Nightspawn (19 page)

‘Erik?’ I said.

My voice shattered some vital component of the silence, and I was sorry that I had spoken. I stood and listened, convinced that there had been another sound, parallel to my own, as though the room had been waiting for me to give it a chance, like a man at a party seeking a propitiously noisy moment to let fall a fart. I took a couple of steps across the floor, and then, in a flash of blinding white light, something hard fell on the back of my head, behind my ear, and I was falling, down, down into total darkn— wait now, wait, I am getting carried away with all this thriller stuff. Backspace, a bit. I took a couple of steps across the floor, and halted.

‘Erik,’ I snapped, sounding as petulant as an old lady.

Nothing. There was no one there, no one, such foolishness, I heaved a sigh of relief, tramped across to the wall and began fumbling for the lightswitch. I found it, yes, but found also that a warm, soft, very live finger had reached it before me. Ow. I froze. There was not a sound. An hallucination, nothing more.
I reached for the switch again, smiling at my foolishness, and —

‘Mr White?’

I screamed, the light came on. There was someone there, dressed in black. I was blinded momentarily, and in that moment, I had a picture of a moth with its wings broken, plastered on a burning bulb. I detached myself from the wall, expecting to hear a sucking sound as I did so, and fluttered my dusty wings.

Well now, who have we here? Charles, the white knight, in his rusty armour, Charlie, my friend. He stood with his back to the door, one hand behind him pressed to the panels.

‘Don’t move,’ he cried, in an hilariously squeaky little voice. It was difficult to know which of us was the more frightened. His round baby eyes, magnified, by my distance, through the lenses of his spectacles, pulsed like strange twin fishes looking out of an aquarium. For the first time, I noticed his hair. It was the colour of weathered cement, and flat and dull as the fringe of a rug. Perhaps it was a wig? The thought was enough to make me grin. He pressed himself harder against the door and blinked rapidly a couple of times. I had scandalized him. This was no time for levity. He held, in his right hand, a huge, ludicrous pistol.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘what are you doing with that thing?’

‘What?’

‘That gun.’

He looked at the machine which rested so awkwardly in his paw. He giggled. I think that describes the bubbly sound he made.

‘I’ll be honest, Mr White. I’ve never used one of these things before.’

‘Well you’d better be careful.’

‘Oh, I will of course.’

‘Isn’t there a safety catch on those things?’

He frowned. This was not proceeding as it should. Obviously, he had rehearsed this moment.

‘Yes, there is,’ he snapped. ‘And it’s off. Look, I wish you’d stop worrying.’

‘Well I mean …’

‘I know it’s a bit awkward, this situation, but I’m going to explain, if you give me a chance.’

‘Can I sit down?’

‘Of course you can sit down.’

I sat down, on a chair by the table, and looked at a crust of bread with teethmarks in it. The room had been searched, very expertly, to be sure, but if one’s existence has dragged on for a year in a space measuring sixteen by ten, then there are few variations in the furniture which will not be immediately noticed. I noticed them (the drawer that stuck, unless one knew the way to close it, the papers that were rearranged too neatly) but not with any great surprise. I knew what it was for which Charlie had been searching, and knew that he could not have found it, because it was not there. He moved away from the door, two faltering steps, paused, touched a tongue tip to the point of his upper lip, and looked about him worriedly. He seemed to be wondering what to do next.

‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked.

He considered the offer, and said,

‘If you have one.’

‘In there.’

He opened the wardrobe and peered into it, the gun drooping, drew out a bottle and held it aloft.

‘Empty,’ he said, with a sad grin.

‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Pavlov would have been entranced with us. Charlie, with the gun in one hand, the bottle in the other, stood and looked at me lugubriously. Then he dropped the bottle on the bed. My steely grey eyes flickered, measuring the distance from my chair to the bed and that potential weapon, for which, at an opportune moment, I would leap, grasp by the neck, and whirl about, while Charlie made one of those accommodating
delayed-action
film turns, and … my eyes are neither steely or grey. Charlie sat down on the other side of the table.

‘What do you want here?’ I asked.

That was a laugh, that question. Still, one must, I suppose, go through the formalities.

