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Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Wings ePress
ISBN-10: 1613095783
Type: Fiction
Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9781613095782
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Even when you can’t move mountains, you might still create a few shock ripples…
Appointed by Lizzie Leah to locate her lost lover, whom she knows by the name of Leo McGuire, PI (and ex-spy) Mervyn Vincent discovers that the object of his quest is not only a gigolo with a harem of “Mrs McGuires” across the continents, but a also a valuable player (real name Leon Devine) in an international right-wing cartel. Realizing that there’s more to Leon than meets the eye, Mervyn joins forces with his sister Taya and Lizzie to reform the young man and channel his abilities into worthier causes, thereby impacting, albeit modestly, on the global power machinery.
Excerpt
The Allianz Arena rally was a triumph for the alt-right. Not even Bayern München’s home games attracted as many fans. Traffic around Munich was blocked for hours ahead of the kick-off as thousands of supporters, patrolled by almost as many police, marched through the streets shouting their slogans and waving banners mainly in German out of respect for the Alternative für Deutschland organizers, but with many in English and a range of other languages. A shame Steve Bannon was unable to attend, he’d have been proud. But then maybe it was precisely his role as éminence grise that determined his preference for skulking in the shadows. With or without his presence, however, Georg Büchner and Sergei Figov were delighted at the turnout.
As regards Mervyn Vincent, Taya Devine, Lizzie Leah, Jürgen, and Suzie, it was just as well Margery Middleton—under the alias of fervent pro-Brexiteer Sir Maurice Gubbins—had reserved seats for them ahead of the event or they might never have got in. From Lizzie’s perspective at least when it came to understanding proceedings it was also an advantage that Büchner and Figov, under pressure from both the White House and the new incumbent at 10 Downing Street, had reluctantly agreed the lingua franca for all orators should be English. Other languages, except German obviously, were to be permitted only as long as simultaneous on-screen translation could be provided.
Mervyn however was furious. “You have no idea how ashamed this makes me to be English,” he told Taya and Lizzie as they took their seats in one of the special guests seats with the best view of the rock concert-type stage erected over the pitch’s centre circle. “First the misery of Brexit, now the very foreigners we scorned being made to speak our language whether in British or American versions. A whole new and despicable version of the old colonialism.”
Taya nodded agreement. “That’s history for you.”
“And a very nasty history it is,” Mervyn was saying as Georg Büchner emerged from the wings onto the stage with a microphone and, to a stadium full of noise, national flags and fire crackers, welcomed the glorious coming together of so many brothers and sisters before announcing the order of events over the following two hours, each speaker being allocated fifteen minutes to state his case.
“Christ, we can’t sit around listening to this fascist shit for an hour and three quarters until it’s Leon’s turn,” said Taya when they learned Norman Farrago from the UK had been honoured with the valedictory speech.
Lizzie agreed. “Dead right. By the time we get to him the noise’ll be worse than the Anfield Kop when Liverpool are already thrashing some poor buggers eight nothing. Mind you, at least you get some laughs out of that. None of this sounds funny.”
“Judging by this it won’t be,” said Mervyn watching on as a Milanese League Party official sporting a black shirt goose-stepped on stage, shook Büchner’s hand and, ignoring any attempt at English, launched into a hundred-word a minute Italian diatribe against all forms of liberalism but especially those which had allowed and abetted the infiltration of his homeland by millions of blacks and Arabs from across the Mediterranean.
“Send…them…all…HOME…or…lock…them…all…UP,” he proclaimed in conclusion as he conducted a band beneath the stage striking up Giovinezza, Mussolini’s anthem.
Taya wiped her eyes. “And my brother is going to be a part of all this?”
“Look,” said Mervyn, “why don’t we use our time a little more sensibly while we wait for whatever Leon has to say?”
“By?” said Lizzie.
“Repairing to the VIP bar I see just behind us and blocking out the noise with a few beers. I know from experience the brewers of Munich to be almost as talented as Young’s when it comes to beer and we have clearance with our tickets.”
“Raaf, raaf,” chorused Suzie and Jürgen.
