Faust Amongst Equals Tom Holt

by Faust Amongst Equals (lit)

`Sure.' The voice on the other end of the line hardened

  slightly, like a carbon deposit suddenly subjected to billions of

  tons of top pressure. `Listen, Larry, I need a favour. Can you

  drop everything?'

  `I just did.' `Sorry?'

  `Nothing. I'm just taking off my apron, George, I'll be right

  with you.'

  `That's wonderful, Larry. Mike there too?'

  `Sure,' Mr Loredano replied. `I'll tell him to come too. Where are you?'

  As George explained, Mr Loredano made notes on his order pad. After a few more cordial exchanges he replaced the phone, removed his apron and called his wife.

  `Honey,' he said, `me and Mike, we gotta go out for a while. Business.'

  Mrs Loredano expressed herself, stating her opinion of this suggestion. Her husband stopped her.

  `I know,' he said. `Sure. That was George on the line.' The penny dropped.

  `We'll be back as soon as we can,' Mr Loredano assured her. `Don't give any credit while we're away.'

  -He then found his business partner and explained, whereupon both men retired to the back office and changed for the journey.

  `You ready, Mike?

  'Ready as I'll ever be.'

  `Window open?'

  `Yeah.'

  `See you there, then.'

  The two proprietors of La Veneziana then spread their wings, squawked a few times, and flitted out of the window. Ten minutes later they were midway across the Atlantic, slowed down by a strong headwind and driving rain from the. south-east. Not bad going, nevertheless, for a pair of superficially ordinary herring gulls, particularly when you bear in mind that they'd been out of practice for four hundred years.

  Mrs Loredano, meanwhile, was explaining to Mrs Steno why their respective husbands had abandoned the restaurant at the height of the mid-day rush. She knew all about it, having been let in on the secret some years ago; and besides, she believed that a good marriage is built on mutual trust. Mrs Steno, who believed that a good' marriage is built on unilateral

  terrorism, hadn't been favoured with her husband's confidence in this regard.

  Mrs Loredano explained that many years ago, before they went into the restaurant business, Larry and Mike had worked for this guy back in the old country. What as? Well, as familiars. No, not that, that's a valet, familiars are those guys who help out sorcerers and magicians. Yeah, hand them the top hat and get sawn in half, that sort of thing. And other things, too, of course. Yeah, usually it's some bimbo with no clothes on, but sometimes it's men as well. And sometimes - here Mrs Loredano took a deep breath - it's seagulls.

  Seagulls? You mean like performing animals?

  Yeah, only more than that, sometimes.

  She explained further.

  It took Mrs Steno some time to recover.

  You mean, she said, Mike and Larry are seagulls? Yes, well, were seagulls, but when the guy they were working for, (pause for thought), when he retired, he turned them into human beings, regular guys. Even set them up in the restaurant business. A very thoughtful man, by all accounts, the guy really knew how to look after his employees.

  Seagulls!

  Catholic seagulls, Rosa, I absolutely guarantee that. Almost the first thing they did after getting their human bodies, they went out and got baptised. You've got absolutely nothing to worry about on that score.

  Anyway, part of the deal was that if ever this Mr Buonaventura needed them again for anything; anything in the familiaring line, then of course they'd be only too pleased. A matter of honour. You've got to have respect in this life, or what have you got?

  Yes, but seagulls ...

  At which, Mrs Loredano became slightly affronted. No offence intended, but she hoped Mrs Steno wasn't prejudiced in any way, because that wasn't a very nice thing to be. After

  all, everybody's something, if you go back far enough: Italian, Jewish, Irish, German, Chinese, seagull, Greek, whatever. Bring us your huddled masses. Had Mrs Steno taken a look at the Statue of Liberty lately, by the way?

  There was a long silence.

  `Sorry, Maria,' said Mrs Steno.

  `That's okay, Rosa,' replied Mrs Loredano. `Just forget it, okay?'

  They went and tossed the salad.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A fortuitous tail wind and a lift hitched from a passing

  anticyclone helped Larry and Mike make up time, and they

  swooped down on the Oosterdok just on two and a half hours

  after leaving Brooklyn.

