The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus ssr-11 Read online

  He walked the width of the stage, turned back and stood poised. Snare drums rattled with excitement, growing louder in a rising crescendo of noise-crashed into silence.

  Puissanto lowered his head, braced his arms-then ran swiftly at the wall. Bending double as he ran. Lowering his head.

  At full speed crashing his bald skull into the brick wall.

  Which shuddered, cracked-and fell to pieces.

  Pandemonium all around as he wiped brick dust from his skull and bowed to the cheering crowd.

  The audience loved him, and were still cheering and clapping after three curtain calls. He was going to have to do something more before they would quit. So he did. None of his familiar props this time.

  “Puissanto hears you and understands your enthusiasm,” the ringmaster said. “Therefore, for your continuing pleasure, he will perform a little encore.”

  Instead of returning behind the curtains, the strongman now went down the steps from the stage and into the audience. He shook a few hands-or rather let them try to shake his fingers, smiled happily while lovely women kissed him. Then he went back to the first row and bowed.

  And while he was bowing he reached out and seized two seats, one in each hand, where they were bolted to the floor.

  Then, with one concentrated contraction of his muscles he wrenched them from their moorings and held them on high.

  Louder cheering if possible, and laughter at the man and woman in the seats, holding on to the chair arms and trying to smile. The curtains opened to a blare of trumpets. Holding the seated couple over his head Puissanto climbed back to the stage, turned and bowed to the audience.

  Then proceeded to juggle the pair like giant dumbbells!

  Up into the air they went in brief arcs. To be seized by those giant hands as they dropped. Grabbed and thrown aloft once more. Five times he performed this act of strength and coordination before he lowered them safely to the stage at last. The girl kissed him, the audience went wild. Harley Davidson, who was standing close by me, shouted aloud across the stage. But so wild was the audience that I was the only one who could hear him.

  “You’ll pay for those chairs, Puissanto! I’ll take it out of your pay.”

  Stagehands removed the chairs while the strongman bowed one last bow and left.

  When the shouting died down the music changed to a lugubrious funeral march, accompanied by shrill screams and manic laughter. All the house lights dimmed and died while the frenzied screaming grew louder. A single blue spot came on and there in its glow was a handsome tuxedo-garbed man who bowed to the audience and said, in a voice filled with menace, “Welcome-welcome to Gar Goyle’s Interstellar Freak Show.”

  He stepped aside and a four-armed, green-skinned man took his place and bowed low. He was wearing a tartan kilt and sporran. He took a small white skull-with tiny hornsfrom his sporran and tossed it into the air. Then another until the air was filled with flying skulls, juggled in complex patterns by his four hands. It was most impressive and greatly enjoyed. Particularly when he launched the skulls, one by one, into the audience. The audience fought to catch them then, after examining them, ate them. Because they were made of candy.

  “Greetings dear friends, greetings. I am here this evening to bring you a gaggle of ghastliness, a hemorrhage of horror, a dribble of disgust. Gathered from all corners of the galaxy for your edification and repulsion are the freaks of nature heretofore concealed from the eyes of the public. The misborn misfits, the monstrous mutations that you may heard about, perhaps dreamed about. But if you dreamed, ladies and gentlemen, your dreams were nightmares. Terrorizing riders of the night—like Snailman!”

  The curtains snapped open and a harsh, bright spotlight burned down on the creature on the stage. There were gasps and cries from the audience. With good reason. He was bent and twisted, half-emerged from a spiked shell, recoiling into it away from the clamor of the audience. Then he sought to escape, crawling slowly across the stage leaving a trail of slime behind him. He came towards me, eyes bulging wildly, and I recoiled. Not human, a pseudoflesh robot I kept telling myself. Yet I was relieved when he turned and crawled in the opposite direction. Whoever had designed this creature had a very warped mind.

  Next the audience cheered the bird girl, with stunted wings for arms, a horny bill instead of a mouth. Enjoyed it when she fluttered a few feet into the air.

