Now, I suppose you might say that I was a wee bit tiddly by the time I got to the famous office where the famous detective had met with his clients before heading off to his other three locations in order to solve his cases. Well, perhaps a tad tiddly, rather than just a wee bit. But I was able to tap on the door without putting my hand through the glass and string sufficient words into sufficient sentences to make myself understood.
The man from American Heritage was very nice. He was just going home when I arrived, but he looked quite pleased to see me. He said that if I hadn’t arrived, then he was preparing to give the whole thing up as a lost cause, auction off the contents of Mr Woodbine’s office and let the building be demolished to make way for a proposed detective-themed shopping mall.
‘I’m sure the developer will be very pleased when I tell them that someone has agreed to take over Mr Woodbine’s business,’ he said, ‘because it will save them all the trouble of building that brand-new mall.’
I agreed that it was a possibility and asked where I had to sign.
There wasn’t much in the way of paperwork involved. And I was certainly never asked any probing or personal questions. It was just ‘sign your name on this here dotted line and hand over your eighty-five dollars’. And that was that. And he shook my hand, gave me an official deed to the office and a licence (another licence! But this time one that would work in my favour). Handed me a set of keys, told me that the water cooler needed refilling and that if I wished to make a complaint to City Hall regarding the solo saxophonist, whose dreamy rhythms drifted even now through the window, then I would have to do so in writing.
Then shook my hand once more and took his leave.
Chuckling.
Yes, that is what I said, chuckling. Why chuckling? Well, I have absolutely no idea at all. But that’s what he did. Perhaps it was just relief at finally getting the perfect tenant to take over from Laz. Who can say? Not me.
He shut the door behind him and I was left alone. And as it was now getting dark, I switched on the light. And then recalled that the man from American Heritage had also mentioned something about the electricity having been switched off. Although I hadn’t really been listening carefully to that bit. So I upped the venetian blind and let what light there was enter the office. It was rather a cool light, really, being composed of a street lamp on the alleyway corner and the flashing neon of a night club called The Engine Room. I sat down in Lazlo’s chair – Lazlo’s chair that was now my chair – and put my feet up on the desk that had also been Lazlo’s but was now my desk.
And I smiled considerably.
The office wasn’t quite how I remembered it. It had been tidied up a bit. And repainted in a colour that I did not know the name of. And the carpet that dared not speak its name had been replaced by one whose name I wouldn’t have listened to even if it had dared to speak it. So it wasn’t quite Lazlo Woodbine’s office. But it was his office. If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do. And I thought to myself, as one might think-
HOW COOL IS THIS?
I was now, to all intents and purposes and things of that nature generally, Lazlo Woodbine, Private Eye.
HOW COOL WAS THAT? Well cool.
Although, all right, there were certain things that weren’t all that cool.
The years that were missing out of my life.
The entire horrible Papa Crossbar business.
The fact that I had missed out on fame and fortune with The Sumerian Kynges and hadn’t even got a songwriting credit on the Greatest Hits album.
And that it was I who was, let us say, indirectly responsible for Lazlo Woodbine vanishing into the ether.
I have not, perhaps, printed this list in order of priority. But these things were not cool.
But having this office was.
And so I smiled, somewhat contentedly, which is not to say also smugly, and thought that what I should do now would be to go somewhere and celebrate my good fortune. Back to the Pentecost Hotel, might it be, to take advantage of the barman? No, it was a long walk back. Across the street to Fangio’s Bar, then?
That was a better idea.
The light was now uncertain in the office and I stumbled about a bit, bumping into some things and knocking other things over. But during this stumbling I did come across three things that very much took my interest: a fedora and a trench coat and a trusty Smith & Wesson. Lazlo Woodbine’s spares, I supposed. So I took off my coat and togged up, and tucked the trusty Smith & Wesson into an inside trench-coat pocket. The fedora fitted and I knew I looked cool.
And then I left my office. Locking my door behind me.
And I crossed the street to Fangio’s Bar and pushed open that famous shatter-glass door. And Fangio’s Bar had not changed at all. It was the same woe-begotten dump of a dive, and this I found a comfort. I mooched in with a grin on my chops and hailed the fat-boy barman.
Because there he stood, as large as Life, but slightly less glossy than Vogue. He wore the look of a man who knew just where he was. And also an eyepatch and cutlass.
‘Hello there,’ I said to the fat-boy. ‘And so we meet again.’
‘Arrr, aharr harr,’ went Fangio and he rolled his visible eye.
As I was already somewhat in my cups, I felt I was up to the challenge.
‘Old war wound, is it?’ I asked, approaching the bar counter and hoisting myself onto the bar stool that had formally been Lazlo Woodbine’s favourite and would now be mine. ‘Or is it medieval mouth-music from the mountains of Mongolia?’
‘Well, swab me decks,’ said Fangio. ‘ ’Tis you, so ’tis, so ’tis.’
‘Give me just one clue,’ I asked, ‘and then I can join you in this.’
Fangio sighed and did thumbings. To a sign above the bar:
FANGIO’ S BAR WELCOMES PIRATES (It read)
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I see. Pirates.’
‘You see pirates?’ asked Fangio, lifting his eyepatch. ‘Where?’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘What I said was, I see, full stop, pirates.’
‘Right,’ said Fangio. ‘So what will it be, Laz – a tot of rum, a parrot or a flog-around-the-fleet? The last one is a cocktail, before you ask.’
‘I wasn’t going to. But why are you calling me Laz?’
‘The guy from American Heritage drinks in here every day and just popped in for a quick bottle of champagne to celebrate the fact that some sucker, I mean, some plucky son of a gun, had purchased the franchise. And you’re wearing Laz’s spare clothes, so it must be you.’
I was impressed by Fangio’s reasoning. But had he just said sucker? I glared pointy daggers at him.
‘Of course, I was thinking of buying it myself,’ Fangio continued, ‘But I couldn’t afford the inflated price. Oh damn.’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Inflated price?’ I said. ‘Franchise,’ I said, also.
‘I read in this month’s copy of Detective Franchises Today magazine that P. P. Penrose was selling franchises worldwide now,’ said Fangio. ‘He started out with one in Brentford, England, and due to its success he started selling them all over the world.’
‘But I bought the office of the real Lazlo Woodbine,’ I said.
‘Which makes you the real Lazlo Woodbine now. Doesn’t it, Laz?’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘I can pretend to be. And to be honest I did pretend to be, for a while, in England. But neither I, nor anyone else, can ever be the real Lazlo Woodbine. There can only ever be one Lazlo Woodbine.’
‘And so what do you think ever became of the one Lazlo Woodbine? ’ asked Fangio.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Ah.’
‘No,’ said Fangio, ‘it’s “arrr, harr-harr”. The way that Robert Newton did it in the television series of Treasure Island. Newton is the Long John Silver against which all future Long John Silvers must be measured. Measured and found to fall short, in my opinion. Arr-harr. Harr.’
‘Quite so,’ I said. ‘But there will never be another Lazlo Woodbine. ’
‘So what did become of him?’ asked Fangio.
