Linger Awhile

  She was sitting in a doorway with a man slumped against her. I noticed that she was wearing cowboy boots. She didn’t look homeless and neither did the man. I stopped in front of them and she said, ‘Howdy.’

  ‘Howdy,’ I said. ‘Been having a late night?’

  ‘I been saving the last dance for you,’ she said.‘Whyn’t you come a little closer, honey.’

  It’s hard to say no to a good-looking woman even if she seems a little the worse for wear. ‘Won’t your friend mind?’ I said.

  ‘It don’t make no never-mind to him,’ she said. ‘He’s dead to the world.’ She reached up and pulled me down to her and gave me a big wet slobbery kiss with her tongue half-way down my throat. She tasted like my high-school friend Barbara-Ann Hopper only ten times worse. Oh my God, I thought – a toad-sucker in London! Then she was trying to bite my neck but I got loose and backed away as fast as I could. Everything was going round and round with the ground sometimes tilting up and sometimes down while out of the corner of my eye I saw some great big hopping thing coming after me. I sprinted down Cecil Court, dodged through the traffic in St Martin’s Lane with the thing close behind, made a sharp right towards the Coliseum, then left and left again and so on trying to lose it but when I reached the lab it was still hot on my heels. Once I got inside I phoned the police while the hopping thing did its best to come through the wall. Scared? I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind so I just kind of closed one eye and farted and hoped for better times. It took about an hour and a whole lot of black coffee before the thing left off thumping and squelching and went back to wherever it lives.

  When PC Plod got to Cecil Court Miss Tweedle-O-Twill was long gone but her friend was still there. He was dead to the world all right, stone dead with all the blood sucked out of him.

  31

  Medical Examiner Harrison Burke

  31 January 2004. When Wilbur had drunk nine or ten cups of black coffee and was more or less back to normal we looked at the lab report on Walter Dixon. Wilbur, who’s from Tennessee, said, ‘I don’t need this report to tell me that what we got here is a toad-sucker,’

  ‘A what?’ I said.

  His answer was part of a poem:

  How about them toad-suckers,

  Ain’t they clods?

  Sittin’ there suckin’

  Them green toady-frogs.

  ‘Toad-suckers,’ I said. ‘Have you ever seen one before this?’

  ‘I dated one when I was in high school,’ he said: ‘Barbara-Ann Hopper. She hung out with a crowd of older boys and they used to kid her about her name. They said she ought to try tripping with one of her relatives. So she did and she liked the effect. She said that sucking those little warty ones made her horny.’

  ‘Did you ever try it, Wilbur?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, but I tried her shortly after she had one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I didn’t care for the taste but I’d rate her eleven out of ten for the rest of it.’

  ‘Bufotoxin,’ I read from the report. ‘Walter Dixon’s saliva shows traces of bufotoxin. Where would a toad-sucker find a toad in London? You can get frog’s legs in a French restaurant but as far as I know there’s no pub where you can step up to the bar and ask for a little warty guy. You know of any?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Wilbur, ‘but that woman who snogged me sure as hell had a toad connection.’

  ‘A toad pusher?’ I said. ‘You never know – London seems to be full of surprises these days.’

  32

  Detective Inspector Hunter

  31 January 2004. When I saw the body I rang Burke on my mobile. ‘Istvan Fallok’s on his way to you,’ I said. ‘Running on empty.’

  ‘Fallok!’ said Burke. ‘I’d heard about Cecil Court from Wilbur but I didn’t know who the victim was. He’s still shaking from the bufotoxin snogging and the great big hopping thing.’

  ‘I’ll be over as soon as I finish with the crime scene,’ I said. ‘Don’t go away.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Wilbur just went out for a six-pack.’

  ‘This one’s really hitting you hard, is it.’

  ‘Definitely worth getting out of bed for. See you.’

  When I got to the lab I went through the door marked NO ENTRY – PROTECTIVE CLOTHING MUST BE WORN IN THIS AREA and walked into the post-mortem smell which is partly butcher shop, partly fecal matter, and partly Hycolin disinfectant. Burke and Wilbur in their blue lab gowns, plastic aprons and wellies were standing by a white dissecting table on which lay Istvan Fallok, being considerably more open than when last we spoke, in fact he no longer had any secrets whatever. Except, of course, the identity of his killer.

