The Devil in Amber (4 page)

The fixtures and fittings were so damnably pretty, so the thinking had gone, that it seemed only right to turn them to good use. Now the “99” was New York’s swellest speakeasy and clearly the place to be seen–albeit in fancy dress.

The somewhat arctic style of the ruined airship was currently offset by the astonishing blaze of colour provided by the costumed guests. Coloured streamers poured from the roof girders, mingling giddily with explosions of taffeta, silk and velvet, got up in every form of uniform, toga and frock. It’s marvellous how stylish duds can transform even the most commonplace person, and perhaps
even more marvellous how a simple half-mask of black or white can render the must lumpen of features strangely romantic.

I swept as gracefully as I could through the carousing throng, passing Cleopatras, Abraham Lincolns and a variety of gorgeously frocked queens (of the divorced, beheaded and died variety, you understand), all gyrating wildly to the strains of the jazz band. There was a frenzied air to their enjoyment and the grins visible under the masks had a fixed, rictus quality that was almost alarming. Perhaps I was just feeling jealous of their youth.

I’m always trying to recapture my youth–but he keeps on
escaping
.

Standing with one bandaged hand on tricoleur-sashed hip, cigarette in the other, I waited until a flunkey in a turban deigned to offer me some pink champagne.

The face of our informant, ‘Peter Pan’, was unknown but I kept my lovely eyes peeled for such a vision, or even his independent shadow shuffling along the skirting boards. All manner of fairies, nymphets and dryads pirouetted before me, the shimmering of cut-glass chandeliers speckling their lithesome young bodies like sunlight through forest leaves–but there was no sign of any denizen of Neverland.

A giddy couple–Adam and Eve by their state of déshabillé–stumbled past me.

‘None of your beeswax!’ cried the girl, slurping her cocktail. ‘It’s just some caper he’s got on and–Oh…
hi
!’

She laid a friendly hand on my sleeve and giggled. ‘Hey. Have you seen Raphael?’

I blew a languid smoke-cloud through my nose. ‘The Urbino Master?’

‘The
guy
. You
know.
Raphael! Hey, Leonard. Butt me, would ya?’

Her companion leant in and popped a slim cigarillo between her lips. I gave her a light from my own. She clasped my hand as she bent down, glancing up at me with saucy eyes.

‘Thanks. Hey, you wanna dance?’

‘Aren’t you looking for Raphael? And what about Adam?’

But the Biblical first-hubbie was engaged in a frantic Charleston with a dime-store Pola Negri in a bad wig. Eve dismissed him with a curt shake of her lovely head.

She was certainly a stunner in her fleshings, a cleverly embroidered fig leaf covering both her breasts and her unmentionables. Had fate not intervened, I might well have asked her to give me a little tour of the Tree of Knowledge, but just then someone knocked into me, sloshing pop onto my silken sleeve and dragging Eve away. Of course, she forgot me at once and disappeared into the throng.

Tutting, I reached into my pantaloons and pulled out my handkerchief.

‘Where’d you get that?’

I glanced up. A small white-blond fellow, togged up as Julius Caesar, was peering at my wipe. Looking down, I realized I’d pulled out Hubbard’s curious relic by mistake.

The noblest Roman jabbed out a fat, hairless hand. ‘May I see?’

There was a curious timbre to his voice, a kind of faintly hysterical edge as though he was fighting to control his emotions. I waited a moment, not sure how to play the situation, then dropped the ragged silk into his palm. His quick eyes–bespectacled beneath the slits of his half-mask–scanned the relic with hungry eagerness. ‘My, my,’ he cooed, blinking lashes pale as straw. ‘It’s
very
old. Medieval, at a guess. Northern European. Quite a miraculous survival.’

He cleared his throat twice and beamed at me. ‘Where’d you get it?’

I can recognize affected nonchalance when I see it. For the second time, I ignored the question. ‘Do you know what all that writing means?’ I asked.

A faint smile broke the small man’s impassivity. ‘Ah, now.’ Cough-cough. ‘That’s the question.’

I took a sip of champagne. ‘You have some…expertise?’ I ventured.

‘A little, yes,’ he said mildly. ‘Name’s Reiss-Mueller. Professor Reiss-Mueller. I work at the Metropolitan Museum. Down in the bowels. Drop by some time. I can give you my honest opinion on it.’

