The Quorum

by Kim Newman

  He paid you to beat him up. She felt shed been sent back to Go and robbed of her £200.

  * * *

  Michael had been in his vile tramp suit for hours. He’d made £1.87 from hassling passersby. Whenever a police car zoomed down Muswell Hill Road, he did his best to chameleon with the grimy park railings.

  Mark, annoyed to be fooled, buttoned up completely. From their corner, they could see the house where Neil dwelled. A glazier was at work. Michael said he deserved a commission for drumming up business. Mark gave a little sneery snort that was worse than not laughing.

  ‘Know who lives there?’ Michael said, pointing to a biggish semi-detached. ‘The Gregorys. A fine family. Typical and average.’

  A boy he took to be Jonathan Gregory had come out of the house earlier and pedalled past on a BMX, spotty face into the wind over the handlebars, pert bottom bobbing up and down as he pumped his legs.

  ‘Your move with the windows,’ Mark said. ‘You did it again, didn’t you? At the science fiction shop?’

  Michael had a fart of warm pride. ‘The Good Soldier Strikes. Things are really working out this year, don’t zhou think?’

  ‘What about Sally’s Dr Shade?’

  ‘It’s Sally now, is it?’

  ‘The black Rolls-Royce. Did you see it?’

  Michael remembered the car. It took longer to pass than the QE II. A wonderful beast.

  ‘I want one, I’ve decided. I’ll nag Zhin to get me a pressie with her Zhackie Collins loot.’

  Mark’s brow cracked in a frown. He was worrying himself to premature senescence.

  ‘It’s zhust some local loon, mon brave. We’re not the only crazies in North London.’

  A sturdy little cyclist popped out of a side road and zigzagged past. Michael gave Jonathan an unseen salute. The kid was puffing. He must have taken a roundabout getaway route.

  ‘Home is the Window Breaker, Home from the Vandalism,’ he said. Jonathan let his bike collapse on the thin carpet of lawn outside the house and ran round the back. ‘It’s so peaceful and sit-com Saturday, isn’t it? Tykes on bikes, window-workmen whistling, dinner in the oven, sport on telly.’

  Mark mentioned that this was where Britain’s most notorious postwar serial killer had lived.

  * * *

  Neil had a tray of teas together. He took them into the street. It was cold for standing about.

  ‘It’s only teabag tea,’ he apologised.

  ‘Warm and wet is what counts,’ the glazier said.

  They all drank.

  ‘Any idea who broke the windows?’ Pel asked.

  Neil shrugged. Zafir looked furtive.

  ‘Your Old Man hasn’t been messing about with the Pakki mafia? I hear ragheads chop off your fingers.’

  ‘That’s the Japs,’ Zafir said. ‘If Dadiji’s ticked off anyone, it’ll be the uncles. ’kin mental, the uncles. They’re planning to assassinate Salman Rushdie.’

  ‘I didn’t know your family was into Islamic Death Jihad Jazz,’ Pel said.

  ‘They’re just after the reward,’ Zafir said, shaking his head. ‘They spend more time working out how to get Rushdie’s head from High Barnet to Tehran than they do thinking about where the government has him stashed.’

  A burst of barely-competent death-metal exploded from two doors down. Neil and Pel, familiar with Hendrix’s frenzied and endless solo abortions, exchanged a look of resigned disgust.

  ‘Who is that?’ Zafir asked. ‘Sounds worse than fucking bhangra’.

  * * *

  After seconds of guitar holocaust, Mark jammed fingers in his ears. Even Mickey had never made a noise that horrible.

  ‘That’s Mr Karl Garr,’ Michael said, proudly. ‘Those speakers are my contribution to endowment of the arts. Loud, aren’t they?’

  There was no denying how imaginative Michael’s moves were. He still had a kid’s enthusiasm for pouring vinegar into wounds.

  ‘I wonder if Mr Garr has a comrade who needs a drum kit?’ Michael thought out loud.

  ‘Sometimes I think we go too far,’ said Mark.

  * * *

  At two, Sonja came back from the hairdresser’s and was able to take the Invader off her hands.

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ Sally swore. ‘Code red.’

  Sonja didn’t ask questions.

  The Invader had been hyper ever since the trip through space and the crashlanding on Bendy’s stomach. She could tell the baby enjoyed the flight. Her child would grow up to be the first Briton on Mars.

