My Hero

by Tom Holt

  That was easy. Beating the crap out of large, savage enemies is to heroes what filing pink pro-formas in triplicate is to civil servants. Now, back to the difficult stuff. He sat down in front of the tape recorder, switched it back on and cleared his throat.

  The door opened.

  ‘Hello,’ Jane said. ‘Who’s there?’

  Whoever it was didn’t believe in switching on the light. Easy enough to think of several perfectly good reasons why he shouldn’t; cost of electricity, place is an awful mess, bulb gone again (how many private investigators does it take to change a light bulb?) - all manner of perfectly rational, non-bloodcurdling explanations. Why do I feel sure, Jane asked herself, that none of them is likely to be the truth in this sentence?

  ‘Hello?’

  Shunk-shunk. Courtesy of SFX Unlimited, the sound of well-oiled metal parts moving together. Could be someone adjusting the settings on a washing machine. No earthly reason to assume it’s the slide of a .45 automatic being racked. Good grief, Jane, you will jump to these absurd conclusions . . .

  She made one final effort to extract herself from the wastepaper basket; in vain. Death with dignity? Ah, shucks.

  ‘Okay,’ said a deep, grating voice. ‘Ditch the hardware, hands where I can see ’em.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Don’t get wise with me, kid,’ the voice growled. ‘Try any funny business and you’re going home in a box.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jane repeated, ‘but could you possibly help me get out of this wastepaper basket?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.’

  There was a heartbeat of silence. ‘Did you say wastepaper basket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And then there was light. ‘Hot damn,’ said the man in the doorway, ‘you’re right. You are sitting in the wastepaper basket.’

  ‘Mr Marlowe?’

  The man narrowed his eyes. ‘How’d you know my name?’ he demanded.

  Jane paused before answering. The trenchcoat, with the collar folded up. The dark brown fedora. The shiny black automatic looking like a natural extension of the right arm. The hard lines of the face, the weary blue eyes.

  ‘It’s written on the door,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Right.’

  Marlowe pocketed the gun, bent down and put one arm under Jane’s knees, the other behind her head, and lifted. The bin came too, like a drip mat stuck to the bottom of a beer glass.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jane muttered, pushing at the bin with both hands. ‘I think I can—’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘That was my foot.’

  ‘How clumsy of me. You can put me down now.’

  The long, tough face leered at her. ‘You sure you wanna be put down, kid?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Oh.’ Marlowe glowered at her as if he’d just bitten into an apple and found her there. ‘Well, in that case, I guess . . .’

  ‘Anywhere here will do. Thank you ever so much.’ As soon as her feet touched the ground, Jane scuttled like a crab running for a train and put the width of the desk between herself and Mr Marlowe. Not that she had anything definite against him as yet; but he hadn’t shaved in a while and his breath didn’t smell very nice. ‘Well, now,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I expect you’d like to know,’ Jane said, ‘what I’m doing in your office.’

  ‘I can guess.’

  Jane blinked. ‘You can?’

  ‘Sure.’ Marlowe laughed. ‘I’m a detective, remember.’ Suddenly his voice became cold and hard, like a leftover fried egg. ‘You figured that if Maybury shot Stein, then the pearls must still be here.You double-crossed Pedersen, but it didn’t occur to you that Michaels had the stuff hidden in the other sock. When you found the body it was too late, so you put the tablespoon in Gobler’s hand to make it look like suicide and called the cops. Then you came here, figuring that if the cops didn’t get me, Shaftberg would. Only you figured wrong, sister.’ His hand disappeared into his coat pocket again. ‘That’s the trouble with me, I never do what I’m supposed to. I get letters of complaint about it all the time. Right?’

  Jane bit her lip. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘no.’

  Marlowe looked as if someone had just stolen his trousers. ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ Jane repeated.

  ‘You mean Hellman had the jade all along and really Thelma was Chase’s sister?’

