by Kim Newman
‘Meaning?’
‘We go along with the Dream, we follow the story and solve the case. If we find out who killed the Daine projection, I figure we can bring about some sort of dramatic crisis and finish the whole thing off. Then, after the end credits, we catch the genuine Daine and slitch him back to Princetown swiftkick.’
‘Sounds appealing. But it’s dangerous. I know what happens if you take this place on its own terms. You wind up living here for ever.’
‘Take it from me, Tom, you had the simple option.’
‘We’ll argue that later, Miss Pinkerton.’
‘You were there when Daine got killed. Did you notice anything suspicious?’
‘That’s hard to say. While he was knocking himself off, I was preparing to make my introductions to the sidewalk. From a long way up.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘Yeah, maybe it was the butler. That would be Edward Everett Horton.’
‘This isn’t that kind of flatty.’
‘Too bad. Nights should be for crooning to your girl on a rooftop, not dumping your business partner in the bay.’
Susan smiled, for real this time. ‘Then why are your Dreams full of crime and violence?’
She had me there. ‘Maybe I’ll change my style after this. I’ll only do pastorals, gentle love stories, boy-and-his-dog stuff.’
‘Horse shit.’
‘Yes, basically.’
We both laughed. Meeting her had helped. I wasn’t so tired any more. Usually, I stay away from other Dreamers. When we get our heads together, we tend to mess each other up. Something to do with the kinks and chemicals in our brains that give us the Talent. However, indream we gave each other some sort of boost. She was looking younger now, and brighter-eyed. I remembered her in colour and in a clothe as a vital, pretty woman. Dressed up City style, she looked good. Not Ava Gardner or Rhonda Fleming good, but easily Peggy Cummins or Evelyn Keyes good.
‘So,’ she said, ‘do we have any clues?’
‘Well, as Richie Quick I was following up some leads. Daine was a member of the Cicero Club. It’s for armchair sleuths. My guess is that it’s a front for polite racketeering. All the members are highly suspicious. I was going after one of them, George Macready, when John Carradine, the first Yggdrasil projection, got himself – itself – remaindered. Macready’s out of the game. I’ve got a list of the others somewhere.’
I dug into the pockets of my trench coat and found several guns, a half-empty bottle, a blackjack tagged POLICE EVIDENCE – DO NOT REMOVE, a pack of marked cards, several hundred dollars in small bills, a wallet full of ID in a variety of false names, a priceless necklace of grey fei tsui jade, a fistful of loose bullets, a switchblade with a snake on the handle, a bloodstained ice pick, several special editions of the Inquirer and a crumpled notebook marked CLUES.
I’ve got two names at the top of the list, both well placed; both with solid covers. Either one could be in a position to take over Daine’s business interests. Claude Rains, who’s cast here as a radio broadcaster, and Otto Kruger, who’s head of some sort of crackpot cult.’
‘Suspects, huh?’
‘Oh, very. Typecast. I’ve got addresses. We can find Rains at the Twentieth-Century Building, and Kruger at the Temple of Turhan Bey.’
‘Where to first?’ Susan was enthusiastic. Smile brackets appeared at the corners of her lipsticky mouth.
‘The Twentieth-Century. I have a hunch Rains may try to disappear.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Didn’t you ever see The Invisible Man?’
Fade to:
‘What happened?’
Susan was confused.
‘A dissolve. You’ll get used to it.’
‘Not if I can help it.’
We were standing on the black-veined grey marble stairs of the Twentieth-Century Building. A monolithic stone ‘20’ stood over the portico, surrounded by trumpeting statue cherubs. Behind a column beside the imposing double doors was a young coloured man in a uniform. He was curled in a rickety chair and had it balanced on two of its legs, one foot braced against the column.
‘Excuse me,’ I said.
He dropped his watermelon slice and raised bulging white eyes from his issue of Spook Stories magazine.
‘Yassuh?’ He was trembling. ‘C’n Ah hailp yo’, suh?’
He fell over, and we endured a minute or two of bumbling comic relief. Finally I got to ask him about Claude Rains.
