Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 7 by Marvin Kaye & CE Lawrence

Author:Marvin Kaye & CE Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sherlock, sherlock holmes, mystery, ellery queen mystery magazine, alfred hitchcock mystery magazine
ISBN: 9781434448576
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2012-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

CARTOON, by Andrew Toos

THE DOUBLE, by Janice Law

Mostly when I have a problem here, I consult with Evelyn, who’s done so much to smooth my way in this strange land, but not this time. There’s no way she could help me with the General.

For starters, how could I ever explain General Rezart to her? Sure, she’s seen him on TV; she reads the papers, but words alone cannot convey the impact of the General, a truly remarkable man—and remarkably far-sighted. His foresight, as well as his psychopathic tendencies, were the difference between him and the rest of us. But while his violence and cruelty became public, even international, knowledge, his visionary grasp of future contingencies remained private. I think I’m first to understand just how far ahead the General planned.

We’d been thrown together in the old Red army, where Rezart was a corporal and I was his sergeant. Our resemblance was so marked that some joker suggested we trade places and see whether Lieutenant Dragusha would notice. I forgot that incident; the General-To-Be remembered.

Came the collapse of the Communist empire, old Royalists and nationalist fanatics joined former Reds and spanking new capitalists. While most hesitated, uncertain which banner would be safest, the General-To-Be acted, as you know. If you don’t, the history of our sad country will enlighten you. I was demobilized by that time, running a building supply yard in a border province, living an ordinary life, half considering marriage, hoping for opportunity, and keeping my head down politically. Surviving, in short, the way we did in those days.

I’d still be there, in sight of the great pass and the unmelting snows with eagles overhead in blue mountain air, if a black Mercedes hadn’t arrived late one afternoon, lumbering out of the dust, the low red sun reflecting on the windshield. Three men in city suits got out; I knew they weren’t interested in building lumber or cement blocks or a few pounds of nails.

I figured that I’d been denounced, that a little business I’d done across the border had attracted notice, that I had an enemy. I actually considered mentioning the General, something along the lines of, “You realize I was in the same regiment as the General, Beloved of Us All,” but these boys were so efficient, I didn’t even get my mouth open.

“You have an opportunity to serve the state and the General,” they announced and bundled me into the car. The Mercedes wallowed across the potholes in the dirt road, later to be paved by the General’s fiat, and between my dusty provincial shop and the port, the center of the General’s power, they made their proposal.

The General had remembered me, not for my many good qualities, my exceptional intelligence and stalwart friendship, but for the shape of my nose, the breadth of my shoulders, the unusual length of my arms. He had many enemies, some desperate; he needed a double. I was his man.

One of several, in fact, but within months, I was unquestionably the mainstay.

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