And so it was, as the stadium behind them periodically erupted into thunderous noise, that the trio plus their dogs spent the following hour and a half speaking of many things, consuming a couple of Steins each of Löwenbräu, and, ignoring the Rauchen Verboten sign, puffing on their cigarettes of choice. The barroom’s manager complained at this claiming it was against all federal laws and he could face jail time for permitting it, but Mervyn shut him up with a fistful of euros and, in rapid German, the claim of diplomatic immunity to tobacco legislation guaranteed by the piece of paper he briefly wafted under his nose.
And what were the many things they spoke of? The final details of their current situation and how to resolve it when they met up with Leon clearly but also, at Lizzie’s request, a further outline of what populism actually meant for the guys outside shouting their heads off. She remembered well enough Taya’s explanation of the term from their dinner at L’Ultima Cena but what, she wondered, did that mean if whole countries adopted it.
“Sorry to seem daft,” she said, “but…”
Between them Mervyn and Taya spent the following half hour or so giving examples of dictatorships of many kinds in many countries across many centuries.
Lizzie frowned. “It’s not a new idea then?”
“Far from it,” said Mervyn. “It’s just been recently overhauled to make it sound relevant to the twenty-first century, that’s all.”
“But the bottom line remains the same,” said Taya, “the rich tell the poor they’re going to be looked after then continue to line their pockets at the poor folks’ expense. Never mind what it was called—communism, fascism, royalism—the outcome was always the same. Representative democracy was supposed to have sorted all that out and for a time it looked as though it might have succeeded, but the new populism looks like upsetting the apple cart all over again. Mainly by setting the people against their elected politicians by saying they are overeducated and over-liberal liars and cheats.”
“Fuck, that’s terrifying,” Lizzie was saying as booming across the loudspeakers came the introduction of Norman Farrago to the stage.
Mervyn was the first to his feet. “Oops, time to get back to our seats, ladies.”
And what they heard from Leon Devine was shocking indeed as he strutted up and down the stage like Mick Jagger on speed but with a leg problem. Jabbing angry fingers at the crowd, barking out the populist slogans he’d practised with Georg Büchner in a subtle mixture of Bavarian German and Roger Moore-type James Bond English as he implored his brothers and sisters in the stadium to take his message home with them from Munich and make sure it hit its mark.
And the message was? That they should all now follow the Brexit example of the UK and its wonderful new prime minister, a person even the glorious American president, The Chosen One, had called his kind of guy, and shake off the shackles of liberalism which had for so long chained them to neglect and poverty.
“If the UK’s leader can bypass the mother of parliaments to get his way, so…can…YOU. What we are now looking at, meine Damen und Herren, is the brightest, the most wunderbar of new futures. Go away from this place and prepare for power. And be in no doubt…together we can! Sieg Heil,” he concluded with a Nazi salute before explaining his leg injury as having been caused by a post-ISIS madman and limp-stomping off stage to tumultuous applause all around the stadium.
It was the cynical linkage of Barak Obama’s famous exhortation to Adolf Hitler’s that caused Mervyn Vincent to ball his fists and bare his upper teeth.
“It is going to be very hard for me not to smack that brother of yours in the mouth when we meet him,” he growled at Taya, who bowed her head. “Meanwhile, as I said, let’s get out of here and back onto the terraces. Looks like he’s headed this way with his cronies.”
~*~
Mervyn didn’t have long to wait to carry out his head-smacking threat, but by the time Georg Büchner and Sergei Figov had chaperoned a sweating Leon up many stairs past adoring fans to the bar behind him, he had managed with the help of Lizzie and Taya to take control of his temper.
It was Lizzie who tempered Mervyn’s anger. “Cool it, love, smacking the bloke about wasn’t the way we agreed to play this, right?”
Mervyn sucked in his cheeks and nodded. “He didn’t see us on his way up, did he?”
“No,” Taya confirmed. “Too busy lapping up the praise. And Lizzie’s right, despite the shit he’s just spouted, we’ve got to stay calm. It’s the only way this will work.”
“Fair enough,” Mervyn agreed. “How long do we wait?”
“Long enough for him and his goons to get themselves sat down with their beers,” said Lizzie.
“Then over we walk in cool as cucumbers and say hi,” Taya added. “How he reacts will determine how we respond. Who knows, maybe your karate will come in handy after all, maybe it won’t.”
