Waiting for Godalming Read online

  ‘Ease up, Porkie,’ says I. ‘I may be down, but I’m far from out.’

  ‘Do you want to settle your tab?’

  ‘I’m out,’ says I. ‘You have me there.’

  Oh how we laughed again.

  ‘By the by, Laz,’ says Fangio to me, when the laughter has died down once more in the bar that names his bear. ‘I’ve been thinking of taking up a hobby. Is there anything you’d recommend to me?’

  ‘How about slimming?’ I offered in ribald recommendation.

  ‘Would that involve eating less?’ asked Fangio. ‘Because as you know I gorge like a pig, for it’s my only pleasure.’

  ‘Rubber bondage?’

  ‘Well, almost my only pleasure. I was thinking of something cerebral that required next to no exercise, cost but a penny or two and could win me a first prize at the annual bartenders’ orchid-breeding competition.’

  ‘How about orchid-breeding, then?’

  ‘What, with my back? Come off it.’

  ‘Hang-gliding?’

  ‘Too high.’

  ‘Bass-playing?’

  ‘Far too low.’

  ‘Asking after the good health of folk?’

  ‘Fair to middling. Mustn’t grumble.’

  ‘How about a card game?’ says I.

  ‘Not with you, you cheating Arab.’

  ‘No, not with me, Fange. How about taking up a card game as a hobby?’

  ‘Well,’ the fat boy stroked at his chins and a bird blew by in Brooklyn. ‘I used to play cards a lot when I was a grunt in ’Nam.’

  ‘You’re still a grunt in my book, Fange.’

  ‘Thanks very much, my friend.’

  ‘So,’ says I. ‘Card games it is. What kind of card game do you fancy?’

  The Fange gave his chins another stroke for luck and asked, ‘What games do you know?’

  I made the face of thought, and pretty damn I made it. ‘There’s Cribbage, Blackjack, Patience, Parliament, Chase the Ace, Rummy, Chemmy, Piquet, Strip Poker, Stud Poker, Seven Card Stud Poker, Bridge, Whist, Old Maid, Happy Families, Three Card Brag, Smiling Faces, Pontoon, Batter My Old Brown Dog in a Basket, Snap, and Snip Snap Snorum.’

  ‘What about Six Card Walkabout?’

  ‘Yes, there’s Six Card Walkabout. Strip Jack Naked. Boil My Brains in a Barrelful of Bran, Cock the Snoot at the Cockney Cowboy, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Kick Butt West of the Pennines.’

  ‘You’re just making these up now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Have been for quite some time, actually.’

  ‘So how do you play Kick Butt West of the Pennines?’

  ‘With aces wild and one-eyed Jacks worth double if you put one on top of a black ten or nine.’

  ‘Very much the same as Batter My Old Brown Bog in a Basket, then?’

  ‘Same rules apply,’ says I. ‘Do you want me to continue?’

  ‘Have you any more real card games on offer? Or are you just going to carry on making up ones with foolish names?’

  ‘Just carry on, I suppose.’

  ‘Continue then.’

  ‘There’s Hamper the Scotsman. Whoosh Goes a Wimple. Cover the Rabbit. Body Chemistry 4 …’

  ‘Body Chemistry 4?’ says Fangio. ‘Surely that’s a 1994 movie starring former Playboy playmate Shannon Tweed. The one where she has it away with a character called Simon on top of a pool table.’

  ‘Well, you can play cards on top of a pool table, can’t you?’

  ‘Not if someone’s having it away.’

  ‘No, you’re right. Forget about Body Chemistry 4. There’s Round My Hat with a Pigeon on a String, Beat the Bad Boy Berty, Jump Around Shorty and Set ’em up Joe …’

  ‘You sure know your card games, buddy.’

  ‘Listen, Fange,’ says I, ‘in my business, knowing your card games can mean the difference between getting it up on a cold winter’s night, or getting them down in a Dormobile. If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do.’

  ‘I know where you’re coming from there,’ says Fange, and who was I to doubt him?

  We paused for a moment and chewed some more fat.

  ‘That was good,’ said Fange.

  ‘What, the fat?’

