“Dogs are inherently pack animals. I don’t mean beasts of burden. I mean members of a pack. In a pack there’s always one leader to whom the others defer and make submissive gestures. This is in the wild state, you comprehend, my dear fellow. But domesticated dogs have the same instincts, which is why they adapted to human society so well and why dogs have become the favorite pets of most people. But they’re all psychologically mixed up by domestication. Some are one-man dogs, and will allow only their master or mistress to pet them. Other dogs will allow any familiar human or stranger to pet them. Every human is, to them, a pack leader.
“I have the same instincts, but I am also, in a sense, human. I regard myself as the leader, whether the pack is Canis or Homo. But there’s something about Mrs. Scarletin, call it charisma or whatever, that makes me want her to pet me. It’s humiliating, in a way, because I’m more intelligent, more perceptive, and stronger. But that’s the way it is.”
“That’s the way it is with me, too,” I said.
4
Coming in at 12,000 feet, I could see the whole of the Laguna Veneta and much of the mainland in the late April sun. Two islands form part of the barriers which almost seal off the lagoon from the Adriatic: the Lido and Pellestrina. The former looks like an extended human shinbone; the latter is little more than a semi-deserted thin flat reef, now frequently awash. Between the two is a strait through which the high tide poured to send water swirling around the islanders’ ankles.
Within the lagoon were the 116 closely spaced islands. A motor and train causeway connected Venice to the mainland. Smoke poured from the stacks of hundreds of factories in Mestre.
We sank down, then came in low over the Lido. Looking down, I could see the famous golf course at the western end. A minute later, we had landed on the airport at the other end. The Lido is, I believe, the only island on which vehicles are permitted. We took a Fiat taxi to our hotel. Since we did not have much money, and wanted to be inconspicuous, we had reserved a room at the Rivamare, a third-rate hotel facing the Adriatic. The Lido was crowded and festive, as were all the major islands. We were lucky to get rooms at this time, when Labor Day, Ascension, Corpus Christi, and the Marriage of the Sea coincided on May 1. Moreover, the Doge Dandolo had been attracting large crowds even out of season.
The taxi driver cheated me, which infuriated me. But since I was supposed to be blind, I couldn’t protest. I ordered a bottle of Falerno, two bowls of burrida, and a dish of capotano for me and of fegatino for Ralph. We finished them off with cassata siciliana, a rich cake with ice cream.
I then spent some time on the phone, calling hotels on the main island. Finally, the clerk at the Danieli informed me that a Herr Wasnun was registered there. We at once took a vaporetto, a steamboat, to the Riva degli Schiavone, a promenade facing the lagoon by the Canale di San Marco. A cluster of hotels was along here. The most famous, and expensive, was the Danieli.
“George Sand and Alfred de Musset stayed there in Room 13,” Ralph said. “The Doge Dandolo resides there. More to the point, Fraulein Saugpumpe is there. She didn’t have any trouble getting a room there; it had been reserved for her for a long time. So I suspect that our quarry, Giftlippen, is also residing there. The arschloch always did travel in style.
“Also, you’ll notice that the Banco di Manin is nearby. That’s where the Fund’s money is deposited. But I suspect that Giftlippen has more in store for Venice than just cleaning out a bank. I have to give him credit; he does think big.”
We were on the point of strolling to the Danieli when our attention was attracted by a commotion on the waterfront. At first we thought it was a brawl, a fight between the supporters of Dandolo and his opposition. A number of Italians decried him because of the stand of the Church. As I said, Dandolo claimed to be a reincarnation of the greatest of the Doges. Reincarnation is contrary to Catholic theology, of course, and the Pope had denounced Dandolo as a heretic and a fraud. Despite this, the majority of Catholics supported the Doge. They wanted Venice saved. Moreover, they regarded this affair as one more event in the love-hate relationship between the Pope and the Italian people.
“If they can give the man in the Vatican the finger, without endangering their immortal souls, they’ll gladly do it,” Ralph had commented.
