The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

by Robert Rankin

  ‘I smell chocolate,’ said Jack. ‘Someone is making chocolate.’

  ‘If I had shoulders, I’d shrug them,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘And if I had legs, I’d probably walk. It’s not much fun at times being me, I can tell you.’

  ‘I could pull your head out of the box and we could drop it off somewhere,’ said Eddie, helpfully.

  ‘No thanks, I like it here. It’s not much of a job, but it’s all I have. I’ll make do. Goodbye.’

  ‘We have to get inside,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s very important. It’s about this.’ Eddie held up his bundle and showed the chocolate bunny to the gatekeeper.

  ‘What is that?’ the gatekeeper asked.

  ‘It’s a hollow chocolate bunny.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘So that’s what chocolate looks like. I’d always imagined it to be pink.’

  ‘Pink?’ said Jack. ‘You’ve never seen chocolate?’

  ‘I have now,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘And I’m very disappointed. It’s not nice having all your illusions shattered. Please go away, you’ve quite spoiled my day.’

  Eddie made an exasperated face.

  ‘We’re getting nowhere,’ said Jack. ‘Shall we just climb over the gates?’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘It’s not allowed.’

  ‘Really? And so what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’ll sulk,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘I sulked the last time and I’ll sulk this time too.’

  ‘Last time?’ Eddie asked. ‘What last time?’

  ‘The last time someone got past the gates. They didn’t even speak to me; they just leapt over. I really sulked, I can tell you. I don’t know whether it helped or not. But what else could I do?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘Perhaps you should have raised the alarm,’ Eddie suggested.

  ‘I’m not employed to do that,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘I’m employed to stop people going through the gates without my authorisation.’

  ‘And how do you do that?’

  The gatekeeper laughed. ‘It’s a fine joke, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I never have to. The gates are always locked.’

  Jack scratched at his head. ‘Yes, but—’

  Eddie stopped him. ‘So you’re only employed to stop people going through the gates? Not over them?’ he asked the gatekeeper.

  ‘My contract only says through them.’

  Jack shook his head once more.

  ‘This person who leapt over the gates,’ Eddie said. ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘Looked like a meathead,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘And all meatheads look the same to me.’

  ‘There’s nothing specific that you can recall?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘They had a sack,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘I remember that. It was an empty sack when they jumped over, but it looked weighty and full later, when they jumped back again.’

  ‘Significant,’ said Eddie. ‘Is there anything else you can remember?’

  ‘I remember a sparrow that once built its nest in that tree over there.’

  ‘About the meathead who climbed in and out?’

  ‘No, she just looked like a meathead.’

  ‘She?’ said Eddie.

  ‘It was a female meathead,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘They have those things that stick out in the front.’

  ‘Tits?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Feathers,’ said the gatekeeper.

  ‘We’re talking about the meathead, not the sparrow,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Me too,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘She had big feathers, sticking out of the front of her bonnet.’

  Back in the car, Eddie said, ‘Well, it was a struggle, but we got there eventually.’

  ‘I didn’t get any chocolate,’ said Jack. ‘And I’m still hungry.’

  ‘But we got information. Someone leapt over the gates of the chocolate factory and stole a sack full of somethings.’

  ‘Bunnies, you’re thinking?’

  ‘Let us assume so. And it was a woman.’

  ‘It might have been a man in a feathered hat.’

  ‘Does that seem likely to you?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘The unlikely is commonplace in this city,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a woman,’ said Eddie. ‘We’re looking for a woman. Perhaps it was a love triangle. She was the scorned lover of both Humpty and Boy Blue. Or something.’

  ‘So what is the significance of the bunnies?’

  ‘Some love thing. I don’t know. Men give chocolates to women.’

  ‘You’re clutching at straws,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t believe it was a woman. Did a woman climb onto Humpty’s roof and put in that lens? Did a woman fire that crook from across the street? Did a woman leap over those gates? Did you see how high those gates were?’

  ‘We’re looking for a woman.’

  ‘We’re not.’