  There were more like this. The audience loved it; which told me a lot about the inhabitants of Fetorr. I found that a little repulsion went a long way. Still, I hoped that it would never stop. For every minute that passed drew me one minute closer. to my stage debut. Could I appeal to this audience? It was too late to put a little blood and slime into my routines. It would have to be magic, pure and simple.

  I was barely aware of the acts that followed as I fussed with my props and shuffled cards from hand to hand. Angelina came up, leading Gloriana on a golden chain, and cocked her head when she looked at me.

  “How do you feel? Your color is awful.”

  “First-night tremors. Do you realize this is the very first time we have performed the act in public? Despite all those pages of fake reviews.”

  “Jim diGriz-this is not like you. You have faced down large guns, small generals, giant animals, grasping tax men. You have never hesitated. Stop sweating, pull yourself together, drink a bit of this.” She produced a flask of medicinal brandy. “And remember the motto of show business.”

  “It will be alright on the night,” we intoned together and I took a good slug from the flask.

  Then we were ready to go on, listening to the ringmaster’s masterly introduction of fake facts.

  “… dived from a thousand-meter-high tower into a small bathtub of water-and survived! Handcuffed, chained and locked into a steel safe and dropped into the ocean, struggled for hours to escape-and escape he did!”

  Had I been mad to write this kind of nonsense for the fake reviews? My sins were coming back to haunt me.

  “… so without further ado I bring you that master of magic, the supremo of sorcery, the wizard of witchcraft-the Mighty Marvell!”

  Act cool and you are cool, Jim, I kept telling myself. Cool, cool. I walked to center stage and bowed-and almost lost it. Because just in front of me, in the center of the front row, was my son Believer, clapping like crazy. But he was supposed to be light-years away.

  I couldn’t speak. Luckily I did not have to. I turned and extended my arm, waved Angelina to make her entrance. Which she did most handsomely. Applause thundered. Either they loved porcuswine on golden chains-or they appreciated the fair Angelina as much as I did.

  I could not say how the act went since I was possessed by a chill numbness as I performed. At least I didn’t drop anything. And they oohed at the right places and laughed when I expected them to. Angelina handed me the props at the right time, screamed when I put her into the box and cut her in half, collected the slips of paper for the mind-reading act. Floated mysteriously in midair. Then suddenly she was before me, leading Gloriana and I knew we were ready for the vanishing act that closed our performance.

  “Look on and admire,” I called out. “Beauty and the beast. In the flesh and alive-for now. I beg you to be silent, because if anything goes wrong, one slip, one instant of inattention, and the results could be incredibly disastrous. There now, they enter the cage. Now the glorious Angelina will lock the ferocious porcuswine to the floor with heavy locks and chains. They are now in place. Are you ready? Yes you are. Now, the magic word, Monosodiumglutamate!”

  The canopy dropped down, rose an instant later and they were gone. The audience roared with appreciation when they saw that the cage was empty. Woman and swine had vanished. The curtains closed and I stepped out for a few last bows. Bolivar threw a bouquet of flowers which I neatly fielded. With a small movement of my thumb I indicated backstage and he nodded.

  He was in the dressing room before me, pecking the air next to his mother’s cheek so he wouldn’t smear her makeup. She made a n
eat curtsy when I presented her with the flowers.

  “From Believer,” I said.

  “And from James, Sybil and Sybill. I promised to call them as soon as the act was over. It was really great. And that’s a powerhouse porcuswine you have there.” Gloriana snuffled agreement and let her back be scratched.

  “Is it permitted to ask what you are doing here?” I asked.

  “Working in a bank, of course. As soon as we knew that you were coming to this planet, James had his search engine digging deeper and deeper, building a data bank on Fetorr like you wouldn’t believe. There are forty banks in this city alone.”

  “I believe it. Where there’s crud there’s credits.”

