On the radio, a teenaged boy said, “Great whales and little fishes, Jack! Can you imagine some foreign nation having all that electrical energy for nothing? We’ll be reduced to a pauper country!”
Barclay made the introductions. Because the moniker “Pembroke and Flume” seemed to suggest a cinematic comedy team whose trademarks included the physical disparity between its members — Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy — Oliver was taken aback by the impresarios’ similarity to each other. They could have been brothers, or even fraternal twins, a notion underscored by the matching red-and-black-striped zoot suits hanging from their elongated frames: Giacometti bodies, Oliver, the artist, decided. Both men had the same blue eyes, gold fillings, and blond pomaded hair, and it was only through concentrated effort that he distinguished Sidney Pembroke’s open, smiling countenance from the more austere, vaguely sinister visage of Albert Flume.
“I see Eleanor found you some brews,” said Pembroke, ejecting the cassette. “Good, good.”
“What were you listening to?” asked Winston.
“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Really?” said Flume with a mixture of disbelief and disdain. “You’re not serious.”
Whereupon the partners threw their arms across each other’s shoulders and sang.
Wave the flag for Hudson High, boys, Show them how we stand! Ever shall our team be champions, Known throughout the land!
“There are better programs, of course,” said Flume, lighting his cigarette with a silver-plated Zippo. “The Green Hornet: ‘He hunts the biggest game of all — the public enemies who try to destroy our America!’ ”
“And Inner Sanctum, if you’ve got really strong nerves,” said Pembroke.
Flume faced Oliver squarely, taking a long drag on his Chesterfield. “I’m told your organization wishes to purchase our services.”
“I was quoted a figure approaching fifteen million.”
“Were you, now?” said Flume cryptically. Obviously the dominant partner.
“Could you tell us more about the target?” asked Pembroke eagerly. “We don’t have a clear picture yet.”
Oliver’s blood froze. Here it was, the moment when he must explain why obliterating a seven-million-ton corpse that didn’t belong to any of them was a necessary course of action. Opening his attach й case, he removed an 8X 10 color photo and balanced it atop the radio cabinet.
“As you know,” he began, “the Japanese have always been self-conscious about their height.”
“The Japs?” said Flume, looking perplexed. “Indeed.”
So far, so good. “According to the Freudian interpretation of World War Two, they sought to expand horizontally in compensation for their genetic inability to expand vertically. As scholars of that particular conflict, you’re undoubtedly familiar with this theory.”
“Oh, yes,” said Pembroke, even though Oliver had invented it the previous Tuesday.
“Well, gentlemen, the stark fact is that, at the beginning of this year, a team of Japanese scientists over in Scotland found a way to expand vertically. By exploiting the latest breakthroughs in genetic engineering, they’ve grown the Asian of the future — the gigantic humanoid creature whose prototype you see in this picture. You with me?”
“Sounds like a rejected Green Hornet script,” said Flume, coiling the gold chain of his zoot suit around his index finger.
“They call it Project Golem,” said Barclay.
“Most golems are Jewish,” said Winston.
“This one’s Japanese.
“The Japs are in Scotland?” said Pembroke.
“The Japs are everywhere,” admonished Flume.
“Thus far they’ve failed to endow their golem with life,” said Winston, “but if they ever do — well, you can imagine the danger such a megaspecies would pose for the environment, not to mention the free enterprise system.”
“Jack Armstrong would shit his knickers,” said Barclay.
“Luckily, the coming weeks afford us a perfect opportunity to stop Project Golem in its tracks,” said Oliver. “Ever since the hot weather hit, the scientists have been looking for a way to freeze the prototype before it putrefies. Then, last Wednesday, they resolved to hook it up to the supertanker Valparaíso and tow it above the Arctic Circle.”
“Valparaíso — that’s not a Jap name,” said Pembroke.
“Neither is ‘Rockefeller Center,’ ” said Winston.
“I don’t understand why private enterprise must redress this matter,” said Flume. “The United States of America boasts the largest navy in the world. Much larger than Sid’s and mine.”
“Yeah, but you can’t use the American Navy without Congressional approval,” said Barclay.
“The CIA?”
“Good people, but we’d never mobilize ’em in time,” said Oliver.
“This is clearly a job for concerned businessmen like ourselves,” said Winston. “Vigilante capitalism, eh?”
“I’m not a mystical sort of fella,” said Barclay, “but I feel it’s no accident your ship is named Enterprise.”
Oliver took a hearty swallow of beer. “So, what do you think?”
Pembroke shot his partner a pained glance. “What do we think, Alby?”
Flume flicked his cigarette ashes into a pewter tray shaped like Dumbo the Flying Elephant. “We think it sounds pretty fishy.”
“Fishy?” said Oliver, peeling the label off his Rheingold bottle.
“Fishy as the hold of a Portuguese trawler.”
“Oh?”
“We think this thing you want out of the way might be a Jap golem, and then again it might not be.” Flume took a drag, blew a smoke ring. “We also think this: money talks. You mentioned fifteen million. That’s a good start. A darn good start.”
“It’s more than a start,” grunted Oliver.
“Indeed. The thing is…”
“All right — sixteen.”
“The thing is, you’re not asking us to do a normal reenactment. In some ways, this is the real McCoy.” Flume blew two rings this time, one inside the other. “Wars have a way of going over budget.”
“A single strike might not be enough to remove the target,” Pembroke elaborated. “The planes might have to return to Enterprise and rearm.”
“Final offer,” said Oliver. “This is it. Tops. Ready? Seventeen million dollars. For that kind of money, you could stage a goddamn musical of my eighth-grade civics text on the back of the moon and keep it running for ten years.”
Had the impresarios been dogs, Oliver decided, their ears would have shot straight up and stayed there.
“Overlord,” said Flume in a hushed and reverent voice.
“What?” said Oliver.
“Operation Overlord. An old dream of ours.”
“You know — Normandy,” said an equally respectful Pembroke.
“D-Day,” said Flume. “I mean, if you’re serious about seventeen million dollars, really serious, no strings attached, then, with a certain amount of luck — like maybe the job turns out to be a cakewalk, you know, a one-strike affair — well, we’d probably have enough left over for a D-Day. All of it. The diversionary bombings, the amphibious landing, the sweep through France. A risky venture, sure, but I predict it’ll turn a profit, don’t you, Sid?”
“Enough to finance Stalingrad, I should imagine,” said Pembroke.
“Or Arnhem, eh?” said Flume. “Forty thousand Allied paratroopers dropping out of the sky like sleet.”
“Or maybe even Hiroshima,” said Pembroke.
“No,” said Flume firmly.
“No?”
“No.”
“Poor taste?”
“Execrable.”
“World War Two,” sighed Pembroke. “We’ll never see its like again.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” said Oliver. “You can’t just damage the golem — it’s got to vanish without a trace.”
“Korea was a crummy stalemate,” Pembroke persisted.
“We expect you to blast the tow chains apart,” said Oliver, “and send the sucker straight into the Mohns Trench.”
“Vietnam had potential,” said Flume, “but then the hippies got their hands on it.”