Djinn Rummy (18 page)

‘Perhaps,' Jane continued sweetly, ‘it's because I put five teaspoonfuls of salt in it instead of sugar. When you've finished retching, you can leave.'

Strewth
, whispered the voice in the back of Vince's brain with horrified admiration,
she really is a tough cookie, your girlfriend
.

Vince stood up slowly, wiped tea off his face, closed his mouth tightly and pinched his nose hard between thumb and forefinger. Then he blew.

PLOP!

Kiss hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, rolled and came to rest against the opposite wall. He was dripping wet and shaking.

‘Well,' Vince said, scrambling for the door, ‘been nice seeing you again, Jane. All the best to you and your . . . All the best. Bye.'

The door closed behind him.

 

 

 

 

P
hilly Nine sighed. He was having a hard time. The brimstone had been a complete washout. Literally - it had started raining just as he was lugging the crates of the stuff off the lorry, and industrial spec brimstone is water-soluble.

The frogs had been an absolute nightmare. They'd just sat there. No sooner had he shooed one consignment of, say, five thousand out of the delivery pond than the previous batch had hopped back in and sat down, resolutely croaking and wobbling their chins at him. Magically generated flash floods dispersed them for a while, but their homing instinct was such that at least ninety-five per cent of them were back home within the hour. They way they got through pondweed was nobody's business.

‘Sign here,' the Frenchman said. ‘And here. And here. Thanks, monsieur. It's a pleasure doing business with you.'

Philly nodded sombrely, and waved as the convoy of trucks rattled away into the distance. If you stretched the definition to breaking point, a worldwide chain of
Provençal Fried Frogs' Legs bars might be taken to constitute a plague, but it probably wasn't going to bring the world to its knees; not, at least, in the short term.

What, he asked himself wretchedly, next? His own fault, he reflected, for letting himself be carried away by the gothic splendour of the language. If he'd been content to settle for a nice straightforward plague of, say, plague, the entire human race would by now be coming out in suppurating boils, and he'd be home and dry. As it was . . . He took out the crumpled envelope on which he'd jotted down his notes.

Never usually a quitter, Philly sighed, folded the envelope and put it away. Was there, he asked himself, really any point in going on?

And then he remembered.

The brochure. The smiling face. The slogan, ‘We're here to help you.'

‘Of course!' he said aloud, and his face broke into a silly grin. Virtually the only useful thing they teach you at Genie School: don't bother learning the Knowledge itself, so long as you know where to go to look it up. He took out his diary and thumbed through the business cards wedged in the inside flap until he found the right one.

GAS headquarters had only recently relocated to an imposing suite of purpose-blown bottles in a crate round the back of Number 56, Street of the Lamp-Makers, and there were the inevitable settling-in problems associated with the migration of any large enterprise. For example, the phones weren't working yet, only twenty per cent of the staff knew where the toilets were, and all the files had been sent to a hurricane lamp in the Orkneys by mistake, along with most of the typewriters and the coffee machine. Apart from that, it was business as usual.

After five minutes in the waiting room reading a back number of the
National Demonological
, Philly was greeted by a small, round genie who extended a tiny, moist paw and introduced himself as ‘GAS 364, your Personal Business Adviser'. GAS 364 chivvied him into a small cell with two deep armchairs, a vase of flowers and a large framed print of Picasso's
Guernica
, offered him coffee, and asked what the problem was.

Philly explained.

‘Right,' said GAS 364, ‘got you. The old, old story.'

‘It is?'

GAS 364 nodded. ‘Bitten off more than we can chew,' he said, smiling. ‘Trying to swoop before we can glide. It's basically a time management/resources allocation problem. '

‘Ah. Is that serious?'

‘Depends.' GAS 364 waggled his hands. ‘There's a lot of
variables. How your operation is structured, for example, lateral as against vertical command groups, properly demarcated zones of responsibility, incentive-related leadership packages, that sort of thing.'

‘Gosh,' Philly said. ‘Actually, there's only me.'

GAS 364 rubbed his various chins. ‘Sole practitioner, huh?' he said. ‘Now that means a whole different subgroup of potential dysfunction hotspots. The left hand not knowing whether the right hand's been left holding the baby. And, of course, carrying the can.' He shook his head. ‘You know,' he said, ‘if only you'd come to see us earlier, a lot of this could well have been avoided. But there we are.'

‘Are we?'

GAS 364 spread his hands in an eloquent gesture. ‘Are we indeed?' he said. ‘Like we always say, you can't destroy the world without breaking eggs.'

Philly's brow clouded for a moment. ‘Eggs,' he said. ‘You're thinking of the giant ants?'

‘Let's stay off the specifics for the time being,' GAS 364 replied, glancing at his watch, ‘and zoom in on the generals. Which means, first things first, software.'

‘Software?'

‘Mortals,' GAS 364 translated. ‘As opposed to hardware, meaning us. It's basically a question of approach, you see. You sole practitioners, you simply have no idea of how to delegate.'

‘Delegate? Delegate the annihilation of the human race?'

GAS 364 nodded. ‘The only way,' he said. ‘Think about it. Sure, you're a Force Twelve, rippling muscles, big turban, the works. But at the end of the day, when pitch comes to shove, there's just you. Just you,' the genie repeated, ‘to open the mail, answer the telephones
and
wipe out all sentient lifeforms on the Planet Earth. Result: you're overstretched.
Which means,' he went on, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head, ‘when the van arrives with the crates of frogs, you can't cope. As we've seen.'

Philly nodded. ‘So?'

