On The Secret Service of His Majesty the Queen

Part I of a parody

"Ben-Bella Barka." The plea tugged its way past the swollen, blackened tongue through the desiccated lips.

The Grand Vizier of Sahd Sakistan looked down with pity upon the sprawled body of the man in the red lizard nightshirt whose sweat-drenched head lolled against the pillow.

"Yes, my King, O son of jasmine, honey and saccharin, blessed shining scimitar of ten thousand righteous disembowelments."

"Ben-Bella Barka, I am dying."

Ben-Bella Barka glanced at the fever chart stapled to the foot of the Bengalese ivory bed made from Consumers Union-approved tusks at selected elephant graveyards. The jagged red line was at 119 degrees, the very top of the chart, and ended, still on an upward trend, at a notice that read: Continued On Next Chart.

"I fear as much, lion of Araby. As it comes to all men in this uncertain world, so must the black camel of death come even to a king."

"Look, schmuck. Cut out the West-brook van Voorhis March of Time documentary crap and listen to me," the king muttered. A sudden fit of coughing sent a trickle of blood down the right corner of his mouth. "Speak truthfully to me, Ben-Bella Barka, I command thee. What will befall my country when I fall up to The Big Oil Field in the Sky?"

Ben-Bella Barka winced at the king's choice of language. My ruler has been too often among the infidels, he thought. He tried to avoid the king's eyes as he answered. "Anarchy, O Lord of the Thighs, giver of pleasure to many concubines. You leave no heir. Thus, the Kurds and Wheys will become encompassed in a divisive power struggle, leaving Sahd Sakistan easy prey for the colonel in Cairo and his agents here. The mystery rider will do her best to save us, but who will listen to a mere woman?"

The monarch sighed. "Sarah Lawrence of Arabia, the veiled beauty whom no man has e'er seen." He coughed again, more violently, and groaned. "Ai! May Allah spray uncut Lysol upon all carriers of germs! The end is nigh, my Grand Vizier. Is that cold fish of a German within the walls of his room?"

"He is in the hallway, beyond hearing, O roaring lion of a hundred Tom & Jerry shorts. Speak freely."

"Draw close; I shall divulge to you a secret that I have kept locked in my heart for twenty-seven years."

Ben-Bella Barka moved quickly to the king's side.

"I have a son. Years ago, when I was a young man given to adventure, I heeded your advice when you told me to discard my kingly raiments and go among the common people dressed as a lowly seller of myrrh and frankincense so that I might learn something of the world outside the palace. I learned many things, Ben-Bella Barka—among them, the fact that nobody in my kingdom knew what the hell myrrh and frankincense were and cared even less. During that one-year hiatus I became a merchant seaman on a charter boat carrying prostitutes from Calique to New York."

"Yes, sire. A tramp steamer."

"Good! You remember. In Manhattan, under the pseudonym of Bernie Seligman, I lived with a handsome, lusty Negro wench named Caldonia Simmons in a boisterous, fetid tenement at 117th Street and Madison Avenue, which, when it was finally condemned by the Board of Health as totally unfit for apartment dwellers, was converted by the city into an elementary school. Caldonia and I had a love child, a boy named Beaster, who has since taken his mother's name. She has borne children by other men, according to our ambassador, who was ordered to keep strict surveillance on the boy. A few years ago we lost contact with him. Yet I know he lives. My son lives! And by the laws of succession, he is the king. Find him, Ben-Bella Barka, and see that he is rightfully seated upon the throne. Swear this by the beard of the prophet, Allen Ginsberg."

"This I swear, O potentate of the pomegranates, master of unveilings and shopping-center openings."

Peace and resignation appeared on the shrunken face. "In a little teakwood box under my pillow you will find more data pertaining to my son. As for me, Ben-Bella Barka, let my funeral be devoid of ostentation. Since I am an enlightened monarch, I shall be buried in a plain platinum box and laid to rest inside a towering pyramid ten thousand cubits high, which need not be built by the blood and death of thousands, but rather can be ordered prefabricated via the Spiegel catalog. Beside me will be my wives, bedecked in their finest Ceil Chapman black-silk VC pajamas, my complete set of the works of Harold Robbins, and, for the love of Allah, please put in a humidifier. Ah, my faithful old jackal, I grow weary ...the light grows dimmer ... and yet I see a spectral face of infinite sweetness calling to me ..."

His voice grew faint. Then he pulled up his emaciated frame and stared across the room as though beckoned by a vision from another time, another place.

"Caldonia! Caldonia! What makes your big head so ha-a-a-a-r-r-rd!"

He fell back.

Ben-Bella Barka, according to ancient Sahd Sakistani ritual, placed an Oreo cookie over each of the king's eyes.

King Hakmir Nittah Chinek, defender of the faith, protector of caravans and president of Mecca Records, was dead.

• • •

Like an atomic fireball expanding in slow motion, the sun came out of the darkness, painting the Gulf of Aden gold. What had been a gloomy, foreboding shape by moonlight was transformed into a sparkling white villa on the shore line of the Road of the Feculent Figs in the tiny enclave of Sahd Sakistan, which clings to the southernmost tip of the Arabian peninsul.

The villa, ringed by 100-foot-high walls of Masonite-Dixonite, is known to the madcap international jet set as Shivs, the world's preferred gambling casino. Once the 50-room estate of a sheik, it was confiscated by the Sakistani government during a revolution that saw the sheik flee to America and eventually become a paid consultant for the famed Hal Van Halvah Company. King Hakmir, desperate for funds to feed his people, sold the white elephant to Hosmer Crenshaw and Montpelier Melon, the safflower-oil cartel barons, who, when they were expelled from an exclusive London gaming club for not being able to recite Kipling's Boots, launched their own in retaliation. Under the Crenshaw-Melon stewardship, Shivs began siphoning away the action from the London club, as well as from Monte Carlo, Tangier and Darien, Connecticut.

In the prime of their adventurous lives, disaster struck these hearty Rabelaisian men in 1962. Their stylish two-seater went out of control during Sahd Sakistan's fourth annual Soapbox Derby and hurled them over a bluff into the sea. Because they had been the very spirit of Shivs, it was assumed the casino would fold. It was saved on the day of their funerals when the grieving widows, in a graveside transaction marked by recriminations and a few well-placed blows with wrenched-off coffin handles, sold Shivs to Heinz and Gerda Sem-Heidt, the husband-and-wife co-chairmen of a mace-and-chain syndicate. The Sem-Heidts maintained Shivs' high standards while at the same time broadening its scope to add skat, catdi five, knucks and pisheh-paysheh to the list of attractions that included "the big five"—chemmy, baccarat, roulette, craps and, of course, la guerre.

No matter how scintillating the play in the casino's other parlors, the patrons were drawn by irresistible impulse at night's end to the la guerre table. The moment of truth was here, all other forms of wagering paling into insignificance. Only the truly affluent are found in the La Guerre Room, for its membership is limited to holders of account numbers 1 to 350 at the Suisse Bank des Legumes.

At 11 A.M. the doors to the conference room at Shivs swung open, admitting nine of its ten directors. They seated themselves in plush Jamaican poisonwood chairs with matching ottomans and lit aromatic Muriel cigars. There were two places at the head of the table for the co-chairmen—one empty, the other more than amply filled by the corpulent bulk of Heinz Sem-Heidt, who signaled for silence.

"Since our voices can be heard on the sound system in the cellar and my wife can converse with us, we will proceed with the agenda. Herr Zentner?"

A tall blond man with watery eyes stood ramrod straight. "I have the pleasure to report that King Hakmir is dead." There were murmurs of approval, even handclaps. "We, of course, have sent word to the palace that the directorship of Shivs offers its heartfelt condolences (laughter) and regrets that the valiant efforts of our physician, Dr. Ernst Holzknicht, to save His Majesty were to no avail (louder laughter). It was most fitting that the good doctor should have attended the king, for it was he who placed the sivana bacillus in the king's Diet Pepsi in the first place." The directors gave a standing ovation to the smiling doctor, who shook his head with self-effacement. "A minor but hardly insoluble problem has evolved. From a listening device planted on the fever chart, we have learned there is an heir and that Ben-Bella Barka has been ordered to seek him out and enthrone him. Barka will be shadowed, of course, and Hakmir's son eliminated by some regrettable accident. We foresee a rulerless enclave beset by a vitiating power struggle between the Kurds and their traditional enemies, the Wheys, enabling our client from the U. A. R. to take control."

Herr Zentner sat down to sustained cheering.

An iron voice cut through the collective self-satisfaction and their smiles vanished as though wiped off by an artist's brush.

"What about the mystery woman? I want her eliminated!"

Heinz Sem-Heidt blanched. "Mein liebchen, Gerda, we are doing all in our power to end her disruptive tactics. I swear to you by Himmler's pinkie ring that before long she will be rotting in the sun."

The iron voice from the cellar was cold, dripping with malice: "This Sarah Lawrence of Arabia, as she calls herself, for the last year has been preaching unity between the Kurds and Wheys. She even urges them to enter upon friendly relations with Israel." A stream of curses followed. "Who is she? Why is she here? Is she in the pay of the Zionists? I want these answers and the issue resolved immediately!"

Heinz Sem-Heidt collapsed in his chair, his obscenely fat jowls shaking. "You have heard my wife, gentlemen. Put a Condition Black priority on Sarah Lawrence of Arabia. We will hear other reports. Herr Krug?"

"Fellow directors, I wish to report that our fee for capturing Hebrew Secret Agent Moe Zambique, Oy Oy Five, taken in Damascus and brought here for questioning by Gerda, will net us twenty-five thousand Straits dollars when we turn him over to Syria."

"Twenty-five thousand Straits dollars?" There was rebuke in Heinz Sem-Heidt's retort. "A pittance. The capture of an ordinary Double Oy from Israel's M 33 and 1/3 is worth easily five times that figure. And if we had taken Oy Oy Seven, well ..." His hands made a sky's-the-limit gesture.

Stocky Herr Krug puffed his Muriel. "Yes, but this should be considered what the Americans term a 'loss leader.' Let the Syrians have him for the price. They will soon become so highly dependent on TUSH, our Terrorist Union for Suppressing Hebrews, that we can safely raise the ante on each succeeding job."

There was a long trailing scream from the cellar. As inured to violence as they were, the nine men shuddered.

The iron voice returned: "Gentlemen, let us not concern ourselves with the piddling Syrian payment. Please delay any further items until I come to the conference room."

They heard the whine of the elevator, then the doors opened and a wheelchair bearing Gerda Sem-Heidt was pushed across the green-and-black swastika-patterned carpet by a dwarf in a dunce cap and a medieval jester's outfit with tinkling bells on his pointed shoes.

Gerda Sem-Heidt fixed her mustard-yellow eyes upon her twitching husband, then let them scan the other directors. She was a wizened crone of 73 who bore a startling resemblance to the witch in Snow White. Her hands were bony, clawlike, empty of rings, with] extra-long fingernails that the dwarf set about honing to razor sharpness with sandpaper. The face was chalk-white, which made the yellow eyes and vein-blue lips appear even more hideous. Her cadaverous body was covered by a red-and-white Robert Hall house dress and her unstockinged, beanshooter feet were ensconced in Kitty Kelly's Mexicali Rosen huaraches. And there was something else on her body, revealed by the deliberately opened house dress.

As the directors saw it, their sullen Nordic faces turned a sickly greenish hue. She watched their reactions with a smile. No matter how many times she displayed it, they could never become used to it.

Gerda Sem-Heidt was the proud possessor of a plastic heart.

