by Tom Holt
‘Hello,’ said the djinn, ‘how’s you? Hey, it’s dark in here.’
Akram couldn’t let that pass. ‘Darker than where you’ve just come from?’ he queried.
‘Of course,’ the djinn replied, ‘I’ve been in a lamp. Now then, what can I do for you?’
There was something about the horrible creature’s nailson-blackboard cheerfulness that evacuated Akram’s mind like a flawlessly executed fire drill. He stared for a moment, then frowned.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘All I want is a simple answer to a simple question.’
‘Sure.’ The djinn smiled. Dammit, it was only trying to be friendly, but it was like having an itch in your crotch when you’re addressing an emergency session of the United Nations. Akram took a deep breath and went on.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What I’
‘Don’t say wish,’ the djinn interrupted. ‘If you just ask me the question, you see, I don’t have to count it as one of your wishes. Just a hint. Hope you don’t mind me mentioning it.’.
‘What I want to know is Look, I’m a villain, right?’
‘Yes. Was that it?’
‘No. Be quiet. I’m a villain. A baddie. Suppose I wanted to change and be a goodie, how’d I go about it?’
The djinn frowned and scratched the tip of its nose. ‘I don’t follow,’ it said.
‘Oh for crying out Listen. I want to be good. How’s it done? It can’t be difficult, for pity’s sake. If nuns can do it, so can I.’
The djinn grinned. ‘It’s easy for nuns,’ it said. ‘With them it’s just force of habit. Get it? Habit, you know, like those long dressing gown things they wear ’
Instinctively Akram grabbed for the djinn’s throat. His hands passed through it as if he’d tried to pull a projection off a screen. ‘Don’t push me too far,’ he snarled. ‘Now answer the goddam question, before I lose my temper.’
A multiple lifetime of experience in menacing had put a rasp into Akram’s voice you could have shaped mahogany with, but the djinn simply looked down his nose at him. ‘All right, Mister Grumpy,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to get aerated.’
‘I’ll aerate you in a minute. Hey, would that make you a djinn fizz?’
‘Your question,’ said the djinn frostily. ‘Can you, a villain, turn yourself into a good guy?’
‘You got it.’
‘Dunno.’ The djinn pondered for a moment, and the air in the lock-up unit seemed to sparkle with tiny green flecks. ‘It’s a bit of a grey area, that. I mean, you could just try being nice to people and giving up your seat on buses to old ladies with heavy shopping and holding open-air rock concerts to raise money for famine victims and stuff, but there’s no saying that’d actually work.’
‘There isn’t?’
The djinn shook its head. ‘No saying it wouldn’t, either. I’m just guessing, really.’
Akram closed his eyes and started to count to ten. He got as far as four. ‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘If I took your lamp and soldered down the lid and blocked the spout up with weld, would that mean you’d be trapped in there for ever and ever?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Neither do I.’ Akram reached for his toolkit. ‘Soldering iron, soldering iron, I saw the blasted thing only the other day.’
‘Alternatively,’ said the djinn, ‘you might try and do good but all that’d happen would be that you did bad in spite of yourself.’
‘Sorry, my gibberish is a trifle rusty. What are you talking about?’
‘Because you’re a villain,’ said the djinn, ostentatiously patient, ‘everything you do - arguably - will turn out evil, regardless of your intentions. Like in the film.’
‘Film? What film?’
The djinn made a tutting noise. ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue,’ it said. ‘Donoghue. O’Shaughnessy.’
‘What the?’
‘Cassidy. Butch Cassidy. You know, the bit where they try going straight and get jobs as payroll guards and end up gunning down about a zillion Mexicans.’
‘Bolivians.’
‘Pardon me?”
‘Bolivians,’ Akram repeated. He could feel a headache starting to come together in the foothills of his brain. ‘They were in Bolivia, not Mexico.’
‘You’re quite right,’ the djinn conceded. ‘I always think of it as Mexico because of the big round hats.’
