Soma Blues

by Robert Sheckley

  “I want to buy paintings,” the dark-haired South American man said. “I am Arranque.”

  He was a medium-sized, burly, dark, black-haired man in a chamois western-cut sports jacket that looked as if it could have cost more than his first-class plane fare from Caracas. It was difficult for the salespeople in Posonby’s to get an impression of the man because all eyes were on the sports coat. The coat was all the more remarkable in that it was one of the earliest appearances of fawn-and-mauve men’s clothing in London; its first appearance, in fact, since the days of Thomas the Tailor, as told in the newly discovered text addenda to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

  The man himself was worth noticing, however, immediately after the coat, since the man had presumably bought the coat and therefore had access to top tailoring. Arranque had a broad, glowering face set off by a small mustache. He wore boots made from the skins of an extinct species of reptile. An emerald glittered on his finger, just below the popped knuckle. He brought a breath of refreshing vulgarity to the dark and proper art gallery.

  His first words, addressed to Christopher, the nervous young clerk who inquired as to his wishes, were, again, “I want to buy paintings.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Christopher. “What kind of paintings, sir?”

  “That is secondary. What I need is fifty-five yards’ worth of paintings.”

  Christopher’s lower jaw dropped in a really theatrical gawp. “I’m afraid we don’t sell paintings by the yard, sir. Not in Posonby’s.”

  “What do you mean?” Arranque said.

  “A painting, sir, you see, is a qualitative thing and therefore …”

  Nigel came rushing in just then. He was just back from San Isidro, had just bused in from the airport. He dropped his light suitcase near the door and strode in majestically.

  “That will be all, Christopher,” Nigel said. “I will look after Señor Arranque personally.”

  “Yes, sir,” Christopher said. “Thank you, sir,” he added, as he realized that he had almost killed a sale and had therefore jeopardized his own job.

  “Señor Arranque?” Nigel said. “I am sorry to be late. My plane just arrived. May I give you some coffee?”

  Nigel escorted Arranque to Derek’s office. He made sure the client was comfortably seated. Luckily enough Derek’s thirty-year-old port was in its usual position, and the box of Havanas was where it was supposed to be. He sent Christopher out for coffee and adjusted the big Italian ceramic ashtray on Derek’s desk until it was just to his liking.

  “Now, sir,” Nigel said, “let me just be clear about this. All Mr. Santos told me was that you were seeking to acquire a group of paintings in a hurry. He did not go into specifics. Might I inquire as to what you require?”

  “I am glad you get straight to the point,” Arranque said. “I need exactly fifty-five yards of paintings for my new hotel, and I need them almost immediately.” He made an imperious gesture with his right hand.

  “Quite,” Nigel said. “Let me just be sure I understand the position. Are you seeking to purchase paintings in the length of fifty-five yards, or do you want paintings whose combined area equals fifty-five square yards?”

  “No, I mean the first, the length,” Arranque said. “I have fifty-five yards of hallway to cover, and I want paintings on them. Not squeezed together tight, but spaced let’s say a couple of inches apart. How many paintings would I need to cover fifty-five yards?”

  “Depends,” Nigel said. “Is that fifty-five yards to one leg of the corridor, or have you doubled the length to have pictures on both legs?”

  “I’ve doubled them, of course. What do you take me for?”

  “I just wanted to make sure we were both talking about the same thing. You’d want these pictures framed, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  Nigel made a meaningless squiggle on a scratch pad he found on Derek’s desk. “And spaced apart?”

  “Spaced apart a few inches, I should think,” Arranque said. “Though I’m no expert in these matters.”

  “But your instincts are perfectly sound,” Nigel said. “Let’s see.” He found pencil and paper and began to make calculations. “Let’s say we put up one oil painting not to exceed two feet in width in every yard space. That would allow space between them and come to approximately fifty-five paintings, though you might want a few more just to be on the safe side.”

  “Fifty-five paintings for fifty-five yards. Yes, that sounds right,” Arranque said.

  Nigel wrote down figures. “You’re quite sure it’s fifty-five yards? Shame to get the paintings all the way back to South America and find you’ve undercalculated.”

  “Fifty-five yards,” Arranque said. “I walked off the distance myself. And they’re going to my new hotel in Ibiza.”

  Nigel raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “Did you take into account both sides of the corridors?”

  Arranque’s face screwed up and he snarled an oath in Spanish that was old when Simon Bolivar was still a babe in swaddling clothes. “You’re right, I forgot to count both sides! You have good grasp, señor.”

  Nigel replied in his graceful Spanish, employing the complimentary mode. Then he got back to business. “And does this number include paintings for the individual rooms?”

  “¡Caramba! I forgot that, too. There are two hundred and twelve rooms. Each room will need two paintings, one for the bedroom and one for the sitting room.”

  “Yes, that would be the minimum,” Nigel said. “All right, that adds up to four hundred and twenty-four paintings just for the rooms. Agreed?”

  Arranque nodded.

  “So we have now a total of five hundred thirty-four paintings, then. If they are no more than two feet wide.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  Nigel said, “That depends, of course, Señor Arranque. As you are no doubt aware, paintings differ greatly in price.”

