Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

I felt a shudder pass right through me, from the snap-brim of my fedora to the leather soles of my classic Oxfords.

I looked at the kid who was my client. ‘Kid,’ I said to his kid, ‘how do I look to you?’

‘Uneasy,’ said the kid. ‘And strangely, now that I look at you, not altogether in focus. You seem a little fuzzy around the edges.’

I took a great deep breath and leaned my elbows on the bar.

‘A bottle of Bud and a hot pastrami on rye,’ I said to the barman.

‘Coming right up, sir,’ he replied.

‘What?’

‘Pardon me, sir?’ said the barman.

‘Fange,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’

‘Well, of course it’s you, sir. Who else would it be?’

‘But you are serving me my order.’

‘That’s what barmen do, sir.’

‘It’s not what you do.’

‘Ah, have to correct you there, sir. It’s not what I did, when I was the barkeeper at my old bar.’

‘That was only about ten minutes ago!’

‘It feels like that, doesn’t it, sir? But time passes so quickly. Tick and tock and tick again and the clock doth slice away our lives. But I cannot waste your time with idle conversation, sir. I must attend to your order.’

‘Fange,’ I said, ‘What is happening here?’

‘I’ve no idea what you mean, sir. A hot pastrami upon rye and a bottle of Bud. Anything else, sir? Anything for this young gentleman here?’

‘I’ll have a bottle of Bud, too,’ said the kid. ‘But you are certain that you just want to serve Mr Woodbine? You don’t want, perhaps, to talk some toot with him?’

‘Talk some toot?’ And the barman laughed. It wasn’t a good look, or a good laugh. And Lazlo Woodbine took his bottle of Bud and poured much of its contents down his throat.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked the man in the trench coat. ‘You really do look more than a little fuzzy round the edges.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Lazlo Woodbine, replacing his bottle on the bar. ‘And how are you saying it?’

‘I’m just opening and shutting my mouth, like I always do.’

‘No you’re not.’ And Lazlo Woodbine took off his fedora. ‘You can’t do that!’ he cried.

‘Do what?’ I asked him. ‘What is the matter?’

‘You’re in the first person. You suddenly moved into the first person. You can’t do that. I work in the first person when I’m working on a case. I made that perfectly clear to you when I agreed to take your case.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I believe you did.’

‘You’re doing it again. Stop it at once.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Oh dear, I’ve done it again.’

The face of Lazlo Woodbine took on a curious expression.

No! No! No! My face took on a curious expression. I am Lazlo Woodbine. And something forceful moved inside my brain. And it said, ‘Hold on, hold on, something is happening to you, right here in this bar. Something altogether beyond the world of the outré. Something altogether anomalous.’

And I gritted my teeth and I thought myself back to the centre of things and back into the first person. ‘Kid,’ I said. ‘Kid, who is the greatest private eye of all time?’

‘You are, Mr Woodbine, sir,’ said he.

‘And why are we in this bar?’

‘Because you are pursuing a case – to find out who is the criminal mastermind behind the plan to zombify this entire world.’

‘And only I could solve such a case, yes?’

‘Only you, Mr Woodbine. Because you are the greatest of them all.’

‘Yes, kid. You’re right. You’re right.’ And I patted the kid on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps it was that blow to the skull that the dame who did me wrong dealt me. Or perhaps-’ And I looked once more all around and about.

‘Perhaps it is something more, Mr Woodbine.’

And I turned and I beheld. A figure of considerable strangeness and one that I did not take to in the slightest. He was short and plump and baldy-headed and if I had to pick out some historical character that he put me in mind of, I would have had to say Dickens’ Mr Pickwick. With the hint of a shaven-headed Shirley Temple and a little too much of a bucktoothed Caligula.

And there was an intensity and a density to this being that I found alarming and I took one pace backaways.

I might add that he wore a dapper black suit and carried a silver-topped cane.

‘Buddy,’ said I, ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’

‘Mayhap not,’ he replied, ‘although you have already felt my power, Mr Woodbine. An uncomfortable sensation, is it not? Trying to define just what you are. Who you are. Whether your existence actually serves any purpose whatsoever.’

‘How do you know my name?’ I enquired. ‘Are you a fan? If so, whip out your pen and I’ll give you an autograph.’

‘Such bravado, Mr Woodbine. You are putting a brave face on it, anyway.’

‘What is going on?’ asked the kid who was my client. ‘Is this the villain, Mr Woodbine? Should you shoot him now?’

‘Priceless,’ said the stumpy fellow with the cane. ‘Absolutely priceless. One of Mr Ishmael’s little puppets. And so far from home. And oh, such thoughts of triumph.’

‘What?’ went the kid and he clutched at his head. ‘You are reading my thoughts. And it hurts. Stop doing it. Please stop doing it.’

And all around and about the kid and myself and the stumpy guy with the seemingly supernatural powers, the clientele of the club just kept on talking with their companions and downing their beers. And the weather girls came and went and Fangio the barman, in his skull make-up, served customers to the right and the left of him, with never a hint of the toot being talked.

And I squared up to the stumpy guy and stared at him eye to eye. ‘Who are you, fella?’ I asked of him.

And the fella laughed. And it was a terrible, terrible laugh and it rolled all about me and all through me and it made me feel sick at heart. ‘I do hate to use such a dreadful cliché,’ said the fella. ‘And as I have already made you aware that you are now a cliché yourself, it does seem such a shame. But as I have no feelings for you, or indeed your race, let it be known to you that I am Papa Crossbar. And I am your worst nightmare.’

‘The Papa Crossbar, High Priest of voodoo?’

‘And so very much more besides. And one by one I take from this world, take life and replace it with death.’

‘It is him,’ cried the kid. ‘Shoot him, Laz. Shoot him now.’

And I reached for my trusty Smith & Wesson. But my trusty Smith & Wesson wasn’t there. The stumpy guy that was Papa Crossbar had it. He had somehow lifted it from my shoulder holster. And he twirled it about him on a stumpy little finger.

‘I can hear you thinking,’ he said, ‘all of you, and the din is deafening. You make so much noise, don’t you? And so much mess, too, and you stink out this part of the universe. But soon I will be done with all of you. With all life on this planet, down to the tiniest noisy little microbe. All will be gone and all that will remain will be a Necrosphere. A planet of the dead – the totally dead. No bacteria rowdily feasting on corpses, no loudly chomping maggots. All will be dead. Each and all. But you will not be here to witness that, I am thinking.’

‘But why?’ I asked. And I took a step back. ‘Why would you want to do such an awful thing?’

‘Awful?’ asked the stumpy Papa Crossbar. ‘Awful in which respect?’

‘To annihilate an entire race. Eradicate life from an entire planet. Why would you want to do such a thing?’

‘ Pest control, if you will. Life is not universal. Death is universal. This little pocket of life is an anomaly. It ruins the perfection that the universe would otherwise attain. Nasty, noisy, smelly little planet. All must be expunged. All must die.’