The Toyminator

6

At least in a bar brawl you know where you are.

There are so many moments in life when you really don’t know where you are. Where you stand, how you’re fixed, what you’re up against and so on and so forth and suchlike. Life can be tricky like that. It builds you up and it knocks you down. The build-up is generally slow, but it leads to overconfidence. The knocking down is swift and it comes out of nowhere. And it hurts.

But at least in a bar brawl you know where you are.

You generally have a choice of three places. Right in the thick of it, getting hammered or doing the hammering. Just on the periphery, where a stray fist or flying bottle is likely to strike you. Or right on the edge, at the back of the crowd, which is the best place to be. You can always climb up on a chair and enjoy the action without too much danger of taking personal punishment.

Back of the crowd is definitely the best place to be in a bar brawl.

In life, well, that’s another matter, but in a bar brawl, it’s the back. You know where you are at the back.

Jack was not at the back. For Jack was indeed the epicentre. And when it came right down to it, Jack was not a fighter. He was rarely one to swing the first fist and why he had done this now troubled him. But not so much as the other thing troubled him. This other thing being the handbag that was repeatedly striking his head. The partner of the fellow Jack had floored was going at Jack as one possessed. And possessed of a strong right arm.

Jack sheltered his head with his hands and yelled, “Stop!” But the violence ceased to do so. And Jack’s shout of, “Stop!” echoed hollowly through the air, for the music had ceased and the dancing had ceased and all conversation likewise had ceased and all eyes were upon Jack.

And then Amelie swung a handbag of her own and floored Jack’s attacker.

Which somehow increased the sudden silence, made it more intense.

Jack uncovered his head and glanced all around and about himself. Stern faces stared and glared at him, eyebrows and mouth-corners well drawn down. Fingers were a-forming fists, shoulders were a-broadening. Jack now glanced down at the two prone figures on the dance-floor. A little voice in Jack’s head said, “This isn’t good.”

“Right,” said Jack, now squaring his narrow shoulders. “We’re leaving now. No one try to stop us.”

The sounds of growlings came to Jack’s ears, and not the growlings of dogs. The crowd was forming a tight ring now, a very tight ring with no exit.

Jack stuck his right hand into his trenchcoat pocket. “I’ve a gun here,” he cried, “and I’m not afraid to use it. In fact I’ll be happy to use it, because I’m quite mad, me. Who’ll be the first then? Who?”

The ring now widened and many exits appeared. Jack’s non-pocketed hand reached out to Amelie, who took it in the one that wasn’t wielding her handbag. “Come on,” said Jack. “Let’s go.”

And so, with Jack’s pocket-hand doing all-around gun-poking motions, he and Amelie headed to the door. And well might they have made it, too, had not something altogether untoward occurred. It occurred upon the stage and it began with a scream. As screams went this was a loud one and coming as it did from the mouth of Dolly Dumpling it was a magnificent scream. Exactly what key this scream was in was anyone’s guess, but those who understand acoustics and know exactly which pitch, note, key or whatever is necessary to shatter glass would have recognised it immediately. For it was that very one.

Behind the bar counter, bottles, optics, glasses, vases, cocktail stirrers and the left eye of the barman shattered. Champagne flutes on tables blew to shards and next came the windows.

Jack turned and Jack saw and what Jack saw Jack didn’t like at all.

The stage was engulfed in a blinding light. Dolly Dumpling was lost in this light, as were the clockwork musicians.

Dolly’s scream went on and on, if anything rising in pitch. A terrible vibration of the gut-rumbling persuasion hit the now-cowering crowd and signalled that mad rush that comes at such moments. That mad rush that’s made for the door.

Screams and panic, horror and bright white light.

Jack should have run, too, for such was the obvious thing to do. He should have taken to his heels and fled the scene, dragging Amelie with him. But Jack found, much to his horror, that his feet wouldn’t budge. The expression “rooted to the spot” had now some definite meaning to him, so instead he gathered Amelie to himself and as the crowd rushed past did his bestest to remain upright and in a single piece.

The crowd burst through the doors of Old King Cole’s, tumbling over one another. Unshattered glass erupted from these doors. It was a cacophony of chaos, a madness of mayhem, a veritable discord of disorder. A pandemic of pandemonium.

