And she outsmarted the anti-Tchicago network. We took the Buffalo shuttle to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh to Charleston. Then it would be Charleston to Springfield and hovercraft to Tchicago. But someone must have slipped up on Natoma’s passage vouchers. The Charleston travel desk paged her just before takeoff. Her Spang wasn’t nearly as good as her XX, so I left her on the shuttle and went to the main desk myself to find out what the tsimmes was.
I reasoned with the smart-asses and they argued back—computer check (infallible) indicated the tickets were faulty. I planked down a gold-colored thousand and asked for a new voucher. Quick, please. They quick, but the automatics took over and the shuttle lofted while I was waiting. A hundred feet up it burst into an explosion that shattered it, smashed the walls of the port building, and knocked me into oblivion.
11
No one knew what his real name was and nobody asked. It was a lethal offense to ask that kind of question in the Underbelly. He was called Capo Rip. No one knew his origins. There were a dozen stories but he was such a liar that none could be believed: orphanage (there hadn’t been an orphanage in a hundred years), street gangs, adopted by the Mafia International, synthesized in a laboratory, product of the artificial insemination of a gorilla. He was cold-blooded, indifferent to women, men, companionship, friendship. Icy and hard. He was a percentage player with such a keen memory for numbers and probabilities that he was barred from all gambling tables; he was a losing proposition for the house.
But percentage prevented him from killing. Not that he gave a damn about murder, but he didn’t like the odds against. He never took a chance when the odds were against. “Bod once wrote that all life was six-to-five against” Rip said. “I don’t try anything unless it’s six-to-five for.” Yes, Capo Rip could read, and he didn’t play even-money bets. He always looked for the edge.
That made him the ideal cannon and the idol of the Bellyworld. He was strictly business; robbery, burglary, extortion, blackmail, bribery. He won tremendous respect. Best of all, the Belly learned that he was dependable; he never slashed, he paid all contract cuts promptly, and never welshed on an obligation. Bad percentage. He knew that loyalty could only be bought.
He lived quietly in small hotels, drop-ins, lodges, gambling houses—provided he kept away from the tables. He was never armed but had shown himself to be a cold crusher when cornered into a gut-fight. He always preferred the coward’s copout from one-on-one trouble—no percentage in that—but some goons on a machismo trip wouldn’t let it alone. Then he crunched. The Belly believed he could be light-heavy champion in all-out if he wanted to.
Capo Rip won so much respect that a small coterie gathered around him, uninvited. They were unknown bods without records and therefore of no account, but they seemed to be serviceable. One was a woman, also uninvited and unwanted but she remained loyal and laughed off outside propositions. No odds in them for her. Mercenary.
Rip’s capers were ingenious. A few examples: The Exchange Brokerage House protected itself with a quicksand moat. The drawbridge was raised after hours and no one could pogo onto the pointed roof. Capo Rip froze a path across the quicksand with dry ice and skipped quietly over the skulls of long-gone failures for the heist. He bribed a secretary at the Foreclosure Trust to type on her terminal keyboard in Morse clicks giving him crucial security information. He ripped the vaults.
A governor’s fifty-year-old wife began to turn youthful; hair glossy, skin transparent and lovely. Rip checked the governor’s staff. A ravishing young secretary. He checked the rejuvenation salons. The wife had no accounts. “Arsenious poisoning,” he said, and the governor paid, and paid and paid. Posing as a pianolo tuner he came to the home of a celebrated but cautious collector, casing for a rare Russian gem, a seven-inch goddess carved out of the largest emerald in history by Faberge three centuries ago. Nowhere in sight. He returned with a compass and located her in a steel casket plastered up in a wall. He sold seven replicas molded out of synthetics to demented collectors and then had the chutzpah to return the original gem to its original owner. The Belly loved that.
