The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse (20 page)

'Right across the other side of the city.'

'And will we be taking a cab?'

'I don't think I have sufficient money for the fare. I was so drunk that I actually paid off my bar bill at Tinto's last night.'

'So you'll be walking?'

'
We'll
be walking,' said Eddie.

'You'll
be walking,' said Jack. 'I did enough walking yesterday. And I'll keel over from hunger soon anyway. We should have used the Chief Inspector's money to get some new wheels for Bill's car.'

'I know what,' said Eddie. 'We'll telephone
The Hall of Nearly All The Records.'

'Inspired,' said Jack. 'Where's the telephone?'

'Somewhere amongst all this mess; let's search for it.'

A thorough search of Bill Winkie's office turned up a number of interesting things.

It also turned up a telephone.

Jack turned up the telephone.

'Is this it?' he asked, turning it down again.

'That's the kiddie,' said Eddie.

'This toy telephone with the piece of knotted string holding the handset on?'

'Pretty smart telephone, eh? I bought it for Bill as a birthday present.'

'But it's not a
real
telephone.'

'Please don't start all that again, Jack. Just dial
The Hall of Nearly All The Records
and let's get on.'

'And the telephone number is?'

'Oh, give it to me.' Eddie snatched away the telephone. Then he looked at it in a mournful manner. And then he handed it back. 'You'll have to dial,' he said; 'no fingers.'

Til just dial a number at random,' said Jack. 'You never know, luck might be on our side.'

Eddie, who had tired with groaning, made a low and growly sound instead. Jack dialled out some numbers and held the wooden handset to his ear.

'Hall of Nearly All The Records,'
said a voice.

'Wall!' went Jack, dropping the handset.

Eddie scooped it up between his paws. 'Hello,' he said.

'Hello,' said the voice.
'Hall of Nearly All The Records.'

'Splendid,' said Eddie. 'This is Chief Inspector Bellis here. I need some information.'

'If I have it, it's yours,' said the voice.

'Splendid once more,' said Eddie, turning to Jack. 'Get a pen and paper, Jack, and write down what I tell you.’

Jack sought pen and paper. 'Go on then,' he said, when his seeking had reached a successful conclusion.

Eddie awoke with a start. 'Sorry,' he said, 'nodded off there.' And he told the curator of
The Hall of Nearly All T\i.e Records
what he wanted to know.

'Easy,' said the curator, and he reeled off the list.

'Slow down,' said Eddie, as he dictated this list to Jack.

'And...' said the curator.

'Yes?' said Eddie.

'Aaaaaagh!' went the curator, and the line went dead.

'Oh,' said Eddie.

'How do you spell that?’ Jack asked. 'Is it a single "O"?'

'No, it's Oh! As in a surprised, if not a little shocked, Oh! The curator just went Aaaaaagh! And then the line went dead.'

'So how do you spell Aaaaaagh?'

Eddie shook his head. 'I think the curator just got murdered,' he said.

'Oh,' said Jack. 'That's bad. That's really bad. This new killer is as smart as the old one. But at least we do have the list.'

Eddie sighed. 'Read it back to me,' he said.

Jack read the list:

'Humpty Dumpty,

'er...’

'Little Boy Blue,

‘Jack Spratt,

'Little Tommy Tucker,

'Little Jack Horner,

'Little Miss Muffett,

'Georgie Porgie,

'Old Mother Hubbard.'

'Humpty Dumpty, Little Boy Blue, Jack Spratt,' said Eddie, beating the palm of his right paw with as near to a fist as he could make from the left. 'They're in the correct order. But hold on. There're only eight names. I'm sure I gave you nine. I wasn't really paying attention to which ones they were at the time, I was just trying to keep up with the curator. But I do remember how many there were. There were nine. You've left one out.'

'No I haven't,' said Jack.

'You have, Jack. I remember there were nine. Show me the list.'

'There're just eight.' Jack made to tear up the list, but Eddie knocked it from his hand and fumbled it up from the floor.

And then Eddie perused this list and then Eddie really groaned.

'I'm sorry,' said Jack.

Eddie shook his head, slowly and sadly. 'I should have known,' he said. 'I should have realised.'

'Perhaps it's not the same one,' said Jack.

'It's the same one,' said Eddie. 'There was only ever one Wee Willy Winkie. Even though he preferred to be known as Bill.'

They repaired to Tinto's Bar to take a late and liquid breakfast.