‘You were supposed to meet the German tonight, weren’t you?’ he said.

‘Erik?’

‘Yes.’

‘What business is that of yours?’

He sighed, and touched his forehead with his fingertips.

‘You should trust me, Mr White,’ he said softly, sadly.

‘Why?’

‘I think that’s obvious.’

‘It’s not.’

‘They got the German. They can get you.’

‘They what?’

He looked at me closely, and frowned.

‘You didn’t know?’

‘
What?
’ I cried.

‘They arrested him tonight. I thought you … Mr White, are you all right? I’m sorry, I thought you knew. He was in a shop just across the way there, by the station. They came and arrested him and —’

‘Look, Charlie, that gun, you don’t have to keep pointing it at me.’

He looked down, and seemed startled to find the weapon still in his hand. A nerve was having a fit in my eyelid. He laid the gun on the table and said,

‘The thing is, I don’t think I’d be able to shoot you, even if I had to. I don’t like admitting that, but I may as well be honest. Of course, neither of us is sure that I couldn’t blow your head off, so the gun is really just something to give me a bit of an advantage. Do you see?’

I nodded.

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

He smiled.

‘Good, good.’

We were a jolly pair; in a moment, we would be telling each other what nice fellows we were. I said,

‘Can I light a cigarette?’

He would not answer, but only gave me a reproachful look. I had hurt his feelings, just when he thought that we were getting
along so well. I lit the fag, blew some smoke, and picked a thread of tobacco from my lip. We watched each other. I was suddenly, horribly bored.

‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie, what is all this about?’

He tapped his fingers absent-mindedly on the gun barrel, licked his lips, clasped his hands, and said,

‘I came over here six … yes, it’s six years ago now. I started up a business with a friend of mine, a chap called Black, Arthur Black. Rings a bell?’

‘No.’

He wagged a roguish ringer at me, and grinned.

‘Come now, Mr White, come now.’

I shrugged, and looked at a corner of the ceiling. Charlie recollected the seriousness of the occasion, and wiped the grin from his pale jaws.

‘To continue,’ he intoned. ‘Arthur and I had a nice little business here, a kind of PR agency, public relations, you know? We did a bit of liaison work between London and Athens. Things were going nicely. Then, one day, Arthur turns up with this document.’

He paused, cleared his throat, and took off his spectacles. What tiny eyes he had. They seemed to be situated somewhere near the back of his skull. Without the goggles, he bore an extraordinary resemblance to a rat. He breathed on the lenses (his pursed mouth making a sound, to wit:
whoo
) and polished them with his sleeve. Then he put the spectacles back on his nose, and, ah, old owl again, he said,

‘I can tell you, Mr White, that little scrap of paper fairly floored us. We didn’t understand the full significance of it, of course, but we knew that it was big, really big.’

His eyes grew bigger in the glass, and a big tongue came out and licked his lips. He nodded solemnly.

‘It concerned the army, some kind of a secret directive … well, there’s no need to tell you that, is there? Anyway, Arthur was all for finding a buyer, and, obviously, he thought the army was his best bet. I didn’t like it, Mr White, I didn’t like it. I contacted your people, your head man, told him what I had to offer, named a nominal figure, and agreed to sell. Arthur was
furious, but there was nothing he could do. I was the boss. I sent him off to the island, to deliver it to the German, and … you know the rest.’

He stood up, clasping and unclasping his hands, and began to walk toward the bed. What I did then, I think I did just for the hell of it. I caught the table in both hands, slewed it round, aimed, and flung it at him. It was a light affair, and flew out of my hands with a high hop. The corner of it caught him in the small of the back. He threw up his arms and let out a roar of pain, fell headlong, and went skidding under the bed. Yes, under the bed, from where his legs protruded, kicking up and down. I could hardly believe that I had caused so much thunder and violence, and decided that he was exaggerating. Already he was struggling to his knees, coughing and groaning, and the mattress grew a hump in its centre. I sprang into action. Sprang, ah yes. I ran in a circle around the room. The floor was littered with papers, cigarette ash, bits of bread, and no gun. The bed, of course. He was backing out, his arse wagging, toes thumping the floor. The snout of the pistol appeared before his own did. I took a leap, and landed, on one foot, on his wrist. There was a howl, the gun jumped away from us, and Charlie scurried once more under the bed.

