19

LA Police Chief Samuel J. Maggott was having a rough one.

Such is the way with police chiefs, that they are generally having a rough one. Things conspire against them all the time. Things pile up. Often it is that they have just given up smoking, and drinking, and are going through a messy divorce. And that the ‘powers that be’ are coming down hard upon them, demanding results on cases that seem beyond all human comprehension.

Then there’s the matter of their underlings. That feisty new policewoman who doesn’t play by the rules but always gets results. And that troubled young detective who won’t give up smoking or drinking and has never been married and gets all the girls and doesn’t play by the rules, but also always gets the job done.

And then there’s that coffee machine that never works properly and it’s a really hot summer and the air conditioning’s broken down and …

So on and so forth and suchlike.

And now there’s this fellow.

LA Police Chief Samuel J. Maggott sat down heavily in his office chair, behind his office desk. The office that he sat down in was a proper police chief’s office. There were little American flags sprouting from his inkwell. There were medals in small glass cases on the walls. Near the picture of the President. And the ones of Sam’s family, which included the wife who was presently divorcing him. And there were other American flags here and there, because there always are. And there were framed citations won in the cause of police duty (above and beyond the call of it, generally). And there was a coffee machine and an air-conditioning unit, the latter making strange noises.

And there was this fellow.

This fellow sat in the visitors’ chair, across the desk from Sam’s. This fellow sat uneasily, uncomfortably. His hands were in his lap. His wrists were handcuffed together.

After he’d done with the heavy sitting down, Sam did some puffings. He’d been putting on weight recently. It was all the stress that he’d been under, which had caused him to put more food beneath his belt, which put him under even more pressure to lose some weight.

Sam sighed and inwardly cursed his lot. The things he had to put up with. And he hadn’t even touched upon the racial politics, because Sam was, of course, a black man.

As are all American police chiefs.

Apparently.

Sam puffed and Sam sighed and Sam mopped sweat from his brow. He mopped it with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. It had belonged to his mother, who had died last week, and had only yesterday been put under.

And still there was this fellow.

This fellow sat, with his hands in his lap, naked in the visitors’ chair.

Sam shook his head, which was thinning on top, and said a single word. ‘Coffee?’

The naked fellow looked up at Sam. ‘Did you say “coffee”?’ he asked.

‘I’m asking you, do you want coffee?’

‘I’d rather have a pair of underpants.’

‘Don’t be foolish, boy,’ said Sam. ‘You cannot drink underpants. Unless, of course …’ And Sam’s mind returned to something he’d done recently at a club on the East Side, which he really shouldn’t have been at, and wouldn’t have been at if he hadn’t been so depressed about his dog getting stolen and everything.

‘Could I have my clothes back, please?’ asked the naked fellow. He was a young naked fellow, rangy and tanned, spare of frame and wiry of limb.

‘Are you cold?’ asked Sam.

‘No,’ said the fellow, ‘but it’s pretty humiliating sitting here naked.’

‘You’ve got nothing that I ain’t seen before, fella,’ said Sam, almost instantly regretting that he had. What was it his therapist kept telling him?

‘Well, if men’s genitalia are so commonplace to you,’ said the fellow, ‘I can’t imagine what pleasure you will have viewing mine.’

‘Pleasure don’t come into this,’ said Sam.

‘I do so agree,’ said the fellow.

‘But anyway, your clothes are with forensics. We’ll soon see what they have to tell us.’

The fellow, whose name was Jack, thought suddenly of Wallah. Suddenly and sadly too thought he.

‘My clothes will have nothing to say to you,’ said Jack.

‘On the contrary.’ Sam rose heavily from his chair to fetch coffee for himself. ‘They’ve told us much already.’

‘They have?’ Jack asked as he watched the large black police chief worry at the coffee machine.

‘Oh yes.’ And Sam kicked the coffee machine. ‘A great deal.’ And Sam shook the coffee machine. ‘A very great deal, in fact.’ And Sam stooped heavily and peered into the little hatchway where one (such as he) who had pressed all the correct buttons above might reasonably expect to see a plastic cup full of coffee.

No such cup was to be found.

Sam peered deeper into the little hatch. ‘A great deal of Aaaaagh!’

‘A great deal of what?’ asked Jack.

