“The light,” went Jack. “The terrible light.”
“Go on,” said the count. “The light can’t hurt you now.”
“Oh,” went Jack. “They’re coming for us. Out of the light, they’re coming.”
“Gently now,” said Count Otto Black. “You’re quite safe here, they can’t hurt you here. Who is coming out of the light?”
“Not who,” said Jack, and cold sweat formed upon his brow and trickled down his cheeks. “It’s what, not who. They are not men.”
“Are they toys?” asked the count.
“Not toys. Oh, now, they’re taking us. Up into the light. They have us. In that place, that bright place. They’re putting things up our – Ouch! Stop! Ouch!”
“We’ll take a little break there, I think,” said the count.
“No, we can’t,” said Eddie. “Painful as this is, we have to finish.”
“It’s too painful for me,” said the count.
“Too painful for you?”
“Indeed,” said Count Otto. “I need to take a wee-wee. I should have taken one earlier. I can’t hold on any longer.”
Count Otto Black went off to the toilet. Presently, he returned.
“All better now,” he said. “I took a poo as well, just to be on the safe side.”
“Too much information,” said Eddie. “And you’ve quite spoiled the mood.”
“Well, it’s neither here nor there,” said the count, settling himself down into his chair and wiggling his fingers at Jack. “He’ll be nothing more than a vegetable when all this is done.”
“No, I won’t,” said Jack. “I’ll be fine.”
“See how brave he is?” said Eddie. “He’s as noble as.”
“Please yourselves,” said Count Otto. “Pray continue, Jack. Tell us all about the rectal probings.”
Over in the big top, high-wire walkers paused in their practisings, struck by the screams from Count Otto’s caravan. Pigeons fled their airy perches. Dogs howled in the distance.
“Much too much information,” said Eddie, rubbing at his own bum and feeling rather queasy.
“All right,” said the count, “they did all that to you.”
“They did more,” said Jack. “They did …”
Count Otto Black leaned close as Jack whispered.
“They never did?” he said. The count’s eyes started from their sockets. The count rushed outside and was sick.
“Nice going,” said Eddie to Jack, whilst the count was outside upchucking. “Nice to see the count getting a bit of his own medicine. Because, after all, he is an evil hypnotist.”
“And worse is yet to come,” said Jack.
“Oh good,” said Eddie. “I’ll just keep my paws over my ears, then.”
“Best to,” said Jack.
Count Otto returned and Jack continued with his tale.
And eventually he was done.
Count Otto Black sat staring at Jack and Jack sat staring at him.
“Are you all right, Jack?” Eddie asked.
Jack said, “Yes, I’m fine.”
“No feelings of empathy towards members of the vegetable kingdom?”
“Fine,” said Jack. “Now I’ve got it all out of my system, I’m fine.”
“Well, thanks very much, Count Otto,” said Eddie. “Count Otto? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
Jack drove away from Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique. He drove away in Bill’s Anders Faircloud. Jack was wearing his trenchcoat and his fedora and his watch.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” said Eddie, who sat once more in the passenger seat. “Who’d have thought it, eh? Your revelations driving Count Otto Black into a vegetative state? Who’d have seen that coming, eh?”
“Anyone with more than sawdust for brains,” said Jack. “It was what is called a telegraphed gag. One that you could really see coming.”
“So we really were abducted by spacemen.” Eddie whistled and kicked his legs about.
“No, we weren’t,” said Jack.
“We weren’t?” said Eddie. “But we were taken up into the light and terrible bottom experiments were performed on us.”
“True,” said Jack. “There’s no denying that.”
“But you’re saying that it wasn’t spacemen?”
Jack shook his head.
“Then what?”
“Chickens?” said Tinto. “You were abducted by chickens?”
It was early evening now and they were in Tinto’s Bar.
“He’s winding you up,” said Eddie. “And before you say it, not in the nice way.”
“I’m not,” said Jack, counting the drinks that he had ordered and trying to reconcile them with the number that Tinto had delivered. “We were abducted by chickens. Big ones in spacesuits. Horrible, they were, with nasty beaks and evil little eyes.”
“And you remember this?” asked Tinto of Eddie.
“No,” said Eddie, tasting beer. “I do not. The count only hypnotised me to prevent me from remembering how he hypnotised Jack.”
“Oh, slow down there,” said Tinto. “Too much information.”
“We’re done with that line now,” said Eddie. “It wasn’t relevant anyway.”
“I just fancied using it,” said Tinto. “I’m a barman. I do have rights, you know.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” said Eddie. “Why not use it now?”
“Because I want to hear about the chickens. Could you give me a bit of a wind, please, Jack, I’m running down.”
Jack leaned over the bar counter and turned the key in Tinto’s back.
“Howdy doody,” said Tinto to Jack. “Can I help you, sir?”
“We were talking about the chickens,” said Jack. “The ones that abducted Eddie and me.”
“Well, yes,” said Tinto. “You told me that. But I’m rather confused. These space chickens, was it them that blasted the cymbal-playing monkeys with the deaths rays?”
Jack looked at Eddie.
And Eddie looked at Jack.
“Nice mutual lookings,” said Tinto, plucking spent glasses from the bar and giving them a polish, “but hardly an answer to my question.”
Jack now took to tasting beer. “I’m rather confused myself,” he said. “We were abducted by chickens, for reasons unknown.”
“They’d have their reasons,” said Tinto. “They probably stuck implants up your bum.”
“They stick those up your nose,” said Jack.
“Nose, bum, it’s all the same to me. Bits of body never do what they’re supposed to anyway. Take that sailor doll over there.” Tinto pointed and Jack did lookings across. “Obviously built upside down,” said Tinto.
“He looks the right way up to me,” said Jack.
“Then how come his nose runs and his feet smell?”
“We should have seen that one coming,” said Eddie.
“But it wasn’t the chickens, was it?” said Jack to Eddie. “We heard who did the murderings – it was those doppelgangers of us.”
“Probably in league with the chickens,” said Tinto, and he tittered.
“Did you just titter?” asked Eddie.
“There’s a screw loose in my voice box,” said Tinto. “Are you going to pay for these drinks or engage me in further conversation in the hope that I’ll forget to ask you for the money?”
“It’s always served me well in the past,” said Eddie.
“Well, not tonight,” said Tinto. “Pay up. Twenty-five beers and that’s …” And Tinto named the sum in question and that sum in question was correct.
“How did you work that out?” asked Eddie.
“Aha!” went Tinto, and he touched his printed nose. “Because I have a pocket calculator.”
“So where do you keep it? You don’t have any pockets.”
“Who said that?” asked Tinto.
“I did,” said Eddie.
“Well, that just shows you how smart you are,” said Tinto. “I don’t need a pocket to own a pocket calculator, because a pocket calculator is a calculator in the shape of a pocket. I thought everyone knew that.”