The Crime Studio (5 page)

In a town where bulletproof underwear is openly on sale, paranoia is regarded not as a mental aberration but as a way of staying ahead of the game. To the denizens of Beerlight the notion that ‘you never know until you try’ is laughable in its lack of foresight. Carl Overchoke was further ahead of this particular game than anybody - in fact he found himself alone. When asked why he was feeling so sorry for himself he answered without deceit that it was a result of looking objectively at his situation. So it was like putting fire to a rocket when Harpoon Specter the lawyer and con-man stopped Carl in the street and whispered to damn well look out - he had it on good authority that Carl was under surveillance. ‘Take care you courageous son of a bitch they’re onto you.’ Specter walked quickly on and filled so full of hilarity he had to duck into an alley to laugh.

Back in the street, Carl hadn’t moved. ‘Holy Christ,’ he muttered to himself, ‘the trash of my existence has finally hit the fan.’

Then he saw some guy down the block reading a newspaper in an obvious attempt to look geometrical. And there was a van, parked across the street - damn thing stood out a mile, plastered with legal licence plates. Carl felt suddenly disorientated, like Robert Southey trying on his first dress. The guys in the van mustn’t know he’d been tipped off - he had to go about in seeming innocence. How do you do that?

For two days he holed up in his bug-encrusted apartment, where the facts of his predicament caused an obscure foreboding - it was like hearing gorillas in the next room.

After the initial shock he ventured out, settling down to the unfamiliar sense that his actions mattered to somebody. He began to see everything in a new context - he felt important. It was like a drug. Knowing that all he did was being recorded and filed, his every move was loaded with significance. He found he appreciated even the little things in life, like boiling an egg. It was like being in a movie. Just a walk down the street was a fiery jamboree of rich sensation.

As he went through his day he imagined the report: ‘Subject bought two cartons milk at deli, bought head of lettuce, three tomatoes, crackers, pure orange - at 22.00 hours proceeded home via Chain Street.’ This was great! He even started varying his routine, incorporating shadowy behaviour to give them something to think about. For the first time in his life, he felt someone cared.

It wasn’t long before people began to notice a change in Carl Overchoke. He had become a voluble, self-assured presence. He came into the Delayed Reaction Bar and ordered highgrade for a certain selection of people - different people each night - according to a covert pattern known only to himself. Everybody there began exercising strenuous efforts to understand this pattern. When asked, he would smile and tap the side of his nose. He acquired a huge, heavy coat and cut a much more significant and noticeable figure in the street nowadays. Nobody knew where he went home. And he made more mysterious phonecalls than the devil himself. People wanted to know what he was into, and pretty soon he began taking select personalities aside and telling them in confidence that if they weren’t careful they’d die with a velocity that would surprise everyone. The shit was coming down, he said, for real. He’d stop strangers in the street and say ‘It’s on’ out of the corner of his mouth. He’d rearrange merchandise in a particular manner and then wink significantly at the cashier. Even the lawyer and con-man Harpoon Specter began to regard him with a new and cautious respect. Carl knew something, and everyone but Carl was talking about it.

It was Carl’s very lack of curiosity that made him the bullseye of cop attention. Even Chief of the Cops Henry Blince, who for years had been passing himself off as a biped, noticed that there was alot more going on in the way of conspiracy and funny hand-signals these days. And on investigating Carl he found him busier than a bastard in a rainforest. It was well known that the denizens of Beerlight passed the time of day in the pursuit of relentless deviance and paused only to gnaw at a snared dove or burn the mayor in effigy. Morals were flung like bails into the inferno of the city’s cheerful and inexpensive pastimes. All this was harmless and traditional but Carl was clearly the calm centre of a more insidious storm. When Blince asked a regular of the Delayed Reaction to repeat what Carl had been saying, the guy spoke florid, whooping nonsense in a hoarse voice full of good humour and illegal sedation. When recorded and played in reverse, he seemed to be saying, ‘The best things in life are gratuitous, gentlemen.’

