King Death

  KING DEATH

  Eddie is a strange man with an extraordinary talent that makes him the ‘performer’ he is. Eddie administers Death. His subjects, he explains, are not afraid, but are thrilled and transported. To Eddie, Death is completion, and he finds fulfilment, satisfaction, and pride in each job he carries out.

  When Seaton Carew, America’s most successful TV entrepreneur, chances to witness Eddie in action, Eddie’s career is altered. Overcoming many obstacles, he and Seaton literally ride to glory on the Deliverance Special, a train carrying King Death and his huge entourage all over America. But then a disturbing change comes over Eddie and threatens to topple him from his grisly throne…

  King Death is part nightmare, part modern fairytale and wholly original.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nik Cohn is the original rock & roll writer. Arriving in London from Northern Ireland in 1964, aged 18, he covered the Swinging Sixties for The Observer, The Sunday Times, Playboy, Queen and the New York Times and he published the classic rock history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom in 1968. Later he moved to America and wrote Tribal Rites of the Saturday Night that inspired Saturday Night Fever. His other books include Rock Dreams (with Guy Peellaert), Arfur Teenage Pinball Queen (which helped inspire the Who’s Tommy) and Yes We Have No.

  PRAISE FOR NIK COHN

  ‘A thrilling, inspirational read’ – Guardian

  ‘Set the template for a whole new style of rock journalism, informed, irreverent, passionate and polemical’ – Choice Magazine

  ‘The book to read if you want to get some idea of the original primal energy of pop music. Loads of unfounded, biased assertions that almost always turn out to be right. Absolutely essential’ – Jarvis Cocker, Guardian

  ‘Cohn was the first writer authentically to capture the raucous vitality of pop music’ – Sunday Telegraph

  TO ELVIS AND JESSE,

  THE PRESLEY TWINS; AND

  FRANNY MAE LIPTON

  1

  One day, towards the end of a long dry summer, Seaton arrived in Tupelo and stopped at the Playtime Inn. It was a stifling afternoon, the town lay in a stupor and, for lack of anything better, he stood at his bedroom window, half-hidden behind a net curtain, looking out across the street.

  From where he was stationed, he could see three shopfronts: a Chinese laundry, a pool hall, and a saloon called The Golden Slipper. Between them, they occupied perhaps a dozen yards of sidewalk. In addition, if Seaton craned his neck, he could just make out the first three letters of a gilded nameplate – wil, as in wilkes & barbour (Noted Upholsterers).

  Within this frame, the action was severely limited. An antique Chevrolet was parked outside the pool hall, a mulatto woman was scrubbing the steps of the saloon and a mongrel lay panting beneath a lamp post. In the doorway of the Chinese laundry, there stood a man in a heavy black overcoat, black gloves and a black slouch hat, and between his legs there was a small black suitcase.

  Seaton watched, and time dragged by very slowly. He felt sticky and unclean and, from time to time, to ease his boredom, he would turn away and flop down on his bed, or splash his face with lukewarm water, or help himself to a cigarette. He was an Englishman born and bred, and at the bottom of his suitcase, there was Wisden, the Cricketers’ Almanack, for 1921; three old school ties, all different; and a photograph of the Queen Mother.

  So the afternoon passed. Propped up behind the glass like a tailor’s dummy, Seaton began to nod, and a large blue fly settled on his nose. The Chevrolet drove away, the mulatto maid finished her scrubbing, the mongrel wandered off round the corner. Finally, only the man in black remained, and even he was lost in shadow, all except for his shiny black boots, which protruded an inch into the sunlight, toecaps glinting.

  Possibly Seaton drifted off into a doze, perhaps he simply ceased to register. At any rate, when a siren sounded on the corner, it took him by surprise and his head jerked, his eyes opened wide.

  It was past five o’clock. The sun had lost its force and his sweat had turned cold on his flesh, a sensation which made him shudder. Wincing, he shook himself and stretched and yawned, and he was just on the point of moving away when a stranger in a blue pin-striped suit emerged from the pool hall, and began to stroll down the block.

