‘I’ve never given it a lot of thought, sir. In my opinion it probably stems from some childhood crisis. Possibly a mother fixation. A deep-seated Oedipus complex would result in a negative psycho-physical response to outer stimuli. A subject in such a state of inner tension could only find relief from his retroactive inhibitions via an emotional trigger. More a conditioned reflex than a conscious desire to cry. Have you ever read-’
Rex stepped forward and punched the desk clerk’s lights out. ‘Very amusing,’ said he.
Presently the bell hop returned. He spied out the prone psychologist but didn’t broach the matter. He led Rex up a flight of shabby stairs and opened a door before him.
‘This is our best room, sir. I hope it meets with your approval. Should you require anything don’t hesitate to ring down. Of course, normally we ignore all calls from our guests. Management policy, all in keeping with Holy Writ.’
‘Admirable.’
‘Thank you, sir. We aim to depress.’ He closed the door upon Rex and shuffled away down the corridor weeping at the top of his voice.
Rex gave the room the once-over. To say that it was wretched would be to sing its praises. The tomb-like chamber contained a miserable bunk, a joyless chair, a dispirited chest of drawers, a real Job’s comforter of a television and a carpet so woebegone as to bring a tear to a glass eye.
Rex shook his head. ‘Very cosy.’ He wandered over to the chest of drawers and gave the top one a pull. The grief-laden handle came off in his hand. Rex sighed and wormed his finger into the hole. He worked the drawer open. Several bottles of gin, a cut-throat razor and a dozen boxes of sleeping pills caught his jaundiced peeper.
‘Hmm,’ went Rex. ‘Courtesy of the management no doubt.’ He helped himself to a bottle of gin and slumped on to the bed. The mattress had evidently been stuffed with flints. There was no sign of a pillow.
Rex uncapped the bottle and sniffed it suspiciously. He took a small swig and tried to make some sense of it all. Here he was in Heartbreak Hotel. In a city called Presley which appeared to be somewhere in the USA. In a time which was his own but a world which wasn’t. A world of curious laws, where his living double ran the dreaded Nemesis show and Repo Men were something to fear.
It was all a little confusing. Or was it? Rex took a larger swig of gin and turned around to confront the Job’s comforter.
‘Let’s see what you have to say for yourself,’ he said.
Of course there was no remote controller, so Rex dragged the set across to the bed, sat down before it and pressed the ‘on’.
A picture wavered uncertainly on to the screen. A female talking head of some familiarity announced, ‘MTWTV news on the hour every five minutes.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘And the big story this evening is still the alien kidnapping.’
‘What?’
‘Two-headed love-child Harpo/Chico, son of Oscar-winning star Debbie Nixon and international rock idol Mojo, was snatched in broad daylight from the Graceland Shopping Mall by invisible creatures.’
‘What?’
“The devastated couple, still under heavy sedation and seen here leaving the Tom Parker Memorial Hospital, took time out to speak to our reporter Dick Adamski.’
Dick: ‘Debbie, Mojo, any word yet of Harpo/Chico?’
Mojo: ‘Nope.’
Dick: ‘How are you and your fragrant wife bearing up?’
Mojo: ‘Obviously it’s a pretty traumatic time for us both. I’m just glad we’re with the Tom Parker medi-care plan. A programme tailored to the personal needs of its clients. A caring service which offers a complete across-the-range facility, employing full state-of-the-art technology and the back-up of qualified medical practitioners. For just fifty dollars down and twenty a month we get-’
‘What?’ Rex changed channel.
‘Don’t mess with this guy, he knows karate.’
‘Goes with the sickle,’ the on-screen Presley replied.
‘Roustabout!’ Rex brought the sound up further and peered at Elvis. It wasn’t Elvis. ‘It’s not Elvis,’ said Rex.
‘And this particular sickle,’ the lookalike continued, ‘is a Koshibo Commander 7500. Six valve, hyper-glide turbo. It gives me the kind of ride I’m looking for at a price I can afford.’
‘Eh?’ went Rex, who had tired of ‘what?’
