Hazards

by Mike Resnick

  “You was gonna teach me all them Oriental love techniques what gets writ up in books no one in the U. S. of A. is allowed you read,” I said, standing up to demonstrate. “We were going to start with—”

  “Oh, shut up and sit down, Lucifer,” she said.

  “See?” I said triumphantly. “You do remember!”

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” she said.

  “It’s a long story,” I told her. “But it’s a really good story. Why don’t we go on back to your place and I’ll tell you all about it?”

  “You haven’t changed,” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m still the same handsome lovable buck you lost your heart to back in Asia.”

  “I was referring to your clothes.”

  “I’ll slip out of ’em the second we hit your bedroom and you’ll never know the difference,” I said.

  “You seem to be laboring under a number of delusions,” she said.

  “It’d be a lot more fun for both of us, Miss Scorpion Lady, ma’am,” I said, “if you were laboring under just one: me.”

  “Is that the way you used to knock them dead in Peoria?” she asked.

  “Moline, ma’am,” I said. “A big city like Peoria was just for holidays.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “You could lie down corrected anytime you want to leave this den of iniquity,” I said.

  “I own it,” said the Scorpion Lady.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I presume the drinks are on the house?” I said, signaling the waiter over.

  She sighed. “If I treat you to one drink, will you leave me alone then?”

  I began to get the feeling that she wasn’t as glad to see me as I was to see her.

  “All right, ma’am,” I said. “You cut me to the quick, but I’ll take one last drink and one last loving look at you, and then I’ll go back to my lonely room at the Castille de Oro.”

  “Where?” she shouted.

  “The Castille de Oro,” I said. “I know it ain’t no luxury retreat like you’re probably living in, but it suits a humble man of the cloth just fine.”

  “Damn it!” she muttered. “I told them the front desk was just for appearances! It’s impossible to get any competent help in this town!”

  “I don’t think I follow you at all, Miss Scorpion Lady, honey,” I said.

  “Shut up!” she said. “I have to think.”

  “If we’re still partners, I could do half of the thinking for you,” I offered. “The hard half.”

  She stared long and hard at me, so I poured a little of her beer on my hands and ran ’em through my hair to slick it down some. Then I guv her another great big smile.

  “Don’t do that, Lucifer,” she said, frowning. “It reminds me of the expression on my mastiff’s face just before he tried to breed the hassock.”

  “I don’t remember no mastiff back in Siam,” I said.

  “Remember that dish you thought was veal?” she said. While I was trying to recall what it tasted like and whether there was any trace of a smile on it, she stood up. “All right,” she said. “It will lend verisimilitude.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Come with me, Lucifer,” she said. “I have a job for you.”

  “Sounds good to me, ma’am,” I said. “But you should know I don’t do no heavy lifting, and I got to have Sundays off for preaching in my tabernacle once I get around to finally building it.”

  “You were made for this job, Lucifer,” she said. “You’ll be preaching every day.”

  “Well, that’s right thoughtful of you, ma’am,” I said. “I passed about twenty or thirty churches on my way to the waterfront. Which one are we setting up shop in?”

  “You’ll see,” she said, heading out the door, and I fell into step behind her.

  We hit the waterfront and turned right, and pretty soon we walked into the lobby of the Castille de Oro. There were two guys behind the desk who snapped to attention when they saw us.

  “Which of you rented a room to this man?”

  “I did,” said the one what did. “We have one room that’s not in use, and I figured a preacher man would give us good cover.”

  “You’re fired,” she said. She turned to the other man. “Who hired that fool?”

  “I did,” he said uneasily.

  “You’re fired, too,” said the Scorpion Lady. “I will not have my orders disobeyed.”

  “Ain’t you being a tad harsh on them?” I said.

  “Shut up or I’ll fire you too,” she answered.

  “You can’t fire me,” I pointed out to her. “You ain’t hired me yet.”

  The two men guv her a wide berth and walked out the door.

  “Follow me, Lucifer,” she said.

  She led me down a hall to a wood-paneled room lined with books in some language what wasn’t English, and had a podium next to the far wall.

  “Well?” she said to me.

  “You want me to hire on as a librarian?” I said.

  “Idiot!” she muttered. She walked over to the podium and patted it with a delicate little hand what probably hadn’t killed more than fifteen or twenty men plus her mastiff. “I want you to preach the word of the Lord right here.”

  “What’s the job pay?”

  “Why do you care?” she shot back. “You’ll be doing the Lord’s work.” She paused. “Well, your Lord’s, anyway.”

  “I still got to eat,” I said.

  “We’ll fix all your meals right here. You’ll never have to leave.”

  “I got to pay for my room,” I continued.

  “Gratis,” she said.

  “Gratis to you too, ma’am, but that still don’t tell me how I’m going to pay for the room.”

  “It’s yours for no charge.”

  “Well, I still need money to—”

  “There are perks, Lucifer,” she said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  She walked me to the doorway and pointed down the hall, where a young redheaded lady with a figure like unto Hedy Lamar was just moseying back and forth, dressed for extremely warm weather.

