“Which direction is the opposite direction?” asks Dead End Dugan, who has been more than a little confused ever since he became a zombie, and is standing in the farthest, darkest corner of the tavern.
“Do not bother yourself with such trivialities,” I tell him. “Go back to staring peacefully at a wall and thinking dead thoughts.”
“You’re the boss, Harry,” replies Dugan, and suddenly he is as still and silent as a statue again. Benny and Gently Gently do most of my errands for me, but every now and then, when someone is reluctant to make good his marker, it is nice to have a six-foot ten-inch zombie on my team.
“So what are the odds of Malone’s looks frightening away potential brides?” asks Benny.
“Yesterday, three thousand to one no one will give him a second look,” I answer. “Since he won the fifty-three large, half a million to one that they will.”
“But nobody knows!” wails Malone.
“It goes out on the wind, like news of antelope drinking at a waterhole goes out to a hungry lioness,” I say. “They’ll start showing up any minute now.”
No sooner do the words leave my lips than Mimsy Borogrove walks in. She slithers right past my two flunkies and sidles up to Malone, who acts like he has never been sidled up to before.
“Got a light, Big Boy?” she half says and half breathes.
“A light what?” asks Malone.
“Come back to my place and we’ll talk about it,” she says, reaching out for him.
“Unhand that man!” says a voice from the doorway, and we all turn to see Almost Blonde Annie standing there.
“Unhand me?” repeats Malone, staring at his hands in horror and then trying to tuck them into his pockets. “But I need them.”
“Of course you do,” says Almost Blonde Annie. “After all, you have to sign the marriage license.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mimsy Borogrove, “but I got here first.”
“And I got here last,” says Snake-Hips Levine, entering the tavern and undulating right up to Malone. “Come on, sweetie,” she says. “We don’t want to have anything to do with these other broads.”
“Do I know you?” asks Malone.
“Wouldn’t you like to?” says Snake-Hips. “Look at me,” she continues, running her hands over her body just the way any healthy male of the species would like to. “Isn’t this worth fifty-two thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars?”
“Fifty-three thousand,” says Mimsy.
Snake-Hips shakes her head, and everything else she has just naturally shakes with it. “Fifty-two thousand, two hundred and twelve. The other seven hundred and eighty-eight dollars was the money he bet that was returned to him when he cashed in.” She stares compassionately at Mimsy. “You’d better get a new source of information.”
Gently Gently Dawkins leans over to me. “Perhaps we should do a little something to save him from this veritable plague of potential fiancées,” he whispers.
“I am a bookie, not a marriage counselor,” I say. “Plug Malone’s pre-marital problems are his own.”
“I think Mimsy may take a poke at Snake-Hips,” says Dawkins. “What will we do then?”
“I will practice my trade and offer eight-to-five that Snake-Hips takes her out in straight falls,” I answer.
As we are conversing, four more women have entered the tavern, and now it is Joey Chicago who approaches me.
“Harry,” he says, “we have to do something. All these women are taking up space at the bar, and none of them are buying any drinks.”
“I hope you are not suggesting that I should buy drinks for the house,” I reply. “Along with everything else, I have long suspected that Almost Blonde Annie has a hollow leg.”
“Can’t Milton cast a spell that either makes them buy drinks or go home?” he asks. “I will tear up your tab if he does.”
“All right,” I say, because my tab has reached almost six dollars, and I hate spending my own money. “I will talk to him.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“Where else?” I say. “In his office.” I head off to the men’s room, which is where Big-Hearted Milton, my personal mage, has set up shop for the past two years. I find him, as usual, sitting cross-legged inside a pentagram he has drawn on the floor just next to the row of sinks, and there is a black candle burning at each point of it.
“Milton,” I say, “I need you to cast a spell.”
He holds a finger up to his lips. “In a minute.”
He began chanting in a language that bears a striking resemblance to ancient Mesopotamian, or possibly French, and finally he snaps his fingers and all the candles immediately go out.
“Hah!” he says, getting to his feet. “That will show her!”
“Mitzi McSweeney again,” I say. I do not ask, because these days it is always Mitzi McSweeney.
“We are sitting at a table in Ming Toy Epstein’s Almost Kosher Chop Suey House, and she remarks that one of her garters is pinching her, so I reach under the table to adjust it, and she hits me in the face with a plate of sweet and sour pork.” He frowns. “Me, who hasn’t had pork since he was bar mitzvahed!”
“So what kind of terrible curse did you put on her this time?” I ask in a bored tone, because somehow Milton’s curses never seem to wind up bothering anyone but Milton.
“Oh, it’s a good one,” he assures me with an evil smile. “Since it is her garter that causes this humiliation, I curse every garter she owns. Now none of them will work!”
“That is very brilliant, Milton,” I say. “Now whenever she is out in public…”
“…her garters will unsnap…” he laughs.
“Right,” I say. “And she will have to stop right there on the street and lift her skirt and try to re-snap them, and of course some handsome man will see this lovely lady with even lovelier legs in distress and will come to her aid, and try to help attach her stockings and doubtless introduce himself and tag along with her in case the garters give her further trouble, which of course they will.”
