‘This is Kevin’s mum. Who’s this?’
‘Police Chief Sam Maggott. Presley PD.’
‘You don’t sound like him. He was on TV last night talking about the alien kidnapping. His voice was much deeper than yours. Wasn’t that terrible about Harpo/Chico?’
‘Really terrible.’ Jonathan put on the deepest voice he could manage. ‘I believe your son can help me with my enquiries.’
‘My Kevin?’
‘Please get him to the phone now.’
‘He’s in bed. I told that lady.’
‘Madam, get your son to the telephone at once or I will have Officer Cecil give you a good poking with his over-sized weapon.’
‘Kevin! Telephone! Get up you lazy little . . .’
Jonathan returned the receiver. ‘If you want a job doing, then do it yourself. You speak to him. I will tell you what to say.’
It wasn’t a bad-looking saucer and Rex was the first to appreciate that. It was a real George Adamski job, or a Dr Sir George King job, depending upon which contactee you happen to favour. It’s a funny thing how so many contactees are called George, isn’t it? No? Well please yourself then. Actually, a friend of mine who was once in the TA had a pal called George who claimed to have been spirited away to Venus in a UFO. He was kidnapped, apparently, while taking a pee in the pub bog at the Queen’s Head in Brighton. My friend says that George was only gone for five minutes, but when he returned from the toilet he said that he had been captured, flown to Venus and then forced to have sex with several beautiful Venusian lasses, who required his ‘superior seed for the creation of a cosmic super race’. Naturally my friend considered this a lot of malarky, but he was impressed that the previously dean-shaven George now sported a five-day growth of beard.
But I digress.
The saucer was about thirty feet in diameter, with a smart transparent dome on the top. It rested upon three extendable legs with big flat metal feet. These made enigmatic holes in the tarmac for scholars to puzzle and debate over later.
Rex approached the grounded UFO and waved cheerfully. ‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Anyone at home?’
A ladder descended from the central portion of the lower disc area and a spaceman, suitably dad in inflatable atmospheric suit and weather-dome, did likewise. He turned towards Rex and approached in slow motion. Little lights flickered from the interior of his dome and a communication unit on his chest crackled with static.
‘ •Zr.-^WTF’*’ he said.
Which left Rex somewhat stuck for a reply.
‘Hello. Kevin here.’
Jonathan nudged Laura with his you-know-what. ‘You know what to say.’
‘Kevin. It’s Laura.’
‘Laura. Mum says you’re under arrest.’
‘Kevin. I’m not under arrest.’
‘But mum said Sam Maggott was with you. Do you want us to bust you out?’
‘Sam Maggott is not with me.’
‘Ah. You’re on your own in the cell, eh? Shall we storm the station house?’
‘Kevin. Listen to me-’
‘You just say the word, Laura. I could come disguised as a priest with sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest and-’
‘Kevin! Shut up!’
‘Sorry?’
‘Kevin. Do you have a piece of paper and a pencil?’
‘Paper and pencil? Oh, I see. Blow dart, yes. Roll up the paper, bit or curare on the pencil point. Good idea-’
‘No, Kevin, it’s not a good idea. I’m not under arrest. I’m not with Sam Maggott. I’m not in a police cell. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Gotcha.’
‘Right, then-’
‘You can’t talk. I understand. Just say the word and we’ll come in with all guns blazing.’
‘Kevin. Everything is OK. Do I make myself clear?’
‘A code word. That’s what you want. How about “Pewter Suitor”?’
‘Give me that phone!’ Jonathan made a furious face.
‘No. Let me deal with him.’
‘Who’s with you? It’s Maggott, isn’t it? I recognize his voice.’
‘It’s not Maggott. Forget Maggott. Just get a pencil and paper.’
‘Pencil and paper? Is that the code word?’
‘No, it’s not the code word! There is no code word. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. I mean, no. Why are you calling me?’
‘Kevin. Do you have a pencil and paper?’
‘Is that why you’re calling me?’
‘Yes.’
‘To ask if I have a paper and pencil?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you have your own? I was in bed.’
‘I want you to write something down. Something very important.’
‘Ah. Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
‘Kevin. Get a pencil and paper.’