  They were only just in time.

  Not that they were to know that, of course. They circled for

  a while, making kawk-kawk noises and generally getting used

  to being seagulls again. Oddly enough, what both of them

  found strangest was being without their watches.

  `It's like riding a bicycle,' Larry observed. `Bloody uncomfortable, yeah.' `No, I meant-'

  `And cold. And very, very tiring.'

  Mike tilted his wingtips and dropped down a hundred feet

  or so. `Right,' he said, `we'd better report in, I guess. Where's

  the map?'

  Larry looked at him. `What map?' `The street map.' `I thought you had it.'

  `Don't be dumb. How can I carry a goddamn street map in

  a seagull outfit? You think I've got pockets in the wings or

  something?'

  Larry made no reply. He'd been putting up with Mike's logic for approximately twice as long as America had been an independent nation, and although it still occasionally had the power to make him want to scream, he had built up a sort of immunity to it; apparently, you can do the same thing with arsenic, if you take a microscopic amount each day. `What was the address again?' he asked.

  `Intersection of Keisergracht and Hartenstraat,' Mike replied. `I guess we just fly around until we see the street names, or...'

  He broke off and craned his head down under his wing. `Hey,' he remarked. `Maybe we won't have to, at that. Look.'

  `That's him all right,' said Lucky George. `I'd know him anywhere. Come on, time we weren't here.'

  From their window they could see a man in mirror sunglasses and a green jacket strolling along the canal bank, with a long brown paper parcel under his arm. At a respectful distance of maybe five yards, there followed a troop of assorted demons, all unexpected heads, misplaced organs and unfashionable colours, wheeling handcarts. The carts were piled high with some very impressive-looking machinery, the specific uses of which you couldn't hope to guess if you didn't actually know (although you'd have no trouble coming up with the general idea). For the record, they were a set of the latest state-of-the-art magical effect suppressors, together with generators, transformers and other ancillary hardware, capable of neutralising supernatural forces up to thirty kilograils within a six-hundred-yard radius.

  Nobody seemed to be taking the slightest bit of notice, probably because the entire procession was theoretically invisible; a wonderful new effect produced by photoelectric mimesis. Put simply, the process works by making the subject closely resemble the viewer's most boring relative or acquaintance. The

  viewer is then so preoccupied with getting past without being noticed himself that he doesn't stop to look twice at the subject. The only living person in the cosmos who can't be taken in by theoretical invisibility is, of course, Lucky George; all of whose relatives have been dead for centuries, and none of whose friends are boring.

  `Where?' Helen asked, hopping towards the window with one leg in and one leg out of a pair of Ann Klein slacks. `I can't see . . .' She froze. `Hey, that's not possible.'

  George grinned. `I know. Personally, I can see my aunt Hilda, my cousin Norman, my cousin Norman's second wife's brothers and what looks like seven enormous cappuccino machines. You make a break for it down the back stairs while I try and hold them off with a few...'

  He stopped in mid-sentence, his face a picture of absolute bewilderment. Then he swore.

  `Sup
pressors,' he muttered. `Nuts. All right, we'll just have to run for it. Come on.'

  (Meanwhile, the magical effect which he'd launched by way of a ranging shot and which had ricocheted off the suppressor field sang away into the upper air, bounced off a TV satellite and was broadcast into millions of homes worldwide in the form of a seven-hour-long subtitled Japanese art movie about a day in the life of a portable typewriter.)

  Lundqvist looked up sharply and raised his hand.

  `In there,' he snapped.

  As posses went, he reckoned, they were no worse than being trapped in a lift with an independent financial adviser; secondrate press-ganged local evil spirits, reluctant to get involved and anxiously awaiting any pretext for slipping quietly away to a bar somewhere. He could handle them.

  `You,' he said to the tallest demon present, `rig up the kit and give me maximum power. The rest of you, fan out, don't let anyone or anything leave the building. And,' he added, `remember, I've got all your serial numbers, and anyone who's

  not here when I get back is going to find himself in an oil lamp granting wishes so fast his hooves won't touch.'