Eddie was a sad and sombre bear.

'I'm so sorry,' said Jack. 'It only really clicked when you called out his name for me to write down. Who Bill Winkie really was. But what I don't understand is, why did he become a detective? He should have been lording it up on his nursery rhyme royalties.'

'He was tricked out of his royalties by Wheatley Porter-man. Signed a really bad contract. Porterman had made so much money from Humpty, he thought he'd take
all
from the next client. Wee Willy went public on the way he'd been tricked; no one ever got tricked again. But he was broke, but he
was
a natural detective, you know, all that "tapping at the windows and crying through the locks" stuff in the nursery rhyme. And checking up on whether the children were in their beds by eight o'clock. Natural detective. And now he's... you know.'

'We don't know he's
you know.
He's missing, that's all.'

'He's dead,' said Eddie, dismally. 'He's as dead as. This killer delights in fitting ends for his victims. Boiling the big egg man, giving the ex-shepherd the bitter end of his crook, Tommy Tucker going out on a high note, like you said. And the fellow who does all the searching goes missing. Simple as that.'

'I'm so sorry.’ Jack ordered further drinks that he had no means of paying for. 'Put them on my tab,' he told Tinto. The clockwork barlord, who had been listening in to the conversation, did so without complaint.

'This time it's really really personal,' said Eddie.

'We know who's going to be next,' said Jack. 'Like you said, that puts us ahead of the game.'

'Oh dear,' said Eddie. 'We'd better hurry. Tinto, call me a cab.'

'All right,' said Tinto, 'you're a cab.'

Jack began to laugh.

'That's not funny,' said Eddie. 'That's such an old joke.'

'But I'm young; I've never heard it before.'

Til call a cab for you,' said Tinto, whirring away to do so.

'I thought you couldn't afford a cab?' Jack took to finishing his beers.

'We'll worry about that when we get to Little Jack Horner's.'

Eddie finished his beer, and then two of Jack's before Jack could get to them.

The cab was a fine-looking automobile. It was a Mark 9 Black Cab Kerb Crawler, with lithographed pressed steel body panels, chrome-trimmed running boards and brass radiator grille.

It came complete with comfy passenger seats in plush fur fabric and a clockwork cabbie called Colin.

'Very plush,' said Jack, comfying himself upon a comfy passenger seat.

'Where to, guvnor?' asked Colin the clockwork cabbie, his tin-plate jaw going
dick click click.

'Little Jack Horner's,' said Jack.

'He's popular today,' said the cabbie.

'Why do you say that?' Eddie asked.

'Because I've just come from his place; dropped a customer there.'

Jack and Eddie exchanged glances. 'What did this customer look like?' Jack asked.

'She was a strange one,' said the cabbie. 'Didn't speak. Just handed me a piece of paper with Jack Horner's address on it. She wore this feathered hat thing and she never stopped smiling. I could see her in the driving mirror. She fair put the wind up me, I can tell you.'

'Faster,' said Eddie. 'Drive faster.'

'Faster costs more money,' said the cabbie.

'Fast as you can then,' said Eddie, 'and you can have all the money I've got on me.'

'And all the money I have too,' said Jack.

The driver put his pressed-tin foot down. Til show you fast,' he said. And he showed them fast.

'Eddie,' said Jack, as he clung for the dearness of life to whatever there was for him to cling to.

‘Jack?' said Eddie, who clung on to Jack.

'Eddie, what are we going to do when we get there? We're no match for this woman-thing.'

The cab hung a left and went up on two wheels.

'Big guns,' said Eddie. 'We need big guns.'

'But where are we going to get big guns?'

'Big guns?' The cabbie glanced over his shiny shoulder. 'Did I hear you say big guns?'

'Watch the road!' shouted Jack.

'Big guns, I said,' said Eddie.

'I love big guns,' said the cabbie. 'Well, you have to in this business.' He now hung a right and the cab went up on its other two wheels.

'In the cabbie business?' Eddie was now on the floor; Jack helped him up.

'You'd be surprised,' said the cabbie. 'Folk get into my cab and ask me to drive somewhere, then tell me that they have no money.'

'Oh,' said Eddie. 'So you menace them with your big gun?'

'No,' said the cabbie. 'I shoot them. I'm mad, me.'

'Oh, perfect,' whispered Jack.

'Stay cool,' whispered Eddie. 'Mr Cabbie?'

'Yes?' said the cabbie. 'Oh hold on, there's a red light!'

