Free Soma Blues by Robert Sheckley Page A

detective agency seriously. That was to come later, after the old Italian guy with the price on his head came to the island.
    “You might want to check with his old lady,” Tomas said.
    “Who’s that?” Hob asked.
    “Annabelle. The one from London, not the French Annabelle. You know her, don’t you, Hob?”
    “Sure I do. But I didn’t know she was Stanley’s old lady. How is she?”
    “Still shooting up, so I hear,” Tomas said. “Still pretty as a picture and twisted as a braid.”
    “Where’s she living these days?”
    “Damned if I know. Not in Santa Eulalia. But Big Bertha would know. You know where Big Bertha lives?”
    “I imagine she’s still in the D’Alt Villa,” Hob said. “Listen, Tomas, Harry ought to be down here later for a beer. Tell him I’ll have to take a rain check on our dinner tonight. Tell him I’ll try to see him sometime tonight at Sandy’s.”
    Hob drove his rented car to Ibiza City, but parked on the outskirts near the motorcycle shop and walked into town to the cab rank on the Alameda. It just wasn’t worth trying to drive that last part, there was no parking up in the D’Alt Villa anyhow. The big black-and-white Mercedes taxi took him down La Calle de las Farmacias, then made the right turn that led through the Roman wall to the D’Alt Villa. This was the highest part of the city, and the oldest. The road wound up narrow, precipitous streets without sidewalks, up past the museum, then made another turn into the highest part of the city. Here the taxi stopped. Hob paid and got out and proceeded on foot through passageways scarcely wide enough for two men to pass abreast.
    Big Bertha lived on a nameless alley in the D’Alt Villa, just a stone’s throw below the highest point of the Old City. Ibiza was filled with foreigners snobbish about where they lived, and certain that their location was superior to all others. The smaller the island, the more choosy the foreigners were about where they lived on it. In Ibiza every part of the island had its adherents, with the possible exception of the garbage dump, a noiseome smouldering Dantean sort of place on the old road through Jesus.
    The D’Alt Villa had its old gracious apartments situated in fine old buildings. There were a few trees up there, and good air. The only difficulty was getting there. The climb was steep, there were no buses, and not even taxis could negotiate the final part. Big Bertha solved the problem by never leaving her apartment except to go to a nearby restaurant or to a new showing at the Sims Gallery just down the street, or to any party anywhere on the island. Even that much was an effort. Big Bertha weighed just under three hundred pounds. She was a jolly American woman, some said related to the Du Ponts of Delaware. She had lived in Ibiza forever, under the republic, the Franco government, and the republic again. She had known Elliot Paul. She was social, loved people, adored music. And she was wealthy. The income from the Du Ponts, or, more likely, some less famous but equally solvent industrial family, allowed her to live in style and entertain with distinction. She gave a party almost every month, befriended artists of all sorts and every degree of talent and pretension, made small loans to some, let others use the small finca she owned out on the island in the parish of San Juan. It was said that she knew everybody on the island. That was not possible. During a tourist season, a million people might pass in and out of Son San Juan airport. But she knew a lot of people, and the ones she didn’t know she could find out about if she cared to.
    She greeted Hob in her flowering muumuu and led him into the apartment. It was large and airy, filled with a complication of couches, cane-backed chairs, Ibicenco chests, breakfronts, tables, and a couple of large cracked-and-mended pointed-bottomed Roman amphorae in iron stands. She led him to her breezy terrace. The light was golden on the dark earth-red