Friends of Dorothy – An excerpt from Secondhand Souls
A novel by Christopher Moore
©2014 Christopher Moore
Mike Sullivan is a painter on the Golden Gate Bridge. From time to time, the ghosts of the bridge visit him. Like this one:
# # #
I was working in the Naval Investigations Service out of Chi-town when we first got word of a potential enemy propaganda operation called the “Friends of Dorothy” operating on the West Coast, probably originating in Frisco. I know, what’s Naval Investigations doing in Chicago, a thousand miles from the nearest ocean? That’s the slickness of our strategy, see: Who’s gonna suspect navy cops in the middle of Cow Town on the Prairie, am I right? Of course I am.
Anyways, we get word that new troops shipping out to the Pacific of San Fran are being approached on the down low by this Friends of Dorothy bunch, who are playing up on their pre-battle jitters, trying to cause some desertions, maybe even recruit spies for Tojo.
So the colonel looks around the office, and as I am the most baby-faced of the bunch, he decides to send me out to Frisco under cover as a new recruit to see if I can get the skinny on this Dorothy and her friends, before we got another Axis Annie or Tokyo Rose on our hands, only worse, because this Dorothy isn’t just taking a shot at our morale on the radio, she’s likely running secret operations.
I tell the colonel that despite my youthful mug, I am an expert on the ways of devious dames and I will have this Dorothy in the brig before he can say Hirohito is a bum, maybe faster. So five days later I find myself on the dog-back streets of San Fran with about a million other sailors, soldiers, and marines waiting to ship out.
Well, San Fran is getting to be known as liberty city, as this is the spot where many guys are going to see the good old U S of A for the last time ever, so in spite of restrictions and whatnot all along the Barbary Coast, every night the town is full of military guys out for one last party, looking for a drink or a dame or the occasional crap game. It’s a tradition by this time that the night before you ship out, you go up to the Top of the Mark, the night club on the top floor of the Mark Hopkins Hotel on California Street, where a guy can have a snort whilst looking at the whole city from bridge to bridge, and if he’s lucky, a good-smelling broad will take him for twirl around the dance floor and tell him that everything is going to be okay, even though most guys are suspicious that it’s not. And these are such dames as are doing this out of patriotism and the kindness of their heart, like the USO, so there’s no hanky panky or grab-assing.
So word has it, that the Friends of Dorothy are recruiting at the Top of the Mark, so I don a set of Navy whites and pea coat like a normal swabby, and stake out a spot by the doorman outside the hotel, and as guys go by, I am whispering, “Friends of Dorothy,” under my breath, like a guy selling dirty post cards or tickets to a sold-out Cubs game (which could happen when they make their run for the pennant). And before long, the cable car stops and off steps this corn-fed jarhead who is looking around and grinning at the buildings and the bay at the end of the street like he’s never seen water before, and he’s sort of wandering around on the sidewalk like he’s afraid of the doorman or something, and I gives him my hush-hush Friends of Dorothy whisper.
So Private Hayseed sidles up to me and says back, “Friends of Dorothy?”
“You’re damn skippy, marine,” says I.
And just like that the kid lights up like Christmas morning and starts pumping my hand like he’s supplying water to douse the Chicago fire, or maybe the Frisco fire, as I hear that they also have a fire, but I cannot but think that it was not a real fire as Frisco is clearly a toy town. Kid introduces himself as Eddie Boedeker Jr. from Sheep Shit, Iowa or Nebraska or one of your more square-shaped, corn-oriented states, I don’t remember. And he goes on how he is nervous and he has never done anything like this before, but he’s about to go off to war and might never come home, so he has to see — and it’s all I can do to calm the kid down and stand him up against the wall beside me like he’s just there to take in the night air and whatnot. You see, I am dressed like a sailor, and he is a marine, and although technically, swabbies and jarheads are in the same branch of the service, it’s a time-honored tradition that when they are in port they fight like rats in a barrel, which is something I should have perhaps thought of when I picked my spy duds.
So on the spot I compose a slogan of war unity so as to shore up my cover. “Fight together or lose alone, even with no-necked fucking jarheads.” I try it out on the doorman like I’m reading it off a poster and he nods, so I figure we’re good to go.
“C’mon, marine,” I says to the Private Hayseed, “I’ll buy you a drink.”
So we go up the elevator to the Top of the Mark, and I order an Old Fashioned because there’s an orange slice in it and I’m wary of scurvy, and I ask the kid what he’ll have, and he says, “Oh, I ain’t much for drinking.”
And I says, “Kid, you’re about to ship out to get your guts blown out on some God-forsaken coral turd in the Pacific and you’re not going to have a drink before you go, what are you, some kind of moron?”
And the kid provides that, no, he’s a Methodist, but his ma has a record of the Moron Tabernacle Choir singing Silent Night that she plays every Christmas and so I figure the answer is yes and I order the kid an Old Fashioned with an extra orange slice hoping it might help cure stupid as well as scurvy. But I also figure that old Eddie here is exactly the kind of dim bulb that Dorothy and her cohorts will try to go for, so I press on, pouring a couple more Old Fashioneds into him, until the kid is as pink-faced as a sunburned baby and gets a little weepy about God and country and going off to war, while I keep trying to slide in questions about Dorothy, but the kid keeps saying maybe later, and asks if maybe we can’t go hear some jazz, as he has never heard jazz except on the radio.
