At that moment a strangled cry came from the door. We turned to see Smigma staring stricken through the Judas window.
6
Everything happened very quickly after that. Giftlippen, still in his Arabian robes and cloud of perfume, stormed in. He was followed by armed men. I was astounded to see that Ralph was right. His nose was untouched. The archvillain looked through the window, whirled, and shouted, “We can still get him!” He gave orders for some men to go after him in the mini-submarine and others to go in a helicopter. We were then conducted downstairs to another tower room. My hands were tied behind my back. The door was slammed shut and bolted.
A half-hour passed. Suddenly, the door was unbolted and opened. Giftlippen and Smigma came in with six men. The former’s face as impassive and pale as ever, but the latter’s was twisted and red. Giftlippen roared, “The Yankee runt got away! But the chopper’s still looking for him! He won’t dare to come out from the coastal bush until nightfall! By then it’ll be too late! I’m moving the schedule up! Too bad! It would have been esthetically appropriate to pull off this job during the Marriage! But you and your friends have no sense of the beautiful, von Wau Wau! So, instead of marrying the bride, we abduct her! Ha! Ha!”
We were hustled back to the cave. The large submarine and the giant plastic bag were gone. Presently we were outbound on the mini-sub. When the boat stopped, an hour had passed according to my luminous watch. Ralph said little during the transit, and I uttered nothing except a few groans. My thoughts, I must admit, were not, like his, directed to means of getting us out of this mess. I could only curse myself for my stubborn and stupid resistance to Lisa. Why had I not said yes, I will marry you at once, abandon this dangerous life? I could now be sharing connubial bliss, not to mention the delights, with Lisa, surely the daintiest thing in slacks that ever walked this planet.
On the other hand, Ralph would have been alone, would have died without a single friend to give him moral support at the fatal moment. How sad to die companionless. And how I would have grieved, have been stricken with remorse, have cursed myself for a coward, if I had not been at his side. On the other hand, there was Lisa... such were my thoughts during that gloomy trip in our dark narrow cell.
The craft stopped with a bump. The cell door was opened to let us into the control room. A man snapped the leash on Ralph’s harness while another held a gun to his head. A man wearing a gas mask climbed the short ladder, opened the hatch, and looked out. He removed the mask and shouted down, “All clear!” I followed Ralph to emerge on the deck of the barque by the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Ralph sniffed and said, “There’s a strange odor in the air.”
I could smell nothing except the sewage-laden canal waters. What struck me was the silence. Except for the distant drone of a helicopter and the faraway chug of a vaporetto, there was not a sound. The loud babble of the festive crowds was gone. No wonder. Everywhere I looked, bodies sprawled unmoving upon the riva and the plaza of St. Mark.
“Great Scott!” I cried. “Are they all dead?”
“Fortunately, no,” Ralph said. “That strange odor is the residue of an anesthetic gas. That helicopter must have laid down a cloud of it, rendering all the citizens unconscious. Undoubtedly, all the islands nearby, including the Lido, were also subjected to the gas.”
Ralph and I were taken to the poopdeck. The end of his leash was looped through an oarhole and tied. I was made to stand by him; a guard with a Browning automatic rifle was stationed about six feet from us.
Giftlippen strode up to us, his robes flapping in the stiff breeze which had sprung up. He gestured toward the city with his gloved hands.
“You are indeed privileged,” he said. “You’ll be the only non-participant witnesses to the crime of, not the century, but of the ages. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to report it. But I am allowing you enough time to savor its full flavor. And to contemplate what idiots you were to think you could outwit me. Within one hour, we will have the greatest treasures, those that can be moved, anyway, stowed away.”
He waved a hand at the big submarine, which was just to the north of us. Men were lowering paintings, statuettes, chests, and boxes into the giant sausage behind it.
Motorboats roared up, docked, and discharged other treasures: bags of jewels, figurines, statuettes, reliquaries, and paintings. All beautiful, priceless, unique. Among the paintings I recognized N. B. Schiavone’s The Adoration, Titian’s The Annunciation, Bellini’s Madonna of the Trees, Vecchio’s Saint Barbara.
