William Tenn - Lisbon Cubed

He started to walk away and found that his sleeve failed to accompany him. Mme. Du Barry continued to hold it between two fingers: she held it winsomely, delicately, archly, but the hold was absolutely unequivocal.

“Aw,” she pouted. “Look at the whizzy-busy businessman. No time for drinkie, no time for mesie, just busy, busy, busy, all the livelong day.”

Despite his irritation, Alfred shrugged. He wasn’t doing himself much good any other way. He came back and sat across the table from her in the booth. Then, and only then, was his sleeve released by the dainty fingers.

The angry-looking man in the spade beard and white apron appeared at their booth. “ Nyehh?” he grunted, meaning, quite obviously, “What’ll you have?”

“I’ll have Scotch on the rocks,” she told Alfred. “Scotch on the rocks is absolutely the only ever drink for me.”

“Two scotch on the rocks,” Alfred told the bartender, who replied “ Nyehh” signifying, “You order the stuff, I bring it. It’s your funeral.”

“I heard you asking about contests. I won a contest once. Does that make you like me a little better?”

“What kind of contest did you win?” Alfred asked absent-mindedly, studying her. Under that mask she was probably somewhat pretty in a rather bony, highly ordinary sort of way. There was nothing here.

“I was voted The Girl the Junior Plumbers of Cleveland Would Most Like to Wipe a Joint With. It was supposed to be The Girl Whose Joint the Junior Plumbers Would Most Like to Wipe, but some nasty people made a fuss and the judges had to change the title. It was three years ago, but I still have the award certificate, Now, does that help me at all?”

“I’m afraid not. But congratulations anyway on winning the title. It’s not everybody who can—uh, say that.”

The angry-looking man in the spade beard came back and set glasses and coasters in front of them. “ Nyehh!” he announced, meaning, “You pay me now. That’s the way we do it in this place.” He took the money, glowered at it, at them, and clumped back to the becustomered bar.

“Well, what kind of contest are you looking for? If you tell me, I might be able to help. I know lots of little things about lots and lots of little things.”

“Oh, contests, prizes, nothing particular.” He glanced at the rear of the booth. There was a framed photograph on the wall of Plekhanov shaking hands with Kerensky. A tough younger version of the chunky, angry-looking man in the spade beard was standing on tiptoe behind Plekhanov, straining hard to get his face into the picture. Alfred realized he was wasting time and swallowed his drink unceremoniously. “I’ll have to be going.”

She cooed dismay. “So soon? When we’ve just met? And when I like you so much?”

“What do you mean you like me so much?” he asked her irritatedly. “When, to quote you, we’ve just met.”

“But I do like you, I do. You’re the cream in my coffee. You’re the top. You do things to me. You’re what makes the world go round. I’m nuts about you. I go for you in a big way, big boy. I’m wild, simply wild over you. I’d climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest river. Body and soul. Roses are red, violets are blue. Drink to me only with thine eyes. Oh, Johnny, oh-h-h! You’re in my heart and my heart’s on my sleeve.” She stopped and drew breath.

“Gah!” Alfred commented, his eyes almost popping. He started to get up. “Thanks, lady, for the pretty talk, but—”

Then he sat down again, his eyes reverting to their previous, pop-like state. The way she’d expressed herself when she’d wanted to make certain she was understood! Like Jane Doe, like Jones—

He’d established rendezvous!

“So that’s how much you like me?” he queried, fighting for time, trying to think out his next step.

“Oh, yes!” she assured him. “I’m carrying the torch, all right. I idolize you. I fancy you. I dote on you. I hold dear, make much of, cherish, prize, cling to—”

“Good!” he almost yelled in the desperation of his attempt to break in on the language of love. “Good, good, good, good! Now, I’d like to go some place where we can have some privacy and discuss your feelings in more detail.” He worked his face for a moment or two, composing it into an enormous leer. “My hotel room, say, or your apartment?”

Mme. Du Barry nodded enthusiastically. “My apartment. It’s closest.”

As she tripped out of the bar beside him, Alfred had to keep reminding himself that this was no human wench, despite the tremulous pressure of her arm around his or the wriggling caress of her hip. This was an intelligent spider operating machinery, no more, no less. But it was also his first key to the puzzle of what the aliens wanted of Earth, his entry into the larger spy organization—and, if he kept his head and enjoyed just a bit of luck, it might well be the means to the saving of his world.

A cab rolled up. They got in, and she called out an address to the driver. Then she turned to Alfred.

“Now let’s kiss passionately,” she said.

They kissed passionately.

“Now let’s snuggle,” she said.

They snuggled.

“Now let’s snuggle a lot harder,” she said.

They snuggled a lot harder.

“That’s enough,” she said. “For now.”

They stopped in front of a large old apartment house that dozed fitfully high above the street, dreaming of its past as it stared down at a flock of run-down brownstones.

Alfred paid the driver and accompanied Mme. Du Barry to the entrance. As he held the elevator door open for her, she batted her eyes at him excitedly and breathed fast in his ear a couple of times.

In the elevator, she pressed the button marked “B.”

“Why the basement?” he asked. “Is your apartment in the basement?”

For answer, she pointed a tiny red cylinder at his stomach. He noticed there was a minute button on top of the cylinder. Her thumb was poised over the button.

“Never you mind what’s in the basement, you lousy Vaklittian sneak. You just stand very still and do exactly what I tell you. And for your information, I know where you are and where your control cubicle is, so don’t entertain any hopes of getting away with nothing more than a damaged uniform.”

Alfred glanced down at the region covered by her weapon and swallowed hard. She was wrong about the location of his control cubicle, of course, but still, face it, how much living would he be able to do without a belly?

“Don’t worry,” he begged her. “I won’t do anything foolish.”

“You’d better not. And no phmpffs out of you either, if you know what’s good for you. One solitary phmpff and I fill you full of holes. I ventilate you, mister, I plug you where you stand. I let daylight through you. I spray your—”

“I get the idea,” Alfred broke in, “No phmpffs. Absolutely. I give you my word of honor.”

“Your word of honor!” she sneered. The elevator stopped and she backed out, gesturing him to follow. He stared at her masked face and resplendent costume, remembering that when Du Barry had been dragged to the guillotine in 1793, she had screamed to the crowds about her tumbril: “Mercy! Mercy for repentance!” He was glad to recall that neither the crowds nor the Revolutionary Tribunal had taken her up on the honest offer.

Not exactly to Alfred’s surprise, there was a man waiting for them in the clammy, whitewashed basement. The Huguenot. He of the American thinking straight-to-the-point.

“Any trouble?”

“No, it was easy,” she told him. “I pulled him in with the Cleveland-contest-three-years-ago routine. He was smooth about it, I’ll say that for him: pretended not to be interested, you know, but he must have bitten hard. I found that out a few seconds later when I told him I loved him and he asked me right off to come up to his apartment.” She chuckled. “The poor, pathetic incompetent! As if any normal American human male would react like that—without so much as a remark about my beautiful eyes and how cute I am and how different I am and how about another drink, baby.”