The World Shuffler (21 page)

“So long, kid,” the P.P.S. said, resecuring the lock. “You would of been a swell client. Too bad I never really got to the nitty wit’ you.” As his footsteps died away, a low, rumbling growl sounded from the dark opening cut in the side wall of the den. Lafayette whirled to face the mouth of the lair, a ragged arch wide enough to pass a full-grown tiger. A pair of bleary, reddish eyes glinted from the deep gloom there. A head thrust forth—not the fanged visage of a cat or a bear, but a low-browed, tangle-haired subhuman face, smeared with dirt and matted with black stubble. The low, rumbling growl sounded again.

“Excuse me,” a hoarse, bass voice said. “I ain’t eaten in so long my insides is starting to chew on theirselfs.”

O’Leary backed. The head advanced, followed by massive shoulders, a barrellike torso. The huge creature stood, dusted off its knees, eyeing Lafayette speculatively.

“Hey,” the deep voice rumbled. “I know you! You’re the guy was with the cute little trick that laid me out with a oar!”

“Crunch!” Lafayette gasped. “How—how did you get here? I thought this was the den of Gorog the Voracious ...”

“Yeah, that’s the name I usta fight under. The duke’s boys picked me up on a bum rap when I come looking for ya. I cleaned up a couple blocks o’ city street with the slobs, but after a while I got tired and they felled me with a sneak attack from bot’ flanks at oncet, plus they dropped a cannon-ball on my dome.” The giant fingered the back of his massive skull tenderly.

“L-looking for me?” O’Leary was backed against the wall; his breath seemed to be constricted by a bowling ball that had dropped into his throat. “W-whatever for?”

“I got a little score to settle with you, chum. And I ain’t a guy to leave no unfinished business laying around.”

“Look here, Crunch, I’m the sole support of twin maiden aunts,” O’Leary stated in a voice with a regrettable tendency to break into a falsetto. “And after all I’ve been through, it wouldn’t be fair for it all to end here, like this!”

“End? Heck, bub, this is just the beginning,” Crunch growled. “A score like I got with you’ll take a while to pay off.”

“What did I do to deserve this?” O’Leary groaned.

“It ain’t what you done, sport, it’s what you didn’t do.”

“Didn’t do?”

“Yeah. You didn’t put me over the side o’ the boat when you had the chanct. I was groggy but still listening; I heard the little dolly make the suggestion, which you nixed it on account of you didn’t think it was cricket to toss a unconscious guy to the sharks.”

“So this is my r-reward?”

“Right, palsy.” The giant put a hand to his midriff as his stomach emitted another volcanic growl. “Boy, I ain’t had a good feed in a bear’s age.”

Lafayette squeezed his eyes shut. “All right,” he gasped. “Hurry up and get it over with before I lose my nerve and start yelling to Groanwelt that I’ve changed my mind ...”

“Get what over with, feller?”

“E-eating me.” Lafayette managed to force the words out.

“Me—eat you?” Crunch echoed. “Hey, you got me wrong, pal. I wouldn’t eat no guy which he saved my neck like you done.”

O’Leary opened one eye. “You mean—you’re not going to tear me limb from limb?”

“Why would I wanta do a thing like that?”

“Never mind,” Lafayette said, sinking down to the floor with a deep sigh of relief.’’ Some subjects are better left uninvestigated.” He drew a deep breath and pulled himself together, looked up at the tall figure peering down at him concernedly.

“Look—if you want to do me a favor, let’s start by figuring out a way to get out of here.”

Crunch scratched at his scalp with a forefinger the size of a hammer handle.

“Well, lessee ...”

“We might try to tunnel through the wall,” O’Leary said, poking at the mortar between the massive stone blocks. “But that would take steel tools and several years.” He scanned the dark interior of the cell. “There might be a trapdoor in the ceiling ...”

Crunch shook his head. “I been ducking under that ceiling for a week. It’s solid oak, four inches thick.”

“Well ... maybe the floor ...”

“Solid rock, six inches thick.”

Lafayette spent ten minutes examining floor, walls, and door. He leaned disconsolately against the bars. “I may as well admit it,” he said. “I’m licked. Krupkin will force Swinehild to do his bidding, Adoranne will wind up scraping grease off pots here in Port Miasma, Goruble will take over Artesia, and Daphne—Daphne will probably be dumped here when Lady Andragorre goes to Artesia, and if Rodolpho doesn’t get her, Lorenzo the Lucky—or is it Lancelot the Lanky?—will.”

“Hey—I got a idear,” Crunch said.

“Just lie down and take a nap, Crunch,” O’Leary said listlessly. “There’s nothing else to do.”

