Odds and Gods (20 page)

‘Where to now?’ Thor shouted over the roar of the flywheel.

‘Home,’ Odin replied, ‘sharpish. There’s still an outside chance She won’t have noticed we’re not there.’

‘Pretty thin chance.’

‘Never mind. Set a course north-north-west.’

‘Right you are.’ Frey was at the controls; a classic example of the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. ‘Which one’s that?’

‘The lever on your left,’ Odin replied, ‘just above your cufflink.’

‘What, this one?’

‘No, that’s the cigar lighter.’

Lundqvist leant back against the smoke-stack, speculating as to who the hell these imbeciles were, and how soon he’d be able to get away from them. So far, he was painfully aware, his role in the quest to frustrate the diabolical schemes of Julian and the godchildren was very similar to that of sugar in petrol. What he needed in order to get his act together was a few hours to gather his thoughts and regroup, at least three self-loading firearms and a nice strong cup of coffee; none of which were likely to come his way as long as he was stuck on this amazing contraption with these three geriatric lunatics.

‘Guys,’ he said, ‘where is it exactly you’re headed?’

‘Droitwich.’

‘Where?’

‘Well, just outside Droitwich, to be precise,’ Thor replied. ‘About three miles west and two miles straight up. The postal address is Sunnyvoyde.’

Lundqvist hazarded a guess. ‘The retired gods’ home, right?’

‘Yeah.’

This, Lundqvist felt, just wasn’t good enough. Wherever Osiris was headed, it most certainly wasn’t the place he’d escaped from. Instinctively, though knowing in his heart it was in vain, he frisked himself for some sort of weapon. Anything, anything at all - even a Walther Model 9 in 6.35mm loaded, if need be, with 50 grain jacketed hardball - would be better than nothing. Still. Needs must.

‘Okay,’ he snapped, standing up and (as the engine passed through a patch of slight turbulence) sitting down again, ‘this is a hijack. Turn this thing round and fly it to Tripoli.’

‘Why?’

Lundqvist shoved his hand in his pocket. ‘I have a gun,’ he said.

‘Is this ponce serious, do you think?’

‘Where’s Tripoli?’

‘I think it’s somewhere in Tuscany, isn’t it?’

‘Why should having a gun make him want to go to Tuscany?’

‘I thought it was in Egypt.’

‘It’s not a very Egyptian sounding name, Tripoli. All the places there are called Tell something.’

‘Telford?’

‘I think you’re thinking of Tivoli, not Tripoli. Though I’m not sure Tivoli’s in Tuscany, come to that.’

‘We can drop him off at Telford, no trouble at all. We’ll be virtually passing the door.’

‘All right.’ Lundqvist was back on his feet again, and maintained himself thus with a sort of bow-legged crouch. ‘Okay, so I haven’t got a gun. First time in over four hundred years,’ he added miserably. ‘But what I have got . . .’ He cast his eye around the immediate vicinity, and grabbed awkwardly. ‘What I have got is this spanner . . .’

‘Actually, that’s a four by nine Stilson,’ Odin commented. ‘You use it for shimming up the interfacing on the cam nuts.’

‘. . . This four by nine Stilson, and unless you all do exactly what I say, you’re all dead. You got that?’

There was a pause.

‘Yes,’ said Frey at last, ‘but where exactly is it you want to go?’

‘I’ve found Tivoli,’ Odin said, looking up from the atlas. ‘It’s in completely the wrong direction, of course.’

‘You’ve got the map the wrong way up, you daft old -’

‘Doesn’t matter, it’s still completely the wrong -’

‘We could go there anyway,’ Frey suggested, ‘and then he could maybe get a bus.’

Odin and Thor froze in mid-bicker and stared at their junior colleague. ‘Don’t talk soft,’ Thor said, ‘Tivoli’s where he wants to go, what would he want to get a bus for?’

Frey shrugged. ‘I’ve always wanted to go on a bus,’ he said, ‘ever since I can remember. One of those open-topped ones with the windy staircase at the back.’

‘All
right
,’ Lundqvist shouted. ‘Forget it, will you? Forget I ever said Tripoli. Just drop me off anywhere, and that’ll be fine.’

‘Just drop you anywhere?’

‘That’d be just fine.’

Thor shrugged. ‘No problem,’ he said; and did so.There was a scream, which rapidly dopplered and died away as the speck diminished away out of sight below them.

‘I think,’ Frey ventured, ‘we’re passing over the sea.’

‘That’s lucky,’ Thor replied. ‘Hope he can swim.’

 

Julian sat at his desk and toyed with a paperclip. It was a quarter to three in the morning, he had a headache and he hadn’t made any money for well over ten minutes. He scowled.

Somehow, he couldn’t concentrate. This was a nuisance; absolute, laser-like concentration, together with a total disregard for basic human dignity, is the key to success in the legal profession, and he’d always prided himself on his ability to blot out from his mind everything except the job in hand, the blood currently in the water.

Why hadn’t he heard anything from those two buffoons yet?

Dammit, he’d practically done the whole job for them - fixed things up with the Cardinal, arranged for enquiry agents to trace the old bastard to Belgium, hired the heavies, planned the second hijack, everything short of actually going there himself and doing the business with the holy water. Try as he might, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how anything could possibly go wrong. A one-legged panda could have done the job standing on its head.

Yes. Well. Maybe he should have hired a one-legged panda. As it was, he was going to have to make do with what he’d got. He picked his nose thoughtfully for a while, turning over various options in his mind.

So much, he said to himself, for brute force and violence. Too clumsy, he’d always said, too gauche. There must be another way, one more in tune with the professional man’s ethos. He chewed a pencil, his mind moving in many planes simultaneously.

