How I Conquered Your Planet (2 page)

I had been auditioning new secretaries. This one, I felt, was
too honest. She disagreed.

“
My mother taught me that honesty was the best policy.”

“
Your mother’s fired too.”

I really couldn’t afford a secretary anyway. As I mentioned
before, my money situation wasn’t all that great. And now that I’d lost my
second income, things were even worse. I’d originally thought this was going to
be a real bang-up year, so I had spent a lot of money upgrading the office and
installing a Disneyland style line to slowly wind clients up to my desk. That
cost me over eight thousand dollars because I had the guys from Disney put it
in for me. If you’re going to do something, I figured at the time, you should
do it right. I’ve since realized if you’re going to do something, you should do
it as half-assed as you can. It’s cheaper, faster, easier, and nobody in this
world or the next can tell the difference. Nobody can. Check it out.

All my normal day to day expenses were going up too. The price
of a private investigator’s license had suddenly jumped up by 50% to help pay
for some stupid school children’s lunches. The government thought a bunch of
little kids’ lunches were more important than my lunch. That’s bureaucratic
thinking for you. I could write a book about bureaucratic thinking. Or maybe a
play would be better. It might make a better play.

Even my rent had gone up during the year. My landlord couldn’t
justify the increase by pointing to the inflation rate, which was quite low at
the time, so he just said that my office had gotten $50 better, it was $50
closer to the ocean or something. I told him that $50 was a lot of money. I
pointed out that, for example, I could have him killed for $50. He said he
could have me killed for $50 too. By the same guy. We stared at each other for
awhile, fingering our wallets, then I decided to pay the additional rent.

The only thing that wasn’t going up was the daily rate I
charged my clients. I couldn’t raise that because it was felt by everybody that
I was already charging more than I was worth. Can’t argue with everybody, I
guess. Everybody can’t be wrong.

The problem was I wasn’t very good at things. Everybody knows
somebody like that. And I was the guy I knew. I wasn’t very dependable either.
And I guess I didn’t smell too good most of the time. I didn’t have much going
for me, to be honest.

Sometimes I wished there were an easier planet to live on
because this one was so hard for me. I realized there was no place like home. I
mean, there couldn’t be two places this bad. But that didn’t make me like it
any better.

During the year I had tried all kinds of creative ways to
increase my business. I offered volume discounts to victims of more than one
crime, and began accepting Crime Stamps.

My radio campaign didn’t generate much business, though I never
saw what was wrong with it. The commercial went like this:

ME: (HIGH VOICE) “What’s the matter, Edna?”

ME: (MIDDLE VOICE) “My detective isn’t solving my cases
lately.”

ME: (HIGH VOICE) “Sounds like you need to hire Frank Burly.”

ME (MIDDLE VOICE) “That’s what I was thinking.”

It had the right message. Maybe the “boinnnngggg!” sounds I put
in after each couple of words hurt the tone.

I tried holding a “One Second Sale”. If you had your first
crime solved* in the regular amount of time, you got your second crime solved*
in one second.

The Frank Burly Double Your Money Back Detective School didn’t
work out. Most of the people who signed up for it weren’t serious about
learning about detecting. They were just in it for the Double Your Money Back.
They got their money, all right. If that’s all they cared about, fine. But I gave
each of them a failing grade.

When I couldn’t bring any more cash in, I tried to lower the
amount going out. I switched to smaller caliber bullets, started making my own
clothes, and finding my own gas. And I tried to find a secretary who would
answer the phone for tips.

The applicants who showed up weren’t acceptable. Either they
were too honest, too clumsy (I’ve still got a telephone receiver in my back
somewhere), or they didn’t understand how a phone worked and would just sit
there and listen to it ring until we both started to die.

On this particular day, there were about a dozen applicants for
the job waiting in my waiting room, but I didn’t hold out much hope for them.
Still, I had to find somebody. I was thinking it might be a good time to lower
my standards. I spent a few minutes with a pencil and a piece of paper figuring
out how low my standards could go. I decided I would now accept minorities,
cripples and the criminally insane. One-eyed men were back in the running, as
well as people without voice boxes. I reduced the minimum number of arms, legs
and teeth I would accept. And I decided they no longer had to speak English.
They could communicate with me in the language of their choice. I figured with
low standards like that, just about everybody would be able to work for me.

I flipped the switch on my solid gold intercom (another
expense!) and called in the next applicant. But that person turned out to be
gone. So were the next three applicants. In fact, everyone in my waiting room
was gone except for one small gremliny-looking man, who I instantly recognized
as Arthur Gremlin, the bookkeeper for Mr. Thorson, down at the bus company. I
said it was a small world and he said he thought so too.

“
Small. And weak.”

I asked what he was doing here and he said he had quit the bus
company when he heard about the great job I was offering. I admitted the job
wasn’t that great – my full page ads in the newspaper had exaggerated the
benefits a little bit. For example there would be no chance for advancement. My
company only had two jobs. He could never work his way up from his job to my
job. He said that was all right. He would be satisfied to remain a secretary.

I asked where the other applicants had gone, the ones who had
been here ahead of him, and would have probably gotten the job before he did,
and he said the answer to that was simple. There were no other applicants, and
never had been. They simply never existed.

“
Oh, good,” I said. “I was hoping it was something simple like
that. Come on in.”

He followed me hissing into the office, then sat down opposite
me at the desk and hissed. He had done a lot of hissing back at the bus company
too, I remembered.

“
Hey, what’s with all the hissing?”