He tried another channel. It broadcast non-stop commercials, as did another and another and another. Rex gave his head another shake, pressed another channel and then took a very unpleasant turn.
His own face leered out at him. ‘Welcome,’ it cried. ‘To . . . wait for it . . . Nemesis . . .’ The band struck up, the lights all flashed, the bells rang, the special star-buzzer buzzed and a very large studio audience threw itself about with orgasmic fervour.
Rex gazed in horrified fascination. It was him. There. True in each and every detail. His very doppelgänger.
Rex gazed on, dumbstruck. He heard his own voice as it whipped up the audience. Watched the face as it grinned and winked.
And then something touched him. Something that chilled him to the marrow and overwhelmed him with revulsion.
An uncontrollable loathing entered his veins like poison and struck at his heart. That creature on the screen wasn’t him. Nothing like. It was some dark mirror-image, a travesty, a hideous mockery. An evil opposite.
The swallowed gin was once more in his mouth. Rex croaked, gagged and vomited into the face of his other self.
The face of the ANTI-REX.
7
7. And Elvis was dead put out that Pharaoh should have stitched him up. And he did curl his lip and cry out to his many fans saying, ‘Forget the pyramids, we’re out of here!’
The Suburban Book of the Dead
Rex pushed back the sick-bespattered television and wiped his mouth on the bed sheet. His hands were shaking and his head swam. He needed a glass of something, and not gin. Water, perhaps?
The room didn’t boast a wash basin amongst its other lacks of attraction and so Rex sought out the house phone. It lay beneath the bed. Disconnected.
There had to be a bathroom somewhere, surely. Rex took himself off to hunt for it. He padded softly down the corridor; he had no wish to disturb any of the broken-hearted lovers at such a late hour.
Rex paused at the head of the staircase. Hushed, yet urgent voices reached his ear. He crept down a few steps and peeped between the banisters. The bell hop and the desk clerk were jabbering in low tones to a pair of tall, dark and dangerous-looking types. Rex craned forward to overhear the conversation.
‘That’s why I called you,’ whispered the fat-lipped desk clerk. ‘He represented himself as a Repo Man, but he’s no LCP . . .’
‘And he’s not the chap off the telly,’ the bell hop put in. “The chap off the telly was just on the telly a few minutes ago.’
‘And he punched my lights out,’ the desk clerk complained. ‘Not the chap off the telly, that is . . . ’
‘Heretic,’ muttered the bell hop. ‘Deviant and subversive. No doubt about it.’
One of the dark and dangerous-looking types spoke. The voice was deadpan, metallic. More a phonemic broadcast than real speech. It was the voice of a machine.
‘You have acted promptly and with correctness, citizen. We will deal with the matter now. Please vacate the premises and take cover from the blast.’
‘The blast?’ The desk clerk flapped his hands. ‘No. Wait . . .’
‘We must explode the entire building. Eliminate any possible source of contamination.’
‘But destroy the whole hotel? Isn’t that being somewhat over-zealous?’
The second dangerous-looking type spoke with the first. ‘Perhaps these two have already become contaminated. Better they remain here and die.’
The desk clerk now took to wringing his hands. ‘No sirs, please. We’re not contaminated. We called you, didn’t we?’
‘Then leave at once.’
‘But our livelihoods?’
‘You will be allocated new parts. There are always vacancies at street level. As you will be both homeless and unemployed you will be perfectly qualified. Present yourselves here tomorrow at ten. An official from the Department of Human Resources will be waiting.’
The desk clerk gnawed on his knuckles. ‘The other guests, then? You can’t kill them all. That goes against the prime directive of Management Services. Waste not, want not.’
‘Remain where you are,’ ordered dark and dangerous number one. ‘We will cogitate upon this matter.’
A long minute passed. The bell hop chewed his handkerchief and the desk clerk hopped from one foot to the other. Rex hovered in anticipation. The two enigmatic visitors remained still as dummies.
They weren’t breathing.
Suddenly they both spoke at once, frightening the life out of the bell hop.
