“How simple you make things,” says Roy. He rises. “Commence to wrap me in clingfilm at once.”
I start from the ankles and work my way up. I must work quickly, lest we be shot to death, and yet thoroughly and watertightly. But if I could not linger a few moments to enjoy it there would be no point being alive anyway. It is strange to be wrapping him in public in broad daylight but somehow thrilling in an illicit way. Soon, Roy Orbison is completely wrapped in clingfilm. I am a limp trembling leaf blown on a wind of exaltation.
“You are completely wrapped in clingfilm,” I say. “Now if you will hop into the fountain—”
But it is too late! For the villains are upon us.
“Aha!” says the spy in the bandit hat, pointing his gun. “Now I have caught you! Give me that briefcase back at once or it will go badly with you!”
“We will not do so!” I say.
“Then pay the price!” And he points the gun at me and pulls the trigger!
I am filled with horror and say my prayers—but to my worse horror my life is spared, for Roy bravely comes hopping between us to take the bullet for me!
The gun is fired and the bullet speeds into Roy. . .
Reader, I had logically intended to end upon this cliff-hanger but I find I am not cruel enough and must tell you immediately what happens next.
For the happy and amazing truth is that Roy is not harmed—indeed, the bullet appears to simply bounce off him! It speeds back toward the villains and grazes the ear of Lothar, who says “Ow!” in a hurt and resentful tone, before shooting a chip of stone out of the fountain, which, alas, will have to be repaired.
Heinrich scowls and curses and shoots Roy several more times at point-blank range, but each time the bullets simply bounce off! They go ricocheting across the square, but fortunately no passersby are hurt apart from a trick-cyclist who is shot in the knee and lamed for life and will have to find some less dangerous profession.
Otto and Lothar cross themselves and mutter “Unglaublich.”
I more rationally can perceive that the bullets are bouncing off Roy’s clingfilm wrapping! Yet how can that be? Clingfilm has many virtues, yet I had not suspected this one. A wrapping of many many many layers might perhaps slow down a bullet, but surely not a simple waterproofing wrap such as I have just administered. Something unusual is at work here.
“So,” says Heinrich, frowning, “for reasons I cannot fathom it would appear that thanks to your wrapping of clingfilm you are immune to my bullets. Or . . . are you?” He cackles evilly and lowers his gun . . . to point at Roy’s shoes! “I could still shoot your feet and give you a slow death by bleeding and embarrassment at the damaged state of your shoewear.” Roy flinches somewhat. “Or,” continues the villain, “I could simply do this!” And he reaches out and barbarously tears a great hole in the clingfilm around Roy’s chest! Truly he is a man who holds nothing sacred.
“Now,” he says, pointing his gun at Roy’s unwrapped chest, “prepare to be shot in the heart or lungs!”
And here, reader, I am afraid I must insist upon calling a cliff-hanger—and no peeking at the next chapter until you have put in some hand-wringing time!
Chapter 46
Fortunately before the villain can shoot Roy in the torso a policeman comes.
“What is going on here?” he asks sternly.
The villain attempts to hide his gun and looks nonchalant.
“Nothing,” he lies smoothly. “We are playing a game, a nice game. We are playing at running races and this is the starting pistol.”
“There is no running in the public squares,” says the policeman forbiddingly. “Who is the ringleader here?”
The two junior villains instinctively look at the chief villain and are about to say, “He is,” but quickly he stamps on their feet so that instead they hop and say “Ouch” and “What was that for?” in hurt voices.
The chief villain points at Roy and says, “He is! And the other man and his terrapin. See how suspiciously he is dressed, wrapped in some strange futuristic substance!”
“It is so,” says the policeman, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. “Do you have a license to be wrapped up like that in public?”
My palms sweat. The policeman is sure to confiscate our clingfilm and then obtain a search warrant for my house and confiscate the rest of my clingfilm and then send me to jail for clingfilm-hoarding and send Jetta to a home for delinquent animals.
