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  “The women are still here!” snaps Malone, reaching into Milton’s pocket and taking back his ten large.

  “I see you are having your usual fine luck with the opposite sex,” notes Morris the Mage.

  Milton, whose nose has started bleeding again, mutters a curse. It comes out as “Blmskph!”

  “Let us be charitable here,” adds Spellsinger Solly. “You have to admit that Mitzi McSweeney is about as opposite as sexes get to be.”

  “You are speagig aboud the woman I love!” growls Milton. “Well, lust for, anyway,” he amends.

  “Let us get back to the man we all lust for,” says Almost Blonde Annie. She turns to her mage, Sam Mephisto, who does most of his magicking in the Bronx. “I paid you good money for a husband. I want him.”

  “I am working on it,” says Sam Mephisto. “These things take time.”

  “Work faster!” she snaps.

  “Not to worry,” he says. “If worst comes to absolute worst, I’ll marry you myself.”

  That is when we learn that interacting with the female of the species is not a problem unique to Big-Hearted Milton, but may very well affect all mages. Dead End Dugan and Impervious Irving wait until she pauses for breath and lift him up to the bar, where Joey Chicago douses his face with water.

  Sam Mephisto blinks a few times, then slowly sits up. “That was a most amazing experience,” he says. “For a minute there I dream I am back in Egypt, mounted on my camel and leading my men into battle against General Sherman.” Which is when we know he is not entirely recovered, unless General Sherman went further astray than most history books would have us believe.

  He gets down off the bar, blinks his eyes a few more times, and finally speaks. “It has been a long, hard night,” he says. “I think I am going to take a little nap.” And with that he slides down to the floor and lies there, snoring up a storm.

  “Some mage!” snaps Almost Blonde Annie, making the same kind of disgusted face I make whenever I see Gently Gently Dawkins pour Tabasco sauce on his oatmeal. She glares from one man to another, and finally says, “I am a woman alone, without representation. Isn’t anyone going to do something about it?”

  I decide that she has a point, so I walk over to the blackboard when I have posted the evening line and raise her odds to forty-to-one.

  She takes a glass of beer off the bar, throws it in Sam Mephisto’s face, and stalks out into the night, leaving him licking his lips while still snoring.

  “Well, that’s one less to worry about,” says Malone with a sigh of relief.

  “Two,” says Benny. “Stella Houston’s probably still chasing Willie the Wizard all over Manhattan.”

  “Right,” adds Gently Gently, surveying the tavern. “Fourteen more and you’re out of the woods.”

  “Well, til tomorrow, anyway,” agrees Benny.

  “I hadn’t even thought about tomorrow,” says Malone.

  “Well, you had better be prepared for it, because how long do you think you can keep something like fifty-three large a secret?” says Gently Gently. “Why, even now, I’ll bet women are approaching from Connecticut and New Hampshire and New Jersey, maybe even from as far away as Delaware.” He furrows his brow in thought. “It must be borne on the wind, like phera … phero … those things that perfume tries to copy.”

  Even as he speaks three more women enter the tavern, looking neither right nor left, but eyes trained straight ahead on Malone.

  “Milton, do something!” says Malone, his voice shaking.

  “I ab doing subthig!” snaps Milton, still holding his handkerchief to his face. “I ab bleeding!”

  One of the three newcomers notices all the mages, and immediately pulls out her cell phone and speaks to it in low tones. The other two soon follow suit.

  “Well, whatever the result,” says Joey Chicago happily, “at least we are doing some business.”

  “Why don’t they all want to marry you then?” asks Malone.

  “Because I lose all my money betting with Harry on everything from horses to politics,” answers Joey. “Why, just last night I bet on Horrible Herman to win a steel cage match at the Garden.”

  “And does he?” asks Malone.

  Joey Chicago shakes his head. “The steel cage beats him without drawing a deep breath.”

  Two mages walk in the front door and a third materializes by the juke box, so I walk over to the chalkboard and adjust the evening line again.

  Suddenly I am confronted by Morris the Mage.