This was too big for Blince’s men, who after years of undiluted mayhem had become almost undergraduate with misery. He called in the feds, who set up a sprawling and decorous surveillance network with the express aim of catching Carl with his mouth in the pie. Within a week they had gathered incriminating evidence the implications of which stretched beyond the human range. Contacts, names, beverages - everything was recorded as Carl wove a web of intrigue through the city, making signals and remarks which everyone professed to understand. From the first recorded day, he was stating right out that he was under surveillance - how he knew this the feds couldn’t begin to guess. He spoke into phones without dialling, so that anyone in the nation with the right equipment could pick up the message and remain untraceable. State of the art. In a swoop on the Delayed Reaction the feds arrested Carl and dragged him out backwards so that if he tripped he would appear to be struggling and they could hit or shoot him with impunity. But Carl was in a state of bliss - the fiery release which accompanied the final reconciliation of thought and reality. This was all the evidence he needed. He lay back and let the public disorder wash over him.

People ran after the armoured van as it took Carl away - but they couldn’t keep up. They’d never find out the secrets he had always been on the brink of whispering, or experience the festive revolt he had had up his sleeve. Were the case ever heard in the perjury room, Carl would have only said that the prosecution were out to get him.

I thought I saw him a year later in O’Hara Park - he told me he’d decided to shave his beard.

‘But you haven’t got a beard,’ I said. ‘You’ve never had one.’

He regarded me with a strange smile. ‘Now you know why.’

Charlie Hiatus found himself on the corner of Ride and Crane at a loss as to who he was. He hadn’t any memory of his life and affairs - all he knew was that he was a denizen of Beerlight. He looked up. The sky was as blank as his mind.

Charlie sauntered up
Ride Street
, looking at the traffic. Someone unrolled a window especially to tell him he was an asshole who should die in flames if there were any justice. Charlie thanked him - already he was filling in the gaps in his knowledge. ‘But there isn’t any justice,’ the driver added with a yell and accelerated away. Charlie thanked him again and made a note of it with cheery optimism. He strolled on, blessedly possessed of an innocence denied those with any memory of their behaviour.

On the corner of Ride and Dive he pushed into a store to ask the proprietor for any help he could spare. The store was jampacked with implements of destruction, and sat behind the counter was a big guy in aviator shades, barely containing his impulses as he read the latest issue of
Headshot
.

‘I hope against hope that that isn’t Charlie Hiatus who just walked into my boutique,’ uttered the proprietor without looking up. Charlie noticed that the guy was flushed red, and shuddering like an LA apartment. ‘Because if it is I’ll take all my lucky chances in one strong hand and twist out his sputtering innards for their brightly-hued and decorative value.’

Without a word, Charlie backed slowly out again, letting the door swing shut. Bewildered and thoughtful, he looked at his reflection in the store window and was confronted with a head and neck like a stack of starch slices - he seemed almost to possess gills. This did not fill Charlie with confidence. And when the face of the murderous proprietor floated up behind his own, snarling like an alsatian, he hurried on with a growing sense of fear and unease.

Crossing the road and heading down
Saints Street
he was alarmed at a sudden explosion of gunfire and a guy running out of the bank with a Remington 870 pump. The guy turned to face the bank and, bellowing incoherently, fired ten chirping rounds into a guard who had come prancing after him. A car shrieked up at that moment, and Charlie leapt in, gasping gratefully as it screamed away with him. But no sooner had the bleak-featured driver glanced back than he slammed on the brakes, forcing Charlie out at gunpoint and calling him a ‘mother’. The guy with the Remington pounded down the street addressing him with a stream of blistering profanity and emphasising every syllable with a blast from the shotgun. Sensing danger, Charlie ran up Valentine as fast as his arms and legs could take him, dodging sideways into a bar.

