Paint Your Dragon (33 page)

Seventeen statues. Seventeen is sixteen plus one. Sixteen people die in an explosion in a community centre in the West Midlands; sixteen statues simultaneously go missing in Italy. No, seventeen statues, sixteen plus one.

Who was the seventeenth statue for?

She was still paddling this bizarre notion around in her brain when the phone rang, making her jump out of her skin. It took an awful lot of determination to pick the blasted thing up.

‘Hello?'

‘Bianca Wilson?' American voice, like audible sandpaper.

‘Yes, that's me. Who's this?'

‘You probably don't know me' the voice replied. ‘My name's Kurt Lundqvist.'

‘M
r Lund—'

The small man jumped out of his skin, whirled round and slapped a hand across her mouth. ‘Don't call me that, you crazy bitch,' he hissed. ‘C'mon, this way.'

He set off at a great pace, not looking round. Bianca had to break into a trot to keep up. He was shorter and squarer than she'd expected, but he moved as if he was tall, lean and wiry. Another one of these unquiet spirits in a Moss Bros body? It was as though the whole world was on its way to a fancy dress party.

‘Okay,' he said, finally halting. ‘We can talk here.'

Maybe, Bianca thought, but hearing what we say is going to be another matter entirely.

In reply to her earlier question, ‘Where can we meet?' Kurt had suggested New Street station. They were now in the bar of a pub in John Bright Street, empty except for the barman and the loudest background music on Earth. This was foreground music. It filled all the available space, like Polyfilla.

‘Thank you for coming,' Kurt said.

‘Sorry?'

‘I SAID...' Kurt edged his chair nearer and leaned forwards. ‘I said thanks for coming. Listen up, doll. This is a mess.'

Bianca frowned slightly. He'd told her briefly about the circumstances of his return to Earth and she reckoned ‘doll' was a bit rich coming from an animated Action Man. Given the communication difficulties, though, she let it ride.

(Note: to save time and preserve the Niagara-like cadences of the dialogue, all the backchat—‘Sorry, what did you say?'; ‘Speak up, for Chrissakes'; ‘Dammit, there's no need to shout' etc, - has been edited, as a result of which, this passage has already been awarded the Golden Scissors at the 1996 Editor of the Year Awards, and the BSI kitemark.)

‘I know,' Bianca replied. ‘You made it sound like there was something you could do about it.'

‘There is,' Kurt replied, sipping his Babycham. ‘But not on my own. That's where you come in.'

‘I see.'

‘Doubt that.' Kurt finished his bag of pork scratchings, squashed up the packet and dropped it into the ashtray before lighting a cigar. A large cigar, needless to say; Bianca had seen smaller things being floated down Canadian rivers. ‘Let me just fill you in on the background. Maybe you know some of the stuff I don't, at that.'

Between them, it transpired, they had a fairly good idea of the Story So Far, including recent developments and a progress report on the preparations for the Big Fight. ‘So you see,' Kurt summarised, ‘it's all a goddamn shambles.'

‘Quite.' Bianca nodded vigorously. ‘Worst part of it is, I can't seem to work out who's who. Goodies and baddies, I mean.'

‘This,' Kurt replied sternly, ‘ain't the movies. When you've been in supernatural pest control as long as me, you learn not to make judgements about people. Sure, when I was young, I used to worry about that kinda thing; you know,
What harm did he ever do me?
and all that kinda shit. Nowadays, all I ask myself is, will the two-fifty grain hollow point do the business at three hundred and fifty yards. I guess it makes life easier, not giving a damn.'

‘You do, though, don't you?'

Kurt nodded glumly. ‘It's a bitch,' he replied. ‘Unprofessional. That's what's got to me about this stinking job. Trouble is, my professional ethics say I gotta do the job I'm being paid for. Nothing in the rules says I can't share my concerns with an outsider, though; someone not in the business, like yourself.'

Bianca shrugged. ‘I've got professional ethics too, you know. Mostly they're to do with leaving chisel-marks and not glueing back bits you accidentally break off. But I'm sure there's something in the Code of Practice about not letting dangerous statues fall into the wrong hands. I must look it up when I get back home.'

They looked at each other suspiciously across the formica tabletop; unlikely confederates (if we're confederates, Bianca muttered to herself, bags I be Robert E. Lee) in an impossibly confused situation. In context, they were probably the least likely do-gooders in the whole dramatis personae; the hired killer and the arms dealer. Maybe it helped that Bianca also dealt in legs, heads and torsos.

‘I guess,' Kurt said slowly, ‘in situations like this, all you can do is to try and do the right thing. Shit, did I really say that? This stinking job really is getting to me.'

‘A statue's gotta do what a statue's gotta do?'

‘Sure. Now, what
you
gotta do is like this.'

 

Beep. ‘Hello, Bianca Wilson here. Could I have seventeen seven by three by three Carrara white blocks, immediate delivery, COD Birmingham. Thank you.'

 

 

 

‘Have you ever,' Chubby said, apropos of nothing, ‘been to Mongolia?'

The dragon looked at him. ‘No idea,' he said. ‘I've been virtually everywhere, I think, but usually I don't stop and buy a guide-book. What's Mongolia?'

