thing dream. Bye bye, Miss something Pie.
It was on the tip of his tongue.
He typed in Lundqvistia, hit the Send button and made
himself scarce.
Scroll fast forward through Time, until the monitor reads 1996, and hold. The place: the Polo Lounge, Valhalla. Christopher Columbus discovered, nursing a long, cool drink and smoking a big cigar.
Not, of course, that Valhalla's what it was. Gone are the deep leather armchairs, the inedible food, the self-effacing spectral waiters. Evening dress is no longer a prerequisite for the Carousing Hall, and people no longer glare at you if you refrain from shouting in the Fighting Room. Mead has been replaced by fiddly things in stemmed glasses in the Members Bar, and the iron-corseted Valkyrie barmaids have been quietly replaced by less statuesque, softer beings with names like Cindi, Nikki and Cheryl. Nevertheless, it still has a certain cachet, and visitors still steal the headed notepaper from the library.
`Paging Mr Columbus. Visitor for you at the front desk. Thank you.'
Columbus got up and made his languid way to the lobby, his mind still lovingly turning over the thought of next month's ground rent payment. There were those, he knew, who referred to him behind his back as the biggest slum landlord in the universe, but that was just jealousy.
`You said there was a message for me?'
`Over there, Mr Columbus, by the fountain of milk and honey.'
`Him in the mac?'
`That's him, Mr Columbus.'
`Right.'
He finished his drink, placed the empty glass on the desk and wandered over to the stranger ...
Who served him with a Notice to Quit.
Mr Van Appin leant back in his chair and replaced the telephone.
`That was Goldman,' he said. `Everything according to plan. Columbus should be getting the eviction papers any minute now.'
The muzzle of the .40 Glock lifted and disappeared inside Lundqvist's jacket. `Good,' he said. `Now then, how long'll it take to get vacant possession?'
Mr Van Appin shrugged. `Say three to four weeks. Unless they appeal, of course. They may have grounds, I couldn't say offhand. This is pretty much a grey area so far as the law is concerned.' Perfectly safe to say that, of course; as any lawyer will tell you, the law is full of the most amazingly large and expensive grey areas, so that seen from the air it resembles nothing so much as the Confederate army camped on a shale beach on a cloudy day.
`Do it in three,' growled Lundqvist. `I want those bastards out of there as soon as possible, you got that?'
Mr Van Appin twitched slightly. `When you say bastards, Kurt, you mean...'
`The Americans,' Lundqvist replied. `All of them.' He grinned. `Goddamn trespassers. Get the place cleared, okay? And make sure they leave it clean and tidy when they go, because I might just have another tenant lined up.'
`Yeah?'
Lundqvist nodded. `I was thinking,' he said, `of going into the private prison business. Long term, violent offenders. New York. It's just a matter of putting a few extra bars on the odd window and cleaning the streets up a bit, and there we are, ready to start trading.'
Mr Van Appin made a soft, lawyerly clicking noise with his tongue. `I don't want to sound alarmist in any way,' he said, `but something tells me the bailiffs aren't going to find it that easy. Maybe you should just stick to raising the rent a bit. You know, gradually, a few cents per annum over say the next three hundred -'
`Vacant possession, Van Appin. And if the bailiffs have any trouble,' Lundqvist said, smiling thoughtfully, `just let me know. I haven't done an eviction since Atlantis.'
Mr Van Appin swallowed. `That was an eviction, huh?'
`We all have our different methods.'
`I guess so, Kurt. Only...'
`Just do it.'
`Okay.'
Lundqvist rose. `A pleasure doing business with you, Van Appin,' he said, adding, `For me, anyhow,' and left. After he'd gone, Van Appin sat quite still for well over a minute, thinking Oh shit.
His special lawyer's sixth sense was telling him that there could possibly be a bit of comeback on this one. A pity, but there it was.
Lundqvistia, he said to himself. Jesus God, what an awful name for a continent.
Not a patch, he couldn't help thinking, on Van Appin's Land, or something like that.
`George?'
`Chris! Great to hear from you. How's things?'