‘We are instructed to observe a course of damage limitation. We will localize the area of devastation. Which room does the deviant inhabit?’
‘Room number six. Up the stairs and first on the left.’
“Thank you, citizen. You may return to your duties.’ The dark and dangerous pair turned as one and stalked towards the staircase. The bell hop broke down in tears.
‘Ah, shaddup!’ said the desk clerk.
The dark and dangerous pair strode along the corridor.
Rex watched them from the second-floor landing, where he now lay in hiding. The dark and dangerous pair halted before the door of room number six.
‘Heat trace and organic residues registered within. Two metres, 33° SSW,’ said one.
‘Three-metre controlled pulse, contained exterior shock effect,’ said the other.
They placed their palms gently against the door. Rex heard a dull humming sound which rose swiftly to a shrill whine. There came a muffled thump from within room number six. Then a shock wave which popped Rex’s ears and loosened his bowels. Then silence.
Rex peeped over the banister rail. The dark assassins turned from the door and marched back along the corridor.
Rex listened to their heavy synchronized footsteps. They went down the stairs, along the hall. Rex heard the street door slam. And then silence once more. With dry mouth and pounding heart he crept down the stairs and approached room number six. He tried the handle. Then he stifled his own scream. The handle was red hot.
Rex blew on to his scorched mitt and cursed beneath his breath. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and quickly turned the handle.
The door fell open and Rex’s mouth did likewise. The room wasn’t exactly the way he had left it.
A crisp circle of destruction, three metres in diameter had cut the very heart out of the room. Within it nothing whatever remained.
At the boundary of the circle the bed slumped forward in an attitude of prayer. Its bottom end, sliced off in a sweeping arc, exposed the rocky innards of the mattress to quite striking effect. The front of the chest of drawers had undergone similar heroic surgery, cleanly razored away. Rex glimpsed a bottle sheared from top to bottom.
Of the sick-splattered television no trace remained but for a sparking wire which terminated at the edge of the terrible circle of nothingness.
I used to shoot a lot of pool back in the old days. Helped me to forget, I guess. In this business there are times when you need to forget. And others when you need to remember. Like now, for instance. Like now I needed to remember a face. A face I used to know before I shot pool. A face I had now forgotten. It was a long face. A face with a deft chin, a broad mouth, even teeth and a small scar on the upper lip. There was a nose to crack jokes on and a pair of dark eyebrows which shaded two of the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. The ears were small, the left had a mole on the lobe, the right didn’t. The whole sheebang was framed by a mop of soft amber hair. I knew that face almost as well as I knew my own. But I just couldn’t call it to mind.
‘The man’s a complete buffoon.’
‘What’s that, Barry?’
‘Nothing, chief.’
‘Did I ever tell you about how I used to shoot pool, Barry?’
‘Many times, chief. Can’t say you had me riveted.’
‘You got something against pool?’
‘The concept of men with long sticks knocking innocent green spheroids into holes doesn’t hold a lot of charm for me, as it happens. Will we be making a start on solving the case soon, or do you want to sit back in your chair again and consider the exact dimensions of the score you have to settle?’
I give Barry the cold, hard look I usually keep for Tuesdays.
‘OK,’ said I. ‘What have we got so far?’
‘Very little in the way of action.’
‘I’m saving myself.’
‘Sure you are, chief.’
‘The way I see it, Barry, we have to look for the connection.’
‘I’m listening, chief. Just.’
‘There’s always a Mr Big behind every operation.’
‘The guy who takes the plunge off the roof at the end, right?’
‘Right. And the only way to find Mr Big is to go looking.’
‘Shrewd thinking, chief. So where do you propose to start?’
‘Well . . .’ I make that quite a long well. Then I say, ‘We start on 28 July 2061.’
‘Good grief!’ Barry falls off my desk on to the carpet that dare not speak its name. He’s rattled. I pick him up and give him a quick wipe over. ‘Rattled?’ I enquire.
‘Er . . . um . . . how, exactly, did you come up with that particular date?’
I have him there and he knows that I know that I do. ‘I just reasoned it out,’ I tell him, casual as a courgette in a crock of court-bouillon. ‘Let me explain.’
