Waiting for Godalming (4 page)

“So,” says I, when we’ve comfied ourselves, “what’s the deal here, fella?”

“My name is—”

“Cormerant,” says I.

“Cormerant,” says he. “And I work for—”

“The Ministry of Serendipity,” says I.

“The Ministry of Serendipity,” says he. “And I …”

I paused.

“What?”

“What?”

“What are you pausing for?” says he.

“I wasn’t pausing,” says I. “I was waiting for you to continue. You paused first.”

“Well, you kept interrupting.”

“I wasn’t interrupting. I was anticipating.”

“That’s the same as interrupting, if you butt in. That’s interrupting.”

I leaned across the table and beckoned the guy towards me. As he leaned forward, I butted him right in the face.

He fell back gasping and clawing at his bloodied nose.

“What did you do that for?” he mumbled, pulling out an oversized red gingham handkerchief to dab at all the gore.

“I just wanted to clear up a matter of semantics,” says I. “
That
was
butting
. I was
anticipating
.”

Naturally he thanked me.

He got us in another brace of beers and then explained his situation. Clearly, without pause. Apparently he wanted to engage my services as a private investigator in order that I might track down a briefcase of his that had gone missing and contained certain items which, if they fell into the wrong hands, or even the right ones, might spell doom to this world of ours in any one of at least eleven different languages.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” says I.

He counted on his fingers. “Yes, you’re right,” says he. “
Twelve
different languages, including Esperanto.”

“Just as I thought.”

“And so I came to you,” says the guy. “Because I’ve heard you’re the best.”

“You heard right,” says I. “So, do you want to tell me
exactly
what’s really in this briefcase of yours?”

The guy gave his head the shake that meant, “No.”

“Well how’s about telling me the last place you saw it?”

“Do you know Stravino’s barber’s shop?”

I pointed to my crowning glory. “What does this tell you?” I asked.

“It tells me that you asked for a Ramón Navarro.”

“Precisely, and what did I get?”

“You got a Tony Curtis.”

The guy and I chewed fat for a while and then he took his leave. I returned to the bar to find Fangio shuffling cards.

“Pick a card, any card,” says he.

“Three of spades,” says I.

“Correct,” says he. “But how did you know?”

“Let’s call it intuition.”

“Fair enough,” said Fangio. “I was going to call it Rush the Flush, but Intuition is better. So how did you get on with Mr Cormerant? Are you going to take the case?”

I nodded in the infirmary. Wherever the hell that was. “He gave me a thousand big ones up front.”

Fangio seemed lost for words. “I’m lost for words,” he said.

“The guy left his briefcase in Stravino’s, where it was apparently lifted by some petty criminal. It shouldn’t be too hard to track it down.”

“Stravino’s the barber’s shop?” said Fangio.

“You know the place?” says I.

Fangio pointed to his head. “What does this say to you?” says he.

“It says to me that you have a big fat head,” says I.

“Precisely,” said Fangio. “Precisely.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, my friends. You’re thinking, how come this Lazlo Woodbine, a man clearly possessed of a mind like a steel trapper’s snap-trap, hasn’t seen the glaring continuity error here? Surely he’s in a bar in Manhattan and Stravino’s shop is in South Ealing High Street many miles far to the east.

Well, hey, come on now.

You’re dealing with a professional here. A master of the genre. And though I might have said it was another long hot Manhattan night, that didn’t necessarily mean that it
was
night or that it was
actually
in Manhattan. Like I told you, I work only the four locations, but if all my four locations were permanently in Manhattan, that would seriously limit my scope of operations, and as you only ever see the interior of Fangio’s bar, it could be anywhere. Like, say, at the end of South Ealing High Street, near to the Station Hotel.

“Remember the time it was in Casablanca?” says Fangio. “Some laughs we had then, eh, Laz?”

“Shut your face, fat boy,” says I.

“Will you be settling your tab now? What with you having a thousand big ones up front?”

I gave my head the kind of shake you couldn’t buy for a dollar. And I took a look at the big bar clock that hung up on the wall. And then I gazed along the bar to where the little brown men with hats on sat, a-strumming at their ukes. And then I peered up at the ceiling where the bumblies hung and the ghost of Christmas past had once appeared to Fangio. And then I glanced down at the floor and then I peeped out of the window.

“Something on your mind?” asked Fangio.

“I’m just wondering where she is.”

“Who’s
she
?”

“The dame that does me wrong. The one who always bops me over the head at this point, so that I tumble down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. She should have shown up by now.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Fange. “She phoned earlier. Said she wouldn’t be in this lunchtime.
[4]
Sent her apologies.”