`Not so hot, George. In fact, I've got a bit of a problem.' Lucky George frowned and reached for the scratch-pad that
lived beside the phone. `Fire away, Chris, tell me all about it.' On the other end of the line, Christopher Columbus took a
deep breath, said, `Well, it's like this, and told him. After he'd
finished, George sat for a while, chewing the end of his pencil. `You still there, George?'
`Still here, Chris. Bit awkward, isn't it?'
`Yes.I
'And the bailiffs are going in - when, did you say?'
`A week's time, George. Backed up by four million spectral warriors from the Court Office.'
`Suitcases on the pavement time, huh?'
`You could say that.'
George doodled a few wavy lines, coloured in the `O's in While You Were Out and chewed his lip for a moment. Then he smiled.
`Don't worry about a thing, Chris,' he said at last. `I think I can see what we're going to have to do, and it shouldn't be much of a problem.' He paused. `At least, it won't be if we can get the right help.'
`Anyone I know?'
`Old friend of ours, Chris. Leave it with me, all right? It's really just a question of hydraulics.'
`Hydraulics?'
George nodded. `Hydraulics, Chris. Be seeing you.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EUROBOSCH, the theme park to end all theme parks, was on its way. Five hundred thousand spectral construction workers laboured night and day to bring into being the most sensational leisure facility in the history of Time and Space. And all because one man dared to dream the impossible nightmare.
The man in question sat in the window of the site office, looking out over the muddy shambles and trying to discern any resemblance, however slight, to the vision of unalloyed nastiness he could see in his mind's eye. It wasn't easy.
Take, for example, the helter-skelter. This took the form of a seventy-foot-high hourglass, on which was seated a stomach-churning bird-headed demon, its feet improbably thrust into two wine-jars, meditatively nibbling on the leg of a woman taken in adultery. On paper, it had looked fine. Translated into three dimensions, it was quite another sort of nightmare.
The basic structure hadn't been a problem; you've got your reinforced steel joists, your basic chipboard panels, your sixtyby-thirty sheets of galvanised. You bung those in with a few girders braced crosswise for rigidity, everything fine so far. Next you put in your actual helter-skelter track, starting under the demon's armpit and exiting rather ingeniously through the raised rump of a sinner being hideously mauled by a ninefoot-high animated tree; no problem, the builders' merchants just happen to have a continuous spiral sheet of anodised aluminium long enough to do the job and going cheap owing to a cancelled order. It's then that the fun starts.
Bird-headed demons are, to put it bluntly, a pain. You can go for your injection-moulded propylene, but you can bet your life that the two halves won't fit flush, and for the price of just one moulding you could afford to panel the Crab Nebula in French walnut. On the other hand, you can opt for good old expanded polystyrene, just so long as you're prepared to put up with bits crumbling off in wet weather and the whole bloody thing threatening to take off in a high wind. Fibreglass would be too brittle because of the length of the adulteress's leg, and anything else is out because of the weight factor and/ or the aggravation of getting the sonofabitch thing installed without all the pointy bits getting broken off. Finally you persuade the money men to lash out on the injection mouldings, only to find that the pattern makers are booked solid for the next th
ree months and when they eventually can get around to doing it, they've quarrelled irrevocably with the moulding contractors and refuse to lift so much as a Stanley knife without fifty per cent of the contract price up front. Just when you've ironed all that out and sorted out the building inspectors and the fire inspectors and the little arsehole from the planning department. who's always wittering on about not exceeding the overall permitted height, the quantity surveyor (who plays golf with the company accountant who wants to see the whole project called off) tells the board that there's a firm down the road he knows who'd do the whole job for forty per cent less, including road haulage and wiring up the psychedelic lights. The moulding contractors are by now threatening to sue for breach of contract, and quite possibly the aluminium strip (which hasn't had its three coats of primer because the painters are waiting until the sound system's wired
in) has turned all grey and flaky and needs to be replaced from scratch. Finally, the Finance Director drops by on his monthly tour of inspection and says, yes, love the basic concept, but really don't you think we need it a bit more, well, yukky, how about a couple of skull-headed snakes slithering up and down the main uprights?
