Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘So what is this something that you know?’ I asked him. ‘You seem very happy with this card.’

‘Oh, indeed I am, Rizla. There has been a purpose to these cards throughout all our cases. They have led us from one place to another and finally to here. I did not know the meaning of THE TOWER until now. Would you care for me to elucidate?’

‘I certainly would,’ I said.

And so, indeed, he did.

‘The intention of Wotan,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘is to fly over New York invisibly and dispatch an atomic bomb. To fly invisibly will require the services of the Tesla field generator projecting an ionised particle beam at the great airship, as those boats bombarded the USS Eldridge with such beams during the Philadelphia Experiment, rendering her invisible. So, the Tesla field generator will have to be set up at some suitable location where it can project such a beam. Somewhere unhampered by all these high buildings. Are you following me?’

‘I certainly am,’ I said. ‘They will need to mount it upon a tower. THE TOWER. I see.’

‘Not just any tower,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘but the highest tower in New York. And that is?’

‘The Empire State Building,’ I said.

‘Precisely,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘But hold on there,’ I said. ‘Someone is going to have to operate the field generator, make sure the ionisation field remains upon the Zeppelin. Surely that is a suicide mission. The operator will get blown to atoms once the bomb is dropped.’

‘Unless that operator has a means of escape. A flying motorcycle combination, for instance.’

‘Count Otto Black,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

Hugo Rune nodded and smiled.

‘So tell me what your plan is,’ I said. ‘You have a plan, of course?’

‘Hugo Rune always has a plan. Would you prefer that I whisper it to you? Or should I be enigmatic, tap my nose and say that I’ll tell you tomorrow?’

‘Let us break with tradition upon this occasion,’ I said. ‘Tell me out loud exactly what your plan is.’

‘It is really a rather dull plan,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘We make our way to the top of the Empire State Building and destroy the field generator. The Zeppelin will come drifting in, Wotan unaware that his craft is not invisible, and be shot down by the American anti-aircraft emplacements that are all about the harbour.’

‘And that is it?’ I asked. ‘The big climax to all of these cases? That is all there is to it?’

‘I expect the count will put up a fight,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But, in the shell of a nut, that is all there is to it. We have the edge this time, Rizla. Because we know the meaning of the tarot card.’

I smiled and shrugged and finished my drink. ‘Then I will take another of these,’ I said. ‘To toast our success.’

Hugo Rune ordered two more drinks so we might get into the toasting.

‘What exactly are we drinking?’ I asked the hotel barman.

‘The cocktail-that-dare-not-speak-its-name,’ said Fangio. For it indeed was he.

‘It indeed is you!’ I said. And quite surprised was I.

‘And it indeed is me,’ said Fangio. ‘I took the liberty of following you to this hotel and saw a sign advertising for bar staff.’

‘It is all so simple when it is explained,’ I said.

‘And isn’t this a wonderful city?’ said Fangio. ‘So good they named it twice. I accidentally overheard your conversation with Mr Rune and I would like to offer my best wishes for the success of your endeavour.’

‘Well, thank you very much, Fangio.’ I raised my glass, which now contained the cocktail-that-dared-not-speak-its-name, and peered at it closely. It was of a colour that had no name and smelled like nothing on Earth. ‘So do you think you will settle down in New York, or head to the West Coast, where all the sunshine is?’

‘Definitely here,’ said Fangio, and he brought out a bowl of chewing fat and placed it on the bar counter. ‘It is my intention to open a little bar on the Lower East Side in the Genre Detective District. Fangio’s Bar, I think I’ll call it. And then I’ll buddy up with the local colour – I believe a character named Lazlo Woodbine has an office around there. And you never know, one day I might find my way into a best-selling detective novel.’ And he gulped down a piece of chewing fat and I noticed he was putting on weight.

‘Well,’ I said to Hugo Rune, ‘this is all a bit odd, somehow. It is as if the end has already come and we are just tying up a few loose ends. I cannot help thinking that things never really happen quite as easily as that.’

Hugo Rune took out a cigar, placed it between his lips, raised the pommel of his stout stick to it and drew breath. A flame appeared as from nowhere and Mr Rune lit his cigar.

‘Now that is just showing off,’ I said. ‘No good will come of that.’

‘Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘for once we are ahead of the game. Savour the moment. Taste of its bitter-sweetness and things of that nature generally. Perk up, now.’

And I might well have perked up at this, but sadly I did not. Because I knew how these things have a tendency to work and all this happy-ever-aftering and everything-is-sorted nonsense never ever worked. And as if in proof of this, I spied, out of the corner of my eye, a small commotion. It was as if a number of fireflies were buzzing around in a circle near the far wall of the hotel bar. This whirling and buzzing grew slightly, then greatly, and then there was something of a flash.

And out of this flash walked two men in trenchcoats.

For out of that flash they had come. They certainly did not enter the bar through any doorway. But rather they simply appeared.

My mouth opened wide and I pointed at them. And Hugo Rune turned his head.

And suddenly these trenchcoat men had Lugers in their hands. And Mr Rune and I were in big trouble.

I could deal with the trenchcoats and even the Lugers, because I had become quite used to villains pointing them at me. What I could not really deal with was the way that these fellows appeared, in a flash and out of nowhere – that was not good.

I recognised them, of course, as the two suspicious characters who had followed us on board the liner. Although I had supposed that like all those posh passengers, they had gone into the Sargasso Sea to be eaten by sharks.

‘Hands above your heads,’ said the bigger of the two fellows, although there was not much in it when it came to height. ‘Slowly and with care,’ he added, but I did not take at all to the way he said it. I could not identify his accent and there was something altogether wrong about his manner of speech. His lips were out of sync with his words. It created a most disquieting effect.

‘Is this a mirage?’ asked Fangio. ‘Or am I seeing things?’

And even though the old ones are always the best, now did not seem the time for merriment, what with the Lugers and all.

‘Stand back,’ the fellow with the dubbed-on-badly voice said to Fangio. ‘You have seen nothing of this. Do you understand?’

‘Well-’ said Fangio.

‘Best not,’ I told him.

‘I understand,’ said the barman. ‘I have seen nothing.’

‘You two join us now.’ And the fellow gestured with his Luger that we should go where he wished. Which appeared to be towards the blank wall from whence he had-

– There was a kind of a whoomph and there were some twinkling lights. And then Mr Rune and I and the two enigmatic trenchcoat wearers were no longer in the bar of the Jericho Hotel, but somewhere else entirely. And somewhere altogether odd that made me feel very uneasy.

I had seen Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis and in fact it remains to this day one of my very favourite movies. It seemed now to me that we had materialised on the set of this movie classic. In the laboratory of Rotwang the scientist/magician. There was a definite art deco feel to all the scientific paraphernalia and there were tall glass tubes, up and down through which ran crackles of electricity. So perhaps there was also a smidgen of Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory also.