Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

Mr Ishmael.

‘You don’t look quite as well as you might,’ he said. And I saw that he said it because I saw his mouth open up. And I saw too that he hadn’t changed much. He looked very well. ‘It is good that we meet again,’ he said. ‘Very good.’

I gazed at Mr Ishmael and I hated him.

‘Harsh thoughts,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘I have always had your interests at heart.’

‘You are a liar,’ I said. ‘You have always had your own motives at your own heart. I have been nothing more than a pawn in your game.’

‘You are a great deal more than that, young Tyler.’

‘Young?’ I said. And I laughed a hollow laugh. ‘You have stolen away my life. Look at me – I am old and wrecked. What life have I had?’

‘You have yet to have your finest hour.’

‘I hate you, Mr Ishmael,’ I said. ‘And if I had bullets in my gun, I would surely shoot you.’

‘Oh dear, very harsh words.’

‘It is because of you that I am a wanted man. The Homunculus will surely have me killed. I hold you responsible for this. And if there is any kind of an afterlife, be assured that I will return to haunt you.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘This is not the merry reunion I was hoping it might be.’

‘Leave me alone,’ I said. ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

‘But I can help you, Tyler. That’s why I’m here, to help you. I have kept a careful eye on you all these years. You have been under my protection.’

‘Yeah, right,’ I said.

‘I watched you leave the hospital, I followed you to Fangio’s Bar, I followed you here.’

‘Only so you could get me into even more trouble.’

‘I don’t think it would be possible for you to get into even more trouble than you are in now.’

‘Then take satisfaction in what you have achieved.’

‘It is not me who will achieve our goal, but you. Everything that has happened to you so far has all been a part of what is to come. A preparation for what you must do. And you are prepared now. You are ready. You have all the skills. All the abilities. You are the weapon of our deliverance. You are the Bedrock of our Salvation.’

‘Oh, yeah, right. I spent twenty years of my life as a puppet for Papa Crossbar, then another ten in a hospital bed. I have been robbed of my life and it is all your fault. And I would so love to kill you. And as I have no bullets, I think I’ll just bludgeon you to death with the gun.’

‘So much anger,’ said Mr Ishmael. Without moving his mouth. ‘And justified, too. But you are directing your anger in the wrong direction. You know you are special, Tyler. You don’t know why, because no one has told you. Major Lynch didn’t tell you, did he? But he almost did, he almost let it slip. I disciplined him for that.’

‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘What are you?’

‘You do know who I am. You just haven’t given it sufficient thought. But I am not the issue, Tyler, you are the issue. You are the future. You must succeed.’

‘Bend your head down,’ I said, ‘and I’ll welt it with my gun.’

And Mr Ishmael sighed.

‘I hold the present franchise on sighing,’ I told him. ‘You are infringing my copyright.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, then. You clearly do not want my help.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t want anything more to do with you at all.’

‘I’m sure I could help you with something.’

‘And I am sure you cannot. Please leave me alone now. And never again come into my life.’

‘I ought to give you something. If we are never to meet again.’

‘You have nothing I want,’ I told Mr Ishmael. ‘I hope that you live an unhappy life from now on and die painfully.’

‘Sadly, that is what will happen. But I will give you something, Tyler. Something you need.’

I said nothing more. For I had tired of this.

‘The map,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘The treasure map showing the location of the Lost City of Begrem.’

‘You want it?’ I said. ‘Because you can’t have it. Tell you what, I think I’m up to it now, up to taking you on. You scared me before. You had power that scared me. But I’m not scared any more. Tell you what – I’ll put the map on the table and the one who remains alive can walk out of the door with it. Come on, what do you say?’

And I even surprised myself with that little speech. But I was oh so very angry.

‘I don’t want it,’ said Mr Ishmael. And he raised his hands. ‘That map is for you. It has always been for you. I don’t want to take it. I want to tell you what it represents. Where the lost city is. Exactly where.’

‘And you know that?’

‘Of course.’

‘So where is it?’

And Mr Ishmael looked at me and I looked at Mr Ishmael. And it was really hard looking that we did. One upon another. And Mr Ishmael smiled. But I did not. And Mr Ishmael said, ‘We will never meet again, Tyler. This is my final gift to you. Use it well.’

And I said, ‘gift?’ and got even angrier.

And Mr Ishmael said, ‘That map is of the New York underground railway system, Tyler. The City of Begrem is here. Right here. Beneath your feet.’ And he pointed downwards and smiled. ‘Where “X” marks the spot, that is the entrance.’

And then he got up and just walked away.

Out of my life for ever.

I never saw him again.

The New York underground railway system.

Now why hadn’t I thought of that?

It was all so obvious, really, when you thought about it. Really.

Well, perhaps if you screwed up your mind just a little and thought about it. Because, as is well known to all Londoners, there is a lost race of troglodytes inhabiting the London Transport Underground railway system. Descendants, it is believed, of a Victorian train disaster down there, when a train all-filled-up with Victorian ladies and gents got all-walled-up in a tunnel collapse. The London Underground Railway Company covered up this terrible tragedy and denied all knowledge of it, because it was bad for public confidence in the Underground system. It appears that there were survivors, living on rats and mushrooms, who eventually burrowed into the present-day system, where, when the hunger is upon them, they will snatch some lone commuter from a late-night platform and descend with him or her into their secret subterranean lairs, to feed. And surely it can be no coincidence that that most secret of all secret Government departments, the mysterious Ministry of Serendipity, is housed beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station in London.

No.

And so, what, a lost city beneath the present-day streets of New York? An unlikely proposition? No, I don’t think so.

I took the treasure map from my pocket and gave it a good peering at. It did look like a railway system, yes, it really did.

I hailed a waitress who was passing by, whistling that old Sumerian Kynges classic ‘The Land of the Western God’, and I enquired of this beauteous personage as to whether she might have a map of the New York underground railway system anywhere about her beauteous person.

And she replied in that feisty manner for which New York women are renowned and told me exactly what I could do with myself and precisely how I could do it.

‘That would be a no, then,’ I concluded. But I was not going to be thwarted quite so easily in my bid to enter the Lost City of Begrem and avail myself of whatever there was to be had once I was there. And so I asked a young black gentleman of the burly persuasion, whose attire sported a comprehensive selection of gang-affiliated patches. And he gave me his map and said that I could keep it.

And I thanked him very much for his generosity.

And he in turn said that it was a pleasure to be of assistance and that if I wouldn’t object to giving him one hundred dollars as a ‘handling fee’, he would kindly refrain from disembowelling me with his shiv.