Read Online The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) by Robert Sheckley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Sheckley
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an offer of further work. This could be the beginning of a brilliant new career for you.”
“I already have a career,” I told him. “I’m an international investigator.”
“Mmm, no doubt, but is it a brilliant career?”
I had to admit that, careerwise, the best was yet to come.
“Furthermore,” Clovis said, “I pay in real money; francs you can spend right here in Paris, perhaps to improve your wardrobe.”
That hurt. It’s true that my Levis are a trifle tattered, and my blue workshirt has shrunk to where I can’t button the sleeves, so I roll them back at the cuffs for that suave look of contrived nonchalance. And my Clarke desert boots have seen better days. Still, there was no reason to get insulting about it.
As for a career in the movies—that was the craziest idea I’d heard in a long time. It was so crazy, in fact, that I was more than a little amazed to hear myself say, “OK, you talked me into it. When do I start?”
“Day after tomorrow I begin shooting. I want you at dawn at Le Sélect, a bistro on the corner of the Boulevard Masséna and the Porte d’ltalie. Seven sharp.”
“OK, boss,” I said, ironically, I hope.
THE ATTACK
16
i took the Métro back to Châtelet-les-Halles. There’s a cinema on one of the lower levels which plays new and experimental films. I checked the program to see when they would be showing something by Clovis. In a week, I read, I would be able to catch a Clovis double bill: Flesh, Desire and Squalor , starring Simone Signoret, and Orange Sunset , with Alain Delon. I was keeping pretty good company in my new career.
I got on the escalator to return to the street level. That’s when it happened.
This guy was riding the down escalator. Big, blond crew-cut type with tanned muscle and preternaturally white teeth. He was wearing surfing cutoffs, rubber flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt, looking no more freaky than anyone else in the Forum des Halles, so I didn’t give him another thought. That turned out to be a mistake.
Just as he came even with me he jumped across the border, or whatever-you-call-it between the up and down escalators, and came at me with his fists. He was muttering something, but I didn’t register it at the time. I was too busy trying to figure out what to do.
As I have already mentioned, I am not one of your martial arts people. In fact, I do not believe in fighting. Therefore, if people insist upon thrusting a fight on me, I feel completely justified in utilizing unfair tactics.
As he came at me, I put out both hands to square him up, then kicked him clean in the crotch, or crutch, as the English say, the toe of my desert boot impacting nicely on the genital-laden inner thigh, just as old Lao Tse had taught me back in my student days at the Hokkaido Crotch-Kicking School.
Joe Dangerous collapsed head downward on the escalator steps, looking like something knackered. I received a nice round of applause from the crowd, but beat a hasty retreat because the next move after the Crotch Kick is the Full Speed Retreat, in case you’ve missed the sweet spot or encountered a steel cup. Retreat is always in good order after you kick a man in the crotch, unless you plan to go all the way and kill him, in which case you’re well advised to do it there and then, before he has a chance to recover. Crotch-kicked men tend to be unbelievably violent.
It was a pleasure to come out onto the streets again. Suddenly it came upon me that I was in Paris. I had been so preoccupied with Alex that I had forgotten to take in the savoury immediacy of the nowness of my situation, drifting through the streets filled with amiable pleasure-seekers, some arm-in-arm, with the ubiquitous French policemen here and there, les flics , as we call them, walking in pairs, their short black capes billowing out behind them in the afternoon breeze. Cafés were on all sides of me, and the café is the ultimate civilized institution. People have tried to
“I already have a career,” I told him. “I’m an international investigator.”
“Mmm, no doubt, but is it a brilliant career?”
I had to admit that, careerwise, the best was yet to come.
“Furthermore,” Clovis said, “I pay in real money; francs you can spend right here in Paris, perhaps to improve your wardrobe.”
That hurt. It’s true that my Levis are a trifle tattered, and my blue workshirt has shrunk to where I can’t button the sleeves, so I roll them back at the cuffs for that suave look of contrived nonchalance. And my Clarke desert boots have seen better days. Still, there was no reason to get insulting about it.
As for a career in the movies—that was the craziest idea I’d heard in a long time. It was so crazy, in fact, that I was more than a little amazed to hear myself say, “OK, you talked me into it. When do I start?”
“Day after tomorrow I begin shooting. I want you at dawn at Le Sélect, a bistro on the corner of the Boulevard Masséna and the Porte d’ltalie. Seven sharp.”
“OK, boss,” I said, ironically, I hope.
THE ATTACK
16
i took the Métro back to Châtelet-les-Halles. There’s a cinema on one of the lower levels which plays new and experimental films. I checked the program to see when they would be showing something by Clovis. In a week, I read, I would be able to catch a Clovis double bill: Flesh, Desire and Squalor , starring Simone Signoret, and Orange Sunset , with Alain Delon. I was keeping pretty good company in my new career.
I got on the escalator to return to the street level. That’s when it happened.
This guy was riding the down escalator. Big, blond crew-cut type with tanned muscle and preternaturally white teeth. He was wearing surfing cutoffs, rubber flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt, looking no more freaky than anyone else in the Forum des Halles, so I didn’t give him another thought. That turned out to be a mistake.
Just as he came even with me he jumped across the border, or whatever-you-call-it between the up and down escalators, and came at me with his fists. He was muttering something, but I didn’t register it at the time. I was too busy trying to figure out what to do.
As I have already mentioned, I am not one of your martial arts people. In fact, I do not believe in fighting. Therefore, if people insist upon thrusting a fight on me, I feel completely justified in utilizing unfair tactics.
As he came at me, I put out both hands to square him up, then kicked him clean in the crotch, or crutch, as the English say, the toe of my desert boot impacting nicely on the genital-laden inner thigh, just as old Lao Tse had taught me back in my student days at the Hokkaido Crotch-Kicking School.
Joe Dangerous collapsed head downward on the escalator steps, looking like something knackered. I received a nice round of applause from the crowd, but beat a hasty retreat because the next move after the Crotch Kick is the Full Speed Retreat, in case you’ve missed the sweet spot or encountered a steel cup. Retreat is always in good order after you kick a man in the crotch, unless you plan to go all the way and kill him, in which case you’re well advised to do it there and then, before he has a chance to recover. Crotch-kicked men tend to be unbelievably violent.
It was a pleasure to come out onto the streets again. Suddenly it came upon me that I was in Paris. I had been so preoccupied with Alex that I had forgotten to take in the savoury immediacy of the nowness of my situation, drifting through the streets filled with amiable pleasure-seekers, some arm-in-arm, with the ubiquitous French policemen here and there, les flics , as we call them, walking in pairs, their short black capes billowing out behind them in the afternoon breeze. Cafés were on all sides of me, and the café is the ultimate civilized institution. People have tried to
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