The Fandom of the Operator

28

Can you believe that?

I mean, can you?

He had me thrown into the furnace.

If frying in the electric chair had been bad, it was a doddle compared with that.

That really hurt.

But it did get the job done and, there was no doubt about it, I was definitely dead again. And for good and all this time, with no Earthly hope for resurrection. Gone, reduced to ashes. No more Gary Charlton Cheese in the flesh. Only in the spirit. I didn’t find myself back at Mr Doveston’s tomb this time: I found myself nowhere in particular. A bit lost, as it happens. Just sort of drifting.

But it felt really nice. I didn’t feel empty at all this time. There was a great deal of darkness around and about, but a light or two in the distance. I moved towards those lights.

As I moved on, the lights moved nearer. Big lights, two lights.

A car ran me over.

I picked myself up and dusted myself down and chewed upon my lip as I surveyed the tyre marks over my chest. “Not a great start,” said I.

But where was I?

It looked a bit like New York, but as I’d never been to New York I couldn’t be sure. However, as I’d seen New York on TV and in movies, I could be sure. It was New York. But why New York?

I shambled along in a bumbling kind of fashion, like you do when you’re lost, or drunk, or both. I didn’t recognize any New York landmarks.

But then suddenly I did.

There was a bar up ahead – a New York bar, a Manhattan bar. A neon light flashed above it, spelling out letters that made up the name: FANGIO’S.

Fangio’s bar, favourite hangout of Lazlo Woodbine. I bumbled towards Fangio’s bar. Of course I recognized the cracked glass door. It was exactly as I’d imagined it, exactly as it had been in the books. And inside, the bar was all there, all exactly right. A man stood behind the bar counter, and he was a big man, a big fat man. This was Fangio, the fat boy barman. And seated upon the customer side of the counter, upon a chromium bar stool, sat the other man. He wore a trenchcoat and a fedora. He sipped on a bottle of Bud and munched upon a hot pastrami on rye.

The other man was none other than Lazlo Woodbine.

Fangio looked over at me as I swung in the door.

“Lordy, lordy,” said he. “It’s the elephant man.” I chewed upon my bottom lip and realized that it was a quite substantial bottom lip. And I remembered my encounter with the late Mother Demdike – how she’d said that, when we died, we each got the form that was really us. “Ah, no offence meant, fella,” said Fangio. “Looks ain’t everything. Did the circus leave town without you? Why not have a drink? What’ll it be?”

“Anything at all,” I said. “Anything at all.”

“That’s a bit vague,” said Fangio. “We like to be specific here.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “Give me a beer. Give me a Bud.”

The guy in the trenchcoat (you note that I say “guy” here, rather than “man”) turned to me.

“Sit yourself down,” he said. “There’s no appearance-code here. We’re always grateful when someone breezes in to chew the fat. What’s your name, buddy?”

“It’s Cheese,” I said. “Gary Charlton Cheese. And you are …” I couldn’t get the words out.

“The name’s Woodbine,” said Woodbine. “Lazlo Woodbine, private eye.” And he added, “Some call me Laz.”

“I would be proud to call you Laz,” said I. “I’m your greatest fan. Well, the fan of your author. If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do.”

“Don’t use my catch phrases,” said Mr Woodbine. “And don’t mention him. He and I do not see eye to eye any more.”

“I’m perplexed,” I said, as Fangio handed me my bottle of Bud. “I mean, you’re real. You’re here. I thought—”

“That I was a fictitious character?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s because I was written up as a fictitious character. But I was once alive, like you were. So what are you doing in this neck of the Manhattan woods?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing for me to have to tell you,” I said, “but I’ve come to kill P.P. Penrose. That dead man is wreaking havoc on Earth.”

“It’s fine with me,” said Laz, for I could call him that. “I hate the guy. He wrote up my cases then claimed all the glory for himself. Like I say, I was never a fictitious character. I was a real detective. He just changed my name.”

“Outrageous!” I said.

“And he had me killed.”

“What!” I said.

