He was rambling a bit, but no one liked to say.
'So why are you back?' said Hemingway, although he already knew the answer. It's the modern way. If you go to one lot of consultants and they give you rotten advice, you don't blame consultancy as a whole, you go to another lot of consultants.
'Buster,' said God, displaying an old-fashioned turn of phrase, 'it's only 'cause I got outvoted on the council, 'cause I've got to tell you, I think you guys suck.'
No one likes that kind of criticism, not even from the Lord. Or, perhaps, especially from the Lord.
'Only meeting market demand,' said Orwell, bravely.
'Yeah, whatever,' said God. 'Look, here's the deal. Religious worship is hitting an all-time low, across the planet. If something doesn't happen soon, that six-to-one ratio is gonna get reversed. It's already nearly fifty-fifty. We have to do something now, before it's too late.'
'And you've got to be losing no end of people to Islam these days as well,' said Joyce, carelessly making his grand entrance into the discussion. 'At least percentage-wise.'
The coda was barely out of his mouth, when God's toast-'em look crossed His face again, and this time He let rip with a fireball from the back of His throat and burned the guy in a blazing inferno from across the other side of the room. A fraction of a second's scorching conflagration and Joyce was a small heap of ashes on his chair. So much for his rapid advancement through the company.
Orwell and Hemingway looked at the small pile that had been Joyce, then turned slowly to God. They had, to give them the benefit of the doubt, actually been sceptical that they were talking to the genuine, authentic God. Until then.
'That was very Old Testament,' said Orwell. The death of Joyce was a bit of a waste, but it'd be something to tell the grandchildren. You had to get these things in perspective.
'Watch it, pal,' said God, the voice a little more weighted with menace than it had been. 'How many Goddam Gods do you people think there are, for crying out loud? I'm it. The only one. Numero Uno. Don't make me go all biblical on you, sonny. All you people are worshipping the same person. Jews, Christians, Muslims. You're all worshipping me! Jesus, I can't believe that this planet is so screwed up.'
He cast another look at the two who were left, waited for an interruption, didn't get it.
'Right, glad we got that straightened out. Where was I? So, anyway, the council thinks I need some gimmick or other, you got me?'
They nodded. Everyone needs a gimmick.
'Personally,' continued God, 'I reckon I should just pull another Noah's Ark stunt, and kill everyone. Wouldn't even bother with the ark this time. I'm telling you, I wrote the book on mass genocide with that one. Now it's a damn children's story.'
'It'd probably be best if you didn't,' said Orwell.
'Yeah, yeah,' said God. 'Look, I heard from some of my people that you guys were pretty good. You've got twenty seconds, I don't like jerking around. What d'you think?'
Orwell and Hemingway looked at God and then diverted their eyes. Twenty seconds to tell God how to reverse the tide of the planet's moral fibre. The guy had to be joking.
'If you gave us Joyce back, it might help,' said Orwell, well into the seventh second.
'The guy is toast,' said God, with finality.
'Maybe you could do some kind of limited edition offer,' said Hemingway quickly, just because that was what they said to all their clients these days, whether they be in cars, books, breakfast cereal, chocolate bars or haemorrhoid cream.
'How would that work?' asked God, suspiciously.
'You know, like a limited edition religion or something. Only so many can join,' answered Orwell, and if truth be told, his voice was beginning to tail off a bit at the end because he realised it was a rotten idea.
'Crap,' said God. 'Small religions are cults, and everybody that's in a cult is viewed as weird. Cults can be cool, but it's not the way ahead to mass market success. You guys oughta know that.'
'Sure, sure,' said Orwell, kicking himself. They should've kept their mouths shut, but their time was up and the last thing they wanted was God walking out of there and taking His business elsewhere. There had to be something.
Ominously, God looked at His watch, His head shaking.
'Time's up fellas,' He said. 'Looks like I might as well take myself along to the next load of suckers, see what they can come up with.'
