Robinson, Spider - Callahan 05 - Lady Slings the Booze

VIP免费

2024-11-29 0 0 421.9KB 113 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt

Books by Spider Robinson

TELEMPATH

CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON

STARDANCE (collaboration w. Jeanne Robinson)

ANTINOMY

THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

TIME TRAVELERS STRICTLY CASH

MINDKILLER

MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS

NIGHT OF POWER

CALLAHAN'S. SECRET

CALLAHAN AND COMPANY (omnibus)

TIME PRESSURE

CALLAHAN'S LADY

AUTHOR'S CHOICE MONTHLY #12: TRUE MINDS

STARSEED (collaboration w. Jeanne Robinson)

KILL THE EDITOR

LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE

THE CALLAHAN TOUCH

LADY SUNGS THE BOOZE

SPIDER ROBINSON

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property.

It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher; and neither the author nor the

publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

The quote that appears on page 1 is from the Rockford Files episode "Chicken Little Is a Little

This Ace Book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace hardcover edition/November 1992

Ace paperback edition/December 1993

Cover art by Richard Hescox.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without

permission.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

ISBN: 0-441-46929-9

ACE

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated, with respect and gratitude, to;

David S. Alberts, D. M. Bennett, James Buckley, Larry Flynt, Ralph Grnzburg, Maurice Girodias,

Alvin Goldstein, Bob Guccione, William Hamling Hugh Heftier, E. H. Heywood, Jack Kahane Ed Lange,

Charles Mackey, Marvin Mifier Edward Mishkin, Lew Rosen, Barney Rosset, Samuel Roth, HarOld Rubin,

Henry Steinborn, George Von Rosen and all the courageous others who served or risked prison time

for the right of all Americans to possess and enjoy pornography (literally: "writings of harlots"-

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20S...Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt (1 of 113) [8/28/03 12:07:21 AM]

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt

such as this story) and other erotica.

Acknowledgments.

This book contains homage to (or, as Woody Allen says, "outright theft from") Donald

Westlake, John D. MacDonald, Leslie Charteris, Stephen J. Caniiell, Roy M. Huggins, Juanita

Bartlett, Raymond Chandler, Robert Parker, Marco Vassi, and John Cleve. in addition to them, and

to all those heroes cited in this book's dedication, the author wishes to thank:

-0. P. Putnam's, the first major mainstream American pubusher to pnnt a work deemed

obscene by many (Vladimir Nabokov's LOLITA in 1958);

-Philip Jose Fanner, Robert A. Heinlein, and Theodore Sturgeon, who created the first sf

characters with genitalia and a disposition to use them;

-Ktistine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, the only magazine editors in contemporary

sf who were willing to serialize any of the Lady Sally McGee stories;

-Susan Allison and Peter Heck of Ace Science Fiction (corporate descendant of the above-

nientioned G. P. Putnam's), who published those stories in book form;

-my agent Eleanor Wood, who got Susan and Peter to pay more than they wanted for the

privilege;

-David Myers, who turned me on to Nikola Tesla, with Margaret Cheney's Temarkable

biography TESLA: MAN OUT OF TIME (Laurel, 1981), and the Jugoslavian film Nikola Tesla (with Orson

Welles as J. P. Morgan!);

-Mary Mason and Mike Doeliman, who provided other invaluable research data pertinent to

this book;

-Amos Garrett, Harry Connick, Jr.. Holly Cole, ~Spider" John Koemer, Ray Charles, Paul

McCartney, Dexter Gordon, and the entire catalog of Holgér Petersen's Stony Plain Records and

Tapes, which music kept me sane and productive during this book's creation;

-Richard "Lord" Buckley, for having stomped upon this sweet, swingin' sphere; r -

-and of course, my wife Jeanne and daughter Tern, sine qua ni/ill.

This book would not have been possible (or near as much fun) without all these people, and

their ilk.

A harlot with sincerity and a square egg:

they both do not exist.

-Japanese proverb

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of. But do it in private, and wash your hands

afterward.

-WOODROW W. SMITH

1. The Dick...

Th1s game's over, man! You gotta move your Boss or Rocky's gonna lay a subpoena on him: then his

Torpedo is gonna smoke your Old Lady, and all your Heavles'll be doin time-except for maybe your

Mouthpiece, but Rocky's Sheriff got him put in the corner-you got nothin' left but Punks and

Junkies: you're through, Jimmy.

-ANGEL MARTIN to Jim Rockford,

commenting on a chess game, In the Rockford Flies episode 'Chicken Little Is a Little Chicken.' by

Stephen J. Cannell

IT was noon before they finished scraping Uncle Louie off the dining room table.