  He moved with bent head and slouched shoulders, and it was not possible to make out his features. From a distance, however, he seemed roughly the same age and build as Seaton himself – squat and stubby, slack-fleshed – and he did not walk so much as amble, splayfooted.

  As he came abreast of the laundry, he produced a cigar and paused for a moment to light it, holding it up to his nostrils, rolling it lovingly between his thumb and forefinger. Immediately, the man in the black overcoat stepped out from the doorway, hand outstretched, as if to proffer a light, and the stranger half turned to meet him, inclining his head.

  At this moment, something odd occurred. The two men, as they touched, appeared to mesh. There was no noise, no semblance of a struggle, but the man in black, flowing into the stranger’s flesh, seemed to pass straight through him and come out on the other side, all in one smooth motion.

  For an instant, as he stepped clear, his face caught the light and his eyes were seen to gleam and sparkle, like tiny mirrors refracting. Before Seaton had time to focus, however, they had dimmed again and he had turned his head. Stepping down from the sidewalk, momentarily eclipsing the wil of wilkes & barbour, he tucked his black suitcase underneath his arm and, sauntering, he disappeared off the edge of the frame.

  The man in the pin-striped suit was left behind. For several seconds, he hung without moving, cigar still halfway to his lips, head still inclined towards the empty doorway, as though he were listening to something very faint and difficult, which required his utmost concentration. Seaton could hear dance music playing on a radio, saw a flutter of pink silk in the depths of The Golden Slipper. Then the stranger gave a sigh and, folding gently at the knees, he slid down on to the sidewalk, where he twitched three times and was still.

  That same evening, when night fell, Seaton crossed the street to The Golden Slipper, where there were blondes in tight red dresses, slow sad country songs on the jukebox and men who drank to forget, and he sat down alone in a dark corner booth, consuming large brandies.

  Once, he had been a choirboy; in all his childhood snapshots, he appeared as a perfect dimpled cherub, pink and round. But now he had reached his middle thirties and that first pure glow was dulled. His pinkness had grown mottled, his dimples had turned into embryonic potholes and, though he was not exactly fat, he sagged, like puff pastry gone wrong.

  Tonight he wore a blue naval blazer with shiny brass buttons, cavalry twills and a pair of chukka boots, made in Japan, which had been polished so hard and so often that they gleamed bright lemony yellow. But his shirt was soiled, there was a button missing from his cuff, and his tie, though Old Carthusian, was stained with tomato ketchup.

  Inside The Golden Slipper, soft glowlights turned from midnight blue to purple, from gold to fluorescent pink, and the blondes, both strawberry and peroxide, were ranged in a spangled line along the bar, silently filing their fingernails.

  Seaton got drunk to make time pass. When the jukebox played a song about honky-tonk angels, one of the blondes slid in close beside him, softly squeezing his thigh. ‘Stranger’, she called him, which pleased him very much. But she smelled too strongly of liquorice, her eyes were too red from weeping. So he gave her a dollar and told her to leave him be.

  When he looked up again, he saw that the man in the black overcoat was sitting at the bar, sipping Dr Pepper through a straw. Even off duty, he still wore his black hat, black gloves and shiny black boots, and his little black suitcase
lay snug between his feet.

  For forty-seven seconds, the Englishman did not move. Then he crossed the floor and sat down on the next stool. ‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘I was standing at my window, I saw you in the doorway and I watched everything that happened.’

  The man in black did not reply, made no move, gave no sign of anything. Impassive, he took another sip of his Dr Pepper and gazed at the reflections in the back-bar mirror, where he saw, on the stool next to his, a small rumpled party with a wet mouth, wet puppy-dog eyes and fingernails bitten down to the quick. ‘I witnessed every detail,’ Seaton said. ‘And I felt I simply must tell you, I was overwhelmed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the man.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it; not on TV, nor even at the movies. The way you flowed right through him, all in a single movement, and he did not struggle in the slightest – if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it.’

  ‘You are most gracious,’ said the man.

