by Kim Newman
The accent, amazingly, was English. Upper class.
The stranger was elderly and dapper, hankie folded in his pocket, wearing a panama hat. He looked just like Alec Guinness in the film of Graham Greene's Our Man in Marseilles.
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"I'm sorry," said Lowe, still trying to untangle the gun from his clothes. "You startled me."
"Are you British?"
Lowe got a good look at the old gent.
"Good grief, I know who you are."
The man smiled.
"Really? I should think I'd been forgotten a while ago. I am pleased, though. They remember Guy Fawkes, so they should remember me. Gunpowder, treason and plot and all that."
It was Harold "Kim" Philby. The diplomat, then journalist, but always the spy. The traitor.
"So you know who I am. That means you're a diplomat, a journalist, or that you've come to kill me. Are you here to settle accounts?" Philby asked.
"No, of course not. I need to air-mail something to England."
Joanna Houseman's latest column.
The man was amused.
"You won't be able to do it here."
It hit Lowe that William Brown might indeed have come all this way to tidy up a loose end like Philby. Philby had done a bunk in 1977, leaving chaos and scandal in his wake. It was suggested that, through Philby and others, Britain's post-war intelligence service had almost entirely been run from Debs, D.C. Yet another occasion on which the government had almost been brought down.
"I seem to have backed the wrong side," Philby said, smiling almost regretfully. "The Yanks have kept me in what they think of as the lap of luxury out here in the land of the orange. But now I must be something of an embarrassment. Well, no, to tell the truth, I've been forgotten."
"Did they all leave town to get away from you?"
Philby laughed.
"Oh, no. Nice thought. The British turncoat oversleeps one day, and wakes up to find everyone has sneaked out at night. Not like that at all, I'm afraid. I'm not the only relic here, by the way. There are a few other retired gentlemen pottering around empty haciendas, missing their houseboys and their gin fizzes."
"What happened?"
Philby shrugged. "You know what the most valuable commodity is in California?"
"Guns? Oil? Gold bullion? Teenage girls?"
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"Water. Just old-fashioned H2O. Some months ago, someone came from out of town with some hired guns, bought the mayor and cut off the city's water supply. She says the water is hers."
"And that someone is...?"
"You are a hack, aren't you?"
It was Lowe's turn to shrug.
There was a faint rumbling sound. They both looked. Something further up the street was raising the dust. Vehicles. A lot of them, coming through quickly.
"I'd lose that thing if I were you, old boy," said Philby, glancing towards the Skorpion. Lowe laid the gun down on the sidewalk, behind the happy Freedom family.
The roar of the vehicles grew nearer.
"It's a very long, dull story," said Philby, "but I've had little to do in my retirement but study the queerer eddies of American history. The water-snatcher is a perfectly sweet, but curiously twisted, old dear named Katherine Mulwray. Her grandfather—or father as some say— was Noah Cross, whom you might remember as the most reptilian of the pre-Revolutionary robber barons. Old Noah—apt name, all considered—fled the country in 18, leaving behind a huge amount of property. Little Katie hobbled back to America during the New Deal to buy herself a private army of Nicaraguans and ex-Marines and reclaim what she called "her rightful inheritance" Which means stealing back the things the reds stole from Noah that he stole from some cowboys who stole it from the Spanish who stole from the Indians, who robbed the Heavens to found this golden land. Noah allegedly bought San Berdoo's water in 1912."
Lowe's thirst was growing. He could taste the powdery dust in his throat. Philby stood in the open sun, almost transparent, like a ghost.
"But why cut off the supply? If it was money she was after, why didn't she just raise the price?"
"She doesn't want money."
"Eh?"
"She wants the future, Mr. Lowe. The future." Philby shouted over the noise of two dozen powerful engines.
