Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

And I crossed the street to Fangio’s Bar and pushed open that famous shatter-glass door. And Fangio’s Bar had not changed at all. It was the same woe-begotten dump of a dive, and this I found a comfort. I mooched in with a grin on my chops and hailed the fat-boy barman.

Because there he stood, as large as Life, but slightly less glossy than Vogue. He wore the look of a man who knew just where he was. And also an eyepatch and cutlass.

‘Hello there,’ I said to the fat-boy. ‘And so we meet again.’

‘Arrr, aharr harr,’ went Fangio and he rolled his visible eye.

As I was already somewhat in my cups, I felt I was up to the challenge.

‘Old war wound, is it?’ I asked, approaching the bar counter and hoisting myself onto the bar stool that had formally been Lazlo Woodbine’s favourite and would now be mine. ‘Or is it medieval mouth-music from the mountains of Mongolia?’

‘Well, swab me decks,’ said Fangio. ‘ ’Tis you, so ’tis, so ’tis.’

‘Give me just one clue,’ I asked, ‘and then I can join you in this.’

Fangio sighed and did thumbings. To a sign above the bar:

FANGIO’ S BAR WELCOMES PIRATES (It read)

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I see. Pirates.’

‘You see pirates?’ asked Fangio, lifting his eyepatch. ‘Where?’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘What I said was, I see, full stop, pirates.’

‘Right,’ said Fangio. ‘So what will it be, Laz – a tot of rum, a parrot or a flog-around-the-fleet? The last one is a cocktail, before you ask.’

‘I wasn’t going to. But why are you calling me Laz?’

‘The guy from American Heritage drinks in here every day and just popped in for a quick bottle of champagne to celebrate the fact that some sucker, I mean, some plucky son of a gun, had purchased the franchise. And you’re wearing Laz’s spare clothes, so it must be you.’

I was impressed by Fangio’s reasoning. But had he just said sucker? I glared pointy daggers at him.

‘Of course, I was thinking of buying it myself,’ Fangio continued, ‘But I couldn’t afford the inflated price. Oh damn.’

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Inflated price?’ I said. ‘Franchise,’ I said, also.

‘I read in this month’s copy of Detective Franchises Today magazine that P. P. Penrose was selling franchises worldwide now,’ said Fangio. ‘He started out with one in Brentford, England, and due to its success he started selling them all over the world.’

‘But I bought the office of the real Lazlo Woodbine,’ I said.

‘Which makes you the real Lazlo Woodbine now. Doesn’t it, Laz?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘I can pretend to be. And to be honest I did pretend to be, for a while, in England. But neither I, nor anyone else, can ever be the real Lazlo Woodbine. There can only ever be one Lazlo Woodbine.’

‘And so what do you think ever became of the one Lazlo Woodbine? ’ asked Fangio.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Ah.’

‘No,’ said Fangio, ‘it’s “arrr, harr-harr”. The way that Robert Newton did it in the television series of Treasure Island. Newton is the Long John Silver against which all future Long John Silvers must be measured. Measured and found to fall short, in my opinion. Arr-harr. Harr.’

‘Quite so,’ I said. ‘But there will never be another Lazlo Woodbine. ’

‘So what did become of him?’ asked Fangio.

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

‘Do you want a couple of pieces of eight with that?’

‘No,’ said I. ‘Nor a sunken galleon.’

‘Don’t go refusing my cocktails before you’ve tried them,’ said Fangio. And he actually went off to fetch my bottle of Bud. So things had changed just a little hereabouts.

Fangio returned with a Bosun’s Whistle. A cocktail of his very own formulation, he assured me. So perhaps things hadn’t changed after all.

He did not discuss the matter of immediate payment, so, out of politeness, nor did I. I sipped at my Bosun’s Whistle and picked a bit of seaweed from between my teeth.

‘I’ll bet you can’t identify all the different ingredients in that cocktail, ’ said Fangio.

‘I’ll bet you’d be correct on that,’ I said.

‘How much do you bet?’ Fangio asked.

‘That you are correct and that I cannot identify the ingredients?’

‘Precisely. How much?’

‘Ten dollars?’ I said.

‘You pussy. Arr-harr-harr-harr.’

‘One hundred dollars?’ I suggested.

‘That’s more like it. Shake.’ And Fangio extended a hand across the bar counter. ‘Sucker,’ said Fangio. And chuckling away, as had the man from American Heritage, he stumped off along behind the bar counter upon his newly fitted wooden leg.

Leaving me to ponder one of life’s eternal questions.

Why had I not pressed him further to explain about the pirates?

I viewed the clientele of Fangio’s Bar. None of them were dressed as pirates. Although I did notice two fellows and a lady sporting wooden legs. But that was not necessarily an indication of piratical leanings. Most who know anything about New York in the nineteen-seventies will know that there was a brief fashion for bums. Bums being the American word for tramps. Fanny, apparently, being the American word for bum. The famous bums’ bible, The Autobiography of a Supertramp, which was written in the nineteen-twenties, had been reprinted, and along with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road had become the thing to read. And in the final chapter of Supertramp, the author, who is riding-the-rods on an American train, falls off and loses a leg and this caught the reading public’s imagination. And many folk went out and had a single leg amputated. Weird, eh? Of course, that kind of thing would not happen today, because the readers of autobiographies are far too sophisticated. And intelligent. And beautiful. And sexy. And-

‘Life, eh?’ said Fangio who, having served others, had now returned unto me. ‘You can’t live with it, but you can’t live without it. Or is that women I’m thinking about?’

‘Probably women,’ I said. ‘I think a lot about women. But I never seem to have sex with any of them.’

‘Perhaps you’re gay,’ said Fangio.

‘How dare you,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Fangio.

‘Quite so.’

‘I should have said perhaps you’re gay. Ah-harr-harr-harr.’

‘I should think so too.’ And I sipped at my Bosun’s Whistle.

‘Getting anywhere near a solution regarding its ingredients? Ah-harr? Ah-harr-harr?’ asked Fangio.

‘Sadly not,’ I said. ‘If I can’t come up with something soon, I will just have to accept defeat and take the hundred dollars for failing.’

‘And that will serve you right.’ And Fangio chuckled again. ‘Harr-harr-harr-ah-harr, ’ he went.

And then he said, ‘Ah-harr slice-me-membrane and walk-me-plank (also cocktails), there was a guy in here earlier, asking for you.’

‘Asking for me?’ I said.

‘That’s right. Aar-harr-harr-’ and then Fangio coughed. ‘I don’t know how pirates keep it up,’ he said. ‘It makes my throat sore. But yes, asking for you. Well, asking for Lazlo Woodbine, Private Eye.’

‘A client?’ I said. ‘Well, if you see him again, you send him over to my office.’

‘No,’ said Fangio, shaking his head. ‘I can’t do that. Oh no.’

‘And why not?’ I asked, and I downed the last of my Bosun’s Whistle and then picked a pair of lady’s underpants out of my teeth. ‘Why can’t you send them to my office?’

Fangio beckoned me close and whispered into my ear. ‘Between you and me only,’ he whispered, ‘that was the real Lazlo’s format. The four locations. You’ll have to come up with your own special format. I’m not going to help you to copy his.’