The Crime Studio (10 page)

Ben Rictus was Elliot Rope’s best and only fan. Rope was an author whose books were almost zoological in their shameless endorsement of happiness and laughter. He was forever writing about frenzied piano tuners, belligerent master chefs and people who were no longer responsible for their actions. He’d create the most floridly psychotic entanglement and then unravel it and watch the fireworks. Both bizarre and constructive, he was like Kafka for grown-ups. Ben got a hell of a charge out of Rope’s work and this was a guy who was so demanding of a book that he’d turn the pages by lashing them with a whip.

Ben only wished that everyone could appreciate Rope as he did. He’d compiled the collected works of Elly Rope despite the fact that Elly Rope was an author whose works were generally collected in the form of garbage. Rope’s books had been printed on the cheap by Rope himself, and even now the denizens of Beerlight spoke of him as a rabid pamphleteer. It was said he’d sit in the Delayed Reaction Bar screaming about postmodernism. ‘They say a dead man tells no tales,’ he’d shout, ‘but they’ve overlooked Martin Amis!’ Rope once hacked his way into Don Delillo’s home computer and altered his latest novel so that one of the characters smiled. Later he created a backdoor virus which ran amok among the manuscript files at Random House rewriting them all grammatically. Growing bitter with non-publication, he became obsessed with the theory that publishers never look beyond the first page of unsolicited manuscripts, and to test it he submitted a novel of which only the first page was written sensibly, the rest consisting of the letter ‘X’ repeated one million seven hundred and thirty-one times. To his shock and embarrassment they agreed to publish the work. It was the final straw. Elly Rope set fire to the publishing house one turbulent night, destroying it and the manuscript. Then he disappeared like a shot and hadn’t been seen for years. Ben Rictus never met him but since his discovery of Rope’s first novel,
Punching Volunteers
, he had become a lone crusader for Rope’s status as a literary barnstormer. He wanted to bring him out of hiding, and make the world understand.

Now Ben Rictus was a storyteller in his own right and had trouble being legitimately published for the same two reasons as Elly Rope. First, the material was conspicuous - this is exactly what publishers are afraid of. A book should blend in to the point where in a tight spot they can claim it was never published at all. Second was the unspoken belief that the expression of originality drained a limited pool of ideas - while Ben knew from experience that ideas are self-replenishing, like snot. Ben took the snail by the tail with a strategy to give both he and Elly Rope a shot at the bigtime. He’d take one of Elly Rope’s better works -
A Hundred and Twenty-Five Things You Don’t Understand About My Ass
, say - and retype it as a manuscript. Then he’d submit it under his own name, hopefully get it through and enjoy (for a while at least) the raptures of authorship. Rope would drop everything and show up, indignantly claiming copyright on the work, at which distorted moment Ben would freely hand him the recognition he deserved. Ben didn’t have a qualm as he figured plagiarism was just taking an author at his word, and anyway it was surely the kind of scorching subterfuge that Rope himself would endorse.

The first people who saw it bit the book out of Ben’s unholy hand. Ben retitled it
Bellying Out Unexpectedly
, to delay Elly Rope’s boneshattering rage until after publication, and six months later he was holding a copy:
Bellying Out Unexpectedly
by Ben Rictus - he’d pulled it off easier than a rubber mask.

As the novel climbed the bestseller list Ben lived in perpetual fear of being abruptly and irreversibly knifed by the wronged author. But Rope didn’t show. He didn’t even call. Ben was being hailed as a literary demigod, with a thirty thousand smacker advance for a second novel and talk-show invitations he could spit and hit - and Rope never came forward. Maybe he was someplace they don’t have television, like
Canada
. Maybe he’d been arrested for going mad and was sat rocking in the corner of a cell, eyes fixed and dilated. Maybe the guy was dead as a donut, leaving Ben to live a complete life in the bacchanalian style to which he was becoming accustomed.

Ben figured what the hell and let things slide. The second book he gave the publisher was one of his own -
My Crunchy Past
- and to his surprise this was more popular than the one Rope had written. The critics said by god he’s coming on in bounds. They called him a frenzied individualist, and for the first time he believed them. After all, the latest book was totally on the level and it sold like underwear. Ben bought a yardpool as big as Pluto’s moon and was as happy as a dog in a sidecar.

It was at this point that Elly Rope made his existence not unknown to the literary establishment, referring to Ben as the devil in human mould. He exploded onto national television stating that Ben was a death-dealing matriarch who if given a hammer would use it to smash the bill of a wren. Rope had simply been choosing his moment - now he claimed authorship not only of his own novel but of Ben’s book into the bargain. The law believed him and Ben was impoverished, avoiding a prison term only by absconding to a republic the constitution of which was scrawled in crayon. Yet throughout the ordeal Ben felt a strange sense of acceptance and rare justice.

