They were very helpful and phoned him up just after seven to give him their news.
If approximately fourteen million, seventy-two thousand, eight hundred and eleven people died, he, Peter Pinter, would be King of England.
He didn't have fourteen million, seventy-two thousand, eight hundred and eleven pounds: but he suspected that when you were talking in those figures, Mr Kemble would have one of his special discounts.
Mr Kemble did.
He didn't even raise an eyebrow.
Actually," he explained, "it works out quite cheaply; you see, we wouldn't have to do them all individually. Small-scale nuclear weapons, some judicious bombing, gassing, plague, dropping radios in swimming pools, and then mopping up the stragglers. Say four thousand pounds."
"Four thou-? That's incredible!"
The salesman looked pleased with himself. "Our operatives will be glad of the work, sir." He grinned. "We pride ourselves on servicing our wholesale customers."
The wind blew cold as Peter left the pub; setting the old sign swinging. It didn't look much like a dirty donkey, thought Peter. More like a pale horse.
Peter was drifting off to sleep that night, mentally rehearsing his coronation speech, when a thought drifted into his head and hung around. It would not go away. Could he-could he possibly be passing up an even larger saving than he already had? Could he be missing out on a bargain?
Peter climbed out of bed and walked over to the phone. It was almost 3 A.M., but even so…
His Yellow Pages lay open where he had left it the previous Saturday, and he dialled the number.
The phone seemed to ring forever. There was a click and a bored voice said, "Burke Hare Ketch. Can I help you?"
"I hope I'm not phoning too late…" he began.
"Of course not, sir."
"I was wondering if I could speak to Mr Kemble."
"Can you hold? I'll see if he's avallable."
Peter waited for a couple of minutes, listening to the ghostly crackles and whispers that always echo down empty phone lines.
Are you there, caller?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"Putting you through." There was a buzz, then "Kemble speaking."
Ah, Mr Kemble. Hello. Sorry if I got you out of bed or anything. This is, um, Peter Pinter."
"Yes, Mr Pinter?"
"Well, I'm sorry it's so late, only I was wondering…How much would it cost to kill everybody? Everybody in the world?"
"Everybody? All the people?"
"Yes. How much? I mean, for an order like that, you'd have to have some kind of a big discount. How much would it be? For everyone?"
"Nothing at all, Mr Pinter."
"You mean you wouldn't do it?"
"I mean we'd do it for nothing, Mr Pinter. We only have to be asked, you see. We always have to be asked."
Peter was puzzled. "But-when would you start?"
"Start? Right away. Now. We've been ready for a long time. But we had to be asked, Mr Pinter. Good night. It has been a pleasure doing business with you."
The line went dead.
Peter felt strange. Everything seemed very distant. He wanted to sit down. What on earth had the man meant? "We always have to be asked." It was definitely strange. Nobody does anything for nothing in this world; he had a good mind to phone Kemble back and call the whole thing off. Perhaps he had overreacted, perhaps there was a perfectly innocent reason why Archie and Gwendolyn had entered the stockroom together. He would talk to her; that's what he'd do. He'd talk to Gwennie first thing tomorrow morning…
That was when the noises started.
Odd cries from across the street. A catfight? Foxes probably. He hoped someone would throw a shoe at them. Then, from the corridor outside his flat, he heard a muffled clumping, as if someone were dragging something very heavy along the floor. It stopped. Someone knocked on his door, twice, very softly.
Outside his window the cries were getting louder. Peter sat in his chair, knowing that somehow, somewhere, he had missed something. Something important. The knocking redoubled. He was thankful that he always locked and chained his door at night.
They'd been ready for a long time, but they had to be asked…
When the thing came through the door, Peter started screaming, but he really didn't scream for very long.
CHAPTER 20: One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock
The Pale albino prince lofted on high his great black sword. "This is Stormbringer" he said "and it will suck your soul right out." The Princess sighed. "Very well!" she said. "If that is what you need to get the energy you need to fight the Dragon Warriors, then you must kill me and let your broad sword feed on my soul." "I do not want to do this" he said to her. "That's okay" said the princess and with that she ripped her flimsy gown and bared her chest to him. "That is my heart" she said, pointing with her finger, "and that is where you must plunge."
He had never got any farther than that. That had been the day he had been told he was being moved up a year, and there hadn't been much point after that. He'd learned not to try and continue stories from one year to another. Now, he was twelve.
It was a pity, though.
The essay title had been "Meeting My Favourite Literary Character", and he'd picked Elric. He'd toyed with Corum, or Jerry Cornelius, or even Conan the Barbarian, but Elric of Melnibone won, hands down, just like he always did.
Richard had first read Stormbringer three years ago, at the age of nine. He'd saved up for a copy of The Singing Citadel (something of a cheat, he decided, on finishing: only one Elric story) and then borrowed the money from his father to buy The Sleeping Sorceress, found in a spin rack while they were on holiday in Scotland last summer. In The Sleeping Sorceress Elric met Erikose and Corum, two other aspects of the Eternal Champion, and they all got together.
Which meant, he realised when he finished the book, that the Corum books and the Erikose books and even the Dorian Hawkmoon books were really Elric books, too, so he began buying them, and he enjoyed them.
They weren't as good as Elric, though. Elric was the best.
Sometimes he'd sit and draw Elric, trying to get him right. None of the paintings of Elric on the covers of the books looked like the Elric that lived in his head. He drew the Elrics with a fountain pen in empty school exercise books he had obtained by deceit. On the front cover he'd write his name: RICHARD GREY. DO NOT STEAL.
Sometimes he thought he ought to go back and finish writing his Elric story. Maybe he could even sell it to a magazine. But then, what if Moorcock found out? What if he got into trouble?
The classroom was large, filled with wooden desks. Each desk was carved and scored and ink-stained by its occupant, an important process. There was a blackboard on the wall with a chalk drawing on it: a fairly accurate representation of a male penis, heading towards a Y shape, intended to represent the female genitalia.
The door downstairs banged, and someone ran up the stairs. "Grey, you spazmo, what're you doing up here? We're meant to be down on the Lower Acre. You're playing football today."
"We are? I am?"
"It was announced at assembly this morning. And the list is up on the games notice board." J.B.C. MacBride was sandy-haired, bespectacled, only marginally more organised than Richard Grey. There were two J. MacBrides, which was how he ranked a full set of initials.
"Oh."
Grey picked up a book (Tarzan at the Earth's Core) and headed off after him. The clouds were dark grey, promising rain or snow.
People were forever announcing things he didn't notice. He would arrive in empty classes, miss organised games, arrive at school on days when everyone else had gone home. Sometimes he felt as if he lived in a different world to everyone else.