‘We played them back one at a time and he had me research them from old paintings and photographs and we worked out pretty much who they all were. Apart from a few of them who didn’t seem to tie up anywhere. Wrong’uns they were, but we didn’t know it then.
‘The professor was over the moon. He was all for patenting his machine and becoming very very wealthy. But things didn’t work out that way. Winifred kept appearing, even when the machine was switched off. And then, one by one, so did all the others, until you have the four o’clock furore that you saw today. And you can come back and see it all tomorrow if you want.’
‘I don’t,’ said Icarus.
‘No, I’ll bet you don’t. This house will be a real stinker to sell, won’t it?’
‘So you’re saying that once the ghosts had been made to appear by the use of the machine, they couldn’t be switched off.’
‘Seems so. So you can just imagine what would have happened if the machine had been produced commercially. You wouldn’t be able to move for ghosts.’
‘Does the machine still exist?’
Johnny Boy tapped at his nose. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’
‘I would,’ said Icarus. ‘Because if it did, we could play back the professor and see where he hid the formula, couldn’t we?’
‘We could,’ said Johnny Boy, stroking away at his little pointy chin. ‘If the machine did still exist. If the professor hadn’t smashed it to smithereens.’
‘Well, it was a thought.’
‘Yes it was, and a good one too.’
‘Well,’ said Icarus. ‘It’s an incredible story and an incredible invention, but it doesn’t help much with my search. Are you absolutely sure that you don’t know where the professor might have hidden the formula?’
Johnny Boy gave his head a shake. ‘I wish I did,’ he said. ‘Because if I did, I’d manufacture the drug by the tanker load and dump it into the water supply. Then we’d see some fireworks.’
Icarus eyed the tiny man. ‘You know what the drug does, don’t you?’
Johnny Boy nodded.
Icarus sighed again. He got to his feet and stretched out his arms. ‘I will find it,’ he said. ‘And when I find it, I’ll take it and I’ll know too.’
Johnny Boy grinned. ‘I hope I’m around to see that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you will change the world, eh?’
‘Change the world.’ Icarus glanced over at the map. ‘Why do you have that in here?’ he asked.
‘It’s pretty. It was a present. It arrived in the post yesterday, addressed to me. I don’t know who sent it.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. The envelope was typed. Free sample probably.’
‘I think not.’ Icarus stepped over to the map and gave it a bit of close-up perusal. ‘There are lines drawn on this map in biro,’ he said. ‘Did you draw them?’
‘I didn’t notice any lines.’ Johnny Boy pushed in front of Icarus. ‘Where are these lines?’
‘There and there. All over the place. They’re faint but you can see them.’
‘Well, I didn’t draw them.’
Icarus ripped the map from the wall.
‘What are you doing that for?’
‘Have you a pair of scissors?’
‘You’re not going to cut up my map?’
‘Oh yes I am,’ said Icarus Smith. ‘I’m going to change the world.’
7
Now I’m not into autoerotic podophilia, so I don’t shake in my shoes at the first sign of trouble. Nor am I some taurophiliac, so you won’t find me going off like a bull at a gate. I reason things out and then I leap into action.
I put my feet up onto my desk and lit up another Camel.
‘This would be the reasoning it out bit, then, would it, chief?’
‘No, Barry, this would be the me with my feet up on the desk while you get your little green bottom in gear bit, actually!’
‘Don’t quite follow you there, chief.’
I blew a smoke ring out of my nose and smiled a winning smile. ‘Tell me, Barry,’ said I. ‘How exactly would you describe yourself?’
‘Chirpy, chief. Chirpy and chipper and cute as a cuddler’s cuddly.’
‘I meant, what are you?’
‘I’m your Holy Guardian, chief.’
‘Exactly, and as a Holy Guardian, I’ll just bet you have lots of other Holy Guardian buddies, don’tcha?’
‘Millions, chief. We’re all one big happy family.’
‘So why don’t you put the word out on the old celestial telephone? Because if God’s down here on Earth, one of your big happy family is bound to have seen Him.’
‘Smart thinking, chief, but no can do.’
‘Come again, please, if you will.’
