Odds and Gods (10 page)

‘Thanks.’

‘You come recommended.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

Julian reached across the desktop and drew a file towards him. ‘Highly recommended.’ He opened the file, flicked through a couple of pages and nodded. ‘You’ve been around a fair while, I see. Like, it was you who finally killed Dracula in 1876.’

‘Yup.’

‘And 1879. And 1902. And 1913.’

‘You can’t keep a good man down.’

‘And 1927. But not since.’

Lundqvist shrugged. ‘Actually, you can keep a good man down, just so long as you use a big enough stake. In this case, a telegraph pole.’

‘Cool.’

‘It worked.’ He smiled faintly. ‘First time, anyhow. Though I hear they get some really bizarre wrong numbers in those parts even now. What is it you want done?’

Julian shrugged and turned a few more pages. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘this one you did a year or so back, that really was a bit out of the ordinary.’ He tossed over a polaroid of a stunted green shape, vaguely humanoid but with a weird head and strange, long fingers. ‘I thought he made it back to his own planet eventually. There was a film about it. Lots of kids with bicycles.’

Lundqvist said nothing, but shook his head. Julian suddenly felt ever so slightly unnerved.

‘But he was kinda sweet, wasn’t he?’ he said.

‘So what?’

‘How did you find him, exactly? I thought he was well hidden, after the story broke.’

‘I tapped his phone.’

‘Figures.’ Julian closed the file. ‘Well, I want you to think of this job as the culmination of your extremely impressive career. Afterwards, of course, you’ll have to retire. You’ll never be able to work again.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Mind you, you’ll never need to work again. The package I have in mind is extremely favourable.’

‘Look.’ Lundqvist leaned forward and stared at him across the desk. ‘The only packages I know about go tick tick. Cut to the chase, okay?’

‘Okay.’ Julian folded his arms. ‘I’ve got a god needs taking for a ride.’

‘A god. I see. Any particular one?’

‘Osiris. You know him?’

‘By repute.’ Lundqvist’s eyes glowed. ‘Any reason, or just general resentment about the Fall of Man?’

‘My business,’ said Julian quietly. He picked up the pen and fiddled with the cap. ‘Let’s say he’s taking up space required for other purposes. And time, too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Lundqvist stood up. ‘I ought to blow your fucking head off right now,’ he said.

In a curved and infinite universe, everything has to happen eventually, somewhere. Julian stared. For the very first time he was at a loss for words.

‘Now listen to me,’ Lundqvist hissed. He reached out a hand and gathered a palmful of Julian’s tie. ‘Two points. One, gods are immortal. This makes them pretty damn difficult to kill. Not,’ he added with a hint of pride, ‘impossible. But difficult, certainly.’

‘Not for you, surely.’

‘That’s beside the point.’ Lundqvist tightened his grip on the tie. ‘The second thing is, I don’t kill gods. I’m the good guy, dammit. I’m on their side. I sort out the bad guys, that’s what I do. Talking of which, the only thing standing between you and reincarnation under a flat stone is professional ethics.’ Lundqvist grinned suddenly. ‘And I wouldn’t rely on that too much.’

‘You’ll be sorry.’

Lundqvist’s face was white with rage. ‘Hey, man,’ he growled, ‘I’d have thought you’d have known, threatening me is not wise. The last guy who threatened me is now an integral part of the Manhattan skyline.’

‘No threat intended. All I meant was, you don’t take the job, you don’t get paid a very large sum of money. I’d be really sorry if I missed out on a chance like that.’

‘Stuff your money,’ Lundqvist replied. ‘I got principles, okay?’

‘Principles?’ Julian raised an eyebrow. ‘Kurt, for god’s sake, you’re a multiple murderer. Isn’t it just a bit late . . . ?’

Julian found himself hovering in the air about six inches away from his seat, with a square foot of his shirtfront twisted in Lundqvist’s hand. ‘I got principles,’ he repeated. ‘You touch a single hair on that god’s head and you’ll wish you’d never been born. Or rather,’ he added, with a disconcerting grin, ‘you’ll wish you had been born. In vain, it goes without saying. You copy?’

