The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (26 page)

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
fuck 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 OK.’

‘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 Padget 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
America’’.’

‘Something
more exotic then. Hubble-bubble hookah, opium pipe, narghile—’

‘Isn’t
that the same as a hookah?’

‘OK.
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?’

‘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.’