Fic: Subterranean Sex Slave Stab-Up
Title: Subterranean Sex Slave Stab-Up
Pairing or Characters: Howard/Vince
Summary: When Howard quits the band for the last time, Vince decides to try to make it big in Hollywood . . . Only it’s beginning to look like his first film is also going to be his last.
Word Count: 4,585
Rating: PG-13, for language and a bit of gore
Warnings: Absurdness? A bit of S&M, nothing explicit.
Disclaimer: No ownership is implied, and no offense is intended.
Author’s Notes: This is a lot less violent than the title suggests, and a lot more ridiculous than the summary suggests. Sadly, it is not as gay as I’d originally intended. But it’s my first proper Boosh fic, so maybe I have to build up to it. Comments and criticism is always greatly appreciated.
“All I’m saying is, maybe I don’t want to be in your stupid band anymore!”
“Come on, Howard, you can’t quit the band. I need you. Who else is gonna play back-up, huh?”
“Who else is going to put up with you, you mean!”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Howard threw down his guitar case with much more force than was strictly good for it. It’d been a long night. If their latest gig at the Velvet Onion had been a car accident, it would have been at least a ten-car pileup. It was, Howard had decided, the last straw.
“I’m sick of it, Vince,” he continued. “I’m sick of you stringing me along, promising me fame and fortune and the adulation of millions and delivering nothing but shame and public humiliation.”
“It wasn’t that bad!” Vince dropped down on the couch.
“Yeah, maybe not for you.” Howard was too angry to sit down, and, besides, he still had rotten fruit all over him, from when the crowd had started getting restless. “For you, it’s just, ‘Oh, poor Vince, being dragged down by that small-eyed maths teacher.’ You’re never going to look like a small-eyed maths teacher. You can’t possibly know what it’s like!”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that, Howard. You were doing pretty well tonight.”
“I know I was! Of course I bloody was! I’m a multi-instrumental musical genius!”
“Well, there you go!” He waved a hand, as if gesturing to Howard’s musical genius.
This sent sparks of rage down Howard’s spine. “It’s no me who’s the problem!”
“What, you mean the sound guy? So your volume was a little low, it wasn’t too bad.”
“Not the sound guy!” Howard shouted. “You, you stupid twat!”
Vince looked up at him in shock. “Me?”
“Yeah, name one thing you’ve ever contributed to the band. And if you dare say ‘pulling shapes’ I’ll pull your eyes out your earhole and squash them in a garlic press!”
“I contribute lots of things,” Vince said, flipping his hair, though he seemed a little shaken by the accusation
“As if you did. You swan around in your ridiculous outfits, doing nothing for two hours. Why do I let myself get dragged into this? ‘Oh, I want to be an electropop sensation, Howard, won’t you come play with the band tonight?’ Why’s it always what you want, eh? Why never any thought to what anyone else might want?”
“I think about you,” Vince said, his voice soft.
“No you don’t! You stand up there, pulling your stupid bloody shapes, with no idea what half the lyrics are, or even what song we’re going, while I do the best I can to keep up afloat. And then when we crash and burn, I’m the one who takes the blame! I do you a favor out of the kindness of my heart, and what do I get? Bludgeoned by produce. I don’t see your mirror ball suit covered in rotten mango, oh, no! That bloody hurt!”
“That’s just because people respect my killer dress sense.”
“You look like a diamante dildo!”
That really seemed to hit home for Vince. His eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s how you feel, then, is it?” His voice was low, dangerous, which Howard almost had a hard time believing, but there it was, a sentence like a snake poised to strike. It scared Howard, a bit. He rarely bore the brunt of Vince’s anger, and it made him feel a little sick to his stomach to be fighting with Vince at all. But nevertheless, this last humiliation was one too many, and he would not be cowed by Vince’s inherent likeability.
“Yeah, it is,” Howard said defiantly.
“Fine, then you won’t mind if I just bugger off! See how well you get on without me and my so-called dildo suit!”
“Fine, go ahead! Nobody will miss you for a second!”
“Fine! I will.”
And with that, Vince turned around and stomped back down the stairs. Howard heard the door slam, and then he was alone.
The problem was, of course, that he did miss Vince, almost immediately. He sat down on the couch, spoiled fruit and all, feeling completely drained from the argument. Vince would be back, he told himself. He was a delicate flower, he wouldn’t last an hour out alone in the world. He’d spend the night sulking at Leroy’s and come crawling back in the morning. Sighing, Howard stretched out on the couch, and before he even knew it, he was asleep, dreaming of ways he could get Vince to make it up to him.
Howard woke to the noise of something heavy bumping over the floor. He sat up with a start, looking around in bewilderment. His whole body ached from sleeping curled up on the couch, and he stank of rotting mango.
A tall man with what appeared to have a giant garbanzo bean for a head carrying one of Vince’s sparkly pink suitcases, followed by a second figure in a shiny jumpsuit and a grey ski mask.
“All right, Howard?” said the man in the ski mask.
Howard squinted at the figure, his eyes still sleep-weak. “Vince?”
Vince came over, and for one glorious moment, Howard thought that perhaps all was forgiven between them. But something was not right. The man with the bean for a head was standing in the kitchen, looking impatient.
“Vince, what’re you doing? Who’s that?”
“Oh, him?” Vince said. There was a studied coolness in Vince’s voice that set Howard totally on edge. “That’s Gianni Garbanzo.”
“Who?”
“Gianni Garbanzo. He’s a genius.”
“As what? A side dish?”
“Remember Jacques le Cube? Well, he’s Jacques’ manager, and he says he can make me a bona fide movie star.”
At the moment, Gianni Garbanzo seemed to be checking the messages on his mobile. In a dark suit and some rather frightening silver jewelry, he looked the part of a heavy metal pimp, albeit one from the produce section.
“What? But what happened to being an electropop legend?”
