by Simon Brett
‘Oh tough Gorgonzola,’ said Blotto, empathizing. He imagined how deprived his own childhood would have been if he’d not been able to go out and entertain himself by shooting any number of wildfowl and small mammals whenever he felt like it. For a moment he’d forgotten that Sophocles Katzenjammer’s avowed ambition was to murder him.
Then another puzzling thought came to him. ‘Why haven’t you tried to shoot me since I’ve been in the United States?’
‘I just did. In Sammy ‘Broken Ankles’ Lumache’s garage on Broome Street. But again I hit the wrong guy.’
‘Oh yes. But why not before that?’
‘Because you’ve been under the protection of Luther P. Chapstick III. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but between the Chapsticks and the Katzenjammers there’s quite a lot of bad blood.’
‘What, in their meat products, you mean?’
‘I didn’t mean “bad blood” literally. I mean there’s like a vendetta between our two families. It came to a head when I fell in love with Mary. She was as much in love with me as I was with her. We wanted to spend our lives together. But holy cow, when our families found out about it, there was blood all over the walls. Mary and I were “star-crossed lovers” for sure, like in that Shakespeare play . . .’
‘Hamlet,’ Blotto suggested helpfully. It was the only title he could remember.
‘Anyway, there was a big stink. Both sets of parents forbidding us from seeing each other. We thought we’d got round them. We’d made plans to elope to Florida, get married down there. Fixed a time to meet at Chicago Union Station. But somehow my father got wind of what was going on and the day I was meant to meet Mary he locked me in the cellar of our house. And I’ve never spoken to her since.’
He allowed a moment for a tear to well up in his eye. Dashing it away, he continued, ‘Anyway, the result was, if I ever strayed anywhere on to Luther P. Chapstick III’s premises, I’d have signed my own death warrant. That’s why I couldn’t shoot you back in Chicago.’
‘Oh. Well, thanks for explaining.’ The cogs in Blotto’s brain creaked and whirred as a new thought took shape. ‘But hold back the hounds a moment . . . You say you want to kill me because I’ve been slipping the sweets to Mary Chapstick . . .’
‘Too right I do!’
‘But what makes you think I really want to slip the sweets to her? Or cornswiggle her, come to that?’
‘Well, that ain’t too tough a question. All Chicago knows you’re about to marry the popsie.’
‘Yes, but all Chicago doesn’t know whether I actually want to marry the popsie or not.’
‘Who cares about that? You’re her fiancé, her father’s set up a big reception at the Chainey Hotel, ninety per cent of the Mafia’s been invited. You’re going to get spliced to her, whether you like it or not.’
‘And that’s why you want to kill me? Simply because I’m going to marry her.’
‘Sounds like enough reason to me! I love that girl. If I can’t have her, I can’t bear the thought of anyone else having her. And if I get sent down for your murder, I don’t care. Let ’em hang me, let ’em fry me! My life will be meaningless if I cannot have Mary Chapstick!’
A blissful smile crept over Blotto’s angelic features. ‘Do you know, Sophocles,’ he said, ‘I don’t think our ambitions in this situation are as far apart as they might be.’
The atmosphere between them had changed considerably. It was now positively bonhomous. As they plotted Sophocles Katzenjammer’s elopement with the woman he loved, Blotto felt anxieties slipping off him like the condensation from a chilled champagne bottle brought into a warm room.
The constant mentions of Mary Chapstick reminded him that he had promised to call her as soon as he got to New York. When he mentioned this, Sophocles said excitedly, ‘Why don’t I call her? Give her the good news that we can now be together for ever!’
But Blotto demurred. Twinks’s experience had told them that the very walls of Chapstick Towers had ears. For the moment they must maintain the illusion that his engagement was still on. When they got back to Chicago, they’d have plenty of time to work out the details of their plan and let Mary know about it. Also, though he didn’t want to diminish the growing admiration Sophocles Katzenjammer had for him by mentioning the fact, a project of the kind they were envisaging would get nowhere unless Twinks’s amazing brain was applied to it.