  “You really think my entry is no better than a six-to-one shot?” he says pugnaciously.

  “It’s a well-matched field,” I say. “And unless it comes up mud, I still make Snake-Hips Levine the favorite.”

  “Maybe we should make her carry extra weight,” suggests Gently Gently.

  “Shut up!” snaps Morris. He turns back to me. “Six to one, that’s your final odds?”

  “Not necessarily,” I reply. “The starting gate is far from full yet.”

  “But you don’t expect her odds to go any lower?”

  “Not unless Snake-Hips Levine or Bodacious Belinda scratch,” I say.

  “All right,” says Morris, pulling out his wad and peeling off a dozen hundred-dollar bills. “I’m putting twelve C-notes on her to win the Plug Malone Sweepstakes.”

  This makes all the other mages look like they lack confidence, and soon they are all lined up, putting bets down on their entries, and when they are all done the purse is up over fifteen large, and one or two of the women are looking at me the way they look at Plug Malone, but then they remember I will have to pay most of it to the winner, and I am back to being a wallflower again.

  “Well, Plug baby, where shall we go on our honeymoon?” asks Lascivious Linda.

  “We don’t need a maid coming along with us, Plug honey,” says Bedroom Eyes Bernice. “Tell her we want to be alone.”

  “Tell them both,” chimes in Bodacious Belinda. “It’s me that you love.”

  “I don’t love anyone!” yells Malone.

  “It’s me he’d better love,” says Bodacious Belinda, glaring at her mage.

  “Harry, this is becoming intolerable,” says Malone. “Hell, I’d almost marry the woman who tried to kill Milton if that would make the others go away.”

  “You can’t!” says Milton, who has finally unclogged his nasal passages. “She’s mine!”

  “She sure didn’t act like it,” says Malone.

  “It was just a lovers’ spat.”

  “If the Third Reich could spat like that we’d all be speaking German,” says Malone.

  “Just keep away from her,” says Milton. “She’s mine.” Then he pauses and adds: “Potentially.”

  “All right, all right,” says Malone. “It was a silly thought to begin with.”

  “What’s so silly about sharing a bed with Mitzi McSweeney?” demands Milton pugnaciously.

  “I get the feeling that the bed is a hospital bed,” answers Malone. “And that Mitzi McSweeney isn’t sharing it, but is signing the papers about not using extraordinary means, like giving me food and water, to keep me alive.”

  Milton is about to object, but then he realizes that he agrees down the line with Malone, and just nods his head instead.

  “It is getting near midnight, and the object of our affection still hasn’t made his choice,” announces Mimsy Borogrove. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am getting tired of waiting.”

  “Me, too,” says Lascivious Linda. “But what do you propose to do about it?”

  “I say if he hasn’t chosen one of us by midnight, we draw straws for him,” says Mimsy.

  “We could have a nude mud-rasslin’ tournament, with Malone going to the winner,” suggests Joey Chicago. “At least we’d get to charge admission.”

  The mages all nod their heads in approval, but Bodacious Belinda points out that the wrong kind of mud could ruin their complexions and did anyone really trust Joey Chicago to supply the right kind, and they spend t
he next five minutes arguing about what kind of contest to have, but there is no question that they plan to resolve the problem before morning comes and a whole new crowd of women shows up.

  “Damn!” mutters Malone. “I wish I’d never won that money to begin with.”

  Which is when I begin to get a truly profound inspiration.

  “Do you really mean that?” I ask him.

  “Yes,” he says. “Look at these women. Now I know how a seal feels when he finds himself in the middle of a flock of sharks.”

  “I think it is a pride of sharks,” says Gently Gently.

  “No, it is a school,” says Benny.

  “Don’t be silly,” says Gently Gently. “Sharks don’t go to school.” Suddenly he frowns. “Well, not in this hemisphere, anyway. I can’t say anything about African sharks.”

  “Shut up!” I snap at my flunkies. I turn back to Malone. “Well?” I say.

  “Yes, I really mean it.”

