Djinn Rummy (22 page)

Giant
ants. Yes. Yes indeed.

What do you call it when a genie has a really good idea?

Genius.

 

It was late. Even Saheed's, which is never empty, was down to its last hard core of residual customers; a few sad types sitting at tables, two more playing the fruit machine, and one very sad customer with his foot on the brass rail.

‘Don't you think you've had enough?' murmured the barman.

Kiss scowled at him. ‘Not yet,' he grunted, and pushed his empty glass back across the counter. ‘Yogurt. Neat. No fruit.'

The barman shrugged. He was, of course, only doing his job, and it was none of his business; but the idea of a Force Twelve wandering about with an attitude problem and five quarts of natural yogurt under his belt wasn't an attractive one. He filled the glass and shoved it back.

Time, he said to himself, to start a conversation. More goddamn unpaid social work.

‘What's up, mac?' he enquired softly. He assessed the symptoms; it wasn't difficult. ‘Trouble with your girl?'

Kiss nodded.

‘You could say that,' he replied.

The barman nodded sympathetically. ‘Found herself another guy, huh?'

‘No.'

‘I see. Just plain not interested, you mean?'

‘Far from it,' Kiss sighed. ‘That's the problem.'

Well, thought the barman, it takes all sorts. ‘You mean,' he said, ‘you can see it's all over between you, but you can't figure out how to tell her? That's tough.'

‘No,' Kiss yawned, ‘it's not that. We're in love. Head over heels in bloody love.' He snarled. ‘Made in heaven, you could say.'

‘Ah.' The barman shrugged. ‘But there's some reason why you can't get together, is that it?'

Kiss lifted his head and looked at him. ‘What is this,' he asked, ‘some sort of blasted sociological survey?'

‘Just passing the time, mac. Talking of which . . .?'

‘Put another one in there,' Kiss said. ‘With a cream chaser.'

‘You're the boss, mac.'

‘And stop calling me mac.'

‘You got it, chief.'

There was a frantic chiming from the direction of the fruit machine and suddenly the floor was covered in oranges and lemons, tumbling out of the pay-out slot and rolling around on the floor. One came to rest beside Kiss's heel. He stood on it.

‘I mean,' he said suddenly, in the general direction of the barman, ‘it's not my fault, is it? I never asked to be the one to save the world.'

‘Yeah,' said the barman. ‘Have you seen what time it is, by the way?'

‘I don't give . . .' Kiss leaned over, picked up an orange
and squashed it into pulp between his thumb and middle finger. ‘I don't give
that
for the world. None of my damn business.'

‘You said it, chief.'

‘But it's my damn responsibility!' Kiss scowled horribly, and then looked down at his hand. ‘Hey, have you got a towel or something?'

‘Just a second.'

‘So why,' Kiss continued, wiping his hands, ‘does it have to be me? Go on, you tell me, it's your stinking planet. Why me?'

The barman shrugged. ‘Somebody's got to do it?' he suggested.

Kiss shook his head. ‘Not good enough,' he said. ‘I'm a genie, right? We're . . .' He closed his eyes, fumbling through a fog of draught yogurt for the right words. ‘Free spirits,' he said. ‘No. Loose cannons. We do our own thing. That's unless somebody gets us by the balls and makes us do theirs. But that,' he concluded defiantly, ‘goes with the territory. We can handle that.'

‘Glad to hear it, buddy.'

In the background there was a dull squelch, as the fruit machine tried unsuccessfully to pay out a grapefruit through a four-inch slot. Kiss sighed.

‘You don't want to hear all this, do you?' he asked.

The barman looked at him with old, warm eyes. ‘I can take it,' he said, ‘I've heard worse.'

Kiss nodded. ‘You must have heard it all,' he said.

‘Maybe.' The barman picked up a glass and polished it. ‘But maybe I wasn't listening.'

Somewhere in Kiss's brain, the dinar dropped. ‘You're a genie?' he asked softly.

‘You bet, squire.'

‘What Force?'

The barman shrugged, breathed on the rim of the glass in his hands and eased away a mark. ‘Twelve,' he replied.

‘Twelve?' Kiss looked at him. ‘Then what the blazes are you doing in a dump like this?'

The barman looked back, and his eyes were like the view through the wrong end of the binoculars. ‘Hey,' he said. ‘You know how it is when you're bound by some curse to a bottle?'

Kiss nodded.

‘Well, then.' The barman half-turned and with an eloquent but economical gesture he indicated the shelves behind him. ‘Me,' he said, ‘I got
lots
of bottles.'

‘Gawd!'

‘It's not the way I'd have liked things to pan out,' the barman agreed. ‘But you find yourself in a situation, what can you do? Me, I serve drinks to people. That's from six pee-em to maybe four-thirty ay-em. The rest of the time . . .'

Kiss leaned forward. ‘Yes?'

‘The rest of the time's my own,' the barman replied. ‘Same again, is it?'

On his way home, Kiss turned out the cupboard under the stairs of his mind and found it to be mainly full of junk. There he found the ironing-board of duty, the broken torch of hope, the unwanted Christmas presents of obscure function that represent the random operations of fate, the dustpan of experience, the stepladder of aspiration, the hoover of despair; there also he found the raffia-covered Chianti-bottle table-lamp of love, which had seemed such a good idea at the time, which promised to cast light where before there was darkness and which now got under his
feet whenever he wanted to get out the ironing-board. Its shade was as pink as ever, but its bulb had gone.

