Aniseed,’ the darkened figure repeated without inflection.
‘Mind if I siddown?’
‘If that’s the way you wanna play it.’
‘Real dark in here.’ Joanna felt his way to a seat across the desk from Atom, and eased down. ‘You gonna draw dem blinds?’
‘Not on your nelly.’
‘Can’t see your face.’
‘Well it’s chiselled, aquiline, even feral,’ stated the deep voice, ‘with eyes like steel ingots trembling on the smelter rim.’
‘Right. Right ...’ To his right a fish tank was bubbling unlit. Joanna felt uncomfortable, like that time he got hit by a car and everyone stared at him. ‘Hey you got fish in the tank, right? I take a look, put a light on?’
‘I don’t like lightbulbs. Their mystery makes me kinda edgy. I can never tell what’s goin’ on inside. They constitute a lifeform. Gas. Electrical impulses. Death. Even a body for disposal, Mr Aniseed. They perch like spiders on the wall - watching.’
‘Gee I ... guess I aint thought much about that.’
‘There’ll be hell to pay, I promise you.’
So there was what the Candyman called the ‘pleasantries’ out of the way. So far so good. Down to business. ‘Dah reason I’m here Mr Atom is I got a problem. I’m needin’ to talk to a guy called Harry Fiasco.’
‘Fiasco. Aint he one of Eddie Thermidor’s boys?’
‘Sure, the mob - he worked on that big somethin’ they did, that whattya-call-it -’
‘Massacre.’
‘Nail on the head Mr Atom. So the deal is I had a thing with Fiasco’s girl Kitty Stickler, who kinda dances and stuff. And I figured after a while I oughta ventilate Fiasco before he ventilates me. Like math, right? So I tail the guy. Tinder Street. Steam risin’ outta the street-holes, that kinda stuff. Dark, you know? So I’m in range and I let rip.’
‘So whattya want, a receipt for the bullet?’
‘Well it’s kinda embarrassin’ Mr Atom - but I kinda missed the guy and he ran as fast as his arms and legs could take him. Now he’s hidin’ out - but see Mr Atom, I aint seein’ Kitty no more. And Fiasco bein’ one of the mob’s boys, I don’t wanna get found in the weeds or somethin’ so I wanna get to Fiasco and tell him it’s all square somehow. And I got ten thousand smackers here says you’ll find him before I can say somethin’ interestin’.’
Joanna felt real chuffed at having got through the pitch, but there was no immediate response from Atom - only the muffled rain and the broiling aquarium.
‘So er ... so whatta you thinka my story Mr Atom?’
‘It’s got potential and nothing else, bignose.’
‘Eh? Hey you don’t understand, they got it in for me, I’m countin’ ten in Italian here!’
‘Keep counting.’
Three emergency plans occurred to Joanna, but they were the same one painted different colours. ‘What about ya partner,’ he bellowed like a stunned bull, ‘I see that other name on the door out there - Atom and Drowner. Drowner your partner, right?’
‘Ms Drowner is my technical advisor - she works from home.’
‘So who’s gonna help me, your goddamn goldfish?’ shouted Joanna, standing - the chair clattered backward against the door. ‘Hey you aint moved a muscle, yuh weirdo, answer me! You aint even lookin’ at me! God dammit I’m hittin’ the lights!’ And he lumbered at the door, smacking a wallstud - the lights fizzled up to clinical intensity.
Atom was as he’d described himself, sat languid at his desk, regarding Joanna without expression. But something was wrong with the picture.
‘Hey.’ Joanna pointed helpfully. ‘Hey you aint wearin’ no clothes.’
‘Should I be.’
‘What if a lady walks in here?’
‘That’s a matter for the authorities.’
The fishtank glooped - Joanna saw that it too had been illuminated, a sickly green. In the flux of refraction hung a venomous fish the size of a bulldog - in one visual gulp Joanna got the deep body, black and red striped bellyskin, venting gills, streamer fins, high backblade, hinged razor barbs, blunt head and forward eyes. But the snub face looked to have been grafted on. It was human, made over with shutter eyelids and a mouthful of needle-teeth. The specimen yawed slow in the rippling light, showing off the clench and unclench of a gas bladder and the luminescent phosphene ghosts in its silver scales. On the speckle-stone seabed sat a miniature castle. The fish’s blue eye gave the scary stare of intelligence.
‘Wha’ kinda goldfish is that it’s a goddamn monster!’
With a thrash the fish stuck its expression out of the water and snarled through the clenched grid of its mouth ‘Define your terms, meathead.’
Joanna’s bulk wired with shock. ‘It’s talkin’ semantics!’
The tank seemed to explode - the fish was upon him. Poison pain shot up his arm as the predator bit him to the bone.
Joanna heard himself shrieking like a woman, pleading for release, forming words which held meaning only for those who’d dare join him in the rarefied realm above his pain threshold. He hurled himself through exploding furniture. Amid an eyewall skyburst of nerve stars he saw Atom glance from his perusal of the phonebook. ‘Mind the furniture, you two.’
‘Get him off me! I’m in hell! This! Is! Hell!’
Joanna threw off the fiend, which lay gulping on the carpet. ‘I’m on the floor Taffy! I hate the floor!’
Atom stood, affronted. ‘Don’t you know assaulting a security officer is a federal offence.’
‘Security officer?’ gasped Joanna, reeling. ‘It’s a piranha, man! Bit my arm!’
‘Count yourself lucky pal,’ queased the fish in its synthetic voice. ‘Gemme off the floor Taff - spit on my gills someone I can’t breathe down here!’
‘Jed Helms is a credit to his species,’ Atom stated, stepping from behind the desk.
‘It aint duty Taff I was hungry is all.’
Atom retrieved the fish, spreading its pectoral fins. ‘All the best operatives are hungry - you’re in peak condition.’ He dumped the beast into the tank. It sculled languidly to the bottom, its eyes closing. Atom turned his fierce attention to Joanna.
Joanna staggered backward, clutching his arm. ‘Now don’t come near me you sonofabitch! This place is crazy - you both crazy!’
The wall-shadow behind Atom seemed to swell with malevolence as Atom declaimed. ‘You swan in here mouthing off about your phony name, your phony predicament, your phony pants, all the while telling me how I should dress - then you torture my colleague Jed Helms almost beyond his attention span. Get the hell out of here, or so help me I’ll ...’
‘What is wrong now with that imbecile?’ thought Turow as he saw Joanna slam out of the building and wheel toward him through the rain.
Joanna tore open the door and stuck his head in. ‘Drive, Dumpy, drive - there’s monsters in dah house!’
‘What?’ Turow spat as Joanna crammed himself into the car - he plucked the key from the ignition before Joanna could turn it, and held it behind him as the giant made a grab. ‘Calm down you fool, you’ll attract attention!’
‘He didn’t bite, Mr Turow - but looka dis toothmark.’ And he displayed what looked like the bite radius of a young shark, arced on his arm. ‘Don’t go in there Dumpy.’
‘Scared