Bad Dreams

by Kim Newman

  Derek Douane was being cooed over by a pair of predatory women in their fifties, not minding their tanned fingers in his hair, on his face or twanging his braces. Daeve was lecturing a bank manager on the stylistic differences between Bolt Thrower, Odin and Meat Market. Anders was playing major-domo outside.

  She was trapped, pinned to a bookcase by two smoothly stupid, slightly drunk young men. One, Toby Farrar, was a career army officer out of uniform, the other, Baz Something, was a cricket-playing travel agent. Farrar was short with livery lips and thick black eyebrows, and Something was prematurely bald and thought he was really cool. They were both assholes, and they were both boasting about their early sex lives. Anne stopped listening while they were comparing their masturbatory records, and watched for new arrivals.

  'Six times a day,' said Something, 'that was my personal best.'

  'Piss on that,' said Farrar, 'that was my mean average.'

  Nina seemed to have lost contact with Planet Earth. Earlier, she had taken Anne aside to ask her if she knew when Clive was coming. The girl had not quite forgotten who she was, but had got her mixed up with her sister. Now, she was out in the hallway, stationed eagerly near the front door.'

  A veiled woman, with scarlet fingernails, was challenging every man in the room.

  'You want to arm wrestle?' she kept saying, 'beat me and you can do whatever you like to my body.'

  Anne was surprised that nobody was taking her up on it. The woman had a figure like the young Jane Russell.

  Farrar was surprised too. When the challenge got through to him, he disobeyed the first rule of the services and volunteered.

  'This is his first time here,' said Something. 'He doesn't know any better, the daft bollock. Watch this.'

  Farrar and the woman - whose name, funnily enough, was Jeane Russell - were seated either side of a small desk. Someone put a paper hat on Farrar's head, and he straightened it. She unpinned her veil, and Anne saw she had different-coloured eyes, one blue, one hazel. Everyone crowded around. Something put his hand on Anne's bottom, but did not seem to mind too much when she peeled it off and gave it back to him. Everyone quietened and Amelia turned off Jean-Michel.

  In the hallway, Nina was asking someone about Clive.

  Jeane Russell held her hand, dainty but thick-wristed, up, and flexed her fingers. She put her elbow down firmly on the desk and leaned forwards.

  'Hold on,' said a computer-designing nonentity, 'the final touch…' He put two ashtrays full of smouldering butts either side of the field of combat, and sprinkled a few drops of fuel from his lighter on each. Little flames grew. Burning cellophane crackled.

  Farrar did not look too happy. Jeane Russell flexed her fingers again.

  Farrar drained half a glass of vodka and orange, and grasped Jeane Russell's hand.

  Someone said 'go for it' and was promptly ignored.

  Farrar and Jeane Russell looked at each other. Jeane Russell smiled, and crushed the man's hand as if it were an eggshell.

  Farrar yelped at the sound of grinding bones, and looked around in dazed fury. Jeane Russell brought his arm down as easily as a barmaid pulling a pint and dropped his hand into a burning ashtray.

  Someone who knew what she was doing produced a pitcher of iced water for Farrar's hand. She also used it to put the fires out.

  'Shit,' said Farrar, 'you bitch!' He tried to slap Jeane Russell with his left hand, but she backed out of the way and just laughed at him.

  'Anyone else?' she asked. No one came forwards.

  'How does she do that?' Anne asked Something.

  'I don't know,' he said, holding up his own once-ruined hand, 'she just does.'

  Farrar came after his friend. 'You bastard, you could have warned me. Look at this…'

  The officer held up his wedding ring between thumb and forefinger. It was a squeezed oval, and cracked top and bottom.

  'Cathy will do her fucking nut…'

  FOUR

  CLIVE DID NOT like the idea of spending the early evening with Amelia Dorf's crowd of goat rapists and rich sickies, but as an entrepreneur he knew the importance of maintaining a personal relationship with his best customers. Besides, there was a good chance of turning up tonight's cunt at Amelia's 'entertainment'. Then he could leave early, and get on with the Business.