He gesticulated like a scarecrow in the wind. ‘Massuh Rains, he be right down, baass. Lawdy, lawdy, yaass!’
Breaks squealed behind us. A small crowd gathered.
‘Look up in the skies!’ said a wet extra.
‘It’s a bird!’
‘It’s a plane!’
‘No, it’s…’
It was a radio criminologist. Susan and I stood back as he splatted with a thump onto the steps. He rolled to our feet. He was crumpled, dinner-jacketed and dead. The doorman fainted, his black, wooly hair turning snow white in an instant. All blacks in the City were comical cowards, just like all stage doorkeepers were called Pops, all orientals were mysterious, all blind dates beautiful.
‘He must have fallen!’ said someone intelligent.
I knelt by the broken man. He was a loosely articulated dummy with a roughly carved face. Then, a blink later, he was Claude Rains, eyes tight shut, a trickle of black creeping from his mouth.
‘Somebody call the cops!’
I went through the body’s pockets, searching for clues. One side of his immaculate jacket was soaked through and spiked with broken glass. There was a gummy label attached to several sharp shards. Rains had had a bottle of vichy water in his inside pocket. For some reason, Rains had been wearing a crown with his evening clothes. Susan found it, dented and with loose jewels, a few feet away from the corpse.
‘What do you make of this?’ she asked.
‘The Adventures of Robin Hood,’ I snapped. ‘He was King John.’
‘Oh yes.’ She looked irritated. ‘I should have twigged.’
‘One thing you never give up is a claim to a throne.’
I heard police sirens in the distance. The doorman revived, said, ‘Mah feets ain’t gonna stick roun’ to see mah body bein’ abused!’ and scuttled off.
‘Tom.’ Susan tugged at my trench coat. ‘I just saw a little skitchy guy come down the fire escape and slip into that alley.’
A car emerged from the dark between two tenements and passed by the building, slowed by the still-growing crowd. The driver was Peter Lorre. He had to be mixed up in the Cicero Club. He would be a natural for it.
‘Terrific.’ I was bitter. ‘Let’s get out of here before MacLane shows and tries to pull me in for this.’
Patrol cars drew up at the bottom of the steps. Susan and I faded into the crowds. As the uniform cops thrust forwards, we edged back and managed to slip away without attracting official notice. An unmarked car with John Law written all over it joined the black-and-whites. MacLane and Bellamy got out, huffing and puffing. MacLane still had his rubber hosepipe with him, like a comforter blanket.
I took Susan’s arm and walked her away from the scene of the crime.
‘The Turhan Bey Temple next?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. We’re getting close.’
Close. Maybe too close. Close to the edge. It was a long drop over the edge of the world. A lot of people were falling off a lot of things in the City. In a struggle, you don’t know what is going to happen. A good guy couldn’t kill the bad guy in cold blood according to the Hays Code, so they’d get into a fight on a ledge. Gravity did the dirty work. But Daine was smart enough to grab hold of you. I remembered Professor Moriarty dragging Sherlock Holmes into the Reichenbach Falls. Gravity didn’t give two bits for typecasting. And Daine must always have identified with the Napoleon of crime.
We looked for a taxicab. One happened to turn up. That was one thing about the City I could get used to. Whatever you wanted just hap
pened to turn up. There was very little waiting around, and then only to build up suspense.
Maybe I should just stay in my tank, and make the most of the City. It wasn’t so much worse than the world.
Suddenly I felt middle-aged, and I’m nearer thirty than forty. I wondered what Lissa was doing exactly now? I was supposed to be over thinking things like that. At the time, what Lissa and I did was supposed to be a trial separation. Now it felt a whole lot like being got rid of. The last I heard, she was working with one of the fleshwear houses, designing facial alterations.
Susan flagged down the cab. I opened the door for her. She hesitated – remembering something? – but got in.
‘The Temple of Turhan Bey,’ I said to the pretty girl in the front seat, a blonde under her cap. ‘And five bucks for every traffic law you violate getting there.’
