Wilt In Nowhere Part 6

'Barbecuing whats?' Emmeline asked.

'j.a.ps,' said Uncle Wally proudly. 'Shoots flame out the nozzle here and zaps a guy and you got a turkey roast up and running on the hoof. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were torched in their hundreds. And this here is a napalm bomb. You know what napalm is. It's great stuff. Like cooking oil and jello. You want a village fry-up all you need do is drop one of those andboom!you've got a charlie roasted better than anything you've ever seen. Now this is a missile I got from Germany when we won the Cold War. Put a nuclear warhead on that sweetheart and a town five times the size of Wilma you wouldn't even find on a map it would go so fast. The Russkies knew that, which is how we saved the world from Communism. They weren't going risk nuclear annihilation, no way.'

All over the grounds there were the mementoes of terrible wars but the pride of Uncle Wally's military collection was a B-52. It stood on the other side of the house where it could be seen through the picture window even at night with lights set in the ground s.h.i.+ning up on it, a black monstrous bomber with fifty-eight missions over Vietnam and Iraq painted in symbols on the side; it was, as Wally said, capable of flying twelve thousand miles and dropping an H-bomb that would take out the biggest city in the world.

'What does 'take out' mean, Uncle Wally?' Josephine asked with seeming innocence. But Wally Immelmann was too immersed in his dream of a world made safe by ma.s.s destruction to notice.

'It means first you get the blast wave and second the fireball and third you get radiation and fifteen, sixteen million people dead. That's what it means, honey. Used to keep them flying round the clock, the Strategic Air Force, and all ready to go if the President of the US of A pressed the b.u.t.ton. Course we got better weapons now but in their day that baby ruled the sky. And the world. We don't need anything that big now. Got ICBMs and Stealth bombers and Cruise missiles and neutron bombs and stuff no one knows about that can cross the Atlantic like in less than an hour. Best of all there's lasers in outer s.p.a.ce that can fry anywhere on earth at the speed of light.'

By the time they got back to the house Uncle Wally was in a genial and generous mood.

'Those girls of yours are smart, real smart,' he told Eva who had been watching rather nervously from a distance. 'I've been giving them a history lesson why we win wars and n.o.body can get near us technologywise. Isn't that so, girls?'

'Yes, Uncle Wally,' said the quads in unison. Eva looked at them suspiciously. She knew that unison. It was a portent.

That night while Uncle Wally was watching baseball and having his fifth bourbon on the rocks, and Eva and Auntie Joan were talking family back in England, Samantha found an old portable tape recorder in Wally's romper room. It was a reel-to-reel one with an automatic cut-out when the tape came to the end and it had a four-hour reel on it. By the time Wally and his wife staggered up to the bedroom it was running under the doublewide. And Wally wanted a hump.

'Aw, come on, honey pie,' he said. 'We aren't getting any younger and'

'Speak for yourself,' said Auntie Joan. She wasn't in a good mood. Eva had told her that Maude, who was Auntie Joan's sister, had decided to become a lesbian and was living with a gay who'd had a s.e.x-change operation. That wasn't the sort of family news she wanted. Wally humping her wasn't what she wanted either. Could be something to be said for becoming a lesbian.

'I am speaking for myself,' Wally said. 'Only person I can speak for. You don't have a G.o.ddam prostate or if you do I haven't heard that Dr h.e.l.lster I go to in Atlanta speak about it. He tells me I got to keep it up or else.'

'Keep it up? You haven't got it to keep up. Leastways I haven't noticed it lately. You sure you haven't left it in the bathroom along with your hairpiece? Like trying to get some action out of a sea slug.'

'Yeah,' said Wally, evidently ignoring the comparison with difficulty. 'And I'm not likely to get it up if you don't give me some foreplay.'

'Foreplay? You think a woman's got to do the foreplay? You've got the wrong woman if you think that. You're the one supposed to do the foreplay. Like with the tongue and all.'

'Sweet f.u.c.k!' said Uncle Wally. 'At your age you want me playing the old mouth-organ? Like whale blowing in reverse? s.h.i.+t. This is no time to be making cracks like that.'

'Well, it isn't the time to be asking me to go down on you either.'

'I wasn't talking about going down. Last time you did that must have been around the time of the Watergate hearings.'

'Tasted like it too,' said Auntie Joan. After more argument she agreed to lie back and pretend Wally was Arnold Schwarzenegger on barbiturates, something that slowed him up.

