A Journey Through Time and Space

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The Boosh is on the verge of breaking up for good, but an unexpected and impossible journey to the Zooniverse may teach Julian and Noel how to better appreciate their creations.

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Chapter 5

Contents

Chapter 5

Notes: I swear I added this chapter back in March, when I’d finished it, but looking over the story today, I saw that it was gone. o_O!!! Anyway, here’s chapter 5 for those who missed it, and chapter 6 is in progress and will hopefully be finished soonishly. Thanks for reading!

Later, when he tried to remember how, exactly, he’d known that something was different, he would put it down to the snores.

Julian snored. Light puffs of air that came from between his lips almost delicately—certainly too delicate for someone over six feet tall who favoured scruffy facial hair—occasionally interrupted by a deeper rumble that Noel could feel as well as hear. Listening to them gurgle from his chest, Noel had to fight the urge to press his ear to Julian’s turned back, and forced himself to lie still. When he was much younger, he had mistaken his Dad’s snores for some kind of mysterious sleep language, the secrets of the dreaming mind being funneled through the body in consonants that had no form or sense but were truer than anything that came from the tongue. It was a mistaken belief he kept as an adult. A belief he chose to keep, because he also believed that the mind he’d had as a child was as close to the real him as he would ever get.

And because he wouldn’t have hesitated then, as a tot in his striped pyjamas, he went ahead and placed his head near—but not quite against—the huffing rise-and-fall of Julian’s back, its rhythm something he wanted to curl up in.

But then the snores had stopped. Abruptly, almost as if Julian breath had been cut off completely. Noel jerked upwards so hard that it hurt, feeling as if he’d been caught in the act of something shameful and embarrassing, like sniffing someone’s freshly shed underthings.

Everything changed after that.

Howard?

The word seemed to echo in the tent, or maybe just inside the coils of Noel’s own ears. Hearing it aloud, Noel realised that it didn’t sound very bright. Like saying “tomato” for not good reason. Like saying it just to make sure his voice was still his own.

“Julian,” he said quickly, as if it would muffle his previous utterance out of the air. “I meant Julian.”

The man that he hoped was Julian shifted, flexing his fingers as if in effort to urge feeling back into them. A croaking sound rumbled in the back of his throat.

“Vince?” he finally said, and the old cannon ball—almost as familiar as an extra, burdensome organ by now—sprang to life in Noel’s gut, weighty with dread. Then the man sat up. Without thinking, Noel flung out a hand—to seek out the support of a wall, maybe—but it only slid against the nylon fabric of the tent uselessly. In this moment (and the moment felt like a moment, like a physical object, a photograph perhaps, that he was regarding from a safe distance, if only to keep from descending into a feverish panic), even though it was absurd, Noel hoped that this was just Julian talking—and sitting, yes—in his sleep. That his subconscious was all tangled up in the confusion of the day’s events. If only his eyes weren’t so alert, Noel might’ve been able to believe it. Not just alert, but awake in a way Julian’s rarely were in private, so often lidded at half-mast with what looked like a very faint show of interest. They looked Noel over beadily.

“Vince?” the man repeated, and in doing so, he became Howard to Noel. The transformation was not accompanied by another melon in Noel’s belly, or a jolt of panicky adrenaline. Certainly he felt nothing on the level of shock he’d experienced when he’d seen Julian’s sprawled in the mud at the base of the ape salon. He simply heard a strange whistling noise and realised it was the sound of his own breath, unspooling in a long-held sigh. You are here, this is happening to you.

“Vince?”

When Noel finally spoke, it was in a voice that he hoped Howard would recognise. “Yeah?” he said, barely above a whisper. He saw Howard cock his head in response.

“What happened?”

“You… “ Noel broke off, because the words were all jammed up at the back of his throat. He could taste them behind his teeth, waiting to take shape.

Stop thinking. Stop thinking. You couldn’t rationalise your way out of a paper sack on a good day, so why are you trying now? Improvise. You’ve been doing it for years. Do it. Do it now.

“You don’t remember?” he finally said, letting his voice slip into a kind of smile.

“Yeah? Kind of?” Howard rubbed at his temple. “Did I pass out? What happened to the band?”

“The band?” This said with veiled caution.

“Yeah. Blow the… hey.” Howard poked at the tent’s ceiling with a finger. “What’s this about? Where’m I at?”

“Where?” So far, Noel was getting by on parroting Howard’s last words at him, but he figured he’d have to string together a complete sentence here soon.

“This is my tent, isn’t it? Where’d you find it? I haven’t seen it since that useless trip to the Arctic.”

The silence following Howard’s question stretched to a breaking point. Then, to his own horror, Noel let out the tiniest of giggles. The idea that Howard was real, that he actually thought he’d been to the Arctic… it seemed not just impossible, but hilariously so. None of the day’s previous incongruities could even compare. Noel was torn between wanting to groan and wanting to pelt Howard with a barrage of ridiculous questions, just because he could. What was that deformity on Howard’s chest? He and Julian had never decided, having once argued over it being a third, saucer-sized nipple or a tiny set of extra testicles, hung just beneath Howard’s armpit. But neither groaning nor interrogating seemed an option when considering the larger problem at hand: if Howard was here, where the fuck was Julian?

“What is it?” Howard asked. “What are you doing there, all twitchy like a high-stepping horse?”

“Nothing,” Noel said, hitching his breath and making a sound that might, by a generous listener, be described as something like a bark.

Howard shifted and came closer, his face suddenly and alarmingly more visible in the dim light.

Oh god, his face.

Earlier than morning, Noel had met a version of his brother crowned with stiff hair and garbed in flowy blue taffeta, and had seen no echo of Mike—nothing beyond what Noel himself might have imagined there, anyway. But now, the crinkles around Howard’s eyes and the uncertain quirk of his lip, the very way he held his shoulders, everything about him was like something Julian might have drawn and shaped with his own two hands: a landscape of exaggerations that, like all good caricatures, held a recognisable amount of truth. Unable to speak, Noel sat back on his knees and studied Howard with the intensity of one watching a brilliant and riveting performance. At the same time, he felt himself being sized up, and knew at once that Howard would know he was in the tent with an imposter.

“Vince? What are you staring at?” Howard snapped his fingers in front of Noel’s face. “Did you get into the expired cough syrup again?”

Apparently, Noel had over-estimated Howard’s eye for details.

“No.” Noel reached out and stopped Howard from snapping again, anticipating the other man’s movements before they came. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Howard gave Noel a wary look. “Waiting for you to come back with the drinks.”

