The Radish River Caper Read online

  He said oh yes by Jove those are smashers.

  I said have you ever seen the one with the big circle and that goofy-looking Indian?

  Sir Lennox said oh ripping simply ripping.

  He threw back his head and roared with merriment for several minutes.

  He caught his breath and wiped his eyes.

  He said blimey matey I had nearly forgotten that one.

  He said my favorite is the one with all those bloody little squares.

  He slapped his knee and laughed until his face was red.

  He was still in stitches when Brandy returned.

  Brandy said I don’t know what you boys have been drinking but I’ll have a gallon on the rocks.

  At this Sir Lennox let out a wild whoop and fell to his knees doubled-over in convulsions of laughter.

  Brandy looked at me.

  Blankly.

  She said I can see it now.

  She said my name up in lights.

  She said Brandy Alexander the Broadway Sunbeam Girl.

  She did a little sideways dance step.

  She said twenty-three-ski-goddam-doo.

  She flopped into a chair.

  She said shit.

  19

  …a man can get sicker on wine than just about anything…this also holds true for women…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  I was puffing.

  Heavily.

  Brandy was panting.

  Softly.

  Her head was on my shoulder and her lilac perfume was scrambling my senses.

  Her cigarette glowed ruby-red in the darkness.

  She said Purdue you improve with age.

  She said like quality wine.

  I said I really ain’t too much on wine.

  Brandy said you’re more mellow than when we first met.

  I said I drink beer mostly.

  Brandy said you’re wonderfully robust but smooth as silk.

  I said of course I’ll drink whiskey on occasion.

  Brandy said you’re strong but you’re gentle and just sweet enough.

  I said just about any occasion come to think of it.

  Brandy snubbed out her cigarette.

  She rolled over and snuggled up tight.

  She put her lips to my ear.

  Her voice was soft.

  She said Purdue?

  I said yeah?

  Brandy said Purdue please shut up.

  20

  …if you was to put all the Chinamen in one room you would need a rather large room…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  I was sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing my eyes.

  Brandy came to the bedroom door.

  She said my God I thought you were in hibernation.

  I said no but we stopped there on a troop train once.

  Brandy said it’s after ten o’clock.

  I said it’s about fifty miles out of Ashtabula.

  Brandy said do you want breakfast?

  I said after that we didn’t stop all night.

  Brandy said the coffee’s ready.

  I said except to take water.

  Brandy sighed.

  I said I think it was for water.

  Brandy went away.

  I dressed and stumbled into the kitchen.

  I fired up a battered Camel and sat across from Brandy.

  She was wearing her brown robe.

  Closed tightly at the throat.

  I said no double feature this morning?

  Brandy shook her head.

  She said not this morning.

  She said I want you to concentrate on what I have to say.

  I shrugged.

  Neither of us spoke until Brandy poured my second cup of coffee.

  She said I think you should know that this could be damned dangerous.

  I said why?

  I said the first cup was fine.

  Brandy said now Purdue don’t start up with me again.

  She said you know perfectly well what I’m talking about.

  She said Doctor Ho Ho Ho is the most savage and merciless creature in all of history.

  She said you still have time to get out.

  I said if it’s all the same to you I’d like to wait and see the Annual Radish River Roman Chariot Race.

  Brandy said is that the only reason?

  I shrugged.

  Brandy looked at me with level liquid brown eyes.

  She said Purdue I know you love me.

  I said is that a question?

  Brandy said of course not.

  I said then I don’t have to answer it.

  Brandy said don’t you dare.

  I said tell me about Doctor Ho Ho Ho.

  Brandy said Sir Lennox Nilgood Fiddleduck had a brush with Doctor Ho Ho Ho years ago.

  She said at that time Ho Ho Ho was plotting to blow up Buckingham Palace.

  She said strictly bush-league when compared to what he has in mind this time around.

  I said I’ll bite.

  Brandy stared into her coffee cup.

  Her voice grew solemn.

  She said Purdue he’s about to invade the United States of America.

  I said then what are we doing in southern Illinois?

  I said we should be on the West Coast.

  I said or the East Coast.

  I said or some goddam coast.

  Brandy shook her head.

  She said he won’t invade by sea.

  I said paratroopers?

  Brandy said no.

  I said well those are the only ways you can get here from there.

  Brandy said you missed one.

  She said Doctor Ho Ho Ho is digging a hole straight through the earth from the Russian side of the Manchurian border.

  She said if our calculations are correct he’ll emerge in the Radish River area within a week.

  She said Sir Lennox is in charge of our monitoring facilities and his recent readings have put Ho Ho Ho well east of the Missouri border.

  I said this Ho Ho Ho must be a real bastard with a shovel.

  Brandy said Purdue he’s using the most sophisticated drilling equipment ever designed.

  She said the operation has occupied thousands of people.