So I missed the big Math final at ten, and with all the fuss afterward, everybody feeling

sort of sony for me-and a little grossed Out by what had happened to my uncle-Mr. Cathcart never

got around to making me make it up, so I ended up passing Math that semester. And it was that very

night, after I thought over everything I'd seen and heard of the cops who responded that morning,

that I made the decision to become a private detective instead of a cop when I grew up. I'd been

trying to make up my mind since I was six. So it was a memorable day. Add all the pluses and

minuses and take an average, you'd have to say it was a pretty good day all in all. Kind of rough

on Uncle Louie, of course. And it ruined that table. But it turned me away from a life of crime.

Well, serious crime.

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20S...Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt (2 of 113) [8/28/03 12:07:21 AM]

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt

Anyway, the point I started out to make is: can you imagine what I felt like when I came

downstairs and saw Uncle Louie like that? Tremendously scared and nauseous and excited all at the

same time? Heart banging and buzzing in my ears and dry mouth and shaky knees? Knowing there was

really nothing to be afraid of any more, but still scared to death, feeling more like a thirteen-

year-old than usual? But at the same time almost happy at getting to see something like that,

knowing that now I'd have a real, gruesome, Mike Hammer kind of story to tell all the guys,

already planning how to tell it?

Well, that's just how I felt that night twenty years later, walking up the long curving

driveway to that damned mansion.

This was exactly the kind of opportunity I'd been praying for-and I was so scared I was

nauseous, or possibly the other way around. Feeling like more of a thirteen-year-old than usual.

That particular mix of feelings made me think of Uncle Louie for the first time in years, and I

heard going through my head the same words I'd said to myself that morning when I'd found him.

God, please don't let me do anything to fuck this up. This time. I just managed to stop myself

short of promising to make a novena again-which I hadn't even followed through on the last time. I

kept walking toward the mansion, concentrating on looking bored.

Just as I was approaching the door, I pressed my left arm against me, intending to take a

little comfort from the solid presence of my gun. But there's something about those trench coats

they never seem to mention in the books or movies. There's a lot of extra material under the

armpits that doesn't really need to be there, all bunched up. I've tried a dozen different brands,

and they're all like that. So squeezing the gun; was a mistake. And doing it right by the door was

bad, because of the black-and-white sitting by the door. Never wake up cops by dropping a .45 on

the pavement next to them. Especially not there.

So there was some conversation, and they let me live, and I returned the favor.

Reluctantly: the skinny one had a laugh exactly like a mule braying-hee!...hee!...hee!-and the fat

one...Well, anyway, by the time I entered the mansion I was flustered on top of everything else.

So if you want to know what the place looks like inside, you'll have to look it up

someplace. I kept telling myself to look around and memorize it for my memoirs some day, but I

kept forgetting. I had a lot on my mind. There were a lot of big rooms, I remember, and a lot of

stairs, and a hell of a lot of carpet everywhere, so thick it was like walking on a furry sponge

mattress. I wanted to take off my shoes. I promised myself I would on the way out.

The butler was black as Lenny Bruce's humor and so old I wanted to ask him how the boat

ride had been. He didn't, offer to take my trench coat or fedora. He moved like that Lincoln robot

Disney had at the World's Fair if there'd been a brownout. He went up stairs one at a time instead

of one after the other. He stopped outside a big door with an elaborate frame and turned to me.

"You are armed, sir," he said gravely. It wasn't quite a question.

"Isn't everybody?"

He held out his hand. I shrugged...and squeezed my left arm against me. The gun sank an

inch into the carpet with a plop.

He waited, without changing expression.

I sighed, and dropped the sap and the brass knuckles on the carpet beside the gun.

"Fluoroscope in the foyer?" I asked. "Or just a metal detector? Professional interest."

He waited patiently, hand still outstretched.

I shrugged again, and added the switchblade to the pile on the floor.

"We are running late, sir," he said sadly.

I stood on one foot, took the little .22 holdout from the ankle holster, and placed it on

his upturned palm. It usually gets by: no metal parts. "The only other weapon I have on me," I

said, "is attached. But I promise not to touch it."

He didn't even frown at the crudity. He looked at the pistol, dropped it on the carpet

with the rest of the swag, and swept it all delicately to one side with one foot. It left a trail

in the carpet.

"While I'm here," I qualified.

He ignored that too. "Thank you, sir. This way, please. He's expecting you."

He opened the door, announced me, stepped aside so I could enter, and left, closing the

big door soundlessly behind him.

WELL, you know what he looks like. He looked like that.

"You're doing okay," I told him.

He frowned at me. He'd had his mouth open to speak and I'd derailed him. "Excuse me?"

"Sorry. I just thought you might ask me how you-never mind. What can I do for you?" I was

being overeager. The whole trick to being a smartass detective is to let them give you the

straight lines, and then come back with the snappy zingers.

