Atom (2 page)

 

 

 

Atom pulled on his pants and took the firepole to the garage. Drove through a dogma pageant, Cockroach Centrefold on the stereo. A bullet licked the paintwork. ‘What happens,' he thought, ‘when the hitcher and the driver are equally murderous?' Looking at this town with an honest eye was like biting into candy with a mouthful of cavities.

A bricolage block on Crane housed Madison Drowner's apartment. Two guys were sparring on the sidewalk with boxing gloves made of tempera meringue. Passing them, Taffy saw the gloves were actually wooden heads removed from statues of the Virgin Mary.

Upstairs, Maddy ushered him in, walking away. ‘How they hanging.'

‘Geometrically.'

‘And I was just mixing some antifreeze.'

‘Guess I could use it. Guess we all could. Jed needs servicing.'

‘Of all the wild suggestions.'

‘Just a torn gill. We had a visitor came asking for it. It's a cliché out there, baby.'

Maddy built a freeze to the sacred dimensions. Sometimes Atom wished he could kiss her brain directly. Her eyes, in defiance of the prevailing trend, were open. She was an angel as real as the bones in her body. ‘You're warped, Taff. All that glee - it aint healthy.'

Atom took the glass of blue. ‘Health is subjective. I believe I'm evolving.'

‘Sure - into a dead man.'

‘Where's your imagination?'

‘In the medicine cabinet.' She regarded him over a drink. ‘You on a prank, Taff? Your forehead's beating like a heart.'

‘Sanity's a virginity of the mind, baby. Gimme a shock absorber.' She lit one up between her lips and passed it to him. He breathed it in. ‘You know a girl by the name of Kitty Stickler?

‘Sure. Standard-issue blonde. All distinguishing marks removed. Rejects men who never noticed her. Rumours of a brain but nothing conclusive. Sings at the Creosote Palace.'

‘That a gun club?'

‘All the charm of a live bait store. The chandeliers are rubber - they don't take any chances.'

‘Sounds like my kinda venue.'

‘Yeah - crash dummy heaven.'

‘That's what I'm counting on. The greatest high in this graveyard nation is to have an effect.'

‘Effectiveness.' She stood close to him, looking into and through his eyes. ‘They got a detox program for that?'

Atom chuckled. ‘You and your wet mouth.' He pensively regarded his gasper. ‘I nearly depend on you, baby.'

‘You make me laugh,' she said, ‘with your threats.'

 

The Creosote Palace was the last word in public disorder. Espousers of philosophies as diverse as Malraux gathered under one roof to engage in boisterous deceit and explosive arrogance. The only hope of distracting these bastards was to push a bubblehead on stage and get her wailing.

That was Kitty Stickler, up there singing a Beige Kidney standard which listed the surgical assaults all sexes were told they favoured for the female form. She chirped without irony, having undergone every cosmetic procedure on the list. Her body was so media-aligned it barely registered on the retina. She seemed unable to bend. Somewhere was a knot - someday it would give.

Atom entered, reversing the air's ionic charge. Probability statistics polarised. Trying to detect the girl, he refocused until she fuzzed into view, singing like a lollypop. Even at this bandwidth she was like a flashy ad with no trace of a product. Atom strode between the tables, approaching the stage before the flow of his void coat. He stepped up.

‘Excuse me, ma'am -'

‘- Hey!'

‘- the name's Atom, I need to ask some questions, in total confidence you understand. You know a guy waves the name Joe Aniseed?'

‘What the hell d'you say you are?' Up close she was like a phantom, her face airbrush-blurred. ‘Get the hell off my stage.'

‘You involved with the peltman Harry Fiasco?'

‘Ram it up your ass!'

‘Just the facts, ma'am.'

The audience were getting attentive, sensing some sort of activity on stage.

‘I don't know no Aniseed and I aint seen Harry for weeks or more - hey Sam get this shithead off my stage!'

Sam, stripping a chainsaw in the wings, frowned briefly at a disembodied voice.

The crowd perked up as Kitty, powered only by limelight, stalked petulantly off stage.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' said Atom, ‘if you'll indulge me. I have assigned a musical note to every grade of human lie. Here's my rendition of the President's inaugural address.' And he took out a clarinet.

 

Dr DeCrow gave cadaverous - except for his mouth, which bulbed and pupped like a monkey's. Ghoulish as bones in a canvas bag, he stood by a table lamp for the old uplit mask effect. ‘I deem it a thorough success, Mr Candyman - and one that has afforded me a great deal of pleasure.'

‘That's as may be sir,' said the fat man in the hotel armchair. ‘What's now required is that we recover the organ. It cannot be allowed to leave this city.'

‘A simple enough task, after all.'

‘If there's one thing I've learnt, doctor, it's that simplicity is a blank screen inevitably pelted and abused by the peanut gallery. Now leave by the back way sir - I don't want Turow barging in here and getting into a state.'

The door banged open and Turow hung in, staggering. ‘I am beginning a nosebleed,' he cried, then saw DeCrow and stopped. ‘What is he doing here?'

‘Doctor DeCrow was just taking his leave, Mr Turow.'

