The Night Mayor (20 page)

Then she walked in. A brunette, gift-wrapped and for real. She was unsteady on her feet, but I could imagine what she had been through. Dana told me she had been a tougher nut for Daine to crack, and had had her mind scrambled and unscrambled several times. Also, she was wearing high heels.

‘Tunney,’ she said, sitting down beside me, ‘are you you yet?’

That was some swell meeting-cute opener.

I didn’t know the answer, but I vamped. ‘You can call me Tom. I’m not Richie Quick, private dick. I’m sorry about the confusion on the phone earlier.’

‘Don’t bother yourself. Things have been getting chaotic. I’m Susan Bishopric, but you know that. It told you, right?’

Sam brought her a drink, something with fruit and a little umbrella. She left it alone.

‘Where is Dana? The Yggdrasil projection?’

‘Going his own mysterious way, I should imagine. We’re the team from now on, I gather.’

She must have been able to tell from my face how I felt about that.

‘Well, you’re not exactly a mental-health testimonial, Dreamer. You’re the one who got swallowed.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just this isn’t the straightforward gig Trefusis sold me on.’

‘Us on, Tom,
us
.’ She smiled, and her monochrome projection looked older. ‘Ever lose an arm to a shark?’

Milland’s bat fell like a wet rag onto the bar beside us and spread its leathery wings, knocking over my glass. We dodged the spilled drink. I righted the glass, and it was full again. Sam came over and picked up the bat. He balled it, and used it to wipe up the mess.

‘Damn DTs. Whatever happened to tiny elephants?’

Susan rubbed her arm. The one that had been bitten off, presumably.

‘It doesn’t hurt any more,’ she said. ‘I made the pain go away.’

There were three gunshots from behind the small stage. A girl screamed, and a masked man ran through the bar, pursued by two cops in turn-of-the-century uniforms. Neither of us paid much attention. After a while, it gets monotonous.

‘We make a difference,’ I said. ‘The Dream is trying to stay together, but our input is expanding it at the seams. I think that’s the key.’

‘Yeah, well, I tried to rip it apart earlier and didn’t get very far.’

‘That’s because you launched a direct attack. Daine was able to concentrate and counter. While he was busy with you, things fell apart a little everywhere else.’

‘So Daine isn’t dead.’

‘No, I’ve figured that much. Daine killed his projection and took another similie, maybe several. Maybe he’s just an invisible presence, or lodged in some mechanical form. Like the telephone system, or the electrical wiring. If Yggdrasil can give itself a human-seeming external form, then surely Daine could mimic an AI’s physical body. Hell, his consciousness could be in every drop of rain, or all the bullets in the City. How could you fight that?’

She produced a cigarette, I took out my lighter. She held my hand steady to bring the cigarette to the flame and kept it for a few seconds longer than she had to. Static electricity of some sort passed between us. She plumed smoke from her nostrils. I flicked the lighter shut, and the moment was over.

‘I doubt if things are as complicated as that. Daine’s a Dreamer, but he’s not an artist. He had to borrow all these externals from old flatties. He didn’t have the muscle to Dream it all up for himself. He may be the Grand Wizard in international intrigue or mass murder, but as a dreamer, he’s just a jumped-up wank manager. I don’t think he’s got the imagination to stretch around a concept like living rain. Look at all this, all these clichés. He’s a traditional, straight-arrow, clean-consciousness narrative man. There isn’t an
avant-garde
trope in perception.’

‘You could be right. It’s easy to overestimate God.’

It was a comforting thought. But I could still remember what I had been through as Richie Quick. Daine might be a novice Dreamer, but he was learning fast. He had given me the runaround in his sleep.

‘I’ve had some time to check this Dream,’ she said. ‘My guess is that we’ll get him if we play by its rules for a while.’

‘Meaning?’

‘We go along with the Dream, we follow the story and solve the case. If we find out who killed the Daine projection, I figure we can bring about some sort of dramatic crisis and finish the whole thing off. Then, after the end credits, we catch the genuine Daine and slitch him back to Princetown swiftkick.’

‘Sounds appealing. But it’s dangerous. I know what happens if you take this place on its own terms. You wind up living here for ever.’

‘Take it from me, Tom, you had the simple option.’

‘We’ll argue that later, Miss Pinkerton.’

‘You were there when Daine got killed. Did you notice anything suspicious?’

