CHAPTER SEVEN: THE RESCUE [ Editor's Note: We apologize for the interruption in our serialization of the Chronicles of Hieronymous Smith. This has largely been on account of the author, who prefers to remain anonymous, suffering from a gunshot wound to the thyroid under mysterious circumstances. We are pleased to announce, however, that he has been replaced by a Distant Cousin of His, who is currently contributing new material from his hut situated three feet deep in a Welsh peat bog. Owing to the unreliability of the Distant Cousin's carrier pigeons, coupled with the necessity of translating the manuscript from Welsh, our updates may still be somewhat sporadic. We hope to keep you informed as matters progress. Or not. -- N. ] With Wilf, Hieronymous, and several pieces of office furniture in tow, the van sped off to its next destination. "Not a moment to lose, lad," explained Wilf. He was obviously excited about something; his driving was even more atrocious than usual, and every time the car stopped his driving goggles would rocket off his face, then snap back and hit him in the head. "We've gotta get him out of there." "Who?" asked Hieronymous, still reeling from his experiences with the badgers. "Mortimus J. Finkelstein," replied Wilf. "The most brilliant spy in the world, bar none." "Can't we wait a little while?" Hieronymous was tired and sore from the training exercise, and he was worried about the possibility of his desk badger bites getting infected. He told Wilf just as much; in response, Wilf reached into one of the many pockets of his bulky overcoat and tossed a jar at him. Hieronymous caught the jar and stared at it; it was labelled "Mrs. Vulpenia's Patriotic Shin Cream" and smelled suspiciously like Thousand Island Dressing. "Rub that on," said Wilf. "It'll sting like bloody blue blazes, but at least you won't feel your bruises any more. Or, for that matter, your legs." Hieronymous gingerly tasted it. It was Thousand Island Dressing. "If you're just going to eat it," snapped Wilf, "then give it back... although it does go a treat on sandwiches." Hieronymous did so, and Wilf passed him one of the paper bags from the Buns of Steel Eatery. Hieronymous opened the bag, and found a small carton of orange juice, a large carton of orange juice, a small packet of chips, two watercress sandwiches with the crusts removed, and a large raw onion. Hieronymous spread shin cream on his sandwich and ate it. "Now then," continued Wilf as he drove along the road at three hundred miles an hour, "you must be prepared for the worst. We're about to enter a den of terror, the likes of which you... well, probably haven't encountered before." The van pulled up in front of a large brick building. At first Hieronymous thought that they'd driven in a circle and were back at the YMCA, but then noticed a sign out in front. He read it. "This is a retirement home," he said. "Ah yes," said Wilf. "They've been trying to get Finkelstein for awhile, they have." "Why are we busting an elderly man out of a retirement home?" Hieronymous's tolerance for gibberish, despite his years of rigorous training at the hands of his father, was starting to hit its limits. "Well, it only appears to be a retirement home," said Wilf. "It's run by some of the strongest and most terrifying enemies I have ever had to face in my life..." He paused dramatically. "Social workers!" "Oh boy," thought Hieroynmous. "We simply have no choice in the matter, as Finkelstein's the perfect intelligence operative for The Society. Best one we've ever come across, in fact. Even if you tortured him, you couldn't get any information out of him." "Why's that?" "He has Alzheimer's," replied Wilf. Hieronymous paused, and collected his thoughts. "Let me get this straight," he said after much deliberation. "We're breaking into a retirement home, and probably a mental hospital, to abduct a secret agent who is constantly losing his memory?" "Yeh," said Wilf with a grin. "But how the hell does he manage to do his job?" Wilf shrugged. "Dunno," he said. "I believe he leaves himself little Post-It notes. And Louis injects him with pickled fetuses or something from time to time, that always works as a pick-me-up." "You've flipped," said Hieronymous. "You're barking." "Eh," said Wilf, "I flipped in 1876. Now shut up for a minute and let me explain the plan..." -- The retirement home was a building of a superiorly ugly nature. It almost, but not quite, managed to put the YMCA to shame. Its designers had been given one task in its construction: figuring out how to dispose of a large quantity of aluminum siding, iron bars, and gothic furniture. With