The Radish River Caper Read online

  The chariot flipped over.

  Its wheels wobbled to a stop.

  At that moment it lit up like a fluorescent bulb.

  It buckled and curled and dissolved in a torrent of vivid blue electrical flame.

  The scoreboard rocked and rumbled.

  It hissed ominously.

  Then tons and tons of aerial bombs began to go off.

  There were small explosions and large explosions and middle-sized explosions.

  There was general hell to pay.

  It was a cross between the Battle of the Bulge and the end of the world.

  That is just a guess of course.

  I missed the former and I have no intentions of attending the latter.

  From horizon to horizon the sky was an unholy orange hue.

  The ground shuddered violently beneath my feet.

  The decrepit Radish River High School building emitted a prolonged groan and caved in.

  The flagpole swayed wildly from side to side and Old Glory snapped and crackled high above the unbelievable scene.

  The Radish River High School band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  I shook my head.

  Fort McHenry had never seen the likes of this.

  The Radish River fans stood to applaud the halftime show.

  The Radish River High School band played “America the Beautiful.”

  The great scoreboard began to lift slowly into the air.

  At an altitude of approximately fifteen feet it paused.

  It hovered there surrounded by swirling smoke.

  Then in a blinding deafening blast it vanished completely.

  The Radish River fans cheered vociferously.

  The Radish River High School band played “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  Where the scoreboard had stood I saw a huge hole in the stadium floor.

  Into this hole staggered a great many men wearing tattered bright red uniforms and battered white helmets.

  There wasn’t a single sleek automatic rifle in sight.

  Doctor Ho Ho Ho’s troops were leaving Radish River.

  The Radish River High School band played “Aloha Oe.”

  I looked for Brandy and saw the broad rump of Lochinvar X. go through the gate and into the tormented night.

  The lights went out.

  I shrugged.

  I headed for the Radish River Drug Store.

  46

  …if all the rabbits ever gets together we gonna have a lot more rabbits than we already got…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  It was after eleven o’clock.

  I sat on the steps of the Radish River Drug Store.

  I smoked a V-shaped Camel and watched anxiously for Brandy’s car.

  Radish River had busted at the seams and all the stuffing was coming out.

  Half of the business district windows had been shattered.

  Drunks sprawled in doorways and gutters.

  I heard the drum of feet pounding up and down the night alleys.

  Now and then a man would shout or a woman would scream.

  I watched an angry rabbit pursue two terrified Great Danes down the middle of the street.

  From around the corner came the sound of singing.

  “We’ll Be Standing ’Neath the Streetlight at Ten on Friday Night Singing Songs of Love in Harmony.”

  Probably the boys of the 000th Field Artillery.

  They had an excellent tenor.

  Mayor Bradford Boone came by.

  He was leading a large group of men.

  He carried a rope with a nasty-looking loop at one end.

  Three of the men carried spades and one had an enormous white leather Bible with gilt-edged pages and a gold cross on its front.

  Mayor Bradford Boone said Purdue have you seen Suicide Lewisite?

  I shrugged.

  I said not since the end of the first half.

  The bartender from the little tavern came running up.

  He was carrying a pick.

  He said hey I just heard that Lewisite is trying to shoot himself with the West Side American Legion cannon.

  There was a loud report from the west.

  There was an odd fluttering sound overhead.

  There was an explosion.

  The Radish River City Hall went up in a vast cloud of flying debris.

  Mayor Boone said let’s go boys.

  The man with the Bible said maybe he’s already dead.

  Mayor Boone said that’s okay.

  He said we’ll hang the sonofabitch anyway.

  They hurried off into the darkness.

  An old man limped up to me.

  He shoved a topless cigar box in my direction.

  He said sir would you care to contribute to the fund for a new Radish River scoreboard?

  I threw a dollar into the box.

  The old man went away.

  I shrugged.

  In Radish River they take their football very seriously.

  47

  …When you gets to checking contents of the local loony bin

  You’ll find we got more loonies out than we got loonies in…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  The silver-gray Porsche arrived just short of midnight and I got in.

  I said Brandy where the hell have you been?

  I said a man could get killed in this goddam insane asylum.

  Brandy said sorry Purdue.

  She said I rode Lochinvar X. back to the farm.

  She said I bought him and made arrangements to have him shipped to Chicago.

  She said I was nearly here when I had to stop for Suicide Lewisite.

  I said I thought he committed suicide with the American Legion cannon.

  Brandy said he missed.

  She said the poor man was frightened out of his wits.

  I said well he should have been.

  I said he leveled the Radish River City Hall and there was a lynch mob on his trail.

  Brandy said that wasn’t it.

  She said he had just stepped on Zanzibar McStrangle’s toe.