But Sam didn’t hear him. Sam was wildly mopping boiling water from his face with his oversized red gingham handkerchief.

‘Goddamn useless machine!’ And Sam moved swiftly for a heavy man and dealt the machine many heavy blows.

The glass partition door opened and the attractive face of a feisty young policewoman smiled through the opening. ‘Chief,’ said she, ‘I’ve just cracked the case that’s had you baffled for months. I—’

‘Get out!’ shouted Sam, returning without coffee to his desk.

‘Stressful job, is it?’ Jack asked. ‘The American Dream not working out?’

Sam, now once more in his chair, leaned forward over his desk. Two little flags fell onto the floor along with an overfull ashtray. ‘Now just listen here, fella,’ said Sam, ‘don’t go giving me no lip. I don’t like a wise guy, understand me?’

‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘About my clothes.’

‘Ah yes, your clothes.’ And Sam leaned back and Sam took up a folder. And having opened same, examined the contents therein. ‘Fingerprints not on file,’ said Sam. ‘No ID. No record, it seems, that you even exist.’

‘I’m from England,’ said Jack, ‘and I’m a friend of the Queen.’

‘Is that so?’ Sam nodded. ‘And your name is Jack, no surname. Just Jack.’

‘Just Jack,’ said Jack.

‘As in Jack the Ripper?’ asked Sam. ‘English psycho, said to be in league with the royal household?’

‘I think we’re going off on a bit of a tangent,’ said Jack, uncomfortably shifting from one bottom cheek to the other. ‘Could I please have my clothes back, please?’

‘No,’ said Sam. ‘Those clothes of yours could well be my passport out of here.’

‘I’m certain that if I listen long enough,’ said Jack, ‘I will be able to learn whatever language it is that you are speaking. But I do not have time. I must be off at once.’

‘You’re going nowhere, fella. Nowhere at all.’

‘But I’ve done nothing. I’m innocent.’

‘Innocent?’ Sam laughed and loudly, too. And then he coughed, because laughing too much always brought on a touch of the malaria he’d contracted whilst fighting U-boats in the jungles of South-East Asia. ‘Cough, cough, cough,’ went Sam.

‘If you’ll unlock these cuffs,’ said Jack, ‘I’ll gladly pat your back.’

‘I’m fine.’ Sam reached into a desk drawer, drew from it the bottle of bourbon that he’d promised his specialist he’d poured away down the sink, uncorked it and poured away much of its contents down his throat. ‘I’m fine. Goddamnit.’

‘Can I go, please?’ Jack asked.

‘No, fella, you cannot. You and your girlfriend held a crowd of managers and chefs at gunpoint, beat a chef called Bruce to within an inch of his life—’

‘We never did,’ said Jack.

‘Took two hostages. Famous movie stars – Sydney Greenstreet and Marilyn Monroe.’

‘Well …’ said Jack.

‘Beat poor Sydney nearly to dea—’

‘Hold on.’

‘Sexually harassed Marilyn—’

‘I did what?’

‘And we caught you with your chopper in your hand.’

‘Cleaver, please,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s not sink to that level.’

‘Resisting arrest, et cetera, et cetera.’ Sam closed the file. ‘You’re looking at twenty to life, if not the chair.’

‘The chair?’ said Jack, looking down at the chair. ‘This chair?’

‘The electric chair, Old Sparky.’ Sam mimed electricity buzzing through his own head and then death. And well he mimed it, too, considering that he’d no formal training in mime. Although there had been that incident that the department had hushed up, regarding that female mime artist, the raspberry jelly and the bicycle pump. That could always blow up in his face if he sought further advancement.

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Jack.

‘You won’t like the feel, either, or the smell as your brains boil in your head.’

‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘you don’t understand. I’ve been trying to explain.’

‘Explain to me about the clothes,’ said Sam.

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘it’s pretty basic stuff, really. The shirt is worn much in the way that you wear yours, although mine doesn’t have those large sweat stains under the arms. The trousers, well, that’s pretty basic also – you put your left leg in the left-leg hole and—’

Sam brought his fists down hard on his desk. Inkwells rattled, things fell to the floor. Jack was showered with paperclips. Jack ceased talking. And the glass partition door opened once again.

