The Toyminator

by Robert Rankin

  ‘You do talk twaddle, Jack.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘that’s what space aliens do, if there are space aliens. But as I don’t believe in space aliens, I don’t care whether you believe me or not.’

  Eddie was now thumping his head with his paws.

  ‘I hate it when you do that,’ said Jack.

  ‘It helps to jiggle my brainy bits about,’ said Eddie. ‘Aids cogitation. We have all the clues, Jack, I’m sure we do. We can figure this thing out. I can figure this thing out.’

  ‘Let’s tell Bellis what we heard here,’ said Jack. ‘Let him and his laughing policemen lay in wait for these—’

  ‘Doppelgängers of us?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Whatever they are.’

  Eddie gave his head some further thumpings. ‘Something is coming,’ he said.

  ‘An idea?’ asked Jack. ‘An answer? What?’

  ‘Something,’ said Eddie. ‘Something.’

  ‘Something,’ said Jack. And then he said, ‘Eddie?’

  ‘What, Jack, what?’

  ‘Eddie, something.’

  And then something came upon them. It came upon them in a blinding light, which rushed at them through the windows and up through the cracks between the floor-boards and around the trap door and in through the keyhole and down the chimney and even up the plughole in the sink in the kitchen. And this light was white and this light was pure and this light was fearsome.

  And Eddie clung to the legs of Jack and Jack held Eddie’s head in one hand and shielded his eyes with the other. And Eddie screamed. And Jack screamed. They screamed together. Together as one. And the bright white light engulfed them, surrounded them and swallowed them up.

  And was gone.

  ‘Careful,’ said Eddie. ‘Look where you’re driving.’

  Jack swung the wheel; the car all but struck a fence. Nearly went over a cliff and into a river. Jack jammed his foot upon the brake.

  ‘That was close,’ he said.

  ‘You dozed off,’ said Eddie. ‘Fell asleep at the wheel.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jack. ‘It’s been a long night. I’m tired.’

  ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I said. Where are we?’

  ‘Nearly home, I think.’

  ‘Nearly home?’

  ‘Nearly home.’

  ‘But—’ said Jack.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But we weren’t driving home. We were—’

  ‘We were what?’

  ‘We were somewhere, weren’t we?’

  ‘We were at Tinto’s Bar and now we’re driving home.’

  ‘No,’ said Jack. ‘We were somewhere else after Tinto’s Bar – we went somewhere else.’

  ‘No we didn’t,’ said Eddie. ‘We had a beer, several, in fact. Many, in fact.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Jack. ‘I’m confused.’

  ‘See, you did have beers.’

  ‘Did you have beer?’

  ‘Do my kind defecate in the woodland regions?’

  ‘Then you’re drunk.’

  Eddie felt at his legs. ‘I’m not,’ said he. ‘My legs are not.’

  ‘Something happened, Eddie, something weird.’

  ‘Jack, you’re not making sense.’

  ‘There was a light,’ said Jack. ‘A very bright light.’

  ‘You are drunk.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Jack. He looked at his watch. ‘Five a.m. in the morning,’ he said. ‘The sun’s coming up.’

  ‘Five in the morning?’ said Eddie. ‘That’s odd. I thought it was about two.’

  ‘There was a bright light,’ said Jack. ‘I remember a light. And there’s something more.’

  ‘Something more?’

  ‘My bottom’s sore,’ said Jack.

  ‘Oh,’ said Eddie. ‘That’s funny.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Jack. ‘It hurts.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that it’s funny like that. I mean it’s funny because my bum is sore, too.’

  Jack looked at Eddie.

  And Eddie looked at Jack.

  ‘Aaaaaaagh!’ they both agreed.

  9

  ‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘I think so, yes.’

  It was nine of the morning clock now and they hadn’t slept, or at least they thought they hadn’t slept. They were back in Bill Winkie’s office. Eddie sat on Bill Winkie’s desk in a bowl of iced water. Jack sat in Bill’s chair upon several cushions.

  And, ‘No,’ said Eddie once again. ‘It can’t have happened, no.’

