Gridlock (7 page)

'New York is good,' Sam had said. Despite the fact that the new car would spend its life stuck in traffic between Redditch and Wolverhampton, Sam was concerned that it should have a global profile.

On the screen, the little girl's face, surrounded by golden curls, is a study of nervous fear. This was hardly surprising, as she appeared to live in the middle of an urban nightmare – leaves blow across the dirty flagstones in a sinister and forbidding manner, lights are on red, abandoned cars burn. A black man with no shoes sprays a wall, he is muttering to himself, probably having a quiet rap, prior to spinning round on his head. We can't tell because the soundtrack to the video is Italian opera, the reason for this was to make it clear to the meanest intelligence that the anonymous little hatchback in question has class.

The little girl continues her nervous perusal of the tough world she will inherit. An old man with a beard and the face of a philosopher sleeps in a cardboard box.

All cardboard box dwellers shot by groovy filmmakers have the faces of philosophers – which is a good thing because, living in a cardboard box in the middle of an urban nightmare, you'd need to be a bit of a philosopher.

In front of the old philosopher a cop busts a hooker, we know she is a hooker because she is sensationally sexy.

In the video tape world, just as all tramps are philosophers, all hookers are gorgeous. Of course, in the real world, streetwalkers (who are the poorest type of prostitutes) do not tend to look as if they've walked straight off a Pirelli calendar. Their sad, dispirited appearance tends to provoke either sympathy or disgust from most people, rather than lust. However, in the movies, from Louise Brooks as
Lulu,
to Julia Roberts as
Pretty Woman,
we are taught to recognize streetwalking whores by watching out for the wittiest, prettiest, most flawlessly beautiful girl in view. She'll be the one risking her life getting into cars with drunk strangers and having to try and get a condom onto him with her mouth, while pretending to give him a blow-job because he doesn't want to use one and he might have AIDS.

'I like the hooker,' Sam had said. Great legs, real class.

The doll-like little girl continues to stare. She is such a beautiful little girl, with such sensitivity and intelligence that by the look of her she is in real danger of growing up to be a prostitute . . .

Daddy has finished sternly locking the doors of his fortress and with swift, strong movements he gathers up the bewildered child and places her safely in the Ghia (leaky sun roof) edition of a new, but utterly nondescript hatchback car. The door of the car slams behind the little girl and the gritty, grainy world of hookers, bare feet and graffiti is locked out.

So far the video has run for six and a half seconds.

'It's a little laboured,' said Sam, 'needs a tighter edit.' Daddy too is nervous and tense. And well he might be of course, considering that every possible cliche of urban decay seems to have elected to come and live on his street. However, we discover that this is not the reason for his discomfort. The fact is that his wife is about to have a child and Daddy, being a thoroughly modern man who cares, is anxious that he and the little girl should be present at this happy event.

Why, if he cares that much, Daddy has decided to leave his hospital dash to the very last picosecond, is not explained. Although, considering the man's entire relationship with the woman is based on a previous ad, in which he knocked on her door to ask to borrow some instant coffee, she's actually quite fortunate he remembers who she is.

The key turns and the engine jumps into life. With a flurry of sinister leaves and a knowing glance from the philosophical tramp (no doubt thinking to himself, 'At last, the meaning of life: a boring hatchback and a plastic daughter'), the car is away, whisking Chiselled Man and Cabbage Patch off through streets that are no longer in New York, but appear to have been lifted out of somewhere in Eastern Europe during the cold war.

'Good, I like Eastern Europe, it sells,' said Sam, adding, 'Tell them to turn up the opera, and see if they got any shots where we see more of the hooker's tits.'

The car screeches on through the misty night. Occasionally it is forced to brake on wet surfaces in order to let a flock of geese be herded across the road. Herded, incidentally, by an old peasant who, by the look of him, could certainly have given the man in the cardboard box a run for his money in the philosophical stakes. If the two of them ever met they could probably crack the riddle of the universe between them.

Eventually Chiselled Man and Cabbage Patch end up at a private hospital where Mummy, who has a sensible bob haircut and is not as sexy as a prostitute but makes up for her lack of raunchi-ness by being drenched in the honest sweat of her womanly duty, presents Chiselled Man with a new baby. (Well, she doesn't do it, the nurse does.) Mum just gives Chiselled Man a tired but adoring smile.

