Auden said, in his own little world, “One thing I don’t like about the movies is where they get the guns from. I saw a movie the other day set in London and the bad guys wanted a few guns so they just turned up. In bloody London these days if you want a gun you have to fill out about five hundred forms and wait for six months.” He saw Spencer about to make some comment on war souvenirs and the underworld market and he, the expert, said quickly, “No, these were big magnums, see, and nobody has magnums in a war and even if you could steal them—” He noticed a distinct lack of interest in his comments, “It’s like these car chases you see where the car takes off into the air and then hits the ground and keeps running. A real car would be lying about in bits with its suspension shot to shit. Or these ordinary guys in the movies who just happen to know how to hot wire a car or—” closer to home. He gave Spencer a meaningful glare, “Or know how to bloody well tell one car from another!”

  Spencer, glancing away, shrugged apologetically.

  Feiffer said heavily, “So far as we know the only car The Spaceman has used has probably been his own, no doubt legally registered, taxed, in perfect running order and with probably all four tyres with the perfect legal bloody depth of tread on them—” Feiffer said to clear his mind on Bell for once and for all, “Look. Bell: what did he do in the hotel? He stopped, right? He grabbed the door. He looked up—”

  Auden said, “He was praying—maybe. He knew he was about to get the chop and—”

  Spencer said, “—he closed the door. He—” It got nowhere, “But it isn’t Bell. You spoke to his wife, Harry, and she told you how she—”

  Feiffer said abruptly, “No.” Magnums and cars with strengthened suspensions and ordinary people who— Feiffer said, “No. She didn’t tell me how, but only that—” He saw O’Yee looking at him with a confused look on his face. “She didn’t tell me how she had stolen her husband’s suit, she just said she had! Auden, you’re a bloody genius!” (Auden said, “Well, yeah—”) “She didn’t say she’d taken his suit from the depot or from his car or from—she simply said that she’d taken it!!”

  In the movies it was more dramatic. O’Yee said, shaking his head, “No, obviously what she did was go to his car, open it and—”

  Feiffer said, “How?”

  “Well with her husband’s keys of course. She waited until he’d driven his car home one night and—”

  Auden, the persecuted Incredible Hulk of the automobile world, said, “Like hell he did! I smashed in the window of that bloody car and it was an official Brigade vehicle with a decal on it and everything!”

  “So what?” O’Yee looked at Feiffer.

  Feiffer said to Auden, “Tell him.”

  Auden said, “Um—”

  Spencer said, “So if it was an official car he wouldn’t have been allowed to drive it home. He would have had to have left it at the Depot at the end of his duty.”

  “He could have had it during the day. She could have followed him and in the excitement of a fire she could have easily—”

  Feiffer said, “He avoided fires.”

  “Then while he was at the doctor’s.”

  “Sure. He was so terrified of losing his job because he was suffering from emphysema that he took his official, marked car across to the doctor’s office and parked it out in plain sight right next to his brass plate, right?” Feiffer said, “Like hell he did. He probably took the bloody bus!”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is that unless she was a female version of one of Phil’s average movie actor joes who just happen to have picked up the technique of picking car locks at high school along with biology and history of Western Europe and bloody domestic science, then if she took the suit from the car she must have had a key!” Feiffer said before O’Yee could protest, “There are half a dozen police vehicles available for use by the personnel at this Station, Christopher, when was the last time you took a set of their keys home and left them on the hall table?” Feiffer said, “They’re all handed in at the end of duty, signed for by the desk Sergeant and put away in a locked drawer.”

  “Then how did she get them?”

  Spencer said, “Not Mrs Bell? You’re not saying that Mrs Bell is—”

  Feiffer said quietly, “No, I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that Mrs Bell has her husband’s suit all right and that her husband’s suit was taken out of his car just the way she says and that the suit The Spaceman wears—”

  O’Yee said urgently, “Yes?”

