The Fandom of the Operator

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Slow down. What are you saying?’

  ‘I was certain that you’d say yes,’ said Dave. ‘Which is why I’m here.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that you’re here. What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I’m here. I’m here now. At this minute, no one’s manning the bulb booth, nor will do ever again.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked once more, but with a different emphasis.

  ‘Ah,’ said Dave, cupping a hand to his ear. ‘Listen.’

  I listened and from the distance I heard the sound of bells. And sirens too, as well as bells.

  ‘Fire engines,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dave. ‘The telephone exchange is on fire.’

  ‘It is?’ I said. ‘How do you know?’

  Dave looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  Dave grinned at me. ‘And when I say it’s on fire,’ he continued, ‘I mean it’s really on fire. Someone disabled the sprinkler system and emptied a whole load of petrol all over room 23. And barricaded the doors before crawling out of a back window. Oh, and really vandalized the bulb booth. Really badly. Nicked the bulb and everything.’ Dave delved into his pocket and brought out the bulb in question. It was the XP1O3. ‘Souvenir for you,’ he said.

  I took the bulb. It felt really weird in my hands. Like some kind of symbol or something. Something that meant something, but didn’t, but still did, or something.

  I put the bulb down on the table. ‘You torched the place,’ I said slowly.

  Dave just nodded and grinned some more.

  ‘You torched the telephone exchange. But why did you do it? Why?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dave, ‘I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to work there any more.’

  I looked at Dave.

  And Dave looked at me.

  And then we both began to laugh.

  21

  I’ve never been a pyromaniac. The wanton destruction of property has always been anathema to me. But Dave and I did leave the Golden Dawn to wander down and watch the blaze.

  And it was a very good blaze. Much better than the taxicab. The telephone exchange really went up.

  Dave kind of skulked in the shadows. And that was all for the best, because in the midst of the conflagration, when people were coming and going and fire-fighters were making free with their hoses, Mr Holland appeared on the scene and came up to me all in tears.

  ‘This is terrible,’ wept Mr Holland.

  ‘It’s a bit of a surprise,’ I said. ‘But that’s life for you, always full of surprises.’

  ‘But the bulbsman,’ wept Mr Holland, ‘that nice new chap who does the night shift. He must surely have perished in the flames.’

  ‘Sad,’ I said. ‘That is sad. Oh, look at that.’ Certain explosions came from the seventeenth floor and policemen told us to get back to a safe distance.

  ‘Tragedy,’ wailed Mr Holland. ‘This is a tragedy. Oh God, this is so terrible.’

  ‘Terrible,’ I agreed. ‘But life must go on, I suppose.’

  ‘My life is finished.’ Mr Holland sniff-sniff-sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘That exchange was my life.’

  ‘That is very sad,’ said I.

  Tears ran down Mr Holland’s face. ‘I know I’ve been hard on you,’ he snivelled. ‘I know you must at times have hated me.’

  I listened to him but I didn’t nod, even though he was absolutely right.

  ‘But the exchange was my life. Workers are just workers, they can always be replaced. There’s always more. But the exchange is everything.’

  ‘Was everything,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Tragedy,’ wailed Mr Holland some more. ‘My life is over. I wish I could depart this vale of tears.’

  ‘Come with me,’ I told him kindly. ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet and private and discuss this.’

  And so, as one might, an old incontinent dog that had been the beloved family pet, but was now making too much mess on the duvet, I kindly put Mr Holland out of his misery.

  It was a very quiet alleyway and when I was done I turned to find Dave grinning at me.

  ‘You certainly take pleasure in your work,’ he said.

  ‘He made me pee my pants the first day I worked at the exchange,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why I waited so long.’

  ‘Because you’re such a great humanitarian, probably.’

  And Dave and I laughed again.

  ‘I’ll hole up at your place tonight if that’s okay,’ said Dave. ‘Then first thing tomorrow we do Mornington Crescent.’