  “I am aware of that,” Arranque said. “I also know one can buy indifferent framed copies for as low as ten or twenty dollars a painting. I have seen such things in the big department stores in Caracas. But I don’t want that. I pretend to no knowledge in this regard, but I do have my criteria. I want all my paintings to be originals by European artists whose names appear in at least two reliable art books. They needn’t be famous, but they should be recognized as being of merit, or whatever it is second-rate painters are noted for. Everything must be correct in my new hotel. I must also have the reference books and be able to show the names to any who may be skeptical.”

  “A sound way. Experts are paid to be right.”

  “I am prepared to pay fifty thousand dollars for this if the paintings meet my standards.”

  Nigel nodded and decided to take the plunge. “Frankly, that’s a little low, I’m afraid.”

  Arranque looked annoyed. “I’m not going to sit here and bargain like a peasant in the marketplace. I’ll go to one hundred thousand, but not one cent more. And the paintings must be delivered to my hotel in Ibiza immediately, where I will look them over. If I feel they are suitable for my hotel, I will purchase them immediately.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then you can take them back to London.”

  Nigel shook his head. “If you should decline to purchase them, our pictures will have been off the market for a period of time when they could have been sold. And we will also be out our insurance costs, freighting, air fares, and so on.”

  “I will pay two thousand dollars deposit on my purchase,” Arranque said. “Or pounds, if you prefer. If I fail to buy, the money will reimburse you your time and expenses.”

  “That seems all right,” Nigel said. England in general, and Europe in particular, was filled with oils by painters whose names could be found in at least two standard reference books, available at Posonby’s, and whose vile daubings could be bought from ten pounds and up—but not too far up in most cases. Posonby stood to make a nice profit from this.

  Arranque stood up. “Mr. Wheaton, som
ething about you tells me you have been a military man.”

  Nigel smiled negligently. “Still shows, does it? Doesn’t mean a damn thing, old boy. I’m a civvie now.”

  “I feel a bond between us. Will you pick out my paintings personally?”

  “It will be my pleasure,” Nigel said, thinking of several Glucks he could buy for about fifteen pounds a square yard, and a couple of Meyerbeers for even less.

  “And bring them yourself and arrange to have them hung. I have confidence in you.”

  Nigel had heard that before. People had confidence in him. But that didn’t make him a confidence man. At least, he hoped not. He was going to make plenty of money for Hob and the agency on the Santos deal; who could begrudge him this amusing little extra windfall?

  “And then?” Hob asked.

  “Then he accompanied the paintings to Ibiza,” Derek said. “We crated them up and he accompanied the truck to South-hampton. Took the boat to Bilbao and Gibraltar and then to Ibiza. I suppose they should be arriving just about now. All legal, of course. It was a bit of a calculated risk. We didn’t know if Arranque was doped up or crazy when he made that purchase. Nigel should have secured his check in advance. If that were possible. As it is, we almost stopped the deal. Too chancy. But Nigel insisted he could handle it, and so we sent him off with the paintings. Didn’t we, Christopher?”

  “Indeed we did, sir,” Christopher said, pushing back the shock of blond hair from his eyes. “He even insisted on a new wardrobe.”

  “In case he calls around,” Derek said, “how can he get in touch with you?”

  Hob felt that exasperation he so often felt when dealing with Nigel’s vagaries. But there seemed to be a goodly amount of money involved for the agency, and that was all to the good. He just hoped Nigel knew what he was doing. Nigel didn’t, often. Hob gave Derek the address and telephone number of his friend Lorne in Westbourne Grove and left.

  It was midafternoon. Too early to catch a train out to see George. What do detectives do between leads when they’re on a case? Hob went to Picadilly and saw an American detective movie. It was something with a lot of action in it, and it starred people who looked familiar to Hob, though he wasn’t sure what they were famous for. The detective in this one had a lot of trouble because women kept throwing themselves at him, getting in his way just when he was close to solving the case. Hob had never had that sort of trouble with women. He also didn’t usually get shot at as often as this detective in the movie did. Aside from that, they’d gotten it pretty right.

  By the time the movie was over it was time for Hob to head out to George’s house.

  5

  The town of Fredmere Burton was about forty miles due north of London in Buckinghamshire. It was picturesque. Hob hadn’t come there to sightsee, however. He was there to talk to George Wheaton.

  George Wheaton was Nigel’s younger brother, the one who did something or other in Intelligence. Nigel had never said much about George, except to lament his inability to form a good love relationship, which, according to Nigel, was the most important thing in the world, though his own record in this regard was dubious to say the least.

  For the last seven years George had been keeping company with Emily Barnes, his neighbor in Fredmere Burton. She (and her bedridden mother) lived in the next semidetached house on Lancashire Row, the house beside George’s. It wasn’t at all a suitable house for George. He had inherited it and had moved in because it was convenient to the Ministry of Defence, which had recently been relocated to north London.

