‘All right. I will.’ Rex squared up to the keyboard. ‘I’m going for this.’ He reached forwards and tapped out a series of figures.
‘What was it?’ Harpo asked.
‘Elvis’s birthdate.’
‘Oh dead inspired. Bravo . . . ooooooh . . . ouch . . . blimey . . . what’s happening?’
‘Ooooooooooh oooooooowww . . . what’s going on?’ Rex gawped at the keyboard, he gawped at his wrist-watch. The hands were racing around the face.
Halfway up a stairway, Jonathan Crawford dropped his suitcase and clutched at his wrist. ‘Oh horrors,’ he groaned. ‘Someone’s touched the bloody bomb, time’s leaping forwards. I’ve got no more lives left. Oh shit!’
‘Hmm,’ went Rex Mundi.
‘I think we’ve done that bit.’
‘This is another hmm altogether. Look at my watch.’ He held it before the twin faces. ‘I seem to have screwed up, just a little.’ He smiled foolishly. The two little faces glared up at him.
‘Seven hours!’ shouted Harpo.
‘Seven sodding hours!’ shouted Chico.
Rex laughed foolishly. ‘Where does all the time go to these days?’ he asked.
‘Seven hours.’ Harpo said it again and again. ‘He pressed the wrong combination and lost us seven hours, just like that.’
‘Well, you did say do something thrilling.’
‘Seven hours,’ whispered Chico.
‘Oh don’t keep on. Anyone can make a mistake. How much time do we have left?’
Chico peeped at Rex’s watch. ‘Precisely one minute,’ he said in a leaden tone.
‘Hmm,’ went Rex Mundi. ‘That long, eh?’
Time. What can you say about time, eh? It’s always a great healer, I guess. And it can be your bestest buddy or your worstest woman. Some say it’s the father of truth, that it waits for no man, devours all things, tames the strongest force, breaks youth and undermines us all. The way I see it, time is the continuous passage of existence, in which events pass from a state of potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past. But that’s me all over, sharp as the day is long. I guess a physicist would tell you that time is a quantity measuring duration, usually with reference to a periodic process, such as the rotation of the earth, or say, the vibration of electromagnetic radiation emitted from certain atoms. Then he’d like as not go on to tell you that in classical mechanics, time is absolute, in the sense that the time of an event is independent of the observer. Because, according to the theory of relativity, it all depends on the observer’s frame of reference. So time is considered as the fourth co-ordinate, required, along with three spatial co-ordinates, to specify an event. Or at least fly when you’re having a good time.
Yeah, there’s a whole lot you can say about time. If you have the time, that is. Which I don’t at present. Because I’m here on business, and in my business, time is money.
From where I was standing alone on this roof-top, silhouetted dramatically against the full moon, I could see the greater part of A City in Terror.( A Lazlo Woodbine Oscar-winning block-buster.) Flames were rising like Old Glory at a witchfinder’s weenie roast. There was a chill wind blowing from the east and it was bringing me the sounds of running footsteps. So I hiked up the collar of my trenchcoat, hiked down the snappy brim of my snap-brimmed fedora and hiked off into the shadows nil desperandum, per vas nefandum, as the French say.
A short sputum hawk away a Caddy air-car hugged the roof-top with more splayed black rubber than a bondage queen’s laundry list. On the polished hood that old devil moon cocked a Cyclopean at the racing heavens. And mirrored in the polished chrome of the bulbous bumperwork, was the image of a small running figure, all swells and distorts. Atmospheric stuff. We’re talking a pretty classy finish here.
The kid threw open the driver’s door and threw himself into the driver’s seat. I counted slowly to three.
Because I knew what was coming next.
‘Shit shit shit shit shit.’ The door flew open again and the kid came flying out.
‘You sound like shit, kid. Looking for these?’ I held out his car keys. Just the one hand, see, stark and white in moonlight, coming out of the shadows. I gave the keys a little jiggle jiggle. They sparkled better than Crawford’s conversation.
‘Shit!’ The kid had a big sweat on which didn’t go too well with his suit. His mean little mouth twitched and his beady little eyes bulged in their beady little sockets. He fingered his shirt collar and looked kinda edgy. ‘Give me those keys, you bloody bastard,’ he said with hardly the hint of a social grace.
