Waiting for Godalming (16 page)

“How about turning left here?”

“Right it is then,” said Icarus.

As they walked and wandered, Johnny Boy tried to lighten things up with tales of the music halls. But Icarus darkened things down again with a tale of a film he’d seen about miners who got trapped underground.

“We might be going in circles,” said Johnny Boy. “You do that, you know, if you try to walk in a straight line. One of your legs is always a tiny bit shorter than the other, so eventually you walk round in a big circle.”

“Does that work if both of your legs are short?” asked Icarus.

“Don’t be horrid,” said Johnny Boy. “You’ll make me want to cry.”

The crying howling mob closed in upon me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I was prepared to stand my ground and dish out as good as I got. I’d raise my fists and fight a fair fight and devil take the hindparts.

But I was severely outnumbered here.

So I whipped out the trusty Smith and Where’s-this-all-gonna-end and let off a couple of shots at the ceiling.

Which started the sprinkler system.

And set off the fire alarm.

Way down deep in the Ministry of Serendipity, other alarms started ringing.

“I think the barber’s broken free,” said Johnny Boy. “What should we do now?”

“I would say, run,” said Icarus. “But I’m not sure just in which direction we should run.”

“Up might be a good plan,” said Johnny Boy.

“Run
up
?”

“Head up. Up and out of here.”

Sounds of running footsteps could now be heard.

“There,” said Icarus. “There’s a ladder fastened to the wall. It leads up some kind of shaft.”

“That would be the one then. Let’s get a move on before the guards get us.”

“Get him!” shouted the bloke with the bulldog jowls which I’d said could be cured by surgery. “Get the murderer, batter him good.”

And suddenly I found myself in a maelstrom of flailing fists and battering boots.

“I can hear their boots getting nearer,” said Johnny Boy, halfway up the shaft that led to somewhere. “How are you doing up there, Icarus? Can you see daylight?”

“Er, not exactly,” the lad called back. “Just a sort of manhole cover. And I can’t seem to get it open.”

“They’re getting closer, Icarus, I can hear them. They’re coming from all directions.”

They came at me from all directions, down as well as up and all about. I pride myself that with my daily workout regime
[16]
I am always in peak condition and can take a blow to the solar plexus without even flinching. However, I’d never quite planned on taking quite so many blows and all at the same time.

“I’ll have to blow it open,” called Icarus.

“You’ll have to
what
?”

“Blow open the manhole cover.”

“How?”

“I took the liberty of relocating a stick or two of SHITE from the captain’s pocket while we were in my brother’s office. I thought they might come in handy one day. Do you have a box of matches?”

“Sadly no,” called Johnny Boy. “How about you?”

“Er, no.”

“No!” I tried a “no” and I also tried a “have mercy” and also “you’ve got the wrong fellow here” and “I have a heart condition” — but callously aloof to all my pleas, even those regarding the potential damage to my trenchcoat and fedora, the baying mob beat seventeen brass bells of St Trinian’s out of me, then hoisted me into the air, marched me over to the bar’s rear door and flung me out into the alleyway.

Well, at least it
was
an alleyway.

But boy did it hurt when I hit it.

I was bloody and bruised and chopped up and chaffed, my trenchcoat was in ribbons and my hat had gone missing. And as I lay there in the mud, wondering just how many bones had been broken, I was further saddened to hear the sound of a handgun being cocked.

Especially as I knew the sound of that cocking action all too well. For it was the sound of my trusty Smith and Where’s-all-that-help-when-you-need-it-now?

I looked up through the eye that didn’t have a big brown plum growing out of it, to view the face of my would-be executioner.

“You’re dead meat, Mr Handbag,” he said.

“We’re dead meat,” called Johnny Boy.

“No we’re not,” called Icarus. “I’ll find a way to light this fuse.”

“But we’ll get blown up and melted too.”

“This stuff is directional. It will blow
up
if you aim it upwards.”

“But we don’t have a match to light it.”

“I’ll think of something.”

A torch lit up Johnny Boy.

“Come down from there,” called the voices, accompanied by the sounds of guns being cocked. “Come down out of there or you’re—”

“Dead meat?” said Icarus Smith.

“Dead meat,” said Colin, third child of God. “There’s just the two of us now, Mr Handbag.”

“Now hold on, fella,” I said. “Don’t do anything foolish that I might regret. I know who you are.
What
you are. I’m working for your mother.”

“My mother?”

“Eartha Godalming, widow of God. Big fat ugly dame with a face like a bag full of car parts.”

“What has my mother got to do with this?”

