The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  Mr Clubb bowed to my awed client and sauntered off. The Captain shook himself, rubbed his eyes, and took in the client’s cigar. “My goodness,” he said. “I believe ... I can’t imagine . . . heavens, is smoking permitted again? What a blessing.” With that, he fumbled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, accepted a light from Mr Montfort d’M—, and sucked in the fumes. Until that moment I had not known that the Captain was an addict of nicotine.

  For the remainder of the hour a coiling layer of smoke like a low-lying cloud established itself beneath the ceiling and increased in density as it grew toward the floor while we extracted Mr Montfort d’M—’s careless signature on the transfers and assignments. Now and again the Captain displaced one of a perpetual chain of cigarettes from his mouth to remark upon the peculiar pain in his neck. Finally I was able to send client and junior partner on their way with those words of final benediction, “All is in order, all is in train,” freeing me at last to stride about my office flapping a copy of Institutional Investor at the cloud, a remedy our fixed windows made more symbolic than actual. The barnies further defeated the effort by wafting ceaseless billows of cigar effluvia over the screen, but as they seemed to be conducting their business in a conventionally businesslike manner I made no objection and retired in defeat to my desk for the preparations necessitated by the arrival in an hour of my next client, Mr Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C—, the most cryptic of all the cryptic gentlemen.

  So deeply was I immersed in these preparations that only a polite cough and the supplication of “Begging your pardon, sir” brought to my awareness the presence of Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff before my desk. “What is it now?” I asked.

  “We are, sir, in need of creature comforts,” said Mr Clubb. “Long hours of work have left us exceeding dry in the region of the mouth and throat, and the pressing sensation of thirst has made it impossible for us to maintain the concentration required to do our best.”

  “Meaning a drink would be greatly appreciated, sir,” said Mr Cuff.

  “Of course, of course,” I said. “You should have spoken earlier. I’ll have Mrs Rampage bring in a couple of bottles of water. We have San Pellegrino and Evian. Which would you prefer?”

  With a smile almost menacing in its intensity, Mr Cuff said, “We prefer drinks when we drink. Drink drinks, if you take my meaning.”

  “For the sake of the refreshment found in them,” said Mr Clubb, ignoring my obvious dismay. “I speak of refreshment in its every aspect, from relief to the parched tongue, taste to the ready palate, warmth to the inner man, and to the highest of refreshments, that of the mind and soul. We prefer bottles of gin and bourbon, and while any decent gargle would be gratefully received, we have like all men who partake of grape and grain our favorite tipples. Mr Cuff is partial to JW Dant bourbon, and I enjoy a glass of Bombay gin. A bucket of ice would not go amiss, and I could say the same for a case of ice-cold Old Bohemia beer. As a chaser.”

  “You consider it a good idea to consume alcohol before embarking on ...” I sought for the correct phrase. “A mission so delicate?”

  “We consider it an essential prelude. Alcohol inspires the mind and awakens the imagination. A fool dulls both by over-indulgence, but up to that point, which is a highly individual matter, there is only enhancement. Through history, alcohol has been known for its sacred properties, and the both of us know during the sacrament of Holy Communion, priests and reverends happily serve as bartenders, passing out free drinks to all comers, children included.”

  “Besides that,” I said after a pause, “I suppose you would prefer not to be compelled to quit my employment after we have made such strides together.”

  “We are on a great journey,” he said.

  I placed the order with Mrs Rampage, and fifteen minutes later into my domain entered two ill-dressed youths laden with the requested liquors and a metal bucket in which the necks of beer bottles protruded from a bed of ice. I tipped the louts a dollar apiece, which they accepted with boorish lack of grace. Mrs Rampage took in this activity with none of the revulsion for the polluted air and spirituous liquids I had anticipated.

  The louts slouched away through the door she held open for them; the chuckling barnies disappeared from view with their refreshments; and, after fixing me for a moment of silence, her eyes alight with an expression I had never before observed in them, Mrs Rampage ventured the amazing opinion that the recent relaxation of formalities should prove beneficial to the firm as a whole and added that, were Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff responsible for the reformation, they had already justified their reputation and would assuredly enhance my own.