Dr. Holzknicht alone was undisturbed as he viewed with clinical detachment the exposed components in their transparent styrene housing, the action of the atria and ventricles, the unoxygenated blood changed to bright red by the lungs. It was he who had installed the device after a seizure that left Gerda paralyzed in both legs and close to death. The plastic heart drew its power from an external electromagnetic coil hooked into a transistor battery that never left her lap. The same coil toasted her English muffins, of which she had a constant supply in her pockets. Now she grew bored with her shocking little game, so she closed her house chess. "Let us continue, gentlemen. I want to hear Dr. Holzknicht's summation of 'Operation Alienation.'"

Dr. Ernst Holzknicht, a slightly built man with a bland face and the large forehead of the scholar, cleared his throat. "Fellow directors, as you know, I am not only a surgeon but a diplomate of the Schisselzelmknist Institute of Advanced Psychiatry. It was my good fortune to assist occasionally our Fiihrer (the men's right hands shot up in a ro-botlike heil) during those phases of the War that called for an understanding of the mentality of the Third Reich's enemies. When our beloved co-chairmen, Heinz and Gerda Sem-Heidt, whom we all served with unquestioning loyalty in those glorious, fulfilling clays at the Schweinbaden Concen——er, Detention and Cultural Rehabilitation Center, asked me to mount a plot against the Juden"—several of the directors growled; Gerda spat into the dwarf's puckered apple of a face—"I accepted their challenge with strength through joy. In our previous sessions we have discussed the psychological factors that are involved in Operation Alienation. Now it remains only to carry out the physical extirpation of these installations"—his hand swept across a map of North and South America and western Europe containing thousands of locations denoted by pins—"and phase one will be complete. Then in a few days we should begin noticing the inevitable results. Thousands of fieldmen will be taking surveys on synagogue and Jewish organizational attendance, United Jewish Appeal contributions. Catskill Mountains and Miami Beach resort bookings, El Al aircraft and Zim Line cruise-ship reservations, etc. I have not the slightest doubt that we shall witness a drastic decline in all of these activities. Now I shall yield to Heinz Sem-Heidt, who will outline the personnel problems."

Heinz Sem-Heidt pushed his hands down hard on the armrests of his chair to hoist his 300-pound body. "There are no personnel problems, mein lieber Doktor. In this world, happily, there is never a shortage of Jew-haters. (Laughter and applause.) It was a simple matter for our subagents, who combed the locations marked on our map, to find disgruntled individuals willing to attach a Calgonite charge to the wall of a Jewish-owned business. There are about five thousand key targets on the dvree continents, which means the total cost to TUSH, at one hundred dollars Amerikanische per incident, will be approximately a half-million dollars. My winnings at la guerre alone should cover that.

"It is an ingenious plan and we are beholden to our dear colleague. The repercussions felt by the State of Israel will avenge Tush for many indignities, not the least of which was the murder of our top assassin, Torquemada LaBonza, at the hands of Secret Agent Israel Bond. Our stock will rise on the Espionage Exchange when the Arab world observes that we have caused the virtual withering away of Israel and Judaism without resorting to amies, nuclear weapons or fferm warfare. And, as a not-inconsequential subsidiary benefit, we shall enjoy the destruction of M 33 and 1/3, the Israeli Secret Service, and M, the disgusting old harpy we now know is its number one. And who knows? If Wotan and Thor are smiling down on us, Oy Oy Seven will also be found in the debris. Gerda, my sweet, do you have any comments to make?"

"Put the plan into being." The blue lips smiled, but there was no mirth on the face or in the mad-dog yellow eyes. It has been a most satisfying day, she mused. A Jewish agent hangs from his thumbs dead in the cellar; my dear Doktor has crafted a plot to bring the verminous Jewish state to its knees. A most satisfying day ...

For a moment she seemed years younger, "The Bitch of Schweinbaden" of the happy, rewarding days. It was not for nothing that those few who escaped her clutches to tell the tale never referred to her as Gerda. To them she always would be "Auntie" Sem-Heidt.

• • •

Executing a picture-book Le Mans turn, he swung the majestic Vance-Packard, the automobile of true status seekers, over the instep of the CITGO attendant, shouting "You're a gasser!" as the man fell stricken against the high-test pump (the witticism, he knew, would do much to assuage the pain from the mashed foot) and headed out of the restaurant stop onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Destination: Trenton, New Jersey, place of Ills birth.

Israel Bond was going home.

The meal had been as exciting as a Blue Barron recording of Tiptoe Through the Tulips. There was no doubt in his mind; the world's safest job was that of a foodtaster for Howard Johnson's. No, don't be smart-alecky, he scolded himself. The dessert, frozen baked beans on a stick, had been first-rate, and the painting of the waitresses' faces orange and turquoise to conform to the decor, a cheery touch.

A surge of power from the Vance-Packard, whose 24-cylinder, 8.6-axle-ratio, short-stroke, tall-coxswain engine was revved up to maximum cruising speed of 118.9 hectares, sent a chill pulsating through his being. With no strain it hummed past two Cadillacs and an Imperial (all parked on the shoulder for repairs), its 12-ply Firestone tires purring a symphony at that most crucial of the world's rendezvous—where the rubber meets the road.

Bond stuck a Raleigh between his sensual, Chap-Slicked lips. His two-week vacation after the El Tiparillo affair involving the Man with the Golden Gums, Torquemada LaBonza, had not been prosaic. An old love, Charlene Krosnick, had stolen away from her husband and children lo share a night of bliss with him in New York. She had insisted he take her to see Thunderball, the popular spy movie. "Gosh, Iz," she sighed as she gazed into the mocking yet tender gray eyes of the secret-agent hero on the billboard. "He kind of looks like ... you. Are you really some dashing spy, Iz?" She giggled at the thought. "I hardly think a guy who promotes Mother Margolies' Activated Old World Chicken Soup would be a swashbuckler, though, would you?" And on an impulse and to tease him, she kissed the figure on the advertisement.

"You're making me jealous, Charlene," Bond had jested. "But I'm better than him in one energetic way," and he whisked her via the subway to his luxury suite at Manhattan's regal Ansonia Hotel, where he whispered, "Let there be no puerile shame, no holding back. Every pore must score." As their bodies fused in score de combat, he crooned into her fragrant apricot of an ear an aphro-disiacal song based on the Kama Sutra.

"I'll be loving you, all ways ...

With a love that's true, all ways ..."

But he had wearied of matchless ecstasy with Charlene, so he had accepted a part-time free-lance job. It had been no piece of cake, his torn shoulder testified graphically. Bond remembered the phone call that began the caper.

"There's a frightened kid holed up in the Hotel Bogaslovsky on West 46th Street. He's promised to work for our organization, but if he steps out of that room he'll be killed."

"Who's after him?" Bond wanted to know. This was the kind of question a real top-drawer agent asked.

"There are undercover men in town representing cliques from Dallas, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. They're ruthless men and if they can't have him, they swear nobody else will. They tried once in Chicago, even killed his guard, but he slipped 'em. Deliver him to us alive and usable and there's twenty grand in it for you. Use the code words 'Flood Formation' and he'll let you in."

The terrorized tot, Bond discovered on arriving at the Bogaslovsky, was one Casimir Predpelski, aged 22, six feet, six, 272 pounds, from Hamtramck, Michigan. Bond spent the better part of a day calming the thumb-sucking, gigantic blob in Dr. Demon pajamas with a medley of Polish love songs, which included A Glass of Beer, a Bowling Ball and You and Keep Throwing That Dart in the Dartboard of My Heart.

A chunky little room-service waiter named Paulo Gunty brought matters to a head. As Bond noticed with relief from the third-story window the arrival of the van that was to take him and Predpelski to safety, the little waiter held out a huge candy cane to the lad. "We always bring some sweets and goodies to our younger (continued overleaf) guests. 11 is ii policy of the hotel."

"Candy! Candy!" the monster cried with a childish eagerness that made Bond smile a paternal smile.

Click!

In a hideous second of revelation, Bond knew the truth. Two feet of naked steel shot out of the cane brandished by the little man in the monkey jacket who had played the senile fool until his victims were lulled into complacence. Gunty shouted a fanatical "From Green Bay with hate!" and thrust at Predpelski with the classic coup de murville.

Bond hurtled his frame between sword point and bobbing Adam's apple on Polish throat, incurring a nasty slash as it ripped through the trench-coat epaulet down into his right shoulder. But he'd yanked out the Chris-Keeler, scjueczed the trigger and heard the characteristic, silencer-muffled sluU slut! and saw two angry holes pop up in Gunty's forehead. There was an insistent hammering at the door. Someone shouted, "Break it in."

Undoubtedly there were more of Gunty's cohorts in the hallway, perhaps far too many to handle.

When he saw the stuff in the corner, the inspiration Hashed through Bond's mind. It made an odiferous mound.

Kielbasa!

The Polish sausage the kid loved best. Links and links of it. Holding his nose, Bond tested the links. Good! They were bound by solid, dependable twine.

"Here's our escape route, buddy-boy," he told the whimpering leviathan. "Tie one end round the bedpost and throw the rest out the window."

Bond put two slugs through the door, exulting in the screams. He heard a voice: "Jesus, he just killed the chambermaid."

He looked down. Predpelski had already shinnied down the thick, greasy chain of sausages with amazing agility for one his size and was bolting into the back of the van. Bond started his own descent, his long, tapering fingers clutching the links in a vice-like grip. He was at the second story now, pausing just long enough to chance upon a disrobing brunette and take her phone number, when he spotted the trio of hired killers racing up the street toward the van.

Swegroes!

They were the flaxen-haired, lapidus-lazuli–eyed chocolate-hued descendants of the Swedish mariners who had decades ago impregnated the willing women of West Africa's Hullaballuba tribe. They wore Libby's split-pea jackets, nail-studded Levi's and crepe-soled Venetian bedsocks. Once, on a psychological-warfare mission into Jordan, where he had dynamited a theater showing an Omar Sharif movie, Bond had come in contact with a Swegro, disguised as an usher, in the employ of the Jordanian league for actors in-espionage. Mosque & Wig. It had been a hellish minute of combat that left the Swegro decapitated and quite incensed about it and himself with a dirk in his shoulder.

The Swegroes saw him immediately. Shots rang out. one of which skinned his gun hand and he dropped the Chris-Keeler into the street. Gottenu! Unarmed! There was one chance.

He kicked out against the sign Hotel Bogaslovsky, Manhattan's Premier Residence for Drifters and Indiuents and, releasing the sausage chain, fell through the roof of the van. shouting "Go! Go already!"

Miles away, the van parked at Yankee Stadium and the driver handed him the money. "You've pulled it off, Mr. Bond, but then, it's what wed expected of a man with your reputation. As for you, Predpelski, sign here on the dotted line. Thanks to Israel Bond, young fella, you are now the middle linebacker for the New York Giants."

A burst of song from the Vance-Packard's custom-made Atwater Kent UHF-CIO radio drove the perilous adventure from Bond's mind, a tune that had moved the hearts of Americans from coast to coast and was certain to capture the annual Francis Scott Key Award for the most meaningful lyric of the year.

"Batman!

Batman!

Batman!

Batman!

Batman! Batman!

Batman!"

Unforgettable.

For variety's sake, and Abel Green's as well, he switched stations.

