‘You already have three of these,’ he said. ‘What do you want from me this time?’
I said, ‘I’m almost afraid to tell you, it’s such a crazy idea.’
He began to look interested. ‘Crazy is good,’ he said. ‘Too much not enough crazy in this world. Tell me anything, I’m very electric.’
‘You mean eclectic.’
‘That too, but I sing the body electric. I’m talking Walt Whitman here.’
‘Please don’t. Can I tell you what I want now?’
‘OK. Always you’re in a hurry, Istvan. Slow down, smell the flowers, listen to the birds.’
‘There aren’t any birds, the radiators are knocking and what I smell isn’t flowers.’
‘It’s High John the Conqueror root, I grind it up and make little incense cones out of it. This root gives power, it’s good luck, one of Aunt Zophrania’s top sellers.’
‘Right, are you going to let me tell you my problem now?’
‘Go ahead. I can see that your problem wants to become my problem.’
So I told him and he became quite excited. ‘This is top crazy,’ he said. ‘Show me the video.’
I handed him Last Stage to El Paso. He put it in his VCR and played it, backing it up now and then to see a scene again. ‘This is a woman I could fall in love with,’ he said.
‘First of all, she’s dead,’ I said.
‘Nobody’s perfect,’ he said.
‘And I saw her first,’ I said.
‘Keep your shirt on. You want to isolate her, this is what you have to do.’ He gave me detailed instructions and I took notes.
‘Let me know what happens,’ Chauncey said as I was leaving.
‘You bet,’ I said.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘take some High John with you, you’ll want all the power you can get.’ He gave me a box of the little incense cones.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘See you.’ I hurried home and got started while everything was still fresh in my mind. With Chauncey’s instructions I converted the video to a digitised version that I could scan frame by frame. I got a JPEG of the frame I wanted, then I started up Photoshop and highlighted the background. I went to the inverse of that and got Justine with black all around her which I cut out and pasted on a blank Photoshop canvas. So far, so good.
What I had in mind was to do a small-size trial run first. In order to use a diffraction grating I devised a converter that would laserise the light from the Justine figure and aim it at the slits in the diffraction grating. The grating was something I remembered from sixth-form physics. This was a low-tech job made of cardboard and only fourteen inches high with two slits in it. I had a sheet of photographic printing paper covered with foil on a little easel about two feet away. I darkened the room, put Justine up on the screen, triggered the laser, and uncovered the paper as the interference pattern appeared. Then I covered it again, went into the darkroom, and printed it. That gave me the particles of the interference pattern on the paper. I dissolved the paper in hydrochloric acid and then what I had on the bottom of the tray were the particles alone.
1 January 2004. Everything grinds to a halt for Christmas but I took a taxi out to Thierson & Bates Biologicals in Surrey and got some frog specimens before they closed. Chauncey Lim helped me out with the chemicals I needed and by New Year’s Eve I was ready to have a go.
I poured the particles into a test tube containing polypetides that I’d prepared from the frogs. I figured that my primordial soup would bind the particles in a suspension of disbelief and the frog DNA wouldn’t interfere with the identity of the particles. I lit the High John cones and when the room smelled lucky I zapped the soup with 240 volts. Smoke came out of the test tube and there was an electrical smell. Then Jesus Christ, there she was in the test tube in black-and-white, about four inches high. She looked scared, and stood there twisting slowly with her arms above her head because of the narrowness of the tube. As I looked at her from all angles I had a crazed feeling of power. Then I suddenly felt so sad that I began to cry. I was shaking, and with the test tube in my left hand I put my right hand behind me so I could lean on the table but I pricked my finger on the point of a scalpel. When I held up my hand a drop of blood fell into the test tube and all at once tiny Justine blossomed into colour. She looked at me and mouthed, ‘Oh!’ Then the colour faded and with it the whole figure, ghastly in monochrome as it shrivelled into nothing. Oh, my God, the sadness! I stood there holding the test tube and looking at the emptiness where she’d been with my head spinning round on the first day of the New Year.
