Sweet Justice

by Gaiman, Neil

  Old Man Ross spent about three minutes asking me about my life and my stranger habits, and then I managed to throw him a question.

  ‘Hey, Man. Can you give me a rundown on what happened at sundown? Last night scores of coots wearing my suits started to loot, and otherwise rave to a crime wave.’

  ‘Sowwy, Max. Can’t help. But if you’d like to lie down I’ll show you how to leg-wrestle. It’s weally fun...’

  Poor old Ross. One of these days the only person he’ll have left to interview is himself. I left him lying on his back waving his legs in the air and went outside to resume my search. Three hours had passed, and I still hadn’t a clue as to what made my fashion followers turn criminal. I decided to try the low end of the market, the grubby clothes stalls frequented by the kitsch and fameless.

  Fifteen minutes later I was strolling through the shabby makeshift stalls of the shabby makeshift garment district of Mega-City. Naturally, I was attracting some attention. Normalites were gathering around me, begging me for fashion tips. How thin should pencil-thin moustaches be? Should bowler hats be tipped to the left or right? You know the sort of thing. One finely dressed young cat came up to me, and asked if I would autograph his sock-suspender.

  ‘I see you’re wearing one of my Leon Brittan Chunky Pin-Stripes,’ I said. ‘That’s real ice, baby.’ But as I bent to put my moniker on his suspender something caught my eye. The stitching on the flare. It wasn’t right. In fact, it was left. It should have been on the right leg. I pulled the flare out and examined it. I won’t tell you exactly what I saw on the flare until the end of the story, because that’s how you tell stories, holding on to bits of info to keep you guys interested.

  ‘Just as I thought,’ I declared. ‘This isn’t a real Max Normal suit. This is mock Leon Brittan. This is fake city, kitty. This is cheap copyville!’

  The fake pretender with the suspender turned and started to run, and I went out after. He headed off the main drag into a side street. But he wasn’t going to get away from Mr Normal. I threw my trusty brolly at his feet. He yelped. He tripped. He fell. And the next minute he was looking into the eyes of one Mad Max.

  ‘Okay, Man, what gives? Where did you get all the ersatz?’

  ‘I-I’m truly sorry, Daddy,’ he whimpered. ‘I want to be a cool cat like you, but I can’t afford the real fur. You dig my drift? These copies were going for a pinch. They were cheapsburg, man.’

  I asked the faker where he bought the cute suit. He was about to open his mouth and tell me, when something strange happened. His mouth didn’t open. Instead his eyes started to flicker, like, like these crazy flickering eyes. Then his mouth started to shake, rattle and dribble, and then he turned away from me and started walking. He was walking slowly, like a zombie, like a Joe on tow, like a man with a plan that wasn’t his own.

  Max, baby, I said to myself. I think you’ve stumbled on something mega.

  I followed Jonny Ersatz for about half an hour. Eventually we arrived at the dingy warehouse district of Mega-City, next to the commercial space port. By now I had little more than an hour to solve the puzzle and save my show and the inalienable right of free men to wear flared trousers. Ersatz walked real slow, like a sleepwalker, and finally he came to this warehouse and he knocked three times on the door. The door opened, and he walked in. Me, I used my brolly to climb up the side of the warehouse, then I slipped in cool as you like through a fanlight window. I crept through a few small rooms and then came into the main warehouse, where I saw my old friend Ersatz. Next to Ersatz were about a dozen more cats in Max suits, though I guessed that all of these were fakeroonees too. They all had that by now familiar lobotomised look that Ersatz wore.

  The warehouse was full of boxes. One was open and I saw a stack of imitationville Max Normal pin-striped suits. A few Leon Brittans, a couple of Max Normal regulars and some Stockbrokers 50001s. There was also a stack of computers, and a few thugs with guns. A man was behind the computers, talking to the zombie normals. When he stepped into view it almost blew my mind. For one terrible second my cool began to melt as I recognised that terrible withered frame, that peroxide-cropped head, that hideous little face. This was none other than the Godfather of Fashion, the Don of the Rag Trade.

  ‘“Scarface” Gaultier,’ I whispered to myself.

