Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

I was in definite need of underpants and I knew just where to find them.

It was going to be tricky getting from the floatation-tank room all the way up to the God-knows-how-many-floors-above top-most lair and loveless office of Papa Keith Crossbar, necromancer, murderer and head of the CIA. I was going to have to make my way up carefully.

And so I got down to a bit of the old Doctor Strange magic mambo. I crept to the door of the room, pressed my ear to it, nipped outside in my spirit-self and had a good look-see. All clear, so back into my body and out into the corridor and so on. It was a damn fine system, and it occurred to me that should I be able to best the horrible Homunculus and save the World in general, a legitimate job might be found for me in the CIA, as a spy or an undercover agent. Now that I was not only a skilled detective, but also a Master of the Mystic Arts.

I upped to the changing rooms above that smelled of plimsolls and man-bits and sought out one of those smart black suits whose style never dates as long as they’re not made of polyester. And I eventually found one that fitted rather well, and I decided that in keeping with the mission I was presently engaged upon, I would go ‘commando’ while wearing this suit. I did put on a white shirt, though, and a black tie. And a pair of socks and shoes. And, probably best of all, a really spiffing pair of Ray-Bans. And I examined my reflection in a changing-room mirror. And as God had done when finished with His big six days of labour, I looked upon all that I had made and beheld it was very good. And very cool.

And then I heard voices and I did slippings away.

I noticed that there was no shortage of wall clocks in this building, and that the nearest one that I noticed displayed its hands in the twenty-to-midnight position.

Which meant a number of things to me.

That Kevin in Pharmaceuticals would probably by now have loaded the golden girlie up with happy juice.

That a couple of burly ninja types would probably be heading to the floatation tank to hoik me out to face whatever horrors the Homunculus intended for me.

And that the quicker I could get up to the office of the thoroughgoing swine and put paid to his eldritch schemes, then probably the better.

Outside the thunder crashed and bashed and the lightning did all that could reasonably be expected of it.

This final showdown should, at least, not lack for suitable SFX and noises-off, I thought.

I wondered, perhaps, if I should take the lift.

Lift or stairs?

Stairs or lift?

It would be a lot of floors and a lot of stairs-

And Hell, I looked the part. I could blend in here. Dressed like this I could pass for a CIA man-in-black spook any day of the week.

With the possible exception of Tuesday.

But then today wasn’t Tuesday.

I took the lift.

I pressed ‘Penthouse Office’.

And then I did something rather clever.

I left my body standing in the lift and put my astral mind once more to the application of the Tyler Technique.

I concentrated really hard and then did nothing at all.

And I accompanied the rising lift all the way up in the astral, as it were. And I observed all those folk who were about to push the lift button on various floors. I watched them as they missed the button, changed their minds, tripped over, bumped into one another. And on floor thirty-seven, the tall woman from Sales Services, Ms Williams, fell suddenly into a passionate embrace with Trevellian from Corporate Holdings. Much to the shock of his fiancée Ms Hayward of Musical Therapy (the one with the sweet nose who played the steel pan), who had not in fact gone home early, but simply popped out to purchase a new pair of pan sticks. Because she was having a secret affair with Jonny, the manager of the pan-stick shop. Who was the half-brother of Dave, the evil cat’s paw of the Homunculus. Who really quite fancied Ms Williams.

Office life, eh?

So, basically I got all the way up to the top floor unmolested, whipped back inside my body and stepped from that lift looking like a million dollars and cool as a mountain stream.

Just in time to hear all the alarms going off.

‘That would be them finding me missing from the floatation tank,’ I told myself. On the off-chance that I hadn’t already figured it out. ‘So best get a bit of a move on, eh?’

And then I did one of those duckings aside and divings for cover, which, as I previously mentioned, you have to know how to do rather than try and learn. Because the lift beside mine made that dinging noise that lifts do to signify their arrival and my extrasensory nose told me that there were two men in that lift and one golden girlie. So I ducked behind one of those corporate potted plants, the likes of which you can never grow in your own home, which are watered regularly by strange little Japanese men in overalls. Who always whistle old Go West numbers and smell rather strongly of bicycles.

Or was that a dream I once had?

‘Hold on there,’ I told myself. Quietly and behind the cover of the corporate potted plant. A Ficus elasticus decora, I think. ‘Keep your mind together. Don’t go wandering off on any tangents. This is neither the time nor the place.’ And I tried very very hard to stay focused, which wasn’t too easy, I can tell you, because the temptation to go off on one about potted plants and how Captain Lynch had once told me all about a man-eating variety that lived in the Amazon Basin was tempting.

Oh, so tempting.

But I stayed focused.

And the two men, young men, Dave being the one and the other, I assumed (for no reason other than convenience), to be Barry, to whom Dave had recently spoken upon the internal telephone about oh so many things, escorted between them a scantily clad golden girlie who had about her now a rolly-eyed-staggery-stumblyness of a kind that is so much favoured by a certain type of young female as a late-night-Saturday-town-centre look.

And as I have stated that I would make no further mention of my anger, I will make no mention of it now.

But I wondered, perhaps should I take my chances and have a pop at Dave and Barry? Perhaps I could take them down, as it were, and rescue the golden lovely. But, of course, there was always the chance that Dave and Barry worked out in the gym with the ninja types and were well heeled in the martial skills department. Which meant that they would beat me up and I’d never get a chance to take my shot at the Homunculus. So to speak. Et cetera.

So I let them pass by and then I followed them.

Discreetly.

And they were not, it appeared, heading to the office of the Awful One. They passed by this office and went up a staircase. Towards the roof.

The roof! I thought and I smiled a little, recalling a certain idea that had come to me in the Awful One’s office. The idea that I had considered a long shot, but one that was still in the running.

And so I followed these fellows as they hustled the golden girlie ahead of them up the staircase. And I heard them make lewd remarks regarding her bottom, which were going to cost them dearly when they got theirs. Which they would, I felt confident. Somehow.

At the top of the stairs was a door. And here they knocked and entered. And then I heard a voice cry, ‘Don’t bother to lock it.’ And then some mumbled words.

And I parked my physical self on the stairway, vacated it in my astral and poked my head through the door to see what was what.

And wouldn’t you just know it? Dave was crouched on one side of the doorway and Barry on the other. And they had electric truncheons in their hands. And were obviously lying in wait for me.

Damned cheek!

‘Well, let ’em crouch there till they get the cramps,’ I told myself. ‘I will find another way in.’