Phone

by Will Self

  quickly and intently to the right and the left – there’re no Bosnians,

  buggers or Bashi-bloody-Bazouks, just trays piled high with dirty

  crockery and glasses. The Butcher withdraws, muttering, Hotel?

  I don’t think so – more like a twenty-four-seven knocking shop.

  He shuts, bolts and chains the door … Prince Albert? Be awkward

  when strip-searched … Flash-to-bang the whole encounter took

  seconds: Have you met the Butcher? he asks of the Queen-sized

  sagging centre stage – asks also of the purple-brown carpet and the

  surpassing-grim wallpaper … sooner or later one of us will have to

  go … and asks most especially of a panoramic photograph showing

  the Manhattan skyline by night that’s pasted on the opposite wall

  and uplit by another fluorescent tube concealed behind a trompe

  l’œil sill. It’s this oddity – a false window on to a fake world, with

  real red drapes swished to either side – that led the Butcher to

  request this particular room when he checked in. Not that he wishes

  to pretend he’s on Park Slope rather than two hundred yards from

  Piccadilly Gardens, it’s rather that the room’s windowlessness – a

  function of its position, deep in the core of this big and surpassing

  solid old building – means it’ll be … impossible for the office to reach

  me … No, really, have you? He advances, semi-erect penis dowsing,

  towards the blunt brows of the World Trade Center’s twin towers

  … Because if you haven’t, you may well be finding this propensity

  he has for speaking of himself in the third person rather … arch?

  The Butcher allows the towel to slip from his adorably slim hips – so

  his long slim cock springs up, head questing … eye seeking: But,

  really, you mustn’t be annoyed … he strokes its silky shaft, its

  velvety tip … Squilly will explain, won’t you, Squilly? Be a dear,

  Squilly darling, and … oblige? The Butcher’s slightly rubbery

  features quiver in the New York night-light – he’s one of those

  handsome yet nondescript men who can transform their appearance

  … with the slightest grimace – or merest moue. The only feature that

  cannot be annulled is the warning triangle of his isosceles nose:

  mornings, shaving, the Butcher pushes this dorsal fin to one side,

  relishing its cartilaginous squeak and steadily slices … flesh out

  of foam – blood in the snow … Schafe können sicher weiden, yeah,

  right … Squilly, by contrast, is a wary creature with hooded eyes,

  who speaks with a slight lisp, his words dragging themselves over

  his drooping bottom lip and past his nascent jowls. He’s also just a

  little bit more top drawer than the Butcher – with a hint of clipped

  nindeteen-fifties diction clinking in his moist mouth. He says,

  I shall oblige, Butchie … then goes on … Well, the Butcher here

  is a confirmed illeitht –. Can’t you ever say anything properly,

  the Butcher interrupts. It’s illeist – illeist! Unperturbed, Squilly

  resumes: My extwemely close and vewy dear friend the Butcher,

  here … As I thay, he had a difficult childhood – some might say

  traumatic. There was neglect, certainly – abuse, too. His mother

  was an intruthive – not to say manipulative – prethence, while

  his father –. Okay, okay … the Butcher breaks in again, I think

  we’re all perfectly aware of what went –. – While his father was a

  still more manipulative absence, nowhere to be seen while poor

  ickle Butchie was getting fiddled about with by the bad mens –.

  – All right, all right, Squilly! That’s quite enough –! – My theory is

  it thorta fractured the poor little mite – thplit him in two –. – And

  that’s what created you, Squilly, isn’t it? – Yeth, that’s what created

  me, Butch, I’m your thub-personality, born in the bathtub at Colindale

  Avenue on the thirteenth of June nineteen thixty-seven – d’you

  wemember, Butch? – Yes, yes, I remember … He remembers his

  mother, Maeve De’Ath, spread-arsed on the toilet wedged between

  sink and tub, I remember … the string of amber beads spawning

  on her stagnant bosom, I remember … the prominent mole on her

  prominent chin … an inedible niblet … Ooh! she cried, your willy’s

  squirting! She lunged awkwardly forward to give the offending

  member a light slap … almost a caress. She did it again annagain,

  while sing-songing, Squirty-willy, squirty-willy, squirty … Steam

  curled, rubber ducks whirled – Actaeon was torn! and Squilly was

  born! How does it feel, Squilly … the Butcher oozes sarcasm …

  to’ve been conceived through the union of two such infantile words:

