“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 314: mamba

Let’s return to a certain obscure building off a dark alleyway not far from the docks of Singapore and rejoin our hero Arnold Schnabel and his faithful “Dr Watson” Big Ben Blagwell, in the grandiose chambers of the mysterious and exotic Madame Chang…

(Kindly go here to read our most previous chapter; if you’re really serious about finding a new way to waste your time then click here to go back to the barely-remembered beginnings of this Gold View Award™-winning 39-volume memoir.)

“As often as Arnold Schnabel seems to descend to the depths of pulp penny-dreadful authors like Horace P. Sternwall or Fred Flynn (just to name two of his avowed favorites), just so often does he ascend to the heights of a Proust or a Joyce, two authors of whom it is extremely doubtful he ever read a single word.” -- Harold Bloom, in the Cape May County Herald.

But then she glanced at me, still holding that little automatic on me you understand. “Unless you would prefer something a little stronger, big fellow?”

“How about a Planter’s Punch, with a float of “151” rum,” I said.

She looked at me for about half a minute, like she was trying to decide which of my eyes to put a slug into.

Then she said to the big oriental guy, “You heard him, Futuyama, Planter’s Punch with a float of ‘151’ rum. And tea for three.”

“Oh, I wonder, Madame Chang,” said Mojo, “might I possibly impinge on your hospitality if it’s not too much trouble by requesting a pousse-café? It’s only that if I drink tea this late it keeps me up all night you see.”

“What about green tea, or white tea?” said Madame Chang. “Very low in caffeine, full of nutrients.”

“Oh, I’m afraid even green and white teas give me the most horrid insomnia.”

Now Madame Chang gave Mojo her thirty-second stare, but at least she wasn’t holding her rod on him.

“You’re really too much, Mojo,” said Madame Chang. “Why don’t you just come right out and say you want a free goddamn drink?”

I noticed that Mojo was sweating, even though it was strangely cool in this room.

“But, but, but --” he said.

“Don’t ‘but’ me. I only want you to say that you want a free drink and not to hand me a lot of crap about about tea keeping you up at night.”

“But, you know, Madame Chang, out of my own humble pocket I already had to buy these two chaps some several drinks tonight --” he said.

“Say it.”

“I bought this one here two quite dear Planter's Punches, or was it three?” he said, looking at me.

“Hey, I wasn’t counting, pal,” I said. My Sweet Caporal was almost down to a burning nub and I looked around for an ashtray.

“Let’s say I bought him three, then,” said Mojo. “And I also bought Arnold --”

“Say it,” said Madame Chang.

“Oh, very well,” he said. He took his handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and mopped his forehead. “I want a free drink. There, are you happy, Madame Chang?”

“I don’t know the meaning of the word happy,” she said.

There was a vase over near the doorway so I stepped toward it with my Caporal butt.

“Where the hell are you going?” said Madame Chang.

“Just gonna dump my butt,” I said.

“In my priceless Ming vase you’re gonna dump your cigarette butt.”

“So -- it’s not for cigarettes?” I said.

“Is it filled with sand?”

I took a step closer and looked into it.

“No,” I said. “No sand.”

“Then it’s not for cigarettes.”

“Sorry,” I said.

She looked at Arnie, and wiggled her automatic up and down. “What about you, sleeping beauty? I suppose you want a frozen mango daiquiri? With a cherry on top.”

“Just some tea, please,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Chinese black tea okay?”

“Is that like the kind you get in Chinese restaurants?”

“Yes, but better. I get mine delivered special. I don’t drink that swill they serve in Chinese restaurants.”

“That’s fine then,” he said.

“Okay,” said Madame Chang. “Now that we got all that straight. Tea for two, Futuyama, plus one pousse-café, and a Planter’s Punch for the nautical Paul Bunyan here.”

“With a float of ‘151’,” I said. “Just pour like half-a-shot over an inverted spoon and let it float on top of the drink.”

Futuyama looked at Madame Chang.

“Whatever,” she said.