So when he got through to Mary Chapstick, he started with what he imagined to be appropriate sentiments for a young man addressing his beloved fiancée. ‘Well . . . er . . . um . . . well . . . erm . . . I was—’
But Mary cut across his maundering. ‘Blotto,’ she announced in a voice of high anxiety, ‘Twinks has gone missing! The word on the street in Chicago is that Spagsy Chiaparelli has got her!’
25
Where’s Twinks?
The Lagonda still wasn’t running at its brilliant best, but in spite of the car’s sluggishness, Blotto made very good time back to Chicago. Having finally accepted that the Englishman wasn’t a real rival for his beloved’s affections, Sophocles Katzenjammer announced magnanimously that he no longer had homicidal tendencies towards him. And he was profusely sorry for the four attempts he had made on the life of his perceived rival. Blotto accepted this apology with characteristic grace. It didn’t do for gentlemen to get into lasting disagreements over little things like trying to kill each other. (If ancient history like that was allowed to rankle, no members of the British aristocracy would ever speak to each other.)
So, while Blotto drove without stopping to reach Chicago the following evening, Sophocles Katzenjammer travelled back at a more sedate pace in his Chevrolet.
The minute the Lagonda came to a halt in the drive of Chapstick Towers Blotto was out and rushing into the house to see Mary Chapstick. Her father, watching from his study, smiled fondly at this display of youthful emotion. His prospective son-in-law had hitherto seemed a bit reticent and British about displays of emotion towards his fiancée, but the trip to New York seemed to have changed all that.
It had also proved that the boy had his uses. He had evaded the vigilance of the New York cops and presumably delivered the agreed payment to Harry ‘Three Bananas’ Pennoni. Luther P. Chapstick III could think of many future jobs for which his son-in-law’s innocent, patrician manner could once again provide a useful front.
Mary Chapstick was very thrilled when Blotto came bursting into her bedroom in the middle of the evening. It was the kind of convention-defying, romantic gesture she had always hoped for in a fiancé.
She was slightly less thrilled to find that his only interest seemed to be the whereabouts of his sister. But, consoling herself with the thought that once they were married they would have an entire lifetime to concentrate on each other, she passed on the little information that she had about Twinks’s disappearance.
The only solid fact that emerged was that his sister was known to have been seen a couple of days before in the company of a private investigator called Paul Sidney.
Clasping his fiancée’s hands in gratitude (which Mary Chapstick serendipitously interpreted as a deeper emotion), Blotto rushed back to the Lagonda and set off for the address in Bay Street.
Previous experience of night-time Chicago made him lock the car before making his way up to Paul Sidney’s grubby office. He found the private investigator slumped head-down across his desk.
His first thought, that Spagsy Chiaparelli’s hoods had got there before him and eliminated the potential witness, was quickly negated by the smell of scotch, the empty bottle on the desk, and loud snoring. Slapping the private eye awake, Blotto demanded news of his sister.
Paul Sidney did not volunteer his part in her capture; nor did he allude to the fee he had negotiated for his contribution. He did, however, offer information, though again not for nothing. Blotto fortunately had a full wallet, having taken a lot for emergency expenses on his New York trip.
For the entire contents – just over 2,000 dollars – the Wh
ite Knight of Bay Street told all he knew: that Twinks had been taken into the temporary custody of Choxy Mulligan.
Blotto didn’t pause to consider. While Paul Sidney reached into a filing cabinet to produce another bottle of scotch which he prepared to empty, Blotto found in his pocket the scrap of paper he’d been given in Spagsy Chiaparelli’s speakeasy. Without hesitation he picked up the telephone and asked the operator for Choxy Mulligan’s number.
The smoky voice answered and was not pleased to hear who was calling. She’d had a bellyful of being done wrong by men. She still resented the way Blotto had treated her and was not prepared to be cooperative. But when she heard that he was looking for his sister, Choxy’s tone changed. Since Twinks’s abduction she’d thought a lot about their conversation, about the rights of women, about how there might be other ways of getting through life that didn’t involve seeking the protection of a strong male. Twinks’s words had stirred some long-dormant assertiveness in Choxy Mulligan, and she would now do anything to help her new-found female friend.