  Jane sighed. Unless she did something about it, this could go on all night. ‘I really am awfully sorry, Mr Marlowe, but I actually don’t properly belong in your plot. I, er, just dropped in. On my way somewhere.’

  Marlowe sneered. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Only hundred-thousand-dollar blondes don’t just drop in on guys like me. There always has to be a reason. I reckon Pavlinski and Stein—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jane insisted, feeling a little bit dazed at being described as a hundred-thousand-dollar blonde. She couldn’t help glowing a little inside, even though her hair was, of course, a sort of shoe-polish brown. ‘I know this sounds a little strange, but I’m not actually from Fiction. I’m real. Really.’

  ‘Sure,’ Marlowe snarled, and shot her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hercule Poirot,’ Skinner hissed. ‘He’s a detective.’

  ‘What’s a detective?’ Titania asked.

  Skinner didn’t answer. He was beginning to wish he’d stayed in Painted Saddles. All right, it was tawdry and cheap and there were always men with guns jumping out and trying to kill him, but at least one day followed another in something like a logical sequence and he knew where all the public lavatories were. If all the future had to offer was diving in and out of other people’s books until he finally got stabbed, lynched or squashed by a bookmark, he couldn’t see very much point in continuing to run.

  The big leather armchairs looked very comfortable. He sat down in one. A thought occurred to him.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  Poirot, who was kneeling beside the body examining something through a magnifying glass, looked round. ‘M’sieur?’

  ‘Is there any food in this book?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Food.’ Skinner frowned. ‘Quelque chose à manger,’ he said irritably. ‘Something to drink’d be good, too. Le bourbon . Also, where’s the john?’

  Poirot’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment. ‘Ah! Les toilettes.’ He stopped, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Now that you mention it, m’sieur, I cannot recall having seen any. In the English detective fiction, vous entendez, it is, how you say, taboo . . .’

  Skinner shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘it’s your carpet. What about the food?’

  Before Poirot could answer, the door opened and a butler came in. In his hands was a tray, and on the tray—

  ‘Yes!’ Titania shouted, vaulting over the chair Skinner was sitting in. ‘Hey, I’m beginning to like it here.’

  —Cucumber sandwiches, potted meat sandwiches, tea-cakes, muffins, Victoria sponge, shortbread, biscuits. The plate was half empty before the butler was able to put it down.

  ‘Hey,’ mumbled Skinner with his mouth full. ‘Butler.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘If I asked you to bring me a large Scotch, would you?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Miss?’

  Titania shrugged. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a Manhattan, thanks. No ice.’

  ‘Whee!’ Skinner grinned, displaying a mouthful of half-chewed potted meat sandwich. ‘The hell with Reality, let’s stay—’

  At which point he gagged, choked, writhed like an eel in a blender, turned blue and collapsed to the floor. The crust of the sandwich fell from his twitching fingers.

  A moment later, Titania crashed to the ground at his side.

  ‘Sacré bleu,’ said Poirot.

  ‘The barman stooped. I jumped around behind the counter and jostled him out of the way. A sawed-off shotgun lay u
nder a towel on a shelf under the bar. Beside it was a cigar box. In the cigar box was a .38 automatic. I took both of them.

  The barman pressed back against the tier of glasses behind the bar.’

  Regalian stopped reading, breathed out, switched off the tape recorder and threw the Raymond Chandler paperback down on top of the pile of Agatha Christies. He felt slightly intoxicated and slightly sick, as if he’d just drunk a teacupful of sweet sherry with a triple whisky chaser. What I do for literature, he muttered to himself.

  While the tape was rewinding, he decided to check on the bounty hunter. As far as he knew, basic good/evil theory states that a villain, once tied up, stays tied up, whereas a hero wrapped in string is just an escape in chrysalis, poised and waiting to happen. That was all very well; but this was Reality, not Fiction, and the bodies were flesh and blood, not dreams and verbiage. More to the point, the washing line was Sears Roebuck and about twenty years old. Probably a wise move to stroll down to the cellar and just make sure he’s still . . .

  Gone.