  ‘Scarface’ Gaultier, known as The Frog, was leader of the most vicious fashion mob in Mega-City, but recently I’d been cutting into his profit margin, not to mention his prophet margin. The creds he got from his illicit bicycle shorts sales had been hit by the growing popularity of my Normal wear. I should have known The Frog would have been behind the plot to zap me and flared trousers off the map.

  He moved some buttons on the computer and a few of the ersatz Normals jerked. They jerked towards one of the crates, where some of Gaultier’s jerks handed them a pile of fake Normal suits.

  ‘Give them to your friends,’ squeaked The Frog. ‘In one hour we’ll have another little show. I’ll hit the right buttons on this lovely little computer and more followers of Max Normal will go on the rampage, and that pigswill don of démodé Max Normal will get the blame.’

  So that was it. The Normalites were being controlled by Gaultier through the fake suits. I’d seen enough. Carefully I took off my bowler hat where, inside, there was a mini-phone linked directly toJudge Dredd’s bike. I pressed the button.

  ‘Dredd.’

  ‘Dredd, baby. Has Max got some fashion facts for you!’

  ‘Spill it, Normal.’

  ‘Scarface Gaultier, Daddy. He’s the ham behind the scam.’

  I gave Dredd directions to the warehouse. And then, as I went to put my bowler hat back on the mat (that’s my hair to anyone who’s not tuned in to Normalspeak) I fumbled. The hat fell through my hands. Are my fingers made out of butter or are they made out of butter? The bowler fell down to the warehouse below. It landed right in front of Gaultier, who looked up and saw me looking down.

  Too cool, Maxie. I said to myself. Blown it, you most definitely have.

  ‘Normal!’ shrieked Scarface.

  ‘Gaultier!’ I shrieked back, as I couldn’t think of anything choicer to shriek. Next moment I was running towards the fanlight window. All I had to do was avoid Gaultier’s cats until Dredd showed his head: but they were coming at me from all sides. Crazy, I thought. Real Little Big Hornville. I reached the fanlight as Scarface’s thugs closed in. I leapt up towards it, about to catch the ledge with my brolly, but at that moment a fat cat in spats knocked me flat. Now I’m a mean machine when it comes to fighting clean, but this was a really uncool dirty scene. There were ten of them, and the last time I looked there was only one of me. They dragged me down to the warehouse floor and threw me in front of Scarface.

  ‘Freeze out, Scarface,’ I said. ‘What gives with the Max Attack?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what gives, Normal. It’s quite simple. I’m going to kill you.’

  Hey, a little thing like impending doom and destruction isn’t enough to faze the Normal. Even when Gaultier’s boys attached me to a large kind of printing press, my cool wasn’t blown, my calm wasn’t thrown. I knew I had to keep Gaultier rapping. I had to tow the line and play for time. When Dredd turned up everything would be fine.

  By the gleam in Gaultier’s mean little eyes I figured that he had no normal murder planned.

  ‘What’s the score, superbore?’ I asked him. ‘Are you putting the chap with the knack on the rack?’

  ‘More than that, you garbage-mouthed anachronism,’ he replied, pushing down a lever on the printing press. Immediately I started to shiver and vibrate. The press on which I was tied rose.

  ‘This is an old-fashioned tee-shirt printing machine, Normal,’ sniggered Scarface. ‘I’m going to give you a change of appearance. I’m going to crush you into a psychedelic tee-shirt.’

  Psychedelic tee-shirt! The thought stuck in my mind like a fishbone in a throat. I began to froth at the mouth, man. I mean, was I rabid or was I a mad dog? I was lowered d
own. To my left I saw cartons of ink. Bright blues and reds and yellows!

  ‘No use struggling, Normal. How I’ve longed for this day. How I’ve loathed your silly pin-striped suits, your appalling flares, your excruciatingly sensible shoes. You stand for everything I detest!’

  ‘So sit down, Scarface,’ came a deep and familiar voice. It was Dredd. He was standing at the door of the warehouse. Well things got a little complicated here. There were shots and shouts and screams. You know the score so I won’t be a bore. Few minutes later, Dredd had untied me. He was still fighting off some of Gaultier’s boys. Gaultier himself was a weirdo who had disappeared.

  ‘Back in a beat, Dredd, baby,’ I said, leaping off the printing machine and picking up my bowler hat from the floor. ‘I’m going to slog The Frog. I’m going to assaultier the Gaultier.’