'Only thing slowing me up is finding the thing,' said Wally. 'Like going down Oak Creek Canyon on a wet night and no flashlight. You sure you still got a p.u.s.s.y? That surgeon didn't do a total when you had that hysterectomy?'

In the end he found what he had been looking for. Or thought he had. Auntie Joan put him right.

'a.s.shole!' she shrieked. 'Jesus, are you insane trying to brown-a.s.s me? Oh no, you don't, Wally Immelmann. I'm f.u.c.ked if you're going to sodomise me. You want to do that with someone, find yourself a guy who likes it that way. I sure as s.h.i.+t don't.'

'Sodomise? I wasn't trying to sodomise you,' said Wally, genuinely outraged. 'We been married all these years, thirty years, thirty G.o.ddam years, I ever tried to sodomise you?'

'Yes,' said Auntie Joan bitterly. 'Yes, you have and don't I know it. Dr Cohen says it's'

'Dr Cohen? You been telling Dr Cohen I've been sodomising you? I'm not hearing this. I can't be!' Wally yelled. 'Telling Dr Cohen...Jesus.'

'I didn't need to tell him. He's got eyes in his head. He could see for himself and he was disgusted. He says it's against the law. And he's right.'

Wally was no longer interested in humping. He was sitting bolt upright in the doublewide.

'Against the law? That's bulls.h.i.+t. If it's against the law how come gays are doing it all the time and we got an epidemic of Aids?'

'Not that law. The Law of G.o.d. Dr Cohen says it's there in the Bible. 'Thou shalt not"

'The Bible? What's Dr Cohen know about the Bible? That New Jersey kike think the Jews wrote the Bible, for Chrissake? He's got to be crazy.'

'Wally dear, who else?' said Auntie Joan, seizing the initiative now that Wally was off her and into a mora.s.s of ignorance. 'Who else wrote the Bible?'

'What you mean, who else? Genesis did, and Joshua and Jonah. Guys like that. That's who wrote the Bible.'

'You're forgetting Moses,' said Auntie Joan smugly. 'Like in Dr Moses Cohen. Jews, Wally dear. Jews. The Bible was written by Jews. Hadn't you noticed?'

'Jesus,' said Wally Immelmann.

'Him too. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All Jews, Wally, and that's the gospel.'

Wally slumped down on to the bed. 'Sure, sure I know all that,' he said with a whimper. 'And you have to go and tell Dr Cohen I make a habit of sodomising you. You've got to be crazy and I mean out of your head altogether. Clinically.'

'I tell you I didn't tell him. He could see for himself when I went for my cervical and he was disgusted. You should have heard what he said about men who did that sort of thing. Had me take a blood test.'

'Don't tell me!' yelled Wally and of course she did. At length and in the most explicit detail while he kept interrupting her with threats of what he was going to do to her. Like divorce her and he knew some guys who would fix her for good.

'Big deal!' Auntie Joan shouted back. 'You think I haven't got myself insurance? Dr Cohen gave me the name of a lawyer, a real good one, and I've seen him. You make one move against me, Wally Immelmann, and you're going to see what dope I've sworn on you. You wouldn't believe it.'

Wally said he couldn't believe a wife would do a thing like that, betraying her husband to a f.u.c.king doctor and a lawyer. They continued shouting until he was exhausted and lay back in bed wondering what he was going to do. One thing was certain. He was going to have to change his doctor and go to Dr Lesky. It was the last thing he wanted to do. Dr Lesky believed in abortion. It wouldn't look good going to a doctor like Dr Lesky and being the Deacon of the Church of the Living Lord. Living Lorders didn't go to abortionists and he wasn't going to that clinic for blacks and down-and-outs. You got more diseases there than cures. Even the doctors contracted them. Like Immelmann Enterprises going on welfare. Wally lay in the darkness and tried to think how to get round Dr Cohen. Being a Deacon and having it thought he was a sodomist wasn't going to do him any good in Wilma at all.

What the Drug Enforcement Agents had been installing in the Starfighter Mansion wasn't doing him any good either.

'We've put double bugs in every room and that way when he scans he finds one but he misses the other. That's only activated when we want it on so the scanner won't pick it up first time. He won't scan twice because he'll have found the first one and they never check again,' the electronic device expert told the meeting. 'And the way we know when to turn the number 2s on is we've got video cameras so small they make a fly's eye look big. No way you can spot them. They show us who's there and the audios pick up every word. If this guy is running any racket we'll get the proof. The only way he can talk in private is outside in the open air and even then he can't be too sure. Could be behind a s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.ton, any place. So we've got his vehicular transportation all tapped and his house so tight we can tell if he washes behind his ears or been circ.u.mcised. Only thing puzzling me is why we're going to all this trouble with this guy. I mean, this is Mafia equipment we've installed and this has got to be small beer.'