‘In return for what?’

The little man hooked a finger over his lower lip, like a child contemplating what it might want for Christmas.

Then, suddenly, there was a low brown Yankee voice in my ear. ‘How goes the Revolution?’

It was so close to my flesh and pitched so low that I shivered, then swivelled about on my high-heeled velveteen shoes.

‘Not so bad. Are you a friend of Tinkerbell’s?’ I cried, tucking the handkerchief into my trousers.

Peter Pan was revealed, not the puckish individual I was expecting, but a rather strapping fellow in a challengingly short green tunic and matching tights. A feathered cap looked rather dainty on his expensively cut chestnut hair. Beneath the white half mask, large brown eyes burned intensely.

I turned back to Reiss-Mueller but the little man had melted away into the seething, chattering crowd.

R
eturning my full attention to the newcomer, I found myself somewhat distracted by the impressive bulk of his thighs. Clearing my throat embarrassedly, I looked Peter Pan full in the face. He had a rather heroic jaw with that indefinably attractive just-shaved glow, only some rather bad pocking spoiling the otherwise flawless effect of his skin. He gripped my arm and pulled me aside. ‘Sal Volatile’s the name. We gotta talk.’

I took a long drag on my cigarette. ‘So I gather. You have some information to impart?’

‘Uh-huh.’ The brown eyes darted about inside the slitted hollows of the mask. ‘Secrets.’

I smiled my wide smile. ‘Secrets, eh? Well, you’re the boy who never grows old. I beg you to blab.’

His face (or half of it) fell. ‘This is serious.’

‘I’m sure it is. How much do you want?’

His chin suddenly lunged so close to mine that I recoiled. ‘I don’t want money!’ he hissed. ‘Jesus! You think I’d risk it all for…’

He glanced away and I followed his gaze. Anne of Cleves and one of the Abraham Lincolns were busily chopping up lines of cocaine with a razor blade. They sat on opposite sides of the glass table, chatting merrily like children divvying up sherbet. The woman inhaled a vast quantity and then shook herself all over like a dog emerging from a pond. Her eyes grew glassy for an instant and then she giggled uncontrollably, her hand flying to her mouth and a little dribble of colourless mucus forming on her upper lip.

‘Do you believe in Evil, Mr Box?’ said my companion, grinding his jaw and looking at the couple with unfeigned contempt.

‘Only on Wednesdays.’

The jest was not appreciated. ‘Evil, sir. Old as the Earth. Seductive as a lover’s promise. Patient, watchful Evil…’

‘If you’re referring to the narcotics, my boy, then I consider there are greater perils threatening the globe just now.’

‘How right you are.’

I sighed. ‘Look here, Mr Volatile. I dislike riddles. Has all this cryptic blether got anything to do with F.A.U.S.T.?’

A curiously mad grin suddenly lit up his features. ‘Ha! More than you know, sir. More than you know.’

‘You’re doing it again! Are we going to come to some accommodation or am I wasting my time? These Froggy shoes are awful uncomfortable, don’t you know, and I’m hankering for my bed.’

He swung back in my direction and suddenly lifted up his mask.

I took a step backwards. It was the curly-haired chap who’d shadowed me outside the Moscow Tea Rooms! His cheeks looked even more pitted in the curiously lurid light but his whole face blazed with a fierce intelligence. ‘If I’m being careful, sir, it’s because I’m playing a very dangerous game. I’m going to tell you everything. I swear. About the Lamb. About the Prayer. But first you need to see what you’re up against. Come with me.’

‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘What lamb? What prayer?’

For answer, he led me through the thrashing, giddy throng to a
little anteroom, much chillier than the main chamber and constructed from corrugated iron.

I hung back, suspecting a trap, but he beckoned urgently to me and something about his manner (or his smashing legs) made me throw caution to the wind and step inside.

He reached across me to close the door and I caught a strong whiff of cologne with an undercurrent of sweat. The racket from the costume party was instantly shut off, lingering only as a throbbing background beat. Without a moment’s hesitation, Volatile began to strip, shrugging off his tunic, revealing the curve of muscular shoulders as big as over-ripe oranges. Was this what I was to be, well,
up against
? I felt a lovely rush in my gut as though someone were roasting chestnuts inside me.

