“I think I’ve met him.”
“Good ring to it. What did you say?”
“I may have met him. Complains all the time, yes?”
“Incredible! You met the Rain God?”
“If it’s the same guy. I told him to stop complaining and show someone his book.”
There was an impressed pause from Murray Bost Henson’s end of the phone.
“Well, you did a bundle. An absolute bundle has absolutely been done by you. Listen, do you know how much a tour operator is paying that guy not to go to Malaga this year? I mean forget irrigating the Sahara and boring stuff like that, this guy has a whole new career ahead of him, just avoiding places for money. The man’s turning into a monster, Arthur, we might even have to make him win the bingo.
“Listen, we may want to do a feature on you, Arthur, the Man Who Made the Rain God Rain. Got a ring to it, eh?”
“A nice one, but …”
“We may need to photograph you under a garden shower, but that’ll be OK. Where are you?”
“Er, I’m in Islington. Listen, Murray …”
“Islington!”
“Yes …”
“Well, what about the real weirdness of the week, the real seriously loopy stuff. You know anything about these flying people?”
“No.”
“You must have. This is the real seethingly crazy one. This is the real meatballs in the batter. Locals are phoning in all the time to say there’s this couple who go flying nights. We’ve got guys down in our photo labs working through the night to put together a genuine photograph. You must have heard.”
“No.”
“Arthur, where have you been? Oh, space, right, I got your quote. But that was months ago. Listen, it’s night after night this week, my old cheesegrater, right on your patch. This couple just fly around the sky and start doing all kinds of stuff. And I don’t mean looking through walls or pretending to be box girder bridges. You don’t know anything?”
“No.”
“Arthur, it’s been almost inexpressibly delicious conversing with you, chumbum, but I have to go. I’ll send the guy with the camera and the hose. Give me the address, I’m ready and writing.”
“Listen, Murray, I called to ask you something.”
“I have a lot to do.”
“I just wanted to find out something about the dolphins.”
“No story. Last year’s news. Forget ’em. They’re gone.”
“It’s important.”
“Listen, no one will touch it. You can’t sustain a story, you know, when the only news is the continuing absence of whatever the story’s about. Not our territory anyway, try the Sundays. Maybe they’ll run a little Whatever Happened to “Whatever Happened to the Dolphins”‘ story in a couple of years, around August. But what’s anybody going to do now?Dolphins still gone’? Continuing Dolphin Absence’?Dolphins – Further Days Without Them’? The story dies, Arthur. It lies down and kicks its little feet in the air and presently goes to the great golden spike in the sky, my old fruitbat.”
“Murray, I’m not interested in whether it’s a story. I just want to find out how I can get in touch with that guy in California who claims to know something about it. I thought you might know.”
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Chapter 28
“People are beginning to talk,” said Fenchurch that evening, after they had hauled her ‘cello in.
“Not only talk,” said Arthur, “but print, in big bold letters under the bingo prizes. Which is why I thought I’d better get these.”
He showed her the long narrow booklets of airline tickets.
“Arthur!” she said, hugging him. “Does that mean you managed to talk to him?”
“I have had a day,” said Arthur, “of extreme telephonic exhaustion. I have spoken to virtually every department of virtually every paper in Fleet street, and I finally tracked his number down.”
“You’ve obviously been working hard, you’re drenched with sweat poor darling.”
“Not with sweat,” said Arthur wearily. “A photographer’s just been. I tried to argue, but – never mind, the point is, yes.”
“You spoke to him.”
“I spoke to his wife. She said he was too weird to come to the phone right now and could I call back.”
He sat down heavily, realized he was missing something and went to the fridge to find it.