“I was going to expose him. He had me killed. Weirdest thing. Never saw it coming and me being Woodbine – well, Passing Cloud, actually; I’m half Cherokee from my father’s side. This blind guy killed me. Blind guy from the circus. Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique.”

“Oh no,” I said. “My Uncle Jonny.”

“Small world, isn’t it?” said Mr Woodbine. “Everything fits together, eventually, doesn’t it?”

“Where is he?” I asked. “Mr Penrose. Do you know where he is?”

“In my office, doing his stuff: pulling strings, playing his sporting games.”

“Do you want to come with me?” I asked. “Do you want to help?”

“Can’t,” said Laz and he shook his fedora’d head. “I’m stuck here, in this bar. Me and Fangio, we chew fat and talk toot. We tried to kill him, because we hated him so much for what he did. But if you hate, you get stuck. We got stuck here, but we make the best of it. You go get him, kid. And here, take this; you’ll need it.” And Laz pulled out his trusty Smith & Wesson and handed it to me. “It’s taken down a few bad guys in its time,” he said. “One more won’t hurt. Get the job done, kid, then come back here. I’ll stand you a beer.”

“You can pay for the one he’s just had, Laz,” said Fangio.

“We can discuss that,” said Laz to the fat boy.

I took Laz’s trusty Smith & Wesson and stared at it. The trusty Smith & Wesson: what a collector’s item. I was still a fan – I had no control over it. Once you’re a fan of something or someone, you’re stuck to it. I thanked Laz and waved farewell to the fat boy.

And then I left the bar. I passed down the now legendary alleyway, where Laz used to get into sticky situations, and found my way to his office. It was where I expected it to be, so it was no mystery how I found it.

On the partition door the words LAZLO WOODBINE INVESTIGATIONS were etched into the glass. I don’t know what I felt. Nervous? Yes. Doubtful? Yes. Guilty? Yes, that too. It was all my fault, what had happened; what had caused Mr Penrose to behave as he had. But truth is truth is truth. He obviously hadn’t been a good person. Not if he’d had Mr Woodbine, Mr Passing Cloud, killed.

But there was more that troubled me. Could I actually trust Mr Woodbine/Passing Cloud? I knew that the dead were notable liars. Perhaps I hadn’t been told the truth. But I was really giving up on the truth. Perhaps there really isn’t any truth, any ultimate truth. Perhaps the universe consists for the most part of half-truths and just plain lies. Perhaps there really isn’t any real truth at all.

I knocked at the office door.

“Come,” called a voice.

And I entered.

It was the same office – the same office as that which Mr Boothy had occupied. Exactly the same. Behind the desk of this one sat an old gentleman clad in a suit of Boleskine tweed.

“Mr Penrose?” I said. “Mr Charles Penrose?”

The gentleman stared at me, though he did not seem at all bothered by my obviously grotesque appearance. “So,” said he. “Someone who knows my real name, my True Name. And you would be?”

“Gary Cheese,” I said. “Gary Charlton Cheese. You would know me as Valdec Firesword, Archduke of Alpha Centuri.”

“Oh yes,” said Mr Penrose. “The maniac. But this is a bit of a surprise. I didn’t expect ever to see you here.”

“It’s fate,” I said. “Everything fits together for a purpose. It’s just that most of us never get to know what that purpose might be.” And I looked hard at Mr Penrose. He obviously didn’t know that I was the one who’d woken him up from the dead and caused him to hate humanity so much. Well, if he didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell him.

“And what is your purpose?” asked Mr Penrose.

I pulled out Laz’s gun. “I’ve come here to kill you,” I said. “I’m sorry, but there it is. You are my favourite author and I’m your greatest fan. And I can’t tell you just how incredible it is for me to meet you – if not in the flesh, then at least in the spirit. But I have to kill you, to stop you playing your games with humanity. All that has to stop now. But before I kill you, and I must, and I am sorry for it, would it be all right if I asked you a question? Something that I’ve always wanted to know.”

“Ask on,” said Mr Penrose.

“Thank you,” I said. “The question is this: where do you get your ideas from?”