  I said I thought we were getting on better terms with the Chinese.

  Brandy nodded.

  She said we are.

  She said if Ho Ho Ho shows up in China they’ll hang him so high he’ll freeze to death before he runs out of breath.

  I said does the Russian government approve of this kind of carrying on?

  Brandy said well Purdue that takes us right back to square one.

  She said we’re up against DADA again.

  I said are those maniacs still running around loose?

  Brandy said the DADA organization has been recalled to Mother Russia explicitly for the Ho Ho Ho program.

  She said they’ve worked with Ho Ho Ho every inch of the way.

  She said DADA even designed the uniforms for Ho Ho Ho’s forces.

  She said bright red with white helmets.

  She said very sharp.

  She said DADA arranged for Ho Ho Ho to break ground in a Russian-occupied Manchurian area that the Chinese have claimed for years.

  She said this enables the Kremlin to look on without saying yes or no.

  I said the Kremlin wouldn’t say yes or no.

  Brandy said once Ho Ho Ho’s troops begin to surface they’ll come boiling out of that hole at a rate of fifty thousand a day.

  I said the Kremlin would say da or nyet.

  She said if Ho Ho Ho can escape notice for a few days he’ll have half a million troops in the center of America with more pouring in by the minute.

  I said the reason I know about da and nyet is I got a phonetic Russian dictionary at home.

  Brandy said Purdue stop it.

  I said that must be one helluva hole.

  Brandy said yes to be perfectly honest it’s the foremost engineering feat in the h
istory of mankind.

  She said still it hasn’t been as difficult as it would have been to tunnel from say Ecuador to Borneo.

  I said safer too.

  I said no wild men.

  Brandy winced.

  She said all right Purdue that does it.

  She stood and pulled the belt of her brown robe.

  She wiggled her tawny smooth shoulders.

  The robe rustled to the floor.

  Brandy took my hand.

  She said come with me.

  On our way into the bedroom she said how do you say this in Russian wise guy?

  I shrugged.

  I said well somebody knows.

  I said all those goddam Russians didn’t get here by accident.

  21

  …big advantage about living forever is you might see the Cubs win a World Series…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Later when we were tired I said what does this Doctor Ho Ho Ho look like?

  Brandy said nobody has the remotest idea.

  I said well at least we know he’s Chinese.

  Brandy said no we don’t.

  She said Sir Lennox is operating on that theory but it’s mere supposition.

  She said we know where Ho Ho Ho has been and we know what he’s done but we have little else to go on.

  She said it’s been rumored that Ho Ho Ho has perfected an age-retarding process and that he wears leopard-skin shorts and that he speaks eighty-nine different languages including twenty-two that he made up himself and that he has direct pipelines into the offices of every government on earth and that he sang bass in a barbershop quartet in Bartlett Illinois ten years ago.

  I shrugged.

  I said well you can throw that last one out.

  I said I’ve been in Bartlett Illinois.

  I said Bartlett Illinois didn’t have a barbershop ten years ago.

  22

  …being minus a plus ain’t quite as bad as being plus a minus but you still don’t got much to write home about…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Smiling September brings bittersweet tears.

  All songs are sad songs.

  Dreams drift away to wherever dreams drift away to and I got a pebble in my sock as I passed the grassy little park.

  I sat on a bench with the sun warm on my back.

  I removed the pebble.

  I smoked a couple dilapidated Camels.

  I blew tobacco smoke into the blue autumn haze.

  I opened the vault of my life in search of a plus or two.

  That was a mistake.

  I got flattened by an avalanche of minuses.

  Well there was nothing mysterious about it.

  Some dirty bastard had reversed my escalator.

  With me smack-dab in the middle.

  I was the guy who went out to lock the barn after the horse had been stolen.

  And found the barn missing.

  Nowhere to go and no way to get there.

  I shrugged.

  Another fifty years and it wouldn’t matter.

  The thump of a bass drum and the sound of voices drifted into my thinking.

  A group of people entered the park.

  They bore aloft a huge banner which read ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE FOR PRESIDENT.

  From across the park came the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum.

  Another group of people appeared.

  This group carried small signs.

  KEEP ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE PURE.

  SAVE ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE FROM THE POLITICAL JUNGLE.

  ZANZIBAR McSTRANGLE IS A FULLBACK NOT A ½ WIT.

  The opposing factions met in the middle of the park.

  Words were exchanged.

  Fists were shaken.

  There was an excellent riot.

  Nineteen people went to jail and I went to the Radish River Drug Store.

  I called Betsy.

  Betsy said hello my sweetheart when are you coming home to mama?

  I shrugged.

  I said probably right after Doctor Ho Ho Ho invades the United States.

  There was a lengthy period of silence.

  Betsy said I see.

  She said will that be before or after the cow jumps over the moon?

  I said apparently it will be right about the time the Radish River Possumcats play the Sycamore Center Ridgelings.

