Rod Rees - [The Demi-Monde 02]

by Spring (v5. 0) (epub)

  ‘I understand, Comrade Vice-Leader, but–’

  Beria’s fist slammed down on the table, and Robespierre jumped back in shock. ‘With all due respect, Comrade Senior CitiZen, no more fucking “but”s. Nothing – nothing – must be allowed to stand in the way of the Rapprochement. So are we agreed that anybody seen wearing a mask on the streets of the Medi is to be shot on sight?’

  Robespierre whispered a quavering ‘Yes’ in reply.

  Beria took a long slurping gulp of Solution in an effort to calm himself. ‘Shall we move on? So tell me, Comrade Senior CitiZen, how goes the rounding up of the Shades?’

  Robespierre had turned quite pale, which, given his lack of skin colour, was quite an achievement. ‘Not well, Comrade Vice-Leader. There is a high level of Shadophilia in the Quartier Chaud based on the belief – a mistaken belief – that Shade men are better endowed than other races. Shade men are very popular in the Medi, especially with Medi women.’

  A groan from Beria. ‘Does everything in the Quartier Chaud revolve around sex?’

  ‘Pretty much, Comrade Vice-Leader. The Medi people like Shades, and this is an attitude reinforced by the rumour that you mean to execute them all.’

  Beria was astonished by Robespierre’s naïveté. ‘Of course I’m going to execute them all. I am searching for the ForthRight’s most deadly and intractable enemy, the Shade girl named variously Marie Laveau, Ella Thomas and the Lady IMmanual. The same girl, lest we forget, that you had captive in the Bastille but allowed to escape.’

  Robespierre at least had the good grace to blush.

  ‘And the simplest way of eliminating her is to shoot all the Shades in the Medi.’

  ‘Male Shades as well?’

  Another longer sigh from Beria. ‘When you have been in the business of maintaining the peace and tranquillity of a Sector for as long as I have, Comrade Senior CitiZen, you will come to realise that the instructions given to your security forces – who are, of necessity, intellectually challenged – must be as simple as possible. Now, the instruction “shoot all Shade women” necessitates them having to make two intellectual judgements: they have to decide whether the person in front of them is a Shade and then to decide whether that person is female. As this can lead to confusion, better therefore to reduce the instruction to its most basic. The instruction thus becomes “shoot all Shades”. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, but the NoirVillian Ambassador has made strenuous objections.’

  ‘Is he a Shade?’

  ‘Why, yes.’

  ‘Then just shoot the fucker.’

  This advice was so implacable that Robespierre was rendered speechless for several seconds. He spent that time rearranging his already immaculately arranged desk furniture into an even more immaculate disposition. Finally he roused himself from his trance, and spoke. ‘I understand you also wish to discuss the visit of Comrade Great Leader Heydrich to Paris, in order that he might sign the Declaration of Unification ratifying the Rapprochement of our two great Sectors.’

  ‘Indeed, Comrade Senior CitiZen, and it is, of course, essential that I satisfy myself of the Great Leader’s safety whilst he is in Paris for this ceremony. Recent events have somewhat undermined confidence in the efficiency of your security forces. That a mob of women should be able to storm the Bastille …’

  Robespierre wrung his hands. ‘Yes, it was a humiliation. More than a humiliation, since the Medi lost a great leader in the disturbances. His Excellency, Senator Godfrey de Bouillon will be sorely missed.’

  So now it’s the Gang of Two.

  ‘And we must not forget that Grand Inquisitor Torquemada was severely wounded by these harridans from Hel.’

  Correction: the Gang of One and a Half.

  ‘But you should have no concerns regarding security, Comrade Vice-Leader. There will be no repetition of those deplorable events. Even as we speak, the Inquisition is moving to root out malcontents and troublemakers from within the Medi.’

  Fuck the Inquisition. It’s the Checkya who will be sorting out the Medi.

  ‘Of course,’ Beria replied in his most conciliatory voice, ‘and I am sure, with the help of the Checkya, that the Medi will soon be tranquil. And this brings me on to my next point: the Awful Tower.’