He stared at me impassively for a while. Then when he did start to speak again he paused

for a moment with his mouth open to see ill was going to interrupt again. I waited for my straight

line. I thought about a cigarette, but there was no point: there were ashtrays visible.

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20S...Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt (3 of 113) [8/28/03 12:07:21 AM]

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt

"Are you sure you're not French?" is what he finally said.

Maybe Bogie could have come up with a clever response to that. The best I could do was to

say, "Excuse me?" just the way he had.

"Like in those panther flicks?" he amplified.

I blinked. "Excuse me?" I said again, and I'd like to see Travis McGee do better.

"Not related to that Inspector Clazoo or whatever it is?"

I understood now. It was my destiny to spend the rest of my life saying "Excuse me?" to an

old bald Jew with a face like a dissipated elf. All right, so be it. "Excuse me?"

He shook his head. "I guess not. But I could have sworn he was a relative of yours. You're

just like him, Quigley."

"In what way?" It wasn't much, but at least it wasn't "Excuse me?"

"Two ways. You're a moron. And you're unbelievably lucky."

At last I got it. He was referring to that Inspector Clouseau guy in the Pink Panther

movies, who keeps blundering his way into success.

Things were looking up, in the sense that he had finally uttered a comprehensible

sentence. But it certainly wasn't a very promising start to the conversation. I mean, I had

expected a certain difficulty in establishing mutual respect...PIs get used to the fact that most

people-and nearly all their clients-privately consider them one or two steps above athlete's foot

in the food chain. But having someone start out by telling me that I was a moron was sort of a new

low in customer relations.

And besides, he had it exactly backwards. I'm a genius, with incredibly bad luck.

"You know," I said, "I just figured out how come you manage to get elected. It's been

puzzling me."

"Flattering my constituents, you mean?"

"No. Being able to say a sentence like that. It's your voice. You sound exactly like Elmer

Fudd after speech therapy finally conquered the lisp. People want you to succeed. They feel you've

got it coming, after overcoming forty years of being humiliated by a bunny."

You don't ever want to play poker with him. He did nothing at all for ten seconds. But it

wasn't like turning to stone; It was more like he was still listening to me say something,

concerning which he had formed no opinion so far. When he did speak, it was as though someone had

rolled the tape backwards three lines of dialogue and restarted it.

"Let me give you an example of what I mean," he said reasonably. "You believe all the crap

you read in detective books. That makes you medium dumb as citizens go-but for a licensed private

investigator in the City of New York, that makes you compare unfavorably with a newborn gerbil.

You're not only big enough and tough enough to wrestle a gorilla, you're stupid enough to try. You

actually think you can come in here and smartmouth me like a TV private eye, and all I can do

about it is hope I catch you red-handed in a felony sometime before the last commercial. Somewhere

in your head you know I can wipe myself with your license anytime I want, but still you come in

here and get fresh with me. That's the moron part I spoke of." He was speaking calmly,

illustrating his points with small gestures, sure he could make a reasonable man like me

understand. "As to the lucky part...well, that should be self-evident. You've lived this long. But

as a more immediate example, there is a chance, practically a good chance, that you could end up

walking away from this with your freedom, your license and your health. Who could believe such a

thing? I know: but there it is." He spread his hands expressively.

I decided I had established myself as a smartass. A really tough guy deals with

intimidation by ignoring it, right? "How?"

"By doing exactly what all the TV private eyes do. By puffing off a miracle, to deadline,

by incredible dumb luck-and with absolute discretion. If you don't, I'm going to cancel the Joe

Quigley Show in mid-season."

And there it was. Exactly the opportunity I'd spent my life getting ready for. A shot.

I could hardly believe it. Ever since I was a kid I'd been waiting to have some big shot

threaten me with total ruin if I didn't solve a big hush-hush case fast. I wanted to kiss him.

You've never seen anybody look so nonchalant.

"How much discretion are we talking about?" I asked, studying a fingernail.

"You were never here. I don't know anybody who'd know anyone you know. We've never walked

on the same real estate, even at different times. Any information you receive from me, or that you

turn up as a result of your investigation, is to be between you and me and the principals

involved. You will divulge nothing to anyone else. That includes grand juries, city, state or

federal, judicial or legislative inquiry, and your confessor if any. And one other thing: you will

treat La...uh, the principal here...with the utmost respect at all times. If she reports to me

that you knocked ashes on her carpet-hear me, now-I will make you wish you were on Rikers Island.

Do you believe I can do that?"

Oof. A little hard to imagine. I'd even rather be in New Jersey. But I knew the answer

was: "Yes."

"Good. Do we have a meeting of the minds?"

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20S...Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt (4 of 113) [8/28/03 12:07:21 AM]

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt

I was in hog heaven-but I was also a professional. I turned my fingernail another way and

inspected it again to see how it looked from that angle. "Not quite. I haven't told you my rates."

