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The Czech-language edition of
Frisco Pigeon Mambo
published in 1999 by Jota.
Frisco Pigeon Mambo
Now in its second printing! Meet these hard-drinking laboratory refugees, who as the infamous "Killer Pigeons" create havoc in San Francisco. They dance into bars, they stick up liquor stores, they spy on socialites, dodge murder raps, and pull a miracle out of their hats. Will they find their way back home to Berkeley? Will they survive the next 15 minutes without a cigarette? Call them "American's Most Wanted," but don't call them pigeons. These swashbuckling outlaws think they're human. Read this hilarious new novel--soon to be an animated feature film ("Party Animals") from Twentieth-Century Fox.
(ISBN 1-882647-24-6, $12.95, paper, 186 pages.)
Now available in bookstores and from this website
German edition published by Droemer. Chapter 1
"Heard the latest rumor?" asked Petey, puffing placidly on the Drag-O-Matic. "The word is we're actually pigeons."
"I am not a pigeon," stated Honky with conviction, fluttering his wings. "Am I, Robin?"
"Of course you're not," I agreed. "And neither am I. I don't know where Petey gets such preposterous notions."
Petey coughed, expelling a millet seed, then spoke. "Robin, take your beak out of that sherry tube, and answer me this: If we are not pigeons, why do they feed us Hygienic Pigeon Chow?"
My I.D. band tinkled softly against my leg as I scratched at a nit. "They feed us Hygienic Pigeon Chow as part of a scientific experiment, I said. "We are explorers on the frontier of knowledge."
"Hmmphh," snorted Petey, puffing away. "An experiment designed to prove exactly what?"
"I suppose that humans can thrive on Pigeon Chow," I replied. "I find it quite satisfying, especially served with a nice dry sherry."
"Me too," agreed Honky.
"Besides," I noted, "why would Dr. Milbrene name a pigeon Robin? That would be too absurd."
"Why did he name you Robin?" asked Honky.
"I think he was inspired by the russet tinge of my feathers," I explained. "Robin is, I believe, Latin for red."
"And why was I named Honky?" inquired my pal. "Is it because my feathers are pure, stark, unadulterated white?"
"Exactly so," I replied. "Honky is Latin for 'white.' Just as Petey is a common colloquialism for 'grossly corpulent'."
"Your scholarship is as miserable as your puny physique," replied Petey, puffing sedately.
"Petey!" snapped Honky, "don't bogart the Drag-O-Matic!"
"OK, OK. Keep your feathers on." Petey edged his porcine bulk over on the perch. He is a broad, grey-feathered fellow with a prodigious appetite for tobacco, sunflower seeds, and (so he thinks) knowledge.
"What are we smoking today?" I asked, sipping from my sherry tube.
"Chesterbogs," answered Honky, blowing smoke rings at Petey's head.
"Damn, I prefer Kalms," I said. "I wonder what brand Sam Spade smokes?"
Lovely Maryanne, our favorite lab assistant, has been reading to us from The Maltese Falcon, a book she's studying in class. She's an English major, which Petey says is a British military officer of middle rank. She certainly looks wonderful in her uniforms. She has downy fine golden feathers, slender nearly nude wings, and an attractively prominent bifid breast. Maryanne is reading to us to take our minds off Wallace, our cagemate who died recently. What a shock. We woke one morning and there he was down on the soiled litter paper with his toes in the air, stiff as a cuttle bone. Later, I heard Dr. Milbrene tell Maryanne to dissect his cardiovascular system and centrifuge his liver. I imagine that is some sort of solemn funeral rite. I only wish we'd been invited to the services.
A shady character named Joel Cairo just offered Sam Spade five thousand dollars for a statuette of a black bird, then pulled a gun on him. Fortunately, Mr. Spade wrestled away the pistol and knocked the fellow unconscious. I'd love to pursue an exciting career as a detective, though I'm not entirely clear what such a vocation entails. Modern writers are so lax in defining their terms. What exactly is "five thousand dollars?" And how similar is "apartment 1001 at the Coronet" to a stainless steel laboratory cage? I hope the author intends to explicate these mysteries soon.
I'm feeling a little edgy today. Petey is monopolizing the Drag-O-Matic again. I can't understand why everyone has his own personal sherry tube, but we're forced to make do with just one Drag-O-Matic. Petey theorizes that Dr. Milbrene is trying to induce stress in our lives. But why would he want to do that? The man is like a father to me. Dr. Eli Milbrene is a world-renowned professor of biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Petey, Honky, and I are elite volunteers assisting him with his research as part of Test Group C. We're obliged to smoke cigarettes, drink sherry, and consume regulated quantities of Hygienic Pigeon Chow.
