Existence is Elsewhen

by John Gribbin

  The Samurai brought his fist down on a nearby chair/table so hard that it splintered into a thousand pieces. It was the third since he had entered the room. I was going to have to pay for that, but what are you gonna do? Argue with a Samurai? I like my kishkes on the inside of my body, thank you very much!

  But, uhh, perhaps I should explain. Ordinarily, these things are held in the apartment of the detective, all very civilized-like. But my apartment? Oy! Don’t ask! A shoebox has more room and a sewer has a better view! If I had tried to get everybody into my apartment, only the Samurai would have fit – the rest of us would have had to meet in the hall! So, I asked my Rebbe, and he said we could use a room in Beth Tchochkes Synagogue. It was a standard Hebrew classroom, with rows of chair/tables facing a desk at the front. The brick walls were painted white and adorned with old notices of High Holidays, children’s art and posters that attempted to make you feel guilty for not sending all of your material wealth to Israel. I haven’t exactly been a pillar of faith since the Big Man and I had a falling out over the Gutman debacle of seventy-three. Whatever that was – I’m a little fuzzy on the details. One too many blows to the head with a blunt instrument, probably. Still, whenever I got an eyeful of one of those posters, even I couldn’t help but involuntarily reach for my wallet.

  Anyway, I was sitting behind the teacher’s desk because I’m the schlemiel who called this zoo together – no offense to decent, hard-working caged animals anywhere. I got a lotta respect for what they do. Who am I? The name’s Schwartz. Shlomo Schwartz. I’m the Kosher Detective. When something don’t smell…you know…right, you call me. Except on Shabbas. Don’t get me wrong: I got nothing against working on Saturday; as I mentioned, I wasn’t exactly Abraham or…or…or somebody else who was prominent in the faith – you see what I mean about not being a believer? However – okay, Moses. There you go. I wasn’t exactly Abraham or Moses. I got his name from a movie, but it still counts. Anyway. As Maimonides – that would be Myrtle Maimonides, my landlady – used to say, “You ask somebody to work on the Sabbath and it’s like doing it yourself. You gonna finish that potato kugel, or what? You don’t, I’m only gonna throw it out!”

  I’m not really sure what that has to do with anything, but it was damn good potato kugel. It would have been a shame to have to throw it out.

  So. Yeah. The Samurai. Feng Chi. Concannen had developed an android, The Electric Samurai, that was intended to replace battlefield soldiers. Feng Chi got wind of it (a Ninja friend had told him, because what are Ninja friends for, right?) and challenged it to a duel. It stared at him blankly because what does an android know about warrior honour? When Feng Chi came at it with his sword, it defended itself, because that android sure did know about fighting. They fought for seventeen hours, with much thrusting, parrying and exquisite wire work. In the end, Feng Chi fell to the ground, exhausted, expecting the Electric Samurai to cut off his head. So violent, these warriors! Anyway, when he looked up, the Electric Samurai had sheathed its weapons and started walking away. Feng Chi did not even have the energy to grunt his disgust at the machine’s back. Ever since (about three weeks), the man had walked the world in search of redemption for what he saw as his failure as a warrior.

  Feng Chi grunted in Subtitlese: “There is no honour for the warrior to kill an untrained man, unless so ordered by the penguin.” That last word may have been “emperor.” There are no guarantees in this life.

  Flippe-Flappy started laughing. Everybody in the room looked at him. “Honour?” he asked. We could all tell it was a mere prelude. Sure enough: “Honour/Gives the Samurai a boner.” It was a tune with a nice melody, but the lyrics? Oy! “Honour is to the Samurai/What fast cars and faster women are to a certain –”

  “You’re a fine one to talk,” Rich Uncle Moneybags cut him off. “Sing. Communicate in whatever fashion suits you. Are you not a member of the Pointdexter Brigade?”

  Flippe-Flappy, who had put his clasped hands to his chest in anticipation of throwing them open, stopped in mid-note and left his hands where they were. “How…?” he squeaked. Tunefully, but still.