‘Save it for the customers, Kurt,’ replied Julian, although he could have done with the air he used in doing so for other, more urgent purposes. ‘How much? Name your own—’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Actually, I was thinking that money would be more appropriate. Still . . .’

Julian hit the back of his chair like a squash ball, and his head slumped forwards on to the desk. A splash of blood from the cut on his forehead fell on the lease, fortuitously blotting out an unfavourable rent review clause he’d previously overlooked.

‘Am I to take that as a definite maybe?’ he asked.

For a moment, Julian was convinced Lundqvist was going to kill him. The gun reappeared from under his arm - God, Julian thought, as he stared down the endless black tunnel of the muzzle, after a hard day’s work that thing must smell
awful
- and there was a click as the hammer came back. But there was no bang; because Lundqvist was a professional, a highclass operator, and the golden rule of top specialists is: no free samples. A moment later, there was only a space where Lundqvist had been, and the wind blowing intrusively through the smashed window.

‘Shit,’ Julian mused aloud. ‘Ah well, never mind.’ He swivelled his chair round to the computer terminal on his desk, tapped a couple of keys and waited while the machine bleeped at him.

Julian frowned. ‘Ready what?’ he said.

‘That’s more like it. Right, do me a scan on the following wordgroup.’

He tapped again. The machine flickered, told him a lot of things he knew already about all rights being protected, and finally produced a column of names. The heading was:

T
he visitor looked startled.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Of philosophy. What seems to be the problem?’

Lug elbowed the visitor tactfully in the ribs. ‘Ignore her,’ he whispered. ‘She says that to everyone.’ He started to tap his head meaningfully, caught Minerva’s eye and tried to make it look as if he was scratching his head. The visitor ignored him.

‘Will you take a look at my leg?’ Minerva said. ‘I keep asking to see the doctor but they never listen.’

‘We really ought to be getting on, because we’ve got a lot to—’

‘Certainly,’ said the visitor. ‘I shall be delighted to look at your leg, although it’s a pity you didn’t ask me six thousand years ago, before it got all wrinkled and yuk. Still, better late than never.’

‘Really, you shouldn’t encourage her, she can be a real—’

‘Yes,’ said the visitor, ‘that’s definitely a leg. I’d know one anywhere. It’s the foot at the end I always look for. Mind you, who is to say that I’m not in fact an ostrich dreaming that I’m a doctor of philosophy looking at a leg? A very charming leg, it goes without saying, even now.’

A hand in the small of the back propelled the visitor out of the television room and into a small enclosure used for the storage of cleaning equipment. Lug closed the door.

‘Since when have you been a doctor of philosophy?’ he demanded.

‘Not long,’ Pan admitted. ‘I saw one of these adverts in a magazine. You send them fifty dollars and they give you a degree. I could have been an emeritus professor, only they don’t take credit cards.’

‘Right. Look . . .’

‘Chicopee Falls.’

Lug blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Chicopee Falls, Iowa. University of. If you’re interested I can let you have the details.’

‘No thank you,’ said Lug firmly. It was, he decided, a bit like having a conversation with someone positioned twenty minutes in the future, with frequent interruptions from someone else five minutes ago in the past. ‘Look, will you stop changing the subject? You’re getting me all muddled up.’

‘Sorry,’ replied the god of Confusion. ‘Force of habit. What can I do for you?’

Lug moved a dustpan and brush and sat down on the electrical floor-polisher. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘You came to see me, remember?’

‘So I did.’ Pan leaned on a vacuum cleaner and grinned. ‘Got a message for you.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘From Osiris.’

Lug looked at him blankly. ‘His room’s just down the corridor from mine,’ he said. ‘Why can’t he tell me himself?’

