by Kim Newman
In 1983, Mickey tired of spending a week every year adding up figures scrawled on the backs of old envelopes and hired an accountant. A preliminary audit showed irregularities in his income tax returns over the last four years and the government dunned him. An investigation left him liable for tax on monies never received from the merchandising of Krazy Glue, his character. Hunt Sealey, the alternative publisher who’d brought the strip to wider attention, turned out to have an extremely alternative system of bookkeeping, which involved keeping money warm in his personal account and pleading poverty whenever anyone asked him about it. Exorbitant lawyers embroiled Sealey and Mickey in a tangled suit over the question of who precisely owned which rights. The legal wars sapped Mickey’s energies and prevented him from meeting a deadline on what would have been a groundbreaking series for ZC, plunging him into career limbo just as Alan Moore and Frank Miller Jr were getting widespread media recognition and everyone started to take comics as seriously as Mickey always said they should. Missing out the kudos that should have been his, he watched others take his ideas and make industries of them. Krazy had a major resurgence when Sealey had other people write and draw the strip. He flooded the market and slapped an injunction on Mickey that he desist from further exploiting his own creation.
It was a cold, unreal year. The Derek Leech International building opened in September. Fleet Street, Wardour Street and Bloomsbury offices closed and companies were removed to a wasteland beyond the river. Late in autumn, after coming out of hospital for the fourth time, Mark ran into Mickey at a book launch. Mickey punched him in the face but was dissuaded from further battering his friend when Mark reminded him, ‘You need me next year.’ Private Eye ran a humorous item about the altercation. Delirious from anal pain and shifting constantly in his seat, Michael spent a weekend motoring around Somerset in search of Sutton Mallet, finding a few signposts but no trace of the village. Several times, he thought himself on the right road only to be disappointed as he drove into Shepton Mallet. Throughout, the Quorum tried to arrange appointments with their sponsor but were unable to penetrate the barrier of personal assistants and vice-presidents surrounding Derek Leech.
* * *
By the end of 1983, Neil was more settled than he’d been since school. Moving to London, he’d fallen in with a crowd who were putting out The Scam, a fortnightly alternative listings magazine. First, he hung around hellish offices in Holborn doing odd jobs, making bad coffee, running messages, writing picture captions. After proving himself willing by reviewing films and records nobody else wanted to (he became the only person he knew who had seen the sequels to Porky’s and Friday the 13th but not the originals), he began to get journalistic assignments, interviewing Hackney councillors, following up police cases, profiling indie bands. He also started seeing Anne Nielson, the spiky American news editor of The Scam. She was, he realised, the first woman he’d slept with more than five times. Anne had her own problems - an incomprehensible transatlantic family history that matched his catalogue of fluke horrors - but she was funny, tough and surprising. She taught him a bit about writing, patiently going through his copy with a vicious pencil, showing him which priceless words he could do without. They talked about moving in together in the new year but as it was they lived more in the office than in their flats.
It was as if his Wilderness Period was over. For the first time since the Forum broke up, Neil actually enjoyed Christmas. 1984, that science fiction year, arrived.
14
8 JANUARY, 1993
In the first years of The Shape, no one left before eight o’clock. When money was tight, everyone pitched in and worked through amphetamine nights. Now, at six on Friday, he was alone in his Inner Sanctum. The outer offices held untenanted quiet. Having Macbethed his way to a swivel-throne, his reward was not guilty madness but a featureless plateau of achievement. Once the moves were out of the way, he’d headhunt a managing editor for the magazine and move on to other projects. Cloud 9 wanted him to produce a documentary about electronic art and he was increasingly taken with the possibilities of INT. He should write another book; a follow-up to The Shape of the Now for the Millennium, The Strength of the Soon.
Just after six, as she’d done every night since their meeting, Sally Rhodes telephoned to give a preliminary report of her day’s work. He put her on the speaker.
‘Sally, good evening.’
‘Mark, hi. Nothing much new today. I had a drink with Neil at lunchtime.’
He thought about that.
