Bill 4 - on the Planet of Tasteless Pleasure by Harry Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

Grandiose Gus, the Eternal Victor or some other such swill. They say I saved Earth from the swarms of Harpy creatures from Greekus Planetus, but hell, I was drinking lots of ouzo that week and it's all a blackout to me, so what the hay! All I know is that I woke up in the Parthenon with a hot blaster in my hands and the landscape looking like catharsis time in a Sophoclean tragedy. Phew, dead mythological critters everywhere!
    Then again, maybe I'm making all this up.
    That's what myths are, you know. Made-up stories with heroes and gods and things. Some of my critics say that I just make up all these stories and whisper them into the ears of my lovers, who promptly spread them all around Earth. Others say they've seen me furtively sneaking from the Library of New Alexandria with stolen copies of the Secret Writings of Joseph Campbell tucked under, my trench coat.
    Stuff and nonsense, of course. Truth is, while I generally keep a paperback copy of Edith Hamilton tucked into my chinos' back pocket to while away the boring bits of adventures, my real name is Philip Chandler from the mysterious world of Camelot. This Earth business started a few years ago when I was a private dick in Old LA, and the following narrative means to set the record straight.
    It was a sunny day in the City of Angels, and I was lubricating the bore of my .38 with oil and the back of my throat with some Jack Daniels, when the babe strolled into my office.
    “My name is Frigga Athena,” she sang, her mammoth gazongas hammocked in a steel bra that shone like a healthy Double Sun system. “Are you Philip Chandler, Private Third Eye from the Secret World of Camelot?”
    “That's right, sweetheart,” I snarled in my best Humphrey Bogart lisp. “Exiled here on Earth by Merlin himself after I trumped out in a Dimensional Bridge game.”
    She heaved those magnificent breasts at me like calling cards. “I'm in dreadful trouble, Mr. Chandler.” She was batting a pair of baby blues at me from a moviestar face, and was already batting a thousand with my pulse.
    “Trouble is my business, ma'am,” I told her. “'Specially trouble involving Beautiful Mythologically Proportioned Blondes. So what the scoop? Lost your unicorn? Husband cheating on you with that slut Aphrodite?”
    I offered her a glass of whiskey and she knocked it back like her tonsils were on fire. She sat down and I got a blast of Lotus Eaters Perfume like Bargain Night at Nero Wolfe's hothouse. “It's my husband, you see. Loki Agonistes. He's being blackmailed for running guns to semi-magical Third World Revolutionary countries.”
    Loki Agonistes! Buddha on Crutches! My eyes rolled like catseye marbles at the very name! I managed to get my eyes back in their orbits after some blind groping on my desk, and made appropriate gasping noises.
    “Christ, lady. I still got a couple thousand years left in this old bod! I fool around with people after Loki Agonistes and my karma will be in Hades' sling, and this section of my life will be included in the Egyptian BOOK OF THE DEAD, in the Dumb Dicks section!” I got up to show her out. “Why don't you try this buddy of mine. Lives in Sausalito on a houseboat called the Screwed Straight, name of Travis Watts. He handles the Metaphysical Detection. Me, I stick to pure Mythological stuff.”
    The broad's hopeful smile flip-flopped into a frown that almost touched her toes. “But Mr. Chandler, I want you!” Suddenly, those arms were around me, and I had a face full of galvanized mammaries and a snootful of pheromones that would have steamed up the testosterone of an Ice Giant in mid-winter. She started to grind against me. I supplied the bumps.
    By the time a half-hour passed and I came up for air from some serious couch Olympics, I was on the case.
    Little did I realize that if this was a cosmic card game I was just entering, I'd just pulled the Trump of Jerkoffs to play with.
    “It's like this,” she said breathily, smoking a cigarette and