First Person Peculiar (17 page)

“So you’re carting them all off as a favor to him?” she screams.

“Certainly not,” says Milton. “Women don’t interest me at all. I prefer you.”

“WHAT?”
she bellows.

“I didn’t mean that,” says Milton, his hands stretched out defensively in front of him as he begins backing away toward his office.

“Just don’t let him vanish all your clothes,” says Mimsy Borogrove as Mitzi McSweeney walks by her in pursuit of Milton. “I didn’t realize how cold it was in here until—”

She does not get to finish the sentence.

“You vanished her clothes?” demands Mitzi.

“Never!” protests Milton, his back to the door of the men’s room. “That was Morris the Mage’s spell. I cannot vanish anyone’s clothes unless I say
barota nictu!”

And as quick as the words leave his mouth, Mitzi McSweeney’s clothes disappear.

Milton’s eyes widen, more in terror than lust. He swallows hard and leans back against the door, which starts giving way. “You’re looking …uh …
well
today,” he says, then turns and races hell for leather into the interior of his office.

Mitzi is one step behind him as the door swings shut and they vanish from sight. There follows a great deal of noise, a few shrieks of pain and terror, a crash, and a lot of words I never knew existed, all screamed in a feminine voice.

“Now magic them back—or else!” yells the voice.

There is a brief pause, and then a fully-dressed Mitzi McSweeney emerges from Milton’s office. She pauses and turns to him just before the door swings shut.

“I’ll talk to you
later
!” she snaps and walks out of the tavern.

I head toward the men’s room, with Benny and Gently Gently falling into step behind me. Just before I get there I call Dead End Dugan over, in case the carnage is so great that only a zombie can endure it on an empty stomach, and then the four of us enter.

“Any sports fans see this and they will never talk about Mohammed Ali or Mike Tyson again,” says Benny.

“Who would have guessed that there was that much blood in a body?” asks Gently Gently.

“It’s not
in
him,” notes Benny. “It’s
on
him.”

“And there wasn’t a mark on her,” adds Gently Gently in awestruck tones.

“Thad’s because I ab a gendulmad,” says Milton, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his nose. “Helb ged me on my feed.”

We help him up. He sways a bit, but then Dugan steadies him.

“Thag you,” he says, blowing some more blood out of his nose. “Thad woman has a left you wouldn’t believe.”

“I think we’re missing a bet here,” says Gently Gently.

“Oh?” I say.

“Have Milton cast a spell to marry Mitzi McSweeney off to Malone. No one’s bet on her, so you’ll win all the money, and this way Milton will at least live til his next birthday.”

“No!” says Milton. “She is the love of my life, or at least the goal of it. I will give her time to cool off and then throw myself at her mercy.”

“Last time you throw yourself at her mercy you miss,” I remind him, “and she is somewhat less than pleased with what you hit.”

He winces in pain at the memory. “Maybe I had better just extend my hand in friendship.”

“And the last time you do that,” adds Benny, “she is bending over watering her flowers, and you know what happened.”

“I am the greatest mage in Manhattan,” groans Milton. “In all of New York City, even. How can this keep happening to me?”

“Luck,” suggests Dead End Dugan.

“Luck?” repeats Milton uncomprehendingly.

Dugan nods. “With a left like she has, you should have been as dead as me months ago.”

We escort Milton back to the bar, where all the other mages are still arguing over the evening line, and all the women are eyeing Malone not unlike the way a healthy cat eyes a crippled mouse.

“The women are still here!” snaps Malone, reaching into Milton’s pocket and taking back his ten large.

“I see you are having your usual fine luck with the opposite sex,” notes Morris the Mage.

Milton, whose nose has started bleeding again, mutters a curse. It comes out as “
Blmskph!”

“Let us be charitable here,” adds Spellsinger Solly. “You have to admit that Mitzi McSweeney is about as opposite as sexes get to be.”

“You are speagig aboud the woman I love!” growls Milton. “Well, lust for, anyway,” he amends.

“Let us get back to the man we all lust for,” says Almost Blonde Annie. She turns to her mage, Sam Mephisto, who does most of his magicking in the Bronx. “I paid you good money for a husband. I want him.”

“I am working on it,” says Sam Mephisto. “These things take time.”

“Work faster!” she snaps.

“Not to worry,” he says. “If worst comes to absolute worst, I’ll marry you myself.”