  I joined my colleagues as they went on with their work in the quiet hiss of fresh air coming in from the blower. Wilbur recorded the contents of Fallok’s stomach and weighed it while Burke busied himself with the rib shears and I averted my eyes. ‘Salt beef on rye,’ said Wilbur. ‘This says surprise attack to me; if he’d known it was to be his last nosh he’d have had something better.’

  ‘I love it when you talk forensic,’ I said, ‘but what about a suspect?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Wilbur. ‘The DNA from the saliva on Fallok’s neck and jacket is the same as the DNA from the saliva on Walter Dixon’s neck and jacket, and Dixon also got snogged in Cecil Court. And if you take a sample from my neck and jacket you’ll get more of the same from that bufotoxiniferous cutie who stuck her tongue down my throat: Miss Tweedle-O-Twill.’

  ‘Tweedle-O-Twill?’ I said.

  ‘That’s a Gene Autry song,’ Burke explained.

  ‘And she was wearing cowboy boots,’ said Wilbur.

  ‘Blonde,’ I said, ‘pretty, about five foot six, good figure?’

  ‘That’s her,’ said Wilbur.

  ‘Sounds like Justine Trimble,’ I said. ‘When we took a sample of her saliva from Rose Harland’s neck the DNA was the same as Fallok’s. We took samples from Fallok, Lim, Goodman and Justine. The sample just taken from Fallok doesn’t match any of those if my notes are correct.’

  ‘Right,’ said Burke.

  ‘So what have we got here?’ I said: ‘Two Justines? What, are they cloning her now?’

  ‘Vampires move with the times like everyone else,’ said Wilbur. ‘Anyone for a beer?’

  ‘Are you enjoying this?’ I said to him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I get tired of the same old thing day after day.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said, ‘but you get your kicks in this nice clean air-conditioned lab while I wear myself out catching the villains and villainesses.’

  ‘If you’d had better A Levels you might have got into medical school and then maybe you’d be working in a lab too,’ said Wilbur.

  ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘The next big hopping thing that comes after you might be me.’

  Wilbur got quiet then and concentrated on his work. I think his bufotoxin trip was still fresh in his mind. As for me, I had to tear myself away and go looking for new dots to connect.

  33

  Grace Kowalski

  31 January 2004. The doorbell woke me a little after nine in the morning. Irv was still asleep and snoring peacefully. ‘Who is it?’ I said over the intercom.

  ‘Well, it ain’t Little Joe the wrangler,’ said J Two.

  Afraid to think of what she might have been doing since she went out last night, I went down to let her in. She looked a mess and there were spatters of blood all down the front of her. ‘They got the gold,’ she said. ‘I was too late to stop them. Where’s my horse?’

  ‘You haven’t got a horse,’ I said. ‘You’re not in a film now, you’re in London.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘How come he knew my name?’

  Irv was with us by then. ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Who knew your name?’

  ‘The old guy who came on to me in Gaby’s Deli.’

  ‘What’d he say to you?’ I asked her.

  ‘He talked crazy, said he’d brought me
into the world and wanted to know why I wasn’t in Geldings Green.’

  ‘Golders Green? Oh my God,’ I said, ‘that was Istvan. What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing right then, only after I threw up I didn’t feel so good and when I saw his neck I went for it. How the hell was I to know?’

  ‘Know what?’ said Irv.

  ‘That he’d run dry so soon. I never meant to empty him.’

  ‘You killed him?’ I said.

  ‘I guess you could say that – he passed out while I was still trying to get a little nourishment out of him and that’s all she wrote.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘it’s all my fault. I wanted to teach him a lesson and this is what I did.’

  ‘You didn’t do it alone,’ said Irv. ‘I was in it with you from the beginning, and before that I was the one who got Istvan into this whole Justine thing, so I’m guiltier than you are. If I hadn’t gone to his place with a bottle of Bowmore Cask Strength Islay Malt he might be alive today.’