one exception, its inhabitants knew very well that they were sitting and waiting for death; the surplus H. R. Giger prints on the walls, black paint, and skull shaped doorknobs made this perfectly clear. Mortimus J. Finkelstein sat in a small room and waited for Death, or Rescue. He wasn't sure which he preferred, but he had vague memories of somebody with lots of clothing and a vague tendency to mumble, who would probably show up sooner or later. He frowned and returned to the task at hand - trying to figure out what to do with these small cards with the letters and numbers on them. Was this some sort of mysterious code, he wondered? Could he break it in time before the damn bastard Communist Russkies ... well, did whatever they did? "Under the B, 15," shouted a bored social worker. Oh, thought Finkelstein. Bingo. I think I like Bingo. His mind swam. Actually, this isn't quite true - it thrashed about a bit in the water, and shouted "Help! I'm drowning!" Meanwhile, a small voice in the back of his head was trying to say something over the din, something along the lines of "You're not supposed to be here! Get out! You're supposed to be escaping! You have information!" He marked off number 15 on his scorecard. Something was bothering him - a tag in his shirt, perhaps. He twisted his shirt around and was amazed to find that there was a Post-it note attached to the inside of his shirt collar, covered in writing. He idly removed it from his collar and examined it. It read: Do not remove this Post-It note from your clothing. Or any of the others, for that matter. Put it right back where you found it. -- Mortimus J. Finkelstein Mortimus did just that; the note was written by somebody whose opinion he had a great deal of respect for. Whoever he was. "Under the I, 33." He filled in another square, then stared at his scorecard for a moment. "BINGO!" he yelled, and a large black van suddenly shot backwards through the wall, sending the announcer and his cards flying. Finkelstein stared at the carnage for a moment, then swore violently. "You utter swine!" he exclaimed. "I could have won a ... a... a..." He looked up at the desk for a moment. "Okay, a knitted tea cosy... I guess it's not that important, but, well, it, ... it would have kept my head warm during the cold winter nights..." "Stop babbling, Finkelstein," yelled a voice from inside the van. Mortimus's jaw dropped. "You know my name?" he asked. "Of course I do!" yelled the voice from the van. "Good!" he exclaimed. "Now, my good sir, would you kind as to tell me what it is?" The van appeared to be rocking from side to side. Inside, Finkelstein could hear the sounds of another man - younger, perhaps a teenager - swearing, mixed with the growls of an animal. "It's on the Post-it on your right foot," the voice in the van replied. "Hang on a 'mo, and we'll rescue you - no, bloody hell, Hieronymous, haven't you dealt with that ruddy badger yet?!" Finkelstein checked his foot. There was, indeed, a rather dirty yellow Post-it note stuck to the arch of his right shoe. It read: Your name is Mortimus J. Finkelstein. Don't remove this Post-It note, you'll need it next time you forget. -- Mortimus J. Finkelstein The animal noises grew louder, and the voices from the van started shouting more. "It's got my foot! It's got my foot, Wilf! Do something!" "Oh ah, alright then! Hang on a sec... try rubbin' shin cream into its eyes, stings like a bugger that does..." The reactions of the other occupants of the nursing home to the intrusion by the van were mixed. One little old gentleman in a wheelchair had wet his pants, but he probably would have done that anyways. The others were discussing the situation, with various theories being postulated. "It'ssa Hinkypunks!" one elderly man screamed. "They've come for me!" "Get off it, Jake," replied an elderly woman. "No such thing as Hinkypunks - they're only in that book, whassaya call it, Artemis Fowl." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "I reckon it's the NSA, myself. Come for me because of what I know, they have. Them and their ultra-whatsis..." "It's Hitler! Hitler, I say!" exclaimed a second elderly woman. "Unlikely," said Finkelstein after a moment's thought. "I suspect it's..." He stopped suddenly. "Would everybody be quiet, please? The little voice in my head is attempting to tell me something." "Hinkypunks! Hinkypunks!" yelled the Hinkypunk man, until Finkelstein delivered a punch to the head that broke his nose. "Nkypnks, nkypnks," he continued, but at least he was quieter about it. Finkelstein concentrated, until at last a name came to the surface of his brain. "Wilf?" he