The World House, page 2
He woke to a knocking on the door and, for a second, thought the sound must be coming from the box. He was still sat in the corner of his room, unaware of the moment when he had lost consciousness. Daylight shone through the windows, making him squint. The knocking came again, echoing along the stairwell that led from his flat to street-level. His door wasn't used to visitors and there was only one man he could imagine eager for his company (or, more precisely, his wallet). Surely he still had a few hours to find the money? He checked his watch as the knocking came a third time, staring at its hostile face and the late afternoon it swore he had woken into. The person at his door ran out of patience and started rattling at the lock.
Now that the threat was solidifying, becoming an actuality rather than an abstract, he realised he hadn't been scared at all. Fear, real fear, was the surge of nausea he felt right now, curdling the cheap red wine in his stomach and turning his lower jaw to jelly. How could he have imagined that he could just sit here and take what had been promised to him? Getting to his feet he slammed a hand to the wall to steady himself as his legs buckled and his stomach ejected the previous night's self-pitying booze in an arc across the paintwork. There was no time for cleanliness and he ran through to the kitchen and his back door. The rear of the flat boasted a wooden balcony with a row of steps that would see him in the delivery area behind the building; from there it was a short jog to the street.
The person at the front door was working the lock. Miles could hear the careful investigation of metal on metal as the tumblers were forced to roll over and let the intruder in. He pulled at the handle of the back door, spitting some of the filth from his mouth in anger as he realised it was locked. He yanked the kitchen drawers open, hunting for the key. He found it, still wearing the rental agency address tag on a length of old, thick string. He shoved it into the lock. He heard the front door open behind him as the key turned, heavy feet beginning to ascend the stairs. The back door was stiff and the wood cried out as he wrenched it open. If he could just get on to the street he had some hope of giving his pursuers the slip. Surely they would be wary of attacking him in plain sight?
"Don't be a dickhead," Gordon Fry said, standing on the balcony just outside Miles' door. "Give us a bit of fucking credit, yeah?"
The feeling of safety offered by the table began to wane. Miles couldn't begin to imagine what was pacing up and down above him but the sound of its claws, tapping and scratching on the polished wood, was all he needed to know to be afraid. The growling was getting closer too, though the animal must surely be sick as the noise was too harsh to come from a healthy throat. Perhaps it was also lame; certainly it was dragging itself rather than walking towards him. There were more birds, tuneless whistles and squawks and the occasional whoosh of air as they flew past the table, stirring the dust with the beating of their wings. Sometimes the noise would stop with a dull thud as they found the perimeter of the room, beaks pounding into wood-panelling like inaccurately thrown pub darts. There was a dry rattle, a maraca shaken in the dark.
Miles, terrified of snakes, found a cold sweat beginning to form on his forehead as he imagined its dry belly curling its way along the greasy carpet. He held the lighter in his hand and wondered whether to strike it. He couldn't decide whether it might attract the creatures or scare them off. He rubbed his thumb indecisively along the flint wheel as the noises drew nearer…
After so long insisting he wasn't going to run, it now seemed he couldn't stop. It was completely pointless, of course; he could hardly lose them in a one-bedroom flat. Fry knew this and took his time stepping into the kitchen, closing and locking the door behind him, casually poking through a couple of the cupboards out of sheer nosiness. The two men that he had brought with him – who had proven so adept at forcing locked doors – also knew their quarry was going nowhere. They followed Miles into the lounge as casually as if they had been invited, perhaps to discuss Our Beneficent Lord or the benefits of solar panelling as an alternative energy source. Miles wasn't fooled by their nonchalance, nor did he think for one minute that the heavy-looking canvas bag that one of the men dropped on to the sofa contained promotional literature. There was the chink of metal against metal as the objects inside the bag tumbled together. It was a deceptively prim noise, like the tapping of champagne glasses during a wedding toast.
The men had the sort of bland appearance that was only found in the true professional: long wool overcoats, pink muscular heads razored baby-arse smooth. They showed no sense of eagerness for the task ahead but no concern either. Miles, on the other hand, was so concerned that he was close to losing all physical control. He was shaking violently as he watched Fry enter the room nibbling on a chocolate biscuit he'd found in the kitchen. His legs desperately wanted him to run and he didn't altogether disagree, just had no idea where or how. Fry, noticing the purple spray of wine-laced vomit that bruised the wall in the corner of the room, grimaced and threw what was left of the biscuit on the floor.
"Heavy night, was it?" he asked. "If it weren't for the fact that you were trying to fuck off over the back wall I'd hope it was in celebration of getting me my money."
Accepting there was no way he would walk out of the room, Miles started trying to talk his way out instead. His jaw was shaking so much with nerves that he couldn't get his words out straight. Fry punching him in the face didn't help.