  Feiffer said with a strange smile on his face, “It’s Bell’s suit. Mrs Bell, just like her husband, has a friend, and that friend—”

  O’Yee said flatly, “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t you? Don’t you believe that in the real world, unlike the movies, there’s that one little bit of detail that gets skated over because it never shows up on the finished product?” Feiffer said evenly, “All the big bits We’ve seen on the silver screen of the Empress of India hotel—the spectacle We’ve been treated to publicly—have been planned out, worked out, thought through and executed faultlessly because The Spaceman has walked through the motions over and over and had time to create the thing. It’s his illusion and he was free to vary it as he liked—to kill targets of opportunity and to—and to make the movie! But you’re right, Phil, the details—the details remain unchanged because they’re not part of a movie, they’re part of the physical world, they’re not part of the illusion at all.” He turned his gaze to Spencer, “You can do a high speed car chase on film all right and you can have the bad guys all walking around with bloody anti-aircraft cannons if you like, but you can’t change the fact that cars won’t withstand high speed car chases without being strengthened and that anti-aircraft guns just aren’t available!”

  Auden said, “Yeah, you just can’t fool an expert with something that’s wrong.” He nodded sagely to Feiffer, “Right, Boss?”

  “Right.” Feiffer said, “Mrs Bell had a friend and her friend, not Mrs Bell herself, was the one who took the firefighting suit. It was her idea all right, but he was the one who actually did it and the chances are, because of the way the whole thing was planned—because of the things we thought about Bell—the motives, the equipment, the opportunity—” Feiffer said, “That her friend—”

  Auden said fiercely to Spencer, “Right!”

  Feiffer said easily, the simplicity of it for the first time since the death of the street sweeper crystal clear and possible, “Is The Spaceman.” He looked at Auden, “Isn’t he, Phil?”

  Auden, astounded, said, “Yeah. Right.” He looked at Spencer to see if Spencer was nodding. Spencer looked confused. Auden said unconfidently, “Right!”

  *

  On the phone, Feiffer said quickly, “Mrs Bell, is Superintendent Ashwood still there with you or has he left?”

  He had stepped out for a moment.

  “I see.” Feiffer drew a breath. Feiffer said slowly, “Mrs Bell, I wonder if you’d do something for me? I wonder if you’d go into your kitchen, find the strongest, sharpest knife you can lay your hands on and then, when you’ve got it, come back to the phone so I can ask you to do something rather important with it for me?” Feiffer said quietly and calmly, “I’d appreciate it very much at this stage if you didn’t ask me why.”

  Forty five million dollars. He still hadn’t the faintest idea where it was or what it was, but by God, thinking it through as he waited, he thought he sure as hell knew who, at least, was trying to steal it.

  *

  11.25 p.m. The Spaceman, still in his civilian clothes, carrying his briefcase, moved easily through the silent crowds in the hotel foyer and stopped to talk for a few moments to the female night manager at the front desk to ascertain that his timing was right.

  It was. The old woman at the grand piano was starting a tune from one of the old English Second World War Blitz movies. It was a pity the crowd were not singing along.

  There was a grandfather clock against the far wall of the foyer, near the burned out office and The Spaceman went over to it and examined its face.

  The setting on the face read Silent Chime.

  The Spaceman opened the glass face as if he was checking his watch and moved the little setting lever to Chime on Hour.

  He smiled to himself.

  Just like the Titanic movies and the haunted house movies and all the movies ever seen about natural disasters and the end of the world and death and evil portent the clock would chime in the graveyard hush at exactly—

  At exactly midnight.

  By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes ...

  The Spaceman ran his eyes across the faces of the hollow-eyed, ashen crowds huddling together in the foyer, saw them only as dead awaiting disposal and burial, and felt for them, in that final moment, only hatred.

  11.27 p.m. He moved quickly towards his appointed place to wait out the remaining minutes.

  18

  If it was a movie then—

  Feiffer said quickly over the phone, “No, I promise you, your husband’s out of it. Have you got the knife and the briefcase?”

  Mrs Bell said dubiously, “Yes.” There was a silence.

