The Unnatural Inquirer (5 page)

“Hello, hello, John Taylor! Good to see you again, old thing! Still busy being infamous and enigmatic?”

I winced internally even as I turned to face the man who’d hailed me so cheerfully. I should have known who they’d send. Harry Fabulous was a fence and a fixer, and the best Go To man in the Nightside—for all those little and very expensive things that make life worth living. You want to smoke some prime Martian red weed, mainline some Hyde, or score someone else’s childhood (innocence always goes down big in the Nightside), then Harry Fabulous is your man, always ready to take your last penny with a big smile and a hearty handshake.

Or at least he used to be. Apparently he’d had one of those life-changing experiences in the back room of a members-only club, and now he was more interested in doing Good Deeds. Before it was too late. There’s nothing like a glimpse of Hell to jump-start a man’s conscience.

Harry was dressed to kill, as always, looking slick and polished. He wore a long coat whose inside pockets were practically crammed with all sorts of things you might or might not want to spend too much money on. He had a long, thin face, a lean and hungry look, and dark, somewhat haunted, eyes. He smiled easily at me, a very practised smile, and I gave him something very similar in return.

We were both, after all, professionals.

“Didn’t know you worked for the Unnatural Inquirer, Harry,” I said.

“Oh, I’m just a stringer,” he said vaguely. “I do get around, and I have been known to hear things, so…I’ve been sent to bring you to their main offices, old thing. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to be sure you hadn’t been followed.”

“Harry,” I said. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

“Oh, quite! Yes, indeed! Just a formality, really.”

He fished inside his long coat and produced a very ordinary-looking key. He glanced round briefly, turned to face me to cover his movements, and pushed the key into an invisible lock, apparently floating in mid air between us. The key disappeared even as Harry turned it, and just like that the world seemed to drop away under my feet. There was a brief sensation of falling, and we left the Nightside behind us.

We reappeared in a Reception office that looked just like any other Reception office. Luxurious enough to impress on you how important the operation was, but not comfortable enough to encourage you to stick around any longer than was absolutely necessary. A cool blonde Receptionist sat behind a desk behind a layer of bulletproof glass. Manning the phones, doing maintenance on her fingernails, and dealing with visitors when she absolutely had to. Harry went to take my arm to usher me into the waiting area. I looked at him, and he quickly withdrew the hand. You can’t let people like Harry Fabulous get too chummy; they take advantage. I strolled forward, looking curiously about me, and all the bells in the world went off at once.

“It’s all right! It’s all right!” yelled Harry, waving his arms and practically jumping up and down on the spot. “It’s just John Taylor! He’s expected!”

The bells shut off, and the Receptionist reappeared from underneath her desk, glaring venomously at Harry. I looked at him.

“Security scan,” he said quickly. “Purely routine. Nothing to worry about. It’s supposed to detect dangerous objects, and people, and you…set off every alarm they have. I did warn them to dial down the settings while you were here…Would you like me to take your coat?”

“Wouldn’t be wise,” I said. “I haven’t fed it recently.”

Harry looked at me for some clue as to whether he was supposed to laugh, but I just looked right back at him. Harry swallowed hard, took a step back, and looked at the Receptionist.

“Contact Security, there’s a dear, and tell them to make an exception for John Taylor.”

“Make lots of them,” I said. “I’m a very complicated person.”

“I won’t hang around,” Harry decided. “I’m almost sure I’m urgently needed somewhere else.”

He did the business with the key again and disappeared. That’s Harry Fabulous for you. Always on the go.

The Receptionist and I looked at each other. Somehow I just knew we weren’t going to get along. She was a small petite platinum blonde with sultry eyes, a mouth made for sin, and a general air of barely suppressed rage and violence. I didn’t know whether that was a result of working here, or why they hired her in the first place. She was the first line of defence against anyone who turned up, and I had no doubt she had all kinds of interesting weapons and devices somewhere close at hand…I decided to be polite, for the moment, and gave her my best professional smile.

“My name is John Taylor. The Editor wants to see me.”

She sniffed loudly and gave me a pitying smile. Her voice came clearly through the narrow grille in the bulletproof glass. “No-one ever sees the Editor. In fact, no-one’s seen Mr. du Rois in the flesh for years. Safer that way. Your appointment will be with the Sub-Editor, Scoop Malloy.”

