Necrophenia

And yes. Wouldn’t you just know it—

  There was my face right up there on that screen.

  Interspersed with shots of Fangio’s Bar.

  And I sighed. Once more, I confess it. And I turned up the collar of my trench coat and pulled down the brim of my snap-brimmed fedora, which all but fell off because it was so mouldy. And I trudged along amidst the crowd, keeping my head hung low and feeling not altogether the jolliest fellow around.

  And I found a Donut Diner and I slipped into it. And with my head bowed, I ordered a donut and coffee. And after some considerable time negotiating exactly which type of donut, and which variety of coffee would ‘truly fit my personality’, which caused me to wish that there were bullets inside my gun, I paid an outrageous sum for something-or-other to eat and something-or-other to drink and retired with these to a quiet corner table.

  And of course there was a television set in that Donut Diner.

  And yes, of course it was tuned to a news station that was broadcasting pictures of my face. But I kept my head down and feigned interest in my donut and coffee. Whilst trying to formulate a plan.

  I would have to get out of New York as quickly as possible. This was a given. And seek Begrem? Yes, I had the financial means and the aching need. But not the knowledge of where to seek it. Sumeria would probably be a good starting point. But I did not have a passport. And even if I’d had a passport, it was odds-on that this passport would lead to my arrest at the airport. Difficult times.

  And I sat with my head way down low and glowered at my donut.

  I was all messed up here, I knew it, the whole thing was hopeless, I was done for. I had no intention of giving myself up, so all I could do was run. Far away from here. Get to Begrem. How? All I could do for now was try to escape to somewhere safe. But where? And how? I knew not.

  And sighing and glowering, I diddled with my donut.

  ‘Difficult times for you, Tyler.’

  ‘Difficult times indeed,’ I agreed.

  ‘Difficult, difficult times.’

  ‘Yes, I know they’re difficult.’ And then I looked up. Because I wasn’t having this conversation with myself. Someone else was speaking to me. Although not speaking. I could hear them thinking.

  ‘That will prove a most valuable asset.’

  And I looked all round and about.

  And there he was, sitting beside the counter, eating some kind of something that was probably a donut. And he was grinning at me. And I rose to greet him, but he beckoned me to stay. And so I sat still and he joined me at my table.

  Mr Ishmael.

  ‘You don’t look quite as well as you might,’ he said. And I saw that he said it because I saw his mouth open up. And I saw too that he hadn’t changed much. He looked very well. ‘It is good that we meet again,’ he said. ‘Very good.’

  I gazed at Mr Ishmael and I hated him.

  ‘Harsh thoughts,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘I have always had your interests at heart.’

  ‘You are a liar,’ I said. ‘You have always had your own motives at your own heart. I have been nothing more than a pawn in your game.’

  ‘You are a great deal more than that, young Tyler.’

  ‘Young?’ I said. And I laughed a hollow laugh. ‘You have stolen away my life. Look at me - I am old and wrecked. What life have I had?’

  ‘You have yet to have your finest hour.’

  ‘I hate you, Mr Ishmael,’ I said. ‘And if I had bullets in my gun, I would surely shoot you.’

  ‘Oh dear, very harsh words.’

  ‘It is because of you that I am a wanted man. The Homunculus will surely have me killed. I hold you responsible for this. And if there is any kind of an afterlife, be assured that I will return to haunt you.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘This is not the merry reunion I was hoping it might be.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I said. ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

  ‘But I can help you, Tyler. That’s why I’m here, to help you. I have kept a careful eye on you all these years. You have been under my protection.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said.

  ‘I watched you leave the hospital, I followed you to Fangio’s Bar, I followed you here.’

  ‘Only so you could get me into even more trouble.’

  ‘I don’t think it would be possible for you to get into even more trouble than you are in now.’

  ‘Then take satisfaction in what you have achieved.’