  ‘Just shut up talking about it and do it, Normal,’ grunted Dredd.

  ‘Sure thing Daddy. I’ve heard your word.’

  Gaultier had slipped out through the fanlight onto the roof. A few moments later I was up there with him. He had about a fifty yard start on me, but his retreat was incomplete: he was slowed down by his bright yellow baggy trousers with straps joining each leg. What a fashion victim, I said to myself, as I leapt through the air, without a care, the King of Kool, the Prince of the Pin-Stripes, the Lord of the Ties, the Nawab of Normality.

  As I caught up with Scarface he turned to stand his ground. I deftly struck the first blow with my brolly to his rib cage. The pup doubled up.

  ‘You’re out of the bout, Scarface,’ I said, tipping my hat back. But at that moment Gaultier hit back. From his inside pocket he produced a small bottle and threw the contents in my face. I reeled back. It was expensive French perfume for men. I felt my life flash before my eyes. No Normal would be smelt dead reeking of anything but soap and water.

  Before I could recover, The Frog had leapt at me and knocked me off my feet. I lay on my back, looking up at him, as he pulled a revolting expressionistic cravat from his neck. The sunlight glinted on the edges of the cravat as he lifted it above me. The squaresville neckerchief was lined with razors!

  ‘Goodbye, Normal,’ said The Frog.

  Now you might think that this was a heavy scene, but it takes more than a cravat attack to tax Max. Gaultier was standing above me, about a yard from the edge of the roof, and I’d already dug that his feet were on the splayed material of my thirty-inch flares. As he lifted the razor-cravat I pulled my legs away, and his feet shot up in the air. He let out the old Fashion Mob curse of ‘May the suit of Armani be upon you,’ and then was over the edge and over the hill.

  When I got onto street level I found Gaultier lying in a heap. He looked like the sort of meal you get served in cheap Chinese restaurants. Dredd drove up on his bike.

  ‘Nice work, Normal. We’ll get the medics to patch him up, then we’ll throw him in a Crim-Cube. I reckon nine to eleven years. By the way, how was the punk controlling those fake Normals?’

  ‘Easy, Man. There were little mechanisms in the flares of the phoney suits,’ I said. (This is what I saw when I first looked at the suspender pretender’s mock Leon Brittans. Remember?) ‘The mechanisms were linked to the computers in the warehouse. When activated I reckon they sent messages to the wearers’ brains. And so Gaultier had an army of barmy Normals.’

  Dredd revved his bike, about to depart.

  ‘Okay, Normal. You’re in the clear. You can go ahead with the Max Normal Mega-City Fashion Show. And your suits remain legal. For now.’

  ‘Cool, baby,’ I said, tipping my hat. ‘You can’t say flarer than that!’

  JUDGE ANDERSON: THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

  By Mark Millar, Judge Dredd Yearbook 1992

  It happened every year. No-one could stop it. Grilles snapped tight over shop windows, steel shutters were locked over doors and those people in Mega-City who believed they were decent stayed inside, weapons in hand, until the madness was over. Children huddled to their parents for comfort, terrified eyes filled with tears. How many would die? How many more would die this year? Bones snapped in two, meat torn from bodies, streets red with corpses.

  How many more would die this year... for Charades?

  The Judges always appeared after the fights were over. When everyone was dead. Every year the Scot-Blocks would meet the Albion-Blocks in a pitched battle to the death for their sport. ‘Charades-Hooligans’, as Channel 99 News had called them; people who failed to understand that it was only a game. People who took each subtle gesture, each syllable, each film with six words in the title so seriously that they were prepared to die for it. The streets were already crimson with blood, and the semi-finals had barely begun. All the Judges could do now was to pick up the pieces and hope that the luckless contestants had no more fight left in them. Load up the bodies in a sweet-smelling truck bound for Resyk. Few Judges dared break up the riots. None would enter the Scot-Blocks at night – there was even a rumour that Judge Dredd himself had whistled and driven past a fight between two drunken Scotsmen. It’s said that even he was afraid to confront them, but this was only a rumour. It probably wasn’t true.

  A man screamed like a girl from the direction of the teetering edifice that was Albion-Block and the Judges squinted up at the sun as a window on the fifth floor shattered into fragments. A broken, bleeding body landed at their feet, still twitching.