  Feiffer said encouragingly, “Mrs Bell, the only time your husband actually saw The Spaceman wearing the suit was in the hotel manager’s office before he died. Before that, for all he knew, the suit could have been just something someone had hired from a theatrical costumiers or—”

  Mrs Bell said quietly, “And if he did know, or suspect—”

  “He didn’t. When I rang the Depot he was out and I spoke to—”

  Mrs Bell said quietly, “And if he did know or suspect, he wouldn’t have said anything because it would have made him look like a coward for not reporting the theft. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, that isn’t what I’m saying. I think The Spaceman thought he would have reported it the moment he saw it, but he relied on the fact that at the first whiff of smoke and fire your husband would have—” Feiffer said quickly, “Mrs Bell, at the time, I couldn’t work out what your husband was doing in the hotel when the money was burned and why he didn’t get to the foyer at top speed to help put out the fire. What I think now, in view of what you told me about him, is that your husband, knowing he couldn’t help on the spot, was checking that hotel from top to bottom in order to try to prevent the situation even arising. I think he found something and he tried to get everyone out before it happened.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mrs Bell said, “But nothing did happen, did it? Nothing he could have changed. Jack Ashwood said The Spaceman was in the air-conditioning shafts, not in the cellars, and even if George had—”

  “No, something else. Something to do with eighty gallons of missing petrol.” Feiffer said hopelessly, “But I don’t know what.” He appealed to her, “Please. Slide the blade of the knife in under the hinges of the briefcase—don’t bother about the locks—and give the knife a hard twist.” If it was a movie then— Feiffer said urgently to the woman’s silence, “Look, if you want to get your husband out of this free and clear, for God’s sake put the knife in under the hinges and break the case open!” If it was a movie then— Feiffer said with an effort at reasonableness, “Mrs Bell, listen, if Jack Ashwood were there then I could—” He glanced at O’Yee watching him and appealed in the silence of the room in an undertone, “Come on, please!” There was a clear snapping sound on the line and he asked anxiously, “Have you done it? Is the case open?”

  There was a pause and then Mrs Bell, still unconvinced, said evenly, “It’s open.”

  “And?”

  It was. It was a movie. And the producer had made his one little between-the-scenes mistake in reality. Mrs Bell said quietly, sounding surprised, “It’s empty, Mr Feiffer. There isn’t anything in it. No suit, no—” She seemed struck by sudden alarm, “It’s empty! My husband’s firefighting suit isn’t in it at all!”

  “Mrs Bell, I know you don’t happen to have the expertise yourself to pick the locks on car doors and to walk away in plain sight with a stolen Brigade briefcase under your arm Feiffer said with an effort at calm, “So tell me, would you: the briefcase, just who was it who delivered it to you?”

  Putting it all together, considering that it had been Bell who had been suspected from the beginning, the name she gave him, in view of its obvious connection with Bell in every way, shouldn’t have surprised him at all. Feiffer said, “Thank you very much.” Forty five million dollars ... Feiffer said for the second time, “Thank you very much indeed.”

  It was exactly 11.35 p.m. For some prophetic reason he looked at the Station clock.

  *

  Standing at his desk to make his point more histrionically, at the end of his tether, O’Yee said, “What forty five million dollars? There isn’t any forty five million dollars!” A small part of his anger was guilt at his own mental inefficiency, “It’s all very well talking about forty five million dollars when there is forty five million dollars—but there isn’t! We don’t know any more than when we started! All We’ve got is another suspect and we—we haven’t got any forty five million dollars-and we haven’t got any missing eighty gallons of petrol! There isn’t anything worth that sort of money—not in the hotel, not in the entire Colony, not in the entire—” O’Yee demanded, “We know who he is—why not just pick him up and—”

  Feiffer said with a snarl, “And what? Beat it out of him? Beat what out of him? Tell me what he’s after!”

  Spencer, shaking his head, said desperately, “It has to be something small, or at least portable. It has to be something that he can carry away—”

  Auden said, “Like what? The hotel?”

  O’Yee said, “Sure, the hotel. Of course it’s the hotel. He’s going to take the hotel away and re-erect it for the Yakuza in down-town Tokyo, but you know what the Japanese are like about miniaturization: they feel it’s a bit too much on the bulky side so he’s obligingly burning it down piece by piece so he can put it in his goddamned handbag to make it easier to carry!” He snapped at Auden, “Of course it’s not the fucking hotel you stupid cretin! It’s something big, worth millions he can—” He stopped himself, “How the hell can it be big and worth that sort of money if it’s small?” He turned his gaze to Feiffer, “Harry, We’ve only got the word of The Green Slime that the forty five million dollars even exists—and he had it from Wong who may have got it wrong or simply said it as a come-on. How do we know The Spaceman isn’t after something entirely different?”