Futuyama bowed to her and then turned and lumbered away. The guy was so big you could feel the floor vibrating under the oriental carpet we were standing on with each step he took.

“Come, let us sit,” said Madame Chang.

She waved her gun toward the middle of this big room we were in, to an area where there was a long low lacquered table and some chairs and divans and couches and smaller tables. When we got there Madame Chang pointed the gun at a sort of pink velvet love seat and said, “You two, sit there where I can keep an eye on you.”

Neither Arnie or I were in any position to argue, so we sat down in the love seat, even though it was a tight fit, me being such a big muscular guy and all. Fortunately there was a standing ashtray on my side and I was finally able to get rid of my Caporal butt before it could totally burn the flesh off my thumb and finger.

“May I sit, Madame Chang?” said Mojo. “I must say I still feel somewhat dazed and not a little in pain after being so mercilessly cold-cocked by that big brute --”

“Mojo,” said Madame Chang.

“Yes, Madame Chang?”

“Do me a favor, will you?”

“Of course, Madame Chang.”

“Go over to that footstool there,” she gestured to a brocaded footstool opposite me and Arnie on the other side of the low table. “That’s about your size.”

Mojo walked over to the footstool and then looked at her, all expectant like.

“Now sit down on that stool and shut the hell up,” said Madame Chang.

“Of course, Madame Chang,” said Mojo, and he sat down on it. Poor little guy, as low as the table was you could still only see his head and chest over it. But he kept his Luger on me and Arnie, he didn’t forget about that.

Madame Chang sat herself down in a really fancy armchair to the left of Mojo, all red velvet and gold and I don’t know, I can’t describe those kinds of things. It looked like something maybe a queen would sit in, not a throne exactly, but just a really fancy queen’s chair for when she was sitting around the coffee table shooting the breeze with her friends the dukes and duchesses, like that. Except more Chinese. Like a Chinese queen’s chair. Back when they had queens in China instead of commissars. So I guess it was kind of like a commissar’s chair.

“So,” she said -- and she kept us waiting while she laid her automatic on the arm of her chair, took a cigarette out of an enameled box on a little table next to her chair, and lit herself up with a table lighter in the shape of a dragon -- “you gentlemen are probably wondering what all this intrigue is in aid of?”

“Well, Madame Chang,” I said, and I leaned away a bit from Arnie so I could get my Sweet Caporals out of my Hawaiian shirt-pocket, and now I’m wondering, am I supposed to keep mentioning that I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt? Or is once enough? Maybe just once in a while? Well, anyway, yeah, it was the same Hawaiian shirt I’d been wearing all night, and I leaned away from Arnie so I could get my cigarettes out of the pocket, on account of Arnie was sitting to my right and we were so scrunched together on that love seat. It feels funny calling it a love seat. But let’s face it, that’s what it was, so I guess I’m stuck with it. Anyway, I took the cigarettes out, gave them a shake and popped one into my trap.

“What?” said Madame Chang. “Finish your sentence please.”

There you go, I had been so busy thinking about my Hawaiian shirt and everything that I forgot to finish my thought. I’ll bet those real writer fellows don’t have these problems.

“Come on, spit it out,” she said.

“I forget what I was going to say,” I said. I took out the Musso & Frank’s matches and gave myself a light, doing it my usual way, cupping my big hamlike fists around the flame like I was standing on the deck of a junk in the South China Sea in the middle of a bad typhoon, even though I was indoors, that’s just me. “So, please, continue with what you were saying, Madame Chang.”

“I was saying I suppose you gentlemen are wondering what all this intrigue is in aid of.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “That’s what I was going to say.”

I waved the match out and tossed it at the ashtray. I missed. I was tempted to get up and pick it up off the rug, but I was hoping Madame Chang hadn’t noticed.

“What,” said Madame Chang. “What were you going to say.”

She said it like that, kind of without a question mark if you know what I mean. Looking at me the way a black mamba out in the Belgian Congo once looked at me, but that’s another story I guess.

