Djinn Rummy (9 page)

‘You must have remarkably good eyesight. ‘

‘I have, yes. Anyway, when I caught up with him it turned out the bag was full of nightmare carnivorous plant seeds, and he was just working out where to sow them. Fortunately, the silly sod hadn't realised that if you try and drop something through the Earth's atmosphere, it burns up, so as it turns out I needn't have bothered. All right?'

Jane stared. ‘Are you serious?' she demanded.

‘No,' Kiss said, pointedly not looking at the picture of the three kittens. ‘Most of the time I'm aggravatingly frivolous. If you mean am I telling the truth, the answer is yes.'

‘A
friend
of yours was trying to destroy the
planet
?'

‘Well, sort of.' Kiss yawned, and stretched. ‘Actually, he's just this bloke I've known for, oh, donkey's years; and he wasn't planning on destroying the Earth, just all non-vegetable life forms. Or at least I assume that was what he had in mind. My split-second spectroscopic analysis of the plant seeds leads me to believe that that would have been the inevitable result. Bloody great primroses,' he added with a grin. ‘With teeth.'

‘Hadn't you better tell me what's going on?'

Kiss shook his head. ‘Tricky,' he said. ‘You remember what I told you about being limited to the possible? However; to start with the primary question, Is there a God? we really have to address the . . .'

Jane asked him to be more specific.

‘Guesswork, largely,' Kiss replied, materialising an apple and peeling it with his claws. ‘My guess is that somebody hired my old chum to destroy the human race. Somebody a bit funny in the head, I shouldn't be surprised.'

‘This chum of yours -'

‘A genie,' Kiss explained. ‘A Force Twelve, like me. That's pretty hot stuff, actually, though normally I wouldn't dream of saying so. We rank equal and above the Nine Dragon Kings, just below the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven. We get fuel allowance but no pension.'

‘And this particular . . .'

‘He goes by the name,' Kiss said, straight-faced by sheer effort of will, ‘of Philadelphia Machine and Tool Corporation the Ninth, or Philly Nine for short. Remarkable chiefly for how little time he's had to spend in bottles. He's a shrewd cookie, Philly Nine, always was. Mad as a hatter, too, of course.'

‘I see.' Jane sat down on a desperately fragile Tang-dynasty vase, the molecular structure of which Kiss was able to beef up just in the nick of time. ‘So he's dangerous.'

‘You might say that,' Kiss responded, spitting out apple pips, ‘if you were prone to ludicrous understatements. If midwinter at the South Pole is a bit nippy and the Third Reich was, on balance, not a terribly good idea, then yes, Philly Nine is dangerous. Apart from that, a more charming fellow you couldn't hope to meet. Plays the harpsichord.'

Jane blinked twice in rapid succession. ‘Oh God,' she said.

‘Ah yes,' Kiss replied, ‘I was just coming on to that. If we posit the existence of an omnipotent supreme being -'

‘Will you shut up!' Jane looked around for something solid and reassuring in which she could put her trust. Unfortunately, everything she could see had the disadvantage, as far as she was concerned, of having been materialised or otherwise supplied by a genie. Eventually she found her left shoe, which she had brought with her
from the life she'd been leading before all this started to happen. She hugged it to her.

‘Sorry, I'm sure. Do you want me to make a start on the conservatory?'

‘All this,' Jane mumbled. ‘It is real, isn't it? I mean . . .'

Kiss clicked his tongue. ‘Try banging your head on it if you're in any doubt. I have to say, I find all this ever so slightly wounding. I mean, I do my level best to make things nice for you, and the first thing I know you're questioning its very existence. Gift horses' teeth, in other words.'

‘I thought I told you to be quiet.'

‘You asked me a question.'

‘Did I? Sorry.' Jane closed her eyes and tried to clarify her mind. ‘Will you help me with this?' she asked.

‘Depends,' Kiss replied huffily, ‘on whether I'm allowed to talk.'