“Music’s a thing of the past, Howard,” Vince said breezily. “And anyway, everybody knows that all those Hollywood actors are musicians, too. Think about J.Lo, or Hilary Duff, or that Miley Cyrus girl! I’m gonna be a proper cross-over sensation!”
“What’s he making you wear that for, then?” On closer inspection, he could see that it was not a ski mask at all that Vince was wearing, but a tight-fitting hood made out of leather and chain link which revealed only Vince’s eyes and mouth.
“What about it?” Vince touched the hood self-consciously.
“It looks like a chainmail tea cozy!”
“I was a bit iffy at first, too. I’m gonna have massive hat hair tomorrow. But Gianni says it’s the next thing. Apparently the Battle of Hastings look is coming back in a big way.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I think I look kind of mysterious, don’t you?” He struck a pose, but if his expression was even the least bit mysterious, Howard couldn’t tell through the mask.
“You look like an idiot. And, anyway, just wearing a stupid mask isn’t going to make you a star. You know that. You’ve tried it before. Remember that time with the Spiderman mask? And, I mean, look at your skinny little arms. You aren’t even strong enough to pick up a script. And what would you do if you had to read it?”
“Yeah, well, Gianni says it doesn’t matter I’ve got skinny arms. He says you don’t need muscular arms to be a star. Or reading skills. He says all that matters is that you have loads of charisma, and a good look.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, you berk, and look where it’s gotten you.”
“Yeah, well, Gianni’s got real managerial skills. Not like Bob Fossil. Look, he’s already got me a job.” Vince held up a poster that made Howard cringe back in fright. It was a moment before he could look at it directly. It was pitch black, emblazoned with dark red writing that looked rather like blood, and in the center was a picture of a woman in a steel corset stabbing a man in the chest with the point of a high-heeled shoe.
“Vince! You can’t possibly think this is a good idea!”
“Why not?”
“Just-look at him.” The woman’s victim, who was wearing a mask very similar to Vince’s, was bleeding profusely.
Vince scoffed. “You’re just jealous ‘cause the only film work you’ve ever done was as the Crab of Trapped Wind.”
“Shut up about that!”
“Face it, Howard, you just don’t have the charisma to be the lead in a gritty erotic thriller like ‘Subterranean Sex Slave Stab-Up.’”
“That’s not fair! I was in three episodes of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace!”
“Just ‘cause it’s got the word “dark” in the title doesn’t mean it’s a complex and seductive psychological study. And, besides, you were only in those episodes for, like, four seconds.”
“Well, at least I wasn’t-” He paused. All this was beside the point. “This is beside the point! Don’t you understand what’s going on? He’s tricking you into being in some kind of twisted S&M nightmare. You’ll be shoe-stabbed. Or worse! Forced to wear arseless chaps! Who knows! Can’t you see I’m saying this for your own protection?”
“I know exactly why you’re saying this, Howard.”
“You do?”
“You’re upset because you think I’m leaving you behind in the dust. Well, no matter how nasty you were to me last night, I could never do that. Well, I could, but I’m not going to. Unlike some people, I don’t abandon my mates just because they’re dead weight. I could never forget what we have together . . . The zoo, the shop, that time you untangled my fringe from that power line . . .” He smiled nostalgically, the expression slightly hampered by the weight of the hood. “You’re my best mate, Howard. You don’t have to be jealous of me. Besides, it’s not even like we’re in the same league. I promise, even when I’m a superhuge pop sensation with eighteen people to help me into my trousers every morning, I’ll never forget the little people like you who were so good to me before I got big.”
“That’s not it at all!” Howard cried. “Don’t you see, you toffy-headed loon, this is a matter of life and death!”
Vince smiled. “Yeah, I get that a lot. But don’t worry. I’ll send you a post card from LA, yeah? And, hey . . .” He reached out chucked Howard under the chin. “Try not to miss me too much.”
There was no time for Howard to say anything else. He watched, slack-jawed, as Gianni Garbanzo gathered Vince up and herded him out of the flat. Vince turned a little to wave as they disappeared down the stairs, but Howard couldn’t summon the composure to wave back. Outside, he heard a car start up, and then Vince was gone.
Howard was inconsolable. Everything he’d ever relied on was gone-and it only made matters worse to think that Vince was the only thing he’d ever had to rely on. He sat on the couch for hours after Vince left, too shocked and hurt to do anything. Even the thought of listening to some jazz, which should have cheered him up considerably, did nothing for him. He didn’t even think he could find the energy to lift the needle on his record player.
When Naboo and Bollo got home, it didn’t take them long to realize just how disconsolate Howard was. Naboo let him have a few puffs on his hookah out of pity, and even Bollo patted him on the arm and said, “It gonna be OK, Harold.” It ought to have touched him, but he felt nothing. He sat up with them until they got bored and went off to make brownies and then, head spinning from the hash, he staggered into his bedroom and fell asleep.
For three days, he couldn’t even get out of bed. Naboo had to call Leroy to mind the shop, which didn’t work out very well because Leroy kept stealing things to fence to his mates, and besides he had no idea how to take care of Stationary Village. But Howard couldn’t bring himself to care.
What did it all matter, now that Vince was gone? The Blu-Tack Garden could go to seed for all he cared. The only person who’d ever really meant anything to him had abandoned him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how paranoid he’d been about the whole thing. Probably there was nothing fishy about Gianni Garbanzo’s proposition, and, in all likelihood, Vince was having a whale of a time in Los Angeles, doing lots of recreational drugs and partying it up with that Lizzy Lohan. He’d only wanted to believe that Garbanzo’s “movie” was suspect because he didn’t want Vince to go. It was true, of course, that he was scared Vince would forget him. People forgot him when they saw him every day. It would be nigh impossible to remember someone like Howard Moon when presented with all the temptations of the Hollywood high life.