  Now, OK, I know what you’re going to think about what happened next. You’re going to think that it was wrong and immoral and downright wicked. But it wasn’t really.

  OK, Dave and I went back to my place. We had had a few drinks and then we had a few more to celebrate the end of the telephone exchange. And I got Sandra’s head out of the fridge and put it back on that nice, nubile, shapely young body that Dave and I had acquired from Harry’s/Peter’s world-famous night club. And then we got to joking around a bit. And I don’t know who suggested it first – I don’t think I did, because I love Sandra, so maybe it was Dave – but one of us suggested that it might be fun to have a threesome. And if it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was, then I was probably swayed by Dave, who said that it wouldn’t really be having a threesome with Sandra per se, because the body wasn’t Sandra’s anyway, so if I just stuck to the top end and he stuck to the bottom end, where would be the harm in it? And we could always get Sandra a new body if we really messed up this one. So where was the harm in it?

  And I had had a few drinks. And Dave was my bestest friend. And I’d always wondered just what it might be like to do that kind of thing. And I’d read that the rich and famous did it all the time.

  And so we did it.

  And I really quite enjoyed it.

  And I know that Dave enjoyed it. There was no doubt about that, because he wanted to do it again quite soon after and I was too tired, so he did it on his own. Which wasn’t the same. But as he let me watch, it sort of was.

  I don’t know whether Sandra enjoyed it. Because I didn’t ask her.

  We all woke up at around ten o’clock in the morning. Because of all the banging on the front door. Dave went to see what was going on and he came back quite quickly. He only said four words to me, but they were enough.

  ‘Police,’ said Dave. ‘Back door. Run.’

  I got Sandra up off the floor and we headed for the back door. We struggled off down the alleyway and made our escape.

  ‘We’re committed now,’ said Dave, and I knew what he meant.

  ‘So, what are we going to do?’ I asked him, as he opened up the rear door of a white transit van.

  ‘We’re going to make tracks sharpish,’ explained my bestest friend. ‘I acquired this van yesterday. Get Sandra into the back and we’re gone.’

  I had a terrible hangover. And Dave was a terrible driver.

  ‘I’ve never had enough time to practise properly,’ he explained. ‘I’ve never had one vehicle long enough.’

  We bumped up a kerb somewhere and down again.

  ‘Tell me about your plan,’ I said. ‘But tell me quite quietly because my head hurts.’

  ‘I know how to get into Mornington Crescent,’ said Dave. ‘So in theory I know how to get out again. But what’s inside, that’s a bit of a grey area.’

  ‘But it’s an underground station.’

  ‘What we’re after is under the underground station.’

  ‘Watch out for that old bloke on the bike,’ I said. ‘No, never mind, it’s too late.’

  ‘You should have put on your trousers,’ said Dave. ‘You look pretty silly in your underpants.’

  I had Dave stop off at a fashionable boutique and steal me some trousers. And then we were off again.

  And then Dave and I realized just how hungry we were. So we stopped at a café, left Sandra to snooze in the back of t
he van and went off to get some breakfast. And while we were having our breakfast I got a bit of a surprise. And just like all the other surprises I’d had, this surprise was an unpleasant one.

  There was a television in the café and some kind of Saturday-morning children’s show was on. I’d never seen it before, but it seemed to consist mostly of shouting. There were several presenters, a young-fellow-me-lad who looked as if he could do with a good smacking and a couple of sexy girls. They were all being terribly jolly and shouting good-naturedly and I was quite enjoying the show. But then the programme was suddenly interrupted by a special newscast.

  I watched and I listened and my mouth fell open. Elvis Presley was dead.

  Dave tucked into his sausages and I pointed at the television and then I pointed at Dave and sort of croaking sounds came out of my mouth.

  ‘Have you got bacon stuck in your throat?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Not…I…you…you…’

  ‘Me? I’m fine, I’ve got sausage.’

  ‘You…Elvis…you…’

  ‘I’m not Elvis. Elvis has pegged it. Why have you gone all pale like that?’