Roy makes muffled noises which serve only to exasperate the policeman. Quickly I say, “Dear policeman, indeed he has a license—artistic license! For this is none other than Roy Orbison, the well-known rock minstrel and man in black, and he surely cannot be held to the same standards as other people.”
“I am afraid I have not heard of this Roy Orbison!” says the policeman.
“Oh, Mr. Policeman, surely you have heard of Roy Orbison,” says the chief villain surprisingly. He leans close to the policeman’s ear and lies smoothly, “Why, he is the rock singer who releases wild and seditious songs with titles such as ‘Down with Policemen’ and ‘Undermine the EU’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy Wild and Ride on Trams without Paying’ and ‘Give Me VAT Reform or Give Me Death.’ They are all on his album I Licked the Knees of the Devil’s Daughter. And played at his concert ‘An Evening of Raucous Impoliteness with Roy Orbison.’ ”
He nudges the other villains. “It is so,” they mutter, shifty-eyed, blushing somewhat at the barefaced lie which shocks even them.
The policeman’s cheeks turn a beetroot color as he becomes angry.
“It is not so!” I cry in outrage. Roy makes noises of protest while Jetta seems to shake her head, although maybe she is just bored and looking for worms. But the damage has been done.
“So, Mister Nihilistic Rock Dandy,” says the policeman in tones of silky menace, “you think it is fun to connive at the overthrow of the state and lick people’s knees, do you? Perhaps we should take you downtown and put you in a drafty cell with no supper while I obtain a search warrant for your house—all your houses!” I almost faint. “And your terrapin will most likely be sent to a home for delinquent animals!”
The villain frowns somewhat at this. “Yes, you should do so,” he says. “But first perhaps you will force these villains to return our property to us. For the reason we were chasing them is, they have stolen that briefcase which belongs to me!”
“This is not his briefcase!” I cry.
“Also,” says the policeman, “then it is yours?”
“It is not mine,” I say, sweating, “but—”
“See, he admits it! But I can prove it is mine,” says the villain smoothly, “for my name is written on it.”
The policeman peers closely at the briefcase beneath Roy’s wrapping.
“The only writing I can see is the words Top Secret,” he says puzzledly. “That is your name?”
“Indeed it is,” says the villain grandly. “It is short for ‘Topol Secret.’ ”
“You are Jewish?” says one of his henchmen in surprise.
“Hist,” says Heinrich quietly, “I am fibbing.”
But he has gone too far and by now the policeman is confused.
“I am confused,” says the policeman, “for did you not at first say you were playing some nice if dangerous running game?”
“The truth wears many faces,” says the villain unctuously.
“It is so,” says the policeman thoughtfully, “but I think perhaps until this is all sorted out you had better come downtown too.”
“On the contrary,” says the villain with icy eloquence, “the only person who is going somewhere is you—to the land of unconsciousness . . . ”
And the three villains jump on the policeman!
He struggles and orders them to stop but they do not obey him and soon he is unconscious and snoring on the ground, fettered with his own handcuffs and gagged with their unclean handkerchiefs.
Some passersby look alarmed and outraged, but the villains reassure them
falsely that they are just playing a nice game.
“Now,” says the chief villain Heinrich evilly, taking out his gun once more, “those other interfering fools will be put to death!”
But only I as a novelist know this, for while they were tussling with the policeman Roy and Jetta and I in the story took the opportunity to run away! Or in Roy’s case hop away, for he is still wrapped in the clingfilm, although not completely.
“Ach, they have gone!” cry the villains in dismay.
“They are going into the park!” says Otto pointing. “They will get away!”
“No,” says Heinrich. “They will not get away . . .”
“Surely we will be safe in the park!” I gasp as we run and hop for our lives. In our desperation we even run on the grass sometimes and through bushes, heedless of damage to our clothes and postponing the inevitable guilt.
