Something From the Nightside

by Simon R. Green

  “A ghost café.

  “The people, on the other hand, are mostly real. Either Time-tripping in from the sixties, or just getting into the spirit of the thing. The Hawk’s Wind is a genius loci for all that was good and great about the Swingingest era of them all. And because the café isn’t real, you can order all kinds of things here that haven’t existed since the sixties. Ghost food and drink, which as it isn’t real, can’t affect a real body. The ultimate in slimming diets; and your last chance to wallow in some serious nostalgia. How long has it been since you’ve tasted a real Coke, Joanna?”

  Our waitress was back, bearing two old-fashioned chunky glass bottles with crimped-on caps, balanced expertly on a tin tray decorated with photos of the Monkees. She slammed the crimped tops expertly against the edge of the table. The caps flew through the air, but not one frothy bubble rose above the mouth of the neck. She placed a bottle before each of us, and dipped in curly-wurly plastic straws. She flashed a grin, cracked her gum, and wiggled off while Joanna looked dubiously at the bottle before her.

  “I do not need a straw. I am not a child.”

  “Go with it. It’s all part of the experience. This … is real Coke. The old, sugar-rich, caffeine-heavy, thick syrup and taste-intensive kind you can’t get any more; except in certain parts of Mexico, apparently, which just goes to show. Try it, Joanna. Your taste-buds are about to convulse in ecstasy.”

  She took a sip, and so did I. She took several more, and so did I. And then we both sat back in our plastic chairs, oohing and aahing appreciatively, while the dark liquid ran through our bodies, jump-starting all our tired systems. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, was crooning from the jukebox, and I could only nod in agreement.

  “Damn,” said Joanna, after a respectful pause. “Damn. This is the real thing, isn’t it? I’d forgotten how good Coke used to be. Is it expensive?”

  “Not here,” I said. “This is the sixties, remember? They accept coins from all periods here, and IOUs. No-one wants to risk being barred.”

  Joanna had relaxed a little, but her mouth was still set in a firm line. “This is all very pleasant, John, but I didn’t come into the Nightside to be entertained. My daughter is only a few streets away now, according to you. What are we doing here, when we should be rescuing her?”

  “We’re here because we need to get our breath back. If we’re going to venture into Blaiston Street, we’re going to have to be fresh, sharp, and have every last one of our wits about us. Or they’ll chop us off at the ankles before we even see them coming. Blaiston Street is only a few blocks away, but it’s a whole other world. Vicious, violent, and possibly even more dangerous than the place we just left. And yes, I know that makes you even more desperate to go rushing off to save Cathy, but we’re going to need to be at the top of our form for this. And remember, Time doesn’t pass out there, while we’re in here.

  “You’re holding up really well after all you’ve been through, Joanna. I’m impressed. Really. But even the sharpest edge will go blunt if you beat it against a brick wall often enough. So I want you to sit here, enjoy your Coke and the surroundings, until we’re both ready to take on the Nightside again. You only think you’ve seen the bad places. You mess up in Blaiston Street and they’ll eat you alive. Possibly literally. And I think… there are things we need to talk about, you and I, before we go anywhere else.”

  “Things?” said Joanna, raising a perfect eyebrow.

  “There are things about Cathy, and her situation, that need … clarifying,” I said carefully. “There’s more to this than meets the eye. More to this whole situation. I can feel it.”

  “There are a lot of unanswered questions,” said Joanna. “I know that. Who called Cathy here, and why? Why choose her? She’s no-one important, except to me. I’m a successful businesswoman, but I don’t earn the kind of money that would make kidnap or blackmail attractive. And this is the Nightside. People like me don’t matter here. So why pick on Cathy? Just another teenage runaway? If I knew the answers to questions like those, I wouldn’t have needed to hire someone like you, would I?”

  I nodded slowly, acknowledging the point. Joanna pressed on.

  “I don’t think we’re in here because I need a rest, John. I think this is your rest stop. You’ve been through a lot too. You killed Razor Eddie. He was your friend, and you killed him.”

  “I killed him because he was my friend. Because he’d suffered so much. Because it was the only thing left I could do for him. And because I’ve always been able to do the hard, necessary things.”

  “Then why are your hands shaking?”

  I looked down, and they were. I honestly hadn’t noticed. Joanna put one of her hands on top of mine, and the shaking slowly stopped.

  “Tell me about Eddie,” she said. “Not the Street of the Gods stuff. Tell me about you, and Eddie.”

  “We worked a lot of cases together,” I said, after a while. “Eddie’s … powerful, but he’s not the most subtle of people. There are some problems you can’t solve with power, without destroying what you’re trying to save. That’s when Eddie would turn up at Strangefellows, asking for my help. Not openly, of course. But we’d talk, and eventually the conversation would come around to what was troubling him, and then he and I would go out into the night, and find a way to put things right that didn’t involve hitting the problem with a sledgehammer. Or a straight razor.

  “And sometimes … he’d just appear out of nowhere, to back me up. When I got in over my head.”

  “This sounds more like partners than friends,” said Joanna.