asked faintly. "Is that you?" "Course it's me, you great nancy," yelled the voice from the van. "We're 'ere to rescue you, but we 'ave a little Desk Badger problem right now that we..." There was a loud clunk, and a rather nauseating squelching noise. "Okay," said the voice to the van's other occupant, "I guess tha's one way of doin' it. Ah... right." The door of the van opened, and an elderly man emerged from the back of the van, covered in various ugly and baggy pieces of clothing like a homeless vagrant, and holding a very large, very flat, and above all else very dead badger. The other door opened, and from it emerged a teenaged youth - entirely average looking, in fact possibly the definition of average except significantly more fit, wearing a brown turtleneck sweater, bluejeans, and metal toed workboots covered in more dead badger. He appeared to be sulking a little. "Mr. Wilf, I presume?" asked Finkelstein. "Oh ah," replied Elderly Vagrant With Badger. He gestured at the van with the animal, then scowled at it for a moment and threw it in the bin for donating Bingo Prizes. "Get in the van." "Who are you?" asked Finkelstein. Elderly Vagrant stared at him grumpily for a moment. "Hrmmph," Wilf muttered. "Finkelstein, I don't have bloody time for this." He rummaged into his pocket, and pulled out a small bottle of blue pills and a bottle of water. "Take two of those." Mortimus stared at the pills for a moment, then weakly swallowed two of them. Mortimus waited, then looked around the room. "You know, my good sir," Mortimus mused, "I still have no clue what's going on." "Hieronymous," said Elderly Vagrant, "get the other thing, would you?" Sulking Teenager opened up the passenger side door of the van, and extracted a large box. Mortimus J. Finkelstein stared at it for a moment. It was a car battery, complete with two massive alligator cables of the sort normally used to jump start cars. Sulking Teenager put the battery down on the floor, held up the alligator clips, one in each hand, and smiled evilly. Mortimus J. Finkelstein gulped, and suddenly remembered what was going on. "I think I'm going to get into the van now, Wilf," he said. "Your new assistant seems remarkably eager." "That's our new recruit, Hieronymous Smith," said Wilf with a grin. "Bright lad, isn't he?" He suddenly became sullen. "Now let's go. I don't think you remember what you found out before you were caught, but I reckon it's bad." "So do I," mused Finkelstein. He opened the van's door and sat down in the back seat. Wilf and Hieronymous followed suit and the van shot off into the nebulous night through the hole in the building from whence it came. The room's occupants stared at each other for a minute. "Dunno what that was," said the little old lady, "but it sure as hell wasn't the NSA." The bingo announcer picked himself up from off the floor, and found a card from somewhere. "Right," he asid. "This next game will be for this..." He rummaged around in the prize bin. "... very lovely dead badger. Under the N..." -- Sitting in the van's passenger seat, Hieronymous was forced to admit that he was quite, quite bored. The rescue hadn't been nearly as exciting as he had hoped; the worst he'd had to deal with was another desk badger. Not knowing what else to do, he opened the glove compartment and decided to finish the book of Classic Japanese Literature he'd started earlier. He was somewhat surprised to discover that it was gone, and in its place was a slim paperback volume, containing a number of short stories by a Mr. Oakshack, about a Mr. Brewster and his butler, Reeves. He opened it up and start to read: -- The day started out quite well, as a matter of fact. I was tucking into the eggs and b. with unusual relish, and was reading the morning newspaper with a certain amount of aplomb. My manservant, Reeves was flitting about the place, in that strangely fascinating silent way of his, no doubt attending to the many mysterious daily things that a gentleman's gentleman does. Whatever these things are, I do not know, but there you go. He returned to the breakfast nook bearing a tray with the morning's correspondance. "Any excitement, Reeves?" I queried. "Very little, sir," he replied. "It does appear, however, that your Aunt Agatha has sent you another letter." The eggs and b. suddenly felt like a giant lump of cast iron lumps in my stomach. "Oh bother," I said. "Yes, sir." replied Reeves. I reached for the tableknife. "If it is suicide you are contemplating, sir, an acquaintance of mine works in a pharmacy..." "Eh, what? No no, you misunderstand me, tempting though it may be. I merely want to open this