  He was listening to electro-funk on the car stereo. He liked music with a rhythm.

  The Sergeant Major had handled Coral pretty well. Since it was two-in-a-row time, he had taken a lot more precautions with this one. By the time she showed up in that rubbish dump on the Isle of Dogs, there would be little left that was recognisable. With luck, she might be buried forever under the wet newspapers, stinking food remnants and empty cornflake packets. Mr Skinner would be very pleased. This job was one of his 'specials'. He had certainly got his money's worth.

  Later, Clive had to go to a club and watch the Sergeant Major and some of his army mates. They were very well organised. They would pretend to get pissed and start a fight. There would be a lot of damage and a few people would get hurt, but the lads would be away by the time the police could get round to the place.

  The manager had been trying to set himself up in the Business when he knew full well that Clive had the franchise. He needed to be reminded of the way the world was arranged.

  Also, it would be a thrill for the cunt. 'Want to go to a club and see some damage done?' That would be a good pick-up line. Very good.

  Clive wanted to see the manager with a broken nose, blood on his dicky bow and frilly shirt front. Maybe the Sergeant Major would go in for some Greek dancing, and smash all the house DJ's records instead of plates.

  He was buzzed through the gates, and parked neatly in front of the house. There were quite a few cars ranked in the drive. Someone with safe sex on the brain had draped a pillow-case over the glans of Amelia's silly dick-shaped bush. He set the car alarm, and went up to the door.

  Before he was even inside Amelia's hallway, some harridan was leaping him, kissing his face with dry lips, pulling at his lapels. Her breath was foul.

  'Clive. Oh God, Clive, it's been so long… it's so good to see you. Clive, you've got to… I need… I can pay… Clive, I…'

  It was Coral's old flatmate, Nina Kenyon. Luckily for him, Amelia's bodybuilding freak had been handling the entryphone and was there to pull her off him. He put her down.

  'It's all right, Anders,' Nina said, 'I'm sorry. I just need to… could we be alone, please?'

  'Clive?' he asked, obviously awaiting orders to hurt someone.

  'It's okay, Anders. I can deal with this.'

  'Fine.' The muscle mutant waddled off. Nina was all over him again, but more ingratiating this time, controlling her desperation, soothing the wrinkles she had put in his coat, unwrapping his scarf.

  'Clive, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come on so… I need you… I need a hit… please, Clive…

  He had dealt to her fairly steadily. When she was flush, she had been stupid enough to pay over the odds. When she was broke, she had been stupid enough to plead for credit. She used to be a good cunt, now she was a dressful of dead fish meat.

  'Let me get my coat off, for fuck's sake. It's expensive. Used to walk around on a camel's hump.'

  She pulled his topcoat off, and took the scarf. She fumbled, dropping' them on the floor and picking them up, sorrying wildly, before shoving them onto the rack with the others. Clive reckoned she was well past skin-popping. She was up to two or three needles a week, and had gone without for maybe 48 hours. She would cut off her right arm and give it to him if he came over with as much as a single bag.

  'I can't do business here,' he said. 'It's a party.'

  'Clive, come on. Clive, please. I need some smack. Not much, just enough. It's the last time. Please… please…'

  'Nina, fuck off. You still owe me from the last time. Remember. You don't have a tab any more, it's all used. You have to clear that before I can even think about transacting with you again. Now, leave me alone…'


  She had dragged him into a room that turned out to be empty. At least she had the sense not to do her grovelling and pleading in front of other people. She would not let him go. She opened her purse.

  'I've got money. Look. Anne gave it to me. Here…'

  'I don't know any Annes.'

  'Here, look

  She held out two freshly crumpled ten pound notes, one in either fist. He prised them free, smoothed them, and pocketed them.

  'Fine, Nina. Now we're even. I'm glad to see you're learning a little responsibility. It's important…'

  'No, Clive,' she screeched at him, 'it's not for last time. You don't understand. It's for this time. Now. Clive, please…'

  'No, Nina, that was for last time. The last time. I should never have extended credit to you then, and I won't do it again.'

  'I don't have any more.'

  'Then I don't make a sale.'