“Scoop?” I said. “Was he one of your best reporters?”

“No; he used to work with animals. Take a seat.”

I took a seat. I know when I’m outclassed. The long red leather couch was hard and unyielding. There was no-one else waiting in Reception. An assortment of old magazines were laid out on a low table. I leafed through them, but there was nothing particularly interesting. Which Religion’s cover boasted the start of a new series: We road test ten new gods! The Nightside edition of Guns & Ammo had Suzie Shooter on the cover again. They think she adds a touch of glamour. What’s on in the Nightside was the size of a telephone directory. It’s cover boasted 101 Things You Need to Know About Members Only Clubs! Including How to Get In, and How to Get Out Alive Again. I quite like What’s On; it’s constantly updating itself as people and places change and disappear. Sometimes the page will rewrite itself even as you’re reading it. They stopped having an index because it kept whimpering.

I gave up on the magazines, leaned back on the rock-hard sofa, and thought some more about what I knew about the Unnatural Inquirer’s legendary Editor, Owner, and Publisher, Gaylord du Rois. Everyone was pretty sure that wasn’t his real name, but it had been right there at the top of the masthead of every issue for years now, right from the days when the photos were grainy black and white, the type-face was tiny, and they printed the whole thing on toilet paper. Gaylord might be a man, or a woman, or a committee. Might even have been several people in a row. No-one knew for sure, and it wasn’t for want of trying to find out. Certainly the aggressive tone of the paper hadn’t changed in over a hundred years; it was just as blunt and brash and obnoxious now as it had always been.

I sat more or less patiently on the couch, idly considering the possibilities of redecorating the Reception area with a couple of incendiaries, while a handful of people drifted in and out. Reporters and office functionaries wandered past, caught up in their own business and paying no attention at all to me. Paparazzi teleported in just long enough to drop off their latest snatched photos of celebrities doing things they shouldn’t, and then disappeared again. There are cannibal demons on the Street of the Gods less hated and despised than the Unnatural Inquirer’s paparazzi. Suzie shoots at them on sight, but so far she’s only managed to wing a couple. We stopped them hanging about our house by planting disguised man-traps. Nothing like the occasional scream of a wounded paparazzi in the early hours of the morning to help you sleep peacefully.

A few of the paparazzi looked at me thoughtfully but were careful not even to point their cameras in my direction. It’s all in the reputation.

“You’re sure the Sub-Editor knows I’m waiting?” I said to the Receptionist. “I was told this was urgent.”

“He knows,” she said. “Or maybe he doesn’t. Embrace the possibilities!”

I walked over to her and gave her one of my best hard looks. “I’ll bet this place would burn up nicely if I put my mind to it.”

“Go ahead. See if I care. The only time this place gets a makeover is after a good fire. Sometimes they just scrub down the walls.”

I gave up. “Distract me. Talk to me. Tell me things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, how big is the paper’s circulation these days?”

She shrugged. “Don’t think anyone knows for sure. The print run’s been rising steadily for thirty years now, and it was huge before that. Sales aren’t limited to the Nightside, you know. It goes out to all kinds of other worlds and dimensions. Because everyone’s interested in what’s happening in the Nightside. We get letters from all over. We got one from Mars.”

“Really? What did it say?”

“No-one knows. It was in Martian.”

I decided I didn’t want to talk to her any more. I sat down on the couch again and looked at the framed front pages on the walls, showcasing the paper’s long history.

Elvis Really Is Dead! We Have Proof! Honeymoon Over; Giant Ape Admits Size Isn’t Everything! Hitler Burns in Hell! Official! Orson Welles Was Really a Martian! We Have X-Rays! Our Greatest Ever Psychic Channels New Songs from Elvis, John Lennon, Marc Bolan, and Buddy Holly! All Available on a CD You Can Buy Exclusively from the Unnatural Inquirer!

Proof, if proof were needed, that not only is there one born every second, but that they grow up to read the tabloids.

