Earth vs. Everybody
John Swartzwelder
Earth Vs. Everybody
Frank Burly 5
John Swartzwelder
CHAPTER ONE
I can’t afford both a vacation and a bathing suit. It’s one or the other. So that’s why I was lying on my back on the beach in my street clothes. Sure, it’s a little uncomfortable, but a guy in my income bracket can’t afford one of those fancy bathing suit vacations you read about in the travel magazines. I’m not made of money. I have to cut corners. And, to save money, I was lying on a blanket with people I didn’t know. Cheaper that way. Look it up.
I was vacationing in a place called “Mexifo”, which the ads said was every bit as good as Mexico, but for a lot less money. It was even better than Mexico in some ways, they said. Better for you. Because it had no sugar. No toilet paper either. In fact, there were a lot of things Mexifo didn’t have. It didn’t have its own language or traditions, for example. It couldn’t afford to—not at the prices they were charging. And it didn’t seem to be part of any country per se. The travel agent I talked to was kind of evasive about the geographical details and seemed to want to change the subject, so we talked about basketball instead. Then crop rotation in the Midwest. He didn’t know anything about crop rotation in the Midwest, and neither did I, but he plainly was more comfortable talking about that subject than about the shadowy details of my trip.
After looking over the different packages available, I opted for the “No Frills Vacation Package” which included no food, no fun, just vacation.
I thought I’d paid for a plane flight, but the machine I boarded definitely wasn’t a plane. I wasn’t sure what it was. It took us a long time to get to Mexifo, and we sure cut a lot of grass along the way, but we finally arrived. That’s all that really matters, I guess.
My package didn’t include a hotel room as such. That would have been the “Deluxe Package”, which I’d decided against. For my package I had to sleep standing up in front of the hotel wearing a doorman’s uniform. Boy, I thought, opening the door for a couple of newlyweds, this is a cheap room.
Still, I kept reminding myself, I’ve had worse vacations. That two weeks I spent lying under those postcards of Hawaii comes to mind. And that month I spent in a drawer at the County Morgue—that was a bad vacation. I couldn’t get any rest at all. People kept identifying me.
Anyway, comfort wasn’t what was important to me on this trip. I just needed to get away from my job for awhile. I wasn’t physically tired. I was mentally worn out. The daily grind had been getting to me. I needed to recharge my batteries.
It hadn’t been a good year so far for Frank Burly Investigations. I hadn’t solved any cases at all. I was 0 for 59. That’s a .000 batting average, which is bad in any business. But especially in my business and baseball. And it wasn’t like the cases I had been asked to solve were particularly hard either. “The Crime That Solved Itself” shouldn’t have been that tough. But it was for me. And “The Mystery That Isn’t Such A Mystery After All” should have been a snap. But it had me baffled for months. My clients couldn’t decide whether I’d lost it, or never had it. But they all agreed I didn’t have it now. A monkey could do it better, they felt. Some of my clients even dropped me and went to a monkey. That hurt. But I guess they meant it to hurt. I can’t think of any other reason they’d hire a monkey.
I finally decided I needed a vacation after I struggled unsuccessfully with the case of “The Amazing Electric Thief”. In that one, a man came to me claiming that the light socket in his house had been stealing his money. The electrical outlets were in on it too, he said. He’d lost 800 bucks so far. I said he had come to the right detective agency. I was 0 for 58 this year. I was due.
When I got to his place I saw coins, checkbooks, rare stamps, and even a fur coat moving slowly across the floor and disappearing into an electrical outlet, while my client hopped from one foot to the other in dismay. I tried to stop one of the checkbooks with my foot, but it just gave me a shock and kept going.
“What in the hell is going on?” I asked, scratching my head.
“You tell me,” said my exasperated client. “I’m not the detective, you are.”
“Not anymore I’m not,” I said, putting on my hat and heading for the door. “I’m on vacation.”
A week later I was relaxing on the beach in sunny Mexifo, taking it easy and trying to forget what a lousy detective I am.
I say it was sunny, and it was, but there was something a little cheap about the sunlight. I didn’t know what it was exactly. The sun seemed to be dripping, for one thing. And it had flies buzzing around it. And if you didn’t keep shoving quarters in it, it would shut off. And the suntan I got was blue. That seemed like the wrong color to me, but I’m no expert. At least I was getting a suntan. That’s what’s important on a vacation. Never mind what color you’re turning.
I might have enjoyed my vacation, despite all the inconveniences, if it hadn’t been for the pricey resort right across the bay from mine. That place had everything my resort didn’t. It was in a real country, for one thing. You could find it on a map. And it had real scenery, not just a painted board that moved along with you when you walked, so you felt like you were in a cheap cartoon. And the clouds they had over there were floating in the sky, not hanging from a crane. I knew I couldn’t afford a ritzy place like that, so I tried to not let it bother me. It was obvious that the people over there were having a lot more fun than I was, but that was okay, because they were obviously better people than me. They were the elite. I wasn’t. As long as life is fair you won’t get any squawk from me.
