The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) by Robert Sheckley

money.
    “What I mean,” I said, “is that I have money for Alex. Quite a lot of money. I’d like to give it to him.”
    Her expression brightened. “I can contact you, m’sieu, as soon as Alex calls me.”
    It was time to go Hollywood. I squinted at her and roughened my tone. “You don’t understand, baby. Alex needs this money and I need some answers fast. Might be something in it for you, too, sweetheart.”
    She looked at me wide-eyed. I could see I was getting somewhere. And then a call came from outside, “M’sieu Draconian, we need you immediately!”
    “I must think about zis,” Yvette said, wide-eyed, full lips parted slightly to reveal tiny white teeth destined to nibble on my tenderer parts in the near future, or so I hoped.
    “’Ob! Where in hell are you!” This time it was Clovis himself calling, and he sounded annoyed.
    I marched out to begin my acting career.
     
     

 
    DANGER ON THE SET
    21
     
     
    A distant, faint pounding of drums provided a staccato background as I stepped out into the corridor. Someone handed me a prop gun; this seemed to be some sort of policier I was acting in, though it was hard to be sure with a director like Clovis. After all, the gun could be a symbol, though I wasn’t sure of what.
    There was dry-ice smoke coming out from under the floorboards. Sequenced lighting along the corridor sent out pulses of orange and blue, not my favorite colors. Actually it was pretty neat, all things considered.
    Behind me I could hear Clovis shouting, “Keep on walking; don’t stop!” So I kept on. There were open doorways on either side of me, and one guy with a beret and a handheld camera was coming along behind me, panning each of the doorways. I panned them myself, with my eyes, of course, since nobody had given me a camera. Within each doorway was a scene or what they call a tableau. I saw people in frozen attitude staring at each other across suits of armor; Asiatics frozen in the attitude of gambling, mouths caught wide in the excitement; scenes of sexual explicitness veiled behind cheesecloth. And I thought of Jim Morrison singing, “Before I fall into the big sleep, I want you here … the scream of the butterfly. …”
    And then I saw a face at the far end of the corridor, a woman’s face, her hands beckoning to me. “Dialogue,” Clovis hissed, and so I improvised:
    “Hi, baby, you acting in this little number too? You wait right there for me, sweet thing; I’m a-coming down this here corridor as fast as I can, lickety-split.”
    Well, I mean it was just words to invent; they were going to dub the dialogue later, but I got caught up in it anyhow, so I didn’t notice when the floor of the corridor came to an end. I couldn’t have noticed it anyhow, since there was this smoke all over the floor up to my ankles.
    You figure when professionals are shooting a movie, they have their act together, so I just stepped out and suddenly I wasn’t standing on anything. I was falling.
     
     

 
    DR. DADA
    22
     
     
    Paris is filled with places for every mood. I walked to the Avenue de Suffren, past the École Militaire, and then across the Champ de Mars toward the Eiffel Tower. I found a park bench and sat down.
    The clarity and order of a French park promote logical thinking. Well-ordered greenery, dust motes in the afternoon sunshine, and little girls in white and gray school uniforms. You come to believe that God speaks French and is inclined toward irony.
    Through my haze of abstraction, I slowly became aware of the old gentleman sitting on the bench beside me. It was a surprise, but not really a shock, for me to discover that he wore a black felt hat of antique shape over his powdered peruke. He had on a double-breasted fawn greatcoat with two rows of shiny buttons, silver or pewter. Another peek confirmed that he had green satin breeches that came to the knee, and below those were dove-gray silk stockings terminating in funny black shoes with square white metal