Still, if nothing else, the Unnatural Inquirer had style. It got your attention. For want of anything better to do, I picked up a copy of the latest edition from the low table. The front-page headline was Tribute Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to Tour Nightside! Over Their Dead Bodies, Says Walker! I leafed through the paper, grimacing as the cheap print came off on my fingers.

Apparently the Holy Order of Saint Strontium had been forcibly evicted from the Street of the Gods after it was discovered that their Church had a radioactive half-life of two million years. “Bunch of pussies,” said Saint Strontium. He had a lot more to say, but none of the reporters present wanted to hang around long enough to find out what…There were some intriguing Before and After photos of Jacqueline Hyde, poor soul. Jacqueline and Hyde were in love, but doomed never to meet save for the most fleeting of moments…Another story insisted that the Moon really was made of green cheese, and that the big black monoliths were just oversized alien crackers…And right at the bottom of an inner page, in very small type: Old Ones Fail to Rise Yet Again.

Most of the rest of the pages were filled with excited puff pieces about various Nightside celebrities I either hadn’t heard of, or didn’t give a damn about, including two whole pages given over to photos of young women getting out of limousines and taxis, just so the paparazzi could get a quick photo of their underwear, or lack of it. As far as the Unnatural Inquirer is concerned, taste is something you find in the restaurant guides.

I skipped through to the personal ads and announcements in the back pages; all human life is there, and a whole lot more besides.

Soul-swapping parties; just show up and throw your karma keys into the circle. Bodies for rent. Sex change while you wait. Go deep-sea diving in sunken R’lyeh; no noise-makers allowed. A whole bunch of pyramid schemes, some involving real pyramids. Remote viewing into the bedrooms and bathrooms of the rich and famous; highlights available on VHS or DVD. Time-share schemes, involving real time travel. (Though those tended to be stamped on pretty quick by Old Father Time, especially if they weren’t cons.) And, of course, a million different drugs from thousands of dimensions; buyer very much beware. The paper felt obliged to add its own warning here; apparently some intelligent plant civilisations had been attempting to stealthily invade our world by selling their seeds and cuttings as drugs. Sort of a Trojan horse invasion…

And then, of course, there were the personal messages…Lassie come home, or the kid gets it. Boopsie loves Moopsie; Moopsie loves Boopsie? (Oh, I could see tears before bedtime in the offing there…) Dagon shall rise again! All donations welcome. Desperately Seeking Elvira…Mad scientist who digs up graves, steals the bodies, and sews the bits together to create a new living supercreature seeks similar…GSOH essential.

The Unnatural Inquirer has the only crossword puzzles that insult you if you take too long at guessing the clues—very cross word puzzles. And they had to cancel the kakuro because the numbers kept adding up to 666.

I dropped the paper back onto the table, went to wipe my inky fingers on my coat, and then realised that’s not a good idea when you’re wearing a white trench coat. I took out a handkerchief and rubbed briskly at my fingers. I hadn’t realised how much I knew about the paper. The tabloid had insinuated itself into the Nightside so thoroughly that pretty much anything you saw or thought of reminded you of something that had appeared in the Unnatural Inquirer. For a while there was even a rumour going around that the Editor had a precog on staff, who could see just far enough into the future to view the next day’s edition of the Night Times, so that the Unnatural Inquirer could run all their best stories in advance. I had trouble believing that. First, I knew the Editor of the Night Times, and he wouldn’t sit still for something like that for one moment, and second, the Unnatural Inquirer had never been that interested in news stories anyway. Not when there’s important gossip and tittle-tattle to spread.

Not that the Unnatural Inquirer gets everything its own way. The Editor once sent a reporter into Rats’ Alley, where the homeless and down-and-outs gather, to dig up some juicy stories on rich and famous people who’d been brought low by misfortune and disaster. Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor, and defenders of street people everywhere, rather took exception to such hard-heartedness. He sent the reporter back to the Editor in forty-seven separate parcels. With postage owing.

“The Sub-Editor is ready to see you now,” said the Receptionist. “He’s sending a copy-boy to escort you in.”

“Does he think I’ll get lost?” I said.

She smiled coldly. “We don’t like people wandering around. Personally, I think all visitors should be electronically tagged and stamped with time codes so they’d know exactly when their welcome was wearing out.”