letter." "In that case, sir," he replied, "might I suggest the letter opener?" "You know best, Reeves," I replied, and ripped the accursed thing open with unusual violence. As I expected, it was another missive from my Aunt Agatha entreating me to join her at her country estate. "Reeves," I stated, "the curse has come amongst us. My Aunt Agatha commands my presence at her country home 'at once, if not sooner.'" "Indeed, sir." Reeves was like that - a stalwart tower in the depths of the wilderness. Very dependable, that man. "No doubt she wishes to see me married off to some unagreeable female. Need I remind you of the Glossop incident?" "No, sir." "Dash it all," I exclaimed. "Why can't they simply understand that I want nothing to do with women of any kind?!" I turned and looked Reeves for a moment. "Not when I've got... got..." "Sir?" "Well, gosh darnit, when I've got someone like you in my life, that is!" "You are too kind, sir," he replied, and collected the breakfast things. -- Hieronymous read on, morbidly fascinated: -- I must say that the boys at the Drones Club are absolutely toppers. Fine company of healthy, strapping lads, the lot of 'em. Vigorous, full of youth and what-not. Well-endowed, too, although even the best of us sometimes needs to try and cadge favours from Oofy Prosser, and always the best of company. Camaderie and so on. Not that all this stops my comrades from getting into the soup - as the poet Burns says, the best laid plans of mice and men tend to go a-thingimagummy. Something like that; I'm sure Reeves could tell you, although he tends to prefer his poetry full of larks and snails and things. Take the rummy affair of my friend Bingo Little - now there's a name I've never really understood... -- Was the whole book like this, he wondered? He skipped a few pages forward and continued to read: -- "If you will allow me to say so, sir, that shirt is quite unsuitable. Permit me to remove it. Slowly." -- Yes, it was. "Ah," piped up Mr. Finkelstein from the back seat, "dirty books, eh?" He looked at Wilf with something that might have been admiration. "Don't look at me," replied Wilf. "Don't know how the damn things keep getting in my glove compartment." "Ten to one says it's Mrs. Maple," replied Finkelstein. He turned his attention to Hieronymous again. "If you're interested," he said, "I may have just the thing for a growing lad like yourself. If you're going to be a member of this organization, you need to learn how to be smooth with the ladies. Like myself." Hieronymous was fairly sure that Mortimus J. Finkelstein hadn't been smooth with the ladies since 1923, but chose to keep his views to himself. "Tell me, my boy, would you like to get into the petticoats of any belle femme that you desire?" "Uh, I guess," Hieronymous said. Finkelstein grinned at him, and proceeded to grope around amidst the mess and rubbish that filled the van, until finally with a shout of triumph he found what he was looking for. He held aloft a large, crumbling book, on the cover of which were the words "The British Boy's Big Book of Sexual Intercourse". "Mortimus," asked Wilf menacingly, "what the hell is that doing in my car?" Hieronymous wasn't entirely sure how to react to this. He understood the facts of life, despite having been forced to listen to one of his father's more inane lectures about the subjects. Eschewing the Birds and the Bees, his father had treated him to a two hour lecture on the reproductive habits of Norwegian vole-moss, complete with slides, and haphazardly blended in the worst elements of many of the other traditional sex talks that parents had been giving their offspring since the days of the ancient Babylonians. Hieronymous had spent two years of his life adamantly convinced that reproduction involved spores, pollen, and football helmets. He snapped back to the future as Finkelstein presented him with the giant tome, ignoring a spluttering Wilf behind the driver's wheel. "This book, my boy," he exclaimed, "is the key that will unlock the undergarments of any female you would care to seduce. Why, back in my prime, this book allowed me to charm my way into persuading many a young, innocent social debutante into divesting herself of her bloomers." Hieronymous suddenly found himself wondering when Mr. Finkelstein had been doing all of this, and when exactly social debutantes wore bloomers. Idly, he checked the publication date on the book's inside cover. 