Chubby shrugged. ‘Desert, mostly. Very empty, not many people. Barren, too; large parts of it have as close to a zero per cent fire risk as it's possible to get on this planet. The sort of place where you could have a sneezing fit without burning down six major cities.'

‘Sounds a bit dull,' the dragon said.

‘It is. Very.'

‘I could use a little tedium right now,' the dragon said, scratching his nose with a harpoon-like claw. ‘I take it you're working round to suggesting that I go there.'

‘Hate to lose you,' Chubby replied. ‘It's been great fun having you here and all that. But, with all due respect, you're a bit hard on the fixtures and fittings.'

‘True. Actually, it beats me how you people can live in places like this without dying of claustrophobia.'

‘We're smaller than you are. We find it helps.'

The dragon yawned and stretched, inadvertently knocking an archway through the wall into the next room. ‘Mongolia, then. What's your ulterior motive? Something to do with your Time business?'

‘You know your trouble? You're cynical.' Chubby frowned. ‘Usually with good cause,' he added. ‘As it so happens, there is a small job you could do for me while you're there. Nothing heavy. You might find it helps stave off death by ennui. Entirely up to you, though.'

‘Explain.'

‘Well.' Chubby leaned back in his chair and hit the light switch. A projector started to run, covering the opposite wall (the only one still intact) with a huge, slightly blurred image of a vase of flowers, upside down. Chubby clicked something, and the picture changed into a view of the Great Wall of China.

‘Familiar?'

‘Seen it before,' the dragon replied. ‘Doesn't mean anything to me, though. A wall is but a wall, a sigh is but a sigh.'

‘Ah.' Chubby clicked again. The Great Wall came closer. ‘This, my old mate, is no ordinary wall. It's big, it's famous and - now here's where my interest in the damn thing lies - it's very, very old.'

The dragon smiled in the darkness. ‘Steeped in history, huh?'

‘Positively saturated. Now, I got to thinking; sentiment aside, what does that lot actually do that a nice modern chain-link fence couldn't do, for a fraction of the maintenance costs? Whereas to me—'

‘I get the picture,' the dragon interrupted, amused. ‘You want me to steal it.'

Chubby clicked again. This time, the wall was covered in a view of the planet, as seen from space. The Great Wall was dimly visible, a thin line faintly perceptible through wisps of untidy cloud. Either that, or a hair in the gate.

‘As you can see for yourself,' Chubby went on, ‘it's the only man-made structure visible from outside the Earth's atmosphere. An eyesore, in other words. If Mankind ever gets round to colonising the moon, I'll be doing them a favour.'

‘Quite. What do you want me to do with it after I've nicked it?'

Click. View of a completely barren area of desert. ‘Just leave it there. One of my people will deal with it.'

The dragon smiled. ‘A receiver of stolen walls? A fence?'

‘How did I know you were going to say that?'

 

Half an hour later, the same picture show, the same basic introduction.

‘Let's just make sure I've got this straight,' George said.

‘Your organisation's going to steal the Great Wall of China?'

‘Mphm.'

‘And then they're going to dump it, out there in the wilderness.'

‘Not wilderness, George. Prime development site. We paid top dollar for that land. It has the advantage of being as far from anywhere as it's possible to get without having to wear an oxygen mask.'

George shrugged. ‘You know your own business, I s'pose. What do you need me for?'

‘Caretaker, basically,' Chubby replied. ‘I was just thinking, since your friend with the wings and the bad breath is still very much on the loose, you might quite fancy a month or so in the last place anybody would ever think of looking.'

‘Good point.' George nodded decisively. ‘Much obliged to you. It'll be a pleasure.'

The lights came back on.

‘Pleasure's all mine,' said Chubby.

 

Chubby scowled. ‘Listen,' he said. ‘I hate to bother you with silly mundane things like the way I earn my living, but for the last couple of months my business has been at a complete standstill. I've got orders I can't fill and staff on full wages sitting around with nothing to do. Two birds, one stone, and everybody's happy.'

The screen went blank and the little red light, whose purpose Chubby had never been able to work out in all the years he'd had the wretched thing, blinked twice.

‘Tough. Sorry, but you said to find a way to get them both to the venue without arousing their suspicions and that's what I've done. And now, if you don't mind. I've got work—'

The pain hit him like a falling roof. The intensity of pain largely depends on which part of the victim it affects. Chubby's soul hurt. Toothache is nothing in comparison.

‘Fuck you, genie,' he moaned. ‘Let go, will you?'

Inside his head, Chubby could hear laughter. It was a very frightening sound.

‘Then fuck you,
Nosher.
And now will you please stop doing that, before you break my id?'

The pain stopped and Chubby collapsed into a chair. ‘Let me see,' he said, once he'd got his breath back. ‘Well, for one thing, we haven't had nearly as much of the your-wish - is - my - command - it's - my - pleasure - to - serve - you bullshit lately, which I find rather significant. And all these cosy chats we've been having recently must be taking their toll. I've been trying very hard indeed not to think about it.'

‘Shit.'

‘Like a house on fire,' Chubby replied. ‘With you as the fire and me as the house. What happens to me when you get a majority stake? Do I die, or vanish, or what?'