Between the heavies he worked the petty buncos: medical frauds, radium pitchers, glass caskets, the honeymoon and obituary racks, the cataracts swindle, building lots in Atlantis; Atlantis, for God’s sake! Begging cassettes, fading-tape contracts. Oh, he was versatile and busy, busy, busy. His energy was unbelievable. The Underbelly estimated that his vigorish must come close to a million a month.
His capers were quiet. Capo Rip did not care for publicity, and that was one of the constraints he required of his coterie, which they respected. For unknowns they were remarkable; as silent as knives, never speaking. The Belly could not persuade them to talk, drink, gas, trip, gamble, communicate. They were dead-face deadly, so no one cared to get acquainted through a gut-rap.
The Underbelly could not believe it when Capo Rip and his Merry Men disappeared. He had started on a job and then there was none. They thought he’d been busted (improbable) but when discreet questions were asked of his professional fixer, who was in possession of a generous retainer, he reported that Capo had not been in touch with him. Capo Rip had gone up like a skyrocket, burst in a blaze of glory, and then vanished.
He was belted down in a berth that rocked. The belts were locked, he found out soon enough, but there was a dark stranger hatefully smiling at him constantly, always calling him “Great Capo.” The woman was there, too, feeding him meals with a runcible spoon. Rip still didn’t know her name and didn’t want to, now more than ever. He took some pleasure from spitting the food into her face.
Whatever the place was, it swarmed with nurses and doctors in agitated conversation, using words like “platysma myoides,” “abdominal aponeurosis,” “rectus femori,” and “ligamentum cruciatum cruris.” Bewildering. The only one who made sense was a young surgeon who was a lycanthropist. He kept turning into a fanged wolfman and devouring the shrieking nurses alive, usually starting with the gluteus maximus. The dark man and the woman paid no attention to them.
“This is a hospital?” Capo Rip growled.
“No, Great Capo. You’re watching a kiddie show, Young Doctor Prevert. I’m sorry. We can’t block the broadcasts.” And he took the captive to the head and guarded him with a burner.
“You bastard. I hate you.”
“But of course, Great Capo. Lunch now.”
Back to the rocking berth and the woman came to feed him.
“You bastard’s bitch. You sold me out.”
“Yes, Capo, but you don’t know why, yet.”
“Where am I? What am I doing here?”
“On a schooner in the middle of Lake Mitchigan,” the dark stranger said. “What are you doing? Preparing to pay a price.”
“How much?”
“First for what. No?”
“To hell with that. Name the price, you damned bastardly barber. I’ll pay it, and I promise you you’ll never barber anyone in the Belly again.”
“I believe you, Great Capo.” He started to leave and then turned. “The price is telling me where I can find a man named Edward Curzon.”
“Who?”
“Edward Curzon.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Oh, come now, Great Capo. With your connections and experience you must have come across him. And with your ingenuity and expertise you can find him for me. I’ll contract for the hit and make it worth your while.”
“I never hit. Bad percentage.”
“I’m aware of that, which is why you’re here under gentle persuasion. You must find and hit Curzon, Great Capo.”
“Why me? I can put you onto twenty killers.”
“To be sure, but none with your integrity. An essential part of the contract must be that it can never be traced to me. I can trust no jimp except you. Find and hit Edward Curzon, Great Capo.”
“How did you snatch me on the Chalice job?”
“I set it up. I also have ingenuity. Now be reconciled. You must find and hit Edward Cu
rzon.”
“Suppose I agree. I can always sell you out, the way that bitch sold me.”
“No. Your word is your bond. That’s why you’re here. Think about Curzon, Great Capo. When you’re ready to agree, we’ll talk. Surely you must have run across the name during your brilliant career. The name or something like it. Search your mind, Great Capo. Think hard.”
Curzon? Or something like it? Curzon, Curzon, or something like it? The Capo thought hard. How many did he know in the Belly? There was Cur the Lion. Not worth hitting. A cheap jimpster who only worked a cold house. Larry the Lace Curtain. A society goniff who reported the comings and goings of the heeled for a rotten two percent. A shroff named Chan Kersey, who sold his chop to the counterfeit crowd. Curmin the Vermin, who ran a decoy swindle outside the legit gambling houses. Yellow Kid Kurze, who operated a big store in an abandoned bank building. Now he sounded likely, but the Kid was gentle and harmless.
