Dieselpunk: An Anthology (13 page)

It could only have been Senator Vane. Vane was a pompous, self-centric ass with greasy hair, and a greasier palm, who preferred to buy elections rather than win them. He had realized the benefits of having a private spy on his payroll a bit too fully. On the flip side, Madge couldn’t refuse, either; any dismissal of Vane would end in immediate reprisal from a number of directions. Madge flexed his newly freed arms, afraid of what he might find underneath the stiff bandages. “And?”

“And you’re practically a Swiss Army knife, and not by my choice. I don’t know what conceivable purpose you have with half of those pointy bits, but mark my words, it will come to no good. You should use your God-given talents helping people, not blowing up apartment buildings and getting yourself killed.”

“That is my talent, Doc. I’ll make sure to send you a nice Christmas card this year.”

“Think about what I said. The war is over — and we’re never going to have another one.”

“Tell that to the other guys.” Madge sat up gingerly, aware of every screw tearing into his spine. “How long before my back stops hurting?”

Dr. Baxter frowned. “A few weeks, probably. It should lessen considerably over the next few days. Although . . .” he searched through the cabinets. “Your operation is the first of its kind. I can’t dismiss the possibility there will be some unforeseen side effects.”

Madge slid his legs off the operating table. The cold marble flooring sapped what little warmth was left in his feet, replacing the dull un-feeling of his legs with the acute draw of entropy. He stood, shivering. Only then did he realize his nakedness; the foreignness of his own body consumed him. By all external appearances, he was the same scrappy, scruffy Mad Badger he was before. Inside, he could feel the metal pressing into him, constricting his lungs, and smothering his heartbeat.

“Orion, breathe! Dammit, I didn’t spend six days saving your life so you could stop breathing!”

Slowly, the color came back to his face. The room stopped spinning and Madge choked back his vomit. He recovered his breath, ashamed of his weakness. Dr. Baxter handed him a robe and helped him to his feet again.

“Your clothes weren’t exactly presentable when I brought you in, so I took the liberty of replacing your wardrobe with something a bit more…fashionable. And heaven knows, nary a soul will recognize you without those horrid puddle muckers you came in here with.”

“Those boots saved my life.”

“No, I did. And just so you know, I had to cut them off with a reciprocating scalpel; they were melted to your feet. Now take your cloak-and-dagger frippery out of my hospital before I get any more mysterious phone calls from unnamable patrons trying to tell me how to doctor. And,” he added, “I’m having martinis with the judge in half-an-hour. Nurse Ambrose will be able to help you put on your new clothes. Try not to embarrass me. And don’t tell your mother about your little adventure in the burning building, alright? She is such a dreadful bore, the old girl, nagging on about danger and decency and such.”

“She may be my mother, but you shouldn’t talk about your wife like that. It’s undignified.”

“So she tells me. I really must have that drink with the judge, he owes me money.” Dr. Baxter shuffled out of the room, humming quietly. Madge was still standing, lost in reflection with the robe in his hand when Nurse Ambrose walked in. The neat clicking of her high heels brought his attention to her petite frame and spotless tight blue uniform. He blushed; it was different to be naked accidentally.

Standing outside the hospital in his new clothes, Madge felt out of place, like a wrong-sized cog in a gearbox. His new clothes fit him superbly; that was just one of the problems. Not only were they perfectly tailored, but they were cut of fine fabrics, too — in the latest style. Totally free of diesel fumes, grease smudges, and ink spots. Dr. Baxter — his step-father since before the war — was right: no one looking for Madge the common laborer would be able to recognize the swank, well-groomed figure.

He groped in his pockets for a cigarette out of habit. A handful of crisp bills surprised him, along with a slightly deformed silver dollar. He could feel the once defined ridges were smooth now, its precise lip a mere suggestion. His thumb traced the face of Lady Liberty stamped into the coin. He pulled it from his pocket and watched the sunlight glint off her flowing hair. He flipped the coin in the air and caught it in his open palm. Then he noticed with curiosity the word “Peace” was absent from underneath the eagle.