Well the bartender provides as there is an excellent horn player over in the Fillmore, which is only a hop on the cable car, so I flip him four bits for the tip and I drag Eddie down to the street and pour him onto the cable car, which takes us up the hill and over to the Fillmore, which is where all the blacks live now, as it used to be Jap neighborhood until they shipped them off to camps and the blacks moved in from the South to work in the ship yards bringing with them jazz and blues and no little bit of dancing.
And as we’re getting off the car, I spots some floozies standing outside the club right below a war department poster with a picture of a similar dame that says, “She’s a booby trap! They can cure VD, but not regret.”
And as we’re walking up, I says, “Hey toots, you pose for that poster?” And one of the rounder dames says, “I might have sailor, but I ain’t heard no regrets yet,” which gives me a laugh, but makes Private Eddie just look down and smile into his top button. He whispers to me on the side, “I ain’t never done anything like this before.”
I figured as much, but I say to the kid, “That’s what the Friends of Dorothy are for, kid,” just taking a shot in the dark.
And he gets a goofy grin and says, “That’s what the guy said.”
And I say, “What guy?” but by that time we’re through the door and the band is playing, the horn player going to town on the old standard Chicago, to which I remove my sailor’s hat, because it is, indeed, my kind of town. So we drink and listen to jazz and laugh at nothing much, cause the kid doesn’t want to think about where he’s going, and he doesn’t want to think about where he came from, and I can’t figure out how to get behind this Dorothy thing with the band playing. After a few snorts, the kid even lets a dame take him out on the dance floor, and because he more resembles a club-footed blind man killing roaches than a dancer, I head for the can to avoid associating with him, and on my way back, I accidently bump into a dogface, spilling his drink. And before I can apologize, when I am still on the part that despite his being a piss-ant, lame-brained, clumsy, ham-handed Army son of a bitch, that it is a total accident that I bump into him and spill his drink, he takes a swing at me. And since he grazes my chin no little, I am obliged to return his ministrations with a left to the fucking bread-basket and a right cross which sails safely across his bow. At which point, the entire 7th Infantry comes out of the woodwork, and soon I am dodging a dozen green meanies, taking hits to the engine room, the galley, as well as the bridge, and my return fire is having little to no effect on the thirty-eleven or so guys what are wailing on me. I am sinking fast, about to go down for the count. Then two of the G.I.s go flying back like they are catching cannonballs, and then two more from the other side, and through what light I can see, Private Eddie Boedeker, Jr. wades into the G.I.s like the hammer of fucking God, taking out a G.I. with every punch, and those that are not punched are grabbed by the shirt and hurled with no little urgency over tables, chairs, and various downed citizens, and it occurs to me that I have perhaps judged the kid’s dancing chops too harshly, for while he cannot put two dance steps together if you paint them on the floor, he appears to have a right-left combination that will stop a Panzer.
Before long guys from all branches of service are exchanging opinions and broken furniture and I hear the sinister chorus of M.P. whistles, as which point I grab the kid by the belt and drag him backwards through the tables and the curtain behind the stage and out into the alley, where I collapse for second to collect my thoughts and test a loose tooth and the kid bends over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath, laughing and spitting a little blood.
“So, kid,” I says. “You saved my bacon.” And I offer him a bloody-knuckled handshake.
Kid takes my hand and says, “Friends of Dorothy,” and pulls me into a big hug.
“Yeah, yeah, Friends of fucking Dorothy,” I say, slapping him on the back. “Speaking of which,” I say, pushing him off. “Let’s take a walk—“
“I gotta get back to Fort Mason,” the kid says. “It’s nearly midnight. The cable cars stop at midnight and I gotta ship out in the morning.”
“I know, kid, but Friends of Dorothy,” I says. I’m aware all of sudden that I have strayed somewhat from my mission, and that if the kid goes, I’m going to have to start all over again, although I suspect I have not exactly stumbled onto the mastermind of the diabolical Dorothy’s organization. But still.
“Look,” says the kid. “This has been swell. Really swell. I really appreciate you, you know, being a friend, but I gotta go. I aint never done nothing like this, never met anyone like you. It’s been swell.”
“Well, you know–” I says, not knowing how to bail this out. That one tooth was definitely loose.
Suddenly the kid grabs me again, gives me a big hug, then turns and runs off toward the cable car stop. He’s about a half a block away when he turns and says, “I’m going to go see the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning. Oh-six-hundred. Ain’t never seen a sunrise over the ocean. I’ll meet you there. Say good-bye.”
And I’m am tempted to point out several things, including that he will have to see the Golden Gate Bridge as he passes under it when he ships out, that we are on the West Coast and the sun doesn’t rise over the ocean, and that there is no need to run, as I can hear the bell of the cable car and it is still blocks away, but these being finer points than I want to yell up an alley when there are M.P.s still on the prowl, I say, “I’ll be there.”