“Okay, okay. Drinks where?”

“What do you mean, where? That Blow the Fuse gig. We were just there, watching Polar Bear?” Howard looked around the tent again, clearly not expecting an answer. “Did I sink like a lead weight into some kind of jazz coma? How’d we end up back in the Arctic? Oh… maybe it’s because we were watching Polar Bear!”

“Polar Bear?” Another question, another mechanical repetition of Howard’s words. Noel was beginning to feel as thick and slow as a mouthful of frozen toffee, and not for lack of thinking, either—the synapses in his brain were firing with such fury that he felt dazed by their activity. He distinctly remembered that Polar Bear were a band that Julian was partial to, but how would Howard have known about that?

“Oh no,” Howard sighed, as if suddenly resigned. “It’s all gone wrong again, has it? The jazz carried us away, both of us, me willing and you kicking and screaming like a petulant mule. A be-bop slingshot through the musical ether.” Howard paused and ran his hands over his arms, shivering in a way that looked forced. “Back to the Arctic, no less. It’s so cold, Vince. We’d best start a fire. We may need to use your shirt as kindling.”

Noel stared, his face pinching up with uncertainty. “It’s not cold at all. If I sweat any more I’ll have to wring my shirt out.”

Howard paused in mid-shiver. “There’s a draught, Vince,” he said with an air of snooty certainty. “A distinct, icy draught.”

Without meaning to, Noel rolled his eyes. “Coming from where? The mini-fridge?” He unzipped the tent with a flourish, displaying the innocuous interior of the hut just beyond.

Howard poked his head through the tent opening, the nylon rustling as he turned his head this way and that. “What’s all this, Vince? Why’s the flat so much smaller? Or wait… what’s this? Is this our hut back at the zoo? What’s this about?”

Noel was beginning to tire of Howard calling him “Vince” every time he spoke. It made him nervous. Was it possible he was Vince and didn’t know it? No, no, no, he couldn’t be Vince. Vince was the sort of person who would never question his Vince-ness. Still, the very suggestion was enough to make Noel’s stomach drop, infusing him with a sense of vertigo all over.

“It’s the hut, but it’s been made to look like the flat,” he said flatly, which was the most honest answer he could think to give.

Howard struggled out of the tent, muttering words Noel couldn’t make out. He heard the floorboards creak as Howard walked around, and knew that joining the other man was the right thing to do, reluctant as he was to leave the bubble of the tent, still warm with Julian’s familiar presence. When he emerged, he found Howard staring at the kitchen table, looking as if he had expected a feast and had found nothing but crumbs.

“Where’s my typewriter, Vince?”

“Uh?” It was a singular, questioning noise.

“And my records? You didn’t stack them up and use them as a stepladder to reach the top shelf of your wardrobe again, did you?”

“No, I haven’t touched anything,” Noel said, more or less truthfully.

Howard knitted his brow. “This from the man who insists on touching everything.”

Noel’s mouth fell open. “I haven’t touched anything,” he finally repeated.

“Why’s my stuff gone,” Howard complained, oblivious to Noel’s state. “Your stuff is everywhere. Look at that shoe rack, it’s straining like a dowager who’s working on her second hump.”

Unsteady on his feet, Noel ignored Howard, pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, and sat himself down. At the same time, he felt something in the back pocket of his trousers crumple in protest. He removed it absently and saw that while dog-eared and creased by now, it was the photograph he’d pulled out of Rudi’s door of Kukundu. Staring at it, Noel tried to remember its significance, which had seemed so evident to him just a few hours ago. It was just him and Julian at a signing, pausing to smile for any number of fans, but it was him and Julian. Somehow, that seemed the only significant thing about it, and Noel turned it face-down and pressed it against the top of his leg.

“Vince!” Howard snapped, piercing Noel’s reverie. “Did you use my records as plates again? Spaghetti sauce is deadly to vinyl, you know.”

“What?” Noel jerked his head up, distracted. Howard was pacing the small kitchenette, looking everything over like a manor’s mistress checking for dust. His eye for details clearly improved when it came to those intricacies that affected him personally.

“My records, my typewriter… have you been moving my stuff around again, to make room for yours?” To emphasise his point, Howard sighed much louder than was necessary.

Noel stared, slightly dazed by this accusation. A keen sense of deja vu nagged at him as well; in some of their writing sessions together, Noel and Julian had shared a laugh over Howard’s annoying tendency to blame others—Vince, in particular—for all the trials in his life. Blame that Vince usually shrugged off and took gamely, accepting it as he did Howard’s other flaws.

But Noel wasn’t Vince. After the day he’d been through, he didn’t especially enjoy being badgered about and blamed for trivial things like where the typewriter had gone off to. What was Howard planning to do with it, anyway? Take a couple of hours to pound out a word or three? “Look,” Noel began, a bite in his voice. “I didn’t move your things—”

“Those were priceless first-pressings, Vince. Charles Mingus, not a scratch on it, and another one that—”

“Be quiet!” Noel demanded, hoping to his feet and sending the table into a wobble. “Everything’s fucked, and here you are moaning on about old Charles Mingus!”

Howard drew back only slightly, as if Noel’s outburst were a tiny roadblock in the middle of a long thoroughfare he was intent on plowing through. “What do you mean, everything’s fu..fu…” He balked strangely at the word fucked. “Everything’s shiny for you, isn’t it? Got your feather boas over there, got the hut splashed out in the season’s latest electro-vomit colours…”

Noel closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe evenly. “Seriously. Be quiet.”

Howard’s mouth dropped open, then shut quickly as he sank into the other chair. Noel watched this show of obedience with a mixture of irritation and relief. “Stay here,” he said, as if addressing an ill-behaved pet. “I’ll be back soon.”

With these words, he slipped out the front door and, like a man who’d been trapped underwater, took in a huge gulp of air and leaned unsteadily against a knobby tree trunk. The wild racing of his heart filled his ears so completely that he didn’t notice how deadly silent the Zooniverse was—the type of silence that had weight and volume, and he shifted against the tree as if burdened by its load. He tried to think, but right now thinking was like running in a dream, like working through sand that clung to his boots and fought to pull him under. He told himself he wasn’t afraid of being alone, but his body, trembling as it was, knew damn well he was a liar.

So he stood there, forcing himself to get used to the idea. Bent at the waist, he planted his hands against his thighs and gasped like a long distance runner until his breathing slowed and his stomach unclenched and he could open his eyes and look up. There was still no moon.

