The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (8 page)

‘Would
you?’
Cornelius asked.

‘I
am not in the dock,’ said Mr D’hark.

‘Your
Honour,’ said Cornelius, ‘I would like to change my plea.’

‘To
guilty? Well that saves a lot of time. I hereby sentence you—’

‘Not to
guilty, your Honour. I would like to plead William Castle’s nineteen sixty-five
movie
I Saw What You Did.’

The
magistrate gave this plea a moment or two’s thought. ‘Won’t wash,’ said he.

‘Won’t
it?’ Cornelius asked.

‘No, it
won’t,’ said Gwynplaine D’hark QC. ‘I would like to answer Mr Murphy’s plea by
pleading
Dark Star
which was directed, although few seem to remember it,
by John Carpenter.’

‘Got
it,’ said Scoop Molloy.

‘You
bloody haven’t, have you?’ asked the clerk of the court.

‘I have
too. I looked those other movies up during the lunch-hour. I’ve figured it
out.’

‘Tell
us then,’ cried the balcony crowd. ‘Spill the beans.’

‘May I,
your Honour?’ asked Scoop.

‘May as
well,’ said the magistrate. ‘I’m convicting this Murphy anyhow. Man’s some kind
of international arms dealer or something. Short sharp shock and twenty years
of it, that’s what he needs.’

‘The
Cars that ate Paris’
said Cornelius Murphy.

‘Too
late and wrong too. Say your piece, Mr Molloy.’

‘It’s
him,’
said Scoop. ‘The magistrate. You know, whenever you see a film with a
courtroom scene, the magistrate always looks vaguely familiar and you waste the
rest of the film saying, “Wasn’t he the bloke who was in
that
film, or
that
film, or
that
film?” Well it’s this bloke, isn’t it?’

‘Is
it?’ asked the crowd.

‘It
is,’ said the magistrate. ‘Called in at the last minute to play the part of
Brigadier Algenon “Chunky” Wilberforce. I’ve been in retirement, you see. I
took the part to earn enough money to pay for my wife’s hip replacement.’

‘I’ll
buy her two new hips,’ said Cornelius. ‘And a set of dentures too if you want.’

‘No can
do, I’m afraid,’ said the ex-Hollywood bit-parter. ‘You’re dealing with a professional
here.’

‘Plan
Nine from Outer Space.’
said Scoop. ‘Didn’t you get
butchered by Tor Johnson?’

‘That
was me. Stung to death in
The Savage Bees.
I was the janitor.’

‘You
wore a beard,’ said Scoop.

‘False
one.

‘Carried
it off though. But who did you play in
Dark Star?’

‘The
alien,’ said the magistrate. ‘But I only did the hands. Very astute of Mr
D’hark though. Do you have anything to say, Mr Murphy, before I pass sentence
upon you?’

‘How
about a fair trial?’ Cornelius asked.

‘Very
amusing, Mr Murphy. Very satirical. But I will tell you what I’ll do. I will
ask you one question and if you get the answer correct you can walk from this
court a free man with your head held high.’

Cornelius
glanced at his wristwatch. Precisely 3.14 and a one-minute walk to The Flying
Swan. ‘Ask on,’ said he.

‘What’s
my name?’ asked the magistrate.

‘It’s
er … it’s er . .

‘Have
to hurry you now.’

‘It’s
on the tip of my tongue.’

‘Is it?
Anyone in the courtroom? Come on now.’

‘Oh and
ooh and ah,’ went the balcony folk. ‘What’s his name? It’s that bloke who was
in… What was that picture? You know the one, he played the part of…’

‘Can’t
get it, can you? Come on, Mr Murphy.’

‘Give
me a moment. Oh, I nearly had it then.’

‘Cornelius
Murphy, I find you guilty upon all counts, and I hereby sentence you to—’

‘Cash
Flagg,’ said Cornelius Murphy. Silence!

Pin
drop!

‘Wrong,’
said the magistrate. ‘Twenty-three years.’

‘No,’
said Cornelius. ‘No, no, no.’