“What?”

“She said that she has to go and bop some other detective over the head today. Some tormented detective with a drink problem and a broken marriage, who’s coming to terms with a tragedy that happened in his youth, and reaching out to his feminine side.”

“
What?”

“
She said that the nineteen-fifties American genre detective is now an anachronism and an anathema. The stuff of cheap pulp fiction. She’s moved right upmarket now. Gone all fancy and post-modern.”

“WHAT?”

“So it looks like you’re out on your own this time, Laz. Or should that be
in
on your own? Because unless you can get someone else to bop you on the head, I can’t see how you’ll be able to stick with your genre and do things the way that things should be done. After all, the bopping over the head business is a big number with you genre detective lads, isn’t it?”

“
WHAT?”

“
Laz, will you let up on the WHATing already? You’re giving me a migraine.”

“But what am I going to do?” I asked. “She can’t do this to me. I’m Lazlo Woodbine! Lazlo Woodbine! Some call me Laz. She can’t just abandon me. Leave me stuck in a bar. This could be the greatest case of my whole career. The Big One. You gotta help me, Fange. What am I gonna do?”

“Well.” The fat boy scratched at his gut. “We might come to some arrangement.”

“What?” I kept my what small this time.

“We’re old pals; I might be prepared to do you a favour.”

“Go on then,” says I.

“Well,” the fat boy scratched at his gut again, “I don’t think you’ll find that it has to be a dame that does you wrong who bops you on the head. It could be anyone.”

“Anyone?”

“It could even be me.”

“You?
You
would bop me over the head? But why would
you
want to bop me over the head?”

“Like I say, we might come to some arrangement. Lend us your ear and I’ll whisper.”

I lent Fangio my ear and he whispered. “That’s outrageous,” I exasperated, once his whispering was done.

“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

I sighed deeply. “I’ll take it,” says I.

“Look out behind you,” cried Fangio.

I turned and then something hit me from behind.

And I was falling.

Tumbling down.

Down. Down.

Deeper and down.

Into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

Yes siree.

By golly.

If Icarus Smith had been sitting on the other side of the Station Hotel’s scarlet bar and diner, the side that faced to the lower end of the high street, he would have seen Mr Cormerant leaving Fangio’s bar, after his meeting with Lazlo Woodbine.

He would have seen Mr Cormerant muttering to himself and dabbing at his nose with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. He would have seen Mr Cormerant stumbling across the street, narrowly avoiding death beneath the wheels of a speeding Ford Fiesta.

And finally he would have seen Mr Cormerant struggling into the back of one of those sinister long dark automobiles with the blacked out windows, which are positively
de rigueur
with the upmarket criminal fraternity, to be ferried back to the Ministry of Serendipity.

But as Icarus was sitting on the other side of the bar, he saw none of those things.

Had he seen them, and indeed had he been able to follow Mr Cormerant back to the Ministry and stick his ear close to the door of a top secret chamber, he would have heard Mr Cormerant get another sound telling off for losing the briefcase, before being complimented for his good sense in employing the world’s greatest private eye to search for it. He would then have heard Mr Cormerant being informed that
certain agencies
had already been despatched, to seek out the petty criminal who had apparently lifted the case from Stravino’s and see to it that he came to a most unpleasant but suitably spectacular end. But Icarus did not hear any of these things. Which may, or may not, have been for the best.

With a trembly hand, Icarus Smith removed the cassette tape from the Dictaphone. Having managed, with some difficulty, to slide it into the top pocket of his jacket, he snatched up the Dictaphone, flung it back into the briefcase, closed and locked the lid. And then sat at his table, quivering somewhat and staring into space.

Now Icarus knew the scenario, every moviegoer did. It had been used again and again on the big screen in crime thrillers and science fiction thrillers and even science fantasy thrillers, in fact in pretty much every kind of thriller that there ever was. It was simple and succinct, and this is how it went.

Petty criminal steals something really important without realizing that it is. Case of drugs, or money belonging to gang-lord, advanced military microchip, mega-dangerous virus, Ford Fiesta with alien corpse in the boot. Tick where applicable.

Then, early on in the plot, the petty criminal comes to a most unpleasant but suitably spectacular end, before the hero, in the shape of the detective, arrives on the scene in search of the stolen something.

It was hardly an original scenario, but it had been tried and tested and found to work very well indeed.

