The Suburban Book of the Dead
The new sun rose over Presley City, staining the jukebox towers with delicate tones of cyclamen strawberry, plum, peach, poppy, peony, geranium, vermilion and a colour which is actually called rose du Barry. In a muddy brown dumpster in a bad part of town Rex Mundi cowered with the lid pulled down. So he missed it.
I turn up the collar of my trenchcoat and stick my chiselled chin out at the new day. This being one in the eye for all those smarty pants who figure you can’t put a first-person character into a third-person chapter. Peasants.
‘Chief?’
I hear the voice of Barry, who is hunkered down in my top pocket. ‘Say on,’ says I.
‘Chief, why did you have to choose 28 July 2061 when you have so many other much nicer dates to choose from?’
‘You have some personal problem with 28 July 2061?’ I give my hems the once-over. Time travel can sometimes play havoc with your trenchcoat hems. I had a hem go down on me back in sixty-six; cost me the love of a good woman, a year’s subscription to Time magazine, both of my nipples and a partridge in a pear tree. But that’s another story. (Farewell My Window, a Lazlo Woodbine thriller.)
‘Chief, I can live with the twenty-eighth, just. The twenty-ninth if pushed really hard. But on no account do I intend to be here on the thirtieth. You dig?’
‘I gotcha. Would you like that I reveal all?’ The hems are hunky dory but I might have my tailor put some reinforcement into-the shoulder pads when I get back.
‘Reveal all, chief.’
‘Guess what I’ve got here.’ I pull from concealment a big red book.
‘This Is Your Life. I’m deeply touched. What can I say?’
‘Say nothing, Barry. What I have here is Miller’s Antiques Price Guide for 2461.
‘Well, silly old me.’
‘Quite so.’ I flick idly through the big red book.’ A-ha!’ I exclaim of a sudden. ‘And what have we here?’
‘The page you marked back at the office, chief?’
“The very same.’ I read from the very same. ‘The Presley hoard. Artefacts and artworks of the Living God. Three hundred items in all, housed permanently at the Museum of Mankind. Items date from 10,000BP to 2061AP. They were gathered together and hidden at the time of the Third Holocaust. They remained buried for nearly three hundred years until their rediscovery by eminent archeologist Sir John Rimmer 23rd.’ I close the book. ‘See a little light at the end of the tunnel, Barry?’
‘Probably a train coming, chief. Would you care to expound further?’
‘Naturally. You asked why I should choose 28 July 2061, did you not? Simple deduction. This is the precise date when the entire Presley hoard was gathered together and stored away. Previous to this time the items were spread far and wide across the globe. But at this one moment they were all together. This moment is now. We are here. The Presley hoard is here. We are going to locate it and return it to the museum. What do you think about that, eh?’
‘I’m gobsmacked, chief. But might I just ask a couple of small yet pertinent questions?’
‘If you must.’
‘Well, firstly, why have we come all the way back here when it would have been far easier to simply skip back a few days more and lie in wait for Dee and Kelley to break into the museum? Catch them in flagrante delicto, as it were.’
‘Poor detective work, Barry?’
‘And how so, chief?’
‘Because, Barry. If I catch them before they have committed the crime, then the artworks don’t get stolen. And if the artworks don’t get stolen then I don’t get called in on a big fat fee to locate them.’
‘Neat thinking, chief.’
‘Exactly. Now, like you said a couple of chapters ago, the chances of finding Dee and Kelley are pretty damn remote. But the chances of finding the stolen artworks, which we know for a fact are at this very moment somewhere in the neighbourhood, these chances are another thing entirely.’
‘All well and good chief, but. . .’
‘But, Barry?’
‘But, chief, if we locate the artworks and take them forward in time to the museum, then Sir John Rimmer can’t dig them up.’
‘Tough on Sir John.’
‘No, but chief, if he doesn’t dig them up then he can’t give them to the museum. And if he can’t give them to the museum then they can’t be in the museum for Dee and Kelley to steal. Am I making myself clear?’
The little guy was on to something, but I didn’t want him getting a swelly head. ‘A mere backgammon,’ I tell him.
‘It’s bagatelle, you dumb-assed . . .’