But then I noticed that I recognized some of the “elite” people vacationing in that resort. They were well known Central City criminals! I didn’t see how they rated a better vacation than me. They weren’t better than me. If anything, they were worse. I decided I had to look into this.
There weren’t any boats available, but that turned out not to matter. The bay was made out of blue plywood. So I just walked across.
When I got to the other side I found that the whole resort was full of criminals, all of them having a wonderful time. They were eating the finest foods, drinking the most exotic drinks, and lounging around in front of their 5-star hotel in skimpy and somewhat revealing masks, soaking up the sun and letting their rat-like minds drift. They were getting a really top notch vacation. And it was all paid for, I found out from one of them—a guy named “Shifty” because he never seemed to be around when you were looking at him—by “The Organization”.
“Last year we went to Atlantic City,” said Shifty. “I stole ninety dollars.”
“The real Atlantic City?” I asked, “Or…?” Before I decided on Mexifo, I was considering a vacation in Ratlantic City.
“Sure the real one. Right on the Boardwalk. Three weeks, all expenses paid.”
“Gee…”
He asked me why I was vacationing on the landfill over there. I said it wasn’t a landfill. It was a very popular resort. And I was having a very nice time there. He shrugged.
As I walked back across the bay to my landfill, I got to thinking that maybe I was on the wrong side of the fence, as far as the law went. It certainly was a possibility. Usually if there’s a fence you’ll find me on the wrong side of it. Maybe there was something to be said for crime after all. Criminals certainly got better vacations. It was something to think about anyway.
I went back to my blanket, climbed up to the top of the pile of people lying on it, and stretched out to work on my tan a little more.
After a few more days of this I decided to cut my vacation short and head on back. I figured I was as relaxed as I was ever going to be. And I could get unusual bowel disorders at home. I didn’t have to take a lawnmower to Mexifo for that.
But the moment I sat back down behind my desk I realized it had all been for nothing. I wasn’t relaxed. My batteries weren’t recharged. And my suntan was already fading from blue to a kind of muddy turquoise. I guess I’m not any better at taking vacations than I am at anything else. My vacation photos were disappointing too. Just pictures of me trying to get my camera back.
To make matters worse, my business was in an even bigger mess than it had been in when I left. More bills, thanks to my expensive vacation. And less money, thanks to that same vacation. What was I thinking? I guess it just proves the old saying: “He who is his own boss has a fool for an employer”.
While I was brooding about this, the sheriff came in to attach some of my possessions and turn them over to my creditors. This had turned into kind of a monthly ritual.
“Hi, Sheriff,” I said. “Is it the first of the month already?”
“Get off of that chair, Frank.”
I got up and he wheeled my chair out, taking the calendar off the wall and the knob off the door as he left. I thought I had paid off that knob, but I guess not.
I looked around to see if there was anything left to sit on in the office. There wasn’t. I tried to get some work done standing up, but it hurt my back leaning over the desk like that. Lying on my belly on the desk didn’t work either. Got too many pushpins in my face. I gave up trying to get any work done. This was turning into a lousy day.
Of course misery loves company, so I decided to go outside and see how miserable everybody else was. Maybe that would cheer me up.
The first person I ran into was the criminal I had met at the resort—Shifty.
“I guess when you got back from your vacation your business was quite a mess, eh?” I asked, chuckling. I knew what the answer would be. Everybody’s business was a mess when they got back from vacation these days. Not just mine.
“No,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Our business is doing fine. I don’t see how anybody could be doing bad in an economy like this. How’s your business doing?”
“Fine.”
I looked at all the swag he was lugging down the street. “You stole all that in one day?”
“Sure!”
“But it’s not even lunchtime yet!”
“Our organization is very efficient. Can you help me get this stuff into my car?”
“I guess.”
We started loading up his trunk. I noticed it was a more expensive car than I owned. Shifty said he was thinking of getting rid of it and getting a new one. The ashtrays were full on this one. And it didn’t have that new car smell anymore. It smelled like him now. He had better clothes than I did too, I noticed. And dames? He had dozens of them, he bragged. All he wanted. Okay, most of them were kind of scraggly, but they were dames. It’s like the poet says, he reminded me, they all look alike on the census form.
Shifty wanted to stay and talk, but he had to go pick up that new car while he was thinking about it. So he headed for the Cadillac dealership and I went back to my office and laid face down on my desk again. Whoever said honesty is the best policy and crime doesn’t pay must have just got here, I decided. That’s not the way it works around here. I don’t know why we listen to guys who say stuff like that. Let’s wait until they get something right once before we start listening to them all the time.
That was my problem, I suddenly realized. My honesty was holding me back. Well, honesty and incompetence. And my surly attitude. And that unpleasant smell I give off when someone shakes my hand. A lot of things were holding me back, but honesty was certainly one of them.