The oak telephone booth across the street caught his eye. A man, nondescript in every way, average to a point. From his grey suit, to brown hair, medium height and build; reading the morning paper while leaning against the telephone booth, his eyes barely peeking over the top of the headlines. The back page strongly cautioned motorists to use only Regu-tol brand motor fuel to prevent rust, corrosion, and unanticipated breakdowns during cross-country picnics. Picnicking in the local countryside had become passé after the war — partly because all the local countryside was still scrubby and recovering from the invasion of ‘17.

Madge took a slow, deep breath as he surveyed the boulevard. The tinge of diesel mixed with the smell of the ocean, a pungent odor that lingered in his mouth when he exhaled. He bought a new pouch of tobacco and a lighter from a sidewalk peddler to replace what was lost in the fire. He rolled his cigarette absent-mindedly between his fingers, his eyes flicking back and forth to the man with the newspaper. He strolled past and walked into the telephone booth. A soft whirring sound from the mechanical assist told him the door closed itself.

Madge pretended to look through the telephone directory. He opened it at random, then creased the corner of the page. He dialed the train station and hung up the phone. Madge left the phone booth and casually strolled around the corner, into a hat shop. As expected, the newspaper man sidled into the phone booth. From the window he could see the grey-suited man combing furiously through the phone book. He snapped several quick photos with a pocket-sized camera and hurried towards the docks with the steady calm of an electrified jackrabbit.

Madge trailed him distantly, window shopping and crisscrossing the street. The ocean breeze was cold as it funneled down the street. He could see the piers, in the distance, with the great barges laden down with their luxuries. And much to his surprise, the miscreant walked out of a small hotel, with Sen. Vane in tow.

Madge strained to hear their conversation over the sounds of the ocean and the motor cars puttering down the avenue. He didn’t catch the context, but “disappointed” and “What am I paying you for?” escaped the tumult of commerce. The man canted his eyes around, shushing the senator’s loud voice. Madge saw the red-faced senator shake his sausage-like finger under the spy’s nose, then storm down the sidewalk towards him.

Madge quickly turned his back towards the senator, feigning intense interest in the window display in front of him. Sen. Vane stomped down the sidewalk, trailing expletives. A crumpled paper fell from his overstuffed coat pocket; Madge placed his foot over it discretely. It was a telegram. He bent down and read it. As he did so, the cold steel-barrel of a flash pistol jammed itself firmly into the soft part of his neck. “Alert anyone and you die.” A gloved hand reached out. “Hand over the telegram…
bitte
.”

Madge did his best to hide his face as he raised the note up.

“Wise decision. Tell anyone what you saw and I will kill you.
Guten tag
.” Footsteps, fading away.

He stood gently, an unfamiliar creak in his new hip. Madge swiped at imaginary dust on his trousers and entered the drugstore in front of him. A handful of young flappers bubbled past him, averting their eyes and giggling. Madge pulled his eyes back from the fringe dangling over the backs of their pale knees and back to the counter.

Madge sipped absent-mindedly on a soda he didn’t remember ordering. Was Vane really plotting with the Germans? If he was, then why would he take an interest in saving his life? Just when he had the game figured out, the rules changed.

“Don’t look at me when I talk to you. I saw you outside. You’re very brave — but stupid.” Madge caught the speaker’s reflection in the stainless coffee maker. She was blonde, attractive, and rummaging through her clutch. “A friend has taken an interest in your well-being; we have some mutual enemies. He can get you an audience with Sen. Vane. You will be in disguise, of course . . .”

“I’m always in disguise,” interrupted Madge.

“Kill Vane, my friend and I will handle the rest.”

“And just why would I be interested in doing that? I should report you to the police,” he said matter-of-factly to the bottom of his glass.

“Because my friend has already…invested…substantially in your recovery.” She fished a tube of lipstick from her purse. “And it would be in your own personal interest as well as the country’s. Could you really walk away from this knowing Vane is handing our entire nation over to foreign imperialists?”