"... extraordinary series of events. Following the mysterious explosion that leveled Wishnevsky's famous bagel and bialy bakery under the Jerome Avenue El in the Bronx come reports of like explosions or bombings—though no deliberate criminality has yet been proven—throughout the country. Two famous Kosher wine companies have had their Brooklyn warehouses blown to bits, with three known dead, seven missing and scores injured. Traffic in that unhappy borough is backed up all the way to Michigan City, Indiana. In Manhattan, two prominent show-business delicatessens on Sixth Avenue went up, hurling tons of sour pickles and tomatoes onto the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. At Coney Island, a convoy of trucks transporting Nathan's immortal hot dogs has been wiped out on the Belt Parkway. Chicago's contribution to the holocaust has been explosions at several bakeries, wine warehouses, dairy-products plants and three huge corned-beef and pastrami processing centers. Windy City police said the sky there looks like Mrs. O'Leary's cow is back in business. Here's more: Like events are occurring in Philadelphia, where a cream-cheese plant and dozens of small delicatessens and a number of catering houses have been blown up, St. Louis, Detroit, San Francisco, Cleveland, Denver, New Orleans. Miami Beach, the last named a shambles—in short, every major city in the country. Reports of additional explosions in all of these cities are coming in so fast the news wires are running behind. There are further reports, unconfirmed, that several major cities in Canada, western Europe and South America have experienced disasters at the same sort of establishments. A freighter of Panamanian registry, the Hispianola Roll, en route from Halifax to New York, radioed news of an explosion and raging fire in the hold. Coast Guard vessels are steaming to the rescue; helicopters have airlifted seventeen wounded. We will interrupt for further bulletins ..."

Bond surrendered to a nagging voice inside (or possibly outside; one could not be sure where nagging voices came from unless one were hopelessly married) that urged him to think, think, think about the bizarre newscast, seek some grand design in the widely spread catastrophes.

He pulled into the driveway of his brother Milton's house at 1919 Starling Dropping Drive, in the heart of Trenton's opulent Hiltonia section, and parked behind Milt's snappy 19ti6 Sherpa-Hun/a. Soon Israel was bathed in the love and warmth of home, the not-too-sister-in-lawly kisses of Lottie, the whoops of leaping Rickey, twelve, and a mushy buss from adorable six-year-old Praline. Milton himself stood strangely apart; a questioning look said: We've got something to discuss, younger brother.

• • •

Let he who is without Sin begin Sinning, because he's Missing Fun! Fun! Fun!—Mother Margolies.

The long queue of sun-baked tourists waiting to be admitted to the various divisions of Mother Margolies' factory outside Tel Aviv noted with approval one of her typical Old World proverbs emblazoned on the main gate. "Gosh, eighty-two years old and she still comes up with those golden thoughts," said a B'nai B'rith president from Wisconsin, fanning her flushed face with Joel Lie-ber's authoritative Israel on $4.98 a Day.

In the private, sealed-off wing of the factory, M watched the throng on her closed-circuit TV as she knitted what soon would be Oy Oy Seven's new paisley shoulder holster. A good boy-chickl that Israel Bond, a little sex crazy sometimes and maybe a little too clothes-conscious, but when it came to murdering and maiming, a fine person altogether. Acli, such a dirty business this cloak-and-dagger stud! I lost my dear nephew, Nochum, in this filthy enterprise.

M was worried, deeply so. With the (continued on page 66)Secret Service(continued from page 62) exception of Bond, who was on leave in the United States, all the Double Oys were unaccounted for. Oy Oy Five had gone to Syria to track down a lead on those TUSH people and had failed to call in. If he'd been taken by Tush and that—that thing, Auntie Sem-Heidt, heaven help him! In M's way of thinking, Tush was as dangerous to the survival of her nation as the American Council for Judaism. Now Double Oys Two, Three, Four and Six were missing—and right here in Israel! They had gone to that little bureau near the Ministry of Defense in Jerusalem to renew their licenses to kill—and never returned! She'd sent tine newly promoted lad, Neon Zion, to investigate. Where was he?

And what was the meaning of these explosions bannerlined in this morning's Tel Aviv Daily Trumpeldori They all seemed to have occurred at Jewish establishments in both the Old and New Worlds, and many of them somehow related to eating and drinking. Certainly food for thought.

All in all, it was a gloomy day, she sighed, putting aside the completed shoulder holster and starting on a trench coat for Lazar Beame, her Chief of Operations; for Israel had just lost a potential friend, King Hakmir of Sahd Sak-istan. An Arab, true, but not one of the diehards.

The day wore on. She watched the tourists, Americans for the most part, meandering through the Potato Lotke division, the Hall of Yogurt and the new Schaneria, and shrieking with delight at the automated conveyor band carrying pots of fresh-made beet soup, "The Borscht Belt," as Oy Oy Seven had named it. What a wit that lad had!

The buzzer sounded. "M, it's Quartermaster Ha Lavi to see you, sir," said M's beauteous secretary, Leilah Tov. "Shall I send him in?"

"Yes."

"Oh, sir. Have you heard anything about the Double Oys? Op Chief Beame is most concerned."

"As yet, no. But the one you're personally concerned with"—M's TV focused on Leilah's blushing loveliness—"is safe. Oy Oy Seven will be back soon."

Lavi Ha Lavi walked through the door. "Shalom, M, I have come to discuss some new devices for the field." He was an intense, nervous little man with fidgety eyes that seemed afraid to look into hers. The white-laboratory-coated Q. M. had been back in harness just a few days, having spent the last six months at Foam Rubber Acres, the Service's rest home for overworked personnel. "Oh, I can't stand it in here!" he cried petulantly. "This cold air drives me insane."

"Patience, Ha Lavi," M said tran-quilly. "It will be quitting time soon."

"I have added some new modifications to Oy Oy Seven's car, the Mercedes Ben Gurion." He spread open a thare. "You will notice this, Button 71-A. If Bond is being tailed, he has only to press it and a movie screen rolled up in a rear bumper springs out, a camera emerges from the roof and projects a series of ... uh ... shall we say 'art films' ... which cannot fail to distract any members of the 'oppo' in the car behind, thus giving Israel time to either eliminate or capture them, as the situation dictates. These films would make a ballistic missile come to a dead stop."

Ha Lavi lit a Raleigh and tore the coupon from the pack, placing it in a receptacle near M's desk. "My ninth contribution of the day, M. You should soon have enough for that nuclear reactor. To continue, Button 95 releases a mist of 007 cologne to freshen both his face and any wilting carnation in his lapel. And I rather think the copywriters missed out on an obvious grabber of a slogan that would treble their sales: 'Use 007 Products and You, Too, Will Get Pussy Galore.' Button 96 pops a nice piece Danish into his mouth; 97 converts the MBG's front grille into a barbecue pit into which 98 flings filet mignon for two; 101 converts his license plate into a hilarious sign that says CHICKEN INSPECTOR; you know Oy Oy Seven's far-out sense of humor ... Oh ..." He pinched his nose. "This air conditioning ..."

"Go on, Quartermaster Ha Lavi."

He dragged on his Raleigh. "I have taken the liberty of sending Oy Oy Seven several new portable devices in care of his brother in Trenton." From a pocket he fished out something. "This is my new anti-homing-capsule capsule. If Bond suspects an enemy has swallowed a homing capsule, he needs only to introduce the anti-capsule capsule into the agent's body and it will nullify the first one immediately. And here's a little toy he will find invaluable." Ha Lavi held up a length of metal. "It is a file that can be strapped to his leg. I have urged him to carry it at all times. Made in my laboratory by a fantastic new process of freezing ore at one million below, Fahrenheit, its ridges can slice through any metal known to man. The new metal, by the bye, is called Instant Processed Cold Rolled Extra Strength Steel."

"Excellent, Q. M.!" she nodded. "Now you may take a breather from the air conditioning. Shalom."

Gasping, his nostrils flaring in his anxiety, Ha Lavi ran out. Then a chill shook M's body as she heard Leilah Tov cry, "3-D! 3-D! 113 is back with a 3-D!"

3-D! Danger. Doom. Disaster!

Neon Zion, 113, was a pale young blond ghost as he slunk through her door. "Dead. All dead—Oy Oys Two, Three, Four and Six. They were in a cab on Ben Yehuda Street after leaving the license bureau. It blew up." He sobbed and buried his face in her shawl.

At that moment the homeward-bound receptionist, rummaging among the coats in the front-office cloakroom for her own, found the thing under M's silver-blue mink, ticking, ticking, ticking ...

• • •

Milton Bond, at 45, was 12 years older than his Israeli brother. Like all the Bond men (there was a third brother, Ragland, 41, a Jonny Mop quality-control inspector—"Rag" to everybody), he was blessed with the familial dark, cruelly handsome visage, his marred a trifle by dietary indiscretions.

After the passing of their parents and the departures of Israel and Rag Bond for their own careers, Milton had wooed and somehow won Lottie Vine, one of the lithe, leggy, desirable daughters of industrialist Oleander Vine, and with the father-in-law's backing opened a successful catering house in West Trenton, the Pinochle Royale, where upper-class Jews staged their various social and sometimes religious functions.

Throughout Lottie's sumptuous meal, Milton remained uncommunicative. She noticed this and attempted to brighten the occasion with light banter. "Trying some new things tonight, Iz. Mrs. Paul's frozen fish sticks, Mrs. Paul's frozen shrimp, Mrs. Paul's frozen mydiical kraken suckers ..."

"What's the next thing she's going to freeze? Mister Paul?" It was one of Israel Bond's better bons mots, yet he noted Milton's face held no smile. Something wrong there. Milton normally would roll on the floor for this kind of one-liner.

"OK, big brother, noble patriarch of ye Clan Bond." It was a half hour later and Israel was emerging from a bracing shower with Mione Soap, its haunting aroma permeating Milton's bedroom. "Let's have it, stoneface."

Milton sat on the edge of his Xochitl tostada bed, puffing doggedly on a 95-cent Houdini. "Your face. It looks like hell. And your body—bruises, welts, slashes. It's like this every time you come home for a visit. What the hell are you doing for a living, Iz? And no crap."

Bond inhaled a Raleigh, blew a figure eight the hard way—four twos. He looked into those gray eyes, so shrewd and hard, like his own. "You know what I do, Milt. PR for Mother Margolies. These"—he ran his hands over the purple-and-yellow blotches—"the result of a car crack-up."

"That scar on your shoulder?"

"If you want to know the truth, Adolf Hitler thd it to me. With a Luger."

"I said, cut the crap. I've had the (continued on page 125)Secret Service(continued from pae:e 66) feeling for a long time you're in some kind of—well, undercover stuff. PR guys don't get chopped to pieces from parroting the praises of chicken soup to adoring women on seven continents."

"Why don't we just watch a little TV, Milt, huh?" He flicked on the Zenith portable, giving an affectionate pat to an many of the superior, hand-wired circuits as his long, tapering fingers could locate.

When the buzz died down, an Indian chief, hatred blazing from his lined face, spoke: "White man steal Apache land, white man slaughter buffalo, white man make Injun loco with firewater, traumatize him, emasculate him, steal Indian nuts, leave him rootless, without something of value. Now, white man—the!"

The tall Texan did not flinch. "Hear me, Running Abscess, mighty chieftain of the Trocadero Apaches. You and your braves massacred the peaceful homesteaders at Lamprey Landing, took many scalps, burned homes, schools, churches and trading-stamp redemption centers. And now you expect the Great White Father in Washington to put your likeness on the new nickel after this?"

Milton turned it off. "Iz, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to see Lottie's sister tonight. She's been asking about you."

A pang triggered a sonar ping in the soul of Israel Bond. Liana Vine! Youngest of the lithe, leggy, desirable daughters of Oleander. She hadn't forgotten.