And, after all, why would Vince even want to remember him? What was Howard to Vince, anyway? Nothing. Vince had said it himself. They were just mates. Mates were people you’d miss after you’d gone, but then you’d meet new people, and you wouldn’t bother coming home to visit the little people any more, especially not if you were a superfamous pop sensation who had forty people to help you put on your clothes in the morning. In a couple of years, Vince would probably have fifty Oscars and only the vaguest recollection of some squinty-eyed geezer who used to untangle his fringe from power lines.
It was Howard’s own fault, of course. He should have done more to make Vince stay. If he’d really cared about Vince, he would have done something to make Vince want to stick around. He shouldn’t have been so mean to Vince, always sniping at him and insulting him, putting him down and trying to upstage him. He should have been open and honest and showered Vince all the affection he deserved. Then maybe he wouldn’t have run off to America with some sleazy bean-headed berk in an Armani suit.
But it was too late now. There was nothing left for Howard, no reason why he shouldn’t just give up. He was nothing but a talentless squinty-eyed jazz freak. He would just lie in bed until he withered up and died. Then Naboo could rent his room to someone who didn’t keep him up with trombone solos until all hours of the night. And Vince wouldn’t have to worry about him any more. He would be free to pursue his dreams, without the millstone of Howard Moon forever hung around his neck.
It’d been seven days since Vince left, a full week. Naboo and Bollo had both decided it would be best to leave him more or less alone until he started to decompose, and the only other human being he’d seen since was Lester Corncrake, who’d stopped by to ask whether he could have Howard’s record collection once he was dead.
Which was why he was so surprised when, in the middle of one of his hourly bouts of stinging righteous regret, Naboo stepped into the room.
“What is it?” Howard wheezed.
“You got a post card, Howard.” Naboo sounded as surprised as Howard felt.
“Really?”
“Yeah, a carrier pigeon just delivered it a minute ago. Here.” Naboo came closer, holding the tatty piece of paper out in front of him. “It’s well rank, so you better plug your nose.”
Howard took the paper from Naboo, holding gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. The paper was not a proper post card at all, but one side of a torn-up cigarette pack. The message was written sloppily, in what appeared to be reddish brown ink that smelled oddly like copper. Howard held his breath as he leaned close to make sense of the awkward scrawl, and he read slowly:
dear Howard
sory this isn’t nicer i had to use my own blood for ink. any way i am writin to tell you how i am. not so good actually. it turns out gianni is a total freak. he keeps us all locked in a cage made out of old candy wrappers and only let’s us out when its our turn to be in a seen in the movie. plus he smells really bad! i dont think hes changed his clothes once since ive been here. also some of the other guys have dissa disape gone missin and im really beginning to get worried. its just me and dennis now and he doesnt like Gary Numan AT ALL!! what a nightmare. anyway if you could manage to come rescue me thatd be great!
cheers,
your friend,
Vince
“Quick, Naboo!” Howard cried, leaping out of bed. “There’s no time to loose!”
“What is it?”
“It’s Vince! His manager has imprisoned him and forced him to take part in a sadomasochistic snuff film! We’ve got to rescue him!”
Naboo rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the carpet.”
Howard dressed while Naboo went to retrieve his magic carpet. Once the carpet was down from the loft, they wasted no time in taking it out to the street and unfurling it on the pavement.
“Right,” Naboo said, settling down in the driver’s seat. “Where is he, then?”
“Hm?”
“Vince? Where is he? You know, where’s he being held prisoner?”
“Oh.” Howard felt a cold sensation blossom in the pit of his stomach. “Er. I don’t know.” He took the stinking post card out of his back pocket and read it over. “It doesn’t say.”
“That’s just great. What’re we supposed to do know?”
Howard looked at Naboo, uncomprehending. “Can’t you just whip up some kind of magical findy magic? Locate Vince with a spell?”
Naboo gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not a miracle worker, am I?”
“To be fair, you are a magician.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference, isn’t there. You’d think you’d know that after all this time.”
“So what you’re saying is, you can’t find Vince.”
“No. But-” He held up his index finger. “-I think I know someone who can.”
Howard was dubious about this so-called detective. He was hesitant to trust any friend of Naboo’s, but this man looked like a real hum-dinger. He was wearing enough white pancake makeup to qualify as a circus clown, and Howard was pretty sure he’d stolen his getup from one of those girls from the Black Spider. As for his brains, Howard was fairly sure he’d shaken them all out of his head in his attempt to backcomb his hair into the stratosphere. The amount of hairspray he must have inhaled in styling himself this morning alone would have left even the brightest of children severely retarded. Goth Detectives, Inc, indeed. Howard doubted this man could detect a banana in a bowl full of satsumas.
Nevertheless, this man was his only hope, and so he poured out his entire story in one hysterical breath, from their heated altercation after the show all the way to the blood-spattered postcard.
“So let me see if I understand what it is you’re sayin’,” said the PI when Howard had finished. “You’re tellin’ me that your friend Vince has been kidnapped by a deviant pornographer what’s got a giant bean for a head, and who’s keepin’ flash young men imprisoned in some dungeon made out of Kit Kat wrappers in order to exploit them and then murder them in his twisted sex flicks.”
“Yes,” Howard said.
“And you want me to find him, so that you can hie yourself hence and rescue him in proper gallant fashion.”
“Yeah.”
“In the ‘opes that your chivalry will win the heart of your dear mate and keep him from straying ever again.”
“Uh . . .” Howard looked around the room. “I didn’t say that, did I?”
The PI gave him a sympathetic look. “It’s obvious, mate. Look atcha. You’ve ‘ad your heart broke, that’s for sure.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat, aware he was turning a very unattractive shade of red. “Well, can do it, or not?”
The man stroked his chin with his ringed fingers. “It’ll be ‘ard, I admit,” he said. “Bob - my partner - is working another case at the moment, so I’ll be ‘ard pressed. But I’ll come through for you, you great soft-hearted squinty-eyed freak. I can promise you that.”