  squirt – and willy. Really, you’re nothing but a baby-name for a little

  boy’s penis. – Weally? Weally, Butch – weally? If I’m that, what’re

  you, weally, if not a typical sex-obsessed man who likes nothing

  better than talking to his own perthonified prick! Come, come,

  Squilly, the Butcher says, still stroking the rapidly engorging …

  matter in hand. You better than anyone understand there’s far, far

  more to it than that, don’t you? – Oh, yes, I do, Butch – of course

  there ith. – ’Cause you were the one who first talent-spotted me,

  weren’t you, Squills? You got to me long before that stuffed shirt,

  Doctor Opie, didn’t you? – Yeth, I spotted your talent, Butch – and

  I was your first handler as well, helping you into your firtht thkin

  when you were knee-high to a coffee table. You remember it, Butch?

  – How can I ever forget it, Squillster … The Butcher shivers

  deliciously: his penis is fully erect now – a great curving prong, fully

  ten inches long, which quests for … There’s no ac-tion! Every time

  I phone you, I just wanna put you down! The silent scream winds

  around the Butcher’s head – and Squilly’s. – I wecruited you, that’s

  true – and I’ve handled you ever since. I’m handling you right at this

  moment, as it happens … He is: he’s handling the Butcher, even as

  the Butcher is handling Squilly … but there’s more to it than that,

  isn’t there, Butchie-dearest? There is indeed a great deal more to it

  than that – for they contextualise each other, the Butcher and

  Squilly, filling in all the background details of whichever scene they

  happen to be … acting out. Narrative, too, they doo-doo-doo for each

  other, so propelling their partnership forward in a wobbly bubble

  of their own repartee: along strip-lit corridors, down dark roads

  and up narrow streets – into hidden doorways, up back stairs and

  into … hell’s darkest chamber. – And all the while, one or the other

  of us keeps on Boughing out the commentary – there has to be a

  commentary, has to be a mannish boy in a sheepskin coat with

  a microphone … You’re listening to him NOW! Don’t sit there

  with your mouth hanging open like a fucking MONG! ’cause

  he might put that THING! in your ARSE! or your CUNT –!

  Arse for preference, though, Butch, Squilly says – and the Butcher

  momentarily stills, legs prettily parted, one shoulder back, beautiful

  face downcast. Oh, my Antinous! Squill
y exclaims, grabbing for

  his cock – but the Butcher slaps his hand away. – That’s not something

  we talk about! Besides, we don’t want to die of fucking

  ignorance – now do we? To which Squilly throws back his head and

  laughs. – Look at us – dancing licentiously in the noddy, swirling

  round in a cesspool of our own making –. He breaks off: the

  Butcher’s hands are at his throat – he can taste the Butcher’s dogged

  breath. – Not now, Squills, that’s not something we talk about at

  all openly, is it? That’s p-perfectly c-cowwect, Butchie, Squilly

  stutters, and, relaxing his grip, the Butcher continues: We only

  talk of such things in our safe place, after we’ve thoroughly swept it.

  Our safe place, where we arrive separately, leave separately, and no

  one ever knows we’ve been … You’ve handled me for years now,

  Squilly, so you know this better than anyone … He falls silent,

  and the two stand looking at nothing through the same pair of

  empty eyes. Eventually, Squilly says, I turned you, Butch, didn’t I?

