But where to start? That was the problem.
And I really wasn’t all that keen on going it alone.
There had to be someone I could turn to. And then it dawned on me that there was. There was one individual who would help me out. Someone who had already tried to help me out.
The ancient mariner in my Uncle Brian’s dream. He’d warned me to stay clear of Billy Barnes, so he’d known the danger I was in. But who was he and where was he?
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Find the ancient mariner. So how might I go about this?’
And then a thought hit me, so I went with it.
Billy Barnes had been thinking. High in his penthouse, comfy in his chair, television on, glass of something tasty and feet up on the chauffeur.
‘I’m not paid enough,’ said Billy. ‘I am worth a great deal more to Necrosoft than I’m being paid.’
The chauffeur, kneeling, naked but for her gloves, which Billy had lined with pleaser, said nothing. She had learned when it was acceptable to speak and when it was not.
‘You agree, don’t you?’ said Billy.
‘I do,’ said the naked woman.
Billy took a sleek remote controller and angled it towards the TV screen. ‘I’ve been six months with Necrosoft now,’ he continued. ‘And in my capacity as information gatherer, I have gathered twenty-three subjects at Dyke’s request. I enjoy my work, but I do not feel appreciated. Do you know what I mean?’
The naked woman turned her haunted eyes upon Billy. She knew exactly what he meant. And a great deal more.
‘Now, here.’ Billy thumbed the controller and the TV screen displayed a wealth of facts and figures. ‘Here we see projections for the expansion of the Necronet. Nationwide advertising, interfacing with financial bodies, involvement with government departments. This is top secret stuff by the way, I gathered it whilst unobserved. Necrosoft has a finger in almost every profitable pie there is. Look at that, and that.’
The chauffeur did as she was told.
‘Fast food, name brand sportswear, the music industry. Six more hospitals acquired for the downloading of elderly relatives. Ten thousand legitimate downloadings at one thousand pounds a time. Expansion, expansion. The public can’t get enough of Necrosoft. This is big. Bigger than anything I could ever have imagined. And I think big. Don’t I?’ Billy gave the kneeling woman a nudge in the ribs.
‘You do think big,’ she replied.
‘Information gatherer will not do,’ said Billy. ‘Company director might do. Company chairman would definitely do. But information gatherer will not do.’
Billy watched the figures moving on the screen. ‘Toys and games. Military hardware, military software, the urban and rural pacification programmes. Oh, look, dairy farming, Necrosoft have just acquired a string of dairy farms. Why do you think that might be?’
‘Milk,’ said the kneeling woman.
‘Milk,’ said Billy. ‘Genetically modified, no doubt. Further pacification and control. It’s all so beautiful. So ordered. So organized. But who is behind it, eh? Who runs Necrosoft? Who owns it? Who invented the Necronet?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the kneeling woman.
‘And neither do I. But I mean to find out. And I can’t do that when I’m only a humble information gatherer. I need to move up, acquire a more senior position in the company. I think it’s time for Blazer Dyke to meet with a tragic accident. Once he is downloaded I will be able to access all the information I require to further my career.’
Billy lifted his feet from the kneeling woman’s shoulders, rose and gazed down at her beautiful naked body. And then he unzipped his trousers and knelt down behind her. ‘Let us celebrate in a special way,’ said Billy as he ran the remote controller down the chauffeur’s trembling back.
Blazer Dyke shook his head and tut-tut-tutted. He sat behind his cedar desk, surrounded by his phones. In the middle of the desk stood a portable TV monitor.
On the screen Billy Barnes performed acts of cruelty upon his chauffeur.
‘You’re a very wicked boy,’ said Blazer Dyke. ‘I can see that I was wise to have installed micro cameras in every room of your penthouse. You have become a liability.’
And Blazer Dyke lifted one of his many phones and tapped out a code.
In the rear of a chauffeur-driven car not unlike Billy’s, a mobile phone began to ring.
My telephone was silent. Silent as the unhewn marble of some great sculpture yet to be. Silent as the unravished bride of quietness. Silent. Still.