25
They faded in again outside the Temple of Turhan Bey. Susan felt ill, but Tunney helped her stay on her feet. She couldn’t help liking the man. Now he was out of his Richie Quick fugue, he seemed to have a perspective on the City. He knew how things worked, but wasn’t about to be deceived again.
The temple was a squat, two-storey structure, encrusted with oriental tat. A small, thin idol sat cross-legged on a dais outside, a third eye peering through a hole cut in the rim of its fez. The idol was jetstone, but the eye was alive and wet. That must be the Great God Turhan Bey itself.
Susan looked around. They were in an oriental district. Coolies shuffled past them. A store across the street, still open, was selling overdecorated ornamental fans. Probably a front for a drug dealer. The taxicab had gone before Tunney could pay off the driver.
‘Oh no,’ Tunney murmured. ‘Chinatown.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Forget it, kid. Bad memories is all.’
His voice had gone again, his natural accent changing into Richie Quick’s imitation Bogart drawl. But she could tell he was doing it for effect, he was still himself. In fact, he was getting a stronger grip on himself as he went along. Susan hoped she was too, but feared it wasn’t so. Tunes pulled at the hems of her train of thought.
A Chinese waif slipped by, knife in hand. She blew a kiss to Tunney, and scampered up a wall like a spider.
Chinatown child, you’re a Chinatown child, cursed by the temple your father defiled. Chinatown Blues, jasmine and lotus, the sad…
Susan shuddered, bounced her mind off an imaginary brick wall and caught it. She closed her eyes and concentrated for a second, shaking the blues from her thoughts.
The temple was brightly lit. Candles burned in niches. The clientele going in and out of the place wore all-enveloping robes, but their posture and the expensive cars suggested they were somewhat richer than most of the people who lived in the neighbourhood. Shimmers, or something more sinister. Uniformed chauffeurs stood by their proud machines in the parking lot.
‘Come on.’
Tunney led her around the side of the building. Ribbons of light spoked across the alley, glimmering through the interstices of an unfurled bamboo blind stretched across an entrance. The bars of light made diagonals across them. Tunney reached for the blind, slanted up the edge and bowed his way in. His hand, lingering behind a moment, made a hook for her to follow. For a second she stood alone, livid weals striping her from head to foot.
Susan took Tunney’s hand and was pulled inside.
The foyer was empty. Patterned rugs adorned the floor and the walls. Potted jungle plants were everywhere. The heat was tropical. There were more idols, and some of the rugs had ouija-board designs or pentagrams woven into them. Somewhere a victrola was squeaking. She thought the song was ‘Paper Moon’, but wasn’t sure.
Say it’s only a paper… No!
‘Kruger must be upstairs. He may be dangerous. You have a gun?’
Everybody had a gun. Hers was in her handbag.
‘Come on. This way.’
She bit down, grinding her teeth. She wanted to tell Tunney about the songs. They were strong here. That must mean danger. But she couldn’t talk and concentrate.
Tunney found a spiral staircase rising through a hole in the ceiling. It was made of twisted black metal, ornamented with Eastern demons and orgies. They climbed, passing up through a zebra-crossing kaleidoscope of dark and light. On the first landing, incense hung in the air like a muslin veil. Tunney had his Richie Quick snub-nosed automatic out. She held her own gun in her handbag.
Susan was sleepy. How could she be sleepy in a dream? She would think about it in the morning. Good night.
Susan snapped back.
‘It’s doped somehow,’ Tunney said. ‘Careful.’
She held her breath, and they climbed up again. And again.
‘Tom, we’ve gone up three flights. Outside, it was a two-storey building.’
‘Continuity error. I’ve been spotting them all evening. Shhhhh, this looks promising.’
They were in a dressing room. Robes hung from pegs along one wall.
‘I’ve seen outfits like that before,’ Tunney said. ‘The last time I was in Chinatown. An old fortune teller was wearing one.’
He took one habit down and slipped it on over his street clothes. The hood even covered his hat comfortably, and put his face in shadow.
‘You too.’
He gave her the get-up, and she got into it.
Behind a door, they could hear an audience shuffling, coughing and waiting for a show to start. Tunney stabbed towards the door with a thumb.
