Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked of me. ‘No damage done at all?’

  ‘I am fine.’ I said. ‘But you? They were going to weight you down and throw you into the sea.’

  ‘And so they might well have done, had it not been for the chance but timely arrival of the beautiful Princess Roellen.’

  This wonderful lady now joined us at the bar. ‘Purple Fane is but a few leagues from here,’ she said. ‘But this Magus seeks to disillusion you. I came here not by chance, but at his silent calling. He spoke a message into my dreams asking that I fly to your assistance, because his own life might already have been taken and there would be no one to save yours. He is a great magician and he clearly cares deeply for you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hugo Rune. And I saw him blush. A most extraordinary sight to see and just for this one time only.

  ‘Drinks all round, then,’ said Fangio, fishing out unbroken glasses from beneath the bar counter and searching for unbroken bottles from which to fill them.

  ‘Those monsters,’ I said, ‘dropping down from the sky.’

  ‘Did you really see such things?’ asked Hugo Rune.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know I did - what were they?’

  ‘Do you believe in dragons?’ asked Princess Roellen.

  ‘Dragons?’ I said. And I made a certain face.

  ‘Perhaps in the darkness, with all the chaos and confusion,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘There’s just no telling really, is there?’

  And he raised a glass to me.

  And oh what a party we had. There was some concern because Count Otto had escaped along with the field generator. But Hugo Rune said not to worry about this because he now had a plan to thwart the evil count, so we partied until dawn and all had a really good time.

  Princess Roellen ordered a number of her noble warriors to dive down and free the liner’s propellers of Sargassum and others to stoke up the boilers and help get the ship back on course. And my father took himself back to the wheelhouse and stood proudly behind the wheel and vowed that the ship would wander nowhere whatsoever off course but only strike port in New York.

  And so it came to be.

  I removed myself to a drunken bed and did not awake until late the following afternoon. I think I would probably have slept even longer than that if I had not been awoken by the terrible noise and the very sudden shock.

  I raced from my cabin up onto the deck and there met Hugo Rune. ‘Have we struck an iceberg?’ I begged to be told. ‘Are we doomed? Are we sinking? What has happened?’

  ‘We have arrived safely in New York, young Rizla,’ said the Magus, lighting a cigar.

  ‘But that noise and that shock, oh my God!’

  And now we were joined by my father the captain, who had that look on his face.

  ‘I am sure it can be fixed,’ he said. ‘I only took my eyes off the water for a moment. I just popped to the toilet.’

  ‘You crashed the ship,’ I said to him.

  ‘Only a bit crashed, but yes.’

  ‘Into the Statue of Liberty.’

  I had been rather looking forward to seeing the Statue of Liberty. And so I was just a little disappointed that all I ever got to see of her was her feet. As the rest of her now lay at the bottom of New York Harbour.

  I said farewell then to my father, who seemed rather keen to make a speedy departure. What with, it seemed, much of the American Navy now heading in our direction.

  And that was the last that I ever saw of him.

  But he went out with a bang and not a whimper.

  Which was something!

  I looked up at Hugo Rune.

  And he looked down at me.

  And, ‘Welcome to America,’ he said.

  58

  THE TOWER

  There was some unpleasantness. As the pirates had done so recently, American Marines came swarming onto the decks. My father was nowhere to be seen, and as there was no one else aboard the stricken liner but for Fangio, myself and Hugo Rune, we were taken into custody and not in the kindest of manners.

  Because these fellows were less than pleased that the RMS Olympic had destroyed one of their national monuments. I might have enjoyed the motorboat journey over to the mainland, had I not been handcuffed. And being thrown into the cell did little to please me.

  Also matters certainly were not helped by the fact that neither Mr Rune nor myself owned a passport. The word ‘spies’ came into play and there was talk about marching us outside and putting us up against a wall. If my hands had not been handcuffed they would surely have flapped.

  Hugo Rune, however, took it all in good spirit and told me not to worry as he would soon have matters set to rights and we would be on our way.