  She said I took him down the back streets to the Radish River freight yard and he caught an outbound boxcar.

  She said it was full of footballs.

  48

  …firstest time I ever seen one I didn’t even know how it worked…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Seventy-five miles north of Radish River Brandy pulled into the parking lot of a little motel.

  She said Purdue run into the office and get us a room.

  I shrugged.

  I said why don’t we just drive straight through?

  I said hell I’m not tired.

  Brandy said it isn’t a matter of being tired.

  She said I can’t drive to Chicago wearing this damned Roman toga.

  She said there’s nothing under it but me.

  She turned up the dash lights.

  She said look.

  I looked.

  I said oh yeah.

  I said that.

  I said I’ve already seen it.

  I said so have fifteen thousand people in Radish River stadium.

  Brandy said well what the hell Purdue.

  She said if they’d never seen one they didn’t know what it was.

  49

  …you show me a man with a ashtray on his navel and I’ll show you a man with a warm belly button…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  The room was dark and our cigarettes glowed ruby-red and our ashtray was on my navel.

  I said Brandy don’t you ever get tired of dark rooms with our cigarettes glowing ruby-red and our ashtray on my navel?

  Brandy said never.

  I said well I do.

  Brandy said Purdue do you want to do it another way?

  I said don’t be silly.

  I said there ain’t no other ways left.

  Brandy said sex isn’t the subject of discussion.

  She said what would you change abo
ut this situation?

  I shrugged.

  I said I’d put the ashtray on your navel.

  50

  …oncet I knowed a feller what got a short-circuit in his hearing aid…improved his hearing but his wife went deaf…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Brandy said well thank God it’s over.

  She said it’ll be put down as a stupid accident and there’ll be no federal investigation.

  I said that was probably the shortest military invasion in history.

  Brandy said Purdue we got lucky.

  She said it was a beautifully planned assault.

  She said if it hadn’t been for you Ho Ho Ho would have brought it off without a hitch.

  I shrugged.

  I said hell I didn’t do anything but stumble around town.

  Brandy said on the night you got drunk you mentioned that they were loading aerial bombs into the scoreboard at midnight.

  She said that was the kicker.

  She said I sent you to bed and then I got rid of Sir Lennox Nilgood Fiddleduck.

  She said after that I did some serious snooping.

  She said Purdue the scoreboard contained considerably more than aerial bombs.

  She said there were thousands of hand grenades and millions of rounds of automatic rifle ammunition.

  She said it was jammed to the rafters.

  She said Doctor Ho Ho Ho’s advance party had surreptitiously gained control of the scoreboard and converted it into a combination ammunition dump and point of entry.

  She said the first elements of his invasion force were to march onto the football field and the Radish River fans would have assumed them to be a crack drill team imported for the halftime show.

  She said virtually the entire Radish River populace was in the stadium and Ho Ho Ho planned to annihilate it.

  I shrugged.

  I said well you can’t win ’em all.

  I said he just picked the wrong damn town.

  Brandy said Radish River was the perfect choice.

  She said it’s remote and its people were caught up in a football frenzy and it had that monstrous scoreboard.

  She said everything was made to order.

  I said I’ll bet old Ho Ho Ho thought he’d been ambushed by the whole goddam United States Army.

  Brandy said Ho Ho Ho knew what was happening but his troops didn’t.

  She said they panicked.

  I said how did you manage to blow the scoreboard?

  Brandy said I brought a team of specialists from Langley.

  She said they worked on the chariot for twenty-four hours.

  She said when they were finished that vehicle weighed nearly half a ton and it was an electrical catastrophe on wheels.

  She said once the race was under way I threw a switch that set up a massive short circuit keyed to occur the instant the chariot wheels stopped turning.

  I said well what if you’d had to pull up for some reason?

  Brandy pressed my hand.

  She said then we wouldn’t be in this dark room with our cigarettes glowing ruby-red and our ashtray on your navel.

  She took the ashtray from my navel.

  She placed it on her own navel.

  She said Purdue is that better?

  51

  …the only differences between a tenor and a bass is a soprano and a baritone…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Illinois dawn poked slim gray fingers into our motel room.

  I stretched and yawned.

  I said well I suppose Doctor Ho Ho Ho is halfway to Manchuria and Sir Lennox Nilgood Fiddleduck is en route to London.

  Brandy said no he’s in the Radish River jail.

  I said who?

  I said which one?

  Brandy said both.

  She said Purdue they’re the same man.

  I blinked.

  I said Ho Ho Ho and Fiddleduck?

  Brandy said oh yes.

  She said Fiddleduck came to me with oodles of identification.

  She said I bought his story but I began to become suspicious when he kept insisting that Doctor Ho Ho Ho just had to be Chinese and that he would pop up in Gunther’s Woods.

  She said ten special operatives nailed Fiddleduck shortly after the scoreboard blew up.

  She said he was singing tenor with the 000th Field Artillery.

  I said yeah I heard them.

  I said “We’ll Be Standing ’Neath the Streetlight at Ten on Friday Night Singing Songs of Love in Harmony.”

  Brandy said gee I like those words.

  She said what’s the name of the song?

  I shrugged.

  I said I thought Ho Ho Ho sang bass.

  I said is that all you had to go on?

  Brandy said certainly not.

  She said on Thursday night I learned that Fiddleduck wears leopard-skin shorts.

  A scowl crept into my voice.

  I said how the hell did you do that?

  A smile crept into Brandy’s voice.

  She said why?

  I said because goddammit I want to know goddammit that’s why goddammit!

  Brandy said Purdue don’t be naive.

  I said well I’ll be a dirty no-good rotten miserable low-down double-jointed web-toed flap-lipped sand-bagging triple-fractured three-eyed bastard son of a nine-legged flaming dipped-in-owl-manure goddam giraffe!

  I said from New Caledonia.

  I said how was he?

  Brandy said well let’s see.

  She tried to stop laughing.

  She couldn’t.

  She said he was above average.

  She said for a two-hundred-year-old man that is.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Brandy took the ashtray from her navel.

  She rolled onto me.

  She hadn’t been laughing after all.

  Her tears dropped to my face.

  They were very salty.

  She said Purdue you’re jealous.

  She said praise God you’re jealous!

  I shrugged.

  Brandy said don’t be jealous.

  She said it was all in the line of duty.

  She said I had to fix him so he couldn’t trail me to the scoreboard.

  I said well that explains why the sonofabitch was singing tenor.

  I said you screwed the bass out of him.

  Brandy put her face close to mine.

  She said strictly business.

  She ran her fingers through my crew cut.

  She said there’s a tremendous difference between business and pleasure.

  She said Purdue I am about to show you the tremendous difference.

  Brandy showed me the tremendous difference.

  The difference was tremendous.

  52

  …cats is strange creatures…they is real quiet all day…then they make love at three in the morning and wake up half the county…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Wallace peered at me with sleepy eyes.

  He said don’t you think it’s too early?

  I shrugged.

  I said hell if it’s that early why are you open?

  Wallace said you know I been wondering about that myself.

  I sat at the bar.

  I shook my head.

  Wallace said what’s the matter?

  I said nothing important.

  I said I just got the feeling that I’ve lived this moment before.

  Wallace said yeah that happens to me every so often.

  He said last time was when Old Dad Underwood and Shorty Connors come in here and got to talking about guitars.

  The door opened.

  Old Dad Underwood and Shorty Connors came in.

  They sat at the bar.

  They got to talking about guitars.

  Shorty Connors said I got a big problem making a F chord.

  Old Dad Underwood said me too.

  He said oncet I asked a guy how to make a good F chord.


  He said this guy tole me I should just mash a handful of strings and hit ’er a lick.

  Shorty Connors said how did it work out?

  Old Dad Underwood said not too good.

  He said we still can’t get the cat from under the couch.

  Shorty Connors said last year I wrote to Segovia and asked him how to make a good F chord.

  He said Segovia never answered.

  He said neither did Chet Atkins.

  He said now I don’t feel so bad.

  Old Dad Underwood said a guitar is just like a woman’s body.

  Shorty Connors said yeah I see lots like that at the shopping center.

  Old Dad Underwood said I don’t mean the shape.

  Shorty Connors said well I got a sister-in-law what is completely unstrung.

  Old Dad Underwood said I am talking about the way a woman’s body responds to your caresses.

  Shorty Connors said well here we are back on F chords.

  Wallace said I just got the feeling that I have lived this moment before I lived this moment before.

  He stared at me.

  He said Chance you look pale.

  He said what kind of feeling did you just get?

  I said I just got the feeling that I left my suitcase in Brandy Alexander’s automobile.

  53

  …Jimmy the Greek is a genius…he can tell you exackly why a team is going to win by seven points and when the game is over he can tell you exackly why it lost by twenty-one…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Wallace said I was reading in the morning paper about that Radish River town.

  He said seems they had a little trouble down there last night.

  I said Wallace the mind boggles.

  Wallace said some gorilla derailed a freight train.

  He said the paper had an article on one of their football players.

  I said Zanzibar McStrangle?

  Wallace said yeah out of Barnum-Bailey.

  I said what about him?

  Wallace said he’s going to be in the Super Bowl next year.

  I said doing what?

  I said eating footballs?

  Wallace said he’s going to play the whole damn National Football League.

  I shrugged.