“Damn!” growls Milton. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
He relights the candles, stands in the middle of the pentagram, chants something in another unknown language, makes a mystical gesture, and then rejoins me by the door.
“All done,” he announces. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“Not for me,” I say. “It seems that Plug Malone made a big score and is being whelmed over by women.”
“What is wrong with that?” asks Milton.
“They are taking up space at the bar and not buying anything, and Joey Chicago wants them to spend money or go home.”
“Hell, have Plug Malone treat ’em all.”
“There is a school of thought that opines that Plug Malone has never so much as spoken to a woman, except perhaps for his mother,” I say.
Milton cracks open the door and takes a peek at the bar.
“Her?” he says. “And her too? And is that Sugar Lips Sally? And…”
He studies each of the dozen women who have gathered so far, and shakes his head in wonderment. “I have not seen such an outstanding field since the 1997 Belmont Stakes,” he says at last.
“So can you do one or the other?” I say. “Send them home or get them to part with some money?”
“I will not send them home,” announces Milton. “There is always a chance Mitzi McSweeney will refuse to see me again. She complains that she is getting arthritis in her hand after the last forty times she bloodies my nose.”
“All right,” I said. “Then cast a spell that makes them spend their money.”
“Look at all those skin-tight dresses, Harry,” he says. “They cannot possibly be hiding three dollars between them. I will hex Malone into buying drinks for all of them.”
“Yeah, I think Joey Chicago will go for that.”
So Milton mutters a spell, and suddenly Malone gets the strangest, most puzzled expression on his face, and announces that he is buying for everyone in th
e house.
“Everyone?” repeats Joey Chicago with a happy smile.
“Every man and woman in the place,” Malone assures him.
“What about zombies?” asks Gently Gently.
“Do zombies drink?” asks Almost Blonde Annie.
“I don’t know,” admits Malone. “Hey, Dugan!” he shouts. “Do zombies drink?”
Dead End Dugan blinks his eyes a couple of times, and frowns. “I don’t know,” he answers. “It’s been so long…”
“Besides, even if he started, it would probably all pour out through those holes in his chest,” says Benny Fifth Street.
“Probably,” agrees Dugan unhappily. “Or maybe where I got my throat slit. That was… let me think… the fourth time.”
“How many times have you been killed?” asks Malone.
“Five that I can remember,” says Dugan.
“That’s horrible!” says Snake-Hips Levine with a shudder that attracts the attention of every man in the place.
“It hardly hurt at all after the third time,” Dugan assures her. He makes a face. “I really hated it when they dumped me overboard though. You think they’d have been more considerate, what with all the ice in the East River.”
While all this high-brow discussion of life and death is occurring – or to be totally accurate, death and more death – word seems to have gone out on the wind that Malone is paying, because suddenly almost a dozen men enter the tavern and ask for drinks.
Brontosaur Nelson, who is a midget wrestler, asks for a tall one, which cracks everyone up, and the laughter attracts Loose Lips Louie, who is just walking by, and Impervious Irving, who is between bodyguard jobs, and Charlie Three-Eyes (who has a scar where he claims his third eye used to be, though word on the street is that it is simply where his ever-loving wife bites him when she finds he has been watching Bubbles La Tour’s Dance of Sublime Surrender at the Rialto every night, and try as he will he cannot convince her that he goes for the music, which any ever-loving spouse will agree is like buying Playboy for the articles.)
Everyone keeps drinking and having a good time, and finally Loose Lips Louie says, “So who’s the lucky lady, Plug?” and two seconds later you can hear a pin drop. And this is not a figure of speech; Gently Gently is loosening the pin that is holding his shirt together where he has popped a button after his fourth hot fudge sundae of the day, and so silent does the tavern become that I can hear it hit the floor fifteen feet away.
“I’m not the marrying type,” says Malone.
“Are you the type who buys drinks for the house?” asked Loose Lips Louie.
“Certainly not,” said Malone.
“Well, there you have it,” says Loose Lips Louie. “Now, who’s the lucky lady?”
Malone looks like a deer caught in the headlights, except no deer ever looks so frightened, even when surrounded by a pack of elephants or whatever it is that has a taste for freshly killed deer, and suddenly he frowns and points a finger at Milton.
“This is your doing!” he yells. “I would never stand for drinks unless I was hexed, and you’re the only mage here. You’re the reason all these gorgeous man-hungry women are after me!”
“If I am the reason all these women are here,” answers Milton calmly, “then I am also the reason you won fifty-three large at Aqueduct, and I would like my fee, please.”
“Never, you foul fiend!” screams Malone.
“I thought I was the foul fiend,” says Dead End Dugan, who looks puzzled for a moment and then goes back to thinking dead thoughts.
“It is not Milton,” I explain. “Not only does Milton not have a way with women, but he cannot go through a single day without Mitzi McSweeney bloodying his nose and threatening his life. It is the money that has attracted all these women.”
Of course every woman in the place denies it, and Stella Houston, who claims to be Stella Dallas’s better-looking sister, slinks up to Malone and offers to hold his money before Milton or I can steal it.
“So tell us, Malone,” says Loose Lips Louie. “Who’s the lucky woman?”