  “The bank here with the greatest reserves is the BankrottGeistesabwesed. Did you ever hear of it?”

  “No. Should I? It is not a name that exactly trips off the tongue.”

  “We did some digging, and it wasn’t easy, and eventually discovered that it belongs to an old friend of yours. One Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski.”

  “Not Chaise?”

  “None other. The Widows and Orphans 15` Interstellar Bank, the one he told you about, is owned by him as well. For some reason, best known to him, this one is supposed to be secret. So I sent him a message, telling him that we were helping with your investigation. Told him that I could help him a lot more if I were a teller in the branch of the Widows and Orphans bank here, to sort of be on the spot if anything happened. I thought he might have a certain influence that might get me appointed here.”

  “Did you get the job?” Angelina asked, always interested in her son’s career.

  “Not quite. He liked my new banking expertise so much that he made me manager instead.”

  “My son the bank manager!” Angelina said and smiled.

  “Then that is something else we can celebrate tonight,” I said just as a phone rang. He slipped it out of his pocket, listened, then hung up.

  “Anything important?”

  He nodded, a little grimly I thought.

  “That was the night manager of the bank on the line. It seems that, just a few minutes ago, the bank was robbed.”

  Chapter 7

  “I must get back to the bank,” Bolivar said, starting towards the door.

  “I must go with you,” I said, hopping about on one foot while I tried to pull my dress trousers off.

  “We must all stop and think first,” Angelina said, most practically. “The bank has been robbed. By this time security men and the police will have sealed off the crime scene. So there is no need for us to rush about in circles flapping our wings.”

  Bolivar had his hand on the doorknob-but did not open it. “Good thinking,” he said. He let go of the knob, turned and sat down.

  “You are the bright torch of wisdom in the dark night of stupidity,” I said. Sitting down and taking off my shoes; which made the process of removing my trousers that much easier. “While I change out of my show clothes, perhaps Bolivar would be kind enough to book us a room at the nearest and most elegant hotel, with transportation provided therewith. We came here too late to do it ourselves.”

  “Good as done.” He tapped into his phone. “Done. The Royal Suite at the Waldorf-Castoria awaits you and the Imo is waiting.”

  “Tell them that I’ll need an hour to change and pack,” Angelina said, slipping behind the screen. “And make sure that there is first-class accommodation for Gloriana. I’m sure that she is tired after tonight’s performance.” A petite porcine snore from the direction of her basket underlined the assumption.

  Intelligence was beginning to slip back into my overexcited cerebellum. I pointed at the leather suitcase. “We’ll take the supercomputer with us. It might come up with an answer or two.”

  “You will call me and let me know what happened at the bank?” Angelina said.

  “As soon as we know ourselves,” I said and blew her a kiss as we left.

  Since the night’s performance had not yet ended, there were plenty of floatcabs in the rank outside. We climbed into the first one, Bolivar gave the driver instructions, then turned on the machine that was built into the partition before us.

  “What is that?” I asked. He pointed to the label.

  SURVEILLANCE DETECTOR UNIT

  “Industrial espionage is big business on this planet. This thing monitors for bugs in the cab, generates white noise to stop detection from outside.”

  “How do you know that it is not bugged itself?”

  “Because I test it with this.” He unclipped a small device from his belt and held it out. It bleeped and flashed a green light. “A surveillance detector. The bank issues them and tests them daily with…”

  “I know-a surveillance detector. Continuing down this road leads only to madness. Because every morning, before it is used, the banks surveillance detector must be tested by …”

  “Best not to think about that kind of thing Dad. Better to think about what we should do about this robbery.”

  Bolivar leaned over and pressed the actuator on the cab’s detector. It instantly flashed a red light and spoke in a metallically reedy voice.

  “Eavesdropping device under seat cushion to the left. “

  Bolivar dug down behind the cushion and pulled out a few coins.

