The well of lost plots (28 page)

“Good morning, Jack,” I said as I walked up, “how are things?”

He looked a lot happier than the last time I’d seen him and he smiled agreeably, handing me a coffee in a paper cup.

“Excellent, Mary — I should call you Mary, shouldn’t I, just in case I have a slip of the tongue when we’re being read? Listen, I went to see my wife, Madeleine, last night, and after a heated exchange of opinions we came to some sort of agreement.”

“You’re going back to her?”

“Not quite.” Jack took a sip of coffee. “But we agreed that if I stopped drinking and never saw Agatha Diesel again, she would consider it!”

“Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it might not be as simple as you think. I received this in the post this morning.”

He handed me a letter. I unfolded it and read:

Dear Mr. Spratt,

It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11c of the Union of Sad Loner Detectives’ Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits.

I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behavior before it leads to your downfall.

P.S. Despite repeated demands, you have failed to drive a classic car or pursue an unusual hobby. Please do so at once or face the consequences.

“Hmm,” I muttered, “it’s signed Poi—”

“I know who it’s signed by,” replied Jack sadly, retrieving the letter. “The union is
very
powerful. They have influence that goes all the way up to the Great Panjandrum. This could hasten the demolition of
Caversham Heights
, not delay it. Father Brown wanted to renounce the priesthood umpteen times, but, well, the union—”

“Jack, what do
you
want?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

He sighed. “It’s not as simple as that. I have a responsibility for the seven hundred eighty-six other characters in this book. Think of it — all those Generics sold off like post-Christmas turkeys or reduced to text. It makes me shudder just to think about it!”

“That might happen anyway, Jack. At least this way we have a fighting chance. Do your own thing. Break
away
from the norm.”

He sighed again and ran his fingers through his hair. “But what about the
conflicts
? Isn’t that the point of being a loner detective? The appalling self-destruction, the inner battles within ourselves that add spice to the proceedings and enable the story to advance more interestingly? We can’t just have setup–murder–interview–interview–second murder–conjecture–interview–more conjecture–false ending–third murder–dramatic twist–resolution, can we? Where’s the interest if a detective
doesn’t
get romantically involved with someone who has something to do with the first murder? Why, I might never have to make a choice between justice and my own personal feelings ever again!”

“And what if you don’t?” I persisted. “It needn’t be like that. There’s more than one way to make a story interesting.”

“Okay, let’s say I
do
live happily with Madeleine and the kids — what am I going to do for subplots? Conflict, for want of a better word, is good. Conflict is right. Conflict
works
.”

He gazed at me angrily, but I knew he still believed in himself — that we were even having this conversation proved that.

“It doesn’t have to be marital conflicts,” I told him. “We could get a few subplots from the Well and sew them in — I agree the action can’t always stay with you, but if we — Hello, I think we’ve got company.”

A pink Triumph Herald had pulled up with a middle-aged woman in it. She got out, walked straight up to Jack and slapped him hard in the face.

“How dare you!” she screamed. “I waited three hours for you at the Sad and Single wine bar — what happened?”

“I told you, Agatha. I was with my wife.”

“Sure you were,” she spat, her voice rising. “Don’t patronize me with your pathetic little lies — who are you screwing this time? One of those little tarts down at the station?”

“It’s true,” he replied in an even voice, more shocked than outraged. “I told you last night — it’s all over, Agatha.”

“Oh, yes? I suppose
you
put him up to this?” she said, looking at me, scorn and anger in her eyes. “You come down here on a character exchange with your Outlander airs and self-determination bullshit and think you can improve the story line? The supreme arrogance of you people!”

She stopped for a moment and narrowed her eyes. “You’re sleeping together, aren’t you?”

“No,” I told her firmly, “and if there aren’t some improvements round here soon, there won’t be a book. If you want a transfer out of here, I’m sure I can arrange something—”

“It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it?” she said, her face convulsing with anger and then fear as her voice rose. “Think you can just make a few footnoterphone calls and everything will be just dandy?” She pointed a long bony finger at me. “Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Outlander, I will
not
take this lying down!”

She glared at us both, marched back to her car and drove off with a squeal of tires.

“How about that for a conflictual subplot?” I asked, but Jack wasn’t amused.

“Let’s see what else you can dream up — I’m not sure I like that one. Did you find out when the Book Inspectorate are due to read us?”

“Not yet.”

Jack looked at his watch. “Come on, we’ve got the fight-rigging scene to do. You’ll like this one. Mary was sometimes a little late with the ‘If you don’t know, we can’t help you’ line when we did the old good-cop/bad-cop routine, but just stay on your toes and you’ll be fine.”

He seemed a lot happier having stood up to Agatha, and we walked across the road to where some rusty iron stairs led up to the gym.

Reading, Tuesday. It had been raining all night and the rain-washed streets reflected the dour sky. Mary and Jack walked up the steel steps that led to Mickey Finn’s. A lugubrious gym that smelt of sweat and dreams, where hopefuls tried to spar their way out of Reading’s underclass. Mickey Finn was an ex-boxer himself, with scarred eyes and a tremor to prove it. In latter days he was a trainer, then a manager. Today he just ran the gym and dabbled in drugs on the side.

“Who are we here to see?” asked Mary as their feet rang out on the iron treads.

“Mickey Finn,” replied Jack. “He got caught up in some trouble a few years ago and I put in a good word. He owes me.”

