password?”
“There is no password! There’s never been a password, and you know it! Now tell Cathy I’m here, or I’ll rub your surface down with a wire brush!”
The face in the door pouted. “Go on. Abuse me! It’s what I’m here for. No-one ever wants to chat, or pass the time. I miss being a tree. I’d throw my nuts at you if I only knew where they were. I’m supposed to be a security measure, you know. Hah! Hah, I say! Half the people who come here try to stuff letters in my mouth.”
“Get a move on,” I said, unfeelingly. “I’ve got a lot to get through before my wedding tomorrow.”
“Ooh! Ooh! A wedding!” said the face excitedly, rising and falling in the wood. “I love weddings! Can I come? Please say I can come! I’ll be very quiet and not get in the way. You could lean me against a wall at the back of the church. I promise I’ll be very good and not bother anyone.”
“We’ll see,” I said, wondering how I got into these kinds of conversations. “Now tell Cathy I’m here and want in.”
“Oh Cathy!” said the face. “The big boss is here again! Are you ready to receive him, or do you need time to get all those naked people out of the office first?”
The reply must have been of an affirmative nature because the face disappeared back into the solid wood, and the door swung open before me. I strode quickly through, before it could change what passed for its mind. The building’s lobby stretched away before me: expensively comfortable, brightly lit, but not overpoweringly so, and so deeply carpeted it felt like walking on water. Which was probably the effect they were hoping for. The usual Pre- Raphaelite prints on the walls. That John Waterhouse does get about. Doesn’t anyone like Turner any more? The tastefully uniformed security man sitting behind his high-security reception desk took one look at me, blanched, and looked very much as though he wanted to sink down underneath his desk and not be noticed. But he gathered all his courage and made himself sit upright and nod to me respectfully. I ignored him, heading for the elevators at the far end of the lobby. There was a time I would have made him wet himself, on general principles, for the snob and bully that he usually was and because his main function was usually to keep people like me out . . . but I must have been mellowing. Besides, I didn’t have the time.
One of the elevators opened its doors for me as I approached. I stepped inside and told it to take me to the third floor. I preferred when elevators had human operators. You could bribe them to keep quiet. They also ensured that the elevator wouldn’t try and eat you. Predators come in all shapes and sizes in the Nightside. But the doors closed easily, and the elevator moved smoothly upwards. It then immediately got on my bad side by playing Muzak versions of 1970s prog rock: ELO, ELP, PFM. There really ought to be an off switch for elevator Muzak. And then, as if this wasn’t annoying enough, the elevator started trying to sell me things, in a very posh voice.
“Have you ever considered the advantages offered by really up-to-date life-insurance?”
“I’ve never really seen the point in someone else having a vested interest in my being dead,” I said. “Don’t encourage people, that’s what I say.”
“I could get you a really good premium . . .”
“I’m John Taylor.”
There was a pause. “Ah, yes. I see. Right; forget it. Would you like to change your provider for your mobile- phone service? And no, I don’t know where the satellites are, so don’t ask. Oh do say yes; I get a really nice bonus for every person I get to sign up.”
“What use is a bonus to an elevator?” I said. “What use do you have for money?”
“I’m saving up to have my conscious downloaded into something a little more upwardly mobile. Socially speaking . . . Preferably something with legs and hands. You can do a lot if you’ve got legs and hands. Could I perhaps interest you in taking out a new credit card, from those wonderfully friendly people, EnGulf & DeVour?”
“Do you have an off switch?”
“Do you?”
“Look,” I said, “it’s up to you . . . Either you stop trying to sell me things, or I’ll push all your buttons before I get out and send you up and down the building for ages.”
“Beast!” muttered the elevator. “It’s not my fault. Never wanted to be an elevator anyway.”
“If you are about to tell me that you really wanted to be a lumberjack, you and I are about to have a serious falling out.”
Perhaps fortunately, just then the elevator stopped at the third floor and opened its doors. I stepped out, and the doors slammed shut behind me so quickly they nearly trapped the tail of my trench coat.
“Have a good day!” it shouted after me, defiantly.
Chance would be a fine thing, I thought wistfully, and strode down the long corridor before me. My office was exactly where I remembered it. The door was a huge slab of solid silver, deeply scored with protective signs and sigils, and an extremely rude curse in Enochian. Once again, there was no bell or knocker or voicebox, so I announced myself loudly. The door swung slowly open, smoothly and silently, despite its obvious great weight, and I walked in like I owned the place. Which, for once, I actually did.
My secretary Cathy rose up out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box, vaulted over the huge mahogany desk, and raced across the office to throw herself at me. I braced myself for the impact and suffered myself to be greeted with great enthusiasm. Cathy was a tall, blonde, and very healthy young woman, a long way from the ratty-haired teenager I’d first encountered all those years ago. I hugged her back even though I’m not normally a touchy-feely type, and we stood close together for a long moment. She finally let go of me, stepped back, and grinned happily.
Cathy; big eyes, bigger smile, and a pretty face so heavily made-up it was practically a mask, under a heavy bob of expensively styled hair. She was wearing a long white dress of the kind made famous by Marilyn Monroe, and filled it out nicely. She also wore very high stilettos, on the grounds they made for handy weapons in close combat during bar fights. Cathy was bright and crafty and very smart, and ran my office and my business far more efficiently than I ever could. Bangles clattered noisily around her wrists with every movement, and she wore a long set of beads with artless charm. Heavy diamond pendants hung from her ears. She did try to tell me about her other more intimate piercings once, but I declined with all the politeness at my command. Cathy was my secretary, my side- kick, and my good friend; but I have never let it go any further than that. I do have some principles. Cathy’s been my secretary ever since she first came to the Nightside as a teenage runaway, and I rescued her from a house that tried to eat her.
I took a look around my office. It had been a while since I’d seen the place. It boasted all the very latest conveniences and luxuries, including several things I was pretty sure were heavily frowned on even in the Nightside. I carefully averted my eyes from them and studied the brightly coloured walls, the deep plush carpeting of a plum- wine colour, spread across a room big enough to swing an elephant in, provided you had a good wind-up.
Oversized cuddly toys with disturbingly large eyes and unnerving smiles peered at me from every gap in the jumble of odd items and even odder office equipment, like animals watching from a strangely civilised jungle. Polka-dot book-shelves took up all of one wall, packed with reference books. A large poster showed off the generous charms of a Finnish all-girl rock group, INDICA. Various pieces of discarded high tech lay piled up in one corner, presumably replaced by more recent versions. Nothing gets made redundant faster in the Nightside than the Very Latest Thing in high tech.
I did notice a few changes from the last time I’d had reason to visit my office, starting with a tall potted plant that shifted and swayed furtively in one corner, muttering to itself in a breathy voice. A filing cabinet that showed clear signs of the bigger on the inside than the outside spell, without which most buildings in the Nightside couldn’t cope. And the massively overstuffed, leather-bound chair behind the desk, from which Cathy had launched herself; which on closer inspection proved to have its own built-in drinks cabinet, Game Boy, and massage function. I’ve lived in places less comfortable than that chair. Cathy caught my gaze and shrugged charmingly.
“I’m the one who has to work here. You haven’t dropped by in . . . ages! I was beginning to think you’d forgotten where this was, again, and I’d have to send you another map. And a compass. Why are you here, boss?”
I persuaded her to sit back down behind the desk again while I sank into the surprisingly comfortable visitor’s chair. I looked at her thoughtfully.
“Oh bloody hell,” she said immediately. “It always means trouble when you look at me like that. What’s gone wrong now?”
“Now that I’m to be the new Walker for the Nightside,” I said carefully, “I can’t be a private investigator any
