Mash Up Read online

  Almost Blonde Annie frowns. “Is that fair?”

  “Don’t worry,” says Bet-a-Bunch Murphy. “She is still nowhere near as heavy a favorite as Bubbles La Tour was before she scratched.”

  The other women aren’t paying much attention to Murphy or Mimsy. Each of them is speaking into their cell phones, and we know what is coming next, just not in what order.

  Spellsinger Solly is the first to arrive. He pauses just long enough for Snake-Hips Levine to fork over some cash. Then he snaps his fingers, and Mimsy Borogrove’s gorgeous wedding gown has suddenly turned into some severely tailored widow’s weeds.

  “Get me outta these things!” she screams, tearing at the clothes, and Impervious Irving and Gently Gently Dawkins help her, and suddenly she is standing there in nothing but her lacy underthings, and there’s not much of them, and she is glaring at Morris. “Do something!” she bellows.

  Morris takes a good look at her, of which an awful lot is exposed for looking at, and applauds.

  “Something else, damn it!” she snaps.

  Morris mutters a spell, and she is back in the dress she entered with.

  “That’s a relief,” says Benny Fifth Street.

  “Is it?” asks Joey Chicago curiously.

  Benny nods. “Another ten seconds and I’d have proposed to her myself.”

  The other mages start showing up, each finds his client, and I am hoping that we are about to have a Mexican standoff, because as far as I can see the alternative is a Mexican shootout.

  The mages each have a drink, and then I assume that they begin mentally bombarding Malone with marriage proposals, because he claps his hands over his ears, scrunches up his eyes, and screams, “I ain’t getting married!”

  “What are you doing?” demands Morris, as I work on the blackboard.

  “I am adjusting the odds,” I reply.

  “How?” asks Bet-a-Bunch Murphy.

  “I had Mimsy Borogrove as the nine-to-five favorite,” I answer, “but now I put her at six-to-one.”

  “Why?” demands Morris, who is clearly concerned for his client.

  “She gets dressed,” I answer.

  “Is that all?” he says, muttering a spell and pointing to her – but just as he points she turns to the bar to order another drink, and the spell hits Gently Gently Dawkins full force, and suddenly he is standing there in his colorful boxer shorts and his undershirt and not much else.

  “Petunias!” giggles Loose Lips Louie, pointing to the flower design on Dawkins’s shorts. “Ain’t that sweet?”

  “He may not be much,” I whisper to Milton, “but he’s one of ours. Do something.”

  “Right,” Milton whispers back. He mumbles a spell and a bumblebee crawls out of one of the petunias, flies across the room, and stings Loose Lips Louie on the nose.

  Louie bellows in pain, and Stella Houston, who is standing beside him, laughs.

  “Lady,” says Louie, dabbing his wound with a napkin, “you might as well go home. You ain’t ever gonna get a husband with an attitude like yours.”

  Well, there is one husband she is never going to get, and that is Loose Lips Louie, and she starts pummeling him with such intensity that it looks like no one else is ever going to get him either, unless they are heavily into necrophilia, but finally her mage, Willie the Wizard, pulls her back.

  “Why are you stopping me?” she demands.

  “You only give me three C-notes,” he says, “which is fine for a wedding, but nowhere near enough to get you out of stir after you have been arrested for murder. Let us concentrate on marrying you to this poor unassuming bozo who has no idea what misery is in store for him.”

  It is entirely possible that he is going to say more, but suddenly Stella Houston starts pummeling him instead. He gets loose and runs out into the street with Stella in hot pursuit.

  “Another scratch,” says Benny Fifth Street. “This field is getting smaller and smaller.”

  “Right,” says Gently Gently, who actually looks more comfortable without his suit and shirt, which are about four sizes smaller than he is. “I figure we are down to maybe only a million eligible women.”

  “Let us eliminate all those women who are not attracted to Malone because of the money he is carrying around with him.”

  “Right,” says Dawkins. “Now we are down to nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven, give or take.”