“I’ve seen the will,” I said, spitting out a bit of blood, to add a little extra drama. “God’s last will and testament. You’re in the frame for the murder.”

“What do you mean?”

“The will’s a fake. The Earth gets left to you, instead of the meek, who were supposed to inherit it. I know the truth. I worked it out.”

“You know nothing, Mr Handbag. I didn’t fake the will.”

“I know that.” I spat out a wee bit more blood, and what seemed like a couple of teeth. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“I think you know too much, Mr Handbag.”

“I know the truth,” said I. “And I can help you.”

“I don’t need any help. I can take care of everything myself. I’ve got this world under control. Under my control. Do you have any brothers, Mr Handbag?”

“Me?” I said. “No, I’m an only child. They broke the mould before they made me.”

“Well, I have a brother. A very famous brother. Jesus Christ, his name is. And all my life I’ve lived in his shadow. But not any more. Not any more.”

Colin’s finger tightened on the trigger. And I stared into the barrel of my gun.

“No,” I said. “Don’t shoot me. I can help you.”

Colin shook his head. “Just let me ask you one question,” he said.

“Anything,” said I.

“What’s red and white and dressed as a handbag and lies dead in an alleyway?”

And then, believe it.

Or believe it not.

He put my gun against my head and went and pulled the trigger.

They say that your whole life flashes in front of your eyes at the moment before you die. Or rather, at the moment when you
think
you’re going to die. And friends, I have to confess that I was pretty certain at that moment, there in the alleyway, that I
was
going to die.

And I can tell
you
, that my whole life
did
flash right in front of my eyes.

And what a life it was!

I’d truly forgotten many of the great things that I’d done. The noble deeds that I’d performed. The seemingly unsolvable cases that I’d solved. The awards I’d been awarded. The accolades I’d had accoladed all over me. The beautiful women I’d made love to. The fast cars I’d driven. The exotic places I’d seen. The friends I’d known. The laughter. And the joy.

I’d been there. Done that. And bought, not only the T-shirt, but a place in the hearts of millions. I had been Lazlo Woodbine, the greatest detective of them all. And not many people can say that about their lives.

In fact, none can, but me.

So, if this was to be my time, I would face the great unknown with dignity. Accept my fate. Turn a brave face to the ultimate adversity. Go out with a smile on my face and a song on my lips.

“Have mercy!” I screamed. “Don’t kill me.”

But he squeezed the trigger all the same.

And then there was an almighty flash.

And Colin just vanished away.

Huh?

My trusty Smith and Well-I-never-did dropped onto my head, nearly taking my good eye out, and I had the strange sensation that I was now all covered in melted goo.

“Come on,” called a voice that I knew. “Let’s go.”

I raised my battered head and stared dizzily at the spot where Colin had been standing but a moment before.

That spot was now an open manhole and clambering out of this was the lad called Icarus, closely followed by his little dolly chum.

Icarus stared down upon my broken remains and his jaw dropped as slack as a sloe-eyed slapper at a slumlord’s slumber party.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

And I might well have asked him the self-same question. But I chose instead to ask him this: “Whatever happened to Colin?”

“Colin?” said Icarus.

“Colin, the third child of God. He was standing right there on that manhole cover and now he’s just, well, gone.”

“Oh,” said Icarus Smith. And it was the kind of oh that I wouldn’t wear as a Homburg.

“Aaagh! They’re coming after us,” cried the little man. “Do something, Icarus, please.”

Icarus glanced around and about the alleyway. “The dumpster,” said he. “Give me a hand to move the dumpster. You too, brother.”

“I’m
not
your goddamn brother,” said I. “And I can’t help, I’m all broken up.”

“Never mind.” The kid grabbed hold of the big dumpster wheelie bin thing and with the help of his small companion dragged it over the manhole. “That should hold them,” he said.

“Kid,” said I, “you turn up in the damnedest places. I reckon I’ll thank you this time. And I’ll …”

But I didn’t get to say too much more after that. Because with all the beatings I’d taken and with the broken up bits and bobs and frankly with the stress I’d been under, staring death in the face and all, I lapsed from consciousness and found myself falling one more bloody time, down into that deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

Yes siree.

By golly.

“What’s the news?” said Icarus. He was sitting in a doctor’s office. The office smelled of feet and fish and fear. A fetid fermentation. The doctor had my case notes on his desk. He leafed through them as he spoke to Icarus.

“Your brother is a very sick man,” said the doctor, adjusting his spectacles and doing that thing with his pencil. “He was badly beaten up and has not only several broken bones, but some internal injuries also.”

