Almost Complete Short Fiction, page 41
“Well, you know, Mr. Bradshaw. My grandfather did a job for you.”
Marvin nodded. That was a mistake. When the agony in his head receded he said, “And now you want to get paid. Wait here a minute.”
There was no way these two clowns could make a claim stick, but he didn’t feel up to a nasty scene. His wallet was upstairs in the bedroom, but he knew Pamela kept a little cash in a vase on the mantlepiece, for paying delivery boys and the like. He dug out the roll and peeled off a twenty and went back to the front door. “There you are, Chief. Buy yourself a new feather.”
The old man didn’t touch the twenty. “One hundred dollars,” he said. In English.
Marvin laughed sourly. “Dream on, Sitting Bull. I’m being a nice guy giving you anything, after you stank up my house. Take the twenty or forget it.”
The old man jabbered at the kid. He didn’t take his eyes off Marvin. The kid said, “You don’t pay, he won’t turn the medicine off.”
“That’s supposed to worry me? If I believed in this crap at all, I wouldn’t want it ‘turned off.’ Leave it on, keep the roaches away forever.”
“That’s not how it works,” the kid said. “It won’t affect anything that wasn’t in the house when the medicine was made.”
Marvin thought of something. “Look, I tell you what I’ll do. You give me some of that stuff you were burning yesterday, okay? And I’ll write you out a check for a hundred bucks, right now.”
After all, when you cut past the superstitious bullshit, there had to be something in that smoke that got rid of roaches better than anything on the market. Screwed up their brains, maybe, who knew? Take a sample to a lab, have it analyzed, there could be a multimillion-dollar product in there. It was worth gambling a hundred. Hell, he might not even stop payment on the check. Maybe.
But the old man shook his head and the kid said, “Sorry, Mr. Bradshaw. That’s all secret. Anyway, it wouldn’t work without the song.”
Marvin’s vision went even redder than it already was. “All right,” he shouted, “get off my porch, get that rusty piece of shit out of my driveway, haul your red asses out of here.” The kid opened his mouth. “You want trouble, Tonto? You got a license to run a pest-control business in this county? Go on, move!”
When the rattling blat of the old pickup’s exhaust had died away, Marvin returned to the living room. Pamela was standing on the stairs in a white terry robe. Her hair was wet. She looked horribly cheerful.
“I thought I heard voices,” she said. “Was it those Native Americans? I hope you paid them generously.”
Marvin sank onto the couch. “I gave them what they had coming.”
“I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to see them again. Such an honor, having a real shaman in my house. Such an inspiring ceremony, too. Remember that lovely song he sang? I can still hear it in my mind, over and over, like a mantra. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Singing happily to herself, hey ya hey yo hey ya, she trotted back up the stairs. And poong poong poong poong went the drum in Marvin’s head.
He spent the rest of the day lying on the living room couch, mostly with his eyes closed, wishing he could sleep. He made no move toward the liquor supply. He would have loved a drink, but his stomach wouldn’t have stood for it.
The hangover didn’t get any better; at times it seemed the top of his skull must surely crack open like an overcooked egg. His whole body ached as if he’d fallen down a flight of stairs. Even the skin of his face felt too tight.
Worst of all, he was still hearing Indian music, louder and clearer and more insistent than ever. Up to now it had been no more than a nuisance, one of those maddening tricks the brain occasionally plays, like having the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in your mind all day. Now, it had become a relentless clamor that filled the inside of his head with the savage boom of the drum and the endless ululation of the old man’s voice; and from time to time Marvin put his hands over his ears, though he knew it would do no good. He might even have screamed, but that would have hurt too much.
Pamela had vanished around noon; off to visit her crazy friends, Marvin thought dully, never mind her poor damn husband. But around four he tottered into the kitchen—not that he had any appetite, but maybe some food would settle his stomach—and happened to glance out through the glass doors, and there she was, down on the beach. She wore a long white dress and she appeared to be dancing, back and forth along the sand, just above the line of the incoming tide. Her hands were raised above her head, clapping. He couldn’t hear the sound, but his eyes registered the rhythm: clap clap clap clap, in perfect synch with the drumming in his head and the boom of blood in his throbbing temples.
