Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [204]
"Do I know anything about Lafayette?" O'Leary cried. "Daphne, I guess the wings fooled you. Don't you know me?"
"I never saw you before in my life! What have you done to my husband?"
"I haven't done anything to your husband! I am your husband!"
"Stay away from me!" She took refuge behind a large cop, who put a protective arm around her shoulders.
"Get your greasy paws off her, you flatfoot!" Lafayette yelled.
"One moment!" Belarius thundered. "You, Raunchini! Stand where you are! You, Recruit O'Leary: for the record: do you know this Agent?"
"I never saw him before in my life!"
"Why waste time and breath, Raunchini?" Belarius grated. "You heard O'Leary's description: six feet, one-seventy, blue eyes. You're five-five, two-ten, black eyes, swarthy complected."
"I know I'm—huh?" O'Leary paused, looked over his left shoulder, then his right. "The wings!" he blurted. "They're gone!" He looked down at himself, saw a barrel chest, generous paunch, bandy legs, pudgy-fingered hands with a dense growth of black hair on their backs. He stepped to one of the framed photos, stared at his face reflected in the glass. It was round, olive-skinned, with a flat nose and a wide mouth crowded with crooked teeth.
"Ye gods—it's happened again!" he groaned. "No wonder you thought I was crazy, talking about my wings!"
"May I go now?" Recruit O'Leary requested.
"Daphne!" Lafayette yelled. "Surely you know me, no matter what I look like!"
Daphne looked puzzled.
"There was this note," Lafayette went on in tones of desperation. "It was from the Red Bull; he wanted me to meet him at the A & D Tavern. I went down there, and he had this gimmick—something that Goruble had stashed in a cave. Anyway, I was looking at it, and my finger slipped, and whap! I turned into somebody else!"
"Is he . . . is he—" Daphne looked questioningly at Belarius, circling a shell-like ear with a slim forefinger.
"No, I'm not nuts! I tried to get back to the palace to report what I'd discovered, and the City Guard grabbed me! And before I could explain matters, Luppo and a mob of Wayfarers butted in and carted me off to their camp, but Gizelle helped me get away, and—"
"Gizelle?" Daphne pounced with unerring feminine instinct.
"Yes, uh, a fine girl, you'll love her. Anyway, she took me to her wagon, and—"
"Hmmph!" Daphne sniffed, turning away. "I'm really not interested in this person's amours, whoever he is!"
"It wasn't like that! It was purely platonic."
"That's enough, Raunchini!" Belarius bellowed. "O'Leary, you can go. Men, take Raunchini down to Trog Twelve and prep him for brain-scrape!"
"What's . . . what's brain-scrape?" Daphne paused at the door, casting a hesitant look at Lafayette.
"A technique for getting at the truth," Belarius growled. "Something like peeling a grape."
"Well it . . . hurt him?"
"Eh? Well, it will more or less spoil him for future use. Leaves the subject a babbling idiot in stubborn cases. But don't concern yourself, O'Leary; he'll receive his full pension, never fear."
"Daphne!" Lafayette called after him. "If you have any influence with this bunch of maniacs, tell them to listen to me!" Belarius gestured; two men stepped forward, seized Lafayette's arms, helped him toward the door.
"Tough luck, pal," one of the cops said. "I'd act nuts too, if I thought it'd get me next to a dish like that."
"I'll say," another of the escort agreed. "Brother, you don't see it stacked up like that every day—"
"That's enough out of you, Buster!" Lafayette roared, and delivered a solid kick to the shin of the luckless girl-watcher. As the man stumbled back with a yell, Lafayette jerked free, ducked under a grab, and leaped for the door. Belarius rounded his desk in time to receive a straight-arm to the mouth. O'Leary sidestepped a tackle, plunged into the corridor.
"Daphne!" O'Leary shouted as she turned and stared, wide-eyed. "If I never see you again—remember I love you! And don't forget to feed Dinny!"
"Hey—grab him!" one of the waiting stretcher-bearers