Smoke and Mirrors (25 page)

2 . . .
Gwennie.

3 . . .

and so forth.

Having filled in the first two, he sat sucking his pen, hunting for wrongs done to him and people the world would be better off without.

He smoked a cigarette. He strolled around the room.

Aha! There was a physics teacher at a school he had attended who had delighted in making his life a misery. What was the man’s name again? And for that matter, was he still alive? Peter wasn’t sure, but he wrote
The Physics Teacher, Abbot Street Secondary School
next to the number three. The next came more easily—his department head had refused to raise his salary a couple of months back; that the raise had eventually come was immaterial.
Mr. Hunterson
was number four.

When he was five, a boy named Simon Ellis had poured paint on his head while another boy named James somebody-or-other had held him down and a girl named Sharon Hartsharpe had laughed. They were numbers five through seven, respectively.

Who else?

There was the man on television with the annoying snicker who read the news. He went on the list. And what about the woman in the flat next door with the little yappy dog that shat in the hall? He put her and the dog down on nine. Ten was the hardest. He scratched his head and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, then dashed back and wrote
My Great-Uncle Mervyn
down in the tenth place. The old man was rumored to be quite affluent, and there was a possibility (albeit rather slim) that he could leave Peter some money.

With the satisfaction of an evening’s work well done, he went off to bed.

Monday at Clamages was routine; Peter was a senior sales assistant in the books department, a job that actually entailed very little. He clutched his list tightly in his hand, deep in his pocket, rejoicing in the feeling of power that it gave him. He spent a most enjoyable lunch hour in the canteen with young Gwendolyn (who did not know that he had seen her and Archie enter the stockroom together) and even smiled at the smooth young man from the accounting department when he passed him in the corridor.

He proudly displayed his list to Kemble that evening.

The little salesman’s face fell.

“I’m afraid this isn’t ten people, Mr. Pinter,” he explained.

“You’ve counted the woman in the next-door flat
and
her dog as one person. That brings it to eleven, which would be an extra”—his pocket calculator was rapidly deployed—“an extra seventy pounds. How about if we forget the dog?”

Peter shook his head. “The dog’s as bad as the woman. Or worse.”

“Then I’m afraid we have a slight problem. Unless . . . ”

“What?”

“Unless you’d like to take advantage of our wholesale rate. But of course sir wouldn’t be . . . ”

There are words that do things to people; words that make people’s faces flush with joy, excitement, or passion.
Environmental
can be one;
occult
is another.
Wholesale
was Peter’s. He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about it,” he said with the practiced assurance of an experienced shopper.

“Well, sir,” said Kemble, allowing himself a little chuckle, “we can, uh,
get
them for you wholesale, seventeen pounds fifty each, for every quarry after the first fifty, or a tenner each for every one over two hundred.”

“I suppose you’d go down to a fiver if I wanted a thousand people knocked off?”

“Oh no, sir,” Kemble looked shocked. “If you’re talking those sorts of figures, we can do them for a quid each.”

“One
pound?
”

“That’s right, sir. There’s not a big profit margin on it, but the high turnover and productivity more than justifies it.”

Kemble got up. “Same time tomorrow, sir?”

Peter nodded.

One thousand pounds. One thousand people. Peter Pinter didn’t even
know
a thousand people. Even so . . . there were the Houses of Parliament. He didn’t like politicians; they squabbled and argued and carried on so.

And for that matter . . .

An idea, shocking in its audacity. Bold. Daring. Still, the idea was there and it wouldn’t go away. A distant cousin of his had married the younger brother of an earl or a baron or something . . .

On the way home from work that afternoon, he stopped off at a little shop that he had passed a thousand times without entering. It had a large sign in the window—guaranteeing to trace your lineage for you and even draw up a coat of arms if you happened to have mislaid your own—and an impressive heraldic map.

They were very helpful and phoned him up just after seven to give him their news.

If approximately fourteen million, seventy-two thousand, eight hundred and eleven people died, he, Peter Pinter, would be
King of England.