  ‘The Awful Tower?’ All the bounce had gone out of Robespierre’s voice: he now sounded like a whipped dog.

  ‘Yes, I believe that the refurbishment of the Tower is nearing completion.’

  A suspicious nod from Robespierre. ‘Indeed. We are refurbishing the Tower to commemorate the embracing of UnFunDaMentalism by the Medi. Our plan is that it will be reopened on Spring Eve, on Walpurgisnacht.’

  ‘Could the reopening be brought forward?’

  A frown. ‘I suppose so. The engineers report that only minor cosmetic works are outstanding.’

  ‘Good. I have been looking, Comrade Senior CitiZen, for a symbol of the unity of our two Sectors; for something that embodies the Quartier Chaud’s embracing of UnFunDa-Mentalism. UnFunDaMentalism has at its heart the concept of Biological Essentialism, that men are superior to women, and the phallus is the symbol of that natural superiority, is it not?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘And the Tower is a very phallic structure.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘I think it would be symbolic of the union of the Forthright and the Medi if Great Leader Heydrich was to be invited to Paris to officially open the refurbished Tower, and for the Tower to be renamed the Reinhard Heydrich Tower in his honour.’

  Robespierre looked decidedly unhappy about this suggestion.

  ‘The Senate was rather leaning towards calling it the “Maximilien Robespierre Tower”,’ he said a little testily.

  ‘Oh no, we can’t have any “leanings” where towers are concerned.’ Robespierre seemed to be less than amused by Beria’s quip. ‘No. I really must insist: let it be the Reinhard Heydrich Tower.’

  The look Beria gave Robespierre was enough to convince the man that any further objections would be both futile and dangerous.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Good, then let us plan to have the opening on the sixtieth day of Spring. Thirty-five days should be enough for you to organise a spontaneous outpouring of the joy of the Medi population, should it not? It must be a grand affair, with fireworks … lots and lots of fireworks. The Great Leader likes fireworks.’

  All Robespierre could do was nod.

  23

  Venice

  The Demi-Monde: 25th Day of Spring, 1005

  Copy of PigeonGram message sent by Doctor Jezebel Ethobaal

  on 23rd day of Spring, 1005

  Burlesque Bandstand sat sipping his glass of Solution on the veranda of the Café de Rialto, enjoying both the afternoon sunshine and the hustle and bustle of the area around the Bridge of Thighs. He liked Venice. It was by repute the wealthiest city in the whole of the Demi-Monde, and it wore its wealth on its sleeve. The buildings were fine and richly decorated, and Burlesque especially liked the way they were painted bright colours. It made a change from the dour and monochromatic Rookeries where everything was coloured a shade of off-turd.

  And Venice was such a clean city. The streets were regularly swept and were, amazingly, free of the shit and refuse that befouled the streets of London. This he put down to the Venetians having all these funny canals running through the place: anything swept into them was eaten by exCreatures. Bloody convenient.

  The Venetians seemed a well-made people too – there were no blood-starved indigents begging on the streets of Venice – and remarkably well dressed. Of course, the style of their clothes had taken Burlesque a little getting used to. The colours were a little too sharp for his taste, but he liked the masks and he most certainly approved of how provocatively the women dressed … or rather undressed. Venetian women were inclined to show a lot of flesh.

  All in all, Burlesque had decided that Venice was his sort of town. It was busy and vibrant and full of chattering crowds of people. Ind
eed the muddle of people swarming around the café was as fair a cross-section of the peoples of the Demi-Monde as he could imagine. There were NoirVillian sailors with monkeys on their shoulders, Chink NoNs mincing their way to the Bourse, gondoliers in their striped shirts taking a shot of Solution and eyeing the crowd for customers, and even the occasional red-robed Visual Virgin en route to the Convent.

  Yeah, Burlesque liked Venice, and most of all he liked that he’d managed to get there with his SAE intact. Well, almost intact. The bullet wound in his arse was still giving him gyp.