  I spluttered and coughed and got all of my voice back. ‘You manking twonk!’ I shouted at Dave. ‘Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done!’

  ‘I didn’t do it. He probably died of hamburger poisoning, big fat pig that he was.’

  ‘But you! You! You burned down the exchange.’

  ‘Not so loud.’ Dave flapped his hands about and nearly took his eye out with his fork.

  ‘My passport to riches.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for someone like Elvis to die. So I could get them to dictate their life story to me down the FLATLINE phone. I’d have made millions out of Elvis. But you burned down the exchange.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Dave. ‘But how was I to know?’

  ‘That’s not the point. This is terrible.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Dave.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘Is.’

  ‘Not.’

  I would have said ‘is’ once more, just to get my point across, but Dave was making a point of his own. Not with his mouth, but with his finger.

  ‘Now, that’s terrible,’ he said. ‘That’s really terrible.’ I followed the direction of his pointing and its direction was towards the television screen. And when I saw what Dave had seen, I had to agree that it was really terrible.

  The face of Elvis Presley was no longer on the screen.

  Instead was another face and it was mine.

  ‘Gary Charlton Cheese,’ the newscaster was saying. ‘Aged twenty-seven. Wanted in connection with the arson attack on the Brentford telephone exchange, which it is believed resulted in the death of a telecommunications engineer who was working the night shift and the subsequent murder of Morris Holland, whose body was found this morning horribly mutilated. Police wish to question Mr Cheese regarding seventeen other so far unsolved murders, including that of Mr Eric Blame, landlord of the Golden Dawn, whose body was also found this morning.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d done him,’ said Dave.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said to Dave.

  ‘Chief Inspectre Sherrington Hovis of Scotland Yard is with us in the studio. Chief Inspectre, what information can you give us about Gary Charlton Cheese?’

  ‘Hovis?’ I said. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A right shidogee,’ said Dave. ‘He’s sent me down twice. Once he gets his teeth into a case, it’s––’ and Dave drew his finger across his throat, ‘––for the crim.’

  ‘But how?’ I spluttered a bit. ‘How? Me? How?’

  ‘Listen to the man,’ said Dave. And I listened to the man.

  The man was an odd-looking cove. Thin as a bad wife’s headache-excuse, with a long and pointed nose of the style they call aquiline. He wore golden pince-nez and a four-piece suit of tweed. I recognized the tweed at once.

  It was Boleskine tweed.

  The very tweed that Lazlo Woodbine used to wear when he impersonated a newspaper reporter. Things like that mattered to me. Things like that also mattered to Dave.

  ‘Note the four-piece,’ said Dave. ‘Enough said, I think.’

  ‘The man knows his business and he means it,’ said I. The man was now talking to camera.

  ‘Gary Charlton Cheese,’ said Inspectre Hovis, in a fussy nasal tone, ‘is a very dangerous man. If you see this man, do not approach him. And under no circumstances attempt to make a citizen’s arrest. It is not my habit to compromise a homicide investigation by making a direct accusation against a suspect before he is brought before the due process of the law and stands trial. However, in this case I am going to make an exception, so damning is the forensic evidence against Mr Cheese, to whit, the new science of True Name Identification…’

  ‘Eh?’ said I. And ‘Eh?’ said Dave.

  ‘…that I have no qualms in identifying Mr Cheese as a serial killer. This man must be found and brought to justice.’

  I looked at Dave. And Dave looked at me.

  The newscaster looked at Chief Inspectre Sherrington Hovis. ‘I understand, Chief Inspectre,’ he said, ‘that Parliament has passed a special Act to reinstate the death penalty for Mr Cheese. Is this correct?’

  ‘It is,’ said Inspectre Sherrington Hovis.

  I looked at Dave once more. But Dave just shook his head.

  ‘So great are this man’s crimes against society,’ said the chief Inspectre, ‘that he cannot be permitted to live. Our investigations are ongoing and we expect to be able to tie Mr Cheese into over one hundred brutal killings.’