That is when we learn that interacting with the female of the species is not a problem unique to Big-Hearted Milton, but may very well affect
all
mages. Dead End Dugan and Impervious Irving wait until she pauses for breath and lift him up to the bar, where Joey Chicago douses his face with water.

Sam Mephisto blinks a few times, then slowly sits up. “That was a most amazing experience,” he says. “For a minute there I dream I am back in Egypt, mounted on my camel and leading my men into battle against General Sherman.” Which is when we know he is not entirely recovered, unless General Sherman went further astray than most history books would have us believe.

He gets down off the bar, blinks his eyes a few more times, and finally speaks. “It has been a long, hard night,” he says. “I think I am going to take a little nap.” And with that he slides down to the floor and lies there, snoring up a storm.

“Some mage!” snaps Almost Blonde Annie, making the same kind of disgusted face I make whenever I see Gently Gently Dawkins pour Tabasco sauce on his oatmeal. She glares from one man to another, and finally says, “I am a woman alone, without representation. Isn’t
anyone
going to do something about it?”

I decide that she has a point, so I walk over to the blackboard when I have posted the evening line and raise her odds to forty-to-one.

She takes a glass of beer off the bar, throws it in Sam Mephisto’s face, and stalks out into the night, leaving him licking his lips while still snoring.

“Well, that’s one less to worry about,” says Malone with a sigh of relief.

“Two,” says Benny. “Stella Houston’s probably still chasing Willie the Wizard all over Manhattan.”

“Right,” adds Gently Gently, surveying the tavern. “Fourteen more and you’re out of the woods.”

“Well, til tomorrow, anyway,” agrees Benny.

“I hadn’t even thought about tomorrow,” says Malone.

“Well, you had better be prepared for it, because how long do you think you can keep something like fifty-three large a secret?” says Gently Gently. “Why, even now, I’ll bet women are approaching from Connecticut and New Hampshire and New Jersey, maybe even from as far away as Delaware.” He furrows his brow in thought. “It must be borne on the wind, like phera … phero … those things that perfume tries to copy.”

Even as he speaks three more women enter the tavern, looking neither right nor left, but eyes trained straight ahead on Malone.

“Milton,
do
something!” says Malone, his voice shaking.

“I
ab
doing subthig!” snaps Milton, still holding his handkerchief to his face. “I ab bleeding!”

One of the three newcomers notices all the mages, and immediately pulls out her cell phone and speaks to it in low tones. The other two soon follow suit.

“Well, whatever the result,” says Joey Chicago happily, “at least we are doing some business.”

“Why don’t they all want to marry
you
then?” asks Malone.

“Because I lose all my money betting with Harry on everything from horses to politics,” answers Joey. “Why, just last night I bet on Horrible Herman to win a steel cage match at the Garden.”

“And does he?” asks Malone.

Joey Chicago shakes his head. “The steel cage beats him without drawing a deep breath.”

Two mages walk in the front door and a third materializes by the juke box, so I walk over to the chalkboard and adjust the evening line again.

Suddenly I am confronted by Morris the Mage.

“You really think my entry is no better than a six-to-one shot?” he says pugnaciously.

“It’s a well-matched field,” I say. “And unless it comes up mud, I still make Snake-Hips Levine the favorite.”

“Maybe we should make her carry extra weight,” suggests Gently Gently.

“Shut up!” snaps Morris. He turns back to me. “Six to one, that’s your final odds?”

“Not necessarily,” I reply. “The starting gate is far from full yet.”

“But you don’t expect her odds to go any lower?”

“Not unless Snake-Hips Levine or Bodacious Belinda scratch,” I say.

“All right,” says Morris, pulling out his wad and peeling off a dozen hundred-dollar bills. “I’m putting twelve C-notes on her to win the Plug Malone Sweepstakes.”

This makes all the other mages look like they lack confidence, and soon they are all lined up, putting bets down on their entries, and when they are all done the purse is up over fifteen large, and one or two of the women are looking at me the way they look at Plug Malone, but then they remember I will have to pay most of it to the winner, and I am back to being a wallflower again.

“Well, Plug baby, where shall we go on our honeymoon?” asks Lascivious Linda.

“We don’t need a maid coming along with us, Plug honey,” says Bedroom Eyes Bernice. “Tell her we want to be alone.”

“Tell them both,” chimes in Bodacious Belinda. “It’s me that you love.”