Ah.

There is a saying, attributed to ex-President Richard Nixon and much quoted by lawyers, to the effect that once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

Find the weak point, the mental scab, the little encrustation of half-healed guilt, and there insert your questing fingernail. Prod and pick around the compassion of the gods, their love for their creation, their eternal subconscious self-reproach as they consider everything that they have made:
You got them into this mess, it’s up to you
. . .

Yes, thought Julian, that ought to do the trick.

He lifted the telephone.

S
quelch, squelch, squelch. Pause. Squelch.

This is the sound of Kurt Lundqvist moving semi-noiselessly, like a black shadow on the very edge of sight, up the beach and into the cover of the trees.

Semi-noiselessly, because even if, like Kurt, you spent forty years as Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits Professor of Stealth at the Central Ninja Academy after several lifetimes of practical experience at the cutting edge of the silent killing profession, it’s pretty well impossible to move in absolute silence when your boots are full of water and your socks feel like overweight jellyfish under your toes.

Having gained the relative safety of the trees, he sat down, yanked off his left boot and emptied it. Out came a pint and a half of sea, some green slime and a small golden fish.

For some reason which he could never quite account for, Lundqvist whipped off the other boot, taking care not to spill its contents, scooped up the fish just as it was on the point of coughing its gills up, and dropped it into the boot. With a flick of its shimmering tail it sought safety in the toe. Lundqvist sighed; then, in his stocking feet and with a complete absence of stealth, he plodded back across the oily black mud of the beach to the water’s edge and flung the contents of the boot out as far as he could. There was a tiny
plop!
as the fish hit the water. God, said Lundqvist to himself, this is it, I’ve finally flipped my lid. If the guys down at Kali’s Diner ever found out I’d saved a fish from drowning in air, I’d never live it down.

There was a deafening peal of thunder, followed by lightning, fireworks and piped music. Lundqvist found himself face down in the mud. A small crab scuttled up his trouser leg.

Lundqvist looked up. Hovering over the wavetops was a dragon, of the sort familiar from countless thousands of porcelain jars, cups, soup-bowls, painted silk screens, soap-stone carvings and netsuke. Its head, bewhiskered and leonine, was supported by long, sinuous curves of scaly neck and body, which in turn rested on four taloned claws, which gripped the edges of a huge jade surfboard. Around its bejewelled waist, the marvellous beast wore a pair of long fluorescent bathing trunks, and in one talon it gripped a can of beer.

Yes, thought Lundqvist, Dragon King of the South-East. Dragon Kings come from China, and south-east from China is exactly where I’m thinking of.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Look, are we talking three wishes here?’

The Dragon King nodded his enormous head. ‘
Fair dinkum
,’ he said, and his voice was like the crashing of surf on a reef of jade. ‘
If it hadn’t been for you playing the white man back there, the little fella’d be history by now, so I reckon I owe you one. Or rather three
,’ he added.
‘Fair go, after all. Have a beer?’

Lundqvist nodded, and a foaming can of lager appeared between his fingers. Dragon King of the South-East, he muttered to himself, just my goddam luck. Of all the cardinal points of all the compasses in the world, why do I have to stray into his?

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘Let’s start with some warm clothes and dry footwear.’

The air sparkled; and when Lundqvist looked down he saw that he was now wearing the same pattern of big eye-hurting beach shorts as the dragon, together with an oversize sweat-shirt in the same unfortunate colour scheme, an oversize baseball cap, plastic slip-on sandals and white socks. Something told him that it would be a good idea to get the other two wishes over and done with as quickly as possible.

‘Suits you, mate,’
said the Dragon King, thereby placing himself in the running for the Kurt Lundqvist Pillock of the Year Award.
‘Now then, what else can I do for you? Fire away.’

Lundqvist sighed and rubbed his eyes. What he really wanted right now was six hours sleep, a .40 Glock and a mammoth pastrami sandwich, in that order. From long experience, however, he knew better than most that what gift horses generally have in their mouths is big, sharp fangs.

‘I’m looking for some guys,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can tell me where they are.’

‘Shoot through on you, did they, the bludgers?’
replied the Dragon King sympathetically, rubbing a splash of zinc cream on to the scales of its chest.
‘Tell me who these blokes are, and they’re found.’

Lundqvist told him.

‘Yes.’

‘Whatever that’s supposed to mean, yes.’

‘Right-oh.’
The Dragon King closed his eyes, and suddenly his whole body became almost translucent, like some weird mirage.
‘Central America,’ he said. ‘Mexico. Sort of Mexico. One of those little bitty countries just down and across a bit from Mexico. San something or other. Big mountains. Make any sense to you?’

Lundqvist nodded. That left wish number three, and it was patently obvious what it was going to have to be. He braced himself.

‘Now then,’ he said. ‘Tell me what they’re doing there and why.’

 

The Aztecs (explained the Dragon King) are famous for three things: gold, the incredible savagery of their gods, and chocolate. All three are inextricably linked.

Quite obviously, chocolate was reserved as the special food of the gods. Therefore, the gods ate nothing but chocolate; all day, every day. Toothbrushes, it should be noted, were unknown in pre-Columbian Central America, and fluoride was not a concept with which they were familiar.

The result: toothache. Toothache of the kind only gods can suffer. Not just the paltry, everyday, diamond-tipped pile-drivers and psychotic gnomes in the upper jaw variety that mortal men have to put up with, but the real thing. Hence the bad temper.

And after the toothache had run its hidéous course, gods with no teeth. Which in turn meant no solid food. All that the Aztec pantheon could manage to get down were liquids and a little extremely soft meat that could be mumbled into digestibility between agonisingly sensitive gums. And chocolate too, of course, taken in liquid form.