He was supposed to wait for the moon to rise. He and Julian had sang about it. Things would be okay, if only the moon would rise.

He tried to will it to rise. He tried to will it like this:

He pictured it balanced on the end of his giant, god-like finger, then sliding up against the black night like an eye blinking open, the white gaze passing over him like some kind of blessing.

It didn’t work, of course, but the mental image calmed him. It was easier to view the world as a panorama of layers, like backdrops on a stage that could be re-arranged with the single tug of a pulley. It had always been his way to picture both himself and his surroundings as a collage he could paper over if he wanted to, changing the colours and textures as he went, ripping them apart and feeding them to the wind in his wake. Everything was surface, and he skimmed over the surface of everything.

And it wasn’t shallow because it was wide, wider than any eyes could see. Wider than the stretch of his arms.

But your arms only stretch a few feet in either direction, Noel.

But they didn’t feel like they only stretched a few feet in either direction. They felt like they stretched to span the universe itself. What did it matter that they didn’t, so long as the feeling was there? Who ever said that a camel couldn’t pass through the eye of a needle, or that the moon wasn’t just a man? Not counting scientists, of course, those fucking modern day assassins of imagination and lore.

“Vince?”

The word was so close to Noel’s ear that it might have come from his own head. His thoughts rippled apart and his vision cleared. Howard had left the hut and come up behind him, breath milky on Noel’s shoulder. Pivoting around, Noel saw that he looked oddly lost as he wrung his hands together and shifted from one foot to another.

“What’re you doing?” Howard asked, a little cautious. Maybe because Noel had given him a very non-Vince-ish direct order to stay put—an order than Howard had promptly disobeyed.

“Thinking.”

Howard squirmed. “What for? Why?”

Noel sighed. “Because I do that sometimes. When I’m alone my mind cogs start twirling. It just sort of ends up that way without my trying.”

Howard looked unexpectedly relieved by these words. “Ah, so we’re back to this again, are we? You were out here alone, and without me to talk to you had no choice but to think.”

Sizing the other man up, Noel noticed that the light, easterly wind blew Howard’s hair in the exact opposite direction of how Julian usually combed it, not that he was overly fussed with combs to begin with. But watching the hair rebel against all those good intentions filled Noel with an urge to pat it down into place.

“Is that what you think?” Noel finally said, distracted by the wayward hair. Looking at it, he discovered that when he avoided direct eye contact, Howard was like a merry puppet exiled to the furthest corners of his eyesight, his lips and eyebrows twitching in exaggeration, nothing more than a pair of hyperbole caterpillars. The puppet threw back its head with a proud snort and Noel stifled a caustic laugh.

“Of course I think, Vince. We all think, but some of us really think.”

It couldn’t be helped. The laugh popped out of Noel’s mouth like a blown cork. It overtook him in a wave of spasms, laughter that was more like strange, hollow howling than a noise of true mirth.

“Vince?” Howard stared, perplexed at first, then clearly affronted. “Vince!”

Noel slumped against the tree trunk and looked at Howard’s flabbergasted expression through watery eyes, giggles still rioting around his belly. “Oh god. Oh,”—another gasp—“you’re such a joke. You’re more like Howard than he is!” He laughed again, his stomach aching from it. “You’re really him! You’re really, really him.”

Howard took a step away from Noel. “You’ve gone wrong, little man. It’s too much in one day, is it? All those lunatic fans, then my top strop in Top Shop. Not to mention Naboo’s peculiar new haircut—should have known you’d take that one to heart.”

Noel wheezed and hiccupped, all the laughter wrung out of him, but he bent over silently and pointed. “See! That’s exactly what I’m on about! Howard Moon!”

“Why’d you keep saying my name like that, Vince?” Howard asked, eyes narrowing.

“Vince,” Noel emphasised, straightening up. “Electro goth fairy. Sure, I can do that for you.” He smiled widely and felt the cracks in his sanity widen. It was weird, to actually feel yourself going mad. Or was this just a foolish hope for madness? The hope that it would make all of this arbitrary? “Let’s go… oh, let’s listen to some Gary Numan. What do you reckon?”

“I reckon I’ve got no choice, seeing as my own fine and upstanding collection of music has up and vanished.”

“How ‘bout some Human League,” Noel said, looking at Howard hard and keeping the question out of his voice. “Don’t you want me baby? Don’t you want me, oh?” The words were curiously flat when they were spoken rather than sung.

Howard gave Noel a look that was shadowed with mistrust. He took in a breath and held it, seeming to wrestle over what to say next. “You were right before,” he finally burst out. “You never change.” Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into the hut.

Noel didn’t move for several moments, mildly stunned by Howard’s words, which perplexed him more than anything else. He was all at once aware of how quiet it was now that Howard had left his side. A faint, scuttling sound came from down low, near the ground. He squinted in the dim light and ducked his head slightly, spying a movement from beneath some shrubbery. A whip-thin pink tail twitched once, and the face of an opossum poked out from between the leaves, its pointy teeth forming a cheshire-cat grin.

Moving on, it whispered. Or at least that’s what Noel thought it said. The tail twitched again and the opossum was gone.

“Go then,” Noel said, straightening up. Then, louder: “That’s right, go!” Without thinking, he struck out at the nearest tree with his fist. He didn’t possess a mean right hook by any stretch of the imagination, but the tree was very real and very hard, and its bark shredded his knuckles and set them smarting. The sheer stupidity of what’d he’d done propelled him to punch the tree again, lamely this time, and without any real fury behind it. His fist was already wounded, though, and he yelped in pain and brought his bleeding digits to his mouth.

I knew you would go. I fucking knew it.

The thought filled him with a hazy, incomprehensible rage. He kicked blindly at the shrub that the opossum had ducked into, braches swishing and scratching at the fabric of his jeans, leaves flinging upward. He grunted and heard himself yell words that didn’t register in his mind, too caught up in the satisfaction of lashing out at nothing.

OW!

The cry was distinct and familiar. Startled, Noel pulled in his kick at the last minute and lost his balance, tumbling backwards into the wood chips, his arse aching. A writhing, whip of a creature scurried over his torso, flashing from bright green to vermillion red.

You brutalised my tail! Again!

The chameleon dug her claws into the middle of Noel’s chest and he winced, struggling to sit up. “Oof. What’s that?” He pushed his fringe off his sweaty forehead and looked the creature over. “Uh… Jenny?”