  “False alarm?” I asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  He looked at them quizzically—then opened the window and threw them out. The detector buzzed once, flashed a green light, then turned itself off. “One of those coins had to be a transmitter.”

  “Why should someone want to plant that thing to spy on us?”

  “Probably not after us at all. Whoever they are, they may have wanted to observe someone who was attending the performance. So they bugged every cab there.”

  “Expensive way to work.”

  “Plenty of money available for that sort of thing. So-now that we have privacy-isn’t it time to think about what action we should take about this robbery? We need a game plan.”

  “You are absolutely right,” I said with great authority. Then slumped into the seat. “Only we don’t have one.”

  “We do. For the first time since the thefts began we are on the spot when the robbery occurred. We gather all the evidence-and I mean all, then feed it into your supercomputer and see what it comes up with.”

  I patted the thing’s leathery hide. “Good as done.”

  Only it wasn’t. There were plenty of flashing lights ahead, ranks of policemen, great lengths of tape bearing the legend POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. Our cab slowed and stopped at the barrier. As we emerged a burly minion of the law strode up.

  “Leave. No one permitted.”

  “Stay,” Bolivar said, producing his wallet. “I am manager of that bank and I am going in.”

  The policeman frowned down at the ornate jewel-encrusted badge and reached for his phone. His superior was of little help so we clanked up the chain of command until we reached a gold-braided copper with enough authority to let us by.

  “Who are you?” he snarled at Bolivar.

  “I am Bolivar diGriz, the manager of this bank. And you are?…”

  Gold-braid glared first. “Captain Kidonda of the Serious Crime Squad. They called me at the theater. I tell you, I don’t like my evening ruined like this.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. It is not doing much for my evening either.”

  We stopped in front of the bank and stared at the great hole in the outer wall. Someone other than a widow or an orphan had made a massive withdrawal.

  “Impressive,” Bolivar said, looking at the opening. “There used to be a cash machine there.”

  Gold-braid nodded. “Eyewitnesses say they pulled it out with a skyhook. One tug and it was up and away. Every policeman on duty is looking for it now.”

  “What about the bank?” Bolivar asked.

  “No alarms went off-other than the ones on the cash machine.”

  The captain’s phone beeped and he snarled into it. “What?” He lis
tened, then nodded. “Yes, do that. The lab technicians as well.” He hung up and turned to us.

  “The cash machine had been found, abandoned. And empty. Do you know how much cash was in it?”

  “The records will be in the bank. Let us go and see.” Bolivar leaned over and looked into the glowing eye of a retinascope. It beeped twice. When he put his palm on a metal plate beside the front entrance it burred slightly and unlocked the door. The three of us went in.

  Low night-lights illuminated the interior; security cameras moved in slow arcs. Street light poured in through the immense hole in the bank’s wall; chunks of debris fanned out across the floor.

  Our presence was detected and gentle music began to play.

  Serious financial music with an arpeggio of profit, while a compound-interest melody played in counterpoint we crossed to the massive bank vault and Bolivar leaned over to look at the indicators.

  “At least we have no problems with the vault here. This is sealed tight. It has a time lock that cannot be altered from the outside. It will only open in the morning after the staff arrives.”

  Was the vault waiting to hear these words? As soon as he had spoken the ceiling lights came on and the big wheel in the center of the door began to turn.

  “Good morning, customers,” the vault said. The wheel clicked to a stop, then the thick steel locking bars withdrew from their sockets.

  “You said it couldn’t be opened?” Captain Kidonda was not pleased.

  Before Bolivar could answer him the massive portal swung wide and we could clearly see inside through the barred gate.

  The floor was strewn with empty safe-deposit boxes.

  At that instant the alarms sounded deafeningly and all of the security lights began an eye-stabbing flashing. The captain was shouting into his phone, then waved forward the jumble of policemen that was coming through the door.

  “Get a squad around to the back of the bank.” He turned to Bolivar. “Is there a rear entrance to the bank?”