by Tom Holt
And - big question, this—who did the syndicate bet with? It takes two to make a wager, and the last time he’d passed the local Coral office they hadn’t been offering odds on the fight. So who was the mug punter the syndicate were fitting up? Who had that sort of money, anyhow?
God? No, strictly a matchsticks player. (And you thought all those forests in South America were just scenery?) Who, then? He shook his head. None of his damn business, anyhow.
Here’s hoping, he muttered to himself, it stays that way.
Don’t be too hard on them, Phil.
I WON’T. JUST ENOUGH SO THEY WON’T SUSPECT.
Good result, huh?
YOU WIN THIS TIME, NOSHER. NEXT TIME, MAYBE YOU WON’T BE SO LUCKY. NOT, I SOMETIMES GET THE IMPRESSION, THAT LUCK HAS ALL THAT MUCH TO DO WITH IT. I MEAN, WHY EXACTLY DIDN’T THE FUCKING THING BLOW UP?
Can’t imagine what you mean, Phil. Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting your cheque. Or shall we make it double or quits?
Outside, in the corridor, Chardonay and company could hear the thundering of the voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Some other poor bastards getting their fortunes told, they assumed.
YOU’RE ON, NOSHER. HERE’S TO THE NEXT TIME, RIGHT?
After a hard afternoon’s work in her studio - God, the Victoria Square project! Running about chasing the dragon was all very fine and splendid, but she had a commission to fulfil - Bianca had a quick sandwich and went straight to bed.
She slept badly.
Chasing the dragon - well, quite. There was still an influential part of her brain that wanted to treat the whole bloody mess as some sort of giant hallucination; bad dope, the DTs, cheese before bedtime, whatever. That was the comforting explanation. Untrue, of course. Whatever it was, it was still going on. In fact, she had an uneasy feeling it was approaching some sort of crisis. In which case, the sensible course of action would be to be standing outside the travel agents’ when they opened tomorrow morning, asking for details of off-peak reductions to Alpha Centauri.
When a person starts worrying about something around half past three in the morning, she might as well let out Sleep’s room and put his clothes in the jumble sale because he sure as hell isn’t coming back. To take her mind off it all, she switched on the TV and hit the Satellite news.
... In Victoria Square, Birmingham might somehow be linked to the wave of spectacular art thefts in Florence, Rome and Venice. In addition to Ms Wilson’s two monumental works for the Birmingham City Corporation, no fewer than seventeen major statues have vanished from Italian collections, including eight Berninis, three Donatellos, three Cellinis, a Canova, the Giambologna Mercury, and of course the priceless Michaelangelo David. The only lead that Interpol have so far is the discovery of fingerprints apparently resembling those of Kurt Lundqvist, a notorious mercenary and soldier of fortune, discovered at the scenes of all the robberies in Italy. Lundqvist, however, is believed to have been killed some time ago in Guatemala, although the only part of him actually recovered was his left ear. Counter-insurgency experts have pointed out that, to judge by his past record, Lundqvist would have been perfectly capable of carrying out this remarkable string of burglaries single-handed, not to mention single-eared; indeed, they claim, if there’s anyone capable of shrugging off Death as a minor inconvenience, that man would be Kurt Lundqvist, believed by many leading experts to be the link between the former Milk Marketing Board and the Kennedy assassination. This is Danny Bennett, Star TV News, in Florence.
Bugger sleep. As far as Bianca was concerned, Macbeth had beaten her to it.
Seventeen statues. Seventeen is sixteen plus one. Sixteen people die in an explosion in a community centre in the West Midlands; sixteen statues simultaneously go missing in Italy. No, seventeen statues, sixteen plus one.
Who was the seventeenth statue for?
She was still paddling this bizarre notion around in her brain when the phone rang, making her jump out of her skin. It took an awful lot of determination to pick the blasted thing up.
‘Hello?’
‘Bianca Wilson?’ American voice, like audible sandpaper.
‘Yes, that’s me. Who’s this?’
‘You probably don’t know me’ the voice replied. ‘My name’s Kurt Lundqvist.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Mr Lund—’
The small man jumped out of his skin, whirled round and slapped a hand across her mouth. ‘Don’t call me that, you crazy bitch,’ he hissed. ‘C’mon, this way.’