“Friends of Dorothy,” the kid says with a wave.
“Friends of Dorothy,” I say back at him. Which goes to show you, right there, the difference between sailors and marines: marines are fucking stupid. Running when you don’t have to.
So next morning I’m on the bridge, crack of dawn, so hung-over I feel like if I don’t close my eyes I might bleed to death, but not having to worry about it, since my eyes are too swollen up to bleed, and I see the kid, all by himself, about halfway down the bridge, out in the fog, waving like a goddamn loony when he sees me. So I limp out to him, and when I get close he starts running at me, so I says, “No running! No goddamn running!”
But he keeps running, and now he’s got his arms out like to give me a big hug, which I am in no mood for.
So I back away and say give him an, “At ease, marine.”
And he stops, bounces on his toes like a little goddamn girl.
“I couldn’t wait to see you. I thought about you all night. I couldn’t sleep,” he says.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good,” I say. “But about the Friends of Dorothy—“
“I’m sorry about that,” the kid says. “Really sorry. I mean, I want to, but I never did anything like that before. I mean, in Kansas nobody’s like that. I thought – I mean, if my folks –I thought I was the only one. Then this guy in boot camp told me about the Friends of Dorothy.”
That’s right. It was Kansas. Anyway, I says, “That’s it, you got to tell me about Dorothy, everything you know, Eddie.”
“But I don’t know nothing. I just, I just have these feelings—“
Then the kid grabs me, right then, and gives me a great big wet one, right on the kisser. I was so surprised I just about shit myself. So I push him off of me, you know, big flat palm to the chin, and when I get done spitting, I’m say, “What the hell was that about?”
And the kid looks like I just shot his dog. “Friends of Dorothy,” he says.
“Yeah, the Friends of Fucking Dorothy, that’s why I’m here, but what the fuck was that? You queer or something?”
And he goes, “Friends of Dorothy. Like the scarecrow. Like the tin man. Like the cowardly lion. People ain’t got anyone else like them. But Dorothy don’t care. Like you. Like us.”
“I ain’t like you kid. I got people. I got a wife and kid back in Chicago. I’d be out shooting the ass off of Tojo myself if I hadn’t blown my knee out in football in high school. I’m not Dorothy’s friend, I’m not your friend, kid.”
“Friends of Dorothy,” the kid says. “We find each other,” he says.
“Queers? That’s what this about? A bunch of fairies? Marines? Sailors? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Friends of Dorothy,” the kid wails.
“Not anymore. Naval Investigative Service. I’m taking you in, kid. You’re going in the brig, and if you ever wanna get out, you’re going to tell me everything you know about the Friends of Dorothy. Everyone you ever talked to about them. I need names, places, dates.”
“But I’m shipping out today. I ain’t never done nothing like this.”
“And you’re not going to again,” I says. “It’s time of war, kid, and being queer is a court martiable offense. You and your Friends of Dorothy are traitors. Hell, they might even shoot you. You might make it back to Kansas, but it’s going to be in chains, to Leavenworth.” Rough, I know, but I’m hung-over and annoyed that I’ve been made a sap, and I’m just trying to scare the kid so he’s easier to handle.
The kid starts shaking his head and backing away. “You can’t tell my folks. You can’t tell my Dad. It would kill him.”
“Everyone’s going to know, kid. It’s going to be in the papers, so you might as well come clean.”
Then he turns and really starts to run.
“Where you think you’re going, kid? I got the whole fleet I can send after you. A deserter. A queer traitor and deserter.”
“Friends of Dorothy,” he wails. His face is melting into a big glob of snot and tears.
“Yeah, Friends of fucking Dorothy, traitor. Let’s go, Boedeker.”
The he just starts wailing, crying it, “But Friends of Dorothy! Friends of Dorothy!” and then, again with the running, but this time for the rail, and before I can get close to him, he’s over, head first. Hit the water like a gunshot. I bet they could hear it all the way to Fort Mason.
I look down and he’s just all bent up, like a broken scarecrow, floating dead in the waves.
# # #
“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard,” said Mike Sullivan.
“Yeah, it was the war. Tough times.”
“So, you, did you, I mean, did you jump too?” asked Mike.
“Nah, I went back to Chicago. Heart attack in fifty-eight.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Smoked a lot, ate a lot of bratwurst, we didn’t know stuff in those days.”
“No, why are you on the bridge?”
“No idea. Guess that’s why the Spanish broad wanted me to tell you my story. You want I should fetch her?”
“Maybe that would be good,” Mike said. The ghost’s story had made him a little woozy, he couldn’t figure out if it was nausea or anxiety, but neither were to be taken lightly when you were up on the bridge.
“So long, bridge painter,” said the ghost. “And by the way, you can tell the dame that you have not been helpful in the least. I feel like I’m the only one did any talking here. No offense.”
“You’ll want to fuck off, now,” said Mike, who despite being a nice guy, had his limits, which he was very close to reaching with this particular spirit
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Secondhand Souls is the sequel to A Dirty Job, so yes, it will have characters from that first book, but Mike Sullivan and his group of ghosts is kind of a fun addition, I thought.
