Chapter 10

After the first house on the Ice Planet. I am backstage, with a few selected fans of Cecil Taylor. There are the usual fanatics, but they have to be talked to nicely as they have probably set up this gig. I am sipping blue vodka with fire ice. This is like a general V on the rocks, only the rocks have a heat. Like a chilli heat. Just the thing when you are surrounded by ice. I am talking minor thirds with a black eyed ice maiden when I catch a glimpse of someone who can only be Veronica out of the side of my eye. And is that Sgt Doil with her. What the fuck is he doing here. He belongs in the 1930’s on Earth. I am cracking up. I will have to cut down on the zoomers.

I excuse myself from the fans and take a walk through the back stage, hopping against hope my illusions are illusions. Over by a crystal staircase under an ice chandelier, stand two familiar figures. Yes you’ve guessed it. Doil and Miss Lake.

They wave me over.

‘Cecil Taylor your bag?’ I ask

Veronica smiles that sexy smile. ‘I love anything you play Honey’

‘Which is why you are here obviously.’

She gives me a pout and nods her head at Doil. He takes a long look at me.

‘What I see is a way that a snout can disguise himself as anyone and gain information. Todady Cecil Taylor, last week Fats Waller, next week.’ He gives a shrug of his big shoulders.

I laugh. ‘You think I’m a snout? Have you seen my bank balance?’

‘Not yet, but you could be. Not any old snout, but a snout for IGBI’

‘You are in the IGBI?’

‘It won’t get in the way of your music, all you have to do is agree and we will set up an automatic transfer of your thoughts straight to headquarters. You won’t feel a thing.’

‘No way. No way are getting into my brain. You could plant all sorts of weird stuff turn me into a zombie. ‘Your wish is my command o master. You can fuck off with your suggestion.’

Veronica takes me by the arm and leads me away from Doil.

‘He is a bit too blunt. It’s still the beat pounder in him. He was only being helpful with the mind transfer thing. You have a choice. I can debrief you after every gig’

She smells of boudoir and French whoar houses.

‘Who exactly is in charge. You or him?

‘We don’t have bosses each agent is completely autonomous, answerable directly to the IGBI council, we are given our assignments and let go.’

‘So why are you together?’

‘Our assignments have crossover patches, so we pool our resources.’

His cover is a Sgt in NYPD. Mine as you can see is as a flighty Heiress who likes to dress up as a film goddess. We were impressed that you kept in character when asked to help without hitting the return button, it led us to seek your help. You could be of great use to us.’

She half closes her eyes, then gives me the full beam. Zonc, straight through the retina to my adrenalin gland. My heart gives me a belt enough to get me up Mt Fuji. I power down Cecil Taylor so he is just a faint aurora around my own body, hoping she would do the same so I can see her real personality. But she stays stubbornly as Veronica Lake. Then I notice something in her eyes. She is wearing sky blue contact lenses. Last time we met she had green eyes. Not unusual you would suppose, we all do this. But there is something else, a pinkness, and the marble whiteness of her skin and he white as white hair.

No not a vampire, but definitely an albino.

Doil gets impatient and walks over. Veronica puts out a hand to stop him.

‘I’ll have him convinced soon enough, go to the bar and chat that waitress up you were ogling.’

‘ Listen Veronica. I like my life. I play piano for a living. There are no complications. It is simple and pays the bills. Why would I jeopardize what I have to get involved in skullduggery, spies, the fucking IGBI?’

‘You could do it for me’

‘Sorry as beautiful as you are, I am one selfish prick and I don’t do anything for nobody, that doesn’t fit into my lifestyle’. I turn up Cecil Taylor. ‘I have a second house to play, then it is back to my own sack, I have a hot broad lined up.’

She places her hair behind her ear and gives me a lisping air kiss. ‘You’ll change your mind they all do.’