  ‘I was thrilled. Perhaps I ought not to say that, perhaps it isn’t quite dignified. But my blood began to roar, my temples began to pound and do you know, when you had departed and the stranger was still, I felt as limp as a dishcloth.’

  At this, the man in black, who did not take his eyes off his own reflection, made a minuscule adjustment to the angle of his hat brim, drawing it just a fraction lower across his left eye.

  There was a brief silence; then the Englishman stuck out his hand. ‘Permit me to introduce myself,’ he said. ‘My name is Seaton Carew and I come from across the seas.’

  ‘They call me Eddie,’ said the man.

  And the two of them shook hands.

  Flushed with triumph, Seaton ordered another large brandy for himself, another Dr Pepper for his new friend, and he raised his glass in a toast. The blondes chewed gum, the jukebox played a song about lost love and loneliness: ‘Eddie,’ said Seaton.

  ‘Mr Carew,’ said Eddie.

  And they drank.

  Eddie’s voice was a softest Mississippi drawl, hardly more than a whisper, but his language might have come from anywhere. When he turned towards his companion, his face was entirely bland and empty, bereft of age or meaning. From deep inside his overcoat pocket, he produced a pair of knucklebone dice, and he began to roll them on the bar, idly noting their progressions. Meanwhile, Seaton drank and watched.

  Several times the Englishman opened his mouth to speak, only to check himself at the last moment. In the end, he shut his eyes and drank off his glass at a gulp: ‘Would you think it an impertinence? Would it cause you great offence?’ he said. ‘But I’d like to ask you something personal.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘Does what feel?’

  ‘Umm,’ said Seaton. ‘To kill.’

  Reflected in the back-bar mirror, Eddie tumbled his dice and threw eleven. Then he made another adjustment to his hat. ‘But it isn’t,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘Killing,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s Death.’

  This was not a reply that Seaton had expected, not remotely, and it flustered him. The tip of his nose went white, his ears burned crimson and, raising his glass again, even though it was empty, he drank deep and long. ‘I don’t understand; I’m afraid that I fail to follow you,’ he confessed. ‘What is the distinction?’

  ‘The difference between night and day,’ said Eddie. ‘Killing is for amateurs, Death is a profession.’

  ‘Amateurs?’

  ‘Hooligans, thugs and crazy men: wild animals, who live off pain and slaughter, and their only pleasure is destruction.’

  ‘And Death?’

  ‘But Death is a science, and also a vocation,’ Eddie said. ‘We are craftsmen, and we loathe and despise all viciousness. Inside the industry, we are known as technicians or mechanics, sometimes as eliminators. But we are not butchers, you could not rightly call us criminals. For my own satisfaction, I’d like to think that we are performers.’

  All the while that Eddie was speaking, he did not cease to flick his dice and, since his face was masked by the angle of his hat brim, his voice seemed disembodied, an illusion which made Seaton sweat. The glowlights moved relentlessly through their cycle, from baby blue to aquamarine, from burnt sienna to twilight rose. ‘Violence sickens me,’ he said. ‘As God is my witness, I bear no hate for any man alive, and every act I commit, I render it with love.’

  ‘Just the same,’ said Seaton. ‘Death hurts.’

  ‘She does not.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘She thrills and transports. If only you trust her, she provides the greatest treat of all.’

  Behind their backs, a drunk slumped forward across his table, overturning his glass, which shattered on the floor; and Eddie laid his black-leather hands palm upward on the bar, so that there could not possibly be any tricks or concealments. ‘You’ve seen for yourself; in your heart, you know I don’t lie,’ he said. ‘The way I work, there is no question of carnage or suffering. Every detail is quick and clean and merciful. From the moment I take charge, the subject knows that he is in safe hands and does not try to hide. Instead, he relaxes and lets go, drowns in pure sensation, and the whole transaction is over in a flash. Inside the profession, we call this a completion and, nine times out of ten, when you look into the subject’s eyes, you will see that he’s smiling.’

  Seaton mopped his brow with a large red-spotted handkerchief. Beneath the breast of his blazer, his heart beat fast. Too many brandies had made him dizzy and he felt a little bit sick. ‘A treat,’ he said. ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Eddie, not unkindly. ‘You have been brainwashed just like everyone else. You’ve swallowed the propaganda and all the hysterical headlines which make Death sound like a plague, and you never took the time to look beneath the surface.’