Charlie was feeling as ragged as a seahorse. Only the bartop supported his tolling head. When he looked up he was confronted by a guy in a bruise-blue jacket and white pants who watched him with a ghoulish loathing. The guy told Charlie he would give him some ‘cod eyes’, opened a flick-knife an inch from Charlie’s nose, then strolled to the other end of the bar and regarded him with slow, glutinous laughter. Charlie turned to the barman. ‘What’s that thing when someone gets a knock on the head and suddenly can’t remember anything about himself?’

‘Death,’ said the barman, his face a mask of disapproval.

Charlie ordered a drink, was signalled to wait and went to sit at a table. A guy wearing purple dungarees and a LEGALISE CHRISTIANITY pin stuck into his bare chest sat next to him and drank through a lead pipe from a steel tumbler - speeding like a fire truck, his cheeks began rippling from the G-force. Charlie noticed that across the table was sat a green-haired woman with a tattooed forehead, augmented pupils and what appeared to be a cylinder-grenade hanging from her ear. She leaned forward. ‘Sitting here,’ she growled, ‘surpasses by twenty-seven square leagues all the various and graphic crimes you have ever committed.’

The service here seemed to be glacier slow, and the patrons appeared to take pride in outshining each other’s lethargy. The barman slammed a non-stick tankard onto the table before him, and sneered like a skull. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he emphasised, and retreated into the gloom.

Drinking, Charlie was not encouraged. All the evidence thus far suggested he was an untrustworthy, depraved moron. He was adrift in a land of artform malice and frivolous assassination. Everyone regarded him with a profound, almost cellular derision. What had he done to provoke it? He sullenly expected his erstwhile life to end quite soon in a gush of puce brains.

The speeder put an arm about his shoulders and whispered in his ear, ‘Strong rules don’t bend but break.’

Charlie was seeing things in the shadows. Was that guy over there examining a single raisin? Someone else seemed to be moving so fast he was taking out the garbage before it had been created. The floor was higher than it should have been. The tables were connected by barely visible strands of pizza. A little man cowered past a window, flinching under lightning. A guy at the bar was trying to remove his own face. Charlie could hear bugs creaking as they grew. The woman across the table slapped the drink out of Charlie’s hand and said, ‘Egomania is, never having to say you’re sorry.’ The universe was filled with strange, garbled laughter.

‘Wake me up!’ Charlie shouted, standing quickly.

The woman overturned the table and approached him. The whole crew began bearing down on him like dinner guests. And it was as Charlie burst through the doors into blinding sunlight, the denizens of Beerlight baying after him like leatherwinged demons from hell, that he remembered he was the Mayor.

Henry Blince was the only guy I knew who grew himself as a hobby, and he was now so round he would have been perfect in a hologram. Presumably one of those chins belonged to his Inner Child. I know for a fact that as Blince outgrew his house he bought progressively smaller dogs to give the place some scale. And it was Blince’s responsibility to simulate law enforcement for the Beerlight area.

Whenever a crime was accomplished Blince’s men had to track him down at the Nimble Maniac, the Rainbow Takeaway or Eat the Menu over on Peejay and drag him like a reluctant cow to the scene of the inevitable. He would always be found frowning in the eatery, devoting his pre-Cambrian intellect to questions whose profundity were matched only by their acute irrelevance to the working man. If all roads lead to
Rome
, how can anyone who lives there ever leave? If music be the food of love, why haven’t birds got ears? Why didn’t dinosaurs put on any underwear? Were he and his dog co-dependent? This was the sort of thing that occupied Blince’s mind. When he heard that Jackson Pollock had suffered a fatal car smash, all he could think was that nobody was better qualified.

When Blince was hauled off to
Deal Street
in the middle of a meal his amorphous frame was filled with anticipation. For this man every breach of statute was a foodstuff opportunity. He had eaten Exhibit A at the Mirsky murder, released a contagion of armed robbers when they offered him a taco and in a moment of desperation last year had swallowed a victim’s wreath.