  Her maternal responsibility discharged, she was free to wander the Broadway in horrorstruck panic.

  Neil had arranged his own mugging. He must have had to save up for months. She hadn’t found out how much he’d paid Salt and Pepper.

  From a call box, she phoned Mark and got the machine. She wanted to talk over this development. Something truly sick was happening and she was part of it. She hadn’t been told enough to understand. It was time Neil’s friends stepped down from their lofty observation platforms and did something.

  She said some of the words she’d been trying only to think in front of the Invader. Shoppers gave her a wide berth, politely not staring at the insane person.

  * * *

  The clock woke him at seven. Light scratches stung on his back. It felt as if the edges had curled. The sheets were a tangle around his ankles and he lay naked on the waterbed, looking at his reflection hanging in the glass roof. He was still wearing the last of the night’s condoms. A jet passed, sliding through his body like a winged knife.

  ‘You have a nine o’clock with Newsweek,’ Heather told him. She sat, nude but for power spectacles, on the rim of the bed, reading from a clipboard. ‘The journalist’s name is Leonard Scheuer. He’s a friendly, but objected to the “mythologising of serial murder” in Choke Hold. It’d be best to slant his profile to your work-in-progress, since Scheuer likes to feel he’s cutting-edge. He needs to know everything first. Then, at eleven, you’re signing in the Marching Morons Bookstore in TriBeCa...’

  ‘The Marching Morons?’

  ‘It’s named from a short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth.’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  She continued, ‘The manager’s name is Buddy and his girlfriend is a big fan of yours, Cherill.’

  ‘Cheryl?’

  ‘Cherill.’

  ‘I bet they weigh a half-ton each and wear bib-overalls.’

  ‘It doesn’t say. In her fanzine, Cherill writes that you’re “greater than Neil Gaiman”.’

  He tried to sit up but his back wouldn’t work. ‘Score one for Choosy Cherill, then.’

  ‘You’ll lunch in the limo, then at three Dick and Eivol will meet you for drinks at High Rollers with Irwin.’

  ‘The District Attorney from Hill Street Blues?’

  ‘Irwin Jenevein. He’s interested in producing Choke Hold. His Ballet Dancers With AIDS mini-series took three Emmies and he needs a prestige first-feature project. Major enough to meet but no A-list player. Dick thinks he has a line with Bruckheimer-Simpson, so hang fire. At five, you’re debating the Death of Amazon Queen with Nancy Lucey Kunst of WoFBReIGN on Cloud 9’s Big Apple. Kunst has an unattractive vocal mannerism which will leave you sounding reasonable. When she gets annoyed, she stutters; best to irritate her before you get on air.’

  Mickey managed to get fingertips to Heather’s thigh. Velvety skin dimpled.

  ‘At 6.30, Timmy Chin has a buffet at the Plaza. All the creators, happy flacks, sundry cheerleaders. You press flesh and make small talk. Try not to cripple a waiter. At 9.15, I’ve reserved a room in the Pyramid and we’ll have forty-five minutes for sex. At ten, the limo will pick you up for the Mayor’s reception...’

  * * *

  After half an hour of loitering, Mark was cold and bored. Nothing seemed about to happen. He wanted to get on and find Sally. Michael, insulated in his tramp costume, was obviously enjoying himself. He even derived some pleasure from Garr’s tortured axe solos.

 
‘Hello,’ Michael said, ‘visitors.’

  A 2CV parked behind the glazier’s van and leaked exhaust into the gutter.

  ‘Enter Dolar,’ Mark said. ‘Neil’s boss.’

  ‘He of the smashed shopfront?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘This should be of considerable interest, coz. I’m going to lurch along the road a ways and hie myself within earshot.’

  ‘Neil will recognise you instantly.’

  ‘Zhou didn’t.’

  ‘I’m not paranoid.’

  ‘That’s not what Pippa says.’

  ‘When did you talk to her?’

  Grinning, Michael said, ‘See, zhou are paranoid too.’

  Michael was in one of his under-your-skin-and-itching moods. Usually, they meant he was having a bad time at home. Mark was pleased to let him go off on his own. He’d found a niche in some park railings, a semicircular dent which once harboured a wastebin, and was using it for concealment and protection from the elements. He wished he’d thought to bring a Thermos. Michael hammed it up again for Mark’s benefit, shambling drunkenly between precise footsteps. Charlie Chaplin in Hell.

