The Fictional Man (7 page)

The reporter opened his mouth to ask another question, but thought better of it as the taller Holmes rose to his feet again, holding what looked like a human hair. “Almost invisible against the tarmac. Sherlock, my good fellow” – he nodded to his fellow Holmes – “what do you make of this?”

The shorter Holmes peered at it, frowning. “A thread of some kind. Tweed, I’d say. Where do you suppose it came from?”

“First, consider the murder weapon. A large, heavy object, almost certainly metal, but also containing enough glass to provide the slivers we found by the body earlier. If we add that to the grains of pipe-tobacco we discovered on the dead man’s clothes...”

The shorter Holmes shook his head impatiently. “The thread, man! Where did it come from? A blazer, perhaps?”

The taller Holmes smiled paternally. “Who would wear a tweed blazer in Los Angeles in the middle of an unusually hot spring? No, my dear fellow, it’s quite elementary. In fact, I can answer you off the top of my head.” He calmly lifted off his deerstalker, holding it next to the thread. “You see? It could almost be from this one. It’s not, of course – the pattern is subtly different – and besides, you are my alibi.”

The shorter Holmes took a step back, staring in horror. “Holmes, you’re not saying the murderer is –”

“One of us, my dear Wat –” The taller Holmes hurriedly corrected himself. “My dear fellow. We have eliminated the impossible and what remains must now be the truth. The killer smoked a pipe, he wore a deerstalker hat, the murder weapon was a heavy magnifying glass – ergo, either he was engaging in a particularly outré means of throwing the police off his scent... or the killer was none other than Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

He turned back to the reporter, but the reporter was unable to do anything but stare.

“Jesus,” Bob said, and Niles realised that he’d returned from the toilet a minute or two before. He’d been so absorbed in the drama unfolding on the screen that he hadn’t noticed. He quickly looked around for the red-haired woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“It doesn’t seem real,” Niles said, taking a long pull on his pint. “It’s like a spoof broadcast. Insane.”

Bob chuckled dryly. “That’s what happens when you invite fictions into the world. They bring fiction with them. This isn’t much different from that Dexter Morgan business.”

“Well, they got to him in time,” Niles muttered. Bob gave him a sideways look. “What?”

“See, this is my point,” Bob said, choosing his words carefully. “I’m just wondering if you understand what you’re getting into. This isn’t some literary fantasy where you get to meet your own character and have a beer with him while he tells you how great a god you’ve been. Bringing someone imaginary into the real world isn’t a thing you can predict.” He pointed his bottle at the screen, where the reporter had finally recovered his wits enough to go back to the studio. Needless to say, the hunt for the killer Holmes was now the top story. “Look at this. Because somebody decided to translate me, even though there was already a ‘Bob Benton’ out in the world, we get this, this knock-on effect. And now we’ve got a situation where there are about fifteen different Sherlocks running around LA and one of them might be a killer. I guarantee that’s not how Malcolm and the rest of the bright boys at Nestor saw this whole thing working out.”

“We-ell...” Niles considered. “It’s not like there’s already a Dalton Doll. And if I make one, there aren’t likely to be any more...” He frowned. “So really, I’m not sure how this applies.”

Bob sighed. “I’m just saying that your actions are going to have consequences. The guy you invent is going to exist in the world – the real world, not just some movie where the worst thing that can happen is you get a bad review. I mean...” He pointed at the screen. “Let’s say Sherlock Holmes did just kill someone. I’m betting you can trace that back to some bad writing on somebody’s part. Whoever translated that guy is going to get lawsuits up the wazoo.” He hurriedly threw up his hands, noticing the look Niles was throwing him. “Not that I’m saying you’re a bad writer...”

“No, of course not.” Niles scowled. “Since when does The Black Terror talk about people’s wazoos?”

Bob smiled. “Well, there you go. Bad characterisation. Like I say, Niles, you’ve got to watch what you put in here.” He tapped his head twice, then turned and signalled the barmaid. “Same again over here, please.”

CHAPTER FOUR

From the screenplay for
THE DELICIOUS MR DOLL
(1966), by Hutton H Hopper & Jean-Paul Vitti:

INT. DOLL’S “PLEASURE PAD” – NIGHT.