Seconhand Souls will be released August 25, 2015.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Well happy holidays and beyond, my fluffy puppets. My humble gift to you, a chapter and a page from the new book.
Be safe, be kind, have fun….
THE SERPENT OF VENICE
ACT I
Fortunato’s Fate
Hell and Night must bring this monstrous birth to light.
—Iago, Othello, Act I, Scene 3
INVOCATION
Rise, Muse!
Darkwater sprite,
Bring stirring play
To vision’s light.
Rise, Muse!
On fin and tail
With fang and claw
Rend invention’s veil.
Come, Muse!
’Neath harbored ship,
Under night fisher’s torch,
And sleeping sailors slip.
To Venice, Muse!
Radiant venom convey,
Charge scribe’s driven quill
To story assay.
Of betrayal, grief and war,
Provoke, Muse, your howl
Of love’s laughter lost
and Heinous Fuckery, most foul…
CHAPTER ONE
The Trap
They waited at the dock, the three Venetians, for the fool to arrive.
“An hour after sunset, I told him,” said the senator, a bent- backed graybeard in a rich brocade robe befitting his office. “I sent a gondola myself to fetch him.”
“Aye, he’ll be here,” said the soldier, a broad-shouldered, fit brute of forty, in leather and rough linen, full sword and fighting dagger at his belt, black bearded with a scar through his right brow that made him look ever questioning or suspicious. “He thinks himself a connoisseur, and can’t resist the temptation of your wine cellar. And when it is done, we shall have more than Carnival to celebrate.”
“And yet, I feel sad,” said the merchant. A soft-handed, fair- skinned gent who wore a fine, floppy velvet hat, and a gold signet ring the size of a small mouse, with which he sealed agreements. “I know not why.”
They could hear the distant sounds of pipes, drums, and horns from across the lagoon in Venice. Torches bounced on the shore- line near Piazza San Marco. Behind them, the senator’s estate, Villa Belmont, stood dark but for a storm lantern in an upper window,
a light by which a gondolier might steer to the private island. Out on the water, fishermen had lit torches, which bobbed like dim, drunken stars against the inky water. Even during Carnival, the city must eat.
The senator put his hand on the merchant’s shoulder. “We per- form service to God and state, a relief to conscience and heart, a cleansing that opens a pathway to our designs. Think of the boun- teous fortune that will find you, once the rat is removed from the granary.”
“But I quite like his monkey,” said the merchant.
The soldier grinned and scratched his beard to conceal his amusement. “You’ve seen to it that he comes alone?”
“It was a condition of his invitation,” said the senator. “I told him out of good Christian charity all his servants were to be dismissed to attend Carnival, as I assured him I had done with my own.”
“Shrewdly figured,” said the soldier, looking back to the vast, unlit villa. “He’ll think nothing out of order then when he sees no attendants.”
“But monkeys can be terribly hard to catch,” said the merchant. “Would you forget about the monkey,” growled the soldier.
“I told him that my daughter is terrified of monkeys, could not
be in the same room with one.”
“But she isn’t here,” said the merchant.
“The fool doesn’t know that,” said the soldier. “Our brave Mon-
tressor will cast his younger daughter as bait, even after having the eldest stolen from the hook by a blackfish.”
“The senator’s loss cuts deep enough without your barbs,” said the merchant. “Do we not pursue the same purpose? Your wit is too mean to be clever, merely crude and cruel.”
“But, sweet Antonio,” said the soldier. “I am at once clever, crude, and cruel—all assets to your endeavor. Or would you rather partner with the kindly edge of a more courtly sword?” He laid his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The merchant looked out over the water.
“I thought not,” said the soldier.
“Put on friendly faces, you two.” The senator stepped between
them and squinted into the night. “The fool’s boat approaches. There!”
Amid the fishing boats a bright lantern drifted, and slowly broke rank as the gondola moved toward them. In a moment it was glid- ing into the dock, the gondolier so precise in his handling of the oar that the black boat stopped with its rails only a handsbreadth from the dock. A louvered hatch clacked open and out of the cabin stepped a wiry little man dressed in the black-and-silver motley and mask of a harlequin. By his size, one might have thought him a boy, but the oversize codpiece and the shadow of a beard on his cheek betrayed his years.
“One lantern?” said the harlequin, hopping up onto the dock. “You couldn’t have spared an extra torch or two, Brabantio? It’s dark as night’s own nutsack out here.” He breezed by the soldier and the merchant. “Toadies,” he said, nodding to them. Then he was on his way up the path to the villa, pumping a puppet-headed jester’s scepter as he went. The senator tottered along behind him, holding the lantern high to light their way.
“It’s an auspicious night, Fortunato,” said the senator. “And I sent the servants away before nightfall so—”
“Call me Pocket,” said the fool. “Only the dge calls me Fortu- nato. Wonder that’s not his nickname for everyone, bloody bung- fingered as he is at cards.”
At the dock, the soldier again laid hand on sword hilt, saying, “By the saints, I would run my blade up through his liver right now, and lift him on it just to watch that arrogant grin wither as he twitched. Oh how I do hate the fool.”