  Dolar hammered on the door of Neil’s house. Then he was talking with the Asian man who was overseeing the glazier. A minibus ground its way into Cranley Gardens, stuffed with football fans. There was a plastic soccer ball on the roof like an ice-cream van’s luminous lolly. Michael found a position by the low wall that boundaried the Gregory front garden and slumped. Neil opened his front door and stood on the doorstep, looking out at Dolar. The football van got in the way and stalled. Mark couldn’t see anything.

  * * *

  Kick-off would have been at 2.30. The football supporters must be late and lost. The bus was between Michael and Neil’s house, but he still heard incoherent ranting.

  Dolar, who might have done well to smoke a calming joint, was angry in a mellow sort of way, and unable to tell Neil about the note wrapped around the rock tossed through his shopfront.

  By peering through the driver’s-side window of the bus and focusing on the far-side window, ignoring the fuzzy bulk of the driver and his mate, who had themselves swivelled their heads to look, Michael could still see Neil’s open, puzzled face.

  ‘Are you homeless?’ a clear voice asked.

  A little girl, her face a lot like Jonathan Gregory sans spots, stood by her brother’s abandoned BMX, looking over the wall at him.

  ‘We’re doing a project on the homeless,’ she announced. ‘Once being a tramp wasn’t so bad. They were called Gentlemen of the Road.’

  He dredged the girl’s name from memory: Ellen.

  ‘Nowadays, Miss Young says being homeless is a social problem.’

  The driver’s-side door of the bus wrenched back, and the driver clambered out. He wore a green combat jacket, a football scarf and a black balaclava. Like a jousting knight carrying a lady’s favour, he had a Union Jack tied around his upper arm.

  ‘Are you alcoholic as well as homeless? That’s very common, Miss Young says.’

  ‘Didn’t zhour mother ever tell ye not to talk with strange men?’

  More football fans piled out into the street. One wore a white bedsheet tabard like a waistcoat over his jacket, a red crusader’s cross emblazoned on his chest. His ski-mask looked like chain mail.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the driver asked Dolar and Neil, in a distinctly non-proletarian accent, ‘but would one of you be a Mr Neil Martin?’

  * * *

  A moment later, Mark was startled as Sally walked by. Intent on craning to see what was going on in Cranley Gardens, he hadn’t been watching his back. She wore a bottle-green coat and check trousers, a beret and flat heels. He recognised her at once but she didn’t notice him. From her straight back and swift stride, he saw she was determined. The intelligent thing would be to walk away now. But that might mean never knowing what happened next.

  * * *

  Again, the man in the black balaclava asked, ‘Would one of you be a Mr Neil Martin?’

  Neil was wary. But Dolar, pausing in mid-harangue, pointed at him and said, ‘He’s Neil.’

  The back of the bus opened and Balaclava’s friends gathered around to pull things out like workmen picking their tools. Neil saw an axe-handle, a baseball bat, a length of chain.

  ‘Any rate, Neil,’ Dolar resumed, ‘this is too heavy for me, man. This window gig, you know. There’s insurance, but...

  ‘Need windows done, mate?’ interrupted the glazier, who was packing up. ‘I’ll give you a card.’

  ‘Neil Martin,’ Balaclava called, issuing a challenge. He stood in the middle of the road, hefting a foot-long screwdriver from hand to hand. Its point twinkled sharp.

  ‘You’ll have to shift that bus if I’m to get out,’ the glazier said to Balaclava. ‘You’re blocking the way.’

  Balaclava slashed. His eyes were fixed on Neil. The glazier cried out more in surprise than pain. Blood dripped onto his overalls from his open cheek.

  ‘Bloody Nora.’

  ‘Neil Martin, I am Retribution,’ Balaclava said, stepping forwards. ‘Fear me.’

  ‘Heavy,’ Dolar commented.

  Neil should have stepped back and barricaded the door but stood frozen on the steps.

  Balaclava’s boys unleashed a fusillade. New windows burst, imploding glass into the house. A missile dug a chunk out of the wood of the front door and fell onto the step. It was a solid metal bolt, a couple of inches across.