“Great!” Howard heaved a sigh of relief. “How long will it be before you know where he is?”
“Four to six weeks.”
“What!” Howard cried, launching himself to his feet. “You fool! Don’t you understand, he’ll be dead by then!”
“Easy, there,” replied the detective, holding up one hand. “I was only kidding.”
Howard sat back down.
“Just ‘ang onto your knickers, there.” He typed something swiftly on his keyboard, and waited a moment. “Ah, there we go.” He turned his monitor around and tapped a yellow arrow on a map. “It appears he’s being held prisoner somewhere beneath Grauman’s Chinese Theater.”
“How did you do that?” Howard asked, in awe.
“Weren’t nothing,” the man replied. “He figured once he made it big, people’d pay good money to know where he was, so he ‘ad ‘imself electronically tagged, dinne?”
Howard went directly to Heathrow from the Goth Detectives’ office, and bought himself a ticket to LA (it was quicker than magic carpet, as it happened). Once they’d landed, he hoofed it to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where, somewhere in the deep, dark bowels of the building, Vince was imprisoned in a cage made of candy wrappers.
Armed with only a lighter and a biro, Howard descended into the subterranean hell that was the basement of the theater. Water dripped down the walls and coked-out rats scrabbled over the bones of deceased starlets. Strange plants rose up from the floor, fluorescent from years without sunlight.
For what seemed like hours, Howard wandered in the dark silence, holding the lighter up to guide himself. Every drip of water sent a chill over his skin. Then, vaguely, a noise began to fill his ears, the whirr of electricity and maybe, he thought, the sharp crack of a whip.
At the end of a very long corridor, a faint line of light shone along the floor. It seemed like the first real light Howard had seen in ages. He made his way towards what transpired to be an empty room, made up to look like a dungeon. Howard crept through the silent set with growing apprehension. The tension was building between his shoulders, and at any minute he expected a legion of bean-headed minions to jump out and take him hostage.
From somewhere in the room, there was a low groan. Howard jumped in the air, and turned around, hands poised ready to strike his unseen assailant. But there was nobody there. He turned around slowly, staring into the shadowy corners of the room. He almost attacked a video camera on its tripod, taking it for some sort of monstrous mutant, and stopping himself only a moment too soon. The camera was abandoned, just like the room.
The groan came again: “Nnr-rrrd!”
“Who’s there?”
“Nnr-rrrd! Nwr rrr!”
He turned hesitantly in the direction of the noise. It was coming from the darkest and dankest corner of the dungeon. There was a faint glimmer reflecting the lamplight. As he edged his way towards the light, he came to realize none other than Vince, strapped spread-eagle to a giant board, his mouth stuffed with a giant gag, his mirrored suit shining in the dark.
“Nnk Nnd nr rrr!” Vince cried, as best he could.
“What?”
Vince only widened his eyes expressively, and struggled against his restraints.
“Oh, right.” Howard reached forward to undo the first of the straps, and then hesitated. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather stick around and become a film star?” Vince shook his head violently, looking wild with desperation, and Howard felt ashamed. “Sorry. Just hang in there, little man.” He hurried to undo Vince’s restraints.
Vince tumbled off the board the moment he was free, and fell in a heap on the stone floor. “We’ve got to hurry,” he wheezed. “Garbanzo only left to get more tape. He’ll be back any second.”
“What about Dennis?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” Vince glanced meaningfully into a dark corner, which radiated the copper smell of blood. Howard could just make out the shape of a bloody stiletto on the floor.
“Oh.”
“Come, Howard, let’s get out of here.”
Howard knelt down and, putting an arm around Vince’s ribs, helped him to his feet. Together, they limped quickly towards the door through which Howard had entered.
Unfortunately, they weren’t quick enough. They’d only gotten halfway across the room when the bean-headed menace appeared.
“Desist immediately, you crinkly-eyed gimp!” Garbanzo cried.
“Howard,” Vince gasped, “run. Save yourself. You don’t know what this guy’s like, he’s a sadomasochistic wildman!”
“You’ve saved my skin enough times, Vince, it’s only fair that I return the favor. Besides, I’m much too ugly to be ritually sacrificed on videotape.”
Vince nodded. “Fair enough.”
He put Vince down as gently as he could, and then turned to face his best mate’s kidnapper. The thought of this man trapping Vince in a candy wrapper prison, torturing him day after day, depriving him of any chance to talk about Gary Numan-it was too much. Howard felt something inside him snap, and he ran at the heavy metal bean man in a blind rage, wielding his biro like a scimitar.
When he came too, nothing was left of Gianni Garbanzo but some scraps of dirty suiting cloth and a heap of hummus. Vince was kneeling over him, wiping bits of pulverized chickpea from his face.
“All right?” Vince asked.
“Yeah, you?”
“Loads better now. That was totally brilliant, Howard. You were like a tweedy, ballpoint Cuisinart.”
“Least I could do. After all, if I hadn’t been so horrible to you, you never would’ve left.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come rescue me, that you’d still be angry with me.”
“Of course I came,” Howard said. He felt his face turn red, and couldn’t bring himself to look at Vince, as he thought about all the uncharitable things he’d wished on his friend over the past week.
“We’re mates, right?”
For a moment, Howard felt a small quiver of disappointment, but then Vince smiled, and all his misgivings dissipated in the sunshine of Vince’s attention. That was good enough, Howard decided.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mates. Now let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“You said it.”
They got to their feet, each supporting the other as best he could, and made a slow exit from the depths of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Out on the street, they stood blinking up into the brilliant California sunshine. It was a beautiful day, and they were alive, and they had each other. There wasn’t much more Howard could think to ask for in life.
Vince, on the other hand, could think of one more thing to ask for: “Howard,” he said, in his best wheedling tone. “Can we go to Disneyland?”
Howard didn’t even try to resist.