Yes, that’s right. Jenny seemed to blush with faint pink pleasure—or perhaps lingering annoyance—as she regarded him with her rolling eyes. Why were you kicking the vegetation, Vince?

“Oh.” Noel sat up and Jenny scrambled up to his shoulder, her tail curling around the back of his neck in what seemed like a friendly, open gesture. “Having a tantrum, I reckon.” He sighed. It wasn’t as if he could explain his situation to the chameleon—like Howard, she thought he was Vince. Without Julian around to remind him he wasn’t, he might as well be Vince.

But he didn’t want to be. Right now, he longed to be understood more than he longed to be loved. Where was Julian?

Change is hard, Jenny said, patting the back of his neck with her tail. It was an odd thing for the creature to say—odd that the creature was talking at all, though Noel tried not to dwell on that. Howard’s peculiar words came back to him: you never change.

“Yeah,” he said weakly, dragging the heels of his boots through the wood chips and dirt. He had no idea how to share his problems with a reptile, not even one that he could, quite literally, take to. “What brings you out here, Jenny? Your boudoir ain’t infested with bats again, is it?”

No. They’ve moved on.

Noel tilted his head, trying to catch her eye. “What do you mean, moved on?” The opossum had said the exact same thing.

Change is hard, she repeated obscurely, seeming to avoid his question. But it’s easier for us. Out of the corner of his vision, Noel saw her shift colours until she matched the loud orange-and-pink pattern of his tee-shirt.

“Yeah,” Noel mused, lifting his eyebrows. “Guess it would be, with make-over skills like yours.”

Make-over skills? Her tone was offended. We have the ability to adapt to our environment completely… or to stand out, if we need to. It’s far more involved than a mere makeover. And with that, her rough skin shimmered with bright blue and yellow streaks that clashed against the fabric of Noel’s tee-shirt.

“Yeah, that’s really something.” And it was. It was something to talk about, something to distract him from the more pressing crisis at hand. “What’s your regular colour, though? When you’re not changing, I mean? Green, I suppose.”

Jenny’s eyes rotated in agitated circles. Our outer skin is transparent. Better to show the world what lies beneath, hmm? You should know.

Noel’s lips curled into a half-smirk. “Why? ‘Cos I’m a zookeeper?”

Because you’re one of us.

The half-smirk fell from his face with a twitch.

And it’s time to say goodbye.

“Goodbye… to what?” His voice was flat, too fatigued to bother with disbelief.

Jenny vibrated slightly with something that might have been laughter. Her tail tangled through his hair as she crept closer, close enough to whisper the truth in his ear.

There’s a difference between pulling away and simply hoping you won’t have to make the first move.

The telephone is like a chunk of cold marble against the side of his face—this is before the era of tiny, sweaty mobiles—and as soon as Noel’s voice comes down the other end he wants to hang up. But that’s the sort of thing you do to ex-girlfriends. That’s creepy, borderline-stalker behaviour.

Hello?

Oh, those shakes. The lights don’t really block the audience from view, not the way they say it does. He can always make out the faces in the first few rows, the movement of mouths and the position of hands. Some of the smiles fade too quickly, it seems. Julian is one who laughs hard on the inside, but he wishes other people would just let it out.

… Hello?

He wants to run, like he has before. Boy, does he. He grips the phone in his hand, then shifts it from one ear to the other. He clears his throat, and this—just this—is enough to give him away.

Julian?

His throat goes dry and something like sand sweeps through his mind, filling the cracks, blotting out indecision.

Wa-wanna be in my gang? I mean… hi, Noel. Yes, this is Julian.

Behind his eyelids were hazy colours, and a wild, distant drum solo rattled the staccato of his heart. His mind was still caught up in a dream of vast snowfields: he’d been curled on his side in a drift, waiting and hoping for some strange, nearby warmth to slip around him. The warmth was person-shaped and familiar; not his Mum or his Dad or his lover but someone who knew him just as well. He had been waiting for the arms to pull him close and keep him from succumbing to the cold, to the dreary, absolute silence. He had waited, yes, but he hadn’t said a word. Certainly nothing like come closer. He hadn’t even dared to show anything other than the sturdy landscape of his turned back.

Someday, I will be. Someday, I will…

What was that? The foggy, dream-like snippets faded away, driven off by a sudden flare of trumpet. The weights on top of his eyelids disappeared and his eyes popped open, immediately assaulted by stage lights and choking cigarette smoke. People moved back and forth, calling out to one another, bopping in time on their heels. Their drinks sloshed and their teeth flashed. Not a single one of them looked familiar, but he couldn’t tell if that was because they were strangers or if it was because he was utterly fucked in the head. He felt drugged, dazed, and drunk—the three evil Ds—and it took a great deal of effort just to lift his body from the table he was slumped against. His mind fought against this bodily stupor, aware that something vital in his surroundings had changed. He blinked hard against dizziness, hands scrabbling over the tabletop and knocking over an empty bottle.

A figure on wobbly, coltish legs approached him, a drink in each hand. It was Noel, zipped into that hideous KISS jacket that he so highly prized—aside from the uniqueness of the jacket, Julian would have known that drunken gait anywhere. He was smiling that blatantly flirtatious grin he used on the camera sometimes, his eyes all hooded and bedroomy, his upper lip smudged with something blackish. “Drinksssss,” he said, sliding a glass across the table so hard that it nearly landed in Julian’s lap.

Addle-brained, Julian pushed the glass away and pressed a thumb to each temple. What the merry fuck was going on? Hadn’t he just been sleeping in a snowfield? In a tent, a tent in a snowfield? And it had been warm… But now he was in a club, and there was a band on stage playing familiar music.

He lifted his head and a red light passed over his eyes. In its brilliant wake, all the memories from the last fifteen hours came back with thundering whiplash. A limitless horizon yawned in the back of his mind, blurring at the edges like a watercolour painting, then he felt himself falling, falling, falling, branches groping for his clothes as he went. He bent over and made an agonised noise.

“Noel…” he groaned, and Noel furrowed his brows together. His mouth parted and the white tips of his teeth showed.

“Who?”

Dazed, Julian reached out and pulled at the cuff of Noel’s jacket. “Cigarette,” he said. “Find me a cigarette, will you?”

“Huh?!” Noel looked stricken at the very request.