Icarus recalled the movie version of
Death Wears a Blue Sombrero
[5]
in which small time crook Andy Challis, played by Tom Hanks, steals a patent leather clutch bag from a prostitute played by Meg Ryan. The bag contains a doorway to another dimension and poor old Tom gets sucked through it into oblivion, several scenes before the hero, in the shape of Laz, played on this occasion most unconvincingly by Leonardo di Caprio,
[6]
arrives to solve the case.

The small time crook
always
came to a hideous end. It was a great Hollywood tradition. Hollywood knew its own business best and who was Icarus to argue?

“I’m in serious trouble here,” mumbled Icarus Smith. “Although …”

Although?

“Although.” Icarus began to smile.

To smile?

“Just let me think about this.”

Icarus gave the matter some thought. Some deep and serious thought. Surely, he thought, in a deep and serious manner, this can be no accident. Surely, this tape did not fall into my hand through mere chance alone. The nature of my game is instinctiveness. To become aware of something and then to relocate it. If I have acquired this cassette tape, then there must be some reason why. And think about it, just think about what’s on this tape. A man is being tortured and he dies because of something he has discovered. A drug, created from a formula given to him by a pattern of flowers. A drug designed to create the human computer, which instead opened the man’s eyes and allowed him to see something incredible. Something terrifying.

“To see things as they really are. And people as they really are. The ones who actually
are
people. And the ones who aren’t.”

This was big. This was
very
big. This had to be a part of the Big Picture.

And what else had the dying man said to his tormentor?

“You’ll never find the drug. But someone will and that someone will learn the truth and they’ll put paid to you and your kind. That someone will change the world for ever. That someone will make things right.”

“That someone is me,” whispered Icarus Smith. “I must find this drug and I must take it and then I will be the one to change the world.”

It had to be so. Well, to Icarus it did. To Icarus this could not be one of Stravino’s “caprices of fate”. To Icarus, it was a case of “I am the Chosen One”. And, as history has proved most conclusively, it can be a difficult matter arguing with a man who believes that he is the Chosen One.

“There can be no doubt,” whispered Icarus Smith. “The tape was meant to fall into my possession. It is my destiny to change the world for ever.”

And so with all this thought and said, Icarus set to reopening the briefcase. His hands shook only slightly now, and this from excitement rather than fear. Icarus rubbed these hands together and then began to rifle through the contents of the case.

Disregarding the leather briefs, the packed lunch and the Dictaphone, he addressed his attention to a wad of papers and a notebook bound in a curious hide.

Firstly the papers. Icarus leafed through these. They bore the letter heading of the Ministry of Serendipity, and appeared to be interdepartmental memos, concerning the staff canteen and the poor selection of food on offer.

“Hence the packed lunch,” said Icarus Smith.

The notebook, however, was of considerable interest. There were two stains on its front cover. The first appeared to be marmalade but the second looked like blood. Icarus opened the book and then went ah.

“Addresses,” said Icarus Smith.

On the flyleaf of the book were printed the words:

This book is the property of

Prof. Bruce Partington

Wisteria Lodge

Shoscombe Old Place

Brentford.

“Aha,” said Icarus. “No doubt the tortured soul himself. But let’s just check.” He dug into a jacket pocket and brought to light the relocated wallet. Flipping this open, he observed a Ministry of Serendipity security card made out to one Arkus Cormerant. The photo displayed the face of the chap in Stravino’s. The erstwhile “owner” of the briefcase.

“Yes,” said Icarus. “And I recognized your voice on the cassette tape. It was you who spoke at the end and said, ‘Save your breath on him, he’s dead.’”

Icarus returned the wallet to his pocket.

“Rjght,” said he. “Let’s have a little action.”

But before Icarus has a little action, indeed a very great deal of action, let us speak a little regarding the living hero of Icarus Smith. This is best done now, rather than later, because later it would only interfere with the action. And also because it will demonstrate just how the particular endeavours of this particular hero influence the forthcoming actions of Icarus Smith.

The hero of Icarus Smith is a master criminal, wanted in several countries.

His name was, and is, a secret known to only a few, but as his best-known pseudonym is the Reverend Jim de Licious, we shall know him by this name alone.

Jim originally worked at Fudgepacker’s Emporium, a prophouse in Brentford which supplied theatrical properties to the film and TV industries, and it was there that he got the original idea for his crimes. Fudgepacker’s hired out all kinds of stuff, mostly Victoriana, but had certain items in stock that other prophouses didn’t, and amongst these was a full-sized fibreglass replica of a post box.

This used to get hired out again and again for street scenes in movies, and the thing about it was that it looked so convincing that when filming finished it inevitably got left behind on the street corner where it had been placed while the scene was being shot and the prop man would have to go back the next day and pick it up to return it to Fudgepacker’s.