‘Against the rules, chief. We’re not allowed to speak to one another.’
‘But I clearly recall you saying you’d put ideas into a couple of heads to get me my hat and my gun back. Weren’t you talking to the Holy Guardians then?’
‘No, chief, just the human schmucks.’
‘Damn and blast,’ said I. ‘Then I’ll just have to do this myself. So what do we have, Barry? Do we at least have a photo of God, so I have something to go on?’
There was the kind of silence that I for one wouldn’t pay you five cents for.
‘That would be a no, then, would it, Barry?’
‘That would be a big no, chief.’
‘Okay. Fair enough, we’ll just have to do it the hard way. If you had a thing about Jewish virgins, where would you go to meet some?’
‘Israel, chief?’
‘Would you care to narrow that down a little?’
‘Isl?’
‘Most amusing.’ I gave my head a violent shake. ‘Ooh’ and ‘Eeek’ went Barry.
‘I would go to the Crimson Teacup,’ I said.
‘The Crimson Teacup, chief? Not the Crimson Teacup! Don’t tell me you want us to go to the Crimson Teacup?’
‘You know the place, Barry?’
‘Never heard of it, chief.’
The Crimson Teacup was a gin and ginseng joint on Brentford’s lower east side. The Jewish quarter. It was not the kind of venue that I’d want to take my granny to. But hey, I wouldn’t want to take my granny anywhere. The old bag’s been dead for three years.
The Crimson Teacup was one of those leather bars, where guys and gals who like to dress as luggage get together and sweat it out beneath the pulsing strobes. Fuelled on a diet of amphetamines and amyl nitrate, they strut their funky stuff to the tribal rhythms of the techno beat and discuss the latest trends in nail varnish while the DJ’s having his tea break.
I loaded up the trusty Smith and Kick Butt West of the Pennines and rammed it into my shoulder holster. Cocked my fedora onto my brow at the angle known as rakish. And, with more savoir-faire than a pox doctor’s clown, was off and on my way to glory.
The Crimson Teacup was having one of its specialist evenings. It was a theme night and the theme was ‘Come as your favourite food’. Now I thought that I’d seen every kind of cuisine that could possibly be splattered over the human form in my time as a private eye. Because, let’s face it, in my business you get to meet some pretty messy eaters. But when I walked into the Crimson Teacup that evening, I was ill prepared for the startling sight that met my peering peepers.
‘The joint’s empty,’ I said.
‘It’s early yet,’ said Fangio. ‘Care for a piece of chewing fat?’
I swanked over to the bar and settled my bottom parts carefully onto a stool. ‘I didn’t know you worked here, Fange,’ I said.
‘I bought the place. Thought I’d branch out. And a house without love is like a garden overgrown with weeds, I always say.’
‘Well, set ’em up, fat boy,’ says I.
‘Ah. Excuse me, sir,’ said Fangio, a-preening at his lapels.
I looked the fat boy up and down, then up and down some more. ‘Is this a mirage?’ said I. ‘Or am I seeing things?’
The fat boy was no longer fat!
In fact he was freer of fat than a scarecrow in a sauna bath. He was willowy as a whipping post and pinched as a postman’s pencil. I’d seen more flesh on a supermodel’s shadow. This guy was wasted. He was scrawny. He was gangly, wire-drawn, waif-like, spindle-shanked, spidery, shrivelled…
‘Turn it in, Laz,’ said Fangio. ‘I’m not that thin. I’m svelte.’
‘Svelte?’ said I. ‘Svelte?’
‘Svelte,’ said the sylph-like barkeep.
‘Now just you turn that in,’ I said. ‘You’re Fangio the fat boy. Always have been, always will be.’
Fange shook his jowl-free bonce. ‘Remember our deal?’ said he. ‘Remember back in my bar at lunchtime, when you didn’t have the-dame-that-does-you-wrong to bop you on the head and I whispered to you that I’d do it, if we came to an agreement?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I must have amnesia. I got this bop on the head.’
