"Mrs. Xlptl is missing."
"Ah," I said, leaning forward. This was something I could understand.
Maybe I had heard him wrong about that name.
"Missing how?" I asked.
"Mrs. Xlptl," said my potential client, "failed to re-transmigrate."
"To do which?"
"Re-transmigrate. To get out of her Earth body after touring Earth."
A nut, I thought. Your first case, Brody, and he's a nut. Ah, well,
there goes the retainer. But you might as well humor him. "And did
you," I said, "ah, get out of your Earth body?"
"Goodness, yes," said Mr. Xlptl promptly, removing his jacket. "You
never saw an Earthman without shoulders, did you?"
He wasn't kidding. I gawked until he put the jacket back on. His neck
slanted down gradually, widening as it went, to the broad waist. He
had no shoulders to speak of. No wonder he looked like a penguin.
"You see," he said in a confidential voice while I continued to
gawk, "Mrs. Xlptl thinks she doesn't want to transmigrate back. She
thinks she wants to go on being an Earthwoman. Naturally she's wrong.
Naturally we ought to go home. Na--"
"Home where?"
"It's a star you can't even see with your biggest telescopes," said
Mr. Xlptl, waving his hand deprecatingly. "I want you to find her and
bring her back to me. I can make her see the error of her ways and
re-transmigrate."
I wondered how you went about finding an un-retransmigrated Mrs. Xlptl,
but before I could open my mouth and say something bright, Mr. Xlptl
told me: "You see, she disappeared in a busload of honeymooning brides
who had been on a quiz program which each week interviews and gives
prizes to the half dozen or so prettiest new brides they can find. Now,
as the expression goes, the honeymoon is over and each bride has gone
home. I have all their addresses. Mrs. Xlptl is hiding in one of their
bodies. I'd go and find her myself by transmigrating into the bodies
of the respective husbands until I ran across her, but I find an Earth
body somewhat uncomfortable and I'm willing to give you fifty dollars a
day and expenses for your services if you'll do the job for me, locate
her, and bring her back. Is that satisfactory?"
"You mean, I'll transmigrate? I'll get into the bodies of those six
husbands of those six pretty new brides--like the husbands were suits
of clothing or something?" Humor him, Brody. He's nuts.
* * * * *
"Exactly, Mr. Brody. You will do it?"
I nodded. Mr. Xlptl gave me a check. I decided in advance that it would
make like a rubber ball, but I put it in the middle drawer of the
desk, anyhow. I reached into the bottle drawer and took out the office
bottle. "Have one?" I said.
"Alcohol?" asked Mr. Xlptl in horror. "To me alcohol is extremely
toxic."
"Maybe," I said, "you got something there." But I took a small one
anyhow and when I looked up there was a sheet of paper with a list of
names and addresses on the desk.
"Take them one at a time," Mr. Xlptl told me. "Just think about the
name and you'll transmigrate. I've already given you the power."
"You have?"
He assured me he had. That was when I blinked my eyes. It was a
mistake. Because when I opened them, Mr. Xlptl had disappeared. He
didn't walk out of the little office. He didn't jump from the window.
The door and the window were both closed. Mr. Xlptl simply vanished.
* * * * *
I took another drink. It was some kind of trick. An optical illusion or
something. I thought over what Mr. Xlptl wanted me to do. Six pretty
new brides. Me. Jack Brody, their collective husbands. I whistled.
Well, that was what a private eye dreamed about in all the shamus
books--unlimited access to beautiful womens' boudoirs. I sighed. If
only that Xlptl wasn't a nut, I thought. If only what he told me was
possible. If only....
I sighed again. Better call up one of the dames from your little black
book, Brody. No use sighing over what can never be. But automatically I
looked down at the list. Study the first name, Xlptl had said. I smiled
at my own amazing credulity. Well, chalk it up to wishful thinking.
The first name was Mrs. Hal Drummond (nee Janet Dawes). I thought of
the Drummonds and their address, which was in San Francisco, almost
three thousand miles from here.
Something buzzed in my ears.
Louder and louder.
* * * * *
The buzzing became a hissing sound. I couldn't place it at first.
Then I realized it was the sound a shower makes in the next room. I
looked around. A second ago I'd been in my office, in New York. Now
I was sitting on a bed. There was a newspaper alongside me. I did a
double-take. It was the San Francisco _Chronicle_.
A gag, I thought. It had to be a gag. I got up. I was wearing a
bathrobe and slippers. I passed a dresser with a mirror on top. This
time I gaped. There was a tall, dark guy standing there in the mirror,
staring back at me. I had nothing against him.
Only, he wasn't Jack Brody. That is, he was me--but I wasn't who I'd
been a couple of seconds ago.
I felt weak. I sat down on the bed again. There were two doors in the
room, besides the closets. One led out to a hallway. The other was
closed. From behind it came the hissing of a shower. Suddenly a girl
started to sing in there. She had a nice voice. She was singing about
all the ways she loved me.
There was a picture on the dresser, one of those cardboard backed
wedding souvenirs. The girl I was leading from the wedding ceremony was
a lovely-looking blonde.
The singing stopped. The girl called: "Hal. Hal, honey! Will you come
in and scrub my back please?"
I looked in the mirror. The guy looking back at me had a very pale
face. He'd been tan a moment ago. My mind was whirling with happy but
stage-struck thoughts. Just like Don Juan, I thought. Only Don Juan had
to go out over balconies and things. Me--I could get away with it.
"Come on, Hal, honey," the girl called again. I headed for the bathroom
door. Well, I'd been invited, hadn't I?
I opened the door. The hissing became louder. There was a lot of steam
in the room from the hot shower. The shower stall had one of those
translucent glass doors. I could see her through it. She was a tall,
statuesque blonde with her hair cut so short she could be in there in
the shower without worrying about a shower cap. She was long and tan
and pink and delightful.
She slid the shower door back with a wet hand. I got splashed.