Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (14 page)

A bitter aggravation of his financial distress had been brought about by the very villain we were tracking, Giftlippen, Baron Rottenfranzer. Before taking up a criminal career, Giftlippen had been an eminent literary critic and an affluent literary agent. Though a native and resident of the tiny principality of Liechtenstein, his influence was enormous all over the world. When Ralph’s novel,
Some Humans Don’t Stink,
came out, Giftlippen had turned thumbs down on it. His venomously unfair and viciously scornful articles had resulted in small sales for the book. (He even had the audacity to claim that it was authored by a ghost writer.)

Recently, we’d heard that the English translation was selling well. But the American royalties had not yet arrived. I once asked Ralph how it was possible for a distinguished and highly educated man like Giftlippen to become a crook.

“From literary critic to criminal is only a short, almost inevitable, step,” Ralph had replied bitterly.

Smigma had been a noted Polish author of didactic fairy tales. He was also Giftlippen’s good friend and client. His fiction, however, was only a sideline. He was a high official in the communist propaganda bureau. Then a strange thing happened after he’d suffered brain damage in a car crash. He found himself unable to utter a falsehood. This, of course, rendered him unfit for writing propaganda or fiction. (This characteristic would trip him up in
The Case of the Jesting Pilot
.) It also made him dangerous to the state. He fled Poland and joined Giftlippen.

In the case titled
A Scarletin Study,
I recount my own career as a physician for the Autobahn Patrol Medical Department. During an encounter with the murderous Rottenfranzer Gang—oil-hijacking specialists—I suffered a wound which hospitalized me. I retired and took up private practice without much success. During this time I met Ralph, who was looking for a human to share the expenses of his apartment. I abandoned my practice and became Ralph’s full-time partner.

It was an exciting life, but now I had to make a choice between Lisa and Ralph. She would accept no more excuses that I was sorely needed by Ralph.

While we were waiting for our plane, Ralph explained why we were going to Venice.

“Here’s the setup, Doc. Venice has slowly been sinking at the rate of 2.08 centimeters annually since 1920. It doesn’t sound like much, but Venice is flush with the surface of the sea. In addition, the tides and seiches that sweep through the lagoon from the Adriatic cause a lot of trouble. And the atmospheric pollution from the factories of Mestre, the nearest mainland city, is destroying the art treasures, the building exteriors, the paintings, the statues, et cetera.

“The islands of Venice are sinking because of withdrawal of water through wells. The water-bearing strata are subsiding. And it won’t do any good to pump water back in, according to the scientists. Venice seemed doomed.

“Meanwhile, a short time ago, a savior, or a man who claims to be a savior, appears. He’s a strange man with a strange story. His name
was
Giuseppe Granelli. He was born and raised in the back woods of the Italian Alps. His village was destroyed in a landslide. He was the sole survivor, though crippled for life. But during his convalescence he had a selcouth experience.”

“Selcouth? What does that mean?” I said.

“It’s an archaic English word meaning
unusual
or
strange,
my unlearned colleague. Granelli had a series of visions which revealed to him that he is the reincarnation of the most famous Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, died 1205. He adopted the name and came to Venice in his wheelchair. There he proclaimed his real identity and his mission and organized the Venice Uplift Foundation. Despite the sound of its title, it is not an organization to raise money to buy a bra for the goddess of the sea.”

“Spare me,” I murmured.

“Dandolo’s ideas for salvation sound feasible, though they’ll cost a hell of a lot of money. He aroused vast enthusiasm. Mazuma pours in from art lovers, rich and poor, from all over the world. We kicked in twenty marks ourselves, remember, Doc? Had to skip a few meals but we considered it worth it.”

“You
did,” I said. “Lisa was upset when I took her out to a Colonel Sanders’ instead of the Epicurean’s Club.”

“Economics always wins over esthetics. Anyway, the Fund’s funds are kept in a Venetian bank. So far, eighty million dollars American, and more coming in. And in two days the various festivals will start, including the traditional Marriage of the Sea of the Doge.”

“And you think this vast sum will tempt Giftlippen? And he’ll attempt a robbery during the confusion of the festivals?”

“Bingo! Give the man a kewpie doll! Look, I could be wrong. But it’ll be the first time. Why should Giftlippen’s mistress suddenly take off for Venice? It’s because Giftlippen isn’t dead, and he needs her for more than just sexual satisfaction.”