But it appears I have spoken too soon. For suddenly in the middle of the park we are confronted with perhaps the most terrifying spectacle I have ever seen.
For from behind a wall there pops up—a whole army of Mexican bandits!
There are perhaps so many as thirty of them, all with sombreros and bandoliers and long scary moustaches, all of them firing their guns toward us!
Mexican bandits! In Düsseldorf! Is this the end of everything, as I have long feared it?
Surely this is a cliff-hanger to make a brave man scream! Cower in your homes until the next installment . . .
Chapter 47
We scream and flee from the Mexican bandits!
But little do we suspect that we have made an error . . .
For as we run and hop out of the park, from behind a wall in the opposite direction from the Mexican bandits seven cowboys appear with guns—one of whom has a familiar bald head . . .
Then a man in jodhpurs beats a riding crop against his leg and yells, “Cut!” And the Mexican bandits take off their sombreros and false moustaches and commence to talk amongst themselves quite urbanely and without stabbing each other—for they are merely actors and this is the set of Yul Brynner’s new Magnificent Seven movie!
“Well,” says Yul to the director, “how was the shot, Maestro?”
“While there was plenty of sunshine and no hairs in the gate, I regret to announce the shot was ruined, for a man carrying a terrapin and a man in black wrapped in clingfilm variously ran and hopped through the middle of it at the most dramatic moment!”
“Clingfilm?” Yul Brynner exchanges a significant glance with Jim Morrison, who has been hired to play a cameo as an Indian shaman. “So . . .”
“Surely that was Roy Orbison and his friend and terrapin!” says the Rolling Stone reporter, who was recovered from his ill-usage by the villains, although he continues to nurse a grudge against the Düsseldorf Zeitung and has canceled his subscription.
“Groovy,” opines Morrison. “Those three cats sure do have fun!”
Little does he know we are not having fun at all but are being chased and killed.
“When you have finished talking please resume your places,” says the director. “It is wasteful of celluloid but we must film the shot again, for a hopping man in clingfilm does not accord with my artistic vision.”
Each to their own, I suppose. He is probably not a very good director.
“Hold,” says the Rolling Stone reporter, who has been permitted to visit the film set provided he keeps a respectful distance and does not ask questions during filming, “that footage need not be wasted. If you are going to throw it out may I have it? I have a reason for asking.”
“You need not specify that reason. You may take it and cut it into guitar picks for all I care,” says the director grandly, somewhat contemptuous of this unmanly scavenging.
“You may only have a few more minutes of fine weather, Yul,” admonishes Mitzi Klavierstuhl, who has been retained as weather consultant. “If you do not nail this shot before the next big cumulonimbus comes over I will not be answerable for the consequences.”
“Then let us get back to work.”
However, just then a further distraction appears in the shape of the three villains, who burst out of the bushes from the same direction we did, their leader waving his gun! When he sees the film crew the leader hastily puts his gun away and the other two study their nails and look nonchalant.
“Excuse me,” says the chief spy to Yul, “did you happen to see a party consisting of Roy Orbison and friend and terrapin pass this way fleeing for their lives? I have a reason for asking.”
“As it happens, we did,” says Yul, “but I must ask you to state that reason.”
“Oh—I am an old friend of his from North America,” lies the wicked man easily. “We went to school together, you know. We met in the street just now but I find I neglected to give him my address.”
“Also,” says Yul. Something about the situation strikes him as odd and he decides to be careful. “And in which part of North America did you go to school with Roy?”
“Oh—I can never remember the name,” says the deceiver. “It was somewhere near Greenland, I think.” He has a theory that speed and confidence are more important in passing a lie than taking a suspicious amount of time to think up details.
Yul Brynner is not quite satisfied and suspiciously narrows his eyes.
However, the director impatiently says, “We do not have time for this! They went that way,” and points.
The three villains bow their thanks, take out their gun, and with a cry of “After them!” rush off on our trail.