  As indeed we were.

  I have never ceased to be not-surprised-at-all by the power of that ‘certain handshake’. Mr Rune employed it first upon our interrogator, an evil-breathed brute who laid out instruments of torment for us to inspect prior to the commencement of questioning. From the shaking of this hand, Mr Rune’s moved on to shake many more. Gradually rising up the chain of command until we were whisked away from the dismal cell and taken off to a comfy hotel.

  Our steamer trunks and bits and bobs were brought to us, and I do take my hat off to Mr Rune, for he even arranged for Fangio to be released. There were some negotiations involved and these I understood involved the question of who was going to pay for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Mr Rune suggested, and this suggestion was gratefully accepted, that, as the RMS Olympic now stood completely empty of passengers and crew, the American Government should claim ‘salvage’ and sell it back to the White Star Line for more than a decent profit.

  ‘And so all things adjust themselves to our satisfaction,’ said the Magus to me, as we sat in the bar of Hotel Jericho.

  ‘Not all things, surely,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow at noon an atom bomb will fall upon New York. This does not satisfy me.’

  ‘Quietly, Rizla, quietly,’ said Himself. ‘Walls have ears even here and we would not wish to alarm the general population.’

  Now I must say that I certainly took to the general population and I certainly took to New York. Many on arrival find its scale so daunting and the fear that they will be immediately robbed or murdered when they step out onto the street so great that they spend the first day in New York cowering in their hotel rooms. But not so I. I loved it. It was just so big and the people were just so amazing. The women were gorgeous and wonderfully dressed and the men all seemed tall and handsome and attired in the most fashionable couture.

  ‘They do know there is a war on, do they not?’ I whispered to Mr Rune. ‘Only apart from the fact that there are a lot of well-dressed GIs escorting pretty ladies about, there does not seem to be much evidence.’

  ‘There will be evidence enough tomorrow at noon if we don’t act, young Rizla.’

  I raised a glass of something delicious to my lips. ‘And about that,’ I said. ‘Surely the best thing to do would be to inform the top bods of the American Army, Navy and Air Force and let them deal with the deadly Zeppelin.’

  ‘Gosh!’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’

  And I really was about to revive that nail-buffing thing when he added the word, ‘Buffoon!’

  ‘You have already done it, then?’ I said.

  ‘I made certain telephone calls,’ said Mr Rune, ‘whilst you were in the bathroom doing whatever you were doing for such a protracted period.’

  ‘Washing,’ I said. ‘To remove the taint of wolf gonads and pongy pirates.’

  ‘And you now smell delightful,’ said the Magus. ‘But inform the bigwigs of the military establishment I did.’

  ‘And so they will be literally throwing a cage of steel about New York.’

  ‘No, Rizla, they will not. They didn’t believe me. They actually pooh-poohed the concept of a jet-powered invisible Zeppelin driven by a computer possessed by the spirit of Wotan, intent on nuking the country out of existence.’

&
nbsp; ‘Well,’ I said. And I made a certain face. ‘When you speak it all out loud like that I can see why—’

  ‘Plah!’ said Hugo Rune. ‘That Americans should doubt me? Preposterous!’

  ‘Could you not employ your secret handshake? Perhaps with the president, or something?’

  ‘No, Rizla. And think about this, if you will. When you were a child you read about the Second World War, didn’t you?’

  ‘All the time,’ I said, ‘in books and comics. And I played with toy soldiers and toy tanks and cannons.’

  ‘And did you ever read about any invisible Zeppelins?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ I said.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Because this must never become part of history. We must foil the count’s plan, but none must know of it. Thus will we restore order to history. We must do it anonymously, if it is to be done at all.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘How exciting. But something of a responsibility. What if we fail?’

  ‘Fail?’ said the Magus. ‘Outrageous also. Tell me what cards you have left.’

  ‘You know what cards I have left,’ I said. ‘I am assuming that THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE is now used up. That leaves us with THE TOWER and DEATH.’

  ‘And if I ask you to choose?’

