I am appalled. “You mean . . . ?”
“I mean we should trust no one but ourselves. This thing may go all the way to the top. Even the Düsseldorf town council may be implicated.”
I slump in my chair with horror. But I am then forced to correct my slovenly posture when a waiter appears to take our order.
“What can make this case so valuable to the ruffians?” says Roy when he has departed.
“We can only surmise, Roy. Perhaps it contains jewels or bullion or index-linked bonds or sacred relics or the plans for an efficient new weapon.” I examine the case hesitantly. “Perhaps if we were to take a look inside? It is irregular to the point of outrage but it may provide some answers.”
“I believe it would be justified,” says Roy. “We have higher motives than vulgar curiosity.”
I say, “Logically as you are a performer I should be the one to open it in case it is booby-trapped and blows my face off.”
“That is kind of you.”
I hand Jetta across the table and say, “If I should be killed I entreat you to raise her as if she were your own.”
“I will do so.”
I take a deep breath and lift the lid. Fortunately there is no booby trap but what I see renders me stunned and speechless.
“It is beautiful,” I manage to gasp.
“Come,” says Roy impatiently after a few moments. “Do not leave me groping in the dark without a candle. What is it? What fantastic prize can have driven men to steal, cheat, lie, manhandle, kidnap and attempt murder by earwigs? Is it bullion? Diamonds? Jewelry? Banknotes? Rare spices or unguents from the exotic Orient? Scientific formulas? Military secrets?”
“It is something more precious than any of them . . .” I breathe.
“So?” says Roy curiously.
And I take out from the briefcase a silvery rod.
“It is clingfilm!”
To be resumed!
But now the demands of my carefully crafted plot require that I transport you back to the villains.
The chief villain quickly comes to and looks up and down the street for us, but we have gone. Saying “Bah” and stamping his foot, he logically proceeds upstairs to where the other villains and his mother are tied up.
“Oh, boss,” says the third villain in relief, “are we glad to see you! You will never guess what has happened.”
But soon they are not so glad to see him, for after untying them and checking they are not hurt he proceeds to swear, rebuke, snarl and stamp his foot at them for letting us get away until they are cringing and downcast. He is so angry that they want to go to the toilet but are scared to ask permission.
“It would appear,” he hisses in conclusion, “that you imbibed inefficiency with your mother’s milk and cut your teeth upon a diet of raw ineptitude!”
The other two villains look sad and forlorn.
“As for you, Mother,” he says to the old woman, “I am ashamed at your lack of diligence. If Father was here he would doubtless rap you over the knuckles with a ninja flail and throw you in the dustbin, like in the good old days.”
“That he would not,” cries the old crone defiantly, “for the dustbin is too full to fit me in, for I never empty it!”
“Ah, Mutti!” says Heinrich with a grudging twinge of affection, and smashes a chair over her head.
Lothar bashfully raises his hand.
“May I go to the toilet?” he asks in a small voice.
“You may not!” yells the chief villain. “As punishment for your inefficiency you must hold it in until I say so.”
“But he could do himself a mischief that way,” points out Otto.
“Shut up!” snarls Heinrich. “He may burst his bladder or even produce a damp stain for all I care!”
He paces up and down with a face like thunder.
“There is only one thing for it,” he growls at last. “I am forced to contact our dark spymasters for further instructions!”
The other two villains wring their hands and bite their nails at this, for their dark spymasters are even more scary than he is. Even Heinrich is reluctant.
“Must we do so?” ventures Otto at last. “Could we not attempt to resolve the situation ourselves, and only mention it to our dark spymasters many years from now in a confessional moment over schnapps?”
“Or send them a postcard full of general chit-chat,” suggests Lothar, “and mention the loss of the briefcase in a casual and light-hearted PS? That is often the best way to break bad news.”
Heinrich is tempted by this for a moment but finally shakes his head. “No, no, we must make contact now. Have you a phone, Mother?”
“That I have,” says his mother somewhat shakily, still picking splinters of chair out of her head, “but it does not work, for I never pay the bill!”
“Ordinarily your compulsive iniquity would amuse me, Mother, but not now.” Bad-temperedly Heinrich breaks another chair over his mother’s head and stamps downstairs to find a phone booth.
He dials a certain number which does not go through the ordinary phone exchanges but rather through a secret criminal phone system in which the operators are all sworn to secrecy and are deaf mutes anyway. Well, not deaf, but they are all villainesses and recruited from the ranks of retired floozies and injured ninjas and so forth.
The phone is answered by a man known only as Der Skorpion, which may be loosely translated as “The Scorpion.” He is twenty times as scary as Heinrich. If I was forced to describe him to you, you would very likely faint, but fortunately I do not have to do so.
He has a finger in every pie, in the rather unhygienic expression. He controls evil bandits in Mexico, vicious samurai in Japan, fiendish tax avoidance schemes in the Bahamas and lewd milkmaids in Bavaria.
“Good day,” he says to Heinrich, “are you well?”
“I am very well, thank you,” says Heinrich. “And you?”