“And Saugpumpe will lead us to Giftlippen?”

“We’ll nail him. And we’ll be financially independent. The reward offered for him, dead or alive, by the West German government has not been withdrawn. He’s supposed to have perished, but the bureaucrats haven’t gotten around to canceling the offer. It’s still in effect, legally, and if we get him, we can legally collect. Five million marks. Think of that. You’ll take your half and marry Mrs. Scarletin with your head held high. You won’t be a down-at-the-heels quack marrying a rich widow.”

“I don’t care for your choice of words,” I said. But it was an automatic response. I had gotten used to Ralph’s taking his resentments out on me. Even though he had proved a hundred times that he was smarter and more educated and competent than most humans, he was still patronized by many. To them, he was just a freak. There were many who didn’t believe that he was just a freak. There were many who didn’t believe that he was truly sentient. I’ve even read articles where it was hinted that he couldn’t speak at all, that I was a ventriloquist. The worst, in his eyes, were those who talked down to him, who insisted on petting him. He couldn’t stand this. Not even I was allowed to pat his head. Lisa was the only exception so far.

He had once explained to me why she was granted this privilege.

“Dogs are inherently pack animals. I don’t mean beasts of burden. I mean members of a pack. In a pack there’s always one leader to whom the others defer and make submissive gestures. This is in the wild state, you comprehend, my dear fellow. But domesticated dogs have the same instincts, which is why they adapted to human society so well and why dogs have become the favorite pets of most people. But they’re all psychologically mixed up by domestication. Some are one-man dogs, and will allow only their master or mistress to pet them. Other dogs will allow any familiar human or stranger to pet them. Every human is, to them, a pack leader.

“I have the same instincts, but I am also, in a sense, human. I regard myself as the leader, whether the pack is Canis or Homo. But there’s something about Mrs. Scarletin, call it charisma or whatever, that makes me want her to pet me. It’s humiliating, in a way, because I’m more intelligent, more perceptive, and stronger. But that’s the way it is.”

“That’s the way it is with me, too,” I said.

Coming in at 12,000 feet, I could see the whole of the Laguna Veneta and much of the mainland in the late April sun. Two islands form part of the barriers which almost seal off the lagoon from the Adriatic: the Lido and Pellestrina. The former looks like an extended human shinbone; the latter is little more than a semi-deserted thin flat reef, now frequently awash. Between the two is a strait through which the high tide poured to send water swirling around the islanders’ ankles.

Within the lagoon were the 116 closely spaced islands. A motor and train causeway connected Venice to the mainland. Smoke poured from the stacks of hundreds of factories in Mestre.

We sank down, then came in low over the Lido. Looking down, I could see the famous golf course at the western end. A minute later, we had landed on the airport at the other end. The Lido is, I believe, the only island on which vehicles are permitted. We took a Fiat taxi to our hotel. Since we did not have much money, and wanted to be inconspicuous, we had reserved a room at the Rivamare, a third-rate hotel facing the Adriatic. The Lido was crowded and festive, as were all the major islands. We were lucky to get rooms at this time, when Labor Day, Ascension, Corpus Christi, and the Marriage of the Sea coincided on May 1. Moreover, the Doge Dandolo had been attracting large crowds even out of season.

The taxi driver cheated me, which infuriated me. But since I was supposed to be blind, I couldn’t protest. I ordered a bottle of Falerno, two bowls of
burrida,
and a dish of
capotano
for me and of
fegatino
for Ralph. We finished them off with
cassata siciliana
, a rich cake with ice cream.

I then spent some time on the phone, calling hotels on the main island. Finally, the clerk at the Danieli informed me that a Herr Wasnun was registered there. We at once took a
vaporetto,
a steamboat, to the Riva degli Schiavone, a promenade facing the lagoon by the Canale di San Marco. A cluster of hotels was along here. The most famous, and expensive, was the Danieli.

“George Sand and Alfred de Musset stayed there in Room 13,” Ralph said. “The Doge Dandolo resides there. More to the point, Fraulein Saugpumpe is there. She didn’t have any trouble getting a room there; it had been reserved for her for a long time. So I suspect that our quarry, Giftlippen, is also residing there. The
arschloch
always did travel in style.

