“I got just the thing right here should make him -- you should pardon the expression— excrete in his pants.” The old rabbi reached inside his coat and whipped out a large, framed photograph of Senator Sam Ervin29 . He shoved it into the little girl’s face. “Hit the road, dybbuk!” he trumpeted.
“AAAIIIYEEE!” Attila screamed in anguish. The little girl vomited wildly again. It spewed all over the old rabbi.
Suddenly he fell backward, away from the possessed child.
“What’s the matter?” the young rabbi wanted to know. “You’ve got him on the run. Don’t stop now!”
“Pastrami.” The old rabbi picked a piece of the regurgitated cold cut from his vest. “It gives me heartburn. It always gives me heartburn.” He backed farther away. “Accursed demon!” he sobbed. “You win again!” The old rabbi fled the room.
This was too much for the young rabbi. “Diabolical fiend! To give an old man heartburn! Have you no compassion at all then?”
Attila the Hun laughed. The little girl picked cruelly at a scab. Pus flowed over the bed.
“[Expletive deleted], man! That’s entertainment,” someone in the screening room remarked.
The young rabbi was beside himself now. “Leave her alone, you coward!” he yelled. “If you have any courage at all, leave her and take me. Take me instead if you dare!”
“Attila the Hun never turns down a dare!”
The little girl suddenly went limp. There was a close-up of the young rabbi as he and the demon battled for possession of his body and mind—-and presumably his soul. It became obvious that the demon had entered and was quickly gaining the upper hand in the battle for control. But the young rabbi had just enough will left for one last, self-sacrificing action to destroy the monster.
He dashed from the room and out into the hallway. He yanked open a doorway and wrestled the demon into a small room. And then, in one of the screen’s truly monumental symbolic battles, the young rabbi stuffed himself --demon and all -- down the incinerator.
A hollow voice came floating back up the shaft: “At least you won’t have Attila the Hun to kick around anymore!”
So ended the movie. The screen went dark. It was pitch-black in the screening room. “Good flic,” I remarked to Alicia. There was no answer. “Nauseating though,” I added. Still no answer. I waited for the lights to be turned on. They weren’t. I began to sense that something was not quite right.
I felt the seat beside me. It was empty. Alicia was no longer sitting there. I sniffed. What was that smell? Vomit? Oh, yes. Plenty of that. But something else besides. Something like— chloroform! That was it. Chloroform!
“Lights!” I shouted. “Turn on the lights.”
There was a shuffling of footsteps. There was the dull thud of one body in motion colliding with another body in motion. There was an exchange of curses. Finally the lights were turned on.
Alicia was nowhere to be seen.
I raced up the short flight of steps to the projection booth behind the screening room in which we had been sitting. When I opened the door, the smell of chloroform was quite strong in there. The projectionist was slumped over the table behind his equipment. He was out colder than an Eskimo witch’s frozen mammary.
I ran outside. Some of the others followed me. About a hundred yards from the house, on the lawn, but partly shielded by some tall tropical bushes, I made out a helicopter. It was on the ground, but its blades were whirling. Two men were hurrying toward it, carrying a prostrate form between them. I guessed that a third man was already at the controls of the Whirlybird.
A pistol shot cracked out from behind me. There was an answering burst of submachine-gun fire from the chopper. Being in between, I flung myself flat on the ground and made like a mole.
“Don’t shoot!” I yelled to those behind me. “You’ll hit the girl!” I didn’t bother mentioning the fact that they might also hit me. Somehow I didn’t think that would deter them.
They had the girl inside the chopper now. The door closed behind the two men who’d grabbed her. There was a final spraying of bullets from the copter, and then it rose straight up in the air and headed due South toward the coast of South America.
I stood up and walked back toward the house. The others were ahead of me. They had congregated in a group on the veranda.
As I came up the steps, PeePee Rococco was standing directly in my path. I shot him my hardest look.
The attempt to snatch Alicia back on Paradise Island may have been our secret, but it took on new meaning in light of this new, successful raid. Besides, Rococco’s three goons—the Bahamian, the Cuban, and the Irishman—were nowhere to be seen.
Was Rococco “Insecticide?” Was “Insecticide” behind this latest snatch? I had no answers.
But the inescapable fact was that three men had kidnapped the former President’s secret daughter!
Chapter Five
The phone call came the next morning. The caller refused to speak to anyone but Dickson himself. He didn’t stay on long enough to put a tracer on the call. He told Dickson that a tape cassette with a message for him had been fastened to the underside of the crap table at the Paradise Island Casino.
Rumor had it, I remembered, that PeePee Bococco was secretly involved in one of the investment concerns which was secretly involved with the Mafia adjunct which was secretly involved in the operation of the Paradise Island Casino. What reminded me of this gossip was the fact that it was Rococco who called Paradise Island for Dickson and arranged for someone at the Casino to check out the crap table. (Interestingly enough, Rococco’s three hoods were still notable by their absence.) By afternoon the cassette had been flown from Paradise Island and delivered to Dickson.
“Would you like me to play it for you, Mr. President?” Rosalie Forest offered, her foot tapping uncontrollably.
Dickson and Fritz—or was it Hans? -- simply stared at her while the silence lengthened into the type that is described as “pregnant.” Miss Forest turned from pink to red to purple. “This one is to be played, not erased!” Hans—or was it Fritz?—reminded her nastily.
Finally Dickson lowered his eyebrows and put the cassette on the player himself. A male voice was heard first.
“I speak for the Lilliputian Liberation Army. Our group is holding Alicia Alvarez as a prisoner of war under the rules laid down by the Geneva Convention. Why Alicia Alvarez? You know the answer to that, President Dickson. And so do we. Enough said on that score. To reassure you that you are in contact with the genuine abductors, the next voice you hear will be that of Alicia Alvarez.”
“Pa-pa-pa-resident Dickson!” It was indeed Alicia’s voice. “These people mean business. They are a well-organized and legitimate movement aimed at freeing midgets, dwarfs, and pygmies from the domination of the big bullies who control and manipulate society. The little people consider me a legitimate prisoner and are treating me as such. However, if you don’t do exactly as they say, they tell me that you will never see me again. I’m not sure whether that means they will kill me or not. But I believe them. And so should you. Please, Pa-pa-pa-resident Dickson, follow their instructions to the letter if you care about me at all. Do exactly as they say! I beg you! Exactly as they say!”
“President Dickson.” The man’s voice again. “Here are our instructions. You will proceed directly to Paris with no more than one traveling companion. You will travel incognito, and preferably not by commercial airline. You will register at a small hotel in Clichy, Le Petit Palais, under the name of Mr. Checkers. You will be contacted there, under that name, by us, and given further instructions. We will arrange for you to receive certain preconditions to our demands. Meeting those preconditions will be the proof needed that you are dealing with us in good faith. If they are not met, if our instructions are not followed down to the last detail, we shall immediately break off negotiations and you will not hear from POW Alicia Alvarez again. That is all for now, President Dickson.” The tape ended.