The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (33 page)

The
chauffeur nodded. But she didn’t speak.

‘The
last loose end,’ said Billy. ‘The last little fly in the ointment. The manner
of his death, broadcast live worldwide, should make a point to those few
non-conformists that remain. You know, I find it incredible to believe that
there can still be some ungrateful scum left on this planet who do not love me.
Imagine that. Can you imagine that?’

‘I can
imagine that,’ said the chauffeur. ‘If you want me to, I can imagine that.’

‘Of
course you can. But don’t. I forbid you to imagine it. Such thoughts would be
far too distressful for you.
Underpants!’

A naked
woman knelt to put on the royal Y-fronts.

Billy
smiled. ‘And while you’re down there…’ he said.

‘Blow him up?’ said Roger.
‘How are you going to blow him up?’

Well,’
I said. ‘I’ve been in the Necronet long enough to know how things work He’ll be
a stranger here after all. When he comes to give me the kicking, I
could
blow
him up. Nuke him. Blast him to atoms. I could, surely.’

‘Wouldn’t
work,’ said Roger. ‘He won’t just walk into a trap. He’s clever, this Barnes.
Cleverer than you.’

‘He’s
not
that
clever.’

‘He
bloody is.’

‘Not!’

‘Is!’

‘Not!’

Hugo Rune, who is
extremely clever, once said that if you turn America on its side, everything
that’s not screwed down rolls to California. It is thought that he nicked the
line from Frank Lloyd Wright, whose views on America are widely recorded.

But the
point is well made and the World Headquarters of Necrosoft now occupied fifty
acres of land just outside San Francisco. The birthplace of Henry Doors.

Henry
was there to greet Billy Barnes and his chauffeur. The chauffeur was dragging a
suitcase with airholes in the top.

They
all went up to the downloading suite in a very swish glass elevator.

‘I
would strongly advise against this,’ said Henry.

Why?’
Billy asked.

‘Because
you put yourself at personal risk.’

‘No,’
said Billy. ‘At no risk whatsoever. A virtual facsimile of myself enters a
virtual world. No harm can come to the real me out here.’

‘Your
adversary has been in the Necronet for ten years. He might have developed a
trick or two.’

‘Indeed,’
said Billy. ‘He will no doubt try to blow me up. That’s what I’d do if I were
him.’

‘If it’s
that kind of foolishness,’ said Henry Doors, ‘then you certainly have no need
to worry.’

‘I am
not worried.’ Billy smiled. ‘In fact I confess to a thrill of anticipation. I’d
quite forgotten what it feels like to be opposed. For someone to say no instead
of yes. And it will be great fun to experience the Necronet first-hand. And
greater fun to administer the kicking. And even greater fun to supervise the
execution when I’ve returned and uploaded him.’

Henry
Doors now smiled. ‘So thorough in your work,’ he said. ‘Always the consummate
professional.’

‘Thank
you,’ said Billy. ‘I do my best to please.’

The
downloading suite was all-over black. Black and macho and miniaturized. It’s a
male thing, black, when it comes to matters electrical. Your white goods are
for women, dishwashers, tumbledryers, fridges, freezers, toasters, steam-irons,
all that kind of business. But black is toys-for-boys. CD players, mobile
phones, TVs and videos. Check it out next time you’re in a store. And have you
ever asked yourself why it is that all the telephone answering machines which
have little voices that say things like ‘You have six calls’ have
women’s
voices,
rather than men’s? Yet the speaking clock is now a man? Something to do with
subservience and authority? Hm?

Henry
Doors looked upon all that he had made and found it pleasing. There were a
number of leather couches (black). ‘Settle yourself down on one of those,’ said
Henry. ‘And have your chauffeur dump what’s left of your adversary onto
another. I’ll link you both up to the mother computer and set the controls for
fifteen minutes. Time moves differently in there, but I want you out again in
fifteen minutes real time.’

Billy
grinned that grin of his and settled himself onto a couch. A male technician
helped him on with a sleek black headset.

On the
couch next to Billy’s, his chauffeur struggled to position the living remains
of something scarcely human. A second technician placed a similar headset over
the twisted tortured face.

Henry
Doors seated himself before a control panel of a night-time hue, touched panels
and engaged circuitry. ‘All set, Billy?’ he asked.

‘All
set,’ came a muffled reply from beneath the headset.

‘Subject’s
whereabouts have been located. I shall beam you down, as it were.’

‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ said
Roger.

‘What
is your problem?’ I asked.

‘Only
the small matter of what we’re doing up here.’

‘It’s a
rooftop,’ I said. ‘For the final rooftop confrontation.’

Why a
rooftop, for pity’s sake? Why not a fortress or the middle of a minefield, or
something?’

‘Because
Lazlo Woodbine always bested the villain on a rooftop. He worked just the four
locations. His office where his clients came, the bar where he talked a load
of old toot, the alley where he got into sticky situations, and the rooftop
where he had the final confrontation. In one hundred and fifty-eight thrilling
adventures Woodbine never deviated from this award-winning format.’

‘But I
thought you’d agreed that you were crap at playing Woodbine.’

‘I was.
But if I have to have a final confrontation with Billy Barnes, this is where I’m
going to have it.’

Roger
shook his head. ‘The trench coat suits you,’ he said.

‘Thanks,
I appreciate that. Now, you’ve done everything I asked you to do, haven’t you?
The plan is in place?’

‘It is
a good plan,’ said Roger. ‘I will admit that it is a good plan. If it works, of
course.’

‘It
will
work,’ I said, in a tone designed to inspire great confidence.

You don’t
sound very convinced,’ said Roger.

‘Oh.’

‘So
shall I just sort of mooch off somewhere until you’re finished?’

