Lisbon Cubed

by William Tenn

  What had he wandered into? Or, to put it more accurately, what had wandered into him?

  Spies. Yes, obviously spies. But such spies…?

  Spies from another planet. What were they spying on—beauty contests, conventions, plumbers’ fancy dress balls? What were they looking for? What in the world—or rather the universe—could they be looking for?

  One thing was obvious. They were up to no good. That omnipresent contempt whenever they mentioned Earth or the things of Earth.

  An advance wave of invaders? Scouts preparing the way for the main body? They could be that. But why beauty contests, why fancy dress balls?

  What was there of value that they could possibly learn from institutions such as these?

  You’d expect to find them at nuclear research labs, at rocket proving grounds, skulking about the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

  Alfred decided there was no point in trying to follow their thought processes. They were completely alien creatures: who knew what kind of information they might consider valuable, what might be important to them?

  But they were undoubtedly spies sizing up Earth for an invasion to come.

  “Filthy little spiders,” he growled in a righteous excess of xenophobia.

  And one of them was in love with him. One of them intended to marry him. What was it she had said—piles and piles of eggs? A pretty thought! He shuddered from his neck to his knees.

  But they believed he was this other Smith, John Smith. Earth still had a chance. Pure luck had given Earth a counterspy. Him.

  He felt frightened, but a little proud. A counterspy.

  The first thing to do was to check on this John Smith.

  Alfred Smith reached for the telephone. “Desk!”

  There was precious little information from the clerk to supplement what he had been given before. John Smith had registered here two weeks ago. He had left one afternoon and not come back. After the usual interval it was assumed he had skipped, since he owed a few days on the bill at the time. His belongings were in the hotel store room.

  “No, sir, I’m sorry, sir, but hotel regulations do not permit us to let you go through his belongings. Unless you wish to claim a relationship.”

  “And if I did?” Alfred asked eagerly. “If I did wish to claim a relationship?”

  “Then it would be necessary for you to establish proof, sir.”

  “I see. Well, thank you very much.” He hung up.

  Where was he now? This John Smith had registered here, evidently under a previous agreement, as his room was to provide the meeting place for the entire group. Then he had walked out one day and not returned.

  Since the disguises were subject to frequent change, when another Smith had registered in the same room, the spies assumed it was their man. They may not even have known of the hiatus between the two Smiths.

  What had happened to John Smith? Had he defected to the United States government? To the United Nations? Hardly. There would be an F.B.I, man, a small army unit staked out in the room in that case, when John Smith’s friends showed up.

  No, he had just disappeared. But was he dead, killed in some freak accident while crossing a bridge—that would account for his body not being recovered—or was he only temporarily away, working on some newly discovered angle for his interplanetary organization?

  And what would happen to Alfred when he returned? The young man on the bed shivered. Espionage groups, he recalled from the novels he had read, tended to a sort of hatchet-man justice. Obviously, they would not let an Earthman with knowledge of their existence and operations go on living.

  Then, obviously, he had to get help.

  But from where? The police? The F.B.I.? He shivered again at the picture evoked; himself, somewhat embarrassed, stammering a bit, not quite remembering all the details, telling this story to a hard-faced desk sergeant.

  An interplanetary invasion, Mr. Smith? From Mars? Oh, not from Mars—from where then? Oh, you don’t quite know, Mr. Smith? All you’re sure of is that it’s an interplanetary invasion? I see. And how did you happen to hear of this on your first day in New York? Oh, four people came up to your hotel room and told you about it? Very interesting. Very, very interesting. And their names were Mr. Cohen, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Jones, and Jane Doe? And your name is Smith, isn’t it? And all we have to do to prove your story is find the address behind one of these telephone numbers, cut open the person in whose name the phone is registered, and find a big black spider inside…

  “No!” Alfred groaned aloud. “Not that way—I wouldn’t have a chance!”

  He needed proof—tangible proof. And facts. Mostly he needed facts. Who were these spiders, what was their home planet, when were they planning to invade, what kind of weapons did they have at their disposal—stuff like that. And lots and lots of data about their organization here on Earth, especially in America.