  ‘It is not me who will achieve our goal, but you. Everything that has happened to you so far has all been a part of what is to come. A preparation for what you must do. And you are prepared now. You are ready. You have all the skills. All the abilities. You are the weapon of our deliverance. You are the Bedrock of our Salvation.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, right. I spent twenty years of my life as a puppet for Papa Crossbar, then another ten in a hospital bed. I have been robbed of my life and it is all your fault. And I would so love to kill you. And as I have no bullets, I think I’ll just bludgeon you to death with the gun.’

  ‘So much anger,’ said Mr Ishmael. Without moving his mouth. ‘And justified, too. But you are directing your anger in the wrong direction. You know you are special, Tyler. You don’t know why, because no one has told you. Major Lynch didn’t tell you, did he? But he almost did, he almost let it slip. I disciplined him for that.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘What are you?’

  ‘You do know who I am. You just haven’t given it sufficient thought. But I am not the issue, Tyler, you are the issue. You are the future. You must succeed.’

  ‘Bend your head down,’ I said, ‘and I’ll welt it with my gun.’

  And Mr Ishmael sighed.

  ‘I hold the present franchise on sighing,’ I told him. ‘You are infringing my copyright.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. You clearly do not want my help.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t want anything more to do with you at all.’

  ‘I’m sure I could help you with something.’

  ‘And I am sure you cannot. Please leave me alone now. And never again come into my life.’

  ‘I ought to give you something. If we are never to meet again.’

  ‘You have nothing I want,’ I told Mr Ishmael. ‘I hope that you live an unhappy life from now on and die painfully.’

  ‘Sadly, that is what will happen. But I will give you something, Tyler. Something you need.’

  I said nothing more. For I had tired of this.

  ‘The map,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘The treasure map showing the location of the Lost City of Begrem.’

  ‘You want it?’ I said. ‘Because you can’t have it. Tell you what, I think I’m up to it now, up to taking you on. You scared me before. You had power that scared me. But I’m not scared any more. Tell you what - I’ll put the map on the table and the one who remains alive can walk out of the door with it. Come on, what do you say?’

  And I even surprised myself with that little speech. But I was oh so very angry.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ said Mr Ishmael. And he raised his hands. ‘That map is for you. It has always been for you. I don’t want to take it. I want to tell you what it represents. Where the lost city is. Exactly where.’

  ‘And you know that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So where is it?’

  And Mr Ishmael looked at me and I looked at Mr Ishmael. And it was really hard looking that we did. One upon another. And Mr Ishmael smiled. But I did not. And Mr Ishmael said, ‘We will never meet again, Tyler. This is my final gift to you. Use it well.’

  And I said, ‘gift?’ and got even angrier.

  And Mr Ishmael said, ‘That map is of the New York underground railway system, Tyler. The City of Begrem is here. Right here. Beneath your feet.’ And he pointed downwards and smiled. ‘Where “X” marks the spot, that is the entrance.’

  And then he got up and just walked away.

  Out of my life for ever.

&
nbsp; I never saw him again.

  57

  The New York underground railway system.

  Now why hadn’t I thought of that?

  It was all so obvious, really, when you thought about it. Really.

  Well, perhaps if you screwed up your mind just a little and thought about it. Because, as is well known to all Londoners, there is a lost race of troglodytes inhabiting the London Transport Underground railway system. Descendants, it is believed, of a Victorian train disaster down there, when a train all-filled-up with Victorian ladies and gents got all-walled-up in a tunnel collapse. The London Underground Railway Company covered up this terrible tragedy and denied all knowledge of it, because it was bad for public confidence in the Underground system. It appears that there were survivors, living on rats and mushrooms, who eventually burrowed into the present-day system, where, when the hunger is upon them, they will snatch some lone commuter from a late-night platform and descend with him or her into their secret subterranean lairs, to feed. And surely it can be no coincidence that that most secret of all secret Government departments, the mysterious Ministry of Serendipity, is housed beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station in London.

  No.