Mr Penrose made a groaning sound, deep in the back of his throat.

“So?” I said.

“Forget it, lad. If I knew where I got my ideas from I wouldn’t tell you. And I do know, and it’s a secret.”

“Like magic,” I said.

“Ideas are magic,” said Mr Penrose. “So let’s discuss the business of you killing me. What’s that all about, then?”

“You know perfectly well what it’s all about,” I said, waggling the gun at the famous author. “All that beaming of science-fiction characters into people’s brains: that has to stop.”

“Why?” asked Mr Penrose.

“Because it’s not right.”

“People kill one another all the time, with or without my prompting. What’s a few less people in the world?”

“That’s a rather callous attitude. I don’t think you’re a very nice man. I thought you were a great sportsman.” I cocked the pistol.

“It’s not very sporting to shoot an unarmed man,” said Mr Penrose.

“Sportsmanship doesn’t enter into this,” I said.

“Well, it should. I’ve always given my characters a sporting chance.”

“You didn’t give me much of one.”

“Oh yes, I did. You lost the game because you fell into an obvious trap. Imagine going through a door marked WHITE COAT AND LIGHT BULB STORE. Ludicrous.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I was under stress. It had been a difficult day. And it wasn’t me, was it? It was Valdec Firesword making me do what I did.”

“So if you had another chance, you’d do better, would you? Doing your own thinking, you’d win the game?”

“What game?” I said. “What is the game anyway?”

“It’s a role-playing game,” Mr Penrose explained, “based on the plot from one of my Adam Earth series. An alien race is wiped out in a cosmic catastrophe, but their spirits are able to manipulate human beings. They’re a competitive race, the aliens, and somewhat cold-blooded. They compete on Earth through their unknowing human hosts. It’s survival of the fittest and the most intelligent. Eventually there will be only one of them left. That one wins the game.”

“And what’s the prize?” I asked.

“Earth, of course,” said Mr Penrose. “The winner will be the one who ends up controlling the entire planet.”

“That’s daft,” I said. “Just beam one of your characters into the head of the President of the United States and he’s the winner.”

“Unsporting,” said Mr Penrose. “Too easy. It has to be little people who can work their way up to become rich and famous. You had a lot of chances, you know. You were given the opportunity to communicate with the dead. That should have given you an edge.”

“If I’d known,” I said. “But Valdec Firesword screwed it up, not me.”

“He never was too bright. Which is why he lost the game.”

“Who’s winning at the moment?” I asked. “Not that I’m interested.”

“I’m not going to tell you that,” said Mr Penrose. “That would be really unsporting.”

“Well, it’s neither here nor there. You’re a dead dead-man.” And I levelled the pistol at his head.

“You can’t do it, you know. You can’t just shoot me here.”

“And why not?”

“Do you like this office? Do you really like it?”

“It’s OK,” I said. “It’s nothing much to speak of.”

“So how would you feel about spending all eternity here?”

“I wouldn’t be too keen on that at all.”

“No,” said Mr Penrose. “And, frankly, I hate it. But that’s what I’m stuck with. Because I’m stuck here. Because of what I’ve done. You’ll be doing me a favour if you shoot me. I’ll move on to another level. But you won’t be doing yourself a favour. Your actions will cause you to become stuck here, right here, in this office, like mine have for me. Bad thoughts and actions weigh down the dead and stop them moving on.”

“Hm,” I said, scratching my head with the gun barrel and noticing for the first time just what a lot of head there was to scratch.

“A dead woman called Mother Demdike explained that to me. This is a tricky situation.”

“I can’t see any way out of it for either of us,” said Mr Penrose.

I stared at him and I scratched at my head once more. “I think I can,” I said.

“Oh yes? And what do you have in mind?”

“Well,” I said, “you consider yourself to be a great sporting man, yes?”

Mr Penrose nodded.

“Well, what if you and I had some sport? One on one and winner takes all?”

“I am intrigued,” said Mr Penrose. “Speak to me of this sport.”

And so I spoke to him.