Icarus swung open the driver’s door and keyed the cab’s ignition.
Johnny Boy hastened into the taxi, slamming the door behind him.
The cabbie staggered to his feet. “Stop, you bastard!” he managed to shout, as the tyres of his cab burned rubber and Icarus swerved away.
“You bloody bastard,” roared the cabbie. “I’ll …”
But then two demons knocked him once more from his feet.
“Bloody, bleeding …”
Doors slammed shut on the long dark automobile.
“My taxi, my taxi.” The cabbie dragged himself once more into the vertical plane.
And was promptly run down by the long dark automobile.
The passer-by looked on, as the two cars roared away into the distance.
“I suppose I’ll never know how you get to Xanadu now,” said he.
“Put your foot down, Icarus,” shouted Johnny Boy. “They’re coming after us fast.”
Icarus put his foot down. “Keep Laz awake!” he shouted back. “Don’t let him fall asleep.”
“Zzzzzz,” went the sleeper.
SMACK! went the hand of Johnny Boy. “Wake up call for Mr Woodbine.”
The new evil chauffeur looked much like the old one, as may well have been mentioned before. But if not it will be now. He had the same evil-looking face, with that same business with the chin and the unusual birthmark above the right eyebrow which resembles the Penang peninsula. He even wore the same cufflinks.
So no further description is necessary.
“Faster,” cried a voice behind him. It was the voice of Cormerant, and it was an angry voice. Cormerant sat in the car’s rear seat, flanked by a deuce of demons. Hideous monsters the pair of them were, but not quite so hideous as Cormerant. There was something even worse about him now. A fearsome energy. Sparkling oil-beads of colour ran up and down his quills. His cruel reptilian eyes appeared lit from within. His scaly features glistened and the horrible insect mouthparts chewed and sucked.
Icarus chewed upon his bottom lip. “Where to, Johnny Boy? Where should we go?”
“You’re the relocator, relocate us.”
“Somehow I thought you might say that. Do you fancy a left at the top of the road here, or a right?”
“Definitely a left.”
“Right it is, then,” said Icarus.
They’d done the Chiswick High Road and the Chiswick Roundabout and now they were hurtling along the Kew Road at the bottom end of Brentford.
“Surprisingly little traffic for this time of day,” said Johnny Boy. “Keep awake now, Mr Woodbine.” SMACK!
Icarus spun the taxi right, through red lights and up into the Ealing Road. The long dark automobile was definitely gaining. It swerved right after them, mounting the safety island, shattering one of those little jobbie lights that drunks so love to sit upon and scattering several pedestrians into the bargain.
“What is all that about?” asked a scattered pedestrian called Pooley.
“Nothing to do with us, my friend,” his friend called Omally replied.
SMACK SMACK SMACK went the hand of Johnny Boy. “I can’t keep Mr Woodbine awake,” he shouted to Icarus.
Icarus leaned over and opened the glove compartment. It was full of gloves (they always are) but nothing else. Strapped to the floor was the medical kit that cabbies always carry. It’s a tradition, or an old charter or a City of London Commercial Vehicle Regulation number 432, or something. Icarus ripped the kit from its mount and the box fell open, showering him with hundreds of small plastic sachets filled with glistening white powder.
“I always wondered how cabbies managed to work such long hours under such stressful conditions and still remain so unfailingly cheerful,” said Icarus. “Here, give him some of this.” And he flung several handfuls of plastic sachets over his shoulder.
“But surely this is …”
“Just pour a bag or two up his nose. That should keep him awake.”
BASH went the bumper of the long dark automobile into the taxi’s rear end.
“Oh!” went Johnny Boy, lost in a sudden snowstorm.
Icarus swerved the taxi off the road and up onto the pavement.
Shoppers and strollers and dog-walking debutantes screamed and dived for cover.
The long dark automobile mounted the pavement, bringing down a lamppost.
Johnny Boy knelt on the slumberer’s chest and emptied sachets of white stuff into his nose.
“I’m going to try to lose them in the back streets,” Icarus shouted. “Do your thing with the spectremeter again when we’re out of sight.”
“He’s still not waking up,” Johnny Boy shouted back. “And I’ve poured at least a quarter-pound of this stuff up his hooter.”
“Then give him the missing three-quarters. In for a penny, in for a pound.” Icarus signalled right and then turned left at the football ground.
Brentford football ground is rightly famous. Not only because Brentford normally contributes at least four of its players to every England World Cup squad, but because it is the only football ground in the country which has a pub at each of its four corners.
The four pubs in question are the Copper Beeches, the Golden Prince-nez, the Sussex Vampire and the Mazarin Stone.
Out of these, the Mazarin Stone is undoubtedly the best for a pub lunch. Run by one Reginald Musgrave, inheritor of certain West Sussex estates and a manor house at Hurlstone, it serves many an illustrious client and it was here that the famous Brentford naval treaty was signed, which officially ended Britain’s war against Spain. Built on the site of the original Priory School, it boasts two ghosts, a veiled lodger and a creeping man, and its upper rooms are available for parties and wedding receptions. There’s karaoke every Tuesday night and a raffle on Sunday lunchtimes.
“Get ready to use the spectremeter,” shouted Icarus.
“Aye aye, captain. Oooh, I feel really odd. It’s good odd though, not bad.”
Johnny Boy tugged the spectremeter from his pocket and smiled stupidly at it. “This is a really nice spectremeter,” he said. “This is the nicest spectremeter in all the world.”
“Turn it on then, please.” Icarus glanced into his mirror. Johnny Boy now resembled a miniature snowman, but at least the sleeper was starting to stir.
“Whoa!” he went, jerking upright. “Oh yeah! Wow! God do I feel great. Wow! I mean, hey!”
“I love you, man,” said Johnny Boy.
“I love you too,” the other replied.
“We’ve lost them, boss. Which way did they go?” The evil chauffeur peered through his tinted windscreen.
“I hate them!” Cormerant rocked in his seat. “Find them! Kill them!”
One of the demons peered through a tinted rear window.
“There.” He pointed. “There they go, down there.”
The chauffeur tried to reverse the car, but there was a dustcart coming up from behind and the back roads of Brentford are narrow.
“Get to the top end of the road!” bawled Cormerant. “Cut them off. Get to it.”
“You got it, sir.” The evil chauffeur put his foot down.
“Drive!” roared Cormerant. “Drive!”
“That’s my brother driving,” said a foolishly grinning individual with a lot of white stuff round his hooter. “He’s my hero, my brother, I love that man.”
“I love him too,” said Johnny Boy.
“When we were kids,” said the foolish grinner, “he used to lock me in a suitcase and push it under our mum’s bed.”
“I never did,” shouted Icarus.
The taxi scraped along a row of parked cars, sending up a glorious shower of sparks.
“You did too. And you used to hide my teddy and leave clues around the house that I’d have to follow so I could find him again.”
“Lies, every bit of it.” Icarus knocked an old boy off his bike. “Sorry,” he called through the window.
“There, he’s said sorry,” said Johnny Boy. “He wants you to forgive him.”