by Del Howison
I haven’t time for this, not least because her loose words are obscuring phrases I can almost identify along the street. “What did it say just then?”
“Watch who you’re calling an it, love. Show some respect or we’ll have to sort you out.”
“You’re the ones who ought to be showing respect, and a few other people as well.” I shouldn’t let myself be provoked, because now I’m blotting out the harangue of the van. It couldn’t actually have said “He’d send anyone asleep, dopey sod,” but what would have sounded like that? I grimace at the women to fend them off as I dash after the van.
It’s several hundred yards away and moving just a little faster than I’m able to maintain. At least I can’t see anyone ahead to hinder me. All the properties I’m passing are featureless with boards, as far as I can tell by the twitching light of the occasional unvandalised streetlamp. I assume they’re shops, although they’ve shed any names they had. The rear lights of the van blaze between them like a threat of arson, so that I imagine them burning like paper; I could be tempted to dream that they’re stacks of copies of Rigg’s book. I don’t know whether to race after the vehicle in case I can somehow overtake it or to stand still, because the clatter of my footsteps prevents me from distinguishing so much as a syllable. I’m hardly aware of stumbling to a halt as if this may arrest the van. Of course it doesn’t, nor does yelling “What did you say?”
“What you say?”
For a moment I think there’s an echo, so distorted that it’s well-nigh incoherent. Then an object I took to have been abandoned in a bin bag that’s sprawled across an unlit doorway pokes its aggrieved head up. “Not me,” I tell it. “Never mind me. What did you just hear?”
“You, you daft bugger. What’s the idea waking a man up? You’ve got no right. You’re nobody.”
“That’s who I am.” I’m nearly distracted enough to lean down and bellow this into the unsteady face, because I’m less certain than I want to be that I couldn’t have heard Rigg mumble in the distance “Piss on Brady and all his silly slop.” Can he be driving the vehicle and broadcasting such stuff? Is he drunk or on drugs or both? The occupant of the doorway struggles to rise but falls back with the clink of a bottle. I’ve already wasted too much time on him. As I turn my back I realise that the van is nowhere to be seen.
Rigg is all too audible, but I can’t be sure of his words. “Here he is”? “See the shabby slob”? I bolt to the end of the shops and glimpse the inflamed lights as they veer around a curve. The street they’re following is crowded with houses flush with the pavements, which ought to mean that the ranting of the van will waken some of the householders. I hope it does—they’ll want to silence it as much as I do—but as I run past the houses I observe that most of the windows are broken. If I’m not mistaken in the unrelieved darkness, many of the housefronts are blackened by fire. At least if the properties are empty, nobody will hear Rigg’s comments about me. I arrive panting at the curve in the road and falter to a standstill. I can’t see or hear the van.
“Good riddance,” I gasp. It isn’t loud—I need to regain my breath—but it prompts a response. “Is that you?”
The whisper is trickling through one or more of several fist-sized holes in the downstairs window of a house as dark as sleep. Since the answer to the question is obviously no, I’m drawing breath to say at least that when the whisperer adds “Don’t make such a row. We don’t want anybody hearing you.”
“You’re not the only one who doesn’t,” I’m stung to retort.
The next whisper is only just discernible. “Is that him?”
A series of thumps and mutters apparently signifies somebody’s attempts to reach the window. As I set about stealing away, an eye and the corresponding section of an unkempt head waver up to the lowest hole in the glass. The eye is considerably duller than the glint of a syringe on the littered floor. “No,” the owner of the eye decides after the first of several pauses. “That’s not him.”
For an instant I’m absurdly glad that’s settled, and then Rigg’s voice revives. It’s further blurred by distance, so that I’m uncertain whether he said “Needle Brady.” Is he musing—making verbal notes—or issuing instructions? I’m so distracted that I hardly know what I’m saying, let alone to whom. “That’s got to bother you as well,” I appeal to the silhouette at the window. “Not just me.”
“You are, pal.”
