Read The Israel Bond Omnibus for Free Online Page B

clerk?”
    “His first name is Achmed. Just checked in an hour ago. Strange sort. When I asked him to register, he just gave me a blank look as though he didn’t understand what I was saying. He shoved a piece of paper in front of me that specifically requested he be quartered in the room next to yours. I thought the fellow was a friend of yours, so I saw no harm in assigning him 1817.”
    No sense making the clerk suspicious. Bond snapped his fingers as though in recollection. “Of course! My old buddy Achmed Jew! Slipped my mind completely. He and I golfed together in Jamaica last winter. He shot a seventy-four as I recall it now. Nice chap. Glad to have him aboard.”
    He thanked the clerk with a handful of Hubert Humphrey nickels and walked out onto the porch to give the matter some thought. Achmed Jew! And in the next room! Where was he from? Jordan? Kuwait? Saudi Arabia? Whoever he was he must be a dunderhead, indeed, to pick an on-the-head last name like “Jew” in order to blend into the crowd at this kind of a hotel. And to use his first name yet! What a faux pas! What Arabic stupidity! Or arrogance, rather, to think a name like Achmed would go unnoticed. No doubt, Mr. Achmed Jew felt uncomfortable in this totally alien environment. Well, he’d have to make Mr. Achmed Jew feel right at home—with a little welcome call late tonight.
    A burst of classical music brought him back to reality. It was from a transistor radio held by an old man in Bermuda shorts sitting in a rocking chair reading a Yiddish newspaper.
    Bond attempted a little friendly chit-chat. “That’s lovely. One of my favorites. What do you think of Tschaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’?”
    The old man waved a deprecating hand. “It’s not so hot. I stayed there last year. Food is terrible. Myself, if I could afford it—the Concord.” He went back to his newspaper.
    In the Leni Lenape Lounge, decorated with Eastern American Indian motifs—somewhat at variance with the Polynesian theme of the Kahn-Tiki—Bond spotted the man he thought was Angelo Saxon.
    “Saxon?”
    The tall, weedy blonde who wore a baggy (and rather gamey, Bond’s nose reported) brown woolen suit, sipping a Tom Collins, turned to him. “Why ... uh ... yes. Bond, is it? Sorry for my seeming impertinence, old man, but I’d heard you were in public relations like me. Thought you’d try to con old Loxfinger into some shady promotion or other. Had no idea you were ... uh ... in your type of occupation. Drink?”

    How tactful, Bond thought. Taken down a few pegs, he wants to be friendly. All right. We’ll join hands on the friendship trail for a bit. “Yes, thanks. Bartender, a Lhasa Lizard, please. Just a soupçon of mildly rancid yak butter in the bottom of the tumbler ... the right eye of any domestic lizard—iguana will do nicely ... one ounce of Gallo Wine—from the first squeezings of the grapes, please ... three crumbs from a Drake’s Yankee Doodle cupcake. Shake well. Now, how much? Sixty-five cents?” Bond’s chin shot out indignantly. “Good grief, man! Lhasa Lizards are never more than forty-five cents in the most elegant Manhattan posheries! The management will hear of this.”
    Nevertheless, he left the mixicologist some gleaming Bobby Baker pennies. Wasn’t the man’s fault actually. He didn’t set prices.
    “Now to business. What happened, Saxon?”
    Saxon took out a pack of Marvels, stuck one in his prim mouth. It figures, Bond thought. Wears a brown, sweaty woolen suit in a glittering Catskill hotel cocktail lounge, so naturally he smokes Marvels.
    “It happened rather quickly, Mr. Bond. Dr. Loxfinger—he’s been a ‘doctor,’ of course, ever since that honorary degree from Brandeis University—was exhorting the crowd in the Kahn-Tiki’s main ballroom to double their pledges to the UJA ... not the United Jewish Appeal ... this one’s a new organization which is seeking enough money to put Israel in the Nuclear Club. It stands for ‘Unleash