Meanwhile back home the public and publishers were for once in agreement - they wanted fresh material from Elly Rope. And Elly Rope had to privately admit that he was as dry as a bone - in fact he was spitting feathers. He hadn’t an idea in his head, except to find Ben Rictus and strike a secret deal for new material. Ben’s
Crunchy
novel was the most popular of Elly’s books and there was an angry demand for more.

Elly Rope hired more private detectives than should ever have been born and when they found Ben Rictus they didn’t tell Elly Rope for over a year. By the time Elly Rope confronted Ben Rictus on a small tropical jetty, Ben had gone native and was reeling in a sailfish the size of a buffalo. Ben had forgotten that Elly Rope existed. Life truly imitates art and since Ben was a plagiarist he found he fitted right in. He sent Elly away empty-handed save for his blessings and laughter.

Totally thrown, Elly went home and set about his new novel with all the inspiration of a dead cigarette. The novel was as dusty and hollow as a dried saint. It stormed the bestseller list and won three respected awards. As the most prestigious of these was pressed into his quiescent hand, the author was weeping. Once again, Elly Rope had been shafted.

Jerry Diesel was a preventive escape artist - he never got locked up. He also had more connections than a plate of spaghetti, and when at the age of thirty-five he decided to retire he enlisted the aid of the entire Beerlight underworld in a final collaborative bank haul.

The job was planned in fly-leg detail. Jerry would check a bomb into a safe deposit box at the
McKenna Square
bank - he had stored explosives there before but on this occasion they were set to go off in the dead of night and pour smoke into the square. A slabhead unit would give the fire department the cod-eye and drive a couple of trucks to the scene in full garb, making a ruckus and collecting the cash. Cop impersonators would stand around yelling and pacify onlookers by shooting them. It would be the biggest knockover in the annals of between-wars
America
.

Nearly everybody was there, among them Freddy Bitmap, Backhaul Fairlight, Sam Transam, Tim Canada, John Rag-Hip, Jerry Earl, Mercy Goat, Gilbert Wham, Audrey Benelin, Babyface Terrier, Dino Harmaline, Ignore Henry, Sam ‘Sam’ Bleaker, Doll-Gone-Wrong, Barry Ultimatum, Leone Vanguard, Jammy Le Mot, John ‘Kickstart’ Kelly, Harry Hydrocele, Fourth of July Skeleton, Hugo Peppercorn, Chewy Endeavour, Ferris Malady, Hammy Roadstud, Ban Saliva, Brenda Divorce and Terry ‘It’s Raining Snow’ McFadden.

Billy Distend took off his hat as a disguise. Ike ‘Knuckles’ Naysayer was head of the IC mob - he was called Knuckles because that was as far as he ever got into a bank vault before getting arrested. Head of the slabheads was Holder Fray, a notorious drunkard and truck-roller. After overseeing the abstraction of the blaze department he drove the head truck with a blathering indolence that ruptured the credulity of those aboard. Holder had a convulsing arm and a false eye, regrettably made of corduroy, and the truck ploughed through the cop impersonators, squealing like a banana skin on a bonfire. It plunged without restraint into the front of the bank and, stumbling amid the rubble of his derelict morality, Holder was stabbed enthusiastically by his colleagues. The bank was burning like an effigy.

The real cops arrived at the broiling devastation and were welcomed with open arms fire. Henry Blince shouted through a megaphone that the horde should throw down their weapons and save their comments for later. This provoked a volley of mind-boggling obscenities and ferocious flak which shredded the cop barricades and forced the cops to fire back encouragingly. The battle developed into a classic pattern of maudlin co-dependence. Knuckles Naysayer was shot seven times in the belly and hadn’t the imagination to double over. Barry Ultimatum was smacked by a cop shell-launcher, getting a scorch-hole in his shirt which would subsequently remind the coroner of the
US
flag. Gilbert Wham was shot, to his lasting advantage. The slabheads were mistaking the depleted IC mob for real cops and shooting them down. Some were shot from both directions, among them young Backhaul Fairlight, whose assassination of Viscount Strange had been described by the cognoscenti as ‘promising’. Ballistic talent expired by the busload. The slabhead crew fired tearfully from behind the two burning fire trucks. Some got away. The money burnt. It was a heroic shambles deserving of a freeze-frame. But Jerry Diesel never saw it because he wasn’t there. He was at the other end of town single-handedly robbing a bank on
Curve Street
. The alarm tripped but the cops at
McKenna Square
figured it was just a decoy.

Harpoon Specter was all fired up with the notion of a theme park in honour of Beerlight. Stressworld was to be the last word in artificial mayhem, an automated environment of paranoia and hostility from which the paying public would fight tooth and nail to escape, sustaining injury and profound mental trauma. Specter saw it as an authentic urban experience, air-conditioned by the sighs of the suicidal. Drive-by killings would occur on the half-hour. Visitors would run screaming from berserk automatons. Dismal conversations would take place. Satisfaction would be a rumour.