  ‘His last words,’ said J Two, ‘were, “That’ll teach me to let Irv Goodman give me a bottle of Scotch.”’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Irv. ‘How wonderful to have his last words to cherish.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘we did a bad thing but beating ourselves up about it isn’t going to bring Istvan back. Maybe we can move on to doing a good thing.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Irv.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. J Two had fallen asleep in a chair and was snoring loudly. We were both looking at her and our eyes met.

  ‘Well,’ said Irv. ‘That’s why they put erasers on pencils, isn’t it.’

  34

  Detective Inspector Hunter

  31 January 2004. We hadn’t been around to Hermes Soundways since Fallok’s death, so that was where PS Locke and I went next. Bingo, there were two people inside, Irving Goodman and a woman whom I hadn’t seen before. When Locke knocked they had to open, and when I’d identified myself to the woman I said, ‘Now then, who are you?’

  ‘Grace Kowalski,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know anything about the death of Istvan Fallok?’ I said.

  ‘I think I do,’ she said. Goodman just stood there shaking his head and looking miserable.

  ‘You think you do,’ I said to Kowalski. ‘Discuss.’

  ‘We were told about Istvan’s death by the one who apparently caused it.’

  ‘Apparently?’ I said. ‘Who apparently?’

  ‘Justine …’ she said.

  ‘Two,’ said Goodman.

  ‘Justine too?’ I said. ‘Justine also?’

  ‘Justine Number Two,’ said Kowalski.

  ‘Are you telling me there are two Justines?’ I said. ‘Are they twins?’

  ‘Not born that way,’ said Goodman.

  ‘I see,’ I said, ‘they weren’t born as twins but they became twins later in life. If I had the time to be amused I’d probably find the two of you strangely entertaining, but I haven’t the time, and unless you both start talking straight you’re going to be in a whole lot of trouble. Now, on my command: Speak!’

  ‘You won’t believe us,’ said Kowalski. ‘What we’re going to tell you sounds impossible.’

  ‘In my line of work I sometimes have to believe six impossible things before breakfast,’ I said. ‘Stop stalling and start talking.’

  ‘Both Justines were reconstituted from the magnetic particles of a videotape,’ said Goodman. He stopped and waited for me to say something.

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Once the particles were in a suspension of disbelief,’ said Kowalski, ‘ingredients were added to make a primordial soup which was then zapped with 240 volts of electricity to precipitate the whole flesh-and-blood person.’

  ‘Is that it?’ I said.

  ‘Briefly,’ said Goodman. ‘If we get technical it’s a long story.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said. ‘We can return to this later, but at the moment I’m more interested in Justine Two’s whereabouts.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Kowalski. ‘We were going to …’

  ‘Restrain her but she’s very violent,’ said Goodman. ‘She chased us out of Grace’s place which is why we came here.’

  ‘I think she’s probably left there by now,’ said Kowalski.

  ‘Where is your place?’ I said.

  ‘In Berwick Street,’ she said. So we went and checked out All That Glisters and the studio flat over it and came up empty.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Goodman and Kowalski, ‘so much for where she isn’t. Now that you’ve had a little time to think about your story, can you improve on the last version?’

  ‘You didn’t believe us, did you?’ said Goodman.

  ‘Did you expect me to?’ I said.

  ‘What about your six impossible things before breakfast?’ said Kowalski.

  ‘I was talking about believable impossible things,’ I said. ‘Now, have you anything useful to say about Justine Two?’

  ‘We’ve told you all we know,’ said Goodman.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Very good.’To PS Locke I said, ‘Book them for perverting the course of justice and hindering a police investigation.’

  ‘OK, Guv,’ said Locke. He read them their rights, cuffed them, and took them to the nick. It wasn’t much but it was the only way I could relieve my feelings.

  35

  Irving Goodman

  1 February 2004. Handcuffs for God’s sake. As if we were violent people. Our arms were crossed with the cuffed wrists spaced apart by a thick plastic bar so that even if I’d had the key in one hand I’d not have been able to use it. Any movement caused pain but when I asked Sergeant Locke to loosen the cuffs he said no. PC Fast pushed our heads down in the regulation manner as we got into the back of an unmarked police car and off we went through Saturday evening streets where Londoners not in handcuffs were starting the weekend in their various ways.