The merchant smiled and talked through his teeth as he pressed the soldier’s sword hand down, throwing a nod toward the gondo- lier, who was standing on his boat, waiting. “As do I, in this pan-
tomime we perform for Carnival, he is our jibing clown. Ha! The Punchinello in our little puppet show, all in good fun, am I right?” The soldier looked to the boatman and forced a grin. “Quite right. All in good cheer. I play my part too well. One moment, signor. I will have your instructions.” He turned and called up the
path. “Montressor! The gondolier?”
“Pay him and tell him to go, be merry, and return at midnight.” “You heard him,” said the soldier. “Go celebrate, but not so much
that you cannot steer. I would sleep in my own bed this night. Pay him, Antonio.” The soldier turned and headed up the path.
“Me? Why is it always me?” He dug into his purse. “Very well, then.” The merchant tossed a coin to the gondolier, who snatched it out of the air and bowed his head in thanks. “Midnight then.”
“Midnight, signor,” said the gondolier, who twisted his oar, sending the gondola sliding away from the dock silent and smooth as a knife through the night.
Outside the grand entrance of the palazzo the fool paused. “What’s that above your door, Montressor?” There was a coat of arms inlaid in the marble, ensconced in shadow. The senator held up his lantern, illuminating the crest, showing the relief of a man’s foot in gold, trampling a jade serpent, even as its fangs pierced the heel.
“My family crest,” said the senator.
“Reckon they were all out of proper dragons and lions down at the crest shop so you had to settle for this toss, eh?”
“Think they’d have thrown in a fleur-de-lis,” said the fool’s puppet stick, in a voice just a note above the fool’s own. “Mon- tressor’s fucking French, innit?”
The senator whirled around to face the puppet. “Montressor is a title bestowed upon me by the doge. It means ‘my treasure’ and notes that he holds me highest in regard of the six senators of the high council. This is the crest of the family Brabantio, one our family has worn with pride for four hundred years. Do note the
motto, fool, ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’ ” He bounced the lantern with each syllable as he read through gritted teeth. “It means, no one attacks me with impunity.”
“Well, that’s not fucking French,” said the puppet, turning to look at the fool.
“No,” said the fool. “The puppet Jones is quite fluent in fucking French,” he explained to the senator.
“But Montressor is French, right?”
“Froggy as a summer day on the Seine,” said the fool. “Thought so,” said the puppet.
“Stop talking to that puppet!” barked the senator.
“Well, you were just shouting at him,” said the fool.
“And now I’m shouting at you! You are working the puppet’s
mouth and giving it voice.”
“No!” said the puppet, his wooden jaw agape, looking to the
fool, then to the senator, then back to the fool. “This bloody toss- bobbin is running things?”
The fool nodded; the bells on his hat jingled earnestly.
The puppet turned to the senator. “Well, if you’re going to be a bastard about it, your bloody motto is nicked.”
“What?” said the senator.
“Plagiarized,” said the fool, still nodding solemnly, the bringer of sad news.
The merchant and the soldier had caught up to them and could see that their host was incensed, so they stood at the bottom of the steps, watching. The soldier’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword.
“It’s the Scottish motto, innit?” said the puppet. “Bloody Order of the Fistle.”
“It’s true,” said the fool. “Although it’s ‘Thistle,’ not Fistle, Jones, you Cockney berk.”
“What I said,” said the puppet Jones. “Piss off.”
The fool glared at the puppet, then turned back to the senator. “Same motto is inscribed over the entrance to Edinburgh Castle.”
“You must be remembering it wrong. It is in Latin.”
“Indeed,” said the fool. “And I am raised by nuns in the bosom of the church. Could speak and write Latin and Greek before I could see over the table. No, Montressor, your motto couldn’t be more Scottish if it was painted blue and smelled of burning peat and your ginger sister.”
“Stolen,” said the puppet. “Pilfered. Swiped. Filched, as it fuck- ing were. A motto most used, defiled, and besmirched.”
“Besmirched?” said the fool. “Really?”
The puppet nodded furiously on the end of his stick. The fool shrugged to the senator. “A right shite crest and a motto most be- smirched, Montressor. Let’s hope this amontillado you’ve prom- ised can comfort us in our disappointment.”
The merchant stepped up then and put his hand on the fool’s shoulder. “Then let’s waste no more time out here in the mist. To the senator’s cellar and his cask of exquisite amontillado.”
“Yes,” said the senator. He stepped through the doorway into a grand foyer, took tapers from a credenza, lit them from his lan- tern, and handed one to each of his guests. “Mind your step,” said the senator. “We’ll be going down ancient stairs to the very lowest levels of the palazzo. Some will be quite low, so, Antonio, Iago, watch your head.”
“Did he just besmirch our height?” asked the puppet.
“Can’t say,” said the fool. “I’m not entirely sure I know what ‘besmirched’ means. I’ve just been going along with you because I thought you knew what you were talking about.”
“Quiet, flea,” growled the soldier.
“That there’s a besmirchin’, ” said the puppet.