3
Irving Goodman
2 January 2004. Finding and losing! I found Justine in the lonely night-time hours when I watched westerns and drank myself to sleep. Men quick to anger, loyal unto death, fast on the draw. Horses beautiful and innocent. Women to inspire a good man and madden a bad one. Mountains and plains and rivers, canyons, arroyos, gulches and draws. Mists of morning and moons over the desert. Justine flickering in my sodden half-dreams and my forlorn hopes.
Having found her, was I now to lose her to Istvan Fallok? Was this ordained, written in the Big Book of Absurdity? I had turned to Fallok to make Justine real for me and now I knew in my heart that he was out to take her from me. The way he leered when she swung into the saddle, Oh God. Has he brought her into our reality or has he gone into hers? Wherever they are, I’ll find them and take her away from him, that bastard. Him and his high-tech treachery. Don’t go with him, Justine, I saw you first.
4
Chauncey Lim
3 January 2004. Justine Trimble. There is that about her which moves me deeply and stirs profoundly the essential Chauncey, the inner Lim. Istvan Fallok, that creep. Every now and then he comes round and buys a Virginia Mayo pen and expects me to do anything he requires of me. Insufferable cheek. The white man patronising the yellow brother. Why then do I do that which he asks me to do? Do I need his goodwill? No, I piss on his goodwill.
Justine Trimble. The very thought of her makes my heart sing. Fallok is all wrong for her and I intend to make her mine. This is the first time I’ve put it into words but there it is. Where is he or where are they now? He said he would let me know what’s happening but I’ve heard nothing. Which means that something is happening. Otherwise he’d have come round to buy another pen.
I went to Elijah’s Lucky Dragon, Rosalie Chun’s restaurant in Golders Green. Rosalie’s maiden name was Cohen but she married into North Chinese cuisine, wears iridescent cheongsams although she’s fourteen stone, and has mingled Golders Green with North China to the point where she is now to cholesterol what Charlton Heston is to rifles. I had latkes Xingjiang with sour cream. While I was doing quality belching and drinking jasmine tea Rosalie came over to my table. ‘Hi Chaunce,’ she said. ‘How’re they hanging?’
‘Uncertainly,’ I said. ‘Yourself?’
‘A day older than yesterday but not much wiser. You look troubled.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Profoundly.’
‘Woman?’
‘Yes, but it’s probably an impossible love.’
‘The best kind,’ she said. ‘Don’t move – I’ll bring you chicken soup Lucky Dragon with industrial-strength matzoh balls. This will put roses in your cheeks and yang in your schlong, guaranteed.’
‘Matzoh balls?’ I said.
‘With Yongzheng ingredients,’ she said. ‘Very secret, don’t ask.’
I partook of the soup and I felt that my probably impossible love might be negotiable. I said to Rosalie, ‘I am now spiritually refreshed and ready for whatever comes next. Thank you.’
‘What are friends for?’ she said. ‘And remember, in the immortal words of Rabbi Whatshisname from Kotzk, “If you can’t get over it, get under it.”’
‘I’ll remember that,’ I said. What I did next was go down to Istvan Fallok’s place for a butcher’s at the mad genius. I didn’t go in but through the glass I could see him sitting with his head in his hands. There were various contraptions
on his work table but no sign of Justine Trimble. So apparently no result yet.
5
Istvan Fallok
5 January 2004. Now what? Do I even want to think about it? The idea of it puts me off with its perversity and at the same time it turns me on. I can’t get it of my mind, how the colour went out of her and she shrivelled up and became dust. That was just a little tiny Justine. With a full-size one it’s a whole new ball game. And if I do it, where do we go from there?