“Oh, a little heartburn and indigestion after meals, but I cannot complain,” says the criminal mastermind. “Or at least, if I did, no one would care, for everyone around me is evil.” He suddenly feels sad. Even a criminal mastermind can get lonely. Briskly he returns the call to business. “Well, why have you rung the secret emergency number?” he asks.
“Oh, you know, I just wanted to make small talk,” lies Heinrich, suddenly nervous and remembering Lothar’s idea of blending bad news in with general chit-chat. “For example, how is your golf nowadays?”
“Not very good since I got a giant metal claw instead of an arm,” admits the number one villain sadly. I told you he was scary. “On the plus side, of course, whenever anyone beats me at golf I am able to snip their limbs off with it.”
“Ha ha ha,” laughs Heinrich falsely. “Lovely story. Well, be seeing you.”
“Oh, Heinrich,” says his boss smoothly, “while I have you, may I inquire how our business is progressing with that extremely valuable briefcase?”
“I am sorry, I did not hear that, the line is a bad one,” lies Heinrich quickly.
“The line is in order and he asked about the briefcase,” says the criminal phone operator sharply.
Heinrich’s palms sweat. “I have to report that we have lost the briefcase.” Quickly he recounts the errors of the past two days.
“Oh well, never mind,” says his boss. “I am sure that you tried your best and you know I am too big a man to hold it against you or ever seek to take some horrible revenge.”
Heinrich is pleasantly relieved for a moment and then realizes he is being sarcastic. His boss’s sinister voice is so subtle and silky in its implication of menace that often people think he is actually being friendly and only become scared hours later just when they are happily reading a book or enjoying a nice hot bath, which is then spoiled.
“You know how much money this was worth to us,” his superior continues. “We have a lot of overheads maintaining our vast criminal network and now we may have to issue a profit warning for this quarter to our dark shareholders. You are .
. . a disappointment to me.”
Heinrich gulps, for to be a disappointment to Der Skorpion does not mean ordinary things such as you and I might expect when we have disappointed someone, such as being written out of a will or being expelled from catering college or your parents moving away to a new location and not telling you their address or being banned from dating agencies and marriage bureaus or being divorced on the grounds of extreme and improbable mental cruelty—it means being sewn into a mailbag full of earwigs and dropped into a pond.
“No man can plan for the random malice of fate,” he protests feebly.
“On the contrary,” says his boss, “I have planned for every contingency, including this one. Your biggest error was not contacting me immediately the first time the briefcase was taken. For prudent precautions were taken before it was passed on to you and it will be very simple to find it again.”
Heinrich’s eyes widen as his boss informs him of something. But I will not tell you what it is just yet for the sake of heightened suspense.
“Also,” says Heinrich, “no wonder they call you a criminal mastermind.”
“I know, I am wonderful, arguably the most efficient criminal since records began,” boasts his boss shamelessly. “But you will be called criminally negligent if you fail in this matter again! I will send reinforcements if you require them but you must succeed at all costs!”
“I will do so,” Heinrich assures him zealously. He clears his throat. “I was wondering,” he says casually, “what is actually inside the briefcase to make it so valuable to us?” He has been forbidden to look inside the briefcase, although he did lift the lid a tiny inch and take a quick peek before becoming scared, and also felt around inside it a bit, as that was not technically looking. However, all he perceived was some velvet lining and he thought perhaps they were carrying stolen carpet swatches. “Naturally I do not care myself but the other two were curious,” he lies.
“That is not needful for you to know,” says the Skorpion harshly. “Remember the penalty for undue curiosity!” Heinrich swallows, for the penalty for undue curiosity is something really foul that leaves you a broken and pitiful man who is unable to even tie his own shoelaces without help from a nurse. Not that Heinrich ever bothers to tie his shoelaces—but it is nice to know he could if he wanted to. “However, I will tell you this much: it is possibly the greatest thing this world has ever seen! Apart from me, of course,” he adds boastfully.
His voice becomes an icy snarl.
“Recover the briefcase and make an example of this Orbison and his friends. When you find them you must kill them, ransack their houses, confiscate their possessions and put their terrapin to work on a farm!”
Meanwhile back in the town square Roy and I mull over our discovery.
“This makes no sense,” says Roy. “Who on earth could be so possessive about clingfilm?”
I study my nails and pointedly say nothing. He can be a very stupid and thoughtless man at times.
Still it is somewhat baffling. I myself would go to extreme lengths to obtain a roll of clingfilm at need, but even I have not gone much further than to wake a supermarket manager in the middle of the night or hire a van and journey to Köln or Aachen when there has not been enough in the local stores to satisfy my demands.
And I would even say that it is possible to become attached to a particular roll of clingfilm, for after intense and cultivated study one can perceive that each individual roll has its own particular quirks and idiosyncrasies. One will unroll with a sticky rasp, one with an eager schlurrp, another with a teasing mrrp or still another with a splendid sound like fhooop. One will be wrinkled, one flawlessly smooth, one wrinkled in places but smooth in other places, and so forth. A sentimental man might even have his special favorites and give them nicknames and even in whimsical moments affect to hold conversations with them. I imagine.
Yet there is undoubtedly some mystery here, for the villains struck me as coarse and unrefined types and not at all likely to be clingfilm connoisseurs. The chief baddy was eager enough to steal mine, and yet he evinced no particular joy in possessing it and planned to sell it to a tinker.