“Just get me a cigarette, please!” Julian barked desperately, finding his drink and taking a gulp. It was scotch, neat, and it definitely did not bring about the clarity he was hoping for. He heard Noel push through people, asking prettily for spare cigarettes. Whatever had happened, it seemed not to have affected him in the least, and Julian felt a kind of faint gnawing in his gut, a sense that everything was more wrong than he could possibly know.

Another drink of scotch and closing his eyes did nothing to bring back the vast white, the security of warm arms anchored at his waist that weren’t anchors at all.

Then there was Noel’s hand, thrust out and clutching a foil packet of off-brand cigarettes, three survivors at the bottom. He’d filched a cheap lighter from someone as well, and passed over one of the cigarettes with a peculiar, conspiratorial giggle. Julian didn’t acknowledge it, instead lunging for a cigarette and placing it between his lips. Then he bristled.

What in fucking hell?

The alien sensation of smooth skin was sinister against his fingertips, his mouth and chin obscenely naked and shorn of whiskers. Where the fuck was his mustache? His ever-present evening stubble? Distracted by its absence, he didn’t notice how Noel handled the lighter as if it were a slippery minnow in danger of leaping from his fingers. Fiddling with it, he finally exerted enough pressure to bring a spark to life, so bright and surprising that he immediately dropped the lighter to the sticky tabletop, then dove for it again.

Julian covered his mouth with the palm of his hand and gazed at the unlit cigarette as if it were responsible for all this, then he looked up just in time to see Noel light the one clamped between his own teeth. All his thoughts ran to a trickle as he watched, the hairs on the back of his arms rising up just slightly, as they often did whenever Noel did something that was worth watching. But there was something different, this time.

Noel inhaled a luxurious breath, one that sent his back arching, then sucked in a mouthful of smoke that immediately contorted his face into something like horrified disgust. He coughed hugely, his eyes streaming water. Julian’s own need for nicotine was forgotten as dull dread filled him.

“Noel?” The question was lame, half-hearted, and the other man was coughing too hard to have heard, anyway.

Julian had seen Noel light up cigarettes—more than just cigarettes—hundreds of times before. Noel even knew how to fold a match head over the edge of a book and ignite it with a careless snap of his fingers, a one-handed party trick that never failed to attract exclamation and attention. He tended to exhale smoke as if it had been piped into his mother’s womb, head thrown back in a showy fashion despite off and on bouts with asthma. It sometimes seemed that there was nothing Noel did that wasn’t for show, and Julian wasn’t even sure if his friend liked cigarettes or if he merely liked the way he looked with one propped between his pursed lips. It could have been vanity, but Noel seemed to like how he looked in green face paint as well, not to mention his penchant for deforming the already sharp angles of his face to dramatic proportions. It wasn’t necessarily a need to be seen as beautiful, then – just a need to be seen… as grotesque and flawed, and yet perfect in his ownership of both.

Still, Noel never, ever coughed. Not like this.

Julian patted him on the back uncertainly. The other man felt real enough. Warm and slight. It was almost impossible to think of him as a phantasm, here in this ordinary, smoky pub—one that Julian was fairly certain that he and Noel had been in before. Together.

“Vince,” he said, resigned to the truth.

“Yeah?” Vince struggled out between coughs. “Sorry.”

“Come along with me to the gents’?” Julian jerked his head in the general direction of the toilets. His head was filled with cold, razor-sharp certainty. He knew what he had to do, even while he had no real idea of what that was. It was a detached sort of instinct guiding him, or maybe he was just too laden with liquor to wonder very hard at his own actions.

Vince rolled his eyes—a gesture so predictable it made Julian smile in a grim sort of way. “Aw, what for?” Vince protested. “No one’s going to come on to you here, and even if someone did you’d be able to outrun ‘em.” His nose wrinkled delicately as he surveyed the other patrons. “This crowd’s a bit long in the tooth. And probably gimpy in the leg, going by that dancing.”

“Just come along.” Julian’s hand clamped around Vince’s wrist, leaving no room for argument.

Vince met his eyes in silent question. The slight flicker of worry that came over his features almost impressed Julian. He wouldn’t have characterised Vince as insightful or quick on his mental feet, but perhaps his day spent in reality (had he only been here a day? Was one day in the Zooniverse equal to one day in the universe?) had made him more wary, hardening his candy-floss exterior. “All right, Howard,” he said lightly. “No need to prise my arm off, yeah?”

Julian winced at the name. Vince saw the wince and frowned.

“Come along.” The words were gruff as Julian rose to his aching feet, walking blindly to the toilets with his head hung downward. He did not want to see anyone he knew. He could not, he mustn’t.

The toilets were decorated in a fashionably sparse way, but the lighting was yellow and unhealthy. A single man was stood at a urinal, smoking and pissing at the same time. He squinted at them, seeming to sense that neither had come in to take a piss of their own, and soon left without shaking off or washing his hands.

“You have to leave,” Julian said abruptly, before the door had even shut completely.

“Leave where?” Vince was avoiding his gaze, looking in the mirror instead.

“You know you don’t belong here.”

In the glass, Vince looked at him askance. “What’re you on about, Howard?”

Julian raised his hands, palms up. “Stop. Just… don’t even start. I can’t get into this again. I can’t sort it out, not with words, not with thoughts. I know you know. And if you know that much then you know that this is not where you belong.” The mechanical, flat sound of his own words scared him. He thought he might shit his trousers or throw up just to hear them, and here was Vince, looking only curious.

“So what is it I’m supposed to know, then?”

Vince’s voice was forcibly cool—an edge of paranoia just beneath it—and he glanced at the mirror again, blew his fringe away from his forehead. All at once, Julian had the feeling he was being toyed with. Toyed with by a fictional creation. And then he realised that he was scared. Terrified, in fact. Not of Vince, but of the fact that he was here. That Noel was nowhere that could be reached by coach or cab.

“You look pale,” Vince said, going pale himself. They stared at each other, locked up in some kind of strange, silent standoff where neither wanted to admit to the secret knowledge that swam between them. There was a wheezy sound that Julian realised was coming from his own chest, and Vince flitted his eyes up and down, as if he could hear it. As if it meant something to him.

And then something else swam between them. Julian felt it twist just below his belt: rage and something else. Something he didn’t want to think about. Couldn’t think about. He pushed it away, back into the recesses of his mind, forcing it elsewhere.

Where elsewhere was, he didn’t know.

“… How?” Vince finally asked, biting his lip.