They reached the top and opened the doo—

It was a good job the door opened outwards. If it had opened inwards, I would not be here to tell the tale. Jack teetered on the edge and I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. The only part of Mickey Finn’s that remained were short floorboards that changed to descriptive prose less than a foot out, the ragged ends whipping and fluttering like pennants in the wind. Beyond these remnants was nothing but a dizzying drop to a bleak and windswept sea, whipped up into a frenzy by a typhoon. The waves rose and fell, carrying with them small ships that looked like trawlers, the sailors on board covered in oilskins. But the sea wasn’t water as I knew it, the waves here were made of
letters
. Every now and then they would coalesce and a word or sentence would burst enthusiastically from the surface, where it would be caught by the sailors who held nets on long poles.

“Blast!” said Jack. “Damn and blast!”

“What is it?” I asked as a word that spelled
saxophone
came barreling towards us, changing to a
real
saxophone as it crossed the threshold and hit the ironwork of the staircase with a crash. The clouds of individual letters in the sky above the wave-tossed sea contained punctuation marks that swirled in ugly patterns. Now and then a bolt of lightning struck the sea and the letters swirled near the point of discharge, spontaneously creating words.

“The Text Sea!” yelled Jack against the rush of wind. We attempted to close the door against the gale as a grammasite flew past with a loud “Gark!” and expertly speared a verb that had jumped from the sea at a badly chosen moment.

We pressed our weight against the door and it closed. The wind abated, the thunder now merely a distant rumble behind the half-glazed door. I picked up the bent saxophone.

“I had no idea the Text Sea looked like anything at all,” I said, panting. “I thought it was just an abstract notion.”

“Oh, it’s real all right,” replied Jack, picking up his hat, “as real as anything is down here. The LiteraSea is the basis for all prose written in roman script. It’s connected to the Searyllic Ocean somewhere, but I don’t know the details. You know what this means, don’t you?”

“That scene stealers have been at work?”

“It looks more like a deletion to me,” replied Jack grimly, “
excised
. The whole kerfuffle. Characters, setting, dialogue, subplot and the narrative-turning device regarding the fight-fixing that the writer had pinched from
On the Waterfront
.”

“Where to?”

“Probably to another book by the same author,” sighed Jack. “Kind of proves we won’t be long for the Well. It’s the next nail in the coffin.”

“Can’t we just jump into the next chapter and the discovery of the drug dealer shot dead when the undercover buy goes wrong?”

“It would never work,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Let me see — I wouldn’t have known about Hawkins’s involvement with Davison’s master plan. More importantly, Mickey Finn would have no reason to be killed if he didn’t talk to me, so he would have been there to stop the fight before Johnson placed his three-hundred-thousand-pound bet — and the heartwarming scene in the last two pages of the book with the young lad will make no sense unless I meet him here first. Shit. There isn’t a holesmith anywhere in the Well who can fill this one. We’re finished, Thursday. As soon as the book figures the gym scene has gone, the plot will start to spontaneously unravel. We’ll have to declare literary insolvency. If we do it quick, we might be able to get most of the major parts reassigned to another book.”

“There must be
something
we can do!”

Jack thought for a moment. “No, Thursday. It’s over. I’m calling it.”

“Hang on. What if we come in again, but instead of us
both
walking up the stairs, you start at the top, meet me coming up and explain what you have just found out. We jump straight from there to chapter eight and . . . you’re looking at me a bit oddly.”

“Mary—”

“Thursday.”

“Thursday. That would make chapter seven only a page long!”

“Better than nothing.”

“It won’t work.”

“Vonnegut does it all the time.”

He sighed. “Okay. Lead on, maestro.”

I smiled and we jumped back three pages.

Reading, Tuesday. It had been raining all night and the rain-washed streets reflected the dour sky. Mary was late and she met Jack walking down the stairway from an upstairs gymnasium, his feet ringing on the iron treads.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Mary, “I had a puncture. Did you meet up with your contact?”

“Y-es,” replied Jack. “Had you visited the gym — which you haven’t of course — you would have found it a lugubrious place that smells of sweat and dreams, where hopefuls try to spar their way out of Reading’s underclass.”

“Who were you seeing?” asked Mary as they walked back to her car.

“Mickey Finn, ex-boxer with scarred eyes and a tremor to match. He told me that Hawkins was involved with Davison’s master plan. There is talk of a big shipment coming in on the fifth and he also let slip that he was going to see Jethro — the importance of which I won’t understand until later.”

“Anything else?” asked Mary, looking thoughtful.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you
sure
you’re sure?”

“Er . . . No, wait. I’ve just remembered. There was this young kid there up for his first fight. It could make him. Mickey said he was the best he’d ever seen — he could be a contender.”

“Sounds like you had a busy morning,” said Mary, looking up at the gray sky.

“The busiest,” answered Jack, pulling up his jacket around his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

The chapter ended and Jack covered his face with his hands and groaned.

“I can’t believe I said ‘the importance of which I won’t understand until later.’ They’ll never buy it. It’s
rubbish
!”

“Listen,” I said, “stop fretting. It’ll be fine. We just have to hold the book together long enough to figure out a rescue plan.”

“What have we to lose?” replied Jack with a good measure of stoicism. “You get up to Jurisfiction and see what you can find out about the Book Inspectorate. I’ll hold a few auditions and try to rebuild the scene from memory.”

He paused.

“And, Thursday?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

I drove back to the flying boat. Having said I wasn’t going to get involved with any internal politics, I was surprised by how much of a kinship with
Caversham Heights
I was feeling. Admittedly, the book was pretty dreadful, but it was no worse than the average Farquitt — perhaps I felt this way because it was my home.

“Are we going shopping now?” asked Lola, who had been waiting for me. “I need something to wear for the BookWorld Awards the week after next.”

“Are you invited?”

“We all are,” she breathed excitedly. “It’s going to be quite an event!”

“It certainly will,” I said, going upstairs. Lola followed me and watched from my bed as I changed out of Mary’s clothes.