‘OK. Hold on.’
Laura put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘He’s just getting a pencil and paper.’
‘Hello. Laura?’
‘Hello Kevin.’
‘I haven’t got a pencil. Is a biro all right?’
Laura looked to Jonathan. ‘Is a biro all right?’ she asked.
‘ts*^^¬¬../,’ said the spaceman.
‘Come again?’ said Rex.
The spaceman twiddled at his chest. ‘Hello,’ he continued. ‘Are you Mr Mojo Nixon?’ ‘Possibly,’ Rex replied. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘My name is ,’~V-*Os’C»rie*v ‘ said the spaceman. ‘But you can call me Frank. Beta Reticuli Transportation Services plc.’ He made a sweeping gesture. ‘Whooosh. That’s the kiddie.’
‘Eh?’ said Rex.
‘There in a day,’ the off-worlder went on. ‘No distance too great. No package too small. No charge too large.’
‘No gag too old.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Why are any of us here?’ Frank whipped out a clipboard. ‘Do you want to sign for the return of your two-headed love-child?’
“The two-headed love-child on the newscast?’
‘I never watch the telly, me. But surely you know your own two-headed love-child.’ ‘Naturally.’
‘So, if you want him back you’d better sign here. I can’t stand around all day chit-chatting. Space-time is money you know.’
Rex stepped forward. ‘Where do I sign?’
‘Just there.’ Frank now produced a pen which worked upon an unlikely scientific principle, possibly to do with the trans-perambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter. Or possibly not. Rex signed Mojo Nixon.
‘Cheers,’ said Frank. ‘Hey, Don,’ he called up the ladder. ‘Sling the kid down here, I’ve got a John Hancock on the body board.’
‘Bloody good thing too,’ came a voice from above. ‘Smells like he’s loaded his kecks again. Ugly little sucker.’
‘You certainly provide a caring and consummate service.’ The irony of Rex’s remark was quite wasted upon Frank, who caught the tumbling tot more by luck than judgement. ‘There you go, then.’ He tossed the bundle of joy to Rex.
“Thank you.’ Rex cradled the infant. ‘Might I just ask one question before you go?’
‘Will there be a tip?’
‘Oh, certainly.’
‘Then ask on.’
‘Why was this baby kidnapped in the first place?’
‘Well.’ Frank couldn’t reach his head, so he scratched his dome. ‘The way I see it, it’s probably part of some cosmic master-plan. We get a lot of this sort of business. Not as much as we’d like, you understand. And not nearly as much as we used to get back in the good old days, when alien abductions were all the rage. Generally, what happens is, subject gets kidnapped, taken off to a distant planet, clued up upon the celestial wisdom of the space folk, then dumped back here to fend for himself. It’s just the way of things. Probably tradition or an old charter or something.’
Rex shook his head in wonder. ‘But why kidnap a baby?’
Frank leaned forward and whispered through his translator. ‘Cock up if you ask me. The name I’ve got on the manifest is for a Mr George Nixon. Typical isn’t it.’
‘It certainly is.’
‘So, what about the tip then, Mr Nixon?’
Rex patted his pockets. ‘You’ve caught me on a bad day, I’m afraid.’
‘Bad day? Well next time you’re in a taxi getting shaken about by a monster from Hell, don’t expect us to come to your rescue again. Bad day indeed.’ Frank made an intricate gesture, which, although of alien origin, never the less conveyed its meaning with crystal clarity. ‘Bloody skinflint.’ He turned to take his leave.
‘No wait, please, let me explain . . .’
‘ Iff***?,’ !’ said Frank as he climbed back up his ladder.
‘No. Please . . .’
The ladder retracted. The port closed. Lights around the saucer’s rim winked cheerfully. And then, without a by your leave or kiss my elbow, the spacecraft rose silently into the sky and swept away. And Rex was left holding the baby.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘I might have handled that a trifle better. So let’s have a look at you then.’ He turned down the cover and peeped at the baby’s heads. ‘Kootchie koo.’
Two small faces peered up at him. They were ugly little suckers.
‘Harpo’s shit in our nappy,’ said Chico.
‘Chico done it,’ said Harpo. ‘I want me mum. Take me home.’