"I burn to know."

"Two hundred a day plus expenses."

He flashed his famous grin for the first time. "Rockford Files. James Garner. At least you

follow good trash."

He had me cold. "The best," I agreed. "Just like with him, it's not negotiable." I tried

for Gamer's I'm-not-budging expression. "And I also get medical expenses for job-related injuries.

After all, we're using smaller dollars these days."

"I seem to remember Rockford almost never gets paid."

I shrugged. "Is it a deal or not?"

To my surprise, he hesitated. "It's not that I'd have the slightest difficulty making it

drop off the books," he mused. "Partly I'm curious to see what you'd do if I said no, you gotta

work for free on this one. And mostly it goes against my grain to pay an overgrown adolescent

who's built like a linebacker two hundred dollars a day to hang out in Lady Sally's House."

I had to work to control my face. Lady Sally McGee's House? Not maybe the most famous, but

surely the most legendary whorehouse in the greater New York area? I'd heard of it for years, but

always very quiet, and third-hand at least. They said you had to know Somebody, real well, to get

invited there. Until today, I hadn't known anybody who knew anybody who knew Somebody. I opened my

mouth to say I could manage to pay him two hundred dollars, and absorb my own expenses- "Oh screw

it, it's a deal," he said.

"What's the situation?"

He pursed his lips, and shook his head. "I need backup on my judgment. You go see the

Lady, and if she decides to fill you in, then nobody can blame me. If she doesn't, you get one

day's pay and a hearty handclasp-for something that never happened."

"Can you give me a hint? What sort of beef are we talking? Do I bring a fingerprint kit,

or a bazooka? Or a dozen condoms?"

He steepled his fingertips. "I would say you should bring along all of that garbage you

dumped on thy carpet outside. And if you know where you could borrow a brain for a while, bring

that by all means. But mostly bring your luck, Quigley. And.. ." He sighed.

"...your best judgment, such as it is."

"What does that mean?"

He frowned. "I don't know if I can make you understand. I want you to be absolutely candid

with me in this matter...up to a point."

"I'm not following you."

"You are not going to get cute with this, like a TV detective. You will share with me

fully any relevant information you learn. But it is possible-" He paused, and twisted his face up

so badly that I wanted to offer him some Metamucil, "-that in the course of your investigation you

will turn up information I do not have a need to know. And the hell of it is, by and large you're

the one who'll have to decide when that is. I can only say: don't screw up."

I didn't have the slightest idea what the hell he was talking about. But he looked so

uncomfortable that I got the idea he must have just done something noble. And maybe given me some

kind of backhanded compliment at the same time. "I'll do my best," I said simply.

"Exactly what I'm afraid of. Any more questions?"

"Yeah. Why me?"

"Because every once in a while you're so dumb, you're a genius. That Favila case, for

example. Most people can only see the obvious if it makes sense. You proved you can see the

obvious even when it's stupid. That may turn out to be what's called for here."

I was a little stung. The Favila case had been one of my professional high points to date,

had come this close to being a triumph. "I see," I said stiffly. "You need me, so you treat me

like shit."

"I only do that for two reasons," he said. "First, of course, because you are shit...and

second because you look like that moron on the tube, what's-his-name."

"Hey," I said, stung again, "that's not my fault."

"I know. No one would look like him that could help it. Forget it. You knOw where Sally's

is?"

"I don't need to. The cabbie will know."

"True. Use the north entrance-and for God's sake don't use my name at the door if there's

anyone else in earshot. Report to me, verbally, here, when you've cracked it. Not before. If

there's anything you need, at all, the Lady will provide. And nothing goes in writing."

"Can I go now?"

"Not yet. Look at me, Quigley. I know I've succeeded in hiring you. I think I've even

succeeded in engaging your attention. But before I let you leave here, I want to be sure I've

succeeded in scaring the living shit out of you. I want you to throw away whatever smart-aleck

closing line you've got prepared, and just say these words: say, 'I'm going to be a good boy,

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20S...Callahan%205%20Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txt (5 of 113) [8/28/03 12:07:21 AM]

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Spider%20Robinson/Robinson,%20Spider%20-%20Callahan%205%2\0Lady%20Slings%20the%20Booze.txtBooksbySpiderRobinsonTELEMPATHCALLAHAN'SCROSSTIMESALOONSTARDANCE(collaborationw.JeanneRobinson)ANTINOMYTHEBESTOFALLPOSSIBLEWORLDSTIMETRAVELERSSTRICTLYCASHMINDKILLERMELANCHOLYELEPHANTSNIGHTOFPOWER...

展开>> 收起<<

Robinson, Spider - Callahan 05 - Lady Slings the Booze.pdf

共113页,预览5页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Robinson, Spider - Callahan 05 - Lady Slings the Booze

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: