Encounters Page 10

  “What's the problem, Basil?” I asked.

  He kept whining and staring.

  “Is it her?”

  He nodded.

  I racked my mind trying to figure out what it was about her that could upset him so much.

  “She's been mean to you before?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “She's got something to do with the Gypsies who cursed you?”

  He shook his head again.

  “I can't figure out what the problem is,” I said. “But what the hell, as long as we let her know who you are, it's in the bag.”

  He pointed his nose at the ceiling and howled mournfully.

  “She's from out of town and doesn't know you're a werewolf?” I asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  He whimpered and curled up in a little ball.

  “Will the following dogs please enter the ring?” said the announcer. “Champion Blue Boy, Champion Flaming Spear, Champion Gladiator, Champion Jericho, and Grand International Champion Basil.”

  Well, we didn't have no choice but to follow these four fluffy little dogs into the ring. The judge just stared at us for a minute with her jaw hanging open, and I figured we were about to get booted out, but then she walked over and knelt down and held Basil by the ears and peered into his face, and then she stood up and stepped back a bit and stared at him some more, and finally she walked over to me and said, “This is the most handsome, rugged, masculine dog I have ever seen. I have a female I'd love to breed to him. Is he for sale?”

  I told her that I was just showing him for a friend, and that she'd have to speak to the Count de Chenza Lupo about it later. She scribbled down her address, and it turned out that she was staying three rooms down the hall from me at the Hotel Magyar.

  Finally she examined the other four dogs briefly and with obvious disinterest, and then she announced that Grand International Champion Basil was the best dog in this or any other show and had won the ten thousand dollars.

  Well, Basil and me stuck around long enough to have a bunch of photos taken for the papers and then high-tailed it back to the hotel, where we waited until daylight and he became Count Basil again and we divvied up the money. Then he walked down the hall to talk to the judge about selling himself to her, and he came back half an hour later with the silliest grin on his face and announced that he was in love and she didn't mind in the least that he was a werewolf and all was right with the world.

  I read in the paper that the other dog owners were so outraged about losing to a wolf that they tore the building down, and with the dog shows canceled for the foreseeable future I couldn't see no reason to stick around, so I bid Hungary farewell and decided to try my luck in Paris, where I'd heard tell that the sinners were so thick on the ground you could barely turn around without making the real close acquaintanceship of at least a couple of ’em.

  I never saw old Basil again, but a few months later I got a letter from him. He'd married his lady judge and left Budapest for good, and was living on her country estate managing her kennel—and he added a proud little postscript that both his wife and her prize female were expecting.

  7. The Clubfoot of Notre Dame

  If you wander down the Champs-Elysses today, or mosey over to Montmartre or the Trocadero or the Latin Quarter, you can still find a few people who remember me, even though I haven't been there since 1933.

  Therefore, I think it's only fair that I tell you my side of the story.

  I hit Paris in late afternoon of a lovely spring day in April, and even before I had time to line up a hotel and hunt up a place to eat, I found myself in a mild disagreement with some of the locals concerning exactly how many aces there were supposed to be in the deck I was dealing from, and just as things were starting to get ugly, the local constabularies rescued me and thoughtfully lined up my room and board for the next week, all at public expense.

  Now, while I wouldn't never want to complain about such generous treatment, I'd be less than my usual forthright and honest self if I didn't point out that the prison fare in Paris don't quite measure up to the quality of grub you get at Maxim's or the Tour d'Argent, and the beds weren't quite as luxurious as you might expect at the Plaza-Athenee or the Ritz. But given the price, I didn't have no real serious objections, and I was almost sorry to leave when they gave me my walking papers a week later.

  I stopped at a sidewalk cafe, which didn't cater to no locals but was filled to overflowing with bearded American writers, all of ’em with tortured artistic eyes, and after I'd et some snails and washed them down with a bottle of wine, I realized that I still didn't have no place to stay.

  I couldn't see no sense wasting any money on one of the more expensive hotels, so I started wandering around, kind of testing the waters to see if I could rent a room and a companion of the female persuasion for the price of a room alone, and pretty soon I found myself in an alley, and I came to this big door, and I could hear all kinds of laughing and clapping on the other side of it, like folks were having a real good time, so I opened it and stepped inside.

  It was dark, and there were all kinds of theatrical-type props lying around, and about twenty yards off I could see a light, so I went in its direction, and suddenly I found myself face-to-face with this beautiful blonde lady who had evidently dressed in kind of a hurry, because she wasn't wearing nothing but a pair of high heels and a bunch of feathers in her hair.

  “Howdy, ma'am,” I said. “I heard the sound of merrymaking out in the alley, and I just followed my ears.”

  She looked kind of startled, and shot me a quick grin, and whispered, “Who are you?”

  “The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service, ma'am,” I said. “If you ain't got no serious plans for the rest of the evening, I'd be happy to escort you to some of the finer night spots in town.”

  Suddenly I heard a road of laughter off to my left, and I turned and saw a bunch of people sitting at tables, all of ’em laughing their heads off.

  “Am I intruding in some kind of private party, ma'am?” I asked.

  “You are intruding on the stage of the Follies Bergere, you fool!” she snapped.

  “Does that mean you ain't available for an evening of fun and frolic?” I asked.

  “Don't you understand?” she hissed. “You're interrupting a performance!”

  “Where I come from, ladies don't perform wearing nothing but a smile,” I said. Then I mulled on it a bit, and added, “Maybe that's why I left, now that I come to think on it.”

  The audience laughed again, and then I was surrounded by maybe two dozen more ladies who weren't wearing no more than the first, and it seemed that as long as I was there, and a stranger in town, the least I could do was introduce myself to each of ’em. I'd gotten about halfway down the line when they all started dancing across the stage, and I was left standing there all alone, so I figured I might as well dance after ’em. Now, the waltz is just about the only dance I know, and it's right difficult to do without a partner, but I done the best I could, and just as I caught up with them a bunch of gendarmes started walking toward the stage, and even though I knew I was innocent of all wrongdoing, I didn't like the look in their eyes, so once I got near the curtain I just kept on waltzing, but the second I was offstage the audience started screaming something in French, and a minute later the stage manager ran up to me.

  “They want more of you!” he said breathlessly.

  “Well, of course they do,” I said. “With all the old guys who stare at ’em night after night, it's probably been years since they was approached by a good-looking young buck like myself.”

  “I don't mean the girls,” he said. “I mean the audience!”

  “I don't think I follow you, Brother,” I said.

  “They think you're a clown, that you're part of the act. They want an encore!”

  “An encore?” I repeated.

  “What else can you do?”

  “I'm a preacher by trade,” I said. “I
suppose if push came to shove I could give ’em a rouser about the Song of Solomon.”

  “Just get out there and do something!” said the stage manager, shoving me out into the spotlights.

  The audience stopped yelling then, and settled back into their chairs.

  “Howdy, folks,” I said. “I'm the Right Reverend Lucifer Jones, and I've come to bring the word of the Lord into your dull, lackluster lives.”

  Well, for some reason or other, that brought forth a burst of chuckles, and I figured as long as they seemed to be in a partying mood, I'd warm ’em up with the story about the peg-legged whaler and the fireman's daughter before I got down to serious business, and they liked that one so much I followed it up with the one about the schoolmarm and the left-handed plumber, and by this time even the gendarmes were having a good time, and I figured I might as well put off any serious sermonizing til Sunday morning rolled around, and I told ’em a couple of more tales I'd accumulated during my travels to distant and exotic lands, and even though they didn't understand the one about the bow-legged jade merchant and the mandarin's daughter they laughed anyway, and we were having a high old time when the manager slipped me a note saying the girls were in serious danger of catching cold if they didn't start generating a little body heat, and I writ back that I may well have had the strength of ten because my heart was pure but I had counted twenty-five of ’em and he'd have to send fifteen of ’em home, and he wrote back to say I'd misunderstood him and what he meant was that he wanted me to get off the stage so they could go back to dancing.

  Well, I didn't want none of them frail flowers coming down with a cold because of me, so I thanked the audience for being so friendly to a foreigner, and told them to stop by my tabernacle if they ever felt in serious need of salvation.

  “Where is it?” asked one old geezer.

  “I ain't had time to set up shop yet,” I said. “But if any of you gents or ladies can suggest a good location, I'm willing to listen.”

  “Notre Dame!” said another, and everyone guffawed, and then I left the stage and the girls started working up a sweat, and the manager walked over to me.

  “I don't know whether I should arrest you for interrupting the show, or offer you a long-term contract,” he said. “I think I shall settle for politely showing you the door.”

  “Well, you could do me one favor, Brother,” I said.

  “And what is that?”

  “Tell me about this Notre Dame,” I said. “I always knew they played football. I didn't know they saved souls, too.”

  “It is the greatest church in the world,” he said, looking at me like I had some kind of rare tropical disease. “How can you not know of it?”

  “I know of it,” I said with some dignity. “But I was under the impression that it was somewhere in Indiana.”

  He shook his head. “It is at the Ile de la Cite.” I asked him to tell me how to get there, since I figured if I could get in tight with Knute Rockne or whoever was coaching the team these days I might get a little inside information that would help me beat the point spread, and then I thanked him for his help, bade him a fond farewell, and started walking down the lonely, deserted streets of Paris.

  It must have been close to four in the morning when I got there, and let me tell you, it was one mighty impressive sight, even if I couldn't spot the stadium in the dark. There were gargoyles galore, one in particular bringing back memories of Honor Weinberger, a girl I'd known back in Moline, Illinois, and all kinds of stained glass windows, including a big rose-colored one, and finally I opened the door and walked inside. Someone was playing some mighty mournful music on the pipe organ, but I couldn't see who it was. In fact, it was so dark in there that I couldn't even see the ceiling, and after I'd looked around a bit and drunk in the architecture, of which there was an awful lot to drink in, I decided to see if I could hunt up the locker room, so I opened a door and started moseying down this corridor, which led to a batch of other corridors and doors, and pretty soon I couldn't hear the music no more and I was pretty well-nigh lost, so I figured I'd retrace my steps and wait until daylight and maybe hunt up Knute and the gang at their practice field, but as I turned I saw this ugly little feller kind of shuffling after me. He looked like he knew his way around a lot better than I did, so I walked over to him on the assumption that he might be able to help me.