Grabbing the nettle, he hired the animatronics engineer Sparky Tafero. Tafero had been kicked out of
Disneyland
when he rewired Abe Lincoln to blather accusations of barnyard bestiality to the assembled vacationers, and he now allowed himself to be convinced that Stressworld was the next step in his disastrous career. Specter kissed his money goodbye and sank it into the project. As a showpiece to woo potential backers he commissioned a costive replica of the Delayed Reaction Bar on a lot near the Loop Expressway. The interior was reproduced down to the crest pattern on the smallest adder. The fact that most of the Reaction regulars were bone idle was a boon to Sparky, who populated the bar with an assortment of boss-eyed dummies that never moved a muscle. If these rock-hard mannequins were addressed or approached, they were programmed simply to explode. This was the easiest way to camouflage their lack of sophistication. Behind the bar was a fully mechanised imitation of Don Toto, and in the corner stood a sentimental copy of Auto-Rhino, rigged to club anyone who stepped within twelve yards. Henry Blince - who in reality rarely visited the Delayed Reaction - was represented by a kind of balloon. This was inflated and deflated rapidly by means of a concealed hydraulic hose-bundle, so that he appeared to be panting heavily. It took months to synchronise the baring of Parker’s teeth with the extending of his knife arm, but when Sparky got it running he and Harpoon knew they were on the up and up. It was time to invite the investors.

Back in town, Specter had related his concept in only the broadest terms. He wanted them to sample the experience for themselves, and so one stark evening three men of finance drove up to the complex which housed the Reaction environment. At the end of a vaulted corridor, they entered a dim chamber and stood, briefcases in hand. They seemed to be in some kind of subterranean bistro. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they perceived a number of inert dummies, painted up as though to ward off evil spirits. Some were tipped aside like the quietly deceased. The place was as still as a storeroom.

They advanced into the room, apprehensive and afraid. Then the foremost spotted a fat guy sat at a table, breathing heavily, lolling, staring into space. As he approached the figure, a jukebox sparked into life, illuminating the barman’s death-head grin. Some of the dummies began to move. One of the investors became manly and bluff, and perched at the bar. The barman smiled over his head, wiping one glass.

Another placed his case on a table and sat opposite Henry Blince.

‘So,’ he said, nervously amicable. ‘What’s the deal?’

The fat man heaved a deep breath, his head falling back, and then began to hyperventilate alarmingly. The investor’s heart beat like a mill as he watched the figure convulse, its head tossing at violent speed. It proceeded to emit a high-pitched squeal like a punctured bathtoy. The financier signalled uncertainly to his colleague at the bar, who was too busy ordering a beer.

The barman had begun to shudder, and now let out a congested shriek and punched the banker in the forehead. As the guy lay identifying the Plough, Toto bellowed a loop of prerecorded profanities and threw his fists at empty air. Foam streamed from the dead mouth of a patron seated bolt-upright on a barstool. The potential backers watched with an unnamed horror.

The third man, who until now had been paralysed with fear, lunged forward to retrieve his felled colleague, yelling at the other to run for his life. Overstepping the mark, he detonated two regulars and fired Auto from the corner like a cork from a bottle - the primitive effigy collided with a table and blew deafeningly to pieces. Brute Parker levitated through a trapdoor, halting with a thump. ‘Name one permanent structure,’ it said, then bared its teeth, raised a Kalashnikov and swept a 180-degree arc. Beerbottles exploded and the gibbering Toto was punctured repeatedly across the chest. The jukebox was playing backwards. Lights began to gutter and short. The motionless barfly was frothing like an oil-gush and the visitors waded kneedeep in industrial foam, screaming like the damned. Parker’s dummy turned back and forth, firing on full-auto. The air furnaced with destruction and cordite fumes, like a poltergeist on parole. Ducking a hail of shrapnel, the financiers hit the door running. Behind them, the dummies were jangling like a can-string alarm.

In a media van parked nearby, Specter and Tafero watched the pixelated, silent monitor image of their guests’ screaming faces and knew they were in business. Flushed with laughter and exchanging hearty congratulations, they proceeded lustily to the complex exit. The money men burst out on a wave of gunsmoke, babbling and swiping at imaginary fiends. One had become white-haired with terror and another fell to his knees and ate sand. The third would not stop screaming, his face ravaged and demented.

Beaming with success, Specter and Tafero stepped up with a contract and a fountain pen. ‘I think we understand each other,’ Specter told them with a suave smirk, and found his hairstyle abruptly rearranged by skid-wind from the departing cars. He looked down at the contract, which appeared to have been savagely mauled by some ferocious animal. He watched his backing head for the hills. Interweaving dust-tracks glowed in the twilight like the trail of snails. So much for innovation. What did they want - fantasy?

Meanwhile the investors were feeling as wrecked and relieved as the survivor in a slasher movie. Everything was raw and immediate. They pulled over in town, thirsting for normality. Shambling down the sidewalk, they argued about their next move. They had to get some perspective, sit down and pan it out - they had to get a few drinks inside them. Supporting each other, they pushed open a door and entered the Delayed Reaction Bar.