  Shit.

  One good thing about being in Reality, Regalian told himself as, armed with the heaviest frying-pan he could find, he embarked on a room-to-room search. In Reality you can swear as much as you like without fear of being edited into confetti to make sure we don’t alienate the under-twelve market share. Having developed this happy thought, he spent the next five minutes making the best use of the unaccustomed freedom that his vocabulary allowed.

  He had just searched all the upstairs rooms, and was standing on the landing wondering where the loathsome creature had got to, when the airing cupboard door opened and the bounty hunter jumped on his back. In his hands he gripped a leg ripped off a pair of long thermal underpants, presumably intended for use as a makeshift garrotte.

  Sigh. Here we go again. Choke choke, gasp gasp, aaargh! Back in the old groove, the well-worn track, the daily grind. A change (Regalian mused as he dropped to one knee and threw the bounty hunter over his shoulder and down the stairs) is supposed to be as good as a rest, but on balance I think I’d rather have the rest. On the other hand (he argued, as a cut-glass vase hurled with extreme force and prejudice hit the wall three inches from his nose and exploded into needle-sharp splinters), it wouldn’t do to get rusty. A gentle workout now and again, nothing too strenuous (the bounty hunter, armed with a splintered banister rail, aimed a sickening blow at his head which he was only just able to parry with a hastily snatched chair), keeps you in trim and only takes fifteen minutes or so a day. One owes it to oneself (a brisk kick to the kneecap swept the bounty hunter’s feet out from under him, after which Regalian smashed the chair to matchwood over his head) not to vegetate, something which can so easily happen (and followed it up with a swift, sharp kick to the point of the chin, sending the bounty hunter tumbling back down the stairs, rolling across the hall and bumping headlong down the cellar steps) if you get lazy.

  ‘Hello,’ he called out. ‘Are you all right?’

  Silence. Having allowed himself the luxury of catching his breath, he picked up the length of banister rail, trotted downstairs and peered down into the cellar. Now then, he told himself, this is a case in point. I could so easily assume he’s out for the count and get on with my work, only to have him jump me again just as I’m priming the bomb. No fear. I’d better just totter down into the cellar and kick the blighter’s lights out.

  It was dark in the cellar - the light didn’t work; how many villains does it take to remove a light bulb? - and sure enough, there was a conspicuous shortage of unconscious seven-foot-long bodies at the foot of the cellar steps. Not that that was a problem. Any second now (ah, splendid - marvellously punctual chaps, villains; you could set your watch by them) he’ll come leaping out of the darkness brandishing a broken bottle and then it’ll be steely-fingers-round-my-windpipe time again. Then another judo throw (crash, tinkle; spare a thought for poor Mr Skinner’s claret, too late, oh well, no use crying over it), more lashing and dodging (swish! thunk! swish!), groin-kicking (gawd, bet that hurt!) and coup-de-grace administering (hell, I think I’ve pulled a muscle) and I think we can just about call that done. Now, I don’t for one moment suppose there’d be such a thing as ten foot of stout chain anywhere about the place? Well, fancy that.

  A moment later, Regalian stood up, brushed himself off and admired his handiwork.

  ‘Get out of that one, Smiler,’ he said chirpily, ‘and I’ll buy you a drink. So long.’

  One good thing. All that chasing about had given the tape time to rewind. There’s nothing so boring as just standing about waiting.

  To business. The tape he’d so painstakingly prepared consisted of ten extracts from cosy English whodunnits, interleaved with ten of the purplest bits of American hard-boiled pulp crime he could find. A little careful editing and mixing, so that the two tracks ran simultaneously. Play back the tape, and if he’d got it right there’d be a reaction similar in nature (and violence) to the meeting of matter and anti-matter. Hey presto, one character bomb, which (with any luck) would tear great big ragged holes in the fabric of crime writing, through which he could sneak. Although it’s virtually impossible to guarantee where you’ll end up, he had a rough idea of the likeliest place. Once there, of course, he’d be on his own and quite probably facing overwhelming odds and certain death, but so be it. He was used to that. He’d faced certain death so many times in his career that he knew every last pimple on its nose.

