You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (27 page)

He stopped dead on the threshold, and stared.

The unthinkable was, reasonably enough, something that Benny didn’t think about much. In the early hours of the morning, when most suicides happen and worriers lie awake staring at the ceiling, Benny slept: solid, dreamless dwarf sleep, untroubled by anything. So he’d never scared himself half to death with wondering how he’d react if ever he wandered into his office and found the connecting door to the Land of the Dead unlocked, unbolted and wide open. Which, in context, was a pity. Shortsighted, even.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘So,’ said the face of ultimate evil, helping itself to crisps, ‘what shall we talk about?’

Colin looked furtively round. It amazed him that nobody seemed to have noticed anything. Here he was, perched on a bar stool next to the quintessence of all nightmares in a crowded suburban pub, and not so much as a head had turned or an eyebrow flickered.

True, Oscar had dressed appropriately for the occasion. It was wearing a fawn suede sort-of-bomber-jacket thing that more or less shrieked M&S casual, with sand-coloured chinos, a white button-down shirt and trainers. Trinny and Susannah would’ve expressed guarded approval; a bit overstated, perhaps, a smidgeon Nineties in a sort of self-referential way. That, however, was beside the point. Ultimate evil in nice schmutter is still ultimate evil; so why was nobody backing away, or running screaming out into the street?

‘Ah,’ Oscar said, ‘allow me.’ A hand extended and laid a shiny coin on the flannel bar-towel. Colin looked at it in mute horror.

‘What’s that for?’ he said.

‘A penny,’ Oscar replied, ‘for your thoughts. It’s traditional, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s just a—’ The coin wasn’t just shiny, it was red-hot; a wisp of smoke was curling up from the charred towel. As the mopped-up beer evaporated, the penny cooled to a dull charcoal grey.

‘Just a what?’

‘Expression,’ Colin said hoarsely. ‘Just an expression.’

‘I understand. Humorous?’

‘What? I mean, no. Not very. Just something you say.’

‘Ah. Just the words, then, but no physical coin.’

‘Mphm.’

It cleared its throat. ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ it said.

‘Oh.’ Colin tried for a nonchalant shrug, but it came out as a squirm. ‘Nothing much. Wool-gathering.’

‘Wool—?’

‘Another one. Expression.’

‘My goodness,’ Oscar said. ‘You seem to use a great many expressions, if I may say so.’ It paused, and sniffed. ‘In any event,’ it went on, ‘I believe I can hazard a guess as to what you were preoccupied with. You were wondering why none of the other mortals in this building have reacted with horror, disgust or distress at my appearance.’

‘Mm,’ Colin mumbled. ‘That sort of thing, anyway.’

‘I can explain, should you wish me to do so.’

‘Can you? I mean, that’s great. Yes, please.’

‘It’s quite simple,’ Oscar said. ‘I am shielded by a strong piece of effective magic, known as a glamour, which prevents anybody not party to our contract from seeing me as I truly am. Our fellow customers, therefore, see only an entirely nondescript young man in expensive casual clothes. Of course, if there was such a thing as an imp-reflecting mirror on the premises, my disguise would be wholly ineffectual. Since, however, that is an unlikely contingency, the danger is trivial and can be dismissed. There remains, of course, the possibility that I might be seen and recognised by a sensitive - that is to say, a mortal with strong latent magic power. The odds against that, however, are slightly less than five hundred thousand to one. Having considered the risk and viewed it in the context of the benefit to our relationship of a bonding exercise such as the one we are embarked upon, I resolved to adopt what you might describe as a Devil-may-care attitude. Humour,’ Oscar added, ‘in the form of wordplay. You need not refrain from laughter on my account.’

Colin stared at it in bewilderment for a moment, then managed to come up with a gurgle, the sort of noise you’d expect a drowning kitten.

‘You have entirely consumed your beverage,’ Oscar said. ‘Are you in need of a further supply?’

Colin nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, with feeling.

‘I see. I believe it is your turn to buy.’

‘Right,’ Colin said. ‘Same again?’

‘Certainly. I have never sampled alcohol before. Its effects are curious. Although it is a depressant, by sedating the part of the brain that controls natural inhibitions it inspires a sense of well-being verging on recklessness. When you return with further beverages, we should play pool.’