Due to their limited time, the bandits could not take the care needed in moving these fragile works. Fortunately, all had been sprayed with Giftlippen’s plastic as part of his professed pollution-prevention program. This saved them from being scratched or chipped. But it broke my heart to see them so roughly handed down into the hatches of the giant bag.
Giftlippen said, “The VUF funds have been removed from the bank. In fact, all the banks nearby have been looted. I’ll hold the works of art for several years, then ransom them. But the world is going to pay me for those I’ve had to leave behind. You see, they’ve all been sprayed. What the authorities don’t know, as yet, is that the plastic is actually acidic. It will in time eat up the paintings and the surfaces of the statues, whether stone or bronze. I shall inform them of this and then demand a large—exorbitant, in fact—sum for the formula of the solvent to neutralize the acid effect. Only I know this.”
“What is to prevent the Venetians from removing the acidic plastic?” Ralph said.
“They can’t dissolve the plastic by any known means,” Giftlippen said triumphantly. “Scraping it off will cause a friction which will accelerate the acidic effect.” He paused. “Magnificent, isn’t it? I expect to reap a profit, tax free, of about three billion American dollars.”
Again, he broke into that hideous freezing cachinnation.
“And all the time, while a worldwide search is being made for me, I’ll be watching them, almost within arm’s reach of them.”
A moment later, men brought aboard two large tables and set them down on the middeck. Others put piles of plates and tableware on the tables. Still others staggered up laden with baskets full of bottles of wine. Four men deposited two huge kettles on a table. Another set by them an enormous bowl of antipasto. Saugpumpe removed the kettle lids, and I smelled spaghetti and spaghetti sauce.
Good heavens, I thought. Surely they are not so confident that they are going to have a leisurely meal on the return trip?
Ralph said, “You have about a hundred and fifty men in your band? Do they share in the profits? Or do you intend to rid yourself of most of them? I would think a bomb planted on the barque, set to go off after you’ve escaped in the mini-sub, would eliminate forty or so. And you must be thinking of flooding the compartments in the bag which will carry most of the others.”
I expected Giftlippen to react violently to this. Even if Ralph’s speculations were unfounded, the crew might become very suspicious. Enough to decide to make sure there was no double-cross by killing him.
But he only laughed again. He said, “You’d make a great criminal, von Wau Wau. But then crooks and cops are only two sides of a coin, aren’t they? And you can’t always be sure which is obverse; which, reverse.”
He spoke to the guard. “Shoot them if they try to communicate to anybody but me or Smigma.”
He walked away, leaving us, me, at least, with gloomy thoughts. Ah, Lisa, I will never see you again!
The gangsters were using small motorcycles towing long, low wagons. Both were collapsible and apparently had been transported here in the plastic bag. They were busy, roaring off into the city and returning with wagons laden with treasures.
Presently, the vaporetto I’d heard chug-chugged up and docked. Its deck was filled with men and piles of objects.
“How long can they go undetected?” I said. “Surely, the causeway into Venice will be full of cars and the train loaded with tourists? If the traffic is stalled because o
f the gas, won’t the authorities at Mestre investigate?”
“Giftlippen has undoubtedly cut all lines of communication,” he said. “And bribed some officials in Mestre to create confusion and delay.”
“And Bird, if he survived, won’t be able to venture out from the bush until dark,” I said. “By then it’ll all be over. Still, Giftlippen knows that Bird can reveal his secret. He surely isn’t going to return to the castle.”
“Not unless Bird is caught. You must realize, my dear fellow, that the chopper has undoubtedly laid down a cloud of the anesthetic gas over the area in which Bird is hiding. When the gas is blown away, a search will be made on the ground for the unconscious Bird. If he isn’t found, Giftlippen will take an alternate route to safety. He must be impatiently waiting for a radio message that Bird has been snared.”
At that moment Smigma gave a shout and hurried up to Giftlippen. He was holding a walkie-talkie. They conferred for a moment. Smigma was smiling broadly. After a minute, Giftlippen walked to us. He said, “Your athletic, but stupid, colleague has been captured! He’ll be taken back to a tower cell. From there he can witness your end. It’ll make a fine display, and his agony will be increased by knowing that you will be in the explosion!”