He set off at a great pace, not looking round. Bianca had to break into a trot to keep up. He was shorter and squarer than she’d expected, but he moved as if he was tall, lean and wiry. Another one of these unquiet spirits in a Moss Bros body? It was as though the whole world was on its way to a fancy dress party.
‘Okay,’ he said, finally halting. ‘We can talk here.’
Maybe, Bianca thought, but hearing what we say is going to be another matter entirely.
In reply to her earlier question, ‘Where can we meet?’ Kurt had suggested New Street station. They were now in the bar of a pub in John Bright Street, empty except for the barman and the loudest background music on Earth. This was foreground music. It filled all the available space, like Polyfilla.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Kurt said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I SAID...’ Kurt edged his chair nearer and leaned forwards. ‘I said thanks for coming. Listen up, doll. This is a mess.’
Bianca frowned slightly. He’d told her briefly about the circumstances of his return to Earth and she reckoned ‘doll’ was a bit rich coming from an animated Action Man. Given the communication difficulties, though, she let it ride.
(Note: to save time and preserve the Niagara-like cadences of the dialogue, all the backchat—‘Sorry, what did you say?’; ‘Speak up, for Chrissakes’; ‘Dammit, there’s no need to shout’ etc, - has been edited, as a result of which, this passage has already been awarded the Golden Scissors at the 1996 Editor of the Year Awards, and the BSI kitemark.)
‘I know,’ Bianca replied. ‘You made it sound like there was something you could do about it.’
‘There is,’ Kurt replied, sipping his Babycham. ‘But not on my own. That’s where you come in.’
‘I see.’
‘Doubt that.’ Kurt finished his bag of pork scratchings, squashed up the packet and dropped it into the ashtray before lighting a cigar. A large cigar, needless to say; Bianca had seen smaller things being floated down Canadian rivers. ‘Let me just fill you in on the background. Maybe you know some of the stuff I don’t, at that.’
Between them, it transpired, they had a fairly good idea of the Story So Far, including recent developments and a progress report on the preparations for the Big Fight. ‘So you see,’ Kurt summarised, ‘it’s all a goddamn shambles.’
‘Quite.’ Bianca nodded vigorously. ‘Worst part of it is, I can’t seem to work out who’s who. Goodies and baddies, I mean.’
‘This,’ Kurt replied sternly, ‘ain’t the movies. When you’ve been in supernatural pest control as long as me, you learn not to make judgements about people. Sure, when I was young, I used to worry about that kinda thing; you know, What harm did he ever do me? and all that kinda shit. Nowadays, all I ask myself is, will the two-fifty grain hollow point do the business at three hundred and fifty yards. I guess it makes life easier, not giving a damn.’
‘You do, though, don’t you?’
Kurt nodded glumly. ‘It’s a bitch,’ he replied. ‘Unprofessional. That’s what’s got to me about this stinking job. Trouble is, my professional ethics say I gotta do the job I’m being paid for. Nothing in the rules says I can’t share my concerns with an outsider, though; someone not in the business, like yourself.’
Bianca shrugged. ‘I’ve got professional ethics too, you know. Mostly they’re to do with leaving chisel-marks and not glueing back bits you accidentally break off. But I’m sure there’s something in the Code of Practice about not le
tting dangerous statues fall into the wrong hands. I must look it up when I get back home.’
They looked at each other suspiciously across the formica tabletop; unlikely confederates (if we’re confederates, Bianca muttered to herself, bags I be Robert E. Lee) in an impossibly confused situation. In context, they were probably the least likely do-gooders in the whole dramatis personae; the hired killer and the arms dealer. Maybe it helped that Bianca also dealt in legs, heads and torsos.
‘I guess,’ Kurt said slowly, ‘in situations like this, all you can do is to try and do the right thing. Shit, did I really say that? This stinking job really is getting to me.’
‘A statue’s gotta do what a statue’s gotta do?’
‘Sure. Now, what you gotta do is like this.’
Thank you for calling Acropolis Marble Wholesalers Limited.