And speechless.
Yet.
Are not the most precious things in speech the pauses?
Soft breaths? Wherein saying nothing, we say all?
I think it so.
I do declare that words, those sweet thoughts brought to tongue and winged to ear, be fine things in themselves, be pretty birds, that careless freely flutter; yea, but—
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
‘Careless freely flutter; yea, but—’
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
‘Bare legs, beery butter; yer butt—’
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
I pushed my Remington aside and glared at my partition door. Here was I, seated in my office, trying to compose a sonnet about a silent telephone for my new book Snuff Poetry: The Verse of Lazlo Woodbine, when some insensitive philistine cock-smoker comes KNOCK KNOCK goddamn KNOCKING! at my door.
‘Go the duck away!’ I shouted in a tone of some authority.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
I opened up my desk drawer and drew out the trusty Smith and Wesson.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
I glared at my partition door. Beyond the frosted glass etched with the words LAZLO WOODBINE INVESTIGATIONS in Caslon Old Face (and only decipherable from this side, due to its being installed by a dyslexic glazier), I spied a shadow.
It was the shadow of a man.
A man of five feet eleven. Twelve stone one pound. Clipped beard, slightly broken nose, receding hairline, rounded shoulders. A man wearing a trench coat and a snap-brimmed fedora.
I didn’t know the man. But I knew that kind of shadow.
In my business knowing that kind of shadow can mean the difference between walking the dog and spanking the monkey. If you know what I mean. And I’m sure that you do.
‘Come,’ I called, in a voice as suave as a tailor’s turn-up.
The handle turned and my door swung like Sinatra. Framed in the portal stood a man six feet two in height, thirteen stone in weight, beardless in beard, long-nosed, hirsute and broad-shouldered. He wore an evening suit, Wellington boots and a bowler hat.
‘I must get that glass door fixed,’ I said.
‘Mr Woodbine?’ I said. ‘Mr Lazlo Woodbine?’
‘That’s my name, buddy,’ I replied. ‘But who are you to use it?’
‘I’m in trouble,’ I said, ‘and I’ve come to you because you are the world’s most famous fictional detective. I’ve read every one of your books and if anyone can help me, you can.’
I nodded slowly and coolly. Nothing fancy, nothing showy. Just a slow nod and a cool one, too. A nod that said all that needed to be said. Without actually having to say it.
‘What does that nod mean?’ I asked.
‘Just hold on,’ I said. ‘Is this me, or is this you?’
‘Sorry?’ I said.
‘We’re both working in the first person. We can’t both do that, it won’t make sense.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, once more. ‘It’s my fault. I was working as a private detective. I called myself Lazlo Woodbine and everything. But I’m in real trouble, and only the real Woodbine can help me.’
‘I’m sorry, fella,’ I said. ‘But one of us is going to have to drop out of the first person. And that one of us isn’t going to be me.’
‘All right,’ said the guy. ‘I’ll do it. How’s that?’
I offered him a steely gaze. ‘Say it again.’
‘All right,’ he said once more. ‘I’ll do it. How’s that?’
/> ‘That’s just dandy.’ I fished a bottle of Bourbon from the drawer of my desk, two glasses, a pair of lace coasters, a couple of napkins, a round of chicken sandwiches, knives, forks, spoons, a condiment set shaped like a little chromium liner with the salt and pepper pots for funnels, a note pad, pencils, pencil sharpener in case the pencils got blunt, rubber in case I made a mistake, yellow highlighter pen in case I had to highlight anything in yellow, street maps, maps of the country, a miniature globe of the world, passport, traveller’s cheques, seasick tablets, a small box containing Elastoplast dressings, needle and thread, compass, three clips of bullets, a change of underwear, book on Esperanto—
‘Fags,’ I said. ‘Now where did I put those fags?’
‘They’re on your desk,’ said the guy.
‘Oh yeah, thanks,’ I swept all the junk back into my drawer. ‘Care for an oily?’
‘Oily?’
