and took to performing random stop-and-searches on young women and issuing on-the-spot fines for breaches of style. Andy adored New York, and in its turn New York, it appeared, loved Andy.
Neil loved New York also and hung around the recording studios, mixing with the big stars of the day. Rob checked out Madison Avenue, home of advertising, and found favour in all that he met with there.
Toby engaged in all manner of wheelings and dealings, some of which, I felt certain, had to be legal.
Which left only me.
And I suppose that I loved New York also, even though it was so cold. But I had so many things on my mind that I could not concentrate on looking cool and having a really good time.
This whole undead business was really getting me down. I just didn’t know what to make of it. I’d seen it with my own eyes – the zombies in the cemetery and the undead at the Hyde Park gig. And the knowledge that Shadow Night really existed at Club 27 meant that it was not just me, Mr Ishmael and the mysterious crew at the Ministry of Serendipity who knew about it. This thing was big and growing ever bigger.
What I didn’t know, but really wanted to know, was who or what was behind it. Was it some evil necromancer? Or a black magician, or perhaps the Homunculus himself? It was definitely a baddy of some big-time description. A super-baddy. And whether Mr Ishmael had been telling me all of the truth, or indeed any of it, I had no way of knowing.
So I really truly did want to talk to Mr Ishmael.
But Mr Ishmael was nowhere to be found.
I still had his telephone number – I’d found it in the lining of my mother’s trench coat – and I called several times, using the special trans-Atlantic prefix and everything. But there was no answer. And thinking about that scrap of paper and the trench coat had me feeling all nostalgic and gave me a crinkly mouth. I quite missed my mum and dad, and even though I was now a rock ’n’ roll star, on the way up with a glorious future ahead of me, I actually missed being a private detective.
And this line of thinking set me to thinking of something else. So to speak. And had this been an animated cartoon rather than real life, you would have seen, at this point, a little light bulb materialise above my head and frantically start flashing.
And the word ‘IDEA’ might even have appeared within it.
And there might also have been heard the sound of a bell ringing. Flash and Ding and IDEA. Just like that.
Because I was in New York. And New York was the home of the private detective. Los Angeles was too, of course. But not really. Los Angeles was the home of the private detective in the Hollywood movies, because the studios were all in Los Angeles and if they shot the movie in LA they didn’t have to travel, or pay the cast and crew’s hotel costs. Cheapskates!
But this was New York. And New York was the home of the private eye. In fact, the real Lazlo Woodbine lived and worked in New York. Or at least had, in the nineteen-fifties. P. P. Penrose based his Lazlo Woodbine thrillers on a real-life New York private eye and I wondered, just wondered, whether this fellow was still practising his craft. And if so, whether he might care to take on an English sidekick for a couple of weeks, at no charge to himself. It would be a dream come true for me, to work with the legend that was Woodbine. But hold on! Even better than that! Although the great Lazlo Woodbine might not take to some complete stranger (no matter whether or not he had experience in the field of Private Eyedom) trying to muscle in on his field of activity, he would never refuse a commission. Especially from a stylishly clad Englishman. If I were to offer him a job, then he would work for me. And how cool would that be?
Very cool, that’s how.
That little light bulb over my head grew burning, burning bright.
And popped.
I awoke early on what I recall was a Monday morning, dressed in modish black, stepped carefully between the bits of groupie that were scattered about my room and left the Pentecost Hotel.
I knew that Laz had his office somewhere in Manhattan and that he drank in a pub called Fangio’s Bar, where he regularly sat and chewed the fat with Fangio, the fat-boy barman. And talked the toot also. Because talking the toot was something that Laz and Fangio did in a manner that surpassed any other toot-talking, past, present or future. And if he was still in business, then he was bound to be in the telephone book.
Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed it in Hollywood movies, so I will not dwell upon it here, but isn’t it odd how all American telephone numbers begin with 555? What is that all about?
In a public phone booth, which didn’t have a door and looked very much like the record booths they had in the Squires Music shop in Ealing Broadway, I beheld a telephone book.
It had pages missing and smelled somewhat of wee wee – but the vandals who had been abusing it had not got as far as the classified section. And so I ran my finger down the list of private eyes.
And I saw him! Large as life!
Lazlo Woodbine Private Detective 2727 27th Street 555 272727
Result!
And just two blocks away. I could walk it.
And so I did. For those who don’t know New York, allow me to explain to you about it. New York divides itself into quarters. You have your Irish Quarter, your Latin Quarter, your Trinidadian Quarter and your Tierra del Fuego Quarter. And many many other quarters, all to do with commerce. These quarters are also called districts. So you have your Slaughterhouse District, Fashion District, Tiger’s Eye Pottery District, et cetera and et cetera. So, once you have a map of New York with all these quarters/districts marked upon it, you can’t go wrong. And at least you know where everything is. And there is a quarter for everything in New York.
Twenty-Seventh Street is the Detective Quarter. It’s just past the Gay Plumbers’ Quarter, but before you reach the Elvis Impersonators’ Quarter. Depending upon which way you approach it, of course.
I really really liked 27th Street. It may have changed now, of course, but back then, in the heyday of private detectivedom, it was the place (for private detectives) and it was very seedy indeed. It was all run-down ‘brownstones’ and crumbling nineteen-thirties Art Deco office blocks. There were alleyways a-plenty and each owned to its fair share of cast-iron fire escapes with those retractable bottom sections. And trashcans and the rear doors of down-at-heel nightclubs. And each and every one of these alleyways echoed softly to the music of a solitary saxophone. Sweet.
I did most approving noddings as I strolled along 27th Street.
And then I saw it, and, I kid you not, my heart skipped a beat. It was Fangio’s Bar and it was open.
The neon sign flashed out its message and the shatter-glass door opened before me at my touch. And then I was there, in that very bar immortalised by the poignant pen of P. P. Penrose.
Long and low and loathsome was Fangio’s Bar. With photographs of boxers all framed up on the walls. And a lengthy bright chromium bar counter that ran the lengthiness of the room (on the left, looking from the front door). There were bar stools, there were booths, and there, behind that bar counter, he stood. It had to be him: Fangio, the fat-boy barman of legend.
I straightened up my shoulders, disguising my scholar’s stoop, dusted non-existent dandruff from said shoulders and nonchalantly made my way to the bar.
Fangio was stuffing olives. Into an old army sock.
He looked up from his doings and I caught his eye.
‘Out of this bar,’ quoth he.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, with politeness, as I viewed Fangio.
He was somewhat broader than he was long, having about him a respectable girth. Yet although his belly was running to fat, his feet weren’t running anywhere. He stood four-square upon the floor of his bar, a man amongst men and a titan. Bald of head and bulbous of nose and, ‘Out of this bar,’ quoth he.
‘Excuse me, sir?’ I said, this time eager to show my respect.
‘This is a non-denominational bar,’ said Fangio, ‘and I don’t want any trouble.’
‘I think there must be some misunderstanding,’ I said.
‘Some?’ said Fangio. ‘I think you will find that in this bar there is a very great deal of misunderstanding.’
‘Will I?’ I asked.