Sequel: It Sometimes Rains in Southern California
Pairing or Characters: Howard/Vince
Summary: When Howard quits the band for the last time, Vince decides to try to make it big in Hollywood . . . Only it’s beginning to look like his first film is also going to be his last.
Word Count: 4,585
Rating: PG-13, for language and a bit of gore
Warnings: Absurdness? A bit of S&M, nothing explicit.
Disclaimer: No ownership is implied, and no offense is intended.
Author’s Notes: This is a lot less violent than the title suggests, and a lot more ridiculous than the summary suggests. Sadly, it is not as gay as I’d originally intended. But it’s my first proper Boosh fic, so maybe I have to build up to it. Comments and criticism is always greatly appreciated.
“All I’m saying is, maybe I don’t want to be in your stupid band anymore!”
“Come on, Howard, you can’t quit the band. I need you. Who else is gonna play back-up, huh?”
“Who else is going to put up with you, you mean!”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Howard threw down his guitar case with much more force than was strictly good for it. It’d been a long night. If their latest gig at the Velvet Onion had been a car accident, it would have been at least a ten-car pileup. It was, Howard had decided, the last straw.
“I’m sick of it, Vince,” he continued. “I’m sick of you stringing me along, promising me fame and fortune and the adulation of millions and delivering nothing but shame and public humiliation.”
“It wasn’t that bad!” Vince dropped down on the couch.
“Yeah, maybe not for you.” Howard was too angry to sit down, and, besides, he still had rotten fruit all over him, from when the crowd had started getting restless. “For you, it’s just, ‘Oh, poor Vince, being dragged down by that small-eyed maths teacher.’ You’re never going to look like a small-eyed maths teacher. You can’t possibly know what it’s like!”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that, Howard. You were doing pretty well tonight.”
“I know I was! Of course I bloody was! I’m a multi-instrumental musical genius!”
“Well, there you go!” He waved a hand, as if gesturing to Howard’s musical genius.
This sent sparks of rage down Howard’s spine. “It’s no me who’s the problem!”
“What, you mean the sound guy? So your volume was a little low, it wasn’t too bad.”
“Not the sound guy!” Howard shouted. “You, you stupid twat!”
Vince looked up at him in shock. “Me?”
“Yeah, name one thing you’ve ever contributed to the band. And if you dare say ‘pulling shapes’ I’ll pull your eyes out your earhole and squash them in a garlic press!”
“I contribute lots of things,” Vince said, flipping his hair, though he seemed a little shaken by the accusation
“As if you did. You swan around in your ridiculous outfits, doing nothing for two hours. Why do I let myself get dragged into this? ‘Oh, I want to be an electropop sensation, Howard, won’t you come play with the band tonight?’ Why’s it always what you want, eh? Why never any thought to what anyone else might want?”
“I think about you,” Vince said, his voice soft.
“No you don’t! You stand up there, pulling your stupid bloody shapes, with no idea what half the lyrics are, or even what song we’re going, while I do the best I can to keep up afloat. And then when we crash and burn, I’m the one who takes the blame! I do you a favor out of the kindness of my heart, and what do I get? Bludgeoned by produce. I don’t see your mirror ball suit covered in rotten mango, oh, no! That bloody hurt!”
“That’s just because people respect my killer dress sense.”
“You look like a diamante dildo!”
That really seemed to hit home for Vince. His eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s how you feel, then, is it?” His voice was low, dangerous, which Howard almost had a hard time believing, but there it was, a sentence like a snake poised to strike. It scared Howard, a bit. He rarely bore the brunt of Vince’s anger, and it made him feel a little sick to his stomach to be fighting with Vince at all. But nevertheless, this last humiliation was one too many, and he would not be cowed by Vince’s inherent likeability.
“Yeah, it is,” Howard said defiantly.
“Fine, then you won’t mind if I just bugger off! See how well you get on without me and my so-called dildo suit!”
“Fine, go ahead! Nobody will miss you for a second!”
“Fine! I will.”
And with that, Vince turned around and stomped back down the stairs. Howard heard the door slam, and then he was alone.
The problem was, of course, that he did miss Vince, almost immediately. He sat down on the couch, spoiled fruit and all, feeling completely drained from the argument. Vince would be back, he told himself. He was a delicate flower, he wouldn’t last an hour out alone in the world. He’d spend the night sulking at Leroy’s and come crawling back in the morning. Sighing, Howard stretched out on the couch, and before he even knew it, he was asleep, dreaming of ways he could get Vince to make it up to him.
Howard woke to the noise of something heavy bumping over the floor. He sat up with a start, looking around in bewilderment. His whole body ached from sleeping curled up on the couch, and he stank of rotting mango.
A tall man with what appeared to have a giant garbanzo bean for a head carrying one of Vince’s sparkly pink suitcases, followed by a second figure in a shiny jumpsuit and a grey ski mask.
“All right, Howard?” said the man in the ski mask.
Howard squinted at the figure, his eyes still sleep-weak. “Vince?”
Vince came over, and for one glorious moment, Howard thought that perhaps all was forgiven between them. But something was not right. The man with the bean for a head was standing in the kitchen, looking impatient.
“Vince, what’re you doing? Who’s that?”
“Oh, him?” Vince said. There was a studied coolness in Vince’s voice that set Howard totally on edge. “That’s Gianni Garbanzo.”
“Who?”
“Gianni Garbanzo. He’s a genius.”
“As what? A side dish?”
“Remember Jacques le Cube? Well, he’s Jacques’ manager, and he says he can make me a bona fide movie star.”
At the moment, Gianni Garbanzo seemed to be checking the messages on his mobile. In a dark suit and some rather frightening silver jewelry, he looked the part of a heavy metal pimp, albeit one from the produce section.
“What? But what happened to being an electropop legend?”