  And the Butcher concedes: You did, Squills – you turned me

  because you’re older and wiser. You understand the ways of the

  world – and, most importantly, how to keep those ways secured,

  for we are the wise shepherds and our job is to watch over them

  all so –. Schafe können thicher weiden, Squilly lisps – and the

  Butcher translates: So sheep may safely graze is about the size of

  it – that’s why you turned me, Squilly. You turned me this way …

  He begins to execute his own version of a piqué turn … and you

  turned me the other way … he reverses his twirl … and now I

  don’t know any more if I’m an agent or a double agent, or a triple

  one, or … the Butcher spins faster … Baryshnikov – but ballsier!

  He starts singing: You turned me right round, baby, right round …

  His penis audibly whirrs, a rotor, slicing the flock wallpaper and

  the Manhattan skyline to shreds … The Butcher sees bollocky bags

  full of dead bodies lifting off from a dull and dusty plaza – sees the

  PeeEllAy helicopters hover over the Western Hills – sees the

  scrotums slashed and the bodies … fall. He slumps down on the

  bed, his head crammed full of writhing flesh, blinded by fear flashing

  from dying eyes, deafened by howls and the poppling of

  small-arms fire. Squilly says: C’mon, Butchie – you’ve gotta bweak

  a few eggs if you want to make a weally lovely omolette aux fines

  herbes, you know that … But the Butcher says nothing, only sits

  massaging his synthetic features, his blue-black hair twined in his

  pianist’s fingers. Squilly’s having none of this: What is it we always

  thay, Butch, when we’re feeling a bit queathy? Fuck off, Squilly, the

  Butcher grunts. Thay it! Squilly barks, Thay it with me, Butch –

  thay it! And then they chant in unison: The pro-fess-ion-al skill of

  esp-i-o-nage con-sists en-tire-ly in the ex-ploi-tat-ion of hu-man

  weak-ness … And when this is done the Butcher finds himself

  standing by the wardrobe wearing clean white Calvin Kleins —

  which was how he’d introduced himself to the greedy little woman

  in the big ranch house … out of South Fork via Chester earlier that

  day. When she’d the temerity to laugh, the Butcher encouraged

  her hilarity by retrieving from his pocket the folded page he’d

  torn from a magazine, unfolding and holding it up so she could see

  Mark Wahlberg, naked except for his Calvin Kleins … hand on his

  squilly. Ha, ha, ha, she’d chortled, don’t be ridiculous, that’s not

  eyedee. When the Butcher next spoke they’d been in the oppressively

  fitted kitchen and the dodgy strap was in his hand. How

  d’you know anyone is who they say they are? he’d remarked conversationally,

  Because they’ve got a photograph with a name written

  underneath it? He sighed heavily: C’mon … logically speaking,

  there’s no reason why the name should designate the photograph –

  let alone the person the photograph’s of … This critique of the lazy

  inferences afforded by sight had been lost on the greedy little

  woman, since by then she was slumped down between the dishwasher

  and the deepfreeze, altogether disconsolate since her tell had

  been … so fucking simple. After he’d flashed the strap and begun

  backing her down the hallway, he’d heard a radio playing in an

  upstairs room: JayWhy, programatically sucking ministerial cock.

  The woman was an uneasy listener – her eyes roving hither then

  thither. So they’d detoured to recover a large bundle of dollar bills

  wrapped in clear plastic and duct tape from the dirty-clothes

  hamper in the airing cupboard, and a much larger one of Swiss

  dinars … scimitar-wielding horsemen riding through a calligraphic

  cloud … from a hatbox in a walk-in wardrobe. Both packages were

  lying on the breakfast bar … What’s the recipe today, Jim? when the

  Butcher said his piece: Here’s the thing about people like you –

  stupid greedy people like you. Y’see, you can’t help thinking you

  matter, and that the world is there for you to exploit as you see fit.

