Soma Blues

by Robert Sheckley

  It had been going on six weeks since George had last seen his brother. Nigel’s mood at that time had not been good. Since both George and Hob were aware of the depressing effect of the loss of his investment in the Mauritanian weapons venture had on Nigel, they didn’t have to dwell on it. And George also knew, as apparently did half of London, about Nigel’s recently successful flogging off of a bunch of mediocre though absolutely genuine European paintings of no great skill, visual appeal, or lineage to an untutored but intuitive (in this case wrongly so) Venezuelan drug dealer. What came after that was more than a little unclear. Nigel had returned to Ibiza, that much was certain, because he had telephoned his brother from Brussels a few days ago. “Can’t talk right now, old boy. Tell Mum I’m absolutely not going to miss her next birthday, and I’ve brought something special for her. I’ll see you both in a few days.

  “And since then?” Hob asked.

  “Nothing.” George hesitated a moment, then said, “Hob, if it would not be out of line, I’d like to offer a word or two of advice. I know that’s frightfully impudent of me, but as you know I work in government, and my sector, insignificant though it is, gets word of goings-on from time to time. Hob, from what you tell me, you’re getting in over your head. This matter of soma is potentially serious, and very dangerous. I beg you to watch yourself.”

  “I’m trying to do just that,” Hob said. “What is bothering me right now is what Nigel is doing in all this. He seems to be working for the man I suspect of killing Stanley Bower. He also seems to have not a clue of what might really be going on.”

  “That bothers me, too, Hob,” George said. “I’ll redouble my efforts to find Nigel. And when you do reach him, or he you, please let me know at once, will you not? I’d also like to know when you hear from Jean-Claude.”

  Hob promised to be in touch as soon as he knew anything from anyone, and left.

  After Hob was gone, George called his chief of operations on the special phone reserved for emergencies. The phone lines were working for a change, and he got through at once. He could picture the long, low room, lit by fluorescents overhead, with its rows of cubbyholes and tiny offices and its second tier of senior personnel upstairs. That’s where the chief would be.

  “Who’s it this time?” the chief asked crossly.

  “It’s me,” George said, cautious as always.

  “Oh. Is this who I think it is?”

  “I think so.”

  “George?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t use my name over the line.”

  “It’s a secure line.”

  “There are no really secure lines.”

  “I suppose not,” the chief grumbled. “Well, if you don’t want to talk to me, what do you want?”

  “I do want to talk to you,” George said. “I suppose I’m being overcautious.” He cleared his throat. “It’s about the soma group we’re keeping track of for Future Developments, sir. You’ve received the recent data I sent you from New York and Paris?”

  “Yes, of course. Damned interesting. We’ve taken note of it. Has something else come through?”

  “As a matter of fact, it has. These soma people are going into full-scale operation very soon. Several more people are implicated, though only marginally.”

  “Why tell me all this, George? You could have sent it in your weekly minute.”

  “I know, sir. But in this case, I thought some immediate action was necessary.”

  “Did I hear you right? George, you know very well that our Future Developments division is purely information collecting and advisery. Our charter strictly prohibits us from engaging in any action whatsoever.”

  “I realize that, sir. As you will remember, I helped draw up the charter guidelines. It was the only way government would let us operate at all.”

  “Well, then?”

  “The situation at the moment is somewhat different. This soma matter is about to begin in a big way.”

  “Well, I suppose you could drop an anonymous word to the relevant police authorities.”

  “No, sir. I want to take a more direct step.”

  “A direct step? George, have you gone mad?”

  “I hope not, sir. But the fact is, I have family involved in this soma matter. My brother, Nigel, to be precise. Inadvertently on his part, but involved nonetheless. His employer, the Alternative Detective Agency, is about to get into serious trouble, and that will involve Nigel. I need to take some steps over that.”

  “I quite understand your feelings,” the chief said. He knew Nigel, too, and liked him. “But I’m afraid I cannot authorize it.”

  “The action I contemplate is quite small, sir. Almost innocuous.”

  “George, I’m going to tell you again what you very well know. Future Developments is allowed to operate only on a rule of absolute noninterference. We watch. And we advise. But we do nothing else. Sometimes the heart longs for action. Especially when those near and dear to us are involved. But it cannot be. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But do you really understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you for your time.”

  Once he was off the phone, George unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a small book filled with indecipherable jottings and numbers. He had memorized the code long ago, so he had no trouble finding the number he was looking for and dialing it. He hummed softly to himself as he waited for a connect. He was glad he had this understanding with the chief. The phrase “Do you really understand?” coming after the phrase “Do you understand?” was George’s go-ahead signal. And the beauty of it was, no one would ever know the chief had given his okay in the unlikely event that their scrambled telephone line proved to be not sufficiently scrambled after all.

  After making his call, George walked up and down for a while and at last made himself another cup of tea. Finally he remembered with a start and opened the door to the attic. Emily came down the stairs. She was wearing a tartan jumper over a black skirt and white blouse. She had on lizard-skin shoes of darkest red.

  “Sorry about that,” George said. “I thought it was best he didn’t see you here.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Oh, some friend of Nigel’s,” George said.