  At the police station we went round to the trade entrance and were driven through barred gates to the custody suite. We were taken through a heavy steel gate to the reception area where the custody sergeant sat behind a long counter. It was still early in the evening but the place had an all-night feel and the voices and footsteps were the sound of what is always waiting behind the paper-thin façade of everyday.

  PS Locke told the custody sergeant why we’d been arrested, we were booked in, searched, and the contents of our pockets put in evidence bags. Our shoelaces and belts were also taken from us. Grace and I both told the custody sergeant that we couldn’t tell them anything they’d believe and that was duly noted. Our rights and entitlements were read to us and I used my phone call to ring up Artie. ‘Uncle Irv!’ he said, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I just wanted you to know where we are.’ Grace didn’t phone anyone. We were questioned about our health and although my chest was feeling pretty dodgy I didn’t ask to be seen by a doctor; I refused to give them the satisfaction.

  After being fingerprinted and photographed we were taken to adjoining cells. Mine had a stale smell as if the air hadn’t been changed for a long time. The door was a solid metal thing with a pass-through slot called a wicket. Next to it was a spyhole. The walls were tiled, the bed was a bench with a thin blue-covered mattress, blue blankets and pillow, and there was a toilet. We were given a cup of tea and something out of a microwave. It tasted brown but I don’t know what it was. When I lay down on the bed I saw, high above me, a printed message on the ceiling:

  CRIMESTOPPERS 0800 555 111

  Anonymous information about

  crime could earn a cash reward

  ‘Look, Ma,’ I said. ‘Top of the world.’

  I tapped on the wall but got no response so I guessed it was too thick. I went to the door, put my mouth close to the wicket, and said, ‘Grace?’ No answer.

  ‘Grace,’ I shouted, ‘can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she shouted back, ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘Well,??
? I said, ‘one thing leads to another, doesn’t it. You start reconstituting dead movie stars and this is where you end up.’

  ‘I still can’t believe that I caused Istvan’s death,’ she said. ‘That’ll always be with me, it’ll never go away.’

  ‘Everything goes away after a while,’ I said. ‘This whole thing started with me. Don’t ask me to explain how I got fixated on Justine Trimble because I can’t. It must have been some kind of senile dementia.’

  ‘Three more or less intelligent men,’ said Grace, ‘all with the hots for a woman who died forty-seven years ago.’

  ‘Weird shit happens,’ I said.

  ‘You think you’re over that by now?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Grace, that particular folly’s behind me.’

  ‘Not beside you? Not in side you?’

  ‘Nope. All gone.’

  ‘I’m pretty tired,’ said Grace.

  ‘I think I’ll try to get some sleep.’

  ‘Me too. Goodnight, Grace.’

  ‘Night, Irv. See you later.’

  I kept my clothes on and covered myself with both blankets but I still couldn’t get warm. I thought of old King David, how he gat no heat even when they put Abishag the Shunammite in his bed. Grace would have made me warm. Eventually I fell asleep but I kept dreaming and half waking and falling back into the same dream.

  In this dream I was Captain Bligh at the tiller of the Bounty’s launch, watching the ship sail away with the mutineers as they threw video cassettes overboard. No, not the Bounty: the name I read on the stern was Body. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said in the dream, ‘I’m not Captain Bligh. What’s this mutiny all about? The crew were always perfectly willing to take my orders. Where am I supposed to go with this boat?’

  ‘They’ve given you a sextant and a compass,’ said Fallok, ‘and there’s no better navigator than you, Captain.’ How can I suspend my disbelief? I thought. He has such confidence in me as HMS Body sails away and leaves me in command of this overloaded vessel that must face seas too big for it. Smaller and smaller in the distance grows the ship that is no longer mine. And down, down, down goes Justine in the fathomless deep, flickering on the screen of the ocean mind, riding, riding, riding to the blackness and the stillness below the flickering.