  Jack drove the car back down Knob Hill and, at Eddie’s instruction, towards Tinto’s bar. He didn’t look in the driving mirror as he drove along, but then Jack rarely, if ever, looked into the driving mirror.

  Which was a shame as it happened, because if Jack had looked into the driving mirror, he might well have noticed the car that was following him.

  It was a long and low expensive-looking car and it was being driven by a woman.

  A woman who wore a feathered bonnet.

  11

  The sun was drifting down towards the horizon as Jack steered Bill’s car along one of the more colourful streets of Toy City. Eddie had suggested that they take the pretty way back to Tinto’s bar.

  This street was a shopping area for toys. There were brightly lit bazaars, shaded by decorative awnings. Produce in baskets, tubs and crates spilled onto the pavements.

  Jack slowed the car and kerb-crawled along, peering out and marvelling at the wares and wonders, and at those who shopped and strode and moved: toys, and more toys.

  Jack’s thoughts were all his own and his thoughts were about thoughts. How could all these creations, these things wrought from tin and wood and padded fabric, think? How could they move and talk? It was ludicrous, impossible, and yet it was so. Jack thought back to the gatekeeper at the chocolate factory.

  ‘A head,’ said Jack, with a shake of his own. ‘A talking head in a box. Now I ask you, how does that work?’

  ‘Most inefficiently,’ said Eddie. ‘The way he just let people leap over the gates. Outrageous. I’d have sacked that head if it had been working for me. I’d have told that head to hop it.’ Eddie tittered foolishly.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  ‘I do,’ said the bear. ‘But must you keep going on about it? You admit that you don’t even know how your own brain works.’

  ‘But at least I have a brain. Your chum Wibbly had nothing at all in what he had left of his head. It can’t work, none of it can.’

  ‘But it does. Your own eyes attest to the fact. Don’t let it get you down, Jack. If you ever meet up with the toymaker, you can ask him all about it.’

  ‘And do you think he’ll tell me?’

  Eddie shrugged. ‘I doubt it. But at least you will have asked.’

  ‘Mad,’ said Jack. ‘It’s all quite mad.’ And he lapsed into a sullen silence.

  Eddie leaned back in the passenger seat and tried once more without success to fold his arms. Thoughts moved about amongst the sawdust in his head; how they did and what they were was anybody’s guess.

  At a length that was shorter rather than long, he had done with thinking, and also with Jack’s silence.

  ‘Jack,’ said Eddie, all bright and breezy, ‘Jack, are you a virgin?’

  ‘What?’ went Jack, and the car swerved onto the pavement, scattering shoppers, who shook their fists and shouted words of abuse.

  ‘A virgin?’ said Eddie. ‘Careful where you’re swerving.’

  ‘What kind of question is that?’

  ‘An easy one to answer, I would have thought.’

  ‘Well, I’m not answ
ering it.’ Jack regained control of the car.

  ‘So you are,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of; you’re still a young lad.’

  ‘I’m old enough,’ said Jack.

  ‘But you haven’t done it yet?’

  ‘Eddie, change the subject, please. We’re supposed to be on a case. Two murders. Concentrate on the murders.’

  ‘I am,’ said Eddie. ‘Take a left here.’

  Jack took a left there.

  ‘So you’ve never been in a doll’s house,’ said Eddie.

  ‘A doll’s house?’ said Jack.

  ‘A doll’s house, a bordello, a knocking shop.’

  Jack rammed his foot down hard upon the brake, dislodging Eddie from his seat and causing him to fall in some confusion to the floor.

  ‘Oooh ouch,’ went Eddie. ‘Steady on. Help me up. I’m all in a mess down here.’

  Jack helped Eddie up and positioned him back on the seat. ‘Talk about something else,’ he said. ‘Talk about the case.’

  ‘But it’s pertinent to the case. I know a place where we might get some information regarding the suspect. Tarts wear feathered hats, don’t they?’

  Jack nodded in the manner of one who had some knowledge of these matters.