  There was no reason not to give Hob’s name. But habits of security die hard.

  6

  The train from Burton brought Hob to Paddington Station. Hob telephoned and Annabelle answered. He knew her hesitant, slightly breathy voice.

  “Oh, Hob, I’m so glad to hear from you! Where are you calling from?”

  “I’m in London.”

  “That’s wonderful! I didn’t dare say it in my note, but I was hoping you’d come.”

  “Well, I’m here. What is all this about? Why did you come to London?”

  “Hob, I’ve got a lot to explain to you, but let’s wait until we can meet. Are you free now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good! Have you got a place we can meet?”

  “Do you know Lorne’s place?”

  “I’ve been there but I don’t remember the address. Would you give it to me again?”

  Hob did as told.

  “Okay, look, I’ve got just one thing I have to do. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  Hob agreed and hung up. He figured he had time for a quick bite at Lo Tsu Hung’s in Queensway. His lacquered duck with lichees was worth the trip to London all by itself.

  * * *

  He walked back to Lorne’s flat. At night, Westbourne Grove looked especially sinister. Dark shapes lurked in doorways, tapping on what might have been bongos. Above London the sky was orange, glaring onto a white sheet. In the diseased elm trees the starlings, those ubiquitious birds of London, rustled their wings, restless and alert, sinister in their patience. An old blind man tapped down the street, his white cane with its one red stripe glistening in the mounting fog. After this it was very welcome for Hob to hear the sound of Lorne’s saxophone cutting through the f
og that, despite the Clean Air Act, came down like draperies of night over the bleak sidewalks, sifting at last into the sewers, where unclean things floated among the chestnut husks and the soggy red-cross buns left behind by careless schoolboys. He mounted the front steps quickly, let himself in with a key, climbed four flights, let himself in with another key.

  When Hob got to Lorne’s, he found the lights on and Lorne playing the saxophone in the living room. Two men were there, and they were listening attentively. They were not unusual looking men, just men in perhaps their thirties, one wearing a light raincoat, the other a dark one. The raincoats were open. They both wore dark suits. They had hats, too; one of them had his hat on the couch beside him, the other, sitting in a sagging armchair, had his hat perched on his knee. They were clean-shaven, nice-looking young men.

  “Good evening, sir,” the one with the light raincoat said. “You would be Mr. Draconian?”

  Hob allowed as that’s who he was.

  “We are Ames and Filbin from the Special Branch. Mr. George Wheaton rang us up. Seems you might need a spot of help. Looking for Mr. Nigel Wheaton, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was. But surely that doesn’t involve the Special Branch?”

  “We’re just doing a favor for Mr. Wheaton. He does some work for us time and again, and we try to reciprocate. He told us you were looking for Mr. Nigel. We are here to take you to him.”

  “He isn’t in any trouble, is he?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Nigel was doing a spot of work for us. He expected to be back in touch by the end of the week, but as you told Mr. George it was a matter of some importance, he is prepared to see you now.”

  “Good, fine,” Hob said. He could hardly hear the man in the light raincoat since Lorne’s saxophone was wailing at considerable volume. That wasn’t like Lorne, who was usually more considerate. “When will he be around?”

  “There’s a slight problem there,” light raincoat said. “Mr. Nigel still has a few more matters to clear up. He’ll explain when he sees you. But he asked if you could come with us. We’ll take you to him.”

  “Now? You mean right now?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Nigel explained it was a matter of some urgency that he see you at once. Something has come up, sir. We are not privy to that information. However, we have the car downstairs and stand ready to take you to him immediately.”

  Hob nodded, making out the words over the wail of the saxophone. Lorne was really belting it out. Funny. Lorne usually played nothing but calypso and reggae. But this that he was doing seemed to be some sort of old blues tune. The title of it just escaped Hob, though.

  Both men were standing now. Dark raincoat was teetering on his heels, stroking his little mustache. Light raincoat was setting his tie straight. Lorne was playing like kingdom come. And then Hob remembered the song. Was it Fats Waller? Louis Armstrong? Then suddenly he had it. That old favorite, “Get out of Town before It’s Too Late.”

  He looked at Lorne, Lorne’s eyes were rolling as he took the song up another octave, punching out the melody march style. He looked at the two men, their faces were wooden, expressionless. Light raincoat said, “Shall we be going?” and put a hand lightly on Hob’s elbow.

  Alarm bells jangled in Hob’s brain. He felt sweat springing out on his forehead. “I’ll just get my jacket,” he said and started for the door.

  “I’ll come along and keep you company,” light raincoat said.

  “Fine,” said Hob, leaving the room.

  The inner staircase was close to the front door. Hob went toward it, light raincoat close behind him. Hob stopped abruptly, and light raincoat almost bumped into him, then took a step backward. Hob lunged for the front door, turning and pulling simultaneously. It was a well-thought-out move, and it deserved to be successful. But he had forgotten that the spring lock was on. The doorknob turned uselessly in his hand. He heard a sound like a grunt of annoyance, fumbled with the lock, and then something hard exploded against the back of his head.