‘No. Take us to a TV station. I have an announcement that will alter the course of human history.’
‘I want me mum.’
‘Shut up you.’
‘Bwaaaaaaaaaaah!’
‘Hmm,’ went Rex Mundi. ‘And hmm again.’
‘Thank you Kevin, and goodbye.’ Laura replaced the receiver.
‘I don’t like this.’ Jonathan paced up and down the bedroom. ‘Are you sure you can trust these people?’
‘I’d trust them with my life.’
‘You just did. But are they sound? Will they do what I told you to tell them to do?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Would you do it?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that not even a ten-year-old would fall for the line of crap you just had me feed Kevin.’
‘What?’
‘I’m saying, you’re going about this all the wrong way. They might turn up on time and do all the right things, or they might not. But having read out your little list of instructions, I now know exactly what you’re up to. And if you’ll just let me handle it, I also know exactly how you can get everything you want. Including me.’
Jonathan’s inbuilt circuitry went through its magical motions.
The read out between his ears said, ‘She’s actually telling the truth this time.’ And indeed she was. But for all the wrong reasons.
‘Where did you get to last night, chief?’ Barry enquired. ‘A bit stiff leaving me in the lead bucket.’
‘For your own protection, Barry.’
‘You went to Simon Butcher’s studio, didn’t you?’
‘I did as it happens.’ The other Rex did a bit of pacing, up and down the top-secret room. ‘I had the building searched, but I didn’t find Elvis.’
‘You won’t find him, chief.’
‘I have to find him. Find him and . . .’ The other Rex held his words in check. ‘How can you be so sure I won’t find him?’
‘Just a hunch, chief. You know you’ve changed. Can’t quite put my finger, if I had one, on just how. But there’s something.’
‘I-’ The door swung open and Johnny Dee stuck his head into the room. ‘We’ve found them, excellency.’
‘What’s with all this excellency business, chief?’
‘Nothing to worry your little green head about, Barry. Back in you go for now then. Recuperate, eh?’ The other Rex tossed the Time Sprout back into the lead bucket and screwed down the lid. ‘Where are they? Is Bill with them?’
“There’s still no sign of Bill, excellency. It’s like he just vanished off the face of the Earth.’
I’ll deal with him in my own time. So where are they?’
‘They’re parked in an alleyway off the Graceland Shopping Mall. And it looks like they’ve got a kid with them.’
I bounced the bambino on my knee. Kids bring out the natural father in me and I get a crinkly mouth every time I look at an ankle snapper. It’s those little innocent faces, I guess. Looking up at you with all that trust. When I finally hang up the fedora and donate the trusty Smithsonian to the Smith and Wesson Institute, I’m gonna have a whole floor-covering of codlings. Kids, yeah, I love ‘em. They plum choke me up.
‘Really ugly pair of suckers you got here, Rex,’ says I. ‘Smells like they’ve loaded their kecks.’
‘You’re a real New Man, Laz.’
‘Aw, Shiva’s sheep! Look at this, will ya?’ I hefted the bouncing bantling off my knee. There was a wet patch the size of the Bay of Pigs right across the lap of my trenchcoat. ‘Take this dump shute back.’
‘I demand to be taken to the plush offices of a disreputable publicity manager,’ Chico demanded. ‘I have a destiny to fulfil.’
‘I want me mum,’ cried Harpo.
‘Get rid of this thing, Rex. I’ll drive us to the rear door of a Doc Barnado’s or something.’
‘You can drive us to the front door of a pharmacy. And with what ever you have left of my watch money we will buy baby food, nappies, bum wipes . . .’
‘You have got to be joking,’ said I, slipping unexpectedly into my John McEnroe persona.
‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’ Rex went dandle dandle with the smelly brat.
‘I’m going no place until we get this sorted. Lazlo Woodbine doesn’t work with animals or children.’
‘I thought you had a dog named Blue, a fish called Wanda, a learned pig, a horse with no..’
‘Only in passing references, buddy. Never on the job. Nothing and I do mean nothing is gonna make me move from here until you agree to dump the munchkin.’
