Pipsqueak (23 page)

“The bastards . . .” he hissed, “canceled my program for
Banana Splits
reruns. Took my puppets. With the spheres, I knew, I could ruin them.”

“You don’t seriously mean . . . all this . . . because of
The Banana Splits
?”

He forced a scowl. “Fleegle, Snorky, Drooper, and, uh . . .”

I snapped my fingers. “And Bingo.
Oh-oh! ‘Danger Island’ is next!
”

“I mean, gimme a break.” He groaned. “They forced my hand. Don’t you see? The choices we make,” he whispered, eyes closed, “. . . aren’t always our own.”

His admonition was ominously close to home, close to how Nicholas viewed life. I’ve since marveled at how revelations aren’t found ablaze in neon but printed on the backs of ticket stubs you find in your pocket the next day. I couldn’t spell out the words to the tune being plucked on my heartstrings, not then. Something about how people change, about how they’re the same, about how the two are integral to finding forgiveness.

A cop started tapping on the driver’s window with the butt of a flashlight, doubtless wondering why we were blocking egress to the front of the theater. As I let go of Bookerman’s coat collar, his head, sweaty and panting, settled onto the seat next to me. The puppeteer was down for the count. The silhouette of another cop appeared at my window, and I buzzed down the glass.

“Hey, what . . .” The faceless cop’s voice tightened as he tried to make sense of the front-seat tableau. His flashlight beam did a double take on the snake. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to—”

“This man needs a hospital.” I blinked up into the flashlight, a smile on my face.

Chapter 32

N
o, I didn’t end up at the police station.

Nicholas burst through the doors of the emergency room, a pillow sack over his shoulder, Angie and Otto in tow. But as soon as Angie saw me, she dropped it into overdrive and got to me first with a flying love-tackle that knocked me back onto the sofa.

“Whoa!” I protested.

“What happened?” She started looking me all over for wounds, again turning my hair into a Buckwheat Special. “Are you all right? What—”

“Jeez, Garth!” Nicholas—the quick study—could see I was fine. “When you said you were at the hospital, I flipped out! I ran into Angie in the lobby, and Otto broke every Russian
and
American traffic law getting us here.”

“If you had let me explain,” I moaned, “but you hung up.”

He waved his tiny cell phone at me. “It’s called
disconnected
, a lost signal. Well, so what’s the deal?”

“Vhat you doink?” Otto’s two cents.

I stood up and smiled sheepishly at Angie. “I’ve got a little something for you, Nicholas.”

“You’ve got something for me?” His eyes and smile lit up like he’d just touched the third rail. “I’ve got something for you!” The power to his face experienced a brownout of confusion, perhaps suspicion. “You have something for me? Here?” Absently, he handed me the pillowcase. “Not a CAT scan?”

“Come here. . . .” We went to the door of the emergency ward, and through the window we could see doctors hovering over the snakebite victim. “See that guy?”

“Which one? The one—”

“Old guy, gray ponytail?”

“Yeah?”

“Bookerman.” I put my arm around Angie.

“Hmm?”

“That is Bookerman. He was posing as a lawyer.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Angie jabbed me in the ribs. “Roger Elk! He was Bookerman! All this time . . . He was there in New Jersey, and everything. He was right there, all the time!” I could see she was kicking herself for not figuring it out.

“Roger Elk?” Nicholas rolled his eyes and laughed. “Elk?
Losc
was Bookerman’s Russian name.”

“
Losc?
Eh? How you say . . .” Otto put pointed fingers to his head.

Nicholas patted Otto on the cheek. “Translated into English, it’s
elk
. How’d he end up here? How’d you—”

“That’s more than you need to know. Besides, it would give Angie the creeps. Anyway, I got him here, a little worse for wear, but he’ll be okay.” Like any good hospital, they had a little
Micrurus fulvius
antivenom on hand. Snakebites are rarely lethal in any case. “Point is, I knew if he fell into Mortimer’s hands right away, you’d never see your fee from the insurer. I figured this would give you a few hours to get the paperwork you need, some photos maybe.”

Nicholas stared blankly at me. Pins dropped. Utterly expressionless, he turned and walked quickly out of the hospital.

I started to follow, but Angie grabbed me by the belt.

“Let him go,” she said.

Otto took off his hat, nodding gravely. “I thinkink meybe, Nicholas, he feelinx too big.”

I was at a total loss and plopped down on a sofa module. Was he upset? Angry? Moved? Now
I
felt snakebit.

Angie sank down next to me.

Otto moved toward the front door, cigarette in his lips, singing Meat Loaf’s poetry softly: “But tune out of tree is not bad. . . .”

Angie slipped an arm around me. “What’s in the bag?” I could tell she already knew.

“Huh? Oh . . .” I’d forgotten I was still holding it. Together we peeked in and then dumped the contents on the floor.

Out tumbled Pipsqueak, Howlie, and Possum, seams on the backs of their heads split open and some stuffing gone, but none too worse for wear. The goofy threesome stared gleefully at the dimpled acoustic ceiling.