'Could be very big,' Palowski said. 'Our information from Poland is that this stuff is a new super high-grade designer from a Russian laboratory. No need to grow it and it's a thousand times more addictive than crack. Street value into gigabucks and as easy to make as speed. Easier. Which could explain why Sol is missing. Lose a sample like that and you lose your life. Which is almost certainly what's happened to him. Now, Sheriff Stallard says Immelmann Enterprises is diversifying into pharmaceuticals. That's the rumour he's heard. Some German firm is interested in investing with him and they've been investing in Russia too. That's why the interest in Was.h.i.+ngton. My guess is this could be a subversion gambit. Militarily the Russians are out of the game but if they can infiltrate a designer drug of this calibre they don't need a war to win.'

'That guy is paranoid, I swear to G.o.d. He's got Russkies on the brain,' the electronics expert said afterwards.

It was an opinion shared by Sheriff Stallard when Baxter reported that the Starfighter Mansion had been wired for S&S like sight and sound.

'You mean when Wally Immelmann...when Mrs Immelmann goes to the bathroom some guy's going to be filming her on the can? I don't believe it. And I sure as h.e.l.l don't want to see any footage of her taking a slash.'

'It gets worse...'

'Worse? Nothing could be worse than Joanie...Where's the f.u.c.king camera? And don't tell me they're shooting from below. I'll throw up.'

'No, it's a straight angle,' said Baxter. 'But they can zoom in. I mean, Sheriff, they're using s.p.a.ce technology in there.'

'You can say that again,' said the Sheriff, still obsessed with the thought of Auntie Joan on the toilet. 'What do they think there is to zoom in on? Those guys some sort of perverts? I mean, they've got to be. They'll be breaking every obscenity regulation there is. And what the h.e.l.l do they want filming in there?'

'Just in case Wally tries to flush the stuff down. They want a record of it. And that's another thing. They've brought in the s.h.i.+t Squad.'

'You've told me,' said the Sheriff. 'Pretty apt d.a.m.ned name for the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I couldn't put it better myself.'

'No, these guys are different.'

'I'll say they are. The same as me they're not. I don't get any kicks out of spying on fat women p.i.s.sing in the privacy of their own bathrooms. You've got to be a genuine pervert to like that.'

'No, the s.h.i.+t Squad are sewage experts. They've hooked into all the effluent coming out of the Starfighter and are running it into a tanker for a.n.a.lysis. The thing is parked round the back of the old drive-in movie screen and it's enormous. Must take fifteen thousand gallons a throw. And the lab truck is there too where it can't be seen. They've got equipment in there that can trace drugs in athletes' urine weeks after they've taken them.'

Sheriff Stallard was gaping at him. Nothing in a long career as a Law Enforcement Officer came anywhere like this. 'They've hooked...? Say it again, Baxter, say it again and slowly this time. This stuff is not getting through to me.'

'It's like this,' said Baxter. 'They've sealed off all the outlets from the house, all the water and sewage pipes, and they've hooked this huge sucking device on so that they can pump it'

's.h.i.+t,' said the Sheriff. 'These guys are using taxpayers' money to test all the urine comes out of Wally Immelmann's place? You'll be telling me next they've got this satellite in statutory orbit over Wilma.' He stopped and looked in horror up into the sky. 'Could be reading the letters on my badge.'

'I think the word is 'stationary'. Stationary orbit. You said 'statutory orbit'.'

Sheriff Stallard turned his glazed eyes on his Deputy. He was beginning to feel quite mad. 'Stationary, Baxter, stationary it can't be. Wilma's moving at around three thousand miles an hour. Has to be because that's the speed the world goes round. Something like that. You can work it out. The world goes round once a day and the circ.u.mference is twenty-four thousand miles. So twenty-four goes into twenty-four thousand a thousand times. Work it out yourself. Well, if you've got a satellite out there squatting over Wilma...no, not squatting, let's cut the squatting. I don't want to think about that again. It's up there even further out than Wilma, and Wilma's way out enough for me the way those guys are acting, that baby has to be moving even faster just to keep up. Right?' Baxter nodded. 'Good. So when I said 'statutory' I mean 'statutory'. This operation has to be costing millions. So it's got to be statutory. Was.h.i.+ngton's approval. And who's been talking about cutting the Federal deficit?'