At the bar, Colin seriously considered running away. From the pub to the station - six hundred yards. A train would take him, via Clapham Junction, to Gatwick - bugger, no passport. He could go to Waterloo instead; someone had told him it was possible to dodge passport control on the Eurostar, though he doubted it. Or Dover, somewhere like that; perhaps he could stow away in the back of a lorry—

‘I have changed my mind.’ Colin’s head spun round; Oscar was standing next to him. ‘Instead of beer I think I would like to try a measure of fermented spirits. What is the colourless liquid in the bottle with the red label?’

So much for unobtrusive escape. ‘Bacardi,’ Colin said mournfully. ‘It’s a sort of rum.’

‘Rum,’ Oscar repeated. ‘What is rum?’

‘What? Oh.’ Colin frowned, trying to remember. Somehow he found it hard to concentrate on anything with the common enemy of man standing eighteen inches away from him. ‘Sugar cane, I think. They sort of squash it up and distil it, and then I believe it’s put aside to mature in big barrels.’

‘Mature?’

‘You’ve got to keep it for several years before it’s ready to drink.’

‘Ah.’ Oscar nodded a couple of times. ‘Rum isn’t built in a day.’ It made a faint rattling noise, like the cough of a sixty-a-day Nazgul. ‘It seems that alcohol is also conducive to humour.’

‘Absolutely,’ Colin replied. ‘Oh look, the pool table’s free.’

When he’d racked up the coloured balls and positioned the black and the white, Colin asked, ‘Have you played this game before?’

‘No,’ Oscar replied. ‘Explain the rules, and the function of the long, tapered sticks.’ It picked up a cue and touched the tip as though expecting it to be sharp. ‘These implements have an aerodynamically efficient profile,’ it said. ‘Do we throw them at each other?’

Colin explained the rules, and they played a game. Oscar’s first shot after the break was a fiendishly difficult long pot to the top left-hand corner, flawlessly executed. To his surprise, however, Colin won.

‘You have prevailed,’ Oscar said. ‘State your requirements.’

“Scuse me?’

‘The nature of the penalty,’ Oscar replied, bowing its head. ‘At home, when we play games, the loser has to endure a punishment devised by the winner. Decapitation or ritual disembowelling are traditional choices, but the decision is, of course, yours.’

A few heads were beginning to turn, glamour or no glamour. ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down?’ Colin muttered in mid-cringe. ‘Look, we don’t do things like that around here, all right? I mean, thanks for the offer, but—’

‘Oh.’ More than a trace of disappointment in Oscar’s voice. ‘Then please explain the purpose of playing the game.’

‘Well,’ Colin said, ‘for fun.’

‘Ah.’ Oscar shrugged, a complex operation. ‘In that case, we shall play again. We shall enjoy fun.’

Depends, presumably, on how you define it, Colin thought.

Oscar’s version seemed pretty hard to distinguish from outrageous showing off, culminating in a shot off three cushions that potted five balls simultaneously before nudging the black into the top left. As far as Colin was concerned, however, he was beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t have been better off with the ritual disembowelling; messier, maybe, but it wouldn’t have attracted quite so much attention. He was also starting to wonder whether pouring ardent spirits down a previously teetotal embodiment of pure evil was entirely sensible. Admittedly, his companion seemed to be having a great time; but there’s more to life than sheer naked altruism.

‘Right,’ he therefore said, after Oscar had won his sixth consecutive game. ‘Well, it’s been great, but I’ve got to be up early for work in the morning, so maybe—’

‘We should now,’ Oscar said, ‘play darts.’

So they played darts. Then they had a go on the fruit machines (Colin had never seen anyone get eight jackpots on the trot before; when he mentioned this, however, Oscar replied that if he made it nine in a row there’d be the Devil to pay; into which, Colin later admitted to himself, he’d walked like Custer at the Little Big Horn), then more darts, and then it was closing time. Although Colin had been drinking at four times his accustomed rate in order to keep up with Oscar, when the cold outdoors air hit him he felt wretchedly sober, as though he’d been glugging nothing but Perrier for the past four hours.

‘Now,’ Oscar said, ‘we should consume fast food and become nauseous in a shop doorway. Also, we have not yet discussed football, motor vehicles or the sexual proclivities of female celebrities.’ It hiccoughed, then made a noise which Colin later figured out must’ve been a belch. ‘It will be a tight schedule, but not impossible.’

‘Actually,’ Colin said.

Oscar nodded. ‘You would prefer to go to your house, where we can drink more alcohol and watch pornographic videos. Or would you rather encompass a violent encounter with a group of strangers?’