Icarus nodded thoughtfully. “So when do you think you’ll have him up and about?”

“Weeks. Months perhaps.”

“He can’t be injured as badly as
that
.”

“It’s not so much the physical injuries. It’s more his mental health that worries me.”

“Ah,” said Icarus. “We share in that particular worry.”

“He seems to think he’s a detective,” said the doctor, buffing his stethoscope up on his sleeve. “He is clearly delusional. Claims that he’s on the biggest case that ever there was. Something to do with the murder of God. Can you imagine that?”

Icarus shook his head.

“And he talks to himself. When he thinks that he can’t be overheard. He seems to suffer from multiple personality disorder. I’ve heard him arguing with an imaginary character called Barry. He blames this Barry for everything that’s happened to him.”

Icarus nodded once again.

“I’m wondering perhaps whether he’s tormented by some childhood trauma,” said the doctor. “I know he’s got a drink problem and a broken marriage and I feel that he’s trying to reach out to his feminine side.”

Icarus nodded, then shook his head, and then he nodded again.

“So I think it would be for the best,” said the doctor, “if you signed this form, committing him to a course of psychiatric treatment.”

Icarus nodded and Icarus grinned.

“Lend me your biro,” he said.

“Now that was just plain mean,” said Johnny Boy, looking up from his drink. “Getting your brother banged up in a loony bin.”

They were sitting once more in the Station Hotel and Icarus hadn’t stopped grinning since they got there.

“It’s not a loony bin,” he told Johnny Boy. “It’s a psychiatric hospital. It will be for the best. He really does need the treatment.”

“You realize”, said Johnny Boy, “that you might just have signed his death warrant.”

“It wasn’t a death warrant. Just a form to commit him to care.”

“And he’s been in that hospital for five days already, which means that his week is nearly up. And if he doesn’t solve his case, by tomorrow, God’s wife is going to punish him big time.”

“But the case is solved. Colin was the culprit and Colin died in an accident.”

“Nothing is solved,” said Johnny Boy. “Take a look over at the barman.”

Icarus glanced over at the barman. The barman wasn’t Fangio, but Icarus hadn’t expected him to be. The barman was the usual barman, the one who wore Mr Cormerant’s relocated watch fob.

But the barman’s true form could now be seen by Icarus. The barman had quills that rose high above his green reptilian head.

“Nothing is solved,” said Johnny Boy once again.

“I’m working on it,” said Icarus. “I haven’t been idle. The men at the Ministry don’t know that Colin is dead. I’ve forged memos using letter headings from Cormerant’s briefcase. I’ve sent them to all departments at the Ministry, closing down the exo-cranial programme. And dismissing all the operatives in hairdresser’s and barber’s shops.
And
desisting from any further harassment of our good selves. I don’t see what more I can do than that.”

“Nor me,” said Johnny Boy. “But the demons and angels are still among us and only we know that they’re here.”

“Perhaps there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

“Wait for
what
?”

“Wait for a new generation to grow up. A generation that doesn’t have its head massaged. That generation will see the truth.”

“That’s a cop-out ending, if ever there was one,” said Johnny Boy. “Have you given up on being a relocator now? Perhaps now your brother is in the loony bin, you don’t have to try any more. You don’t have anything to prove. Is that it?”

“No, that’s
not
it.” Icarus sighed. Perhaps that
was
it. Perhaps now, with his brother safely locked up, perhaps he no longer did have to prove anything.

“And something I haven’t asked you,” said Johnny Boy. “Whatever happened to your mum? Did Cormerant do something horrible to her when he went to your house to get the left luggage locker key you’d mailed to yourself?”

“No, she was out at the time. Apparently he smashed open the front door and simply snatched the envelope from the floor.”

“Well isn’t that hunky-dory? So you don’t even have any revenge to take. Let’s just have another drink and wait for the next generation.”

“Give it a rest,” said Icarus. “I’ve done all I can. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“No,” said Johnny Boy, finishing his drink. “You don’t. But I bet your brother does. I’ll bet if he was out of that loony bin and back on the case, he’d sort everything out.”

“He’s too sick,” said Icarus. “He’s a regular dying detective. He’s got broken bones and everything.”

“Has he hell,” said Johnny Boy. “I’ve visited him. He’s just got a couple of teeth missing and a few bruises. He could have been out of there and back on the case, if you hadn’t signed his death warrant.”

Icarus went up to the bar to get in another round of drinks. The barman with the watch fob leered at him. Icarus stared into the evil face. The long reptilian head, the eyes with their vertical pupils, the quivering quills, the hideous insect mouthparts.

