Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘How much?’

‘Don’t start. I’m not in the mood right now.’

‘But it’s the solution to your present worries. It was there staring me in the face all the time and I never even saw it.’

‘Go on,’ I said, in as tolerant a tone as I could muster up. ‘Surprise me.’

‘This holiday business,’ said Fangio.

‘Yes? Go on.’

‘Oh come on,’ said Fange. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ I asked. For I was, at least, enjoying this old toot.

‘Well, you need to get away from it all. And I have the wherewithal-’

‘Yes?’

‘So why don’t I go on holiday and you can stay here and mind the bar for me?’

And I never hit him. Not at all. Because I wasn’t up to hitting. And because he was a friend. But I did explain things slowly and clearly.

‘Oh,’ said Fangio. ‘I see. So I finance you to seek the Lost City of Begrem. That’s a bit of a left-fielder. I would never have thought of anything as radical as that.’

‘Given time you might,’ I said, kindly.

‘I think you’re only being kind,’ said Fangio.

And I agreed that this was probably the case.

‘You haven’t, perhaps, purchased any tickets?’ I asked.

‘To The Sumerian Royalty reunion? No.’

‘To Begrem?’ I suggested.

‘Ah, no,’ said Fangio, ‘because no one knows where it is. It is a lost city. And you have to find a lost city.’

‘I know where it is,’ I said.

‘I would like to express considerable surprise at that statement,’ said Fangio, ‘but I regret that I can’t, as I have to go and serve another customer. I should have done it earlier, really, to punctuate our conversation in a better place. Sorry.’ And Fangio wandered off to serve a customer.

Which gave me a moment to do some thinking.

And I pulled out that scrunched-up piece of paper.

The piece of paper that Major Lynch had left upon my bedside table.

And I unfolded it carefully and spread it out upon the bar counter.

It was really a bit of a mess, all tea-stained and beer-stained and otherwise stained in a manner that it was not perhaps decent to speak of openly. But stained it was, nonetheless.

I viewed this stained and crumpled piece of paper. It was a map, this was clear. But that it was a map was all that was clear.

It was all just lines, interlocking, with little dots spread here and there along them. And one big dot surmounted with a cross and the words Begrem, it is here. But as to spot-heights, benchmarks, Cartesian coordinates, coincident line features, demographic data, grid references or link-node topology, or indeed any number of other wonderful things that you find when you check the Ordinance Survey Database, there was nothing that could even place the map as being part of any particular country. No go.

And then the shatter-glass door opened. And wouldn’t you just know it, although I hate like damn to have to use that phrase again, but wouldn’t you just know it, in walked two of New York’s Finest. Big guns and nightsticks and all. And I sank low over my little map and kept my eyes averted.

And Fangio smiled towards his newly arrived clientele, bid them the big hello and served them the beverages of their choice without of course asking for payment, because these were policemen after all. And he directed them to a cosy corner booth where they could drink undisturbed and then he returned to me.

‘Fancy that,’ he said. ‘Two policemen coming in here.’

‘I don’t fancy it at all,’ I said. ‘Thanks for tucking them out of the way. I think I might have to take my leave quite soon.’

‘So do you want to settle up before you go?’

‘Fangio,’ I said to Fangio, ‘you have tricked me out of the bar that I tricked you out of and half a million dollars. And you still think I should pay for these beers?’

‘You’d think I’d know better, wouldn’t you?’ said Fange. ‘But I don’t.’

And I sighed once again. But took unto myself a solemn vow that it would be the very last time I sighed today. I mean, it’s all so depressing, sighing, isn’t it? And although I did have good, sound reasons for being very depressed, there were also now reasons to be optimistic. If Fangio financed my expedition to find Begrem. And I did find Begrem. And in Begrem there was some secret something that would enable me to defeat and destroy the Homunculus. Then that would be a result, wouldn’t it?

Yes, it would, I told myself. It would. It would. It would.

‘What I am going to do,’ I said to Fangio, ‘is let you finance me to form a one-man expedition to find the Lost City of Begrem. That is what is going to happen. What do you think of that?’

Fangio did shakings of his head.

‘You are shaking your head,’ I informed him.

‘Because I’m bored with Begrem,’ said Fangio. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever going to find it, so I’m not financing that expedition any more. Would you care for two two-weeker tickets to Butlins?’

And, well, yes, I did hit him this time. But not that hard. It would have been harder, it would have been much harder, had I been able to muster up the strength. So he got off quite lightly, did Fangio.

‘Most unsporting,’ said he.

‘Begrem,’ I said. ‘You will finance my expedition to Begrem. Right now and right out of the cash register.’

‘Well, I suppose I do have the money in the cash register that I put aside to finance the expedition. There’s fifty big ones in that register.’

‘Fifty thousand dollars?’

‘It’s been a slow week.’

And I almost sighed again, but didn’t.

Instead I said, ‘Give me the money.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer Butlins?’

‘Begrem!’ I said. ‘Now!’ I said also.

‘And you will send me postcards?’

‘Every single day, I promise.’

‘Splendid,’ said Fangio. ‘And you’ll probably need this. I have been keeping it for you.’ And he brought up, from beneath the counter, my trusty Smith & Wesson. ‘Had it serviced for you and everything,’ he said. ‘Just in case you did make it back from the hospital.’

‘You are a saint,’ I told Fange. And I smiled. And I pointed the trusty S & W at him and said, ‘Give me the contents of your cash register. ’

And Fangio humorously raised his hands. And said, ‘Don’t shoot, Mr Burglar.’

Which is where, perhaps, things went so seriously wrong. When it looked as if they were just about to go so right.

I think it was the New York cop getting up to purchase another drink. And seeing me with the gun, demanding money, and Fangio with his hands raised and everything.

And the fact that the cop then shouted, ‘It’s that psycho-terrorist guy. Shoot to kill!’ As he and his chum drew their guns.

You have to be sprightly when bullets start to fly.

You have to know how to take cover.

You notice that I say you have to know, rather than you have to learn. The thing is, if you don’t instinctively know, then you will get shot and you won’t have an opportunity to learn.

I leaped over the bar post-haste, over that bar counter and straight down to the other side, taking my treasure map with me. To join Fangio, I might add, who was evidently skilled in knowing how to take cover, for he was already on his hands and knees in the foetal position.

The cops opened fire and shot up all the liquor bottles on the glass shelves behind Fangio’s bar counter. Why? Well, they had their guns drawn and they were clearly prepared to use them. On anything.

A friend of mine from my teenage years, who was once in the TA, told me that the only soldiers who are really any good to the army are the psychopathic ones. They’ve joined the army to shoot guns at people. Most people who join the army never really think about the shooting people side of it, and when they find themselves in a combat situation they will spend a lot of time instinctively taking cover. Whereas that one solider in every hundred who is psychotic will be blasting away at the enemy and chalking up kills. My friend who was once in the TA also told me that war consists of two things: boredom and fear. Waiting and waiting for something to happen and then being terrified when it does.