  “That’s one of them,” said the Scorpion Lady.

  “One of what, ma’am?” I asked.

  “One of the perks.”

  “Let me make sure I got this straight, ma’am,” I said. “She’s one of the perks?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the Perks ain’t the name of no all-girl band nor women’s soccer team what’s just passing through and spending the night on its way to Santiago?”

  “Would I lie to you, Lucifer?” she said.

  Based on my previous experience with her, I was tempted to say only when her lips were moving, but then another perk showed up, wearing even less than the first one.

  “I accept the job!” I said. In fact, I must have said it pretty enthusiastically, because three more perks stuck their heads and even nicer things out of the doors lining the corridor to see what the commotion was all about.

  “Somehow I knew you would,” she said.

  “What is this place, besides the Castille de Oro?” I asked.

  “Mother McCree’s House of Fallen Flowers,” said the Scorpion Lady.

  “Who’s Mother McCree?” I said. “Some local benefactor?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “Well, now that I think of it, that’s probably a pretty good idea,” I said, “considering you got warrants out for your address over most of Asia and probably half of Europe and America. You wouldn’t want no act of Christian charity ruining your business reputation.”

  “I’m delighted to see that you are so understanding, Lucifer,” she said.

  “Well, us men of the cloth are like that,” I said. “Always understanding, always forgiving. In fact, I could absolve you right now for any sins you’d like to commit with me in the next couple of hours.”

  “I’m afraid I’m quite busy this e
vening,” she said. “One of my frail flowers has fallen from the path of virtue….”

  “No!” I said in shocked tones.

  “I’m afraid so. The police want to deport her, and I have to go down to headquarters and plead on her behalf.”

  “Would you like me to come along?” I said. “Pleading at police headquarters is one of the very best things I do.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” she said quickly. “You just stay here, get to learn your way around the place.” She shot me a knowing smile. “I’ll pass the word to the perks.”

  “Right,” I said. “And look at it this way: if they’re with me, they won’t have time to fall off the path of virtue with no strangers what’s only thinking of their own pleasure.”

  “How understanding you are, Lucifer,” she said.

  “I’ll bring them spiritual comfort like they ain’t never had before,” I told her.

  “I knew I could count on you,” she said.

  “It’s the least I can do for them poor fallen flowers,” I said. “I’ll comfort the bejabbers out of ’em!”

  “Try to keep your enthusiasm under control,” she said. “And remember, this is Mother McCree’s House of Fallen Flowers. If any strangers ask about it, be sure to give her the credit.”

  “Helps with the donations, huh?” I said knowingly.

  “Precisely,” she said. “And now, if you’ll forgive me, I really must be off to the station.”

  She walked toward the front door, but along the way she stopped to speak to a couple of more fallen flowers, turned an pointed toward me, and then she was gone.

  I was torn between examining my new office or my new parishioners, when suddenly a brunette approached me, wearing naught but her unmentionables.

  “Hi, Big Boy,” she said. “You see anything you like?”

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I got to tell you that as flowers, fallen and otherwise, go, you got two of the lovelier stems I ever seen—and there ain’t nothing wrong with your petals, neither.”

  “So are you going to introduce your stamen to my pistil?” she said with a wink.

  This made me back off a few feet, because if a flower had fallen so far that she was toting a pistol in a nice friendly place like this, who knew what she might do with it? But the more I looked at her, the more I could see that she didn’t have enough clothes on to hide no pistol.

  “I do believe you’re having fun with me, ma’am,” I said at last.

  “That comes later,” she said. “Are you ready for some cross-pollination?”

  “I ain’t cross at no one, ma’am,” I said, “and especially not a frail fallen flower like yourself.

  She giggled. “Fifi likes you.”

  I looked around. “Is Fifi joining us, ma’am?” I asked.

  “I am Fifi,” she said.

  “And I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service.”

  She giggled again. “There are so many of you I should charge double.”

  “Just how many of me do you see, ma’am?” I asked, wondering if there was time to get her to an optician before they all closed up shop for the day.

  “Cut the talk, Big Boy,” she said. “Time is money.”

  “Now ain’t that interesting?” I said. “I always thunk Time was a measurement of how long it takes to get from one place to another.”

  Well, I could tell she was a real intellectual what had studied Time and flowers and all kinds of things, and I couldn’t wait to see what we’d talk about next, but just then a trio of the local gendarmes arrived, and they flashed their badges, pinched a couple of fallen flowers on the way in, spotted Fifi, and announced that she was under arrest.

  “Now hold on just a doggone minute here!” I said, standing between them and the door. “What’s this here sweet innocent little frail flower done that you think you got a right to come in here and arrest her?”

  I thunk two of them was going fall down, they was laughing so hard. The third just limited himself to six or seven guffaws, and finally caught his breath long enough to talk to me.

  “This particular frail flower has been selling her favors all over the city,” he said.

