Encounters

by Mike Resnick

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  Fictionwise Publications

  www.fictionwise.com

  Copyright (C)1994 by Mike Resnick

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  The Chronicles of Lucifer Jones

  Volume III—1931-1934

  ENCOUNTERS

  by Mike Resnick

  Being a Romantic Chronicle of Intrigue, High Adventure, Danger, Spectacle, and Thrilling Triumphs Over Wicked Villains, Painted Women, and Horrific Monsters in the Sinful Nations of Europe, as Recounted by the Daring, Handsome, Resourceful and Modest Christian Gentleman Who Experienced Them

  To Carol, as always,

  And to Laura Resnick:

  my daughter, the writer

  Table of Contents

  1. The Home-Made Man

  2. Doubled and Redoubled

  3. Treasure Hunting

  4. The Lost Continent

  5. Exercising Ghosts

  6. The Werewolf

  7. The Clubfoot of Notre Dame

  8. The Crown Jewels

  9. The Loch Ness Monster

  10. A Tabernacle is Not a Home

  11. Death in the Afternoon

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Baron Steinmetz, who creates a home-made man out of spare parts in his basement.

  King Philbert of Sylvania, who bears a remarkable resemblance to our narrator.

  Gustav the Book, half-man, half-thing, and all gambler.

  Erich Von Horst, a con man's con man.

  Princess Griselda, who knows what, if not who, she likes.

  Mr. Tall and Mr. Short, who share a taste for lost continents, money, and indiscriminate bloodshed.

  Sam Hightower, who forsakes the snowman biz for the ghost game.

  The Count Basil de Chenza Lupo, an aristocratic werewolf.

  Quesadilla, the notorious Clubfoot of Notre Dame.

  Sherringford House, the world's greatest consulting detective, who is always brilliant if not always correct.

  Rupert Cornwall, a very special landlord of a very special property.

  El Diablo, a bull with an attitude.

  And our narrator, The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, a handsome, noble and resourceful Christian gentlemen who has certain unresolved differences with ten separate European governments over the finer points of the law.

  1. The Home-Made Man

  Europe is a lot different from Africa and Asia.

  For one thing, it's got a lot more Europeans living there. For another, it's got better roads and it's a little more built-up. For a third, having been told by a batch of governments that totally misunderstood my motives that my presence was no longer desired on those first two land masses, I was in some danger of running out of continents while still in the prime of my young manhood.

  Therefore, I made up my mind that this time I was going to keep out of trouble and obey all the nuances of the law while seeking to establish my tabernacle and pursue my vocation (which was preaching, no matter what Interpol and some of them other biased institutions said). So when the train that took me out of Asia and all the way through Russia finally came to a stop in Bucharest, I was determined that this time I wasn't going to spend my first night on a new continent in the local jail.

  Of course, I hadn't really counted on the fact that my Silent Partner was out to test me the way He'd tested Job in times past, and that I'd lose my bankroll in the first twenty minutes of a friendly little game of chance with a pack of Gypsies just outside the railroad station. I was sorely tempted to even the odds by insinuating my own dice into the contest, but they were a swarthy-looking lot who spoke in tongues and carried an awful lot of knives and didn't look like they'd appreciate an effort to bring the laws of statistical probabilities under my more direct control, and so I took my losses like a man and wandered off, looking for some place to hole up for the night.

  Well, you'd be surprised how many Romanian hotels wouldn't take an I.O.U. from a man of the cloth, and eventually I wandered out toward the edge of the city, and just after it got dark I found a quiet little park, and figured I'd catch a quick forty or fifty winks there before hitting all the major banking and brokerage houses with a request for donations to my tabernacle.

  Well, I was just lying there, snoring kind of gentle-like and minding my own business, when all of a sudden I opened my eyes and looked up and realized that either the stars were moving awful fast across the sky or someone was dragging me along the ground by my feet, and I looked ahead and sure enough this little hunchbacked guy was pulling me across the grass toward a wooden wagon that was attached to an old swaybacked horse.

  “Hey!” I said. “What in tarnation is going on here?”

  He dropped my feet like they were on fire and turned to look at me.

  “You're alive!” he said.

  “Of course I'm alive!” I said. “Why kind of country are you running here, anyway? Can't a man take a little nap in a public park without getting hauled off to jail?”

  “This isn't a park,” he said. “It's a cemetery.”

  “I'm the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, and if I've busted any laws by camping out here, I'm sure we can work something out.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” he answered. “I am Ivor. I serve the Baron Steinmetz.”

  “Then if you ain't some kind of night watchman, why were you dragging me off to that there wagon?” I demanded.

  “I thought you were dead,” said Ivor.

  “The Baron pays you to go around tidying up the cemetery, does he?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” said Ivor. “He sent me here to bring him back a better brain.”

  “He ain't pleased with the one he's got?”

  Ivor sighed. “It's all very complicated, Doctor Jones.”