  ‘I don’t get you at all,’ said Jack, rootling around in desk drawers in search of a bottle of something. ‘You were the one saying that it was space aliens and now we’ve been abducted by space aliens and returned with our memories erased and you’re saying no, it can’t have happened. Why are you saying this, Eddie?’

  ‘Because,’ said Eddie, shifting uncomfortably upon his sore bottom. ‘Just because, that’s all.’

  ‘Just because they’re my kind of space aliens.’ Jack shifted uncomfortably in Bill’s chair. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted clockwork space aliens with tin-plate ray guns and now you’re jealous—’

  ‘Jealous?’ said Eddie.

  ‘No,’ said Jack, ‘jealous is not the word I mean. You’re miffed.’

  ‘That’s nothing like jealous at all.’

  ‘But you are miffed, because it was my space aliens. Because I was right and you were wrong.’

  ‘Then pat yourself on the back for being right.’ Eddie made a huffy face. ‘But pat yourself on the shoulders to avoid your punctured bum.’

  ‘Stop. Don’t even think about that. What do you think they did to us?’

  ‘If I don’t even think about it, then I don’t know.’

  ‘We were abducted.’ Jack now made a different face from the one he had previously been making, the one that would have turned the milk sour if there’d been any milk around, but there wasn’t any, because he and Eddie hadn’t got around to buying any, as they spent most of what money they had upon alcohol. The different face that Jack made was of that variety that one sees in those big paintings of the saints whilst they are being horribly martyred in some unspeakable fashion (which often tends to involve certain pointy things being thrust up certain tender places). It is the face of the beatified. There’s no mistaking it.

  ‘What does that face mean?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘It means that we have become two amongst the chosen.’ Jack linked his fingers, as in prayer. ‘It means we’re special, Eddie.’

  ‘I was special anyway.’ Eddie splashed iced water about himself. ‘I have a special tag in my ear to prove it and everything.’

  ‘We were taken up,’ said Jack, in the voice of one evangelising. ‘We were taken up into the light.’

  ‘By sexual perverts,’ said Eddie. ‘Don’t forget that part.’

  ‘They might have implanted us,’ said Jack, in no less evangelising a tone. Well, perhaps just a little less. Perhaps with a hint of a tone of troubledness to it.

  ‘You mean they’ve made us pregnant?’ Eddie all but fell out of his bowl.

  ‘No,’ said Jack. ‘They stick implants up your nose.’

  ‘Up your bum, up your nose? What is the matter with these people?’

  ‘We can’t be expected to understand them,’ said Jack. ‘Their thinking patterns are totally different from ours. It would be like you trying to communicate with a beetle.’

  ‘Some of my best friends are beetles,’ said Eddie. ‘But this doesn’t make any sense, the way you’re talking. I seem to recall that you do not believe in space aliens.’

  ‘I’ve been converted,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve seen the light.’

  ‘Just like that? There could be all manner of other explanations. You shouldn’t go jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘The bright light. The missing time. The erased memories. The …’ Jack indicated the area of his anatomy that rest
ed gingerly upon the cushions. ‘It all fits together. There’s no point in denying it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Eddie. ‘All right. Something happened to us. Something worrying.’

  ‘We were taken up into the light.’

  ‘Stop saying that or I’ll bite you somewhere that will take your mind off your sore bottom. Although not by many inches.’

  Jack crossed his legs, said, ‘Ouch,’ and uncrossed them again.

  ‘Something happened to us,’ Eddie continued. ‘I don’t know what and you don’t know what, either. Somehow we will have to find out what. It all has to be part of the case. A big part. Think hard, Jack. Do you remember anything at all?’

  ‘Leaving Tinto’s,’ said Jack. ‘Driving. Then a really bright light, then waking up in the car, which was nearly going over a cliff and into a river.’

  ‘And nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Eddie dusted at his trenchcoat; its hem was sodden in the water bowl. ‘We went somewhere after we left Tinto’s. Hold out your hands, Jack.’

  Jack gave a doubtful look. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘You’re not going to bite me, are you?’