They had been "The Sweethearts of Trenton High" and, on a few hundred fumbling occasions and 70 distinctly competent ones, lovers. Cool, lissome, blonde Liana. There had been something special about Liana, something you couldn't put your finger on (it was rare in that respect). Her painfully shy smile? The gliding carriage of a ballet dancer? Or was it the protective urge she evoked in him, the way she made him feel she needed him as he posed her for stag photos?

It might have come to something, but then the trouble erupted in Palestine. Young Israel Bond, steeped in intense Jewishness by his parents, heard the call from across the world. He had long been involved in Jewish National Fund collections, he belonged to Trenton's Y. M.H. A. and A. Z. A., a fraternity for Jewish high schoolers with mathematical interests (Angle Zide Angle).

With alacrity he joined a kibbutz near Hightstown where Zionist-minded youths were being trained to endure conditions approximating those in Eretz Israel, fabled Land of Milk and Magnesia. Realism was the keynote at K'far K'near. The eager kibbutzniks slept on straw mats in barracks swarming with scorpions and pit vipers (imported at great cost from the Holy Land), tilling the soil under fire. (The kibbutz had advertised in a rural weekly for men who wanted $1.25-an-hour work shooting through barbed wire at Jewish boys and girls. K'far K'near had been overwhelmed by the generous response from the surrounding community.)

The War. Awful moments on mountain roads pocked by mortar shells. Hand-to-hand combat with bestial mercenaries of Glubb Pasha's Arab Legion. Bond's rapid rise in the informal yet deadly army to the rank of water carrier. A Hair for recklessness and conspiracy noticed by an astute colonel, leading to an eventual post with M 33 and 1/3, the coveted Double Oy number and a license—to kill!

Eighteen years away from Liana. Still she remembered.

There was a small PR chore to get out of the way, a speech before the Hista-mine, the ladies' auxiliary to the local chapter of the Zionist Labor Organization, which met each month at the Pinochle Royale. Then the decks would lie cleared for an evening with Liana. Her voice was silky, teasing on the phone. "Mother and Daddy are in Aruba, so it's just you and me, Iz. Wear something casual."

"Like my skin, dearest?" he quipped, witli his usual flashing wit. But he prayed she would not hear the juvenile pounding of his heart.

Bond donned a pair of sequined stretch pants and Shropshire Argyle bedsocks, and pulled a buff-colored hair shirt over his rippling torso. He completed the ensemble with a multiflowered luau car coat and went downstairs.

On the way to Milt's Sherpa-Hunza, he and Milt made some safe small talk about cars, politics and suburban life.

"Any of that wife-swapping bit going on out here?" asked Israel.

"Nah, old hat. The real hippies are swapping their mistresses. Hey, Iz, did you read Jim Michener's new book?"

"You bet, Milt. Damn fine. I saw him in Jerusalem while he was gathering Source material."

From Milton's outraged "Ooooh" and his howls of merriment, Bond knew the ice of early evening had been broken.

Chums again!

• • •

Bond finished the speech before the sweet old matrons, any one of whom could have been fated to head the Secret Service of Israel, so much like M were they. Having won Mother's products a few dozen more lifelong supporters, he rejoined Milton in the latter's modernistic office with the Tupperware ashtrays.

"Come on, Iz; I'll take you through the joint."

He led the Israeli through the Pinochle Royale's rooms, explaining their functions. "You see what it is, Iz; Jews have become so jaded; they just won't buy old-time ways anymore. You gotta give 'em that ol' show-business pizzazz in every area of existence. Now this," and Milton's eyes glowed, "is the Slice o' Life Room."

No further explanation was needed as Bond watched the rite of circumcision performed upon an eight-day-old squeaker in a room whose walls were a montage of Life magazine covers. "Noch a Yid"—another Jew!—Bond said with fervor. "Amen," Milton chimed in. As the mohel worked, they saw the child's cowering father, his arm before his face. Not so the mother, who coolly applied a tape measure to the pink monkey feet.

"Real Jewish mother," Milton said. "Already measuring him for corrective shoes. And here's my magnum cpis."

They walked through nutria-lined swinging doors into a vast night club crowded with raucous people in furs and eveningwear. "It's bigger than the Copa, huh, Iz? This is the Club Thirteen, my room for post–bar mitzvah receptions. Got a dilly tonight for multimillionaire Keefe Barrington's kid, Whitney. Getting this shindig was quite a plum in my compote. Every fency-dency caterer in the East was after this one."

On stage at the microphone an animated little man in a Po Valley mohair suit jabbered away.

"Good evening, ladies and germs. Welcome to Whitney Barrington's bar mitzvah reception. You know what a bar mitzvah is. That's when a Jewish boy reaches manhood. And a motel is where he proves it."

He spoke through a cupped hand to the musicians: "Notice how the hip material never makes it? Well, back to the check, by heck. My wife is a lousy cook. She has to call a repairman to fix a TV dinner.

"Jesus, it's all dying tonight. And is she square! She thinks a condominium is something a guy buys in a drugstore.

"Speaking of spies, they got a lot of spies on TV. There's a spy called Blue Light, but he's got troubles. Whenever he drives his car, they won't let Blue Light cross at the Red Light until they give him the Green Light!"

Marvelous, marvelous, Bond thought, envying the clever material and delivery. Why aren't these fools laughing? And haven't I seen this little funmaker before? Yes. It was Henny Benny Lenny, West Coast comedy sensation. His mind wandered back to a night at the Kahn-Tiki, the leading Class B hotel in the Catskills, and pain twisted the cruelly handsome face as he recalled the wonderful girl who had been so enmeshed in that electrifying Loxfingcr caper, the girl who now slept under the eternal sands of the Negev. Poontang Plenty. Something cried out from the core of his being with the profoundest sincerity: Belter her than me.

"Speaking of sex, did youse hear about the Greek who found true love by accident? He backed into it. Oh no, this can't be the regular bar mitzvah crowd. My kid likes rock 'n' roll. His favorite song is I'm Too Tired to Rock Around the Clock, So Let's Just Walk Around a Watch. Forget it, you rich-bitch bastards!"

Wow! Bond enthused. What a great powerhouse of an impromptu shock line, designed, of course, to win back the blase celebrants; but they continued to ignore the scintillaling treat that could have been theirs. He jotted down as many of Henny Benny Lenny's gems as he could remember.

Henny Benny Lenny's triangular head hung in defeat.

"And now," he shrilled, "the real star of this clambake, Master Whitney Barrington!"

As the 25-piece band crashed into a pounding, twist-beat version of Mazel Tov!, the crowd broke into yells at the entrance of a small boy with an incurious, bored demeanor, who walked down a red carpet toward the stage flanked by six dazzling young women in tight, rhinestone-encrusted miniskirts. At a signal from Henny Benny Lenny, six cages descended from the ceiling, into which the maidens sprang.

Whitney Barrington, resplendent in a Steve Lawrence turquoise quilted formal lounging robe, midnight-blue Dean Acheson diplomatic trousers with sateen stripes and Martin Agronsky patent-leather loafers, squeaked out of his world-weary face from a voice box whose nodules were pimple-stippled:

"My bar mitzvah speech," he began.

Then something strange happened. After his wavering opener, Master Barrington's voice suddenly became rich, resonant, dramatic, as the lips moved on about "my sacred commitment to the faith of my fathers" ... "this memorable day on which I take my place among ..."

"Hell," Bond grunted. "That's Richard Burton's voice. The kid is lip-syncing his speech."

"Family's got money, Iz," Milton shrugged. "Guess whose voice sang in synagogue this morning? Robert Merrill."

Whitney Barrington's proclamation of his covenant with the ancient faith concluded, Henny Benny Lenny raised his hand and the band hit a fanfare; the girls frugged ligerishly in their cages.

"Now, ladies and germs, the presents! Will the gentleman from Price Water-house please come forth ... or even fifth"—it died—"with the envelopes?"

Bond left at the 500 shares of A.T.&T. from Uncle Giles Rivkin of West Palm Beach. Weary of it all and sorry for Master Whitney—it's all downhill for him after tonight, he thought—he needed a drink, but not here in this Fel-lini orgy scene. "Try the kitchens: there should be someone around. Place's full of part-time help tonight," Milton said.

The man behind the service bar in the kosher-style kitchen was tall, powerful and very blond, very cruelly handsome, too, Bond noLed. He looks like a Gestapo me!

"Hungry, old chap? Or thirsty?"

The accent was slightly German, the English colloquially good. "We have just the sort of fare that will appeal to your discriminating taste buds, Mr. Bond. Gold-speckled-with-mauve bayou heron eggs, scrambled, not shirred, pommes de terre Chevelle, piping hot Chase & Sanborn coffee—and remember, sir, what Mr. Chase didn't know about coffee, Mr. Sanborn didn't know, either—served witli Domino sugar cubes cut to geometric exactness by Cal Tech–trained technicians ..."

Bond lit a Raleigh. "How did you know my name was Bond? And that my tastes are so extraordinary?"

The blond man smiled. "You must admit, sir, you look remarkably like the entrepreneur of this establishment. And you hardly look the sort who'd order peanut butter on white bread."

"You're very perceptive. A Montessori nun'tini, please."

The man set about making one. "Beefeater gin made from potatoes crushed by the feet of exceedingly bright Italian orphans, a Samuel Bronston lemon, Allen & Rossi vermouth; now a little shake."

Bond's heart, was about to burst through his rippling chest. He smelled it on the man's large corded hands—Calgonite! The thoughts piled up like blue chips on a la guerre table. Calgonite. Bombing. A man in a Jewish establishment. Jewish establishments being bombed. And his last three words ...

He smiled in spite of himself. "The martini gave you away. Martinis are stirred, never shaken. Anyone who drinks 'em shaken is a social misfit. And I spotted the tattoo on your wrist when your tuxedo sleeve moved up-the symbol of the SS jack boots kicking naked buttocks. You're from Tush."

• • •

"Sessue Hayakawa!"

The Nazi spat it from his sneering mouth as he hunched into the ping-pong stance of the karateist.

It's started, Bond thought. He's attempting to "psyche" me with a stream of vitriolic Japanese words that will bring on panic and terrifying images of him as the star pupil in the Ginza studio of Sensayunia, "The Cobra," master of unarmed combat.

I must "psyche" back, guttural word for guttural word, hissing curse for hissing curse until he, too, is beset by devilish visions of me as a holder of the Black Belt in the top half of the 12th Red Dan, in my red Dan River karate robe, the star pupil of Moto of Sausalito, the only man alive whom Sensayuma fears. And I must be all Moto. A mere quasi-Moto will not intimidate him.

Hunching into a similar pose, Bond snarled:

"Ginza! Osaka!"

"Nagasaki! Hiroshima! Hirohito!" The TUSH man's rejoinder was disdainful.

Gottenu! Three Japanese words in a row! Does this kraut really know the lingo? No, Bond, don't use "lingo" in your next rebuttal. It isn't even close. He'll the laughing of contempt.

"K0-K.0! Yum-Yum! Mikado! Madame Butterfly! Sake! Glocca Morra!" There, Hun! Six straight! But that last one ... true, it sounded legit, but will he accept it? Or insist on the strict rules laid down in Admiral Cockinyama's definitive monograph on Pre-Karate Combat Cursing?

The Tush agent yawned, a great comical yawn.

Gottenu! He treats this as though it's a kindergarten exercise! Is he that confident? There is an unnatural stillness in the air, the moment before the black funnel springs out of the West to carry away Dorothy and Toto ...