“Ah,” Ralph said quietly. “You are going to blow up the barque! And we’ll be in the casualty list?”
“If there’s enough of you left to identify,” Giftlippen said. “You see, by the time the barque is halfway across the lagoon, airplanes and helicopters from Mestre will be over the area. My agents there can stall an investigation only so long. A time bomb in the barque will go off. Investigators will find only pieces of bodies and the art treasures left from the ‘accidental’ explosion. The barque will contain only works of lesser value.”
Cackling, he walked away. He began shouting at the men who were coming aboard laden with paintings and boxes. I almost felt sorry for them. They would also be victims of the man’s diabolical cunning.
“Ralph,” I said, “this is it...”
Ralph whined, his nose pointed toward the open hatch, his nostrils expanding.
“What is it?” I said.
“What I’d hoped for. I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!”
I recognized the quotation as from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene i. But what he meant by it, I didn’t know. He was always doing this to me, making obscure references through quotations. Very aggravating.
“If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed the ancient grudge I bear him.” This was also from The Merchant of Venice.
“What in heaven’s name are you getting at?” I said.
“Look at Giftlippen and Smigma. They’re jumping with joy. Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow’s bliss.”
“Will you stop that?” I said. “And enlighten me?”
“I would not have given him for a wilderness of monkeys.”
“It’s it, not him,” I said. “Same play, Act III, scene i, line 130, I believe.”
“But, since I am a dog, beware of my fangs.”
“Act III, scene iii, line 6,” I said. “Ralph, this is no time to show off.”
The guard was looking at us curiously. Ralph winked and said, “A bird in the hatch is worth two in the bush.”
“Oh!” I said. “You mean...?”
I jumped, and Ralph started. Simultaneously, at least a dozen explosions in the city gouted flame and fragments. As their reverberations died, Smigma shouted at the men to get aboard. They hurried up, bearing their loads, onto the barque, the U-boat, and the floating bag.
“He’s started fires to make a diversion,” I said, staring at the thick black plumes of smoke. “Listen, Ralph! Now’s your chance to make a break for it! Snap your leash and run like mad! I’ll knock down our guard, keep him from shooting!”
“What, and leave you, my dear friend?” Ralph said. “No! I am touched at your offer of sacrifice. But we’ll play this game out together, lose or win, side by side.”
I am not ashamed to record that these words of loyalty and love almost made me cry.
A helicopter swept over, and the men cheered. Then, laughing joyously, they disappeared into the U-boat and the bag. Those who came aboard the barque did not, as I had expected, grab the oars and start rowing. The barque started moving as if by magic. But it was the tiny submarine attached to it that was the motive power. It wasn’t progressing very fast. It would at this rate only get a few miles from the island before the police showed up. The crew must have known that, but they didn’t seem worried. I surmised that Giftlippen must have given them some sort of explanation to put them at ease.
Saugpumpe beat on a gong and yelled at them to come eat and drink, to celebrate their ill-gotten wealth. Poor fools, they crowded around the tables and dished themselves up heaps of spaghetti and antipasto. They grabbed the numerous bottles of wine and toasted each other and their leader. Giftlippen had retreated to the poopdeck to sit on the wheelchair and eat nuts while Smigma and Saugpumpe helped fill the plates and uncapped the bottles.
Within fifteen minutes, the men had become very drunk. Far too drunk for the alcohol alone to account for it, even at the rate they drank. They were whooping and yelling, staggering around, speaking slurredly, and singing off-key.
“Giftlippen is helping us, though he doesn’t know it,” Ralph muttered. “He’s cutting down the odds against us. When the time comes for action, move swiftly, Weisstein. We’ll still be unarmed. And I don’t know when the bomb will go off. Or where it is, either.”
We had gone about two miles when one of the men yelled louder than the others. Everybody followed the direction of his finger. There were small objects above Venice, moving so slowly they had to be helicopters.