“What was I going to say?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Before you threw your match on my expensive rug.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Madame Chang,” I said, and I started to heave myself up from the love seat, “I’ll get it --”

“Sit back down,” she said.

“Um, okay,” I said, and I sat the hell back down, trying not to squash Arnie while I did it.

“Go on,” she said.

“Go ‘on’…” I said, kind of with the three dots like that, like maybe she had said something in one of those obscure Chinese dialects that I’m not too familiar with.

“Yes, please finish what you were saying. We wait with bated breath.”

“I kind of forget what I was going to say,” I said, taking a drag of my Sweet Caporal, probably one of those drags those writer fellows call a “pensive” drag.

“Again,” she said.

“Yeah. Again,” I said.

I not only heard Arnie sigh, I could feel him sigh. It was like a full-body sigh if you know what I mean.

Madame Chang lifted her automatic up off the arm of her chair, and just kind of looked at it.

“Oh, I know what I was going to say,” I said, in a hurry, just like the way I jumped into the Congo River in a hurry that time with the black mamba, “I was going to say, Madame Chang, yeah, I was wondering what all the intrigue is in aid of. Weren’t you, Arnie?”

“Yeah,” he said, although for some reason he didn’t sound too interested. “Sure.”

“What?” I said. “What’s the matter, pal?”

He looked at me, turning his head a bit, looking out of the corner of his eye like, and then he sighed again.

“Nothing, Ben,” he said.

“Still feeling a little groggy from that Mickey that Mojo slipped you, huh?”

“Yes, a little,” he said.

“Some of that nice hot black tea will perk you right up, buddy, won’t it, Madame Chang?”

“Do you see?” said Mojo, turning to look at Madame Chang. “Now do you see what a great idiot he is?”

“I’m not blind,” she said. “Or deaf. You just keep your eyes front, little man, and your pudgy little finger on that Luger trigger.”

“Certainly, Madame Chang,” said Mojo. “I was only saying --”

“Silence!” she said. “It’s bad enough I have to listen to the big galoot, I don’t need to hear your midget’s drivel as well!”

“I was only saying,” said Mojo.

“I know what you were saying. He’s an idiot. So shut up.”

“Sorry,” he said.

So, I’m thinking right here, these two might be in league with each other in whatever deadly intrigue was going on here, but they sure didn’t get along too well together. I made a mental note of that. This is what you got to do in the deadly intrigue game. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open, and make mental notes. If you’ve got a notepad and a pencil, maybe jot them down. Otherwise, just try to remember them.

“So,” I said, “getting back to the deadly intrigue business, Madame Chang --”

“The 'deadly' intrigue?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I assume it’s deadly. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“No,” she said. “You could say it’s deadly all right.”

“Okay,” I said, and I blew out a big cloud of Sweet Caporal smoke, because that’s a good thing to do when you’re about to say something more than a how-do-ya-do, “so, this deadly intrigue, what’s the scoop? I thought we were gonna pull off some kind of caper with Mojo here, and with the scratch from the caper we were gonna pay you to get Arnie back to his supposedly real world.”

Arnie sighed again.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said. “Go on, Ben.”

“Okay,” I said. “But instead of a caper, Mojo drugs Arnie while I’m making whoopee with a lady friend and drags him to your pad. I don’t get it. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t get it. It’s like when you’re reading a serial book bonus in one of them men’s adventure magazines and you miss an issue. Like, what the hell’s going on, y’know?”

She finally put the automatic back down on the chair arm. So that was a relief.

She took one of those pensive kinds of drags from her own cigarette, and let the smoke out, slow.

“Very well,” she said. “I will tell you what the hell’s going on. Try to pay attention, because I don’t like to repeat myself.”

“All ears I am,” I said, hoping it wasn’t all going to be too complicated or boring. “Fire away, Madame Chang. I mean, not literally speaking if you know what I mean. Heh heh.”

I knew I had to be careful with this broad.

She was really very touchy.