I flipped his keys back into my pocket and showed him the muzzle of the trusty Smith and Well-I-never-did. ‘Stick ‘em up,’ I told him.
‘Stick ‘em up? Stick ‘em up? Have you gone stark raving mad?7 He came on like St Virus with Saturday Night Fever. ‘Look at your watch. Look at the time. Someone’s tampered with the bomb. There’s less than a minute left. There’s no more time left. No more time!’
‘Time?’ said I. ‘What can you say about time, eh? It’s a great healer, I guess. And it can be your bestest friend or your worstest. . .’
‘Shut up!’ The kid was getting real foamy about the jaws. ‘Give me the keys. I have to leave now. No more time. No more lives.’
‘Kid,’ said I with more perlocution than a pox doctor’s zany on a five-day furlough. ‘You got time to listen to me. This is Lazlo Woodbine you’re soiling your under-linen to. Lazlo Woodbine, the greatest private eye that ever trod those mean streets along which a man must walk alone. Now I don’t know what happened to all the gratuitous sex and violence and the trail of corpses that traditionally permeate the peerless prose of my prepossessing publications, perhaps it’s a more caring nineties kind of an image, or some of that post-modernist drack I don’t know. But there’s two things I do know. Firstly, I’m here. And secondly you’re here. That’s firstly, this is the end of the book. And secondly, this is the final roof-top showdown. Get the picture?’
‘Have you quite finished?’ Johnny boy was running on the spot. But frankly I’d seen better leg-work on a foldaway beach lounger. ‘Have you finished you . . . you . . .’
‘Finished? Kid, we’ve hardly started. Now, I’m gonna read you your rights and you can take it from there. You may feel like trying to make a break for it. That’s sweet, I can put a couple of slugs in your leg. Or you might feel up to wrestling the gun from me, in which case we can tumble about on the edge of the roof-top until it’s time for you to plunge over the edge. I’m easy.’
‘Listen,’ Crawford came a-creeping in my direction, ‘I can get you out of all this. You won’t have to come back here and ever get involved in it again. I’ll fix it so Dee and Kelley steal the hoard next time two hundred years before you’re even born. You can go back to being a regular detective.’
I raised an eyebrow of admonishment. ‘A what?’
‘A great detective, I mean.’
I raised the former eyebrow’s suave companion. ‘What?’
‘The great detective. Come on. Hurry. What do you say?’
‘I say. Jonathan Alberich Carver Doone Bluebeard Foghorn Lecter Claude Frollo Crawford, I arrest you for the murder of your dear little white-haired old father...’
‘What?’ The kid looked like he’d ordered Chateau Rothschild and had been served a time-share apartment in Benidorm. ‘You can’t-’
‘I quit the Presley Hoard Case kid. No future in it for me. I went back to my office and what did I find on my desk?’ I displayed a paper. ‘Warrant for your arrest. Dead or alive, naturally. It says here that five days ago you pushed said dear little white-haired old father into the Big Flywheel which powers this planet through space [As explained fully in They Came and Ate Us and far too complicated to go into again here]. The body of the previously mentioned dear little white-haired old father caused irreparable damage to the Big Flywheel resulting in a continuous loop whereby you go through the five days leading up to the Big Bang again and agai
n and again. Although there seems to be some technical details about lives getting lost which I can’t get to grips with. But never the less. You’re here, I’m here, and that’s about the strength of it. Shall we tango?’
‘This is ridiculous. There’s only seconds left.’
‘Seconds? Sure, check your watch.’
He checked his watch. ‘It’s stopped,’ said he, shaking it furiously.
‘No it’s not. Just slowed down a bit. I always get extended seconds in my roof-top showdown scene. It’s written into my contract. So there’s time for all the necessary exposition to tie up all the loose ends satisfactorily. I always think that’s so important, don’t you? Twenty seconds can be strung out to include the criminal’s confession, an unexpected surprise or two, a nail-biting barn-stormer of a punch-up. And of course the inevitable doom plunge of the baddie. That would be your doom plunge, of course.’
Crawford bit his lip. ‘Give me my car keys, please,’ he said.
‘Sure kid.’ I tossed him the keys. ‘Move one inch and I shoot you dead.’
‘All right, all right. You want a confession, yes?’