  The Pointdexter Brigade, I should probably mention, was a group of professional song and dance men (I am not being sexist when I say this – they were all men, for reasons which will immediately become apparent), who spent their weekends dancing naked in the forest except for white conical hats that were constantly falling off their heads (what’d I tell ya?). They were rumoured to spend some of that time in rituals involving baked beans, although whether they ate them, snorted them for their hallucinogenic properties or filled their shotguns with them and used the tasty side dish to hunt pine cones was a matter of some dispute. Pfeh! This was supposed to be some kind of protest against the accelerating rate of technological advancement in society, but, you ask me, it was just meshuggah. Brainiacs at Anytown U., my Alma Mater (loosely defined – I passed through it once on my way to the Anytown School of the Streets) had written papers on the negative correlation between men dancing naked in the forest except for white conical hats that were constantly falling off their heads and a slowing rate of technological change. Still, hope springs eternal. When you’re meshuggah.

  “La la la la la,” Flippe-Flappy trilled. Contorting his face, he made noises halfway between a cow mooing and the engine of a Ford woody station wagon turning over. Missy gave me a “What in tarnation is that fool doin’?” look. I just shrugged. I could have explained that he seemed to be warming up, but I was afraid that if I interrupted him, he would just start the whole process all over again.

  It was the right call. A couple of seconds later, Flippe-Flappy crooned: “If you believe I killed Concannen, your head must be made of cement/The Pointdexter Brigade has always been non-violent!”

  Mister Giggles purred, causing Flippe-Flappy’s face to turn tomato. You know: red. Then, Flippe-Flappy angrily sang: “Nobody knows where Joe Funicular got that tank, son/But his actions were not officially sanctioned!”

  The motives were flying faster than bitter recriminations for past wrongs at a Passover seder. Still, I had a feeling that somebody was missing… Snapping my fingers, I pointed at the person sitting at the desk on the far left of the group in front of me. “Rich Uncle Moneybags, we have yet to hear your motive for wanting Desmond Concannen dead.”

  “My motive?” Rich Uncle Moneybags looked shocked that I would even consider the possibility that he had done anything so distasteful as committing murder. “I am so wealthy, I have people who look after the people who brush my teeth in the morning! Do I sound like the sort of person who would cold-bloodedly –” A tinny version of a song that somebody would later tell me was AC/DC’s “Money Talks” started playing. Rich Uncle Moneybags pulled an object out of his coat pocket and looked at it. “If I may have your indulgence for a brief period of time,” he told everybody, holding up a stubby finger, “my response is urgently required.”

  The object was a small metallic square with a screen on the front. On the screen were a variety of colourful images. Rich Uncle Moneybags put the object to his ear and talked to it. Pfeh! They tell me it’s a telephone, but I don’t believe them. A telephone has a circular dial and a receiver the size of a banana that you talk into and listen to. And it comes in two colours: black and deeper black. What Rich Uncle Moneybags had? A cheap parlour trick, you ask me.

  “I see,” Rich Uncle Moneybags said. “Stay the course.” Then, he pressed a button on the screen of his device and pocketed it anew. When he saw the looks others were giving him, he said, “Don’t hate me just because I’m wealthy.”

  The Samurai grunted twice and made a gesture of punching himself in the face. My impression was that this was his way of saying, “I hate you because you are a weak pudding of a man.”

  Mister Giggles made a low growling noise in his throat: “I hate you because you smell of burnt cedar chips and overcooked mutton.”

  “I don’t done hate you on account of you have lots o’ money,” Missy said. “Shoot, my uncle Se
ptimus done made millions lots o’ times, and he still told the funniest jokes in alla the southwestern Pecos! Naw, I done hate ya cause of where ya put yer hands when you and me was walkin’ into this here room!”

  All eyes turned expectantly towards me. “What? Now it’s my turn? I’m the detective, here. I have to be dispassionate – I can’t afford to hate anybody.” The eyes weren’t buying it – they could be relentless, those eyes! – so I finally had to add: “Alright! Shoin! I…like you less than other people because you think having fancy schmancy machines makes you better than those of us who don’t!”