  “Bet me the fifty-three large that twelve plus twelve equals seventy-three,” I say.

  “But it doesn’t,” replies Malone.

  “I know,” I say.

  Suddenly his face lights up. “That’s brilliant, Harry!” he exclaims. He raises his voice so it can be heard throughout the tavern. “Harry the Book, I will bet you fifty-three large that twelve plus twelve equals seventy-three.”

  “No!” cries Snake-Hips Levine. “Do not make that wager!” Everyone turns to her. “Twelve plus twelve is sixty-seven.”

  “I think it is forty-one,” says Mimsy Borogrove.

  Even Spellsinger Solly gets into the action, opining that it is ninety-four.

  “I am sticking by my guns,” says Malone. “Fifty-three large says that the answer is seventy-three.”

  “The answer is twenty-four, and I will thank you for my money,” I say.

  Everyone pulls out their pocket computers, and they finally admit that I am right, and suddenly I am surrounded by women.

  “Good,” I announce in a loud voice. “This will just about pay off the money I owe Hot Horse Harvey for that Daily Double he hits this afternoon.”

  “But Hot Horse Harvey is tapped out and hasn’t laid a bet since—Ow!” says Gently Gently as I kick him in the shin while all the women and their mages are stampeding out the door.

  Finally there is just Joey Chicago, Plug Malone, my flunkies and me, and then Malone walks up and shakes my hand.

  “Thank you, Harry, for saving me from a fate worse than death.”

  “You’ve really never spoken to a woman since you were a kid?” I ask.

  “Well, except for Granola Gidwitz,” he says. “She seemed less intimidating, what with her cock eye and her triple chin and …” His voice trails off and he stares wistfully off into space for a minute. “You know, it’s strange, but I miss her. I wonder if she still lives over on West 22nd Street?” He heads off toward the door. “I think maybe it’s time I paid her a visit.”

  Then he is gone, and no sooner does he leave than Mitzi McSweeney re-enters the tavern.

  “You came back!” says Milton excitedly.

  “I have decided to forgive you this one time,” says Mitzi.

  “And I will never give you cause to regret it,” says Milton, reaching his arms out to her and walking forward to embrace her. But he forgets that Sam Mephisto is still sprawled out on the floor, and he trips over him, and he reaches out his hands to grab hold of something, anything, to stop himself from falling, and as you can imagine Mitzi is somewhat less than thrilled with what he grabs hold of, and a moment later he has retreated to his office, she has followed him in, and the rest of us conclude that World War III will sound pretty much like the sound coming from Milton’s office, only less violent.

  ***

  Back during the 4th (or was it the 5th?) resurrection of Amazing Stories, I started writing a series of connected tales for them under the broad title of “The Miracle Brigade.” They got three issues out, I got three stories written, and then they folded yet again, and I was too busy to ever go back and revisit the Brigade. Here’s one of them, to give you the flavor.

  Cobbling Together a Solution

  A Miracle Brigade Story

  God save us from do-gooders.

  They mean well, there’s never any question of that. Humans are the most generous, compassionate race in the galaxy. We can’t stand to see another being suffer, or go without, or lack anything that would make its life better.

  With all that as a given, you wouldn’t think anyone with such good intentions could fuck things up so badly. But we do, time and again. Sometimes it’s the Department of Alien Affairs. Sometimes it’s the Department of Agricultural Development. Sometimes it’s the HDB—the Department of Housing, Dwellings, and Burrows. Sometimes it’s even the Department of Galactic Health.

  They go out to those distant worlds, these well-meaning idealists, intent on improving the lot of every living thing, of ushering us all into a galactic Utopia—a galactic group hug, one of my associates calls it. They pour money and manpower and machinery into the problem. They supervise every aspect of it. They keep copious records. They learn from their mistakes. And finally, one day, their job is done and they leave with full hearts, convinced that they’ve contributed their bit toward that Utopia. They go home, knowing they’ve left some obscure little world a better place than when they found it.

  That’s when I go to work.