The news media had crackled with reports of brawls between the pro- and anti-Dandolists. But the melee, the screaming and shouting and cursing and fistfighting, were not caused by theological disagreement. After we got close, we saw that it was a mob scene being filmed for a movie. Suddenly, two men and a woman were pushed into the water, a man yelled, “Cut!” and silence clamped like a giant hand over the mouths of the actors.
But only for a moment. The director began yelling—screaming, rather—and I suddenly realized that the screaming had been done mostly by him. He had an extremely shrill voice, one which carried like a factory whistle for a long distance. He was an extraordinary person, one who’d attract attention anywhere. He was only four feet high but looked as if he were thirty-five years old. As I found out later, he was actually forty-five. He had long straight hair as black as the bottom of an oil well. His eyes were a beautiful robin’s-egg blue. His face was hawklike but handsome. The stocky body was perfectly proportioned. So, though he was often referred to as a “giant dwarf,” he was actually a midget, though too tall even to deserve that appellation.
It would be indiscreet to record the scorn, the invective, the denunciations of incompetency he hurled at the actors. Suffice it to say that he gave them the worst tongue-lashing I’ve ever heard. Also, the most entertaining. The man was an artist, a poet, extemporaneously pouring out Demosthenics which must have cut the actors to the heart yet made me want to fall on the marble walk with laughter. Of course, I wasn’t the recipient of the words and so could enjoy them.
The assistant director argued with him that the scene had been extremely vigorous and loud. There was nothing phony-looking about it.
“Yeah!” the little man screamed. “Everybody knows you Italians are very dramatic! You can ask somebody to please pass the antipasto, and you look and sound as if you’re threatening murder and mayhem! But everybody knows you’re mostly bluff and bluster and you just like to hear the sound of your own voices! You’re all soap opera characters in real life and about as convincing!
“What I want is sincerity, understand, sincerity! I want you to be really mad at each other! Hate each other’s guts. Don’t just shake your fists! Slam each other in the breadbasket! Twist a few balls; that’ll get some sincerity out of you.
“OK! Take your places and this time do it for real. Think of your opponent as someone who’s spit on the Pope and balled your mother. He has knocked up your sister and won’t marry her. He’s also the editor of a newspaper, and he’s just put in big headlines that your aunt is running a whorehouse. As if that isn’t enough, he’s revealed that your daughter has run off with a married man, a German tourist!”
At this point the actors began yelling at him. His voice rose again, blanketing out the others like a lid put on a pot of steaming soup. By this time, the three who’d fallen into the water had climbed out. They stood near him, dripping with the stinking sewage-clotted liquid. One of them was a tall woman with a beautiful face and a superb figure. Her scanty wet clothes clung tightly to her body. All of a sudden, I was no longer in a hurry.
One of the actors was talking to the director. It seemed that he was the agent for the actors’ union and he was protesting that they were not being paid to hurt each other.
“I’ll pay you! I’ll pay you!” the little man screamed. “Godalmighty! Every time I want you to do something extra, put a little sincerity into your shams, you want more lire! Are you sure you’re not members of the Mafia? It’s extortion, pure essence of extortion, blackmail, financial rape, a currency copulation, lira lewdness, a Giovanni jazzing! You’re bankrupting me!
“OK! Let’s shoot it again and do it right this time. You think film grows like spaghetti! Do you thin
k at all? Look, I’ll tell you what’ll make you mad enough to shuck off your insincerity like a stripteaser drops her panties! Think of your opponent as me! And I’ve just told you you’re the illegitimate son of a Sicilian!”
That did it. No Italian will admit that Sicilians are real Italians, or so I’ve often been told by them. The North Italians look down upon the South Italians, and both look down on the Sicilian. I don’t know who the Siciliano looks down on. The Maltese, perhaps.
The mob held a brief but spirited discussion. The agent said a few words to the director, something like “Ah fahng goo,” and all, including the cameraman, walked off. For a moment, the big midget was speechless, then he shouted, “You’re fired! Discharged for incompetency! Come back, do you hear? Come back or I’ll put barnacles on your gondolas! Oh, my God, why did I ever come to this garlic swamp?”
Yelling, he hurled the camera into the canal and stamped around as if he would leave his footprints in the marble.
“Childish tantrums,” I said to Ralph.
Ralph said, “I know who he is! He’s the famous, or infamous, Cordwainer Bird!”