“I don’t love anyone!” yells Malone.

“It’s me he’d
better
love,” says Bodacious Belinda, glaring at her mage.

“Harry, this is becoming intolerable,” says Malone. “Hell, I’d almost marry the woman who tried to kill Milton if that would make the others go away.”

“You can’t!” says Milton, who has finally unclogged his nasal passages. “She’s mine!”

“She sure didn’t act like it,” says Malone.

“It was just a lovers’ spat.”

“If the Third Reich could spat like that we’d all be speaking German,” says Malone.

“Just keep away from her,” says Milton. “She’s
mine
.” Then he pauses and adds: “Potentially.”

“All right, all right,” says Malone. “It was a silly thought to begin with.”

“What’s so silly about sharing a bed with Mitzi McSweeney?” demands Milton pugnaciously.

“I get the feeling that the bed is a hospital bed,” answers Malone. “And that Mitzi McSweeney isn’t sharing it, but is signing the papers about not using extraordinary means, like giving me food and water, to keep me alive.”

Milton is about to object, but then he realizes that he agrees down the line with Malone, and just nods his head instead.

“It is getting near midnight, and the object of our affection still hasn’t made his choice,” announces Mimsy Borogrove. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am getting tired of waiting.”

“Me, too,” says Lascivious Linda. “But what do you propose to do about it?”

“I say if he hasn’t chosen one of us by midnight, we draw straws for him,” says Mimsy.

“We could have a nude mud-rasslin’ tournament, with Malone going to the winner,” suggests Joey Chicago. “At least we’d get to charge admission.”

The mages all nod their heads in approval, but Bodacious Belinda points out that the wrong kind of mud could ruin their complexions and did anyone really trust Joey Chicago to supply the right kind, and they spend the next five minutes arguing about what kind of contest to have, but there is no question that they plan to resolve the problem before morning comes and a whole new crowd of women shows up.

“Damn!” mutters Malone. “I wish I’d never won that money to begin with.”

Which is when I begin to get a truly profound inspiration.

“Do you really mean that?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says. “Look at these women. Now I know how a seal feels when he finds himself in the middle of a flock of sharks.”

“I think it is a pride of sharks,” says Gently Gently.

“No, it is a school,” says Benny.

“Don’t be silly,” says Gently Gently. “Sharks don’t go to school.” Suddenly he frowns. “Well, not in this hemisphere, anyway. I can’t say anything about African sharks.”

“Shut up!” I snap at my flunkies. I turn back to Malone. “Well?” I say.

“Yes, I really mean it.”

“Bet me the fifty-three large that twelve plus twelve equals seventy-three,” I say.

“But it doesn’t,” replies Malone.

“I know,” I say.

Suddenly his face lights up. “That’s brilliant, Harry!” he exclaims. He raises his voice so it can be heard throughout the tavern. “Harry the Book, I will bet you fifty-three large that twelve plus twelve equals seventy-three.”

“No!” cries Snake-Hips Levine. “Do not make that wager!” Everyone turns to her. “Twelve plus twelve is sixty-seven.”

“I think it is forty-one,” says Mimsy Borogrove.

Even Spellsinger Solly gets into the action, opining that it is ninety-four.

“I am sticking by my guns,” says Malone. “Fifty-three large says that the answer is seventy-three.”

“The answer is twenty-four, and I will thank you for my money,” I say.

Everyone pulls out their pocket computers, and they finally admit that I am right, and suddenly I am surrounded by women.

“Good,” I announce in a loud voice. “This will just about pay off the money I owe Hot Horse Harvey for that Daily Double he hits this afternoon.”

“But Hot Horse Harvey is tapped out and hasn’t laid a bet since—
Ow!”
says Gently Gently as I kick him in the shin while all the women and their mages are stampeding out the door.

Finally there is just Joey Chicago, Plug Malone, my flunkies and me, and then Malone walks up and shakes my hand.

“Thank you, Harry, for saving me from a fate worse than death.”

“You’ve really never spoken to a woman since you were a kid?” I ask.

“Well, except for Granola Gidwitz,” he says. “She seemed less intimidating, what with her cock eye and her triple chin and …” His voice trails off and he stares wistfully off into space for a minute. “You know, it’s strange, but I miss her. I wonder if she still lives over on West 22nd Street?” He heads off toward the door. “I think maybe it’s time I paid her a visit.”