1870. Not good. "Now then," continued Finkelstein, "it's a large book, and all useful, so why don't you just open that book up at random, and pick a technique, eyes closed." Hieronymous did so. "Captain Ahab's Revenge," he read out loud. "Ah," said Mr. Finkelstein, "that's a fun one, that is." "Maybe later," said Hieronymous. He was decidedly not interested in investigating any form of erotic activity that probably involved harpoons, whales, and yelling "Thar she blows!" "You're no fun," sulked Finkelstein. "A boy like you should be out fornicating, not spending your life doing whatever it is you're doing." He collected his breath, as he prepared, no doubt, to relate a tale of amorous expository that would make Casanova hand in his... well, Hieronymous didn't want to think about that. "Back in my day," Finkelstein started to say, but Hieronymous was saved from a lengthy and sordid narrative when Wilf turned a corner and the elderly spy was suddenly knocked unconscious by ten thousand long, white wax candles that came out of nowhere like an avenging spectre. "Well," Wilf grunted, "now you know what I keeps' the candles for." The ride continued more or less in silence; the only major disturbance was when they passed the small log cabin in the middle of the woods. Since the last time they disturbed his peace, the lunatic hermit who lived there had somehow obtained a large mortar. It was very lucky, Hieronymous mused, that lunatic hermits are notoriously rotten shots. They finally pulled up in the driveway of the Society's house/base of operations, and Wilf turned off the gas. "Leave the furniture for later," he said. "Help me get Finkelstein into the house." They opened the passenger side door and dragged the still unconscious Finkelstein out of the seat and into the house. Louis was waiting in the hallway, smoking a joint. When he saw the state of the elderly spy, he gave a low whistle. "In the Fat Man's name," he murmured, "what did they do to him?" "Nuffin' worse than bingo," said Wilf. "We just had a little drivin' accident, tha's all. Now go get his memories back and we'll see what we can learn." Louis simply nodded, and wordlessly grabbed Finkelstein's legs. The two elderly men manhandled the third elderly man down the hallways and corridors of the house, leaving Hieronymous feeling very confused - so confused, in fact, that he accidentally opened the wrong door on the way to the kitchen and walked into the hallway coat closet. Hieronymous was instantly fascinated. The hallway coat closet was a large, twisting passageway full of all sorts of paraphrenalia. Fur coats and dinner jackets hang from metal poles attached along the ceiling, like inverted railway tracks, and every so often Hieronymous would pass a small collection of humidors full of Cuban cigars, piled up in little out of the way places like nicotine-filled dog droppings. Every so often, he would stumble across some other strange artifact - a rack filled with nothing but vivid, multi-coloured ties - tie-dyed, of course - covered in glow-in-the-dark peacocks, or a pile of kendo equipment. As he passed further down the corridor it got darker and darker, and more than once he stumbled over a pile of humidors, but as he fumbled on he could see that at the end of the hallway there was light coming in from... somewhere. It looked like it was coming from behind some sort of square panel. 'A secret passage, perhaps?' Hieronymous wondered out loud. He made his way to the end of the hallway and discovered that yes, there was a panel of some sort, concealing something. Curious, he grabbed the edges of the panel and jiggled it in random directions, until finally it slid along an invisible hinge. Hieronymous stuck his head through the hole and discovered to his amazement that the secret passage led into the back of the kitchen refridgerator. 'How odd,' he mused. 'The most useless secret passage ever.' He tried to clamber further into the fridge, and had just succeeded in trapping his torso between two shelves full of produce when the light bulb burnt out. "Crap," said Hieronymous. Experimentally, he tried to shift himself, but only succeeded in spilling a bottle of olive oil over his trousers. "Double crap," said Hieronymous. He lay there in the darkness, waiting to be rescued. It didn't take long - about fifteen minutes later, the Psychic Apostle opened the fridge door. "Triple crap," said Hieronymous. The Psychic Apostle shot his hand into the fridge and groped around randomly, searching for something. Hieronymous cursed the fates. Here he was, trapped in a refridgerator, covered in olive oil, and being fondled by a blind oriental searching for unknown foodstuffs - judging by his luck today, Hieronymous mused, he was probably after bratwurst. He was quite relieved when he spotted Mrs. Maple in the distance, who had spotted