A young male detective stuck his head through the opening; he had a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Any trouble, Chief?’ he asked. ‘Only I’ve just solved that other case that has had you baffled for months. I—’

‘Get out!’ bawled Sam. The young detective removed himself, slamming the door behind him.

‘Now listen, fella, and listen good,’ Sam said unto Jack. ‘The clothes, your clothes, the ones with forensics – I have a preliminary report here. Let’s deal with the labels first.’

‘The labels?’ And Jack shook his head.

‘The Toy City Suit Company, Fifteen Dumpty Plaza. Explain that if you will.’

‘It’s the shop where the trenchcoat came from. It’s not my trenchcoat.’

‘So you stole it.’

‘No, it belongs to someone who was murdered.’

‘You took it from their corpse. Do you wish to make a confession?’

‘I’d like to see a solicitor,’ said Jack. ‘I believe I am entitled to one.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Sam. ‘As I recall, your girlfriend shouted that at you when we had to have her carried down to the cells after she injured several of my officers.’

‘I warned you not to try to cuff her,’ said Jack. ‘She knows Dimac.’

‘That I know,’ said Sam, sipping further bourbon. ‘We located the official licence for her hands and feet. Registered here! But no matter. There is no Toy City Suit Company. No Dumpty Plaza.’

‘It’s in England,’ said Jack.

‘Which part?’ asked Sam.

‘The whole shop,’ said Jack.

Sam didn’t smile. But then who would?

‘Which part of England is the shop in?’

Jack thought hard. ‘The south part?’ he suggested.

‘The south part,’ said Sam. And he said it thoughtfully.

‘Next door to the Queen’s palace,’ said Jack.

‘Right,’ said Sam, and he plucked at his shirt collar. And, leaning back, he thumped at the air conditioner. Further strange noises issued from this and then it fell silent. Sam took to mopping his brow once more. ‘There is no Dumpty Plaza in England,’ said Sam. ‘There is no Dumpty Plaza anywhere. And as for the fabric of this trenchcoat, there appears to be no such fabric.’

‘Could I see a solicitor now?’ Jack asked.

‘Soon,’ said Sam. ‘When you have answered my questions to my satisfaction.’

‘I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work,’ said Jack.

‘Tell me again about this bear,’ said Sam. ‘This …’ and he consulted the notes he had taken down (before his Biro ran out), ‘this Eddie.’

‘A valuable antique toy bear,’ said Jack, as this was his present stratagem. ‘Stolen from my client by an employee of the Golden Chicken Corporation. I tracked the bear to the headquarters of this corporation. I was interviewing two suspects.’

Sam did further big deep sighings. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Because you are a private eye, sent here from England to recover—’

‘The Queen’s teddy bear,’ said Jack. ‘Like I told you.’

‘And the Golden Chicken Corporation stole the Queen’s teddy bear?’

Jack made a certain face. It wasn’t perhaps the best stratagem that he’d ever come up with, but he was committed to it now. ‘Which is why I am here, undercover,’ said Jack. ‘With no identification.’

Sam did further shakings of the head. And further noddings, too. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘I just wish that for one day, one single day, everything would just be easy.’

‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘you’re not going to believe me no matter what I tell you. If I were to tell you everything and the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t believe a word.’

‘But you won’t tell me the truth.’ Sam leaned back in his chair and all but fell from it. ‘Because no one tells the truth. No one. Take my wife, for instance …’ Sam swivelled round in his chair, rose and gazed through the window. Outside, LA shimmered in the midday sunlight, high-finned autos cruised along the broad expanse of thoroughfare, palms waved drowsily, birds circled high in the clear blue sky.

‘My wife,’ said Sam. ‘I gave that woman everything. Treated her like the Queen of England, I did, me. She wanted dance classes, I got her dance classes. She wanted voice tuition, I got her voice tuition. She wanted singing lessons, I got her singing lessons. I paid for that woman to have plastic surgery, breast implants, nail extensions. And what does she do? Becomes a Goddamn movie star is what she does. Signs that contract and dumps yours truly. Is that fair? Is that just? Is that right? I ask you, fella, is that right?’

Sam turned to gauge Jack’s opinion on the fairness and rightness of all this.

But Jack was nowhere to be seen.

The handcuffs he had been wearing lay on Sam Maggott’s desk, their locks picked with a paperclip.