  Rich Uncle Moneybags sighed. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  Half the people in the room mumbled agreement. Eventually, all of their eyes turned expectantly towards me – did I mention the whole relentlessness thing? Problem was, I had lost the thread in the tattered tapestry of the case. I knew we hadn’t gotten to the confession yet – I should be so lucky! Maybe the shredding of the alibis? Hercule Marple had told me that that’s usually what came after the discovery of the motives, but I wasn’t sure if we were there quite yet.

  Excuse me if I wanted to get this right. Rebbe Kellerman says I got a need to save the world. Let me tell you, pal, I seen the world, and it’s beyond my help. That wasn’t it. I was very much aware that this could be the biggest case of my career, even bigger than the Pizzicotti triple homicide! I…I couldn’t remember any of the details of that case…or, for that matter, any of its generalities – anything about it at all, really. I could infer that murder and somebody named Pizzicotti were involved – although whether it was three killings or three Pizzicottis was unclear. Still, inferring is not knowing; I resolved to reread the case files when I got back to the office.

  “Are we going to be here much longer?” Rich Uncle Moneybags groused. “Time is money, and I’m getting poorer just listening to all of your nonsense.”

  Mister Giggles, representing the feelings in the room, hissed at him. No need for translation there. Then, I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “We still haven’t dealt with your motive for killing Concannen.”

  “What possible motive could I have had?” Rich Uncle Moneybags puffed on his stogie. “We had been business partners for years – Desmond had created a large number of lucrative technologies for me. Killing him would adversely affect my bottom line.”

  Feng Chi grunted at least a dozen times, punctuating his remarks with hand gestures that looked like rock-rock-scissors-paper-paper-paper-Spock? Rich Uncle Moneybags looked at me. I laced my fingers and flexed them, creating an audible crack. This was going to be tough.

  “As I understand what the Samurai has said,” I translated, “there have long been rumours that you had an interest in…other tortoises?”

  Feng Chi grunted angrily.

  “Sorry. Universes. You have an interest in other universes. You had given Concannen the task of creating a machine that would allow you to travel between universes. At first, he worked on the machine in the spirit of furthering the…spit take booby prize?”

  Feng Chi grunted a correction.

  “Right. The scientific enterprise. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge and all that. Only, as time went on and it looked like Concannen was about to make a breakthrough, he started to become suspicious of the fact that you would never give him a straight answer when he asked why you wanted this device. That’s always when the trouble begins, isn’t it? When scientists question the motives of their benefactors?”

  Feng Chi, offended, grunted.

  “Yes. Right. That was my editorial two cents worth – don’t blame Feng Chi for that last comment. Anyway, Concannen stopped working on the machine, so, in a fit of rage, you pulled down a carp that you had mounted on the wall and killed him. What do you say about that?”

  Mister Giggles grinned Cheshirely and purred, “Yes, indeed. What do you say to that?”

  Rich Uncle Moneybags didn’t seem to be put out by the accusation, but his round features were so simply drawn he could have been feeling anything. I wondered if he had made his fortune playing poker. He took a long, contemplative drag on his cigar, then blew thoughtful smoke rings into the air. “If Desmond had been killed by a stuffed carp,” Rich Uncle Moneybags finally responded, “There would have been traces of formaldehyde or some other taxidermic chemical agent in his system. However, according to the coroner’s report, there were no such traces. Desmond was killed by a freshwater carp.”

  “Aww, that’s just so much shootin’ into tha breeze!” Missy scoffed. “Yaw could afford a whole boatload o’ fresh carp if ya was of a mind ta kill somebody with ’em!”

  “You can’t argue with forensic science, little lady!”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “What?” Rich Uncle Moneybags asked.

  I was confused, but my experience is that is the first step to solving a case, so I tried my best not to show it. “Look,” I said. “In his long monologue back there, Feng Chi pointed out, in his gruff, barely articulate way, that you could easily have obtained a freshwater carp if you had wanted to kill Concannen. Are you calling the Samurai a lady?”

  Feng Chi growled at the cartoon of a wealthy capitalist.

