“What was that?”
He repeated it. If anything, his sinuses were more clogged, more Siberian.
“That bad, huh?” I hadn’t understood a word Putnam had said.
“It’s not bad, only Russian,” he explained. “We broke the code, and now we have to get our Russian expert in to translate.”
“How long will that take?”
“A couple of hours. I’ll call you back. Better still, I’ll come over when it’s translated.”
“I’ll be waiting.” I hung up on him and did just that.
It was early evening when Putnam arrived with the translated message. “This complicates matters,” he said as he showed me the translation. It was an understatement. The message was a doozy. The code experts had identified it as straight from the Kremlin and superseding any orders from the Commie spy-chief in America.
“Proceed Hollywood immediately,” it said. “Kill Ex-Lax. Castor Oil will replace and provide further orders.”
“I thought you said it was decoded,” I griped to Putnam.
“It is. It’s perfectly simple. Remember, they think you’re Stevkovsky. And your assignment—his assignment, that is-—is to go to Hollywood and kill the current head of Russian-American espionage and then take further orders from his replacement.”
“But why do they want to kill him?” I was bewildered.
“From my diplomatic sources, I think I know the answer to that. Ex-Lax must have been a Khruschev man. Now they’re getting around to eliminating him and replacing him with someone more acceptable to the current regime.”
“Castor Oil,” I guessed.
“That’s right."
“But who is Castor Oil?"
“That’s what you have to find out. It shouldn’t be too hard. After you’ve killed Ex-Lax, Castor Oil will make him (or her) self known to you.”
“But who’s Ex-Lax?”
“If we knew that, we wouldn’t need you,” Putnam said with asperity.
“How am I supposed to kill him if I don’t know who he is?”
“That, after all, is your problem. You can't expect me to do everything for you."
“Then you really expect me to do what the Russians want and kill this Ex-Lax?”
“If that's the way to nail Castor Oil, yes.”
“I don’t like killing people. It gets sticky. Even the Los Angeles cops are liable to frown on it. What do I do if they catch me trying to commit a murder, or after I've committed one?”
“Tell them you’re a teeny-bopper from an unfortunate environment,” Putnam suggested sarcastically. “How do I know how you can handle it? That too is your problem. Just don’t drag me or the government into it. If you do, we’ll disown you.”
“That's very helpful.”
Putnam shrugged. He didn’t bother answering. His shrug said I should know as well as he did what the ground rules were by now.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “So I'm to go to Smog-land and impersonate Viktor Stevkovsky impersonating Steve Victor. But I - the real me - know a lot of people on the Coast. Suppose some of them heard about Steve Victor’s being killed in Washington? How do I explain popping up alive?”
“Are most of your acquaintances out there in show business?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why worry? They won't be any more aware of your demise than they are of Chinese nuclear missiles, the Watts riots, or Viet Nam. You can be sure that any story that wasn’t headlined in Variety has passed them by. They’ll tell you the B.O. figures for Doris Day's last flick at the Music Hall to the penny, but if you ask them what they think of Reagan as Governor, they'll tell you it's probably a stunt cooked up by MCA to help his Death Valley rerun rating. And if someone should call you on the fact that you’re supposed to be dead, just raise an eyebrow and tell ’em the papers never get anything right. Ask if the obituary notice spelled your name right. The Russian side will think you’re Stevkovsky. Others—I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings—simply won't give a damn.”
From what I knew of Hollywood, Putnam was undoubtedly right. My experience with the milieu stemmed from a stint I’d done out there a few years back as technical advisor on a script being written around the Kinsey Report. The project was subsequently scrapped, but my reputation as an expert on the techniques of screen sex had been established. Now it was a simple thing to arrange a cover story through some connections of Putnam’s that explained this upcoming Western sojourn as a similar assignment for an important movie which was still being kept under wraps.
A couple of phone calls set up the cover story, and then I packed my bags and hopped a-cab to the airport. A short time later my ears popped some jet stream into the atmosphere and I was in the air. California, here I come!
My flight confirmed the Ogden Nash opinion that two Wrights made a wrong. My left eye riveted a cable into place to hold the left wing to the fuselage of the airplane. The fellow across from me whom I’d mentally assigned to perform the same function for the right wing fell asleep on the job and my throat became a bit dry with qualms. But I smiled bravely and accepted the magic chewing gum from the stewardess. I ground it down with my right-hand incisors, holding to the faith that this would appease the gremlin2 who was blowing flame through his nose on the right wing.
I concentrated on the triplet stewardesses to take my mind ofithe basic illogic of aeronautics. They all looked alike, of course. However, these past few years there had been a change in the stereotype. Once the hostesses all resembled Rheingold girls with painfully stiff jaw muscles holding their capped teeth smilingly in place. Now, knobby knees were in. The teeth had grayed down a bit and the smiles were more like visual whines. With experience had come control. The old style had been Lolita-Earth Mother. The new mode had more of the cameraderie of battle. We're all afraid, it seemed to say, but duty calls, so, over the top one-and-all. And behind it there was the unspoken realization that the troops were too green for battle, Captain Flagg sir, but what can we do? And when the girls were out of sight, they were doubtless hedging the bet with a heavenly choir rehearsing ‘We’ll-all-go-together-when-we-go.’
“Would you like a cocktail, sir?” Plasma, at last! I looked at her gratefully. “Yes,” I breathed.
“A double,” she guessed.
“Yes.”
She went to fetch it.
A moment later she was back. One arm stretched past my Adam’s apple to flip a switch on the back of the seat in front of me. A tray slashed down, slicing me neatly across the midriff. “Oof!” I commented succinctly.
The comment was ignored. A short glass with two ice cubes in it materialized under my nose. The ice cubes were fresh from the skewer, neatly pierced through the middle, a sweating pair of pop-art earrings. A duo of sealed vials with yellowish fluid gurgling ominously inside them now teetered beside the glass. I clutched my upper arm to make the vein stand out, but the stewardess ignored my helpfulness and departed. I realized then that the plasma was to be taken orally.
I chipped a tooth getting the top off the first of the containers. Cooking my Norden bombsight over the glass, I started to pour. Immediately, the target slid out of focus.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that was an air pocket,” the pilot’s voice wrestled with the p.a. static. “A downdraft causing a sideslip, which was the untoward motion you may have felt. This is a quite ordinary phenomenon and there is, of course, nothing to be alarmed about.”
Taking my handkerchief out of the breast pocket of my jacket, I mopped up the pre-mixed cocktail splattered all over the front of my shirt. I stuck the empty vial neatly in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me. Then I opened the second container and mentally calculated the proper coordinates before starting to pour.
“That sudden lurch you may have felt, ladies and gentlemen, was the result of an unexpected updraft. There is no cause for alarm. We will do our best, naturally, to keep the ride as smooth as possible, but occasional bumps causing some slight discomfort are to be expected.”