‘You lying git. I agreed to bop you on the head, as long as I didn’t have to be the fat boy any more. I know you are a genre detective, but these are changing times and calling someone “fat” just won’t do any more. It’s politically incorrect and down-right offensive. And so I agreed to bop you on the head, as long as you would refer to me in future as the handsome snake-hipped barkeep with the killer cheekbones and the pert backside, and you said—’
‘That’s outrageous!’
‘That’s exactly what you said. But you had to agree, so you could stick to your genre and do things the way they should be done. Am I right, or am I right?’
‘Huh!’ I made the kind of grunting sound that goes down big in a piggery, but tends to turn a head or two at the last night of the Proms. ‘I didn’t think you meant that thin. I thought you just meant a couple of stone off your big fat bum.’
‘There you go again. Now just do it properly as agreed, or I’ll ban you from my bar and you’ll be rightly stuffed then for your famous four locations.’
The handsome snake-hipped barkeep with the killer cheekbones and the pert backside poured me a gin and ginseng.
I sipped at it and cast a steely eye about the place. It hadn’t changed much since the last time I had been in. There was the same old junked-up jukebox, the same old spaced-out salad bar, the same old trippy tables and the same old stoned-again stools. The bar counter looked as if it had been on a five-day freebasing fall-about in Frisco and the ashtrays had chased more dragons than a St George impersonator at an Anne McCaffrey convention.
‘Oi!’ said the svelte boy. ‘Turn that in. There’s no drugs allowed in this bar.’
‘Since when?’ says I.
‘Since last week,’ says Fangio. ‘I recently had a bad experience with drugs. I snorted some curry powder, thinking it was cocaine.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘I fell into a Korma.’
Oh how we laughed.
Then we stopped, while Fange explained to me that it was a play on the word, “coma”.
Then we laughed again.
‘But I’m not here to talk toot tonight,’ said I. ‘I’m here on a case.’
‘The briefcase case?’
‘No, this case is bigger than that.’
‘A suitcase case?’
‘No, bigger than that.’
‘You don’t know how big a suitcase I was thinking of,’ said the wasp-waisted wonderboy. ‘This one’s really huge. I used to get inside it when I was a kid and go through this doorway into a snow-covered land where I met a lion and a witch.’
‘Surely that was a wardrobe?’
‘No. It was definitely a witch.’
I whistled a verse of ‘You’re a prat, Fangio’ and sipped on my gin and ginseng.
‘So tell me about this case of yours, Laz,’ says Fangio.
‘Well,’ says I. ‘I’m looking for this old guy. He might be a regular here. Has a thing about Jewish virgins. Ring any bells with you?’
Fangio stroked at his chiselled chin. ‘Well,’ says he, also. ‘We do get a lot of Jewish virgins coming in here. A lot. But as to this old guy, what exactly does he look like?’
‘Well,’ says I, once more. ‘Can you imagine what God must look like?’
‘Richard E. Grant,’ said Fangio.
‘Richard E. Grant?’
‘Richard E. Grant. Tall and slim and dark with devilish good looks and a twinkle in his eye. Not unlike myself, in fact.’
‘With the corner up,’ said I.
‘He’s spot on,’ said Barry.
‘He’s what?’
‘Who’s what?’ said Fangio, for none can hear Barry but me.
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Fangio. ‘Were you talking to Gobbo the magic gnome? Because he’s moved out of my nose. He’s taken up residence in my pert bottom cleavage now. Hold on a minute while I get my trousers down.’
‘Don’t you do any such thing.’ I took off my hat and holding it carefully in front of my face I feigned an interest in its interior. ‘What are you saying, Barry?’ I whispered. ‘Are you telling me that God looks like Richard E. Grant?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you, if you wanted to pull Jewish virgins, chief? Or any virgins at all, for that matter.’
I lifted my hat from in front of my face and stuck it back on my head. ‘Aaagh!’ I went. ‘Pull your b****y pants up, Fange!’
The fatless boy buttoned his fly.
‘So,’ said I. ‘A Richard E. Grant lookalike.’
‘That’s me,’ said Fangio.
I shook my head. ‘Does a guy who looks like Richard E. Grant ever come in here?’ I asked.
‘All the time,’ said Fangio. ‘That would be Mr Godalming.’