  Betsy said what’s a ridgeling?

  I said it’s a horse with only one testicle.

  Betsy said then what do you call a horse with three testicles?

  I said well I knew a guy who had a horse with three testicles.

  I said he called it Blackie.

  Betsy hung up.

  Mayor Bradford Boone was entering the drugstore.

  He had a bad limp.

  I said did you get that limp from falling out of the oak tree?

  Mayor Boone said no I got it from Suicide Lewisite stepping on my toe.

  He said Purdue would you believe they blew off seven tons of aerial bombs Saturday night?

  He said they loaded another fifteen tons into the scoreboard this morning.

  He said they figure they can shoot up the whole bunch if Zanzibar McStrangle plays up to his potential this weekend.

  I shrugged.

  Betsy had summed it up.

  Crazy places crazy cases.

  23

  …speaking of atrocities…has you ever seen what the Chicago White Sox can do to a fly ball?…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  From the dim depths of a Tuesday night cloud of pipe smoke Sir Lennox Nilgood Fiddleduck said it appears certain that the evil Chinaman will reach Radish River in four or five days.

  He said history indicates that Sunday will be the big day.

  He said the Japanese did veddy well against you chaps on a Sunday.

  I shrugged.

  I said well that would depend on just what Sunday you’re talking about.

  I said if it’s Sunday December 7th you’re right.

  I said if it’s Sunday September 2nd you’re wrong.

  Brandy said just where do you figure Doctor Ho Ho Ho will emerge?

  Sir Lennox ran his pipe stem across the big map on Brandy’s kitchen table.

  He tapped confidently on a darkened area.

  He said right here in Gunther’s Woods just west of the Radish River city limits.

  He said Gunther’s Woods is large and dense and it offers excellent cover for an operation of this magnitude.

  Brandy shook her head emphatically.

  She said no.

  Sir Lennox frowned.

  He said but it’s far and away the most likely spot.

  Brandy said yes and that’s why Ho Ho Ho won’t use it.

  I said when will the Marines arrive? Brandy said they won’t.

  I said well then the Army?

  Brandy said the Army won’t be here either.

  I said well how about the Air Force or the Knights of Columbus or maybe Alcoholics Anonymous?

  I said we got us a national emergency don’t we?

  Brandy said Purdue we’re completely on our own in Radish River.

  She said Washington doesn’t want to risk an involvement.

  I said hold it right there.

  I said what do you mean Washington doesn’t want to risk an involvement?

  I said Jesus Christ the country is about to be goddam invaded.

  I said ain’t that worth an involvement?

  Brandy said Purdue stop shouting and try to be realistic.

  She said if American troops were to injure one of Doctor Ho Ho Ho’s men the American Civil Liberties Union would have our Joint Chiefs of Staff over a barrel in ten minutes.

  She said then our news media would start screaming atrocity atrocity atrocity.

  She said within twenty-four hours our students would be demonstrating from coast to coast.

  She said you simply have to understand that there isn’t so much as a single sliver of American backbone left in W
ashington D.C.

  She said nobody will stand up to be counted.

  She said even the financing of this venture is under the table.

  She said if we attract the slightest amount of unfavorable attention here in Radish River the CIA won’t admit it’s ever heard of us.

  She said what’s more both of us will probably get life imprisonment.

  I said what the hell for?

  I said my God all we did was go to a football game.

  I said half of that couldn’t be played.

  Brandy said all Nixon did was make a few tape recordings.

  She said half of those couldn’t be played either.

  I said well I’ll be a dirty sonofabitch.

  Sir Lennox said pardon me but isn’t that what General Skinny Wainwright said on Luzon in 1942?

  I said look you just got to get your dates straightened out.

  I said that’s what General Hideki Tojo said in Tokyo in 1945.

  24

  …there ain’t no truth in the report that I live in a haunted house…that was only my mother-in-law looking out the window…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Radish River moonlight flooded Brandy’s spavined old front porch.

  I sat on the second step.

  Brandy occupied the fourth.

  It was a warm quiet night and very late.

  Brandy sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

  She smiled down at me.

  Her soft husky-sweet voice was sentimental.

  She said Purdue this is like when I was a kid.

  She said don’t you get that impression?

  I shrugged.

  Just a left shoulder shrug.

  I said I don’t know what it was like when you were a kid.

  Brandy said I mean sitting and talking on the front porch steps after dark.

  I said we didn’t have a front porch.

  I said my old man sold it.

  Brandy said well somebody in your neighborhood must have had a front porch.

  I thought about it.

  I said yeah the Cummings family.

  I said we used to sit and talk on the steps after dark.

  Brandy said did you really?

  Down the block a yellowish streetlight flickered weakly.

  Leaves rustled in the night.

  I said we used to tell ghost stories.

  Brandy said I’ll bet that was fun.