Group B residents, in the next row over, have to do their seed munching and smoking entirely sober. Group A subjects are even more deprived. All they're permitted to do is dine on Hygienic Pigeon Chow and go up on the roof periodically for something called "fresh air." I don't know why they're called the "control group." They have so little control over their own happiness. Group D members are the real party animals. They smoke, booze it up, and dine on rich delicacies like deep-fried prawns, cocktail wieners, macadamia nuts, barbecued pork ribs, and chocolate cheese cake. Often we can hear them down at their end of the lab whooping it up.
Wallace, before he died, confided he'd heard rumors of a Group E, caged in another room. The same delightful lifestyle as Group D, with the further stimulation of mixed-sex cohabitation. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on his part. Wallace was always sweet on Julie, a Group A experimenter who lives across the aisle with Darla and Blanche. All nice, plain-feathered girls, if a little controlled, but clearly not in the same league as my dear Maryanne.
Sitting on her lovely finger last night after our reading, while she softly stroked my head, I felt the most exquisite tingle suffuse my body. Pleasant but unnerving. Could this be love?
Honky just dropped a large sunflower seed on Petey's head, freeing up the Drag-O-Matic.
"I'm next in line after Honky!" I announced.
"Go pluck yourselves," grumbled Petey, theatrically daubing sherry on his ruffled noggin.
* * *
Honky says we're smoking Marlrubos today, a brand that often causes me to gaze with a steely glint toward the western horizon. This is not as easy as it sounds--especially when one's eyes are situated on opposite sides of one's head.
We all have our particular talents. I am also able to walk without bobbing my head excessively. Petey can empty an entire sherry tube while remaining upright on his perch. And Honky can decipher the labels on cigarette cartons. He used to read the profoundly obscure inscriptions on lab assistants' T-shirts, but gave it up to appease Petey, who though illiterate fancies himself the intellectual of our cage. It's hard for a self-acknowledged egghead to confess he is as perplexed as the rest of us by the phrase "Young Dickheads Total Pillage World Tour."
Dr. Milbrene just made his daily rounds through the lab. "Hello, men," he said, stopping at our cage and making notations on his clipboard. "How are we today? Any signs of a palsied tremor or hacking cough?"
Dr. Milbrene is so solicitous of our welfare. He's a true man of the people, even though he's on everyone's short list for the Nobel Prize. Every time the lab phone rings, I expect it's long-distance from Stockholm. Usually, though, it's Eldon, our flunky day-shift lab assistant, calling in to say he overslept.
I'm smoking heavily today; my nerves are on edge. Last night in Sam Spade's apartment that slimy Joel Cairo got into a fight with nice Brigid O'Shaughnessy. As the quarrel escalated into violence, two police detectives arrived and threatened everyone with arrest! Now Mr. Spade's being followed by a sullen youth with a gun.
Petey says adolescents are the price parents pay for the pleasures of procreation. I must weigh this carefully before making further advances toward Maryanne. Yesterday I sat on her shoulder and nuzzled her silken perfumed ear. Wonderful!
Damn, the butt got stuck in the ejector impeller. Now the Drag-O-Matic's jammed. If slothful Eldon doesn't shuffle by in the next two minutes, someone's going to get his rude anatomy pecked the next time he opens this cage!
"Hi, Robin," called a voice from the Control Group A cage.
"Oh, hi, Darla," I replied distractedly.
"You sound like you're sober today, Robin."
She's right. In my agitated state I'd been neglecting my sherry tube. I took an emergency swig.
"The roof was beautiful this morning," she continued. "A gray haze lifted, and you could see all the way to the Golden Gate."
"Was it open?" I inquired, making an effort to appear interested.
"Was what open?" she asked.
"There's no point talking to him, Darla," sniffed Blanche. "The fellow's drunk. They're all a bunch of cage-bound, inebriated, nicotine-breath rubes."
"The sweetest music on earth," noted Petey: "the prim condemnations of the self-righteous prude."
"Hear, hear," said Honky. "Can I buy you fellows a drink?"
We turned our backs on the ladies and bellied up to our beverage taps. Down the aisle the Group D gang was crunching noisily into a bag of fried pork rinds. I suppose there must be some sort of world out there beyond the walls of this cozy lab, but I think Honky's right. It really is no concern of ours.
* * *
We're in shock! Brigid O'Shaughnessy is missing! Last night she disappeared on the way to Effie Perine's apartment. Poor Mr. Spade: first his partner gets shot, then he falls in love with a client in distress, and now she disappears. And nearly everyone is trying to pin assorted murder raps on him.
After the reading, swept up in the emotions of the moment, I kissed Maryanne. She responded by pressing her soft voluptuous beak against my head. Never have I experienced such tumultuous emotions. It was all I could do to maintain my composure as she moistened a lab towel and daubed her scarlet beak-coloring from my feverish brow.
After lights out, I sat on my perch and thought of my future life together with Maryanne. Of course, we'll have to get a larger cage one with a shelf for Maryanne's English books and a desk for my detective business. Honky and Petey can live in the cage next door and come over for sherry parties. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Milbrene gave us a transfer to Group D as a wedding present. Those fried pork rinds should taste pretty special shared with the woman I love.