‘Yes,’
said the magistrate. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

‘I rest
my case,’ said Gwynplaine D’hark QC. ‘Me too,’ said Arthur Brown. ‘It’s really
heavy.’

‘Briefcase
gag at the end,’ said Scoop Molloy. ‘What a cop out.’

‘Bruce
Morgan,’ wailed Cornelius, as he was led away to the cells. ‘Charles Winthrope.
Clive McMurty. Bill Seabrook…’

But his
words vanished from the page. The court all rose and most of it went home. And
justice had once more been seen to be done.

‘So
what
was
his name?’ asked Scoop Molloy.

‘Haven’t
the faintest idea,’ said Gwynplaine D’hark. ‘Would you care to take a little
trip with me to the basement?’

7

‘Sprout,’ said Norman. ‘I
choose sprout.’

‘You
don’t?’
Jack all but fell off his chair. ‘You can’t
be serious, mate, I mean
Norman.
I mean you can’t. You just can’t.’

‘I can,
you know. If it’s a choice between working here and being a sprout, then a
sprout I shall be. Where do I sign?’

‘No,
Norman, wait. Don’t be rash.’

‘Pen
please,’ said Norman. ‘Or do you want it in blood or something?’

‘No!’
Jack flapped his hands about. ‘You don’t want to be a sprout. Really you
don’t.’

‘I do.
Sprouts doss about in the sun all day. That’s the life for me.’

‘Sprouts
get
picked,’
said Jack. ‘That’s what sprouts get.’

‘Comes
to us all.’ Norman shrugged. ‘A quick pick and kaput. I can live with it. Put
me down for sprout. Mark my file
“sprout until Judgement Day.”
[4]

‘Sprouts
don’t die when they’re picked,’ said Jack.

‘Of
course they do.’

‘They
don’t, you know. Vegetables are still alive when you buy them in the shops. If
they ain’t rotting, they ain’t dead.’

‘Nonsense,’
said Norman. ‘You’re tuning me up.’

‘I’m
not. You’d still be alive and fully conscious when you got plunged into the
boiling water. You’d die in there though, once you were all cooked through.
Takes about twenty minutes. Horrible way to go.’

‘Vegetables
don’t feel pain,’ said Norman.

‘Oh yes
they do. God didn’t mention it to Adam and Eve, of course. He figured it would
put them off their lunch.’

‘Do
they cook radishes?’ Norman asked.

‘Eat ‘m
raw, I think. Raw as in
alive.
One mouthful at a time: chomp, chomp,
chomp. Bits of you would still be alive down in the stomach. Amongst the
terrible gastric juices. Some bits might even survive to come out the next
morning in the sh—’

‘Thank
you,’ said Norman. ‘I think I get the picture.’

‘Still,’
Jack had a fine grin on again, ‘you do have the choice. So what will it be, the
radish or the sprout?’

‘What
are the hours like here?’ Norman asked. ‘As a matter of interest.’

‘Pretty
good,’ Jack plucked the form from Norman’s fingers, crumpled it up into a ball
and tossed it into a wastepaper basket. Here it came to rest amongst hundreds
of other little crumpled up balls of paper, each of which had once been an
identical form.

Now,
had this been a movie, possibly one directed by Jeannot Szwarc or Bruce Geller,
the camera would have zoomed in upon this, to register in the mind of the
movie-goer that it was ‘significant’. The implication being that Jack had not
been altogether honest with Norman regarding the matter of Norman being the
first dead boy that he had done any Post Life Counselling for.

But, as
this was not (as yet), a movie, this
very
significant detail was missed
altogether.

‘There’s
recreational facilities,’ said Jack. ‘Ping pong and the interdepartmental
five-aside-football league. And swimming in the company pool.’

‘I’m
thrilled beyond words,’ said Norman.

‘Yeah,
well, you’ll find something you like. You’ll be OK. It’s better than being a
sprout, I promise you. So, shall we get started?’

‘Would
you mind if I just went to the toilet first?’

Jack
raised the eyebrow of suspicion. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of making a run for
it, would you?’

‘Certainly
not,’ Norman lied. ‘There isn’t anywhere to run off
to,
is there?’

