The Israel Bond Omnibus by Sol Weinstein Read Free Book Online Page B

smutty charges. No, Mr. Bond, I don’t let men into my life—or anything else. I’m smarter than any man I’ve ever met, stronger than most, and in that one little childish pastime you deride—marbles—I can best any man I’ve ever known.” She tensed defiantly. “Care for that game, Mr. Bond?”
    His eyes gleamed. “What’s in it for me if I win, Poontang?”
    “Win? WIN?” She exploded into helpless, thigh-whacking laughter, the first Bond had ever seen on that sullen face. My, she’s homely when she laughs.
    “Win? You stupid, prideful bastard! I’ll show you who’s really got balls at this table, Bond. I have. Right in my hand. The neatest shooters you ever saw smack a marble on its ass and send it flying!”
    Bond looked into her eyes, deviltry dancing in his own. “Let’s say the impossible is possible, Poontang. And I win. What’s in it for me?”
    She stood up regally, extended those staggeringly desirable mounds to within an inch of his twitching lips. “Yes ... they’re yours! Yours! And everything else that goes with ’em! Gladly! But you’ll never outshoot me, buster. And to make it interesting for me, I’ll relieve you of some of your long green. Shall we say twenty bucks for each captured marble?”
    “So, Her Nibs digs mibs, eh?”
    “That’s the size of it, lover boy. I’m throwing the gauntlet right in your craggy, cruelly handsome face and I hope to hell it drives your blackheads clear through your cheeks!”
    He spoke. The charm was gone from his voice now, she noticed. Good! She’d made the goodlooking bastard shook up.
    “You’re on, Poontang. Marbles it is. Noon tomorrow, any place on the hotel grounds you want. But I’d make it far from the main building, though. I don’t want the folks to be upset by your screams when I ...” He could hold back the sound of his gritting teeth no longer. In his passion a wisdom molar crumbled into chalk.
    “Brave words, buster. But you’re on. Tomorrow—noon.”
     

5 The Terror from the Top of the World
     
    “Israel Bond,” the voice said stoically. “You’re insane. Crazy. Demented. Mesheega in gontz.” [1]
    He did not take offense. After all, the voice was his own, coming from the dark face in the mirror, thickly lathered with Rokeach’s new mentholated cream. His hand clutched the razor which housed the super-keen Cuckoo stainless steel blade, superior by far, according to Better Beards and Blades , the authoritative shaving magazine, to G—, P—, even the W— from Great Britain.
    “You are insane,” the voice continued, “because you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in a comic opera thriller out of ‘Graustark’ by ‘The 39 Steps,’ $7.80, $5.60 and $3.20. Consider:
    “You are here to guard a Kosher Croesus named Loxfinger, who among other things wants to end constipation and war, not necessarily in that order.
    “Tomorrow at noon you are to play marbles with an equally deranged, albeit winsome, Lesbian.
    “Somewhere on these grounds is an alpine mulatto named Macaroon, who cracks boards with his hands and eats haggis ‘n chitlin’s.
    “To top it off, in the very next room is an Arab thug named Jew, who is here for the express purpose of putting an inglorious end to your obscene, womanizing existence.
    “And how did you prepare for all of this ... by getting blotto from a concoction whose component parts include the eye of a loathsome lizard?
    “You are insane, Israel Bond. Crazy, punchy, wacked up. End of lecture.”
    Thanks, friend, Bond said, throwing a salute at the reproachful face in the glass, but I’ve got some business to attend to tonight. Mr. Jew, par exemple. (In moods of cynical ennui Bond often thought in French.)

    His nerves raw from the tension he had undergone ever since the whole chaotic skein of events had started to unravel in Miami Beach, Bond gulped down one of Mother Margolies’ favorite relaxants—M & M, Manischewitz & Miltown. It would ease him into a peaceful late afternoon