(Continued here, and. at this rate, for approximately twenty-seven more years.)

(Please look to the right-hand column of this page to find a fairly frequently-updated listing of links to all other officially-released chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©. Soon to be a glorious Technicolor extravaganza featuring Dick Powell as Arnold, Alan Hale as Ben, and Anna May Wong as Madame Chang; musical numbers composed by Irving Berlin; a Busby Berkeley Production for MGM.)





tales of the hotel st crispian: chapter 70

"the procedures of pete palomine"

by manfred skyline

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

"yes, of course," cosima answered. "as i said, pete has brought a lot of the opprobrium down on himself quite deliberately, in order to generate controversy and publicity. and has, i am sure, exaggerated the extent he uses the techniques he describes." she laughed. "when he talks of 'hypnotizing' his subjects - or apprentices or collaborators or whatever he calls them, he neglects to mention that he has no expertise in hypnosis. he may go through the motions of hypnotizing them, and they may humor him - you get the idea."

fortescue nodded politely.

"if he is hypnotizing these people," cosima went on, "i am sure he does it much more efficiently with bottles of scotch or sticks of tea."

"so he has these - apprentices or collaborators - doing how much of the work exactly?"

"until quite recently," cosima replied drily, "all of it."

"i see." fortescue nodded politely and picked a cup up from the coffee service that lay between them.

"of course, as he points out whenever pressed on the subject, the use of apprentices could hardly be a more time-honored procedure."

"indeed. but do the buyers in today's market accept that? excuse me for saying so, but i have noticed that the yankee mentality has a partiality for what it is regards as the "real thing".

for complete episode, click here

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 313: Futuyama

In a dimly-lit corridor off a dank dark alleyway in Singapore, our hero Arnold Schnabel and his faithful friend (and the current narrator of our story) Big Ben Blagwell have finally encountered the mysterious Madame Chang…

(Please click here to read our immediately preceding chapter; if you’re looking for a new lifetime endeavor, go here to return to the very beginning of this Gold View Award™-winning 81-volume masterpiece.)

“Arnold Schnabel in his massive chef-d'œuvre managed not only to make meaningless the distinctions between fiction and autobiography, he also rendered meaningless the borders between reality and fantasy, between waking and sleep, and, yea, between life and death.” -- Harold Bloom, in Cosmopolitan.

“Gee, doll,” I said. “Mojo said you were an old lady.”

“I am old,” she said.

“Aw, no you’re not.”

“I am one hundred and ninety-eight years old.”

“Really? Because I’m surprised to hear that,” I said. I was biding for time with this chitchat you understand, trying to figure out what I was going to do about the fact that this dame was pointing an automatic at my chest from a distance of maybe four feet. “I would’ve taken you for twenty-nine years old, maybe thirty at the oldest,” I said, never having met a broad yet who didn’t fall for flattery if you know what I mean.

“So,” she said. “You’re saying I look thirty?”

“Yeah,” I said, taking a drag on my Sweet Caporal and wondering what the caliber was on that little hunk of steel she was holding. I made it a .32, maybe even a .25, but even a bullet that size can cause some damage if it makes a hole in the right spot, even with a big strapping fellow like myself. “Not a day over thirty,” I tossed in for good measure.

“I have never been so insulted in my life,” she said, and she raised the pistol so that it was pointing right between my eyes.

See, there you go, and as I have often observed, sometimes with a dame the truth just isn’t good enough. No, check that, make it “most times”.

“Um,” I said.

“I should just plug you right now for insulting me so, you great oaf.”

“Aw, gee, babe,” I said. “Don’t get upset. I meant like at an outside, very outside chance you might look a very, very well-preserved, and may I say, a very beautiful thirty years of age, and I’m saying thirty years old tops, or should I say thirty years young rather. Much more likely I’d say you look twenty-five, maybe even early twenties, yeah, now that I think about it I’m gonna say early twenties, like twenty-three maybe?”

“Don’t try to take it back now,” she said. “What is that perfume you’re wearing? I can smell it from here.”