He didn’t have fourteen million, seventy-two thousand, eight hundred and eleven pounds: but he suspected that when you were talking in those figures, Mr. Kemble would have one of his special discounts.

Mr. Kemble did.

He didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“Actually,” he explained, “it works out quite cheaply; you see, we wouldn’t have to do them all individually. Small-scale nuclear weapons, some judicious bombing, gassing, plague, dropping radios in swimming pools, and then mopping up the stragglers. Say four thousand pounds.”

“Four thou—? That’s in
cred
ible!”

The salesman looked pleased with himself. “Our operatives will be glad of the work, sir.” He grinned. “We pride ourselves on servicing our wholesale customers.”

The wind blew cold as Peter left the pub, setting the old sign swinging. It didn’t look much like a dirty donkey, thought Peter. More like a pale horse.

Peter was drifting off to sleep that night, mentally rehearsing his coronation speech, when a thought drifted into his head and hung around. It would not go away. Could he—could he
possibly
be passing up an even larger saving than he already had? Could he be missing out on a bargain?

Peter climbed out of bed and walked over to the phone. It was almost 3
A
.
M
., but even so . . .

His Yellow Pages lay open where he had left it the previous Saturday, and he dialed the number.

The phone seemed to ring forever. There was a click and a bored voice said, “Burke Hare Ketch. Can I help you?”

“I hope I’m not phoning too late . . . ” he began.

“Of course not, sir.”

“I was wondering if I could speak to Mr. Kemble.”

“Can you hold? I’ll see if he’s available.”

Peter waited for a couple of minutes, listening to the ghostly crackles and whispers that always echo down empty phone lines.

“Are you there, caller?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Putting you through.” There was a buzz, then “Kemble speaking.”

“Ah, Mr. Kemble. Hello. Sorry if I got you out of bed or anything. This is, um, Peter Pinter.”

“Yes, Mr. Pinter?”

“Well, I’m sorry it’s so late, only I was wondering . . . How much would it cost to kill everybody? Everybody in the world?”

“Everybody? All the people?”

“Yes. How much? I mean, for an order like that, you’d have to have some kind of a big discount. How much would it be? For everyone?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Pinter.”

“You mean you wouldn’t do it?”

“I mean we’d do it for nothing, Mr. Pinter. We only have to be asked, you see. We always have to be asked.”

Peter was puzzled. “But—when would you start?”

“Start? Right away. Now. We’ve been ready for a long time. But we had to be asked, Mr. Pinter. Good night. It
has
been a
pleasure
doing business with you.”

The line went dead.

Peter felt strange. Everything seemed very distant. He wanted to sit down. What on earth had the man meant? “We always have to be asked.” It was definitely strange. Nobody does anything for nothing in this world; he had a good mind to phone Kemble back and call the whole thing off. Perhaps he had overreacted, perhaps there was a perfectly innocent reason why Archie and Gwendolyn had entered the stockroom together. He would talk to her; that’s what he’d do. He’d talk to Gwennie first thing tomorrow morning . . .

That was when the noises started.

Odd cries from across the street. A catfight? Foxes probably. He hoped someone would throw a shoe at them. Then, from the corridor outside his flat, he heard a muffled clumping, as if someone were dragging something very heavy along the floor. It stopped. Someone knocked on his door, twice, very softly.

Outside his window the cries were getting louder. Peter sat in his chair, knowing that somehow, somewhere, he had missed something. Something important. The knocking redoubled. He was thankful that he always locked and chained his door at night.

They’d been ready for a long time, but they had to be asked. . .

When the thing came through the door, Peter started screaming, but he really didn’t scream for very long.

O NE L IFE , F URNISHED IN E ARLY M OORCOCK

T
he Pale albino prince lofted on high his great black sword “This is Stormbringer” he said “and it will suck your soul right out.”

The Princess sighed. “Very well!” she said. “If that is what you need to get the energy you need to fight the Dragon Warriors, then you must kill me and let your broad sword feed on my soul.”

“I do not want to do this” he said to her.

