“Yes,” said Icarus. “I understand what you’re saying.”
“That Mr Woodbine is a genius,” said Johnny Boy. “He knew it was Colin from the start.”
“No,” said Icarus. “Just stop that. It all fits too easily together.”
“Well, it would if it’s correct. Why go looking for a more complicated solution?”
“Because this is my brother we’re talking about. My mad brother. And if we get drawn into his madness we won’t be able to escape from it. It’s infectious. It’s like a disease. I’ve come down here to try to solve this myself. All I have to do is stay away from him for a week. If that’s possible.”
Johnny Boy stared up into the face of Icarus Smith. “Please don’t take offence at this,” he said, “but surely I detect a bit of sibling rivalry here. If Mr Woodbine really is your brother, then you should be proud of him. And if he’s not your brother, then you’ve projected the face of your brother onto him, because your brother is your hero. Which might explain why you are as you are. The lad who seeks to make a name for himself as the relocator who set the world to rights. Either way it means that you really do look up to your brother, but you can’t bring yourself to admit it.”
“No,” said Icarus. “It’s not true. I am what I am because I had a dream. My brother lives in a world of dreams, but I inhabit reality.”
“You’re just digging a deeper pit for yourself,” said Johnny Boy. “This is all dead Freudian.”
“Let’s go,” said Icarus.
“To where?”
“To find Colin Godalming, of course.”
“Mr Godalming?” I said, sticking out my hand for a shake. “Mr Colin Godalming?”
The dude looked me coolly up and down. It was clear that I had the right guy here, I could tell by the way he shone. Streamers of light twinkled prettily about him and a golden glow, which wasn’t just the mullet, drenched his shoulders.
“And who might you be?” asked the third child of God, declining my offer of a hearty handclasp.
“I’m a private investigator,” I replied, in a tone which left no doubt exactly where I stood on the matter. “The name’s Woodbine, Lazlo Woodbine.” And added, “Some call me Laz.”
The guy regarded me as one would a pigeon squit plopped on a pampered pompadour. “Well, Mr Woodless,” he said, in a tone which left no doubt exactly where he stood on the matter. “I don’t need a private investigator.”
“It’s Woodbine,” I said. “And believe me, buddy, you do.”
The guy gave me the kind of look I wouldn’t waste on a whippet. “What is this all about?” he asked. “I don’t have time to stand around here talking toot with a chap dressed up as a handbag.”
“A hand bag?” said I, in my finest Charlie’s Aunt. Or was it The Importance of Being Earnest? I always get the two confused. Or perhaps it was HMS Pinafore. No, I’m sure it was Charlie’s Aunt.
“It might have been my aunt,” said Fangio. “She used to have a handbag.”
“Keep out of this, Jiffy,” I told the emaciated maitre d’. “This is between me and Dolly Parton here.”
“Handbag!” said Colin and he tossed back his hair and primped at his golden shower.
“Fella,” I said, “let me ask you one question. What’s red and white and lies dead in an alleyway?”
“I have no idea,” said Colin.
“A bullet-ridden corpse,” said I. “And that corpse is your dad.”
“That was subtle,” said Fangio. “And who’s this Jiffy, anyway?”
“My dad?” said Colin. “What are you talking about?”
“Your dad bought the big one.”
“My daddy is dead?”
“Deader than a stone gnome in a whore’s window box,” said I. “Colder than an Eskimo’s nipple at an Alaskan alfresco piercing party. More bereft of life than a rerun of the Monty Python parrot sketch.”
“That dead?” said Fangio.
“And then some. Kaput.”
“No,” said Colin, getting a blubber on now. “It can’t be true. Not my poor dear daddy. Tell me that it isn’t true.”
“It’s true,” I said. “Truer than the noble love that wins the heart of a maiden fair. More unvarnished than a dunny door in a pine restorer’s stripping tank. As factual as a …”
“Fat fop in a foolish fedora?” said Fangio. “Only a suggestion, you don’t have to use it.”
“Oh my poor dear daddy.” Colin took to wailing and gnawing his knuckles and carrying on like a silly big girl.