  ‘Yes, well, they do,’ said Eddie. ‘And tarts are to be found in bawdy houses. And I know of only one bawdy house in this city. And I know of it most intimately.’

  Jack shook his head once more. ‘And you are a patron of this establishment?’ he asked.

  ‘A regular patron, as it happens.’

  Jack stared down at Eddie. He stared down hard and he stared down in particular towards a certain area of Eddie Bear’s anatomy. ‘But you’re a teddy bear,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got a w—’

  ‘I have, you know,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s just that I keep it tucked away when it’s not in use.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jack. ‘Teddies don’t have—’

  ‘You want me to show it to you?’

  Actually Jack did. ‘No, I certainly don’t,’ said he.

  ‘Bears are noted for their sexual prowess.’ Eddie puffed out his plump little chest.

  ‘I think you’ll find that’s rabbits,’ said Jack. ‘But I really must insist that you change the subject. This is becoming most distasteful.’

  ‘It’s nature,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s as natural as.’

  ‘Nothing in this city is natural. But tell me about this bawdy house.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Eddie. ‘Now you’re interested.’

  ‘Only if it’s pertinent to the case.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘Eddie,’ said Jack. ‘This murderer, this serial killer of yours. He—’

  ‘She,’ said Eddie.

  ‘He, or she. They won’t stop at two, will they? They’ll go on killing?’

  Eddie made with the very grave noddings. ‘It’s more than probable,’ he said.

  ‘Then don’t you think that we should, perhaps, be trying to work out who’s likely to be murdered next? Then we could warn them. And lie in wait for the murderer, or something.’

  ‘You’re getting the hang of this detective game, Jack. Drive on; we’ll go to the bawdy house.’

  Jack threw up his hands and then Jack drove on.

  The streets became less colourful and soon Jack was driving along grim and narrow roads that were positively grey.

  ‘It’s horrible here,’ he said. ‘This is a really horrible district. What a foul place. What a really foul place.’

  ‘I was brought up here,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it has its good points.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said Eddie. ‘Park here.’

  ‘Are we there?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Of course we’re not. But no one ever parks their car outside a bawdy house. They park a couple of streets away and approach on foot. Normally wearing some kind of disguise.’

  ‘I’m wearing a disguise,’ said Jack.

  ‘You certainly are, Jack. Oh, and don’t forget to lock the car. Then there’ll be the vague chance that it will still be here when we get back.’

  Jack and Eddie left the car and Jack locked up the doors.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Eddie.

  And Jack did so.

  A little ways behind, and altogether unobserved, another car drew silently to a halt. It was long and low and expensive-looking. The driver’s door of this car opened and a lady’s leg appeared. It was a long and slender leg, tightly sheathed in black rubber. At the end of this leg was a dainty foot, shod with a wonderful shoe. Its highly raised heel was a delicate chromium spiral. Its toe was a dagger of steel.

  The exterior of the bawdy house was nothing to speak of.

  The interior, however, was quite another matter. It was one of those grand salon jobbies, but this was where any similarity between it and the house of Oh Boy! ended.

  The ceiling was a gentle dome, richly figured with plaster reliefs of amorous cupids and garlanded satyrs. The walls were made gay with pastoral paintings of frolicsome centaurs and dainty Arcadians. These were engaged in the most intimate pursuits, but had been wrought with such charm and whimsy as might bring an appreciative smile to the face of the most worthy cleric.

  Pale silkwood caryatids rose between these paintings. They had been lovingly carved and bore delicate features and robes, which seemed all but diaphanous. They held, in their outstretched hands, crystal candelabra which lit the salon to a nicety.

  The furnishings were rich, but of a richness which is restrained, tutored, composed. The colours of the fabrics were of the subtlest shades: dainty pinks and tender violets. Billowy cushions were cast here and there, creating an atmosphere of comfort and informality. And all around and about were elegant vases from which the most gorgeous blooms breathed their precious fragrances.

  ‘Oh my,’ said Jack as his feet all but sank into a carpet woven with a thousand blushing roses. ‘Oh my, oh my.’