‘Oh, stop being aggravating.' Jane took a deep breath. ‘There I was,' she said, ‘an ordinary person -'

Kiss cleared his throat. ‘Jane Wellesley,' he recited. ‘Age, twenty-eight. Height, five feet one inch. Weight -'

‘Thank you, yes. Following a distressing scene with someone I had thought really cared about me -'

‘Vince. Vincent Martin Pockle. Age, thirty-one. Height, six feet two inches. Eyes a sort of -'

‘Either help,' Jane snapped, ‘or go and empty the dustbins. Following a distressing scene, I resolved - stupidly, I admit - to kill myself. When I opened the aspirin bottle, out jumped a genie.'

‘At your service.'

‘Or so it seemed. At any rate, at the time I accepted you at face value, and I've been doing so ever since.'

‘So I should damned well -'

‘Ever since,' Jane went on, ‘I've been ordering you to do seemingly impossible things, and you've apparently been doing them. The things you bring appear to be real.'

‘You and I are going to fall out in a minute if you carry on with all this seems-to-be stuff,' Kiss growled. ‘The last person to call me a liar to my face, namely the erstwhile Grand Vizier of Trebizond, spends most of his time these days sitting on a lily-pad going rivet-rivet-rivet and wondering why people don't bring him things to sign any more. I invite you to think on.'

‘And now you tell me,' Jane continued, ‘that another genie - was he one of the ones we met at that peculiar night club?'

‘No.'

‘Another genie is planning to destroy the human race, using overgrown carnivorous plants. And it's not,' Jane added, after glancing at her watch, ‘April the first. Now then, what the hell am I meant to make of all that?'

Kiss shrugged. ‘The best you can,' he replied. ‘It's called coping. Like I said, some people find it helps to posit the existence of an omnipotent supreme being. I know for a fact He does. Other people,' Kiss added, materialising a decanter and a soda syphon, ‘get drunk a lot. It all comes down to individual preferences in the long run.'

‘Look -'

‘As a matter of fact, He's all right, and so's the second one, Junior. It's the Holy Ghost you've got to watch out for. Forever walking through walls with its head under its arm, which for someone in its position is taking light-hearted frivolity a bit too far, in my opinion. Still, there it is . . .'

‘Kiss . . .'

‘Not to mention,' the genie continued, ‘jumping out during seances and banging things on tables. And, of
course, trying to exorcise it is an absolute hiding to nothing. Sorry, you were saying?'

‘What
is
going on?'

The genie shrugged. ‘Can't rightly say,' he replied. ‘By the looks of it, some raving nutcase or other's decided to annihilate his own species. When you've been around as long as I have, you get used to it. You get used to pretty well everything eventually.'

‘I see.' Jane started to pick at the stitching on her shoe. ‘Happen a lot, does it?'

‘Once every forty years, on average. Usually, though, it's just a war. When We get involved, it tends to get a bit heavy. Still, like I told you the other day, for every genie commissioned to destroy the world there's another told off to save it, so things even out in the long run. Last time I looked, the planet was still here.'

Jane opened her eyes. ‘I think I'm beginning to see,' she said. ‘Sort of. Just when this other genie - Pennsylvania something?'

‘Philadelphia Machine and Tool. Actually there is a genie called Pennsylvania Farmers' Bank III - Penny Three - but he's no bother to anyone.'

‘This Philadelphia person,' Jane continued coldly, ‘is going to wipe out the human race, you suddenly pop up and stop him doing it. That's why all this is happening. And I'm . . .'

She stopped. She felt cold. In her anxiety, she broke the heel off her shoe.

‘Look.' Kiss frowned, summoning up soft, heavenly music in the far distance. ‘Nice try, but it doesn't quite work like that. Things aren't all neatly ordained and settled the way you seem to think - unless, of course, you posit the existence of a . . .'

‘But it makes sense,' Jane protested. ‘Someone wants the world destroyed. I want it saved.'

Kiss clapped his hands. ‘Ah,' he said, ‘now we seem to be getting somewhere. That sounded remarkably like a Wish to me.'

‘Did it?'

Kiss nodded. ‘I reckon so. You Wish the world to be saved. I take it,' he added, ‘that you do?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Give me strength!' Kiss took a deep breath. ‘Either you do or you don't, it's not exactly a grey area. Toss a coin if you think it'll help you decide.'