In a quicksilver instant the German cried: "Zero!"

"Mostel!"

Oh, Gottenu! The response had been mechanical, unthinking. Israel Bond, you stupid son of a bitch! You fell into the oldest trap in the game. He knows you can be had. Round one to the killer from Tush! The smell of victory in his nostrils, the blond titan soared off the balls of his feet, his stiffened commando's cutting edge of a right hand smash g down on Bond's torn shoulder, screaming: "Fukuoka!"

Bond fell back, screaming a savage "Same to you, oka!" but his pain-paralyzed shoulder was a useless instrument. A brutal kick to the stomach almos bent him double and sent him crashing into a service stand, spilling a trayful of dessert all over the marble floor; another to the same spot and it was all over. Bond lay groaning, conscious of two Flagg Brothers pebble-grained brogues planted at each side of his neck. One horrible thought kept pushing through the red haze in his head:

I've been taken by a man who wears nine-dollar shoes!

"It is all over, Oy Oy Seven. I had long entertained the hope of ending your career in this fashion, but the co-chairmen of my organization had already contracted to furnish Torquemada LaBonza to the KGB to do the job. Alas for him, happily for me, he was not equal to the task. In a few seconds I shall kick your head off its trunk, then plant a fifty-zis Calgonite charge that will blow this Jewish pigsty to oblivion. It is the kind of thing I have been doing for the last twelve hours in New York as part of Dr. Holzknicht's magnificent Operation Alienation. As an added fillip, I may leave another fifty-zis at your brother's house. His sweet children will enjoy the ride. And now, the crowning touch, judischer Hund ..." There was a clicking sound of cubes. "Drink your martini—shaken!"

He'd known it was coming, but that didn't make the ignominious, nauseating stream of ice and liquid on his lips any more bearable.

But there was something bearable, something with prongs pressing into the small of his back. Something that could be a weapon! His left hand was inching under his back. Now!

"Fork you!"

It tore out of his throat with maniacal fury as he drove the fork into the TUSH man's ankle, savoring the protracted wail as prongs chomped through skin, capillary, gristle, marrow, cockle, mussel and bone. The German was howling like a banshee, writhing on his own back now like an animal in a trap. Bond yanked at the fork. Stuck too deep! His hand closed on a hard, cold, slippery object near the spilled tray and he drove it into the horrible O of the screaming German's mouth, past the palate, hammering it with his elbow far back into the throat, snapping off six gold-filled teeth in the process. There was an eye-rolling paroxysm, the face turned a revolting purplish-blue, the hands flopped at the sides.

Out of curiosity, Bond forced open the jaws and extricated the object that had killed by strangulation. A thin smile hardened the cruel, sensual mouth. To no one in particular he remarked mildly, "There's nodiing like a frozen Milky Way to take snotty Snickers off a face."

Oblivious to the swelling on his head, the gushing shoulder wound and the fire in his kicked stomach, he frisked the German, found a plastic I. D. card:

"James Bund, 43 Ulbricht Allee, Schweinbaden, East German Republic."

So this was James Bund, number two in TUSH'S murder squad and one of the Schweinbaden ghouls as well. Then the martini finally got to him and Israel Bond was very sick.

• • •

He found the Calgonite in a Volks in the Pinochle Royale's darkened parking lot, shoved the corpse of James Bund into the back seat and drove deep into the woods of nearby Titusville. With a makeshift fuse of Bund's shoestrings he touched off the Calgonite, and from a hill a half-mile away watched the blast sear 300 feet of scrub pine.

Using his powerful European heel-and-toe walk, he ate up the 6 miles to Liana's house in 12 minutes, using the time to reflect on the fast-moving events since he'd heard the newscast. The phrase "Operation Alienation" kept bedeviling him, but for the second time in the same day he repressed an analysis that might have led him to something more concrete, lor he was now standing before something very concrete, the Vine Mansion at the corner of Lazy Lazarushian Lane and Molting Macaw Road.

The door was open. A silvery voice said, "In the kitchen, Iz," and he tiptoed across the Dacron-Orlon-Leon rug (the latter no miracle fiber—the manufacturer merely wished to immortalize his son) and ...

There was Liana Vine. Naked.

She stood braced against the kitchen table, proud, unashamed, fully cognizant of the effect of her wondrous physiognomy upon him. "If anything's to happen, dearest Iz, it should be in here. No matter how rich we get, we Jews still live in the kitchen."

"I'm hungry," Bond said. "Did the special pie I ordered come yet?"

Without warning she began to cry, her creamy shoulders heaving. "Oh, it's all wrong. This whole tiling I had in my mind ...seeing you after eighteen years ... and I'm naked ... and all you're interested in is some damn pizza pie ..."

He shipped her hard. "Sorry, ket/.eleh, but I don't dig hysterical broaas. Not even one I love with all my heart." The last sentence, pitched in a low, dirob-bing tone, seemed to snap her out of her funk and she dried her face on a napkin. "Besides, Liana, you're a Trentonian and you know damn well we call it tomato pie, not pizza."

"You've changed, Iz." Her smile was sweet yet grave. "You're so sophisticated 'n' all." Her warm, finely fleshed but not disgustingly plump arms encircled his neck. "Were there any others, Iz?"

His fingers caressed the silky Chem-strand hairs at the nape of her neck. "Don't throw up smoke screens, my pet. The question isn't what I've been doing. I'm a man. How about you, maideleh? Simon pure all the way?"

Her breath titillated three of the thousands of erogenous zones on his left ear. "Just once, Iz. It was back in '57 and I hadn't gotten a letter from you in nine years and——"

"Tramp!" He shoved her against the wall. "You bitch! You're all alike. Who was it?" His slaps turned her cheeks blood-red.

She bowed her head. "A guy I met at the John Cage Music Festival in Levit-towti. He was the third player in the :oal-scuttle section. Short, fat, morose fella ... kinda reminded me of Jackie Vernon. I was just sorry for him, Iz, 'cause everybody was dancing with a girl and he was dancing with a cello, and I guess I was sorry for myself, too. Nine years without ..." Her voice cracked.

His nose rose, pushed up by a snarl of loathing. "And now you want your old lover boy to swing for you a little, you bitch! By heaven, I'll take you as callously as I took ..." he reeled off 4000 different names, each one a dagger in her heart, he knew.

Arms Hailing like a John Deere thresher, he threw his clothes to the floor, the cool sensuality of the Armstrong tiles causing insensate emotions on the broad, excitable areas of his bare soles. He was in a shimmering mist, nothing mattered but the pitiless defoliation of this adorable hellcat who had brought her soiled body to mark their reunion. His cruel, sensual lips parted, the liberated teeth laughed with barbaric glee and sank into her neck.

"Oh, Iz! Iz!"

The song of sex roared unabated through the obsessed body of Israel Bond: sparkling glissandos intermingled with. Ernie Durandos; fugues swelled into fullblown Rizzutos, revealing concept and cosmos, bread and wine, death and transfiguration, Kukla and Fran, port and starboard, Sonny and Cher, David and Lisa, night and day, day and night for she was the one and she was Mother Earth, releasing at last the boiling magma in her depths, and he was taking it, reshaping it, selling it to Goodwill Industries, for he was Father Earth and father knows best and he was in the clutdi of a centrifugal force, surrendering to it and his head slipped down, down, down into a pool ... sweet, dark ... so sweet, so dark ... She helped him pull his head from the bowl of chocolate pudding on the kitchen table.

He had failed her.

"Well, how was it, Iz?" she said with ill-concealed bitterness.

"My-T-Fine."

Once again Israel Bond's rapier wit had saved the day.

For ten minutes Liana Vine laughed her adorable hellcat head off. "Iz, what a stupendous pun you just made!"

He diucked her under the diin. How had he ever stayed away so long from this warm, bewitching, understanding girl? He would reward her patience, for he knew that she must still be seething like a tidal wave that can find no coastal town to obliterate. The rapier would become the rapist!

Before he commenced his second onslaught, he was struck by an inspiration. If laughter and love were so inescapably intertwined for Liana and him, why not combine the two? Poking about, he found an Allan Sherman album chock full of the chubby little fellow's devastating song parodies.

So it was that, accompanied by Sherman's gift of laughter, he took Liana Vine once more; this time it was no cold, furious exhibitionism, but mature and rich, a love of giving, not sadistic taking, and they melded soul-scaring climaxes with guffaws at the comedian's rib-tickling punch lines. Fortune was with them, the funniest bits, Sarah Jackman and Drapes of Roth, issuing from the speaker at the exact moments of fulfillment in their sexual congress.

Congress was in session a long time.

"Think you'll ever forget that third coal-scuttle player now, my dearest?"

"Don't ever go away again, Iz. Stay. Marry me, live with me. I don't care which."

"Hold on thar, Miss Liana. Thou hast fain tempted me, fair damsel, but it can't be done that quickly. I'll have to ask out of Mother's, maybe help train another agent—uh, salesman—to fill my 10-D wing-tipped Florsheim cordovans."

Her hand flew up to her mouth. "Oh, my God! I meant to tell you——"

"Meant to tell me what, my funny valentine who makes me smile with my heart?" He saw her strained face and his heart ceased smiling.

"Forgive me, Iz. The thought of seeing you again, doing this—it just drove everything else out of my brain. Iz, there's no need for you to go back and resign. You're out of a job."

He pulled himself up. His voice was harsh. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I heard it on the radio just before you came in. A bulletin from Tel Aviv. Mother Margolies' Activated Old World Chicken Soup factory—it's been blown up!"

• • •

London?

Israel's Secret Service handed what could be a knockout punch and Op Chief Beame was ordering Bond to London?

He'd been quite dictatorial about it on the phone. "This is a Mem Echod, repeat, Mem Echod. Rendezvous with 113 at Point WCH, Station Benny der Graiser, for further instructions. Shalom."

"Are you in Foam Rubber Acres yourself, Op Chief? Zvi is——"

The line went dead.

He shook his head. Beame's off his——and despised himself for the cheap play on the name at a catastrophic time like this. Well, Beame was off his beam, damn it! 113 had been Zvi Gates' designation, and lovable, laughable Zvi Gates was gone, buried in some Godforsaken spot in the green hell that was the El Tiparillan jungle, with only kindly Sister Sweetcakes, "The Swinging Nun," caring enough to stop by sometimes and place a portion boiled beef on his grave. No, Beame isn't the type to go off the deep end like Lavi. There's a logical explanation, idiot. A new 113. He felt a childish resentment toward the man and cursed himself for being unjust.

Wait! Mem Echod!

Gottsedanken!

Mem is Hebrew for—M! Echod for—One! Mother was alive! Benny der Graiser was Yiddish, the lingua frankel of the truly cultured "in" of the world. Benny the Great, Benny the Big, or Big Ben ...London, his next stop.

• • •

Now Ha Lavi's new gear was in his bags and he was looking out the window of an El Al jet 31,000 feet up.

He busied himself with The New York Times. There was a wrap-up on the explosions, minus the one at Mother's that had broken too late to make the edition. The FBI had been ordered to investigate 178 deaths at 3500 disasters; dozens more were dead in South America and Europe. As Sahd Sakistan mourned King Hakmir, Grand Vizier Ben-Bella Barka had flown on a hush-hush mission to London. New York's Mayor Lindsay had been offered a plan for a new police review board that would review the decisions handed down by any civilian review board; the mayor had promised to review it.

"Coffee, tea or LSD!" chirped the curvaceous, black-eyed Yemenite stewardess.

