Part 7 (1/2)
In the pale hours of morning, Fitz looked cheerfully back at the club. It had been a great evening. The lap dancer would no doubt recover from the bite on her well-padded tail-end . . .
He gently patted the rat whose long nose protruded from his pocket, issuing ladylike snores. He'd had a wonderfully vulgar evening with a delightful girl, who had just discovered Cointreau. She'd thought that the strippers and p.o.r.nographic backdrop movie were the best live entertainment she'd ever seen. Well, it was also the only show she'd seen. Of course, Ariel had also thought it was the side-splittingest comedy she'd ever seen. Rats have no taboos about genitalia or even s.e.x. But what a wonderful girl. She had a biting sense of humor and just happened to be a rat. d.a.m.n fool of a bouncer should have understood that. The man would almost certainly recover. Saunas weren't that hot, were they?
It seemed a little early on such a delightful evening-or morning-to go and visit the parental abode. His own residence had been sold. He'd terminated the lease on the only other place he'd had a claim on, and anyway, Candy probably wouldn't have been glad to see him. Perhaps 4:00 a.m. was a little late to go and see if Van Klomp had gone soldiering, finally. He walked idly through an alleyway, where a foolish man waved a knife at him.
”Empty your pockets, soldier,” sneered that s.h.i.+fty soul.
Fitz shrugged. ”On your head be it.”
A few minutes later, now in search of an all-night store that sold chocolate, he'd gently woven his way up to two men in uniform with white bands around their hats and asked directions. One had been about to prod Fitz in the gut with a nightstick, when he saw the pips on his shoulders. While the MPs were pointing Fitz toward an all-night convenience store, someone with a much faster metabolism was opening the doors to the paddy wagon. Ariel had not survived her only brush with the law not to recognize one.
They zigzagged their course onward rather like that extra stray neutron in a fissionable ma.s.s. Letting a rat inside the doors of something like Aladdin's cave was rank foolishness. Fortunately, Fitz was by now sober enough to point out the closed-circuit television to her. She was even more fascinated by this concept and insisted on breaking into the security room to inspect the monitors. The puzzled alarm-response crew found nothing.
Then, it was dawn, and since a pa.s.sing taxi was available, Fitz had taken her to see Van Klomp. Unfortunately for the HAR Bolshoi Ballet company . . .
Van Klomp was only due back from his new unit that night. Fitz had peacefully fallen asleep-a good soldier can sleep anywhere, anytime-on Van Klomp's sofa. So that left Meilin talking to Ariel. And the subject, naturally enough, was Fitz himself-his reputation, and the trouble he'd had with the law, and, of course . . . Candy.
What was less predictable-unless you knew rat-nature-was that this long discussion should also involve p.o.r.nographic backdrops and closed-circuit television. Meilin knew quite a lot about the latter, as that was one aspect of Van Klomp's business. Neutrons are very small. What they can cause is not.
There was a sonic boom. Well. The return of Van Klomp, anyway.
”Can't you keep away from troublesome women?” demanded Van Klomp, on meeting the rat with a gla.s.s of his port in her hand.
She blew him a raspberry, a rather good one, as she'd only learned to do so the night before.
He blew one back that nearly flattened her ears. ”So what have you been doing so far, boykie? Nothing as stupid as last time, I trust.”
Fitz grinned. ”We've toured one of GBS city's finest establishments, namely the Paradise p.u.s.s.y Club, and visited my father. Cordial terms are restored, but his advice is that we're too alike to keep it that way if we share a house. So I've come to b.u.m a piece of floor. It's got to be drier and more comfortable than where I've been sleeping lately.”
”And welcome. Pull up any piece you like. So, what did the old man think of a visit by a rat?” He looked disapprovingly at the bottle Ariel was clutching. ”Did you steal his booze too?”
Ariel lifted her nose at Van Klomp. ”Pshaw. Of course I was well behaved. 'Twas an experience. I never met a real live progenitor before. He told me to look after Fitz, because it is obvious he can't look after himself.”