‘That’s hard to say. While he was knocking himself off, I was preparing to make my introductions to the sidewalk. From a long way up.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Yeah, maybe it was the butler. That would be Edward Everett Horton.’

‘This isn’t that kind of flatty.’

‘Too bad. Nights should be for crooning to your girl on a rooftop, not dumping your business partner in the bay.’

Susan smiled, for real this time. ‘Then why are your Dreams full of crime and violence?’

She had me there. ‘Maybe I’ll change my style after this. I’ll only do pastorals, gentle love stories, boy-and-his-dog stuff.’

‘Horse shit.’

‘Yes, basically.’

We both laughed. Meeting her had helped. I wasn’t so tired any more. Usually, I stay away from other Dreamers. When we get our heads together, we tend to mess each other up. Something to do with the kinks and chemicals in our brains that give us the Talent. However, indream we gave each other some sort of boost. She was looking younger now, and brighter-eyed. I remembered her in colour and in a clothe as a vital, pretty woman. Dressed up City style, she looked good. Not Ava Gardner or Rhonda Fleming good, but easily Peggy Cummins or Evelyn Keyes good.

‘So,’ she said, ‘do we have any clues?’

‘Well, as Richie Quick I was following up some leads. Daine was a member of the Cicero Club. It’s for armchair sleuths. My guess is that it’s a front for polite racketeering. All the members are highly suspicious. I was going after one of them, George Macready, when John Carradine, the first Yggdrasil projection, got himself – itself – remaindered. Macready’s out of the game. I’ve got a list of the others somewhere.’

I dug into the pockets of my trench coat and found several guns, a half-empty bottle, a blackjack tagged POLICE EVIDENCE – DO NOT REMOVE, a pack of marked cards, several hundred dollars in small bills, a wallet full of ID in a variety of false names, a priceless necklace of grey
fei tsui
jade, a fistful of loose bullets, a switchblade with a snake on the handle, a bloodstained ice pick, several special editions of the
Inquirer
and a crumpled notebook marked CLUES.

I’ve got two names at the top of the list, both well placed; both with solid covers. Either one could be in a position to take over Daine’s business interests. Claude Rains, who’s cast here as a radio broadcaster, and Otto Kruger, who’s head of some sort of crackpot cult.’

‘Suspects, huh?’

‘Oh, very. Typecast. I’ve got addresses. We can find Rains at the Twentieth-Century Building, and Kruger at the Temple of Turhan Bey.’

‘Where to first?’ Susan was enthusiastic. Smile brackets appeared at the corners of her lipsticky mouth.

‘The Twentieth-Century. I have a hunch Rains may try to disappear.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Didn’t you ever see
The Invisible Man
?’

Fade to:

‘What happened?’

Susan was confused.

‘A dissolve. You’ll get used to it.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

We were standing on the black-veined grey marble stairs of the Twentieth-Century Building. A monolithic stone ‘20’ stood over the portico, surrounded by trumpeting statue cherubs. Behind a column beside the imposing double doors was a young coloured man in a uniform. He was curled in a rickety chair and had it balanced on two of its legs, one foot braced against the column.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

He dropped his watermelon slice and raised bulging white eyes from his issue of
Spook Stories
magazine.

‘Yassuh?’ He was trembling. ‘C’n Ah hailp yo’, suh?’

He fell over, and we endured a minute or two of bumbling comic relief. Finally I got to ask him about Claude Rains.

He gesticulated like a scarecrow in the wind. ‘Massuh Rains, he be right down, baass. Lawdy, lawdy, yaass!’

Breaks squealed behind us. A small crowd gathered.

‘Look up in the skies!’ said a wet extra.

‘It’s a bird!’

‘It’s a plane!’

‘No, it’s…’

It was a radio criminologist. Susan and I stood back as he splatted with a thump onto the steps. He rolled to our feet. He was crumpled, dinner-jacketed and dead. The doorman fainted, his black, wooly hair turning snow white in an instant. All blacks in the City were comical cowards, just like all stage doorkeepers were called Pops, all orientals were mysterious, all blind dates beautiful.

‘He must have fallen!’ said someone intelligent.

I knelt by the broken man. He was a loosely articulated dummy with a roughly carved face. Then, a blink later, he was Claude Rains, eyes tight shut, a trickle of black creeping from his mouth.

‘Somebody call the cops!’