I nodded my head. I do it just the once and I do it real subtle. Nothing fancy. I never go over the top or make a big thing out of nodding, I figure a slight cranial inclination of, say, five or six degrees, is sufficient to signify the affirmative, more than that and you’re looking like a ‘yes man’ or some damn felt pooch in a Cortina rear window. So I keep it concise and to the point. That’s the kind of guy I am.
‘Was that a yes or a no?’ Jonathan asked.
‘A yes.’
‘Good.’ The kid stroked his pointy little chin. I bet he wished like Hell he had a lantern jaw like mine to call his own.
‘Right then, you want a confession you can have one. But please put away your gun. I’m getting really fed up with being shot.’
‘Sure, what harm can it do?’ I figured, Sure, what harm can it do. So I pocketed my piece. ‘There you go.’
‘Yeah. And now stick up your hands.’
I didn’t know where he got the gun from; guess I never will. But there it was winking at me in the moonlight like a one-eyed whore on a blind date. I stuck up my hands, the way one does. ‘You got me, kid,’ I declared.
‘Yeah, I certainly do.’ Crawford was backing to the Caddy. ‘Sure I killed my old man. But I had to. The auditors were in. The books didn’t balance.’
‘Books? What books?’
‘The accounts. The planetary accounts. Planet Earth is a business. Always was, always will be. It has to run at a profit or the accountants, the big accountants (he points skyward) sell it off for scrap. Time is money, you know?’
‘I did “time is money” earlier on, kid. I don’t think I did “time and tide wait for no man”, if you want to use that.’
‘Shut up! I mean time is money. Literally. Time costs money. The universe is a big business run by the Corps of the Celestial Accountants. Populated planets pay for their orbits. For their time in space. The local gods usually work it out. But due to my father’s incompetence and Elvis screwing up the status quo “god-wise”, this planet was behind on the mortgage and in danger of being repossessed. Luckily I was here to come up with a brilliant financial package to save the world.’ He’s right by the Caddy now and looking ready for the off.
“This financial package of yours.’ I tried to keep him talking. You never know, something might happen. ‘This involved turning the entire world into a virtual reality computer-game for the gods to play?’
‘Well, not all of it. The bit I was stuck in mostly. Presley stinking City.’
‘And these accountants, they went for it?’
‘Sure, they’re playing it now. Can’t you feel them?’ He was getting in the Caddy. His gun was still on me and time was ticking away.
‘Just one more thing kid. About the “lives getting lost” bit. I don’t understand that.’
‘It’s simple enough.’ He was in the car. ‘I may be stuck in a five-day time loop, but I’m not immortal. As with any game you only get so many lives. I’ve used all of mine but one this time trying to make it real exciting. So I’ve got to get away from here before the Big Bang. And that means now. I’ll see you again last week. If you catch my drift, and I don’t give a shit if you do.’
‘Hold it right there, scumbag.’ Now, I never said that, it’s not my style. And this voice had more decibels to it than a dancing dog at a Blue Cheer gig. I turned and Crawford turned. But as Crawford turned he also turned the ignition key.
‘This is my game, my business and my planet!’ The owner of the megaton voice rose up from a kind of melted hole in the roof-top and he looked real pissed off.
He came out real thin. About one micron in diameter would be my guess. Then he swelled out in all directions. And it was tentacles here tentacles there, Goddam tentacles everywhere. I snatched up the trusty Smith and Whatever-I-haven’t-got-around-to-calling-it-yet and squared up the way that only I can do. ‘Up with your ... things,’ I told it. ‘I’m taking you in.’
Out of the squirming worming mass came a twisted face that looked like it used to belong to Rex. It hung in the air before me, drooling and wobbling and generally being unpleasing to the eye. It opened its mouth and uttered thusly, ‘You got bullets in that gun, soldier?’
‘Of course I’ve got bullets. You were expecting perhaps, water?’ I had to laugh at that one. But it seems ‘it’ didn’t.
“Then I’ll get back to you when I’ve dealt with this piece of sh-’ Crawford had the Caddy in gear. The wheels were spinning. But before you could say ‘What a handsome fellow that Lazlo Woodbine is’, the whole car looked like chow-time in the octopus tank.
