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Fantasy Stories

The Blimp and Sixpence, A Harry the Book Story

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Karl Nordman

So I am sitting in my office, which is the third booth at Joey Chicago’s 3-Star Tavern, minding my own business, which at this moment is doping out the next day’s races at Aqueduct, when Benny Fifth Street walks up to me.

“Hey, Harry,” he says, “I got a question.”

“I undoubtedly have an answer,” I reply. “Now let us see if the quality of your question is up to the quality of my answer.”

“How much is sixpence?” he asks.

“I will take a wild shot in the dark and say that it is probably more than fivepence and less than sevenpence,” I say. “Since I do not book races at Epsom Downs or other venues across the drink, why is this a matter of importance?”

“My mother has asked me to buy her a copy of The Moon and Sixpence for her birthday,” answers Benny, “and I was just curious.”

“Ah! A classic!” exclaims Joey Chicago from where he is washing beer glasses behind the bar. “Unquestionably Stephen King’s finest novel.” Suddenly he frowns. “Or was it Tom Clancy’s?”

Big-Hearted Milton, my personal mage, has just emerged from his office, which is the men’s room to the left of the bar, and shakes his head. “I hate to disagree with you,” he says, though of course few things give him more pleasure, “but I think you will find that Stephanie Meyer writes The Moon and Sixpence right after she pens Gone With the Wind.”

Suddenly there is a double sawbuck in Joey Chicago’s hand. “Twenty dollars says it was King or Clancy, unless it was Dean Koontz, which is always an outside possibility.”

“I will take that bet,” says Milton. “It was Stephanie Meyer, no question about it—unless perhaps it was Anne Barley.”

“You mean Anne Rice?” asks Joey Chicago.

Milton shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Harry, will you hold our money until we settle this thing?” asks Joey Chicago.

“Anything to oblige,” I say, and then add: “For fifteen percent.”

“That is extortionate!” says Joey Chicago.

“That is business,” I reply. “Am I not Harry the Book?”

“You are not booking our bet,” he complains. “You are merely holding it.”

“If you are dissatisfied with my terms, give the money to Benny Fifth Street,” I say.

“The last time Benny Fifth Street gets his hands on forty dollars at one time, he runs off to New Jersey with Fifi McDoll and does not come back for three weeks,” says Milton.

“Is that right, Benny?” asks Joey Chicago, but suddenly Benny has a blissful smile on his face and is impervious to sound.

“Benny is suddenly out to lunch,” Joey notes.

“And possibly dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast as well,” agrees Milton.

“All right, then,” I say. “If you are dissatisfied with my terms, give the money to Dugan to hold.”

They both turn to look at Dead End Dugan, who is still having trouble adjusting to being a zombie. He is standing in a darkened corner of the tavern, staring into space, and performing a useful social service by attracting all the flies that would otherwise be bothering the customers..

“I think he has gone comatose again,” says Joey Chicago.

“Again or still,” says Milton.

“Let us find out,” I say. “Hey, Dugan—who writes The Moon and Sixpence?”

“I do not know, Harry,” answers Dugan. “That is a very large marker to leave with you. The sixpence you could put in a pocket, but the moon . . .” His voice trails off as he goes back to thinking whatever it is zombies think about when they are not otherwise occupied, which is most of the time.

“All right,” says Joey. He hands me the twenty, and Milton does likewise.

“Are you really going to charge your friends fifteen percent?” asks Milton.

“Certainly not,” I say, pocketing the money. “I am charging you fifteen percent.” Then I reconsider. “What the hell,” I add. “Make it ten percent.”

“What brings about this most unlikely change of heart?” asks Joey Chicago.

“I figure there are twenty million writers in the world,” I reply. “You each name two. So the odds are five million to one that I will not have to pay off this bet to either of you.”

“You are all heart, Harry,” says Joey Chicago bitterly.

“It goes with Gently Gently Dawkins, who is all stomach,” says Benny, who is back from dreaming about Fifi McDoll with his eyes wide open. “Which reminds me, where is he?”