Jane shook her head. ‘Of course I want the world saved,' she said. ‘Or at least, I suppose I do. The last thing I can remember before all this was wishing it would all go away.'

‘That's just typical sloppy mortal thinking,' Kiss replied crossly. ‘This is what comes of giving your lot free will without making you send in the ten coupons from the special offer box lids first. You mortals,' Kiss went on, with a slight nuance of self-righteousness in his voice, ‘think that just because you come to an end, the world comes to an end too. Well, I'm an immortal and I'm here to tell you it doesn't. If you ask me, they should print
Please Leave The World As You Would Wish To Find It
in big letters on the inside of wombs and coffins, and then there'd be no excuse for all this messing about. I'm sorry,' he said, calming down, ‘but there are some things I feel strongly about. Well, stronglyish, anyway.'

‘Sorry,' Jane said meekly. ‘I'm not really used to all this yet.'

‘That's all right,' the genie replied, turning the music up a very little. ‘Look, take it from me, you want the world saved.'

‘Right.'

‘Save the world,' Kiss continued, ‘and you get merit in Heaven.'

‘If we posit its existence, of course.'

Kiss sighed. ‘Everyone's a comedian,' he grumbled. ‘Look -'

‘Save ten worlds and you get a free alarm clock radio -'

‘That,' snapped the genie, ‘will do. It's quite simple, as far as I'm concerned. The human race is the measure of everything that's prosaic and mundane. If there weren't any humans, there'd be no point being a genie, because there wouldn't be anyone to be bigger and stronger and cleverer than. So, as a favour to me, I suggest you Wish the human race saved. OK?'

Jane squinted into the middle distance, trying to see what the world would look like if she wasn't there. She couldn't.

‘Put like that,' she said, ‘how can I refuse? But hang on,' she added. ‘I thought you said all the nasty plant seeds had got burned up. Doesn't that mean . . .?'

Kiss grinned unpleasantly. ‘It means,' he said, ‘that my old mate Philly Nine has failed. If he'd succeeded, the human race would have been annihilated. Since he's failed, with all the loss of face that entails . . .' The genie laughed without humour. ‘That means,' he went on, ‘he's honour bound to get even. Which means,' he concluded, materialising a paint roller and a five-gallon tin of pink emulsion, ‘you lot really are in trouble. Are you absolutely dead set on having pink, by the way? It'll make the whole room look as if it's been whitewashed with taramasalata.'

Jane considered for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes,' she said firmly. ‘Definitely pink.'

According to the ancient proverb, the worst words a general can ever utter are, ‘I never expected
that
.'

In consequence, the military pride themselves on having anticipated every possible contingency. There are huge underground bunkers beneath the floor of the Arizona Desert staffed by teams of dedicated men and women whose sole purpose in life is to dream up the Weirdest Possible scenario, and make plans to meet it.

Some of these scenarii are very weird indeed.

Witness, to name but a few, the elite Special Boot Squadron (the task-force poised to counter an attempt by a hostile power to subvert democracy by glueing the soles of everybody's shoes to the floor while they sleep); the Royal Cleanjackets (the crack special force permanently on yellow alert for the day when alien commandos infiltrate all the major dry-cleaning chains across the Free World); not to mention Operation Dessert Storm (the fast response unit designed to deal out instantaneous retribution in the event of low-level bombing of non-military targets with custard).

The heavy burden of co-ordinating these various forces lay, at the time in question, on the broad shoulders of Major-General Vivian Kowalski: officer commanding, Camp Nemo. When the day arrived that was to be remembered ever after as the Pearl Harbor of weirdness, Kowalski had just returned from a tour of inspection of the Heliotrope Berets (the hair-trigger-trained haute couture force whose centre of operations is a tastefully decorated concrete bunker directly under the Givenchy salon, Paris). As a result he was feeling rather jaded.

It was good, he decided, to be back.

Returning to his spartan quarters, he removed the HB uniform he had worn for the tour (sage cotton jacquard
battledress by Saint Laurent, worn over Dior raspberry silk chemise with matching culottes), lay down on his bunk and covered his face with his hands. It had been a long, hard day.

The telephone rang. The red telephone.