Kiss shook his head. “Not good enough,” he said. “I’m a genie, right? We’re…” He closed his eyes, fumbling through a fog of draught yogurt for the right words. “Free spirits,” he said. “No. Loose cannons. We do our own thing. That’s unless somebody gets us by the balls and makes us do theirs. But that,” he concluded defiantly, “goes with the territory. We can handle that.”
“Glad to hear it, buddy.”
In the background there was a dull squelch, as the fruit machine tried unsuccessfully to pay out a grapefruit through a four-inch slot. Kiss sighed.
“You don’t want to hear all this, do you?” he asked.
The barman looked at him with old, warm eyes. “I can take it,” he said, “I’ve heard worse.”
Kiss nodded. “You must have heard it all,” he said.
“Maybe.” The barman picked up a glass and polished it. “But maybe I wasn’t listening.”
Somewhere in Kiss’s brain, the dinar dropped. “You’re a genie?” he asked softly.
“You bet, squire.”
“What Force?”
The barman shrugged, breathed on the rim of the glass in his hands and eased away a mark. “Twelve,” he replied.
“Twelve?” Kiss looked at him. “Then what the blazes are you doing in a dump like this?”
The barman looked back, and his eyes were like the view through the wrong end of the binoculars. “Hey,” he said. “You know how it is when you’re bound by some curse to a bottle?”
Kiss nodded.
“Well, then.” The barman half-turned and with an eloquent but economical gesture he indicated the shelves behind him. “Me,” he said, “I got lots of bottles.”
“Gawd!”
“It’s not the way I’d have liked things to pan out,” the barman agreed. “But you find yourself in a situation, what can you do? Me, I serve drinks to people. That’s from six pee-em to maybe four-thirty ay-em. The rest of the time…”
Kiss leaned forward. “Yes?”
“The rest of the time’s my own,” the barman replied. “Same again, is it?”
On his way home, Kiss turned out the cupboard under the stairs of his mind and found it to be mainly full of junk. There he found the ironing-board of duty, the broken torch of hope, the unwanted Christmas presents of obscure function that represent the random operations of fate, the dustpan of experience, the stepladder of aspiration, the hoover of despair; there also he found the raffia-covered Chianti-bottle table-lamp of love, which had seemed such a good idea at the time, which promised to cast light where before there was darkness and which now got under his feet whenever he wanted to get out the ironing-board. Its shade was as pink as ever, but its bulb had gone.
Not, Kiss hastened to add, my fault. I’m the goddamn victim; and she is as well, of course, but she’s not expected to give up being a Force Twelve genie. His thoughts returned to the genie behind the bar at Saheed’s; another Force Twelve fallen on hard times. They could form a support group; well, not a group. The best they could do with the manpower available would be a very short, truncated heap.
I’ve got to get myself out of this. But how?
The inside of an ink-bottle turned out to be remarkably spacious, all things considered.
Admittedly, you have to sit with your knees round your ears and your arms behind your back; and it doesn’t do to sneeze violently for fear of knocking yourself silly on the walls. The fact remains; getting six foot of retired fisherman inside three inches of bottle without pruning off several indispensable components is some achievement. Try it and see.
“Let me OUT!”
Some people, it seems, are never satisfied. There are successful young executives in the centre of Tokyo who pay good money for not much more lebensraum, and are glad to get it.
“Are you deaf or something? Let me OUT!”
Asaf paused to catch his breath. Yelling at the top of one’s voice in a confined space is physically demanding and, besides, it didn’t seem to be working.
If I were a baby bird, he said to himself, and if this was an eggshell, I could peck my way out.
Ah, but it isn’t. And you’re not.
It would be overstating the case to say that Asaf stiffened, because after nine hours in the bottle he was pretty conclusively stiff already; but he went through the motions.
There is someone, he said to himself, in here with me.
Hope he’s as uncomfortable as I am.
Not really. You get used to it after a while.
This time, Asaf felt a definite twitch in his sphincter.
Don’t be like that.
“What?” Asaf said aloud. His voice, he couldn’t help noticing, seemed to be coming out through his socks; something to do with the rather unusual acoustics inside an ink-bottle.
Hostile. I can definitely sense hostility. I’m only here because I thought you might be feeling lonely.
“How the hell am I supposed to feel lonely in something this size?”
Fair point. I’ll be going, then.
“Wait!”
Silence. But then again, he reflected, there would be, wouldn’t there? Since, apparently, whoever it was in here with him was either a disembodied spirit or…
A telepath. Bit of both, actually. Go with the flow, that’s always been my motto.
“Who are you?”
Name? Or job description?
“Both.”
All-righty. My name’s Pivot, and I’m the duty GA.
“GA?”
Guardian angel. Since whatever it was, was simply a suggestion of words in his mind, there was no way it could actually sound embarrassed. But it somehow gave the impression.
“Bit late, aren’t you?” Asaf grumbled. “Nine hours ago I could have used you.”
I know, Pivot replied. But like I said, I’m duty GA for this whole sector. I got held up on a call the other side of Bazrah. I came as quick as I could.
“I see.” Asaf took a deep breath; or at least, the top slice of one. “Well, now you’re here…”
I can keep your morale up and comfort you with homely snippets of folk wisdom and popular philosophy.
“That’s it?”
Sorry.
“Like, It’s a funny old world, that sort of thing?”
You’ve got the idea.
“Fine. Well, I expect you’ve got lots of other calls to attend to, so don’t let me…”
I know, replied Pivot sadly, it’s not exactly a great help. But that’s all I’m able to do for you under the scheme. Lots of people actually do find it remarkably helpful.
“I see.”
If you were being tortured, of course, or even briskly interrogated, that’d be another matter entirely. I could remind you of your rights and exhort you to display fortitude and moral courage in the face of adversity.
“Gosh. Well, it’s just as well I’m not, then, isn’t it?”
There was silence in Asaf’s mind for a while, and he spent the time thinking all the most uncharitable thoughts he could muster, in the hope of persuading Pivot to leave quickly.
It’d be different if you were a fee-paying client, of course.
“Sorry?”
Morale-raising and verbal comfort are all I’m allowed to offer under the scheme. If you want to go private, of course, I’m sure I could be even more helpful still.
“Such as?”
Such as getting you out of here, for a start.
“Done.”
Plus, there’s our fully comprehensive after-care package, of course. We don’t just ditch our clients the moment they get out of the bottle; oh dear, no. We can offer advice on a wide spectrum of issues, including financial advice, investment strategy, pensions…
“Whatever you like. Just get me out of—”
If you’d just care to sign this client services agreement. There, there and there…
Asaf growled ominously. “I’d just like to point out,” he said, “that my hands are wedged against the side of this bottle so hard my circulation stopped about seven hours ago. I think signing anything’s going to be a bit tricky.”
Oh. Oh, that is a nuisance. Because, you see, the rules say I can’t really do anything for you unless you sign the forms. I have my compliance certificate to think of, you know.