And worse was yet to come.

“And worse was yet to come,” said Tinto to Eddie Bear, in Tinto’s Bar, some way away from the pandemic of pandemonium and even indeed the tuneless tornadic timpani of turbulence.

“Worse than what?” asked Eddie, who hadn’t been listening, but had been getting drunk.

“The mother-in-law’s pancake-cleaning facility burned to the ground,” said Tinto, “so we had to release all the penguins and Keith couldn’t ride his bike for a week.”

“You what?” Eddie asked.

“I knew you weren’t listening,” said Tinto. “Nobody ever listens to me.”

“They listen when you call time,” said Eddie. “Though mostly they ignore it. But they do listen, and that is what matters.”

“That’s some consolation,” said Tinto. “But not much.”

“Take what you can get,” said Eddie. “That’s what I always say.”

“I’ve never heard you say it before.” Tinto took up a glass to clean and cleaned it.

“Perhaps you weren’t listening,” Eddie suggested. “It happens sometimes.”

“Well,” said Tinto, “if I see one of those spacemen, I’ll tell them that’s what I think of them.”

“You do that,” said Eddie. “And you can tell them what I think of them, too. Whatever that might be.”

“Should I wait until you think something up?”

“That would probably be for the best.” Eddie took his beer glass carefully between his paws and poured its contents without care into his mouth. “And by the by,” he said, once he had done with this, replaced his glass upon the counter top and wiped a paw across his mouth, “which spacemen would these be?”

“I knew you weren’t listening,” said Tinto.

“You know so much,” said Eddie, “which is why I admire you so much.”

“You do?” Tinto asked.

Eddie smiled upon the clockwork barman. “What do you think?” he asked in return.

“I think you’re winding me up,” said Tinto. “But not in the nice way. I hope they get you next, that will serve you right.”

“Right,” said Eddie. “What are you talking about?”

“The spacemen with the death rays,” Tinto said.

“Ah,” said Eddie, indicating that he would like further beers. “Those spacemen. I was thinking about the other spacemen, which is why I got confused.”

“Are you drunk?” asked Tinto.

“My feet are,” said Eddie. “You might well have to carry me to the toilet.”

“Now that,” said Tinto, “is not going to happen.”

“I rather thought not, but do tell me about the spacemen.”

“You’re not just trying to engage me in conversation in order that I might forget to charge you for all of those beers?”

Eddie made the kind of face that said, “As if I would,” without actually putting it into words.

“Good face,” said Tinto. “What does it mean?”

“It means what spacemen?” said Eddie.

“The spacemen,” said Tinto, “who blasted the clockwork monkeys with their death rays.”

“Now this is new,” said Eddie.

“Not to those spacemen.” Tinto took up another glass to polish, without replacing the first. Eddie looked on with envy at those dextrous fingers. “I’ll bet those spacemen blast clockwork monkeys all the time.”

Eddie Bear did shakings of his head, which made him slightly giddy, which meant at least that the beer was creeping up.

“Tinto,” said Eddie, “please explain to me, in a simple and easy-to-understand fashion, exactly what you are talking about.”

“The clockwork monkeys,” said Tinto, “the ones that got blasted. They got blasted by spacemen.”

Eddie sighed. “And who told you that?” he asked.

“A spaceman,” said Tinto.

“A spaceman,” said Eddie. “What spaceman?”

“That spaceman.” Tinto pointed, glasses still in his hand and everything. “That spaceman over there.”

Eddie turned his head to view this spaceman.

And Eddie Bear fell off his stool.

“Drunk!” cried Tinto. “Out of my bar.”

“I’m not drunk.” Eddie did further strugglings and managed at least to get to his knee regions. “It’s your responsibility. Where is this spaceman?”

“You are drunk,” said Tinto. “You drunkard. Over there,” and Tinto pointed once again.

“Ah,” said Eddie, rising with considerable difficulty and swaying with no apparent difficulty whatsoever.

Across the bar floor at a dim corner table sat a spaceman. He was a rather splendid-looking spaceman, as it happened. Very shiny was he, very silvery and well polished. He was all-over tin plate but for a tinted see-through plastic weather dome, which was presently half-raised to permit the passage of alcohol.

