“You haven’t, Molloy?”
“Certainly not, sir!”
“Good man! Good man!” Snatching up the receiver the editor dialled six. As his finger described the mystical arc he whispered to himself, as one reciting a catechism, “Twenty years in this game. Twenty long years of flower shows and boy scout jamborees and now, and now …” He paused a moment, a hand across the mouthpiece and stared towards the unspeakable ceiling beyond which, somewhere distant, sat the great proprietor in the sky. “Thank you, God,” he said. “Amen.”
“Amen,” echoed Molloy pushing across the desk a petty cash slip which was in its way as great a work of fiction as any that Harold Robbins had ever come up with. “If I might just have your signature, sir.”
Without even looking, the editor signed away a sizeable chunk of the paper’s financial resources. “All these years,” he continued, “I’ve prayed for an opportunity to do this.”
“Sir?” said Molloy.
“Listen,” said the editor.
“Hello,” said a sleepy voice at the other end of the line, “Print Room.”
“Williams?” said the editor. “Williams, is that you?”
“Of course it is, who’s that speaking?”
“Williams.” The editor took a deep breath and said, “Williams, hold the front page!”
“Oh, not again, Molloy, said the voice, “just piss off, will you!” The receiver fell and the line went prrrrrrrr …
10
The brothers Paul and Barry Geronimo sat in the police cell, handcuffed together. A more disconsolate pair of renegade redmen it was hard to imagine. With his unmanacled hand Paul nursed the Victoria plum which had ripened upon his left temple. Barry made dismal groaning sounds as he tested his many tender spots for signs of fracture. At great length it was he who was the first to speak. “Mum is not going to like this,” he said simply.
Paul made as to affect a surly frown which caused him considerable pain. “This mean warpath for certain,” he muttered. “Many scalps decorate lodge before teatime.”
Barry glanced sidelong at his bandaged brother. “Paul,” he said, “Paul, you really are quite certain about us being the dual reincarnation of Geronimo, aren’t you? I mean, there couldn’t be any mistake now, could there? I mean, I reckon we’re on a hiding to nowhere here… I mean…” For his outspokenness, brother Barry received a blow much favoured by the now legendary Billy Two Rivers and known as the Tomahawk Chop. “You bastard, I’m telling Mum.”
“Break it up in there,” a Metropolitan Police voice called through the peephole, “and get on your feet, you’ve got a visitor.”
A heavy key turned in the lock, making all those really good noises that jail door locks make in prison movies. The door swung in to reveal a grinning Constable Meek, bearing three teacups and a plate of digestives on a regulation enamel tray. “Here you go, Tonto,” he smirked. “Sorry, we’re out of firewater.”
“Half hour on red ant’s nest with honey pot up back passage wipe smile off your face,” said Paul Geronimo, making an obscene North American gesture.
Barry rubbed at the new bruise on his head. There had to be something to this reincarnation business, civil engineers just did not come out with off the cuff remarks like that. “Two sugars, please,” he said.
“You’ve got a visitor,” said the still smirking constable, placing the tray upon the bunk. “Great white chief come smoke pipe of peace.”
“That will be enough of that, thank you, Constable.” The voice belonged to Inspectre Hovis, who now followed it into the cell. He carried beneath his arm a buff-coloured folder. “Kindly relock the door behind you, Constable, and await my call.” Constable Meek slunk away, slamming the door dramatically behind him. “Now,” said the Inspectre, taking a digestive from the plate and seating himself. “Would you like to tell me all about it?”
Paul Geronimo looked Hovis up and down. “Under articles of Geneva Convention, we tell you nothing but name, rank and telephone number,” he said. “So go suck.”
“I see,” said Hovis. “Then let me tell you something. This is my first day in Brentford.”
“Careful it not your last,” said Barry.
“My first day,” Hovis continued. He delved into his pocket and drew out a small brightly coloured book. “Do you see this?”
Paul nodded. “It famous Guide to Brentford, written by esteemed local author P.P. Penrose.”
“Author of the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers,” Barry added.
“Quite so,” said Hovis. “I purchased it this very morning.”
Paul studied the ceiling and made war-drum sounds beneath his breath.
“It is my belief,” said Hovis, “that a guidebook tells you as much about a town by what it does not say as by what it does.”
“Esoteric dichotomy alone insufficient basis for theoretical reasoning,” said Paul. “Brave who always search skyline for enemy smoke ofttimes walk in buffalo shit.”
“Be that as it may,” said Hovis. “Then I shall confine my observations to what the guide book does say.” He thumbed it open and, between munchings of his biscuit, read aloud. “The historic Borough of Brentford is notable for, amongst other things, the beauty of its womenfolk, the glories of its architectural heritage and the quality of its fine hand-drawn ales. In the year 49 AD Julius Caeser…”
“Beg to interject,” said Paul, “but noble history of borough well known to us. We born and raised here.”
“All right,” said the Inspectre. “Then, to be succinct, it is this. In one thousand years of recorded history Brentford has never known a race riot. Not until today, when you incited one.”
“We done what?” queried Barry.
“Incited a race riot.” Inspectre Hovis took a signed statement from his file and glanced it up and down. “Did you or did you not refer to Councillor Clyde Merridew Ffog as ‘Mangy white cur fit only for roasting over a slow fire’?”
“Well, er,” said Paul.
“And a Mr Julian Membrane, who is recovering, I am pleased to say, from the tomahawk wound, records in his statement that you made the inflammatory remark, ‘Yellow blood of palefaces belong painted on toilet walls’.”
“We true victims of racial harassment,” cried Paul Geronimo, rising from his bunk and dragging his brother with him. “Long-nosed white dog twist truth like snake twist…”
“There you go again,” said Hovis. “This is not going to look very good on my report now, is it? Inflammatory remarks of a racial nature, damage to council property, disturbing the peace, inciting riot, grievous bodily harm, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, insulting behaviour, need I go on? You’ll get five years for this lot, I shouldn’t wonder.” He gestured towards Paul’s blackly dyed and magnificently braided barnet and made scissor snips with his fingers. “At Her Majesty’s barber shop.”
Paul fingered his hair; it had taken three years to grow. Brother Barry’s grazed chin sank on to his buckskin chest. “We up shit creek in barbed wire canoe,” he observed.
“How aptly put,” said Inspectre Hovis. “Now what do you suppose we should do about it?”
Paul peered dubiously towards the gaunt vulture, hovering upon the opposite bunk. “What exactly are you suggesting?” he asked.
Hovis folded his mirrored pince-nez into an elegant tortoise-shell case and slid this into his top pocket. He reached forward for another biscuit and fixed Paul Geronimo with a penetrating gaze. The brave wilted visibly. “Well?” said Inspectre Hovis.
“Er… um,” said Paul Geronimo.
“Squaw who dance too long round cooking pot praising cook find that meal grown too cold to eat, if you get my meaning.”