"Think how I feel," Fry said, the small amount of feigned civility he had offered gone, "coming all the way over here, only to hear the bad – if not altogether surprising – news that I'm deeply out of pocket." His cheeks were reddening as he got angrier, pounding his shiny leather shoes into Miles' legs and belly. "Hardly fucking fair, is it? I lend you some money, you don't pay it back and now I'm supposed to be the bad man for taking it out on you. Well, fuck you!" He gave him one more kick to the arse, sending a wave of pain through the base of Miles' spine. "Thieving fucker."
Miles was hunched, foetal, trying to protect himself from Fry's kicks – though, Lord knows, in a few moments he would likely look back on them as the gentlest of kisses. Despite the fear, despite the sight of one of the bald men unzipping the canvas bag and pulling out a pair of wooden blocks, despite Fry wiping at his spittle-covered chin with his coat sleeve and looking sorely tempted to resume his attack, despite all that… Miles became aware that the wooden box was ticking again. He twisted his head to look at it, his interest, once again, somewhat inappropriate to his circumstances.
Fry certainly felt snubbed, stepping over Miles to snatch the box from the floor. "Worth something, is it?" he asked, shaking the box in his hands, maybe to silence the ticking. Miles found himself scared to see the box manhandled in such a fashion, though he knew he was due for heavier treatment.
"Fucking fucker!" Fry shouted, verbose as ever, slamming his hand to his mouth as if to shove the words back down his throat. Miles glimpsed a trickle of blood on the man's lips and realised he'd caught himself on the box. "Cunting thing," Fry mumbled, sucking his wound. He threw the box at Miles, who instinctively grabbed it.
And promptly vanished.
Miles gritted his teeth, waiting to feel the gentle curl of the rattlesnake against the soles of his feet. The floor vibrated with the pounding of the ostrich, and he heard a whistle of air and a rattle from the snake that suddenly went distant as it was snatched in the bird's mouth. Miles bent double with relief, his stomach churning. Above his head, the clawed creature began hopping up and down and yapping. This made Miles feel doubly relieved. He was damned if he was going to cower in fear of what sounded like an asthmatic terrier. Emboldened, he spun the lighter's flintwheel and screamed at the sight of a tiger's wide-open mouth a foot or so from him. The big cat growled and again Miles had a moment to wonder what was wrong with the animal that it could sound so ruptured. With a reflex action he shoved the lighter towards it and was startled to see that it froze as the light of the flame drew close. Its wide-open jaw, its sharp fangs… utterly still, like a paused piece of film footage. Suddenly aware how close his fist was to the animal's mouth, Miles moved it away a few inches. As he did so the tiger came back to life, freezing again as he returned the lighter to where it had been. So… as long as he held the flame right to its eyes the animal wouldn't move. Right… of course… not a safety tip he had ever picked up from wildlife documentaries but he couldn't argue with the evidence. He held the lighter as close as he dared, his thumb beginning to burn.
He could hear the ostrich running towards the table but didn't dare shift his attention away from the tiger and its shiny yet dead eyes. The flame of the lighter danced secondhand in its pupils. His thumb grew hotter but he reasoned that the pain of a burned thumb was nothing compared to having the whole hand bitten off. There was a flicker of movement from his right that he hoped wasn't the ostrich wanting to pick another fight. Surely nothing was likely to advance while the tiger stood so close? His thumb continued to singe. There was movement again and the… Wait – how could he see anything anyway? He turned his head slightly, enough to see the room taking shape around him as gas lamps in the walls glowed brighter while he watched. His thumb slipped off the lighter and the flame died. The tiger, with a fresh growl, hurled itself at him only to slump almost instantly, its fangs fixed around the arm he had raised to defend himself. It was a rug, which explained why it had sounded so lame in the darkness, though not how it could have come to life with hunger on its mind. He threw it to one side and crawled out from under the table, getting shakily to his feet.
Gripping the edge of the table to steady himself, he looked around what appeared to be a Victorianstyle billiard room. The space was filled with stuffed creatures. The ostrich frozen mid-step, stiff rattlesnake held in its beak. A deer rearing up on withered back legs. The creature he had heard above him was nothing more intimidating than a raccoon, its tail threadbare, a hole where one of its eyes had tumbled from its dry socket. There were deep scratches in the table surface, and cobwebs that had hung between a set of crystal decanters had been torn apart, caught in the raccoon's ears and raised paws.
Miles walked over to a case fixed on the wall. The glass was cracked from the pounding of the fat, flightless bird within. Its beak still poked from the white-ice of broken glass.
He moved around the room and saw tarantulas that had been marching in formation across the baize of the billiard table; distorted heads of horned game that had been howling noiselessly, their voice-boxes lost to the taxidermist's trash bin; a small iguana, half-peeled with age and damp, mouth clamped on the cold and empty egg of a pheasant; a peacock, with tail furled and head cocked to one side, appearing almost as curious as Miles about its surroundings. Saddest of all, a large black bear, no longer forced into a majestic or threatening stance, curled in the corner of the room, a single heavy paw covering its eyes.