Somewhat to my chagrin, he peeled off his tights, bent down into the darkened corner and then threw a bundle of clothes at me. ‘Get these on,’ he said smoothly, unfolding a silk shirt for himself.

As I changed out of my finery, I thought what a damned shame that matters were clearly too pressing for any extracurricular fun. But was this Lost Boy of my persuasion? Hard to tell. He was so aggressively masculine, though, that I had very grave suspicions.

In a few minutes we were both dressed alike in jodhpur-like black trousers, boots that glistened wetly like chewed liquorice and tailored silk shirts of a rather gorgeous amber hue. I began to get the picture.

‘Another costume party?’ I said.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said my new friend, smiling thinly. ‘You got a car?’

The Cadillac roared back towards Manhattan, a freezing wind, peppered with snowflakes, whipping over the bonnet. Sal Volatile was almost completely silent throughout the journey, muttering occasional directions as we crossed silent bridges or swung past another block of looming apartments.

He stiffened as we cruised down a broad avenue somewhere off
Fourteenth Street then nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘We’re here.’

A spectacular kinema in the Art Deco style blazed, floodlit, from the darkness, a vast votive angel spreading its stony wings over the entranceway. The gangster talkie normally showing five times a day had been temporarily replaced by another spectacle, and as we drove past the entrance we watched hundreds of over-coated figures streaming into the lobby.

Parking around the back of the picture palace, we stepped into a landscape of filthy snow and dustbins, great spouts of steam issuing from the indented drains. Volatile reached into his trouser pocket and produced something that looked like a library card. He handed it to me and I strained to make out the tiny print. ‘F.O.I.F.?’

This case was a study in acronyms.

‘Friends of International Fascism,’ muttered my new ally. ‘That’s who you represent tonight. We’re going to a F.A.U.S.T. rally.’

I shuddered as the wind whistled down the alley, setting the lids of the bins rattling. ‘How thrilling. I shall fix a suitably manic gleam into my baby blues.’

Volatile grunted. I didn’t honestly anticipate any awkward questions as these rallies, like New Year sales, tend to lean more towards fevered screeching and hysteria than closely reasoned argument.

We joined the crush of delegates streaming into the cinema and divested ourselves of our steaming outdoor wear. The cloakroom attendants were kept as busy as coolies.

Stripped of their fedoras and long coats, I now saw the assembly in all their glory. As a breed they were predominantly men and women of healthy aspect; fine boned and lustrous of hair (scraped back from the forehead for the boys, set in finger waves for the girls). Each and every one of them was dressed as were we in the F.A.U.S.T. uniform.

We queued dutifully and followed the others through into the main auditorium, the smell of damp wool immediately overwhelmed by the charged odour of a thousand light bulbs. The place glowed
like a grotto, the interior done out in shades of Italian ice cream, galleries and seats in patterns of repeated ovals. A safety curtain had been drawn down over the kinema screen and an elaborate lectern installed before it. Dominating the whole thing was a vast black flag, draped from ceiling to stage. In its centre, a design in blazing orange showed two flashes of arrow-headed lightning–the symbol of the movement.

We took our seats in a row of excited amber-shirts, faces aglow with anticipation, gossiping as though they’d come to see the hit show of the season.

‘All right, Mr Volatile,’ I said quietly. ‘Now we’re snug. What was all that about back at the party? What’s the lamb?’

Volatile glanced quickly over his shoulder, then put a finger to his lips.

On cue, a muffled drumbeat began to sound and the audience hissed themselves into silence. The drumbeat slowed into a self-consciously momentous
thrum-thrum-thrum
and unseen cornets shrieked out in fanfare. As one mass, the crowd’s heads turned back as dazzling spotlights crackled into life.

‘Here he comes,’ whispered Volatile.

The spotlights snapped off and then back on again, revealing, with almost magical timing, a phalanx of amber-shirts in a V-formation. The crowd gasped in excitement.

The newcomers were indistinguishable in dress from the rest of the adoring mob but they had the indefinable whiff of glamour about them. They were not the tallest, most muscular, not even the blondest of these Übermenschen but they were the stars of the show and they knew it.