  ‘No, the toot. That was a good bit of toot we just talked there. A first class piece of toot.’

  ‘Glad that you enjoyed it. Do you want me to make up a few more card games?’

  ‘No,’ said Fangio, shaking his jowls. ‘The secret lies in knowing when to stop. But, by the by, Laz. There was a guy in here earlier asking after you.’

  ‘How could he be asking after me, if he was in here earlier than me?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Fangio. ‘We live in troubled times.’

  ‘So what did this guy look like?’

  ‘Well.’ The fat boy pecked upon a peanut. ‘Looked a lot like Mike Mazurki to me.’

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘A hint of Brian Donleavy over the eyes.’

  I scratched at my gonads with equal thought.

  ‘Spoke a little like the now legendary Charles Laughton.’

  I whistled through my teeth with less thought than it takes to pluck a turkey. ‘The now legendary Charles?’ whistled I.

  ‘Yeah, and he had a Rondo hat on.’

  Oh how we laughed once more. Because after all, it was a pun on Rondo Hatton.

  ‘But seriously,’ said Fangio. ‘He left his card for you.’

  ‘Is it a one-eyed Jack?’ I asked. ‘Because they’re worth double if you lay them on a black ten or nine.’

  ‘No, it was his business card. We’ve done with the card game toot.’

  ‘I’ve a few foolish names left in me.’

  ‘I’m all too sure you have.’ Fangio produced the card from a place where the sun never shines and pushed it over the counter to the place where I sat bathed all in glory.

  I read aloud, to myself, from the card. ‘Mr Cormerant,’ I read. ‘The Ministry of Serendipity.’

  ‘Speak up a bit,’ said Fangio.

  ‘Cormerant,’ said I.

  ‘Cormerant?’ said Fangio. ‘Isn’t that an aquatic bird of the family Phalacrocoracidae that inhabits coastal and inland waters, having dark plumage and a slender hooked beak?’

  ‘No, I think you’ll find that’s a cormorant.’

  ‘Ah, thanks for putting me straight.’

  ‘So did this guy say what he wanted with me?’

  ‘No,’ says Fangio. ‘But if you want my opinion, I’d say that he was looking to engage your services as a private investigator in order that you might track down a briefcase of his that has gone missing and contains certain items which if they fell into the wrong hands, or even the right ones, might spell doom to this world of ours in any one of a dozen different languages, including Esperanto.’

  ‘Well, if I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,’ says I. ‘Did he say that he might call back?’

  ‘He might have,’ said Fange. ‘But I wasn’t listening. Care for a bit more chewing fat?’

  I shook my head in a negative way that mirrored my negative thoughts. There was something about this card that didn’t smell right to me. Something foully depraved and loathsome to the extreme. Something…

  ‘Turn it in, Laz,’ said Fangio. ‘You always do that when I give you a card and it frankly gets right up my jumper.’

  ‘There’s something about this business card that I don’t like one bit.’

  ‘Probably the shape,’ said Fangio. ‘You can tell a great deal about a man’s character by the shape of his business card.’

  ‘But surely they’re all the same basic shape.’

  ‘Mine aren’t,’ said Fangio. ‘Some of mine are such horrible shapes that it makes me feel sick to my stomach just to look at them. I figure that any man who owns business cards the shape of mine must be some kind of psycho.’

  ‘And did you choose the shapes yourself?’

  ‘Certainly not. How dare you!’

  ‘I’ll sleep easy in my
bed tonight then, Fange.’

  ‘Gobbo the gnome who lives in my nose told me the shapes to cut them.’

  ‘I’ll lock my bedroom door before I go to sleep.’

  A guy along the bar was making waves and rattling his empty glass upon the counter. ‘Is there any chance of getting served here?’ he was heard to ask. ‘Or are you two going to talk toot all night, while the rest of us die of thirst?’

  ‘I’d better go and serve him,’ said Fangio. ‘He’s been standing there with an empty glass in his hand since before we started chewing the fat, let alone talking the toot.’