‘Afraid
not, I suppose you could hide in a cupboard or something.’

‘Would
that help me?’

‘No,
but it would make me laugh.’

‘I’ll
just use the lay’ then, if you don’t mind.’

‘Good
lad. Left out of the door and third door on the left.’

‘Thanks.’
Norman rose from his stack of boxfiles and picked his way carefully to the
door.

Somewhere
amidst the chaos of Jack’s desk an intercom began to buzz, when the door had
closed upon Norman, Jack cleared papers from it and flicked a switch.

‘Bradshaw,’
said he.

Words
came to him via some telephonic-cable-link jobbie, but not one of sufficient
interest to be worth mentioning.

‘How
are you progressing, Bradshaw?’ asked the voice of the controller.

‘No
problems, sir. He’ll be perfect. A right little skiver. Just what you were
looking for.’

‘Splendid,
Bradshaw. Well, you know the drill; coax him along, tell him all he needs to
know and make damn sure he doesn’t find out the rest.

‘He
asks a lot of questions, sir, but I know what to tell him. He’s a no-mark; all
he wants to do is doss about.’

‘Which
is all we want him to do. Nice work, Bradshaw, speak to you soon.

‘Goodbye,
sir.’

Outside
in the corridor Norman withdrew his ear from the door. ‘A no-mark, eh?’ he
whispered to himself. ‘Well, we’ll see about that.’

In a faraway room the
controller replaced his telephone receiver and sank lower into the perfumed
water of his marble bath-tub. Here he sought to compose the final mathematical
equation that would complete his formula for the universal panacea and elixir
of life.

He was
a large man, the controller. Bald of head and big of belly. And there was
absolutely no doubt whatsoever as to whom he was the dead spit of.

Quite
uncanny the resemblance.

‘All right now?’ Jack
asked on Norman’s return. ‘Find it OK?’

‘Yes
thank you. So where do you want me to sit?’

‘You
can have
my
chair,’ Jack rose from it.

Norman
sat down on it. ‘So what do I have to do?’

‘I’ll
explain the procedure.’ Jack did so. It was a very complicated procedure, which
involved many visits to many different filing cabinets, much in the way of
cross-referencing and form-filling and the use of an intricate brass
Comptometerish affair, which Jack described as a Karmascope. The exact purpose
of this device Jack did not elaborate upon; only to say that all the final
figures gleaned from all the filing cabinet visits, cross-referencing and
form-filling were to be double checked and then fed into it.

‘Everything
you need to know is in here,’ said Jack, presenting Norman with a user’s
handbook the size of a telephone directory. ‘All make sense to you so…’

Norman
yawned. ‘Where will you be sitting?’ he asked.

‘In my
new office,’ said Jack. ‘Upstairs. Promotion, you see.’

‘My
heartiest congratulations.’

‘I’ll
pop down in an hour or so and see how you’re getting on. If you need any help,
push the blue button on the intercom.’

‘Better
make it two hours,’ said Norman. ‘I’d like to do a bit of tidying up first.’

‘I
could make it four hours if you like. Be about knocking-off time then.’

Jack
made his way to the door. ‘See you later,’ he said.

‘See
you later.’

The
door swung shut upon the terrible little room, leaving Norman all alone in it.
Outside Jack pressed
his
ear to the door.

And
heard nothing whatsoever.

No
sounds of activity, of paper shuffling, of tidying up. Nothing. Exactly what he
expected not to hear really.

Chuckling
to himself, Jack made off towards the lift.

‘Chuckle
on, you sod,’ whispered Norman, whose ear was pressed against the inside of the
door this time. ‘I’ll find out just what you’re up to, you see if I don’t. But
first things first,’ said he, negotiating a route back to the desk. ‘I wonder
what would be the best way to break this brass machine?’

Norman
sat down and sulked. ‘I should have demanded a change of clothes,’ he
complained. ‘I’m buggered if I’m going to spend the next two millennia dressed
in my school uniform. But then I’m buggered if I’m going to spend the next two
millennia here anyway.’