‘Good. Excellent initiative.’ He leaned back in his chair, imagining Sally in the dark beyond his desklamp’s circle of light.
‘A name came up. A neo-Nazi group, the ELF. I’ve hit the press cuttings on them. English Liberation Front. The usual disappointed imperialists and racist skins. They have it in for Neil.’
‘Oh?’
‘A petty führer doorstepped him and was rubbed the wrong way. They’ve got intelligence on him. They phoned a threat to the pub. It might be serious.’
Michael was stirring that particular pot. Mark assumed any information on Neil funnelled to the ELF came from him.
‘Do you want me to find out more? I can call in police favours. They’ll have criminal records.’
He hoped Michael was nippy enough to keep out of her way. She could be paid for but not bought. If she went native, she could be a mighty inconvenience.
‘Hang fire on that for the moment. If the ELF do anything active, we’ll reconsider. In the meantime, concentrate on Neil.’
‘Okay.’
Where was she? In a call-box or her flat? He couldn’t hear any background noise.
‘The other thing is I keep running into Dr Shade.’
‘The cartoon character?’
‘Yes. Him, or someone who has his car. A Rolls-Royce Shadowshark. Very nifty.’
‘Weird,’ he commented, suppressing an unbidden shiver.
‘Registration SHADE 001. I’m not sure if it’s dogging Neil, following me or just cruising Muswell Hill and Highgate. There was a guy in the pub dressed all in black, with a Dr Shade hat. And a couple of Dr Shades at that New Year’s party.’
He thought about Dr Shade. A comics connection sounded like Mickey.
‘How is Neil bearing up, by the way?’ he asked.
‘Bearing up?’
‘His general attitude? What is it?’
‘Hard to say. He describes himself as “numb”. I think he enjoys being gloomy. Like Eeyore.’
‘Eeyore?’
‘From Winnie the Pooh.’
‘Of course. The donkey.’
He imagined her holding her breath before slipping in the question bothering her.
‘Is there anything I should know?’ she asked. ‘About Neil?’
‘He’s not dangerous.’
‘No, it’s not that. If there’s danger, I think Neil is in it.’
She was a conscientious footsoldier, which might be a problem. The more she applied herself, the more likely she was to question. Michael and Mickey preferred stupider tools, but he thought the challenge was precisely to use intelligent people. It was a question of balancing risk and reward.
‘Mark, what am I? A spy or a bodyguard?’
He was careful. ‘I have no personal feelings against Neil. He is important to me. He wouldn’t thank me for taking an interest, but I believe his welfare is my responsibility.’
‘Yours.’
‘Mine. Ours. You have a past. Everybody does. You must have unfinished business?’
She didn’t answer that. He remembered her face. He imagined she was more striking now, with slight hollows in her cheeks, than she’d been when younger and plumper.
‘Sally, what do you think of him? Neil?’
A pause. ‘I like him. He’s funny.’
‘Interesting choice of adjective.’
Funny? Michael and Mickey were the funny ones. Mark, as always, was serious.
‘But you like him?’
‘Yes,’ s
he said. ‘He’s... ah... he’s a survivor.’
Pippa had said he was funny too, the one time they had met. Twelfth Night, 1978. With a cold chill, Mark remembered Sutton Mallet.
‘Do you think... um... women would find him attractive?’
‘I’m a woman.’
‘Yes.’
She spoke rapidly. ‘It would depend. That’s not something I can really report on. I, ah, well... I don’t have much judgement with men.’
‘Sally, do you like me?’
A pause. A long pause. ‘Mark, you’re a client.’
‘Of course. I understand. I’m sorry. Scrub that.’
‘Is there anything else?’
He tapped his teeth with his thumbnail.
‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘Just keep up the good work. In case I haven’t told you recently, we’re pleased with you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll talk with you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow is Saturday.’
‘You can reach me at my home number. Town, not country.’
‘Fine.’