Angie squeezed my arm. “He went back into the Savoy, and somehow, despite all the police, he got them,” she marveled.

I could feel the roof of my mouth stiffening, and my eyes felt hot and blurry. “Damn” was all I could think to say, if thinking was what I was doing.

The front doors to the emergency room flew open and Nicholas raced back through the waiting room, a disposable camera in one hand, a newspaper in the other. Without a second look at us, he marched into the emergency ward, an argument with a nurse erupting from within.

My arm around Angie, I sniffed and then laughed. “My brother—the criminal type.”

WARNING: If you found
Pipsqueak
lived up to Harlan's estimation of “demented and fun,” stand by for more of the same with
Flip
, the prequel. Sorry, no squirrels in this one, just a white crow in a bell jar, crazed carnies, a novel Connie Francis impersonator, Chinatown chop shops, and a dead penguin named Reggie (who likes mint juleps). And yes, gird yourself for a healthy dose of your favorite Russian imp, Otto. To tell you the truth, I'm writing the conclusion now, and Garth is in one heck of a pickle. I myself don’t know yet what happens in the end, but you can bet it’ll register pretty high on the strange meter. Anyway, here's the first chapter of
Flip
for you to nibble and to whet your appetite—dig in.

Read on for a hilarious sneak peek at
Brian M. Wiprud’s FLIP, coming
in summer 2005 from Dell Books. . . .

Flip

by Brian Wiprud
On sale summer 2005

I
was walking down the creaky steps of a shop called
Swenson’s Odds ’N’ Ends
. In my arms was a heavy bell jar with a white crow in it. The albino
corvidae
was dead, had been for a long time, but was still around thanks to the noble art of taxidermy. I was intent on not dropping the bird, and was focused on my footing. Ice patches lay in my path, and an impromptu Eskimo cha-cha would likely send the crow to the scrap heap and me into traction.

My ’66 Lincoln was close at hand, top down. A nine-foot Pacific sailfish lay on its back in the rear seat. Fish tail stuck out one side of the car, sword out the other. Cut a corner too tight in Manhattan, and I’d likely have made some impromptu pedestrian shish kabob. But I was far from home, in the boondocks of Vermont and didn’t expect much foot traffic.

The back seat was full, so I dodged slippery patches of snow and heaved the bell jar into the car’s front seat. Stretching my back, I groaned and smiled at the bird. It was a birthday gift for Angie, one I thought she’d really like.

“Mister!”

My attention was drawn to a husky kid with a “PORTLAND COLLEGE” sweatshirt. He was running across the village square toward me, past the gazebo and white picket fences and places where crocuses were still snoozing.

The salutation “mister” goes right by me. “Mister” is some dude with a pipe, a fedora and a cardigan. “Mister” is Fred MacMurray, Ward Cleaver, Robert Young or that dyspeptic Wilson guy next door to Dennis the Menace.

I am not “mister.” I’m just over forty three, and still think of myself as being cardable at the package store, however much of a fantasy that might be. So I looked around for a handy 50’s TV dad and came to the unhappy conclusion that this husky kid was aiming at me. I was already feeling old that day, and this wasn’t helping.

I flashed on all the mundane things a stranger could want: the time, directions, possibly to sell me a subscription to
GRIT
.

But when he stopped in front of me, panting, I never imagined he would say:

“That raven is mine.”

He forced a smile.

I didn’t.

And now that the bird was mine, I wasn’t going to let it be insulted.

“It’s not a raven, it’s a crow. A raven is a big bird with wedged-shaped tail, coarse feathers, and a taller beak with a slight hook at the end.”

“My name’s Peters.” He panted, ignoring my lecture. “My mother gave the bird to Swenson to sell while I was away. She didn’t ask or anything. It’s not for sale. I just came back and . . .”

Frat Boy seemed a little desperate, which naturally made me more possessive. I drifted between him and the bird.

“Sorry. I just bought it from Swenson.” Damn nice-looking bird it was too. Angie loves crows.

“How much you want for it?” Peters started fishing in the pocket of his sweats.

“Well.” In keeping with local Yankee custom, I looked to the sky for a divine price check. I would have thumbed my suspenders, too, had I been wearing any.

“Five hundred dollars.” Sorry, Angie—business is business.

Peters paled as he picked up his two twenties from the ground.

“You paid Swenson . . .”

“Never mind what I paid Swenson. The crow belongs to me, and the price is . . .”

“But my mother, she . . .”

“Well, she shouldn’t have . . .”

“But it’s mine.” Now he sounded insistent, if not a little hostile, the fingers of his left hand fidgeting with a bulky silver high school ring.

I turned and drew the seat belt across the bell jar to secure it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He took a step forward. “Don’t you understand . . .”

He was standing a little too close, and I put a calming hand on his chest, easing him back.

“Look, I had a mother, and she threw out dead things of mine, too. Did she ever! That’s just a part of life. Like hitting a baseball through a car window or finding out the Easter bunny is an elaborate conspiracy to sell cheap chocolate. You live with it, eat the jellybeans and move on.”