“Yeah, but—”

“It’s just self-torture to go on thinking about it. Maybe the best bet would be for you to disassemble me after all.”

“Hey, how’s about if—”

“I should have known it would end up here. After all, I’ve been bouncing in and out of jails ever since I got to Melange; it was inevitable that I’d end in one eventually.”

“I mean, it ain’t a fancy scheme, but what the heck,” Crunch said.

“What scheme?” O’Leary inquired dully.

“What I was trying to tell you. My plan.”

“All right. Tell me.”

“Well, what I was thinking—but naw, I guess you want something with a little more class—like with secret tunnels and all.”

“You may as well get it off your chest, Crunch.”

“Well—I’m just spitballing, mind youse—but, ah, how’s about if I rip the door off its hinges?”

“If you ri—” Lafayette turned to gaze at the massive welded-steel construction. He laughed hollowly.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“O.K.” Crunch stepped past him, gripped the thick bars. He set his size seventeens, took a deep breath, and heaved. There was a tentative screech of metal, followed by sharp snapping sounds. A lump of stone popped from the wall and dropped to the floor. With a rending sound comparable to that which might be produced by two Rolls-Royces sideswiping each other, the grating buckled, bent inward, and tore free of its mountings. Crunch tossed it aside with a deafening crash and wiped his palms on the seat of his leather pants.

“Nothing to it, chum,” he said. “What’s next?”

There was no one in the torture chamber when Lafayette, freed of his manacles by a deft twist of Crunch’s wrists, and his large companion made their way there along the torchlit passage, past cells through the barred doors of which wild-haired and wild-eyed inmates gaped, gibbered, or grabbed.

“That’s bad,” Lafayette said. “I was counting on Groan welt helping us.”

“Hey, this is kinda cute,” Crunch said, hefting a set of razor-edged cutters designed for trimming up ears and noses. “I been needing some cuticle scissors.”

“Listen, Crunch, we need a plan of action,” O’Leary said. “It won’t do us any good to just go blundering out of here and wind up back in chains. The palace is swarming with guards, Rodolpho’s regular staff plus Goruble’s strongarm squad. We need a diversion—something to distract attention while I sneak in and whisk Swinehild and Lady Andragorre out from under his nose.”

“Hey!” a reedy voice yelled from a side passage. “I demand a lawyer! I want to see the American consul! I have a right to make a phone call!”

“That sounds like Lorenzo ...”

Lafayette trotted along to the cell from which the shouts had come. A nattily Vandycked and moustached fellow with an Edgar Allan Poe haircut and a high, stiff collar by Hoover out of Napoleon was gripping the bars with well-manicured hands.

“You, there ...” His voice trailed off. “Say don’t I know you?”

“Lorenzo?” Lafayette eyed the other. “Got caught after all, eh? The last I saw of you, you were leaving me in the lurch with a free run ahead, but of course you blew it. And where’d you get the beaver and the fancy outfit?”

“Don’t babble,” the prisoner snapped in the same annoying fashion Lafayette had listened to in the dark cell under the Glass Tree. “My name’s Lafcadio, not that it’s any of your business. Say,; who are you, anyway? I’d swear we’ve met somewhere ...”

“This is no time to play games,” Lafayette snapped. “Crunch and I broke out. I’m going to make a try for the Lady Andragorre, but—”

“You mean Cynthia, I suppose. Are you in on this fantastic plot too? Well, you won’t get away with it! And stay away from my fiancée—”

“I thought her name was Beverly. But let’s skip that. If I get you out, will you help create a diversion to cover my movements?”

“Just get me out,” the bearded inmate yelped. “We can talk about terms later.”

“Crunch!” Lafayette called. “See to this door, will you?” He went on along the passage. Most of the prisoners slumped on their straw pallets, but a few watched him with alert eyes.

“Listen, men,” he called. “We’re breaking out! If I free you, will your promise to run amok in the corridors, attack the guards, smash things, yell, and generally commit a nuisance?”

“Hey—you’re on, mister!”

“That’s for me!”

“Count me in!”

“Swell.” Lafayette hurried back to instruct Crunch. Moments later the giant was busily dismantling the cellblock. Bushy-bearded villains of all degrees of dishevelment crowded into the torture chamber. Lafayette caught a glimpse of Lorenzo, now minus his disguise. He pushed through to him.

“Listen, why don’t you and I work together ...” He paused, staring at his former roommate, who was staring back with a puzzled expression on his features—features which O’Leary was seeing clearly in an adequate light for the first time.

“Hey,” Crunch boomed. “I thought you went thataway, palsy ...” He broke off. “Uh ...” He hesitated, looking from Lafayette to the other man. “Say, maybe I’m losing my bite—but which one o’ youse birds is my pal which we just sprung out together?”