He cut her off before she could hang up. It was dark in the Inner Sanctum. He only had his desklight on. Through the window, he saw Soho people thronging to short-lived bistros, gaggling outside the jeweller’s shops, shivering in fashionably unsuitable clothes.
Funny? Neil, funny?
He called home and got the machine. Pippa wasn’t back from Scotland yet. He thought a moment, then didn’t leave a message. He fiddled with his ring of office. Since he had been wearing it, his knuckle ached slightly. He hoped it wasn’t the beginnings of arthritis or RSI. Pippa would be on a train, reading a manuscript. Sally would be fussing over her baby. Neil would be in his basement, alone.
This was a moment for the Quorum. As Ring, it was up to Mark to arrange the conference call. First he got through to Ayesha at the studio where Michael had just finished the technical rehearsal for tonight’s show. He came on the line and banished his PA from the room. He said he was on a mobile phone in the scenery dock, surrounded by canvas castle walls. Then Mark made the call to Mickey’s New York hotel. The switchboard put him through to the Apex Suite, where the phone was picked up by an American with a honey voice.
‘One moment, please,’ she said, summoning Mickey.
‘Ta, Heth,’ Mickey said, picking up. ‘Go down and get me some fags, would you. Marko, Michael?’
‘We have a Quorum,’ Mark said. ‘Are you free to talk?’
‘Yeah yeah.’
‘Zheah zheah.’
The cost of this call would exceed the total amount the Quorum spent on their moves in 1978. Money made things easier, but also encouraged a certain slackness Mark despised.
‘Who was that?’ Michael asked Mickey.
‘I’ll explain later. I think I’m in sex.’
Michael laughed. Mark called the Meet to order.
‘Mickey,’ he said. ‘What can you tell us about Dr Shade?’
Mark could tell Mickey was surprised by the question. ‘My favourite British comics character. Guy named Moncrieff created him, using the name Rex Cash. A rip-off of The Shadow, but rougher, nastier. Popular in the thirties and during the War, then disappeared until our sponsor revived him in the Argus. Guy named Greg Daniels draws the strip now. What’s this about?’
‘Sally seems to be haunted by Dr Shade. His car keeps creeping around after her.’
‘A Rolls-Royce Shadowshark?’
‘Train spotter.’
‘This is my fuckin’ job, Marko. You’re the one who wrote a 2,000 word essay on the centenary of the airbrush.’
‘What does Ms Rhodes think of the penumbral interloper?’ asked Michael.
‘She hasn’t really commented. She doesn’t strike me as neurotic or paranoid.’
‘I don’t think Dr Shade is likely to give us any stick,’ Mickey said. ‘Derek Leech owns him too.’
‘We are not owned by Derek Leech,’ Mark said evenly.
‘Tell him that,’ Mickey muttered.
‘We’d best just watch out then,’ Michael said. ‘What about the opening moves?’
‘My judgement as Ring is the ELF thing seems most promising.’
Michael was pleased. He had nurtured the move in his usual style.
‘They’ve started nagging Our Absent Friend. They phoned him in a pub, just to prove they could find him anywhere.’
‘I followed up first contact with a fusillade of drunkenly abusive calls zhesterday. Our man there is a Stan Gull, staunch defender of white virtue.’
‘Stan Gull?’ Mark prompted, writing down the name. ‘I’ll have Sally get some background on him.’
‘As far as the combatants are concerned, shots have been exchanged. It shouldn’t be too difficult to contrive an escalation of the feud into a little war.’
‘Nazis,’ Mickey said, ‘don’t you just love ’em!’
‘Actually, no,’ Mark commented. ‘I don’t trust stupid people with rigid ideologies.’
‘I can stage manage the ELF. Should I get on the shop floor? I could zhoin up with the fascisti and prod them towards anti-Neil blitzkrieg.’
Michael loved disguises. In the early days of the Deal, he’d delighted in moves which involved dressing up as a vagrant, a postman or a government inspector.
‘Your face is too well-known now,’ Mark said. ‘False whiskers won’t work.’
Michael muttered disappointment.