“Oh, that,” I said, and I lifted one arm and took a sniff. “It’s Shalimar. You see, I was in kind of a hurry, and I didn’t have time to take a shower, you know, and so this lady friend of mine had this bottle of Shalimar on her dresser, and --”

“I don’t want to hear your life story,” she said.

“Actually,” I said, “you might be surprised. I’ve had a pretty interesting life. For instance, one time out in Panama --”

“Help your friend up,” she said.

“Oh. Okay,” I said. I could tell she didn’t want to hear about that Panama caper, at least not right then and there. “Sure, doll.”

I turned around. Arnie was actually already sitting up, holding his hat in his hands, although he still looked pretty dazed. I stepped around behind him, stuck my Caporal between my lips, bent at the knees, and got my hands under his armpits.

“Come on, fella,” I said. “You know you should always stand in the presence of a lady.”

“Cut the wisecracks and get him on his feet,” said Madame Chang.

I always like to do whatever a lady asks me to, especially when she’s got a gat on me, so I hefted Arnie up to a standing position.

“You okay, pal?” I asked, keeping my mitts on him in case he should start to keel over. “You got your sea legs?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said, all quiet like.

“Put your hat on now,” I said. “Hey, Madame Chang, it okay with you Arnie puts his hat on?”

“It is a matter of complete indifference to me,” she said.

“Okay then, put your lid on, pal,” I said, still holding him under the arms.

Very slowly he lifted his fedora up, with both hands, and put the hat on his head.

“Good boy,” I said. “Now. Can I let go? You’re not gonna fall down, are you?”

“I -- think -- I’m okay,” he said, although he didn’t sound too sure.

I let go of him with my right hand but kept my left hand under his left arm.

“You’re sure?” I said.

“Um,” he said.

I was still standing behind him, and what I figured I’d do, while Arnie’s body was blocking me I figured I’d quick try to pull Maxine’s snubnose out from under my Hawaiian shirt and maybe squeeze off a shot at Madame Chang before she had a chance to see what I was doing, even though I hate the idea of shooting a lady, but what the hell, sometimes you got to do things you hate to do in order to survive, and I’ve even eaten cockroaches in order to survive, so, believe me I wasn’t anticipating losing a whole lot of sleep over the possibility of plugging a dame before she could plug me. Of course this impromptu plan of mine could also mean she might get off a possibly fatal shot or two herself into my pal Arnie, but no plan is foolproof, and sometimes you just got to take a chance.

“Madame Chang!”

This was so sudden and loud, I almost spit my cigarette out of my yap, and wouldn’t you know it, it was Mojo, who had just woken up from his own ten-count.

He was sitting there in the corner near the doorway, and pointing his stubby little finger at me.

“He has a gun, Madame Chang!” he squealed. “He took my Luger! The great big bully! He hit me and he took my Luger.”

“All right, Mojo,” I said. I’m still standing behind Arnie, keeping my left hand on him, but I had stopped reaching for the snubnose. “First off, it’s not your Luger. It’s Arnie’s here. And second of all, I wouldn’t have popped you one if you hadn’t stolen it from Arnie after doping him up and if you weren’t pointing the Luger at me at the time, you little toad.”

Mojo picked up his hat from where it had fallen on the floor, popped it on his dome and scrabbled up to his feet, rubbing his jaw where I had clipped him with that right hook.

“Let me get the Luger from him, Madame Chang!”

“All right, Mojo,” she said. “You, Two-Ton Tony,” she wiggled her automatic at me. “Step away from your pal.”

I stepped to Arnie’s right, sliding my left hand along his back, and keeping it on him, because he still didn’t look too solid on his feet.

“Mojo,” she said. “Get behind the gorilla and take the Luger.”

Mojo staggered over behind me. I had the snubnose in the left side of my dungarees, the Luger on the right. I lifted up my right Hawaiian-shirttail. Mojo didn’t know I had Maxine’s snubby on me, and I hoped to keep it that way. Fortunately, the way my gut pushed out my shirt, kind of like a colorful Porto Rican carnival tent, I don’t think you could really tell I was packing any roscoes under it at all.