Now, it’s never easy to escape from a police station. Especially during the hours of daylight. And especially when naked.

And Sam set off the alarm, which had police all running about. And Sam opened his office door and shouted at the feisty young policewoman and the troubled young detective who was smoking a fag and chatting her up. And all the other policemen and -women in the big outer office. And he berated them and ordered them to reapprehend the naked escapee at once, or heads would roll and future prospects be endangered. And police folk hurried thither and thus, but Jack was not to be found.

Jack eased his naked self along the air-conditioning duct. The one he’d climbed into from the police chief’s desk, through its little hatch, which he had thoughtfully closed behind him. He was uncertain exactly which way he should be easing his naked self, but as far away from the office as possible seemed the right way to go.

‘I don’t bear the man a grudge,’ said Jack to himself as he did further uncomfortable easings along. ‘And I do think his wife treated him unfairly. But even though I am a youth, in the early bloom of my years, I am drawn to the conclusion that life is not fair and the sooner one realises this and acts accordingly, the less one will find oneself all stressed out in later years.

‘I think that I will remain single and use women purely for … OUCH!’ and Jack snagged a certain dangling part upon a bolted nut.

And as chance, or coincidence, or fate, or something more, or less, would have it, at that very moment, and many miles south of Jack, and many floors beneath the desert sand, Eddie Bear was having trouble with a nut.

‘Nuts?’ said Eddie, taking up a nut between his paws and peering at it distastefully. ‘Nuts? Nuts? That is what you’re offering me to eat?’

The other Jack grinned into Eddie’s cage. ‘That’s what bears eat in the wild, isn’t it? Nuts and berries.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Eddie. ‘I never associate with such unsophisticated company. I’d like a fillet steak, medium rare, sautéed potatoes—’

The other Jack kicked at Eddie’s cage. ‘Eat up your nuts,’ he said, ‘like a good little bear. You’re going to need all your strength.’

Eddie’s stomach grumbled. And Eddie’s stomach ached. Eddie didn’t feel at all like himself. He wasn’t feeling altogether the full shilling, was Eddie Bear. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

‘You have to pay for your crimes,’ said the other Jack.

‘I’m no criminal,’ said Eddie.

‘Oh yes you are. You and your companion shot down one of our spaceships. Murdered the crew—’

‘Self-defence,’ said Eddie. ‘Your accusations won’t hold up in court.’

‘Would you care to rephrase that?’

‘No court involved, then?’ said Eddie.

‘No court,’ said the other Jack. ‘No court and no hope for you.’

‘What are you?’ asked Eddie. ‘What are you, really?’

‘I’m Jack,’ said the other Jack. ‘I’m the Jack this side of The Second Big O. I’m the Jack in this world.’

‘An identical Jack?’ said Eddie. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, we’re all here, human counterparts, reflections of your world – or rather your world is a reflection of ours. We’re all here, even you.’

‘The murdering me,’ said Eddie, peeping through the bars of his cage. ‘The me who murdered the monkeys and the band and the orchestra?’

‘And all the rest, soon. The contents of your world will be sucked into ours. For our use.’

‘But for why?’ asked Eddie Bear. ‘To be produced as giveaways for promoting the sale of fried chicken? That’s as mad as.’

‘You eat up your nuts,’ said the other Jack. ‘I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t make me have to ram them down your throat.’

And with that the other Jack turned to take his leave.

‘Oh, Jack,’ said Eddie.

The other Jack turned.

‘When my Jack gets here, as he will, he’ll really kick your ass.’

*

And in his air-conditioning duct, Jack snagged his ass on a pointy something. And whispered, Ouch!’ once again.

Jack could hear lots of sounds beneath him. The sounds of the alarm and the sounds of shouting and of running feet. And if his hearing had been a tad more acute he would have been able to discern the sound of gun cabinets being opened and pump-action shotguns being taken from these cabinets and loaded up with high-velocity cartridges. But there is only so much that you can hear from inside an air-conditioning duct.

Jack added to the easings along he had formerly done with more of the same, but more carefully. Where exactly was he now?

Light shone up through a grille ahead. Jack hastened with care towards it.

‘Hm,’ went Jack, peering down. ‘Corridor, and by the look of it, deserted. Now the question is, how might I open this grille from the inside and lower myself carefully to the floor beneath?’