  ‘I suppose I didn’t.’

  ‘Who could blame you? People believe what they’re told and every time you hear of Death – in the papers, on the screen or even in real life – you’re taught that she is evil. All these amateurs have ruined her reputation; she has become a dirty word. Professionals like me are known as monsters, perverts and scum – that’s the only picture that you’ve ever been shown and so you accept it automatically, without even thinking. Because any lie, if only it is repeated often enough, becomes in time a proven fact.’

  It was growing late; the jukebox played a song about a little girl who falls ill and flies away to heaven, and one of the strawberry blondes began to cry, silently, insistently, with her hands up over her eyes.

  Leaning forward, Eddie sucked up the very last drops from the bottom of his Dr Pepper and, when he spoke again, he sounded sad and weary. ‘If only folks would try to understand. If only they would open their eyes, cast aside their prejudice and fear, and start again from the beginning. Then they might see the light, that Death is really their friend, and they would rush to greet her.’

  ‘They would?’

  ‘Indeed they would.’

  ‘What if they preferred to go on living?’

  ‘Why should they? What’s so sweet about life, that they should care to cling on? In almost every case, if they were honest, the end would come as a blessed release.’

  ‘It comes of its own accord soon enough.’

  ‘Why wait? What’s the use in delaying until you’re old and feeble, too decayed to enjoy it, and they lay you out in a darkened room, with nothing left to do but wait and pray – that isn’t Death, it’s dying, and I wouldn’t cross the street to watch.’

  One by one, the blondes put on their coats and went home. The glowlights grew dim, the chairs were piled on the tables and soon The Golden Slipper was deserted, except for the two men at the bar and an ancient black janitor, who commenced to sweep the floor.

  Eventually, Eddie dro
pped his dice back into his overcoat pocket, straightened his hat brim and stood up to leave. ‘It has been my pleasure,’ he said. ‘I hope I have proved of service.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Seaton answered. ‘You have shown me so much, opened up so many new vistas, all at once – I am confounded; I can hardly tell if I’m on my head or my heels.’

  Eddie almost smiled and, as he turned to depart, he laid his hand on Seaton’s shoulder, as if in solace and reassurance. But his face, when the Englishman looked up, was as blank and meaningless as ever, and his eyes were full of fog. ‘Life pulls so strong,’ said Seaton.

  ‘Death pulls stronger,’ replied the performer and, picking up his black suitcase, he went away to bed.

  At ten o’clock on the following morning, when Eddie stepped out on to the sidewalk, Seaton was already waiting outside The Golden Slipper, seated at the wheel of a shiny red Lamborghini. ‘Where are you going?’ asked the Englishman.

  ‘Montgomery, Alabama,’ Eddie replied.

  ‘On business?’

  ‘Inside the industry,’ said the performer, ‘we call it a contract.’

  Immediately, Seaton began to rev his motor, shattering the calm, and he drummed up his best dimpled smile. ‘Hop in,’ he said and Eddie, having gazed at him for some seconds without expression, bowed his head and consented.

  For most of the day, the two men drove without speaking. Seaton wore a Magdalen scarf, twirled casually twice across his shoulder, and drove at a steady hundred. The Lamborghini howled like a jet, enclosed in a billowing cloud of yellow dust, and everywhere that it passed, people by the roadside flinched and stopped to stare. Meanwhile, Eddie sat with his eyes shut, perfect in repose, and his case lay tucked up in his lap, as fat and smug as a sleeping black cat.

  When at last they reached the city limits, it was late afternoon. Seaton slammed on the brakes and shrieked to a halt, and Eddie opened his eyes, refreshed. ‘I am indebted; you have been more than neighbourly,’ he said, and he began to climb out on to the kerb. But before he could do so, Seaton had reached out and restrained him, a soft clammy hand on his wrist: ‘Please,’ said the Englishman. ‘Don’t run away so fast.’