Gently Gently Dawkins is one of my three flunkies. He and Benny Fifth Street get annoyed when people refer to them as my stooges or lackeys, though Dead End Dugan is impartial to whatever you call him as well as everything else in the world. Dawkins is perhaps two pieces of pie and a cheese Danish short of four hundred pounds, but he has a good heart when it is not fighting off cholesterol, which makes up for his having an IQ that can freeze water.

“He is playing Santa Claus at the Home For Retired Old Dolls on the Upper West Side,” I say.

“Why him?” asks Benny.

“They have run out of padding and he is the only one who fits into the costume,” I answer. I am about to add that I expect him to outgrow it by next year, but suddenly Short Odds McDougal enters the bar, his hat and his toothpick at their usual jaunty angle, and he walks directly up to me. I notice one of his eyes is blackened, his nose is swollen, and two of his front teeth are missing.

“Good morning, Short Odds,” I say. “It is good to see you up and around on Christmas Eve.”

“My wife made my bail,” he says bitterly. “I should have stayed in stir. I was safer there.”

“I am sorry to hear this,” I say.

“Steel bars do not a prison make,” he quotes. “In fact, sometimes they form a safe haven.”

“That is very strange,” says Dugan from his corner. “I always thought they made a prison.”

“Well, you live and learn,” I say to him. “Except for the live part.” I turn back to Short Odds McDougal. “So what can I do for you?”

He slaps five large on the table in front of me.

“That is a lot of money,” I say. “What three-to-five favorite are you putting it on?”

“I am putting it on Dressy Tessie in the fifth race.”

“Dressy Tessie is sixty-to-one,” I say suspiciously, “and you are well-known for only betting on favorites.”

“I just have a hunch,” he says nervously. “I will be back tomorrow after . . . I mean if . . . she wins.”

And with that he is gone.

“Something is amiss here,” says Big-Hearted Milton.

“Something is five thousand misses here,” I correct him. “Short Odds McDougal has never bet a longer price than eight-to-five in all the years I have known him, and suddenly he lays five large on the longest shot of the day.” I pause dramatically. “I get the distinct feeling that the hex is in.”

“It’s easy enough to find out,” says Milton. “Come with me.”

He gets up and I follow him to the men’s room, where he has scrawled “Big-Hearted Milton’s Office” on the door seven or eight times with everything from magic markers to Mitzi McSweeney’s Kiss Me Deadly lipstick, and Joey Chicago has crossed it off just as often.

“Watch your step,” Milton warns me as we enter, and indeed there are black candles all over the floor in what Milton calls occult mystical patterns and I call pentagrams.

“Now stand back,” he says, stepping into the center of the biggest one. “This could be dangerous.”

The only danger I can see is if he manages to catch his pants cuff on fire, but I step back as he says, and he begins chanting a spell in a tongue that could be ancient Aramaic, or maybe something even more obscure, like French. Suddenly his whole body stiffens, his eyes roll back into his head, and he looks like he should be unleashed in a film starring Boris or Bela or Basil or someone else whose name begins with a B.

“So is the hex in?” I ask.

“I do not yet know if the fifth at Aqueduct is hexed,” he gasps, “but someone has definitely cast an evil spell on Panama Charlie’s Chili Surprise, which I eat just before I come here. I think I am going to die.”

“If you dare to die before I get my answer,” I promise him, “I will follow you to the next life and make you so miserable that you turn in your white feathered wings—or your red leathery ones, depending—and beg to come back to this mortal coil. So why not save yourself the misery I am already planning for you, and just get me my answer?”

“All right,” he says. “But if I die of food poisoning, it will be your fault.”

“Panama Charlie’s attorney will be thrilled to hear that,” I say. “Now get back to work.”

“I’m working, I’m working,” says Milton, muttering another spell. “Gods of the Netherworld, Demons of the Ninth Circle, I implore you to tell me—” But before he can finish the question he shrieks ”Sonuvabitch!” and jumps out of the circle.