“Music’s a thing of the past, Howard,” Vince said breezily. “And anyway, everybody knows that all those Hollywood actors are musicians, too. Think about J.Lo, or Hilary Duff, or that Miley Cyrus girl! I’m gonna be a proper cross-over sensation!”
“What’s he making you wear that for, then?” On closer inspection, he could see that it was not a ski mask at all that Vince was wearing, but a tight-fitting hood made out of leather and chain link which revealed only Vince’s eyes and mouth.
“What about it?” Vince touched the hood self-consciously.
“It looks like a chainmail tea cozy!”
“I was a bit iffy at first, too. I’m gonna have massive hat hair tomorrow. But Gianni says it’s the next thing. Apparently the Battle of Hastings look is coming back in a big way.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I think I look kind of mysterious, don’t you?” He struck a pose, but if his expression was even the least bit mysterious, Howard couldn’t tell through the mask.
“You look like an idiot. And, anyway, just wearing a stupid mask isn’t going to make you a star. You know that. You’ve tried it before. Remember that time with the Spiderman mask? And, I mean, look at your skinny little arms. You aren’t even strong enough to pick up a script. And what would you do if you had to read it?”
“Yeah, well, Gianni says it doesn’t matter I’ve got skinny arms. He says you don’t need muscular arms to be a star. Or reading skills. He says all that matters is that you have loads of charisma, and a good look.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, you berk, and look where it’s gotten you.”
“Yeah, well, Gianni’s got real managerial skills. Not like Bob Fossil. Look, he’s already got me a job.” Vince held up a poster that made Howard cringe back in fright. It was a moment before he could look at it directly. It was pitch black, emblazoned with dark red writing that looked rather like blood, and in the center was a picture of a woman in a steel corset stabbing a man in the chest with the point of a high-heeled shoe.
“Vince! You can’t possibly think this is a good idea!”
“Why not?”
“Just-look at him.” The woman’s victim, who was wearing a mask very similar to Vince’s, was bleeding profusely.
Vince scoffed. “You’re just jealous ‘cause the only film work you’ve ever done was as the Crab of Trapped Wind.”
“Shut up about that!”
“Face it, Howard, you just don’t have the charisma to be the lead in a gritty erotic thriller like ‘Subterranean Sex Slave Stab-Up.’”
“That’s not fair! I was in three episodes of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace!”
“Just ‘cause it’s got the word “dark” in the title doesn’t mean it’s a complex and seductive psychological study. And, besides, you were only in those episodes for, like, four seconds.”
“Well, at least I wasn’t-” He paused. All this was beside the point. “This is beside the point! Don’t you understand what’s going on? He’s tricking you into being in some kind of twisted S&M nightmare. You’ll be shoe-stabbed. Or worse! Forced to wear arseless chaps! Who knows! Can’t you see I’m saying this for your own protection?”
“I know exactly why you’re saying this, Howard.”
“You do?”
“You’re upset because you think I’m leaving you behind in the dust. Well, no matter how nasty you were to me last night, I could never do that. Well, I could, but I’m not going to. Unlike some people, I don’t abandon my mates just because they’re dead weight. I could never forget what we have together . . . The zoo, the shop, that time you untangled my fringe from that power line . . .” He smiled nostalgically, the expression slightly hampered by the weight of the hood. “You’re my best mate, Howard. You don’t have to be jealous of me. Besides, it’s not even like we’re in the same league. I promise, even when I’m a superhuge pop sensation with eighteen people to help me into my trousers every morning, I’ll never forget the little people like you who were so good to me before I got big.”
“That’s not it at all!” Howard cried. “Don’t you see, you toffy-headed loon, this is a matter of life and death!”
Vince smiled. “Yeah, I get that a lot. But don’t worry. I’ll send you a post card from LA, yeah? And, hey . . .” He reached out chucked Howard under the chin. “Try not to miss me too much.”
There was no time for Howard to say anything else. He watched, slack-jawed, as Gianni Garbanzo gathered Vince up and herded him out of the flat. Vince turned a little to wave as they disappeared down the stairs, but Howard couldn’t summon the composure to wave back. Outside, he heard a car start up, and then Vince was gone.
Howard was inconsolable. Everything he’d ever relied on was gone-and it only made matters worse to think that Vince was the only thing he’d ever had to rely on. He sat on the couch for hours after Vince left, too shocked and hurt to do anything. Even the thought of listening to some jazz, which should have cheered him up considerably, did nothing for him. He didn’t even think he could find the energy to lift the needle on his record player.
When Naboo and Bollo got home, it didn’t take them long to realize just how disconsolate Howard was. Naboo let him have a few puffs on his hookah out of pity, and even Bollo patted him on the arm and said, “It gonna be OK, Harold.” It ought to have touched him, but he felt nothing. He sat up with them until they got bored and went off to make brownies and then, head spinning from the hash, he staggered into his bedroom and fell asleep.
For three days, he couldn’t even get out of bed. Naboo had to call Leroy to mind the shop, which didn’t work out very well because Leroy kept stealing things to fence to his mates, and besides he had no idea how to take care of Stationary Village. But Howard couldn’t bring himself to care.
What did it all matter, now that Vince was gone? The Blu-Tack Garden could go to seed for all he cared. The only person who’d ever really meant anything to him had abandoned him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how paranoid he’d been about the whole thing. Probably there was nothing fishy about Gianni Garbanzo’s proposition, and, in all likelihood, Vince was having a whale of a time in Los Angeles, doing lots of recreational drugs and partying it up with that Lizzy Lohan. He’d only wanted to believe that Garbanzo’s “movie” was suspect because he didn’t want Vince to go. It was true, of course, that he was scared Vince would forget him. People forgot him when they saw him every day. It would be nigh impossible to remember someone like Howard Moon when presented with all the temptations of the Hollywood high life.
