The Thief of Thoth

24

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN Avenida san Miguel proved to be a palatial mansion whose stately lines reflected the well-aged patina of an aristocratic colonial culture. It was prefabricated entirely out of pastel nonresinous plastics, in a style which nostalgically reminded Hautley of childhood visits to grandma's farm. This imposing structure rose amid flowering parks with gracefully meandering walks and a clutter of greenhouses and comparable outbuildings of similar nature. The old boy (Quicksilver mused) has certainly done all right for himself!

Hautley's driver landed the aircab with a bounce and a thump that must have loosened half the nuts and bolts holding the craft together. Hautley, however, was grateful to have come down in one piece. From the sounds it had made in flight, the antiquated vehicle either had a bad case of asthma, or could be expected to blow a gasket or lose a venturi at any moment during flight. Quicksilver paid the exorbitant fare, added a gratuity whose sheer opulent munificence made the cabby's toes curl with ecstacy; and rang the doorbell.

He proffered his card to the robutler, eschewing, for just this once, a nom de plume, and while waiting, glanced about him curiously. Everywhere was rose-marble from far Capuchine and grillwork of fine Phriote craftsmanship, chastely ornamented with a zircon-studded chromium relief illustrative of various culture heroes from the local religion (Juarez, Mickey Mouse, Fidel Castro, Zorro and Joan Blondell, to be precise.) Hautley's sardonic brows mounted. What luxury! What taste! Dugan Motley, it seemed, had certainly invested his criminously-gotten gains wisely and well ...

A deep-chested foghorn voice in full-throated bellow interrupted these cultural musings.

"By dog, the great Quicksilver himself landing on mine doorstep, it is! Scintillate me for a no-good, a joy it is for you to meeting up with me—no?”

Surging mountainously in advance of the prim and staid robutler, came Dugan Motley himself, all seven foot-three inches and 325 pounds of him, dwarfing the automataton as he waddled into the hall. A gigantic, fiercely-bristling piratical beard of flaming crimson, twinkling eyes merry and bright and blue as the earth sea, Caribbean, he lumbered forward, his immense paunch of heroic, nay! mythological proportions swinging from side to side as he strode, with one fat iridium ring glittering from his left earlobe.

Beaming smiles and thundering forth articulate welcomes and little goat-cries of enthusiasm, he bore down on the startled Quicksilver like a super-dreadnaught descending in full force upon a tiny rowboat, enveloping him in a vast, bonecrunching bear bug, thumping him on the back with pats of spine-pulverizing impact; and firing off floor-shaking salvos of hearty booming laughter that caused the bric-a-brac to jingle, several alabaster busts to quake on their fluted pedestals and aroused seismic waves of tinkling among the crystal chandeliers.

The Master Burglar ushered Quicksilver into a first-floor den only a few microns smaller that the Grand Imperial State Audience Chamber itself. Pushing his guest into the seductive embrace of a cozy pneumatique that instantly adjusted to his contours and began a subtle massage job on his shoulder muscles, Dugan waddled over to the wall and thumbed a dial.

The wall sank into the floor soundlessly, revealing to Hautley's stunned gaze the most astounding collection of cut-crystal decanters filled with potables of every hue in the spectrum—an alcoholic's dream of the Land of Oz.

Roaring with Falstafian joviality, Dugan Motley grinned through the bristling bush of his bright beard.

"You, my friend, the great Quicksilver of about whom I have so much heard, you will drink—what?" He gestured expansively, using for the gesture a hand only slightly smaller than a medium-sized ham.

"Your choice you will taking, please, of two hundred and eleven thousand, four hundred thirty-six different varieties of booze, rotgut and panther's sweat (as the earthly Ancients would say, ho ho). So what is it you are choose? Or to the smoking perhaps-maybe? Sniff? Inject? Nasal-spray? Nerve center electrostimulus? Ovo-Snave? You ask—I got!" he boomed, crimson with the flash of hospitality.

"In other words—name my poison, eh?" Quicksilver smiled. For once his aplomb was overwhelmed by the sheer prodigality of the Master Burglar's generosity. He assumed a judicious air and pondered the row of sparkling decanters.

"Well. . . Chateau Moskowitz, Dugan, if you have it."

"If I am having it—to laugh, to laugh it is! Seventeen more bottles I am' having than the Emperor himself in the Imperial booze collection, har-har." Dugan slapped his wobbling paunch with one massive hand, a wallop that would have staggered a bullock. ''The bottles, the drinking, it is a lonely, sick old man's only joy," he snorted. "But no, yes—scut me for a snazzer, I having the same, by dog!" Waddling over to the wall of spirituous beverages, the fat man selected a crystal bottle.

"Vintage of '022, is okay being by you, mine boy? Heh?" he rumbled inquiringly.

Hautley nodded. "A good year, I believe, yes."

Dugan slopped the priceless beverage into two diamond-studded cups and they toasted each other.

"To crime," Quicksilver proposed aptly.

"Too crime, har har!"

They drank.