‘I run this planet!’ The big big voice came out of the big big face, and I don’t know how you feel about brimstone breath but it brings me out in hives.
‘Hey guy.’ I figured I’d better get my two-penny worth in now as ever. ‘You’re the Devil. Am I right or am I right?’
“The god of this world!’ roared he, spreading halitosis to the four winds.
‘And you’re saying that you are responsible for, how shall I put it... all this crap?’
Broooom broooom and Roar went the Caddy. The wheels were burning more rubber than a non-rubber-burning entity at an unrelated event, but the car wasn’t going no place. ‘Get off my car!’ Crawford howled. ‘Let me go!’
‘Well guy,’ said I. ‘Seems like I’m gonna have to shoot you.’
‘Shoot me?’ Now we were talking the big Satanic ho-ho-hos.
‘Afraid so. This roof-top ain’t big enough for the three of us. I have to tangle with the mad kid, so I’d best shoot you now. It’s nothing personal. Hope you understand.’
‘Oh, I do. I do.’
‘Good, then . . .’ I raised my piece, but that’s about as far as I got with it. Suddenly I was heavily tentacle and was feeling a right proper Charlie, I can tell you.
‘This little dog plop.’ Certain tentacles shook the Caddy all about. ‘Works for me. Although he doesn’t know it. Before Elvis went back in time and screwed everything up, things were ticking over just fine for me and mine. God ran up there. And I ran down here. He got his jollies and I got mine. But there’s always some little entrepreneur with delusions of grandeur hoping to cop the pot of gold. Well, not this time and not at any other time. You die here, Crawford. Right here and right now.’
‘Is that it?’ I asked.
‘Is that what?’
‘Is that all you have to say? I was just wondering if there were to be any more explanations or confessions or whatnot, or whether we were going to go straight into the exciting climax now.’
The beast from the bottomless pit scratched his bonce with a wiggly thing. ‘I can’t think of anything else off-hand,’ he rumbled. ‘All the loose ends generally get tied up on the last page. After a fashion, anyway. What about you, Johnny?’
Crawford shook his head. ‘I did my bit before you arrived. It’s mostly jus
t the shouting and screaming left for me now.’
‘Nope.’ The swelly-head bobbed again in my direction. ‘All said. I’m going to wring the life out of Crawford now.’
‘Splendid.’ I tipped him the wink. ‘Could you loosen up on the vice-like gripping? I have a hernia.’
‘Sorry.’ A goodly number of black and eely things left my person and set about the Caddy with a thing called vengeance.
I raised my piece and let two go into the back of the big bad head.
‘Ho ho ho ho... ooooh bloody Hell!!!’ Mr Nasty swung his ugly-looking mug around.
‘Didn’t like that eh?’ I gave him one right between the baby blues. ‘Take that also.’
‘Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!!’ The scream rocked the roof-top and I was tentacle free. ‘Care for another?’
‘You shot me. What have you got in that fucking gun?’
‘Bullets pal. Silver bullets. Never leave home without them. Blessed by the currentPpope, these boys. Care to taste another?’
‘No I wouldn’t.’
‘I remember one time back in ‘fifty-seven. I was on the trail of Carmel Shane, the Vampire of Vermont. I came out packing ordinary ammo. That case cost me ninety per cent of my bodily functions, most of my chestnut chest hair, a Welsh mountain rescue team called Philip, twelve lords a-leaping, four months topping the bill at Bognor Regis (summer season with Russ Abbot), and all the salad you want at an inclusive price of £4.99 per person. I couldn’t look at a theodolite for a year after that without dreading the smell of boiled cabbage. Hey guy, are you listening to me?’
But it seemed like he wasn’t. He was all wrapped around the Caddy. The Caddy’s wheels were screaming and the whole kith and caboodle of them were coming in my direction pretty damn lively in the acceleration department.
‘You’re gonna get yours, Woodbine!’ screamed Crawford.
‘And you yours!’ The phantom hitch-hiker took up the hue and cry, and thrashed all about the place. The car tore at me and I took to my tapered toes. The Caddy’s headlights threw my fleeing, yet stylish shadow across an expanse of roofscape that held about as much hope for me as for Bobby McGee. I kept right on running but it looked like I had very little more roof to pursue this particular past-time upon. It didn’t seem like I had a lot of options.