He went back to his office and took a Tylenol and lay down and tried to pretend nothing was happening. He couldn't. The image of Joanie Immelmann on the can overwhelmed him.

In Oston Police Station Bob Battleby continued to protest his innocence. He hadn't set fire to his own house. Why would he do a thing like that? It was a beautiful house and his family had owned it for hundreds of years. He was very fond of it and so on. As for p.o.r.no mags and the other stuff, he had no idea how they had got into his Range Rover. Perhaps the firemen had put them there. It was the sort of muck people like firemen tended to read. No, he didn't know any firemen personally, they weren't the cla.s.s of people he usually mixed withbut they were never doing anything useful. They hadn't saved his house from being burnt to the ground, for instance, and reading p.o.r.n, he supposed, helped them to pa.s.s the time. The handcuffs and the gag and whips? Did he really imagine the firemen made use of them, too, to pa.s.s the time? Well no, now that he came to think about it he didn't suppose they did. They sounded more like things the police might have a use for.

That comment didn't go down at all well with the Inspector putting the questions in the absence of the Superintendent who was catching up on his sleep. Battleby wasn't so fortunate. The questions kept on coming and he wasn't going to get any sleep until he answered them correctly. Where was his wife? He didn't have one. Was he on good terms with his family? They could mind their own f.u.c.king business. But that was exactly what they were doing; their business was arresting criminals and, for his information, men who set fire to their own houses and possessed Obscene Material of a paedophile nature, not to mention punching Superintendents in the face, came into the category, several categories of criminals.

Battleby said he hadn't set fire to his own house. Mrs Rottecombe could prove that. She'd been with him when he left the kitchen. The Inspector raised his eyebrows. But Mrs Rottecombe had made a sworn statement that she'd been waiting for him in her car outside the front door. Battleby made an even fouler sworn statement about Mrs f.u.c.king Rottecombe, and merely pointed out that as the Arson Squad had begun their investigations and were being helped by the Insurance Company investigators who were the real experts, they would soon know. What the Inspector would like to know was the state of Battleby's finances. Battleby refused to answer. It didn't matter, they'd get a court order to see his bank accounts. It was normal procedure in cases of arson where so much insurance money was involved. He had insured it, of course? Battleby supposed so. He left money matters to his accountant. But the house was insured in his name? Of course it b.l.o.o.d.y was. Had to be. After all, his family had lived in it for two hundred and more years so it had to be in his name. Quite so. Now, about the Obscene Material...Mrs Rottecombe had made a statement saying he had asked her to tie him up and whip him and she'd refused...Like h.e.l.l she had. The b.l.o.o.d.y b.i.t.c.h enjoyed whipping and torturing people. She was into fladge in a big way...He stopped. Even in his state of almost total fatigue he could see from the Inspector's expression that he'd said the wrong thing. He asked to speak to his solicitor. Of course he could. Just give them the number and the lawyer's name and he could phone him. Battleby couldn't remember his solicitor's telephone number. The man was up in London and...Would he like a local solicitor? No, he f.u.c.king wouldn't. The only thing those dunderheads knew about was boundary disputes.

And so the questioning had gone on and on and every time Battleby's head drooped on to the table he was shaken awake. He was even given strong coffee and allowed to use the toilet. Then the questions began again. A different officer took over at midday and put the same questions.

Chapter 16.

At Ipford Police Station, Inspector Flint shared the Sheriff's feeling about Drug Enforcement Agents. He had just read Superintendent Hodge's report on Mrs Wilt and was appalled.

'You can't send this stuff across to America,' he protested. 'There wasn't a shred of evidence the Wilts had anything to do with the distribution of drugs in Ipford. They were as clean as a whistle.'

'Only because someone blew one for them,' said Hodge.

'Meaning?' said Flint whose blood pressure had soared. 'Meaning?'

'Meaning they were tipped off we were on to them and they took cover in the American airbase and dumped the stuff.'

'I hope you're not suggesting I had anything to do'

'Not you, Flint. Just take a dekko at the evidence. Wilt has this job teaching Yanks at Lakenheath and this guy Immelmann's been stationed there. So Wilt's got contacts with Yanks even before he starts. That's one. Two is PCP is an American drug. Designer drug and the Lord Lieutenant's daughter dies of an overdose at the Tech where Wilt teaches her. ODs on PCP. There's more evidence, a whole heap of it and it all points one way. To the Wilts. You can't deny it, Flint. And another thing. Where else was Wilt teaching? In the hoosegow here in Ipford.'