"The latter," Bond requested, popping the minute dose into his mouth; for three hours he was afloat in a reverie that enabled him to see music and hear Marcel Marceau's entire act. He came out of it as the pilot announced the descent into London.

Point WCH was code for the William the Conqueror Hotel.

"Cabby, take me to 1066 Hastings. Make it in less than ten minutes and there's a handful of farthingales, four-pennies and jujubes for you." On the way to Cheapside they passed what had been a delicatessen, its windows blown out; on the sidewalk lay salamis and tongues in the appalling rictus of death.

"Gar! Fifteenth bloomin' one I seen like that to-dye. Someone's got it in for the bloody Yids, they 'as." Bond cut four farthingales from the bigot's tip.

In his room, he paced hour after hour, each new disaster broadcast by the telly deepening his concern. He looked at the two-foot mound of Raleigh stubs and berated himself for the filthy habit. Maybe the coupons would cover the cost of the lung operation, he smirked, with yet another display of his sardonic humor. Bond moved to the door when the rap sounded, opened it wide and was driven back by an agonizing blow to his tender stomach by the muzzle of a .44 Bomp-Hadley.

"Just put your hands behind your neck." The speaker was a sandy blond with a bandage on his forehead. He was slim, of medium height, wore a black windbreaker, khaki ducks and white sneakers. With his left hand he removed the outsized Italian wrap-around sunglasses that blocked off a third of his face.

"Neon! Neon Zion! You damn-fool kid! Don't you remember the Matzoh-ball caper?"

"Stow it, Mac. The quick brown I. J. Fox jumped over the pickled lox."

A rage shook Bond. This damn punk, an ex-Israeli Peace Corpsman who owes his life to me, is pulling guns and demanding countersigns as if I'm some snot-nosed recruit. There was no choice but to play along:

"Folks who live on Quemoy are known as Quemoyim."

"And all these Quemoyim, for damn sure, are goyim."

The breath whooshed out of the kid and Bond realized how nervous he must have been. "Thank God it's you, Oy Oy Seven! I had to do what I did. Orders."

"What the hell is bugging Lazar Beame? Doesn't he know who I am?"

Neon lit a Raleigh. "Mr. Bond, since it happened, nobody knows anything anymore or trusts anybody. Sure, you look like the man I grew to worship on that terrible isle, but you could have been a Tusn-y with ;i plastic-surgery job." He took ;i deep breath. "Here's the scam. Somebody disguised as one of the tourists left some Calgonite, at least 200-zis worth, in the front wing of M's factory. Now how in hell did TUSH know the factory was a cover for M 33 and 1/3? Another thing—with the exception of Oy Oy Five, missing, presumed captured, and you, sir, all the Double Oys are dead. It's foolish to suppose Tush hadn't heard of you. But how did they know who the others were?"

Bond bit his lip. He knew, but that could come later. "Who got it at the factory? How bad is M?"

"Crippled. In a wheelchair. I was next to her when it happened. A hundred cases of Mother's Activated Old World Kosher Charcoal Briquettes fell on us. Got my head banged up, but that's all. Uh, you and Leilah were kinda pally, I take it——"

Bond sprang at Neon, dug his long, tapering fingers into the lad's shoulder. "Leilah! What about her?"

Tears streamed from 113's eyes. "She wasn't as lucky. Got hurled into the gefiillte-fish vat. It was boiling."

He let go of Neon and stared into the night. In his rage he whipped out the Chris-Keeler and fired through the window into Berkeley Square. The nightingale fell dead. "The others?"

"Aide de Camp de Camp, gone ... Section Psychiatrist Pippikel, gone ...Mendel the Mantis, gone ..."

"Ha Lavi?" Was the little genius of weaponry killed, too?

"He's OK, sir, s-s-s-sort of. He had just stepped out for a breath of hot stale air—he can't stand air conditioners, you know—and he was knocked down. But lie came out of it kinda funny. I was the first to get to him. He'd been hit a glancing blow on the head by a board with one of M's proverbs painted on it, which said, Meix Hath no Fury like a Plymouth. He looked at me and said, 'You know, Neon, if you keep giving massive doses of iron to Persian lambs, you might very well get steel wool,' and that's when I called Op Chief Beame, who took him away."

Bond was pulling on his trench coat. "We're wasting time. Let's get home."

Neon pulled on his Raleigh. "You're not going back, Oy Oy Seven. Mem Echod order. You've a job that starts right here in London town."

Up your foggy day, Bond grumbled to himself.

"And"-Neon moved to the door-"if I'm not mistaken, it starts this second."

A bronzed, gaunt man in a dark double-breasted sharkskin suit with rakish fins entered. His face was distinctly Arabic, proud, barbaric, distinguished by a hooked nose. A yellow fez perched atop his gray locks. "Israel Bond, I am Ben-Bella Barka, Grand Vizier of Sahd Saki-stan. Please come with me. Your duties commence at once."

"Goddamnit! What the hell is going on in M 33 and 1/3? Are they trading me to the Arabs for Suez and thirty oil fields?"

Neon smiled. "Something like it, sir. M lias consented to have you act as the Secret Service of Sahd Sakistan on a temporary basis. You are to guard King Hakmir's son, who is in a ticklish spot, untested and surrounded by enemies. The new monarch was quite specific in requesting you. Ben-Bella Barka found the lad living here and contacted our P. M., who agreed to the deal."

"Deal? This is lunacy! The big show's going on in Israel: they're bumping off our Double Oys, crippling our number one, and I get sent on some tinhorn assignment! Listen, Ben-Ball Breaker or whatever your name is-what's in this for my country?"

The mouth was taut and irate. "A great deal, Mr. Boor. In return for guarding His Majesty, Sahd Sakistan, a believer in Realpolitik, is going to be a force for your nation's welfare in the United Nations. Our alignment with you on key issues will lure the Asian states from their ties with the Arab bloc and perhaps even convince our Middle Eastern neighbors to end their puerile, unprofitable obduracy. There is more at slake for you in Sahd Sakistan than in Tel Aviv, no matter how horrendous your present tragedy."

"He's right, Oy Oy Seven," Neon asserted, and Bond knew it. "M says I'm to be your assistant."

Bond's shoulders slumped. "Where is His Majesty?"

"He is having his fitting for the coronation. Come with me, gentlemen."

Ben-Bella Barka's block-long Rolls look them to an address in fashionable Mayfair, where they parked in front of a glittering salon on Darn Cat Mews and got out and walked the block to the entrance. "His Majesty is in Monsieur Pierre's suite, gentlemen."

And in Monsieur Pierre's arms, it developed. The designer, clad in a purple toga and hunter's-grcen Jamaicas, held the tiny monarch to his heart. "Mon roi, mon amour ... je t'adore ..."

Then a wild eye caught Bond's bemused face and a spidery hand pushed the Frenchman's face aside cavalierly. "Split, you disgusting Frog! Here's the real stuff in life to cling to—my sweet Super-Jew ..."

Sahd Sakistan's new monarch looked like the cat about to swallow the aviary. With a frenetic series of ballet leaps, he vaulted to Bond and threw his fragile arms around his neck. "O blessed spirit of Oscar Wilde, it's the all-time beefcake bonanza, the Eldorado of virility, the mother lode of musculature and it's mine, mine, mine ..."

Bond groaned; his heart hit his heels as he recognized the elfin Negro with the Dick Van Dyke beard, horn-rimmed glasses and Courreges dress and white boots, who had been tapped by destiny to rule a nation.

Baldroi LeFagel, author of the epic Up Your Blue Toilet, Mr. Charlie and brother of Sister Sweetcakes. Bond had last seen him on the island of El Tiparillo.

• • •

"I will not, I will not, I will not! Let Israel be overrun by Egypt, let the sky fall into the sea, let banks fail in Yonkers. I will not!." Bond bellowed.

Then his patriotism triumphed and he consented with utmost reluctance to follow Neon's quite sensible advice.

"If you're going with His Majesty tonight to the club, it ill behooves you to look out of place. He may already be shadowed by Tush, Mr. Bond. You must not look as though you're guarding him. You must appear to be one of LeFagel's companions."

So he put on the dress.

After the first shock of seeing the smart Cecily of Sicily two-piece electric-blue jersey clinging to his lithe, muscular frame, he found the freedom of the skirt somewhat refreshing. After all, Scotsmen wear these kilt tilings all the time, he reasoned, and certainly no one finds the Scots unmanly. And the blonde wig—well, hadn't Harpo Marx worn one like it during his career? And Harpo had never been suspect. As for the shaped Cuban heels, doesn't Jose Greco——

Knock it off, Bond; stop the rationalizing. You're afraid of what you're wearing, afraid you might like it.

Hadn't a renowned observer of the human scene once said, "There's six percent of latent homosexuality in every man"? Who was it? Freud? Adler? Jung? James M. Cain?

And, Mr. Bond, his inner self asked his outer self, what man taking a shower at the Y has not looked at the man in the next shower and said to himself, "That's another man in the next shower there"?

Snap out of it, Oy Oy Seven. The philosophical mood, not the dress. There's a job to be done for M, Eretz Israel and the ruler of Sahd Sakistan. You're on the Secret Service of His Majesty the Queen. Thank heaven Neon's working out all right. He's a bright kid, even suggested that he go on ahead and case the joint because we shouldn't be seen together.

Bond finished applying the base make up and Maybelline eye shadow. Not bad. I could never be one of those truly beautiful girls, but I'm undeniably ...interesting. A touch of Tangee on my cruel, sensual lips and it's off to Soho with Kin!) Baldroi and a night at Bal-droi's own bistro, the Gayboy Club.

LeFagel was a vision in crinoline and lace when Bond stopped by to letch him. "I feel so Scarletly O'Hara tonight—magnolias by moonlight—warm winds whipping whatever part of the slaves ol' massa missed in the afternoon." He stared at Bond. "Why, you've turned, you've turned! Glory, glory——"

"Cool it, LeFagel. This is just a disguise. Don't get your hopes up."

LeFagel winked. "I'd much rather get your ... hopes up, you bonny brawny thing." He clasped his hands in a prayerful attitude.

Gottenu! Bond sighed.

As the cab rumbled through the night, a blanket of log lent a sinister touch to the city. Good, Bond thought. It'll be hard to be followed in this pea-souper. He felt his purse, heavy with the comforting weight of the gun inside, hoping he would not need to use it.

"Say, LeFagel, what's with the Old-South-by-moonlight getup? A man who's written such violent anti-white power-structure novels as Burn, Whitey, Burn in the Fire Next Time has no right to look like a 19th Century plantation owner's imperious daughter."

LeFagel put an orange-tipped Phyllis Morris between his lips. "Oh, I'm over that phase. Not that I'm unsympathetic to my people's problems, you understand, but if they haven't got enough sense to better themselves by inheriting Middle East kingdoms, the hell with them. Anyway, I'm much too involved with the real movement, Bondikins."

"Call me 'Bondikins' once more and I'll kick your tail. Oh, we're here."

"Promises, promises," LeFagel sighed.

Bond felt a sharp pain aft as he guided LeFagel toward the lavender-blue Dilly Dilly door of the club and turned to see an evil grin on the cabman's ruddy face. By thunder, the man had pinched him! Only his Double Oy training constrained him from punching in the brute's face. Then Bond smiled. The man had pinched him, not LeFagel. No matter which scene I make, it's me they're after, and he felt somehow reassured and waved back at the driver.

Down winding steps they went, into a dimly lit cellar crowded with tiny circular tables no bigger than hula hoops, around which were clustered little knots of Gayboy regulars, their lively faces illuminated by candles stuck into Clorox bottles.