Yul Brynner thoughtfully rubs his bald head. “Something is amiss here,” he says.
“I got a dark aura off that cat,” says Jim Morrison in his mystical way. “I believe he was up to some mischief.”
“Why cannot you make us bandit sombreros as authentic as that?” Yul overhears an extra complaining to the costume designer. “It even had a Mexican label and genuine bloodstains!”
“Also!” says Yul, clapping his cowboy hat on his trademark bald head. “Our friends may be in danger! I believe it is time for the Magnificent Seven to ride again! Let us chase those men and detain them!”
Outside the park Roy and I jump breathlessly into a convenient taxi.
“Drive around at random,” I say to the driver, “although not so randomly that you drive off a bridge or we end up in Belgium.”
“I understand what you mean,” says the driver and we move off.
Roy makes muffled noises that may be “You may unwrap me now.” On the other hand, I reflect, they may equally well be “At least the weather is fine” or “I hope the driver does not gyp us” or “I do not wish to go to Belgium” or for that matter “I hope you do not unwrap me,” so I do not unwrap him. However, he keeps repeating those noises and wriggling about, so eventually I sternly force my rebelling hand to unwrap him.
“It is my worst fear come true,” I say. “Düsseldorf has been overrun by Mexican bandits! We must alert the authorities at once!”
“Which authorities can we trust?” says Roy, who has been turned regrettably cynical by the events of the day. “See how easily they suborned the policeman. To say nothing of the park-keepers, who must be turning a blind eye to Mexican bandits walking on the grass. Let us face the bitter fact that the conspiracy reaches into all walks of life and Düsseldorf is a whited sepulchre. The only person I would trust with this is my good friend Queen Elizabeth, and alas I have forgotten her phone number.”
“I am certainly not keen on tangling with the police again,” I admit. “Jetta could not cope with a home for delinquent animals.”
“We are thrown back on our own resources,” says Roy. “Let us examine this confounded briefcase again in hope of unraveling this tangled skein.”
Frowning, he scrutinizes every inch of the briefcase minutely, even going so far as to peer over his dark glasses at one point for keener vision. He holds it upside down and shakes it about but we are none the wiser. But then—
“Hold!” he cries. “Wh
at is this?”
He has again removed the velvet-lined tray designed to hold the clingfilm and then prized out the villains’ broken radio-tracker under it. Revealed beneath, pasted neatly onto the underside of the case, is a card which reads: “Attention! If lost or stolen please return this briefcase to the following address! A reward and many thanks will be offered.”
And below is printed the address of the briefcase’s original owners!
“Now dawn breaks!” cries Roy joyfully. “We can return the item to the rightful property holder.”
“You know,” I say thoughtfully, “it strikes me that that address is a familiar one . . .”
Roy takes out the card and passes it to the driver.
“Desist your random meanderings and make the car go to that address with all legal haste,” he instructs.
“I will do so.”
“Now to reach the bottom of this mystery,” says Roy.
He puts the case back together and, somewhat reluctantly, I put the mysterious roll of clingfilm back into it.
Presently we find ourselves in the industrial side of town.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the driver informs us, pulling up outside a gate and putting on the handbrake. “Please pay me now.”
“We will do so,” I say. “Thank you for a smooth journey.”
We pay him and get out.
Through the gate we are confronted with a large and splendid factory.
Roy frowns. “Unless the driver is a part of the conspiracy or has taken us to the wrong destination for reasons of inefficiency or random malice, we will find the answers we seek here. I confess I had expected the house or laboratory of some white-haired rocket scientist or the imposing marble halls of some lofty government department rather than a humble manufactory.”
“Roy—” I say.
But just then a whistle blows. Lines of workers commence to file out of the doors of the factory and out of the gate, commending each other on the day’s labor satisfactorily completed and good-naturedly chaffing each other on the prospects for the various sports teams they follow by way of letting down their hair.
Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm Page 18