Hemingway caught his breath, but there was nothing there. The tank was dry, totally dry.
'Why don't you buy souls?' said Orwell from nowhere. Hemingway glanced at him.
'Go on,' said God, pausing in His movement up out of the chair.
'The whole Satan thing,' said Orwell. 'Does he still do it? I mean, do people still sell their souls to him?'
'You kidding me?' said God. 'He doesn't need to. Every sucker and their grandmother is already going to Hell. That bastard just sits around on his be-hind all day getting blow jobs offa Marilyn Monroe and Catherine the Great. Pain in the ass.'
'Yeah,' said Hemingway, leaping in, 'Jude's right. Get people to sell their souls to you. It's awesome. The best idea ever.'
God settled back in the chair and looked along the length of the table. Sell your soul to God. It had come to this.
'That was small time stuff for that guy,' He said. 'A tortured musician here and there, the odd sportsman. A cornershop operation.' He paused, looked at Orwell. 'The occasional marketing executive.'
'Well, make yours a global concern,' said Orwell, ignoring the look.
'An international conglomerate,' said Hemingway.
'It's not as if you don't have the resources,' said Orwell.
'And it's not as if you can't be in several places at once,' said Hemingway.
'You could be like Boeing or Pizza Hut,' said Orwell.
'Microsoft,' said Hemingway.
'British Petroleum,' said Orwell.
God held up His hand so that they stopped, a little annoyed, now they were flowing. Usually this was the point where they would run all over the client, talking them into the ground, and getting them to sign an absolutely enormous cheque before they left the office. But the smell of what He had done to Joyce was still fresh in the air.
God sucked His lollipop and stared at the table. He'd always thought the soul-selling thing was cheap trash. Satan was tabloid to His broadsheet; this would be the equivalent of the Washington Post having naked breasts on the front page.
Sometimes, however, you just have to bite the antelope on the arse ...
'Yeah, I like it,' He said, as if He were the man from Del Monte. 'A trial run over the next week or two, then I'll get back to you. Let you know if I think it's going to work. Then we can talk about a fee,' He added, just before Orwell felt able to raise the issue.
God pushed himself out of his chair, straightened His coat, nodded at the two men and turned to go. Meeting over.
'Any chance we can get Joyce back?' said Orwell. 'He might be important to the firm.'
God turned at the door and took the lollipop from His mouth.
'You sure about that? The guy banged your last girlfriend.'
Orwell hesitated. He wanted to argue the point, he wanted to let God know who was in charge; but then, God already knew.
God turned slowly, opened the door and was gone.
The two of them sat and looked at the closed door for a while. Relieved, and strangely exhausted.
'He's right,' said Hemingway, after a while. 'Joyce did bang your girlfriend.'
The Triumvirate Of Evil
Frankenstein was playing office basketball with that morning's copy of the Mirror and an old pair of Y-fronts.
He had stuck the butt section of the pants to his noticeboard with a couple of drawing pins, and had lodged a pencil in the elastic to create the tent-like effect with the opening at the top. He was tearing the pages of the paper in half and scrunching them up. It was a game he'd learned from Blue Peter back in the Richard Bacon days, and he was useless at it.
Mo
nk walked into the office. She watched the piece of paper leave Frankenstein's hand then followed its arc until it clipped the edge of the white underwear and fell to the ground. Her eyes stayed on the pants for a few seconds, then she turned back, just as the next missile was released.
'I hope they're clean,' she said.
'Might be,' said Frankenstein, defensively. He had found the Y-fronts in his bottom drawer and was uncertain of their exact provenance. He wasn't entirely sure if they were his, and a quick sniff had revealed only a vague aroma of pencils and other stationery items that had been lurking beside them in the drawer. 'What have you got?'
'Right enough about the lipstick. One of over two hundred thousand sold in the last couple of years since its introduction.'
'And the lippy is all we've got?' said Frankenstein.
'More or less,' said Monk.