In a pin spot on a miniature stage was a heavily rouged, marcelled blonde sitting on a stool, his legs crossed. He wore a pink Linkletter Calypso shirt, the ends tied at his waist, and the tapered red-satin slacks so popular in this milieu, Transves-Tights. He was singing in a throaty German accent.

"When we crawled in bed one night last week,

I found we had the same physique.

Yon brought a strange hind of love to me."

Sighs and moans ensued. "Willi, you're fantabulous!" cried a plump onlooker.

"She is chi, isn't she chi?" the admiring king said.

"Who is she?"

"I'll certainly find out."

LeFagel exchanged a whispered conversation with the plump onlooker, then turned to Bond. "That's a new one I've never heard of, Willi Marlene from East Berlin. She asked my maitre de if she could go on tonight. Far as I'm concerned, she can go on any night."

"Damnit, LeFagel! Enough with the limp innuendoes already."

" Jealous, jealous, jealous. Admit it. Cat got your tongue? Lucky cat."

Bond paid him no mind. He was thinking. Willi had asked to perform, Willi from East Berlin. King Baldroi, we may be in trouble right off the bat.

As Willi did a medley of bittersweet songs obviously dear to his enrapt, weeping audience—My Man, Mad About tlie Boy and a slow, specialized rendition of Stouthearted Men—Bond scanned the layout. On the wall behind their table was a gallery of photographs of world-famous celebrities. "Are they—uh— special, too?"

" 'Course, silly Semitic sweetness. The squares would the if they knew. See that one of the big-league ballplayer? He's a switch-hitler of the field, too. And the nuclear scientist? Right now he's working on something for us, the Gay-Bomb." LeFagel pointed a finger. "Like that mural? It's a masterpiece."

It depicted one of the heroic moments of antiquity, a homosexual holding off hordes of Mongols single handed to protect his Greek city-state, the immortal Fellatio at the Bridge.

Willi demonstrated his versatility with a collection of risque stories that had the audience in titters (one of them with a rhyming punch line, "faggot maggot," wasn't bad at all, Bond conceded, writing it down in his notebook).

Throwing kisses to all, stopping to bestow certain favors on a lew, Willi made his way to LeFagel's table.

"Your gracious, gracious liege, defender of man's inalienable right to be alien," he purred and knelt to kiss the king's hand.

As he genuflected, Willi Marlene's right hand slipped into the back pocket of bis Trans\ es-Tights, Bond's eyes on it all the way.

Bond's lingers were without prehcnsility, it seemecl. He couldn't get the damn clasp to open, cursing himself for not having tried a dry run with the purse.

Willi's right hand came out with a curved kris, its wicked silhouette standing out in the candlelight.

Bond swung with all his power and smashed Willi across the throat as the dagger moved toward LeFagel's heart. Willi Marlene fell softly on his back, a broken rag doll.

LeFagel was screaming from the top of a table now, hurling Clorox bottles all over the club in his hysteria. One of the candles touched off the stage curtain and it flared into a sea of flames.

Bond stood looking down at Willi Marlene's body. How good it all had been before tonight, he thought—the glorious killings by Moishe Dyan rifle, the Tzimmes-88, the frozen Milky Way, the teuton matzoh ball.Now I'm at the nadir of my career.

But to look at it from a professional viewpoint, he had done his job. Willi Marlene's windpipe had been crushed. For now. Baldroi LeFagel was safe.

But he couldn't keep the enormity of what he'd done out of his head./ liave just killed a man by striking him with a purse. He turned his face aside so that he could not be seen. Israel Bond wept.LeFagel snapped him out of it.

"Mr. Bond! Mr. Bond! I'm on fire!"

So now it's Mr. Bond when you're up against it, eh, King Baldroi? He resisted an urge to cry "Burn, baby, burn!" and pulled the screaming ruler from the tabletop, beating out the tongues of flame with his hands.

The wild fire LeFagel had set off by his outburst of irrationality was spreading like—well, wildfire. Not a bad line, either, Bond thought, and scribbled it clown as he choked on the black smoke.

He put the tiny fellow on his torn, aching shoulder and barreled through the clawing, howling Gayboy customers to the street, the cool air a godsend to his scorched body.

Depositing LeFagel in a trash can, he raced back into the inferno three times, snatching 12 more trapped customers, dumping them all on the sidewalk.

"Oy Oy Seven!" There was a bleat from one of the blackened faces in the third batch he'd taken up.

"Neon! Are you OK, kid? And where the hell were you?"

"Backstage. I just came to a minute ago. You've saved my life again, Oy Oy Seven. I wish to hell I knew how to"

"Forget it, boychickl. That's what Double Oys were made for. Why were you backstage?"

"I told you I was going on ahead to snoop, and I found something." He looked rueful. "Trouble is, something found me, too. I'd spotted this Willi Marlene actor making up in the dressing room and I saw one of those symbols on his wrist."

"Tush?"

"Well, sort of. Naked buttocks were being kicked, but by high heels."

Bond snapped his long, tapering fingers, "Tush's special department for killer queers. He was in the Gayfia."

"Well, I guess he'd seen me in the mirror or something, because when I turned around, I got coshed real good." He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, Oy Oy Seven. I loused up my first big job and lie got away."

Bond gave the youngster a friendly jab to the mouth, which split it and sent three teeth flying into the gutter. "He's been taken care of, fella." Several of the Gayboy jjatrons loped screeching down the street and Bond grinned. "See them running? I guess that's what they really mean by drag racing."

"Oy, mommeleh!" Neon's eyes bulged out and he was in the grip of an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "Lord, that's funny! Drag racing!"

Hey, Bond thought, looking at young Neon witli new respect. The kid's a latigherl Hell, he laughs more than Zvi Gates ever did. 'Course, I'm sorry for what happened to Zvi, but ...

Back at the William the Conqueror, Bond called a parley.

"We've got to get the hell out of here. TUSH has a boatload of agents in London. But we'll throw 'em a curve. Instead of Sahd Sakistan, our next stop'll be Israel."

"I suppose I should thank you for saving my royal life, Bonderooney," said a subdued Baldroi LeFagel. "It was precious of you. Mayn't I reward you in my own sweet way?" His eyes burned into the secret agent's.

"Yes, by acting like a king. Now go pack."

As Bond did his own packing, he looked with regret on the electric-blue jersey dress that had served him so well on this grim night. Seems a shame to throw it down the incinerator, he thought. I'll take it along. There might come a clay when I'm just bugged by everything else in my wardrobe and ...

At the airport he bought them all insurance, including the new policy that covers death by plane crash in the waters of a holy shrine—sold only by Lourdes of London—and settled back to do some hard thinking as Neon and Baldroi snoozed. The London Times had more explosions to report, a total of 4999 on the three continents. The Pinochle Roy-ale would have made it an even 5000, lie reasoned, adding 4999 and 1 and coming up with, the inescapable answer.

The Times noted again that in virtually every instance the bombings had destroyed edifices that had some relationship to food and drink. The exceptions were five Halifax–to–New York freighters. Were these just random, unrelated incidents? Or part of the TUSH plot in some unrecognizable way?

James Bund's oblique references came back to him. "Operation Alienation." "Dr. Holzknicht." He'd have to tell M and Beame immediately. Then a great guilt pervaded him. He'd also have to tell them that he had covered up the sordid betrayal of Israel by weaselly No-chum Spector, the little man with the big dream of world domination in the Matzohball caper. Nochum had been M's nephew; Bond had not wanted to hurt her. Because of his foolish gallantry, there were almost 60 dead, including his buddies, the Double Oys, whose identities Nochum had revealed. That part of the story intrigged him the most, the blown-up cab in Jerusalem after they'd gone to renew their licenses to kill.

It was obvious. Someone in the license bureau had fingered them in some way.

He would pay that bureau a friendly little visit.

Two cartons of Raleighs later, the El Al jet circled Lydda Airport and angled downward. It touched the soil of Eretz Israel and tears rolled down Bond's cheeks as fast as the plane rolled down the runway.

Lazar Beame was waiting in the Smirch, the ugly but gutsy little car produced in Beersheba by a French-Israeli cooperative. Beame was a short, stocky man of 55, with a tanned stoical face. He was an ex–Double Oy himself who had moved up when he reached the field-combat retirement age of 45. He'd begged for a two-year extension, but M had turned him down: "You don't know what the really good wines are anymore, your thickened waistline makes you unattractive to women and your golf game is way off. Worst of all, you can't work that hair-across-the-doorway trick anymore. You're bald. Come in out of the cold, Lazar."

Now, as they drove toward town, Beame's teeth were serrating a White Owl. "We're headquartered in emergency site Zaddik-Iyan-Gimmel-Gimmel-Yood ever since . . ." He bit through the cigar in his anger.

Z-I-G-G-Y. Ziggy's! The popular kosher restaurant on Bezalel Street. Was that the new cover? Was fat, wisecracking Ziggy Gershenfeld, the Max Asnas–Tools Shor—Duke Ziebert of Israel, a big cog in the Secret Service?

"Surprised?" Beame said sotto voce so that King Baldroi and Neon, seated in the rear, could not hear. "I can hear your brain clicking. Yes, it's Ziggy's and, yes, he's way up in M 33 and 1/3; has been for years. There are some things you never learn until you get up to my level, Oy Oy Seven."

They motored through the Judean hills, harsh and beautiful. Somewhere along the line, three of the Simcha's four tires fell off, but the doughty auto chugged along with spirit. "These little babies can really take it, Bond," said Beame. The rear end dropped off at Jaffa Road and Bezalel Street, the motor three blocks from Ziggy's, yet the sturdy little frame cruised right up to the door.

They were hustled through the service entrance, down a hallway redolent with odors of stuffed cabbage, into the kitchen.

There was M.

She sat in a wheelchair, her slight legs made tree-trunk thick by yards of bandages. There were bruises on her forehead and cheeks and a plaster sticker on the tip of her nose. But her eyes had lost none of their keenness.

"Shalom, Oy Oy Seven, 113 and honored guest, King Baldroi."

After a round of salutations, M suggested that Neon take King Baldroi to the front for a bite and seemed bewildered by the little ruler's arch response.

"The king has a bizarre sense of humor," Bond said, apologizing. He then unloaded his terrible secret.

Beame's reaction was instantaneous. "You stupid bastard! Nobody's feelings are ever spared in this game. There's a ton of blood on your head, Mr. Bond. If I were you, M, I'd take away his number and throw him to the wolves."

M's answer took a long time in coming. "Op Chief Beame is correct, Oy Oy Seven. You have done a terrible thing." Bond bit his elbow. "And a noble thing. I must be condemnatory in my official capacity, grateful for your concern in my human one. I disagree with Op Chief Beame's solution, however. It is unrealistic. Oy Oy Seven is perhaps our last hope, Mr. Beame. He will finish this assignment, at least, before any departmental inquiry is held. Now, Mr. Bond, a detailed report on your experiences in Trenton and London, and your theories."

So that's it, Bond thought. This is my swan song. The folds in his heart gave way at the seams and the whole mess collapsed into his stomach. Popping ten Rolaids into his mouth to neutralize it, he recounted in an unemotional manner the whole narrative.

At the mention of Dr. Holzknicht, M and Beame registered shock. The former pressed the pilot-light button on the stove and in five seconds Ziggy Gershenfeld waddled into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. "I was listening to Oy Oy Seven's report on these"—his forefingers touched his hearing aids. "I was wondering when you'd call me in." He was a round little man with bright eyes in a face that was a dead ringer for Harry Golden's. "If Holzknicht authored this tiling, it's something dark and deep. Certainly gives me food for thought."