I felt Mojo pull the Luger out.

“I should plug you now,” he said, or I guess I’m supposed to say “hissed”, that’s what those real writer fellows always write in these kind of situations, but it wasn’t really like a hiss to be honest. Let’s just say he said it like he meant it, like he was squeezing the words out of his mouth.

“Cool it, Mojo,” said Madame Chang. “Anybody does any plugging around here it’s going to be me.”

“Yeah, do like the lady says, Mojo,” I said.

Me, I was just glad the little twerp hadn’t thought to frisk me for another rod. He stepped around in front of me and Arnie to the right, and I saw he was smart enough to flick the safety off on the Luger.

“What the hell are you doing, Mojo?” said Madame Chang.

“I am keeping them covered with this Luger, Madame Chang.”

“What about frisking the big ape? Maybe he’s got another rod, or a shiv.”

“Oh, sorry, Madame Chang,” said Mojo. “My mistake. I did frisk the other one earlier, and I assure you he only had this Luger on him.”

“I don’t give a damn what you did before with the other one. Now frisk the big one and do it right.”

“Yes, Madame Chang, at once.”

“Stop talking and do it, you disgusting slug.”

Now in my line of business, which, let’s face it, is basically being a freebooting seafaring man of adventure, you got to learn how to think fast, otherwise, believe me, I wouldn’t be here right now telling you all this. So, while Mojo and Madame Chang were yammering at each other, what I did was -- since my left side was still a little behind Arnie’s right side -- I dipped my left hand down from where I had been holding it on Arnie’s back, got the snubnose out of my pants, and stuck it up under the back of Arnie’s suit jacket and into the back of his waistband -- one of the slicker moves I ever have pulled off, and Arnie was on the ball enough not to give any indication of what I had just done, or then again maybe he was just still too doped up to show any sign.

Anyway, right after I pull off the switch, Mojo comes around behind me again and gives me a good and thorough pat-down. Maybe even a little too thorough. It felt like a weasel crawling all over me, and believe me, that’s something I know what it feels like.

“What is that scent you are wearing?” he said.

I was getting tired of that question already.

“It’s Shalimar,” I said, “and I’m only wearing it on account of I didn’t have time to take a shower after me and Maxine, you know --”

“Shut up, giant idiot,” said Madame Chang.

I shut up. I was starting to bore myself anyway.

“What you should do, Madame Chang,” said Mojo, and now he stepped in front of me and Arnie again, to the right, keeping out of Madame Chang’s line of fire. “What you should do is just shoot the big one, or even better let me shoot him.”

“Mojo,” I said. “I thought we were pals.”

“That was before you nearly broke my jaw, you big bully.”

It’s true his jaw was swollen where I had popped him, and starting to turn purple, too.

“Well, I’m sorry, Mojo,” I said, “but, under the circs, what the hell would you expect me to do?”

“I would expect nothing less from a great brute like you, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

See, there’s the Oriental mind for you, or French-Chinese-Cherokee-whatever the hell kind of mind Mojo had. No sense of logic whatsoever. Up is down with these people. Now is then. Heaven is in the moment. God is everything. Hell is in your brain. No logic at all.

“Shall I plug him, Madame Chang?” said Mojo.

“I’ve already told you, slug, any plugging to be done, I’ll be the one plugging. Now, you two,” she said, looking at me and Arnie, “go through the doorway and then down this hall, single file, and walk slow.”

“Slow and easy-like?” I said.

“Whatever,” she said. “Now move. The normal-sized one first, then you, Gargantua.”

She gave a little wave with her pistol, and Arnie and I moved, going past Mojo and Madame Chang, who both kept their gats on us every step of the way.