'Good,' said Sam. 'I'm glad the guy missed it. Never met a man yet who really went for all the mess and the slop.'

The scene then cuts to the next morning. Which was quite a good thing, because no doubt two seconds after the smile Mummy screamed at Daddy, 'Where the hell have you been! It's all very well coming in now all shaved and chiselled. Where were you when all the "Oh God it hurts, give me some drugs, push push push" was going on, and there was afterbirth everywhere?'

That bit of uncomfortable realism being avoided, the following morning Daddy pops Cabbage Patch, the sweating madonna (now dried off but still not sexy; proud certainly; vulnerable of course; doting; caring and extremely sensible – but not sexy), plus the new sprog into the hatchback and drives off straight into what appears to be the location for a butter advert. There is a final caption . . . 'You can trust Global Motors with your most precious cargo of all.'

'Makes me want to puke,' Sam had said on first viewing. 'It's perfect.'

So why then was this an obscene video? It was offensive perhaps, tasteless, certainly, but why obscene? Because the men at Global Motors (a fictitious car manufacturer invented for the purposes of this book) had spent the previous twenty years actively campaigning against unleaded petrol and catalytic converters. This hypocritical bunch of low-lifes had sat there congratulating themselves on their new advert which stressed family values and the protection of kids, and yet they had all been directly and personally involved in rotting the brains of countless children.

These wicked ogres had, of their own choice, brought about the production of an incalculable tonnage of appalling pollutants, every ounce of which directly affected the well-being of each and every child on the planet. They could not even claim ignorance of the facts, these wicked giants in their evil castle. In the United States, where Global Motors, like all car manufacturers, had been forced by legislation to fit the available safety equipment, children had been partially protected since the early Seventies. In Britain however, and much of the rest of the world, unshackled by inconvenient legislation, Global Motors, like most other car makers, had elected to carry on damaging, and probably murdering, children. Perhaps not as perfect-looking as the one in their advert, but children just the same.

The executives at Global Motors could scarcely have behaved more wickedly if they had prefixed their horrendous corporate decisions with the words 'fee fi fo fum'.

The video had gone down terribly well. Everyone was congratulating the director, a fifteen-year-old Dutchman with a ponytail and a crumpled linen suit. Everyone was assuring Sam that the car would no doubt be a huge success, but they knew that it wouldn't be, just as Sam himself knew and had already written the car off in his mind. The problem was the name. The new car was to be called the Global Crappee.

A car may stand or fall upon its name. If the Ford Thunderbird had been called the Ford Fluffy, one wonders whether it would ever have become quite the legend it is today. Had the E-type Jag been unwisely named the P-type Jag, surely it would have experienced greater sales resistance. If the tiny, girlie Fiat Panda had been named the Fiat Cockroach, it seems unlikely that Penelope would have wanted one for her eighteenth. There are good car names and not-so-good car names. Calling a car the Crappee is marketing suicide.

It had come about through the noblest of motives. Global Motors UK, like most companies in Britain, were pursuing a Euro perspective. They sought to sell their cars in the shiny new Euro market. To this end, Global Motors had opened Euro offices and taken on Euro staff. They had concluded a massive, mutually supportive Euro deal with the Italian car giant Bianco and they had offered ludicrous salaries in order to poach an entire marketing team from the hugely successful Sportif of France. Global Motors' new hatchback was to be a Euro car down to the underseal. It was to have Euro styling, Euro engineering and a Euro name, the Crappee.

The Global Crappee. The French market research had reacted favourably, the Italians were enthusiastic, even the Germans seemed interested, although they would have preferred Krappy. However, the British, who still made up about 90 per cent of Global UK's market, were unlikely to be impressed.

'How the hell did it happen?' Sam had spluttered when he first found out. 'Why didn't somebody notice?'

The reason nobody noticed was that the brief, right from the beginning, had been to let the Europeans get on with it.
No xenophobic interference
had been the order. Sam himself had set the tone.

'I don't want any Limey bullshit about who won the war,' he had said. 'The US Battle of Britain up your polite British butts. The facts are, our European colleagues sell more cars in a week than Global Motors UK sell in a month. They are our friends and our brothers, even if they are a bunch of wops. We need to absorb a little of their culture, their ambiance, and above all, their cash. So leave the foreign bastards alone and let them get on with it.'