'Apart from the minor detail of the fingerprints. Any thoughts on this Archbishop of Middlesex character?' he asked casually, letting the bottom half of page 17 – principal story: Man In Sex Change Lawsuit After Penis Grows Lichen – out of his grasp, sending it hurtling in a curve towards the underwear of uncertain authentication. It missed.
She parked herself in a chair across from him.
'Done some research. Had a word with a guy I used to work with who covers Number 10. This guy, the Archbish, is never out of there. Forever spiritually advising the PM.'
'That's all we fucking need.'
'And the guy travels around a fair bit. For example, on the night of the murder he was in Glasgow.'
Frankenstein perked up, raised his eyebrows.
'Tell me we have three hundred witnesses who watched him do some religious shit.'
'Not entirely. But he definitely went there that afternoon and returned the next day. So unless he snuck back down under an assumed name or on a private jet, he spent the night there. And given that Roberts said the killer was definitely a woman ... '
Frankenstein let out another long sigh. 'Aye. But it doesn't explain the fingerprints. Whatever. Look, go and find me something that gives us an explanation on the fingerprints without us having to interview the guy.'
Monk smiled and stood up as he let another piece of scrunched-up paper fly. The usual division of responsibility.
'And I need to talk to you about something else,' he said, voice almost a mumble.
She stopped, curious at his tone.
'Barney Thomson,' he said. 'The barber.'
She immediately felt her face begin to flush, a little awkward, but at the same time delighted to have got on to her new favourite subject.
'The guy has a bit of a past I need to tell you about.'
'You know him?'
'Well, aye, I met him on a case a couple of years ago. Made him a deputy for a night.'
Monk looked astonished. Mouth fell open.
'You what?'
'Don't look at me like that. Why is it that women have to overreact all the time? It's like they have this looking-amazed gene. Drives me nuts.'
'You know this guy? From Scotland? You made him a deputy?'
'Yes,' said Frankenstein, 'I made him a deputy. I was on an urgent inquiry and I needed deputies. So I made him one.'
'Where were you? Dodge City?'
'God, it's like working with Woody Allen.'
'So, what do you have to tell me?'
He sighed again, couldn't stop himself. Kept muttering politics, religion, Barney Thomson, as if they were a triumvirate of evil, a triangle of investigative disaster.
'It's a long story,' he said, 'you'd better sit down.'
***
Orwell stepped into the sparkling splendour of reception a little after ten o'clock, to find Imelda Marcos standing in front of the floor-length mirror opposite the main door, trying out a pair of turquoise Renèe Chapeau alligator-skin stilettos.
''Melda,' he said.
'Mr Orwell,' she replied, without turning. 'What d'you think?'
'They go with your hair, your trousers and the jacket, but you're going to have to lose the lip gloss. You know if the barber's free? Thomson?'
'I'm not wearing any lip gloss,' said Marcos, turning to face him.
'Cool,' said Orwell, wisely choosing to completely ignore this part of the conversation. 'The barber?'
Marcos slung him a look and walked crisply back to her desk, butt cheeks swishing together in muscular tandem. A quick check of her PC, a pointless check at that, seeing as she knew fine well that Barney had not passed through the front door so far that morning.
'He's a no-show,' she said, and Orwell immediately looked at the clock, even though he knew to the second what the time was.
'Late on his third day on the job?' said Orwell.
'Very questionable,' said Marcos.
Orwell, who had almost forgotten about the death of Fitzgerald, had a sudden and reasonably cogent thought.
'Anyone else not in yet?' he asked.
'Everyone else accounted for,' said Marcos. 'Sergeant Monk checked a while ago, Thomson didn't come up because he's new, and to be perfectly honest, I forgot about him.' She paused, then added, 'You think he might be dead?'
Orwell let out a long sigh. It was a possibility. And then what was he going to do? It'd be damned hard for a completely new barber to pick up a Hugh Jackman at some indeterminate midway point. He could always find a new Head of TV Contracts, but the hair thing, that was an altogether more serious matter.
