All the World's a Sage Read online



  All the World's a Sage

  By James Hold

  Copyright 2014 James Roy Hold

  ALL THE WORLD'S A SAGE

  This is the story of a guy who seemed all right at first but ended up being a real dickweed.

  Hello, Buck Stardust here, expatriate Texan residing in the Philippines. You may remember me from such tales as "Paralyzed in Bakersfield" and "There's Something About Larry."

  I was on assignment for the Kabayo Banana Grower's association, checking out Number 6,927 of the nation's 7,107 isles when I stumbled on a small building set in a clearing. Imagine my surprise, after hacking my way through miles of dense jungle, to find someone had set up a road from the opposite end. "I gotta get a new map," I told myself. "Preferably something printed after World War I." An inland breeze brought with it an aromatic scent I did not place at first. "By golly, that's th' smell of sage!" said I, startled to find a fragrance from my home state.

  Before I could take another sniff, a dozen natives pounced on me and wrestled me to the ground. "Oh, no," I thought. "These cannibals plan to cook me—with seasonin', no less!"

  Fortunately, that was not the case. Instead of throwing me in a stew pot, they tossed me inside the door of the enclosure where I landed at the feet of a Filipina scientist. I could tell she was a scientist because she had glasses and a lab coat.

  "A-ha," she pointed: "A spy!"

  "Gosh, no, ma'am," I corrected her. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm—"

  "You're a spy," she repeated, "sent to destroy my work."

  "Now just a minute." I got to my feet. "I'll have ya know a Texan never—"

  "You're a Texan?" She gave me the once-over. "Aren't Texans supposed to be tall?"

  "Five-seven is plenty tall out here. Anyway, as I wuz sayin', I'm—"

  "I know. I read the intro. You're Buck Stardust and you work for the KBG."

  "Well, heck," I scratched my head. "If ya already knew that, why—?"

  "I'm sorry," she apologized. "Come into my office and I'll explain."

  She led the way and I followed.

  It's said that hindsight is always better if there's a woman in front of you. That being the case, I took a moment to admire her shapely legs and trim figure. I would have thought she'd wear flat shoes like in a hospital but instead she had stiletto heels that—

  Bam!

  I banged into the doorframe.

  The woman gave me a corrosive stare, "Try entering through the door," and seated herself at the desk. I uncrossed my eyes and came inside. "And shut the door." There wasn't another chair in sight, which meant I had to stand.

  "Now," she folded her hands on the desktop, "allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr Sage and my research involves developing hybrid herbal plants that can grow economically in our island climate."

  "Oh," I cut in. "And ya got th' job cos yer name is Sage."

  "No," she glared Gort-like over her glasses. "I got it because I'm a top scientist with years of experience."

  "Right." I looked to see if a chair might have magically appeared in the room. The office was cramped and I was uncomfortable standing in its confines. "Anyway..."

  "A rival interest, Osaka Oregano, wants to sabotage my project and put an inferior product on the market."

  "Oh," I nodded as though I understood. "Oh."

  "I see you've heard of them."

  "Heard of who?"

  "O-O," she answered simply.

  "Whut's wrong?" I jerked around.

  "I just told you! Are you deaf or something?"

  "Ah!" I slapped my forehead. "You mean—" Slapping my forehead was a stupid thing to do after bumping into a door. "So, uh, Doc, whut d'ya want me to do?"

  "My name," she fixed me again with her glasses, "is Doctor Sage. And I don't want you to do anything except go away and not tell anyone I'm here."

  "Well, gee, Doc...uh, Doctor...I'm not sure I can do that." My voice assumed an authoritative, businesslike tone as I went to take a seat. "Ya see, I—"

  I crashed to the floor, having forgotten there wasn't a chair behind me.

  "As I wuz sayin'," I sprang up and leaned both hands on her desk, "as a KBG agent, my job is to—"

  I was interrupted again when the door opened, striking me on the backside. I went sliding across the desk, landing in the doctor's lap. The chair broke under our combined weight—mine mostly—and I fell on top of her. Reacting with cool scientific aplomb, she took a chair leg and beat me on the head while calling me a bunch of names not found in any science dictionary. By now I had a sizable headache so I tried taking the club away from her when—

  "Ahem."