  How did you get such data? You couldn’t ask—that would be the surest way to expose yourself as a bona fide human with nothing more interesting inside you than a length or so of intestine and a couple of ribs.

  But they’d given him an assignment. Something about a plumber’s fancy dress ball. Now, obviously an assignment like that concerned their plans, their organization. Obviously.

  He grabbed for the phone.

  “Desk? This is Mr. Smith in 504. Yes, Mr. Smith again. Listen, how do I find out where the plumbers are in New York?”

  “If the plumbing in your room is out of order, sir,” the smooth, patient voice explained, “the hotel will send up a—”

  “No, no, no! I don’t want a plumber, I want plumbers, all of them! The New York plumbers, how do I find them?”

  He distinctly heard lips being licked at the other end as this question was digested and then, aside, a whispered comment, “Yeah, it’s 504, again. We got a real beauty in that room this time. I don’t envy the night man tonight, let me tell you!” Loudly and clearly, if just a shade less smoothly, the voice replied: “You will find a classified telephone directory on the desk near your bed, sir. You can look up plumbers under P. Most of the plumbers in Manhattan are listed there. For plumbers in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, I would suggest—”

  “I don’t want plumbers in Brooklyn or the Bronx! I don’t even want plumbers in—” Alfred Smith drew a deep breath. He had to get a grip on himself! The fate of the entire planet, of the entire human race, depended on his keeping his head. He forced his mind backward, inch by inch, off the plateau of hysteria it had mounted. He waited until his voice was calm.

  “This is the problem,” he began again, slowly and carefully. “There is a fancy dress ball of the plumbers of the New York area. It’s being held somewhere in the city tonight, and I’m supposed to be there. Unfortunately, I’ve lost my invitation and it contained the address. Now, how do you think I could go about finding where the ball is going to be?” He congratulated himself on the swiftness of his thinking. This was really being a counterspy!

  Pause. “I could make some inquiries, sir, through the usual channels, and call you back “And aside: “Now he says he’s a plumber and he wants to go to a fancy dress ball. Can you beat that? I tell you in this business…” And to him: “Would that be satisfactory, sir?”

  “Fine,” Alfred Smith told him enthusiastically. “That would be fine.”

  He hung up. Well, he was getting the hang of this espionage business. Nothing like a sales background for practice in quick thinking and quick talking.

  He didn’t have to report to the office until tomorrow. That gave him this afternoon and this evening to save the human race.

  Who would have thought when he was offered a job in New York with the BlakSeme Hosiery Company (“Men Notice BlakSemes—They’re so Shockingly Stocking!”) what tremendous stakes he’d be playing for the very day of his arrival? Of course, BlakSeme knew what kind of man he was, they knew he was executive timber or they’d never have hired him right out from under PuzzleKnit, their biggest competitor. He’d made
quite a name for himself, Alfred Smith was modestly willing to admit, in the Illinois territory. Highest sales increases for three years running, steadiest repeat orders for five. But to PuzzleKnit Nylons (“PuzzleKnit Attracts Their Attention and Keeps Them Guessing”), he had just been a top-notch salesman: it had taken BlakSeme, with their upper-bracket, Madison-Avenue orientation, to see him as a possible district sales manager.

  BlakSeme alone had seen he was big-league material. But even they had not guessed how big a league it was in which he was destined to play.

  The desk clerk called back. “I find, sir, that there is a fancy dress ball of the boss plumbers and steamfitters of the metropolitan New York area. It’s at Menshevik Hall on Tenth Avenue at eight o’clock tonight. The theme of the ball is the ancien regime in France, and only people in pre-French-Revolution costumes will be admitted. Would you like the name of a place near the hotel where you can rent the right costume for the occasion?”

  “Yes,” Alfred Smith babbled. “Yes, yes, yes!” Things were beginning to click! He was on the trail of the aliens’ organization!