“I’m Lafayette,” O’Leary spoke up. “This is Lorenzo—”

“Nonsense, my name is Lothario—and I never saw this pithecanthropus before in my life.” He looked Crunch up and down.

“Why’n’cha say youse had a twin brother?” Crunch inquired.

“Twin brother?” both men said as one.

“Yeah. And listen, little chum: what was you doing dressed up in buckskins and knee boots? What are youse, a quick-change artist?”

Lafayette was staring at Lorenzo’s—or Lothario’s—clothing: a skin-tight doublet and hose, topped by a brocaded tailcoat and a ruffled shirt, all much the worse for wear.

“He doesn’t look like me,” he said indignantly. “Oh, there might be some superficial resemblance—but I don’t have that feckless look, that irresponsible expression—”

“Me look like you?” the other was exclaiming.

“You haven’t known me long enough to be handing out insults. Now, where’s the nearest imperial transfer booth? You can depend on it, I’m turning in a report to my PR rep that will clean out this whole nest of hebephrenics before you can say ‘noblesse oblige!’ “

“You there!” A shout cut through the hubbub. “Lafayette!” He turned. A man identical but for clothing to the one with whom he was conversing was pushing through the press toward him, waving his arm. Lafayette whirled. The man who had called himself Lothario was gone in the milling crowd.

“How did you get here?” Lorenzo was demanding as he came up. “I’m glad to see you got clear. Say, I never got a chance to thank you for saving me from Krupkin’s men. Beverly told me what happened, poor kid. She was so confused by everything that she didn’t even remember my name—”

“What is your name?” Lafayette cut in with a rising sense of imminent paranoia.

“Huh? Why, it’s Lorenzo, of course!”

Lafayette stared at the face before him, noting the set of the blue eyes, the untamed lock of brownish-blond hair over the forehead, the well-shaped mouth marred by a certain petulance ...

“What’s ...” He stopped to swallow. “What’s your last name?”

“O’Leary, why?” Lorenzo said.

“Lorenzo O’Leary,” Lafayette mumbled. “I should have known. If Adoranne and Daphne and Yockabump and Nicodaeus all had doubles here—why not me?”

Twelve

“Hey, chums!” Crunch’s subcellar voice shattered the paralysis that gripped the two O’Learys. “It’s time to blow, if we don’t want to miss all the fun.” Lafayette looked around, saw that the room was rapidly emptying as the shouting mob of released prisoners streamed away along the passage, brandishing rude implements pressed into service from the array racked around the walls.

“Look, Lorenzo—we can sort out who’s who later,” he said over the fading clamor. “Right now the important thing is to save poor Swinehild and the Lady Andragorre from Goruble—Krupkin, to you. He’s hatched a mad plot to take over Artesia, and the lousy part of it is, it looks as though he may be able to do it. No wonder he didn’t care much whether I helped him or not: He can ring you in for me and force Swinehild to cooperate, and—but never mind that. I’m going to try to reach Rodolpho’s apartment and tell him what’s going on. Maybe it’s still not too late to nip the whole thing in the bud. Why don’t you come with me? Maybe between the two of us, one will get through. I’ll brief you on the way. How about it?”

“Well—since you seem to have some notion of what’s going on in this cackle factory, I may as well—but keep your meat hooks off Beverly!”

“I thought her name was Cynthia,” Lafayette muttered as they selected stout clubs from a handy club stand and set off behind Crunch in the wake of the mob. Ahead, startled yells and a rising roar of enthusiasm indicated first contact with the palace guard.

“Down here,” Lafayette called, indicating a side passage. “We’ll go around, try for the back stairs.”

“Look here, where do you fit into all this?” Lorenzo panted as they raced along the winding corridor.

“I don’t,” Lafayette assured his double. “I was back in Artesia, minding my own business, when suddenly here I was in Melange. The next thing I knew, I was up to my neck in accusations—” He veered aside into a stairway leading up. “I guess that was your doing; they mistook me for you, apparently. You must have been pretty busy, judging from the way the cops jumped me.”

“It looked like a fairly straightforward proposition,” Lorenzo puffed, keeping pace as they bounded up the steps, Crunch slogging along in the rear. “Krupkin ... offered me a free trip home ... plus other inducements such as staying alive ... if I’d carry out a mission for him. I was supposed to sneak myself into ... this Lady Andragorre’s chamber ... and set up a tryst. Well ... I climbed a few walls ... and paid a few bribes ... I got in, all right. But then ... I saw it was Beverly. We didn’t have time to talk much ... but I did slip her a note ... proposing a rendezvous at the cottage—as Krupkin had planned. But from there on I intended to introduce ... some changes ... in the script ...”