  ‘I just want to look at your hands. Stick ’em out.’

  Jack stuck ’em out.

  Eddie examined Jack’s hands. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Turn them over.’

  Jack turned them over.

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Eddie. ‘Now stand up, turn slowly around and show me the soles of your shoes.’

  ‘Are you having a laugh, Eddie?’

  ‘Please just humour me.’

  Jack rose carefully, pushed back the chair carefully, did a slow twirl, with equal care, then lifted one foot and then the other towards Eddie. With insufficient care, Jack fell down in a heap.

  ‘Always the comedy sidekick,’ said Eddie. ‘What would I do without you?’

  ‘I’m not a comedy sidekick,’ said Jack, rising very carefully and lowering himself with considerable care back onto the cushions.

  ‘Well, you had an interesting night out,’ said Eddie, ‘by the evidence upon your person.’

  ‘Did I?’ said Jack. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You took a walk in the countryside,’ said Eddie, ‘through gorse and briar, then along a yellow-bricked road. You lit a candle from a tinderbox and you handled several antique weapons.’

  ‘I did all that? How can you tell?’

  ‘I could leave you in awe of my special senses,’ said Eddie, splashing water at Jack, ‘but the evidence is all over you, on your coat, the soles of your shoes, your fingers and fingernails. And lean over here a little.’

  Jack did so and Eddie sniffed at him.

  ‘What?’ said Jack.

  ‘You need a shower,’ said Eddie. ‘Your personal hygiene is a disgrace. Typical of teenage boys, that is.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Jack.

  ‘Only kidding. There’s a smell about you, Jack.’ Eddie sniffed at himself. ‘And about me also. A different smell. One I’ve never smelled before.’

  ‘The smell of space aliens?’ Jack took to sniffing himself.

  ‘Very probably so. We have to find out what happened to us.’

  ‘I could hypnotise you,’ said Jack. ‘Hypnotic regression, it’s called. Take you back to the moment when we saw the bright light. That’s how it’s done.’

  ‘Jack,’ said Eddie, ‘do you really know how to hypnotise someone?’

  ‘I do in theory.’

  ‘But you’ve never actually done it.’

  ‘I’ve never had sex with a chicken, but I know how to do it, in theory.’

  Eddie looked very hard at Jack.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t know why I said that. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I certainly do not.’

  ‘No. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Eddie. ‘Teddies cannot be hypnotised.’

  ‘You don’t know that. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, I always say.’

  ‘And thus the chickens walk in fear.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. But teddies cannot be hypnotised. I tried it once and it didn’t work on me.’

  Jack looked hard at Eddie. ‘Why did you try?’ he asked.

  ‘I had this theory,’ said Eddie, ‘that if hypnotists can hypnotise folk into doing anything they want them to do—’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Jack.

  ‘It is around here,’ said Eddie. ‘Believe me. Well, my theory was simple: I’d get the hypnotist to hypnotise me into being Toy City’s greatest hypnotist, then I’d be able to place anyone I wanted under my control.’

  ‘That’s outrageous,’ said Jack.

  ‘Naturally, I would only have used my powers for good.’

  ‘Well, naturally.’ Jack now made a very doubtful face.

  ‘But it didn’t work,’ said Eddie. ‘The hypnotist said that he’d really tried his hardest. I had to go for ten sessions. It was very expensive.’

  ‘Hm,’ went Jack. ‘Did it ever cross your mind—’

  ‘What?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jack. ‘So teddies can’t be hypnotised. But I’ll bet I could be. Shall we visit this hypnotist and see if he can do it?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Eddie. ‘I don’t think he’s practising any more.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jack. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, he gave up when he got out of hospital.’

  ‘Why was he in hospital?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He took a rather severe biting,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Right,’ said Jack, and he recrossed his legs and kept them recrossed, though it hurt. ‘So,’ said Jack, ‘hypnotists are not a happening thing, then.’

  ‘Oh, they are,’ said Eddie. ‘Though not that one. I know another one. I think we’ll pay him a visit.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jack once more. ‘There’s just one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘First I think I’ll take a shower and then we’ll take some breakfast.’