“I keep telling you,” replies Malone, looking even more exasperated than terrified, “I am not getting married.”
“Of course you are,” says Brontosaur Nelson. “You don’t think these lovely frail flowers are going to let you leave the place un-engaged, do you?”
“Hell, even Impervious Irving couldn’t make it out the door if he was in your place,” says Loose Lips Louie. “So who’s your choice?”
“I am not getting married!” screams Malone. The nearest men jump back, startled, but the women merely look amused.
Benny Fifth Street walks over to me. “I smell a profitable enterprise here,” he says.
“That thought has not escaped my notice,” I say, turning to the room at large. “Let me make up a morning line, and then the book is open for business.”
“It is ten o’clock at night,” notes Gently Gently. “Unless you want them to stay here until daybreak, what we need is an evening line.”
“The man’s got a point,” agrees Benny Fifth Street.
“All right,” I say. “Bring me the blackboard on which Joey Chicago advertises the day’s special, and a piece of chalk.”
The place has fallen silent, as each of the men is studying the field and trying to decide where to put his money. It is not without incident. Almost Blonde Annie decks Charlie Three-Eyes when he tries to examine her teeth, and Mimsy Borogrove kicks Brontosaur Nelson almost to the ceiling when he tries to examine things down at his eye level.
“How’s it coming, Harry?” asks Bet-a-Bunch Murphy after a few minutes.
“I’m working on it,” I tell him.
“Who’s the favorite?”
“That is the one thing that requires no work at all,” I answer. “I make Bubbles La Tour the top-heavy favorite, you should pardon the expression.”
Impervious Irving nods his head in agreement. “She is truly the Secretariat of women.”
“Better,” adds Short Odds MacDougal.
“Now just a minute, Buster…” begins Stella Houston ominously.
“What are the odds on her, Harry?” asks Loose Lips Louie.
“I make it one-to-eight-thousand.”
“So if I bet eight thousand dollars on Bubbles La Tour and she wins what I think we shall call the Plug Malone Sweepstakes, all I win is a dollar?” continues Loose Lips Louie.
“That’s right,” I say.
“An underlay,” remarks Gently Gently Dawkins. “I make her one-to-ten-thousand, minimum.”
“If he proposes to Bubbles La Tour, there won’t be enough of him left to bury,” vows Mimsy Borogrove.
“We’ll kill him with such skill and dexterity that a jury will award us both ears and the tail,” chimes in Snake-Hips Levine.
“You know,” says Benny Fifth Street, “I never thought of it until just now, but I’ll bet all the other superheroes who came equipped with just one or two super-powers apiece didn’t like Superman any more than these delicate feminine blossoms like Bubbles La Tour.”
“Shut up about her!” snaps Stella Houston.
“Right,” says Short Odds MacDougal. “Mentioning her in front of these lovely ladies is like mentioning Babe Ruth to a bunch of minor leaguers.”
Even Impervious Irving can’t pull the women off Short Odds MacDougal as fast as they pile on, and I call Dead End Dugan over to help.
After about three or four minutes MacDougal is uncovered and helped to his feet. Both of his eyes are blackened, what’s left of his nose is bleeding, and he spits out three teeth. Both knees and an elbow are exposed where his suit has been torn, and his face seems much larger than usual. Then Benny Fifth Street loosens his tie and suddenly he can breathe again and the size of his face goes back down to normal. He is about to say something, but then he looks into the unforgiving faces of the assembled ladies, sighs once, and trudges off to a corner.
In the meantime Gently Gently Dawkins has been whispering int
o his cell phone, and finally he puts it back into his pocket.
“Bubbles La Tour has scratched,” he announces.
“Why?” asks Brontosaur Nelson.
“She must have thrown a shoe,” muses Bet-a-Bunch Murphy.
“She says she remembers Malone, and would not marry him if he was the last man on Earth.”
“This is unheard of,” says Murphy. “When has a horse ever rejected his jockey?”
“Well, that makes it a more competitive field,” says Loose Lips Louie. “What is the evening line now?”
“I will have to re-compute it,” I say. “Losing Bubbles La Tour in the Plug Malone Sweepstakes is like doping out the odds in a golf match where Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods all fail to make the cut. It is clearly a wide-open race.”
But in just a handful of minutes we are given to realize that it is not as wide-open as it had seemed, because who should walk into the tavern than Morris the Mage. He walks right up to Mimsy Borogrove and holds out his hand. She puts a couple of C-notes into it, he pockets them, nods, and shakes her hand.
“What is going on here?” demands Milton, who does not like having his territory encroached upon.
“I have been retained by this lovely spinster here,” announces Morris as Mimsy kind of growls deep in her throat at the word ‘spinster’, “to help her nab – uh, to help her wed – the man of her choice.” He looks at Mimsy, smiles, makes a mystical sign in the air, and says, “Presto!” – and suddenly instead of wearing what looks like an exceptionally wide black satin belt and not much else, Mimsy is decked out in an elaborate wedding gown.
“Lacks a little something,” muses Morris. “Ah! I have it! Abracadabra!” And just like that, Mimsy is carrying a huge bouquet of flowers.
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