When we were inside the chapel and Irv was ready to roll Artie put on a yarmulke and said Kaddish: ‘Yiskaddal ve’yizkaddash she’may rabboh …’ The words had the colours of strangeness and the strangeness was heightened by the guttural sound. It was as if Irv were all dressed up in Jewishness for his final disappearance. We watched the coffin slide through the doors. No music, just the hum of the mechanism. See you, Irv.
The next day we collected the ashes. When we got back to my place I threw out the plastic urn and put them in a biscuit tin.
‘It might take me a couple of days to get the next part sorted,’ said Artie.
‘Where at sea are we going to scatter the ashes?’ I asked him.
‘Knock John,’ he said.
‘What’s Knock John?’
Artie handed me a postcard. ‘It’s a sandbank in the Thames Estuary,’ he said, ‘and that thing you’re looking at is a derelict World War Two fort that was built there.’
‘I guess it must have meant something to him.’
‘Must have. I’ll ring you up when I know more.’
I pictured the Thames Estuary: grey water widening to the sea. The fort in the picture looked sad in the postcard sunlight, pale and faded, a gunless platform standing on two hollow legs that were the round towers where the crew had lived. It looked haunted. I imagined the creaking cries of gulls wheeling over it but there’d be nothing to eat so they probably wouldn’t. I guess we all have oceans in our minds. Now Irv was all gone, all his days and years and the oceans in his mind.
And in the meantime there were two Justines out there and I’d probably have to deal with one of them pretty soon. The last I saw of J Two she was snoring away in a chair at my place but she woke up and saw Irv standing over her ready to knock her out of the park with my Louisville Slugger. She did a real vampire snarl, sent us both sprawling, and was gone. We were bound to meet again one way or another. I thought I’d go looking for her before she came looking for me.
I picked up the Louisville Slugger and took a good grip. It was made of ash, thirty-three inches long, and it was thirty-four ounces of eraser. I could feel the power of it coursing up my arms. I didn’t want to be seen cruising the streets with a baseball bat so I wrapped it in brown paper with one end left open for a quick draw. It wouldn’t quite pass for a french bread but it would have to do. I thought I might have a look-in at Gaby’s Deli and thereabouts. At first I was pretty scared thinking of what would happen when we met but then it came to me that I was just as dangerous as the one I was hunting. Maybe more so.
The bat had been left behind a long time ago by an old boyfriend who was over here for a while, Jerry Benson. He went back to his wife in Poughkeepsie eventually. We used to play softball on Sundays in Hyde Park with some of the Americans he knew. ‘You’re a sucker for those high outside pitches,’ he told me. ‘If you have to reach for the ball you probably won’t get any wood on it and even if you connect you won’t have enough power in your swing.’ OK, Jerry, I thought, I’ll tell her to come at me right over the plate and not too high.
I went slowly down Berwick to Broadwick, pausing every now and then to look around the way they do in cop films. This was a Thursday night, fairly quiet with a little rain. The Blue Posts looked warm and welcoming, a safe haven from the cares of the world. Certainly a peaceful pint in there would be a lot nicer than walking around with a baseball bat. I can’t even remember the last time I was in a pub; I feel more lonely in cosy surroundings, I’m more comfortable drinking alone.
As I headed east on Broadwick towards Wardour Street I had one of those moments when I don’t know who or what I am, don’t know what’s looking out through my eyeholes. I stopped under a street lamp and took my bit of The Heart Sutra out of my shirt pocket. ‘“Here, O Sariputra,”’ I read,
‘Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.’
‘OK?’ I said to myself. ‘Are we straight now?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I answered. ‘Straight is crooked and the very crookedness is straight. Let’s just get it done.’
‘I have a thing for older women,’ said some drunk who came weaving towards me.
‘And I have a thing for creeps,’ I said, easing the bat half-way out of its brown paper. He disappeared.
Very lively night in Wardour Street, lots of people, flashing blue lights, and two fire engines outside the Pizzeria Bar. Past The Intrepid Fox and its rock music, a batwinged gargoyle over the door but not enough rain to make water come out of its mouth.
Down Wardour Street to Old Compton with its melancholy gaiety and The Admiral Duncan where some anti-gay planted a nail bomb a while back. PLAY 2 WIN with nobody looking like a winner. Lion City and Lesbian & Gay Accommodation Outlet. Now that Old Compton Street is famous as a gay centre I think it’s become more of a tourist trap than anything else. Bugbug pedicabs cruising for business. Form and emptiness and Grace Kowalski with a baseball bat. Mamma Mia! still playing at the Prince Edward.
Charing Cross Road then and Cambridge Circus, the Palace Theatre and Les Misérables. By now I wasn’t paying much attention to what I passed and what passed me. I could feel myself getting closer to what was waiting for me, and Charing Cross Road with all its lights and colours became a long darkness where the Leicester Square tube station appeared after a while, then Wyndhams where Dinner was flaunting its reviews. I’d intended to look in at Gaby’s Deli but something was pulling me towards Cecil Court so I went with it and turned left at Café Uno. The paving was glistening under the lamps and the darkness funnelled me forward.
There she was, leaning against the Watkins window and crying. ‘You don’t know,’ she said, ‘you just don’t know.’