  And so, what, a lost city beneath the present-day streets of New York? An unlikely proposition? No, I don’t think so.

  I took the treasure map from my pocket and gave it a good peering at. It did look like a railway system, yes, it really did.

  I hailed a waitress who was passing by, whistling that old Sumerian Kynges classic ‘The Land of the Western God’, and I enquired of this beauteous personage as to whether she might have a map of the New York underground railway system anywhere about her beauteous person.

  And she replied in that feisty manner for which New York women are renowned and told me exactly what I could do with myself and precisely how I could do it.

  ‘That would be a no, then,’ I concluded. But I was not going to be thwarted quite so easily in my bid to enter the Lost City of Begrem and avail myself of whatever there was to be had once I was there. And so I asked a young black gentleman of the burly persuasion, whose attire sported a comprehensive selection of gang-affiliated patches. And he gave me his map and said that I could keep it.

  And I thanked him very much for his generosity.

  And he in turn said that it was a pleasure to be of assistance and that if I wouldn’t object to giving him one hundred dollars as a ‘handling fee’, he would kindly refrain from disembowelling me with his shiv.

  And so I handed over one hundred dollars, on the understanding that ‘fair exchange is no robbery’ and ‘a trouble shared was indeed a trouble halved’.

  And then it occurred to me that I had indeed been talking the toot with myself. Which was novel enough, and cheered me up slightly, though not very much.

  And then I unfolded the map the young black gentleman had ‘given’ to me. And discovered it to be a flyer for some rap band appearing that night in a nearby club.

  And I was about to hail the young gentleman, who was leaving the Donut Diner, and inform him of his regrettable error when the feisty waitress took me by the arm, advised me against it and then pulled out a map from her apron and handed it to me.

  ‘You’re not from around these parts, are you, stranger?’ she asked me.

  ‘Well, curiously,’ I said, ‘I’ve been living in New York for the last thirty years. But I haven’t been out and about much lately.’

  ‘Are you someone famous?’ she asked me. ‘Only I think I recognise your face from somewhere.’

  ‘I’m the public face of a very private grief,’ I told her. As some women find enigmatic men fascinating, and take them back to their homes for extended periods of sexual activity.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said and went straight back to her work.

  And then I unfolded the map she had given me. And lo, it was a map of the New York underground railway system. And lo, when I held my map up against it and got it round the right way and everything, the two were an all but perfect match. And I carefully traced the railway lines with my finger, noting that my fingernails dearly needed cutting, and I concluded that the location of the entrance to the Lost City of Begrem had to be right there, beneath that particular station.

  And I peered at the name of that particular station. And the words on the map read Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage).

  Mornington Crescent! I was amazed. Discontinued usage? That would mean closed, I supposed.

  And I folded up my map and stuck it back into my pocket. And I folded up the waitress’s map and kept that, too. And I got a bit of a smile going then (even though I wasn’t that happy) because I did now have the location of the entrance to a lost city of gold. So I had pretty much cracked everything that needed to be cracked and so must be on the home straight and about to storm across the finishing line as an outright winner. So to speak and things of that nature generally.

  I’d just have another cup of coffee, and another donut, because I couldn’t be sure when I’d be eating later. Then I’d saunter on over to Mornington Crescent East, gain access to its murky depths and hit the lost city of gold. Job done.

  And you really would have thought that it would have been as simple as that, wouldn’t you?

  So I ordered more coffee and a further donut. And then I ducked very low to avoid the coffee pot that was swung at the back of my head.

  Which I did because I heard the thoughts of the waitress. And these went, ‘It’s that psycho-terrorist, and if I smash his brains in now, I can claim the reward and put the money towards a Butlins holiday at Bognor in England.’

  Which made me feel rather glad that I had developed those extraordinary sensitivities whilst I’d lain in my God-awful coma. And I didn’t hit the waitress, because hitting women is wrong, but I did make my getaway from that Donut Diner, leaving my latest coffee undrunk and half a donut uneaten. Which was a waste, really, but what was I to do?