  Of course, even a stupid greedy person like you understands in her

  heart of hearts that she doesn’t and it isn’t – but it’s damnably hard

  to maintain objectivity, isn’t it? We-ell, you relax, pet, while I tell

  you how things’re going to be from here on in … – But the greedy

  little woman couldn’t relax – she rocked back and forth on her

  fat arse, she pulled up the leg of her naff slacks to scratch at the

  blubber barely contained by her … pop socks! The Butcher had

  almost relented – told her the revolver was nothing of the sort, its

  chambers quite unable to spin round, round, baby, right round …

  He’d almost relented – but didn’t, because he’s the Butcher, and no

  self-respecting butcher ever undertakes a job without his chopper …

  Outside, it’d been an early-summer afternoon in well-to-do outer-suburban

  England – the ranch house was set back from the road

  and there were no eyes on. He’d opened the door of the double

  garage to find a crappy old Austin Metro … the little lady’s runabout,

  and a brand-new metallic-black Three Series Beamer … his

  work car when he’s not abroad. Well, well, well … the Butcher

  thought … they are doing … well. His own work car was parked

  half a mile away on a busy thoroughfare – it was a bog-standard

  rental hatchback he’d rendered still more inconspicuous by suckering

  a stuffed Garfield-the-Cat to the offside rear window. He’d

  driven it back to the airport, and in the car park – butcher that he

  is – gutted Garfield, removing a small veeaitcheff transceiver and

  replacing it with the wads of currency. As he’d done so, he’d run

  the plays … What would happen to the stupid greedy woman – and

  Fechner, the marginally more clever operator who’d set up the front

  companies to buy the precursors, organised the supply lines and

  done much of the laundering? The stupid greedy woman was

  undoubtedly too stupid to work out who the Butcher was
working

  for – let alone whether his employers had authorised his house call.

  By the time he’d left she’d been whimpering, pleading for mercy: it

  was … most unsavoury – especially when she’d grabbed his free

  hand and pressed it against her sad sack. She might, the Butcher

  hypothesises, kill herself – or Fechner’s partners in the enterprise, a

  nasty bunch out of Skopje, could well oblige once they found out

  about her sloppy accounting … It was possible Fechner hadn’t simply

  been using her, but had some sort of emotional investment – in

  which case there’s a possibility they’ll make a run for it. The Butcher

  pictures the odd couple, gone to ground in a guesthouse in a far-flung

  market town … China Pekes on the fire surround – Will you be

  wanting tea in the morning? Any which way you sliced it, there was a

  zero-probability of any blow-back – so, as he’d stood there in the

  kitchen, wearily regarding a poster of a demi-nude hunk cradling a

  naked baby in his denim lap, he’d shown her some snaps of his own:

  tiny whey-faced bundles dumped at the foot of a mud-brick wall,

  somewhere in a patch of ochreous nowhere, while he let Squilly do

  the talking, because there’s something about Squilly’s bweathy lithp

  that really puts the wind up ’em … The Squillster had gently pointed

  out that her greed had contributed, in part, to the deaths of an

  estimated three thousand children. She didn’t know … ? Hadn’t

  realised? Oh, dearwie, dearwie me, Squilly had said, waggling

  his slack old thespian’s face, I do tho hate to be the bearwer of

  bad tidings … Fortunately, he was able to suggest something she

  could do by way of expiation … Taking the woman by her crimped

  and greying-out-at-the-roots scruff … orf we jolly-well went: the

  Butcher led her about the ranch house, pointing out its suicidal

  features: the big pot of jellies in the bathroom … I knew would be

  there, and regarding which he gave her clear instructions about …

  exceeding the stated dose. Back downstairs, he’d jerked her along to

  Fechner’s gun cabinet – which he’d already located … in the obvious

  place. Hunched up in the utility cupboard, to the accompaniment of

  a ticking meter, the Butcher had expertly cracked its combination

  lock … doddle for a man who can do a Number Four Manifoil in