‘There’s just no telling,’ said Fangio. ‘But tell me this, while you are still here, do you think that if I were a woman, it would be a viable proposition for me to give birth to myself? When cloning is finally perfected, I could then self-reproduce. It would be the next best thing to immortality, don’t you think?’
‘You have me on that one,’ I said, ‘because I do not have the faintest idea what you are talking about.’
‘A likely story,’ said Fangio.
And I just shook my head.
‘Perhaps we have got off on the wrong foot,’ said Fangio.
‘Perhaps we have,’ I agreed.
‘So let me put it in a more straightforward way. Get out of my bar, Mr Doctor of Death, or I shall be forced to shoot you.’
‘It’s definitely a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘I am not a doctor of any sort.’
‘Oh, I hate it when that happens,’ said Fangio, and he tied up the neck of his army sock with a Gordian knot that he formed from a sinister shoelace. ‘There are always so many official forms to fill in after the shooting.’
‘I’m not a doctor,’ said I.
‘But you are dressed as a Swiss doctor of the Anabaptist persuasion. And that fails to satisfy upon so many levels.’
‘I thought this was a Jewish coat,’ I said.
‘A Jewish coat?’ And Fangio took to laughter. And with considerable gusto he took to it. He placed the now- knotted sock onto the bar counter, placed his ample hands upon his ample belly and laughed himself fit-to-go busting.
And I shook my head one more time. And then twice.
‘A Jewish coat,’ said Fangio, between great gales of gusto. ‘That’s a good’n, that is. Wait until I tell my wife. You don’t know a dame who might want to marry me, do you?’ And he laughed again.
‘I really don’t see what’s so funny,’ I said.
‘You Swiss,’ said Fangio, wiping big tears from his eyes. ‘You will be the death of me. And indeed of all of us,’ he added, ‘with your cuckoo clocks and chocolate and all that neutrality. How many borders do you have? No, don’t get me going on that.’ And he laughed a little more. Then stopped.
‘So what would you care to drink?’ he asked. The model of sobriety.
‘Well,’ I said, well flummoxed. ‘What would you recommend?’
‘Well,’ said the Fange. ‘Now you’re asking.’
‘Yes I am,’ I said. ‘I am.’
‘Which calls to mind a most illuminating and entertaining anecdote that was passed on to me the other day by one of those Jimbos who seem to be so popular in England nowadays. It concerns this fallen angel who is trying to get his car started and he-’
But Fangio didn’t get any further with the telling of his tale because the shatter-glass door now opened and in he walked. The one, the only, the man, the myth.
The Private Eye, Lazlo Woodbine.
It was he.
Applause.
38
He looked a little past his sell-by date.
But given the life he had led and the adventures he’d had, this was hardly surprising. But it was him, it definitely was.
There could be no mistaking those gimlet eyes, those chiselled cheekbones, the hammered hooter and that joineried jawline. And he wore the fedora and he wore the trench coat. And he looked like Lazlo Woodbine.
It was he.
‘Fange,’ said Lazlo Woodbine.
‘Laz,’ said Fangio.
‘A bottle of Bud and a hot pastrami on rye.’
‘A ploughman’s umbrella and a parsnip in a poetry.’
Lazlo looked at Fangio.
And Fange looked back at Laz.
And oh how they laughed.
Well, they did. Don’t ask me why, but they did. It was a talking the toot thing, I suppose. I had unconsciously engaged in it with Fangio a little earlier, but I did not as yet understand how it worked. The strict rules of the vernacular and the inflective. The subtleties of variant pronunciation. The coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
Not to mention the connotive labels or the cross-referenced etymologies.
Which neither of them ever did.
‘So, would you care for a drink, sir?’ said Fangio to Laz.
‘A bottle of Bud?’ said Lazlo Woodbine, seating himself on a bar stool.
‘A bottle of Bud?’ And Fangio now took to the stroking of one of his many chins. ‘A bottle of Bud? I’ll get it in a minute, I’m sure. It rings a bell somewhere.’
‘You’re thinking of Quasimodo,’ said Lazlo Woodbine. ‘He rings a bell somewhere – Paris, I think.’
‘Paris?’ said Fangio, selecting another chin for a stroking. ‘Now don’t get me going on Paris.’
‘Still that trouble with bicycles?’
‘Bicycles?’ said Fangio. ‘It’s Amsterdam for bicycles and Paris for the Orient Express.’
‘You can catch the Orient Express in London,’ said Laz. ‘But then you can catch almost anything in London.’
‘I once caught a tiger by the tail,’ said Fangio, ‘but that was in India. And let’s face it, I’ve never even been to India.’
‘Don’t get me going on India,’ said Lazlo Woodbine. ‘Cambay, Chandrapur, Chikmagulur, Coonoor, Cuddalore, Cuttack-’
‘You sure know your Indian cities that begin with the letter C, buddy.’
‘Friend,’ said Lazlo Woodbine to Fangio, ‘in my business, knowing your Indian cities that begin with the letter C can mean the difference between a clean-cut curr in curlers at Crufts and dirty dogging in Dagenham. [20] If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do.’
And Fangio knew what he meant.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, and two eye-pairings turned as one to view me.
‘Who’s the Swiss Anabaptist abortionist?’ asked Lazlo Woodbine.
‘Abortionist?’ I said.
‘Doctor of Death,’ said Fangio. ‘By any other name. I speak as I find and you won’t find me speaking of raffia.’
‘He abhors raffia,’ Lazlo Woodbine explained. ‘And also Koya matting.’
‘Any form of matting,’ said Fangio. ‘Raffia, coir, logo, anti-slip, fitted, Milliken Obex – a revolutionary matting system unequalled in performance – rustic, rush or rag-rug.’
‘Buddy, you sure know your matting,’ said Lazlo.
‘Friend,’ said Fangio the barman, ‘in this business, knowing your matting can mean the difference between an uncovered linoleum floor and one that has a mat on it.’
There was a moment’s pause. Outside the sun went behind a cloud and a dog howled in the distance.
‘It’s not quite as funny when you do it as when I do it, is it?’ asked Lazlo.
‘Abortionist?’ I said once more.
‘We did that one,’ said Fangio.
‘Yes, I’m sure you did. But I’m sorry – you’re talking the toot, aren’t you? The now legendary toot that Lazlo Woodbine and Fangio the barman always talk. Especially when Laz is on a case.’