“You’ve upset him,” said the bone-bag of a maitre d’.
“Enough of the thin-boy jibes,” said Fange. “I’m only human too, you know. Cut me and do I not bleed?”
“We can check that out,” I said. “Give us a lend of the knife you use to hack up your chewing fat.”
“No, really, Laz. I’m not kidding. You can be very cruel sometimes. And the guy’s really upset. Look at him, he’s crying.”
“He’s faking it,” I said.
“I’m not,” blubbed Colin.
“You are too,” said I.
“Blubb blubb blubb,” went Colin.
“Give him a hug,” said Fangio. “That sometimes helps.”
“I certainly will not,” I said. “I’m not getting Tears on my Trenchcoat”.[15]
“What’s the trouble?” asked a broad-shouldered dame in a pale pink peplos and Day-Glo dungarees. She had the kind of face that you generally see only on a platter with an apple stuck into its gob.
“Butt out, Miss Piggy,” I told her. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
The porcine dame burst into tears.
“Now look what you’ve done,” said Fangio.
“And you keep out of it too, skeleton boy.”
“Waaah,” went Fangio, breaking down upon the bar.
“Blubb blubb blubb,” went Colin.
“Boo hoo” and “snort” went the pig-faced lady.
“Can I be of assistance?” asked a solitary cyclist who’d just popped in for a Perrier water. He wore one of those figure-hugging Lycra suits that only look good on Lynford Christie, and one of those streamlined bikers’ helmets that don’t look good on anybody.
“Clear off, you Spandexed poseur,” I told him.
“Sob sob sob,” went the cyclist.
Now I don’t know what it is about crying. It must be infectious, I guess. A bit like yawning really, I suppose. Somebody yawns and you want to yawn too. Perhaps that’s a conditioned reflex. Or something atavistic, dating back to our tribal ancestry. When, if the headman yawned, everybody yawned and the tribe all went to bed. Or, if the headman cried, you joined him too, in a good old howling session. I’m not too hot on the history of man, so I couldn’t say for a certainty.
What I could say for certain was this, however.
It wasn’t my fault.
OK, I might have started Colin off, but he was only faking it. And Fangio is a sissy boy and the pig-faced dame had it coming. And as for the solitary cyclist and the three students and the retired colourman and the two young women from Essex and the humpty-backed geezer and the continuity girl from Blue Peter and the lady with the preposterous bosom and that oik with the mobile phone, who said he’d call for an ambulance, well sure, OK, I might have pointed out their shortcomings, when they came muscling in to what clearly was none of their business. But for them all to start bawling their eyes out and saying that it was all my fault, that was laying it thicker than a concrete coat on a Baghdad bombproof bunker.
I mean, blaming me?
I could have wept.
In fact, I nearly did.
“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut up the lot of you.”
“Waaaaaah,” they went, in chorus.
“Will you stop all this weeping, you bunch of witless wimps?”
“Waaaaaah!” they reiterated, somewhat louder this time.
“He called me Quasimodo,” whined the humpty-backed geezer.
“He said I had a face like a cow’s behind,” squalled a woman with a face like a cow’s behind.
“He impugned my manhood,” snivelled a closet shirtlifter.
“He referred to me as a pretentious ninny,” ululated a thespian.
“He murdered my daddy!” howled Colin.
There was a lot of silence then.
“He did what?” asked the guy with the sore on his lip, which, I’d mentioned in passing, was probably the pox.
“He murdered my poor dear daddy. Shot him down in an alleyway.”
“I did nothing of the kind,” I rightfully protested.
“Assassin!” cried a crying lady, who, let’s face it, did look a lot like Jabba the Hutt.
“Murderer!” shrieked the bloke with the birthmark that I’d drawn attention to.
“String him up,” yelled the woman with the questionable hairdo that I’d well and truly questioned.
“I’ll get a rope,” hollered Fangio.
“Oi, Fange,” said I. “Turn it in.”
“Sorry, Laz, I got carried away.”
“Murdered my poor dear daddy,” went Colin again.
And would you believe it?
Or even if you wouldn’t.
The whole damn lot of them went for me!