That had been Sam's attitude only a year or so before when he had arrived from Detroit, but now, faced with an entire new model range called Crappee, he had changed his tune. His cringing minions attempted to defend themselves . . .

'It seemed so right,' they spluttered . . . 'The Germans wanted something hard, something resonant of engineering. They suggested Krupp after the great arms manufacturer. But the Italian guys were looking for something light-hearted, something fun. Their suggestion was Caprice. The French reckoned everybody would be doing that. They wanted something multicultural, something ethnic, something cool. Their people suggested the Global Rapper . . . And, well, we all felt that Crappee combined all the elements suggested; being resonant of engineering, holiday fun and ethnic culture.'

'And shit,' said Sam.

All that had happened months before, but even then, the ads had been made, the styling completed and brochures gone out. Sam had been unable to stop the Euro decision. Now it was history. Besides, he no longer cared, he had bigger things on his mind. He had things on his mind so big that he was in danger of having to buy a larger hat, which was why he was trying to kill Geoffrey Spasmo.

The Crappee launch was in full swing, and whilst Digby Parkhurst buried his happy, shiny face in the champagne and dippy things, Sam snatched a hurried conversation with Springer.

'He dead yet?' demanded Sam.

'The gerbil's state of being is at present undetermined,' replied Springer slightly reprovingly. He felt that if you were going to go to the trouble of setting up a really great code like calling your murder victim a gerbil, you should try and stick to it.

'At present undetermined? Kind of enigmatic this "gerbil", ain't he?' mused Sam through gritted teeth. 'How come?'

Sam's knuckles were whitening around his glass as he struggled to contain his temper.

'I'm afraid I can't explain that, sir,' said Springer, eyeing his exits. 'Euro Despatch have at present lost contact with their operatives.'

Sam's glass cracked under the pressure.

'You mean they fucked up?' he said menacingly.

'We certainly have to accept the possibility that there has been a degree of up fucking,' replied Springer very nervously. He hated it when Sam got glass-crushing mad – the next move tended to involve Sam reaching for something softer to crush.

Just as Springer was deftly acquiring an empty plate with which to protect the front of his trousers, Geoffrey Spasmo, the gerbil causing all the fuss, was still helping the police with their inquiries. Inquiries rendered more difficult, of course, by Geoffrey's communication problems. It wasn't that the superintendent could not understand Geoffrey, with a little effort he could follow every word, it was just that he found it very difficult to bring himself to believe that anyone who sounded so thick could possibly have invented anything worth murdering for.

'You say that the hard disk containing your research material had been removed from your computer prior to the assault,' said the policeman.

'Yes,' jerked Geoffrey wearily.

'And you believe that the people who pinched your hard disk, and, I might add, your telly, were the same people who set the thugs on you?'

'Maybe,' said Geoffrey.

'But you have no idea who these people might be?' asked the policeman.

'No,' said Geoffrey.

'Or how they might have come to know about your invention?'

'No, as I've said about five billion times, I was keeping it a total secret from everyone until I got the patent, which I am in the process of doing.'

'And the invention concerns?' asked the policeman.

'It's a secret,' replied Geoffrey. 'That's the whole point.'

Eventually the police let Geoffrey go pending further inquiries. He had acted in self-defence so there were no charges. Obviously he could not return home for the present so the police offered him a hotel room.

'You'll be quite safe there,' they said confidently, mainly because they still did not really believe that Geoffrey had been the real target of the assault, mystery inventions not being high up on their list of credible motives.

Geoffrey declined the hotel room, he had other ideas. Late as it was, he would go to see his good friend Deborah. He regretted having to place her in possible danger but he thought it unlikely that anybody after him would know of Deborah. Their friendship was a very private one and the thugs had not even known that Geoffrey was a spastic. Either way, he had to risk it. Geoffrey was convinced that, for reasons connected with his research, he had become the target of a murderous conspiracy, and since clearly the police were not at present intending to take him seriously, he felt he would be safer on his own. Giving the superintendent his parents' address and refusing the offer of a lift in a squad car (even though he would have liked to have a go in one), Geoffrey took a taxi into the night.