DOLL opens the door to usher KITTEN into the room. She slips off her MINK COAT, holding it in the air until the AUTOMATIC COAT-STAND rises out of the floor and hooks it. Underneath, she’s wearing a very short, VERY low-cut MINI-SKIRT DRESS made from GOLD COINS and GOLD-EFFECT GO-GO BOOTS. We get a GOOD LOOK. Doll SMILES.

DOLL:

Somebody oughtta put you in Fort Knox, sweetheart.

KITTEN:

Fort Knox couldn’t afford me.

DOLL presses one of the studs on his WRIST COMMUNICATOR and a ZEBRA-SKIN LOVE SEAT lowers itself FROM THE CEILING.

DOLL:

I’ll bet. Take a load off those dynamite stems, baby - drink?

KITTEN nods. As she SITS, DOLL moves to the AUTOMATIC DRINKS CABINET.

DOLL:

One Old-Fashioned. Substitute White Horse for Bourbon, hold the cherry.

(He looks her over, particularly HER LEGS)

And a Pink Squirrel for the little lady.

A hatch in the device OPENS, revealing THE TWO DRINKS. DOLL takes them both, handing the PINK SQUIRREL to KITTEN.

KITTEN:

You know my drink. Impressive.

DOLL:

Some things you can tell about a woman.

KITTEN:

Oh? Like what?

DOLL:

Like maybe somewhere along the line she’s gotten her pretty head all filled up with a load of fancy doubletalk.

KITTEN:

And I suppose you’re just the man to talk me back around?

DOLL:

Baby, anyone who says lips like yours were made for talking is a grade-A, certified nut.

KITTEN:

You’re quite the charmer, Mr Dalton Doll... Agent Of Y.V.O.O.R.G. That’s right, I know a few things about you, too.

KITTEN reaches into her BEE-HIVE HAIR-DO and removes a SMALL BUT DEADLY PISTOL. She AIMS IT at DOLL.

KITTEN:

Don’t move an inch.

DOLL:

Until a moment ago, I was moving several. That’s a pretty gun for a pretty girl, but don’t think I won’t take it away from you.

KITTEN:

You’d be wise not to try, Mr Doll. A single explosive bullet from this gun can kill a charging bull elephant - I’d hate to waste one killing you.

DOLL:

Well, I’m kind of like an elephant myself - in the trunk department. Listen, sweetness, you’re playing a dangerous game here and unlike that dress, it’s way too big for you. Why don’t you quit now before I have to get tough?

KITTEN:

Don’t be a fool. You honestly think you stand a chance against the might of F.L.O.O.Z.Y.? You’re nothing but a worm under our heel – and just like a worm, you’re for the birds, Dalton Doll. Now - take off your clothes.

(She smiles, EVILLY)

I want to personally search you for weapons.

DOLL:

(Hand moving to his CUFFLINK)

Start with this one, gorgeous –

He triggers the DART GUN hidden in his CUFFLINK and shoots a PARALYSING DART into her wrist.

KITTEN:

My arm! I can’t move it!

DOLL:

(taking the GUN from her)

That’s enough of that – now, talk! Where are F.L.O.O.Z.Y. holding the Dolly Birds? I know you’re up to your pretty green eyes in this caper, so spill!

(he SLAPS her, hard)

Come on, spill it! Talk!

(he SLAPS her again)

I said talk, sister! Tell me! Now!

(he SLAPS her again)

– at which point the phone rang.

T
HE FIRST THING
Niles had done after coming home from the bar the night before was to download a copy of
The Delicious Mr Doll
,which he hadn’t gotten more than fifteen minutes into before falling asleep. The next morning, after breakfast, he decided to tackle it fresh, with his notebook in hand. He made a couple of vague notes during the credit sequence, a self-consciously psychedelic affair involving each member of The All Together playing their instruments over a flashing pastel-coloured background, but after that he’d become absorbed in the story – such as it was – and in his own memories of adolescence. The notebook lay forgotten on the coffee table in front of him.