  “We don’t. But what else could it be? What else could be worth this sort of slaughter? If it was just, say jewellery in someone’s room or in the hotel safe, why not just—” Feiffer said, “Whatever it is—”

  Auden said, “It’s invisible, just like the goddamned Volkswagen van!”

  Irritated at his own stupidity, O’Yee said, “What the hell’s as big as the goddamned Queen Mary—because that’s the only sort of thing worth forty five million anythings—and as small as—so small you could carry it away? And who the hell would buy it?” He thought it through. “Do you realise that if it’s being sold for forty five million as stolen property, on the legitimate market it might be worth at least twice that?” The figures loomed into incomprehensibility, “The only thing worth ninety or a hundred million is a goddamned—” He stopped, stunned, “Is a goddamned—is nothing! Nothing is worth that sort of money!”

  Feiffer said slowly, “Maybe it doesn’t have that sort of worth for what it is but for what it can turn into.” He glanced around the room to see if that made sense. It didn’t. Feiffer said, “A piece of technology for an electronic calculator or—”

  Auden said evenly, smiling thinly at O’Yee, “Calculators cost about ten dollars each. At that rate, to break even—”

  Feiffer said, “I mean, a computer or something.” He answered his own question, “I can’t see IBM paying out forty five million dollars for a piece of stolen hardware and spending the rest of eternity fighting court actions for theft and patent infringement by actually using it.” Feiffer conjured up a mental picture of the hotel and tried to visualise where he had stumbled past a solid gold statue in one of the corridors and not noticed, “Even goddamned gold isn’t worth that much—nor heroin—nor—” He looked hard at Spencer for evidence of his expensive education, “Radium? Maybe, say, a pound of radium—”

  Spencer shrugged apologetically.

  “Well, yes or no?”

  Spencer said, “There isn’t that much radium in the entire world.”

  O’Yee said, “It has to be something big! I may be stupid, but I don’t believe there’s anything in existence worth forty five million bucks that doesn’t actually look like it’s worth forty five million bucks. And if it’s worth forty five million bucks, it’s big!”

  Spencer shook his head, “But it has to be small, Christopher, or he couldn’t carry it away.” He suggested, “A piece of art? But then who’d buy it? Even if you were the sort of mad millionaire who didn’t care whether or not it was stolen and you just wanted to gloat over owning it—”

  Auden snapped, “That’s just on the movies, that doesn’t happen in real life!” He went on before O’Yee could differ, “And anyway if you paid that sort of money—even if you were a millionaire—you wouldn’t have enough left over to buy a goddamned chair to sit on and gloat in!” He came up with his own master stroke, “A new sort of weapon.”

  O’Yee said in an undertone, “Yeah, a stupid-ray. One hit and it turns morons into instant geniuses

  The wall clock stood at 11.40. Feiffer, glancing at it, asked curiously, “But why all the trouble? If as you say, Christopher, it’s a movie plot, then which movie exactly is it?” He raised his hand to silence O’Yee before he spoke, “Yeah, I know, all of them—but still, why all the trouble? Why terrorise an entire community? An entire hotel if—” Feiffer said abruptly, “It’s not the hotel at all. We’ve been thinking about the hotel as if it was something particular and separate, but, surely, it’s the people in the hotel.” The thought ran away into nothingness, “But what have they got worth forty five million dollars? How many people would the hotel hold? Twelve hundred? Even if anyone could get that many people together with one central thought it wouldn’t be a hotel, it’d be a bloody Army brigade or something out of Murder on the Orient Express!” He became lost in his own confusion. “How the hell can something take up a lot of space and, at the same time, not take up much at all?” He glanced at Spencer quickly, “Other than the famous non-appearing Volkswagen van in the carpark?”

 

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