Linger Awhile (3 page)

6 January 2004. Almost two months and still no word from that treacherous bastard. Some people can’t be trusted and inevitably they find idiots who trust them. I’ve always been stupid that way from childhood onward. When I swapped with other kids I always got the worst of the bargain. And was the victim of choice for bullies as well. ‘Four-Eyes’, they called me, and knocked off my glasses. That’s part of it – Fallok wouldn’t try it on with someone who wouldn’t stand for it. He thinks I can’t do anything to stop him but we’ll see about that.

I started hanging around his place to keep an eye on his comings and goings or his lying low, whichever. The blind was down so you couldn’t see into the studio. There was a note on the door with a phone number. I called the number and a husky female voice said, ‘Hello.’

‘Who’s this?’ I said.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Irv Goodman, I’m a friend of Istvan’s. And you?’

‘Grace Kowalski. He said you might call.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s away.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’

‘When’s he coming back?’

‘Didn’t say. You know Istvan – when he doesn’t want to say he doesn’t say.’

‘Where is this number that I’m talking to now?’ I said.

‘It’s my shop, All That Glisters.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In Berwick Street, towards the Oxford Street end, I’m between Black Dog Music and the Raj Tandoori Restaurant.’ She gave me the number.

‘Can I come round to see you?’

‘If you like. I can’t tell you any more than I’ve already done but maybe you can tell
me
something.’

She sounded like vodka rather than scotch so on my way I bought a bottle of Stolichnaya at Nicolas in Berwick Street and proceeded to All That Glisters. Berwick Street was still busy with foot traffic, cars, taxis, foodsy smells and people with guidebooks looking in restaurant windows. Grace Kowalski’s shop was closed by now. Expensive-looking jewellery, strange designs in the window behind the grating. Lights upstairs. I rang the bell and she came down carrying a baseball bat. Tall woman, gaunt, in her sixties I thought, grey hair in two long plaits, denim shirt not tucked in, jeans, bare feet. Her feet looked open-minded. ‘Hi,’ she said. We shook hands and I followed
her upstairs to the flat which was partly studio with a workbench and a lot of tools and clutter. Various craftsmanlike smells: metal, soldering flux, blowtorch etc. She leaned the bat in a corner. ‘Why the Louisville Slugger?’ I said.

‘I always carry a bat on the first date,’ she said.

‘I always carry a bottle,’ I said, and gave her the Stolichnaya.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How did you know I liked vodka?’

‘You sounded like vodka. In the nicest possible way.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ She got two glasses. ‘Tonic with it?’ she said. ‘Ice?’

‘Just as it comes,’ I said.

‘My kind of drinker,’ she said, and poured.

‘Here’s looking at you,’ I said.

‘And here’s looking right back.’ We clank and drank. ‘What’s this all about?’ she said. ‘Do you know?’

‘I don’t know where Istvan is, if that’s what you mean. You said you didn’t either, but do you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t lying. I haven’t a clue.’

‘Istvan hasn’t told you about Justine Trimble?’

‘No, who’s she?’

I told her everything I knew and my suspicions as well. Grace shook her head. ‘That bastard,’ she said. She tilted her head to one side and studied me for a few moments. ‘You’re the kind of guy who gets pushed around, aren’t you.’

I nodded.

‘Me too,’ she said.

‘You and Istvan … ?’

‘You could say we had some kind of understanding. Or rather, that’s what I understood but maybe he didn’t.’ She’d been pouring steadily and drinking a good deal faster than I. ‘Sometimes all you can do is make the best of a bad sitsatuation,’ she said. ‘Sisuashion. You know what I mean.’

‘Absolutely. As the I Ching says, “When the river dries up, the superior woman drinks vodka.”’

‘I’m drunk. Would you like to take advantage of me?’

‘Very much. I regret that I am no longer a player.’

‘Don’t regret. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and you look like an imaginative guy.’ She lifted her shirt tails and dropped her jeans.

‘If you put it that way,’ I said, and got imaginative.

In the morning we both woke up with no way to hold our heads that didn’t hurt and we had coffee while considering what would come next. ‘Are you going to do anything about Istvan?’ said Grace.