  “He’s a killer,” I said. “Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. These days he kills with good rather than bad intentions, but in the end all he is, is killing. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Hard to get close to a man like that. Someone who’s gone much further into the dark than I ever have. But… he turned his life around, Joanna. Whatever epiphany he found on the Street of the Gods, he threw aside everything that had ever had power over him, in order to earn redemption. How can you not admire courage like that? If someone like him can change, there’s hope for all of us.

  “I’ve tried to be a good friend to him. Tried to steer him towards a different kind of life, where he doesn’t have to define who he is by killing. And he… listens, when I have bad times, and need someone I can talk to who won’t repeat it. He warns people away from me, if he thinks they’re a threat. He hurts people, if he thinks they’re planning to hurt me. He thinks I don’t know that.

  “I killed him in the Timeslip to put an end to his suffering. I’ve always been able to bite the bullet, and do what has to be done. I never said it was easy.”

  “John…”

  “No. Don’t try and bond me with me, Joanna. There’s no room in my life for people who can’t protect themselves.”

  “Is that why your only friends are damaged souls like Razor Eddie and Suzie Shooter? Or do you deliberately only befriend people already so preoccupied with their own inner demons that they won’t put pressure on you to confront your own? You’re afraid, John. Afraid to really open up to anyone, because that would make you vulnerable. This is no way to live, John. Living vicariously through the problems of your clients.”

  “You don’t know me,” I said. “Don’t you dare think that you know me. I am … who I have to be. To survive. I live alone, because I won’t risk endangering someone I might care for. And if it’s sometimes very cold and very dark where I am; at least when I do go down, I won’t drag anyone else with me.”

  “That’s no way to live,” said Joanna.

  “And you, of course, are the expert on how to run your life successfully. A mother whose child runs away at every opportunity. Let’s talk about some of the questions you have to consider, before we go any further. What if, we finally go to Blaiston Street, find the right house, kick in the door and find that Cathy’s actually very happy where she is, thank you? That she’s happy and safe and doesn’t need rescuin
g? What if she’s found someone or something worth running to, and doesn’t want to leave? Stranger things have happened, in the Nightside. Could you turn and walk away, leave her there, after all we’ve been through to track her down? Or would you insist she come back with you, back to a life you could understand and approve of, where you could keep a watchful eye on her, to ensure she won’t grow up to make your mistakes?”

  Joanna took her hand away from mine. “If she was genuinely happy … I could live with that. You don’t last long in the business world if you can’t distinguish between the world as it is and the world as you want it to be. What matters is that she’s safe. I need to know that. I could always come back and visit.”

  “All right,” I said. “Try this one. What if she is in a bad place, and we haul her out of there, and you take her back home with you? What are you going to do to ensure she won’t just run away again, first chance she gets?”

  “I don’t know,” said Joanna, and I had to give her points for honesty. “Hopefully, the fact that I’ve come this far for her, gone through so much for her… will make an impression. Make her see that I do care about her, even if I’m not always very good at showing it. And if nothing else, this whole experience should give us something in common to talk about, for once. We’ve always found it difficult to talk.”

  “Or listen. Make time for your daughter, Joanna. I really don’t want to have to do this again.”

  “I had managed to work that out for myself,” said Joanna, just a little coldly. “I always thought Cathy had everything she needed. Clearly, I was wrong. My business can survive without me for a while. And if it can’t, the hell with it. There are more important things.”

  I nodded and smiled, and after a moment she smiled back. It wasn’t going to be as simple or as easy as that, and both of us knew it, but recognising a problem is at least half-way to solving it. I was pleased at how far she had come. I just hoped she could go the distance. We sipped our Cokes for a while. The Fifth Dimension finished “Aquarius” and went straight into “Let the Sun Shine.”

  “That future we ended up in,” Joanna said, after a while. “It may not be the future, or even the most likely, but it was still a bloody frightening one. How could you possibly be responsible for destroying the whole damned world? Are you really that powerful?”

  “No,” I said. “At least, not at present. It’s got to be tied in to what I inherited, or perhaps stand to inherit, from my missing mother. I never knew her. I have no idea who or what she really was. No-one does. My father found out, and the knowledge made him drink himself to death. And this was a man well used and inured to all the worst excesses of the Nightside.”

  “What did he do here?” said Joanna.

  “He worked for the Authorities. The ones who watch over us, whether we like it or not. After my father died, I went through his papers. Hoping to find some kind of legacy, or message, or just an explanation, something to help me understand. I was ten years old, and I still believed in neat answers like that then. But it was all just junk. No diary, no letters, no photos of him and my mother together. Not even a wedding photo. He must have destroyed them all. And the few people who’d known both my parents had vanished long ago. Driven away by… many things. None of them turned up for his funeral.

  “Over the years, all kinds of people have come up with all kinds of theories as to who and what my mother might have been. Why she appeared out of nowhere, married my father, produced me, and then disappeared again. And why she didn’t take me with her. But no-one’s ever been able to prove anything out of the ordinary about me, apart from my gift. And gifts are as common as freckles among the sons and daughters of the Nightside.”