Immediately I recognized him. Bird was an American, an inhabitant of Los Angeles who had, in recent years, been much in the world’s eyes. Originally, he had been a science-fiction writer, author of works well known in his peculiar genre. These included such strange titles as I Have No Can and I Must Go, Pane Deity or Up Your Window, The Breast That Spouted Cholesterol into the Arteries of the World, The Whining of Whopped Whippets, and Dearthbird Stories.
At the same time, he had managed to rise to the top as a TV and movie writer. But his inability to tolerate tampering with his scripts by the producers, their mothers-in-law and mistresses, directors, actors, and studio floorsweepers had gotten him into trouble. After several incidents in which he almost strangled some powerful producers, he was blackballed in Hollywood.
Simultaneously, he was frustrated in his efforts to impress the literary critics of New York. He wrote several mainstream novels which the “East Coast Literary Mafia”—as he called it—reviled. He became destitute, which was the normal state of most science-fiction writers. But he was a fighter, and he vowed to smash the Manhattan cartel, which existed to encourage native Gothamites whose shoddy works counterfeited emotions and destroyed the imagination of readers. He sold his stately mansion in Sherman Oaks at a loss and hitchhiked to New York. There he engaged in a guerrilla war with the critics and their allies, the publishers, distributors, and truck drivers’ union.
And here he was, Cordwainer Bird, apparently making his own movie.
At that moment he saw us. He stopped, stared, then bounded grinning toward us.
“Wow! What a magnificent dog!” he said to me. “Is it all right to pet him?”
I wasn’t surprised at this request. Many people desire to do this. And Bird’s reputation as an ardent canophile was well known.
“There’s only one person he’s permitted to do so,” I said. “But you can try. He won’t bite, though.”
Bird reached out a hand. I was surprised and, I must admit, somewhat jealous, when Ralph submitted to his stroking.
“Holy Moly!” Bird said. “I think I’m in love! Listen, I don’t want to offend you, but I’d like to buy him! Name your price.”
This was too much for Ralph. He growled and lifted his lip, baring teeth that would have given a hungry leopard second thoughts. The idea of being sold, as if he were just an animal, offended him.
“Hey!” Bird said. “He acts like he knows what I’m saying!” Coaxingly, he said, “Come on, pal. I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for anything. Say, what’s his name?”
He thrust out his hand again and stroked Ralph’s ear.
“He’s not for sale,” I said. I tugged at the leash and Ralph trotted on ahead of me. But he kept looking back as if he regretted having to leave.
Suddenly, Bird was in front of me. Before I could resist, he had removed my large dark glasses and ripped off my false mustache.
“Ah, ha!” he said. “I thought so! Herr Weisstein und der wunderhund, Ralph von Wau Wau! I might’ve thought another German shepherd could be as big as Ralph. But it was evident he understood every word I spoke. Wow! Weisstein and von Wau Wau!”
“You sure blew it, sweetheart,” Ralph said to me.
I sputtered with indignation. “Really,” I said. “What could I have done? What did I do to give us away? It was your reaction that aroused his suspicions.”
“Never mind that.” He spoke to Bird. “For Pete’s sakes, be a pal and give him his glasses and mustache. We’re on a case!”
Bird smote his forehead with his hand. “Holy Jumping Moses! You’re right! I am a dummy.”
Unfortunately, the hand with which he struck his forehead was holding the mustache. It stuck to it when his hand came away. He handed me the glasses and then started to look around. “Where’d it go?”
I ripped it off his skin and replaced it with trembling hands. “By now all of Venice must be on to us,” I said.
He looked quickly around. “No, nobody’s looking this way. You’re okay. So far. Listen, I don’t want to horn in if I’m not welcome. But I’ve been looking for some real excitement. Life has been an emotional downhill slide since I cleaned out the New York establishment. I’d like to be dealt in this. I have certain talents which you could use. And it’d be a great honor to work with the great von Wau Wau. I’d do it for nothing, too. But don’t tell my agent I said so.”
“The best thing you could do for us would be to swear to keep silent about us,” I said frostily.
I spoke to Ralph. “Isn’t that so?”