  He hitched up his trousers, unwrapped the flame-thrower, and strode towards the house.

  His hand was on the doorknob when something white, wet and smelly hit him smack in the eye.

  `Shot!'

  Larry shrugged modestly. `It's a gift,' he said. `Either you got it or you haven't. Your turn.'

  By this time, Lundqvist had wiped his eye carefully with his handkerchief, turned round and stared long and hard at a goat-headed electrician who'd sniggered, and put on his hat. Bugger the doorknob, he was thinking. In fact, bugger the door. He turned the dial on the back of the fuel tank to onequarter power, pressed the pilot light switch, and ...

  And a passing seagull swooped down, gave him a nasty nip on the left index finger, and rocketed off into the sky. Lundqvist swore, dropped the flame-gun and sucked the wound.

  While he was thus occupied, a second passing seagull flapped up behind him, caught the fuel throttle awkwardly in its beak and twisted it on to maximum.

  The flame-gun at his feet at once erupted, making Lundqvist jump about three feet in the air and dislodge his sunglasses. By some quirk of gravity, they reached the pavement before he did (although they had quite some way further to go), just in time to be under his feet when he landed. There was a crunch, like a lorry crossing gravel.

  Two seagulls met in mid-air.

  `That'd better do for now,' said Larry. `Otherwise he might start to suspect ...'

  He didn't finish what he was saying, his attention having been distracted by a fifty-foot jet of fire passing within twenty centimetres of his tail. With more speed than dignity, the seagulls withdrew.

  Outside the back gate, meanwhile, a demon stood guard.

  He had the head of a dog, the nose of a gryphon, broad batlike red wings, a pitchfork, four feet of tail and a stammer. He was the diabolical equivalent of sixteen and a half years old, and this was the first time he'd ever done anything like this. The reason why he'd been assigned this spot was because the was too junior to be able to refuse.

  `Excuse me.'

  He looked up. Despite his poor eyesight (he was shortsighted, glasses made him feel self-conscious and, although he had contact-lenses, such was his biochemistry that they melted as soon as he put them in) he could see that the back door had opened and a female head had appeared round it. He swallowed hard, and tried to remember his lines.

  'Huhalt,' he said, in a high, quavering voice. 'Whogugugugoesthere, friendorfufufufufufoe?F

  'Sorry, what was the choice again?'

  `Fufufuf ...'

  `Friend.'

  `That's all right then.' He lowered the pitchfork and stepped forward, and five seconds later was lying on his beak wondering how come the house had fallen on him. Helen of Troy, for her part, was looking at a slightly bent silver candlestick and sighing.

  `Okay?'

  She nodded. `George,' she said, as he came out of the house and locked the door, `we are friends, aren't we? I mean, you and me.'

  `I guess so,' he replied. `Why?'

  Helen stepped over the demon. `I'd hate to think I'd told a lie, that's all. Which way now?'

  George shrugged. `Doesn't really matter, so long as it's generally north-east. All I really need is a phone box. Ah, there they are. About time too,' he said, as two seagulls flopped

  down on to his outstretched wrist. `What kept you?'

  `We came as fast as we could,' replied Larry, wounded.

  `Like hell you did,' George replied. `What were you doing, waiting for the exchange rate to swing in your favour? Follow me.'

  By dint of reckless trespassing in the gardens of perfect strangers, they came out by the Westerkirk, where George flung himself into a telephone booth, grabbed the receiver and rattled his pockets for change. Helen sat on a bench and took out her powder compact. The seagulls ate a discarded icecream cone.

  `Right,' said George, stepping out of the booth and not bothering to gather the cascade of change that was flooding out of the coin box, `that's all settled. Lunch?'

  Larry raised his head. `Settled, chief?'

  `Settled. What we need,' he went on, leading the way, 'is either somewhere with a garden or somewhere they don't mind pets. Otherwise, you two'll have to hover overhead with a bottle of lemonade and a packet of crisps.'

  Helen of Troy gave him a look. `Settled exactly how, George? Not that I'm doubting you for a minute, of course, but...'

