Unpopular Science

Jenkins relaxed into Gomez when he was out of the ballroom. He, too, was muttering to himself, words of encouragement and self-recrimination, all in his native Spanish. “You can do this. It’s just playing a part. You’ve played tougher roles than this.” He took the antique phone, sterling silver with ivory inlay, and lifted the original metal dial to expose the touch-pad that had been retrofitted into it. He poked out the number for Fastbinder in the United States and got the kid instead.

“Hiya, Jenkins,” said the kid. “How’s the butler bit going for you these days?”

“Fine, Master Jack. May I have your father, please?”

“It’s for you. Dad! He’ll be here in a minute, Jenkins.”

“That will be fine.”

“You know, you need some sort of a gimmick to complete the image, Jenkins.”

“A gimmick, Master Jack?”

“You know, Oddjob. He had the hat that sliced people’s head off?”

“I don’t have much call for slicing off heads.”

“There was Jaws, you know, the big guy with the steel teeth? Or there was the one movie with the babe who was into pain.”

“I fear I am not following you. Master Jack.”

“Point is, Jenkins, all the bodyguards have some sort of special feature or trick.”

“Yes?”

“So I started thinking about shoes. What if I gave you shoes with dart guns in them? It’d be real easy. All we’d need is a compressed-gas cartridge in the sole of the shoes and a series of firing tubes in the soles. Maybe make one a long-distance, high-accuracy projectile, one a fast-acting poison, maybe pack the others with flechettes. You know, little barbed suckers that would bury themselves into skin?”

“I don’t see this as truly necessary. Master Jack.”

“It’s no trouble. Then we’d have a series of switches inside the shoe. A certain combination of toe work would turn off the safety, then you could fire at the enemy as needed.”

“Listen, kid, cut me some slack, would you, por favor?” said Jenkins, dropping the act and becoming a sad-looking Gomez. “I’m going loco trying to play the British-butler routine as it is. I don’t think I could pull it off if it got any more complicated.”

“Read you loud and clear, amigo,” the kid said, just as cheerful as ever. “You ever change your mind, you let me know. I’ll work up some nice offensive footwear weaponry for you.”

“Sounds great,” Gomez said.

“Here’s Dad.”

Gomez wrenched himself back into the Jenkins persona when Fastbinder came on the line.

“Allessandro?”

“No, suh. One moment, suh.”

“Gomez, do not tell me he has you serving up the phone.”

‘Yes, suh. Exactly, suh.” Jenkins had the receiver on a silver tray with a starched white linen doily. He carried the tray to the servants’ entrance, trailing the cord for the phone behind him. The cord was eighty yards long—it had to be to reach from the small servants workstation to the far side of the ballroom.

“Hurry it up, at least, will you, Jenkins?”

“I am proceeding swiftly, suh.”

Gomez the Spanish street thug, murderer and occasional actor had endured a number of trials as he learned to become Jenkins, the English butler for the formal British household of Mr. Allessandro Cote.

He knew Allessandro Cote was really just a piece of Madrid street trash no better than any other piece of Madrid street trash. He started as beggar, became a nightclub bouncer, became a small-time gun-runner, and lucked into a big-time arms distribution deal. Along the way he’d managed to make friends with every organized crime figure west of the Basque region and, somehow, earned himself the nickname Captain Goat Fucker. Gomez/Jenkins had heard only the faintest whispers about the origin of the nickname. Spreading those rumors was a crime punishable by death. Gomez/Jenkins didn’t need to know the story. The nickname was pretty self-explanatory.

Fucking goats was something Gomez could understand. After all, Spanish goats were among the most attractive and spirited goats in all of Europe. It was Cote’s infatuation with all things British that Gomez found puzzling.

But he was willing to play along. Every time he started getting fed up with the British-butler routine he’d get another paycheck and all his doubts would be swept away.

“I could get myself a genuine British butler, but I need somebody who can handle himself in a tough situation,” Cote had explained, apparently entirely unselfconsciously. “I’ve seen you handle yourself on the street, Gomez. I know you’ve got the soldier skills I’m looking for. You speak excellent English. I’ve also seen you perform. You were quite good as Oberon.”

Gomez was flabbergasted. None of the street toughs in his loose-knit Madrid gang of drug dealers and protection racketeers had ever seen him act.

“Thank you, Mr. Cote!”

Still, Gomez hadn’t understood. It took days before he really grasped the scope of the role he was to play.

“This will be a formal, aristocratic British household, and I need a formal British butler to run it. I have a consultant coming from London to train you if you take the job.”

When Gomez heard the salary, he took the job. Weird as was, it wasn’t too weird.