‘So,' GAS 364 replied, ‘let somebody else do the donkey work for you. Get the software to do the actual extermination stuff, while you maintain a general supervisory and administrative role, which is what you're supremely qualified for. It's as simple as that.'

Philly, who had just begun to feel he was dimly glimpsing what the small genie was driving at, scowled. ‘Please explain,' he said.

GAS 364 beamed at him. ‘Easy,' he said. ‘Start a war.'

 

‘Hello,' Jane said.

Kiss got up slowly and started wringing out his wet clothes. ‘Hello,' he replied.

‘He's gone.'

‘Has he?'

‘Yes. You're all wet.'

‘Yes.'

‘Just as well,' Jane said, ‘that you can't catch colds.'

‘Isn't it.'

They stood for a while, looking at each other. Between them, so nearly solid that it was almost visible, the question
What were you doing in Vince's ear?
hovered in the air.

Somebody once defined Love as never having to explain what you were doing in somebody's ear. It's not a particularly accurate definition.

‘Fancy a picnic?' asked Jane.

‘Don't mind.'

‘Or we could stay in and I'll cook something.'

Kiss smiled feebly. ‘Let's have a picnic,' he said.

For want of anywhere better to go, they went to Martinique. It wasn't the most joyous picnic in history -

(For the record, the most joyous picnic in history was the time seven Force Fives decided to have a barbecue in the back garden of a house in Pudding Lane, London, in the year 1666. The genies had a great time and London got St Pauls, various Wren churches and a nursery rhyme or two by way of belated compensation.)

- and after they'd eaten the sandwiches and drunk the champagne they sat in silence for a full seven minutes, looking at the dark blue sea.

‘Jane,' Kiss said eventually.

‘Yes?'

How to put it, exactly? How to explain that the ferociously passionate feelings they both harboured were nothing but a device contrived by a supernatural fiend as part of his plan to annihilate humanity? How to explain all that,
tactfully
?

‘Nothing.'

Jane poured the last dribble of the champagne into her glass. It was lukewarm and as flat as a bowling green. ‘I thought that was very romantic,' she said.

Kiss suppressed a shudder. ‘What was?'

‘You hanging around like that when Vince was there. I think you were jealous.'

Well of course, you would
. ‘Ah.'

‘Were you?'

‘Sorry? Oh, yes. Yes, I was.'

‘You needn't be.'

‘That's good to know.'

Jane picked at the strap of her sandal. ‘The moment I saw him,' she went on, ‘I knew it was all over between us. In fact, I can't imagine what I ever saw in him, really.'

‘Can't you?'

‘No.'

Kiss breathed in. For some reason, he found it harder than usual. ‘I quite took to him, actually,' he said. ‘Not a bad bloke, when you get to know him. I expect.'

‘Oh Kiss, you
are
sweet.'

That particular phrase,
Oh Kiss, you are sweet
, stayed with him the rest of the day and deep into the night, with the result that he couldn't sleep. By two-thirty in the morning, it had got to him so much that he put on his coat and went to Saheed's.

In the back bar he met two old friends, Nordic Industrial Components IV and Consolidated Tin IX. They were sitting in a corner sharing a big jug of pasteurised and playing djinn rummy.

‘Hi,' he said, joining them. ‘Would you guys say I was sweet?'

Nick and Con stared at him. ‘Sweet?'

‘You heard me.'

Nick shook his head. ‘To be frank with you, Kiss, no.'

‘I'm very relieved to hear it. Same again?'

Three or four jugs and a game of racing genie later, Nick asked why he had wanted to know.

‘Oh, no reason. Somebody accused me of sweetness earlier on today, and it's been preying on my mind.'

‘Ah.' Nick dealt the cards. ‘Well, my old mate, you need have no worries on that score. Who's to open?'

‘Me,' said Con. ‘Three earthquakes.'

‘See your three earthquakes,' Nick replied, ‘and raise you one famine.'

‘Twist,' said Kiss. ‘I think it's a horrible thing to say about anybody.'

‘Agreed,' said Con. ‘Who said it, and what had you in mind by way of reprisals?'

‘My fiancée,' Kiss said. ‘Your go, Nick.'

‘Your
fiancée?
'

‘That's right.'

‘See your famine and raise you a pestilence. Since when?'

‘Recently,' Kiss answered. ‘Can we change the subject, guys? I'm trying to enjoy myself.'

‘Your pestilence,' said Con, ‘and raise you one. This is pretty heavy stuff, Kiss. She must be some doll if you're thinking of packing in the genieing on her account.'

‘Repique,' Kiss said (he was banker), ‘and doubled in Clubs. My clutch, I think.'

‘Buggery.'

‘That's forty-six above the line to me,' Kiss went on, jotting down figures on a milk-mat, ‘and one for his spikes, makes seventy-seven to me and three to play. My deal.'

‘I've had enough of this game,' said Con. ‘Let's play Miserable Families instead.'

So they played Miserable Families; and two hands and a jug of pasteurised later, Kiss was ninety-six ahead and held mortgages on seventy-five per cent of Antarctica, which was where Con lived.

‘No thanks,' Con said, when Kiss suggested another hand. ‘I get the impression your luck's in tonight.'

‘Tell me about it,' replied Kiss gloomily.

‘This girlfriend of yours.'

‘Fiancée.'

‘Quite.' Con paused. Generally speaking, genies don't kick a fellow when he's down, just in case he grabs hold of their foot. There are, however, exceptions. ‘Lucky in cards, unlucky in love, they say.'