  He went out immediately and hurriedly selected a Due de Richelieu outfit. Since some small alterations were necessary, he had time to get dinner before the costume would be delivered to his hotel. He ate carefully and nutritiously; this was going to be a big night. His reading matter throughout the meal was a booklet he’d picked up in the outfitting place, a booklet giving the descriptions and background of all the costumes available for this period—sixteenth-to eighteenth-century France. Any fact might be the vital clue…

  Back in his room, he tore off his clothes and pulled on the rented apparel. He was a little disappointed at the result. He did not quite look like a Gray Eminence. More like a young Protestant in Cardinal’s clothing. But then he found the scrap of gray beard in the box that belonged with the costume and fitted it on. It made all the difference.

  Talk about your disguises! Here his body was supposed to be a disguise, a disguise which was the uniform of the Aliens’ Special Agents Division, of their terrestrial spy service. And now he was disguising that supposed disguise with a real one—just as by being a supposed spy he was laying a trap for all the real secret operatives.

  Alfred Smith—one lone man against the aliens! “So that,” he whispered reverently, “government of humans, by humans, and for humans shall not perish from the Earth.”

  The telephone. This time it was Jones.

  “Just got word from Robinson, Smith. That special mission of mine. It looks like tonight’s the night.”

  “Tonight, eh?” Alfred Smith felt the lace tighten around his throat.

  “Yes, they’re going to try to contact tonight. We still don’t know just where—just that it’s in New York City, I’m to be on reserve: I’ll rush around to whoever finds the contact. You know, reinforce, lend a helping hand, be a staunch ally, give an assist to, help out in a pinch, stand back to back with, buddy mine, pards till hell freezes over. You’ll be at the plumbers’ ball, won’t you? Where is it?”

  Alfred shook his head violently to clear it of the fog of clichés thrown out by Jones. “Menshevik Hall. Tenth Avenue. What do I do if I—if I discover the contact?”

  “You phmpff, guy, phmpff like mad. And I’ll come a-running. Forget about telephones if you discover the contact. Also forget about special-delivery mail, passenger pigeon, pony-express rider, wireless telegraphy, and couriers from His Majesty. Discovering the contact comes under the heading of ‘emergency’ under Operating Procedure Regulations XXXIII-XLIX inclusive. So phmpff your foolish head off.”

  “Right! Only thing, Jones—” there was a click at the other end as Jones hung up.

  Tonight, Alfred Smith thought grimly, staring into the mirror. Tonight’s the night!

  For what?

  Menshevik Hall was a gray two-story building in the draftiest section of Tenth Avenue. The lower floor was a saloon through whose greasy windows a neon sign proclaimed:

  THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION WAS

  THE ONLY REAL REVOLUTION BAR GRILL

  BEER--WINES--CHOICE LIQUORS

  Alexei Ivanovich Anphinov, Prop.

  The second floor was brightly lit. Music oozed out of its windows. There was a penciled sign on a doorway to one side of the bar:

  BOSS PLUMBERS AND STEAMFITTERS OF

  THE METROPOLITAN NEW YORK AREA

  SEMIANNUAL FANCY DRESS BALL

  You Must Be in Costume to Be Admitted Tonight

  (If you haven’t paid your association dues for this quarter, see Bushke Horowitz at the bar before going upstairs—Bushke’s wearing a Man in the Iron Mask costume and he’s drinking rum and Seven-Up.)

  Alfred Smith climbed the creaky wooden stairs apprehensively, his eyes on the burly General Montcalm guarding the entrance at the top. To his relief, however, no invitation or ticket was demanded: his costume was sufficient validation. The red-faced general barely gave him a glance from under the plushly decorated cocked hat before waving him through.

  It was crowded inside. Scores of Louis XIIIs, XIVs, XVs, and XVIs were dancing sedately with Annes of Austria and Marie Antoinettes to the strains of rhumba and cha-cha. Overhead, two colored chandeliers rotated slowly, unwinding the spectrum upon the glittering, waxed floor.

  Where did he begin? He glanced at the platform where the musicians sat; they alone were not in costume. Lettering on the bass drum told the world that “Ole Olsen and His Latin Five” were providing the rhythms, but that did not seem like much to go on. No one here looked like an interstellar spy.