‘What’s that, Barry?’
‘Nothing, chief.’
‘OK. So let’s make tracks.’
‘Er, chief, just one other tiny little detail.’
‘Details, always details.’
‘Well, perhaps this is quite a large detail. I did mention my small concern regarding the date. You-are aware of exactly what goes down here in two days time.’
‘Of course, Barry. The Third Holocaust. Nuclear devastation on a scale hitherto undreamt of. Millions dead, two-thirds of the world laid to waste. Twenty-five years of nuclear night.’
‘On 30 July 2061. Just two days from now.’
‘So?’ says I with more savior-faire than a spaniel in a sperm bank. ‘What’s the big deal?’
‘Chief, I don’t think you realize what a very dangerous business this is.’
‘You mean that the future of civilization and probably the very fabric of universal existence hangs on this one?’
‘More than you know, chief. For one thing, if . . .’
I stuff Barry down deep into my pocket. Sometimes you can take just so much from a talking sprout and no more.
Rex awoke amongst the garbage. It didn’t smell too bad. It was that Hollywood garbage that actors with special clauses in their contracts deign to fall into. Cardboard, polystyrene, shredded paper, that sort of thing. How come Rex hadn’t jumped into the dumpster next door that was full of pig manure and dead chickens was anyone’s guess. Perhaps someone ‘up there’ liked him. Or perhaps not. Rex climbed from his hidey-hole and gave the new day a cursory glance. It didn’t look too promising, but he was still prepared to give it his best shot. His jacket didn’t fit too well, but at least his shoes were kosher. And he did have the fifty-dollar bill. And he also had a really sneaky idea.
Rex straightened his shoulders, dusted himself down and hailed a convenient cab.
‘Morning pal,’ said last night’s cabby. ‘Caught your show. Great stuff. What about those tickets, then?’
‘I was just on my way to pick them up.’ Rex climbed into the cab. ‘A couple of calls on the way if you don’t mind.’
‘No sweat, matey. Where to then?’
Rex’s stomach grumbled bitterly. ‘Breakfast,’ said his mouth.
My office was just as I remembered it. Or would. Or almost would. The key fits the nice new lock and I walk within. I’m impressed with the nice new carpet. Very spruce. And the nice new chair, which as yet didn’t have a bullet hole in it. But then I was still in 28 July 2061, in case you’re getting confused. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, how come I have these very items in my twenty-fifth-century office, when they are about to get blown to damnation in the Third Holocaust a couple of days from now. Ain’t ya?
Well, if you come up with the answer, be sure and let me know.
I breathe in the ambience. It’s sweeter than a Swiss cheese in a sword swallower’s sweatshirt. I step over to the window and draw up the Venetian blind. Presley City. The whole town laid out like a lady wrestler at a biker’s barbecue. What a dump. Blowing this God awful travesty off the face of the planet was the least anyone could do. I’d do it myself if I’d had the time. But I don’t. I dig out Barry and set him up on the nice new desk, drop into my chair and check messages on the answer-phone. I know the first voice almost as well as I know my own. It says: ‘Woodborn, this is Sam Maggott. You got just tw
o days left to pay back that five thousand dollars you borrowed, or else. Got me?’
‘Sounds like Sam’s having a “rough one”, chief.’
‘He’ll have a rougher one in a couple of days. What else do we have?’
‘Mr Wideburn. This is the Acme Watercooler Company. If your account isn’t cleared by the thirtieth then we shall be forced to repossess your appliance.’
‘Up yours.’
‘Mr Wodbine, that car you sold me is a turkey. I want my money back .. .’
I fast-forward and listen to the next message. And the next and the next and the next. After a while they get a little boring.
‘Seems that your many times great-granddaddy skipped town in the nick of time, chief.’ “The luck of the Woodbines, Barry. He had to survive the Third Holocaust or I wouldn’t be here.’
“That makes sense at least. Any more messages left?’
‘Just the one. Shall I play it?’
‘Why not. In for a penny, eh, chief?’
I give Barry the kind of look you could slice bacon with, but I play the message.