  Rich Uncle Moneybags blinked, which consisted of a straight line appearing and then disappearing in the middle of his eyes. Before he could respond, however, a song came from one of his pockets. I would later find that it was ABC’s ‘How to be a Millionaire‘. Holding up a pudgy finger, he said, “Your indulgence.” He listened to the phone for a few seconds, then said, “No. Under the circumstances, best to hold off on further action in this matter. Right. Be in touch soon.” Then, he pressed a button and the ‘phone’ disappeared back into his coat pocket.

  “Now, about –” I started.

  “Of course,” Rich Uncle Moneybags had regained his composure. “Anybody could have bought a carp – that’s hardly evidence that I killed Desmond.”

  The Samurai. The cat. The obscenely wealthy person – I ticked them off one at a time on the fingers of my mind. Okay, all the suspects’ motives were now accounted for. If Marple had been correct, it was time for the alibis. “I need to know where you all were at 7:32 Tuesday night.”

  Mister Giggles purred. “I was at home. Cleaning my fur.” I guess I must have looked at him funny, because he added a low growl: “My tongue is not much bigger than your common housecat, but I have the body of a fully grown man. It takes a long time, okay?”

  “Jumbo?” I nodded at the Samurai.

  Feng Chi grunted a couple of times and stomped his feet. He wasn’t sure what “Jumbo” meant, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to be called it. The stomping meant, “I was at home. Meditating.”

  “You got any witnesses?”

  Feng Chi grunted, breaking another table for emphasis. “Meditation is a solitary activity!”

  I turned my attention to the older man. “What about you, Moneybags?”

  “That’s Rich Uncle Moneybags to you, shamus!” he sneered.

  “No, I wasn’t saying your name, I was trying to use a pejorative nickname to – never mind. What’s your alibi?”

  “You know, I am under no obligation to respond to your interrogatives. In fact, I may just…”

  He suddenly stopped talking, his mouth becoming a large, surprised circle. I turned to the door of the room to see what had tied his tongue. It wasn’t the cat, obviously – I would have seen that. No, something was shimmering in front of the doorway; I could barely make out the letters of the Hebrew alphabet above it. Two people shimmered into existence: a man who looked like a Crackerjack box with limbs and a, you should pardon the expression, coloured woman with hair that would have flattered a rat’s nest. They introduced themselves as Crash Chumley and Noomi Rapier, Transdimensional Authority investigators. Their identification cards were very impressive, if you like that sort of thing.

  The Samurai grunted and slammed his hammy fist into the brick wall. Crash looked at me expectantly. I shrugged. “Either he
needs to go to the bathroom really bad, or he wants to know what a Transdimensional Authority is. Translation is such an inexact science…”

  Chumley looked at Rapier, who deferred to him with a shrug of her shoulders. “The Transdimensional Authority monitors and polices travel between dimensions,” he explained. “If you’re outside of your home universe, doing something you shouldn’t be doing, we find you, stop you and take you back to where you belong.”

  “He’s been practicing that for weeks,” Rapier confided in a low voice.

  Mister Giggles purred, which we all took to mean, “But, we are all from this dimension.”

  “Aah, yes, well, that’s a little…complicated…” Chumley started.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I interrupted. “This is my case, boychick. You don’t get to start making with the explanations until after I have caught my murderer!”

  “And you are…?”

  “The name’s Schwartz. Shlomo Schwartz. I’m –”

  Rapier clapped her hands together in delight. “You’re the Kosher Detective!”

  “You’ve heard of me?” I couldn’t keep the pleasure out of my voice.

  “I have all your books!”

  “All my…but, I don’t…” I didn’t.

  “Nice hat!”

  “This isn’t a hat, lady,” I defensively told her, “it’s a fedora. I always wear a fedora, even in the shower. Plays hell with shampooing my hair. And I have to get a new one every three weeks. But it helps me stay in character.” Like I said, I’m not religious, but some habits die hard.

  Chumley gave Rapier, who was grinning madly, a questioning look. “What?” she replied. “Before I was a science fiction geek, I was a mystery geek.”