  Joanna frowned suddenly. “On the tube train, coming here, the Brittle Sisters of the Hive recognised your name. They backed off, rather than upset you. And they asked to be remembered, when you finally came into your kingdom.”

  I had to smile. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. In the Nightside, you can never be sure which ugly duckling might grow up to be a beautiful swan, or even a phoenix. So if you’re sensible you hedge your bets and back as many horses as possible. And never make an enemy you don’t have to.”

  Joanna leaned forward across the plastic table, pushing her Coke bottle aside so she could stare at me the more fiercely. “And do you still intend to go on looking for your mother, now you know what might happen to the world if you find her?”

  “It’s a hell of a wake-up call, isn’t it? It’s certainly given me a lot of food for thought.”

  “That isn’t answering the question.”

  “I know. Look, I hadn’t even intended to stay here, in the Nightside, once this case was over and done with. I left this madhouse five years ago for good reasons, and none of them have changed. But… more and more, this dangerous and appalling place feels like home to me. Like I belong here. Your safe and sane everyday world didn’t seem to have any place for me. At least here I get the feeling I could do some real good for my clients. That I could … make a difference.”

  “Oh yes,” said Joanna. “You could make a hell of a difference here.”

  I met Joanna’s gaze as calmly as I could. “All I can honestly say is this—I really don’t care enough about my mother to risk bringing about the future we both saw.”

  “But that could change.”

  “Yes. It could. Anything can happen, in the Nightside. Drink your nice Coke, Joanna, and try not to worry about it.”

  The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was belting out “Fire,” by the time Joanna had calmed down enough to ask another question.

  “I need you to be straight with me, John. Do you think Cathy is still alive?”

  “I have no reason to believe she’s not,” I said honestly. “We know she was alive very recently. The last image my gift picked up was only a few days old. We know Someone or Something called her into the Nightside, but there’s no direct evidence that individual means Cathy any harm. There’s no evidence that he doesn’t, either, but when you’re groping in the dark it’s best to be optimistic. As yet, no clear threat or danger has manifested. We have to proceed on the assumption that she’s still alive. We have … to have hope.”

  “Hope? Even here?” said Joanna. “In the Nightside?”

  “Especially here,” I said. This time I put my hand on hers. Our hands felt good together, natural. “I’ll do everything I can for you, Joanna. I won’t give up, as long as there’s a shred of hope left.”

  “I know,” said Joanna. “You’re a good man at heart, John Taylor.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes for a long time, and both of us were smiling. We believed in each other, even if we weren’t too sure about ourselves. I knew this wasn’t a good idea. Never get personally involved with a client. It’s written in large capital letters on page one of How to Be a Private Detective. Right next to Get as much cash as you can up front, just in case the cheque bounces, and Don’t go looking for the Maltese Falcon because it’ll all end in tears. I’m not stupid. I’ve read Raymond Chandler. But right then, I just didn’t care. I did make one last effort, for the good of my soul.

  “It’s not too late for you to back out,” I said. “You’ve been through enough. Stay here, and let me handle Blaiston Street. You’ll be safe here.”

  “No,” Joanna said immediately, pulling her hands away from mine. “I have to do this. I have to be there, when you find… what’s happened to my daughter. I have to know the truth, and she has to know … that I cared enough to come myself. Dammit, John, I’ve earned the right to be there.”

  “Yes,” I said, quietly proud of her. “You have.”

  “John Taylor, as I live and breathe,” said a cold, cheerful voice. “I really couldn’t believe it when they told me you’d showed up again. I thought you had more sense, Taylor.”

  I knew the voice, and took my time turning around. There aren’t many people who can sneak up on me. Sure enough, standing behind me was Walker, large as life and twi
ce as official. Every inch the City Gent, sharp and stylish and sophisticated. Handsome, if a little on the heavy side, with cold eyes and smile and an even colder heart. Had to be in his late forties by now, but you still wouldn’t bet on the other guy. People like Walker don’t slow down; they just get sneakier. His perfect city suit was expertly cut, and he tipped his bowler hat to Joanna with something very like charm. I glared at him.

  “How did you know where to find me, Walker? I didn’t know I was coming here till a few minutes ago.”

  “I know where everyone is, Taylor. You’d do well to remember that.”

  “John, who is this … person?” asked Joanna, and I could have blessed her for the sheer unimpressed indifference in her voice.

  “Perhaps you should introduce me to your client,” said Walker. “I would so hate for us to start off on the wrong foot.”

  “Your tie’s crooked,” said Joanna, and I could have kissed her.

  “This is Walker,” I said. “If he has a first name, no-one knows it. Probably not even his wife. Ex-Eton and ex-Guards, because his sort always is. Mentioned in dispatches for being underhanded, treacherous and more dangerous than a shark in a swimming pool. Walker represents the Authorities, here in the Nightside. Don’t ask what Authorities, because he doesn’t answer questions like that. All that matters is he could have you or me or anyone else dragged off without warning, with no guarantee we’d ever be seen again. Unless he had a use for us. He plays games with people’s lives, all in the name of preserving his precious status quo.”