The Crimson Teacup was one of those leather bars, where guys and gals who like to dress as luggage get together and sweat it out beneath the pulsing strobes. Fuelled on a diet of amphetamines and amyl nitrate, they strut their funky stuff to the tribal rhythms of the techno beat and discuss the latest trends in nail varnish while the DJ’s having his tea break.
I loaded up the trusty Smith and Kick butt west of the Pennines and rammed it into my shoulder holster. Cocked my fedora onto my brow at the angle known as rakish. And, with more savoir-faire than a pox doctor’s clown, was off and on my way to glory.
The Crimson Teacup was having one of its specialist evenings. It was a theme night and the theme was “Come as your favourite food”. Now I thought that I’d seen every kind of cuisine that could possibly be splattered over the human form in my time as a private eye. Because, let’s face it, in my business you get to meet some pretty messy eaters. But when I walked into the Crimson Teacup that evening, I was ill prepared for the startling sight that met my peering peepers.
“The joint’s empty,” I said.
“It’s early yet,” said Fangio. “Care for a piece of chewing fat?”
I swanked over to the bar and settled my bottom parts carefully onto a stool. “I didn’t know you worked here, Fange,” I said.
“I bought the place. Thought I’d branch out. And a house without love is like a garden overgrown with weeds, I always say.”
“Well, set ’em up, fat boy,” says I.
“Ah. Excuse me, sir,” said Fangio, a-preening at his lapels.
I looked the fat boy up and down, then up and down some more. “Is this a mirage?” said I. “Or am I seeing things?”
The fat boy was no longer fat!
In fact he was freer of fat than a scarecrow in a sauna bath. He was willowy as a whipping post and pinched as a postman’s pencil. I’d seen more flesh on a supermodel’s shadow. This guy was wasted. He was scrawny. He was gangly, wire-drawn, waif-like, spindle-shanked, spidery, shrivelled …
“Turn it in, Laz,” said Fangio. “I’m not that thin. I’m svelte.”
“Svelte?” said I. “Svelte?”
“Svelte,” said the sylph-like barkeep.
“Now just you turn that in,” I said. “You’re Fangio the fat boy. Always have been, always will be.”
Fange shook his jowl-free bonce. “Remember our deal?” said he. “Remember back in my bar at lunchtime, when you didn’t have the-dame-that-does-you-wrong to bop you on the head and I whispered to you that I’d do it, if we came to an agreement?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I must have amnesia. I got this bop on the head.”
“You lying git. I agreed to bop you on the head, as long as I didn’t have to be the fat boy any more. As long as you would refer to me in future as the handsome snake-hipped barkeep with the killer cheekbones and the pert backside, and you said—”
“That’s outrageous!”
“That’s exactly what you said. But you had to agree, so you could stick to your genre and do things the way they should be done. Am I right, or am I right?”
“Huh!” I made the kind of grunting sound that goes down big in a piggery, but tends to turn a head or two at the last night of the Proms. “I didn’t think you meant that thin. I thought you just meant a couple of stone off your big fat bum.”
The handsome snake-hipped barkeep with the killer cheekbones and the pert backside poured me a gin and ginseng.
I sipped at it and cast a steely eye about the place. It hadn’t changed much since the last time I had been in. There was the same old junked-up jukebox, the same old spaced-out salad bar, the same old trippy tables and the same old stoned-again stools. The bar counter looked as if it had been on a five-day freebasing fallabout in Frisco and the ashtrays had chased more dragons than a St George impersonator at an Anne McCaffrey convention.
“Oi!” said the svelte boy. “Turn that in. There’s no drugs allowed in this bar.”
“Since when?” says I.
“Since last week,” says Fangio. “I recently had a bad experience with drugs. I snorted some curry powder, thinking it was cocaine.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “What happened?”
“I fell into a Korma.”
Oh how we laughed.
“But I’m not here to talk toot tonight,” said I. “I’m here on a case.”
“The briefcase case?”
“No, this case is bigger than that.”
“A suitcase case?”
“No, bigger than that.”
“You don’t know how big a suitcase I was thinking of,” said the wasp-waisted wonderboy. “This one’s really huge. I used to get inside it when I was a kid and go through this doorway into a snow-covered land where I met a lion and a witch.”
“Surely that was a wardrobe?”
“No. It was definitely a witch.”
I whistled a verse of “You’re a twat, Fangio” and sipped on my gin and ginseng.
“So tell me about this case of yours, Laz,” says Fangio.
“Well,” says I. “I’m looking for this old guy. He might be a regular here. Has a thing about Jewish virgins. Ring any bells with you?”
Fangio stroked at his chiselled chin. “Well,” says he, also. “We do get a lot of Jewish virgins coming in here. A lot. But as to this old guy, what exactly does he look like?”
“Well,” says I, once more. “Can you imagine what God must look like?”
“Richard E. Grant,” said Fangio.
“Richard E. Grant?”
“Richard E. Grant. Tall and slim and dark with devilish good looks and a twinkle in his eye. Not unlike myself, in fact.”
“With the corner up,” said I.
“He’s spot on,” said Barry.
“He’s what?”
“Who’s what?” said Fangio, for none can hear Barry but me.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Fangio. “Were you talking to Gobbo the magic gnome? Because he’s moved out of my nose. He’s taken up residence in my pert bottom cleavage now. Hold on a minute while I get my trousers down.”
“Don’t you do any such thing.” I took off my hat and holding it carefully in front of my face I feigned an interest in its interior. “What are you saying, Barry?” I whispered. “Are you telling me that God looks like Richard E. Grant?”
“Well, wouldn’t you, if you wanted to pull Jewish virgins, chief? Or any virgins at all, for that matter.”
I lifted my hat from in front of my face and stuck it back on my head. “Aaagh!” I went. “Pull your bloody pants up, Fange!”
The fatless boy buttoned his fly.
“So,” said I. “A Richard E. Grant lookalike.”
“That’s me,” said Fangio.
I shook my head. “Does a guy who looks like Richard E. Grant ever come in here?” I asked.
“All the time,” said Fangio. “That would be Mr Godalming.”
“Mr Godalming!” I made the face of the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. “And do you think Mr Godalming might come in here tonight?”
Fangio shrugged. “He might do. You could wait for him,” and Fangio began to giggle.
“What are you giggling at?” I asked.
“You could wait for Mr Godalming. Get it? Waiting for Godalming, as in Waiting for Godot. That’s a good ’un, eh? Haw haw haw.”
“Lost on me,” I said. “But I’ll wait.”
And so I waited.
The Crimson Teacup began to fill up. But not with crimson tea. These dudes and dudesses had taken pretty seriously to the idea of coming as their favourite food.