‘I
think that would probably be for the best. I’ll give you a shout if I need you.’

‘And I’ll
come running up with the big gun then, shall I?’

‘The
General Electric mini-gun, yes.’

‘Like
the one Blaine used in
Predator?’

‘It’s a
blinder of a gun, you have to confess.’

Roger
nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said.

We
shook hands.

‘I’ll
get us out,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘No,’
Roger smiled, ‘you just get yourself out. I can’t go anywhere, I have no body
to go back to. Billy Barnes killed me and dumped me in the river. I have to
stay here for ever. But I can be with my fiancée now when she dreams. You’ve
given me that. I’m grateful.’

We
shook hands again and Roger walked away.

I took
a deep breath, adjusted the brim of my fedora just so, and patted the bulge in
my trench coat. The bulge of the trusty Smith and Wesson.

‘OK,
you bastard!’ I shouted at the white sky overhead. ‘I’m waiting for you. Come
and get me, Barnes, you piece of sh—’

Whatever
hit me, hit me like a train.

I didn’t
see it coming, but I felt it arrive.

I flew
back across the rooftop, struck one of those ventilator chimney things with the
revolving tops that always look so good in Ridley Scott movies, and came to
rest inverted and confused.

What
hit me? Who? Where?’

‘Here,’
came the voice of Billy Barnes, and my left kneecap took a whacking.

‘Here!’
and my right knee evened the pain in a most alarming fashion.

‘I can’t
see you, you coward,’ I cried (real tears). Where are you? Come out and fight
like a man.’

‘Get
real, please.’

I was
hauled to my feet by the invisible force and flung once more across the
rooftop.

‘Better
call for the mini-gun,’ said Billy. ‘Because the predator’s here.’

I
opened my mouth to do just that and received a kick in the teeth. As Billy
turned my face to the rooftop and began to grind it back and forwards, I felt
that now might well be the time to engage my digital memory and re-run the
closing moments of
Predator.

And
this I did.

The sky
clouded over and the rain came down in bathtubs.

Billy
lurched up as the electrical circuitry of the alien’s invisibility suit began
to pop and fizzle. I rolled away to watch his materialization.

Billy
appeared and stumbled around in the rain, tearing off bits of smouldering
costume and flinging them aside. I thought myself unscathed and reinvigorated,
dreamed up an umbrella, climbed to my feet and stood under it.

‘Good
suit,’ I called to Billy. ‘I’m impressed that you made it work. I couldn’t get
a car to go in here. Never learned how the internal combustion engine
functioned.’

‘That’s
because you’re a twat,’ said Billy, now standing, well dressed in a sharp black
suit beneath an umbrella that was bigger than mine. ‘You are simply not as
clever as me.’

‘Look
out behind you,’ I said.

‘Don’t
be absurd!’

I
stepped out of the path of the charging rhinoceros. Billy, however, did not.

I
thought away the rain and took a stroll over to view the damage. ‘You’ve got a
big footprint on your head,’ I said.

And
then I went, ‘Aaaaaaagh!’ as the grand piano fell on me.

‘Childish,
I know,’ said Billy, smiling down. ‘But after the banana skin, the falling
grand piano is the number one cartoon classic.’

And
then Billy slipped on the banana skin. And I stuffed the big red stick of
dynamite down his trousers.

‘You
forgot this one,’ I said, as I ran for cover.

The
explosion was really quite impressive. Colourful it was, with the word BOOM in
3D lettering.

Billy
staggered up, his face black and his clothes in tatters.

‘Most
amusing,’ he said. ‘But we have somewhat wandered away from the target. I have
come here to give you a severe kicking before uploading you into your body for
public execution, and I don’t have time to waste.’

Watch
out for the falling safe,’ I said.

Billy
side-stepped it and it plunged through the rooftop.

‘No,’
said Billy, waggling a finger. ‘No, no, no.’

‘No?’ I
said.

‘No.’
Billy plucked from the pocket of his born-again sharp suit a small black
toys-for-boys-type contrivance. ‘I brought this,’ he said.

‘Mobile
phone?’ I asked.

‘Remote
control,’ said Billy. ‘Digital memory eraser.’

Click
went the button.

‘Oh,
shit,’ I said.

Billy
grinned. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Dream up another safe. Impress me.’

I
knitted my brow and thought very hard. I squinted at Billy, and then at the
sky. But the big weight with 15 TONS printed on it failed to materialize.

‘Fucked,’
said Billy. ‘You’re fucked, matey.’

‘Come
on, Billy,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk about this.’ I raised a calming hand. Well,
tried to raise one, but I couldn’t. I gaped down in horror at myself. My feet
were now encased in concrete and I was all trussed in a straitjacket.

‘Now,’
said Billy. What shall it be? Power drill in the eyeballs? Red hot poker up the
jacksy?’

‘No,
Billy, no, I… umph!’ The gaffer tape that suddenly smothered my mouth stifled
all further conversation.

‘Electric
cattle prod,’ said Billy, thinking one into his hand. ‘Necrosoft used to
produce these for the police as part of the urban pacification programme. No
longer necessary now, of course, no need for such crude measures.’

‘Grmph,
mmph,’ I said, meaning, ‘Please have mercy.’

What
was that you said? “Please stick it down my throat”? OK then, if that’s what
you fancy.’

Billy
advanced upon me.

I
couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. Something cold and steely clamped my head. He
faced me, eye to eye. ‘You can’t stop me,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot be stopped.’

And
then he tore the gaffer tape away and raised the cattle prod.

‘No
Billy, don’t.’

My eyes
were shut and I never saw her appear. I heard her voice and when I looked,
there she was.