You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (24 page)

‘How do you think,’ the face went on, after a three-second silence, ‘you could best improve your contribution to the success of the team?’

Benny stroked his beard. ‘Hm,’ he said, ‘tricky one. Let’s see, now. My job description says I’m the cashier, and of course I do all that, including,’ he added, with a slight tightening of the voice, ‘the banking. And since young Ricky came to his bad end I’ve been looking after the pest-control side of things, so that’s two people’s jobs I’m doing; no big deal, mind you, it’s just killing dragons and battling the Undead and so forth, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist. How could I best improve my contribution, though?’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘I guess the best thing would be for you lot to make me a partner. You see, if I was running the show, instead of just—’

‘I see.’ The face made a note on his sheet of paper. ‘So, how long have you been with the firm?’

‘Now you’re asking,’ Benny said, scratching his head. ‘It’d have to be ‘56 or ‘57 - not sure which, I think the Crimean War was still on - when Jack Wells first asked me if I’d fancy coming and working for him. I was with Cunningham’s at the time, if memory serves, or was it Barker and Earl? I get them mixed up. Anyhow, it was just after I’d married my third, no, I tell a lie, my fourth wife.’

The face glanced down at his notes. ‘That would be,’ he said, ‘Contessa Judith de Castel’ Bianco.’

‘That’s her,’ Benny said, smiling. ‘Of course, at the time she was still in the chorus at the Gaiety - I didn’t find out she was actually the Queen of the Fey until some time later. Bit of a shock, but I still think we could’ve made a go of it, if she hadn’t been so dead set on wiping out the human race.’

‘Ah,’ said the face. ‘Now, then.’ He looked at his piece of paper and seemed to draw strength from it. ‘If we look at your personnel file for a moment, I see that you were suspended on full pay in June 1963. Could you tell me something about that?’

Benny let his head loll back, and laughed. ‘That was a right old game,’ he said. ‘Of course, old Kurt Lundqvist was still with us back then, before his accident, and he got this call from a very old and valued client of ours, one of those big private hospitals in the States; Florida, I think it was. Anyhow, they’d got a vampire in the plasma store, drinking them out of house and home. Kurt could see it’d be a two-man job, so he asked me if I fancied going along, I said yes, because it was years and years since I’d last been to Florida—’

Twenty minutes later, he said, ‘And that’s all there was to it, really. Of course, once Humph Wells and Dennis Tanner realised what had happened, and I’d actually saved two hundred and fifty thousand lives and landed the firm the Union Tool & Die account, they reinstated me like a shot and gave me a nice juicy bonus to make up for it all. I still kid young Dennis about it from time to time, when he needs taking down a peg or two.’

The face, who’d been trying to interrupt for the past quarter of an hour, made a great show of ticking something on his sheet of paper, put the cap back on his pen and dropped it into his top pocket. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think that more or less covers everything, unless there’re any points you’d like to raise—’

‘As a matter of fact,’ Benny said, ‘there are. Actually, I made out a short list.’ From his other pocket he took a medium-sized spiral-bound notebook and riffled through the pages, all of which were crammed with neat but minuscule handwriting. ‘We can quickly skim through them now if you like,’ he went on, ‘or I could leave my notes with you and we could reschedule. Up to you entirely.’

‘If you could possibly leave it with me—’

‘No trouble.’ Benny handed over the notebook and smiled. As he drew his hand back, he palmed and retrieved the small, shiny flat thing that had fallen out of his hanky earlier. The face was too busy staring in horror at the notebook to pay him any attention. ‘Right,’ Benny went on, looking at his watch. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d better be getting down to the Bank. I know time has no meaning down there, but they still get a bit funny if I’m late.’

On leaving the interview room, Benny didn’t head for his office and the connecting door that led to the Land of the Dead and the Bank; instead, he dashed up the stairs and along a corridor to Connie Schwartz-Alberich’s office. He had at least twenty minutes in hand before he had to do the banking, but he’d gambled on Them (whoever They were) not knowing that.

Connie looked up as he came in. ‘Well?’ she said.

Benny chuckled and sat down. ‘Give you three guesses,’ he plied.

‘Benny, I’m not in the mood—’

‘Give you three guesses.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She sighed. ‘A porcupine.’

Kenny frowned. ‘No.’

‘Two porcupines.’

‘Proper guesses.’

‘Just tell me what you saw in the bloody mirror.’