  The glazier looked at his ruined work and climbed into his van, locking the door. He sat, watching, holding a wool glove to his gashed face.

  Neil was fascinated by the shining point of Balaclava’s sharpened screwdriver. He imagined he’d feel almost nothing as it slid in; the pain would come when it was pulled out.

  * * *

  For the middle of a Saturday afternoon, Cranley Gardens was overpopulated. Surplus vehicles blocked the road to motor traffic. Sally saw Neil on his doorstep, paused like a panicked public speaker. Expectant people - she recognised only Dolar -gathered around the gate and the short concrete path to the steps. She coasted on anger, slipping through a crowd of wide white youths in combat gear, nodding a hello to Dolar. Neil, intent on the big man a few steps below him, didn’t see her for a moment.

  ‘Neil, I want to talk with you,’ she said. ‘I want answers.’

  She sounded like an outraged wife. In a sense, she did feel she’d been cheated on. She’d wasted half a night looking after a man who paid to have himself beaten up.

  An arm yanked her out of determination, grabbing her around the waist, pulling her tight. She smelled beer breath. An ice sliver came to the corner of her eye.

  ‘Come out, Neil Martin,’ a loud voice said.

  Remembering a long-ago self-defence course, she let her body relax completely, not resisting. She was close to someone, her whole body held to his side. With disgust and indignation, she realised the lump stuck in her hip was an erection. She couldn’t turn her head to see the man. She recalled a broad green back. A black balaclava. A flag was tied around one arm. Heavy boots edged with metal. He’d been holding something sharp, something now too near her eye. She blinked reflex tears.

  Neil’s face was empty of all expression.

  ‘Step down or the lady wears a patch,’ the man said.

  Neil extended his arms, showing he had nothing up his sleeves.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, gulping, ‘don’t do anything you’ll regret...’

  A nasty laugh caught in her ear. The sharp point shivered.

  * * *

  ‘Look at the man and the lady,’ Ellen said.

  Michael was already looking. His guess was the big man holding Sally Rhodes hostage was the Tottenham Enforcer of the ELF. This was his move. He was entitled to watch. A shame about Ms Rhodes, but you couldn’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

  * * *

  It was as if Neil had got his wish. For almost everyone, time stopped cold. Dolar, Sally, Balaclava’s Boys: all
stood like wax figures, open-mouthed in surprise. Zafir and Pel were behind him, in the hall, also frozen.

  Only Neil could move. And Balaclava.

  And Hendrix: the Unknown Guitar picked out a first recognisable tune, ‘Istanbul, Not Constantinople’. Each note was a jolt to a dental nerve.

  For a calm moment, Neil felt he had command of his life.

  ‘You stand accused of treachery to your British blood, Neil Martin. You have collaborated with the urine-skinned oppressor.’

  Balaclava’s screwdriver was aimed at Sally’s temple, as if she were an android with a fliptop cranium. An angry tear shone on her cheek.

  Balaclava said, ‘I’ve always wanted to screw a gash’s brains out.’

  He angled the screwdriver and held it horizontal to Sally’s head, pressing.

  * * *

  Mark was out of his alcove, drawn towards Neil’s house. He still couldn’t make out what was happening. The road was blocked by the bus and a crowd. A car was next to him, idling. Its way was barred but the driver didn’t hit the horn.

  Michael’s Guitar Man serenaded the Damned.

  One foot in front of the other, Mark was tugged along the road. He saw Michael, standing with a little girl, watching. Sally was in the crush on the doorsteps.

  He missed his footing on the kerb and leaned, knowing the idling car would break his fall. His wrist jarred. His palm stickily froze, as if he’d pressed it to the inside of a deep freeze. A shock shot up his arm. Turning and cringing away from the car, he recognised its midnight black window. He had no feeling at all in his arm, as if bones had dissolved the instant he touched the Shadowshark. He found himself on his knees in the gutter, gripping his floppy wrist. As he clambered to his feet, there was a hiss of expelled air and an almost-damped electrical whine. A tinted window opened a crack.

  He looked away, afraid the car was stuffed with fissionable anti-matter, sucking all light into its black-hole interior. If he was drawn to the window, he’d be stretched out of reality and vacuumed into eternal night. His shoulder numbed.

  * * *