I went through the body’s pockets, searching for clues. One side of his immaculate jacket was soaked through and spiked with broken glass. There was a gummy label attached to several sharp shards. Rains had had a bottle of vichy water in his inside pocket. For some reason, Rains had been wearing a crown with his evening clothes. Susan found it, dented and with loose jewels, a few feet away from the corpse.

‘What do you make of this?’ she asked.

‘The Adventures of Robin Hood
,’ I snapped. ‘He was King John.’

‘Oh yes.’ She looked irritated. ‘I should have twigged.’

‘One thing you never give up is a claim to a throne.’

I heard police sirens in the distance. The doorman revived, said, ‘Mah feets ain’t gonna stick roun’ to see mah body bein’ abused!’ and scuttled off.

‘Tom.’ Susan tugged at my trench coat. ‘I just saw a little skitchy guy come down the fire escape and slip into that alley.’

A car emerged from the dark between two tenements and passed by the building, slowed by the still-growing crowd. The driver was Peter Lorre. He had to be mixed up in the Cicero Club. He would be a natural for it.

‘Terrific.’ I was bitter. ‘Let’s get out of here before MacLane shows and tries to pull me in for this.’

Patrol cars drew up at the bottom of the steps. Susan and I faded into the crowds. As the uniform cops thrust forwards, we edged back and managed to slip away without attracting official notice. An unmarked car with John Law written all over it joined the black-and-whites. MacLane and Bellamy got out, huffing and puffing. MacLane still had his rubber hosepipe with him, like a comforter blanket.

I took Susan’s arm and walked her away from the scene of the crime.

‘The Turhan Bey Temple next?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. We’re getting close.’

Close. Maybe too close. Close to the edge. It was a long drop over the edge of the world. A lot of people were falling off a lot of things in the City. In a struggle, you don’t know what is going to happen. A good guy couldn’t kill the bad guy in cold blood according to the Hays Code, so they’d get into a fight on a ledge. Gravity did the dirty work. But Daine was smart enough to grab hold of you. I remembered Professor Moriarty dragging Sherlock Holmes into the Reichenbach Falls. Gravity didn’t give two bits for typecasting. And Daine must always have identified with the Napoleon of crime.

We looked for a taxicab. One happened to turn up. That was one thing about the City I could get used to. Whatever you wanted just happened to turn up. There was very little waiting around, and then only to build up suspense.

Maybe I should just stay in my tank, and make the most of the City. It wasn’t so much worse than the world.

Suddenly I felt middle-aged, and I’m nearer thirty than forty. I wondered what Lissa was doing exactly now? I was supposed to be over thinking things like that. At the time, what Lissa and I did was supposed to be a trial separation. Now it felt a whole lot like being got rid of. The last I heard, she was working with one of the fleshwear houses, designing facial alterations.

Susan flagged down the cab. I opened the door for her. She hesitated – remembering something? – but got in.

‘The Temple of Turhan Bey,’ I said to the pretty girl in the front seat, a blonde under her cap. ‘And five bucks for every traffic law you violate getting there.’

T
hey faded in again outside the Temple of Turhan Bey. Susan felt ill, but Tunney helped her stay on her feet. She couldn’t help liking the man. Now he was out of his Richie Quick fugue, he seemed to have a perspective on the City. He knew how things worked, but wasn’t about to be deceived again.

The temple was a squat, two-storey structure, encrusted with oriental tat. A small, thin idol sat cross-legged on a dais outside, a third eye peering through a hole cut in the rim of its fez. The idol was jetstone, but the eye was alive and wet. That must be the Great God Turhan Bey itself.

Susan looked around. They were in an oriental district. Coolies shuffled past them. A store across the street, still open, was selling overdecorated ornamental fans. Probably a front for a drug dealer. The taxicab had gone before Tunney could pay off the driver.

‘Oh no,’ Tunney murmured. ‘Chinatown.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Forget it, kid. Bad memories is all.’

His voice had gone again, his natural accent changing into Richie Quick’s imitation Bogart drawl. But she could tell he was doing it for effect, he was still himself. In fact, he was getting a stronger grip on himself as he went along. Susan hoped she was too, but feared it wasn’t so. Tunes pulled at the hems of her train of thought.

A Chinese waif slipped by, knife in hand. She blew a kiss to Tunney, and scampered up a wall like a spider.