And nearly every time this happened, the prop man would find that the post box was half full of letters. You see, people thought it was a real post box and it never occurred to them that it hadn’t been there the week before, so they posted their letters into it.

This gave the Reverend Jim an idea. It was a dishonest idea, but it was a good’un. The Reverend Jim took to hiring the post box himself. He told Mr Fudgepacker that he did amateur dramatics and Mr Fudgepacker let him hire the post box at a discount. The Rev would leave the post box on a likely street corner for a few days, then pick it up in a van in the early hours of the morning and help himself to the contents.

You’d be surprised just how many postal orders and indeed how much paper money people post.

But it was a pretty heartless crime, because a lot of these postal orders and paper money were being posted off to kids as birthday presents and Jim didn’t feel too good about nicking stuff from children.

But he did see the potential.

The prop telephone box that Fudgepacker had in stock was another goody. It looked just like the real thing. It even had the phone and the coin box and everything. And nicking cash from a phonebox is hardly an evil crime, is it?

So the Rev took to hiring the telephone box and setting it up beside a row of other telephone boxes and collecting it after a few days and helping himself to the money in the cash box, which people had put in before realizing that the phone didn’t work and using one of the others. Well, he couldn’t keep hiring this week after week without rousing suspicion.

But he did see the potential.

There are other prophouses, you see. Prophouses that specialize in other items required by the film industry. There are those that hire out weapons. Those that hire out costumes. And those that hire out vehicles.

The one that hires out vehicles has an AA pickup truck in stock. It’s not a real AA pickup truck; it’s just been painted up to look like one. It does look very convincing, though.

The Reverend Jim was making quite a lot of money from the telephone box and he’d taken the lease on a lock-up garage, where he used to take the box and empty it. It occurred to him that he might branch out into car theft. And that if he was going to do so, he might as well start at the top end of the market and rip off a Rolls-Royce.

It’s remarkable really. If you tried to break into a Rolls-Royce and drive it away, people would look. People would see you. People would call the police. But if you arrive with an AA pickup truck and simply tow the Roller away, people don’t even seem to notice.

Those who do, usually laugh. Well, there’s nothing more pleasing than a broken down Rolls-Royce, is there? It’s nice to see that even rich blighters come unstuck once in a while.

The Reverend Jim would rip off a Roller a week with the hired out AA pickup truck and he probably would have been content with that. He’d made an underworld connection, which was hardly too difficult a thing to do, if you were brought up in the kind of neighbourhood where Jim was brought up. The Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of Brentford. And this partner in crime was selling the Rollers on to Arabs and the money was pretty good. But one day, when he was returning the AA pickup truck to the prophouse that hired out the vehicles, he spied a new vehicle that they had in stock.

The prophouse had mocked it up for a crime thriller movie about a bullion robbery. The vehicle in question was a Securicor van.

The Reverend Jim was not slow to realize the potential of this particular vehicle. And of course there were those other prophouses. The ones that hired out costumes. So the uniforms wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The Reverend Jim took a week off work. He followed a real Securicor van around. Mapping its routes and logging the times at its various ports of call.

The following week he hired the van and the costumes and he and his partner in crime did the rounds, arriving ten minutes earlier than the real van.

It was a masterstroke.

And once they’d emptied the contents of the bogus van into the lock-up, they returned it and the costumes to the respective prophouses and then drove back to the lock-up in another hired van to pick up the loot and carry it far far away.

And were promptly arrested by the police.

Well, almost.

It was
that
close.

They were returning to the lock-up when they saw the police cars. The police had the lock-up surrounded: pretty quick work, thought Jim. Far too quick, in fact. It occurred to him that the police had probably been tipped off about all the Rollers that had been going in and out and that they’d get quite a surprise when they opened the lock-up and discovered all the newly stolen bullion.

This was just an unfortunate coincidence. A caprice of fate. Jim was pretty rattled seeing all those police cars there, but also felt somewhat proud that he had had the foresight to hire the sort of van he had hired, with which to carry his loot so far far away.

This particular van was a mock police van.

Jim had hired the police uniforms and everything.

Well, let’s face it. The police, once alerted to the robbery, would be looking for a bogus Securicor van, not a police van.

Jim got a real kick out of having real policemen help him and his partner load up the van with all the stolen booty.

He told a friend about this over the phone.

Jim was living in Spain at the time.

The Reverend Jim’s present whereabouts are unknown. But at least two further crimes committed in this country have his unique stamp on them.

The first one was the great art robbery.