He drew back and hissed, but didn’t explain. I didn’t bring the
subject up again, but I think he did actually cut down a little bit on the
hissing. I started going through my routine interview questions.

“
Born?”

“
Yes.”

“
Where?”

“
Here.”

“
In my office? You’re lying.”

“
No, on this planet.”

“
Oh. Well good, because that’s a requirement.” I made a mental
note to make that a requirement.

It was obvious by the end of the interview that Arthur Gremlin
was a gem. He satisfied all of my requirements for a secretary. He could type,
open and close the door unaided, and answer the phone when it rang - not
before, not long after, but when. But there was something weird about the guy.
He kind of creeped me out. I also didn’t like the thoughts he kept trying to
put in my head. Thoughts of hiring him, and trusting him. As good as he was, I
decided I’d better keep looking.

I put on as sorrowful a face as I could and shook my head. “I’m
sorry, but you’ve got the job.”

He smiled.

“
That is to say, you’re hired. For life. With a big fat raise.”

He bowed his head slightly in gratitude.

I reassembled my thoughts, took a deep breath and said: “You
have excellent qualifications but when can you start?”

He smiled again. “I already have.”

Over the next few days I discovered that I had hired a
surprisingly dedicated secretary, who listened in on my phone calls, patted
down my visitors, looked through my desk for me each morning before I got in,
even appeared in my dreams taking notes.

He seemed to be trying to get into the Secretary Hall Of Fame,
if there was such a place. I didn’t think there was, but I didn’t tell him
that. Better to let him have his dreams. But I did tell him I wasn’t going to
be raising his salary, if that was what he was thinking. If that’s what all
this good work was about. A deal is a deal. He said he wasn’t in the
secretarial game for the money. He had other reasons. Just the prestige, I
guess.

My clients didn’t like him. He scared them. They complained
about his X-ray eyes. I thought they were exaggerating, but they showed me the
X-rays, so I guess they weren’t kidding. I told one of them he should be happy
to find out about that broken bone, but he wasn’t.

I have to admit he made me nervous sometimes too. But when I
thought of firing him, a kind of electric shock went through my brain, and I
started stuffing dirty socks in my mouth. So I stopped thinking about it.

Even with a brand new secretary parked out front, I was still
finding it hard to get clients. Something always seemed to happen just before
the money changed hands. One potential client was a theater owner who came into
my office sucking his hand.

“
Your secretary bit me!”

“
Were you teasing him?”

”
Well…sure, but…”

“
You’ve got to expect that to happen then. You’ve only got
yourself to blame.”

He sucked his sore hand again, then sat down and told me what
he had come about.

His story was a strange one and involved magicians, which made
me think of the strange people I had picked up at that bus stop out by the crop
circles. A small bolt of lightning that seemed to come from my secretary shot
across the room and went through my brain. I stopped thinking about the bus
stop and the lightning bolt went away. I guess there are some things we’re just
not meant to think about. Magicians and bus stops are the two I’ve noticed so
far.

The man said he was the manager of the Palace Theater downtown.
Last week the magician he had as his feature act had gone haywire somehow,
hypnotized himself into thinking he was a chicken, and then started demanding
corn from the audience.

The audience was amused at first, then began to grow frightened
as his demands grew more vehement. When a few members of the audience actually
gave him some corn he said it wasn’t enough. Finally the audience fled.

The theater manager had instantly fired the magician, giving
him the bum’s rush out the front door and a hearty kick towards the future. As
he was turning to go back into the theater he noticed a man dressed in
magician’s clothes leaning against a lamp post idly pulling rabbits out of a
hat and dropping them in a waste receptacle designed for that purpose.

“
Hey! Are you a magician?”

“
I am.”

Another rabbit was removed and disposed of.

“
How’d you like to work for the Thunder Wonder Circus Brothers
Show?”

“
I accept your generous offer.”

The theater manager paused in his story to mop both our brows. His
story was an exciting one, though it was a little weak in the third act. But I
didn’t see where a job for me came in.

“
Was he a fake or something? Is that your problem?”

“
No, he’s a magician all right. And a great one. He can pull a
rabbit out of a hat without putting one in there first.”

“
So what’s the problem?”

“
He’s ruining my business! Driving my customers away! He starts
off his performances with a few normal tricks, then as soon as he has the
audience’s complete attention, he hypnotizes them and pumps them for military
information.”

“
Does he get much?”

“
Sure. Theater audiences know everything. So I tell him to stick
to the standard tricks, they’re good enough for Central City, but he says he
won’t change his act for anybody. I keep trying to fire the guy but every time
I do I end up giving him a raise, a better parking place, and a box full of my
stuff. I can’t afford to fire him again. He’s already making more than I am.”

“
What exactly do you want me to do?” I didn’t know what he
wanted me to do. “Perform on stage with him?” I hazarded. “Because I don’t do
that.”

He looked at me like I was stupid. Why do people always look at
me like that? “No,” he said, “I want you to find out what kind of hold this guy
has on me and my audiences, and how I can get rid of him. I’ll pay you double
your normal rate. Interested?”

I was interested all right. I needed the money. My rent was
almost due and I knew better than to ask for an extension from my landlord, the
appropriately named Mr. Asshole. (He pronounces it ‘ah-SHOLEY’, but no one else
ever does.) So this job couldn’t have come at a better time.

I noticed the Gremlin was watching to see what I would do. I
opened my mouth to accept the assignment, then I noticed the theater manager
was looking at me strangely.