  ‘THE TOWER it is, then,’ I said to Hugo Rune.

  And he took to smiling and said, ‘Yes, it is,’ as if he knew something I did not.

  ‘So what is this something that you know?’ I asked him. ‘You seem very happy with this card.’

  ‘Oh, indeed I am, Rizla. There has been a purpose to these cards throughout all our cases. They have led us from one place to another and finally to here. I did not know the meaning of THE TOWER until now. Would you care for me to elucidate?’

  ‘I certainly would,’ I said.

  And so, indeed, he did.

  ‘The intention of Wotan,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘is to fly over New York invisibly and dispatch an atomic bomb. To fly invisibly will require the services of the Tesla field generator projecting an ionised particle beam at the great airship, as those boats bombarded the USS Eldridge with such beams during the Philadelphia Experiment, rendering her invisible. So, the Tesla field generator will have to be set up at some suitable location where it can project such a beam. Somewhere unhampered by all these high buildings. Are you following me?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ I said. ‘They will need to mount it upon a tower. THE TOWER. I see.’

  ‘Not just any tower,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘but the highest tower in New York. And that is?’

  ‘The Empire State Building,’ I said.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Hugo Rune.

  ‘But hold on there,’ I said. ‘Someone is going to have to operate the field generator, make sure the ionisation field remains upon the Zeppelin. Surely that is a suicide mission. The operator will get blown to atoms once the bomb is dropped.’

  ‘Unless that operator has a means of escape. A flying motorcycle combination, for instance.’

  ‘Count Otto Black,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

  Hugo Rune nodded and smiled.

  ‘So tell me what your plan is,’ I said. ‘You have a plan, of course?’

  ‘Hugo Rune always has a plan. Would you prefer that I whisper it to you? Or should I be enigmatic, tap my nose and say that I’ll tell you tomorrow?’

  ‘Let us break with tradition upon this occasion,’ I said. ‘Tell me out loud exactly what your plan is.’

  ‘It is really a rather dull plan,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘We make our way to the top of the Empire State Building and destroy the field generator. The Zeppelin will come drifting in, Wotan unaware that his craft is not invisible, and be shot down by the American anti-aircraft emplacements that are all about the harbour.’

  ‘And that is it?’ I asked. ‘The big climax to all of these cases? That is all there is to it?’

  ‘I expect the count will put up a fight,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But, in the shell of a nut, that is all there is to it. We have the edge this time, Rizla. Because we know the meaning of the tarot card.’

  I smiled and shrugged and finished my drink. ‘Then I will take another of these,’ I said. ‘To toast our success.’

  Hugo Rune ordered two more drinks so we might get into the toasting.

  ‘What exactly are we drinking?’ I asked the hotel barman.

  ‘The cocktail-that-dare-not-speak-its-name,’ said Fangio. For it indeed was he.

  ‘It indeed is you!’ I said. And quite surprised was I.

  ‘And it indeed is me,’ said Fangio. ‘I took the liberty of following you to this hotel and saw a sign advertising for bar staff.’

  ‘It is all so simple when it is explained,’ I said.

  ‘And isn’t this a wonderful city?’ said Fangio. ‘So good they named it twice. I accidentally overheard your conversation with Mr Rune and I would like to offer my best wishes for the success of your endeavour.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Fangio.’ I raised my glass, which now contained the cocktail-that-dared-not-speak-its-name, and peered at it closely. It was of a colour that had no name and smelled like nothing on Earth. ‘So do you think you will settle down in New York, or head to the West Coast, where all the sunshine is?’

  ‘Definitely here,’ said Fangio, and he brought out a bowl of chewing fat and placed it on the bar counter. ‘It is my intention to open a little bar on the Lower East Side in the Genre Detective District. Fangio’s Bar, I think I’ll call it. And then I’ll buddy up with the local colour - I believe a character named Lazlo Woodbine has an office around there. And you never know, one day I might find my way into a best-selling detective novel.’ And he gulped down a piece of chewing fat and I noticed he was putting on weight.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Hugo Rune, ‘this is all a bit odd, somehow. It is as if the end has already come and we are just tying up a few loose ends. I cannot help thinking that things never really happen quite as easily as that.’