Julian swallowed. “Don’t know.” It struck him as odd that they were speaking in the short, curt manner of strangers, but then, how else would they speak? He desperately wished Vince would throw him a line, some kind of bait that would lure a string of nouns and verbs out of him, forming a single, effortless sentence that would take them one step closer to familiar territory. “Uh,” he said lamely, running his fingers through his hair and blanching at the greasy feel.

Vince shifted awkwardly, even more awkward in his own unfamiliarity with awkwardness. “Cup of tea?” he offered weakly, turning his palms up.

“Are you…” Julian trailed off, annoyed now. “We’re in a pub!”

“Yeah!” Vince said, with forced brightness. “They’ve probably got some tea. This is England, after all.” He paused. “This is still England, isn’t it, Howard?”

Julian sighed. “My name’s not Howard, okay? Surely you can tell I’m not Howard, can’t you?”

“What’s wrong with being Howard?” Vince said bluntly, taking a step forward that caught Julian off-guard.

“Nothing!” Julian stood his ground, though he could feel sweat gathering in beads over his forehead. It was ridiculous to be afraid, and yet he was. “I’m an actor, see? I play Howard on stage, on television. Have you, ah, managed to sort that out since you’ve been here? In this world, see—” he swallowed “—Howard’s a sort of character. And so’s Vince. My friend Noel, he plays Vince. He’s… you’d like him, he’s a lot like Vince. He’s like you, I mean… “ Fuck! He tried to stop himself from saying more, but in his own nervousness the words kept coming. Not a single, effortless sentence of explanation, but a whole rubbish bin of oddly-sized and decidedly smelly scraps, tossed onto the floor for them to kick about uselessly.

“I would not either like him,” Vince said, rather nastily. “And I don’t like you much, just so’s you know. So why don’t you go and write that into your famous show.”

Well. Julian didn’t know what to say to that.

Vince, however, suddenly had a mouthful to share. “I reckon the pair of you have made a name for yourselves. Going on stage and pretending to be us, getting a laugh with your poor, mis-matched sods routine.” His tone grew more sour as he spoke; one of the lights over the sink flickered ominously. “One’s thick and revels in it—the other’s thick and fancies himself clever,“ he said, sounding as if he were quoting something or someone.

Julian shook his head. “We’re not pretending to be you…” he said, then didn’t know how to finish. What could he say? We are you. Sort of.

“You are too!” Vince protested. Someone opened the door to the loo a crack, heard the shout, and hastily shut it again.

“You’re not real!” Julian burst out, the sweat rolling down his temples now. “You’re just an idea… just ink to paper!” He sucked in a huge breath, building up to something he couldn’t anticipate. “You’re not even close,” he said, and the obscure words stung him all over, an unwelcome surprise because he felt the truth of them fully.

Vince’s pale cheeks flare crimson at this. “Maybe you’re the one who ain’t real, ever think of that?” You may have acted out our life on your rubbish telly programme, but I’ve lived it. And who are you to tell me I haven’t?”

Julian swallowed. “I’m the one who knows everything about you.” He paused for a beat. “And you know nothing about me.”

The bewildered expression on Vince’s face nearly caused Julian instant regret, but that bewilderment was fast replaced with helpless fury. “I know that you’re a wanker!” he bellowed, lunging at Julian as if he wanted to hit him.

Julian yanked his head back so hard that pain shot through it in protest. He’d seen this same face come at him with fists less that twenty-four hours ago, and he wouldn’t let those fists touch him this time. Not now, when the person who belonged to them was gone, and not when that particular absence might be his very own fault.

“Don’t…” Julian said, backing into the wall and raising his hands, looking away from the vivid nearness of Vince’s face. “Don’t come so close. The closer you are…”

The farther away he seems. The farther away he seems, the farther away I seem.

“The what?” Vince’s brow rumpled in confusion, his flare of rage not so much fading as vanishing completely. He came close yet again, sudden concern pulling him near. “All right?” He raised his hand, and two white fingertips brushed against one of the wrists that Julian had thrown up to his face.

“Don’t.“ Julian yanked his whole body away from the tender gesture, his hip connecting painfully with the lip of the sink.

Vince drew away. “Ever touch you,” he said, finishing the line that was equally familiar to both of them, now more than ever.

They stared at each other, the sink dripping out the seconds that passed.

“You have to go,” Julian said lamely, and his voice had a woebegone tone to it that he hadn’t heard since he was a schoolboy.

“No, you have to go. I want Howard back.”

“I’m Howard. And you don’t.”

Vince’s eyes widened. “You just said you weren’t Howard! And look at you… you’re not. You’re all wrong.”

Julian winced, trying not to feel too much relief at Vince’s denial. “I’m not him, but I am. Watch.” He adopted a stiffer stance, then forced it into a guise of relaxation: the posturing of someone who exuded confidence that he did not truly feel. Someone who strutted while keeping one eye on the ground for the holes he was sure he’d fall into. Once he had his body arranged, Julian gave Vince a half-smile, the sort that made it seem one side of his face was overly earnest with the other expected a sharp smack. “Polar Bear is on the vital, cutting-edge of jazz, Vince,” he said, his tone elegantly patronising. “It’s big, raw-boned and exciting, much like myself. You’d do well to open your ears to it.”

As he spoke, Vince screwed his eyes up tight and jammed his hands against the sides of his face, his lips snarling in a way that reminded Julian of Noel as he worked up for a spectacular tantrum. “Stop it!” he yelped, shaking his head, his eyes open and wild now. He backed up, nearly tripped over himself, then scrambled through the door, running.

Julian didn’t run after him. He went to the sinks instead, turning on the faucet and splashing cold water that he couldn’t feel into his face.

After that, he tried to calm himself by doing one thing at a time, very slowly and precisely, so as to focus on nothing but the task itself. First he returned to the table he and Vince had been sat at and found the cigarette he had been unable to smoke before. It was warm when he picked it up, as if happy to no longer be rejected. He smoked it, lighting up with one of the few matches remaining in a battered matchbook that had been abandoned on a barstool.

In red-print, the matchbook’s cover advised:

FIND YOURSELF

Julian started at the red letters until they began to blur, the match burning down between his fingers so that he let out a muffled yelp and dropped it, shaking his hands to get the sting out. He took another quick look at the matchbook, then stuffed it in his pocket. Then he smoked, pulling the fumes into his lungs, tasting the dirty tang of nicotine on his tongue. He watched the blue smoke curl toward the lights and join the cloud that blanketed the ceiling. But he could only count his exhalations and watch smoke for so long before thoughts started to nudge in, creeping through the cracks. Again and again, he saw the ground rushing towards him, and heard angry, hateful words that he’d give anything to have back. When he gave up pretending he didn’t care and finally looked around the room for Vince, he was unsurprised to find no sight of him.