'Hodge, we don't have hoosegows in Britain. You've got America on the brain.'

'All right. Wilt was teaching in the prison and mixing with some of the nastiest villains in the drug business. That's three strikes against the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Number four is'

'Hodge, don't let me interrupt you but you can't have four strikes in baseball. Miss three and you're out. If you really want to go transatlantic, you've got to get these things right. You'll never make the Yankee Stadium if you go on like this.'

'Very funny, I'm sure. You always were known for your wit. Well, this time just stick to the evidence. Mrs Wilt's aunt is married to a known drug importer in the States. OK, they're legit those drugs. On the surface. Then again he's got a place in the Caribbean and a motor boat that does over sixty knots and on top of that he has planes. Learjets and Beechcraft. All the apparatus for a highly lucrative drug pusher. And Mrs Wilt just happens to visit him with her quads. Very good diversionary tactics those quads. And to top it all Wilt isn't home and no one knows where he's hidden himself. It adds up, it all adds up. You've got to admit that.'

Flint hitched his chair forward. 'Wilt's hidden himself? No one knows where he's got to? Are you certain about that?' he asked.

Hodge nodded triumphantly. 'Add this to the catalogue,' he said. 'The day Mrs Wilt flies into Atlanta her husband goes to the building society and draws out a large sum in cash. In cash. And where does he leave his credit cards and pa.s.sport? At home. On the kitchen table. That's right, on the kitchen table,' he said as Flint's face registered astonishment. 'Bed not made. Was.h.i.+ng-up not done. Dirty plates still on the table. Drawers in the chest of drawers in the bedroom open. Car still in the garage. Nothing missing except Mr Henry Wilt. Not a b.l.o.o.d.y thing. Even his shoes are there. We got the cleaning lady to check them out. So what does that tell you?'

'It makes a change,' said Flint sourly. He disliked being wrong-footed, especially by clowns like Hodge.

'Makes a change? What's that supposed to mean?' Hodge demanded.

'It means just this. The first time I ran into Wilty, it was his wife was missing. Supposed to be down a d.a.m.ned great pile hole at the Tech. Only it just so happens Wilt has stuffed an inflatable plastic doll dressed in Mrs Eva b.l.o.o.d.y Wilt's clothes down there and they put twenty tons of pre-mix on top of her. In fact she is living it up with a couple of daffy Americans on a stolen boat on the Broads. So where is Mrs Wilt now? Sitting pretty...well, as near pretty as she'll ever get at any rate, in the United States and it's our Henry who is missing. Yes, that makes a change. It does indeed.'

'You don't think he's done a runner?' Hodge asked.

'With Wilt I've given up thinking. I have not the faintest idea what goes on in that mad blighter's mind. All I do know is it won't be what you think it is. It's going to be something you wouldn't even dream of thinking about. So don't ask me what he's done. I wouldn't have a clue.'

'Well, my guess is he's getting himself an alibi,' said Hodge.

'With his credit cards and all on the kitchen table?' said Flint. 'And none of his clothes missing? Doesn't sound much like a voluntary disappearance to me. Sounds more like something has happened to the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Have you checked the hospital?'

'Of course I have. The first thing I did. Checked every G.o.ddam hospital in the area. No one answering his description has been booked in. I've checked the morgues, the lot, and he is not around. Makes you think, doesn't it?'

'No,' said Flint firmly. 'It does not. I've told you. Where Henry Wilt is concerned I don't even try to think. It hurts too much.'

All the same when Superintendent Hodge left Flint sat on considering the situation.

'There isn't a s...o...b..ll's chance in h.e.l.l of Wilty being involved in drugs,' he told Sergeant Yates. 'And can you see Eva Wilt in what that madman Hodge would call that 'ball game'? I'm d.a.m.ned if I can. They may be crazy, the Wilts, but they're the least likely people to start committing real crimes.'

'I know, sir,' said Yates. 'But Hodge is presenting a pretty nasty profile to the American authorities. I mean, it doesn't look good all that stuff about Lakenheath and so on.'

'It's all purely circ.u.mstantial. He hasn't got even the tiniest shred of real evidence,' said Flint. 'Let's just hope the police over there see that. I wouldn't want the Wilt family up before an American court. Not after the OJ trial. Television in the courtroom and everyone becomes a b.l.o.o.d.y actor. And we know what twerps they are.' He paused in thought. 'I wonder where the h.e.l.l our Henry's got to, though. That's the real mystery.'

Chapter 17.