"How odd, Z," said M with a nervous smile. "That very phrase, 'food for thought,' went through my mind when I first heard about it."

"Invert it! Invert it!" Bond was screaming.

"What the hell do you mean?" thun-dered Beame.

"Think about food! Think about food! Can't you see it?" Then Bond spoke slowly, as though recalling something from a dream. "Liana said it. 'We Jews still live in the kitchen.'"

"Liana who? And what's it got to do with this whole . . ." Beame started.

Z, Ziggy Gershenfeld, spread his arms. "Everything. She must be a smart cookie, your Liana. Now let's see what we got. TUSH ... a sharp, perceptive psychiatrist like Holzknicht ...and he's good, I got to say it about the Deutsche mom-ser ...the destruction of food-and-drink outlets ...Operation Alienation ...your friend's knowledgeable observation about Jews and kitchens ...there's a pattern in the whole thing——"

Bond cut in. "Let's add some more elements. The preponderance of these disasters occurring in America's cities with big Jewish populations ...others in South American and western European cities also with big Jewish populations ..."

Z twisted his apron in his hands. "I got to make some calls, lots of calls. I got a theory. I say we all meet here in three days."

M nodded. "You shouldn't waste a moment then, Z. Oy Oy Seven, you'll keep an eye on LeFagel. Op Chief Beame, you'll give Z any help he needs. For me, there's a whole new factory to design. Someone give me a pencil, a slide rule and some blown butcher paper. I'll start already."

• • •

For the next three days Bond moseyed around the license bureau, a shabby little office in the cellar of the Menasha Skulnik Building. The office manager, Sharett Pincus, was one of those officious small-fry bureaucrats who nursed his own little bailiwick jealously, but at the sight of Bond's hard face and gold security card, he dissolved into a quivering mass of fear and cooperated to the fullest.

Besides Pincus, there were three others in the bureau, all clerks and all Jews who had fled from oppression in North Africa. They even looked a great deal alike—short, swarthy, with black mustaches. Pierre LaToole was from Morocco; Hassim MoonlightBey and Shofar Ben Blue refugees from Cairo. Naturally, their records were quite in order.

The sign was the first clue.

"Who authorized your bureau to put this up?" Bond said, his finger indicating a placard over one of the windows: Licenses to kill.

Sharett Pincus stammered, "Mr. Bond, sir. There was a memo from the Ministry of Defense. I never ignore memos."

It was all clear to Bond now. One of the three (he'd pretty well discounted Pincus) had forged a memo on Ministry of Defense stationery, which was easy enough to obtain, dropped it in Pincus' box and Pincus had complied. There's no sense asking which one. They'll all deny it and two of them will be telling the truth.

Bond suddenly became jovial. "Sharett, you people do a lot of good work down here. My superiors would like to sort of express our appreciation. You and your good lads are invited to dinner at Ziggy's internationally famed restaurant tonight as guests of mine. It's all on the house." He slapped the man's back. "See you at eight."

Back in Ziggy's, his face hardened again. "M, it goes like this: They knew from Nochum's tips who the Double Oys were, but they added an extra touch. They knew damn well that a Double Oy spotting a sign LICENSES TO KILL would unconsciously walk to that window. The four Double Oys made the unfortunate mistake of going for license renewal in a bunch. That was as damning a security mistake as mine was."

M sucked on a piece of rock candy. "How do you propose we smoke out the plant in the bureau?"

"They've got some kind of food warfare mounted against us. Let's turn it on them. This is what I want ..."

At 3:30 P.M. Ziggy's was closed to the general public. A sign on the door said death in the family.

M, despite her imprisonment in the wheelchair, was a dynamo in the kitchen. She knew just what Oy Oy Seven had in mind. "Lazar, put extra onions in the chicken soup, the hot Spanish kind. On the gefiillte fish double the horseradish; no, triple it. Use the red cabbage around the meatballs, not the green. The pickles should be from the bottom of the barrel, the briniest ones you got. And drrow some pepper on them; it wouldn't be such a crime. No margarine in the potato kugel; it's not strong enough. Mix in a jar of my Activated Old World Chicken Fat from contented capons. Use the cream soda; it's got more bubbles than the root beer, and serve it warm."

At eight P.M. Sharett Pincus and his three clerks walked into Ziggy's. They were greeted by Israel Bond in a brilliant silver dinner jacket with half-dollar-sized Tahitian pearls for buttons. He was charm personified on this gala occasion, a master of amusing badinage (his joke about a "faggot maggot" scoring resoundingly); in short, a hail fellow well met all the way.

And that glorious dinner!

"Mr. MoonlightBey, you've eaten only nine pieces of kugel! For shame! Little clerks with hollow legs need lots of nourishment. Come on, Mr. LaToole. Surely you can stand another pound of that gefullte fish! Mr. Ben Blue, open wide and nice Mr. Bond'll give you another spoonful of relish ..."

Ninety minutes later, the dinner was over. "Golly," said Bond, "I guess that was just about the niftiest meal I've ever had." He rubbed his tummy. "What do you lads feel about the dinner? Give me your honest opinion."

"Merci, Monsieur Bond. It was formidable." This from Pierre LaToole.

Shofar Ben Blue shook his head in disbelief. "Amazing. Amazing."

Bond lit a Raleigh. "Mr. Hassim Moonlight-Bey?"

Mr. Hassim Moonlight-Bey patted his own tummy. His full lips opened, revealing firm, strong teeth. From that mouth came a belch—no ordinary belch, but a mega-belch.

Israel Bond smiled. Then he hurled his bowl of Mother's Chicken Soup into Mr. Moonlight-Bey's leathery visage with all his strength, squashing the aquiline nose to jelly. He dived like an avenging falcon on a lynx that has raided its nest, pinning the clerk to the floor and driving his fist into the man's solar plexus.

He stood up. Beame and Z came out of the kitchen, wheeling M.

"There's your spying Arab plant. Your gassy belch, Mr. Moonlight-Bey, so traditionally the Arab mode of expressing satisfaction with a meal, gave you away. Sweat him, Op Chief Beame, sweat him good so he'll talk. From this point on, we're back in the old ball game!"

• • •

Z's three days were up.

What was left of the battered Secret Service of Eretz Israel looked with hopeful eyes upon the restaurateur as he shuffled his notes.

"The Arab had some interesting things to say, but they can wait until Z is through," Beame said.

Z's opening statement of his peroration was blunt:

"Tush is trying to alienate the Jews of the Western world from Israel by destroying the one element it thinks is holding that relationship together—Jewish food."

Beame glanced up at Z and swirled his forefinger in a circle around his ear.

"I am not crazy," Z said with no rancor. "Dr. Holzknicht was the key to the puzzle, of course. During the last three days I have been in contact with those who knew him at the Schisselzelmknist Institute and they concede he is warped but a genius. As an illustration of that genius, let me say that in 1955 he performed an unauthorized operation upon Gerda Sem-Heidt at the Konigsborgen Clinic. It was too delicate an operation for him to do alone, so he enlisted the aid of two veterinarians. One of them talked to me. He gave her an external plastic heart and it works."

There were gasps from all but M, who made a notation.

Z continued: "The good doctor has made a thorough study of Jewish life, according to one of his old colleagues, and, I'm sorry to say, is more familiar with the milieu than most Jews. Undoubtedly, because he speaks our languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, he has been among us in disguise for many years in many places. He has noticed the shameful indifference of huge numbers of Jews toward Jewishness in recent years, which has been expressed in many ways: the rising rate of intermarriage, the slackening of synagogue attendance, dwindling affiliations with Jewish organizations, the weakening of respect between children and parents, the empty hotel rooms in Miami Beach at the height of the season, the burning rush to change names and bob noses—this trend has been arrested for the moment by Barbra Streisand's celebrity, but it may surge again.

"He saw a phenomenon so common to us that we wouldn't give it a second thought. Have you ever noticed how Jewish we become, even the most disaffected of us, when we sit down to bagels and lox, corned beef, pastrami, kishke. borscht with sour cream, M's insuperable chicken soup, Manischewitz wine, sour pickles, et al.? In a twinkling of a boiled-potato eye, that emotional vestige of our heritage pops up. With each bite of the schmaltz herring we become ghetto philosophers, each bar of cream cheese sings the score of Fiddler on the Roof, each piece of rye bread—and suddenly we're fighting for the varnished heel with the union label again—makes us hum 'bum-bai-biddy-biddy-bum-bai!' In short, we feel Jewish ... and—this is important-charitable to other Jews, to Israel.

"This is why Dr. Ernst Holzknicht destroyed the sources of food, many of the leading establishments where Jews congregate to eat, and so forth."

Bond raised his hand.

"You want to go to the bathroom?" Z asked.

"Well, since you ask ..." Bond said. "But first I have a question. How does the bombing of the five Halifax–to–New York freighters fit in with your theory?"

Z laughed. "Schnook, you answered your own question and you don't know it. I'll help you. Where is Halifax?"

"In Nova Scotia." Israel Bond's face was flushed with shame. "I see. They were all carrying Nova Scotia lox."

"Vu den? You see, just thinking about food has me talking Yiddish!

"Dr. Holzknicht knows it'll take years to rebuild the massive food structure TUSH'S Calgonite planters have leveled these past few days. And by that time so many 'marginal' Jews will have left the fold that it would never be the same again anyway. For all we know, the damage is already done.

"I made some spot checks in every big city concerned. There's been a decline in these related activities already. The tourist bookings to Israel—down. U. J. A. donations—down. Synagogue Sunday breakfast meetings—down. Georgie Jes-sel's speaking engagements—down."

M turned to Beame. "Here, your trench coat is done. I'll shorten it later." She looked at Z. "Do we just sit on our hands? Is there no way of counterattacking this monstrous thing?"

"No, don't sit on your hands, it's bad for the circulation. Yes, there is one chance—if we could get hold of any one of Tush's big three, Auntie Sem-Heidt, Heinz Sem-Heidt or, better still, Dr. Ernst Holzknicht, and make him confess this terrible thing to the world, get the master plan, the list of all people paid for the bombings. With the proper exposure on TV, press and radio, we could show the world what's happened and, incidentally, make our fellow Jews so mad they'll start going to daily services again—and buy some bonds, too. The question is: Who will shake these rats out of their nest and get the evidence?"

Operations Chief Lazar Beame answered him for all those present. He walked briskly to the bathroom, flung open the door and cried: "Israel Bond, come out and save Judaism!"

Bond slammed the door. "Now?"

"Yes, now!"

Bond emerged.

The gray eyes were cynical. "I thought I was just about all washed up with M 33 and 1/3."

"It's all changed." Beame was brusque. "Now I'll tell you all what the Arab said, from least important to most. One, Ziggy's was to be bombed. I intercepted a guy with a 100-zis charge. He's out of business for keeps."

Good-o! Bond thought.

"Two, he didn't know anything about the master plan; he's too small to be trusted with that info.

"Three, he does know where Tush is located. The Sem-Heidts are operating a gambling casino as a front.

"Four, it's in the very place you're heading, Oy Oy Seven. Sahd Sakistan.

"Go in there, Oy Oy Seven, smash that horrible junta, get the documents, capture one of the big ones and make him talk, save the king from assassination, save Eretz Israel from disappearing into oblivion."

This is the first of a txao-part serialization of Sol Weinstein's parody "On the Secret Service of His Majesty the Queen." The conclusion will appear next month.