The, phone rang. Ronnie Bosch, his eyes riveted to an outsize 'polystyrene eggshell just starting to work free from its anchor points on the side of the Ferris Wheel, groped with his left hand and picked it up.
`Bosch here,' he said.
'Ronnie.'
Bosch closed his eyes. `You again,' he hissed. `For crying out loud, George, this really isn't the best time for me right now. ..'
`Won't keep you a moment, old son. Just a little job I need some help with. Basically, all I need is...'
With fervour, Hieronymus Bosch told Lucky George what, in his opinion, Lucky George really needed. It was pretty farfetched, anatomically speaking, but compared with some of the feats of engineering he'd pulled off in the last few months, it would probably have been a piece of cake.
`The project getting you down, huh?'
`You could say that, George. Like, how the hell am I supposed to suspend a seven-hundred-ton plywood and fibreglass mandolin with worms crawling out of the soundbox forty feet in the air without using an overhead crane because the planners say it'd be seven feet too high for the surrounding environment?'
George laughed. `Easy,' he said. `Look, all I really need from you for this little job of mine is -'
`Easy?'
`Sure. I thought you were joking when you said you were having a problem. You built the mandolin yet?'
Bosch laughed mirthlessly. `Not much point, really, until I've sussed out how to fly the bastard thing.'
`Great. You don't make it out of plywood, Ron, you make it out of rubber. Aluminium tube frame, reinforced rubber skin, fill the bugger with helium and you're well away. Just make sure it's securely tethered with a few steel hawsers to stop it wandering off. As I was saying...'
Bosch nearly dropped the phone. `George,' he said, `that's bloody brilliant. Hang about, though, what about the volumeto-weight ratio on the worms, because...'
There followed a few minutes of technical discussion; after which, Bosch drew a deep breath and said, `What was it you said you wanted?'
`Got a pencil?'
`Yes.'
`Right, then listen. First, I want you to drill me a hole in the bottom of the Marianas Trench.'
Bosch broke the pencil lead. `Fine,' he said. `I just stroll out on my day off with a snorkel and a bradawl, do I? Or shall I get the YTS lad to do it?'
`Next,' George went on, `I'll need some nice, tough, hydraulic hose.' He specified how much. `And a steam turbine, Ron; nothing fancy, just a good, old-fashioned piece of kit to work the pump. I expect you've got something of the sort lying about in one of the engine sheds down at your place. I seem to remember there being all sorts of useful bits and pieces quietly rusting away down there. Get some of the men to give it a rub over with a wire brush, she'll be as right as rain.'
`I'm not listening, George. I mean, thanks a lot for the tip with the balloon, I definitely owe you one, but this is -'
`I think that's about it,' George said, checking the list he'd scribbled on the back of a beer mat. `No, sorry, I tell a lie, there's just one more major bit I need. Can you rustle me up a hydraulic ram? Hold on, I'll just give you the specifications.'
`George ...' Bosch was just about to give notice of putting
the phone down when his professional curiosity got the better of him. `George,' he asked cautiously, `what the hell are you planning to do with all this gear?'
George told him.
Engineers are a bit like mountain-climbers; not in the sense of having bushy beards and no toes because of frostbite, but because the one thing they really can't resist is a challenge. Ask an engineer to change the washer on a leaking tap and he'll tell you to get lost. Show him a design for making water roll uphill without pressure and drive a flywheel and ask him if he thinks it might work, and before you know it he's reaching for his Vernier calipers and his slide rule, and all you've got to do is decide whether *you want the flywheel in pale fawn or avocado.
`You're kidding.'
`No I'm not,' George replied. `It's basically a very simple design. Big but simple. Do you think you can do it?'
Hieronymus Bosch hesitated, his mind a Cemetary Ridge of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, his rational sense was telling him, No way, stay well clear of this, if they ever caught you at it then bird-headed demons would be Beatrix Potter compared with what they'd do to you. Louder and more insistent was the clamour in the genes, Man the Toolmaker whispering, Yes, and come to think of it there's that old molybdenum steel acroprop left over from the second day of the Creation, all you'd have to do is stone a couple of thou. off the edge, mill it square on the top and there's your basic material ... The temptation pounded against the sides of his better judgement; as if Eve had come sidling up to Adam with a plate of apple charlotte with double whipped cream and a glace cherry.