He ran over to the far side of the room, grabbed the heavy glass knocker and turned it in both hands, desperate to get out. The door swung open, bringing him face to face with a short woman wearing an oldfashioned bobbed hairstyle and nothing else. There was a pause as each took in the presence of the other and then the woman screamed. Miles found his adrenalin spent. It's not that a man can't panic in front of a naked woman – he can and frequently does – more that he mustn't let it show.
"It's all right!" he insisted, "I won't hurt you."
To his credit, he sounded perfectly genuine but she kicked him square in the balls anyway, just to be sure.
CHAPTER TWO
Was there anything more sensual in life than "Sultry Sunset" pushed through the sweat and cigarette smoke of the Cotton Club from the bell of Johnny Hodges' saxophone? If there was, Penelope Simons (of the Boston Simonses, naturally) had yet to experience it. Though that might change in a few hours if everything went according to plan and Chester was willing. And God knows, Chester was willing. He broke out in sweats and a stutter just from being in the same room. He would never admit it, of course, his family background was as puritanical as Penelope's. One only had to look at his mother, a brittle, cold creature, wool-wrapped and masked in permanent disapproval, to wonder how he had ever been conceived in the first place. Back in his parents' youth they would at least have been allowed a drink stiff enough to encourage the condition elsewhere.
"I've never slept with a coloured," Dolores purred. She washed this deliberately contentious comment down with a mouthful of orange juice cut with a dash of home-brewed liquor. Dolores didn't believe in prohibition – of anything – and always carried a small bottle of "liquid pep" in her purse. Penelope, though not opposed to the principle of drinking, was far too nervous to share. She doubted she'd ever be thirsty enough to risk blindness.
"Give you time, darling," Penelope replied, taking a mouthful of her own drink and pulling a cigarette from her purse.
"My constant worry," Dolores replied, passing Penelope a book of matches but never taking her eyes off the saxophonist. "So little time, so many to do."
Penelope cackled, the cigarette quivering between her lips before the sight of a proffered flame stilled it. "Thank you," she told the waiter, but he was already gone, pushing his way through the tables towards the bar. "Good service," she muttered.
"Absolutely," Dolores replied. "That's what we need!"
The pair of them burst into hysterics, Duke Ellington's band covering their laughter as it sprang to life en masse.
Dolores was scandalous, but that was why Penelope enjoyed her company. If one didn't have the nerve to be scandalous oneself then seeking it out secondhand was the next best thing. A modicum of the fun with none of the risk.
"Good evening, ladies." Chester had arrived and was shifting from one foot to the other, at a loss how to present himself. Eventually he settled for putting his hands behind his back and inclining himself towards the table in a slight bow. Penelope thought it made him look like a waiter but would never tell him so. She jumped to her feet to put him out of his misery, kissed him on the cheek and guided him towards a chair. The nervous sweat had appeared and he mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief. "Hellish hot, don't you think?" he muttered before remembering himself and addressing Penelope directly. "May I say you're looking stunning this evening, Penelope?"
"Of course you may!" She laughed, giving a little shimmy in her seat. "Sequins and lamé, darling, I wouldn't be seen in anything else!"
The need to vomit had passed but Miles decided it was safer to stay on the floor. They were in a long corridor, its décor as dated as the room he had just left, with deep-red paintwork and cornicing. The naked woman was bent over in an attempt to conceal herself. She dripped water as she inched towards a pair of heavy curtains that framed a Roman bust at the end of the corridor. Had she just stepped out of the shower? Her left eye sported a bruise and her lower lip was fatter than it should be; someone had picked a fight with her recently, that was for sure. But then, having had his reproductive organs shunted to just below his lungs, he remained openminded as to whether he might sympathise.
"I'm not looking," he said, holding up his head to show his eyes were closed. He heard the tearing of velvet and the rattle of argumentative hooks. "Wouldn't it be easier just to go to your room and grab a gown?" he asked. "Seems a shame to take it out on the furnishings."
"I don't have a room," she replied. "Where's Chester?"
"Chester? I don't really know… somewhere up north."
"What are you talking about? Isn't this his house?"
"Oh." Miles didn't really know how to reply to that. "Maybe… thought you meant the town. Look…" He risked a peek. She was wrapped in the curtain now but keeping her distance. "I know this is going to sound ridiculous but I don't actually know how I got here, had some sort of blackout I suppose, woke up in that room, completely out of it." He shifted awkwardly on his knees. "Delusional, I guess, I thought the stuffed animals were…" He looked at her and decided not to admit what he had been about to say; the last thing he wanted to do was sound even madder. "Well, doesn't matter, I was disorientated, could hardly move. Anyway, the lights came on and I made to leave, which is when I bumped into you. I'm obviously trespassing and I'm only too happy to go."
"That makes two of us then," she replied.
"He's so sweet," said Penelope, watching Chester negotiate his way back from the cloakroom. He caught his foot on a chair leg and nearly fell into a table of laughing women. This made them laugh all the more and his pale face turned crimson. He tried to keep hold of the coats in one arm and straighten his oiled hair with the other. "Excuse me," he muttered, moving away as quickly as he could.
