“I don’t know what you two are up to,” said Neville, drawing near, “but just take care, will you?”
“What do you mean?” asked Jim.
Neville tapped his slender nose. “This tells me there’s trouble blowing your way.”
Jim put down his glass and picked up his bulging briefcase. “Thanks, Neville,” he said. “You’ve always been a good friend to John and me, no matter what.”
“There are no friends in business,” said Neville, with a wink of his good eye. “But just mind how you go.”
“I will,” said Jim. “Be lucky.”
“And you.”
There is always an element of luck involved in every fight. Unless, of course, it’s managed by Don King[15]. Soap evidently had a great deal of luck credited to his worldly account, because it seemed that he was actually getting the better of Leo.
Soap had the editor’s arm up his back and was holding him down with a knee.
“You spill the beans!” shouted Soap, applying a Chinese burn. “Who are the men in the black T-shirts? Where do they come from and what do they want?”
They came, as we know, from the future, and the one on the flat block roof wanted Jim Pooley dead.
Wingarde wiped sweat from his brow and squinted once more through his telescopic sight. Within the magnified cross-haired circle the Swan’s saloon bar door swung open and Jim emerged and stood taking the sun.
Wingarde’s finger tightened on the trigger, but a look of indecision spread across his squinting face.
“Are you sure I’m doing the right thing?” he asked The Voice. “I know you keep saying it’s all right, but if he dies surely I’ll die too? I won’t even get to be born.”
You must have faith in me, my son. You have done great things while in my service. All that is required of you now is that you pull the trigger.
“That is a somewhat ambiguous answer,” said Wingarde.
Don’t talk back to God, you little fuck!
On the Swan’s doorstep Jim breathed in the healthy Brentford air. He felt good, did Jim. Up for it. On top. Ready to take on the world. And things of that nature. Generally.
And he would not only take on the world. He would bring the Gandhis’ music to it.
He would Heal the World.
That was a good expression, thought Jim. He could live with that.
Wingarde’s finger was tight upon the trigger, although most of the rest of him was shaking.
“I’m not sure,” whimpered Wingarde. “I’m just not sure.”
You dare to doubt the Lord thy God? You dare to question His almighty wisdom?
“No, it’s not that, exactly. Well, it is, sort of.”
I will cast you down! cried The Voice in Wingarde’s head, rattling his dental work and popping both his ears. I will cast you down from this high place and into the fires of the pit.
“No. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
Wingarde’s finger tightened, sweat dripped down his nose, and, dead in the sight although not yet in the flesh, Jim took another deep breath and grinned a little grin.
“You grinning bastard,” whispered Wingarde. “You’ll get yours.”
The cross hairs quartered Jim Pooley’s forehead.
Wingarde squeezed the trigger.
According to the coroner’s report that was placed upon the desk of Inspectre Hovis, whose job it was to head up the murder inquiry, the bullet was a high-velocity, hollow-tipped titanium round, fired from an AK47. It entered the victim’s head at a downward angle of thirty-three degrees, indicating that it was probably fired from either a high window or the roof of the flat block opposite the Flying Swan.
It passed through the right frontal lobe just above the right orbit and made its exit through the back of the victim’s neck, carrying with it much of the victim’s brain.
The coroner stated that death would have been instantaneous.
As he said to Inspectre Hovis: “One second he was a man with a briefcase, the next one he was a corpse.”
The ice cream cart was sold out.
The last batsman was bowled out.
And foolishly I strolled out
Into the light of day.
The umpire, some say, passed out.
The moment that the last out
Had sworn and cursed or cast out
That final hip hooray.
The only way to find out
Is when you’re told to mind out.
Just stick your big behind out,
Bend at the knee and pray.
And when you know you’re wiped out,
And chivvied up and striped out
And rolled
And bowled
And passed
At last
And stood like Nelson at the mast.
Then you can say it’s in the past
That bastard’s ice cream’s sold out!
You’ll know it when you drop out.
The ending is a cop-out.
16
In a perfect world, where life is lived in little movies, everything would have been sorted by Friday.
Soap would have swung his big newspaper deal.
Norman’s horse would have been up and ready to race.
Geraldo and his friends would have recorrected history.
The Queen would have been back on the banknotes.
Prince Charles would have been the twat with the big ears once again.
Inspectre Hovis would have cleared his desk.
Small Dave would have been banged up in another suitcase.
The library clerk would have been suing the police for wrongful arrest and excessive use of an electric cattle prod.
Pigarse’s dad would have got the new seat for his Honda.
John Omally would have organized the Gandhis’ mega-concert in Gunnersbury Park.
And Jim Pooley would not be lying dead in a mortuary drawer.
Which all goes to prove, if any proof were needed, that we do not live in a perfect world. But rather in one where things can turn from good to bad and bad to worse and worse to far more worser still, in less than a single second.
And in less, it seemed, than a single second, Soap got the shock of his life. There was a sound like breaking thunder and the walls of the office shook.
Soap jerked upright and glanced all about, his eyes rather wide and a-bulge. He was still in the editor’s office, but everything had changed. The room was bare of furniture and also bare of Leo. The floor was mossed by an inch of dust. Damp stains mapped the cracking plaster walls.
Soap took to gathering his senses.
The last thing he could remember was giving the editor a Chinese burn in the cause of a little information. Leo’s watch had come off in Soap’s hand. A rather splendid watch it was, too. A big electronic jobbie with the words PERSONAL LIFESPAN CHRONOMETER printed upon it. And then—
Crash went the breaking thunder sound and a lot of wall came down.
Soap still held the editor’s watch. He stuffed it hastily into his trouser pocket, took to his heels and fled.
He fled through the outer office, also empty, also gone to dust, down the fire escape and out into the High Street. And then Soap paused and gasped in air and got another shock.
Half the High Street was gone. Just gone. Mr Beefheart’s the butcher. The launderette. The recently opened nasal floss boutique. And the bank that likes to say yes.
Gone. Just gone.
There were earth-movers moving earth. Big diggers digging. And a crane with a demolition ball. The crane turned on its caterpillar tracks, swinging the ball like a pendulum. The ball smashed once more into the front wall of the building. The roof came down in plumes of dust. The offices of the Brentford Mercury became no more than memory.
“Oh, no,” cried Soap. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“Oi! You!”
Soap turned to spy a chap with a clipboard hurrying his way. The chap wore one of those construction worker’s helmets, popularized by the Village People and still capable of turning heads at a party when worn with nothing else other than a smile.