What then can be so special about this particular roll to make them cheat, steal, and menace with earwigs to obtain it? I examine the roll minutely and can perceive nothing unusual. Yet it was mounted smoothly in a fitted groove in the case as though the case had been designed specially to carry it. I make a mental note that this is a very good idea and one I should perhaps emulate, and even refine—after all, there would have been room for more than one roll in a briefcase, and one could perhaps fit a false bottom for purposes of concealment in situations where one feared confiscation.
“Perhaps,” I theorize, “this roll has some historical significance, and is more in the realm of an artifact than merely a household necessity or luxury toy. Perhaps it once wrapped the picnic sandwiches or party leftovers of some crowned head of Europe. Perhaps”—and my eyes light up—“perhaps it is the first roll of clingfilm ever manufactured, in which case it would be semi-legendary and almost divine—why, a man might dare anything to obtain such a prize!”
“It is a mistake to theorize without all the facts.” Roy is examining the case minutely. “Hold,” he suddenly says, “perceive here—there is writing on the exterior of the case.” It is so—in discreet embossed letters we had not noticed before are the words Top Secret.
“Also. . .” I say. “What can that portend?”
“And what is this?” he exclaims. He has removed the fitted velvet lining that held the roll. Revealed beneath it is a small metal gadget that has a radio aerial and a flashing light.
“Why,” I say, “as it happens I know what that is. It is a radio location transmitter. It beams a signal that reveals its whereabouts to whoever has the appropriate tracking device. It was featured on Guten Abend Düsseldorf’s ‘Brave New World with Lorna Bratkartoffeln’ segment. I considered fitting one to Jetta’s collar in case she was ever carried off by gypsies.”
“Whoever could have fitted such futuristic technology to a briefcase?”
“Why,” I say, “either the original owners of the briefcase, or—”
“Or?” Prompts Roy. “It is a mistake to leave sentences unfinished.”
But for a moment I am unable to speak and can only stare rudely over Roy’s shoulder.
“Or someone else who is very attached to the briefcase!” I eventually conclude. “Look, Roy!”
Roy looks. “Ach,” he says, “this is an untoward development.”
The three villains have entered the square! They are frowning at a small gadget with a long antenna, which they are waving around.
What has happened is that following their dark spymaster’s instructions they have locked onto the briefcase with a radio tracker and come rushing to the square to apprehend us, with only a brief toilet stop for Lothar.
“Quick, Roy! They are tracking the case.”
Quickly Roy smashes the radio beacon.
I see the chief villain scowl and shake his gadget, then check his batteries and finally throw it on the ground and stamp on it petulantly.
“Good work. They can no longer trace us. But they know we are in the square somewhere!”
As they turn to scan the crowd we hold our hands in front of our faces so they cannot see us and I drape a napkin over Jetta. But such poor camouflage cannot hold at close range.
We watch as the chief villain takes out his gun and mutters instructions to his confederates, who space out around the edge of the plaza to cover the exits. For Roy and me there can surely be no escape . . .
Now what can transpire? You must wait on tenterhooks to find out!
Chapter 45
Cunningly the three villains have spaced themselves out around the edges of the square and are working their way in. They are rudely staring at people’s faces at close range to make sure they are not us in disguise, checking under tables, and even poking and shaking people’s poodles and so forth t
o make sure they are not really terrapins.
This will make a great scene for a film, for it is very menacing.
“Our disguise will not hold,” says Roy. “There can be only seconds before we are brutally shot down with bullets.”
“It is so,” I say.
“Come, my friend, use your ingenuity. I have faith you will contrive some ingenious scheme to avert disaster.”
Desperately I look around.
“There is one thing we might try!” I cry. “Behold, the fountain!” I point to the fountain that is in the center of the square.
“I am beholding the fountain,” says Roy. “State the thought that has entered your brain.”
“It is forbidden to frolic in the fountain, but I am sure the city fathers did not envisage the possibility of citizens being chased and killed when they drew up that bylaw. If we were to climb into the fountain and hold our breaths and lie down at the bottom of the pool, we may thereby evade detection until the villains have passed by.”
“The way is plain,” says Roy. “We will climb into the fountain and lie down underwater at once.”
“But hold,” I say thoughtfully. “It strikes me that if we do so we will become wet.”
“It is so,” admits Roy.
“For myself it does not matter so much, for I have many clothes that I can wear. But for you as a style icon. . .if anyone beheld you in a sodden state you must henceforth be known as the man in trademark wet clothing. Moreover you are holding the briefcase, which is made of costly leather and may be damaged by the water and is not our property to be cavalier with.”
“You speak the truth,” says Roy. “At all costs I must avoid becoming wet. Yet it is hard to embrace a brutal death by fired bullets as the alternative.”
“Wait, though!” A ray of dawn breaks. “I have the clingfilm from the briefcase. Although it is not our property there can be no harm in borrowing some in this dire extremity. How would it be if I was to completely wrap you in it? You would thereby be enabled to enter the waters of the fountain without becoming wet.”
Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm Page 17