  Before that, though, he’d be really wickedly irresponsible and selfish, and make himself a sandwich. No point in visiting Reality and going home without having first sampled the local cuisine.

  No sandwich, because no bread. After some soul-searching and cupboard-searching he found an old tin of corned beef, a jar of pickled cabbage, a can opener and a bottle of Schlitz beer. Scarcely a heroic banquet; but after a few mouthfuls he’d had enough, and enough is reckoned to be equivalent, all things being equal, to a feast. Anyway, he drank the beer. It was flat, and there were small white bits in it. Then he washed the plate and glass (please leave Reality as you would wish to find it), combed his hair and had a pee—

  Always wanted to do that; but in Fiction, you don’t, somehow . . .

  —And wandered back into the kitchen. Zero hour. Time to set off the bomb.

  This time, the bounty hunter hit him between the shoulder blades with a brass candlestick.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hamlet was bored.

  True, Mr Holmes had plenty of books; but they were all called things like A Manual Of Forensic Toxicology and Wilkinson On Rigor Mortis, whereas what Hamlet could have done with was a nice, easy-paced whodunnit. Aside from reading, there was nothing much else to do except hammer fruitlessly on the door (locked on the outside), carve his initials on the furniture and make peculiar noises with the violin.

  And to think, he reflected bitterly, I chucked in my nice cushy job with Bill Shakespeare because I felt I was getting into a rut and wanted a bit of adventure. More fool me. All right, so it was a bit monotonous saying exactly the same words over and over again, but at least there was running about and swordfighting and stabbing people through soft furnishings, followed by a few drinks with the guys after the show. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Right now, back at the ranch, he’d be getting ready for the big duel scene. His favourite bit.

  He stood up, walked round the edge of the Persian rug three times without stepping on the tassels, pulled a handful of leaves off the aspidistra, found a small screwdriver in a drawer and started taking the handles off the writing desk.

  There was a loud bang.

  Well yes, you could call it that, just as you could describe the eruption of Krakatoa as a bit of a hiccup, or the San Francisco Earthquake as a traffic hazard. Accept that bang is an understatement, and leave it at that. Blame adjective rationing.

  As the windows blew in and the broken glass rained round his head like windblown snow (better? Thank you) Hamlet felt a welcome surge of adrenalin, a pl
easing quickening in his pulse rate. Ah, he said to himself, this is a bit more like it.

  Like what?

  Well, extreme danger, for starters; quite possibly sudden death. He rolled under the desk and put his head between his knees. A bolt of lightning seared across the room and blasted a hole in the far wall.

  Me and my big mouth, huh?

  The door flew open, and a body flew across the room. Hamlet recognised it as Mr Holmes. As it hit the wall with a horrible thump, he half expected to see a man-shaped hole in the brickwork, cartoon-style. Then the chandelier fell on top of the desk, and he ducked back down again, making eeeek noises.

  Silence. Very tentatively, he poked his head out, satisfied himself that the fixtures and fittings weren’t flying about any more and looked at the spot where Mr Holmes had landed.

  ‘Hamlet?’

  Hamlet frowned. ‘Skinner?’

  ‘Yeah. Over here.’

  ‘Skinner?’

  ‘Regalian?’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Titania?’

  ‘All right, what is this, a ruddy prizegiving? Everybody come out, and let’s see what goes on.’

  Hamlet extricated himself, scrambling through trashed desk and over chandelier debris like a claustrophobic tortoise, to find that there was quite a crowd scene among the wreckage. There was:

  Skinner.

  Titania.

  Jane.

  Regalian—

  ‘Look out!’ he yelled, as the bounty hunter rose up from behind a splintered book-case and took a swipe at Regalian’s head with the mashed-up residue of a violin. Regalian turned, saw him, clicked his tongue impatiently and threw him out through the open window.