Unfortunately there’s no one here to take your call, so please leave a message after the tone.
Beep. ‘Hello, Bianca Wilson here. Could I have seventeen seven by three by three Carrara white blocks, immediate delivery, COD Birmingham. Thank you.’
Thank you for calling Hell. Unfortunately there’s no one here to take your call, so please leave a message after the tone. Alternatively, for reservations and party bookings, please dial the following number. Thank you.
Thank you for calling Nkunzana Associates. Unfortunately there’s no one here to take your call. Don’t bother to leave a message; I know perfectly well who you are and what you want, I’m a fully qualified witch-doctor. Thank you.
‘Have you ever,’ Chubby said, apropos of nothing, ‘been to Mongolia?’
The dragon looked at him. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve been virtually everywhere, I think, but usually I don’t stop and buy a guide-book. What’s Mongolia?’
Chubby shrugged. ‘Desert, mostly. Very empty, not many people. Barren, too; large parts of it have as close to a zero per cent fire risk as it’s possible to get on this planet. The sort of place where you could have a sneezing fit without burning down six major cities.’
‘Sounds a bit dull,’ the dragon said.
‘It is. Very.’
‘I could use a little tedium right now,’ the dragon said, scratching his nose with a harpoon-like claw. ‘I take it you’re working round to suggesting that I go there.’
‘Hate to lose you,’ Chubby replied. ‘It’s been great fun having you here and all that. But, with all due respect, you’re a bit hard on the fixtures and fittings.’
‘True. Actually, it beats me how you people can live in places like this without dying of claustrophobia.’
‘We’re smaller than you are. We find it helps.’
The dragon yawned and stretched, inadvertently knocking an archway through the wall into the next room. ‘Mongolia, then. What’s your ulterior motive? Something to do with your Time business?’
‘You know your trouble? You’re cynical.’ Chubby frowned. ‘Usually with good cause,’ he added. ‘As it so happens, there is a small job you could do for me while you’re there. Nothing heavy. You might find it helps stave off death by ennui. Entirely up to you, though.’
‘Explain.’
‘Well.’ Chubby leaned back in his chair and hit the light switch. A projector started to run, covering the opposite wall (the only one still intact) with a huge, slightly blurred image of a vase of flowers, upside down. Chubby clicked something, and the picture changed into a view of the Great Wall of China.
‘Familiar?’
‘Seen it before,’ the dragon replied. ‘Doesn’t mean anything to me, though. A wall is but a wall, a sigh is but a sigh.’
‘Ah.’ Chubby clicked again. The Great Wall came closer. ‘This, my old mate, is no ordinary wall. It’s big, it’s famous and - now here’s where my interest in the damn thing lies - it’s very, very old.’
The dragon smiled in the darkness. ‘Steeped in history, huh?’
‘Positively saturated. Now, I got to thinking; sentiment aside, what does that lot actually do that a nice modern chain-link fence couldn’t do, for a fraction of the maintenance costs? Whereas to me—’
‘I get the picture,’ the dragon interrupted, amused. ‘You want me to steal it.’
Chubby clicked again. This time, the wall was covered in a view of the planet, as seen from space. The Great Wall was dimly visible, a thin line faintly perceptible through wisps of untidy cloud. Either that, or a hair in the gate.
‘As you can see for yourself,’ Chubby went on, ‘it’s the only man-made structure visible from outside the Earth’s atmosphere. An eyesore, in other words. If Mankind ever gets round to colonising the moon, I’ll be doing them a favour.’
‘Quite. What do you want me to do with it after I’ve nicked it?’
Click. View of a completely barren area of desert. ‘Just leave it there. One of my people will deal with it.’
The dragon smiled. ‘A receiver of stolen walls? A fence?’
‘How did I know you were going to say that?’
Half an hour later, the same picture show, the same basic introduction.
‘Let’s just make sure I’ve got this straight,’ George said.
‘Your organisation’s going to steal the Great Wall of China?’
‘Mphm.’
‘And then they’re going to dump it, out there in the wilderness.’
‘Not wilderness, George. Prime development site. We paid top dollar for that land. It has the advantage of being as far from anywhere as it’s possible to get without having to wear an oxygen mask.’