  ‘One hundred?’ I said.

  And Dave whistled.

  ‘Don’t whistle,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t murdered one hundred people. I’m at least ten or twenty short of that figure.’

  ‘The fix is in,’ said Dave, turning his face to me. ‘You’re in the frame. He means to clear the London murder crime sheets for the last five years by stitching you up for all of them.’

  ‘But I’m innocent,’ I protested.

  Dave raised an eyebrow to me.

  ‘Mostly innocent,’ I said.

  ‘I think we’d better go,’ said Dave. ‘It’s definitely South America for us. I’d best get on the phone to Mr Biggs and tell him we’re coming.’

  ‘I think we can forget about Mornington Crescent,’ I said. ‘Let’s head for Dover.’

  ‘Hold hard there.’ Dave made hold-hard-there-hands-putting-ups. ‘I don’t have any money. Do you have any money? No, don’t tell me, you don’t. We can’t get to Rio without many pennies in our pockets. It’s Mornington Crescent or you might as well give yourself up. Or let me bring you in. There’s bound to be a big reward.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’ I said.

  ‘No, of course I wouldn’t, you’re my bestest friend. But we need big bucks and we need them now. And Mornington Crescent is the last place that anyone’s going to be looking for you. Let’s do the job, take the booty and flee these shores for ever. What do you say?’

  I didn’t hesitate. I said yes.

  ‘That’s sorted, then,’ said Dave. ‘Finish your breakfast, then I’ll pay up and leave.’

  ‘Oh, you’re going to pay. This is new.’

  ‘We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, do we? We just want to behave as if we’re perfectly normal people. Just like all the other people in this café.’

  I glanced around and about. ‘Dave,’ I said. ‘Dave.’

  ‘What?’ said Dave.

  ‘Dave, we suddenly seem to be all alone in this café.’

  Dave glanced all around and about also. In particular he glanced towards the cash register. ‘The proprietor’s gone,’ he said. ‘And all the waitresses, and the griddle chef too.’

  And then we heard it. It came from outside, from the car park. I’d only heard it before in the movies and, I can tell you, it’s much scarier in real life, especially when
it’s addressed to yourself.

  It was, if you hadn’t already guessed. A voice. A policeman s voice. And it was coming through one of those special police loud-hailers. Or bullhorns, as Laz used to call them. And anyone else too who lived in nineteen-fifties America, of course.

  ‘Gary Charlton Cheese,’ came my name through the police loud-hailer. ‘We know you’re in there. We have the place surrounded. Come out with your hands held high.’

  ‘The format hasn’t changed at all since the days of Laz,’ said Dave. ‘It’s good to know that some things, at least, never change.’

  ‘Very comforting,’ I said. ‘But how?’

  ‘I suspect that the proprietor recognized you from your face on the TV, called the cops and quietly ushered out the patrons while we were talking,’ said Dave.

  Which explained everything, really.

  ‘You have one minute,’ said the voice from outside, ‘before we employ the use of a short-range tactical missile and destroy the entire café.’

  Another voice shouted, ‘Oi, hang on, that’s a bit drastic.’

  This was the voice of the café’s proprietor.

  ‘Serves him right for grassing you up,’ said Dave, who was now underneath the table.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked him.

  ‘Give yourself up. I’ll forget about the reward. I’ll even own up that I didn’t die in your arson attack on the telephone exchange.’

  ‘That’s very big of you.’

  ‘What are friends for?’ asked Dave, which was probably a rhetorical question.

  ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘I can’t see how.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t, not from down there. Come on, think of something.’

  ‘You have thirty seconds,’ came the police loud-hailer voice.

  ‘It might not be him,’ came the shouting voice of the café proprietor. ‘In fact, now that I come to think of it, it didn’t actually look like him at all. The bloke in there is a big tall fellow. And black, with dreadlocks. And one eye. That can’t be him, can it?’

  ‘Twenty seconds.’

  ‘And a wooden leg. With a parrot on his shoulder.’