‘I guess we should go through and see what the picture is. Okay by you?’
‘Sure.’
‘Ladies first…’
‘Thanks a lot.’
26
I had to admit the girl had guts. Or maybe the gun gave her the guts. That’s the way it was with a lot of people. Back in the world, the marshal – Juliet – had struck me that way. The hardware gave her a shell that helped her cope. But I thought Susan was tough all the way through.
She flipped the hood up over her head, fussed with it, then pushed through into the unknown.
It was a theatre, full of the Krazy Klan. Steeple-hooded types were settling into their seats, or buying refreshments and programmes from usherettes dressed in spangled tights and top hats. A magician’s hat, with a rabbit grinning out of it, was printed on the velvet curtains, with crossed wands beneath it.
Susan and I sauntered down the aisle and took seats a few rows back. Eventually, the lights dimmed, everyone hushed, the curtains parted and the show began.
Otto Kruger came out, robed, but with his hood down. He looked urbane and utterly untrustworthy. Peter Lorre was with him. He had a spherical head and fish eyes, and stayed respectfully in the background.
‘Blessed be,’ singsonged Kruger.
‘Blessed be,’ chorused the audience. We joined in, not too far off the beat to be noticed.
‘Brethen, sistren, welcome to our little seance. The Great Spirit of Turhan Bey is with us tonight, I assure you. The pool of the past will clear and mysteries will be unknotted, while the curtain of the future will part to reveal what lies awaiting us all. We are as but fleas on the camel of eternity, and yet to us is given the vision, the revelation and the power. As we enter the Age of The Goat and the Treefrog, Turhan Bey will guide our way towards the ultimate transcendence.’
There were cheers. Susan and I looked at each other, eyebrows going up under our hoods.
I recognised the scam. There were lots of possibilities. In The Quick and the Dead, I had had Richie Quick come up against a similar operator. Phoney psychics could milk their rich clients for years, charging fancy prices for rap sessions with the dear departed. And there were all sorts of ways of taking money away from the wealthy and stupid. Husbands and wives would spill juicy tidbits about their personal peccadilloes to a refined occultist during private sessions and find themselves being charmingly blackmailed. And there were people in this City who would pay well for things like inventories of valuable objects, plans of s
ecurity arrangements and the combinations of private safes. Someone like Kruger was in a prime position to come by such scraps of information. I wondered if the Great God Turhan Bey was in for a cut, or if Otto was doing it all off his own bat.
A woman got up a few rows back, and threw the hood off her head. It was Margaret Dumont. She asked a question about her dead dog, and how happy little Foofles was in the afterlife. Nobody laughed, and Otto assured her in his best smoothie tones that said beast was scampering in the Elysian fields and piddling all over archangels’ sandals. Margie was happy and sat down again, a string of pearls clacking under her robe. Then a businessman asked whether he should buy this and that stock his broker had recommended on the sly, and – after a moment of concentration – Kruger gave him the word to hold off, presumably making a mental note to sweep the market himself. The Great God Turhan Bey had a lot of meaningless sayings, but his favourite proverb must be ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’.
I could have dozed off. We had to put up with a succession of dead grannies, occult trivia, psychic charades, aura readings and attempts to probe the future. As a magic show, it was a bust, but money kept changing hands. Kruger didn’t soil himself with the lucre, but Lorre had his fist out at every opportunity, and was wadding the bills into a fat, healthy roll while his master attempted union with the Infinite.
Kruger kept making little inspirational speeches about what Turhan Bey held for us all in the future. He picked people apparently at random, and told them which illnesses would strike. He recommended doctors. That must be another cute angle. He told ugly old women they would meet handsome young men soon, he told handsome young men they would meet large sums of money soon, he told dimwitted mothers that their sons wouldn’t be coming home in nice wooden boxes, from theatres of war with a 99 per cent casualty rate, he told collectors where they could locate that elusive antique backscratcher needed to complete a set. And every time he told someone something, money gravitated into Lorre’s bankroll.
Then the act took a new turn. One I didn’t like.