‘Bugger hats.’ It was going to be a special headache. ‘What you’re saying is, I’m stuck with being a villain, there’s nothing I can do about it. But that’s crazy. I mean, this is Reality, for pity’s sake. Surely in Reality I can be whatever I want to be, that’s the whole bloody point.’
The djinn sniggered. ‘Think you’ll find it isn’t quite as simple as that,’ it said. ‘Otherwise everybody’d be film stars and millionaires and lottery winners.’
‘Ah,’ Akram said, ‘but I happen to have a genuine magic djinn with supernatural powers on my side, so I’m laughing, aren’t I?’
The djinn made a sniffing noise. ‘Now you mustn’t go building your hopes up,’ it said, ‘because in actual fact I have to be very careful with the possibility infringement regulations, and’
‘Got it!’ Akram held up a soldering iron, and grinned. ‘And here’s the solder, look, so all we need now is the flux. Unless this is the sort where the flux is in there already.’
‘Now look,’ protested the djinn, ‘don’t you try threatening me…’
‘I think it’s that sort. Why do they use such small print on these labels?’
‘I’ve been threatened by bigger people than you, you know. If you were to see some of the people I’ve been threatened by, six miles away through a telescope, you’d have to sleep with the light on for a month.’
Akram smiled. People who saw Akram’s special menacing smile invariably remembered it for the rest of their lives, although in many cases this was not, objectively speaking, a terribly long time. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘once I’ve soldered the lid and jammed the spout, just suppose I put the lamp on top of the cooker and turn the heat full on. It’d get very hot in there.’
‘Look.’ The djinn was sweating. ‘I don’t make the rules. If it was up to me, you could be Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa and the Care Bears all rolled into one. As it is…’
‘First,’ Akram said, ‘you plug in your soldering iron. Next, make sure all surfaces are clean and free of dirt and grit. That’s one of the basic rules of all endjineering, that is.’
‘As it is,’ said the djinn, passing a finger round the inside of its collar, ‘there are a few very remote possibilities I could check out, but there’s absolutely no guarantee-‘
‘So what we do is,’ Akram went on, the lamp in one hand, a scrap of emery paper in the other, ‘we just rub down the edges until we’ve got rid of the verdigris and we’re down to the virdjinn metal’
‘No cast-iron guarantee,’ the djinn muttered rapidly, ‘but on the other hand I think we can be quietly confident. What was it you wanted again?’
‘I want to be good.’
‘No worries.’
‘In fact,’ Akram said, ‘I want to be the hero.’
The djinn swallowed. ‘And that’s a wish, is it?’
‘You bet.’
Cue special effects. Unearthly green lights, clouds of hissing vapour, doors and windows suddenly flying open. It would have taken George Lucas nine months and an eight-figure budget. The djinn was a spinning tower of green flame, and Akram looked like he was wearing a fluorescent green overcoat with Christmas tree lights for buttons.
‘Your wish,’ said the tower of flame, ‘is my command.’
Scheherezade paused, and looked up at her husband, who chuckled, lit his cigar and grinned. Outside, the sun shone on a wide lawn, a long drive, a pair of impressive-looking gates guarded by a huge man in dark glasses and a black suit. Scheherezade’s husband took a long pull on his cigar and poured himself another glass of Strega.
‘One down,’ he said, ‘two to go.�
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Maybe, in accordance with some extremely complex chain of causalities explicable only in terms of the most highly advanced avant-garde chaos theory, Akram’s transformation into a trainee Hero was the reason he got fired from the kebab house. The ostensible reason, or at least the catalyst, was taking time off to go to the dentist without clearing it with the boss first.
He accepted the decision with uncharacteristic stoicism.
The old Akram would immediately have avenged the insult in blood, leaving his replacement a confusing choice of impaled hunks of knife-slashed meat. The new Akram shrugged meekly, apologized for his thoughtlessness, collected his apron and left without raising the issue of arrears of wages due. If he’d been offered any money, he’d probably have refused to accept it.
He was shuffling homewards from this mortifying interview when he passed the window of a large fast-food joint, an outpost of an internationally respected hamburger federation.
