Now I don’t know what might have happened next. Perhaps I might have shot the guy, perhaps I might not. Perhaps the guy would have just backed off and then perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps I should have noticed the little guy with the singed socks who was creeping up on me and then ducked the pizza, with the double cheese and the triple chewing fat, that he hurled right into my face. But as something else happened at that very moment and none of these things did, I guess I’ll never know for sure.
The something else that happened happened suddenly and when it suddenly happened, it was loud. That something was an alarm bell sounding and it brought with it that sense of urgency and panic that alarm bells so often do.
“We’re rumbled!” I shouted above the hubbub. “Follow me and let’s go.”
They dithered for a moment, but soon bowed to my natural authority. There was a bit of rushing then and we all got stuck in the doorway.
“Can five fit on your bike?” I shouted at the pizza guy.
“You don’t have to shout,” he said. “I’ve got my helmet on.”
“Can you get five on your bike?” I reiterated in a moderate tone.
“No problem,” said he. “As long as three are prepared to run behind.”
“Then let’s go for it,” I cried. “Take us to the nearest bar and don’t spare the horsepower.”
The nearest bar turned out to be the Lion’s Mane, a safari theme pub on the corner of Thor Bridge Road and not two hundred yards from the entrance to Mornington Crescent underground station.
I entered the establishment, hacked my way through the plantain and the jungle vines and beat a path to the bar. The landlord was lean as a leopard and gamin as a gazelle. He wore a solar toupee and one of those khaki safari suits that not even David Attenborough can wear without looking an utter plum.
“Set ’em up, barkeep,” I said. “Four gin slings and a punka wallah and none of that calling me bwana.”
“Ice and a slice?” asked the lean landlord.
“A squeeze, if you please,” said I.
“Aaagh!” went Johnny Boy. “There’s a big snake trying to eat our pizza.”
“And a machete please, barkeep,” I added.
The landlord did the business and I put paid to the python.
“I’ll have to charge you extra for killing the wildlife,” said the lanksome landlord. “You just missed the happy hunting hour. But for a small surcharge, our in-house tailor can make you up a jacket from the snake’s skin.”
“Put me down for a trenchcoat and matching fedora,” said I.
“Hell’s mud huts and hinterland!” said the long-legged landlord. “It’s you, Laz. I didn’t recognize you in that old tweed jacket. I thought you were that reporter guy from the Brentford Mercury.”
I looked the lean and lanksome long-legged landlord up and down. “Why, Fange,” I said. “It’s you. I didn’t recognize you in that solar toupee. I thought it was Ally McBeal with her hair up;”
“Enough of your thinnist remarks, you fat bastard.”
“Serve the drinks up, Posh,” said I. “And put some Karen Carpenter on the jukebox.”
The landlord did as he was bid and I hacked my way to the veranda area. Here we sat ourselves down upon wicker chairs and watched the sun sinking low over the veldt, to the sound of distant tribal drums and the calls of the uzelum bird.
“Damn these mosquitoes,” said Johnny Boy, flicking flies from his forehead. “And damn those native drums. Beating. Beating. They’re driving me mad, I tell you.”
“Turn it in,” said Icarus. “You’re only encouraging him.”
“Listen, kid,” I told the kid. “I got you out of there, didn’t I? A big thank you might be nice. And should you wish to include a large ‘So sorry to have ever doubted you, Mr Woodbine, sir’ you won’t find me complaining.”
Icarus threw up his hands. “Look at him,” he said to Captain Ian. “The Red Head drug’s done absolutely nothing. It hasn’t worked.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “My headache’s cleared up.”
“But you can’t see anything different? Everything looks the same to you?”
“What do you want from me, kid?”
“I give up,” said Icarus. “He’s barking mad. Always has been, always will be.”
I raised my glass to the kid. “You sure have a funny way of saying thanks,” I said.
“I seem to recall”, said Captain Ian, “that it was we who initially rescued you.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for that. So now, if we’ve all finished rescuing each other, I must be off on my way.”
“Perhaps I should punch him,” said Captain Ian. “Just once, in the face.”
“Help yourself,” said Icarus. “I don’t really care any more.”
“Hold up, fella,” I said. “You raise a hand to me and I’ll stick you with this machete where the furtling farmer stuck his toilet duck. But just let me ask you something. Why did you rescue me?”
“Because you’re the best,” said the captain. “And we need the best.”
“We don’t need him!” said Icarus. “Please, not him.”
“We do need him,” said the captain. “And whether he’s your brother, or not—”
“I’m not,” said I.
“He is,” said Icarus.
“—is neither here nor there,” said the captain. “We need Mr Woodbine’s help. Mr Woodbine is on a case and that case is linked directly to us. If anyone can sort everything out, that anyone is Lazlo Woodbine, private eye.”
“But he’s not Lazlo Woodbine. He’s my barking mad brother,” said Icarus. “We’ll just get drawn into his madness. Escaping from the Ministry on the back of a pizza man’s motorbike. Coming to a pub that’s got a jungle with a sundown in it.”
“And a snake,” said Johnny Boy, munching on the pizza. “Mr Woodbine hacked its head off.”
I brandished the machete. “Keep your hands away from that olive,” I told the wee man. “Or you’ll be playing Stumpy, in Snow White meets the Eighth Dwarf.”
“We’ll end up as mad as he is,” said Icarus.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to drink up and leave,” said the landlord. “The yearly migration of the wildebeest will be coming through here in a minute and the management can’t take responsibility for any patrons who get trampled.”
“See what I mean?” said Icarus. “Absolutely barking.”
“No, they don’t migrate through Barking,” said Fangio. “They go across Streatham Common and down through Tooting usually. Oh, and Laz, I’ll have the trenchcoat and the fedora dropped round to your office in the morning. The in-house tailor’s just come down with a bad attack of spontaneous human combustion and it will be a couple of hours before the night relief in-house tailor comes on duty.”
“So it’s farewell,” said I. “I’d like to say it’s been real nice knowing you guys. But as it hasn’t, I won’t.”
“Wildebeest!” cried Captain Ian, pointing over my shoulder.
I turned around to take a look and would you believe it, the guy struck me down from behind.
And once more I was falling into that deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. And I for one was frankly getting sick of it.
I awoke to find myself once more in my office, with dawn’s crack on the horizon.
“What am I doing back here?” I asked, for it seemed a reasonable question.
“We brought you here.” It was the guy with the military bearing. Captain Ian “I’ve-got-a-hiding-coming” Drayton. “The landlord gave us your office address. We brought you here in a taxi.”
“The driver knew all about the knowledge,” said Johnny Boy. “We came via Beat Street, Elm Street, Amityville Road, through Little China, past the Breakfast Club and the Cinema Paradiso, turned left at—”
“Forget it, buddy,” I said. “If that’s a running gag, it’s lost on me.”