  And I ran once more through the streets of New York, ducking and diving and dodging. And the late-afternoon sun shone down darkly, casting long shadows of the New Yorkers, some singles, some doubles, and I ducked, dived and dodged.

  And presently after much asking and, I confess, some degree of misdirection and requests for alms upon the part of native New Yorkers, I found myself standing outside Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage) Underground Station. It was ancient, run-down, fly-blown, plastered over with posters. And above it, soaring up into the sky, was a mighty office block of a building. And upon this a mighty sign of a sign that read ‘THE BIG APPLE CORPORATION’. Which rang a distant bell with me, as this was the corporation that Mr Ishmael was supposedly the managing director of.

  ‘It figures,’ I said to myself. ‘Right here, over this station.’

  And a New York bum approached me and enquired whether I might be of a mind to transfer some of my own funds into his possession. He was a rather splendid bum, as it happened, smelling strongly of Thunderbird wine and bodily odours and sporting the wildest hair and beard and the shabbiest clothes I’ve ever seen. What a wretch. It made me feel most superior to encounter such a degraded specimen of humanity.

  ‘Come on, buddy,’ he said to me. ‘We bums have to look after each other, right?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Knights of the Road, buddy,’ he said. ‘Hobo Chang Ba and all that kind of a carry on.’

  ‘Hit the road, buddy,’ I told him, ‘or fear the wrath that comes in the shape of a trusty Smith & Wesson.’

  ‘God damn company man,’ he said. And he spat, as they do, those bums.

  ‘Company man?’ I said. ‘What of this?’

  ‘I saw you looking up there at the BAC. I used to work there. I was big in advertising, would have made CEO but for the takeover.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The company was bought up. A hostile takeover. And not by another advertising company, oh no. Do you know who took over the BAC?’
r />   ‘No,’ I said and I shook my head. To indicate that I didn’t.

  ‘The CIA,’ said the bum. ‘That Keith Crossbar had me sacked. Threw me personally out of my office on the very top floor. Said, “This will do me nicely,” and out I went. He had me thrown down the lift shaft. But luckily the lift was coming up from the floor below so I only broke my back and spent ten years in a coma.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. And who could say ‘right’ much better than me?

  ‘Fifty dollars will do me,’ said the bum.

  ‘Take a hundred,’ I said. And peeled one out of my pocket.

  ‘God bless you, buddy,’ said the bum. ‘And if there’s anything I can do in return, don’t hesitate to mention it and we can negotiate a price.’

  ‘There is one thing,’ I said. ‘This here station.’

  ‘The Subway?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, that’s what they’re called. The Subway, yes. As a Knight of the Road, I’ll just bet you’d know a way of getting in here. Right?’

  And I watched as the colour drained from his dirt-besmirched face. And he threw up his hands and he waved them at me and he grew most animated.

  ‘You don’t want to go in there, mister,’ he said, dropping the less formal ‘buddy’. ‘Terrible things go on in there. Terrible things. They say a train got walled-up in there in Victorian times and that the descendants of the trapped victims of the walling-up have become cannibals and—’

  ‘Have to stop you there,’ I told him, ‘but thanks all the same. Farewell.’

  And on the understanding that no further largesse was to be granted him, he shuffled away, mumbling words to the effect that he would kill again and that it was God who told him to do it.

  And I realised exactly how much I had missed New York while I had been all banged-up in my hospital bed. And I realised that perhaps it wasn’t really that much at all.

  And I viewed once more the abandoned Subway station and wondered exactly how I was to gain entry to it. And then what exactly I would do when I had. I really needed some kind of a plan. Or some kind of a something. And I stroked my chin and shuffled my feet and wondered just what it would be. And glancing, as if by chance, across the street, I noticed a shop with a great big sign above it. And this sign read ACME Subterranean Expedition Outfitters and Forcible-Entry Specialists.