One was a pudgy, balding chap with wispy moustache and horn-rimmed spectacles, another a great horsy woman with her ginger hair in cartoonish Valkyrie braids. I scanned the elite, hoping to catch my first glimpse of Olympus Mons, the great leader. As the spotlights shut off once again, I got a quick impression of a tall, muscular figure
with luxuriant black moustaches. Then, as the music rose in a shattering crescendo, the phalanx began to march towards the platform.

Seats banged up like Tommy-gun fire as the assembled crowd rose to its feet, raising their arms in that damn-fool salute we’ve all seen on the newsreels when the Eyeties slobber over their Duce.

Now more spotlights burst into life as the top dogs of F.A.U.S.T. took their places on the platform and, cheered to the rafters, Olympus Mons made his way to the podium.

Somewhere in the early forties, he was under six feet but carried himself with an athlete’s easy grace. There was a great scar running from his broken nose to his chin, so that his lip curled up in a most unpleasant fashion, permanently exposing the right dog tooth. He was handsome–in a thuggish way–but his dark eyes were hooded like those of some reptile. Hooded, that is, until, smoothing back brilliantined hair, Mons smiled his million-watt smile. Then the eyes seemed to grow huge, like ink spreading on a blotter, taking in the whole audience in their hypnotic range. It was as though a powerful searchlight was scanning the auditorium, and each amber-shirt must have felt, as I suddenly did, that the Leader was looking directly at
them.

Mons stood in silence for a long moment, bathed in white light like a heavenly messenger, the silken folds of his shirt clinging to his impressive physique. Then, with a tiny gesture of his hands, he bade them be seated.

The multitude sat down in a chorus of coughs and whispers as Mons took up his stance before his adoring public, one hand clenched behind his back, the other at his side. The microphone in front of him whistled briefly and then he spoke.

‘My friends,’ he whispered. ‘What a thrill it is for me to stand before you, knowing that, at the close of the year, efforts to strengthen our movement internationally have met with such resounding success.’

The voice was curiously light and had a Yankee twang of no
definable origin. ‘For the old order is passing away,’ he continued, volume increasing. ‘The ancient fault lines of party politics replaced by a new model.’
Louder now
. ‘Mankind reborn: vigorous!’
Louder yet.
‘Forward-looking!’
Yelling.
‘In step with a new world order!’
Positively screaming.

The crowd roared their approval. I shuddered at the ecstatic glitter in their wide eyes.

‘The misnamed system known as…
democracy
,’ continued Mons, his voice dripping with contempt, ‘based on antediluvian parliamentary systems, is on its way out! The People want a new system of government. The People have spoken. The People can no longer be IGNORED!’

The People, or the thousand or so amber-shirts buffoons who imagined themselves to be their representatives, set up a deafening cheer that rang back at Volatile and me from the stuccoed roof of the kinema.

For himself, Volatile seemed to shrink from the great man’s presence, his face a picture of disgust, as though he’d smelled something that’d been knocked down in the road.

Mons seemed to feed off the throng’s energy, his eyes, momentarily closed, now blazing blackly again like the lamp of some mythical lighthouse.

International Jewry, of course, was next on the agenda. ‘We in F.A.U.S.T. do not seek to persecute the Jew on account of his religion–for our credo is complete religious toleration. We do not persecute him on account of his race. For do we not seek to conjoin with the British Empire? An empire that counts a dozen races amongst its citizens? No. Our quarrel with the Jews is that they have set themselves up as a nation within our great nations. Now we offer a solution! A final solution. They have always sought a promised land. We shall give it to them. A separate country where they can all live in peace–and cease to bother us!’

This got a shrill, hysterical laugh. The Jew, it seemed, was at the
back of almost every bit of mischief from Whitechapel to Wisconsin.

I glanced behind me again, more than a little frightened by the sight of all those flushed faces turned towards their leader like seals awaiting supper.

There was more such simplistic tosh from Mons, laying into the Bolsheviks and the capitalists, larding praise on Mussolini, that Austrian fellah, old Uncle Tom Mosley and all. I found it positively vulgar.

Nevertheless, I yelled appreciation and shouted huzzahs with the rest, marvelling at the strength of Mons’s rhetoric. The man was utterly hypnotic, isolated in that burning circle of white light. But was he a real threat, as my superiors at the RA seemed to fear, or simply another third-rate crackpot dreaming of power?