'I'll wait until you've stopped then.'

'I don't stop for red lights,' said the cabbie. 'Not when there's a really big fare in it for me. I'll probably take the rest of the week off once you've paid up.'

'Ah,' said Eddie. And the cabbie ran the red light, much to the distress of the traffic that had the right of way. This traffic came to a sudden halt. Cars bashed into other cars. A swerving lorry ran into a shop front.

'Nearly there,' the cabbie called back. 'Best get your wallets out, and I'll take your wristwatches too.'

'You're a very funny fellow,' said Eddie.

'Thanks a lot,' said the cabbie, revving the engine and putting his foot down harder. 'And some people say that psychopaths don't have a sense of humour. What do they know, eh?'

'Nothing,' said Eddie. 'But about this big gun of yours...'

'This one?' The cabbie whipped it out of his jacket with his gear-changing hand. It was a very big gun indeed.

'Whoa!' went Jack. 'That's a 7.62 mm M134 General Clockwork Mini-gun. Max cyclic rate 6000 rounds per minute. 7.62 x 51 shells, 1.36kg recoil adapters, muzzle velocity of 869m/s.'

'You certainly know your weapons, buddy,' said the cabbie. 'And this one carries titanium-tipped ammunition. Take the head off a teddy at two hundred yards.'

'We're sawdust,' whispered Eddie.

Jack made shushing sounds. 'I used to work in the factory that manufactured those guns,' he told the cabbie. 'Do you have it serviced regularly?'

'I keep it well oiled.' The cabbie swerved onto the wrong side of the road, which made things exciting for the oncoming traffic.

'How many times have you fired it?’ Jack asked.

'Dozens of times,' said the cabbie, performing further life-endangering automotive manoeuvres.

'And you've not had the chamber-spring refulgated?'

'Eh?' said the cabbie, taking a turn along the pavement.

'Surely you've read the manual?'

'Naturally,' said the cabbie. 'I'm a practising Mechanolo-gist. But what has my religion got to do with this?'

'Nothing at all,' said Jack. 'But if you don't get that chamber-spring refulgated, that gun is likely to blow your arm off the next time you fire it.'

A grin appeared upon Eddie's face. It did not take a genius to figure out what was coming next.

'I could refulgate it for you,' said Jack.

'What do you take me for?' asked the cabbie.

The grin disappeared from Eddie's face.

'You're going to charge me for doing it, aren't you?' the cabbie said.

'No,' said Jack. Til do it for free.'

Eddie's grin reappeared.

'Well.' The cabbie hesitated — although not with his driving.

'Listen,' said Jack, 'I'm only thinking of you. Imagine the unthinkable occurring.'

'I can't imagine the unthinkable,' said the cabbie. 'What would that be like?'

'It would be like us not being able to pay and you having to shoot us, but the gun blowing your arm offinstead. You'd look pretty silly then, wouldn't you?'

'I would,' the cabbie agreed.

'And you wouldn't want to look silly.'

'I certainly wouldn't.' The cabbie handed the gun over his shoulder to Jack.

Eddie looked up at his partner with a look that almost amounted to adoration. 'Wonderful,' he said.

'We'll see,' said Jack. 'Now let's get this chamber-spring refulgated. We don't want the cabbie to blow his arm off when he shoots us.'

'Eh?' said Eddie.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

'Oh I see, you're only joking again. I don't think I'll ever get the measure of your humour, Jack.'

'We're here,' said the cabbie, bringing his cab to a shuddering halt. 'How are you doing with my gun?'

Eddie and Jack ran up the sweeping drive towards Little Jack Horner's mansion. It was a worthy mansion, situated on a lower southwestern slope of Knob Hill. It was appropriately plum-coloured, and had a great many corners to it where, within, one might sit and enjoy some Christmas pie.

The plumly-hued front door stood open.

Jack cocked the 7.62 mm Ml34 General Clockwork Mini-gun. Its polished butt was slightly dented now, from the blow it had administered to the rear of the cabbie's head. Jack hadn't enjoyed striking down the cabbie, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Jack ducked to one side of the open doorway, Eddie ducked to the other.

'What do we do?' Jack asked. 'Rush in, big gun blazing?'

'Sneak in, I think,' said Eddie. 'Big gun at the ready. And remember, she'll be expecting us. She knows we have the list.'

'Let's sneak then.' Jack took a deep breath and then entered the mansion, Eddie close upon his heels.