Patting down his pockets, he concentrated on cataloging what resources he had. There was the familiar biro he kept in the hidden breast pocket of his jacket; unfortunately, the small stash of bank notes he kept in there were gone but for a few coins; the money must have bought Howard and Vince their entry into the club, plus all those drinks. His mobile was nowhere to be found, nor were the keys to his flat. His flat that he’d lived in for less than a year—the first flat he’d ever had a leasehold on—not large or particularly luxurious, but it had lots of character and was located in a quiet but pleasingly eccentric neighbourhood. Much of the flat was still empty as he’d never been big on personal possessions, never needing more than a place for his records and guitars, and a comfortable sofa for resting his bones. When the house’s uncluttered surfaces started to go furry with dust, Noel came over and wiped them down. Once, Noel had hung up a painting, a landscape of strange and colourful hills that looked as if they might actually be the back a fantastic creature that was sleeping just beyond the edge of the canvas; it was one of Noel’s own works, one that Julian had always admired. He’d blinked to discover it hanging over the hearth, surprised that Noel didn’t want it for himself. Them blank walls were like having to see screaming, Noel had explained. Sometimes, Julian wondered what he would forget if it weren’t for Noel. His countertops, his laundry, and perhaps even other parts of himself.

The only other things in Julians’ pockets were a slightly battered travelcard and the key to a hotel room. The latter Julian stared at. It seemed weirdly obscene to be carrying a hotel key around the city you already lived in.

Pocketing the key, his attention was drawn to a man who was standing nearby, holding his mobile up to capture a picture of the band on stage.

“Hi,” Julian said, tapping the man on his shoulder. “Pardon me.”

The man turned around, annoyed, but his expression softened somewhat as he regarded Julian, perhaps in recognition or maybe because Julian looked particularly helpless.

“Might I use your mobile? Sorry, but I’ve lost my ride home. It honestly won’t take more than a minute.”

The man chewed on his lip, considering, then finally handed his mobile over. “Make it quick, yeah?”

Julian nodded, said his thanks, then moved away from the man in the interest of finding a bit of quiet, but stayed close enough so that the man didn’t think he was running off with his pricey technology. He clicked the phone on, then realised that the only numbers he’d committed to memory—his real memory, rather than that of his own mobile’s—was Noel’s, his Dad’s, and his agent’s. He might be able to remember Dave’s if he tried, and maybe Dee’s. They both showed up often enough on his own mobile screen for him to know the look of them. But of all those people, who could he really call? His Dad was up North, and Pamela was more likely to ask questions than to listen. As he was thinking it over, his hand thumbed in Noel’s number of its own accord. Holding his breath, he held the phone to his ear; the space between rings seemed much longer than usual, more vast that a field of wind-swept snow.

Hey, you’ve got Noel. Tell me your story.

Then there was the signal that indicated he was to leave a message. Julian opened his mouth and words he hadn’t anticipating tumbled out.

“Jesus, I really thought it was you for a minute…” he began, breathless, then remembered that he was talking to no one.

He hung up.

“Thanks,” he said dully, returning the mobile back to its owner. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and let his feet move him toward the exit.

The sound of the band faded behind him. It was a song he would have enjoyed, had he been in a state to enjoy it. Instead, he was numb with the sound of Noel’s voice, ringing in his ears as it was.

Outside, it was cool and misting just slightly. Everything glimmered with a slightly alien sheen, tenuous like the surface of a soap bubble. Julian ran his fingertips across a shop window, feeling them gather up the moisture that beaded down the glass. Who had dreamt up this city? What grand mind had wound it up like a clockwork toy, and who watched the whir and wheel of its inner-workings? Of its lonely, always-searching inhabitants?

A gust of wind blew a ruckus of litter across his feet in answer: a chocolate wrapper, crumpled theater adverts, a paper coffee cup. Hugging his arms around himself, Julian shivered and walked faster.

The more Howard looked around, the more he saw that a lot of things were wrong. It wasn’t just his missing type-writer and jazz records, either. Now that he thought about it, why should those even be here, anyway? He’d taken them all with him when he left the zoo and moved in with Vince, Naboo, and Bollo. But if his belongings weren’t here, then why was the wallpaper from the flat? Why that old tent? Wandering round the small hut, he found more and more things he’d almost forgotten about, but none of the things that he actually needed. What good would a dog sled, an empty container of shaving cream, and some women’s ratted up stockings do him and Vince? He did find a little moustache comb lodged between a large box of laxatives and the tea kettle, and that he happily kept. His moustache had grown back sharpish since letting Vince trim it off—who knew that a good clean shave would produce a resplendent set of whiskers within hours?

Under the pretense of looking for his records on the windowsill, Howard flicked the little tea-towel curtain aside and peered out at Vince. It was an uncharacteristically dark night in the Zoo, and Howard had trouble making out what his friend was doing, exactly, but he was relieved to see that he hadn’t moved from his spot by the tree, which was exactly where Howard had left him.

He’s probably thinking of how best to apologise to me, Howard thought with satisfaction, letting the curtain drop back. Knowing how Vince’s shiny mind worked, Howard figured the most he could hope for was an apology about those harsh words towards Charles Mingus. It was beyond Vince’s scope to take the blame for the whole course of the crazy day.

And surely, that course had started because of something Vince had done. That’s how it always worked.

It was your idea to leave that hotel room, though, a voice chided at that back of Howard’s mind. The voice sounded like it belonged to the wind. Howard didn’t much care for the wind.

“Yeah, but he’s the reason we woke up in that hotel room to begin with!” Howard countered. “I was nice and cosy in our hut… I mean, our flat…” he trailed off, uncertain. Fact was, he couldn’t remember where he’d been or what he’d been doing before waking up in that hotel room. He had the curious feeling he’d just been suspended somewhere, some place where his past and present were mingled together in a kind of steamy, biographical soup. Steamy, tasty soup. He could go for a cup of that right now.

Not everything comes down him or you.

“Course it does. That’s how it works, you idiot,” Howard mumbled, yanking open a cabinet. Maybe someone had left some soup in here. “He starts something and I finish it, or I start something and he finishes it.”

So you admit that it’s you who sometimes starts things.