Geoffrey believed that the only copy of his brilliant invention that lay outside criminal hands was with the patents office and he would not rest until he had secured a copy. He was destined for a very tiring time because, on the matter of the plans at least, Sam Turk was ahead of him.

'Find him and kill him,' said Sam to Springer before turning his attention back to the Minister.

Sam, although he was embarking on a plot of cosmic proportions, remained a dedicated, professional car man. He knew that Digby Parkhurst was preparing a massive road-building plan and this was something that, of course, must be encouraged. Digby had allowed himself to be cornered by the press and Sam waited courteously whilst the Minister almost dribbled with slightly tipsy self-importance.

'I think the Crappee is an absolutely super looking machine,' Digby gushed, 'and believe me, the people at Environment are delighted that Sam Turk here has made sure that all his people at Global Motors are committed to producing such a thoroughly green car.'

Digby had in his hand the press-pack which assured the public that the Crappee offered catalytic converters as optional extras on the top-of-the-range models and that, as always, Global Motors were striving towards ever greater fuel efficiency. Two promises which made the Global Crappee about as thoroughly green as an overripe tomato floating in a pot of strawberry jam against a particularly fine sunset. The production of a single private car consumes the sort of natural resources which could keep a famine-threatened village in the Third World going for months. This, combined with the incalculable cost of the road it will require and the fuel it will consume, turns each car into an environmental hand grenade. Certainly we need cars. Certainly catalytic converters are very good things, but to imagine that fitting one will make a car environmentally friendly . . . ? You might as well fit one to a bucket of napalm.

Sam extracted Digby from the melee of press . . .

'Any hints on the content of tomorrow's transport speech, Minister?' they shouted.

'Wait and see, watch and learn,' said Digby, hoping nobody would notice that he was getting a little erection about how important he was.

'Perhaps you would like to come with me, Minister,' said Sam Turk. 'It is a little crowded in here, isn't it? We have an executive dining area, perhaps . . . ?'

Digby, who liked nothing better than being pampered by rich and powerful people, allowed himself to be led into a side room. Besides, he had his own reasons for wanting to get Sam Turk to one side.

Sam led Digby through into a luxuriously appointed little room full of luxuriously appointed people.

'I'm sure there are no new faces here, Minister . . . Peter Logan, of Tar and Grit Road Construction, Jamie Saunders, the concrete man . . .'

There were oil people, tyre people, road haulage people, motoring associations people. All people well known to Digby, all good friends – good friends who had preyed upon his predecessors for generations.

For Digby was in the presence of the road lobby. A shadowy, unofficial alliance, difficult to define, difficult to pin down, but none the less one of the most powerful groups of people in the country. These people wanted one thing out of life, and one thing only – they wanted more roads.

They said that they wanted them to relieve congestion, to free the motorist, to make the nation more efficient. That's why they
said
they wanted them. But actually they wanted them so that they could sell more tar, more concrete, more rubber, more oil and, above all, more cars.

Private individuals make cars and pump oil, only governments can commission roads. Without roads all the people in the room surrounding Digby were finished. Their businesses, their whole industries meant nothing without roads. That was why they loved Digby so much – he commissioned the roads.

Vain, pompous, little Digby was an easy target for these clever, powerful men of the road lobby. They toadied him gruesomely. They made him feel so important, with their specious arguments regarding the massive human good that would flow from a six-mile extension of the M6 and their firm assertions that nothing less than the end of civilization would be the inevitable consequence if an extra lane were not added to the M25.

'And all these things, Minister, these
world-moulding
decisions,' Britain's biggest concrete mixer would say, his honeyed words massaging Digby's crotch.

'Are in your masterful hands, Minister,' a man who owned 300 car showrooms would add, his tongue extending three feet across a tray of nibbles to tease Digby's ear.

'Quite simply the choice between
freedom,
or a
new Dark Age,
is yours Minister,' the road hauliers and the oil people would add, gently unzipping Digby's fly and delicately cupping his ripe plums in their hands.

'For the good of Britain,' chimed the whole gang, their heads full of millions as they went down on Digby . . . 'Build more roads.'

Normally Digby would have happily listened to this stuff until his trousers burst, but tonight there was something on his mind. Something that actually made the farty little minister assert himself.