“You haven’t put any little treats in my direction lately,” said the barman, fingering the watch fob with a terrible talon. “You’ll just have to pay for this round of drinks. Nothing comes for free in this world, you know.”

Icarus paid and returned with the drinks to his table.

“We’re going to the hospital,” he said. “We’re going to get my brother.”

“I’m an only child,” I said. “I don’t know why you keep going on about me having a brother.”

“I do have your case notes here,” said the doctor. “I do know who you really are.”

“I’m Woodbine,” I said. “Lazlo Woodbine,” adding, just for the hell of it, “Some call me Laz.”

“Woodbine,” and the doctor nodded. At least he’d got my name right. “The world famous private eye. Everybody knows his name, but no-one can put a face to it.”

“That’s the way that I do business.”

“Are you sleeping well?” the doctor asked.

“I haven’t slept for five days. I daren’t sleep, I’ll give away the ending if I sleep.”

“Barry will give the ending away, will he?”

“I don’t want to talk about Barry,” I said. “Forget about Barry.”

“All right, let’s forget about Barry. Let’s talk about you. Mr Lazlo Woodbine, private eye.”

“Good choice of topic,” I said. “Could I have another wideawake pill?”

“Now according to my notes …” The doctor was at those goddamn case notes once again. “According to my notes, Lazlo Woodbine works in only four locations.”

“You got it,” I said. “The office, the bar, the alleyway and the rooftop. No good detective ever needs more.”

“Not even a bedroom, for all that gratuitous sex you genre detectives are so noted for?”

“There are some promises that even a detective can’t keep.”

“So you stick to the four locations.”

“I do,” said I. And I did.

The doctor stretched out his arms and put his hands behind his head. “So how do you explain your present location?” he asked.

“Name any location,” said the taxi driver. “Anywhere in Inner or Greater London and I’ll tell you how to get to it from here.”

It wasn’t the same taxi driver. But you’d have been hard pressed to tell the difference. He had that same curious thing with hair on the left hand side and that same odd business with the tongue when he used the word “plinth”.
[17]

“I’m not really in the mood,” said Johnny Boy.

“Oh go on,” said the cabbie. “It will make me go faster.”

“All right,” said Johnny Boy. “How do you get to the Flying Swan?”

“That’s easy,” said the cabbie. “You go up Abbadon Street, along Moby Dick Terrace, turn left into Sprite Street, right into …”

“He’s making it up,” said Johnny Boy.

“I think they always do,” said Icarus Smith.

“You make all this up,” said the doctor. “It’s all a fantasy. If you were the real Lazlo Woodbine, you couldn’t be sitting here now.”

“Hm,” said I. “Well.”

“Over the last five days you have told me a story that is a complete fantasy. About a voice in your head that put in a word with the widow of God. About a drug which enables people to see angels and demons. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve been under the impression that I’m one of these demons. One of these ‘wrong’uns’, am I correct?”

“Well,” said I. “Hm.”

“And there are these bars that you go to, where the barman is always your friend Fangio. Who was a fat boy and now is a thin boy, because he bopped you on the head, so that you could stay within the rules of your genre. The nineteen-fifties American detective genre. One that only truly existed in fiction. You live your life in fiction, my friend. You have no hold on reality.”

“No,” I said. “I do, I really do.”

“You don’t,” said the doctor. “Just think about this. Every time you are in what you call a ‘tricky situation’, you are rescued.”

I shrugged.

“And who rescues you?”

I shrugged again.

“Your brother rescues you,” said the doctor. “And the evil men who have you in the sticky situation, the doctor and the third child of God, another brother, you note, who was telling you about living in the shadow of
his
brother, these evil men vanish away to melted goo the moment
your
brother arrives to save you.”

“Coincidence,” I said.

“Tell me about your brother,” said the doctor.

“I like to think of myself as a relocator,” said the cabbie. “I relocate people. Take them from one location to another. In my small way I help to put the world to rights. If people weren’t in the wrong places at the wrong times, there’d be no need for cabbies. We put people where they want to be. Where they should be. You could learn a lot from cabbies.”

Icarus looked at Johnny Boy.

And Johnny Boy looked back at him.

“If I asked you how to get to Shangri La, do you think you might drive a little faster?” said Johnny Boy.

“Perhaps
quite
fast,” said Icarus, glancing into the driver’s mirror. “There’s a long dark automobile following us.”

“Are you following me?” asked the doctor. “Do you see where my reasoning is taking us?”