  “Yeah, it sounds a mite complicated,” I allowed. “I mean, a lot of folks wish they were a little smarter, but this Baron of yours is the first one I ever heard tell of who's actually trying to do something about it.”

  “You don't understand, Doctor Jones,” said Ivor. “He doesn't want the brain for himself.”

  “He's stealing it for a friend?”

  Ivor shook his head. “It's for his work. He has long sought to create a living man. For years he has labored to reanimate dead tissue, putting together spare body parts in the laboratory he has built in the basement of his castle.”

  “Seems to me that the standard way of creating new men is cheaper and easier, not to say more fun,” I said.

  “He is a brilliant man,” said Ivor. “A great scientist. He is on the verge of a major breakthrough.”

  It sounded to me like anyone who wanted to build a man in his basement was more on the verge of a major breakdown, but I just smiled and nodded sagely.

  “After more than a decade of trial and error, of experiment after experiment, he had reached the final stage of his work,” continued Ivor. “All he needs now is the proper brain.”

  “And he wanted mine?” I said. “Well, I'm flattered, Brother Ivor, but if it's all the same to you, I ain't done using it myself yet.”

  “I didn't know you were alive, Doctor Jones,” said Ivor apologetically. “I heard that a major bookseller had died yesterday, and I thought: what a wonderful present that would make for my master—a brain that
had spent its entire life immersed in literature. It's his birthday, and the brain would be such a nice surprise for him.”

  “Well, it seems to me that if you just stick around long enough, Brother Ivor, they'll bring this here bookman to the cemetery and plant him, and then all you got to do is mark the spot and dig him up at your leisure.”

  “It's not that easy,” he said. “They have already arrested me twice for grave-robbing. I can only sneak in here at nights, and by then the day's corpses have already been buried.”

  At which point my Silent Partner, who had returned from sabbatical, smote me right betwixt the eyes with another of His great big heavenly revelations.

  “That ain't no problem at all, Brother Ivor,” I said.

  “It isn't?” he asked.

  “For a small retainer, I'd be happy to hang around here til they brung this guy in, and mark the spot where they bury him.”

  “Oh, the Baron will be so happy!” said Ivor, clapping his little hands together.

  “And for a further consideration, I'll give you a hand digging him up and delivering him to your boss.”

  “You have no moral compunctions about digging in hallowed ground?” he asked.

  “Who better to dig in it than a man of the cloth?” I said.

  “It's a deal, Doctor Jones!” he said excitedly. “I will return every night at midnight until they have brought him here and buried him.”

  “Sounds good to me, Brother Ivor,” I said as he took his leave of me, and a couple of minutes later I was sound asleep again.

  When I woke up in the morning I took a little stroll around the cemetery and found an apple orchard at the far end of it, which took care of my meals for the rest of the day. I spent the bulk of the morning and afternoon attending maybe half a dozen graveside services, and I was so moved by the sad story of a lovely young milkmaid who died of bloat after drinking her employer's entire wine cellar that I even stepped up and said a few words on her behalf myself.

  Then, at about twilight, they lugged in another casket, and I moseyed over to find out the identity of the deceased.

  “I don't think anyone knew his real name,” said one of the gravediggers. “His headstone says he's Gustave Book.”

  “Where are all the mourners?” I asked.

  “He didn't seem to have any friends or family, so we're burying him right now,” was the answer.

  “That's kind of tragic, a man devoted to books like poor old Gustave,” I said.

  “Well, it's not a profession designed to make you a lot of lasting friends,” said the gravedigger. “A lot of people went broke at old Gustave's place of business.”

  I never knew anyone to go broke buying books before, but I figured Gustave must have been a dealer in rare antiquarian stuff and maybe some illuminated manuscripts and the like, and I figured he must have had a very unhappy missus, because with all the money he left her she could at least have bought him a bigger headstone and put his right name on it, but that wasn't none of my business. I just thanked the gravediggers for their information, sat down on a bench and watched ’em plant old Gustave, and then took a little constitutional around the cemetery while waiting for Ivor to show up.

  He was there right at midnight, just like he'd promised, with his old swaybacked horse and his wooden cart.

  “Did they bury him today, Doctor Jones?” he asked eagerly.

  “You're in luck, Brother Ivor,” I said. “He's been resting peaceably for the better part of six hours now.”

  “Excellent!” said Ivor. “Where is he?”

  I led him over to the grave. “He showed up kind of late, and they barely had time to bury him before dark,” I explained. “Evidently they aim to plant the headstone tomorrow.”

  “Let's get busy,” said Ivor, tossing me a shovel.

  “What's this for?” I asked.

  “You're going to help me dig, aren't you?”

  “Well, actually, I had in mind something more in the line of offering you encouragement and giving the Baron the benefit of my sage advice and worldly experience,” I said.

  “Ten extra American dollars,” said Ivor.

  “Fifty,” I said.

  “Fifteen,” he countered.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “We'll split the difference. Make it an even forty and it's a deal.”