Sadly, though, she thought in this instance any kind of help might come too late. ‘Spagsy told Rat Teeth and Two Legs to take her for a ride.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, I’m afraid, you should start making funeral arrangements. Though I figure it won’t be one of those funerals where you find any filling for the coffin.’
‘Some stenchers tried to take me for a ride,’ Blotto recalled, ‘but I don’t think they succeeded. What actually does it mean when someone’s “taken for a ride”?’
There was a pessimistic sigh from the other end of the phone. ‘Can mean a lotta things. But in this case Spagsy specified that Twinks was to be taken on a “can-can ride”.’
‘Oh, I know about the can-can,’ said Blotto eagerly, remembering a rather bizarre evening spent in Paris with Corky Froggett. ‘It’s a French dance.’
‘Not such a cheery dance in this case,’ said Choxy Mulligan gloomily. ‘It involves taking the victim down to Chapstick’s factory and by the end of the process . . . well, Twinks probably didn’t start out with a moo, but if she did, that’s all that’d be left . . .’
Blotto seemed perplexed, so she went on, ‘It’s a method Spagsy uses when he really wants to be sure of removing someone without trace. He says it’s the ultimate form of democracy. Everybody in America stands a chance of getting a little bit of anybody.’
‘In a can-can?’ asked Blotto, still confused.
‘Well, in a can, anyway,’ said Choxy Mulligan.
It took a moment for Blotto’s slow mind to process the information that he was being given. But when it did get through, it hit with the impact of a St Louis Steamhammer.
‘Great Wilberforce, no!’ he cried, dropping the telephone on the desk of the once-again-insensible Paul Sidney. ‘I must get to the Chapstick Manufacturing Plant to save Twinks!’
26
Taken for a Can-Can Ride
Running sluggishly or not, the Lagonda still tore up the ground between Bay Street and the Chapstick Manufacturing Plant. Though it was late evening and dark, none of the workers inside would have known it. Regardless of daylight and seasons they worked on, shift by shift, in their eternal cycle of slaughter. Nothing must be allowed to stop the accumulation of the Chapstick millions.
Remembering the geography from his guided tour, Blotto parked the Lagonda where Luther P. Chapstick III’s car had been parked and, pausing only to gather up his trusty cricket bat, rushed into the building. Anyone who questioned where he was going received the steely stare with which Lymingtons had faced down the French at Crécy and was told that he was shortly to marry their boss’s daughter. No one stood in his way.
As he rushed through the stockyards, mud and blood spattering up over the crumpled clothes in which he’d driven to New York and back, Blotto realized how safe Spagsy Chiaparelli’s method of disposing of people in this vast complex was. Whatever criminal activity they saw, none of the workers would ever tell anyone. They didn’t want trouble, they wanted to hang on to their jobs. And besides, most of them were so mesmerized by the monotony of their work that they didn’t notice anything that went on outside it.
Reminding himself of the sequence of processing rooms he had been shown through, Blotto tried to work out where Twinks was most likely to have been taken. He remembered the men with the sledgehammers abstractedly braining the cattle as they came past. Surely their huge implements would not be used to crush such a tiny nut as Twinks’s cranium?
Then there were the workers who grabbed the stunned carcasses and chained them up on the hooks of the great wheel. Surely there was no need to do that with as slight a frame as his sister’s?
Increasingly, as he rushed from room to room and saw no sign of her, all of his fears focused on one thing: The Great Grinder. He remembered the terrible crunching noise that had emanated from its vast maw and tried to keep out of his mind the image of Twinks’s fragile form caught up in those fearsome cogs. He couldn’t bear the thought of his precious sister being, as Luther P. Chapstick III had put it, ‘spread on toast at breakfast tables all over the US of A’.