  “Let’s be reasonable,” suggests Bet-a-Bunch Murphy, which I personally think would make a pleasant change. “There are so many mages on the scene that there is no way, now that Bubbles La Tour has scratched, that any woman without a mage has a chance.”

  “You know, he’s got a point,” says Brontosaur Nelson.

  I find that I have to agree with him, and shortly thereafter I come up with the evening line, which reads as follows:

  Snake-Hips Levine, 9-2

  Bodacious Belinda, 5-1

  Mimsy Borogrove, 6-1

  Almost Blonde Annie, 6-1

  Penelope Precious, 8-1

  Lascivious Linda, 8-1

  Bedroom Eyes Bernice, 10-1

  And the rest go up in odds from there.

  “Harry, you must be out of your mind,” whispers Benny Fifth Street. “You’ve got Lascivious Linda down there at eight-to-one. Why, she can take Snake-Hips Levine in straight falls.”

  “They are all utterly charming morsels of femininity,” I say, “and I would never try to rank them in order of desirability, at least not without a set of body armor. But I am not ranking the ladies so much as I am ranking their mages.”

  “Aha!” says Benny. “Now it makes sense.”

  “You are forgetting something vitally important,” says Malone.

  “Oh?” I say. “What is that?”

  “I ain’t marrying none of them!” he bellows.

  “Please do not interrupt us when we are having a serious discussion,” says Benny. And he goes on to tell me which mages he thinks I am ranking too high.

  “Milton,” says Malone, with just a note of panic in his voice, “you’re the resident mage here. Make them all go away.”

  “All the other mages?” asks Milton. “That will leave you at the mercy of the very people you wish to have nothing to do with.”

  “Not the mages,” says Malone. “The women.”

  “Probably their mages would object,” says Milton, “and looking around the tavern I see twelve… no, fourteen of them.”

  “That is no problem,” says Malone. He takes my chalkboard away and lays it on the far end of the bar. The mages all gather around it, studying the odds and arguing about whether their prices are too short or too long. “You see?” continues Malone. “They are only concerned with where Harry ranks them. Their interest in the women starts and stops with their fees.”

  Milton takes a good hard look, and sure enough, none of the mages is paying any attention to the women.

  “What the hell,” says Milton. “Give me ten large and I’ll vanish them all.”

  “Forever?” asks Benny Fifth Street, who seems to have taken a liking to, or at least an interest in, Mimsy Borogrove.

  Milton shakes his head. “Not for a lousy ten thousand dollars. But I’ll vanish them long enough for Malone to take what remains of his stash and head out into the wild, untamed wilderness of New Jersey.”

  “It’s a deal,” says Malone, and he peels off the ten large and hands it to Milton, who stuffs it into a pocket.

  “Now I’m only going to have time to cast this spell once before the other mages notice what is happening, so I need to gather all the women close together.”

  Having said that, Milton starts leading each of the women over to the farthest part of the bar from where the mages are. He has twelve of them standing together and is just leading Lascivious Linda over when we hear a female voice bellow from the doorway: “Since when did you become a collector?” and in walks Mitzi McSweeney with blood in her eye.

  “You misunderstand, my dear,
” says Milton nervously, backing away a few steps as she approaches him with her hands balled up into fists. “I am just doing a service for Plug Malone here, who has no desire to be near any of these women.”

  “So you’re carting them all off as a favor to him?” she screams.

  “Certainly not,” says Milton. “Women don’t interest me at all. I prefer you.”

  “WHAT?” she bellows.

  “I didn’t mean that,” says Milton, his hands stretched out defensively in front of him as he begins backing away toward his office.

  “Just don’t let him vanish all your clothes,” says Mimsy Borogrove as Mitzi McSweeney walks by her in pursuit of Milton. “I didn’t realize how cold it was in here until—”

  She does not get to finish the sentence.

  “You vanished her clothes?” demands Mitzi.

  “Never!” protests Milton, his back to the door of the men’s room. “That was Morris the Mage’s spell. I cannot vanish anyone’s clothes unless I say barota nictu!”

  And as quick as the words leave his mouth, Mitzi McSweeney’s clothes disappear.