  Hugo Rune took out a cigar, placed it between his lips, raised the pommel of his stout stick to it and drew breath. A flame appeared as from nowhere and Mr Rune lit his cigar.

  ‘Now that is just showing off,’ I said. ‘No good will come of that.’

  ‘Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘for once we are ahead of the game. Savour the moment. Taste of its bitter-sweetness and things of that nature generally. Perk up, now.’

  And I might well have perked up at this, but sadly I did not. Because I knew how these things have a tendency to work and all this happy-ever-aftering and everything-is-sorted nonsense never ever worked. And as if in proof of this, I spied, out of the corner of my eye, a small commotion. It was as if a number of fireflies were buzzing around in a circle near the far wall of the hotel bar. This whirling and buzzing grew slightly, then greatly, and then there was something of a flash.

  And out of this flash walked two men in trenchcoats.

  For out of that flash they had come. They certainly did not enter the bar through any doorway. But rather they simply appeared.

  My mouth opened wide and I pointed at them. And Hugo Rune turned his head.

  And suddenly these trenchcoat men had Lugers in their hands. And Mr Rune and I were in big trouble.

  59

  I could deal with the trenchcoats and even the Lugers, because I had become quite used to villains pointing them at me. What I could not really deal with was the way that these fellows appeared, in a flash and out of nowhere - that was not good.

  I recognised them, of course, as the two suspicious characters who had followed us on board the liner. Although I had supposed that like all those posh passengers, they had gone into the Sargasso Sea to be eaten by sharks.

  ‘Hands above your heads,’ said the bigger of the two fellows, although there was not much in it when it came to height. ‘Slowly and with care,’ he added, but I did not take at all to the way he said it. I could not identify his accent and there was something altogether wrong about his manner of speech. His li
ps were out of sync with his words. It created a most disquieting effect.

  ‘Is this a mirage?’ asked Fangio. ‘Or am I seeing things?’

  And even though the old ones are always the best, now did not seem the time for merriment, what with the Lugers and all.

  ‘Stand back,’ the fellow with the dubbed-on-badly voice said to Fangio. ‘You have seen nothing of this. Do you understand?’

  ‘Well—’ said Fangio.

  ‘Best not,’ I told him.

  ‘I understand,’ said the barman. ‘I have seen nothing.’

  ‘You two join us now.’ And the fellow gestured with his Luger that we should go where he wished. Which appeared to be towards the blank wall from whence he had—

  —There was a kind of a whoomph and there were some twinkling lights. And then Mr Rune and I and the two enigmatic trenchcoat wearers were no longer in the bar of the Jericho Hotel, but somewhere else entirely. And somewhere altogether odd that made me feel very uneasy.

  I had seen Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis and in fact it remains to this day one of my very favourite movies. It seemed now to me that we had materialised on the set of this movie classic. In the laboratory of Rotwang the scientist/magician. There was a definite art deco feel to all the scientific paraphernalia and there were tall glass tubes, up and down through which ran crackles of electricity. So perhaps there was also a smidgen of Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory also.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked Mr Rune, in a whispery kind of a voice.

  ‘I think,’ the Magus replied, ‘that the question might be better framed as when are we?’

  ‘Shut up, the two of you,’ went one or other of the trenchcoated weirdos, ‘and bend your knees before the Nifty One.’

  I shrugged and Hugo Rune shrugged, but the two fellows held their Lugers upon us, and so we bent our knees. I heard the sound of a great gong being struck and then the word ‘depart’. The two fellows backed their way from the room, leaving us kneeling and baffled.

  ‘Up you get now,’ came a kindly voice. ‘We can’t have you kneeling there on the cold marble floor. You might get all kinds of aches and pains. Up now, if you will.’ And a hand reached down and helped me up and I climbed to my feet.