Howard looked up and spoke to the ceiling. “That’s not an admission, sir. Do not put that on the record as an admission.” He shut the cabinet and rubbed at his face, willing to admit that he was, in fact, going a little bit mad. The fact of the matter was that he couldn’t see any pattern to the day’s course. He couldn’t even begin to glimpse what sort of cause and effect was at work here, and it wasn’t the day’s strange and unexpected events that perturbed him, but by the lack of a connecting thread. Why were they here, anyway? And hadn’t Bainbridge lost the Zoo during a craps game with some Thai businessmen?

Had he been less Howard, it might have occurred to Howard that he wasn’t exactly happy to be back at the Zoo. There were good memories here—songs sung with Vince, the porpoise derbies, staying up ‘till the wee hours with Techno Mouse—but this was a place of definite failings, too. He didn’t actually want to reminisce about the time he’d nearly been killed by a Kangaroo, or his all-too-brief career as a novelist, or of that painful, torrid romance with Mrs. Gideon.

His day in London with Vince had been strange, but it had also been completely new. It was as if, for the first time ever, he’d been cut free from the confining cloth of his life. Now he felt himself being stitched back in, unwilling and unsettled.

That Vince had suddenly gone so edgy and odd was another unsettling thing. Not to mention that it wasn’t really like him to want a spot of time alone. He wasn’t the sort of man who appreciated solitude. He wasn’t like Howard. Howard actually sort of liked that he wasn’t like Howard.

Oh, first accuse him of never changing, then for an encore you ponder how he’s not quite himself. There’s the consistency of a Northerner for you.

“Shut up.” Howard bit his lip and walked to the window again, flipping aside the curtain and squinting into the dark. A wind had kicked up, stirring the tree branches and making it difficult for Howard to see where Vince was. Craning his neck, Howard strained his eyes until he thought they might pop out of his head. Was that Vince’s profile, or was it just some artfully jagged scenery?

“He’s really not himself at all, is he?”

“Oh, for God’s sa…” It took a half-sentence before Howard realised that the voice had spoken aloud rather than in his head. He whirled around, seeking out the source of the voice, but it wasn’t as if there were many places to look.

“Come on, Harold. There aren’t that many hiding places around here.” The voice was coming quite obviously from inside the tent.

“Yeah, I know that. And the name’s Howard, if you don’t mind. Howard T.J. Moon. And you, sir, can show yourself straightaway.”

“Cheers for the invite,” the voice said, clealy amused. The tent shuddered and squeaked as something rather large and cumbersome, from the sounds of it, tried to clamber out. It emerged with its fuzzy bum first, followed by a sloped back and long, ape arms. Then it popped upright and regarded Howard with greasepaint eyes.

“Bollo! Oh, God, Bollo!” Howard stiffened in horror and fascination. “Monkeys stole your face, Bollo, and, and… left you with a… human one?”

It was true. Bollo’s face—his entire head, in fact—was human, tiny as a grape perched on that furry mountain of a body. His sandy hair stood up in dampish peaks, and the black circles around his eyes gave him the look of a fiendish panda.

“Nah, it’s right here,” Bollo said, holding up his gorilla head. It had previously been tucked under his arm, like a helmet.

“Well, put it back on!”

“Do you know how hot this thing is?” Bollo protested, indicating his entire body. “You’re lucky I’m not completely naked.”

“Please, don’t say anymore,” Howard said, raising a hand to his mouth. “I’ll be sick.”

Bollo rolled his eyes. They looked very white and blue in all that black. “Quit being so dramatic. You’d think you’d have learned to expect the unexpected by now.”

“Why would I ever expect my good friend Bollo, the gorilla, to end up a short man in an ape suit?”

“I don’t recall us having ever been good friends,” Bollo said coolly, tossing his head onto the little sofa. “But fact is, I’m here to help you out.”

Howard regarded the gorilla-man with a little suspicion. “Your face… I feel like I’ve seen it before.”

Bollo shrugged. “You have.”

Knowledge flashed in the back of Howard’s head. “We talked about jazz!” he said, pointing triumphantly. “In the hotel pub, right?”

“We?” Bollo smiled. “That was you and Dave, not you and me.”

“You… why do you look like Dave, then?”

Bollo held up his hands and sighed. “It’s not my fault, see? None of this has a thing to do with me. But my head isn’t just hot, it doesn’t even fit anymore. Nothing around here fits. Haven’t you noticed?” He gestured around the hut.

“Don’t know what you mean,” Howard said, nervously licking the corners of his moustache.

“Right,” Bollo said, smiling thinly. “Fine. Be stubborn about it.” He turned to a shelf and ran his fingers over it, picking up a white-fringed scarf as he went. “Hm. Looks like your stuff doesn’t fit here anymore, either.”

Howard frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your records, your typewriter… it’s all gone missing, hasn’t it?”

“They’re around here somewhere. Back at the flat, maybe.”

Bollo laughed. “You are back at the flat. What’s left of it after everything’s collapsed in on itself, anyway.”

A little niggle of fear wormed its way into Howard’s heart, upping his pulse. “You may walk like a man, but you still talk like an ape,” he said, though his attempt at haughtiness fell flat.

“I know better than to try to argue with someone as mule-headed as you,” Bollo said with a little smirk. “So I’ll just tell you one thing. That man out there is not the Vince you know.” He pointed to the window, his face terribly and suddenly grim.

Howard swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Bollo’s smile was a little said. “Yes, you do. Or you will. Soon enough there’ll be nothing left of this place, and no room for you or me in it.” He moved past Howard then, his fur brushing across Howard’s bare arms and making him blanch. Had Bollo’s fur always been so synthetic?

Bollo stopped by the window and gazed out of it, his reflection as hollow-eyed as a prophet’s. “Did you notice there’s no moon tonight?” he offered, almost casually. “That’s because there’s no room for the moon when it’s all about one star.” The reflection lifted his eyebrow, cocked his head knowingly.

“Who cares?” Howard countered, the words as harmless as spoons. He’d like that Dave guy’s face a lot better when it had been spouting on about jazz.

Bollo turned around and met Howard’s gaze. “Don’t trust him.”

“What, and trust you instead?”

Bollo smiled faintly, then sighed. “No, I guess I couldn’t expect you to trust me. Who would you trust, then? Naboo? No, I know… Tommy Nooka.”

“No,” Howard said, averting his eyes.

“There has to be someone you trust, Howard.”

Howard let his eyes meet the man-gorilla’s again. Never before had he felt so certain before he spoke, and never before had he spoke with such certainty.

“Yeah, there is. And it’s Vince.”