The murder scene at
Deal Street
contained all the features we have come to expect in such circumstances, including a sobbing spouse and the much-debated stench of death - even the splash of blood on the wall was not absent. Blince slowly thrust his way into the kitchen and surveyed the body and surroundings. ‘This the guy?’ he growled, gesturing with a cigar at the corpse.

‘You reckon it was murder, Chief?’ beamed a fidgeting cop.

‘I’d stake life and limb on it, Benny. Are we all made of meat, Benny - that’s what I ask myself over and again in the dark hours. My god it’s enough to dent your cerebellum.’

‘You sure are one sick son of a bitch, boss,’ Benny said cheerfully.

‘You bet your goddamn life I’m sick - sick of you casting asparagus at my authority. Where’s the goddamn wife?’

‘She’s here boss - she’s pretty upset.’

‘Your husband is dead, Mrs Devlin.’

Mrs Devlin blubbed like a seal. ‘It’s impossible, he can’t be.’

‘No? Well, then it’s a miracle he is. Gedder outta here, Benny.’

‘Right.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Blince abruptly, stopping everything. ‘Are those donuts on the counter, Mrs Devlin?’

‘Wh ... why yes, those are donuts - ‘

‘I thought so. Husband had a habit eh?’

Mrs Devlin was bewildered. ‘A ... a habit?’

‘There are three donuts in evidence, Mrs Devlin - nobody leaves three donuts uneaten. Not unless they’re cold-turkey. - Or gorged.’

‘My god, Mr Blince, my husband was shot. The
last
thing he’d be thinking about is
donuts
.’

‘Exactly - donuts. Sidder down, Benny - we’re gonna be here awhile.’

The scar tissue moon rose slowly over a city of echoing shots and bonfire cars. Throughout the night the two cops sat with seemingly infinite patience in the dead air which accompanies the stifling of fact - while Mrs Devlin was slowly crushed by its weight. ‘Let’s go over it again,’ rumbled Blince. ‘You created six donuts. Your doomed, misguided husband ate one of them while you stood and watched. You left, and when you came back no more than two minutes later the scene was exactly as it is now - that your story? My god, Mrs Devlin, you tell that in the perjury room you’ll be dead quicker than an airplant.’

‘But it’s the truth you stupid man, the truth! How else can I say it?’ And she broke down into sobs of quaking intensity.

‘Let’s attempt a benign reconstruction, Benny. As I see it Mrs Devlin there are three possible scenarios.’ Blince got up and went over to the plate of donuts. He picked one up and took a bite, chewing. ‘Your husband in all his fragile innocence, pausing only to offer up a prayer to our Lord, entered the blistering vortex of this immoral chamber in search of nourishment. You yourself, clutching at straws in a desperate attempt to salvage something - anything - from the twisted wreckage of your relationship, had deepfried him a doughy repast. Eating one, your husband stated his first-rate opinion that the donut he had sampled would never become what it ought to be, and cast shadowy doubts upon your skill as a cook, wife and lover.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘At this you became exquisitely violent, and gave your husband the cod-eye by means of a Walther 9mm automatic which you subsequently disposed of in whatever manner your damaged imagination could devise. Am I getting through to you Mrs Devlin?’

‘You’ve run stark raving mad you disgusting tyrant.’

‘Tyrant am I? Distorting the facts! Well, Miss Cherub in the Firmament, I’ll have you know better than I do this round-eyed and refreshing simplicity isn’t fooling anyone. Is this how you looked at your husband before he suffered the flash-flood of your arrogance and fury Mrs Devlin? My god he was dead before the donut reached his midsection.’

‘But it doesn’t make any
sense
you madman - ‘

‘Madman am I? I’ll fry you in sauce for that you crazy bitch.’

Benny whispered something in Blince’s ear.