‘Oily rag, fag.’
‘No thanks, I’ll just smoke my pipe if that’s okay.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What kind of pipe do you have there?’
‘A Meerschaum, like Sherlock Holmes used to smoke.’
‘Holmes never smoked a Meerschaum,’ I said. ‘He smoked “a greasy clay pipe”. Read the books if you don’t believe me.’
The guy re-ran the entire works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through his head. Not that I knew he was doing it. Although I might well have guessed. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘He only smokes a Meerschaum in the Sidney Paget drawings.’
‘There you go then, fella. If you’re going to smoke a pipe, then get yourself something individual, something that says you.’
‘What kind do you think?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘what about a corncob?’
‘Too “backwoods America”.’
‘Church warden?’
‘Too “middle America”.’
‘Peace pipe?’
‘Too ‘‘Native American’’.’
‘Something more exotic then. Hubble-bubble hookah, opium pipe, narghile—’
‘Isn’t that the same as a hookah?’
‘Okay. Dudeen?’
‘That’s the same as a clay pipe.’
‘Calumet?’
‘Peace pipe.’
‘Buddy,’ I said, ‘you sure know your pipes.’
‘Listen,’ said the guy, ‘in my trade, knowing your pipes can mean the difference between swinging the lead or swallowing the—’
‘Hold it!’ I shouted. ‘Now hold it right there. I can put up with you knocking at the door and interrupting my muse. I can put up with you talking in the first person—’
‘Which I’ve now stopped,’ he said.
‘Which you’ve now stopped. But I will not, repeat not, have you ripping off my catch-phrases. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Clearer than an author’s conscience.’
‘Was that one of mine?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘OK. So let us sit here, drink Bourbon, smoke Camel cigarettes. You tell me your problem, and I will solve it for you without even leaving my chair.’
‘How?’ asked the guy.
‘By using my powers of deduction. I have become a consulting detective along the lines of Sherlock Holmes.’
‘But that’s hardly your style. What about the trail of corpses and the dame who does you wrong? What about the other three locations, the alley, the bar (where you talk the load of old toot), and the rooftop (where you have your final confrontation with the baddy)?’
‘I’ve finished with all that stuff,’ I said. ‘Since I retired I mostly write poetry and edit literary journals.’
‘Retire? You can’t retire. Holmes retired to the Sussex Downs but Woodbine never retired.’
‘I would have done, if my author hadn’t been killed in a freak accident involving a Jaffa orange and female undergarments. He was going to have me pull off my biggest ever case then retire in a blaze of glory. Unfortunately he croaked before completing the novel.’
‘Consider yourself as being ghost-written,’ said the guy. ‘This will definitely be your biggest case.’
I stroked the chiselled chin of my lantern jaw. There was something I didn’t like about this guy. Something that made me uneasy. Something shifty about the way he carried himself. Something unwholesome, ungodly even, sinister in fact. Something verging on the satanic, something—
‘Turn it in,’ said the guy.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I was just thinking aloud.’
‘You want to watch that,’ he said.
Et cetera.
‘Go on, then,’ I said, ‘tell me what you got and I’ll tell you what it gets.’
And the guy spilled his guts. He told me about how he’d tried to be a Private Eye. And about Billy Barnes and his mum and the case of the voodoo handbag. And about trying to track Barnes, and the warning in Uncle Brian’s dream. And about Necrosoft and being trapped in the Necronet, and thinking his way onto a Melanesian island, and meeting Arthur Thickett, and learning of the dream space, and dreaming up a bar full of heroes, and then finally dreaming up me.
And when he had finished, I sat back in my chair and whistled.
‘Why the whistle?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ I said, ‘that is the biggest load of old toot I’ve ever heard in my life.’
‘What?’ went the guy. ‘But it’s true. All true.’