  A balding fellow with a sad-eyed bloodhound expression poked his head in.

  "Excuse me," he said, "but you had better come to the lab."

  "Who, me?" I asked. The guy reminded me of Richard Deacon in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  "He means me!" Dr Sage freed herself and stood up. In doing so, she impaled my hand with her spiked heel.

  "Yes, Richard," she asked, "what is it?"

  Ah-hah! I knew it! Now if only she'd move her foot...

  Dr Sage and Richard talked several minutes, during which I tried raising her foot. Lifting her ankle only made her step down harder. For someone who didn't weigh much, she put a lot of pressure on that one heel. Despite my audible whimpering noises, the two went on talking. I pried open the top drawer of the desk and was feeling for maybe a nail file or something with which to saw off her heel, when their conversation finally ended. The doctor lifted her foot and, as I offered a prayer of thanks, slammed the drawer shut on my other hand. I curled on the floor, my spike-indented hand cradled in my smashed one, when she marched to the door and ordered me to follow.

  "Oh!" Dr Sage cried on entering the laboratory. "Who could have done this?"

  The place was a wreck. Broken test tubes littered the countertops, canisters of crystal powder spilled across the floor, and terrarium trays lay upended and scattered. Obviously a spy from Osaka Oregano had broken in, but the question was who? There weren't many people on the island, it being, as I said, Number 6,927 of a possible 7,107, and therefore less inhabited—

  "What?" Dr Sage looked at me. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "Just go with it, okay? It lets us pick th' perpetrator from a meager population."

  She seemed to get the idea. "In other words, it helps move the plot. But how do we find out who did this?"

  "Now, now," I puffed my chest confidently. "Clues are everywhere if ya know where to look." Here was a chance to flex my mental muscles and impress the lady. "Fer instance, in this spilled powder, we have th' impression of a hand."

  "That's just the top edge of a hand. You can't get fingerprints from it."

  "No, but ya can tell th' length of a man's nose by measurin' the tip of his finger to th' second knuckle. That's an old sculptor's trick."

  "Fascinating," Dr Sage said flatly. Some of the powder must have gotten in her eyes because she rolled them upward.

  "And over here," I went on, "is a footprint. Now th' length of one's foot is th' same as one's face from chin to crown, so we have our man's head as well."

  "Wow." Her eyes opened the merest trifle.

  "Not to mention that one's foot length, times seven, equals their height. Which would make our man, oh, about five-foot-seven."

  "Actually," Dr Sage raised a hand, "he's six feet two inches tall, with brown hair, thick glasses, and carries a forty-five automatic in his left hand."

  I had to admit, she was a fast learner. Although how she got the glasses and automatic was beyond—

  "Hands up!" ordered a voice behind me.

  I turned and saw a guy exactly like D
r Sage described, right down to the automatic in his left hand. "Ya saw him come in, right?"

  The doctor nodded. "And by the way, that was your footprint in the powder. You stepped in it when we came in."

  "Oh?" I looked down at my boots. "Well at least I wuz right about my height!"

  Keeping with the time-honored tradition of all espionage stories, the enemy agent gave us a detailed account of his organization's plan for world conquest. I bided my time and, when the opportunity presented itself, jumped out and attacked him. It was a classic case of a KBG agent versus a Double-O spy. Still, I had the edge with my amateur college wrestling background (only three losses to my name) and, within minutes, I had his wrist bent backward. This should have made him drop his gun, but instead he fired it into a large vat overhead. Dr Sage uttered a piercing scream as the cylinder shattered and a pungent potion poured out, causing us to slip and fall as it covered the upended terrarium trays. Dr Sage screamed again—

  "Enough already!" I told her.

  —as the Double-O agent got to his feet. I ran to the lab bench, picked up the only unbroken flask, and broke it over his head. Dr Sage shouted—

  "Ya know, this is really gettin' tiresome!"

  "Yeah, but at least I didn't scream."

  —as the Double-O agent, who turned out to be Richard wearing a wig, hit the