Down we went along this dim corridor, walls painted a sad sick yellow, no doors, no windows, it gave me the creeps, like walking the last mile to the electric chair. Arnie was weaving just ever so slightly, and I don’t think he could’ve moved any faster right then even if he had wanted to, what with that Mickey Finn still in his system. At the end of the corridor was a facing wall and a turning to the right.

“All right,” said Madame Chang behind us, “stop at the corner.”

We stopped.

“Mojo,” said the lady, “go past them into the opposite corner, and keep them covered. Either one tries anything, then you get to shoot them.”

“Oh, good,” said the shrimp, and he brushed past me and Arnie, walking sideways with the Luger on us.

“All right, you two,” said Madame Chang. “Go ahead and turn the corner, slow.”

“And easy-like, too?” I said, looking over my shoulder and just catching her with the corner of my eye.

“Just move, moron,” she said.

So, we went around the corner, Mojo with his back to the other corner and keeping his Luger on us, and now we were in another dim hallway, but a shorter one with a multi-colored beaded curtain hanging at the other end.

“Go through the curtain,” said Madame Chang, right behind us. “Slow.”

We went through the curtain, slow, and finally we came into a real room, and what a room it was. It was like a cross between the parlor of a high-class Hong Kong whorehouse, a public library, and a museum, not that I’ve been in too many museums and public libraries in my life, but I’ve seen them in movies.

Madame Chang and Mojo came through the bead curtain right behind us, and we turned to face them. They still had those pistols on us of course.

“Nice pad, Madame Chang,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m still working on it, but it’s getting there. Maybe another fifty years and I will be somewhat satisfied.”

“Well, you can’t rush perfection,” I said.

“Futuyama!” yelled Madame Chang.

“Pardon me?” I said.

“I’m not talking to you, Dumbo,” she said. “Ah, Futuyama!”

I heard a heavy tread behind me, kind of like how you’d imagine a baby elephant to sound walking on its hind legs, and I turned to look.

What I saw was absolutely the biggest and scariest-looking Oriental guy I’d ever seen, and I’m a fellow what’s knocked around the Orient quite a bit in my time.

He was a great big potbellied bruiser with no shirt on, but wearing some kind of fancy embroidered skirt and no shoes. He also had his hair tied up on his head just like a broad. But one look at him told me he wasn’t the type of Oriental guy you’d want to make fun of just because he wore a skirt and a top-knot.

“Futuyama,” said Madame Chang, “tea for four, please.”

(Continued here, doggedly if not indefatigably.)

(Kindly turn to the right-hand column of this page for a reasonably-up-to-date listing of links to all other cybernetically-published chapters of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train To Heaven©. Soon to be a major motion picture from Monogram, directed by Hugo Haas and starring George Raft as Arnold Schnabel, Wallace Beery as Big Ben Blagwell, and Anna May Wong as Madame Chang.)




tales of the hotel st crispian: chapter 69

"cosima gets down to business"

by manfred skyline

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

williams had just finished trimming the crusts of the last roast beef sandwich for conrad and his two guests, when he heard the front door open. he stopped and listened, then relaxed and proceeded with the sandwiches when he heard cosima's unmistakable authoritative steps approaching. he was neatly arranging the sandwiches on a china plate with olives and radishes when cosima entered the kitchen. "good morning, miss." "good morning." "these are for mister conrad and his guests. then i will make yours. your guest is not due for another twenty minutes or so, correct?" "sure, sure. no problem. no rush." cosima took a pack of tareytons out of her pocket and lit one with a match from a box on top of the gleaming white stove. she leaned back against the kitchen counter. "tell me, williams. did conrad and his friends arrive in a cab?" "i assume they did, miss. they didn't say otherwise. and i took a quick look at the street outside and there were no private vehicles." "did you notice a cab on the street, between lexington and park?" williams thought a moment. "i might have seen one. headed west?" "yes." "there may have been one. a fair way up the street though." "probably not the cab they came in?" "i suppose it could have been, if it made a u turn or backed up half a block. " williams was used to curious and apparently pointless questions from all the family. also to their artless prying into each other's affairs.

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