  Well, we haggled for another five minutes, and I finally agreed to apprentice at the graverobbing trade for $34.29. It took us the better part of two hours to dig down to old Gustave, and then we found that we weren't strong enough to pull his casket out of the hole, so we unlatched it and I kind of climbed in with him and handed him up to Ivor, who dragged him by the feet over to the cart and loaded him up. Then we spent another hour putting all the dirt back and patting it down nice and neat, and finally we climbed into the cart and the old horse started trotting along the empty streets.

  “He sure looks calm and peaceful, lying there staring up at the moon like he is,” I said, turning in my seat to get my first real good look at Gustave.

  “I wonder what he died of,” said Ivor. “I hope it wasn't anything catching.”

  I opened Gustave's formal jacket and took a quick peek. “Looks like he was shot to death,” I said.

  “It sounds painful,” said Ivor with a shudder.

  “I don't believe he felt the last twenty or thirty bullets at all,” I said, buttoning his coat back up.

  “Why would anyone want to kill a bookseller?” mused Ivor.

  “Beats the hell out of me, Brother Ivor,” I admitted. “I know you Europeans are degenerate and sadly lacking in Christian virtues, but that seems an awfully stern punishment for overcharging.”

  Well, he didn't say nothing to that, and we rode in silence for about half an hour, til we left the city limits and got out into the suburbs, and pretty soon we came to a rocky hill, and there on top of it was this huge castle.

  “The Baron will be so happy to meet you!” said Ivor. “I told him how you had agreed to help us.”

  “I'm always happy to help advance the cause of science,” I said modestly.

  “Tonight we will witness the culmination of his life's work,” continued Ivor. He leaned over and added confidentially. “He is delighted that you are a man of the cloth. He wants you to baptize his creation.”

  “Well, a critter what's made of twenty or thirty other men ain't the easiest thing in the world to baptize,” I said. “I figure we'll have to baptize each part separately, at maybe five dollars a shot, just to be on the safe side. Can't have his left elbow doing evil things when the rest of him is trying to serve the Lord, if you see what I mean.”

  “Money is no object to the Baron,” answered Ivor.

  “You don't say?” I replied. “I don't suppose he wants his castle blessed too, just to cover all the bases?”

  “You'll have to speak to him about it,” said Ivor, as the horse starting climbing a little path in the hill. “We're almost there.”

  We reached a huge wrought-iron gate and Ivor got out and rang a bell, and a moment later the gate opened inward just long enough to let us through, and then slammed shut behind us. Ivor guided the horse up to the huge front door, and then we stopped and climbed down off the wagon, and the door opened, and out stepped this real skinny guy with wide staring eyes. He was wearing some kind of a laboratory coat, and he was smoking a Turkish cigarette that was stuck in a long gold holder.

  He walked over to the back of the wagon and looked at Gustave.

  “Excellent, excellent,” he murmured. “You have done well this night, Ivor.” Then he turned to me. “You are Doctor Jones?”

  “The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service,” I said.

  “I am Baron Steinmetz,” he said. “Ivor has told me how you have aided my cause. I wish to thank you.”

  “Well, I had in mind something just a tad more substantial than a handshake,” I said.

  “I quite understand, and you will not find me ungrateful, Doctor Jones. But first let
us bring the body inside and prepare for the final transformation.”

  The three of us lifted old Gustave out of the wagon and carried him into the castle, which was huge and cold and kind of damp and made of stone and lit by candles.

  “This way,” said the Baron, heading off for a staircase that led down to the basement. We almost lost Gustave a couple of times as the stairs kept curving around corners, but finally we made it to the next level, and found ourselves in a big laboratory, filled with all kinds of gizmos that didn't make no sense to me but were humming and glowing to beat the band.

  We laid Gustave on a wood table and then the Baron took me by the arm and led me over to another table, which was covered with a big blanket. He reached down and pulled the blanket off, revealing a huge body lying there. Parts of it didn't seem to quite fit, and there were stitches and electrodes everywhere, and the top of its skull was missing.

  “Well, Doctor Jones,” said the Baron. “What do you think?”

  “You wouldn't happen to have something in a blonde of the female persuasion, would you?” I said. “Maybe a size 8?”

  “All in good time,” he said. “One day I shall turn out beauty queens galore, but first we must complete the prototype. He lacks only a brain to be a completely functioning human being.”

  “That ain't never stopped certain select politicians and constabularies I've known,” I offered.

  “This one will be a worthy representative, I assure you,” said the Baron. He turned to Ivor. “If you got the right brain this time.”

  “This time?” I asked.

  “I don't know how it keeps happening, but the first four brains he obtained were abnormal.”

  “Just poor luck,” said Ivor.

  “It not only held back my moment of triumph, but it played hell with my fire insurance premiums.”

  “How can an abnormal brain effect your fire insurance?” I asked.

  “The locals keep trying to burn the castle down,” answered the Baron. “They simply cannot comprehend the importance of my work.” He paused. “Of course, I can see their side of it, too. Number Three did kill seventeen of them and tear down the local church, right after Number Two destroyed the school.”