Eddie tottered and swayed in the spaceman’s direction. The spaceman looked up from his drink and wondered at Eddie’s approach.

Before the spaceman’s table Eddie paused, but still swayed somewhat. “Ahoy there, shipmate,” said Eddie Bear.

“Ahoy there what?” The spaceman’s voice came as if from the earpiece of a telephone receiver, but in fact came from a grille in his chest similar to Tinto’s. The spaceman raised a rubber hand and waggled its fingers at Eddie.

“Might I sit down?” asked the bear.

“Your capabilities are unknown to me,” said the spaceman. “Was that a rhetorical question?”

Eddie drew out a chair and slumped himself down onto it. He grinned lopsidedly at the spaceman and said, “So, how’s it going, then?”

“I come in peace,” said the spaceman. “Take me to your leader.”

“Excuse me?” said Eddie.

“Sorry,” said the spaceman. “That one always comes out if I don’t control myself. As does, ‘So die, puny Earthling,’ and, curiously, ‘I’ve done a wee-wee, please change my nappy.’ Although personally I believe that one was programmed into me by mistake. Probably Friday afternoon on the production line – you know what it’s like.”

“I certainly do,” said Eddie, “or would, if it weren’t for the fact that I am an Anders Imperial, pieced together by none other than the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker himself.”

“I come from a distant star,” said the spaceman.

“I thought you said production line.” Eddie Bear did paw-scratchings of the head.

“Perhaps on a distant star,” the spaceman suggested.

“Perhaps,” said Eddie, “but then again –”

“Let’s not think about it.” The spaceman took up his glass, put it to his face, but sadly found it empty. “I was about to say, let’s just drink,” he said, “but I find to my utter despair that my glass is empty. Would you care to buy me a drink?”

“Not particularly,” said Eddie. “But thanks for asking.”

“In return I will spare your planet.”

Eddie shrugged what shoulders he possessed. “I would appear to be getting the better part of that particular deal,” he said. “If I possessed the necessary funds I think I’d buy you a drink.”

“Perhaps you could ask the barman for credit?”

“Perhaps you could menace him with your death ray and get the drinks in all round.”

“Perhaps,” said the spaceman.

“Perhaps indeed,” said Eddie.

The spaceman sighed and so did Eddie.

“I wish I were a clockwork train,” said the spaceman.

“What?” Eddie said.

“Well,” said the spaceman, “you know where you are when you’re a train, don’t you? It’s a bit like being in a bar brawl.”

“No, it’s not,” said Eddie.

“No, I suppose it’s not. But you do know where you are. Which line you’re on. Which station you’ll be coming to next. It’s not like that for we spacemen.”

“Really?” said Eddie, who was losing interest.

“Oh no,” said the spaceman, ruefully regarding his empty glass. “Not a bit of it. We could be anywhere in the universe, lost in space, or on a five-year mission, or something. Drives you mad, it does, makes you want to scream. And in space no one can hear you scream, of course.”

“Tell me about the monkeys,” said Eddie, “the clockwork cymbal-clapping monkeys. Tinto tells me that you know who blasted them.”

“I do,” said the spaceman.

“I’d really like to know,” said Eddie.

“And I’d really like to tell you,” said the spaceman, “but my throat is so dry that I doubt whether I’d get halfway through the telling before I lost my voice.”

“Hm,” went Eddie.

“ ,” went the spaceman.

“Two more drinks over here,” called Eddie to Tinto.

“Dream on,” the barman replied.

“Two then for the spaceman and in return he promises not to reduce Toy City to arid ruination with his death ray.”

“Coming right up, then,” said Tinto.

“I need a gimmick like that,” said Eddie, but mostly to himself.

“Who did you say was paying for these?” asked Tinto as he delivered the spaceman’s drinks to his table.

“You said they were on you,” said Eddie Bear, “because it’s the spaceman’s birthday.”

“Typical of me,” said Tinto. “Too generous for my own good. But you have to be cruel to be kind, I always say. Or something similar. It’s all in this book I’ve been reading, although I seem to have lost it now. I think I lent it to someone.” Tinto placed two beers before Eddie and Eddie shook his head and thanked Tinto for them.

