'May I suggest that for the hors d'oeuvres you have Number Three?' he said. 'Very fresh and tender.'
'Really? Interesting. Ample proportions, eh?'
'I think you'll find them adequate, sir. Very, 'ow you say, "well hung".'
'Sounds all right to me,' said Sir Arnold. 'And for the main course? What's on tonight? Anything special?'
'The mixed grill will be ready about ten. Before that we are a bit short, I'm afraid. Times ain't what they used to be.'
'Same every place, Maxie, same every place,' said the Chief Constable, adapting to the argot. 'I think I'll wait for the mixed grill. Fresh, is it?'
Maxie combined a nod with a shrug by way of a disclaimer. 'Well, Mr Cope, what can I say? I provide fresh but what comes in I have to take pot luck. Pay top rates too.'
'Mixed grill it is,' said Sir Arnold, and sat back to watch the floor show. It was, to say the least, entirely appropriate for the setting. Two girls danced rather awkwardly on an oil-covered water-bed before wrestling with one another's panties and finally going in for a prolonged bout of peculiar kissing.
The Chief Constable finished his whisky and ordered another. 'Make it a Spanish, Maxie,' he said, 'and what's with this starter? It's a long time coming.'
'Hasn't arrived yet,' Maxie told him.
'So what do I do while I wait?'
'You could always have a bit of massage maybe.'
'I'm surprised at you, Maxie. You know me. I don't do none of that.'
Again Mr Schryburg nodded and shrugged. 'Me neither,' he said, 'me neither. You wouldn't believe it but I am a believer always in family values. Sure, you laugh but it is true. Like the Great Lady said, "What we need is family values like the Victorians. " And she was right. You know, Mr Cope, she should have toughed it out. Some great lady. I drink to her. The Iron Maiden.'
The Chief Constable raised his glass and drank. He felt rather embarrassed whenever Mr Schryburg talked like that. Like someone farting in church. It was inappropriate and besides he wasn't at all sure about the Iron Maiden bit. While he waited he tapped the channel controller on the multiple TV screens. Nothing happening in Diner 1. In Diner 3 a thin and rather nervous individual was helping himself to neat Polish vodka. Sir Arnold shook his head disapprovingly. It was no help doing that. All the same he stayed with Diner 3. The fellow had taken his trousers off and had folded them neatly beside his shirt. The Chief Constable switched on the video recorder. He had recognized Fred Phylleps, the Tory party campaign manager for South Twixt and also an influential figure as the transport manager at Intergrowth Chemicals. In fact Sir Arnold had had it on good authority that F.F., as Fred Phylleps was known to his friends, had been the bagman in a pay-off to someone who knew a little too much about the financial affairs of a certain person's close relative. No names, no packdrill. It would be a good thing to add F.F. to his little collection of videoed notables, though frankly Sir Arnold wasn't impressed by his choice of dishes. Thirty-five-year-old-playing-teenybopper did nothing for him, and he had recently gone clean off leather. Still, F.F. might yet come in handy by way of protection.
Presently, when he had tried several other Diners, the Chief Constable turned back to his own needs. He hadn't come here for a meal. He needed information. 'You haven't got many customers for a Monday night,' he said when Maxie brought his third whisky.
'Comes and goes. Mondays. Sometimes there's a big rush on like when the wives are away or we get a convention. And of course the regulars come in the afternoon though we do have some in the morning. Come with their fishing rods mainly. Mornings is surprisingly good.'
'I suppose they must be,' said the Chief Constable. 'By the way, do you have many bondage merchants?'
'Try the Dungeon,' said Maxie and leant across to press a button marked D. Sir Arnold found himself staring at a room containing what looked like a surgical table with straps, a dentist's chair and, most sinisterly, a small gallows with a hangman's noose. On the walls were an assortment of instruments and whips.
'I like to think we got some good equipment,' said Maxie. 'Yeah, man, we can give them the works. We got one customer's a medical man and he reckons all we need is a resuscitation room and we could help out with the National Health operations. What he don't know is we've got a resuscitation room right through that door in the corner there. You wouldn't believe what some people like doing to themselves. We had this old guy in one time brought his own priest for confession like and I'm meaning a kosher priest. I swear to God the guy's got a real priest. Like he's a Roman Catholic or something. So one of the girls has got to be dressed in nothing but a hood and these pants and an open-teat bra, all black leather. And she's the hangman and two other girls they strap the old guy up real tight and the priest takes his confession and the last rites, you know, the works. And that's when I know the priest is for real because he doesn't like what he's into one bit. Keeps sweating, and crossing himself. And Ruby, she's the hangman, puts this silk bag over the old guy's head and then the noose on this bungy rubber and takes her time to give him his money's worth because this is costing, with that equipment and the overheads like the gallows and all. Then she steps back and pulls the lever and the old guy goes down on the bungy. You should have seen it. Thing is we've got the noise right on the audio player so we don't hear his real noise. Man, was I glad we had a top doctor in Diner 10 that night. Only time I've ever asked a customer to stop and come urgent. The old guy had had a seizure even before he did the drop scene. Then he's having this fucking fit and it's boomsadaisy and he's on the bungy having his neck stretched and it don't do him no good at all, jerking around and twitching like there's no tomorrow which just about happens to be true in his case. And that bungy don't help none either. He keeps coming up through the fucking trap again and the priest is so fucking thrown he's off into the last rites again. And as if that isn't bad enough, I call the ambulance fast and they rush in what's the first thing they see? Ruby in the leather and a naked fucking doctor with a condom on trying to get the old bastard down so's he can give him the kiss of life and he's hacking away at the bungy rope with some scissors won't cut and there's this priest on his knees moaning in Latin or something. Only time I've seen the last rites done twice in ten minutes the same guy. You think of the outlay for a caper like that. Shit. I have to buy the ambulance guys off and give that doctor three weeks free and that ain't all. I got to join the Catholic Church so I can confess for real and calm that fucking priest down he's so hysterical. Yeah, sure the old guy is paying. When he comes out of intensive care which was iffy at the time and he's in hospital seven whole weeks. After that I said we got to have our own resuscitation room. And was I lucky. We had an accident one time with the electric chair. Wasn't no accident either. The guy was a bad one. I mean a hurter, a real mean bastard. He wants to go all the way with torture like he's read they do in South Africa or El Salvador some place. Terminals and electric shocks and you know. The works. So he's got Lucille in there. She's the one does the S and M roles both. Big girl and not the sort you'd think was that way. Motherly, you know what I mean?'
The Chief Constable did. He had a video in his safe of Lucille working the Member for East Seirsley with the butt of a bull whip with genuine pleasure. She was enjoying her work, which was more than the MP appeared to. Afterwards, when he had the gag out, he'd said as much. It was an interesting tape.