The sun went down at last. Marvin left the lights off, finding the darkness soothing. He wondered if Pamela was still down on the beach. “Pamela!” he called, and again; but there was no answer, and he decided he didn’t give enough of a damn to go look for her.
But time went by and still no sign of her, and finally Marvin got to his feet and shuffled to the door. It wasn’t safe, a white woman out alone on a beach at night. Besides, he needed some fresh air. The stink of smoke was so bad it seemed to stick to his skin; he itched all over.
He went slowly down the wooden steps to the little beach. The moon was up and full and the white sand fairly gleamed. He could see the whole beach, clear out to the silver line that marked the retreating edge of the sea.
He couldn’t see Pamela anywhere.
He walked out across the sand, with no real idea what he expected to find. His feet seemed to move on their own, without consulting him, and he let them. His body no longer hurt; even his headache was gone. The drumming in his head was very loud now, a deafening POONG POONG POONG POONG, yet somehow it didn’t bother him any more.
The damp sand below the high-tide mark held a line of small shoeless footprints, headed out toward the water. Marvin followed without haste or serious interest. He saw something ahead, whiter than the sand. When he got there he was not greatly surprised to recognize Pamela’s dress.
The footprints ended at the water’s edge. Marvin stood there for a while, looking out over the moonlit ocean. His eyes were focused on nothing nearer than the invisible horizon. His toes tapped out a crunchy rhythm on the wet sand.
He took a step forward.
Up at the top of the bluff, sitting on a big rock, the Indian kid from Antonio’s said, “There he goes.”
Beside him his grandfather grunted softly. “How long’s it been?”
“Since she went in?” The kid checked his cheap digital watch. The little bulb was broken but the moonlight was plenty strong. “Hour and a half. About.”
“Hm. Didn’t think he was that much bigger than her.”
“She had small bones.”
“Uh huh.” The old man grinned. “I saw you when she took off her dress. Thought you were going to fall off the bluff.”
“She did have a good shape,” the kid said. “For a woman her age.”
They watched as Marvin Bradshaw walked steadily into the sea. By now the water was up to his waist, but he kept going.
“Guess he can’t swim,” the kid remarked.
“Wouldn’t do him much good if he could. Come on, son. Time we were leaving.”
As they walked back to the truck the kid said, “Will you teach me to make that medicine?”
“Some day. When you’re ready.”
“Does it have a name? You know, what we—you—did, back there. What do you call it?”
“A start.”
The kid began laughing. A moment later the old man joined in with his dry wispy chuckle. They were still laughing as they drove away, up the coast road and toward the distant glow of the main highway.
Behind them the sea stretched away flat and shining in the moonlight, its surface broken only by the small dark spot that was the head and shoulders of Marvin Bradshaw, wading toward Europe.
Duce
William Sanders has been writing professionally for over a quarter of a century. His stories have appeared in this magazine and others, as well as many major anthologies. Mr. Sanders is also the author of numerous novels of SF, fantasy, mystery, and adventure. He has been particularly noted for alternate-history and parallel-worlds fiction, winning the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1998. In his latest story, he takes a look at yet another possible past—and future. . . .
Ritter rested his forearm across the steering wheel of the stolen taxi and looked at his watch. “Not long now,” he said.
In the back seat, Gruhn looked up from the submachine gun in his lap long enough to say, “If he isn’t late.”
He snapped the magazine into place with a sharp click. “He does not seem,” he said, “to be a punctual person.”
Ritter laughed softly. “When I was attached to the embassy here, we had a joke that he had made the trains run on time but no one had been able to make him do the same.”
Gruhn made a derisive snorting sound. Ritter turned and looked back over the seat back. “Well,” he said, “after all, from his viewpoint it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Makes it harder,” he grinned at Gruhn, “for certain people.”