Mervyn raised a hopeful eyebrow. “With the goons perhaps. Nasty pieces of work they look.”
Lizzie, Taya, Mervyn, with Jürgen and Suzie on special leashes, waited another fifteen minutes before climbing from their seats and sauntering as blithely as they were able through the bar doors, ordering more Steins of Löwenbräu, then seating themselves at the table right next to that at which Büchner, Figov, and Leon were immersed in a bout of such voluble hubris they took no notice of anything in their surroundings. It wasn’t until Leon rose with some difficulty from his chair saying he needed a leak and peered briefly at his neighbours that things kicked off.
Leon’s recently proud puce face turned pallid. “Holy f-fuck, what the huh-hell’re you doing here?” he stuttered when Taya raised a hand, waggled her fingers, and said, “Hi there, big brother.”
As he stared at Taya, Leon’s mouth opened but for once it was unable to articulate.
When Lizzie waggled her fingers too and said, “Hi there Leo,” his face moved from pallid to ashen and broke into dribbles of sweat.
It was as he was turning to run that Leon’s good foot got muddled up with the white orthopaedic boot on his busted one, he pitched forward and, with a whimper, collapsed face first onto the floor, causing Büchner and Figov to leap from their seats.
“What the hell?” said Büchner, going to pick up the fallen populist, at which Mervyn raised a hand and said, “Leave him to us. We’ll see to this.”
“The ‘we’ being, Doctor Vincent?” said Figov, recalling Schornstein’s agreement to damage limitation. “Just family and friends, or perhaps MI6 too?”
It was Mervyn’s turn to freeze. “How did you…?”
“You to wonder, me to know, Doctor Vincent. Little birdies tweeting, all manner of possibilities. Meantime my advice would be for you and his sister to leave Mister Devine to our care.”
“Or else?”
“Mister Büchner and me gonna need to look at a little persuasion. And trust me, that’s the kind of persuasion you and the gals here ain’t gonna appreciate. Hospitals and suchlike.”
Behind his back Mervyn prepared a karate chop, raised a doubtful eyebrow, and shrugged.
Joining the conversation while bending over to loosen Jürgen’s leash, Lizzie said, “You and whose army, knobhead?”
“Grrrrr,” said Jürgen, while Taya moved to her brother’s side, cradled his head, and whispered that everything was going to be all right.
“Unnn?” said Leon.
“I…told…you…to…leave him alone!” shrieked Figov, joined by Büchner doing his best to look fierce.
Needless to say, this altercation had begun to draw interest from other luminaries in the barroom. And the manager, who already had Mervyn, Lizzie, and Taya in his black book for their smoking laws contravention, and who was currently taking out his phone, doubtless to call the cops.
Time to act, Mervyn decided. Whoever these goons were, they would need to be dealt with…and fast.
It was Figov who accelerated his own and Büchner’s downfall, however. To the uninitiated the sight of a person reaching down to fiddle with his trouser cuff might have signaled no more than a person needing to scratch his ankle, but Mervyn knew better when it came to pistols in socks. Winking to Lizzie to unleash Jürgen therefore, he felled Figov with a carotid artery karate chop and watched on appreciatively as the Lurcher bit Büchner in the balls, causing him to sink to his knees clutch his crotch, and vomit.
“Okay, folks we’re out of here,” he said as the wah-wah-wah of police cars neared.
“And Leon?” asked Taya,
“Make him an offer he can’t refuse,” Mervyn advised.
And, whatever the offer was, Leon didn’t refuse. Just staggered to his feet and threw one arm around his sister’s shoulder and the other around Lizzie’s as the quartet plus dogs headed to the single stop elevator that would take them to the ground floor and the waiting Mercedes which would speed them to the airport where the specially chartered RAF VIP jet was waiting to carry them home. Once on board, Leon reckoned the plane wasn’t as nice as a Gulfstream, but in the circs wisely decided to keep his mouth shut.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
The book was inspired by a phrase often used by D. Trump to describe his favourite kinds of people —i.e., so-called “tough guys”—and deploys it ironically by turning it on its head in the context of a story about contemporary political strife with a fantasy twist.
The central reason for writing the book however was my increasing concern with the deleterious effects of worldwide populism on the democratic systems that have for so long been the cherished norm.
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