“Oh, well, yes then,” said the fool. He raised his taper high, illu-
minating a thick coat of mold on the low ceiling. “So, Montressor, is the lovely Portia waiting down here in the dark?”
“I’m afraid my youngest daughter will not be joining us. She’s gone to Florence to buy shoes.”
They entered a much wider vault now, with casks set into the walls on one side, racks of dusty bottles on the other; a long oak table and high-backed chairs ran down the middle. The senator lit lanterns around the chamber until the entire room was bathed in a warm glow that belied the dampness that permeated the cellar.
“Just as well,” said the fool. “She’s just be whingeing about the dark and the damp and how Iago reeks of squid and we’d never get any proper drinking done.”
“What?” said the soldier.
The fool leaned into Antonio and bounced his eyebrows so they showed above his black mask. “Don’t get me wrong, Portia’s a lus- cious little fuck-bubble to be sure, but prickly as a gilded hedgehog when she doesn’t get her way.”
The senator looked up with murderous fire in his eyes, then quickly looked down and shuddered, almost, it seemed, with plea- sure.
“I do not reek of squid,” said the soldier, as if overcome by a rare moment of self-consciousness. He sniffed at the shoulder of his cape, and finding no squidish aroma, returned his attention to the senator.
“If you’d be so kind as to decant the amontillado, Iago,” said the senator, “we can be about getting the opinion of this distinguished connoisseur.”
“I never said I was a connoisseur, Montressor. I just said I’d had it before and it was the mutt’s nuts.”
“The dog’s bollocks,” said the puppet, clarifying.
“When you were king of Spain, correct?” said the merchant, with a grin and a sarcastic roll of the eye toward the senator.
“I’ve had various titles,” said Fortunato. “Only fool seems con- stant.”
The soldier cradled the heavy cask under his arm as if he was strangling a bull-necked enemy and filled a delicate Murano glass pitcher with the amber liquid.
The senator said: “The wine dealer has five more casks coming from Spain. If you pronounce it genuine, I’ll buy the others and have one sent round to you in thanks.”
“Let’s have a taste, then,” said the fool. “Although, without it’s poured by a properly wanton, olive-skinned serving wench, you can’t really call it authentic, but I suppose Iago will have to suffice.”
“Won’t be the first time he’s filled that role, I’ll wager,” said the puppet Jones. “Lonely nights in the field, and whatnot.”
The soldier grinned, set the cask on the table, and with a nod from the senator poured the sherry into four heavy glass tumblers with pewter bases cast in the shape of winged lions.
“To the republic,” said the senator, raising his glass.
“To the Assumption,” said the merchant. “To Carnival!”
“To Venice,” said the soldier.
“To the delicious Desdemona,” said the fool.
And the merchant nearly choked as he looked to the senator,
who calmly drank, then lowered his glass to the table, never look- ing from the fool.
“Well?”
The fool swished the liquid in his cheeks, rolled his eyes at the ceiling in consideration then swallowed as if enduring an espe- cially noxious medicine. He shuddered and looked over the rim of his glass at the senator. “I’m not sure,” he said.
“Well, sit, try a bit more,” said the merchant. “Sometimes the first drink only clears the dust of the day off a man’s palate.”
The fool sat, as did the others. They all drank again. The glasses clunked down. The three looked to the fool.
“Well?” asked Iago.
“Montressor, you’ve been had,” said the fool. “This is not amon- tillado.”
“It’s not?” said the senator.
“Tastes perfect to me,” said the merchant.
“No, it’s not amontillado,” said the fool. “And I can see from
your face that you are neither surprised nor disappointed. So while we quaff this imposter—which tastes a bit of pitch, if you ask me— shall we turn to your darker purpose? The real reason we are all here.” The fool drained his glass, leaned on the table, and rolled his eyes coyly at the senator in the manner of a flirting teenage girl. “Shall we?”
The soldier and the merchant looked to the senator, who smiled. “Our darker purpose?” asked the senator.
“Tastes of pitch?” asked the merchant.
“Not to me,” said the soldier, now looking at his glass.
“Do you think me a fool?” said the fool. “Don’t answer that. I mean, do you think me foolish? An ill-formed question as well.” He looked at his hand and seemed surprised to find it at the end of his wrist, then looked back to the senator. “You brought me here to convince me to rally the doge for you, to back another holy war.”
“No,” said the senator.
“No? You don’t want a bloody war?”
“Well, yes,” said the soldier. “But that’s not why we’ve brought
you here.”
“Then you wish me to entreat my friend Othello to back you all
in a Crusade, from which you all may profit. I knew it when I got the invitation.”
“Hadn’t thought about it,” said the senator. “More sherry?”
The fool adjusted his hat, and when the bells jingled he fol- lowed one around with his eyes and nearly went over backward in his chair.
Antonio, the merchant, steadied the fool, and patted his back to reassure him.
The fool pulled away, and regarded the merchant, looking him not just in the eye, but around the eyes, as if they were windows to a dark house and he was looking for someone hiding inside.
“Then you don’t want me to use my influence in France and England to back a war?”