Gruhn snorted again. “He’s not concerned about security. Just look at the fool, riding around in that open car.”
“You’re right about that. Even those two carloads of bodyguards—he’s been known to play childish games, having his driver speed up and slow down, just to confuse them. He simply doesn’t take the danger seriously. You see,” Ritter said, “he believes his people love him.”
“Even though several of them have tried to kill him.”
Ritter spread his hands. “He is very good at believing what he wants to believe and ignoring unwelcome facts. Like most people, only more so . . . but yes,” he said, “if he had any sense he’d save that beautiful Astura for parades, and get himself something with armor and bullet-proof glass. Like the Fuhrer.”
He rubbed his chin, which itched from two days without a chance to shave. He hated the dirty feeling of a stubbly face, though it did add a convincing touch to his appearance, especially behind the wheel of a taxi in this town.
“But then,” he said, “if he had any sense we wouldn’t have to be here doing this job, would we?”
Gruhn growled a wordless assent, nodding. He leaned back in the seat and looked at the big wooden-stocked Beretta submachine gun lying across his thighs. “Clumsy Italian piece of shit,” he muttered. “I could do this better with my MP44.”
“A weapon that will not even exist for several more years,” Ritter pointed out. “We’re creating enough of a paradox being here in our own short-lived flesh, without leaving something like that lying around afterward.”
He jerked a thumb at the red-painted cylinders lying on the seat beside Gruhn. “Besides, the grenades are going to be your main weapon. And I know,” he added quickly, “you’d rather have a couple of Stielhandgranaten, but the Breda is a perfectly good grenade and there are damned good reasons it won’t do to leave anything pointing to the Reich. As you know.”
Gruhn raised a finger and an eyebrow. “Jawohl!” he said dryly, “Herr Sturmbannführer.”
Ritter turned back around without saying anything more. Let it go. It was all nonsense anyway; Gruhn was an expert killer with any sort of weapons or for that matter none. Griping was just his way of dealing with the strain of waiting. Ritter couldn’t really blame him; his own nerves were tight as the high strings on a piano.
Of course they were both on edge from fatigue; it had not been an easy couple of days. Almost immediately on arrival it had become obvious that the original plan was, for various reasons, utterly impossible. That wasn’t catastrophic; it had been understood all along that they might have to improvise—all Skorzeny’s men were trained to do that, to think on their feet and use whatever resources came to hand. But it hadn’t been easy, all the same; it had taken time to study the possibilities and reconnoiter the area—Ritter knew the city streets fairly well, having been stationed here for two years before the war, but too much was at stake to trust to memory—and come up with a new plan.
And, in the meanwhile, to stay alive and at liberty in this city where there were no friends or allies and no safe places to go. Ritter spoke the language fluently, but not well enough to pass for a native, and Gruhn’s heavily accented Italian was worse. A couple of obvious foreigners checking into a hotel would almost certainly have drawn the attention of the very efficient secret police, who made a point of having informants in such places.
So they had spent the first night in a small public garden near the river, hiding under the bushes like American Indians in one of Karl May’s books, taking turns sleeping. At least they could do that; they could sleep anywhere, after some of the places they had slept over the last few years.
Then last night they had hung out in a cheap and dimly lit bar, keeping to themselves and speaking to no one, just a couple of unshaven men in rumpled dark suits with a battered leather bag on the floor between them, until it was time to go shopping—as Gruhn put it—for a car.
By the time they had finally got themselves a taxi, and then disposed of the driver’s body, it was too late for worthwhile sleep, though Gruhn had napped a little in the back seat during the last hour before dawn. All in all it was no wonder they were snapping at each other like a couple of peevish old ladies.
Gruhn said, “All right, but I wish we had some help on this. You’ve got to admit our chances of success would be a lot better.”
“True. And plenty of people in this city right now would gladly risk their lives to help us, if they knew what we intend. But it’s too risky,” Ritter said. “These people inform on one another as enthusiastically as the Irish.”