DeCrow bowed deep. ‘Long life,' he crackled, and moved off, without straightening up. He moved as fast as tables breed. Passing Joanna at the doorway, he bowed even lower, and left.

‘Why is that creature hanging around?' asked Turow, shivering. ‘He reminds me of one of those insects that looks dead on the outside.'

‘A compelling metaphor sir - and more fitting than you know. DeCrow is a man so intelligent he can barely walk without an interpreter. In any case we decamp shortly for another hotel. But how went your quest - did the man Atom welcome our offer?'

Dot-eyed, Turow dabbed his forehead with a scented kerchief. ‘Welcome? Our offer was as welcome as a bat in a velcro factory. Atom's place is a devil's funhouse - Joanna here claims he was bitten by a dog and I am inclined to believe him. I tell you we were confronted with nothing but tomfoolery. We left in some hurry - my honour insulted, you understand. This feeble-minded idiot thought it would be wise to leave the car and run while it was still on the move.'

The Candyman released a blubbery laugh. ‘Now there's an idea. To refrain from fulfilment is to let life escape you eh Joanna? Close the door and rest yourself.'

‘And he went off down some side-alley,' Turow continued, ‘and I have been hunting for him like a parent after a runaway.' He fell into a chair as Joanna closed the door. ‘I'd half a good mind to leave him, but I ... cannot drive.'

The Candyman consulted a fob-watch, chuckled a little and replaced it in his jacket. ‘Well then. Not a success. But eloquence, like a honeycomb, is gnawed for pleasure, not learning. The details, Mr Turow, elude me.'

‘Details?' Turow repeated, straining forward, elbows leant on his knees. He seemed to be undergoing some inner struggle. Finally he buried his face in his kerchief and shook his head.

‘Joanna, then - sit down, my boy. And tell me your impression of this man Atom.'

Joanna lumbered forward and settled his huge bulk on to a tiny wooden dining chair. His face opened like a pit in a nimbus cloud.

‘Wiseguy,' he rumbled.

 

ATOM'S JOURNAL

 

Here's the way I see it. A skeleton with a needle and thread. It lives in a house filled with anchors and flamethrowing equipment. Outside, a threading blizzard. Authority like a scorpion in a monster truck. Exhausted denizens lank as locked boxers. God's massive shell discarded at the edge of the universe. All that's missing is a raven with a plan behind its hard eyes.

 

 

 

 

‘These words poison my life.'

Eddie Thermidor liked to think of the mob network as a Frankenstein's monster, more sensitive than its creator. It was, but that wasn't saying much. Born with a glass eye, he became the sort of driver who was oblivious to anyone coming the other way. Now that he had a snorting stable of chauffeurs this attitude informed his business affairs. No-one had done so much to redeem the use of flamethrowers up close.

He was sat at a heavy marble table in a stone hall. Thermidor's gang fort was no apartment knock-through like Betty's midtown - this here was custom-built, the outer walls so thick they took up more groundspace than the inner chambers. Industrial gothic was tempered by Bren Shui, the art of exchanging negative energy with the environment through the correct placement of firearms around the home.

He replaced the receiver, the brittle slam echoing. ‘Sammy Transam on the tumbler,' he said. ‘Says someone sorta took over the chaos at the Creosote.'

Nada Neck and Shiv were sat on a low couch by the wall. Three creases appeared in Nada Neck's forehead - one for each nerve impulse. ‘Didn't Transam used to go round sellin' insulation in the form of codeine? Perhaps it has turned finally upon him.'

‘So his brain's flipped like a flounder? I'll push him off a roof so tall he'll be dead o'boredom before he hits the sidewalk.'

Shiv examined the set of ratchet knives which rested open on his knees. ‘I take him. Wet one of these here thinnies.'

‘Shiv Shiv Shiv. I'm touched. Hear that Neck? Artist inspired. Flurry o' knifework and your guts unspool to the carpet. Salt the blade before lunging probably. Hold that thought Shiv okay? Kitty was on - I want her in here ready to salute the floorboards.'

‘Uh she's downstairs boss she's here,' said Nada Neck.

‘What? What do I need Kitty Stickler in my life?'

‘You said you wanted her here.'

‘On my order, not turnin' up like this is some village coffeehouse for the talkin' about of flowers and bunny rabbits eh?'

‘Sorry, boss, you've lost me.'

‘Shiv thinks,' whispered Shiv without looking up, ‘that Necky only plays dumb.'

Kitty started stamping her heels and everyone noticed she was in the room.

‘Kitty - to what in the devil's plan do I owe the pleasure.'

‘Salute the floorboards huh?' She went over to a table and tore a shocker out of the pack, lighting up. ‘“These words poison my life!” You know I nearly died today?'

‘That an inconvenience in your case?'

‘Oh ha ha you think it's the true fun bein' there haranguin' slobs from that stage?'

‘Sure it's all we talk about round here - whether yours is the true fun. If it'd be the same for those of us with movin' parts.'

Kitty stalked up to the heavy table, gripped its corners and glared across it into Thermidor's one living eye. ‘You've shot up in my estimation Eddie - like when they discovered the Brontosaurus could sit back on its ass.'