  ‘You approve?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Well, I think it’s incredible.’ And it was incredible. It was overwhelming in its beauty. Jack was overwhelmed. And he was nervous too. For after all, he was a virgin. And wonderful and marvellous as this place was, it was a bawdy house. An actual bawdy house. Where there would be actual women who had actual sex on a professional basis. Which was actually somewhat daunting.

  Actually.

  ‘You wait until you see the bedrooms,’ said Eddie, rubbing his paws together.

  ‘Eddie,’ said Jack. ‘Just one thing. We are here on business, aren’t we?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Because if there’s one thing I do know about ladies who work in bawdy houses, it is that you have to pay them. With real money. And we don’t have any money.’

  ‘Do I spy an expression of relief on your face?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘You do not,’ said Jack. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all.’

  ‘I have an account here.’ Eddie grinned from ear to furry ear.

  Jack didn’t grin, but now another thought entered his head. ‘Eddie?’ said Jack.

  ‘Jack?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Eddie, when you, you know, do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eddie. It was a low, deep, growly kind of yes.

  ‘Do you do it with a dolly?’

  Eddie’s button eyes virtually popped from his head. ‘A dolly?’ he said in the voice of outrage. ‘A dolly? Do I look like some kind of pervert who’d do it inter-species? I do it with another bear! Female, of course. Dolly! That’s gross!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jack. ‘Oh look, who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Mother,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Your mother? But …’

  ‘Mother Goose,’ said Eddie. ‘Or Madame Goose, as she prefers to be called.’

  Madame Goose was indeed a goose, and a very large goose was she. Jack could see that she wasn’t a clockwork goose, rather, some great soft toy of a thing, fully feathered and most convincing. She was a profus
ion of petticoats and a gathering of gingham, with glittering rings on the tips of her wings. And she walked with a quack and a waddle and a quack and a flurry of eiderdown (which hopefully didn’t infringe any copyrights).

  She came a-waddling across the rose-pelted carpet, the light from the crystal candelabra twinkling on her gorgeous gingham.

  ‘Eddie,’ said Madame Goose, bending low and pecking kisses at the bear’s cheek. ‘It’s been too long. Have you come to settle your account?’

  ‘I’ve come to introduce a close friend of mine,’ said Eddie. ‘This is Lord Schmuck.’

  Jack narrowed his eyes at Eddie.

  Madame Goose curtseyed low, her petticoats spreading over the carpet like the petals of some exotic bloom, or a pink gingham jellyfish, dropped from a height. Or something else entirely.

  ‘Always a pleasure to meet with members of the aristocracy,’ she said. ‘You’ll find that we can satisfy your every wish here.’

  ‘Verily,’ said Jack, once more adopting the haughty foppish tone that he’d previously employed upon the policemen. ‘Well, naturally I am used to the very best of everything. So I trust that the damsels on offer are more well-favoured than yourself in the looks department. You fat old turkey.’

  Madame Goose fell back in horror, flapping her ring-tipped wings all about.

  Eddie head-butted Jack in that certain area of his anatomy.

  ‘Gurgh!’ went Jack, doubling over in pain.

  ‘Don’t be rude in here, you schmuck,’ counselled Eddie at Jack’s now lowered ear. ‘These are my friends. Apologise at once.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Madame.’ Jack clutched at himself in an unbecoming manner and took to the drawing of deep breaths. ‘I’ll get you for that, Eddie,’ he whispered from between his gritted teeth.

  ‘Please pardon Lord Schmuck,’ said Eddie, stepping briskly beyond Jack’s kicking range. ‘His manners aren’t up to much. But his heart and his wallet are in the right places.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said the Madame, smoothing down her ruffled feathers and curtseying once more.

  ‘Any chance of a morsel of food?’ Jack asked. ‘And a glass of wine, please.’

  ‘Seat yourself, gents,’ said Madame Goose. ‘I will bring you something at once.’

  ‘You sit down, Jack,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll accompany Madame to the kitchen. Have a few words, if you know what I mean.’ Eddie tapped at his nose with his paw.