They were Russian-built Moskvich pick-up trucks, big wide-bottomed low-slung things that held a low profile and couldn't be knocked over easily. Each one mounted either a heavy machine-gun or an anti-tank rocket launcher. They were camouflage-painted in a garish mixture of
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yellows, browns, oranges and pinks. The men driving them or sitting in the back of them were casual, but alert-looking, all wearing the same khaki fatigues and slouch hats. They were not the usual crowd of redneck cut-throats, all piss and wind. This lot would have had Rommel's Afrika Korps for breakfast.
And they were stopping.
"I think we're about to be graced with a visit from Miss Mulwray," said Philby.
Half the convoy pulled up further along the street. A green Land Rover stopped opposite them. A sprightly old lady in paisley headscarf, green wellies and Barbour jacket jumped out. Without the immense mirrorshades, she would have looked like the wife of a gentleman-farmer off to the County Stores for the week's groceries.
She smiled at Philby, but with her eyes hidden behind the glasses there was no telling what the smile meant.
There was a commotion in the back of the Land Rover. Two, maybe three dogs started barking.
"Oh do shut up, you lot," she shouted back over her shoulder. Her accent was even more plummy-Brit than Philby's.
The Land Rover's little tailgate burst open, the canvas flapped and a man rolled out and fell to the road. His wrists and ankles were bound with what appeared to be razor wire. Two immense Alsatian dogs jumped out after him and growled at him. He was covered in dried blood and bruises.
Miss Mulwray sighed in exasperation. Two of her soldiers ran up, kicked the man several times and bundled him back into the truck.
"Caught him trying to steal water up in the hills," she said. Her tone was sorry-for-the-inconvenience apologetic. "Well anyway, good morning, Mr. Philby."
"And a very good morning to you, Miss Mulwray. I must say you're looking very well today."
"Stuff and nonsense, man," she said. "This old biddy's not long for this world. Who's your friend?"
"This is Mr. Lowe. He arrived here hoping to find somewhere to post a letter but found it was early closing day. He and I have been passing the time of day. He's British, you know."
"Are you really?" she said, advancing towards him, mouth cracked into a fixed half-smile. "And this must be your car?" she pointed to the Roller parked further back.
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"Alas no, ma'am." he said, breaking unconsciously into the sort of tones he'd use with royalty. "I am merely a chauffeur. The car belongs to someone else."
"The only person I know who drives a pink Rolls-Royce is Penny Ward," she said. "She's not here by any chance is she?"
The old dear was mad. She had emptied a town out and had her own private army. Lowe knew that for her every question would have a right and a wrong answer. If, by any chance, Miss Mulwray didn't like Penny she could have Captain's Bob's entire roadshow slaughtered. It reminded him of the night he was stopped by a gang of lads on the streets of Glasgow and asked if he was Catholic or Protestant, Rangers or Celtic. Arsenal Atheist wouldn't have done.
"She is," he said. "I'm her driver."
Protestant. Rangers.
"Are you really" she brayed in a completely authentic county set voice. It figured. Miss Mulwray would have spent most, if not all, of her life as an exile in England and old Noah Cross would have taken plenty of his White Yank gold with him when he'd fled.
"Tell her we simply must meet up while she's over here," said Miss Mulwray. "She and I weren't exactly part of the same
set, but I always remember her as one of the nice aristos. Never looked down her nose at me like some of 'em. Now here's my card. Tell her to call me soon."
Lowe took the card. It had her name in copperplate and a mobile phone number.
"Now Harold," she turned to Philby, "are you alright for water?"
"Yes thanks," said Philby brightly. "Your man with his tanker comes by my little cottage three times a week."
"Good." she said. "I like to see the tenants looked after."
The dogs jumped out of the Land Rover once more. She bent down and fussed over them, then briskly commanded them to get into the vehicle's cab with her.
Miss Mulwray and her convoy left as suddenly as they had appeared.
Lowe sighed. "Mr. Philby, what the hell is she about?