‘Mr Woodbine. I have the information you want. The whereabouts of you-know-what. I’m at the gorgeously-appointed Love Me Tender Massage Parlor on East Fifty-third and Mainline. I’ll meet you in the alleyway at the back at eleven o’clock sharp. Come alone.’
I tip Barry the wink. ‘We’re rolling,’ says I.
‘Well . . .’ The sprout looks doubtful, which is something you really have to see to appreciate. ‘I’m not certain. Something doesn’t smell quite right to me.’
‘You mean the way he . . .’
‘Exactly.’
‘I noticed that, too.’
‘I thought you had.’
‘I knew that you did.’
‘You did?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘That’s fine, then.’
‘I knew that it would be.’
‘You knew?’
‘Of course I knew.’
‘That’s fine, then.’
‘You said that.’
‘I did?’
‘Of course you did.’
‘I thought that I had. Shouldn’t it cut to the next scene now?’
‘You mean like-’
Rex wiped the crumbs from his chin and finished up his coffee. The cabby had the meter running so he joined Rex in another cup. ‘Nice day for the race,’ he said conversationally.
‘Spot on,’ said Rex. ‘Tell me, do you have anything specific planned for today.’
The cab driver grinned wolfishly. ‘Nothing special. I thought I might take a couple of movie queens out on my yacht and screw them rigid for about nine hours.’
‘I’ll take another cab then.’
‘No fella, wait.’ The cabby put up his hands. ‘It was a gag. Just a gag.’
Rex viewed him with suspicion. ‘Not a running one?’
‘What’s that exactly?’
‘Never mind. Then I shall engage your services for the entire day. If that’s all right with you.’
‘You’re a toff, guvnor.’ The driver made furtive twiddlings at his meter. Rex spied out the sudden acceleration of the little dollar digits and the cabby’s grin reflected in the driving mirror. ‘Where to then, Mac?’
‘A shop that sells sunglasses.’ Rex kept his own grin to himself, ‘Nice big expensive ones.’
‘Tally ho then, squire.’
‘Tally ho, indeed.’
The whistling cabby drove Rex away from the bad part of town. As they passed the end of Lonely Street Rex peeped from the back window and wondered about the large number of long black sinister-looking cars parked before Heartbreak Hotel. He also wondered if he should broach the matter of the cabby’s recommendation of the place, but thought better of it. He had far more pressing affairs on his mind.
The journey from the bad part of town to the good part was for the most part uneventful. The cabby hurled the occasional wad of invective towards fellow motorists, but this, he assured Rex, was all part of the service. It was a tradition or an old charter or something. Rex, for his part, lazed in his seat and schemed in silence.
At no great length, but at what seemed considerable expense, the cab halted before the House of Meek. It was a large and swanky affair. Liberally dosed with neon and sporting a window display which appeared to consist of lootings from a pharaoh’s tomb.
‘Just the ticket, bro,’ grinned the cabby. ‘Sunshades they have.’
‘Keep the motor running,’ Rex told him. ‘I won’t be a moment.’
The House of Meek was a family concern. Founded in the former century by the now legendary Russell Meek. Explorer, swordsman, Member of Parliament for Brentford North, best-dressed man of 1995, three-times world snooker champion and stunt double for Long John Holmes. (That all right for you, Russ?)
The present proprietor was one Theodore Meek, a stunted hunchback with a penchant for necrophilia. Nature had favoured him with bad breath and a baldy head. The former he battled to suppress with a range of hopelessly inadequate patent medicines and the latter he disguised beneath a high-crested wig of black lacquered swan’s down. He wasn’t going to be caught quiffless in a Quiffs Only Zone.
Rex had a bit of a quiff on himself this particular morning. Not that this was due to any innate yearnings to conform. More that he had slept face down in the dumpster. And you know how your hair gets when you’ve had a really rough night.
The lad with the lop-sided Fabian entered the House of Meek. Theodore viewed him with only the slightest misgivings, certainly no more nor less than he viewed any other customer. He worried about that jacket, though. A trifle pinched beneath the armpits perhaps.
Rex swaggered towards Theodore, who stood to attention behind the antique counter. Rex smiled sweetly and leaned an elbow upon the highly-polished marble counter-top. He gazed around at the shop’s interior.
It was very swanky, and no doubt about it.