  Emily was pretty in a faded way, dressed expensively without much style, was usually cheerful but not stupidly so, and had a good sense of humor. She worked at something technical in the Air Ministry. She was much sought after, in a quiet sort of way, and used to have quite a few dates. One month she had lunch in the Last Chance Saloon on Gloucester Road near Old Brompton on four separate occasions, each time with a different young man. It is not recorded what she thought of the rather dubious enchilladas served by that pretenious hamburger palace with its cutesy American-style advertising.

  Emily was certainly not loose in her behavior. Sensible, that’s what people called her. She had a nervous habit of ducking her head when spoken to abruptly, something to do with an experience in Scotland when she was eleven. Quite an odd story. But nothing to do with what was going on, because it was George who was brother to the dear ne’er-do-well Nigel, and therefore it was George that Hob went to with the photograph.

  George was outside gardening. Very little grew in his garden, partly because of the overhanging trees, which couldn’t be cut because lindens were rare in those parts and also because the sun, for reasons best known to itself, during its rare appearances in Buckinghamshire chose to duck behind clouds just when it could have shone over Songways, as George’s cottage had been named by the last parson of Little Kenmore, the village about four miles from George’s cottage in Fredmere Burton.

  The small cottage was typical of the old building style in those parts, with its high-peaked roof of warple tied together with straw inswitches, nearly a lost art in England these days when every lad wanted to go to London and play in a rock band instead of apprenticing to the mind-bogglingly dull and badly-paying crafts of the past. It was almost certain that binding the warple with inswitches would become no more than a memory within the next ten or so years, since the last master of that art, Rufus Blackheen, was now eighty-five years old and bedridden, may God be merciful to his oddly mixed nature. George was not unmoved by the loss of this traditional industry, but though feeling almost everything keenly, he was too inhibited to express anything by changes in his outer demeanor. But by the pained expression on his face, and the suppressed winces with which he responded to leading questions on matters of special concern to him despite his effort to preserve an unmoved countenenance, it was obvious how he felt, since the very contours of his inwardness became a bas relief sort of thing, the details of which by their very smallness telegraphed their absolute and implacable bigness. That George was aware of these matters was evident by the nervous twitch of self-consciousness with which he greeted Hob at his cottage door.

  “Oh, er, how do you do,” George said. “You must be Hob, Nigel’s friend. I believe we met once very briefly at my mother’s birthday party some five years ago.”

  “We did meet on that occasion,” Hob said, “and it was my very great pleasure to make the acquaintance of both you and your mother. I thought she was one classy dame, if you’ll pardon the Americanism.”

  “No offense taken. Do come in, Hob. Do you take tea? Or would you prefer a beer? Or a real drink? Gin?”

  “Tea would be fine,” Hob said, since it was the closest he was apt to come to coffee. Not that coffee wasn’t served in many private homes in England, to say nothing of most restaurants, which of course will serve anything as long as it makes a profit. But all too often it was instant coffee, which the English took to with an alacrity that belied their well-known good taste and intelligence. But we shall say no more on this matter.

  George led Hob inside. Hob found himself in a small, dark living room crowded with tables covered with china cats, and with antiques of many other kinds scattered around the room and masquerading as chairs, couches, chaise longues, and the like. It was a pleasantly English sort of room. That was the first thing that occurred to Hob upon entering it. How English it was, with George walking tall and thin and stoop shouldered ahead of him and the inevitable starling poking a beady eye into the window and an artificial coal fire burning in the grate, or perhaps a real one—it didn’t matter; they both looked the same. George led Hob into the little kitchen, with the gingham curtains and the Toby mugs and the other typically English objects, and put up the kettle and did the other things necessary to produce a cup, actually two cups, of tea in the English manner.

  George was a good sort, but he had none of the electricity of Nigel. And yet you could see a resemblance in the brothers. Like so many of us, they were each
a little potty in a way characteristic of their family. Mrs. Wheaton, their mother, was potty, too, but in such a commanding manner that she was frequently asked to speak at women’s clubs and friends of the library groups on the Importance of Conviction in an Age Without Values.

  “I’ve been wanting to get in touch with you, Hob. I was going to ask Nigel for your address, but he’s been out of touch for quite a while.”

  “I know,” Hob said. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me how to find him.”

  “Oh, dear,” George said. “I had been hoping the same of you. Cream or lemon?”

  “Bit of both, I imagine,” Hob said. “No, wait, I was thinking of Nigel, not the tea.”

  “I thought perhaps that was what you meant,” George said, the faintness of his tone indicating his desire not to give offense. He poured the tea (which had come to a boil and steeped as quickly as it did due to a new process that George, a civil servant whose hobby was inventing, had perfected only last year but had not gotten around to offering to lease or sell to the tea companies through sheer but rather lovable diffidence). Hob added his own sugar, and took lemon rather than cream.

  Since George was interested, and worried about his brother, Hob brought him up to date on this latest investigation of the Alternative Detective Agency. He told him about Stanley Bower in Paris; the man with the emerald ring; his own search in Ibiza for who had seen Bower last; his warning from the South American heavies; his receipt of a money order from Jean-Claude, telling him about a case that Nigel was working on, but not going into details, his inability since then to get in touch with either Jean-Claude or Nigel to clear the matter up, his coming to London; and his plan to see Annabelle.