Good question.

Jack put his ear to the grille. Alarm, certainly … Ah, no, alarm switched off. Running feet? Shouting? Not in this corridor. Jack took a deep breath, then took to beating the grille. And then beating some more. Then rattling everything around. Then beating some more.

And then screaming, as quietly as he could, as the length of ducting containing himself detached itself from its fellow members and fell heavily the distance between the ceiling to which it had been attached and the floor beneath.

Which was uncarpeted.

Exactly how long Jack was unconscious, he had no way of telling. The police had confiscated Jack’s watch. And it no longer worked anyway. Jack awoke in some confusion, crawled from his fallen length of aluminium ducting, climbed to his feet and rubbed at the bruised parts, which comprised the majority of his body. Wondered anew exactly where he was.

A sign on the wall spelled out the words:

POLICE CELLS: AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY.

‘I think that’s fair,’ said Jack. ‘I deserve a little luck.’

And Jack made his way onwards upon naked feet.

And presently reached the cells.

Now, as we all know, and we do, police cells contain all kinds of individuals. And, curiously enough, all of them innocent.

It is a very odd one, that – that all police cells contain innocent, well, ‘victims’, for there is no other word. As do prisons. Prisons are full of folk who have never confessed to any crimes. In fact, all of them pleaded innocent at their trials. And even though the evidence piled against them might have appeared, on the face of it, compelling and condemning, nevertheless the ‘victims’ of ‘circumstance’ and ‘injustice’ protested their innocence and were unjustly convicted.

Odd that, isn’t it?

Jack peered through another little grille, this one in the door of the first cell.

Here he espied, a-sitting upon a basic bunk, an overlarge fellow, naked to the waist, his chest and torso intricately decorated via the medium of tattoo.

‘Wrong cell,’ said Jack. Although perhaps too loudly. As his words caused the overlarge fellow to look up, observe Jack’s peering face and rise from his basic bunk.

Cell two presented Jack with a small well-dressed gentleman who rocked to and fro on his basic bunk, muttering the words, ‘God told me to do it,’ over and over again.

‘Definitely wrong,’ said Jack.

And this fellow looked up also.

In the third cell Jack observed a number of Puerto Ricans. They sported bandannas and gang-affiliated patches. Jack recognised them to be the kitchen workforce he had employed the previous day.

‘Hi, fellows,’ called Jack.

The fellows looked up towards Jack.

And now Jack’s attention was drawn back to the first and second cells. Their occupants were beating at the doors, crying out for Jack to return, shouting things about being the daddy and knowing a bitch when they saw one.

‘Shush!’ Jack shushed them.

But the cell-three Puerto Ricans now joined in the crying aloud.

‘Damn,’ went Jack. And Jack pressed on.

And finally found Dorothy.

‘Dorothy,’ called Jack. And the beautiful girl looked up from her basic bunk.

‘Jack,’ she said, and she hastened to the door to observe him through the grille. ‘You are naked,’ she continued.

‘Well, yes,’ said Jack. ‘But—’

‘Nothing,’ said Dorothy. ‘This is California. Please would you open my cell?’

‘I certainly will.’ And Jack spat out the other paperclip. The one he had kept in his mouth to perform this very function. Because he did think ahead, did Jack. Because he was a private detective.

And with this paperclip and to the growing cacophony of shouting victims of circumstance, Jack picked the lock on Dorothy’s cell door and freed her from incarceration.

Good old Jack.

‘Here,’ said Dorothy, lifting her skirt and dropping her panties. ‘Put these on, it will help,’

‘Help?’ Jack looked hard at the panties. Now in the palm of his hand.

‘Unless you really want to run completely naked through the streets of LA.’

‘But they’re your …’ Jack shook his head and put on the panties.

‘It’s an interesting look,’ said Dorothy, ‘and not one that would normally ring my bell, as it were, however—’

‘Time to run,’ said Jack.

And Jack was right in this. Because a door at the far end of the corridor, back beyond his fallen length of ducting, was now opening and heavily armed policemen and-women were making their urgent entrance.

‘That way, I think,’ said Dorothy, pointing towards a fire exit. ‘That way at the hurry-up.’

And that was the way Jack took.