  ‘Huh-he tore out muh-my heart...’

  The Judges leaned forward to examine the gaping hole in the man’s chest. They studied his clothes. The Cuban heels. The mauve, flared trousers. The tight wool jumper. His face; worn, yet tanned. The swept-back mound of brillo-pad hair. The likeness was unmistakeable. ‘Who did this to you, citizen?’ they asked the clone of Lionel Blair.

  Blair coughed on his own blood as his eyes clouded over, approaching death. He glanced down at his ragged chest, chuckling for a moment at how ridiculous it looked. He tried to talk, but could only whisper odd, quiet syllables. The Judges leaned closer still. ‘What’s he like? Can you give us any clue as to who he is?’

  Blair stretched out his hands, palms upwards. ‘Song?’ one of the Judges asked hesitantly. Blair nodded vigorously, and the Judge smiled smugly. ‘Three words,’ said the second Judge, catching on fast. Blair’s eyes bulged encouragingly as his hands fluttered like small birds above his shattered rib cage.

  ‘First word’s “Hey”.’

  ‘Second word. Sounds like “swannee”.’

  ‘“Nonny?”’

  ‘Third word...’ Blair ground his teeth furiously as the Judges looked on. ‘Gnaw?’ The second Judge looked blank.

  ‘No,’ said the first. ‘It’s “Naw” – like in the old Scottish folk song. “Hey Nonny Naw”.’ Lionel Blair looked pleased for a moment, then died very suddenly.

  Upstairs the Judges found the room from which Blair had been thrown. More Charades-Hooligans? They scanned the walls, even now dripping with ectoplasm. The furniture was alight, and all the mirrors had gone black. ‘Hey Nonny Naw’, the first Judge said under his breath. Three Albion-Block citizens had been found dead this past week. Stranger still, each had been clones of television personalities from the twentieth century. First had been Barry Took, who was face-down in a rad-waste lake. Next was Liza Goddard, brutally beaten to death with a walking stick and left to die in a bed of ectoplasmic fluid. The Scot-Blocks certainly had motives for the killings, but had they the means? All experienced Charades experts would be key figures in the approaching finals, but this was just too weird. The Judges cordoned off the building.

  Then they called Psi Division.

  The Scot-Block vs. Albion-Block games were a tradition dating back almost one hundred and twenty years; since the first settlers had arrived from Brit-Cit and the Cal-Hab zones. In those days, of course, they were allowed to play football – but the first games resulted in a spate of appalling deaths, and the Judges banned the sport whilst only in its third season. The game was replaced by blow football, but even this proved to be
deadly, inciting the fans to chilling acts of violence, invading the pitch and so on. This was particularly distressing, since the pitch was a four-by-five-foot coffee table in someone’s living room.

  The annual game, eight years previously, became Charades. At first this proved very successful, with only a small handful of casualties; but as the years passed, support for the game, at first fanatical, became lethal. Charades-vandalism became a familiar sight. ‘Charades-casuals’ would tattoo the names ‘Gareth Hunt’ or ‘Bernie Winters’ onto their arms, waving patriotic flags to the games. What had begun in a living room expanded and grew into full-blown matches in stadiums packed with citizens from the Cal-Hab ghettoes and Brit-Cit, all wearing team colours and threatening the chunky-jumpered Chairman (who was notorious for giving one team a film title like ‘The Sound of Music’, while giving the opposing team a fiendishly difficult music title, like ‘Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini’).

  A forensic team were snapping photos of the room in Albion-Block when Anderson walked in. She cracked a couple of jokes, but nobody laughed. There were no ornaments in the room, no photos, absolutely nothing to indicate that the victim led any kind of life. He was a clone, bred solely to take part in the games, he had never had a family, or even friends. Charades was his life, and he had trained night and day to perfect his craft. Anderson ran a finger along the black glass of the mirror, feeling the cracks.

  ‘It was something old. Something terrible that did this.’

  The other Judges looked up as she began to tremble. Her eyes fluttered closed as she whispered, as though in conversation with someone or something unseen; then snapped open, wise with sudden fright. Anderson drew a long shuddering breath before she spoke.

  ‘Do the words “Hey Nonny Naw” mean anything to you?’