Philby smiled and shrugged. "Look around. What do you see? An immense piece of property with vacant possession. At the moment, California is falling to pieces along with the rest of the country. But there's an independence movement. If California becomes independent, kills enough of its trouble-makers and resists becoming Northern Mexico, it has the potential to be a very wealthy place. Wouldn't you like to own
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a whole city in a prosperous state the size of Great Britain? Every last house, shop, office, factory and patch of land here can be bought for a fraction of the price people would have sold out for even a year ago. And Miss Mulwray is sitting on it all, like a mother dinosaur waiting for her eggs to hatch. Who could have foreseen that the extinct species would return? I myself am looking forward to a brief spell as a tiny, hopping mammal in some Jurassic park. When I get noticed, I'll get eaten by the big robber reptiles. You can understand why I thought you were to be my executioner."
"But...But she's an old lady. Has she any children to leave it all to?"
"Not that I know of."
"But that's the most insane thing I've heard all...Well, all day."
"On the surface, you'd think that she wants to own all this land. In truth, she's not all that bothered about owning it. What she wants, what she really wants, is not to have the land belong to her, she wants to belong to the land. She's an elderly White Yank come back from a lifetime's exile in a place where she was made to feel she didn't belong. Now she's back, now she's going to found a great city, and nothing can take that future away from her. Trust me, Mr. Lowe, I'm an exile myself. I understand. She knows I do—that's why she lets me live here. That and the fact that I proved such an embarrassment to the English establishment that cut her dead for all those years."
Cliff Richard was a velvet-collared choir-boy. His backing band were Philby's velociraptors, reptilian things with long tails, scaly skin and row upon row of sharp teeth. Lowe wondered if he should be frightened, but instead he found it funny.
"Do share the joke," said Penny in slow-motion.
Sir Cliff sang with surprising gusto and professionalism, given that he didn't have an audience.
"Sorry," said Lowe. "I've started seeing things."
"Not really surprising," said Penny. "Another Meltdown?"
"Don't mind if I do. After all, we may not be the young ones very long."
He held out his glass. Penny filled it with bottled Vimto from her cool-box and added half a gill of Chernobyl.
They sat on the baked mud about 150 yards from the stage, picnicked out on a tartan rug. They had a clear view, sharing the area with maybe twenty locals—crawled out like Philby from under their rocks—and
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around a hundred other members of the Roadshow. All the others were busy manning their stalls. Blair trying to sell cricketing gear, two dozen others selling or promoting the best of British culture and commerce to a non-existent population. The fastest seller, unsurprisingly was bottled Malvern water, actually brackish New Mexico tap-water refilling empty bottles.
Nobody had even bothered objecting when Maxwell insisted that, population or no population, the show should go on. Lowe had cornered William Brown to tell him about Katherine Mulwray and her private army. Brown had shrugged. "She won't be interested in this. And she won't tolerate any other bandits in the area. We're safe." It was the most that Lowe had ever heard him say.
The stage began to rot. Like a time-lapse film of a wilting flower, it started to go yellow, then brown and crinkly at the edges.
"How can that happen?" Lowe asked aloud. "I mean, it's night. The edges of the stage are dark. I wouldn't be able to tell what colour they are."
Pieces of the stage floated gently to the ground. The big Vimto banner at the top shrivelled. But no matter how much fell off, the structure seemed to remain fully intact.
Sir Cliff and the band played "Congratulations". Lowe didn't know what a congratulation looked like, but there appeared to be one of them flying from the stage towards him. Just as the congratulation was about to hit him in the face, just as he shielded his eyes with his arm, it burst on his nose like a soap-bubble.
Uh-oh! Here came more congratulations! These wouldn't be nice bubble ones like the first. These would be the evil congratulations. They were going to hurt him. They swarmed like locusts and came for him.
"Stop whimpering," said Penny. "It's time we got you to bed."
He shook his head. The congratulations had gone.
"You're right," he said. "I've much too had."
But then if you were in an area with no water and you were bored, what else was there to do but drink Vimto and absinthe all day?
The hotel had been deserted. The Roadshow had simply taken the place over like an invading army. Brown explained that toilets could be flushed with sand.
Penny helped him through the door of his room. There was a large envelope on the floor just inside the door.