`I dunno,' he said. `I'd need to see drawings.'
`I'll fax them through now.'
`Somebody's bound to notice.'
`Just tell 'em it's for the project. Say it'll save them money.'
`You do realise it's going to be touch and go with the wall thicknesses, what with all that internal pressure.' `Don't make me laugh, Ron. Listen...'
And that, of course, was that. As soon as the detailed specifications started flowing up and down the telephone lines, it was all a foregone conclusion.
`Thanks, Ron,' said Lucky George. `Oh, one last thing, we've got a forty-eight-hour deadline. A bit tight, but you can do it.'
'George...'
`Anybody else, I'd be worried, Ron. Absolute confidence in you, though. I'll get those plans off to you this minute.' 'George...'
'Ciao.'
Having replaced the receiver, George wandered out on to the balcony and sat for a few minutes, watching the gondolas go by.
`Well?' asked Helen, joining him with the coffee. `Any luck?'
George nodded. `No problem,' he said. 'Ronnie's a good lad, very suggestible. Mind you,' he added, dipping his top lip in the froth, `his end of the job's the easy bit.'
Helen frowned. `By easy,' she said, after a moment's thought, `you mean extremely difficult, don't you?'
`Difficult?' George shook his head. `Piece of cake to a man with the facilities at his disposal that Ronnie's got.' He sighed. `Good lord, if I could lay my hands on all the plant and machinery he's got to play about with, I could ...'
Helen smiled indulgently and removed the sugar bowl, from which George had been absent-mindedly saturating his coffee for the last fifteen seconds. `When we get married and settle down,' she said, `I think I'll let you have a little shed, down at the bottom of the garden. You can keep all your bits and pieces in that, and then we won't have them cluttering up the house.'
Below their balcony, the olive-drab waters of the Canal Grande rubbed catlike against the piles on which the house rested. Like mos
t houses in Venice, more or less the only thing keeping it from slithering into the lagoon was force of habit, with just a soupcon of artistic licence. George had bought it as a pied-a-eau some four hundred and sixteen years ago, and one of the many things he was looking forward to doing once this drafted Lundqvist business was out of the way was chasing up the descendants of twelve generations of tenants for quite substantial arrears of rent.
`This house you keep on about,' he said. `It's going to be terribly inconvenient, you realise.'
`What is?'
`Having to step over my dead body every time you go through the front door.'
`Nonsense,' Helen replied. `I'll have a little bridge built over you.'
`All right,' George said, stifling a yawn. `If you're so dead set on having a house, what's wrong with this one?'
`What, this place?'
`Why not? It works. It does the job. It's got four walls, and I'm pretty sure I saw a roof lying about somewhere, the last time I looked.'
`Don't be silly.'
`Oh.' George shrugged. `Anyway, that's a bit academic, really, just at the moment, what with Lundqvist still on the loose and everything. Strictly between you and me, that chap's beginning to get on my nerves.'
`You don't say.'
George nodded. `All right, at the moment he's not posing any direct threat. Actually, I'm not particularly bothered when he is. So long as he's out in the open where I can see him, bless his little heart, I can generally deal with him without too much bother.' He frowned, and rubbed his lips with his knuckles. `But this business of hassling my friends really isn't on.
Something's got to be done about it.'
`True.' Helen gazed out over the canal, watching a pair of slightly larger than average seagulls hovering over a gondolaful of German tourists. Every few minutes, they would suddenly dive like Stukas, come up on the gondola's blind side and pass uncalled-for remarks in German directly behind the head of a member of the party. During the diversion thereby occasioned, one of them would then bite a further chunk out of the little girl's ice-cream cone. `Easier said than done, though, don't you think? I mean, if there was a simple way of stopping the wretched man from bothering us, we'd probably have thought of it by now. It's not exactly a new problem, is it?'
Faust Amongst Equals Tom Holt Page 17