Thank God the lab assistant stocked the Drag-O-Matic with unfiltered Cramels. There's nothing like a jolt of unexpurgated nicotine to clear the head and calm the nerves. Already Eldon, though hampered by a bandaged thumb, has had to reload twice. His grungy T-shirt, Honky informed me privately, reads: "Extra fries or the Nobel Prize. Have it your way."
"Extraordinarily opaque," whispered Honky.
"Virtually unfathomable," I agreed.
"What are you two cooing about?" demanded Petey.
"We were just remarking how attractive the ladies look today," answered Honky diplomatically.
Across the aisle, Darla and Julie smiled. Blanche studied us coldly through the bars of their cage.
"It's degenerates like you," she observed, "who put a permanent crimp in a girl's nest-building instincts."
"Glad to hear it," commented Petey, not withering under her icy glare. "Child-rearing is such a juvenile pastime."
"I'm feeling a bit on edge today," remarked Honky, sipping from his sherry tube.
"So am I," I whispered. "I feel anxious and restless. Very unsettling. It's worse when I gaze longingly upon dear Maryanne."
"She's very attractive," agreed Petey. "Except for her feet."
"I'm highly attracted to bright red feet," said Honky, admiring his own lumpy, carmine toes. "Maryanne has regrettably hideous feet. Did you see her yesterday in those open-toed sandals?"
I did, I must confess. Her feet were shockingly pale and smooth. Hardly a bump or nodule to captivate the eye. Then again, none of us is perfect. One must not dwell on the shortcomings of one's love. I myself am not as tall or broad-shouldered as one might wish. Nor am I as handsome as Zeb (short for Zebulon) of Test Group D, with his dark, shimmering feathers and film star good looks.
"Robin has very attractive feet," commented Darla. "They're wonderfully red and knobby. Very scaly too."
She's right, of course. How nice of her to notice. I only hope Maryanne is as observant.
* * *
Something is wrong, terribly wrong. The odious fat man Caspar Gutman had just given Mr. Spade a drugged drink when CRASH, the door to the lab flew open. Dropping her book in surprise, Maryanne leaped up as a half-dozen masked, black-garbed intruders swept into the room.
"Freeze right there!" shouted a burly man, waving what Petey informed me later was an automatic revolver.
"Who are you?" demanded my love, bravely standing her ground.
"ARF!" barked the invaders.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Maryanne. "Not Animal Rights Forever!"
"Yes!" affirmed the man. "We are liberating this lab!"
"You can't!" pleaded my sweetheart. "Six graduate students have their entire academic careers invested in this project!"
The man sneered under his bizarre gauze-like mask, later identified by Petey as a pair of lady's black fishnet pantyhose. "You're breaking my heart. Seize the animal torturer!"
Two women grabbed Maryanne; she struggled to pull away. Grappling fiercely, they fell back against our cage. Enraged, I leaped toward the bars and locked onto featherless flesh.
"AAIIYYYEEE!" shrieked one of the women. "Something's biting me!"
"Birdie, let go!" shouted her fellow thug, wrestling my dearest into a headlock. "We're on your side!"
I bit down harder, tasting a spurt of warm saltiness.
"Help!" screamed the woman. "He's amputating my elbow! Shoot him, Ted!"
"No!" exclaimed Maryanne, suddenly ceasing to struggle. "Robin, let go!"
Exerting all my strength, I squeezed my jaws in one last ferocious bite, then released my grip. The woman sobbed and pulled away, clasping her injured wing.
"Damn, I'm bleeding!"
"Serves you right!" muttered my love, right before a male invader slapped a length of thick tape across her sweet beak. Rudely, the female thug bound Maryanne's silken wings behind her back with the Drag-O-Matic cord.
"OK, cover the cages," commanded Ted, the gun-toting leader. "Let's start moving them out."
"What's, what's happening?" whimpered Honky, cowering in a heap with Petey under the Pigeon Chow tray.
Before I could reply, a black cover descended over our cage, blotting out the light, as the only home we'd ever known began to swing and pitch violently.
"Earthquake!" shouted Honky, a whirlwind of panicked fluttering in the tumultuous, all-encompassing blackness.
"No, it's not," gasped Petey, rebounding heavily against the bars with every bounce. "They're taking us somewhere."
"This is an outrage!" shouted Zeb from the Group D cage. "We haven't finished our fried pork rinds!"
"I fear the worst," groaned Petey. "We're all going to be viciously slaughtered."
"Robin, where are you?" called a faraway voice that sounded like Darla's. "Robin!"
"Here I am!" I sang, receiving no reply. "Don't be afraid!"
Suddenly, we were enveloped in frigid air. Metal doors slammed shut, a rumblingmechanical sound roared, and we began to move."We're being kidnapped!" I shouted.
Yes, I realized with horror, we were being plucked from our loved ones just as heroic Samuel Spade had been wrenched from his own dearest Brigid.
Copyright 2000 by C.D. Payne
