Duck, and Nikky Tesla.”

  “Am I really? How wonderful! By God, that’s practically a quorum. I wish I was there.”

  “You are,” Zoey pointed out. “Hi, Doc.”

  “Hello, Zoey—and you too, Eddie—Duck—Nikola.” Greetings were called back. “Look, am I interrupting anything?”

  “You are completing something, I think,” Tesla said. “Pray go on, Sam.”

  “Well…okay—but everybody pour themselves one and find a comfortable chair, okay? I’m going to be talking awhile, and I’ve been rehearsing this for a long time so I’d appreciate it if none of you would interrupt until I finish my pitch, because it’s really important to me to—”

  “Doc?”

  “—try and…dammit, Jake, I asked you not to interrupt. As you pointed out, it’s my dime.”

  “So let me try and save you
some of it. You are about to launch into a typically eloquent sales pitch for beautiful Key West, subtropical paradise, delineating its many charms and virtues and ending with a casual mention that you’ve located a property for sale down there that would make a really terrific bar.”

  There was a brief silence. Then, in a much softer voice, Doc said, “You must be reading my mail.”

  “Allow me to briefly summarize the events of the day so far. First I wrecked the car and got snow in my pants. Then Nikky showed up and gave me ten years to reunite the gang, on account of how we have to save the universe. I told him I’d need a new bar, someplace where you don’t get snow in your pants, and money. He produced the Lucky Duck. Then Fast Eddie showed up with…how much money, Eddie?”

  “A shitpot.”

  “And donated it to the cause. And then you called. You see the way this is shaping up?”

  Another long pause.

  “The whole, entire universe?” the Doc asked finally.

  Nothing gets past him. “Yep.”

  “And you and Erin got shot.”

  “With a .44 Magnum,” Erin agreed. “Looters trying to take advantage of the blizzard.” She giggled. “It tickled. And they were so funny. Even before they were naked, I mean.”

  “It sounds like you’ve had a full day.”

  “Well, we’re certainly off to an interesting start,” I said. “From here it’s going to get busy, I think.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly. “You are, really and truly, going to move down here. All of you. And open a bar. And try and reconvene the company. My dearest dreams are coming true.”

  I glanced around me, took a census of eyes. Zoey’s eyes first, then Erin’s, then Eddie’s, then the Duck’s, and finally the wise, sad old eyes of Nikola Tesla. Then for good measure I rechecked Zoey and Erin. There were no dissents. “That’s the plan.”

  “God damn it, Jake,” the Doc burst out, “if you had any idea how much time I wasted rehearsing my spiel…I didn’t think I had a chance, I didn’t really think any power on earth could ever convince you to leave Long Island, but I felt like I had to—”

  “Snow in your underpants and .44 slugs in your face are powerful arguments,” I said. “What the hell, Sam. This business has been going south since I opened it. Might as well go all the way.”