'Fuck it,' he said, 'the guy was picking up a good rep too. This bimbo who nailed Fitzgerald, you think she might've stiffed Barn?'
The door opened. Barney Thomson, armed with swipe card and looking fresh from a lie in, walked into reception and looked from Marcos to Orwell, as they gave him the stare.
'You're not dead then?' said Orwell.
'Well, who knows?' said Barney. 'Maybe I am. Having a nice chat?'
'You're late,' said Orwell.
Barney immediately started walking towards the lift which would take him up to the top floor. Pressed the button and turned back to Orwell as he waited.
'Imelda informed me that there were no clients before ten-thirty, and nor were there likely to be with the usual round of pan-office meetings in the morning. I said I'd be in just after ten and agreed that she'd page me if I was needed before then, should one of your lot have had some sort of hair emergency. I have no idea how a hair emergency would manifest itself, and being a barber with a pager sounds the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life, but it seems reasonably in keeping with the rest of the office.'
Orwell slung a zinger at Marcos.
''Melda?'
She did a thing with her mouth and had the decency to look moderately sheepish.
'Sorry,' she said. 'Yeah, we talked at COP yesterday. My memory just totalled.'
'Jesus, 'Melda,' said Orwell, 'we could've been launching a three thousand person manhunt here.'
'For him?'
He waved his hands and walked after Barney as the lift arrived.
'Forget about it, 'Melda. We soldier forth,' he said, and she had forgotten about it by the time he'd finished his sentence, and had returned to checking out the shoes in the mirror.
'Hold the phone, Batman!' he said, and gave a little leap into the elevator. 'You up for finishing off the Hugh Jackman?'
'Aye,' said Barney, 'if you think it's at all appropriate.'
***
Thirty-three minutes later, and the haircut which had started nearly twenty-one hours previously was finally being brought to a successful conclusion. Jack Beckett, head of Accounts, was being made to wait.
Orwell and Barney were having a good chat about the biz, Orwell running a variety of ideas for current projects past him and relishing his feedback. He trusted Barney; at first it had come out of the fact that Barney had liked most of his ideas, but then, the more they had talked, Barney's own ideas had started to emerge, and they were a damn sight more switched on than a lot of the comedians who worked there. Already they ha
d worked their way through the new Watkinson's Sword razor with six blades – Sword Sex; the campaign on behalf of Rod Stewart as he started his new career as a TV evangelist; and the billboard to sell napalm to a sceptical Highland market for heather burning – Napalm. It'll Take Your Breath Away!
'Am I getting paid for any of this?' asked Barney, doing a final turn with a pair of tongs. There's a lot of tong work in a Hugh Jackman.
'Don't remember negotiating anything before we started,' said Orwell, with an impish smile. However, he was already hatching a plan to move Barney from the barbershop to the shop floor, as it were. Barney was wasted with a pair of scissors, he thought, no matter how exceptional he was.
Barney produced a final can of product, spraying it liberally in the general vicinity of Orwell's head. It was, in fact, a complete placebo, but it always induced that little extra bit of satisfaction in the customer, the belief that something dramatic was being done to them.
'We nearly done?'
'Aye,' said Barney.
'Total,' said Orwell. 'Right, last one. Exron, you know the corrupt energy guys?'
'Think I've heard of them,' said Barney.
'They're branching out into women's toiletries, logical next step. We've nailed the deodorant commercial, but they're also looking to introduce a variety of other products including water retention tablets. Big, big business. Most chicks retain water like an upturned umbrella, you know what I'm saying?'
'You're right,' said Barney.
'So, we have to push the envelope here and come up with a product name and a slogan to accompany the billboard. For this one they're not really pushing the Exron effect, you know, they just realise it's a burgeoning market. Needs to be tapped.'
'Sure,' said Barney already giving it some thought, as he completed the final act of fluffing for best possible effect.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 171