Blotto had been right. It was in the room of The Great Grinder that he found them. He could see the huge pin-striped frames of Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle and Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni and between them the slender form of Twinks, clad in eau de nil silk and struggling literally for her life as she was forced inexorably over the blood-enslimed floor towards two ladders which led up to the gaping mouth of The Great Grinder.
With a cry of ‘Put my sister down, you running sores!’ Blotto leapt forward, brandishing the cricket bat, carrying which he had won the Eton and Harrow match almost single-handedly.
Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle turned at the sound and was rewarded by a smash from the bat straight in his face. Had he had any more nose left to break, it would have been broken. The blow was sufficient momentarily to disorient him and loosen his grip on Twinks’s arm as he floundered in the offal on the floor.
But the distraction only made Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni bolder. Lifting the girl up bodily, he wrapped her around his shoulders like a scarf and started climbing one of the ladders towards The Great Grinder.
Blotto leapt towards him, but felt his ankle gripped by the steel fingers of Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle. He brought the cricket bat down with a crunching blow on to the man’s wrist and the grasp loosened.
But he had lost valuable seconds. When he looked back, Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni was at the top of his ladder and Twinks was actually in mid-air, having been thrown into the devouring maw. Blotto shot up the ladder, brought the bat down with devastating force on to the middle of Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni’s fedora, then, as the man crashed to the floor, used his back as a springboard to fly on to the lip of the grinder and grab his sister’s flailing hand.
He was only just in time. When he caught her, one of her elegantly shod feet was inches from the whirring cogs, which spat out flying tendrils of entrails as they crushed the rest.
And their security was only relative. The rim of the huge funnel on which Blotto had landed was slick with blood and guts and even Twinks’s sylphlike weight made his foothold more precarious. But he did manage to pull her up to balance on the lip beside him.
When, however, they looked down towards what they hoped was safety, they saw that Spagsy Chiaparelli’s two heavies had found large implements shaped like boathooks with which they were approaching to topple them from their slippery stance. Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle was climbing up one of the ladders, Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni the other.
As he had so many times before, Blotto looked into his sister’s azure eyes, knowing that somehow she would see a way out of their predicament.
‘Larksissimo!’ she cried. ‘We can get out of this one, Blotto me old rhubarb crumble!’ She made some quick calculations, looked upwards, pulled a length of fine silk out of her reticule and threw it up
, so that the hook on its end caught in a giant blood-splattered ring on the room’s ceiling.
‘Hold tight on to me, Blotters! Use our weight to get the backswing, then put into action the Double Drumski we used to practise from the battlements of Tawcester Towers!’
‘Tickey-tockey, Twinks me old pincushion!’ cried her brother.
Like circus acrobats, the siblings clasped each other and launched themselves into the void above the churning entrails. Their impetus swung them almost to the back wall. By the time they returned, Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle and Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni were standing at the top of their respective ladders. Seeing the two Lyminsters hurtling towards them and not having time to bring their boathooks into play, the heavies took evasive action and the pair sailed neatly between them. On the return swing Blotto and Twinks each put out a practised leg at the relevant moment. Blotto’s caught Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle in the small of the back and toppled him neatly into The Great Grinder, while Twinks’s did the same service for Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni.
‘That,’ said Twinks with satisfaction, ‘was pure creamy éclair.’
‘Yes,’ her brother agreed. ‘You absolutely are the nun’s nightie.’
She laughed off the compliment and slapped her rather dirty hands together. ‘I don’t think we’ll see a lot more of those two.’
‘No,’ said Blotto with a slight giggle. ‘Soon they’ll be spread on toast at breakfast tables all over the US of A.’
27
Playing Cupid
It was Twinks’s view (sensible as ever) that they weren’t safe on the streets of Chicago. Between them Spagsy Chiaparelli and Luther P. Chapstick III owned the town. The news of Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle and Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni’s fate must reach their ears soon. Chiaparelli, who didn’t like failure, would then charge more of his gang members with the task of finding and eliminating Twinks. And there was no way Chapstick would let her brother escape his impending wedding.