“So,” Eddie said, when Tinto had wheeled away and the spaceman had moistened his throat, “the clockwork monkeys.”

“What a racket they make,” said spaceman. “Or, rather, made. Tin on tin. If I had teeth, that noise would put them on edge. I don’t approve of willy-nilly blasting with death rays, but I feel that in this case it was justified.”

“I suppose that’s a matter of opinion,” said Eddie, tasting beer. “I’m not so sure that the monkeys would agree with you.”

“Each to his own,” said the spaceman. “It takes all sorts to make a Universe.”

“So it was you who blasted the monkeys?”

The spaceman shook his helmeted head. The visor of his weather dome snapped down and he snapped it up again. “Not me personally,” said he. “I come in peace for all mankind. Or in this case all toykind. It would be the vanguard of the alien strikeforce who did for those monkeys. And I know what I’m talking about when I tell you these things. Trust me, I’m a spaceman.”

Eddie sighed once more. He really couldn’t be doing with sighing, really. Sighing was not Eddie’s thing.

“Do you know where this vanguard of the alien strikeforce might be found at present?” Eddie asked.

The spaceman made a thoughtful face, although some of it was lost on Eddie, being hidden by the shadow of his visor.

“Was that a yes or a no?” Eddie asked.

“It was a thoughtful face,” the spaceman explained, “but you couldn’t see much of it because it was mostly lost in the shadow of my visor.”

“Well, that explains everything.”

“Does it?” asked the spaceman.

“No,” said Eddie, “it doesn’t. Do you know where they are, or do you not?”

“They could be anywhere.” The spaceman made expansive gestures. “Out there, Beyond The Second Big O. The Universe is a very large place.”

Eddie sighed once more. Loudly.

“Or they could still be right here. They said they fancied going to a nightclub, to hear some jazz, I think.”

There was no jazz playing at Old King Cole’s, only that terrible scream and that piercing white light. And then there was a silence and a stillness and even some darkness, too.

Jack, who was now on his knees holding Amelie to him and shielding them both as best he could, looked up.

A great many of the light bulbs in Old King Cole’s had blown and the club was now lit mostly by tabletop candles. Which gave it a somewhat romantic ambience, although this was, for the present, lost upon Jack.

“What happened?” asked Amelie, gaining her feet and patting down her skirt. “That screaming, that light – what happened?”

“Something bad,” said Jack. “Be careful, now, there’s broken glass all about.”

Amelie opened her handbag, pulled out certain girly things and took to fixing her hair and touching up her make-up.

“Nice,” said Jack, and then he peered all around. They appeared to be alone now, although Jack couldn’t be altogether certain, what with the uncertain light and his lack of certainty and everything.

The stage was now in darkness; beyond the broken footlights lay a black, forbidding void.

“Dolly?” called Jack.

“Yes, darling,” said Amelie.

“No,” said Jack. “Dolly Dumpling. Dolly, are you there?”

No voice returned to Jack. There was silence, there was blackness, there was nothing more.

“I don’t like it here now,” said Amelie, tucking away her girly things and closing her handbag. “In fact, I didn’t like it here at all before, either. They were horrid, Jack. I’m glad you hit that horrid man.”

“I’m glad you hit his horrid partner,” said Jack. “Perhaps they are still lying on the dancefloor.” Jack made tentative steps across broken glass, reached the dancefloor and squinted around in the ambient gloom. “I think they upped and ran,” he said.

“Let’s go too, then,” said Amelie. “I know much nicer places than this. We could go to Springfellows, where all the clockworkers hang out. Or the Hippodrome, where all the hippos hang out. Or Barbie’s, where dollies’ bosoms often hang out.”

“No, not yet.” Jack was squinting hard now into the blackened void beyond the darkened footlights. “Do you think you could bring me over one of those candles from the tables, maybe two?”

“Well, I could, but I don’t really want to.”

“Please,” said Jack.

“Well, as you ask me so nicely. And as I love you so much.”

Jack did uneasy scuffings with his feet. Amelie crunched through broken glass and brought him a candelabra. Jack held it up before him.

“This is rather romantic,” said Amelie, as she nuzzled close to Jack. “And there’s no one here but us. We could –”

“We could what?” Jack asked.