‘If we need Nazis, we can buy some,’ Mark reassured. ‘What I’d like to establish during this Meet is exactly what our priorities are for this year.’
‘To stick it to Neil-o, of course,’ Mickey put in, voice crackly over the ocean.
‘But to what end? As I see it, our options are to concentrate either on getting him kicked out of his flat or losing him his parttime job.’
‘Better safe than sodomised,’ Mickey said. ‘Go for the double.’
Mark wasn’t sure. ‘Homeless and jobless.’
‘And hunted by Nazis,’ Michael added. ‘Sounds creamy.’
‘Take the money, open the box,’ Mickey said.
Mark imagined Neil as a rat in a maze, pursued by terriers.
‘Sally’s been talking with Our Absent Friend. He’s in a strange mood. Close to the edge.’
Mickey cackled like static. ‘Give ’im a shove, then.’
‘Have either of you ever considered how much the Deal depends on Neil?’ Mark asked. ‘We are happy because he is not, we are successful because he is not...’
Both lines were quiet.
‘We all try, but Our Absent Friend fails,’ Michael said. ‘That’s the Deal.’
‘What would happen to us if Neil didn’t try? Or if there were no Neil?’
‘How do zhou mean?’
Michael would understand but Mickey wouldn’t. Mark needed to share the thought.
‘If Our Absent Friend were to snap, become hopelessly insane, do himself severe damage? Or walk under a bus? Or just sit down in a corner and never get up again? Where would we be without Neil?’
‘Game over,’ Mickey said. ‘And we win, right? That’s the Deal.’
‘Is it?’
15
VALENTINE’S DAY, 1984
Outside, the skies darkened over Farringdon. Mickey sat at the bar of The Ironmill, stinging his mouth with brandy as if he were back at the Rat Centre a minute before curtain-up. Tonight, the show would have to kill ’em dead. This was the Quorum’s most costly move to date. He’d put up the last of his cash, and the others had matched his £1,500. If the Deal was off forever, they were all on the road to the twentieth-century equivalent of debtor’s prison anyway. They couldn’t be more broke.
Regulars might be fucked off to find the pub closed to the public this evening. If anyone gave too much aggro Ken, the quiet lad on the door, was to let them in. The stage was set and staffed but extras wouldn’t hurt. Arguments at the door would distract from the main event.
Mark was upstairs by a window, binoculars
to his eyes, directing the move, finger on the intercom button, a phone within reach. Mickey reckoned Mark found the Deal a perfect substitute for chess.
He revolved his head, loosening the stiff neck he’d developed hunched over drafting tables. He was dressed to party: tight striped trousers, cowhide jacket with the collar up, black leather Confederate forage cap. He’d even programmed the juke box for the whole evening, non-stop fuck music. The Blues Brothers sang ‘Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)’.
Michael had found The Ironmill and hired the pub for the evening. The landlord thought it was a Valentine’s party. Over the weekend, Mickey had made enough red crepe hearts to clog a tunnel of love. Footsoldiers, girls with ra-ra skirts and bobbling antennae, had spent a happy afternoon with the staplegun turning the dingy bar into a no-taste romantic’s wet dream. They were pulling down fifty pounds each for the evening, with bonuses for rough stuff. He’d recruited the footsoldiers from his pool of shag-hags. They were pleased to be in on something, even if they didn’t understand it.
He checked his Timex and slopped down the last of the brandy. The intercom behind the bar buzzed. The signal meant Mark could see Neil’s cab in the street.
‘Rock and roll,’ he said.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the pub into Sekforde Street. As he passed, Ken - an out-of-work actor Michael knew -clapped him on the shoulder and said ‘break a leg’.
Neil, a huge art folder under his arm, was on the kerb telling the driver to wait. Mickey hadn’t been face to face with him for three years. Neil had changed. From his posture, Mickey could tell he’d developed confidence. He could be drawn with a few pencil strokes, strong lines; the last time Mickey had seen Neil, he’d been floppy and angular, rubbed-out sketch-marks and scribbled stresses.