And, after all, why would Vince even want to remember him? What was Howard to Vince, anyway? Nothing. Vince had said it himself. They were just mates. Mates were people you’d miss after you’d gone, but then you’d meet new people, and you wouldn’t bother coming home to visit the little people any more, especially not if you were a superfamous pop sensation who had forty people to help you put on your clothes in the morning. In a couple of years, Vince would probably have fifty Oscars and only the vaguest recollection of some squinty-eyed geezer who used to untangle his fringe from power lines.
It was Howard’s own fault, of course. He should have done more to make Vince stay. If he’d really cared about Vince, he would have done something to make Vince want to stick around. He shouldn’t have been so mean to Vince, always sniping at him and insulting him, putting him down and trying to upstage him. He should have been open and honest and showered Vince all the affection he deserved. Then maybe he wouldn’t have run off to America with some sleazy bean-headed berk in an Armani suit.
But it was too late now. There was nothing left for Howard, no reason why he shouldn’t just give up. He was nothing but a talentless squinty-eyed jazz freak. He would just lie in bed until he withered up and died. Then Naboo could rent his room to someone who didn’t keep him up with trombone solos until all hours of the night. And Vince wouldn’t have to worry about him any more. He would be free to pursue his dreams, without the millstone of Howard Moon forever hung around his neck.
It’d been seven days since Vince left, a full week. Naboo and Bollo had both decided it would be best to leave him more or less alone until he started to decompose, and the only other human being he’d seen since was Lester Corncrake, who’d stopped by to ask whether he could have Howard’s record collection once he was dead.
Which was why he was so surprised when, in the middle of one of his hourly bouts of stinging righteous regret, Naboo stepped into the room.
“What is it?” Howard wheezed.
“You got a post card, Howard.” Naboo sounded as surprised as Howard felt.
“Really?”
“Yeah, a carrier pigeon just delivered it a minute ago. Here.” Naboo came closer, holding the tatty piece of paper out in front of him. “It’s well rank, so you better plug your nose.”
Howard took the paper from Naboo, holding gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. The paper was not a proper post card at all, but one side of a torn-up cigarette pack. The message was written sloppily, in what appeared to be reddish brown ink that smelled oddly like copper. Howard held his breath as he leaned close to make sense of the awkward scrawl, and he read slowly:
dear Howard
sory this isn’t nicer i had to use my own blood for ink. any way i am writin to tell you how i am. not so good actually. it turns out gianni is a total freak. he keeps us all locked in a cage made out of old candy wrappers and only let’s us out when its our turn to be in a seen in the movie. plus he smells really bad! i dont think hes changed his clothes once since ive been here. also some of the other guys have dissa disape gone missin and im really beginning to get worried. its just me and dennis now and he doesnt like Gary Numan AT ALL!! what a nightmare. anyway if you could manage to come rescue me thatd be great!
cheers,
your friend,
Vince
“Quick, Naboo!” Howard cried, leaping out of bed. “There’s no time to loose!”
“What is it?”
“It’s Vince! His manager has imprisoned him and forced him to take part in a sadomasochistic snuff film! We’ve got to rescue him!”
Naboo rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the carpet.”
Howard dressed while Naboo went to retrieve his magic carpet. Once the carpet was down from the loft, they wasted no time in taking it out to the street and unfurling it on the pavement.
“Right,” Naboo said, settling down in the driver’s seat. “Where is he, then?”
“Hm?”
“Vince? Where is he? You know, where’s he being held prisoner?”
“Oh.” Howard felt a cold sensation blossom in the pit of his stomach. “Er. I don’t know.” He took the stinking post card out of his back pocket and read it over. “It doesn’t say.”
“That’s just great. What’re we supposed to do know?”
Howard looked at Naboo, uncomprehending. “Can’t you just whip up some kind of magical findy magic? Locate Vince with a spell?”
Naboo gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not a miracle worker, am I?”
“To be fair, you are a magician.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference, isn’t there. You’d think you’d know that after all this time.”
“So what you’re saying is, you can’t find Vince.”
“No. But-” He held up his index finger. “-I think I know someone who can.”
Howard was dubious about this so-called detective. He was hesitant to trust any friend of Naboo’s, but this man looked like a real hum-dinger. He was wearing enough white pancake makeup to qualify as a circus clown, and Howard was pretty sure he’d stolen his getup from one of those girls from the Black Spider. As for his brains, Howard was fairly sure he’d shaken them all out of his head in his attempt to backcomb his hair into the stratosphere. The amount of hairspray he must have inhaled in styling himself this morning alone would have left even the brightest of children severely retarded. Goth Detectives, Inc, indeed. Howard doubted this man could detect a banana in a bowl full of satsumas.
Nevertheless, this man was his only hope, and so he poured out his entire story in one hysterical breath, from their heated altercation after the show all the way to the blood-spattered postcard.
“So let me see if I understand what it is you’re sayin’,” said the PI when Howard had finished. “You’re tellin’ me that your friend Vince has been kidnapped by a deviant pornographer what’s got a giant bean for a head, and who’s keepin’ flash young men imprisoned in some dungeon made out of Kit Kat wrappers in order to exploit them and then murder them in his twisted sex flicks.”
“Yes,” Howard said.
“And you want me to find him, so that you can hie yourself hence and rescue him in proper gallant fashion.”
“Yeah.”
“In the ‘opes that your chivalry will win the heart of your dear mate and keep him from straying ever again.”
“Uh . . .” Howard looked around the room. “I didn’t say that, did I?”
The PI gave him a sympathetic look. “It’s obvious, mate. Look atcha. You’ve ‘ad your heart broke, that’s for sure.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat, aware he was turning a very unattractive shade of red. “Well, can do it, or not?”
The man stroked his chin with his ringed fingers. “It’ll be ‘ard, I admit,” he said. “Bob - my partner - is working another case at the moment, so I’ll be ‘ard pressed. But I’ll come through for you, you great soft-hearted squinty-eyed freak. I can promise you that.”