“Scheisse,” Gruhn said. “You think I meant Italians? What good would they be? I meant we need some more of our own people.”
“Undoubtedly,” Ritter agreed. “But it was not possible to send more. So said the good Doktor Niedermann, and who should know better the limits of his own machine?”
In fact, the old man had been frankly dubious about sending even two men. “It will tax the capacity of the projector to the limit,” he said, shaking his head. “We will be lucky if it doesn’t burn itself up on the first transmission, let alone sending a second. A third is not to be thought of.”
And, looking even more worried: “Besides, the more men we send, the greater the paradox effect. As it is we may be about to bring the world to an end.”
“The world is already about to end,” Himmler told him. “The Russians are on the outskirts of Berlin. The Führer is virtually a prisoner in his own bunker. If there is a chance to save the Reich, it is worth any risk. If not, then the world is not worth preserving.”
“Of course,” Ritter said now, “we could go home and ask for help. Take the train up to Berlin, demand to see the Führer, lay it all out for him: ‘Mein Fuhrer, we have come from five years in the future. Your friend and ally Benito Mussolini is about to have a very bad idea, which will lead him to do something very foolish. As a result, Germany will lose the war, the Red Army will overrun Berlin, and you yourself will either be killed or taken prisoner. Therefore we are here to assassinate Il Duce. Would you please lend us a few good men to make sure we get him? Yes, we were sure you would.’ ”
Gruhn was laughing, something he rarely did. “Yes, yes. I can picture this. Or perhaps,” he said, “we could find ourselves and recruit ourselves to help. Since we now outrank ourselves—”
Ritter winced. “My God, Mannfried, don’t make jokes about that. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Dr. Niedermann had been very emphatic: “If you succeed—”
“They will succeed,” Himmler said sharply. “Have no doubt of that.”
“If you succeed,” Niedermann said again, not even looking at Himmler, “and if you survive, you may be tempted to try to make your way back to Germany. You must not, do you understand? The paradox effect, if you were to come in contact with your previous selves—”
“They know,” Himmler said sharply. His face was slightly flushed; he was not accustomed to being ignored. Especially by elderly academics in shabby white jackets. “These men do not need you to tell them their duty. They understand the nature of the mission. They will do what is necessary.” He looked at Ritter and Gruhn. “They are SS. They know how to die.”
“So?” Dr. Niedermann didn’t look particularly impressed. “No doubt they do. It is not, after all, an unusual skill. A great many people seem to be managing it these days.”
Over by the door Skorzeny gave a massive rumbling chuckle.
Himmler’s neck was fiery red by now, yet he said no more, only smiled a tight little smile. No doubt he was thinking of what awaited Dr. Niedermann once the transmission was done. There was no way the scientist could be allowed to live, not with the knowledge he carried in his head, not with the Russians practically on the doorstep.
“Well, then, gentlemen,” Dr. Niedermann said, “who is to be first?”
“You realize,” Gruhn said, “even now, if the Fuhrer knew about this mission, our heads would roll. He still regards Mussolini as his friend.”
Ritter turned around again and looked at him. “Now? I should think so, Gruhn. Now, why should the Fuhrer be unhappy with Il Duce? Now, things are going rather well for Germany, and if the Italians have not been very useful allies—”
“All right, all right.” Gruhn held up a hand. “He will remain loyal to Mussolini to the end. Skorzeny told me—will tell me? Ficke!” he cried impatiently. “There is no language for this. You know what I meant to say.”
“Yes,” Ritter said. “I know.”
He turned back around and looked again at his watch and then reached for the starter. Better get the engine warmed up; it was a truism that Il Duce was often late but never early, but in this country all the rules had exceptions.
The starter motor whined and complained for a couple of seconds before the engine fired, shaking the cab briefly, and then settled down to a sluggish idle. “Roll down your windows,” he told Gruhn, and began rolling down his own. “This thing probably has a leaky muffler. Carbon monoxide poisoning, just what we need now.”