‘It might be true, or it might be toot. Either way it’s all the same to me.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying, kid, that I wouldn’t touch this case. Wrong genre. This is science fiction you’re talking about. I wouldn’t take on a sci-fi case, it’s more than my reputation’s worth. I’m strictly “life on the mean streets a man must walk”. That’s what my readers want. They can empathize with me. Sure, I have the eccentric catch-phrases and the running gags, but each case has a beginning, a middle, and an end that everyone can understand. Baddies who are baddies and goodies who are goodies. And a subtext running through it saying that the American way is best. This stuff of yours is all over the place. Characters coming and going, no proper continuity. Where’s it all leading? Where’s it all going to end?’
‘Does this mean you won’t take the case?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Then you will take the case?’
‘I didn’t say that either. Listen, what you want me to do is locate this ancient mariner guy, right?’
‘That’s why I thought of you, you’re the best.’
‘And you think this ancient mariner guy will show you how to get out of the Necronet and back into your body, wherever that might be, and then you will deal with this Billy Barnes.’
‘Bring him to justice, right.’
‘Right, but from what you’ve been telling me, Billy Barnes is a pretty smart cookie.’
The guy shrugged. ‘Not that smart,’ he said.
The telephone began to ring.
But it was not the one on Lazlo’s desk.
It was one of the many on that of Blazer Dyke.
‘Mr Dyke,’ said Mr Dyke.
‘It’s me, sir,’ came the voice of a young man. ‘I’m outside Barnes’ penthouse.’
‘Good,’ said Blazer Dyke. ‘You will find a duplicate key beneath the potted palm to the right of the door.’
There was a pause, then —
‘Found it, sir.’
‘Good, then enter the apartment cautiously. I have Barnes on the monitor, he is still in the lounge doing unspeakable things to his chauffeur.’
‘He’s a scumbag, sir.’
‘He is. Now just make sure he’s a dead scumbag. You’d better shoot the chauffeur, too. She’s seen and heard far too much.’
‘Do you want me to download Barnes before I kill him, sir?’
‘Absolutely not. I do not want Billy Barnes loose in the Necronet.’
‘As you say, sir. A bullet through each. Quick and clean.’
‘I’l
l stay on the line, keep me informed. I’ll watch you on the monitor.’
‘I’m going in then, sir.’
‘Good.’
Pause. Then—
‘I’m in the hall.’
‘Good. He’s still busy at the chauffeur. Go into the lounge and take him by surprise.’
Pause.
Then greater pause, then—
‘There’s nobody here, sir.’
‘Go into the lounge, they’re in there.’
‘I am in the lounge, sir.’
‘You’re not in the lounge, I can’t see you on the screen.’
‘Perhaps he is in the lounge,’ said the voice of Billy Barnes. ‘But perhaps you can’t see him.’
Blazer Dyke looked up in horror. Billy Barnes stood before his desk. He was holding a gun. ‘Hand me the phone,’ whispered Billy. ‘Don’t say another word.’
‘How—’
‘Not one word.’ Billy took the receiver and covered the mouthpiece.
‘But you’re—’ Blazer pointed to the monitor screen where the image of Billy Barnes continued with his dirty work.
‘The wonders of science,’ said Billy. ‘A little something I prepared earlier. Remember, you did tell me to be careful, and I have been careful. Very careful. I kept a wary eye open for any more of those little micro cameras that caught me out the first time. And what did I find? You’d installed some in my penthouse. So I hacked into your security system. My would-be assassin is standing in an empty lounge while you watch a performance I recorded yesterday and began playing through your system an hour ago. My would-be assassin is there, and your would-be assassin is here.’
‘No,’ said Blazer. ‘Wait—’
‘Sir,’ came the voice of the young man down the phone. ‘There’s no-one here, sir. I’ve searched the entire place.’
Billy kept the mouthpiece covered. He held the phone towards Blazer Dyke. ‘Tell him to look in the big cupboard in the lounge. Tell him to bring all the files he finds there.’
‘Files? I don’t understand.’
‘Just tell him, and I will be merciful with you.’
Blazer Dyke took the telephone. ‘Go to the big cupboard in the lounge,’ he said. ‘Bring me all the files you find there.’
‘Okay, sir,’ said the young man.