  “You believe so,” I said, noting with momentarily delayed satisfaction that the effects of Afternoon Gilligan’s indiscretions had already begun to declare themselves.

  Employing the tactful verbal formula for I wish to speak exactly half my mind and no more, Mrs Rampage said, “May I be frank, sir?”

  “I depend on you to do no less,” I said.

  Her carriage and face at that moment became what I can only describe as girlish - years seemed to drop away from her. “I don’t want to say too much, sir, and I hope you know how much everyone understands what a privilege it is to be a part of this firm.” Like the Captain but more attractively, she blushed. “Honest, I really mean that. Everybody knows that we’re one of the two or three companies best at what we do.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “That’s why I feel I can talk like this,” said my ever-less-recognizable Mrs Rampage. “Until today, everybody thought if they acted like themselves, the way they really were, you’d fire them right away. Because, and maybe I shouldn’t say this, maybe I’m way out of line, sir, but it’s because you always seem, well, so proper you could never forgive a person for not being as dignified as you are. Like the Captain is a heavy smoker and everybody knows it’s not supposed to be permitted in this building, but a lot of companies here let their top people smoke in their offices as long as they’re discreet because it shows they appreciate those people, and that’s nice because it shows if you get to the top you can be appreciated, too, but here the Captain has to go all the way to the elevator and stand outside with the file clerks if he wants a cigarette. And in every other company I know the partners and important clients sometimes have a drink together and nobody thinks they’re committing a terrible sin. You’re a religious man, sir, we look up to you so much, but I think you’re going to find that people will respect you even more once it gets out that you loosened the rules a little bit.” She gave me a look in which I read that she feared having spoken too freely. “I just wanted to say that I think you’re doing the right thing, sir.”

  What she was saying, of course, was that I was widely regarded as pompous, remote, and out of touch. “I had not known that my employees regarded me as a religious man,” I said.

  “Oh, we all do,” she said with almost touching earnestness. “Because of the hymns.”

  “The hymns?”

  “The ones you hum to yourself when you’re working.”

  “Do I, indeed? Which ones?”

  “Jesus Loves Me, The Old Rugged Cross, Abide With Me,and Amazing Grace, mostly. Sometimes Onward Christian Soldiers.”

  Here, with a vengeance, were Temple Square and Scripture Street! Here was the Youth Bible Study Center, where the child-me had hours on end sung these same hymns during our Sunday School sessions! I did not to know what to make of the new knowledge that I hummed them to myself at my desk, but it was some consolation that this unconscious habit had at least partially humanized me to my staff.

  “You didn’t know you did that? Oh, sir, that’s so cute!”

  Sounds of merriment from the far side of the office rescued Mrs Rampage from the fear that this time she had truly overstepped the bounds, and she made a rapid exit. I stared after her for a moment, at first unsure how deeply I ought regret a situation in which my secretary found it possible to describe myself and my habits as cute, then resolving that it
probably was, or eventually would be, all for the best. “All is in order, all is in train,” I said to myself. “It only hurts for a little while.” With that, I took my seat once more to continue delving into the elaborations of Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C—’s financial life.

  Another clink of bottle against glass and ripple of laughter brought with them the long-delayed recognition that this particular client would never consent to the presence of unknown “consultants”. Unless the barnies could be removed for at least an hour, I should face the immediate loss of a substantial portion of my business.

  “Fellows,” I cried, “come up here now. We must address a most serious problem.”

  Glasses in hand, cigars nestled into the corners of their mouths, Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff sauntered into view. Once I had explained the issue in the most general terms, the detectives readily agreed to absent themselves for the required period. Where might they install themselves? “My bathroom,” I said. “It has a small library attached, with a desk, a work table, leather chairs and sofa, a billiard table, a large-screen cable television set and a bar. Since you have not yet had your luncheon, you may wish to order whatever you like from the kitchen.”