  They took their breakfast at Nadine’s Diner. They travelled there in Bill’s car, via the nearest pawnbrokers, where they pawned Bill’s water cooler. Well, money was short, and they were on an important case. And they were very hungry indeed.

  And on the way into the diner, Jack purchased the morning’s edition of the Toy City Mercury.

  They took a table by the window, ordered a Big Boy’s Blow-Out Breakfast a-piece, with double hash browns, muffins, dumplings, pancakes, cheesecakes, fishcakes, fairy cakes and Fanny Lapalulu’s Fudgecake Surprise. Jack spread the paper before him and perused the front page news. ‘DOLLY DUMPLING DEAD’ ran the headline, which told it as it was. And beneath it ran text that didn’t.

  ‘Freak accident?’ said Jack. ‘Struck by lightning?’

  ‘Well, what did you expect?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘The truth,’ said Jack.

  ‘In a newspaper?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Well, not all of the truth, perhaps.’

  ‘And what is the truth? No one saw anything except a really bright light. It could have been lightning.’

  ‘It wasn’t lightning, you know that.’

  ‘I know that, you know that. Oh, damn, he knows that, too.’

  ‘He?’ Jack looked up. ‘Oh dear,’ he said.

  Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis smiled his perished smile upon them. ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Might I sit down and join you?’

  ‘Oh yes, please do,’ said Eddie. ‘How wonderful to see you again so soon.’

  ‘I thought I might find you here, filling your faces.’ Wellington Bellis took a seat. ‘You’ve seen the paper, I see.’

  ‘For what it’s worth.’ Jack tossed the thing aside.

  ‘It’s worth a great deal,’ said Bellis. ‘We don’t want panic in the streets, now do we? We want to get this thing tied up all neat and nice, as quickly as possible, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course we do,�
� said Eddie. ‘Jack and I were just planning our next move when you arrived. Such a pity you’ve derailed our train of thought.’

  ‘Such a pity,’ said Bellis, and he reached out and squeezed Eddie’s left paw.

  ‘That hurts rather,’ said Eddie. ‘Would you mind not doing that?’

  ‘I want results,’ said Bellis, ‘and I want them fast. I need the culprit banged up at the hurry-up. And if I do not have the real culprit, I will have to make do with the next best thing. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Very clear,’ said Jack. ‘Please stop doing that to Eddie.’

  ‘Always the little bear’s protector.’

  ‘Eddie is my friend. Please let go of his paw.’

  Bellis let go of Eddie’s paw. Eddie gave it rubbings with his other one.

  ‘You wouldn’t want any harm to come to this dear little chap, would you, Jack?’ asked Bellis, smiling horribly. ‘Such a pity that would be.’

  ‘There’s no need for this.’ Jack glared daggers at the chief inspector. ‘We are doing all that we can. We want to sort this out as much as you do. Especially after what happened to us.’

  ‘What?’ said Bellis. ‘What is this of which you speak?’

  ‘Jack’s talking about Old King Cole’s,’ said Eddie. ‘That’s what you were talking about, wasn’t it, Jack?’ Eddie made a frowning face at Jack.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jack. ‘Ah, yes. That’s exactly what I was talking about. Very upsetting for me, that was. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bellis. ‘You certainly look like shi—’

  ‘Two Big Boy’s Blow-Out Breakfasts,’ said a waitress. A long dolly waitress, with long dolly legs that went right up. ‘Excuse me, sir, if you would.’

  Bellis rose from his chair and gazed down upon the two detectives. ‘Results,’ said he. ‘And fast. Or else.’ And he drew a rubber finger across his rubber throat. ‘Enjoy your breakfasts.’

  And Bellis departed.

  ‘What a bastard,’ said Jack.

  ‘Language,’ said Eddie. ‘There’s a lady present.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said the waitress. ‘I’m not much of a lady. A couple of drinks and I’m anyone’s, really.’

  ‘Really?’ said Jack. ‘What time do you finish your shift?’