‘So far,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nothing to go on but his absence and my suspicions.’

‘Which are probably correct.’

‘Have you got keys to his place?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been inside since he left that message on the door?’

‘Yes.’

‘And … ?’

‘Come with me and see for yourself.’

We went round to Fallok’s place and down the steps
to his grotto. Inside were a rank and earthy smell and various devices that I hadn’t seen before. Conspicuous among them was an oil drum half full of what smelt like some primordial soup. Close by was a cardboard panel about six feet high with two slits side by side half-way up. I recognised it from high-school experiments as a diffraction grating. There were wings that could be folded to support it in an upright position. I stood it up and switched on what looked like a special kind of projector. On the cardboard Justine appeared in a still from
Last Stage to El Paso
. Beyond the diffraction grating on a white board was the interference pattern.

‘What do you think?’ I said to Grace.

She said, ‘I don’t like the way that thing is looking at me with its two slitty eyes.’

‘OK, but apart from that?’

‘I think he left all this in place because he wants us to see what he’s doing.’

‘Which is?’

‘What you told me: reconstituting Justine.’

‘And you believe he wants us to know about that?’

‘Istvan’s a funny guy. Maybe he’s afraid of what he’s got into and doesn’t want to lose touch with the straight world.’ She was clinging to my arm. ‘Do you think he’s done it? Reconstituted Justine Trimble?’

‘If he found that he could, he certainly would.’

‘Why do the two of you have the hots for this twenty-five-year-old dead woman?’

‘A dirty old man is the only kind of old man there is, Grace, and age brings out all kinds of strangeness.’

‘I don’t mind strange. Would you stay with me tonight?’

‘Sure, but let’s go to my place. I want to check my e-mail and set the video timer.’

‘What are you going to record?’

‘
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
.’

‘Has it got a happy ending?’

‘Not in the usual sense.’

‘I like happy endings.’

‘I have two machines. We can watch
Dead Letter Office
on the other one. That has a happy ending.’

We were heading for Oxford Circus when I saw Istvan Fallok coming towards us in Marshall Street with someone on his arm – a woman I assumed. She was wearing a blue anorak with the hood up, tight grey jeans, and black-and-white cowboy boots. ‘Cowboy boots,’ I said. ‘Black-and-white.’ Balaclava and dark glasses under the hood. And gloves. When they saw us they stopped.

‘Wotcher, Istvan?’ I said. ‘What do you hear from El Paso?’

‘I hear that the last stage left a while ago,’ he said. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, there are times when four’s a crowd.’

‘And two is one too many,’ said Grace. ‘But at least you could introduce us to your friend.’

‘Not just now,’ said Istvan. ‘We’ll see you around.’

‘Maybe in Technicolor next time,’ I said as he and his silent companion walked past us and away.

8 January 2004. So that was Miss Justine (Dead Meat) Trimble? Irv says Istvan bundled her up like that because she was only black-and-white. Maybe he’ll unveil the full-colour version at a later date. OK. If that’s Istvan’s idea of a really good time I wish him joy of it. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against kinky. Kinky is OK in my book. Still, I suppose everyone draws the line somewhere. If I had a sister, would I want her to marry a necrophile? Consenting adults and all that. A prenuptial agreement with a posthumous clause. But then again.

Well, of course Irv is no better than Istvan really. He wants to get his hands on that dead meat too. Men are trouble enough when they’re young, but when they’re old! If I didn’t know that form and emptiness are the same thing I’d be worried.

8 January 2004. Obviously I wasn’t going to hear from Istvan in the usual way so I made my preparations. I went to his place and I couldn’t see in because the blinds were closed. I’d rigged a bug with a tiny radio mike and a buttonhole vidcam. The letterbox wasn’t sealed so I stuck chewing gum on a non-vital part of the bug and put it in a little catapult meant for launching a toy helicopter. I stuck my hand through the letterbox, launched the bug, and hoped for the best. Then I went home to check the monitor.

The bug had stuck to the ceiling but not in a place that gave me much of a view. I got the top of a speaker or whatever and below that what I assumed was a female and very shapely leg ending in a black-and-white cowboy boot. I did better with the audio. I’ll call the voices
I
and
J
:

I
: Try to keep still, OK?