Madge held his tumbler up and squinted at the light pouring through it from the window. “I suppose not. What has our ‘friend’ got riding on this? And why does he need me?”

“Men, always so quick to assume anyone interested in getting things done is male.” Madge bristled, but she went on. “As it so happens, he doesn’t need you. But given the nature of the situation, it would make the transition much smoother.”

“Look, dame, I don’t need this job. I’ve got plenty of money stashed in the bank to retire comfortably in the middle of nowhere. Play straight with me, or dance your way outside. You’re ruining my appetite.”

The blonde sat down close to him and rested her hand on his shoulder. Her perfume was alluring. “Our friend recognized you by chance as you were pulled from the apartment. He knows a business opportunity when he sees one, and so he made arrangements with your attending physician — who just happened to be the best surgeon on the East Coast. You’re a lucky man.” She tossed her hair back and laughed out of nowhere, playing the ruse for an unseen audience. “As for your first question, he’s tired of being played like a fool by politicians like Vane who are in it for the take. Tired of opportunity being snatched away because a few congressmen want more money out of his pocket. It’s strictly business.”

“Before you started talking, I thought I wouldn’t believe anything you had to say. Now I’m sure.” Madge smiled to himself, pleased at his own joke.

“I would expect nothing less. But we’re offering the chance to get back at Vane, without having to worry about the cleanup.” She smiled. “We need to get you to the one place he won’t have IIIB swarming everywhere,” She sighed. “And that means his office. He has grown considerably more paranoid since the apartment fire.”

“Not possible. The entire staff would recognize me.”

“Which is why it has to be there.”

“I don’t follow. You just said I had to be in disguise—“

“As your former self. It seems your leap from the frying pan did you some good — or haven’t you looked in a mirror? If I hadn’t been told it was you, I wouldn’t have known it. Except your nose. Your nose is the same.”

Madge let his eyes find the mirror directly behind the counter. As he studied himself, he realized the dame was right. It was as if the fire had burned off years of grubbing through the putrid underbelly of the brightly lit boardwalk and left a younger man behind. Impossible.

“Two o’clock tomorrow, then. Dress to kill.” The vixen demanded attention even as she clicked out the door in her high heels.

When Madge woke up, the sun had been in the sky for hours. He fumbled for his pocket watch. It was one thirty. He might be able to make it in time if he hurried.

At two fifteen, Madge stepped off the trolley car as it wobbled past Sen. Vane’s downtown office. The elevator man wore a polite smile of indifference all the way to the seventeenth floor, when Madge stepped off and clipped through the hallway.

He found himself towering over a particularly square-jawed clerk seated at a reception counter, typing furiously at a powered typewriter. The man looked up, startled, then furtively brushed a silver dollar from the countertop into his pocket.

“Good afternoon, sir, I’m terribly late for a two o’clock appointment with the Honorable Senator, and was hoping I could still speak with him,” Madge plied. The receptionist relaxed briefly, but then stiffened.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bloom, that you were unable to make your appointment. As you are aware, the senator is a very busy man, with the fate of the nation relying on his tireless attention to duty, not to mention the great state of Maryland…where would we be without him? As it so happens, he has gone out for the time being and won’t be able to see you. My sincere apologies and utmost regrets. Good day.” The clerk returned pointedly to his typewriter.

“The senator will be so terribly distraught he couldn’t squeeze in
just a few short minutes for me.” A hundred-dollar bill material
ized on the edge of the reception desk. “I would be willing and able to wait for his imminent return if you could persuade his next appointment to wait just outside for a tiny bit — just a fraction of a few minutes.”

“I see . . .” the clerk examined the money coolly, as if it might bite him. “He would so hate to miss the opportunity to speak with such an esteemed constituent as you. You may go in. Through here, second door on the left.”

Madge nodded, his feet already leading the way. His ears strained for any sound of alarm, the hushed breathing of an ambush, his eyes darting through the unlikely places for signs of a trap. There were none.