Kenny shrugged, and grinned. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

Connie lifted her head and stared at him. ‘What did you just say? ‘

(The little shiny thing was, of course, a small shard of genuine imp-reflecting mirror: a rare and expensive device of Chinese origin which shows the person reflected in it as they really are. The mirror polish on JWW’s boardroom table wasn’t just there to look nice; over the years, the partners had found it extremely handy during meetings with clients and fellow professionals for finding out exactly who - or what - they were dealing with.)

‘Absolutely nothing,’ Benny repeated. ‘He might as well not have been there.’

‘Oh.’ Connie sat back in her chair and blinked a couple of limes. ‘You sure that’s the right bit of glass?’ she asked. ‘I mean, if it’s just an ordinary mirror—’

‘No way.’ Benny frowned. ‘I do know the difference, Con.’ He look the shiny fragment from his pocket and put it on the desk where she could see it. ‘So no, we’re not just dealing with a boring old witch or vampire. The imp-reflector shows you the true shape of what it reflects. So, logically, if I couldn’t see anything at all—’

‘Bugger me,’ Connie said softly.

‘So,’ Benny went on, ‘I’ve been thinking, and I reckon that when I go to the Bank this afternoon, I’ll ask Mr Dao to do me a favour. That ought to settle it once and for all.’

Connie’s eyebrows tightened. ‘What kind of favour?’

‘Let it be a surprise,’ Benny replied, and grinned. ‘Anyhow, the bottom line is, if I were you I wouldn’t start clearing out your desk or looking for another job quite yet. All right?’

Before Connie could say anything, there was a knock at her door. It proved to be the thin-faced girl, the one whose name nobody could ever remember.

‘Oh,’ the girl said, looking at Connie and then at Benny. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were busy. I’ll come back another time.’

Benny stood up. ‘That’s all right,’ he said, ‘I was just pushing off. I’ll drop in later, Con, after I get back. Good idea of yours about the crystal ball, by the way,’ he added. ‘Freaked him out somewhat, no idea why. See you.’

Once Benny had gone, the thin-faced girl sat down in the chair he’d just vacated. ‘I wanted to ask your advice,’ she said. ‘If it’s no bother, I mean.’

Connie shrugged. ‘Fire away,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’ The thin-faced girl frowned. ‘I came to you because I know you’re very experienced and you’ve worked in all sorts of different specialisations—’

‘Don’t worry about all that,’ Connie interrupted. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Well,’ the thin-faced girl said and then seemed to stall, like a dodgy old car at traffic lights. ‘It’s a bit difficult, actually. Personal, if you see what I—’

‘Understood,’ Connie said, ‘that’s fine. Mum’s the word.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I said mum’s the word.’

The thin-faced girl raised an eyebrow. ‘The word for what?’

‘Don’t worry about it. I mean, it’s just an expression. What’s the problem?’

‘It’s not actually for me, you understand, it’s for a friend.’

‘Got you,’ Connie said impatiently. ‘So?’

The thin-faced girl paused, visibly collecting her thoughts. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘my friend - let’s just say, she’s not terribly good at, urn, personal relationships.’

Connie’s heart sank like an over-insured freighter, but she nodded briskly and said, ‘I see. Go on.’

‘She has trouble, urn, relating to people,’ the thin-faced girl said, ‘especially in, let’s say, a romantic context.’

‘All right. And?’

‘She was wondering—’ The thin-faced girl hesitated. ‘Do you happen to know if JWW makes such a thing as a love philtre?’

Here we go, Connie thought. It was the inevitable newbie question, and answering it was very boring when you’d already answered it five hundred times. ‘Yes,’ she said, and as she said it, a little annoying Microsoft paper clip appeared in the margin of her mind. ‘Yes, it’s the best in the business, though we say so ourselves. But,’ she went on, as the virtual paper clip dropped down into a memo, ‘surely they had love philtres at - where was it you said you worked before you came here?’

‘UMG,’ the thin-faced girl said. ‘And before that I was at Mortimers.’

‘Well,’ Connie said, ‘I know for a fact that Mortimers make one. Our main competitor in that sector.’

‘Yes,’ the thin-faced girl said, ‘but it’s not—’ She frowned, until her face was practically one-dimensional. ‘It doesn’t last for over,’ she said.

