Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘Certainly not a dogger,’ I said. Although I did harbour some secret yearnings to dog. But then whom amongst us does not?

‘And so,’ Lazlo Woodbine continued, ‘I conclude therefore that you must be English, a private detective who is presently serving his time as a rock ’n’ roll musician, a stranger to New York and a young man with a problem that he believes only Lazlo Woodbine can solve.’

‘Well,’ I said. And then no more, for I was somewhat speechless.

‘Never underestimate the power of the toot,’ said Fangio, the fat-boy barman. ‘Many before you have and all have paid the price.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Right, well, I don’t quite know what to say.’

‘Then you must accompany me to my office,’ said Lazlo Woodbine. ‘And there you will outline to me the nature of the case in point. And I, Lazlo Woodbine, will then endeavour to solve it for you.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Honest engine,’ said he.

And so we left Fangio’s Bar and crossed the street to the building that housed Lazlo’s office. Fangio left his bar and followed us halfway across the street, complaining that Lazlo Woodbine had not paid for his beer and that the Swiss maid hadn’t even bought a bar of chocolate.

And concluding that it would be a cold day in Cairo before he let autumn leaves start to fall, he returned to the comfort of his bar.

‘Have you and the Fange been friends for a very long time?’ I asked Lazlo Woodbine as I followed him up the stairs that led to his office.

‘We were Marines together in the last war,’ said the great detective. ‘Both won Purple Hearts in the Pacific. I won mine for outstanding bravery and Fange won his in a pie-eating contest.’

‘I won’t get you going on that,’ I said.

But Lazlo Woodbine ignored me.

And soon I found myself in the famous office. And it was just as I would have imagined it to be. Indeed, as anyone who is a fan of the nineteen-fifties American genre detective’s office would have imagined it to be. There was the carpet that dared not speak its name. The water cooler that cooled no water and the hatstand that stood alone without a hat. There was the filing cabinet, the detective’s desk with its telephone on top, and, I felt confident, its bottle of Kentucky bourbon in a drawer.

There were the two chairs and the ceiling fan that revolved slowly above. And there was the venetian blind. And I could definitely hear a solo saxophonist playing outside in the alleyway. I breathed in the ambience and then had a very good cough.

‘You hawk it up,’ said Lazlo Woodbine, patting at my back. ‘You never know, it might be a gold watch.’

‘It never is,’ I said. And I concluded my coughing.

Lazlo Woodbine removed his hat and his coat and flung them in the general direction of the hatstand. He seated himself behind his desk and gestured for me to take the chair before it (which I did). Then he leaned back in his chair and placed his feet upon his desk. And then he took from his top drawer a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and two glasses, uncorked the bottle and poured out two golden shots.

‘Down your shirt,’ said Lazlo Woodbine. ‘As you Brits will have it.’

‘Up your Liberty Bell,’ I replied, a-raising of my glass. ‘As you Yanks will have it.’

And oh how we laughed.

But not much.

‘And so,’ said Lazlo Woodbine, ‘you will now tell me all about the case, but first you must understand certain things. They are very important things and you must understand them now if we are going to work together.’

‘Work together?’ I queried.

‘Lazlo Woodbine works with his client, never for his client. There is a subtle distinction, but an important one. Are you sitting quietly?’

I nodded. Noisily.

‘Then put a sock in it.’

‘A sock?’

‘A sock all filled with olives. Such as this one that I recently liberated from Fangio’s Bar. But hear me now and take heed of what I say, because I will only be saying it once. My name is Lazlo Woodbine, private eye, and some call me Laz. In the tradition of all great nineteen-fifties American genre detectives, I work only the four locations. An office where clients come to call. A bar where I talk the toot with the barman and meet the dame who does me wrong. An alleyway where I get into sticky situations. And a rooftop, where I have a final confrontation with the villain. Who then takes the obligatory long from-the-rooftop-fall-to-oblivion. These are the only locations that I work. No private eye worthy of his trench coat and fedora ever needs more. Do I make myself understood?’

I nodded my head and said that I did.

‘And one more thing,’ said Laz. ‘I am always the hero, and as such I work strictly in the first person.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Now that might be tricky.’

‘Tricky, kid?’ said I.

And the kid looked kind of cockeyed at me. But ain’t that the way with those Brits?

The snow dropped down like dandruff from the Holy Head of God.

In my business, which is one of private detection, you see these cosmic similes all the time. You have to keep in touch with your spiritual side, never forgetting that every next step could be your last and a watched boil never pops. It’s keeping this balance that helps you succeed; that and the pistol you pack.

I always pack a trusty Smith & Wesson. In this town, packing a trusty Smith & Wesson can mean the difference between pursuing a course in elegant maths and perusing the corpse of the Elephant Man, if you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do. You got to keep a balance, see, and that is what I do.

I do what I do from my office at 2727 27th Street. The office has my name on the door. And also my profession.

‘Lazlo Woodbine’, it says on the door. And ‘Private Detective’, too.

Sometimes it also says ‘GONE TO LUNCH’. But that’s when I’ve gone to lunch.

I hadn’t gone for lunch on the day that the young guy walked into my office. But then it wasn’t lunchtime. If I’d had a clock, then it might have struck ten. But I didn’t, and so it struck nine. The young guy had come all the way from England just to seek my help on a case. He didn’t tell me that this was the way of it, but then he didn’t have to. In my occupation you either know things, or you don’t. It’s an instinct, a gift, if you like, and some of us have this gift, though most of us do not.

The young guy wore black, but he wasn’t Swiss, nor was he Jewish, it seemed. He was a musician, travelling with a band called The Sumerian Kynges, in the company of something called The Flange Collective, a kind of five-and-dime carny that was presently encamped in Central Park. Although he and his fellow musicians had taken rooms at the Pentecost Hotel because, unlike carny folk, all musicians are cissies and don’t like the cold weather. And the guy’s name was Tyler and he had worries on his mind. And in this town, if you have worries on your mind, you either hit a bar or call your shrink. And if neither of those hit the spot and there is the possibility that the quelling of these worries might only be facilitated by a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a great deal of trench-coat action and a denouement that involves a final rooftop confrontation during which a villain takes the last dive to oblivion, then you call on me.

If, however, you have Georgia on your mind, then I’d recommend the jazz club down the street.

So the young guy sat down in the chair that I reserve for clients and I poured him a glass of Kentucky bourbon to ease his passage whilst he spilt his beans. His beans, it seemed, were curious beans, beans of an outré nature. In my business I encounter many a curious bean. A curious bean, a wayward sprout and a parsnip in a pale tweed. It’s all meat and fish to a guy like me. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.