”True,” said Van Klomp, taking the bottle away from her. ”And having visited the ancestral home, what excitement is planned for tonight? More visits to cathouses?” he asked with vast tolerance.
Fitz lifted his aristocratic nose. ”I am going to introduce Ariel to culture.”
Van Klomp snorted. ”There's a Bavarian beerfest tomorrow night. Or is that a bit upmarket for a rat who has stolen half my port? Or maybe you were thinking of Chez Henri-Pierre again. He won't let a Vat in the front door. I'm sure he'd be charmed at a rat-especially after your last visit. And then you could go and watch the HAR Bolshoi Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker Suite.”
”The latter sounds about right. I think we will give Henri-Pierre the go-by,” said Fitz, loftily. ”His portions are too stingy for Ariel, anyway.”
”Besides, I haven't finished all your port, yet. And Meilin is cooking dinner for us. Curried tripe,” said Ariel with an expression of bliss.
Van Klomp laughed. ”I'm tempted to come along just to see what a rat makes of the ballet. But I've got work to do tonight. And beside, the beerfest is more my sort of thing.”
The acrobatic Ariel thought ballet was quite funny for about five minutes. She was mostly fascinated by the large flatscreen DVD backdrop, which was a great saving in set changes. When Ariel pointed out it was rather reminiscent of last night's p.o.r.nographic one, only with worse dancing, Fitz had to turn his laughter into a fit of coughing. He still attracted a number of disapproving ”hushes.”
Ariel also alarmingly disappeared from their private box for a while. There were no screams or other sounds of pandemonium, so Fitz didn't allow the look of glee on her ratty face to worry him too much. She did however adore the Cointreau-centered liqueur chocolates he'd bought her.
He'd have slept less soundly if he'd known that she'd spent the rest of the night driving around with Meilin, part of it in a very exclusive Shareholder neighborhood. And part of it visiting a couple of Vat-girls of negotiable virtue and adaptable morality. It was, Ariel concluded, a lot more fun than the ballet.
”This lot should bring down the house,” said Meilin with a particularly evil grin when she'd finished editing the film.
Ariel looked puzzled. ”Why? 'Tis very funny, but not explosive.”
Meilin snorted with laughter. ”Believe me, this is H.E.”
”And her,” corrected Ariel, pedantically.
”You're Lieutenant Conrad Fitzhugh?” The MP at Van Klomp's door asked.
”Yes,” said Conrad warily. What had Ariel been up to? Besides running up the beer waitress's dress last night?
”Colonel Brown has ordered your recall, sir,” said the MP apologetically. ”There's been a major incursion in your sector. We've got transport waiting for you.”
Fitz nodded. ”Give me five minutes to get into uniform and get my kit together.”
Ariel was unbelievably dozy. It was almost as if she hadn't slept.
It was a long drive to the front. She snoozed most of the way, contentedly.
The general bowed his tiara-wearing plump wife into her seat. Ballet wasn't really his favorite entertainment, although he'd known an entertaining ballerina a year or two ago. But Maria was a true aficionado. And when all was said and done, it was her money. The war and cost-plus on artillery ammunition had made the Cartup clan enormously rich.
Having ogled the dancers and ordered some champagne, and salmon-and-watercress sandwiches for the interval, he settled into a comfortable doze.
He was woken by the buzz in the audience.
And no one was saying ”hush.”
It took a few moments of unbelieving blinking to be sure he wasn't hallucinating.
This was taking avant garde theater to new limits. The last time he'd seen anything like that backdrop had been at the Paradise p.u.s.s.y Club. And that hadn't been quite so explicit. And while the female in the leather outfit wielding the whip was a stunning platinum blond . . . her partner did absolutely nothing for his lacy polka-dot knickers and black bra. And even fishnet stockings couldn't help legs like that.
The two dancers continued to pirouette with grim artistic determination as the huge screen behind them showed the details of his brother-in-law's face.
Talbot Cartup had always liked to sport a figure in high society. He was frequently seen at the opera and ballet. But never before in quite such detail.