'Later, gentlemen,' he said. Then, in a low voice, he snapped at Sam, 'I want a damn word with you, Sam, and I damn well want it damn now, damn it.' Digby was better at saying
thnn thnn
than he was at swearing.

Sam thought, 'Oh Christ, what's got up the little shit's nose now?' But he said, 'Of course, Minister, is there a problem?'

They retired to a cosy corner.

'Listen, Sam, yesterday I had a very worrying call from the people at Patents. They say that damned invention I tipped you off about has damned well been pinched, damn it.'

'No!' said Sam, incredulously.

'Damn yes, and I don't like it, Sam! Damn it, these are
civil servants,
they're very vulnerable, they have the honours list to worry about and the subsidized canteen. They're hopping mad, Sam. They don't believe it's a coincidence and frankly nor do I!'

'Minister,' protested Sam, 'surely you're not suggesting that I . . . ? That Global Motors . . . ?'

'Oh come on, Sam! I'm sure you don't think I'm a fool,' snapped the Minister, who may have been sure, but he was certainly wrong . . . His voice dropped to an angry whisper. 'The patents people tell me about developments of interest and I tell you, I have no problem with that. We're all in the business of getting Britain moving. God knows we all want the best for Britain.'

'Well, of course, Minister,' Sam interrupted piously.

'But that doesn't stretch to burgling Her Majesty's property!' said Digby.

Sam was surprised. The Minister was actually being quite assertive. He had been so used to Digby's slimy mediocrity, he had never thought he would have to placate him. Sam remembered that even shit got stubborn when you were trying to scrape it off your shoes.

Sam, of course, continued to deny any knowledge of the break-in but it was a difficult process. Not because Digby was at all astute, but because it was bloody obvious that Sam must have organized the theft, or at least known the person who did, because he was the only person to whom Digby had passed the information about Geoffrey's invention.

Digby was having a wonderful time, slooshing top-notch plonk and being all stern and statesman like. There he was, farty, inadequate Digby Parkhurst, who had been known at school as Shitsby Zitburst, dressing down Sam Turk, the president of Global Motors UK, a two-fisted, big-bellied son of a gun. How Digby wished the teenage bullies of his unhappy schooldays, who used to give him Chinese burns and stuff radishes up his bottom, could see him now.

'Really, Mr Turk, I'm afraid I shall have to consider very carefully the courtesies that the Department for Transport grants to the motor industry,' said Digby pompously, 'if they are to be abused in such a way.'

'Oh come now, Minister,' said Sam.

'Please do not adopt that tone with me, Turk. May I remind you that I am a minister of the Crown and not accustomed to being trifled with.' Digby slurped at his champagne. 'Perhaps,
thnn thnn thnn,
you think that Her Majesty's Government exists for your convenience.'

'Not at all, Minister,' protested Sam, who wasn't even listening. He understood petty officials like Digby Parkhurst and was more than happy to let him have his moment of self-importance. That way he would get it out of his system and forget about it.

Digby, imagining himself to be having the most tremendous effect, happily accepted more champagne. There were flecks of filo pastry round his mouth and his fingers shone with grease.

'I am afraid I am going to have to consider this matter very carefully indeed. I am forced to ask myself whether the road lobby has achieved a sufficient maturity to justify its special relationship with Her Majesty's Government.'

'You're absolutely right, Minister,' said Sam absently, whilst casting an appreciative eye over the girl serving the drinks and wishing he was not such a staunch Catholic.

'Yes, I should imagine you are wishing you were somewhere else right now, aren't you, Turk?' said Digby, imagining Sam to be quivering in his boots.

'Well, to tell you the truth, I was, Minister,' answered Sam, imagining the waitress quivering in hers.

'I'm glad you understood the seriousness of the situation. I have not decided what course of action I shall take but I commend you to consider what I have said most carefully.'

Of course, as Sam well knew, Digby had absolutely no intention of taking any course of action at all – but what fun he was having.

'Yes, Minister, certainly. I shall consider it most carefully,' said Sam, who had already forgotten everything the Minister had said.

'We shall discuss it again after my speech tomorrow,' said Digby. And draining a final glass of champagne, he bid the road lobby good night and staggered drunkenly off to bed, imagining himself to be one hell of a fellow and actually being a git in a bow-tie.