‘Woodboon?’ The voice comes to me from the corridor.
It’s a voice I know almost as well as I know my own. It belongs to Charlie Swinburn, my landlord, and it continues thus: ‘Woodboon, there’s another stiff outside your office bleeding on my carpet. That’s the fifth this week. Come out and shift it or there’s gonna be trouble. And this watch you foisted on me for the rent don’t work.’
‘July 28th 2061,’ I tell Barry. ‘And step on the gas.’
‘Any specific location you favour, chief?’
‘How about the alleyway behind Heartbreak Hotel on Lonely Street?’
‘Why there, chief?’ I have him again and he knows it, but I don’t want to shame the little guy.
‘Just a hunch,’ I tell him as we head Backwards Into Peril. (A Lazlo Woodbine Thriller.)
Rex found the fire escape, an iron staircase which terminated in one of those retractable bottom sections.
Rex swung down upon it into the alleyway. He was cold, tired and hungry, and he dearly needed the toilet.
Rex made the furtive eye movements of the fugitive and merged into the shadows. ‘I wish I was home in my bed,’ said Rex.
At the end of the alleyway a long black car cruised into the sight. Rex glimpsed the passing profiles of the dark and dangerous non-men. The car rose suddenly into the sky and streaked away. Rex turned up the collar of his armpit-hugging jacket and blew into cupped hands. ‘If only I had the faintest idea of what’s going on here,’ he said, between blowings. ‘I’m certain I could make a really positive contribution to the plot. It just isn’t fair.’
And how right he was. But then, if there was any fairness in the world, this book would probably never have been written in the first place. Rankin would have retired years ago on the Nobel Prize money and the numerous lucrative film deals on books past. He would no doubt be laid out in some exclusive Thailand brothel with one of those exotic eastern ladies being lowered on to his John Thomas in the now legendary revolving split-cane bucket seat even as we speak. But there you go. Or don’t, as the case may be.
Rex sank down the wall, hugged his knees and fell into an uneasy sleep. What he really needed was one of those useful coincidences to help things along. But they’re such a cliche, aren’t they?
A rear door opened and
a figure issued into the alleyway. The figure was the desk clerk. He was drunk and he fell directly over Rex Mundi.
Rex leapt from sleep and pinned the man in black against the wall. ‘Speak to me,’ he said.
The desk clerk covered his face. ‘No. You’re dead.’
‘Not yet. I need answers.’
‘I don’t know any.’
‘What is a Repo Man?’
‘I don’t know.’
Rex smote the desk clerk. ‘Tell me if you wish to live.
‘A Repository Man. An LCP.’
‘LCP?’
‘Liquid Crystal Person. Leave me alone.’
‘Those two who blew up my room. They were . . . LCPs?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Your best friend or your worst enemy. What do they do?’
‘Repo Men maintain the status quo. Maintain balance. That’s what we all do, isn’t it?’
‘Who do they work for? The man on the Nemesis show? Tell me.’
‘Him? No.’
‘Who then?’
“The department. The Department of Human Resources.’
‘And what about Elvis?’
‘Elvis? Leave me alone.’
‘Not yet. Elvis. Who is he to you? What is he?’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Who is he?’ Rex slapped the desk clerk’s face. He didn’t like doing it, but . . . ‘Elvis. What is he?’
‘He’s God. For God’s sake. Elvis is God!’
The desk clerk slipped from consciousness. Rex eased him carefully down the wall. ‘God,’ he whispered. ‘Elvis is God.’
There came a sudden sparkling in the alleyway and a great rushing of wind. Crackles of electricity snapped to and fro highlighting the garbage cans, the fallen desk clerk and the frightened face of Rex Mundi.
Rex took to his heels and fled.
Barry the Time Sprout said, ‘We’re here, chief.’
8
9. And for forty years the children of Israel did wander in the desert.
10. And finally Elvis said unto Moses ‘Stuff this for a game of soldiers, let’s follow those guys on the camels.’
The Suburban Book of the Dead