George shrugged. ‘You know your own business, I s’pose. What do you need me for?’
‘Caretaker, basically,’ Chubby replied. ‘I was just thinking, since your friend with the wings and the bad breath is still very much on the loose, you might quite fancy a month or so in the last place anybody would ever think of looking.’
‘Good point.’ George nodded decisively. ‘Much obliged to you. It’ll be a pleasure.’
The lights came back on.
‘Pleasure’s all mine,’ said Chubby.
A bit over-complicated, surely?
Chubby scowled. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I hate to bother you with silly mundane things like the way I earn my living, but for the last couple of months my business has been at a complete standstill. I’ve got orders I can’t fill and staff on full wages sitting around with nothing to do. Two birds, one stone, and everybody’s happy.’
The screen went blank and the little red light, whose purpose Chubby had never been able to work out in all the years he’d had the wretched thing, blinked twice.
I’m not happy about this.
‘Tough. Sorry, but you said to find a way to get them both to the venue without arousing their suspicions and that’s what I’ve done. And now, if you don’t mind. I’ve got work—’
The pain hit him like a falling roof. The intensity of pain largely depends on which part of the victim it affects. Chubby’s soul hurt. Toothache is nothing in comparison.
‘Fuck you, genie,’ he moaned. ‘Let go, will you?’
Inside his head, Chubby could hear laughter. It was a very frightening sound.
Chubby, please. After all we’ve been to each other, I think you can start calling me Nosher. All my friends do.
‘Then fuck you, Nosher. And now will you please stop doing that, before you break my id?’
Any idea how much of your soul I now own? I know you’re curious. Go on, ask me.
The pain stopped and Chubby collapsed into a chair. ‘Let me see,’ he said, once he’d got his breath back. ‘Well, for one thing, we haven’t had nearly as much of the your-wish - is - my - command - it’s - my - pleasure - to - serve - you bullshit lately, which I find rather significant. And all these cosy chats we’ve been having recently must be taking their toll. I’ve been trying very hard indeed not to think about it.’
Forty-two per cent.
‘Shit.’
No reason why that should be a problem, surely. We’ve always got
on well enough, you and I.
‘Like a house on fire,’ Chubby replied. ‘With you as the fire and me as the house. What happens to me when you get a majority stake? Do I die, or vanish, or what?’
Perish the thought. It’s just that we’ll see even more eye to eye, that’s all.
‘And when it reaches a hundred per cent?’
Then I shall be free.
‘Hooray, hooray. And what about me?’
You’ll be one of the lucky ones. Like Mr Tanashima.
Chubby frowned. ‘Don’t know him. Who he?’
Mashito Tanashima. Born 1901, died 1945. He worked in a bicycle factory in Hiroshima, Japan. Seven minutes before the atomic bomb exploded, he was killed in a road accident.
‘Gosh.’ Chubby smiled bleakly. ‘Lucky old me, huh?’
The screen flickered. The red light came on and, this time, stayed on.
Yes. Let nobody say I’m not grateful.
Bianca stepped back to admire her work. A masterpiece, as always. Three down, fourteen to go.
The biggest problem had been getting hold of the photographs. First, she’d tried the local paper, but they’d got suspicious and refused to co-operate. The victims’ families had virtually set the dogs on her. Finally, she’d hit on the idea of sending Mike round pretending to be the organiser of a Sadley Grange Disaster Fund. She’d felt very bad about that, but he’d come away with all the photographs she needed.
The walls of her studio were covered in them; enlarged, reduced, montaged, computer-enhanced, until the very sight of them gave her the creeps. Sixteen very ordinary people who happened to have been in the Sadley Grange Civic Centre when it blew up. The victims.
So far she’d done Mrs Blanchflower, Mrs Gray and Mr Smith, and she was knackered. Straight portraiture, no dramatic poses or funny hats; they had to be as lifelike as possible or the whole thing would be a waste of time. The worst part of it all was the responsibility, because she wasn’t the one who was going to have to live with the consequences for the rest of her life if she made a mistake. Accidentally leave off a toe, or get an arm out of proportion, and she’d be ruining somebody’s life.