  “Good evening, Brother,” I said. “Was that you playing on the organ?”

  He nodded. “I do it to relax, when nobody's around.”

  “You're right good at it.”

  He smiled a homely kind of smile. “Thank you very much.” He paused. “Who are you, by the way?”

  “I'm the Right Reverend Lucifer Jones, and I'm looking for the team's headquarters.”

  “Team?” he repeated. “What team?”

  “The varsity, of course,” I said. “Can't make no money betting on freshman games.”

  “We don't have any teams here,” he said. “This is Notre Dame.”

  “I'm afraid that you been misinformed,” I told him. “It just so happens that you got a top-notch football team.”

  He smiled. “That is the Notre Dame in America.”

  “You mean there's more than one of you?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “You know,” I said, “I been thinking all night that it seemed like you guys scheduled an awful lot of road games. I guess that explains it.”

  “Well, now that you're here, why don't you join me in a glass of wine?” he said.

  “That's mighty neighborly of you,” I replied.

  “It gets lonely here at night,” he explained. “You're the first person I've seen in weeks.”

  “Well, you must see ’em when you go home in the mornings.”

  “I live here,” he said. “My room is over by the belltower. I haven't set foot outside the church in, oh, it must be close to thirty years now.”

  We reached this little room that had a table and four chairs, and while I sat down, he limped over to a cabinet and pulled out two glasses and a bottle of red wine.

  “Looks like you twisted your ankle,” I said.

  “It is a permanent condition,” he said. “I'm a clubfoot.”

  “Well, I don't suppose it makes much difference, as long as no one's kicking field goals around here.”

  “I like you, Reverend Jones,” he said, filling the glasses. “You are a very understanding man.”

  “And you are a very generous host,” I said. “I want to thank you for the wine, Brother...?”

  “Quesadilla.”

  “Brother Quesadilla,” I concluded.

  “You didn't laugh,” he noted.

  “Did someone tell a joke?”

  “No,” he said. “But my name ... the Spanish seem to find it amusing.”

  “Well, the Spanish are easily amused,” I said. “Usually a dead bull will do the trick.”

  “I like you more and more,” he said. “No one has ever conversed so freely with me.”

  “Why not?” I said. “You seem like a friendly enough feller.”

  “Who knows? They hear the rumors, and ... “ He spread his hands and shrugged.

  “Uh ... just what kind of rumors are you referring to, Brother Quesadilla?” I asked.

  “Oh, that I kidnap women and do grotesque things to them in the belltower,” he said with a shrug.

  “Sounds noisy,” I allowed.

  “On my honor, Reverend Jones, I have never taken a single woman to the belltower.”

  My first impulse was to ask if he took married women there. My second impulse was to ask if he didn't take ’em to the belltower, where did he take ’em? Then I took a serious look at all the muscles on his arms and neck, and my third and most reasonable impulse was to change the subject, which I proceeded to do.

  “Brother Quesadilla,” I said, “I been looking for a place to establish my tabernacle. As long as Fate has brung me to your doorstep, how much do you think your employers would rent this joint out for
?”

  He chuckled at that. “This is the Notre Dame Cathedral. It's not for rent, Reverend Jones.”

  “Well, here it is, four in the morning, and not a soul is milling around except you and me,” I pointed out. “It seems a sorry waste of such a nice tasteful building.”

  “You preach to your congregation at four in the morning?” he asked.

  “Well, truth to tell, I had in mind something more in the way of maybe a nightly bingo tournament to help pay the overhead.”

  “Bingo?” he said, puzzled.

  “Well, if the French don't play bingo, I suppose we could set up a craps table and maybe a roulette wheel.”

  “It's a fascinating concept,” he admitted with a grin, “but this is a place of worship.”

  “Brother Quesadilla, you'd be surprised how often people call upon the Good Lord when they got a pair of dice in their hands,” I said.

  He considered it for a minute and then shook his head sadly. “They'd never permit it.”

  “Wouldn't nobody have to know about it except you and me and such various sinners as we manage to attract,” I said. “We could set up shop every night from, say, midnight til five in the morning.”

  “We?” he repeated.

  “As in you and me,” I said.

  “Do you mean you'd really trust the notorious Clubfoot of Notre Dame?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I just won't go to the belltower with you.”

  “This is a most intriguing concept,” he said. “Would we split the profits down the middle?”

  “One-third for you, one-third for me, and one-third for the Lord,” I said.

  “As the Lord's landlord, I'll hold His share of the money,” said Quesadilla.

  “I was kind of figuring on holding it myself,” I replied, “me being His spokesman and all.”

  “Fifty-fifty?” he said.

  I sighed. “Fifty-fifty,” I agreed.