The response sounds retarded by menace. As I catch sight of the glint again I’m aware what kind of needle I may be in danger from. It’s one more reason why I shouldn’t linger, but I hope the couple or however many are lurking in the unlit room don’t imagine that their hostility has driven me away as I pursue my tormentor’s voice.
The next road across the street I’m on is more than twice as wide. Pairs of tall houses intervene their gardens between the pavement and themselves. The left-hand stretch leads into the town centre, towards which the van is receding. Its roof flares orange beneath each concrete streetlamp. Perhaps it’s the spaciousness that lets me grasp Rigg’s words despite the additional distance. “Prod His Lordship. Enjoy his headache.”
Why is nobody except me objecting to him? We must be surrounded by an audience, since the houses are split into flats. “I’ll prod you when I get hold of you,” I shout and then devote my energy to catching up. I’ve barely put on speed when a window rattles open at the top of a house ahead. “Stop the noise,” a man bellows. “People want to sleep.”
“I’m trying to stop it,” I roar. “Why don’t you help?”
“I’ll give you some help all right if you don’t shut up.”
He must be half asleep to be making so little sense. “Call the police,” I urge. “It can’t be legal at this time of night.”
“What I’ll do to you if you don’t bugger off won’t be for sure. Go home and get yourself some help.”
I’m tempted to remain until he admits to hearing Rigg and undertakes to send for the authorities, but I’m too infuriated by Rigg’s latest comments. “Brady’s been on,” he announces. “He’s done. I heard him read. Snored all along, I did, me.” I dodge into the middle of the road and dash in pursuit of the van, waving my arms as if I’m imitating each reappearance of my shadow and bawling less than words in an attempt to drown out the speaker. “Irony, he says he does,” it continues. “All hype. He’s a liar. He’s a con. He does dire joyless horrid hellish crap.”
Rigg’s words are beginning to sound like some kind of code. “Posh and oily and sly is all,” he adds as windows overlooking the street emit protests that, grotesquely, seem to be aimed at me. I’m closer than the vehicle, that’s why, but I’m starting to feel far too much like a scapegoat when a lone walker appears halfway between me and the van.
She has been exercising her dog in a park at the end of the houses. I slow down so as not to alarm her while she ambles towards me, and point beyond her with both hands, a gesture I don’t mean to appear quite so beseeching. “You’ve been hearing that, haven’t you?” I ask loud enough for the tenants of the flats to catch.
The hem of the light from a streetlamp slides over her pale pudgy face and seems to tug her copiously lipsticked mouth into a smile. “Have you as well? Oh good.”
I mustn’t let her shrillness deter me. “Did you hear what it said?”
“Of course,” she says and simpers. “Didn’t you?”
As she advances, kneeing her long black dress at every step, I see that she isn’t walking a dog but yanking a misshapen bag on a leash. “I believe so,” I concentrate on saying.
“Tell me and I’ll tell you if I think you’re right.”
I clench my fists at Rigg’s latest pronouncements and at forcing myself to repeat them. “He’s alone. Poor old Brady’s a horny bachelor and he’s all alone. No bride and no children. Only in his brain.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” the woman says and drags the bag onwards, scraping the pavement with a thin brown object that protrudes from the zip. “Is that you?”<
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“It’s meant to be. He doesn’t know anything worth knowing. Shall I tell you what his last book was? A quiz book. How New a Man Are You, it was called. That’s how opportunistic he is, do you see?”
She looks determined not to give in to bewilderment. “Just let the ones who care about you talk to you,” she advises. “You only have to find them and then they’ll always be there for you. My gran and grandpa are.”
I’m about to enquire why she thinks this relevant to anything I’ve said when I notice that the gateway through which she emerged leads not to a park but to a graveyard. The scrawny item dangling from her bag must be a withered bunch of flowers, but I’m not anxious to check. For once I’m relieved to hear sounds in the distance, shouts and the smashing of glass. Perhaps the van has encountered a mob. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I tell the woman and retreat to the opposite pavement to be out of her reach.