  Five minutes later, bottles, glasses, hats, and mounds of paper arranged on the bathroom table, the bucket of beer beside it, I exited through the concealed door to the right of my desk as Mr Clubb ordered up from my doubtless astounded chef a meal of chicken wings, french fries, onion rings and T-bone steaks, medium well. With plenty of time to spare, I immersed myself again in details only to be brought up short by the recognition that I was humming, none too quietly, that most innocent of hymns, Jesus Loves Me. And then, precisely at the appointed hour, Mrs Rampage informed me of the arrival of my client and his associates, and I bade her bring them through.

  A sly, slow-moving whale encased in an exquisite double-breasted black pinstripe, Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— advanced into my office with his customary hauteur and offered me the customary nod of the head while his three “associates” formed a human breakwater in the center of the room. Regal to the core, he affected not to notice Mrs Rampage sliding a black leather chair out of the middle distance and around the side of the desk until it was in position, at which point he sat himself in it without looking down. Then he inclined his slablike head and raised a small, pallid hand. One of the “associates” promptly moved to open the door for Mrs Rampage’s departure. At this signal, I sat down, and the two remaining henchmen separated themselves by a distance of perhaps eight feet. The third closed the door and stationed himself by his general’s right shoulder. These formalities completed, my client shifted his close-set obsidian eyes to mine and said, “You well?”

  “Very well, thank you,” I replied according to ancient formula. “And you?”

  “Good,” he said. “But things could still be better.” This, too, followed long-established formula, but his next words were a startling deviation. He took in the stationary cloud and the corpse of Montfort d’M—’s cigar rising like a monolith from the reef of cigarette butts in the crystal shell, and, with the first genuine smile I had ever seen on his pockmarked, small-featured face, said, “I can’t believe it, but one thing just got better already. You eased up on the stupid no-smoking rule which is poisoning this city, good for you.”

  “It seemed,” I said, “a concrete way in which to demonstrate our appreciation for the smokers among those clients we most respect.” When dealing with the cryptic gentlemen, one must not fail to offer intervallic allusions to the spontaneous respect in which they are held.

  “Deacon,” he said, employing the sobriquet he had given me on our first meeting, “you being one of a kind at your job, the respect you speak of is mutual, and besides that, all surprises should be as pleasant as this.” With that, he snapped his fingers at the laden shell, and as he produced a ridged case similar to but more capacious than Mr Montfort d’M—’s, the man at his shoulder whisked the impromptu ashtray from the desk, deposited its contents in the poubelle, and repositioned it at a point on the desk precisely equidistant from us. My client opened the case to expose the six cylinders contained within, removed one, and proffered the remaining five to me. “Be my guest, Deacon,” he said. “Money can’t buy better Havanas.”

  “Your gesture is much appreciated,” I said. “However, with all due respect, at the moment I shall choose not to partake.”

  Distinct as a scar, a vertical crease of displeasure appeared on my client’s forehead, and the ridged case and its five inhabitants advanced an inch toward my nose. “Deacon, you want me to smoke alone?” asked Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C—. “This here, if you were ever lucky enough to find it at your local cigar store, which that lucky believe me you wouldn’t be, is absolutely the best of the best, straight from me to you as what you could term a symbol of the cooperation and respect between us, and at the commencement of our business today it would please me greatly if you would do me the honor of joining me in a smoke.”

  As they say, or, more accurately, as they used to say, needs must when the devil drives, or words to that effect. “Forgive me,” I said, and drew one of the fecal things from the case. “I assure you, the honor is all mine.”

  Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— snipped the rounded end from his cigar, plugged the remainder in the center of his mouth, then subjected mine to the same operation. His henchman proffered a lighter, Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— bent forward and surrounded himself with clouds of smoke, in the manner of Bela Lugosi materializing before the brides of Dracula. The henchmen moved the flame toward me, and for the first time in my life I inserted into my mouth an object which seemed as large around as the handle of a baseball bat, brought it to the dancing flame, and drew in that burning smoke from which so many other men before me had derived pleasure.