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The envelope snarled at him, became an angry Rottweiler. Its back was a satanic black colour, its belly the colour of shit, it smelled like a dying man with halitosis and its huge yellow and brown-stained teeth glistened. Saliva dripped from its jaws.
"Don't touch it," he said to Penny.
"Nonsense, it's just an envelope," she said, swiping it up off the floor. "You're just hallucinating."
He shook his head. "I'm not sure I am."
Los Angeles, Cal.
"So when do we get to Los Angeles?" Penny asked.
"We've been there for three hours."
She looked out at the bungalows lining the boulevards.
"It looks like Surbiton with palm trees."
"And guns."
The Roadshow had picked up motorcycle escorts from the LAPD, who wore reflective silvered sunglasses and enough black leather to induce instant orgasm in an SS officer. Each officer was adorned with an amazing variety of chrome-shiny weaponry.
"If I'd brought along my I Spy Book of Firearms, I could tick off the lot."
Penny laughed.
Lowe was worried. The LA cops were made of liquid metal and black leather, and kept changing shape with oily, serpentine sneakiness. If they took off their glasses, they'd have sewn-shut eyes.
Los Angeles was like the Balkans in 1912, a collection of mutually hostile fiefdoms packed with trigger-happy trouble-makers out to set off the big one.
Just before the New Deal, the Junior Communist League schismed into two feuding "vanguards" the Hammers and the Scythes. Barely half a decade later, the original vanguardists were mostly dead of violence, but their younger brothers and sisters (or children) had taken their place and, augmenting their pocket money with protection rackets and drug deals, had stocked up on military hardware.
Without the cop escort, the Roadshow would have been raided by one or other of the big vanguards, and left to be picked clean by any of the dozens of other, smaller factions that operated on a block-level.
This was Scythe territory.
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Knots of kids in Grim Reaper robes hung out on street corners, the famous "Boyz in the hoo
d" Sickle-shapes were spray-painted everywhere. "At least, the weather's lovely," said Penny.
Having played the Hollywood Bowl, the Roadshow's last gig was on the Santa Monica Pier. Everyone was checked into a sea-front resort complex. From their balcony, Lowe and Penny watched the sun go down on the Pacific, sipping at their Meltdowns. The sea rippled and reflected like dragon scales, red and gold and green and turquoise.
"It's beautiful," she said, holding his arm, laying her head on his shoulder.
"It's pollution."
The refineries up the coast had been pouring filth into the sea for the better part of a century. Now they stood idle, while international environmental inspectors tried to impose emission standards on factories that had only ever heard of output quotas and which had a very big pond outside for throwing garbage into.
"Every summer, it catches fire. Sometimes, the fire spreads across the beaches. There used to be a Party Boss colony up near Malibu, but it was burned out in '92. Los Angeles has earthquakes too."
"Why does everyone in America want to come here?"
"It's the end of the dream. Since Chris Columbus's day, people have been coming west across this continent running away from nightmares or chasing after the American dream. This is where the trail stops."
They finished their Meltdowns and went inside.
The envelope lay on the table. Lowe had looked over everything in San Berdoo, Penny had only just finished reading the documents.
"What about all this?" she asked. "Is it genuine?"
"What do you think?"
There were photocopies and carbons and flimsies. Enough evidence to put Sir Robert Maxwell in jail for a thousand years, if they still sent rich people to jail. Of course, if this was all kosher, Sir Bob wasn't even rich.
Spent it all, didn't I? growled the arse-hole.
"It's the pension fund that's the worst," said Penny. "People who've worked for the newspaper all their lives, long before Maxwell bought it, have paid into the fund. And there's nothing there. They'll be on the scrap-heap, without a bean."
"You sound like a socialist."
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"He's supposed to be one."
All for one, and that one is me.
There was more than just the pension fund scam. There was solid evidence here of a vast spectrum of illegal business practice, from insider-trading to colossal tax fraud. It was no wonder that Maxwell wanted to be in America if all this was about to come out back home. He might well want to get to California because there was no way of extraditing him.