  On the other hand, neither did Jones, Cohen, Kelly nor Jane Doe. They looked almost spectacularly ordinary. That was it: you had to find these people in the unlikeliest, most prosaic places.

  Pleased by the inspiration, he went into the Men’s Room.

  At first, he thought he had hit it exactly right. The place was crowded. Sixteen or so Musketeers stood around the washbasin, munching enormous cigars and conversing in low voices.

  He insinuated himself among them and listened closely. Their talk was eclectic, ranging freely from the wholesale price of pastel-colored water closets to the problems of installing plumbing in a new housing development on Long Island that was surrounded by unsewered streets.

  “I told the contractor to his face,” said a somewhat sallow, undersized Musketeer, knocking his cigar ash off against the pommel of his sword, “Joe, I told him, how can you expect me to lay pipe when you don’t even know the capacity, let alone the type—look, we won’t even talk about the type—of the sewer system they’re going to have installed out here? Joe, I said to him, you’re a bright guy: I ask you, Joe, is that fair, does that make sense? You want me to maybe install plumbing that’s going to be a lot weaker than the sewer system in the streets so that the first time the new customers flush the toilets everything backs up all over the bathroom floor—you want that, Joe? No, he says, I don’t want that. All right, then, I say, you want me to maybe install plumbing that’s a lot better than necessary, a lot stronger than the sewer system will require, and that’ll add cost to the houses that doesn’t have to be added—you want that, Joe? No, he says, I don’t want that. So, look, Joe, I say, you’re willing to admit this is a dumb proposition from top to bottom? Suppose someone asked you to build a house, Joe, and couldn’t tell you whether the foundation under it is concrete or steel or sand or cinder-block. That’s just exactly what you’re asking me to do, Joe, that’s just exactly what.”

  There was a rustle of approbation. A tall, weedy, mournful-looking Musketeer blew his nose and carefully replaced the handkerchief in his doublet before commenting, “That’s the trouble with everybody. They think plumbers are miracle men. They got to learn that plumbers are only human.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said a stout Huguenot who had come up in the last few moments. “I take the attitude that plumbers are miracle men. What we got to use is our American imagination, our American know-how, our American thinking straight to the point. You s
how me a sewer system in a new community, like, that hasn’t been installed yet, that nobody knows what its capacity is going to be, and I’ll figure out a plumbing system for the development that’ll fit it no matter what. And I’ll save on cost, too.”

  “How?” demanded the sallow, undersized Musketeer. “Tell me how.”

  “I’ll tell you how,” retorted the Huguenot. “By using my American imagination, my American know-how, my American thinking straight to the point. That’s how.”

  “Pardon me,” Alfred Smith broke in hurriedly as he saw the sallow, undersized Musketeer take a deep breath in preparation for a stinging rebuttal. “Do any of you gentlemen know of any prizes that will be given for the best costume, any door prizes, anything like that?”

  There was a silence as they all chewed their cigars at him appraisingly. Then the Huguenot (Coligny, Alfred wondered? Conde? de Rohan?) leaned forward and tapped him on the chest. “When you got a question, sonny, the thing to do is find the right man to ask the question of. That’s half the battle. Now who’s the right man to ask questions about door prizes? The doorman. You go out to the doorman—he’s wearing a General Montcalm—and you tell him Larry sent you. You tell him Larry said he should tell you all about door prizes, and, sonny, he’ll tell you just what you want to know.” He turned back to his smoldering adversary. “Now before you say anything, I know just what you’re going to say. And I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.”

  Alfred squeezed his way out of the mobful of rising tempers. At the outskirts, a Cardinal’s Guard who had just come up remarked broodingly to a black-hooded executioner: “That Larry. Big man. What I wouldn’t give to be around when he takes a pratfall.”

  The executioner nodded and transferred his axe thoughtfully to the other shoulder. “One day there’ll be an anonymous phone call to the Board of Health about Larry, and they’ll send out an inspector who can’t be pieced off, and that’ll be that. Any guy who’ll buy up junk pipe and chromium-plate it and then sell it to his friends as new stuff that he’s overstocked in…” Over his shoulder, the rubbery blade of the axe began flapping like a flag in a breeze.