Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘You too?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes, but in my way, not yours. While I am here, upon this world, I am as you are. As mortal as you but so much more than you. I am Papa Crossbar. And when my work here is done, I will ascend into the darkness to enjoy eternal peace.’

‘Might I ask a question?’ asked the kid.

‘You might, but I doubt whether I will feel inclined to answer it.’

‘Well,’ said the kid, ‘I will ask it anyway, if you don’t mind. Because I got involved in all this weird stuff a while back. It was your zombies at the cemetery in Hanwell, I suppose.’

‘There have been many and there will be many more.’

‘And-’

‘And so what does Mr Ishmael have to do with this?’

‘Oh,’ said the kid. ‘You really can read my mind. And it really does hurt.’

‘Indeed. And so I know what you are now thinking. You are thinking that you will try to distract me with some toot so that Mr Woodbine here can strike me down and hopefully kill me by so doing.’

‘Hmph,’ went the kid.

‘No go, I’m afraid. Not that you couldn’t possibly pull off such a scheme, but you would have to guard your thinking so well that I could not penetrate your thoughts. And you do not have that skill. And so goodbye.’

‘Are you off?’ said the kid, with some bravado. ‘Please don’t think that you must hurry back.’

‘It is goodbye to Mr Woodbine,’ said Papa Crossbar. ‘This man could pose a genuine threat to me, and so he must depart now from this plane of existence.’

‘Not quite yet,’ I implored. ‘Lazlo Woodbine’s time has not yet come. I have years left in me. And my adventures might well enjoy a renaissance. There might even be a TV series made of them. With, perhaps, Robert Culp playing me.’

‘Yes,’ the kid agreed. ‘You can’t kill Lazlo Woodbine.’

The being that was Papa Crossbar shrugged. And he did this with a wicked smile upon his face. ‘It is goodbye, Lazlo Woodbine,’ he said. And he raised his hands. And then he projected. As I had projected, me, Tyler, on the Banbury Bloater drug at The Stones in the Park gig. I knew what it was to project. And just how much power it had. And one moment there was Lazlo Woodbine. And the next moment, there wasn’t.

‘Gone into the ether,’ said Papa Crossbar. ‘Will you be next, or will you choose to run?’

And I chose to run and so I ran.

And I ran and I ran and I ran.

And I ran back through the streets of New York, to the Pentecost Hotel.

And I felt sick to my very soul and took myself off to the bar therein.

Now, a hotel bar is a hotel bar and they all have points for them and points against. This one had mostly points for. It was not Papa Crossbar’s Voodoo Pushbike Scullery and it did not have Fangio for a barman.

I ordered a Kentucky bourbon, double, on the rocks. And I sat at the bar and I hung my head, feeling very bad indeed.

It occurred to me that it would probably be for the best if I didn’t mention to Andy that I had met Lazlo Woodbine, what with Andy being such a big fan of the great detective and everything. He might just be a bit jealous and perhaps ask me why I hadn’t taken him with me when I went to visit Laz. And then the conversation might turn to what exactly went on when I did meet Laz. And then I might have to explain, just in passing, that Lazlo Woodbine had passed, so to speak. And that, perhaps, I was partially to blame for this passing. And it might all get rather messy and embarrassing and there might be some unpleasantness. And Andy might point accusing fingers at me and maybe knot these into fists and throw them likewise in my direction.

So it would probably be better just to say nothing.

But I still felt sick at heart.

It was my fault. I had got Laz into that fatal situation. I was to blame.

And as to Papa Crossbar! Well! So he was the super-villain. A black-magic voodoo evildoer. And it was he, Papa Crossbar, whose intention it was to destroy every vestige of life on this planet and reduce the Earth to a Necrosphere.

Scary stuff indeed it all was and I knew it all to be true.

And Papa Crossbar knew that I knew and so it was odds-on favourite that he would be sending some of his awful minions to butcher me horribly before I passed my information on.

I did nervous lookings around to the right and the left of me. Were any of his awful minions already here? He could read my mind, which was probably why he had let me run – for a bit of sport, because he knew where I was staying. The clientele looked normal enough. But, as I have already mentioned, I have never been able to define exactly what normal might be. And so the apparent normality of these folk, these chaps in their business suits and ladies in sweatsuits and pearls, might well belie the awfulness of what they really were.

I became now not only sick to my soul but frightened.

I would have to tell someone. Mr Ishmael, that was who I must tell. And he must help me. It was his duty to help me. After all, it was he who had got me into this mess in the first place. In fact, it was all his fault that I was involved in it. And so it followed that it was really his fault that Lazlo Woodbine had come to such a terrible end. But this was really absolutely no consolation whatsoever, so I sat and sulked and fretted and feared and gulped away at my bourbon.

And then the barman sauntered along to me and pushed the bar bill that I had signed for my double Kentucky bourbon on ice (although the ice was complimentary) under my drooping nose. ‘This is no good,’ he told me. ‘You’ll have to pay with cash.’

‘Of course it’s good,’ I told him in reply. ‘That’s my room number. Stick it on my bill.’

‘Sir does not have a bill to stick it on, sir. Because sir is not a resident at this hotel.’

‘Don’t be foolish,’ I said. ‘I’m booked in with the rest of The Sumerian Kynges. We’re a really famous rock ’n’ roll band. You must have heard of us.’

‘Indeed I have, sir,’ said the barman, adopting that obsequious tone that oh-so-easily becomes sarcasm. ‘In fact, I have two of The Sumerian Kynges’ albums, one of them signed by Andy, the lead singer.’

‘You what?’ I asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I am talking about The Sumerian Kynges, sir. I am a big fan. But they are not staying at this hotel and neither it seems are you. Now, do you wish to pay for your drink, or should I call for the services of the doorman? He is a master of Dimac, I understand, and although he only uses his vicious martial skills in self-defence, it is remarkable how much damage he does to folk whom he clearly believes, although perhaps misguidedly, are trying to attack him.’

‘Hold on, hold on,’ I said. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I am booked into this hotel. And I am one of The Sumerian Kynges. And all of us are booked in here. But we haven’t any albums out yet.’

‘Sir would appear to be wrong on all counts there,’ said the barman. And he reached down beneath the counter top.

Fearing the arrival of a knobkerrie, I took a cautionary step back. But no such cudgel was brought to light, rather a long-playing record in a glossy twelve-inch sleeve. ‘Wallah,’ went the barman. ‘Doubt this if you will.’ He held out this album to me and I stepped up and took it from his hands.

The Sumerian Kynges ~ CHEESEMANIA ~

That’s what it said on the album cover, all in psychedelic writing in the style of Rick Griffin. And there was a picture of The Sumerian Kynges, wearing kaftans and looking suitably trippy. There was Andy and there was Rob and there was Neil and there was Toby.

I flipped the album over. It was a Greatest Hits album.

‘The Smell in the Gents’. ‘The Land of the Western God’. ‘The ‘Two By One Song’, not to mention ‘Your Soul Will Burn’.