I glumly stared out of my window. A parade was going by on the street below. I saw criminals on floats, waving to the people lining the parade route. The Organization was celebrating the return of the first criminal to sneak across the Atlantic by himself.
The enthusiastic cheers of the crowd decided it for me. Criminals get all the money and all the fame. All us honest guys get are cases we can’t solve and bills we won’t pay. Screw that.
I started looking for the business card Shifty had given me that had the Organization’s address on it. It took awhile to find it. They say it’s always in the last place you look, but I always look a few other places after I find it. You can never tell. It might be there too. You might have two of them now. After I had found the business card I looked for another hour. Sure enough. There was another one. I had two of them. Always in the last place you look, my ass!
I closed up my business, put my detective stuff in mothballs, put my few remaining clients up on blocks, gave my secretary her freedom, and went out to start my new life of crime.
CHAPTER TWO
I went down to the address written on the card. It was a large building for a hideout. Twenty stories. There was a shop at street level that sold crime oriented novelties like rubber gangster vomit, but there was no indication anywhere of what the other nineteen stories were for. Sometimes a policeman on his beat would stop and look up at the building and wonder, but he never went in. Going into buildings wasn’t his job. His job was walking on sidewalks.
When I got there, there were a couple of tough looking thugs hanging around the entrance to make sure nobody made a mistake and accidentally went into the wrong building—like the one they were guarding. I watched them toss out a blind man who had tapped his way a little too close to the entrance. He landed in the gutter and started throwing punches in all directions, while me and the thugs laughed our asses off. Then it was my turn.
Between slaps to my face and punches to my belly, I explained that I was here for a job interview. One of them got on the phone and checked upstairs and apparently got an okay from somebody. They turned me upside down and shook me a couple of times to relieve me of any weapons or dangerous valuables I might have on me, gave me a rather vaguely worded receipt that didn’t mention either my possessions or them, then let me pass.
I went up to the second floor. There was a glass door with the words: “CrimeCo (formerly Crime & Sons)” painted on it. I went in and explained to the scarfaced receptionist that I was here to apply for a job. She looked at me with that bored sinister expression all receptionists have, then gave me an employment application to fill out.
Most of the questions on the application weren’t hard—I knew what my name was, of course, it’s “Frank”, and my phone number was sewn into my underwear. The phone company hadn’t wanted to do it, but I had insisted—but some of the more probing questions required some thought. “Are you a police informant or a crybaby?” asked Question 14. “Police informant”, I wrote. Then I scratched that out and wrote in “crybaby”. Finally I crossed the whole question out. Maybe they wouldn’t remember that one was in there.
I handed in my completed application, then waited. A little while later I was called in to a large conference room. Half a dozen criminals were seated around the table, glancing over copies of my application.
“You look familiar,” said the man at the head of the table. “Didn’t you break into my office with an ax last month?”
“Well, yes,” I admitted, “but that was back when I was an honest man. Before I went bad.”
“What are you, some kind of cop?”
“I was a private investigator. But I am no longer.”
“When did you stop being one?”
“When I came in here.”
Everybody stared at me. I winked at them. When nobody reacted, I winked at everybody again, this time going around the table the other way, using the other eye.
Fortunately for me, Shifty was at the table. He stuck up for me. “He’s okay, boss. He’s definitely not honest.” I gave him a high five.
The criminals didn’t seem to attach too much importance to what I had done before in life. They didn’t seem to think anything about me
was very important. I was thankful for that. Offended, too.
“Do you have any experience in our kind of business?” asked the man at the head of the table.
I nodded. “I have experience.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
I nodded. “I have killed everyone.”
“Is there anything you wouldn’t say or do to get this job?”
“There is nothing I wouldn’t say or do to get this, or any other, job.”
The criminals looked at each other, impressed. I heard one of them mutter: “That’s the kind of man we want.” And another said: “Where has he been all our lives?”
They asked me a few more questions about my background, checking to make sure I was giving them truthful answers by slapping me around a little. I didn’t mind. That’s how I find out stuff too. It works.
After they finished interviewing me they had me wait outside while they talked it over. When they called me back in they told me that I was hired. In deference to my age and experience they were going to start me out quite a ways up the criminal ladder, as a bank robber.
“Welcome aboard,” the man at the head of the table said. “Any questions?”
“Yes. When do I get my vacation?”
“Not yet.”
“Shit.”
“Any other questions?”
“About that vacation…”
“We’ll tell you when you get your vacation.”
“But…”
“Report to work at nine a.m. tomorrow morning.”
“Yes sir.”
On my way out of the building I asked the thugs at the door for my valuables, but they played dumb.
“What wallet?” asked one of them innocently.
“What picture of your mother?” asked the other one.
I didn’t press it. I had a job. That was what mattered. I could always take another picture of my mother if I wanted one.
The next morning I was shown around the operation and got to meet some of the guys I would be working with. They were a colorful group, and I could tell I was going to like them.