I was close enough to smell her toad breath. ‘That’s how it is,’ I said,‘I’m sorry.’When she saw me take the bat out of the brown paper she came at me right over the plate and I took a really good swing. THWOCK! Her head flew off across the court and a jet of blood shot up from her neck. I heard the head bounce off the building opposite as the body went to black-and-white, then flattened out, then vanished with a little sound like the ghost of a belch. I looked for the head but that was gone too. No blood anywhere on the ground. Nothing at all left of J Two. ‘That’s all she wrote,’ I said, and walked home in the rain.
42
Artie Nussbaum
6 February 2004. A Google search came up with an outfit called BayBlast that operates in the Thames Estuary. They have a 6-metre Valiant DR600, that’s a rigid inflatable boat with a 150hp Mercury Optimax engine. We can get a train to Whistable where they’ll pick us up, take us out to Knock John, and have us back in two hours, weather permitting. That should give Irv an exciting ride before he gets scattered.
43
Detective Inspector Hunter
6 February 2004. Rachael Darling. I still think of her as Rose Harland. I haven’t dreamt about her for a while; maybe she’s at peace although I’m not.
No new bloodless corpses. Still two Justines out there and no leads whatever. Where did they come from? Goodman and Kowalski said I wouldn’t believe their story and of course I didn’t. I can suspend a fair amount of disbelief but I draw the line at vampires made out of magnetised particles. Whoever and wherever they are, they can run and they can hide but sooner or later I’ll catch up with them.
44
Grace Kowalski
8 February 2004 Artie rang me up and told me about his plans for scattering the ashes but I said let’s not scatter Irv in the winter when it’s all cold and grey and raining, let’s do it in the spring or maybe summer. Irv won’t mind waiting a little.
I’ve got him on a shelf in my studio. Sometimes I hold the biscuit tin in my lap and have a drink while I talk to him. ‘What’s a month or two between friends?’ I say. ‘This is Grace talking to you,
Irv. Linger awhile, OK?’
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the persons listed below whose good will and cooperation helped me with this story.
The behaviour of Detective Inspector Hunter and other members of the police in this novel is mostly non-regulation. The same applies to the medical examiner, his assistant, and the mortuary technician. In order to ground the extravagances of my fiction in fact I was allowed, through the courtesy of Superintendent Heather Valentine, to visit Hammersmith police station where Inspector Steve Tysoe kindly showed me around and explained custodial procedure. Anthony Berry of Scotland Yard very patiently helped me with police terminology and organisational detail.
Mortuary technician David Webber was my guide at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital mortuary.
Irean Pazook, of Regent Palace Hotel Reception, and Eden Parvus, Security Manager, gave me access to the room where the fictional Ralph Darling stayed.
Carol Lee gave me jewellery-making details.
Brom Hoban instructed me in the process by which Istvan Fallok isolated the video image of Justine Trimble.
Jake Hoban accompanied me on Grace Kowalski’s walk through Soho to the fateful confrontation in Cecil Court.
Gundula Hoban, as always, helped me with all kinds of London detail.
Katherine Greenwood rescued me from a multitude of errors and put in hours well beyond the call of duty.
I find it impossible to stop writing, and I hope that Liz Calder, my publisher, may be forgiven for supporting my addiction.
They All Laughed
Music and Lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
© 1936, 1937 (renewed 1963, 1964) Chappell & Co. Inc., USA
Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London w6 8BS
Lyrics reproduced by permission of IMP Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Far Side Banks of Jordan
Words and Music by Terry Smith
© 1975 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., USA
Warner/Chappell North America Ltd, London w6 8BS
Lyrics reproduced by permission of IMP Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Haunted Heart
Words by Howard Dietz
Music by Arthur Schwartz
© 1948 (renewed) Chappell & Co. Inc., USA
Warner/Chappell North America Ltd, London w6 8BS
Lyrics reproduced by permission of IMP Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Tweedle-O-Twill
Words and Music by Gene Autry and Fred Rose
© 1942 (renewed) Gene Autry’s Western Music Publishing and Sony/ATV Songs LLC
All rights for Sony/ATV Songs LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203
All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission
Lines from ‘Memory’ are from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats,
published by Wordsworth Editions. Reproduced by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael B. Yeats
Lines from ‘Them Poems’ are reproduced by permission of Mason Williams
A Note on the Author
Russell Hoban (1925-2011) was the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Angelica Lost and Found and his masterpiece, Riddley Walker. He also wrote some classic books for children including The Mouse and his Child and the Frances books. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA, he lived in London from 1969 until his death.
By the Same Author
NOVELS
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
Kleinzeit
Turtle Diary
Riddley Walker
Pilgermann
The Medusa Frequency
Fremder
Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer
Angelica’s Grotto
Amaryllis Night and Day
The Bat Tattoo
Her Name Was Lola
Come Dance With Me
Linger Awhile
My Tango with Barbara Strozzi
Angelica Lost and Found
POETRY
The Pedalling Man
The Last of the Wallendas and Other Poems
COLLECTIONS
The Moment Under the Moment
FOR CHILDREN
The Mouse and His Child
The Frances Books
The Trokeville Way
First published in Great Britain 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Russell Hoban
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
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eISBN: 978 14088 3574 6
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