J
: Why should I keep still? I didn’t ask to come here, I’d rather be dead. What gives you the right to stick
that thing in me?

I
: I love you, that’s what gives me the right.

J
: That’s what
you
think, you dried-up old piece of shit. Ow! That hurt.

I
: If you’d hold still I could find the right place. Of course it’s going to hurt if I keep getting it wrong. Ah, there we go. How’s that?

J
: Am I supposed to like it?

I
: You’ve got a little colour now and you’re looking much better.

J
: Get your hands off me, you creep. Stop taking my clothes off.

I
: You’re getting colour from the top down, very nice. Ow! Why’d you hit me?

J
: Just because you brought me back from the dead, don’t think you can put your hands all over me.

I
: Would you rather be dead?

J
: Oh, never mind – you might as well finish now that you’ve started. If you’ve got enough of what it takes.

I
: I feel a little faint but it’s worth it to see you looking so good. Mmmmm!

J
: Stop that! And what’s going to happen when you’re all used up?

I
: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

J
: What’s that thing on the ceiling? It wasn’t there before. Are you taking pictures of me?

(At this point Fallok removed the bug and stamped heavily on it.)

Her voice! Listening to them almost drove me mad.

The pictures in my mind as I imagined what was going on! The erection it gave me! I took time out to pleasure myself but I still couldn’t calm down, I was burning with passion, aching to possess this woman. My love had sprung up like a monstrous cactus the first time I saw her on video. Now Fallok is enjoying the fruits of my labour. I never should have told him how to go about it and I fully intend to take her away from him. Yes! To have her for myself, to feel her responding to the urgent life in me! One way or another I’ll do it. Ah, Justine!

8 January 2004. Crazy! Is this how Lazarus felt? And crazier from one minute to the next. I kept trying to push this old guy away but as the new life flowed into me I was getting horny. So I stopped pushing him away and pulled him on to me. If fucking was music he wouldn’t of been no more than a tin whistle but in my mind it was Gene Autry giving it to me real good and singing, ‘Whoopee ti-yi-yo, rockin’ to and fro, back in the saddle again …’

The old guy fainted when he finished and I must have used up too much juice because I could feel myself fading to black-and-white again which was a real comedown. When he opened his eyes the old guy – Istvan Fallok his name is – said, ‘How was it for you?’

‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘Only I think I’m fading back to where I was at the beginning.’

‘I noticed,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’ve got enough blood left to give you a top-up.’

‘So what’s going to happen now?’

‘You’re a good-looking girl, Justine …’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘You could have guys queueing up for you.’

‘What, you’re going to pimp for me?’

‘Calm down, you don’t have to go all the way – just get them in here and I’ll soon have you in Technicolor again.’

‘When I get them in here you’re going to do that business with the needles and tubes?’

‘Unless you prefer the classical method of satisfying your need.’

‘You mean … ?’

‘Think Bela Lugosi, think children of the night.’

‘Jesus, you’re trying to turn me into a vampire whore! I’m not some tramp you picked up, I was a
star
, I rode after the El Paso stage and saved the goddam gold.’

‘Justine, you don’t like black-and-white much, it makes you feel terrible and you look like hell. I
told
you, just get the guys in here and I’ll do all the heavy work.’

‘Never mind, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way. I’ll be a vampire whore. Come to think of it, I won’t need you then, will I.’ I wanted to hit the street before my colour was all gone, so I grabbed a jacket and headed for the door. ‘Hang your head in shame,’ is what Gene Autry and me sung to the old guy as I hauled ass out of there and into the dark.

8 January 2004. I stood there and watched her go out of the door; I couldn’t think of anything useful to do. All kinds of feelings were churning around inside me. Blood was a practical necessity for Justine. Mine had worked for her and I guessed that her reconstituted system would accept any type. What she was doing now was certainly the simplest and most direct way of getting what she needed; thinking about it, imagining her sinking her teeth into the neck of her first victim, excited me and filled me with a kind of perverse pride. I hoped she’d leave whomever she drank from enough blood to be going on with but I couldn’t help worrying a little about her ability to restrain herself.