I stood by the door, the gun in my hand, my teeth chattering, Jesus, Jesus, I was frightened. Two bright eyes peered at me from the darkness between the rear legs of the bed.

‘Come out,’ I cried.

There was no reply. The eyes blinked.

‘I’ll blow your fucking head off if you don’t come out of there.’

I waited. At last he asked,

‘Are you going to kill me?’

I lowered the gun to my side.

‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie, will you come out of there and stop this nonsense.’

He crawled forth, hesitantly, on his belly, paused, on the ground, like a sick alligator, and then got to his feet. His sober black suit was decorated with tufts of fluff, and there was dust in his hair. He watched me warily, and extracted a piece of damp wool from his mouth.

‘All right‚’ I sighed. ‘Sit down.’

He sat down, on the bed. I pulled up a chair, and straddled it. It was an effort to hold the gun upright. Charlie put a hand to his back, and grimaced in pain.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he muttered mournfully. ‘There was no need to do that.’

‘Shut up and listen to me,’ I said.

It was a little vicious man inside me who had spoken. Until now, I had been unaware of his existence. The discovery was not without comfort. I grinned, and let the little man have his way. I shall call him Al, for the connotations that are in it.

‘All right,’ said Al. ‘Now I’ve got the gun, and that gives me the advantage, okay?’

Charlie nodded mutely, and hung his head. Al pushed his hat to the back of his head, and stuck a cheroot between his teeth.

‘I want the truth,’ he said. ‘And don’t give me any more of that bull about sending Black to the island. Now, talk.’

Charlie sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He said something, which neither Al nor I caught, and Al roared,

‘Louder.’

Charlie cringed, and glanced at me apprehensively.

‘It’s no good to you,’ he said sullenly. ‘You wouldn’t know what to do with it, how to use it. Do you know what to do with —’

‘I ask the questions.’

‘The German would have known, but he’s gone. You’re alone now, Mr White, and you haven’t much time. You’ll have to let me help you.’

‘Have to, have to?’ cried Al. ‘Don’t give me that. Now look, come on, I want to hear the truth about all this. What was your connection with it?’

Charlie lifted his hands helplessly.

‘I’ve told you —’

‘How would you like to have your foot shot off?’

‘All right, all right, be careful with that gun. Everything I said was true, everything, the agency, Arthur and me, all that. Except, it was Arthur who wanted to give it to your crowd, and not me. I was against it. I knew what would happen if we got
mixed up in that kind of thing. But he took it, and went off to the island. I told him not to go. Arthur, I said, you must be mad. But he didn’t listen, and he went off, and that Colonel whateverhisnameis had him shot, like a dog in the street.’

He sniffed again, and wiped his nose again, on his sleeve, again. Al deserted me. Charlie seemed to sense his departure, for he threw back his shoulders and met my gaze with a new bold fearlessness.

‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘the Colonel didn’t get his hands on the document anyway, did he? No, he didn’t, because we both know who got to it first, who picked up that little bottle where poor Arthur used to keep it, we know, don’t we, Mr White?’

‘Do we?’

He sighed hopelessly. In spite of the gun, he left the bed and went to the window. I looked at the gun. I looked at Charlie. The gun looked at him. He looked into the street. He said,

‘I’m forty-two, and starting to go bald. I never did anything in my life that I can be proud of. Buying and selling other people’s secrets is a dirty job. I’m no saint, I don’t say that, but just once, once in my life I want to do something that … I don’t know. They shot him as if he was nothing better than an animal. I don’t forgive them for that. With that document, I could spike their guns.’

He flung himself away from the window, in a fit of passion, and came and sat down on the bed again, with his hands held imploringly toward me.

‘Give me a chance, Mr White. Trust me. You’ve got nothing to lose, the thing is no good to you. What do you say?’

I looked at him, and saw a seal’s bright eyes.

‘Get out,’ I said.

He brushed ineffectually at the fluff on his suit, and went to the door. There he paused, and leaned toward me, opening his mouth to say a last word. I whirled on him, and aimed the gun at his forehead.