“Great!” Howard heaved a sigh of relief. “How long will it be before you know where he is?”
“Four to six weeks.”
“What!” Howard cried, launching himself to his feet. “You fool! Don’t you understand, he’ll be dead by then!”
“Easy, there,” replied the detective, holding up one hand. “I was only kidding.”
Howard sat back down.
“Just ‘ang onto your knickers, there.” He typed something swiftly on his keyboard, and waited a moment. “Ah, there we go.” He turned his monitor around and tapped a yellow arrow on a map. “It appears he’s being held prisoner somewhere beneath Grauman’s Chinese Theater.”
“How did you do that?” Howard asked, in awe.
“Weren’t nothing,” the man replied. “He figured once he made it big, people’d pay good money to know where he was, so he ‘ad ‘imself electronically tagged, dinne?”
Howard went directly to Heathrow from the Goth Detectives’ office, and bought himself a ticket to LA (it was quicker than magic carpet, as it happened). Once they’d landed, he hoofed it to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where, somewhere in the deep, dark bowels of the building, Vince was imprisoned in a cage made of candy wrappers.
Armed with only a lighter and a biro, Howard descended into the subterranean hell that was the basement of the theater. Water dripped down the walls and coked-out rats scrabbled over the bones of deceased starlets. Strange plants rose up from the floor, fluorescent from years without sunlight.
For what seemed like hours, Howard wandered in the dark silence, holding the lighter up to guide himself. Every drip of water sent a chill over his skin. Then, vaguely, a noise began to fill his ears, the whirr of electricity and maybe, he thought, the sharp crack of a whip.
At the end of a very long corridor, a faint line of light shone along the floor. It seemed like the first real light Howard had seen in ages. He made his way towards what transpired to be an empty room, made up to look like a dungeon. Howard crept through the silent set with growing apprehension. The tension was building between his shoulders, and at any minute he expected a legion of bean-headed minions to jump out and take him hostage.
From somewhere in the room, there was a low groan. Howard jumped in the air, and turned around, hands poised ready to strike his unseen assailant. But there was nobody there. He turned around slowly, staring into the shadowy corners of the room. He almost attacked a video camera on its tripod, taking it for some sort of monstrous mutant, and stopping himself only a moment too soon. The camera was abandoned, just like the room.
The groan came again: “Nnr-rrrd!”
“Who’s there?”
“Nnr-rrrd! Nwr rrr!”
He turned hesitantly in the direction of the noise. It was coming from the darkest and dankest corner of the dungeon. There was a faint glimmer reflecting the lamplight. As he edged his way towards the light, he came to realize none other than Vince, strapped spread-eagle to a giant board, his mouth stuffed with a giant gag, his mirrored suit shining in the dark.
“Nnk Nnd nr rrr!” Vince cried, as best he could.
“What?”
Vince only widened his eyes expressively, and struggled against his restraints.
“Oh, right.” Howard reached forward to undo the first of the straps, and then hesitated. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather stick around and become a film star?” Vince shook his head violently, looking wild with desperation, and Howard felt ashamed. “Sorry. Just hang in there, little man.” He hurried to undo Vince’s restraints.
Vince tumbled off the board the moment he was free, and fell in a heap on the stone floor. “We’ve got to hurry,” he wheezed. “Garbanzo only left to get more tape. He’ll be back any second.”
“What about Dennis?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” Vince glanced meaningfully into a dark corner, which radiated the copper smell of blood. Howard could just make out the shape of a bloody stiletto on the floor.
“Oh.”
“Come, Howard, let’s get out of here.”
Howard knelt down and, putting an arm around Vince’s ribs, helped him to his feet. Together, they limped quickly towards the door through which Howard had entered.
Unfortunately, they weren’t quick enough. They’d only gotten halfway across the room when the bean-headed menace appeared.
“Desist immediately, you crinkly-eyed gimp!” Garbanzo cried.
“Howard,” Vince gasped, “run. Save yourself. You don’t know what this guy’s like, he’s a sadomasochistic wildman!”
“You’ve saved my skin enough times, Vince, it’s only fair that I return the favor. Besides, I’m much too ugly to be ritually sacrificed on videotape.”
Vince nodded. “Fair enough.”
He put Vince down as gently as he could, and then turned to face his best mate’s kidnapper. The thought of this man trapping Vince in a candy wrapper prison, torturing him day after day, depriving him of any chance to talk about Gary Numan-it was too much. Howard felt something inside him snap, and he ran at the heavy metal bean man in a blind rage, wielding his biro like a scimitar.
When he came too, nothing was left of Gianni Garbanzo but some scraps of dirty suiting cloth and a heap of hummus. Vince was kneeling over him, wiping bits of pulverized chickpea from his face.
“All right?” Vince asked.
“Yeah, you?”
“Loads better now. That was totally brilliant, Howard. You were like a tweedy, ballpoint Cuisinart.”
“Least I could do. After all, if I hadn’t been so horrible to you, you never would’ve left.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come rescue me, that you’d still be angry with me.”
“Of course I came,” Howard said. He felt his face turn red, and couldn’t bring himself to look at Vince, as he thought about all the uncharitable things he’d wished on his friend over the past week.
“We’re mates, right?”
For a moment, Howard felt a small quiver of disappointment, but then Vince smiled, and all his misgivings dissipated in the sunshine of Vince’s attention. That was good enough, Howard decided.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mates. Now let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“You said it.”
They got to their feet, each supporting the other as best he could, and made a slow exit from the depths of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Out on the street, they stood blinking up into the brilliant California sunshine. It was a beautiful day, and they were alive, and they had each other. There wasn’t much more Howard could think to ask for in life.
Vince, on the other hand, could think of one more thing to ask for: “Howard,” he said, in his best wheedling tone. “Can we go to Disneyland?”
Howard didn’t even try to resist.
Sequel: It Sometimes Rains in Southern California