  ‘You go and serve him then,’ says I, ‘while I ponder over this card and try to get a handle on the guy who left it here. By using certain psychic powers that I don’t like to talk about, I can conjure up a mental visualization of the card’s owner, by tuning myself to the cosmic vibrations emanating from the card. I’m already getting an image of Mike Mazurki, with a hint of Brian Donleavy over the eyes and a voice like the legendary Charles L—’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ says Fangio. ‘I’ll go serve the customer. Sorry to keep you waiting there, Mr Cormerant.’

  ‘What?’

  I bid the guy the big hello and made my presence felt. The hand that held his liquor was shaking more than a go-go-dancing vibrator demonstrator with a bad case of St Vitus. Or possibly just a little less. Who am I to say?

  I looked the fella up and down and then from side to side. He had a definite hint of Brian Donleavy over the eyes. And there was more than a trace of the legendary Charles in the voice he used to speak with. But the thing that struck me most about him had to be his hat.

  ‘Is that a Rondo?’ says I, admiring the cut of his jib.

  ‘No,’ says he. ‘It’s a bowler.’

  We established ourselves at the table near the rear. The one to the left of the gents. It’s a bit of a favourite with me. Secluded. Out of the way. That hint of exclusivity that offers the client confidence. Muted lighting that catches my noble profile just so in the tinted wall mirror and a lot of firm support in the seat, which can be handy if your piles are playing up.

  ‘So,’ says I, when we’ve comfied ourselves, ‘what’s the deal here, fella?’

  ‘My name is—’

  ‘Cormerant,’ says I.

  ‘Cormerant,’ says he. ‘And I work for—’

  ‘The Ministry of Serendipity,’ says I.

  ‘The Ministry of Serendipity,’ says he. ‘And I…’

  I paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you pausing for?’ says he.

  ‘I wasn’t pausing,’ says I. ‘I was waiting for you to continue. You paused first.’

  ‘Well, you kept interrupting.’

  ‘I wasn’t interrupting. I was anticipating.’

  ‘That’s the same as interrupting, if you butt in. That’s interrupting.’

  I leaned across the table and beckoned the guy towards me. As he leaned forward, I butted him right in the face.

  He fell back gasping and clawing at his bloodied nose.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ he mumbled, pulling out an oversized red gingham handkerchief to dab at all the gore.

  ‘I just wanted to clear up a matter of semantics,’ says I. ‘That was butting. I was anticipating.’

  Naturally he thanked me.

  He got us in another brace of beers and then explained his situation. Clearly, without pause. Apparently he wanted to engage my services as a private investigator in order that I might track down a briefcase of his that had gone missing and contained certain items which, if they fell into the wrong hands, or even the right ones, might spell doom to this world of ours in any one of at least eleven different languages.

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ says I.

  He counted on his fingers. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ says he. ‘Twelve different languages, including Esperanto.’

  ‘Just as I thought.’

  ‘And so I came to you,’ says the guy. ‘Because I’ve heard you’re the best.’

  ‘You heard right,’ says I. ‘So, do you want to tell me exactly what’s really in this briefcase of yours?’

  The guy gave his head the shake that meant, “No.”

  ‘Well how’s about telling me the last place you saw it?’

  ‘Do you know Stravino’s barber’s shop?’

  I pointed to my crowning glory. ‘What does this tell you?’ I asked.

  ‘It tells me that you asked for a Ramón Navarro.’

  ‘Precisely, and what did I get?’

  ‘You got a Tony Curtis.’

  The guy and I chewed fat for a while and then he took his leave. I returned to the bar to find Fangio shuffling cards.

  ‘Pick a card, any card,’ says he.

  ‘Three of spades,’ says I.

  ‘Correct,’ says he. ‘But how did you know?’

  ‘Let’s call it intuition.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Fangio. ‘I was going to call it Rush the Flush, but Intuition is better. So how did you get on with Mr Cormerant? Are you going to take the case?’

  I nodded in the infirmary. Wherever the hell that was. ‘He gave me a thousand big ones up front.’

  Fangio seemed lost for words. ‘I’m lost for words,’ he said.

  ‘The guy left his briefcase in Stravino’s, where it was apparently lifted by some petty criminal. It shouldn’t be too hard to track it down.’