  After the set-to with Stan Shoreham, the three of them – Rivets, Odette and himself – had escaped under cover of night, making their getaway from Paris via steam charabanc. It had been a miserable journey, Burlesque having to endure the four hours that the steamer had taken to meander its way from Paris through Rome and Barcelona, while seated on a hard wooden bench surrounded by squabbling children, wicker cages packed with squawking chickens, and by the very large women who were taking said chickens to market.

  But these discomforts and the throbbing of his wounded arse were as nothing to the suffering inflicted on him by Odette. The girl seemed never to tire, and she had talked to him nonstop in her indefatigably chirpy manner – and in her heathen French – from the moment the charabanc had left the station. The other irritant was that she’d developed a passion for patting him: she patted him on his knees, on his head, on his cheeks, and once – but only once, as the pain of his wound made him squeak in outraged agony – on his bottom. Her affection for Burlesque, and her sheer joy of sitting next to him, increased with every mile the charabanc puffed and wheezed towards Venice, so much so that Burlesque had the very disconcerting impression that Odette was a woman in love.

  Burlesque had been so nonplussed by the girl’s ardour that he decided that, immediately upon their arrival in Venice, he would use the crowds to slip away from the mooning Odette and make his escape. He’d even thought about using the same tactics on a sullen Rivets, who was still moaning about his boots. In the end, the thought of the damage a deranged and unsupervised Rivets might inflict on Venice had decided him against such an underhand manoeuvre.

  But, as the NoN poet Burns noted, the best-laid plans of marmots and men often go awry: Burlesque hadn’t anticipated how protective Odette would be of the new man in her life. No sooner had they descended onto the platform in Venice – theirs, by the grace of ABBA, being the last Medi charabanc allowed into the city – than she had taken both him and Rivets by an arm and hustled them through the crowds. And with the girl being a good stone heavier than him, whither she went he perforce went too. He decided he’d have to sneak away from her later.

  Unfortunately, in the ten days they’d been in Venice, Odette had stuck to him like glue, so despite his best efforts he found himself sitting with her and Rivets in the aforesaid café, waiting for something to turn up. And today that something was Vanka Maykov.

  Although, back in the Real World, Norma had seen pictures of Venice, she had never been there – her father having refused to take a ‘goth’ along with him when he’d gone to the city for the summit meeting with the hateful British – so she was excited to find herself arriving in one of the most romantic and exotic cities in the whole world … both of the whole worlds. And Venice – even a digitally contrived Venice – was as wonderful as she had ever imagined it would be.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ she’d asked, once they had disembarked from the gondola Josephine Baker had hired to bring them across the Grand Canal and were safe in the city. ‘Go sightseeing?’

  As it turned out, she was almost right. The plan they agreed upon was that Josephine would disappear off to use her contacts to find out what she could about the whereabouts of Ella, whilst Norma and Vanka would repair to a hotel to … repair. And for this Norma was enormously grateful.

  The adventures they had endured since their arrival in the Quartier Chaud had left both her and Vanka looking more than a little worse for wear, and although Venetians had a tolerance for idiosyncrasy, this tolerance didn’t extend to those whose costumes appeared to have been concocted from rags. So over the next week, Norma invested time attending to her toilette, her coiffeur, her ensemble and her poise. More, she spent a great deal of Vanka’s money purchasing a new wardrobe, which she determined would include some of the most shocking gowns that Venice’s boutiques could offer. Norma had seen the fashions the ImPure girls in Venice sported, and she was determined not to be outdone.

  It was a busy and interesting week, and one during which she transformed herself from careworn fugitive into society beauty: anyone who had seen the bedraggled traveller entering the wonderfully sumptuous Hotel Baglioni on her arrival in Venice would have had difficulty in recognising her as the elegant young woman who now stood before her dressing mirror. Rested and recovered, bathed and perfumed, she felt totally rejuvenated and ready to face anything this strange world could throw at her. It was amazing what a week without being shot at, chased, threatened or having to sleep on a prison cot could do to both her spirits and her appearance. Norma was re-energised.