Rows of richly-cut leather clothes hung upon gilded racks. Gentlemen’s things, calf-skin wallets, white seal toiletry bags, badger-hair shaving brushes, porcupine-quill combs, ivory tooth-picks, koala-bone gaming dice, all neatly displayed upon mahogany shelves. The heads of stuffed beasties stared down upon him. Their skins pelted the floor. Rex shuddered inwardly and turned his gaze upon Theodore.
‘Morning humpty,’ he said. ‘Giving the bell ringing a miss today?’
‘Excuse me, sir?’ Theodore fell back in alarm.
‘Oh excuse me,’ Rex put his hands to his face. ‘I do apologize. I’ve been taking a lot of illegal drugs recently.’
‘Quite so, sir. I understand.’ The customer is always right, he told himself.
‘Good boy.’ Rex leered horribly.
‘How might I help you, sir?’
‘Well,’ said Rex. ‘My name is Rex Mundi. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. Millionaire gameshow host. Does the Nemesis show. Chap off the telly. Mundi. Rex Mundi.’
‘I do believe I’ve seen your show. Yes, of course, sir.’
Rex fanned his nose. ‘What is that funky smell?’ he asked.
‘Sir, I’m sorry I . . .’
Rex took to examining the soles of his blue sueders. ‘I must have trodden in some shit or something. No, hang about, it’s you. Good God, man, what did you have for breakfast, stewed rat?’
‘Sir, I’m sorry, I . . .’
‘Never mind. I’ll just try to stay up-wind of you. Mundi’s the name. Rex Mundi.’
‘So you said, sir.’
‘Do I have an account here?’
‘No sir, you don’t.’
‘Pity. Still, let’s see what you have. Don’t stand quite so close. You don’t half pong.’
‘Sir, I really must object.’
‘You must? You should stand where I’m standing.’
‘I think you’d better leave, sir.’
‘I’d like a pair of sunglasses, please. Nice big ones. The best you have. The most costly.’
‘The best we ha
ve?’
‘The very best. Money no object.’
‘In that case.’ Theodore stooped beneath the counter to seek out the drawer. Rex watched the wig go down.
He watched the wig come up again. Theodore displayed the drawer-load of sunglasses. ‘These are our most exclusive, sir.’
‘None of that “sir” stuff now. Mundi’s the name. Rex Mundi.’
‘Courtesy costs nothing, sir.’
‘I’ll bet that fur hat you’re wearing didn’t cost you an arm and a leg either. What did you do, skin your breakfast?’
“That really is the limit, sir. Kindly leave the building.’
‘Whoops.’ Rex beat at his forehead. ‘I’m so sorry. The illegal drugs. Please bear with me. Those look nice.’ He pointed into the drawer.
‘These?’ Theodore was trying to speak without opening his mouth. ‘These are particularly exclusive. Designe by Pierre Montag of Paris, France. See the little logo on the lens?’
Rex snatched them from his fingers and tried them on. ‘How do I look?’
‘Very chic, sir.’
‘Mundi. Rex Mundi. Gameshow host and drug fiend.’
‘Mr Mundi. They suit you very well.’
‘Are they the biggest you have?’
Theodore perused the drawer. ‘The very biggest.’
‘They’ll do then. Just one thing.’
Theodore flinched. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Tell me this. Do you know of any situation where the wearing of such sunglasses as these would be considered an affront to accepted religious dogma?’
‘Certainly not, sir. We wouldn’t deal in such items.’
‘Good. Just the job, then. How much are they?’
Theodore turned the label which covered Rex’s nose. ‘Five thousand dollars.’
‘Five thousand dollars.’ Rex beckoned Theodore closer. ‘Does your mother know how to sew?’ he asked.
‘My mother is a skilled seamstress, as it happens. Why do you ask?’
‘Well. . .’
Some cases are so full of knots that Alexander the Great with a Texas chainsaw couldn’t eat into them. I remember a case back in ninety-three. Seemed like a straightforward affair at the time, but in five short days it cost me the best friend I ever had, a tree sloth called Cosmo, my right kneecap and four months in a decompression chamber. Some cases, you just can’t tell. And I hoped real bad that this wasn’t going to be one of them.