‘Because,’ Pan replied, idly unwinding the flex and tying knots in it, ‘he’s done a runner. Gone into hiding. Didn’t you notice all the kerfuffle a few days ago, when those two doctors came to declare him insane?’

‘Declare
him
insane?’ Lug thought about it. ‘It’s a good point, though,’ he added. ‘I mean, if she asked them if they were doctors, they wouldn’t find it odd at all. Sorry, I’m doing it now. Why were they trying to do that?’

‘So that his loathsome godson could take over his powers and get at his money, he reckons.’ Pan leaned down and buffed his nails on the polishing mop. ‘Apparently, the godson’s managed to get him to sign a power of attorney.’

‘Sneaky.’

‘Very.’ Pan yawned. ‘Anyhow, I’m here just to tell you so you won’t be worried about him. That’s about it, really.’

‘Why me, though?’

Pan shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘But he was absolutely clear about it, you were the one I had to tell, so if you wouldn’t mind just signing this receipt, I can be on my way.’

‘Oh. Sure. Have you got a pen handy, by the way, because I think I’ve—’

Just then the door opened, and a small head the colour and shape of an acorn appeared round it.

‘You doctor?’ it asked. ‘Doctor of phirosophy?’

Pan raised an eyebrow. ‘Sorry?’

‘Minerva say you doctor of phirosophy. Please, you take rook at soul for me? Soul not very good, maybe sick. You maybe give prescliption or something.’

‘That’s Confucius,’ Lug whispered. ‘He doesn’t speak very good Eng—’

‘I’d be delighted,’ Pan replied. ‘Now then, where does it hurt?’

The rest of Confucius followed his head into the room. ‘Not hurt at all,’ he replied, bowing from the hips. ‘Maybe not exist at all. Plato he say—’

‘Ah,’ Pan replied. ‘I think what you really need is a doctor of theology. Sounds more a theological job to me.’

‘So. You know where I find doctor of theology?’

‘It just so happens that I’m a doctor of theology. University of Chicopee Falls, Iowa, class of ‘87. Just go next door and take your id off and I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’

As the door closed behind him, Lug frowned. ‘Do you have to do that?’ he asked. ‘It’s going to be a complete bloody shambles here for weeks now, you realise.’

‘Sorry,’ Pan replied. ‘But I’ve got my Hypocritic Oath to think of.’

‘You mean Hippocratic.’

‘I know what I mean,’ replied the Father of Misunderstandings. ‘Now then, I’ve given you the message. Be sure not to tell
anyone
. You got that? Anyone at all.’

Lug blinked. ‘If I’m not to tell anybody, why tell me?’

Pan got up, brushed himself off and winked. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he replied, ‘I’m only the messenger. Moving in a mysterious way just sort of goes with the territory, don’t you find? Thank you for your time.’

Force of habit can be a tremendously powerful influence. Between the broom cupboard and the front door. Pan diagnosed three prolapsed souls, five ingrowing personalities (doctor of psychiatry, University of Chicopee Falls, Iowa; buy two, get one free) and a nasty case of entropy of the mind’s eye. He got out of the building about thirty seconds ahead of the security guards and their ten-stone Rottweiler.

He was strolling back towards the bus stop when he realised that someone was following him. A mortal, female, young and, if you were in the habit of confusing quantity with quality, reasonably attractive. She was wearing a white overall thing and had a watch pinned to her front. He stopped until she’d caught up with him.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Are you Pan?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I do.’

‘That’s all right, then. Only you can’t be too careful these days.’

The girl frowned at him. ‘I’m looking for Mr Osiris,’ she said. ‘Is he staying with you?’

‘How did you find out?’

‘He heard your voice on a telly commercial just before he left my house without saying where he was going,’ replied the girl. ‘When the commercial came on in the television room back at the Home, I asked around the residents to see if they knew whose the voice was, and they told me it was you. Then when somebody said Pan had just been in the place causing trouble—’

‘Bloody cheek!’

‘. . . I rushed out after you and here I am. Will you take me to see him?’