Giftlippen arose. Smigma and the woman looked at him. He nodded. Some of the men abruptly collapsed and lay snoring heavily on the deck. Others were glaze-eyed and looking around stupidly.
Our guard had not drunk or eaten anything. Obviously he was in on the plot. At the moment, he was watching the aircraft.
“Back up to me and spread your bonds as far as they’ll go!” Ralph whispered.
I did so, and his teeth snapped down on them, the lips brushing wetly against my wrists. He had the powerful jaws of a German shepherd and even more strength than the average because of his size and the genes of his wolf grandfather. Two snaps, and the thin ropes were severed.
“Stand still! Wait!” Ralph said. “The timing must be of the exquisite!”
I couldn’t see him, but I could imagine him moving back to get some slack in his leash. It had a concealed breakaway in it, designed for just such emergencies as this.
Giftlippen was nearing the hatch. Smigma and the woman were by the table. I supposed they were anticipating objections from the crew. Both now held submachine guns they had picked up from under the table. A dozen more men had crashed upon the deck. Those still on their feet were swaying or reeling crazily around.
Of the U-boat and the bag it was towing, there was no sign. It must have dived as soon as possible.
Giftlippen stopped and looked at his wristwatch. “We have ten minutes before the bomb goes off!” he shouted. “Everybody below!”
The guard turned for one last check to us. I did not move. Still carrying his rifle, he hurried toward the hatch. Smigma and Saugpumpe threw down their weapons and trotted toward it also. Giftlippen turned and yelled at us, “Bon voyage!” and he broke into that maniacal laughter.
“Ready, set, GO!” Ralph said. He lunged; the leash snapped; he sped past me, a black and brownish-gray blur, silent death.
Smigma and Saugpumpe yelled and stopped. Giftlippen whirled so fast he fell down, his feet caught in the floor-length robe. The guard spun, firing the rifle before he had completed his circle. Ralph gave a bound, and his jaws closed on the man’s throat.
I was already charging across the deck, intending to pick up the automatic rifle. But as I did, I saw Cordwainer Bird po
p up from the hatch.
The guard was on his back, his throat torn open. Ralph wasted no time on him. He sped growling toward Giftlippen, who was back on his feet by now. Smigma and the woman turned and ran back toward their weapons. Giftlippen yanked a huge automatic pistol from beneath his robe and pointed it at Ralph. I yelled a warning to him, but Ralph didn’t have a chance unless Giftlippen missed him. At that short range, it was not likely.
Bird had seen this, however, and he made a split-second choice. Instead of going after the others, he hurled himself at Giftlippen. In what is called in American football a blocker’s tackle, I believe, or perhaps it was an illegal clip, his shoulder took Giftlippen’s feet from under him. Giftlippen flew backward screaming, and crashed upon the deck. His automatic skittered, spinning out of his reach.
Bird was up on his feet as if he were made of rubber. Ralph ran by him, his target Smigma and Saugpumpe. Bird, passing by the fallen man to assist Ralph, kicked out sideways. The side of his foot struck Giftlippen in the face, and he collapsed again.
I picked up the rifle and fired several rounds into the air to get the attention of the villains. Everybody ignored me. Ralph leaped high and knocked Smigma sprawling. Saugpumpe bent down to get her submachine gun, but Bird was flying through the air. As if he were broad jumping, his feet preceded him. She rose and turned to fire at us, just in time to receive Bird’s feet in her face. She performed a splendid, if involuntary, backward somersault. Thereafter, she took no interest in the proceedings.
“I always wanted to do that to a woman!” Bird yelled exultantly from the deck where he had fallen. “Anyway, she looked like my sixth wife, the bitch!”
Smigma had gotten to his feet. Ralph crouched for another leap. Smigma grabbed the nearest thing he could find for a weapon, the enormous bowl of antipasto. He lifted it above his head, and the contents spilled down, blinding him. Smigma, shrieking, cast the bowl hard but missed Ralph. Ralph leaped, but this time not for the throat. He grabbed the man’s arm and bit down. Then the two were thrashing around on the deck.