“Also, you’ll notice that the Banco di Manin is nearby. That’s where the Fund’s money is deposited. But I suspect that Giftlippen has more in store for Venice than just cleaning out a bank. I have to give him credit; he does think big.”

We were on the point of strolling to the Danieli when our attention was attracted by a commotion on the waterfront. At first we thought it was a brawl, a fight between the supporters of Dandolo and his opposition. A number of Italians decried him because of the stand of the Church. As I said, Dandolo claimed to be a reincarnation of the greatest of the Doges. Reincarnation is contrary to Catholic theology, of course, and the Pope had denounced Dandolo as a heretic and a fraud. Despite this, the majority of Catholics supported the Doge. They wanted Venice saved. Moreover, they regarded this affair as one more event in the love-hate relationship between the Pope and the Italian people.

“If they can give the man in the Vatican the finger, without endangering their immortal souls, they’ll gladly do it,” Ralph had commented.

The news media had crackled with reports of brawls between the pro- and anti-Dandolists. But the melee, the screaming and shouting and cursing and fistfighting, were not caused by theological disagreement. After we got close, we saw that it was a mob scene being filmed for a movie. Suddenly, two men and a woman were pushed into the water, a man yelled, “Cut!” and silence clamped like a giant hand over the mouths of the actors.

But only for a moment. The director began yelling—screaming, rather—and I suddenly realized that the screaming had been done mostly by him. He had an extremely shrill voice, one which carried like a factory whistle for a long distance. He was an extraordinary person, one who’d attract attention anywhere. He was only four feet high but looked as if he were thirty-five years old. As I found out later, he was actually forty-five. He had long straight hair as black as the bottom of an oil well. His eyes were a beautiful robin’s-egg blue. His face was hawklike but handsome. The stocky body was perfectly proportioned. So, though he was often referred to as a “giant dwarf,” he was actually a midget, though too tall even to deserve that appellation.

It would be indiscreet to record the scorn, the invective, the denunciations of incompetency he hurled at the actors. Suffice it to say that he gave them the worst tongue-lashing I’ve ever heard. Also, the most entertaining. The man was an artist, a poet, extemporaneously pouring out Demosthenics which must have cut the actors to the heart yet made me want to fall on the marble walk with laughter. Of course, I wasn’t the recipient of the words and so could enjoy them.

The assistant director argued with him that the scene had been extremely vigorous and loud. There was nothing phony-looking about it.

“Yeah!” the little man screamed. “Everybody knows you Italians are very dramatic! You can ask somebody to please pass the antipasto, and you look and sound as if you’re threatening murder and mayhem! But everybody knows you’re mostly bluff and bluster and you just like to hear the sound of your own voices! You’re all soap opera characters in real life and about as convincing!

“What I want is sincerity, understand, sincerity! I want you to be really mad at each other! Hate each other’s guts. Don’t just shake your fists! Slam each other in the breadbasket! Twist a few balls; that’ll get some sincerity out of you.

“OK! Take your places and this time do it for real. Think of your opponent as someone who’s spit on the Pope
and
balled your mother. He has knocked up your sister and won’t marry her. He’s also the editor of a newspaper, and he’s just put in big headlines that your aunt is running a whorehouse. As if that isn’t enough, he’s revealed that your daughter has run off with a married man, a
German
tourist!”

At this point the actors began yelling at him. His voice rose again, blanketing out the others like a lid put on a pot of steaming soup. By this time, the three who’d fallen into the water had climbed out. They stood near him, dripping with the stinking sewage-clotted liquid. One of them was a tall woman with a beautiful face and a superb figure. Her scanty wet clothes clung tightly to her body. All of a sudden, I was no longer in a hurry.

One of the actors was talking to the director. It seemed that he was the agent for the actors’ union and he was protesting that they were not being paid to hurt each other.

“I’ll pay you! I’ll pay you!” the little man screamed. “Godalmighty! Every time I want you to do something extra, put a little sincerity into your shams, you want more
lire!
Are you sure you’re not members of the Mafia? It’s extortion, pure essence of extortion, blackmail, financial rape, a currency copulation,
lira
lewdness, a Giovanni jazzing! You’re bankrupting me!