“My dear fellow,” Ralph said. “It isn’t so. We’re up against a great criminal, the deadliest biped in Europe. I’ve studied Mr. Bird’s exploits in New York, and I believe we could use him with great advantage to our mission.”
I was struck dumb with astonishment. Ralph had always said he wouldn’t dream of taking in another partner. He had enough to do to put up with me. Of course, he was jesting when he spoke so disparagingly of me. But though he liked me, perhaps—dare I say—even loved me, he resented having to depend upon a human. As he once said, “Weisstein, you are my hands.” Of course, he had to spoil it by adding, “And all thumbs, alas!”
But there was some sense in what he said. We could use a man of Cordwainer Bird’s caliber. By which I mean that, though he looked like he was a BB gun, he shot a .44 Magnum. Besides, if he got mad at us, he could expose us. And that might be fatal.
At an outdoor restaurant we outlined to him our mission over a bottle of soave and a plate of baccala. Bird, however, refused the wine. He neither smoked nor drank, he said. He didn’t seem to like it that Ralph lapped up the wine from the platter by my feet, but he said nothing.
“Bend an ear, buddy,” Ralph said. “You’re in the midst of shooting a flicker. You’ll have to forget about that now. Can you stand the expense, all that money tied up?”
“No sweat,” Bird said. “I’m backing and producing this myself. I’ll show those Hollywood phonies a thing or two. I wrote the script myself, too. It was originally titled Deaf in Venice. But I decided on a more eye-catching title. I’m great on that, you know. How about Ever Since I Met Her in Venice, I’ve Had Trouble with My He-ness?”
“You’ll need a wide screen,” I said.
At that moment, we heard a blare of trumpets and a banging of drums. Everybody got up from their tables and ran to the crowd pouring out of the hotels and streets. I called to a man hurrying by, and he said, “Il Doge Dandolo!”
We stood up and looked out across the Canale di San Marco. A boat had appeared from around the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. I recognized it at once, having seen it many times on TV. It was magnificent, coated with gold, propelled by sixty oarsmen, an exact replica of a late medieval barque. On a platform in the stern stood some people dressed, like the oarsmen, in twelfth-century Venetian costumes. After a while, we could see the Doge himself. He sat in a w
heelchair, an extraordinarily large one, also coated with gold. It was said to be self-propelled with a steam engine fueled by a small atomic reactor. As the barque stopped by the riva, a gang of flunkies from the Danieli Hotel ran out and placed an ornately carved gangplank onto the boat.
Ralph said, “Watch for Saugpumpe, amigo. I’ll nose around and try to pick up the scents of Giftlippen and Smigma.”
I released the leash and he trotted over to the crowd cheering on the quay. Bird left on his task, a rather distasteful one. He had to dive down into the stinking waters and recover his camera. Ralph had said that he could pose as a TV-news cameraman. He could take pictures which we could study later, hoping to identify our quarry in the crowds. Also, posing as a newsman, he could be seen everywhere without arousing suspicion.
I remained on my chair to observe both the crowd and the hotel entrance. I had difficulty not keeping my attention strictly on Dandolo. He was a huge man with a disproportionately large head. His features were exactly those of the late Doge whose reincarnation he claimed to be. They were immobile, waxy, their deadness the result of the landslide which had buried him for three days. He could, however, move his lips and jaws. He always wore fur gloves, reportedly to conceal hideous scars. A tigerskin robe covered his legs.
The wheelchair and its occupant rolled off the platform and down the gangplank. He was surrounded by his retainers and the hurrahing crowd, but I got up on my chair to get a good view. Before I remembered that I was supposed to be blind and hastily got down, I saw him clearly. By his side was his chief assistant and valet, Bruto Brutini, a small bespectacled man, prim-faced, bald and bearded.
He carried an ornately chased golden bowl full of shelled walnuts and pecans. Dandolo dropped his hands into this and threw a dozen at a time into his mouth. His addiction to nuts was well known.
Presently, the riva was almost deserted, the crowd having collected around the hotel entrance. Ralph came back and allowed me to leash him again. “Order another bottle of soave,” he said, his tongue hanging out. “That was dry work.”