‘What?’ said Blince, frowning. ‘Whaddya mean I can’t fry her in sauce? Quit snafflin’ at my ear - I can do whatever I like in this kitchen. Didn’t you drag me out of the Nimble Maniac before I was good and ready?’

‘Please,’ said Mrs Devlin. ‘I
must
sleep.’

‘Simmer down, lady,’ said Benny. ‘We’re just tryin’ to establish the shocking facts.’

‘You use saccharin or aspartame in these donuts Mrs Devlin?

‘Certainly not.’

‘Sure, I bet.’

Mrs Devlin was lost for a reply. Blinded by hunger and lacking the intellectual fibre to misconstrue the facts with the care advised by the cop academy, Blince surged on like an enraged water bison. ‘The second possible scenario,’ he rumbled, taking up the second donut and stepping over the body, ‘has you, Mrs Devlin, standing here with a formidable sawed-off Remington automatic shotgun, a bandolier of Hi-Power shells about your flabby waist. Your husband was standing - here.’ Blince raised the donut above his head - it threw a huge and infernal shadow on the wall. ‘Awash with alcohol and drugs, you and your oh-so-trusting spouse embarked upon a grim shooting match, using these donuts for target practice. Lacking the ballistic expertise required - or perhaps being all-too expert - you blew every trace of life out of your husband’s face and ears. Then perching on his chest like a harpy, you ate the donut yourself, snickering in the artificial light.’ As Blince ate the donut, Mrs Devlin hid her face in her hands.

‘God’s shining earth’ll go up in a ball of flame before you let fly with the truth won’t it Mrs Devlin? I sense sickness and depravity beyond the human range, babyface - the random particles vibrate differently on my nostrils.’

‘Better not use that on the judge, Chief,’ muttered Benny.

‘Whaddya mean? This whole room’s made up of random particles, you bigot. So’s every crime scene from here to
San Diego
.’

‘But I’m innocent you nasty man,’ shrieked Mrs Devlin suddenly.

‘Where? On the candy planet?’

‘Good one, Chief,’ sniggered Benny, flushed with hilarity.

Smirking despite himself, Blince took up the last donut. ‘The last possibility is the worst I’ve ever known.’ He became deadly serious again, biting the donut and using the crescent remainder to point at the sink. ‘Over there, Mrs Devlin, you and a passing vagrant were involved in a carnal assignation of the first order. Alerted by cries of animal lust, your sweet-tempered husband entered the room and interrupted your sin. Caught like a troglodyte in a spotlight, you pulled out an impressive Colt Python .357 Magnum with a four-inch barrel - your husband screamed at a pitch only dogs could hear and you let him have it six times in the head, bang bang bang.’

There was a moment’s silence in the room, like the death of a mime but without the laughter. Benny coughed quietly. ‘Er ... what about the donut, Chief?’

‘Oh yeah, then I guess she sat and ate a donut. Anyway wadduz it matter - the bastard’s dead. Tell the boys they can take her to the overnight can.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s a bitter horsepill to swallow aint it Mrs Devlin? Bye bye.’ Mrs Devlin was cuffed and dragged weeping from the room. Blince leaned heavily against the counter and wiped the crumbs from his mouth with a gun rag. ‘There’s one thing that still bothers me, Benny - it’s been nagging me throughout these grotesque proceedings.’

‘What’s that Chief?’ smiled Benny in gleeful anticipation.

‘Are certain species of fish neofascist? I mean some of ’em conform to all the prerequisites.’

‘Oh, Chief, you’re missing the point,’ Benny laughed good-naturedly. ‘Don’t you understand that once again you have eaten the evidence? Because you are digesting the few remaining donuts here at the crime scene, you will not be able to prove even one of them finely-crafted tales in the perjury room.’

Blince frowned with this new knowledge, then began looking about him. He picked up the deep-pan and looked inside - six more donuts swam in the fat.

Benny snickered, gaped and started blinking too fast.