“You know what.”

“What, here?”

“We could,” said Amelie. “And I might let you do that thing that you’ve always been wanting to do, but I haven’t let you do yet because you haven’t told me you love me.”

“Ah,” said Jack. “That thing.”

Amelie blew Jack kisses.

“Tempting though that is,” said Jack, “and believe me, it’s very tempting, I don’t think it would be a very good idea right at this moment.”

“Huh,” huffed Amelie. “Perhaps you can’t do it anyway.”

Jack put a finger to his lips. “Just a moment,” he said, in the tone known as hushed. “I think something very bad has happened here. I want to look on the stage.”

“Shall I wait here and take off all my clothes while you have a look?”

“Just wait here.” Jack kissed Amelie’s upturned face. It was such a beautiful face. It was just like a re –

Amelie grasped Jack by the arm. “Is there going to be danger?” she asked.

“I hope not,” said Jack.

“Shame,” said Amelie. “I really love danger.”

“Just wait here. And if I shout ‘run’, just run – will you do that for me?”

“I will, my love.”

Jack gave a sigh that would have done credit to Eddie[12] and haltingly approached the blacked-out stage. Certain sounds now came to Jack, but not from the stage before him. These sounds were of distant bells. The bells that topped police cars. These sounds were growing louder.

Jack climbed up onto the stage, holding the candelabra before him. Its wan light shone upon more broken glass and then upon the piano. And as Jack moved gingerly forward, more there was to be seen, and to this more that was to be seen Jack took no liking whatsoever.

Candlelight fell upon the face of the clockwork pianist. It was a face incapable of expression, and yet as Jack peered, he could see it, see it in the eyes, eyes now lifeless, eyes now dead – that look of absolute fear.

Jack held out the candelabra and moved forward once more.

The saxophonist lay on his side. The drummer did likewise. The pianist was flat on his back.

Jack knelt and touched the pianist’s tin-plate chest. And watched in horror as it sank beneath his touch, dissolved and crumbled into dust.

Jack stood and Jack trembled. What had done this? He’d been aware of nothing but a blinding light. Seen no one. No thing.

Now trembling somewhat and wary that whoever or whatever had done this might not yet have departed the scene of the crime, Jack took a step or two further.

And then took no more and gasped.

By the light of the candelabra he saw her. Her head lolled at an unnatural angle, the neck with its many chins broken, the show clearly over. The fat lady would sing no more.

And …

“Hold it right there and put up your hands.”

Torchlights shone through the now not so ambiently candlelit Old King Cole’s. Many torchlights held by many policemen. Laughing policemen, all of them, with names such as Chortle and Chuckles.

“Hands you, up villain,” came shouts, and Jack raised his hands.

And then they were on him and Jack went down beneath the force of truncheons.

“The force,” said the spaceman to Eddie, “it’s either with you, or it’s not.”

“And it’s with you, is it?” Eddie asked.

“Oh yes,” said the spaceman. “I was thinking of going over to the Dark Side just for the thrill of it, you know. We all have a dark side, don’t we?”

“Only if I sit down in a dirty puddle,” said Eddie. “Whose round is it?”

“Yours,” said the spaceman. And he waggled his rubber hands at Eddie. “It’s your round, so go and get the drinks.”

“It’s not my round,” said Eddie.

“Damn,” said the spaceman. “That never works. I should have gone over to the Dark Side. They have better uniforms and everything.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “I’d like to say that it’s been fascinating talking to you.”

The spaceman raised a thumb.

“I’d like to,” said Eddie, “but –”

“Eddie,” called Tinto, “there’s a telephone call for you.”

“A call for me?” called Eddie. “I wonder who that might be?”

“Chief Inspector Bellis,” called Tinto in reply. “Jack’s just been … Now, what would that be?”

“I give up,” called Eddie. “What would it be?”

“It’s a five,” called Tinto. “Like two is a double and three is a treble and four is a quadriplegic.”

“Four is quadruple,” called Eddie.

“Well, it’s whatever five is,” called Tinto.

“Quintuple,” said Eddie.

“That’s it,” called Tinto. “He’s just been arrested for quintuple murder.”