More glass shatters as I cross the intersection with the graveyard on the corner. I won’t deny hoping that it’s a window of the van. Perhaps it’s a bottle, since Rigg isn’t daunted. Indeed, he sounds enlivened and determined that his message shall be clear. “Please do Brady, lads,” he says. “Be physical. Nail him, bloody droner.”
An unamplified voice responds, just loud enough for me to hear. “Carry on, boss.”
“He’s nearby. He’s behind. Slippery Joe Brady. He’s a real prince, he is. No, he’s an arsehole. Bash him, boys. Reshape his head.”
For as long as it takes Rigg to say all this I’m unable to move, and then I understand why his voice is growing louder. The van has turned and is coming back towards me. It’s surrounded by voices that seem wordless with distance if not brutishness. He’s bringing the mob.
I twist around in search of allies. There’s no sign of the woman, not that appealing to her would have been much if any use, and all the windows of the flats are shut. I might try making an uproar to goad somebody to call the law, except that the road opposite the graveyard leads to a brighter thoroughfare. That’s the business district, and surely where I’m most likely to find police.
I’m too intent on fleeing to observe when the houses give way to larger buildings. They’re offices and banks, emblems of prosperity, locked up like safes. They make me feel cast out and ignored, not least because Rigg’s monologue is gathering speed towards the junction. “Jab his eyes in. Slash his nose. Bop his ears. Pierce his scalp. Pop his balls. No loss, I’d say. I hope he dies.”
I’ve staggered just a few more gasping paces when it and its attendant shouts spill into the road behind me. Its companions are still doing without language. My shadow is flung flat in the middle of the street like a victim about to be kicked insensible, but a backward glance shows me only the headlamps that have caught me in their spotlight. “I’ll shred his papers,” Rigg is saying. “I’ll sprain his head. He’ll yell. He’s a jelly. He’s a drip. I hope he perishes.”
He’s repeating himself. He’s running out of words. I’d confront him with the limits of his vocabulary if he didn’t have his thugs with him—and then his turns of phrase grow clear to me at last. He wouldn’t talk like that; I’ve heard him talk. He’s stolen my technique. His messages are built out of the letters of my name.
He’d have no style without me. He’d be nothing, and I swing around to shout it. The lights blind me, but I can hear the gang around them. Perhaps I won’t take him on just now after all. To my left I see an alley that leads to a building that looks somehow familiar. Can I have strayed back to the hotel? Even that would be welcome. No sooner do I think it than I’ve dodged into the alley and am sprinting for the light at the end.
“Hold on, Brady,” Rigg booms, and then all I can hear are my breaths trapped between the close walls. I keep nearly falling against the walls as I run. As the dazzle of the headlamps drains from my eyes, the dimness of the alley settles on them. They seem unable to determine how light it is when I stagger out of the alley, but there’s no mistaking where I am. Opposite me is the building where I gave my talk, and to my left is a speaker van.
I barely hesitate. Somebody has abandoned a bottle in the doorway of the venue. I wish I had a drink, but I’ve no time. I glance about the street that looks flat as a stage set under the relentless lights, and then I pull out the hotel key on its heavy club. If other people can break glass, so can I for a purpose. At the very least the van is a refuge. I smash the driver’s window with a single blow and pick fragments out of the door, then I unlock it and climb in.
I can no longer hear Rigg and his chosen audience. Ah, silence. The streets are so quiet he might never have been there. It’s past time I was heard. Having come this far, I’m sure I’ll be able to start the vehicle. Shall I abscond? No chance, as he’d say in idle pride. I can handle any shyness in heroic prose. If we have a shouting match in the street I’ll have more to say and better, so long as the speaker operates. I locate the switch and press it, and hear my own breath filling the street. Shall I be horribly acerbic or rely on blarney? Slander idol Bill or deploy balance? Any dross will erode solid personal calibre. Soldier on, Brady. Besides, choice is no hindrance. I’ll respond dryly. Nevertheless for an unpleasant moment I’m at a loss for words, and then I know where to start. I tug the microphone closer and say “This isn’t me.”
