Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

“A long time ago,” I said. “A bit. odd, isn’t it?”

“Odd? That’s the most terrible story I ever read in my whole life! This dud gets a job in a law office and decides he doesn’t want to work. Does he get fired? He does not. This is a story? You hire a guy who won’t do the job, what do you do, pamper the asshole? At the end, the dud ups and disappears and you find out he used to work in the dead letter office. Is there a point here? The next day I call up Arthur Jr, say, could he explain to me please what the hell that story is supposed to mean? Dad, he says, it means what it says. Deacon, I just about pulled the plug on Harvard right then and there. I never went to any college, but I do know that nothing means what it says, not on this planet.”

This reflection was accurate when applied to the documents on my desk, for each had been encoded in a systematic fashion which rendered their literal contents deliberately misleading. Another code had informed both of my recent conversations with Marguerite. “Fiction is best left to real life,” I said.

“Someone shoulda told that to Herman Melville,” said Mr Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C—.

Mrs Rampage buzzed me to advise that I was running behind schedule and enquire about removing the coffee things. I invited her to gather up the debris. A door behind me opened, and I assumed that my secretary had responded to my request with an alacrity remarkable even in her. The first sign of my error was the behavior of the three other men in the room, until this moment no more animated than marble statues. The thug at my client’s side stepped forward to stand behind me, and his fellows moved to the front of my desk. “What the hell is this shit?” said the client, because of the man in front of him unable to see Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff. Holding a pad bearing one of his many lists, Mr Clubb gazed in mild surprise at the giants flanking my desk and said, “I apologize for the intrusion, sir, but our understanding was that your appointment would be over in an hour, and by my simple way of reckoning you should be free to answer a query as to steam irons.”

“What the hell is this shit?” said my client, repeating his original question with a slight tonal variation expressive of gathering dismay.

I attempted to salvage matters by saying, “Please allow me to explain the interruption. I have employed these men as consultants, and as they prefer to work in my office, a condition I of course could not permit during our business meeting, I temporarily relocated them in my washroom, outfitted with a library adequate to their needs.”

“Fit for a king, in my opinion,” said Mr Clubb.

At that moment the other door into my office, to the left of my desk, opened to admit Mrs Rampage, and my client’s guardians inserted their hands into their suit jackets and separated with the speed and precision of a dance team.

“Oh, my,” said Mrs Rampage. “Excuse me. Should I come back later?”

“Not on your life, my darling,” said Mr Clubb. “Temporary misunderstanding of the false alarm sort. Please allow us to enjoy the delightful spectacle of your feminine charms.”

Before my wondering eyes, Mrs Rampage curtseyed and hastened to my desk to gather up the wreckage.

I looked toward my client and observed a detail of striking peculiarity, that although his half-consumed cigar remained between his lips, four inches of cylindrical ash had deposited a grey smear on his necktie before coming to rest on the shelf of his belly. He was staring straight ahead with eyes grown to the size of quarters. His face had become the color of raw pie crust.

Mr Clubb said, “Respectful greetings, sir.”

The client gargled and turned upon me a look of unvarnished horror.

Mr Clubb said, “Apologies to all.” Mrs Rampage had already bolted. From unseen regions came the sound of a closing door.

Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— blinked twice, bringing his eyes to something like their normal dimensions. With an uncertain hand but gently, as if it were a tiny but much-loved baby, he placed his cigar in the crystal shell. He cleared his throat; he looked at the ceiling. “Deacon,” he said, gazing upward. “Gotta run. My next appointment musta slipped my mind. What happens when you start to gab. I’ll be in touch about this stuff.” He stood, dislodging the ashen cylinder to the carpet, and motioned his gangsters to the outer office.

Of course at the earliest opportunity I interrogated both of my detectives about this turn of events, and while they moved their mountains of paper, bottles, buckets, glasses, hand-drawn maps, and other impedimenta back behind the screen, I continued the questioning. No, they averred, the gentlemen at my desk was not a gentleman whom previously they had been privileged to look upon, acquaint themselves with, or encounter in any way whatsoever. They had never been employed in any capacity by the gentleman. Mr Clubb observed that the unknown gentleman had been wearing a conspicuously handsome and well-tailored suit.

“That is his custom,” I said.

“And I believe he smokes, sir, a noble high order of cigar,” said Mr Clubb with a glance at my breast pocket. “Which would be the sort of item unfairly beyond the dreams of honest laborers such as ourselves.”

“I trust that you will permit me,” I said with a sigh, “to offer you the pleasure of two of the same.” No sooner had the offer been accepted, the barnies back behind their screen, than I buzzed Mrs Rampage with the request to summon by instant delivery from the most distinguished cigar merchant in the city a box of his finest. “Good for you, boss!” whooped the new Mrs Rampage.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon brooding upon the reaction of Mr Arthur “This Building Is Condemned” C— to my “consultants.” I could not but imagine that his hasty departure boded ill for our relationship. I had seen terror on his face, and he knew that I knew what I had seen. An understanding of this sort is fatal to that nuance-play critical alike to high-level churchmen and their outlaw counterparts, and I had to confront the possibility that my client’s departure had been of a permanent nature. Where Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— went, his colleagues of lesser rank, Mr Tommy “I Believe in Rainbows” B—, Mr Anthony “Moonlight Becomes You” M—, Mr Bobby “Total Eclipse” G—, and their fellow Archbishops, Cardinals, and Papal Nuncios would assuredly follow. Before the close of the day, I would send a comforting fax informing Mr “This Building Is Condemned” C— that the consultants had been summarily released from employment. I would be telling only a “white” or provisional untruth, for Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff’s task would surely be completed long before my client’s return. All was in order, all was in train, and as if to put the seal upon the matter, Mrs Rampage buzzed to enquire if she might come through with the box of cigars. Speaking in a breathy timbre I had never before heard from anyone save Marguerite in the earliest, most blissful days of our marriage, Mrs Rampage added that she had some surprises for me, too. “By this point,” I said, “I expect no less.” Mrs Rampage giggled.

The surprises, in the event, were of a satisfying practicality. The good woman had wisely sought the advice of Mr Montfort d’M—, who, after recommending a suitably aristocratic cigar emporium and a favorite cigar, had purchased for me a rosewood humidor, a double-bladed cigar cutter, and a lighter of antique design. As soon Mrs Rampage had been instructed to compose a note of gratitude embellished in whatever fashion she saw fit, I arrayed all but one of the cigars in the humidor, decapitated that one, and set it alight. Beneath a faint touch of fruitiness like the aroma of a blossoming pear tree, I met in successive layers the tastes of black olives, aged Gouda cheese, pine needles, new leather, miso soup, either sorghum or brown sugar, burning peat, library paste and myrtle leaves. The long finish intriguingly combined Bible paper and sunflower seeds. Mr Montfort d’M— had chosen well, though I regretted the absence of black butter sauce.