When Dalton Doll’s ‘pleasure pad’ first appeared on the screen, with his mini-harem of Dolly Birds fussing about him in their oddly shapeless ’sixties dresses, Niles found himself smiling fondly, if a little ruefully. As a teenager, it had been his idea of a dream home – at the time he might as well have wanted a base on the moon, but now that he looked around his apartment, at the striking minimalist furniture and the Richard Hamilton prints on the wall, he had to admit he’d come fairly close. He might not have a hat stand he could summon from the floor or a zebra-skin love seat he could drop from the ceiling, but he had an espresso machine and a lava lamp, and if he didn’t have a harem yet it was hardly for want of trying.

The thought jarred.
Was
he trying? Not to get a
harem,
for God’s sake, that was ridiculous, but just to – well, get involved with someone? Meet new people? To, to put it bluntly, get laid?

It had been three years since the divorce – and the unpleasantness that had triggered it – and the realisation hit him that he hadn’t made a serious effort to meet anyone in all that time, which was... bizarre, considering how he’d behaved before then. He’d mostly been working on his novels, or spending time with Bob and – some of his other friends had stuck around, surely? – or he’d been having his therapy sessions with Ralph. What social life he had aside from that consisted mainly of launch parties and publicity junkets, and while he did plenty of looking – ogling, even, this was still LA – he always seemed to have an excuse not to ‘seal the deal.’

“Good God,” he muttered to himself. “Seal the deal.” He sounded like one of those idiots who wrote seduction manuals.
How To ‘Neg’ The ‘Hotties’: A Kurt Power Manual.
That was a bad sign. Something was obviously starting to curdle.

Now that he thought seriously about it, the woman he spoke to most regularly – and also the last woman he’d been in any way intimate with – was Iyla, which seemed... off, somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He’d have to speak to Ralph about it at their next session.

He sighed, shaking the thought off and allowing his mind to return to the movie. It had reached one of his favourite parts – the casino scene, featuring the first appearance of Joi Lansing as the delectable Kitten Caboodle. Niles found himself perking up. As she leaned forward over the roulette table to serve Dalton Doll his Old Fashioned – “hold the cherry” was evidently thought by the screenwriters to be a serious rival for “shaken not stirred” – Niles reflexively did the same, as if he could somehow peer further down her top than the cameraman had managed to, and when Doll got her back to his pad and she revealed
that
dress, his hand began, almost unconsciously, to reach down and unbutton his fly –

– at which point the phone rang.

“Damn it,” muttered Niles, flushing slightly as he scrabbled around for the smartphone buzzing on the table in front of him. Surely the studio couldn’t need their pitch yet? Or was it Bob, ringing to apologise about his rudeness last night? They’d ended the evening amicably enough, but Niles had spent the taxi ride home fuming, recalling Bob’s tone when he’d referred to Kurt Power and the future Dalton Doll. How
dare
Bob imply that Niles wasn’t a good writer?

Niles blinked at the display. It was Iyla.

The synchronicity unnerved him. He considered ignoring it, but his thumb, seemingly on automatic pilot, slid across the display to answer the call.

“Hello, Iyla?” He already regretted answering, but he was committed now. He put the film on mute – he could always come back to where he’d been later, and besides, his putative erection had gone back to sleep at the first sight of her name. He wondered exactly when it was that she’d begun having that effect on him.

“Niles, hi. Listen, it’s not a biggie – were you working?” Her voice was brisk and rich, with a slight hint of the stronger accents of her parents. They’d hated him, of course, particularly at the end when she’d finish most nights by retreating to the spare room and calling them in floods of tears. Her father had once threatened to beat him to death with a tire iron, and it had taken a lot of restraint and understanding for him not to call the police.

“Yes, I was working,” the author said, as if speaking to a child. “I’m always working. I can never turn it off, not for a second. To me, breathing and writing are the same. When you plunge me into the cold waters of our dead love, stop my work, stop my breath – I begin to die.” With that, he crushed the phone with a single clench of his powerful hand, and returned to making his copious notes.

Perhaps he would thank her at the Oscar ceremony – for nothing.

“No, no, nothing I can’t...” he tailed off. On the screen, Doll and Kitten – now naked but for a discreet op-art bed sheet – were locked in a passionate embrace. She was mouthing the words
“real man”
into his earlobe. That bit, he realised, might have to be updated for modern audiences. “Nothing important. How have you been?”