Looking up, he saw a brightly coloured poster that said: HELP WANTED.
Wow, he said to himself, is that an omen or what? You’d have to be brain-dead or carved from solid marble not to recognise such an obvious example of Destiny handing out second chances. With a small nod of the head to indicate respectful thanks, he walked in and asked to see the manager.
In order to be considered for the job, the manager explained, prospective candidates had to be:
(a) hard-working, diligent and honest;
(b) experienced in all main aspects of retail mass catering;
(c) of a presentable appearance and able to communicate effectively with the general public;
(d) desperate enough to apply for the job and demoralised enough to stay.
And, he added quickly, Akram seemed to him to qualify in all four categories. He didn’t actually stand in front of the door until Akram agreed to take the job, but he hovered.
‘Not,’ he added quickly, as he issued Akram with his apron and cardboard hat of office, ‘that we have difficulty keeping staff. Far from it. Some nights at closing time I have to shoo them out with a broom. It’s just that this is - well, a lively neighbourhood, and some of the customers’
Involuntarily he closed his eyes, but only for a split second. ‘A bit fun-loving, some of them. Very occasionally.’
‘Good-natured banter and high spirits?’
The manager nodded. ‘From time to time. Anyway, welcome on board and the very best of luck. Now, if you’ll just give me the name and address of your next of kin, purely a formality…’
Akram made up a name and address, put on his uniform and followed the manager out into the kitchen area. The work as explained to him didn’t seem arduous or distasteful, at least compared with some of the things he’d had to do in his previous career, and there was something about his new colleagues that made him feel immediately at home. It was only after an hour or so that he realised what it was. The scars.
‘This one,’ explained Gladstone, the assistant manager, ‘was where this bloke slashed me with a bottle, and this one was a razor, and this one was where this girl tried to stub her fag out in me eye ‘cos she reckoned I gave her the wrong relish on the dips. And this one …’
‘I see,’ Akram said aloud; to himself he was groaning; Oh bugger it, Butch Cassidy. Still, it was worth a try, and maybe if he was alert and concentrated very, very hard on getting out of the way, he wouldn’t have to kill anybody for weeks.
The part of the job that involved preparing and retailing food turned out to be almost pleasant; and as for the other aspect, there seemed to be something about Akram’s manner that deterred the blade-wielding fun-lovers and made them take their place in one of the other queues. After he’d been there a month, in fact, the place had become virtually fun-free, and rumour had it that the district’s principal fun-lovers had blacklisted the establishment and were taking their custom to Neptune’s Larder, three hundred yards down the road. When he heard this, Akram was afraid he’d lose his job for driving away customers, but the manager didn’t seem to mind a bit. In fact, when Gladstone the assistant manager got into a lively debate with a tenaciously loyal fun-lover and was signed off work for nine months in consequence, Akram was promoted to take his place.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really’
‘Gosh.’ Akram was lost for words. ‘What, really}’
The manager looked at him. ‘I’m glad you’re so pleased,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s not an awful lot more money, but’
‘More money?’
The manager took half a step backwards. He’d been there nearly eighteen months, and knew from experience that working there took its toll in many different ways. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Not a fortune, by any means, but we do like to reward…’
‘Gosh. But I scarcely know what to do with all of what I get already. I’m not sure I ought to - I mean, I’m not sure it’d feel right, somehow.’
‘Go on,’ muttered the manager. ‘Force yourself.’
There was, of course, a downside. There is a dignity doth hedge an assistant manager, even a temporary acting one; his place is on the quarterdeck rather than in the engine room, and it would be inconsistent with that dignity for him to slice onions, defrost coleslaw or top up the french-fries hopper. Henceforth, there would be no more shifts in the kitchen; a pity, because he had come to love the smell and texture of the food, which to someone who had spent his lives in Old Baghdad was tantalising and exotic. In Old Baghdad, what you ate depended entirely on who you were, and there were just two standard menus: banquets and scraps. Since the latter was only the former two days later, it all tended to get a bit monotonous, and Bar-B-Q Bacon Belt-Bustas, thick shakes and the Chicken Danish Brunch were like a glimpse through the curtain at the dining-tables of paradise.