“That’s okay” said the princess and with that she ripped her flimsy gown and beared her chest to him. “That is my heart” she said, pointing with her finger. “and that is where you must plunge.”

He had never got any farther than that. That had been the day he had been told he was being moved up a year, and there hadn’t been much point after that. He’d learned not to try and continue stories from one year to another. Now, he was twelve.

It was a pity, though.

The essay title had been “Meeting My Favorite Literary Character,” and he’d picked Elric. He’d toyed with Corum, or Jerry Cornelius, or even Conan the Barbarian, but Elric of Melnibone won, hands down, just like he always did.

Richard had first read
Stormbringer
three years ago, at the age of nine. He’d saved up for a copy of
The Singing Citadel
(something of a cheat, he decided, on finishing: only one Elric story) and then borrowed the money from his father to buy
The Sleeping Sorceress,
found in a spin rack while they were on holiday in Scotland last summer. In
The Sleeping Sorceress
Elric met Erikose and Corum, two other aspects of the Eternal Champion, and they all got together.

Which meant, he realized when he finished the book, that the Corum books and the Erikose books and even the Dorian Hawkmoon books were really Elric books, too, so he began buying them, and he enjoyed them.

They weren’t as good as Elric, though. Elric was the best.

Sometimes he’d sit and draw Elric, trying to get him right. None of the paintings of Elric on the covers of the books looked like the Elric that lived in his head. He drew the Elrics with a fountain pen in empty school exercise books he had obtained by deceit. On the front cover he’d write his name:
RICHARD GREY. DO NOT STEAL
.

Sometimes he thought he ought to go back and finish writing his Elric story. Maybe he could even sell it to a magazine. But then, what if Moorcock found out? What if he got into trouble?

The classroom was large, filled with wooden desks. Each desk was carved and scored and ink-stained by its occupant, an important process. There was a blackboard on the wall with a chalk drawing on it: a fairly accurate representation of a male penis, heading towards a Y shape, intended to represent the female genitalia.

The door downstairs banged, and someone ran up the stairs. “Grey, you spazmo, what’re you doing up here? We’re meant to be down on the Lower Acre. You’re playing football today.”

“We are? I am?”

“It was announced at assembly this morning. And the list is up on the games notice board.” J.B.C. MacBride was sandy-haired, bespectacled, only marginally more organized than Richard Grey. There were two J. MacBrides, which was how he ranked a full set of initials.

“Oh.”

Grey picked up a book (
Tarzan at the Earth’s Core
) and headed off after him. The clouds were dark gray, promising rain or snow.

People were forever announcing things he didn’t notice. He would arrive in empty classes, miss organized games, arrive at school on days when everyone else had gone home. Sometimes he felt as if he lived in a different world to everyone else.

He went off to play football,
Tarzan at the Earth’s Core
shoved down the back of his scratchy blue football shorts.

He hated the showers and the baths. He couldn’t understand why they had to use both, but that was just the way it was.

He was freezing, and no good at games. It was beginning to become a matter of perverse pride with him that in his years at the school so far, he hadn’t scored a goal, or hit a run, or bowled anyone out, or done anything much except be the last person to be picked when choosing sides.

Elric, proud pale prince of the Melniboneans, would never have had to stand around on a football pitch in the middle of winter, wishing the game would be over.

Steam from the shower room, and his inner thighs were chapped and red. The boys stood naked and shivering in a line, waiting to get under the showers and then to get into the baths.

Mr. Murchison, eyes wild and face leathery and wrinkled, old and almost bald, stood in the changing rooms directing naked boys into the shower, then out of the shower and into the baths. “You boy. Silly little boy. Jamieson. Into the shower, Jamieson. Atkinson, you baby, get under it properly. Smiggins, into the bath. Goring, take his place in the shower . . . ” The showers were too hot. The baths were freezing cold and muddy.

When Mr. Murchison wasn’t around, boys would flick each other with towels, joke about each others’ penises, about who had pubic hair, who didn’t.

“Don’t be an idiot,” hissed someone near Richard. “What if the Murch comes back. He’ll kill you.” There was some nervous giggling.