‘What?’ Connie thought for a moment. ‘Oh, I get you. Yes, there’s an antidote to the Mortimers philtre. Actually, it’s one of their selling points, that you can reverse the effects if you change your mind or something. Just as we make a big deal out of the tact that there’s no antidote to ours.’

The girl was looking at Connie with little sharp laser eyes. ‘Really?’

‘Well, there’s death,’ Connie said, a bit rattled. ‘Till death do us part, and all that. Otherwise no. Drink the JWW philtre and it’s for ever. I used to know all the gory biochemical details; Something about a resequenced agapotropic enzyme—’

‘For ever,’ the thin-faced girl said. ‘I see. Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.’

She got up to leave. Red-alert klaxons started blaring in Connie’s mind. ‘Just a second,’ she said. ‘This friend of yours—’

‘Yes?’

‘Look, take it from me, they really aren’t worth it. Men, I mean. You spend half your life trying to nab one, and the other half asking yourself how you could’ve been so bloody stupid. You know, fish and bicycles.’ She tailed off; the thin-faced girl was staring at her.

‘Well,’ the thin-faced girl said, ‘she’s not a friend, exactly. Thanks. Bye.’

She closed the door behind her. Connie hesitated for a longish moment - about a fifth of a second - before jumping out of her chair, running to the door and yanking it open. But the corridor was empty; fifty yards in either direction.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cassie Clay picked up the phone, put it to her ear, reached out for the keypad and hesitated. A promise was a promise.

Furthermore - well, furthermore, she was a professional, but she did still have a few conscience-coloured stains in the lining of her soul that wouldn’t come out, not even with the boil-wash. And (more to the point) he’d asked her to, and even though she now had some idea of what was going on and why she was suffering these stupid symptoms, that didn’t stop them having at least some effect. He’d asked; and that was why she was doing it.

Eiven so. Even bloody so.

She dialled in the number. It’s extra-extra-ex-directory, and a hideous fate awaits anybody who discloses it without due authorisation, but here’s a hint: it’s three digits long, and if you called the Fire Brigade while standing on your head—

Three rings, then the click; then the voice. This was the bit that Cassie hated.

‘Thank you for calling the Powers of Darkness. Your call may be recorded for security and training purposes. For general moral or ethical enquiries, press 1 on your keypad. To make a reservation, press 2. For details of our special discount packages for lawyers, politicians and Microsoft executives, press 3. For the deep blue sea, press 4. To speak to a sales adviser, please hold.’

She held. They played country and western at her, thereby nailing once and for all the old lie that the Devil has all the best tunes. She waited.

They wouldn’t be interested, of course; they’d laugh in her face. But just suppose they didn’t, just suppose they were prepared to agree. Was she really prepared to make it possible for them to get their claws on an innocent man in place of a scumbag? If she really did still have vestigal traces of a sense of right and wrong—

‘Your call is being stored in a queue. Please hold. Your call will be answered shortly, unless, of course, you are already a resident, in which case—’ Cassie held the receiver away from her ear so as not to be deafened by the peals of cackling laughter. The implications of that gave a whole new penumbra of meaning to the phrase ‘the torments of the damned’.

The phone sang ‘King of the Road’, ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ and ‘Stand By Your Man’. Cassie shuddered, made a resolution to be very, very good from now on, and endured.

‘Enquiries, how can I help you?’

Rumour had it that they, like so many large concerns, had relocated their call centre; being who they were, however, they’d relocated it to Newcastle. ‘Hello,’ Cassie said. ‘My name’s Cassandra Clay, I’m calling from J. W. Wells & Co in London, England. I was wondering if I could speak to your reference S/blb/purchases/45115.’

‘Please hold.’

To help pass the time, she mused on the strengths and limitations of Funkhausen’s Loop. It wasn’t easy, resolving the subtle nuances of temporal metaphysics with ‘Jolene’ thundering through her head like a waterfall, but she considered the final scene of the drama, in the tea shop. The point, surely, was that only in that episode did the pins and needles make sense—

‘Putting you through.’

Cassie snapped out of her reverie and took a deep breath. ‘Hello?’

‘Ms Clay?’ It wasn’t the voice she was used to talking to. In itself, that was no bad thing, since the regular voice wasn’t a nice thing to have in your ear; this one, by contrast, was female, quite ordinary, rather bored. ‘How can I help you?’

She cleared her throat. ‘It’s about purchase number 45115,’ Cassie said. ‘I was wondering—’