  And her buoyant mood was assisted by the gown she was wearing. Vanka had decided that, as nothing untoward had happened since their arrival in Venice, it was now safe for them to venture forth in search of Burlesque. And for this promenade, Norma opted for a gown that was, in her opinion, a marvel, a marvel which showed off her slim figure and her splendid bust to perfection … especially her bust. The dress was cut so dangerously low that Norma’s marvellously full bosom was displayed in a manner that flouted both propriety and gravity, and hence would gain her the instant admiration of every man whose gaze was fortunate enough to alight on her – or, rather, on them.

  A mask made of deep blue satin, a string of pearls around her neck, a matching bracelet on her right wrist and a sequinned bag to hold her Cloverleaf pistol completed the ensemble.

  When Norma sashayed down the hotel’s grand staircase to meet Vanka that lunchtime, she knew she had been correct to delay her assault on Venetian society. As she glided across the marble floor of the hotel’s vast and very opulent reception area, every eye in the place turned towards her in rapt appreciation.

  Even Vanka – himself resplendent in a new and eye-poppingly bright suit complete with a formidably large codpiece – was impressed.

  ‘I never realised …’ he spluttered, and then got a grip on himself. ‘You look wonderful, Norma.’ Vanka shuffled his feet. ‘Norma … I said something back in Paris which I regret. I said you weren’t my friend and that was stupid of me. I would be proud to call a girl as strong and resilient as you my friend.’

  Norma smiled and then leant forward to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Vanka, you have no idea how happy that makes me feel. I’m honoured to be able to count you as my friend.’

  Vanka offered her his arm. ‘And I am honoured to promenade with such a beautiful and elegant young lady. The Bridge of Thighs is only a short gondola ride away, so why don’t we go there and see if Burlesque has managed to make his way to Venice?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Wanker, you look made up and no mistake,’ admitted Burlesque, when Vanka and Norma arrived at the rendezvous. ‘An’ you ain’t looking too scruffy neither, Miss Norma. Nice tits.’

  Norma was in so good a mood that she interpreted Burlesque’s observation as a compliment. She had had to do a double take herself, never having seen either Burlesque or Rivets in a mask before. In her opinion, Burlesque actually suited being masked. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your young lady, Burlesque?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, this is Odette, a friend ov mine.’ Burlesque nodded in an offhand way towards the substantial girl clinging very possessively to his arm.

  Burlesque Bandstand’s ‘friend’ was a big woman – not fat but with muscles bigger than any woman’s had a right to be – so it was with some trepidation that Norma held out her hand.

  Odette would have none of it. Instead of shaking Norma’s hand, she leapt to her
feet and engulfed Norma in a huge bearhug, crooning as she did so that ‘Je suis très heureuse de rencontrer une amie de mon chéri, Burlesque.’ (‘I am so very pleased to meet with a friend of my darling, Burlesque.’)

  When Odette had deposited a breathless Norma back on her seat, it was Vanka’s turn to be greeted.

  As he always did when confronted with anyone even vaguely feminine, Vanka Maykov bowed and smiled. ‘Enchanté, Mademoiselle,’ he crooned, as he doffed his top hat. His gallantry did not prevent him from being hugged with an enthusiasm which left him red-faced and panting.

  ‘So when did you arrive?’ Vanka asked, when he had recovered his composure.

  ‘’Bout ten days ago. We ’ad a bit ov bovver wiv Beria’s lot in Paree an’ ’ad to lie low for a while, ovverwise we would ’ave bin ’ere sooner.’ He leant conspiratorially close to Vanka – taking the opportunity, as he did so, to have a good look down the front of Norma’s dress. ‘So wot’s to do, Wanker? You ’eard anyfink about Miss Ella?’

  ‘I understand she’s been brought safely to Venice, but other than that, not a word. I have a friend here who has contacts within the government. She’s making enquiries on my behalf, and has agreed to meet me …’ His coffee cup paused in midsip. ‘And here she comes now.’

  Josephine Baker was unmissable. Sure her bright yellow and incredibly tight gown helped, as did her breathtaking beauty, but there was more to her entrance than that. Josephine Baker, Norma decided, possessed so much sexual charisma that even if she had been wearing sackcloth and ashes, she would still have turned the head of every man and woman she passed. She had that certain something that only a handful of women had: she had ‘it’.