THE OUTERMOST BOROUGH
GAHAN WILSON
ONCE AGAIN, WITH a gesture that had turned into a sort of nervous tic during this morning’s long waiting, Barstow pressed his face against the dirty glass of his studio’s wide central window in order to peer anxiously down the crowded city street below, westward toward Manhattan.
At first his body began to sag in disappointment yet again, but then he suddenly straightened and his sharp little eyes brightened in their darkish sockets at the sight of a shiny black speck making its way smoothly as a shark through the otherwise-dingy traffic.
Barstow clenched his hands into small triumphant fists as he saw the speck draw nearer to the ancient building his loft perched atop, and gleefully observed it shape itself into a long, sleek limousine gliding with regal incongruity amidst graffiti-laden delivery trucks and unwashed second-hand cars scarred with multitudes of dents and dings.
Without any doubt he knew it was the vehicle of Max Ratch, Barstow’s longtime associate and the owner of one of New York’s most prestigious galleries. He had come as he had promised!
Barstow turned for one last burning survey of the works of art he had spent the whole of last week arranging for Ratch’s inspection. He was pleased to see that the thickly textured strokes of oil paint he had spread upon the canvases gave out satisfactorily ominous gleams in the gray light seeping into the studio, and delighted to observe that the portraits and cityscapes, lurking like muggers in the studio’s darker corners, created exactly the dangerous and intimidating effect he had striven so carefully to achieve.
Suddenly struck by a disturbing notion, the artist whirled and darted back to the windows just in time to see the large chauffeur open the rear passenger door of the limo and be suddenly diminished by the emergence of Ratch’s long, bulky body. The art dealer had barely gotten both feet on the sidewalk when the very much smaller form of his ever-present assistant, Ernestine, darted out after him with the scuttling alacrity of a pet rat.
Barstow peered nervously up and down the street and spat a strangled curse as he spotted Mrs. Fengi and her son, Maurice, swaying rhythmically like inverted pendulums as they waddled unevenly but directly toward his approaching visitors. He could see Mrs. Fengi’s enormous, toadlike eyes bulge eagerly while, with considerable difficulty, she accelerated her froggish shuffle.
It was obvious the weird old creature was desperate to buttonhole these exotic strangers to the neighborhood and to gossip with them, and Barstow knew that would never do!
He glared intently down, unbreathing, his teeth clenched, his heart throbbing hurtfully in his chest, and desperately prayed that the dealer and his aide would not turn and observe the approaching duo.
/> But then a huge wave of grateful relief rushed through his thin body as he saw Ratch and Ernestine purposefully make their way from the limo to the stoop of Barstow’s building and glide efficiently up its old worn steps without having made any contact with—or even so much as taken a sideways glance at—the approaching Fengis.
The doorbell rang and Barstow rushed through his studio to push the button releasing the lock downstairs. He shouted instructions to his guests via the entrance intercom as to how they could locate and use the freight elevator, then hurried to the door of his studio and threw it open.
He stood on the landing, rubbing his hands and gloating at the sound of the ancient lift whining and rattling five stories upward, then reached forward so he could haul its squeaking door open the moment it arrived.
Ratch strode majestically out with Ernestine behind him and gazed down at Barstow with his large blue eyes.
“Well, well,” he said in his usual reverberating basso. “When you said you’d moved from Manhattan to an outer borough, dear boy, you truly meant an outer borough!”
“It’s almost as long a trip as that ghastly drive to the Hamptons!” snapped Ernestine behind him.
“I wasn’t all that crazy about being this far away from everything myself, at first,” Barstow admitted apologetically. “But then I got used to it—really began to see the place—and finally I realized it had turned out to be an inspiration!”
“That is very interesting,” Ratch murmured, gazing speculatively at Barstow, and then he turned to his assistant. “Besides, Ernestine, we must not chide poor Barstow for living in such a far-off place. The rents in Manhattan have forced all artists—save for the most outrageously successful—to shelter in odd and obscure locations such as this.”
He turned to gaze down benignly at the artist and then bent to firmly grasp both of Barstow’s narrow shoulders possessively in his huge gloved hands.