The merchant shook his head and smiled.
“Oh balls, it’s simple revenge then?”
Antonio and Iago nodded.
The fool regarded the senator, and seemed to have difficulty
focusing on the graybeard. “Everyone knows I’m here. Many saw me board the gondola to come here.”
“And they will see a fool return,” said the senator.
“I am a favorite of the doge,” slurred the fool “He adores me.” “That is the problem,” said the senator.
In a single motion the fool leapt from his chair to the middle
of the table, reached into the small of his back, and came up with a wickedly pointed throwing dagger, which caught his eye as it flashed in his hand before him. He wobbled and shook his head as if to clear his vision.
“Poison?” he said, somewhat wistfully. “Oh, fuckstockings, I am slain—”
His eyes rolled back in his head, his knees buckled, and he fell face forward on the table with a thump and a rattle of his blade across the floor.
The three looked from the prostrate Fortunato to each other.
The soldier felt the fool’s neck for a pulse. “He’s alive, but I can remedy that.” He reached for his dagger.
“No,” said the senator. “Help me get him out of his clothes and to a deeper section of the cellar, then take your leave. You last saw him alive, and you can swear on your soul that is all you know.”
Antonio the merchant sighed. “It’s sad we must kill the little fool, who, while wildly annoying, does seem to bring mirth and merriment to those around him. Yet I suppose if there is a ducat to be made, it must be made. If a profit blossoms, so must a merchant pluck it.”
“Duty to God, profit, and the republic!” said the senator.
“Many a fool has found his end trying to resist the wind of war,” said Iago. “So shall this one.
What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m walling you up in the dungeon,” said the senator, who crouched in the arched doorway to the chamber in which I was chained to the wall.
“No you’re not,” said I.
Indeed, it appeared that he was walling me up, but I wasn’t going to concede that simply because I was chained, naked, and water was rising about my feet. Cautious I was not to instill a sense of confidence in my enemy.
“I am,” said he. “Brick by brick. The first masonry I’ve done since I was a lad, but it comes back. I was ten, I think, when I helped the mason who was building my father’s house. Not this one, of course. This house has been in the family for centuries. And I think I was less help than in his way, but alas, I learned.”
“Well, you couldn’t possibly have been more annoying then than you are now, so do get on with it.”
The senator stabbed his trowel into a bucket of mortar with such enthusiasm that he might have been spearing my liver. Then he held his lamp through the doorway into my little chamber,
which he had already bricked up to just above his knees. By the lamplight I saw I was in a passageway barely two yards wide, that sloped downward into the dark water, which was now washing about my ankles. There was a high-tide line on the wall, about the level of my chest.
“You know you’re going to die here, Fortunato?”
“Pocket,” I corrected. “You’re mad, Brabantio. Deluded, para- noid, and irritatingly grandiose.”
“You’ll die. Alone. In the dark.” He tamped down a brick with the butt of his trowel.
“Senile, probably. It comes early to the inbred or the syphilitic.”
“The crabs won’t even wait for you to stop moving before they begin to clean your bones.”
“Ha!” said I.
“What do you mean, ‘Ha’?” said Brabantio.
“You’ve played right into my hands!”
____________________
So there you go. The rest will be in stores April 22nd, 2014
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
-Chris
KIRKUS REVIEWS
SACRE BLEU
Author: Moore, Christopher
Review Issue Date: February 15, 2012
Online Publish Date: February 5, 2012
Publisher:Morrow/HarperCollins
Pages: 416
Price ( Hardcover ): $26.99
Publication Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-06-177974-9
Category: Fiction
An aspiring painter and unabashed romantic joins the greatest artists of the age in chasing his muse across fin de siècle–era France.
There are really two ages and two operating modes for hugely popular comedic writer Moore (The Griff, 2011, etc.). There’s the deceptively easy humor of his early California novels, which only gets sharper and funnier in his San Francisco–based vampire novels. But from time to time, Moore gets obsessed with a particular subject, lending a richer layer to his peculiar brand of irreverent humor—see Lamb (2003), Fluke (2003) and Fool (2009) for examples. Here, the author gets art deeply under his fingernails for a wryly madcap and sometimes touching romp through the late 19th century. The story surrounds the mysterious suicide of Vincent van Gogh, who famously shot himself in a French wheat field only to walk a mile to a doctor’s house. The mystery, which is slowly but cleverly revealed through the course of the book, is blue: specifically the exclusive ultramarine pigment that accents pictures created by the likes of Michelangelo and van Gogh. To find the origin of the hue, Moore brings on Lucien Lessard, a baker, aspiring artist and lover of Juliette, the brunette beauty who breaks his heart. After van Gogh’s death, Lucien joins up with the diminutive force of nature Henri Toulouse-Lautrec to track down the inspiration behind the Sacré Bleu. In the shadows, lurking for centuries, is a perverse paint dealer dubbed The Colorman, who tempts the world’s great artists with his unique hues and a mysterious female companion who brings revelation—and often syphilis (it is Moore, after all). Into the palette, Moore throws a dizzying array of characters, all expertly portrayed, from the oft-drunk “little gentleman” to a host of artists including Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Moore’s humor is, as ever, sweetly juvenile, but his arty comedy also captures the courage and rebellion of the Impressionists with an exultant joie de vivre.