“What has transpired?” I ask eagerly.

“I burned my toe!” he whines.

“Play through your tears,” I say. “I need to know about the race.”

He mutters another spell, then looks up. “You are in big trouble, Harry. Morris the Mage has hexed the race so that Dressy Tessie wins.”

“That is no problem,” I say. “You have thwarted Morris before.”

“But this hex requires a very complex counter-curse,” he says.

“So chant it and let us be about our business,” I tell him.

“You do not understand, Harry,” he says. “To counter this hex, I need the whiskers of a tree-dwelling giant sloth, and I do not believe there are any in Central Park, or even Grammercy Park if push comes to shove.”

“Have we got time to get to Grant Park in Chicago before they run the fifth race tomorrow?” I wonder aloud, looking at my wristwatch.

“There are no trees in Grant Park,” says Milton. “At least, not any big enough to hold a giant sloth.”

“Are you sure a medium sloth won’t do?” I asked. “Dressy Tessie does not have to run up the track, or break a leg. I will be just as happy if she comes in second.”

Milton shakes his head. “This recipe allows no substitutions.”

“Well, there must be some other spell,” I say.

He hems and haws and finally admits that there is one other counter-curse, but it is even more difficult to come by than the whiskers of a giant sloth.

“Tell me anyway,” I say, “and we will see what we can do.”

Milton clears his throat uncomfortably. “Eleven voluptuous nude virgins must approach us voluntarily and swear their eternal love.”

“Eleven?” I say. “That is an odd number.”

“Well, the spell calls for ten,” admits Milton, “but I think I deserve a little something for my trouble.”

“Voluntarily, you say?” I ask him.

“Voluntarily,” he repeats.

“When was the last time you were voluntarily approached by a voluptuous nude virgin?” I ask.

He checks his wristwatch. “Damn,” he says. “This thing only goes back forty years.”

“Have you got a third spell hidden away somewhere?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “Those are the only two, Harry,” he answers.

“If you cannot come up with a spell to kill the horse,” I say, “can you not at least come up with a spell to kill Short Odds McDougal?”

He goes into his trance again. After a minute he comes back to the here and now. “Short Odds, too, is protected by Morris the Mage.”

“Giant sloths and nude virgins again?” I say knowingly.

“Even rarer,” he answers. “Six-legged rattlesnakes.” He considers his answer. “Well, rarer than giant sloths, anyway.”

We leave Milton’s office and find ourselves back in the tavern.

“Well?” asks Benny Fifth Street.

“We have a problem,” I say.

“I thought you went in there so Milton could solve your problem,” says Benny.

“This is some hex that Morris the Mage has come up with,” says Milton. “I would pay a pretty penny to learn where he got it.”

“That is one pretty penny more than I will have if we don’t find a way to make it go away,” I say bitterly.

“Harry,” says Benny, “I think I see a way out of your troubles.”

“Highway I-95 South,” suggests Joey Chicago.

“I prefer I-81,” says Milton. “It’s more scenic.”

“Leave the academic arguments to the academs,” says Benny. “Harry, I have the solution.”

“I am all ears,” I tell him.

“Curious,” says Milton. “Mitzi McSweeney says I am all hands.”

“Pay him no attention,” I say to Benny, “and tell me what you have come up with.”

Benny shoots me a proud smile. “Take six large and put it on Dressy Tessie to win over at Bernard The Bank’s or Exuberant Eddie’s.”

“That is unethical!” I say in shocked tones.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” says Benny. “I was just trying to help.”

“Besides, they’d figure the hex was in the second I tried to put the bets down,” I add.

I go back to my office, which is the third booth, and nurse an Old Peculiar, and consider my options, none of which are looking especially bright, and I try to figure out how much I must pay off at sixty to one, though in truth Dressy Tessie, who has only a nodding acquaintance with the finish line, figures to be ninety to one by post time, and that is even after the big plungers have gone to the stores and traded in their Christmas gifts for cash.

After an hour a foul smell reaches my nostrils, and I look