Thermidor stuck out his jaw like the tray of a cash register. ‘Well now this is real read-all-about-it factual information you're givin' me Kitty. A man like me just might not be able to find room for it in his life.'

‘Okay, okay.' She sat down opposite, smoking. ‘Guy comes in real easy, gets up onstage and starts in on me with the threats etcetera. Then we got verbal abuse, playin' the flute, flawfire, the woiks. Bullets everywhere - got a nick in my makeup, see?'

‘I can't see nuthin.'

‘Well it hurts, Eddie.'

‘You don't know what hurt is. Your marrow's never seen daylight.'

‘Yeah? Well looky here Mister Been-There-Stole-the-Shirt.' Kitty swung a long leg onto the table and pulled up her pants leg, gesturing with a cigarette. ‘See there? Bonesaw, straight the way through. Two inches height added, stuck back together, end of story.'

‘Kitty I told you not to show me that stuff. Why do I need scars in my life?'

‘It's a real doozy,' Shiv hissed, looking over her shoulder.

‘Jesus,' Kitty yelped, hiding the scar, ‘how long he been standin' behind me? Gives me the creeps.'

‘Siddown Shiv.' Thermidor watched as Shiv slithered back to the couch. ‘Now Kitty, I hear tell you got into a conversation with the guy - everyone heard it you understand, but I need it from you.'

‘Yeah?' Kitty drew nervously at the shocker. ‘Okay. Said his name was Atom? Adam? Somethin'. Gumshoe modality. Said he was lookin' for Harry. Fiasco.'

‘Well that's funny - why'd he ask you, Kitty? Got somethin' goin' on with Fiasco?'

‘Sure, he wishes,' said Kitty, killing her shocker and getting up. ‘Well it's been a fun visit Eddie. I've registered my complaint.'

‘You sorry I got you the gig?'

‘No no no Eddie, grateful I am but it aint too classy. And gettin' dicks flyin' onto the stage?'

‘Take it as a compliment Kitty. Oh and hey. You know where I might find Fiasco?'

‘Uh-uh,' she replied at the door.

‘Now why don't I believe you?'

‘Homo-sexial panic?'

And she was gone.

Thermidor pondered a moment. ‘So who's this Adam Atom guy?'

‘Only guy in the PI modality with a name like that's Taffy - Taffy Atom.'

‘That's good, Neck. Whatta we know about him?'

‘Heard he grew a mustache on his stomach,' hissed Shiv.

‘What about you?' he asked Nada Neck.

‘Yeah, what he said boss, I heard that too.'

‘Uh-huh. And that's it eh?'

‘Aint that enough?'

Thermidor leant back and regarded the two. ‘Nada Neck, you are a fine right arm but your philosophy cannot be spoken aloud without lapsing into an Australian accent. Shiv, you are a fine knifeman but you have an interest in knives which leads you into errors of judgment.'

The two shifted on their seat. Shiv would have liked to mention the boss's weakness for a certain blond bubblehead. This he felt was inappropriate. Shiv considered that he himself was the better match. After all, Kitty was a scalpel addict and he was a blademan. He understood such joys. You haven't lived till you've operated on your own arm.

‘Tell you what,' Thermidor announced. ‘Shiv - put a tail on Kitty, see if she leads you to the boy Fiasco. Nada Neck - you find me Atom. He knows somethin' about Vanishin' Harry, I wanna know. Get outta here.'

‘Shiv will do good work,' buzzed the knifeman as he and Nada Neck backed out of the room.

‘Kitty, Kitty, Kitty,' murmured Thermidor.

Fiasco, Atom. Their bones would pop in a rendering mill before they interfered again with that pure girl.

What was the hook? The strutting, the selfishness, the sarcasm. She was the very phantom of his mother.

 

Even if the boss thought he was exaggerating, Transam knew what he'd witnessed. He'd got through stripping his chainsaw and that swab baby - the one no one could ever quite see - was stood there trying to get his attention. And looking out, he found there was a stranger on stage wearing this huge black coat and playing a giant flute. And as he played, something began to inflate from the end of the instrument. It was a human head, resembling exactly that of the musician, its lips attached to this end of the flute and facing its twin. Then the body began to tumble from beneath the head like a birthing calf. The feet hit the stage and the form filled out, swaying slow in the ventilation. Then the arms quickly inflated, quivering up into position, and the real guy, the first one, detached and floated out above the audience. The new man, coat and all, had taken over on the flute, and his music bobbed and drifted like the airborne figure. The floating man, uplit and shadowfreaked, was screaming as though terrified, and so was everyone else. The clientele began to fire at the ceiling, at eachother, at the musician on stage. A Barrett 82 whooped off, detaching one of the rubber chandeliers, and by the time it thumped to the deck, everyone had drawn.

The musician reacted weirdly. As the volleys flew, he telescoped the flute and drew his coat all around like Bela Lugosi, sinking behind it and turning his back. It looked like the ammo was disappearing into that coat like pledges into a manifesto. Then when a shell burst the floating man, next thing the whole joint was being showered with confetti, all these louts looking up like it was Christmas, and the stage guy was nowhere.

Every single flake of confetti bore a miniature likeness of the stranger's face.