  Milton’s eyes widen, more in terror than lust. He swallows hard and leans back against the door, which starts giving way. “You’re looking… uh… well today,” he says, then turns and races hell for leather into the interior of his office.

  Mitzi is one step behind him as the door swings shut and they vanish from sight. There follows a great deal of noise, a few shrieks of pain and terror, a crash, and a lot of words I never knew existed, all screamed in a feminine voice.

  “Now magic them back – or else!” yells the voice.

  There is a brief pause, and then a fully dressed Mitzi McSweeney emerges from Milton’s office. She pauses and turns to him just before the door swings shut.

  “I’ll talk to you later!” she snaps and walks out of the tavern.

  I head toward the men’s room, with Benny and Gently Gently falling into step behind me. Just before I get there I call Dead End Dugan over, in case the carnage is so great that only a zombie can endure it on an empty stomach, and then the four of us enter.

  “Any sports fans see this and they will never talk about Muhammad Ali again,” says Benny.

  “Who would have guessed that there was that much blood in a body?” asks Gently Gently.

  “It’s not in him,” notes Benny. “It’s on him.”

  “And there wasn’t a mark on her,” adds Gently Gently in awestruck tones.

  “Thad’s because I ab a gendulmad,” says Milton, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his nose. “Helb ged me on my feed.”

  We help him up. He sways a bit, but then Dugan steadies him.

  “Thag you,” he says, blowing some more blood out of his nose. “Thad woman has a left you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I think we’re missing a bet here,” says Gently Gently.

  “Oh?” I say.

  “Have Milton cast a spell to marry Mitzi McSweeney off to Malone. No one’s bet on her, so you’ll win all the money, and this way Milton will at least live ’til his next birthday.”

  “No!” says Milton. “She is the love of my life, or at least the goal of it. I will give her time to cool off and then throw myself at her mercy.”

  Last time you throw yourself at her mercy you miss, I remind him, and she is somewhat less than pleased with what you hit.

  He winces in pain at the memory. Maybe I had better just extend my hand in friendship.

  And the last time you do that, adds Benny, she is bending over watering her flowers, and you know what happened.

  “I am the greatest mage in Manhattan,” groans Milton. “In all of New York City, even. How can this keep happening to me?”

  “Luck,” suggests Dead End Dugan.

  “Luck?” repeats Milton uncomprehendingly.

  Dugan nods. “With a left like she has, you should have been as dead as me months ago.”

  We escort Milton back to the bar, where all the other mages are still arguing over the evening line, and all the women are eyeing Malone not unlike the way a healthy cat eyes a crippled mouse.

  “The women are still here!” snaps Malone, reaching into Milton’s pocket and taking back his ten large.

  “You are having your usual fine luck with the opposite sex,” noted Morris the Mage.

  Milton, whose nose has started bleeding again, mutters a curse. It comes out as “Blmskph!”

  “Let us be charitable here,” adds Spellsinger Solly. “You have to admit that Mitzi McSweeney is about as opposite as sexes get.”

  “You are speagig aboud the woman I love!” growls Milton. “Well, lust for,” he amends.

  “Let us get back to the man we all lust for,” says Almost Blonde Annie. She turns to her mage, Sam Mephisto, who does most of his magicking in the Bronx. “I paid you good money for a husband. I want him.”

  “I am working on it,” says Sam Mephisto. “These things take time.”

  “Work faster!” she snaps.

  “Not to worry,” he says. “If worst comes to absolute worst, I’ll marry you myself.”

  That is when we learn that interacting with the female of the species is not a problem unique to Big-Hearted Milton, but may very well affect all mages. Dead End Dugan and Impervious Irving wait until she pauses for breath and lift him up to the bar, where Joey Chicago douses his face with water.

  Sam Mephisto blinks a few times, then slowly sits up. “That was a most amazing experience,” he says. “For a minute there I dream I am back in Egypt, mounted on my camel and leading my men into battle against General Sherman.” Which is when we know he is not entirely recovered, unless General Sherman went further astray than most history books would have us believe.