Booklist
Sacre Bleu.
Moore, Christopher (Author)
Apr 2012. 416 p. Morrow, hardcover, $26.99. (9780062097749).
Moore drops his readers into the strange world of nineteenth-century France, where the line between past and present, real and surreal, shifts with a mere brushstroke. A baker and aspiring artist, protagonist Lucien Lessard grew up surrounded by Impressionist painters, all of whom seem to have fallen under the magical spell of a particular shade of blue. Van Gogh’s death and posthumous warning of a dangerous villain, the Colorman, sets Lessard and his friend, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, off on a journey to discover the power behind the Colorman’s blue paint. Entwined in their journey is the beautiful but mysterious Juliette. Mingling comedy and mystery, Moore crafts an intricate story that teases the reader with numerous twists and bawdy humor. While Lessard is fictional, many of the characters are based on historical figures, and their use of modern slang can be jarring. Toulouse-Lautrec emerges vibrantly, but some of the other painters struggle to come to life. Still, this is an imaginative and amusing look at the Impressionist era, and Moore’s prose is fresh and engaging.
— Eve Gaus
LIBRARY JOURNAL
Moore, Christopher.
Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d’Art.
Morrow. Apr. 2012. c.416p. illus. ISBN 9780061779749. $26.99. F
Moore (Fool; You Suck) set out to write a book about the color blue. What he ended up with is a surprisingly complex novel full of love, death, art, and mystery. When baker–turned–aspiring artist Lucien Lessard, whose father was friends with some of the preeminent French artists of the late 19th century, receives a special tube of vibrant blue paint from the mysterious Juliette, his amateurish painting becomes masterly and his life becomes a mess. Obsessed with painting and loving Juliette, Lucien must discover the mystery of the blue paint, the origins of Juliette, and the identity of her near-constant companion, the frighteningly sinister Colorman who haunted other artists like Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, and Cézanne. In the end, the true question for Lucien is, “At what price art?” VERDICT Don’t let Moore’s quirky characters and bawdy language fool you. His writing has depth, and his peculiar take on the impressionists will reel you in. One part art history (with images of masterpieces interspersed with the narrative), one part paranormal mystery, and one part love story, this is a worthy read. Considering the large marketing push and Moore’s rabid fan base, expect demand.
Here’s the prliminary schedule. Details and additions are yet to come, including the Canadian dates. There will also be an arrangement for people in places I’m not going to get signed 1st editions by mail. The hardcover will have color artwork, the paperback will not, so you might want to get your hands on a hardcover this time.
4/3 San Francisco Books Inc @Opera Plaz
7:00 PM 601 Van Ness Ave
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tickets available here:
http://www.booksinc.net/event/christopher-moore-books-inc-opera-plaza
4/4 Portland Powell’s Books @ Bagdad Theater
7:00 PM 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR 97214
Ticket with purchase of books available at www.etix.com. Copy of book comes with the ticket and will be available at the theater for pick-up.
4/5 Lake Forest Park Third Place Books
7:00 PM 17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
4/6 Seattle University Book Store
7:00 PM 4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
4/7 Denver Tattered Cover-LoDo
7:30 PM 1628 16th Street
Denver, CO 80202
4/9 San Diego Mysterious Galaxy
7:00 PM 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92111
4/10 Dallas Dallas Museum of Art
7:30 PM 1717 N. Harwood Street
Dallas, TX 75214
Order tickets online at www.tickets.dallasmuseumofart.org Tickets do not include a copy of the book, but books are available in the Museum Gift Shop and you are welcome to bring your books purchased elsewhere to be signed. Ticket does include a tour of the museum’s Impressionists collection.
4/11 Milwaukee Boswell’s Books
7:00 PM 2559 Downer Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53211
4/12 Brookline Brookline Booksmith @Coolidge Theater
6:00 PM 290 Harvard Street
Brookline, MA 02446
4/14 Toronto
CHAPTERS JOHN & RICHMOND
Date: Saturday, April 14, 2012
Time: 2:00 PM ET
Location: 142 John Street, Toronto, ON, M5V 2E9
4/15 Chicago- 2:00 PM
123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville, IL 60540
4/16 Washington Politics & Prose
7:00 PM 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
4/17 West Chester Chester County Book Company
7:00 PM 975 Paoli Pike
West Chester, PA 19380
4/18 New York Barnes & Noble Union Square
7:00 PM 33 East 17th Street
New York, NY 10003
4/20 Petaluma Copperfield’s Books
7:00 PM 140 Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA 94952
4/24 Menlo Park Kepler’s Books
7:00 PM 1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
4/25- South Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
INDIGO SOUTH EDMONTON
Date: Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM MT
Location: 1837 99th Street N.W., Edmonton, AB T6N 1K8
4/28 Pasadena Vroman’s Bookstore
5:00 PM 695 E. Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101
4/29 Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble
3:00 PM 7881 Edinger Ave #110
Huntington Beach, CA 92647