  You don’t read or hear about me and my group, because the Republic would rather pretend that we don’t exist, that there’s no need for us. That’s okay. We’re not in it for the publicity. We do our job because, when you really think about the galaxy, there are a hell of a lot of Them out there and not very many of Us, and it’s in our best interest to put things right after the idealists are done.

  That’s us—The Miracle Brigade.

  Oh, that’s not our official name. In fact, we don’t have an official name. Like I said, officially we don’t even exist. Ask anyone in the government; every last one will swear that he’s never heard of us, that indeed there’s no call for our services. But we’re all that stands between Man and a galaxy that might someday decide it can do very well without us.

  What do we do?

  A little of everything. Take MacArthur 4, for example.

  It’s populated by a mildly humanoid race—two hands, two feet, walk upright, don’t look too much like your kid’s worst nightmare. Not very advanced, not very warlike, not very creative. The planet’s real name was Beta Prognani II—Beta for the binary it circled, Prognani because it was first mapped by Guiseppe Prognani, who modestly named it after himself. Once it became known that the natives were not only humanoid but also sentient, we took a sudden interest in this obscure little world. Three hundred million natives, properly assimilated, meant three hundred million taxpayers, three hundred million customers for the Republic’s goods, at least a few million conscripts for the Republic’s navy, and maybe a source of cheap labor if we decided the planet had anything worth mining.

  They hadn’t developed space flight yet, so of course they’d never met a Man—or anyone else—before. In fact, they were still living in huts and caves. The most sophisticated dwelling on the whole planet looked like an enormous teepee, maybe sixty feet in diameter.

  The first ones to land were the missionaries. They spent about ten years trying to Christianize a bunch of aliens who didn’t think Christ died for their sins, or even that they had committed any. They had their own gods, and they resented a bunch of strangers coming to their world and saying that God was created in our image. (Yeah, I know, the official line is that we were created in God’s image—but put yourself in the alien’s position. Any way you cut it, we were trying to convince them that God looked like us rather than them.)

  After ten years the Republic pulled all the evangelists out of there before they lost the planet for us forever. By this time Canphor VII had sent emissaries to Beta Prognani II, and since the Canphorites don’t have any use fo
r God or religion, they didn’t try to impose their version of either on the locals, which certainly made them more popular than we were.

  So the Republic took a good hard look at the situation and decided that we’d better do something in a hurry to win the populace back (not that they’d ever been with us in the first place.)

  The first thing they did was to appoint a governor with a mandate to improve the inhabitants’ standard of living. As near as anyone can tell, he turned about two square miles of lakeside property into a vacation spa for himself and his friends and never set foot outside his confines, never learned the local language, never made a single recommendation for exploiting the planet’s resources or bettering the locals’ lives.

  It only took the Republic eight years to replace him.

  The next governor was named Philip MacArthur (in case you were wondering how the planet got its current name). MacArthur was a career diplomat—a career governor, actually; this was his fourth assignment, which is why it was MacArthur 4 rather than MacArthur 2—and he wasn’t going to sit around just enjoying the sunshine and taking an occasional swim in the lake, no sir. He was going to make MacArthur 4 a better place, and the natives would be so grateful that they would literally beg to join the Republic and come under its economic and military sphere of influence.

  After all, he’d left his last three worlds with the knowledge that he’d done his job and done it well. (I didn’t know about MacArthurs 1 and 3, but I’d had to go to MacArthur 2 after he left and figure out what to do with the huge fishing industry he’d set up without realizing that the natives were vegetarians who had no idea what to do with three tons a day of fresh seafood.)

  Well, the first thing Philip MacArthur did was come up with an informal name for the locals—Blue Demons, due to the bluish cast to their skins and the vestigial horns on their heads. That lasted for about five months, until a couple of Blue Demons who had learned Terran explained to their brethren that the humans had named them after evil, supernatural beings. Within a week they had burned down every human structure on MacArthur 4—and since the governor was in his mansion at the time, the Republic had to appoint a new governor.