Richard turned and looked. An older boy had an erection, was rubbing his hand up and down it slowly under the shower, displaying it proudly to the room.

Richard turned away.

Forgery was too easy.

Richard could do a passable imitation of the Murch’s signature, for example, and an excellent version of his housemaster’s handwriting and signature. His housemaster was a tall, bald, dry man named Trellis. They had disliked each other for years.

Richard used the signatures to get blank exercise books from the stationery office, which dispensed paper, pencils, pens, and rulers on the production of a note signed by a teacher.

Richard wrote stories and poems and drew pictures in the exercise books.

After the bath, Richard toweled himself off and dressed hurriedly; he had a book to get back to, a lost world to return to.

He walked out of the building slowly, tie askew, shirttail flapping, reading about Lord Greystoke, wondering whether there really was a world inside the world where dinosaurs flew and it was never night.

The daylight was beginning to go, but there were still a number of boys outside the school, playing with tennis balls: a couple played conkers by the bench. Richard leaned against the redbrick wall and read, the outside world closed off, the indignities of changing rooms forgotten.

“You’re a disgrace, Grey.”

Me?

“Look at you. Your tie’s all crooked. You’re a disgrace to the school. That’s what you are.”

The boy’s name was Lindfield, two school years above him, but already as big as an adult. “Look at your tie. I mean,
look
at it.” Lindfield pulled at Richard’s green tie, pulled it tight into a hard little knot. “Pathetic.”

Lindfield and his friends wandered off.

Elric of Melnibone was standing by the redbrick walls of the school building, staring at him. Richard pulled at the knot in his tie, trying to loosen it. It was cutting into his throat.

His hands fumbled around his neck.

He couldn’t breathe; but he was not concerned about breathing. He was worried about standing. Richard had suddenly forgotten how to stand. It was a relief to discover how soft the brick path he was standing on had become as it slowly came up to embrace him.

They were standing together under a night sky hung with a thousand huge stars, by the ruins of what might once have been an ancient temple.

Elric’s ruby eyes stared down at him. They looked, Richard thought, like the eyes of a particularly vicious white rabbit that Richard had once had, before it gnawed through the wire of the cage and fled into the Sussex countryside to terrify innocent foxes. His skin was perfectly white; his armor, ornate and elegant, traced with intricate patterns, perfectly black. His fine white hair blew about his shoulders as if in a breeze, but the air was still.

—
So you want to be a companion to heroes?
he asked. His voice was gentler than Richard had imagined it would be.

Richard nodded.

Elric put one long finger beneath Richard’s chin, lifted his face up.
Blood eyes,
thought Richard.
Blood eyes.

—You’re no companion, boy,
he said in the High Speech of Melnibone.

Richard had always known he would understand the High Speech when he heard it, even if his Latin and French had always been weak.

— 
Well, what
am
I, then?
he asked.
Please tell me. Please?

Elric made no response. He walked away from Richard, into the ruined temple.

Richard ran after him.

Inside the temple Richard found a life waiting for him, all ready to be worn and lived, and inside that life, another. Each life he tried on, he slipped into and it pulled him farther in, farther away from the world he came from; one by one, existence following existence, rivers of dreams and fields of stars, a hawk with a sparrow clutched in its talons flies low above the grass, and here are tiny intricate people waiting for him to fill their heads with life, and thousands of years pass and he is engaged in strange work of great importance and sharp beauty, and he is loved, and he is honored, and then a pull, a sharp tug, and it’s . . .

. . . it was like coming up from the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool. Stars appeared above him and dropped away and dissolved into blues and greens, and it was with a deep sense of disappointment that he became Richard Grey and came to himself once more, filled with an unfamiliar emotion. The emotion was a specific one, so specific that he was surprised, later, to realize that it did not have its own name: a feeling of disgust and regret at having to return to something he had thought long since done with and abandoned and forgotten and dead.

Richard was lying on the ground, and Lindfield was pulling at the tiny knot of his tie. There were other boys around, faces staring down at him, worried, concerned, scared.