Not, Kiss hastened to add, my fault. I'm the goddamn victim; and she is as well, of course, but
she's
not expected to give up being a Force Twelve genie. His thoughts returned to the genie behind the bar at Saheed's; another Force Twelve fallen on hard times. They could form a support group; well, not a group. The best they could do with the manpower available would be a very short, truncated heap.

I've got to get myself out of this. But how?

 

The inside of an ink-bottle turned out to be remarkably spacious, all things considered.

Admittedly, you have to sit with your knees round your ears and your arms behind your back; and it doesn't do to sneeze violently for fear of knocking yourself silly on the walls. The fact remains; getting six foot of retired fisherman inside three inches of bottle without pruning off several indispensable components is some achievement. Try it and see.

‘Let me OUT!'

Some people, it seems, are never satisfied. There are successful young executives in the centre of Tokyo who pay good money for not much more
lebensraum
, and are glad to get it.

‘Are you deaf or something? Let me OUT!'

Asaf paused to catch his breath. Yelling at the top of one's voice in a confined space is physically demanding and, besides, it didn't seem to be working.

If I were a baby bird, he said to himself, and if this was an eggshell, I could peck my way out.

It would be overstating the case to say that Asaf stiffened, because after nine hours in the bottle he was pretty conclusively stiff already; but he went through the motions.

There is someone, he said to himself, in here with me.

Hope he's as uncomfortable as I am.

This time, Asaf felt a definite twitch in his sphincter.

‘What?' Asaf said aloud. His voice, he couldn't help noticing, seemed to be coming out through his socks; something to do with the rather unusual acoustics inside an ink-bottle.

‘How the hell am I supposed to feel lonely in something this size?'

‘Wait!'

Silence. But then again, he reflected, there would be, wouldn't there? Since, apparently, whoever it was in here with him was either a disembodied spirit or . . .

‘Who are you?'

‘Both.'

‘GA?'

Guardian angel
. Since whatever it was was simply a suggestion of words in his mind, there was no way it could actually sound embarrassed. But it somehow gave the impression.

‘Bit late, aren't you?' Asaf grumbled. ‘Nine hours ago I could have used you.'

I know
, Pivot replied.
But like I said, I'm duty GA for this whole sector. I got held up on a call the other side of Bazrah. I came as quick as I could.

‘I see.' Asaf took a deep breath; or at least, the top slice of one. ‘Well, now you're here . . .'

‘That's it?'

‘Like, It's a funny old world, that sort of thing?'

‘Fine. Well, I expect you've got lots of other calls to attend to, so don't let me . . .'

I know
, replied Pivot sadly,
it's not exactly a great help. But that's all I'm able to do for you under the scheme. Lots of people actually do find it remarkably helpful.

‘I see.'

‘Gosh. Well, it's just as well I'm not, then, isn't it?'

There was silence in Asaf's mind for a while, and he spent the time thinking all the most uncharitable thoughts he could muster, in the hope of persuading Pivot to leave quickly.

‘Sorry?'

‘Such as?'

‘Done.'

Plus, there's our fully comprehensive after-care package, of course. We don't just ditch our clients the moment they get out of the bottle; oh dear, no. We can offer advice on a wide spectrum of issues, including financial advice, investment strategy, pensions
. . .

‘Whatever you like. Just get me out of -'

If you'd just care to sign this client services agreement. There, there and there
. . .

Asaf growled ominously. ‘I'd just like to point out,' he said, ‘that my hands are wedged against the side of this bottle so hard my circulation stopped about seven hours ago. I think signing anything's going to be a bit tricky.'

Asaf gritted his teeth. ‘I promise I'll sign them the moment I'm free,' he said. ‘Word of honour.'

Ah yes
, Pivot replied,
but how do I know you're not a FIMBRA agent in disguise? You could be trying to entrap me.

‘Why not take the risk? I'll have you know I'm shortly going to come into wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.' He paused significantly. ‘I shall need,' he said, biting his tongue, ‘all sorts of financial advice, I feel sure.'

‘Definitely.'

‘As much as I can lay my hands on. ‘

Pensions?

‘By the bucketful. I shall want as many pensions as I can possibly get.'

‘Absolutely bloody positive. Now, could you please get me out of this fucking bottle?'

At the back of his mind, Asaf could feel Pivot wriggling uncomfortably.
I still have bad feelings about all this. The rules really are terribly strict.

‘Couldn't you . . .' Asaf squirmed with agony as a spasm of cramp shot down his spinal column. ‘Couldn't you sign them for me? As my agent or whatever?'

‘Oh, for crying out loud . . .'

I'm sorry
, sighed Pivot.
I'd really love to help, but you know how it is. Now, are you ready for some homely snippets yet? We could start with, ‘It's always darkest before the dawn', or we could
. . .

‘No!' Asaf jerked violently in protest, and in doing so fetched the back of his head a terrific crack on the wall of the bottle. ‘Just you dare, and the moment I'm out of this sodding contraption -'

He stopped in mid-snarl. The walls were creaking. Obviously, the blow from his head had damaged the glass. Now if he could only . . .