'Let me be the judge of that, Mr Cornelius.'
'I felt like working.'
'It's your mortgage.'
Jerry opened a dark brown cupboard and took out his Martin 206. He checked it and tuned it.
'Sorry about the dust,' said Lionel.
His guitar under his arm, Jerry walked back into the room. Clapham George had gone and a stripper towelled herself in the strobelight. Jerry flickered to a table, sat down and ordered scotch and milk.
Maureen and Barbara brought their cokes over and joined him. He felt happy with them, but they all knew the scene was patched.
When the stripper went backstage, Jerry played Dutch Schultz and then sang Back Door Man and Lionel came out to play the Hammond and Jerry plugged in on the stage and things moved a little as the audience went and only Maureen and Barbara, two old, old ladies, listened as Jerry mournfully finished with My Baby Rocks Me, which got them all going, so they left.
Jerry blew a kiss to Lionel. He didn't notice. He was playing a John Patton number, probably Fat Judy.
Off they went. Through the cold grease of the crowd on the pavement and down the street to where his car, a 1935 Phantom III Continental Rolls Royce with its involved V-12 engine and its independent front suspension and its fixtures of the purest silver, including the radiator, was parked.
'Maybe it should have been a Shadow,' said Barbara, giving Jerry's arm a friendly hug. 'Or is that perverse?'
The girls climbed in the back with the Martin and Jerry started the car.
Wardour Street, all frozen brightlights and vague expressions, led to Shaftesbury Avenue, walled by brown shops, to Piccadilly Circus, and its green spot.
Soon Jerry was out of all that, driving down Pall Mall, round the palace, along beside the park, past the Victory Arch, into Knightsbridge, bowling along, singing a song, while the girls, huddled in each other's arms, fell asleep.
The music was going.
Koutrouboussis was right. He had to find the machine. He would drop the groupies off at the Pheasantry, get the whereabouts of Gordon Gavin and make an early start in the morning.
4
My husband is a 'speed freak'
Jerry rode the 750CC MZ motor-bike straight down the middle of Hammersmith Road. The hog began to hammer as it reached 130.
Jerry's milk-white hair stood out straight behind him, his black silks were pasted to his body, his visor threatened to buckle as he leaned and took the roundabout and throttled down to a comfortable ton when he neared the Cromwell Road Extension and passed a funeral procession.
Three Austin Princesses followed the hearse, their debased lines and lumpen finish offering some loathsome insult to the coffin's contents.
Lying forward on the tank, with his arms stretched out to grasp the chopper's low racing bars, Jerry weaved in front of the Princesses in a dance that was at once graceful and obscene.
The gesture made, he accelerated again and screamed towards Brentford Market.
The Austin Princess was bad for his cool.
He turned into Kew Bridge Road, leapt over the bridge and headed along Kew Green for the big main gates, designed by Decimus Burton and erected in 1848, of the Royal Botanic Gardens. He went through the wrought iron gates that bore the golden Royal Crest, and reduced his speed to seventy, passing the John Nash Aroid House, the Chambers Orangery, the Filmy Fern House, his bike leaving a churned scar across the autumn lawns until it hit Broad Walk and zoomed through the fresh, early morning air towards the Burton Palm House that glistened, all glass and girders, by the Rose Garden, roared between the Australian House and the Temperate House, gunned through flower beds and lawns, wove between the quiet cedars and skidded to a stop outside the i63ft Red Pagoda that overlooked the cedars.
The metal plates on each of the pagoda's ten roofs reflected the sun, as did the glass domes that covered the bronze dragons at each corner of each of the octagonal roofs, exactly as they had been placed in 1761 by Sir William Chambers on Princess Augusta's approval.
Jerry let his hog fall and shielded his eyes to peer upward.
There in the shadows of the sixth storey balcony stood a figure which, as he watched, came and leaned over the rail. The figure was dressed in a long, dirty raincoat buttoned to the neck.
It could only be Flash Gordon.
Jerry opened the door and began to climb the central iron staircase that wound up between the bare floors of varnished oak planks. Dust sparkled in the sunlight slanting through the dirty windows.
As he reached the sixth floor, Flash climbed through an open window and stood limply waiting for Jerry to approach.
The large, brown, shallow eyes, set in the red, unhealthy face, stared shiftily at the silk suit, and the blotched fingers stroked the buttons of his mackintosh as if the urge to undo them would get the better of him at any moment.
Below the raincoat Jerry saw a pair of thick, grey socks and boots heavy with mud and blakeys.
'Er, how do, Mr Cornelius, er.' Flash moved his thick lips in a flabby smile.
'Good morning, Gordon. Kew's a bit off your usual manor, isn't it?'
Flash brightened up. 'Ah, well. I'm fond of plants, you see, Mr Cornelius. I had a little garden. I do a little gardening. I'd like a little shrubbery. A little greenhouse. I'm fond of plants. All kinds. I look after these now, as best I can. There's no one else will. That's the state of this little country.'
'And it's handy.'
'Very handy.' As Flash dropped his lids over his suddenly heating pupils his hands went convulsively into his pockets.
'And warm. Winter's coming,' he whispered. Then he cleared his throat. 'But I need a good bit of oil. And oil doesn't grow on trees. Well... not on most... trees.' Avoiding Jerry's eyes Flash moved to the staircase and began to climb down. 'Shall us?'
'It is a bit exposed here,' agreed Jerry unpleasantly as he followed Flash down.
They walked along the golden Cedar Vista towards the distant Australian House.
'It's spring in Australia, of course,' Flash murmured.
'I wouldn't count on it. Not these days.'
'I suppose not, no.'
Flash took a key from his pocket and opened the door. They went into the hot, bright atmosphere and strolled among the eucalyptus, banksias, Kangaroo Paw, Sturt's Desert Pea, mimosa and acacia.
'You told our Mr Koutrcmboussis you had some information about some stolen property,' Jerry said as they paused to admire the purple flowers of a rhododendron.
'Perfectly correct.'
'Hard or soft information?'
Flash gave him a startled look. 'Er, hard, er.'
'And you want a transplant job in return?'
'Ah, well, that's it, isn't it? No. You see, I'm happy here. I like the plants and they like me. And I can move about in them, can't I, waiting for the visitors?'
'So you can.'
'Therefore, Mr Cornelius, by and large, that problem's settled. Over and done with. It's a different problem. I'd give you the info for nothing, you know that. For old time's sake. But I've got to have the oil, you see.'
'Well, we could guarantee you a regular supply. Oil's one thing we had a bit of foresight on.'
'That's what I understand.'
'And, of course, we'd have a guarantee that way, wouldn't we?'
'That's right. If my info's duff, you stop the supply. I hope it isn't duff, though.' Flash looked anxiously at his Kangaroo Paw. 'I wish you hadn't done that to my lawn.'
'I wasn't to know, Flash.'
'Fair enough. It'll grow over. That's something I've got to face, sooner or later. There'll be a good deal of growing over.'
'It won't be a bad thing.'