  'You don't understand, Clive…'

  'I think I do, Nina.'

  'Clive, what about if I were to…'

  'No, that won't do. It'll have to be cash. You've depreciated recently, gone down against sterling.'

  'Clive, I…'

  He left her babbling and crossed the hall to the party. He kissed Amelia and gave her a Christmas card. It was a privately printed cartoon of Santa Claus having sex with Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Amelia tore the envelope open and laughed.

  In the den, Clive calmed down and practised his charm again. He exchanged a few pleasantries with Jeane the Amazon, and collected on a small cocaine deal with a Senior Lecturer in Romance Languages. There were some people you could trust, after all.

  Cocaine. There was another staple seller. Like Moet et Chandon or Chanel No. 5. The preferred drug of old money, and, by extension, of the nouveau mob. His most loyal cocaine customers were in the City, Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster.

  Nina came in soon after, flapping her arms like pterodactyl wings, and pounced on a girl he had never seen before. Anne? She looked like a good cunt. Nina had her hand in the other girl's handbag, and was begging her for money in exactly the same terms she had used on him while begging for heroin.

  Even if she came up with the money, Clive was not about to hand over a bag in the open. She was so far gone she had got seriously stupid. But it was all his own fault really.

  Now, he had the Sergeant Major and his sales force to deal in person with small customers like Nina. She was a hangover from the old days, when he had had to hustle the stuff himself. He had several like her and they were very nearly impossible to ditch. Of course they died from time to time, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

  'We got totally wrecked yesterday,' said one of his old-fashioned die-hard dope customers, 'and rented out Santa Claus - the Movie on video. It was the most moving experience I ever had. They ought to hand out gear instead of ice cream to the kids.'

  'Yeah,' said his Tonto-hairstyled girlfriend, 'we had a megalaugh.'

  A deep-voiced character with five o'clock shadow all over his face and fists like Popeye the Sailor grabbed the girl by her Indian beads and slammed her up against the mantelpiece.

  'I just hate it,' he growled, drooling between yellow teeth, 'when people misuse the suffix mega.'

  He banged her head backwards, knocking down a domino row of Christmas cards.

  'It denotes quantity, not size,' he growled, dropping the girl. He stumped off, in search of split infinitives and incorrect usages of the adverb 'hopefully', and the Last of the Hippies picked up his Moonchild or Starbeam or whatever, and calmed her down.

  Nina was back, with a fiver and some change.

  'Clive, I'm really sorry about earlier…'

  He would not take the money. She put it in his lap. He picked it up and dropped it in a bowl of fruit punch. The coins sank between the bananas, apples and mushrooms.

  'Nina, just fuck off will you.'

  'Clive, I need you. I'll do anything. Please…'

  He stood up and slapped her. Hard. Everyone shut up and looked at them.

  'Now look what you've done, you stupid cunt. You've spoiled the party.'

  'Yeah,' said somebody drunk who just wanted to be nasty, 'you tell her. Break the cow's arm.'

  This, thought Clive, might be fun.

  He took a double handful of Nina's jacket, above her breasts, and tore. Tiny buttons flew, and she clutched herself. She shook her head wildly. Her hair was a frightful mess. Her make-up was streaked.

  The man who had agreed with Clive grabbed Nina's jacket collar and tried to rip down her back. Someone else pulled her necklace, and imitation pearls spread underfoot. There was a lot of screaming and laughing.

  Nina was passed from person to person. Everybody tried to take something - a scrap of clothing, a lock of hair, a false eyelash, a brooch. They pinched and kissed and cuddled and laughed and swore.

  Nina was beyond hysterics. Her mouth opened and closed, but Clive could not tell whether she was making any noises. Everyone else sounded pained and crazy enough.

  He stood back and watched. Someone started singing 'Oranges and Lemons', and everybody joined in. Clive was surprised that he remembered the words. All those years of Listen With Mother must have sunk in.