the Apostle at the fridge. She hastened over and quickly pulled him away, then smacked him across the head. "No snacking before dinner," she told the Apostle, and slammed the fridge door shut. Hieronymous would have smacked himself in the forehead if he could have. Instead, he settled for muttering "Quadruple Crap" under his breath. Suddenly the fridge door opened again, and he was Mrs. Maple staring at him with astonishment. She opened her mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out. Anything she might have said appeared to have headed for the border as fast as its infinitives could split. "That goes for you too," she finally managed, and shut the door again. Hieronymous wasn't sure what came after Quadruple Crap, but he resolved to find out at the next opportunity. He sighed instead and settled down to wait. Half an hour later, Wilf opened the fridge and looked at him bemusedly. "Ah, glad you cooled off a little," he said, and grinned. "Can you get me out of here?" asked Hieronymous, a hint of desperation in his voice. "Mebbe," said Wilf. He grabbed Hieronymous's head with his arm, inadvertantly jamming Hieronymous's nose up his armpit, and pulled. Perhaps it was just the olive oil helping things along, but after a few seconds Hieronymous shot out of the fridge like a cork out of a champagne bottle, across the room, and wound up embedded, head first, in the wall on the other side of the kitchen. "Wilf," he mumbled through a mouthful of plaster and drywall, "this isn't really an improvement." He pushed against the wall with both hands and forced his head out. Wilf, who had rolled out of Hieronymous's way in the nick of time, picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself off gingerly. He'd knocked over the spice rack getting out of Hieronymous's way and was simply covered in the stuff, so there was a lot of ginger to dust off. "I see you found the secret passageway," said Wilf. "One of 'em, anyways." Hieronymous nodded. "Useful things, secret passages," Wilf mused. "You never know when they might come in handy. I find that particular one useful for late night snacking, myself." He stared at his protege critically. "You do know you've got plaster chunks in your hair and olive oil all down yer trousers, right?" Hieronymous nodded mutely. "Ah well," mused Wilf, "these things do happen. Course if I was Finkelstein, I'd prolly be tellin' you about how I did somethin' similar with three young ladies back in the Great Depression." "In my case, it was the Psychic Apostle," said Hieronymous. Wilf looked at him quizically. "You know, I'd rather not have known that," he replied. "It's not like that - " Hieronymous protested, but was cut off by Louis barging into the room. It was one of the few times that Hieronymous had seen the jolly hippie looking dead serious, and definitely the only time he'd seen him stone cold sober. His eyes were wide open, and he was running his hands through his long salt-and-pepper beard nervously, as if he was trying to rip it off "Bloody 'ell, Louis," exclaimed Wilf, "you look like you've had the crack scared out of your nostrils. What's up?" "It's Finkelstein," Louis said. "He's awake and recovering in the medical office, he's got his memory back, and he's got news for us." "Oh, ah?" said Wilf. "Can't be that bad, can it?" "You'd better believe it's bad," said Louis. "Get Margaret, she'd better hear this." "Maggie!" yelled Wilf, and thunked on the ceiling. "Get down here!" There was a series of answering thumps and the sound of running feet, and a few minutes later Mrs. Maple ran through the kitchen door, out of breath. She surveyed the kitchen, the ginger, the hole in the wall where Hieronymous's head had been, and Hieronymous himself, covered in olive oil and plaster. "Wilf, you horrible man, what have you done to my kit-" She paused, as she saw Louis and Wilf's serious expression. " - oh, " she continued. "Oh my. What's the news?" "You'd better hold onto something, Margaret," said Louis. The elderly lady looked around the room for something to support her. She finally decided to grab a very large frying pan from one of the kitchen shelves, and held onto its handle with both hands, as if daring something to come out and give her the opportunity to hit it. "Get on with it," she said grimly. "I'm prepared for the worst." Louis paused, gathered his thoughts. "Well, now, how do I put this," he said, and was about to say something when Mortimus J. Finkelstein, wearing nothing more than a hospital gown and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers, ran into the kitchen and blurted out: "The Ancient Evil is back!"