‘You like it here,’ Tanya said, one night during a lull. It wasn’t a question, more a bewildered statement of fact. Akram nodded.
‘Best job I ever had,’ he replied.
Tanya looked at him; and he was more than happy to reciprocate. A couple of months ago, if you’d have told Akram that women like Tanya existed, he’d have laughed in your face. She was completely different. She wasn’t sloe-eyed and hourglass-shaped. Her glances didn’t smoulder; and although Akram had no way of telling because her apron was in the way, he’d have been prepared to bet a year’s wages that she didn’t have a diamond jammed in her belly-button. True, there was enough of her to have made two of what Akram thought of as the standard-issue model, and still have plenty left over for spares; but so, as Akram told himself as he stood and gazed at her, what? The best thing about her, the bit that really shook him to the marrow, was that she was different. She did things that the girls back home wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to do. Such as think.
‘Really?’
Akram nodded. ‘You bet,’ he said.
‘Right. So what was it you used to do?’
‘I… ‘ Although he’d known all along that the question would be asked sooner or later, he’d always shied away from the task of fabricating a reply. Somehow, even thinking about his past activities made him feel depressed and nervous, as if to admit that he’d had a previous existence could jeopardise his new one. ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ he said, looking down at the counter. ‘If that’s all right,’ he added.
‘Sure.’
There you go, thoughtfulness again. Consideration for the feelings of others. The desire to avoid pain and embarrassment. God, thought Akram, I love it here, I’m not ever going back.
Tanya didn’t say anything, and then a customer came in and ordered a Chicken Danish Brunch, so that the moment passed. As Akram got the order - a chicken burger sitting on half a bread roll crowned with a splodge of red sauce and some sort of plant - he stole a glance at Tanya out of the corner of his eye, and deep inside him somewhere a little voice said Yes, but why not? And the rest of him couldn’t immediately think of any good reason.
‘So,’ Hanif
muttered, sitting down on a flat rock and putting his head between his hands, ‘that’s it, then.’
Aziz nodded, unable to speak. A hundred yards or so in front of them was the border; the customs post, Jim’s Diner, the wire. He felt utterly wretched.
‘Let’s face it,’ Hanif went on, ‘we’ve looked everywhere. Everywhere,’ he repeated unnecessarily. ‘And he’s not there. Which can only mean’
‘All right,’ Aziz growled, ‘you’ve made your bloody point.’
Faisal shook his head, dislodging a few organisms. ‘Still can’t see why he’d do such a thing,’ he sighed. ‘I mean, run out on us. Abandon us like that. You just wouldn’t believe it.’
It was a hot day, they’d been on the road since an hour before dawn, and nobody had the energy to answer. Finally having to accept that the Skip was gone and was unlikely ever to come back was like trying to come to terms with God leaving the answering machine on even though you know perfectly well he’s at home. There was a vast hole in the side of their universe; they could ignore it, or else fall through.
‘Maybe he’s in the caff,’ said Hassan. ‘I mean, we haven’t actually looked.’
‘Might as well,’ Aziz replied. ‘They may have seen him, anyhow.’
‘I think,’ said Mushtaq, youngest and most gauche of the Thirty-Nine Thieves, ‘that he’s gone on a special mission to the other side to steal something, you know, something really, really valuable, and as soon as he’s pulled it off he’ll come back, and …’
‘Mushtaq.’
‘Yes, Skip?’
‘Don’t, there’s a good lad.’
‘Don’t what, Skip?’
Aziz sighed. ‘Just don’t, that’s all. I’m not in the mood. All right,’ he went on, standing up and rubbing his cheeks with his palms, ‘Hassan, Farouk, you come with me and we’ll check out the caff. The rest of you ’
He couldn’t be bothered to finish the order. There was no point; after all, apart from sitting aimlessly in the shade with their knees drawn up to their chins, what else was there that they could possibly find to do? He beckoned to his two chosen followers and trudged slowly towards Jim’s Diner.