  7

  There is no beginning and no ending: consciousness is the bad dream to which we awaken from time to time out of the beauty and clarity of the dreamtime, or that which underlies it, the great, all-encompassing Nothing At All. Hob remembered this as he returned to consciousness. His mind was still very far away from what had just taken place. It seemed to him he had been dreaming, and it had something to do with a clearing in a forest, and there had been a girl in a white dress, and some sort of animal had been there, too, small and gray—a badger, though Hob could not remember ever having seen one. The vision or whatever it was faded, and he became conscious of a throbbing pain in his head, toward the back, and of a smell, sharp and piercing but somehow familiar. What was it? Kerosene? No, turpentine. He opened his eyes.

  He was in a small, cluttered room filled with the odors of paint and turpentine. There was a bare lightbulb overhead, hanging from a black cord with red threads in it. He was lying on a dark-blue canvas cot.

  He was having difficulty focusing. After a moment his vision cleared, and he saw that he was in some sort of a storeroom. There were roughly made shelves, and they were loaded with paint cans and bottles of turpentine. In a corner was a stack of two-by-fours, and in another corner were a broom, its straw head worn down to an angle, and a mop.

  Hob rolled off the cot and managed, with some difficulty, to get to his feet. He balanced for a moment until he felt his steadiness return. The room was about seven feet square. There was a door at one side. No windows. No other openings. There was no telephone, either, so there was no way he could call for help. He was on his own.

  He took a couple of steps back and forth in the room, to make sure his legs were working all right. Yes, he seemed to be all there. He went to the door and tried to turn the knob. The door was locked. Somehow he had expected that. Still, what do you do with a locked door? He shook the doorknob. It made a loud rattling sound. He tried it again. It wobbled but it didn’t open. He put his shoulder against the door and pushed. It wasn’t a very powerful push but the door creaked in a satisfying manner and rattled on its hinges. Well, that was more like it. At least it wasn’t one of those impenetrable doors that you come across in mysteries of a more esoteric sort. He balanced himself on one leg and planted a kick in the middle of the door. The door shook and groaned. He was about to take another kick at it—this one a really good one that he bet would have split the plywood paneling right down the middle—when a voice from the other side of the door called out, “Here now, take it easy! Don’t take my door down!” And then there was the rattle of a key in the lock. Then the key turned, the doorknob turned, and the door opened. There, rocking slightly on his heels and and looking in at him, was a short, pear-shaped man wearing an embroidered waistcoat, in shirtsleeves, with gray worsted pants with knife-sharp creases, his oily black hair immaculately in place, smoking a little cigar, possibly a Willem II—Hob thought he caught the unmistakable spicy tang of Dutch tobacco. On the first finger of his right hand a large emerald glittered.

  “Do I have the pleasure of meeting Señor Arranque?” Hob asked.

  “That’s right. Finally come around, have you?” Arranque said. “Well, come on out and meet the boys.”

  Hob advanced cautiously through the door into a sort of rustic living room. It was quite large. There was furniture scattered here and there. Tattered overstuffed couches that looked as if they had been retired from some tarted-up second-rate hotel in the Hebrides kept company with a couple of wingback chairs that had done their best flying some years ago.

  The “boys” that Arranque had referred to were sitting on the far side of the room in straight-backed wooden chairs on either side of a card table. They seemed to be playing a double solitaire. One of them looked up briefly and waved a negligent finger. The other continued to study his cards.

  It took Hob a moment to place them. Then he had it. These were the two ersatz Special Branch guys he’d found in Lorne’s apartment, who’d evidently coshed him and brought him
here—wherever here was.

  “Come on in and take a seat,” Arranque said. His voice, while not effusive, was not unfriendly. “What about a nice cup of tea? And a nice aspirin? You’ll feel good as new.”

  Hob tottered into the room. There was an upholstered chair conveniently close to the storeroom door. He dropped into it. The springs were not the best, but he was grateful to be able to assume the reclinlinear position.

  “You look awful,” Arranque said. His voice might have been mildly concerned. He turned to the boys. They weren’t wearing their raincoats now.

  “Hey, what did you do to this guy? Drop a sack of bricks on him?”

  Light raincoat said, in an aggrieved tone, “I just coshed him once on the back of the head.”

  “Damn it, I told you not to get rough with him.”

  “Well, I had to stop him, didn’t I? What would you have said if I’d just let him continue his mad bolt to freedom? Eh?”

  “All right,” Arranque said. Turning to Hob he said, “Sorry about that. There wasn’t supposed to be any rough stuff. If you’d just followed the boys like a normal person, there’d have been no trouble.”

  Light raincoat said to Hob, “I really hated to do it, guv. I’m no thug. But the way you were going, I had to stop you fast or never see you again. And Joe wouldn’t have liked that.”

  Hob said, “What did you do to Lorne?”

  “The jig? Nothing. He’s probably still playing his saxophone and shaking in his Clark’s desert boots. We’re not murderers.”

  Dark raincoat lifted his head from the cards and gave light raincoat a quizzical look. Light raincoat shrugged and said, “Well, not usually. At least we’re not casual murderers.”

  Arranque said, “Okay, boys, thanks a lot. Wait in the anteroom, will you?”