‘Mr Godalming!’ I made the face of the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. ‘And do you think Mr Godalming might come in here tonight?’
Fangio shrugged. ‘He might do. You could wait for him,’ and Fangio began to giggle.
‘What are you giggling at?’ I asked.
‘You could wait for Mr Godalming. Get it? Waiting for Godalming, as in Waiting for Godot. That’s a good ’un, eh? Haw haw haw.’
‘Lost on me,’ I said. ‘But I’ll wait.’
And so I waited.
The Crimson Teacup began to fill up. But not with crimson tea. These dudes and dudesses had taken pretty seriously to the idea of coming as their favourite food.
‘Excuse me.’ A dame stood before me. And some dame she was. Five feet two and every inch a woman. She had hair the colour of cheese souffle. Her lips looked more at home around a champagne flute than a chipped enamel mug and her eyes were the windows of her Dover sole. She was wearing nothing but two fried eggs and a doner kebab.
‘Interesting hat,’ I said. ‘How did you sew on the fried eggs?’
‘Mr Woodpile?’ says she.
‘Woodbine,’ says I. ‘The name’s Lazlo Woodbine. Some call me Laz.’
‘I’m Phil,’ says the dame.
‘Well, you shouldn’t eat so much,’ says I. Always happy to inject a little humour into any situation.
‘Philomena,’ says the dame in a manner which led me to believe that she didn’t quite grasp the subtle nuances of my outstanding witticism. ‘Philomena Christina Maria O’Connor.’
‘That sounds like a line from an Irish jig.’
‘You’re a real funny guy, Mr Woodpile. It’s a pity you’ll meet such a tragic end.’
‘Tragic end?’ says I. ‘What’s this?’
‘I overheard you asking after Mr Godalming.’
‘But you weren’t in the bar at the time.’
‘Walls have ears, as well as sausages,’ says she. And who was I to argue with that?
‘So what’s the deal?’ says I.
‘The deal is, stay away from Mr Godalming.’
‘No can do,’ I told her. ‘I’m working for his wife. She wants the guy back for his tea tomorrow.’
‘His wife?’ The dame went ‘haw haw haw’
in a manner I found most upsetting. ‘Mr Godalming won’t be coming home for his tea tomorrow,’ she said, and then went ‘haw haw haw’ again.
‘Enough of the hawing, already,’ I told her. ‘You’ll get us picked up by the vice squad.’
The dame raised two fingers, then turned round and left me.
‘What was that all about?’ I asked myself.
‘She’s a real bad lot,’ said Barry.
‘I was asking myself,’ said I. ‘Not you.’
‘Any luck then, Laz?’ The thin boy tapped my shoulder with a delicate digit.
‘None,’ said I, a-shaking of my head. ‘There’s no shortage of Grant lookalikes in the place, though. I’ve seen three Russells, two Hughs, a General, and a council grant for getting your loft insulated. But ne’er a sniff of a Dick, if you catch my drift and I’m pretty sure that you do.’
‘Pervert,’ said the thin boy, but he said it with a smile.
I cast a professional eye around and about the place. The joint was truly jumpin’ now and the DJ was layin’ down the good stuff. Above the wild gyrating crowd, the bar’s logo revolved, an oversized teacup and saucer crafted from red vinyl and black lace and fashioned to resemble a corseted female torso.
And then I saw Him.
‘Him, chief, Him. Where? Where?’
‘By the gents. I’m going over.’
‘Just take care, chief. Take care.’
I elbowed my way through the dancers. Making my presence felt, but taking care that nobody rubbed up against me. I mean these folk were covered in food and this was my best trench-coat. And although the fabric is waterproofed – in fact I’d had mine double-coated with that special stuff they treat office carpets with – you can still get greasy stains that are the very devil to wash out. Red wine’s always a killer, but almost anything from an Indian restaurant can be the kiss of death.
The way I see it is this: the way a man treats his trench-coat tells you everything you need to know about him. Some say it’s shoes, and they may have a point, but in my business, keeping a spotless trench-coat can mean the difference between cutting a dash at a debutante’s do or cutting the cheese in a chop shop. If you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do.