‘Actually,’ Colin said desperately, ‘I think it’d be nice if we—’ He racked his brains for a moderately innocuous suggestion. ‘We could walk down as far as Tesco’s and back,’ he said. ‘A bit of fresh air—’

‘That isn’t a traditional male bonding activity,’ Oscar objected. ‘However, if you insist.’ It shrugged very slightly and set off at a brisk march, picking up a traffic cone in each hand without breaking stride. ‘Once we’ve done that,’ it added hopefully, ‘we could steal a motor vehicle and set light to it.’

‘We’ll see,’ Colin muttered.

Maybe it was the fresh air, or simply a difference in metabolic rates; as soon as they reached the Tesco’s car park, Oscar folded abruptly at the knees, collided with a stray wire trolley, tripped over the kerb and fell over. For some reason it seemed to find this highly amusing; at any rate, it made a noise like bandsawn aluminium, which Colin assumed on the balance of probabilities to be laughter.

Now was his chance. A quick sprint, he’d be round the corner and into Drake Street before the epitome of ultimate evil noticed that he’d gone. Straight home, up the stairs, grab his passport and a change of underwear, then a taxi (no faffing around with trains) to Gatwick and the first available flight to somewhere far away. He tensed his leg muscles for the first step.

‘Your girlfriend,’ said Oscar.

Which was no reason at all for hesitating. After all, she wasn’t; they’d been out together once, and that hadn’t been a proper date or anything, and he’d stood her up for lunch. That didn’t constitute a formal relationship, not even in Utah. Besides, in his mind he’d already committed himself to fleeing the country, changing his name and therefore, by implication, never seeing her again, and he was perfectly fine with that. So why the hesitation?

‘We should talk about her,’ Oscar said, still lying face down in the gutter. ‘Man to man. Further wordplay,’ it added. ‘You may now tell me all about your feelings for her. It does good,’ it added, as if quoting, ‘to talk about it.’

Colin checked his calf muscles: untensed, not going anywhere soon. His moment of resolution had passed. ‘Actually, no,’ he said; and added (because it does help to talk about it, even to the epitome of ultimate evil), ‘there’s no point. We had a row after I stood her up for lunch, and she hasn’t spoken to me since.’

‘I see,’ Oscar replied. ‘But this doesn’t accord with my information.’

Colin blinked. ‘You what?’

‘According to my data,’ Oscar said, and then threw up. Objectively speaking, it was a sight worth paying money to see: blue fire and cascading fountains of sparks and all sorts. ‘According to my data,’ it repeated, ‘you can’t have failed to attend a lunch date, since you have never scheduled such an event with the relevant female.’

There was a dribble of orange flame running down Oscar’s shirt front, but Colin didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘And anyway, how did you—?’

‘Incorrect. You have never broached the subject of sharing food with Ms Clay. Had you done so, I would’ve been informed immediately.’

‘Ms—’ Colin shook his head, as though bewilderment was dandruff. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong. She’s not the one I—’

He paused. None of ultimate evil’s beeswax, surely. And if it knew everything about him, so what? He was too insignificant to have any secrets worth hiding. Mostly, he wanted to go home to bed.

‘Not the one,’ Oscar repeated. ‘Perhaps I used the wrong word. By “girlfriend” I meant to convey a female for whom you feel powerful emotions of romantic and sexual—’

‘Yes, all right,’ Colin snapped. ‘Look, would you mind getting up? Because if a policeman sees you like that we’ll both be arrested, and that’d just about round off a perfect day.’

‘Certainly.’ He didn’t see Oscar move. One moment it was lying face down in the gutter, the next it was standing beside him looking relaxed and elegantly dressed. It spoiled the effect rather by falling over again almost straight away. ‘Allow me to clarify,’ it went on, as though nothing had happened. ‘You are passionately in love with Cassandra Clay, an assistant sorcerer with J. W. Wells & Co—’

‘No, I’m not.’

Zpp; Oscar was standing next to him again, this time hanging on to the wire trolley for support. ‘Please,’ it said reproachfully. ‘We have performed male-bonding procedures. We are now—’ It paused, waiting for the right word to drop into place. ‘We are now buddies,’ it said. ‘Accordingly, you feel able to confide in me, and there is no need to deny your true feelings. You madly adore Ms Clay, who returns your love with equal fervour.’

‘No,’ Colin said. ‘Sorry, but that’s simply not true. The girl I’m interested in is Fam Williams, our new receptionist, only like I told you, I stood her up for lunch and now—’