The woman came in, balancing a plate of food and that goddamn runcible spoon. There was a hard gale and she had to balance herself against the lurch of the goddamn schooner, clutching at whatever was handy. Nevertheless she was thrown and the plate went up out of her hand. She was quick on her feet and poised when it came down, still right-side-up. She caught it, smiled at Capo Rip, and even winked.
“Krijeeze!” I yelled. “The Sevres!”
She stared at me. I stared at her. “Wait a M,” I said. “You’re not my Nat. You can’t be. I saw her die this morning. Who are you?”
She threw herself on me and began to cry and shriek like the wolfman was fanging her. Words finally came out of the screams, “Hilly! Hilly! Quick! He’s found Edward Curzon.”
The Jew rushed down into the cabin, clutching at anything. He stepped on the plate and crunched it. “Hi, Guig,” he said. “My foot is full of beans.”
“What the hell is going on? Half hour ago I saw Natoma die in Charleston. Now here she is with me on this thing that rocks and—”
“Schooner,” Hilly said. “All sail; no machines. We’re on Lake Mitchigan.”
“And here you are and God knows who else and what else. Natoma, I love you as always forever, but give me a little breath space. I have to ask questions. Hilly, there’s no Lake Mitchigan. It’s gone the way of Erie.”
“Not quite yet. There’s a hundred-mile puddle left, and here we are in the middle where we can’t be monitored.”
“How the hell did you get me here so fast, Hilly?”
“Yes, it was fast,” the Jew conceded. “It only took three months.”
“Three—”
“You see, Mrs. Curzon? I warned you it would be total amnesia.”
“Do you mean to tell me—that I—get off me, Nat. I’ve got to get up.”
They unlock and I up, not feeling v. flippent. “You’d better tell me the whole story,” I said.
“It couldn’t be simpler, Guig. The linear explosion and what you thought was your wife’s death knocked you into a massive epileptic seizure.”
“I came out of it?”
“Not into sanity; into epileptic delirium. Complete loss of memory. Complete loss of moral control. Complete loss of humanity.”
“Dio! And then?”
“You became Capo Rip.”
“Who?”
“The most vicious jimpster in the Underbelly. There’s no point in trying to restore your memory of that. I wouldn’t if I could. Best forgotten forever.”
“In other words, I turned into another vicious Sequoya.”
“Don’t say that, Glig.”
“I do say it. He tried to kill me. He nearly killed you. What saved you?”
“You took too long, so I got off the linear to join you just before lift. The explosion knocked me unconscious. By the time they found me in the wreckage you were gone.”
“And then?”
“I recruited four feisty braves from the reservation and we found you in the Belly. Then I found Hilly in GM and told him everything I knew. He set this up.”
I gave Natoma a hard look. “I’m sorry. I’m going to hit our brother.”
“Please, Glig, no. Don’t be Capo Rip anymore.”
“I have to hit our brother.”
“The Group won’t stand for one of us killing another,” Hilly said.
“No? If Guess’d blown me up, plenty of them would have cheered.”
“And if you kill Guess?”
“More cheers. And what do you intend to do with the mystery renegade? Send him to a shrink? Protective custody? Therapeutic recycling?”
“But Guig, you gave Sequoya perpetual life.”
“Yes, by killing him once. Now I’m going to take back the gift by killing him again. I’m an Indian giver.” I aimed a finger at Natoma. “And I don’t care if it destroys my marriage.”
Natoma turned to the Hebe in despair. “Hilly. Help.”
“I can’t, love. He’s generated the purpose I talked about on the Heath, and now he’s too much for us to control. Don’t you see it? Gottenu! I never thought he would turn so savage. He actually scares me.”
“What did you shoot me with to bring me out of this?” I asked.
“You’re behind the times. We don’t inject anymore; we use estrogens.”
