Callahan's Place 09 - Callahan's Con (v5.0) by Spider Robinson

Mickey Finn’s Filarii technology—or “magic,” if you prefer—is highly selective.   Of course, you’d want it to be.   It wouldn’t be much good if it simply coated you in invisible plastic: how could somebody kiss you?   Mickey explained to us once that it’s calibrated to stop only lethal force.   Don’t ask me how it can tell, instantly , whether an incoming missile is going to be fatal or not: Mick did explain it, but none of us understood what he said.   The point is, you can shoot me with anything from a bow and arrow to a bazooka, or bomb me with anything from a grenade to a nuke, or hit me with anything from a crowbar to a broadsword, without necessarily capturing my attention, if I happen to be working on an especially interesting crossword puzzle at the time.   But if you decide to punch me in the mouth, I’m probably going to lose some teeth.
    I knew for a fact I had nothing to fear from atomic weapons.   Yet there was an excellent chance that a monster like Little Nuts could hospitalize or kill me with his hands, as long as no single blow was deadly in itself.   And even if I owned a gun of sufficiently authoritative caliber to annoy him back, I wouldn’t dare use it in any but the most dire emergency.   It may be a little hard for you to believe, especially if you live in a city, but in Key West gunplay is considered bad form.
    “Well,” I said, “when in doubt, consult an expert.”
    Zoey grimaced.   “Terrific.   Who’s an expert on exterminating mastodons?”  
    “Hmm,” Long-Drink said.   “The definition of expert is, ‘an ordinary person, a long way from home.’   An ordinary person, far from home, who knows about monsters and how to kill them without getting into the papers…”
    He and I and Doc Webster and Fast Eddie all said it at once: “Bert!”
     
    *   *   *
     
    Bert D’Ambrosio, AKA “Bert The Shirt,” is believed to be the only man who was ever allowed to retire from the Mafia.
    He was well past middle age, on his way up the courthouse steps in Brooklyn to not-testify in some now-forgotten trial or other, when he had a heart attack and died.   The medics managed to get him rebooted within a matter of minutes…but as soon as he was back on his feet, he went to see his Don.   Look, he said, I died for you: can I go now?   The Godfather must have liked him.   After some thought he told Bert to go keep an eye on the family’s interests in Key West.
    This was Mafia humor, because there are no family interests in Key West, because who in his right mind would bother exploiting an end-of-the-world rathole and college-student-vomitorium the size of a New York City park, with a speed limit of 30, way more bicycles than cars, and only one road in or out?   Bert thanked Don Vincente and retired to southernmost Florida.   Today he’s edging into his eighties, and I confidently expect him to dance at my funeral.   And the ridiculous thing is, he’s still as connected as he ever was, in a quiet sort of way.   Somehow, he manages to stay in touch, keep plugged in.   He sits there in the sun, in his splendid silk and linen shirts, and people come along and tell him things.   Specifically because there is no action here, nothing to get killed over, Guys From The Old Neighborhood (as Bert always calls them) will come through on vacation, from time to time.   They say the Don himself actually visited, once, before my time.
    So Bert seemed the ideal choice for an expert consultant in the matter of how to deal with an extra-large psychotic extortionist without the neighbors noticing.
     
    *   *   *
     
    For some reason Erin was nowhere to be found.   I left the bar in Tom Hauptman’s capable hands, and Zoey and I saddled up and pedaled over to to the Paradiso Condos on Smathers Beach.   At his age, Bert the Shirt doesn’t come to you: you go to him.   In fact, I seldom approach Bert these days without reflecting how extraordinary it is that you still