The synchronized fire of two 7.62 M134 General Electric Mini-Gun machine-guns strafed the alleyway. Coming out of the sun, the long black ground-to-air limo dropped down between the buildings, shot up the trash cans and made a real mess of the cast-iron fire escape with the retractable bottom section.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said I, brrrming the engine and engaging drive.
‘I still want me mum,’ screamed Harpo.
‘Don’t mess about.’ The Anti-Rex shook his fists. ‘Shoot them up. Go around and come in again. And do it properly.’
“They’re moving.’ Johnny Dee was at the wheel. Ed Kelley manned the gun ports.
‘Shall I start dropping the grenades?’ Ed asked.
‘Not yet. You have to build up the excitement first. Bring us in low for another assault, Johnny.’
‘Will do.’
‘Get us out of this alleyway,’ Rex shouted. ‘Get into the main street, we can try to lose ourselves amongst the other cabs.’
‘I don’t work main streets, Rex. You know that.’
The long black flying car came in low for another run along An Alleyway called Death. (probably another Lazlo Woodbine Thriller, but enough is enough!)The machine-gun fire tore into the cab, narrowly missing all concerned.
‘You’re carrying the future of the human race here,’ cried Chico. ‘Drive!’
‘Mummy!’ cried Harpo.
‘Drive!’
‘Drive!’ cried Rex. ‘Just drive!’
‘I’m driving!’ I cried. ‘I’m driving already.’
The cab thrashed along the alleyway, mashing dumpsters and scattering bums from central casting. Showers of sparks sprayed off the brick walls and tyres screamed on the wet pavements. The big black car loomed overhead, its big guns spitting big big bullets.
‘Hit the streets,’ cried Rex. ‘Or better still hit the sky.’
‘Woodbine ain’t licked yet.’ I hung a right which cost us a fair amount of sta
rboard body work and a couple of hub caps. ‘We can lose them.’
‘We can lose them? Ye Gods.’ Rex cowered in the back seat shielding Harpo/Chico as best he could. ‘We’re sitting targets.’
‘Never say die, buddy. I’ve been in worse scrapes than this. Back in ‘sixty-two I was in a car chase with Giles “de Rais” Gordon, the Bloomsbury Bluebeard. That chase cost me my twin sister Wilma, a night at theopera-’
‘Clarence the cross-eyed lion and a weekend in a lift shaft with a sex-starved gorilla?’
‘I told you about that, huh? Well, I won through. Stick with me kidder. Aw Hell’s teeth and tootsies!’
There were further rattles of machine-gun fire and Rex found himself looking up at a troubled sky.
‘We just lost the roof,’ said he. ‘Put your foot down or let’s put our hands up.’
‘Have a little faith in the hero.’ I hung a left and wondered about the driver’s door which parted company with us as we struck a portside wall. ‘Getting a mite drafty in here.’
‘All right Eddie.’ The other Rex rubbed his hands together. ‘I think we might employ the grenades now. Just lob one down through the open top of the cab, will you?’
‘No problem, excellency.’ Ed Kelley opened a case of evil-looking grenades. Took out the largest and pulled the pin. ‘Take us in nice and low, please John.’
‘Pleased to.’ The big black car dropped down. Rex could make out all the fine detail of its undercarriage. He saw all the rivets and the little oily spots, the weld marks and the silencer mountings. All the things that you take a curious interest in when you are lying under a car after a road accident, waiting for the ambulance to arrive and thinking that you’d far rather be anywhere else but there.
Ed Kelley was a good shot. The grenade dropped right on to the cab floor in front of Rex.
‘Oh my God!’ Rex plucked it up and made to throw. He glimpsed the little digital readout on the lighted grey panel as it went 03.00 02.00 01.00 . . .
During the 01.00 and the 00.00 Rex gave a whole lot of things a whole lot of thought. He could have had his whole life flash before him. But he didn’t. You don’t really. I once cut my wrist on a guillotine machine at a picture-frame makers where I was working. The blood came pumping out and I was sure I was going to die. All I could see, that I now remember, was this fellow in blue overalls wandering down the street outside, drinking a can of Coca Cola. And all I thought was, I never liked Coca Cola and I suppose I’ll never get to like it now.