6
Irving Goodman
6 January 2004. Almost two months and still no word from that treacherous bastard. Some people can’t be trusted and inevitably they find idiots who trust them. I’ve always been stupid that way from childhood onward. When I swapped with other kids I always got the worst of the bargain. And was the victim of choice for bullies as well. ‘Four-Eyes’, they called me, and knocked off my glasses. That’s part of it – Fallok wouldn’t try it on with someone who wouldn’t stand for it. He thinks I can’t do anything to stop him but we’ll see about that.
I started hanging around his place to keep an eye on his comings and goings or his lying low, whichever. The blind was down so you couldn’t see into the studio. There was a note on the door with a phone number. I called the number and a husky female voice said, ‘Hello.’
‘Who’s this?’ I said.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Irv Goodman, I’m a friend of Istvan’s. And you?’
‘Grace Kowalski. He said you might call.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s away.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’
‘When’s he coming back?’
‘Didn’t say. You know Istvan – when he doesn’t want to say he doesn’t say.’
‘Where is this number that I’m talking to now?’ I said.
‘It’s my shop, All That Glisters.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘In Berwick Street, towards the Oxford Street end, I’m between Black Dog Music and the Raj Tandoori Restaurant.’ She gave me the number.
‘Can I come round to see you?’
‘If you like. I can’t tell you any more than I’ve already done but maybe you can tell me something.’
She sounded like vodka rather than scotch so on my way I bought a bottle of Stolichnaya at Nicolas in Berwick Street and proceeded to All That Glisters. Berwick Street was still busy with foot traffic, cars, taxis, foodsy smells and people with guidebooks looking in restaurant windows. Grace Kowalski’s shop was closed by now. Expensive-looking jewellery, strange designs in the window behind the grating. Lights upstairs. I rang the bell and she came down carrying a baseball bat. Tall woman, gaunt, in her sixties I thought, grey hair in two long plaits, denim shirt not tucked in, jeans, bare feet. Her feet looked open-minded. ‘Hi,’ she said. We shook hands and I followed her upstairs to the flat which was partly studio with a workbench and a lot of tools and clutter. Various craftsmanlike smells: metal, soldering flux, blowtorch etc. She leaned the bat in a corner. ‘Why the Louisville Slugger?’ I said.
‘I always carry a bat on the first date,’ she said.
‘I always carry a bottle,’ I said, and gave her the Stolichnaya.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How did you know I liked vodka?’
‘You sounded like vodka. In the nicest possible way.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ She got two glasses. ‘Tonic with it?’ she said. ‘Ice?’
‘Just as it comes,’ I said.
‘My kind of drinker,’ she said, and poured.
‘Here’s looking at you,’ I said.
‘And here’s looking right back.’ We clank and drank. ‘What’s this all about?’ she said. ‘Do you know?’
‘I don’t know where Istvan is, if that’s what you mean. You said you didn’t either, but do you?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t lying. I haven’t a clue.’
‘Istvan hasn’t told you about Justine Trimble?’
‘No, who’s she?’
I told her everything I knew and my suspicions as well. Grace shook her head. ‘That bastard,’ she said. She tilted her head to one side and studied me for a few moments. ‘You’re the kind of guy who gets pushed around, aren’t you.’
I nodded.
‘Me too,’ she said.
‘You and Istvan … ?’
‘You could say we had some kind of understanding. Or rather, that’s what I understood but maybe he didn’t.’ She’d been pouring steadily and drinking a good deal faster than I. ‘Sometimes all you can do is make the best of a bad sitsatuation,’ she said. ‘Sisuashion. You know what I mean.’
‘Absolutely. As the I Ching says, “When the river dries up, the superior woman drinks vodka.”’
‘I’m drunk. Would you like to take advantage of me?’
‘Very much. I regret that I am no longer a player.’
‘Don’t regret. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and you look like an imaginative guy.’ She lifted her shirt tails and dropped her jeans.
‘If you put it that way,’ I said, and got imaginative.
In the morning we both woke up with no way to hold our heads that didn’t hurt and we had coffee while considering what would come next. ‘Are you going to do anything about Istvan?’ said Grace.
‘So far,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nothing to go on but his absence and my suspicions.’