  He gets down off the bar, blinks his eyes a few more times, and finally speaks. “It has been a long, hard night,” he says. “I think I am going to take a little nap.” And with that he slides down to the floor and lies there, snoring up a storm.

  “Some mage!” snaps Almost Blonde Annie, making the same kind of disgusted face I make whenever I see Gently Gently Dawkins pour Tabasco sauce on his oatmeal. She glares from one man to another, and finally says, “I am a woman alone, without representation. Isn’t anyone going to do something about it?”

  I decide that she has a point, so I walk over to the blackboard where I have posted the evening line and raise her odds to forty-to-one.

  She takes a glass of beer off the bar, throws it in Sam Mephisto’s face, and stalks out into the night, leaving him licking his lips while still snoring.

  “Well, that’s one less to worry about,” says Malone with a sigh of relief.

  “Two,” says Benny. “Stella Houston’s probably still chasing Willie the Wizard all over Manhattan.”

  “Right,” adds Gently Gently, surveying the tavern. “Twelve more and you’re out of the woods.”

  “Well, ’til tomorrow, anyway,” agrees Benny.

  “I hadn’t even thought about tomorrow,” says Malone.

  “Well, you had better be prepared for it, because how long do you think you can keep something like fifty-three large a secret?” says Gently Gently. “Why, even now, I’ll bet women are approaching from Connecticut and New Hampshire and New Jersey, maybe even from as far away as Delaware.” He furrows his brow in thought. “It must be borne on the wind, like phera… phero… those things that perfume tries to copy.”

  Even as he speaks three more women enter the tavern, looking neither right nor left, but eyes trained straight ahead on Malone.

  “Milton, do something!” says Malone, his voice shaking.

  “I ab doing subthig!” snaps Milton, still holding his handkerchief to his face. “I ab bleeding!”

  One of the three newcomers notices all the mages, and immediately pulls out her cell phone and speaks to it in low tones. The other two soon follow suit.

  “Well, whatever the result,” says Joey Chicago happily, “at least we are doing some business.”

  “Why don’t
they all want to marry you then?” asks Malone.

  “Because I lose all my money betting with Harry on everything from horses to politics,” answers Joey. “Why, just last night I bet on Horrible Herman to win a steel cage match at the Garden.”

  “And does he?” asks Malone.

  Joey Chicago shakes his head. “The steel cage beats him without drawing a deep breath.”

  Two mages walk in the front door and a third materializes by the jukebox, so I walk over to the chalkboard and adjust the evening line again.

  Suddenly I am confronted by Morris the Mage.

  “You really think my entry is no better than a six-to-one shot?” he says pugnaciously.

  “It’s a well-matched field,” I say. “And unless it comes up mud, I still make Snake-Hips Levine the favorite.”

  “Maybe we should make her carry extra weight,” suggests Gently Gently.

  “Shut up!” snaps Morris. He turns back to me. “Six to one, that’s your final odds?”

  “Not necessarily,” I reply. “The starting gate is far from full yet.”

  “But you don’t expect her odds to go any lower?”

  “Not unless Snake-Hips Levine or Bodacious Belinda scratch,” I say.

  “All right,” says Morris, pulling out his wad and peeling off a dozen hundred-dollar bills. “I’m putting twelve C-notes on her to win the Plug Malone Sweepstakes.”

  This makes all the other mages look like they lack confidence, and soon they are all lined up, putting bets down on their entries, and when they are all done the purse is up over fifteen large and one or two of the women are looking at me the way they look at Plug Malone, but then they remember I will have to pay most of it to the winner, and I am back to being a wallflower again.

  “Well, Plug baby, where shall we go on our honeymoon?” asks Lascivious Linda.

  “We don’t need a maid coming along with us, Plug honey,” says Bedroom Eyes Bernice. “Tell her we want to be alone.”

  “Tell them both,” chimes in Bodacious Belinda. “It’s me that you love.”

  “I don’t love anyone!” yells Malone.

  “It’s me he’d better love,” says Bodacious Belinda, glaring at her mage.