  “I’m her minister, and I find that difficult to believe,” I told him.

  The second I said it I heard a bunch of high-pitched giggles from behind closed doors.

  “You’re the minister to all these girls?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “It must be an exhausting job,” he said.

  There was another burst of giggling.

  “I’m up to it,” I said.

  “I have nothing but admiration for you,” he said. “Many men might be up to the job at the beginning, but I suspect most of them wouldn’t be up to it for long.”

  He looked mighty smug, like he’d just said something George Bernard Somebody-or-other, that English writer what ain’t Shakespeare, would want to swipe for one of his plays.

  “Take your low humor and your dirty-minded friends elsewhere,” I said. “The women who depend on the Mother McCree House of Fallen Flowers for their sustenance are under the protection of me and the Lord.”

  “These flowers have fallen a little farther and a little more often than you think, Reverend,” he said. “Interpol has been trying to get the goods on the Scorpion Lady for years. It will be a real feather in our caps if we can nail her for running the biggest whorehouse in Chile.”

  “You got the wrong idea,” I told him. “The Scorpion Lady herself hired me to bring the power and the glory to these poor downtrodden women.”

  “And you’ve never touched one of them?” he said.

  I raised my right hand. “As God is my witness, I ain’t never touched a one of ’em in the whole time I been employed here.” And while I was invoking my Silent Partner, I also thanked Him for not requiring me to answer that question the next morning.

  He shrugged. “Well, you can’t say you haven’t been warned.” He turned to his partners. “Okay, let’s take her in.”

  They drug poor little Fifi off. Just as she reached the door she turned and shot me a great big smile, and flashed some of the girls one of them V-for-victory signs the way politicians do right before they lose an election. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was so all-fired victorious about getting tossed in the calaboose, but I didn’t have no time to worry about it, because it struck me that there were dozens of demure young ladies in need of both clothing and comforting.

  But before I could do anything about it, a middle-aged man with dark eyes and some kind of accent walked in the door and said he had a donation for the Mother McCree House of Fallen Flowers, and handed me a package what was maybe a foot on each side. I thanked him and stuck it behind the counter of the desk.

  He moseyed back out into the night, and then three more men came in, and each of ’em announced that he’d be making his donation in private to a particular fallen flower, and off they went with the flowers of their choosing, and suddenly the place was bustling with private and public donaters, and the interesting thing was that the public donaters always brought a neatly-wrapped package which I figured contained food or champagne, or, if they was really thoughtful, ladies’ clothing for chilly nights, but the private donators all knew which of the frail flowers they wanted to make their donation to and they was an exceptionally shy lot because none of them wanted to do it in public.

  The Scorpion Lady wandered in around midnight, and plumped herself down in an easy chair.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  “I failed,” she said without much show of remorse. “Poor Mitzi is already on a ship bound for Malaya.”

  “While you was gone, they came by and arrested poor innocent little Fifi,” I said.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “I saw her there.”

  “Are you gonna be able to get her off the hook so she can come back here?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I doubt it, Lucifer. I’ll try,
of course, but it’s my guess that she’ll be on the next boat to Hong Kong.”

  “Boy, when the police in these here parts label you an undesirable they don’t waste no time doing something about it,” I said.

  “We just have to put up with it,” she said.

  “But your Home for Fallen Flowers must be emptying out at record speed,” I said.

  “I have four more moving in tomorrow,” said the Dragon Lady.

  “You sure got your ear to the ground to be able to hear that many flowers falling,” I said admiringly.

  “One does what one can,” she said. “And now,” she added, getting to her feet, “I think I’ll take a hot bath before retiring to my bed.”

  “I hate to think of you getting lonely all by yourself in that tub, Scorpion Lady sweetie,” I said.

  “Why don’t you avail yourself of one of the perks I mentioned earlier?”

  “They’re getting deported almost faster than I can avail myself,” I replied.

  “Then there’s no time to waste, is there?”

  But then I got to thinking about it, and I realized that there wasn’t an endless supply of fallen flowers, and somebody had to do something to make sure that these poor frail critters weren’t all shipped off to godless lands, so instead of introducing myself to the rest of the young ladies and helping them ease the terrible tension they must have felt living alone in strange surroundings, I decided that the thing to do was go right down to the police station and plead their case for ’em.

  I walked in and asked to speak to the head man. They told me that would be Captain Miguel Rodriguez, and they ushered me into this large office, where I found this gray-haired guy with a captain’s uniform sitting behind a desk.

  “Howdy,” I said. “I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, here on a mission of mercy.”

  “I gave at the office,” he said.

  “This is the office,” I pointed out.

  “I gave at home,” he amended.

  “I ain’t after no donation, Captain Rodriquez,” I assured him.

  “Oh?” he said, leaning forward.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I’m after something bigger.”

  “How many tickets do I have to buy?” he asked.

  “Don’t go understanding me so fast,” I said. “I’m here to plead for the young ladies from Mother McCree’s House of Fallen Flowers.”