‘Which are probably correct.’
‘Have you got keys to his place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been inside since he left that message on the door?’
‘Yes.’
‘And … ?’
‘Come with me and see for yourself.’
We went round to Fallok’s place and down the steps to his grotto. Inside were a rank and earthy smell and various devices that I hadn’t seen before. Conspicuous among them was an oil drum half full of what smelt like some primordial soup. Close by was a cardboard panel about six feet high with two slits side by side half-way up. I recognised it from high-school experiments as a diffraction grating. There were wings that could be folded to support it in an upright position. I stood it up and switched on what looked like a special kind of projector. On the cardboard Justine appeared in a still from Last Stage to El Paso. Beyond the diffraction grating on a white board was the interference pattern.
‘What do you think?’ I said to Grace.
She said, ‘I don’t like the way that thing is looking at me with its two slitty eyes.’
‘OK, but apart from that?’
‘I think he left all this in place because he wants us to see what he’s doing.’
‘Which is?’
‘What you told me: reconstituting Justine.’
‘And you believe he wants us to know about that?’
‘Istvan’s a funny guy. Maybe he’s afraid of what he’s got into and doesn’t want to lose touch with the straight world.’ She was clinging to my arm. ‘Do you think he’s done it? Reconstituted Justine Trimble?’
‘If he found that he could, he certainly would.’
‘Why do the two of you have the hots for this twenty-five-year-old dead woman?’
‘A dirty old man is the only kind of old man there is, Grace, and age brings out all kinds of strangeness.’
‘I don’t mind strange. Would you stay with me tonight?’
‘Sure, but let’s go to my place. I want to check my e-mail and set the video timer.’
‘What are you going to record?’
‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.’
‘Has it got a happy ending?’
‘Not in the usual sense.’
‘I like happy endings.’
‘I have two machines. We can watch Dead Letter Office on the other one. That has a happy ending.’
We were heading for Oxford Circus when I saw Istvan Fallok coming towards us in Marshall Street with someone on his arm – a woman I assume
d. She was wearing a blue anorak with the hood up, tight grey jeans, and black-and-white cowboy boots. ‘Cowboy boots,’ I said. ‘Black-and-white.’ Balaclava and dark glasses under the hood. And gloves. When they saw us they stopped.
‘Wotcher, Istvan?’ I said. ‘What do you hear from El Paso?’
‘I hear that the last stage left a while ago,’ he said. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, there are times when four’s a crowd.’
‘And two is one too many,’ said Grace. ‘But at least you could introduce us to your friend.’
‘Not just now,’ said Istvan. ‘We’ll see you around.’
‘Maybe in Technicolor next time,’ I said as he and his silent companion walked past us and away.
7
Grace Kowalski
8 January 2004. So that was Miss Justine (Dead Meat) Trimble? Irv says Istvan bundled her up like that because she was only black-and-white. Maybe he’ll unveil the full-colour version at a later date. OK. If that’s Istvan’s idea of a really good time I wish him joy of it. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against kinky. Kinky is OK in my book. Still, I suppose everyone draws the line somewhere. If I had a sister, would I want her to marry a necrophile? Consenting adults and all that. A prenuptial agreement with a posthumous clause. But then again.
Well, of course Irv is no better than Istvan really. He wants to get his hands on that dead meat too. Men are trouble enough when they’re young, but when they’re old! If I didn’t know that form and emptiness are the same thing I’d be worried.
8
Chauncey Lim
8 January 2004. Obviously I wasn’t going to hear from Istvan in the usual way so I made my preparations. I went to his place and I couldn’t see in because the blinds were closed. I’d rigged a bug with a tiny radio mike and a buttonhole vidcam. The letterbox wasn’t sealed so I stuck chewing gum on a non-vital part of the bug and put it in a little catapult meant for launching a toy helicopter. I stuck my hand through the letterbox, launched the bug, and hoped for the best. Then I went home to check the monitor.