  ‘Stravino’s the barber’s shop?’ said Fangio.

  ‘You know the place?’ says I.

  Fangio pointed to his head. ‘What does this say to you?’ says he.

  ‘It says to me that you have a big fat head,’ says I.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Fangio. ‘Precisely.’

  Now I know what you’re thinking, my friends. You’re thinking, how come this Lazlo Woodbine, a man clearly possessed of a mind like a steel trapper’s snap-trap, hasn’t seen the glaring continuity error here? Surely he’s in a bar in Manhattan and Stravino’s shop is in South Ealing High Street many miles far to the east.

  Well, hey, come on now.

  You’re dealing with a professional here. A master of the genre. And though I might have said it was another long hot Manhattan night, that didn’t necessarily mean that it was night or that it was actually in Manhattan. Like I told you, I work only the four locations, but if all my four locations were permanently in Manhattan, that would seriously limit my scope of operations, and as you only ever see the interior of Fangio’s bar, it could be anywhere. Like, say, at the end of South Ealing High Street, near to the Station Hotel.

  ‘Remember the time it was in Casablanca?’ says Fangio. ‘Some laughs we had then, eh, Laz?’

  ‘Shut your face, fat boy,’ says I.

  ‘Will you be settling your tab now? What with you having a thousand big ones up front?’

  I gave my head the kind of shake you couldn’t buy for a dollar. And I took a look at the big bar clock that hung up on the wall. And then I gazed along the bar to where the little brown men with hats on sat, a-strumming at their ukes. And then I peered up at the ceiling where the bumblies hung and the ghost of Christmas past had once appeared to Fangio. And then I glanced down at the floor and then I peeped out of the window.

  ‘Something on your mind?’ asked Fangio.

  ‘I’m just wondering where she is.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘The dame that does me wrong. The one who always bops me over the head at this point, so that I tumble down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. She should have shown up by now.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ said Fange. ‘She phoned earlier. Said she wouldn’t be in this lunchtime. Sent her apologies.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said that she has to go and bop some other detective over the head today. Some tormented detective with a drink problem and a broken marriage, who’s coming to terms with a tragedy that happened in his youth, and re
aching out to his feminine side.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said that the nineteen-fifties American genre detective is now an anachronism and an anathema. The stuff of cheap pulp fiction. She’s moved right upmarket now. Gone all fancy and post-modern.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘So it looks like you’re out on your own this time, Laz. Or should that be in on your own? Because unless you can get someone else to bop you on the head, I can’t see how you’ll be able to stick with your genre and do things the way that things should be done. After all, the bopping over the head business is a big number with you genre detective lads, isn’t it?’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Laz, will you let up on the WHATing already? You’re giving me a migraine.’

  ‘But what am I going to do?’ I asked. ‘She can’t do this to me. I’m Lazlo Woodbine! Lazlo Woodbine! Some call me Laz. She can’t just abandon me. Leave me stuck in a bar. This could be the greatest case of my whole career. The Big One. You gotta help me, Fange. What am I gonna do?’

  ‘Well.’ The fat boy scratched at his gut. ‘We might come to some arrangement.’

  ‘What?’ I kept my what small this time.

  ‘We’re old pals; I might be prepared to do you a favour.’

  ‘Go on then,’ says I.

  ‘Well,’ the fat boy scratched at his gut again, ‘I don’t think you’ll find that it has to be a dame that does you wrong who bops you on the head. It could be anyone.’

  ‘Anyone?’

  ‘It could even be me.’

  ‘You? You would bop me over the head? But why would you want to bop me over the head?’

  ‘Like I say, we might come to some arrangement. Lend us your ear and I’ll whisper.’

  I lent Fangio my ear and he whispered. ‘That’s outrageous,’ I exasperated, once his whispering was done.

  ‘That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.’

  I sighed deeply. ‘I’ll take it,’ says I.

  ‘Look out behind you,’ cried Fangio.

  I turned and then something hit me from behind.

  And I was falling.

  Tumbling down.

  Down. Down.

  Deeper and down.

  Into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

  Yes siree.

  By golly.