  George grinned. `I phoned a couple of old friends of mine,' he said. `They're on their way.' He glanced up at the sky, smiled and nodded. 'My only regret is, we'll miss all the fun.'

  The ability to make friends easily is a gift you're either born with or you aren't. If you've got the knack, cultivate it. It's worth having.

  People who have the gift do tend to find life rather easier than the rest of us. If they want a new solenoid for the car, they get on to their friend who works in a garage. If they fancy a holiday in Portugal, they stay in the villa which belongs to a couple of friends who only go there for three weeks in July. The houses of the friends of builders tend to sprout porches and extensions like a flourishing tree.

  Lucky George is to the likes of these as the Sargasso Sea is to nine square inches of pondweed.

  `I can see that,' Lundqvist observed. There was a certain icy quality in his voice which would have started an Eskimo property developer rubbing his hands and applying for planning permission.

  The demon who had just remarked that the fugitives would appear to have escaped shrank back and tried to look inconspicuous, something he frankly wasn't cut out for. He was unsuccessful.

  `Okay,' Lundqvist went on, `you're such a goddamn expert, go find them.' The bounty hunter growled irritably. He should, he knew, have been exercising his uniquely incisive mind on what the fugitives were likely to do next, but try as he might his thoughts kept straying off in the direction of seagulls, bird-snaring and new and savage advances in the ancient art of taxidermy. `Jump to it,' he snapped, breaking free from his reverie. `The trail shouldn't be hard to follow.'

  With a soft whimper, the demon in question looked round and prepared to do his best. Fortunately for him, he was about eighty-five per cent nose, having been custom-designed for the torment throughout eternity of a cocaine dealer. He sniffed.

  `Thad way,' he said. `Foddow me.'

  Now then.

  Given the choice, a good storyteller tries to keep the early stages of his narrative relatively plain and simple - clarity begins a tome, as the old saw has it. Sometimes, though, with the best will in the world, this option just isn't available. If confusing things happen, with people dashing about hither and yon and tripping over each other's feet, the narrator has to do the best he can. At least let him try and bring the

  participants on stage in some vestige of order.

  In possession of the field, then, Lundqvist and his highly trained and motivated associates.
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  Somewhere off and circling, two seagulls.

  In a taxi bowling down the Leidsestraat, sincerely wishing he was somewhere else but remembering to keep a careful note of time engaged so as to facilitate drawing up his bill of costs at the end of the day, Mr Van Appin.

  In another taxi speeding up the Stadholderskade, completely at a loss as to what was going on but chuffed to little mint balls at being allowed on dry land three years ahead of schedule, and looking forward to seeing his old college chum Lucky George again after all this time, one Julius Vanderdecker, otherwise known as the Flying Dutchman.

  Sharing the taxi with him, two other fellow students from those dear old Wittemberg days (an inventor of parachutes and a shabbily dressed Dane with a habit of muttering to himself) and a TV reporter[1], who'd asked if he could share their taxi as he had to be at an important meeting at the Anne Frank House in twenty minutes.

  Down below somewhere, the management of Hell Holdings plc, roughing out the publicity campaign for Fryathon '95 and blissfully unaware of what was just around the corner.

  In the gods, God.

  Two seagulls swoop Stuka-like on to a traffic jam by the Stadsschouwburg and peck frantically on the window of a taxi.

  `Hello, Mike, long time no see,' exclaims the designer of parachutes, winding down the window. `What are you two doing in these ...?

  'Use your brains, Lenny,' mutters the Dane.

  `Gee, sorry. Of course, you're from ...' the parachute

  [1] Guess who

  designer lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper they could still probably hear in Leiden '... From you know who. Any orders from the big guy?'

  `Quark, quark,' replies the seagull patiently. `Quark. You got that?'

  `You bet, Mike,' says the parachute boffin, grinning. `Just leave it to us. Ciao.'

  Two seagulls perch, a few seconds later, on the window-sill of a taxi a hundred yards further up the same jam.

  `Larry, Mike, good to see you,' exclaims Mr Van Appin. `This is really opportune, you know, 'cos I was going through the accounts and you guys still owe me for doing the lease of the restaurant.'