“What was it?”
“Let’s get something straight,” Hillel said in level tones. “You’re feeling your new muscle now, but don’t try to clout on me. It’s none of your business what I used to bring you out of the delirium. The whole event has got to be forgotten. I can’t control you, but by God you can’t control me. Either we confer as equals or get the hell out of here. You can swim to shore.”
He was right. I gave him an apology bow. “Gung. Have you located the Chief?”
“Y. With your help.”
“Mine? Imposs. I never got near him. Where is he?”
“About a quarter of a mile below us.”
“What! In the lake?”
“Under the lake.”
“Expound.”
“The network tried to keep you out of Tchicago, and me out of GM. What connection could there be between the two? That gave me the third possibility I was hoping for. GM used to be a city named Detroit. There are hundreds and hundreds of miles of exhausted salt mines under Detroit, leading all the way to Tchicago. I was prowling one end and you were threatening to get to the other. Dr. Guess and his creatures must be somewhere in the middle. Possibly just underneath us.”
“How could he get the capsule into the mine shafts?”
“They’re not shafts; they have the dimensions of boulevards.”
“Why the demand for salt?”
“They used an extraction process. Sodium for energy.”
“Ah! And the Chief is probably tapping the original power lines for his damned capsule.”
“Possibly.”
“As equal to equal, IIilly, first things first. Y?”
“Y.”
“We have got to pinpoint Guess. I want a look at him and his freaks.”
“Agreed.”
“The hit comes later. Shut up, Nat. Any job needs careful casing.”
“Now you sound llke Capo Rip.”
“Whether I remember him or not, a part of him must still be with me.”
“I can see that.”
“Do we work together or from opposite ends?”
“I would say opposites.”
“Gung. I’ll need help. Who would you suggest? Someone from the Group?”
“N. One of your wife’s braves.”
“Are they available?”
“They’re aboard. The trouble is, they speak none of our languages.”
“I’ll come and interpret,” Natoma offered. Damn brave.
“No,” the Jew said firmly. “You’re dead and you’ll stay that way on this schooner.”
“It’s all K,” I said. “She taught me to talk Sign while I was teaching her XX. I’ll be able to communicate. Who’s the best tracker?”
“Long Lance,” Natoma sa
id, “but he’s not as good a hatchet as Arrow Edge.”
“I told you there would be no killing yet. This is just an exploratory. Now shut up, Nat, and do what Hilly says. Stay dead. We’ll discuss our brother when I get back, and there’s plenty to discuss. Who was so angry she wanted him roasted over a slow fire?”
“But I—”
“Not now. Does the network think I’m dead, too, Hilly?”
“Presumably. You disappeared after the blowup.”
“What about this Capo bod?”
“I’ve often wondered, Guig, whether your brilliance-potential lies in the conscious or the unconscious. Now I know. When your subterranean took control it couldn’t have picked a better cover. Of course the network is aware of Capo Rip. It’s aware of everything. But it would be impossible for the Extro to link that cold-blooded jimpster with gentle, kindly Curzon.”
“Not gentle anymore.”
“Perhaps. We shall see.”
Suddenly I went weak and had to sit down. My face probably turned green because Hilly smiled and asked, “Seasick?”
“Worse. The worst. I just thought of a possible result of the explosion that slammed me into the delirium.”
“Ah. The big L. I’m afraid you’ll have to sweat it out, Guig. Remember, it isn’t inevitable.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Natoma broke in. “What is big L? Why is Guig so upset?”
“He’ll explain to you another time, Mrs. Curzon. Just now he needs distraction and I happen to have a fascinating bijou handy.” He opened a locker and took out the oddball dagger I’d found in the ruins of the house. “Any particular reason for carrying this in your boot when you were Capo Rip?”
“I don’t know anything about him now. Why?”
“I know your original motive. Mrs. Curzon told me. Do you know its value?”
“No.”
“In the thousands. It’s an extremely rare antique, many centuries old.”