He stood there looking completely devastated, which didn’t seem odd to me at the time. I hoped the bit about the jellybeans—particularly clever repartee, I thought—had floored him. As a kid, I would have gone ape shinola over this bird if someone got it away from me, so his mortification seemed an entirely normal reaction. But I should have wondered why a lad like Peters would be so attached to an albino crow in a bell jar. Instead, I sympathized and softened my tone.

“Look, Peters. I really,
really
like the bird. You had it for a while. Now it’s my turn to enjoy it for a while. If you’re ever in New York, you can come and visit him.”

He didn’t much like that. His face reddened, his left fist clenched, and Peters went for my jaw. Completely telegraphed. I dodged to the right and watched that big silver ring streak past my eye.

“Whoa, kid, whoa!” I backed away toward the car. Seemed to me I kept a tire thumper somewhere under the driver’s seat. Not exactly handy at that moment.

Peters pointed a finger at me. “That bird is mine.”

The shop proprietor Swenson and his nor’ east shop gal were suddenly on the porch, watching dumbly.

I had no idea what he was on about, but wasn’t letting him near the crow. Fisticuffs are way down at the bottom of my bag of tricks, especially when my opponent is significantly younger and stronger than me. If he’d come at me again, I guess I would have kicked him in the shin. But what with the midlife green meanies eating at me, my first move was to play the commanding adult. Hey, as long as he thought of me as “mister,” why not indulge him?

I put a hand on the bell jar, hummed up a good resonant tone like Dad might use, and pointed a stern and reproachful finger at him. “Now, son, just simmer down.”

One minute I think I’m 18, and the next I think I’m sixty. I sounded like a complete idiot, of course. But as I said, it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

And then, quite suddenly, Peters crumpled in a heap on the ground. Straight down, like one of those little plastic push button puppets, you know, where you depress the button and the horsie goes limp.
Flump
.

I guess you’d have to say he fainted, but it was oddly instantaneous, no staggering or blinking or anything.

Wow.
I gave my stern and reproachful finger a look of approval, and figured I should use the Dad routine next time I want to move to the head of the line at the DMV.

Just then, the local constabulary happened to roll around the corner in a mud-spattered Jeep. The red strobes on the roll bar and gold seal on the side gave it away. It stopped, and I saw the silhouette of the driver peer our way before coming in our direction. He was probably just making his rounds or something. I waved him over.

Swenson and the shop gal were at Peters’ side trying to revive the kid by the time the jeep sputtered to a stop next to me.

A craggy man slowly unfolded from the jeep. He was the weathered, thick-fingered kind of lout. Looked like he rolled his own cigarettes. His uniform of the day? Brown Carhartt bib coveralls and a round badge pinned to one suspender. The law eyed me suspiciously as he bent down and helped slap Peters awake. Only his slaps were more forceful than Swenson or the maid seemed willing to muster.

“What happened, Swenson?” The cop asked.

“They was arguin’ over that thayah raven when Bret, all the sudden like, drops to the ground.”

“Fainted dead away!” the nor’east maid marveled.

“It’s not a raven,” I hissed, mainly to myself.

The kid came around, confused but quickly picked up where he left off.

“He’s got a, uh, thing of mine, that Ma gave to Swenson,” his finger stabbing in my direction. “Swenson sold to this guy, and like he won’t give me my thing, Constable Bill!”

“Thing? Thing? What thing?” The sheriff pawed his white shock of hair with one hand while helping Peters up with the other. “For the love of Sam! What’s this about, Swenson?”

“A crow,” I said. “A stuffed crow. I’ve got the receipt.” I held the invoice out for inspection. “The kid here wants to buy it with his fists.”

“That so, Swenson?” The cop glanced at the invoice and then locked eyes with me.

“Well,” Swenson shrugged. “Yeah huh.”

Constable Bill eyed me a moment longer, my car, my license plate. “That’s a big fish, mistuh. You from New York?”

“Yup. Name is Carson. I deal in taxidermy. Just came from Brattleboro, and I’m on my way to Rangeley.”

“Rangeley? Maine?”

I nodded. He whistled.

“Didya let Bret here take a shot at buying it back?”

“Yup. He doesn’t . . .”

“He’s trying to rip me off!” Bret honked. “He wants five hundred dollars for . . .”

“Sheriff, what can I say? I bought the bird, I like the bird, I want the bird. It’s a birthday gift for my girlfriend. Five hundred dollars could make me get over it.”

“For her birthday?” The maid whimpered, and I thought
she
might faint.

“Odd gift, I’d say . . .” Swenson added bitterly. He was just peeved that I conned him out of the bird.

“Five hundred dollahs.” Constable Bill whistled again. “S’lot of money. Well, Bret, if you don’t have five hundred dollars, then I guess this fellah don’t have to sell it to you.” He gave me a cold smile. “Even if he did pay, what, thirty dollars for it?”

“Fifty.” I smiled, waved the receipt, and got into the Lincoln. As I started the car, I could see Constable Bill trying to reason with Bret in my rear- view mirror. Frat Boy wasn’t having any of it.

O.K., so maybe I’m a stinker. More than that, I’m a dealer. All in a day’s work.