  Oranges and lemons,

  Say the bells of St Clements,

  I owe you five farthings,

  Say the bells of St Martins…

  Amelia was in there, jostling and tugging with the worst of them. And Anders, showing off his strength by tearing only at the thick material of Nina's suit. Only Nina's friend, Anne, stayed out of the game, and she was not doing anything to stop it. Clive looked at her, and she looked at him.

  He poured a drink. Chateauneuf du Pape. It was supposed to be very good, but all wine tasted alike to him.

  Nina was on the floor now, sobbing, and the others had a rugby scrum over her. Already, there was blood. The girl had had her hands over her face and was rolling from side to side. She could do little to protect herself.

  Soon it would get out of hand. But it had got out of hand before, and Clive had coped with it.

  Judi and Coral. Now, that was out of hand. And Clive had coped with that.

  He would ask for even more money this time.

  One of the men had his fly open and his dick out. He was going to take a leak on the girl, but Amelia pulled him out of the circle with a cry of 'not on my carpet'.

  Everybody backed off now. It was the last verse of the song. Jeane the Amazon picked Nina up. The girl was a mess.

  Here comes a candle

  To light you to bed,

  And here comes a chopper…

  Then Mr Skinner came down.

  FIVE

  'To…'

  This was sick, sick. Anne knew she ought to do something, ought to intervene. But…

  '… chop…'

  She looked at the young man, Clive. He was anonymously handsome, studiously calm and trying to be detached. He wanted to be apart from the humiliation he had engineered. Men like this, a man like this, had taken Judi apart…

  '… off…'

  Was this man to blame? Judi's ex-. Ex-what? Boyfriend? Pimp? Drug pusher? Here he was, enjoying the party, watching the games. And Judi was dead. She could see him sweating. She guessed he was almost bursting with pleasure…

  '… your…'

  Then, he came into the room. The Monster. But he could not be the Monster. He could not…

  '…HEAD!'

  The Monster parted the circle of people, and took Nina from Jeane Russell. No, not the Monster. Just a man. He held Nina. Everyone shut up, except the girl. The man stroked her face and hair, soothed her whimpering, kissed her bruises, shushed in her ear. No one interfered.

  'Mr Skinner…' Amelia's sentence trailed off into empty air. The man had looked at her, and shut her up.

  Skinner. Anne had heard of him, and not just from Nina. One of the guests had been talking about him. He was supposed to be someone you were afraid of. She could understand th
at.

  Of course, he was not the Monster. He was not Hugh Farnham.

  Actually, the resemblance was minimal. He was a big man too, and his face had that same patched-together lizardy look. But that didn't make him Hugh Farnham. He was conservatively dressed, in a dark, three-piece business suit. He wore a tarnished gold watch chain across his waistcoat. He had a dark, fur-collared coat draped like a cloak over his shoulders.

  He included Nina in his coat, an angel wrapping a child in its wings. He looked at Anne, smiling slightly, then at everyone else. He spoke, in accentless English.

  'A specimen, I suppose. Of what, though? Vice unrewarded?'

  'Mr Skinner,' said Clive, 'we…'

  'Yes. I know. You were playing. Just playing. You know I don't like you to play games without me, but you went ahead regardless. You know you need your Games Master. Without me, you do crude, unimaginative things like this…'

  He showed them Nina's face, lowering his fur collar away from it. She was empty, used up.

  'You don't understand pain. You can't appreciate it. You let nasty little personal grudges creep in, and you taint the experience. You have to go beyond that, transcend revenge and pique and cruelty and cowardice. Pain is of and for itself alone. I've told you this before, but you are a small-minded lot, really. I despair of you.'

  Anne looked around her. The guests were completely cowed, like golden calf worshippers contemplating shards of Moses' broken tablets. This was astonishing. Skinner released Nina from his protection and set her down in an armchair. She allowed herself to be posed like a mannequin, but drew in on herself when he let her go.

  Anne had met presidents without a tenth of what Skinner was using. And she knew that he was barely stretching himself These were just make-believe decadents.

  'She was bothering us,' said Clive, almost whining, 'she wanted…'

  'Yes,' Skinner paused, 'what did she want? What did she want that you have but wouldn't give her?'

  Clive did not want to answer.