  Legend and common sense alike dictated that I should sputter and cough in an attempt to rid myself of the noxious substance. Nausea was in the cards, also dizziness. It is true that I suffered a degree of initial discomfort, as if my tongue had been lightly singed or seared, and the sheer unfamiliarity of the experience -the thickness of the tobacco-tube, the texture of the smoke, as dense as chocolate - led me to fear for my well-being. Yet, despite the not altogether unpleasant tingling on the upper surface of my tongue, I expelled my first mouthful of cigar smoke with the sense of having sampled a taste every bit as delightful as the first sip of a properly made martini. The thug whisked away the flame, and I drew in another mouthful, leaned back, and released a wondrous quantity of smoke. Of a surprising smoothness, in some sense almost cool rather than hot, the delightful taste defined itself as heather, loam, morel mushrooms, venison, and some distinctive spice akin to coriander. I repeated the process, with results even more pleasurable - this time I tasted a hint of black butter sauce. “I can truthfully say,” I told my client, “that never have I met a cigar as fine as this one.”

  “You bet you haven’t,” said Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C—, and on the spot presented me with three more of the precious objects. With that, we turned to the tidal waves of cash and the interlocking corporate shells, each protecting another series of interconnected shells which concealed yet another, like Chinese boxes.

  The cryptic gentlemen one and all appreciated certain ceremonies, such as the appearance of espresso coffee in thimble-sized porcelain cups and an accompanying assortment of biscotti at the halfway point of our meditations. Matters of business being forbidden while coffee and cookies were dispatched, the conversation generally turned to the conundrums posed by family life. Since I had no family to speak of, and, like most of his kind, Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— was richly endowed with grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren, these remarks on the genealogical tapestry tended to be monologic in nature, my role in them limited to nods and grunts. Required as they were more often by the business of the cryptic gentlemen than was the case in other tr
ades or professions, funerals were another ongoing topic. Taking tiny sips of his espresso and equally maidenish nibbles from his favorite sweet-meats (Hydrox and Milano), my client favored me with the expected praises of his son, Arthur Jr (Harvard graduate school, English Lit.), lamentations over his daughter, Fidelia (thrice-married, never wisely), hymns to his grandchildren (Cyrus, Thor, and Hermione, respectively, the genius, the dreamer, and the despot), and then proceeded to link his two unfailing themes by recalling the unhappy behavior of Arthur Jr at the funeral of my client’s uncle and a principal figure in his family’s rise to an imperial eminence, Mr Vincente “Waffles” C—.

  The anecdote called for the beheading and ignition of another magnificent stogie, and I greedily followed suit.

  “Arthur Jr.’s got his head screwed on right, and he’s got the right kinda family values,” said my client. “Straight As all through school, married a standup dame with money of her own, three great kids, makes a man proud. Hard worker. Got his head in a book morning to night, human encyclopedia type guy, up there at Harvard, those professors, they love him. Kid knows how you’re supposed to act, right?”

  I nodded and filled my mouth with another fragrant draught.

  “So he comes to my uncle Vincente’s funeral all by himself, which troubles me. On top of it doesn’t show the proper respect to old Waffles, who was one hell of a man, there’s guys still pissing blood on account of they looked at him wrong forty years ago, on top a that, I don’t have the good feeling I get from taking his family around to my friends and associates and saying, so look here, this here is Arthur Jr, my Harvard guy, plus his wife Hunter whose ancestors I think got here even before that rabble on the Mayflower, plus his three kids - Cyrus, little bastard’s even smarter than his dad, Thor, the one’s got his head in the clouds, which is okay because we need people like that, too, and Hermione, who you can tell just by looking at her she’s mean as a snake and is gonna wind up running the world some day. So I say, Arthur Jr, what the hell happened, everybody else get killed in a train wreck or something? He says, No, Dad, they just didn’t wanna come, these big family funerals, they make ‘em feel funny, they don’t like having their pictures taken so they show up on the six o’clock news. Didn’t wanna come, I say back, what kinda shit is that, you shoulda made ‘em come, and if anyone took their pictures when they didn’t want, we can take care of that, no trouble at all. I go on like this, I even say, what good is Harvard and all those books if they don’t make you any smarter than this, and finally Arthur Jr’s mother tells me, put a cork in it, you’re not exactly helping the situation here.