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He swayed to a halt right before me, looked down his nose at me, ignored Suzie completely, which is never wise, and struck a dramatic pose.
“I am Percy D’Arcy!” he said. “The Percy D’Arcy!” He looked at me as though that was supposed to mean something.
“Good for you,” I said generously. “It’s not everyone who could bear up under a name like that, but you it suits. Now what do you want, Percy? I have some important drinking and brooding to be getting on with.”
“But...I’m Percy D’Arcy! Really! You must have seen me in the glossies, and on the news shows. It isn’t a fabulous occasion unless I’m there to grace it with my presence!”
“You’re not a celebrity, are you?” I said cautiously. “Only I should point out Suzie has a tendency to shoot celebrities on general principles. She says they have a tendency to get too loud.”
Percy actually curled his lip, and made a real production out of it, too. “Please! A celebrity? Me? I . . . am a personality! Famous just for being me! I’m not some mere actor, or singer. I’m not functional; I’m decorative! I am a dashing man about town, a wastrel and a drone and proud of it. I add charm and glamour to any scene simply by being there!”
“You’re getting loud, Percy,” I said warningly. “What do you do, exactly?”
“Do? I’m rich, dear fellow, I don’t have to do anything. I have made myself into a living work of art. It is enough that I exist, that people may adore me.”
Suzie made a low, growling noise. We both looked at her nervously.
“Your existence as a work of art could come to an abrupt end any moment now,” I said. “If you don’t leave off fancying yourself long enough to explain what it is you want with me.”
Percy D’Arcy pouted, in a wounded sort of way, and pulled over a chair so he could sit down facing me. He gave the seat a good polish with a monogrammed silk handkerchief first, though. He shot Suzie an uncertain glance, then concentrated on me. I didn’t blame him. Suzie gets mean when she’s on her second bottle.
“I have need of your services, Mr. Taylor,” Percy said stiffly, as though such directness was below him. “I am told you find things. Secrets, hidden truths, and the like.”
“Those are the kinds of things that usually need finding, yes,” I said. “What do you want me to find, Percy?”
“It’s not that simple.” He looked round the bar, looking at everything except me while he gathered his courage. Then he turned back, took a deep breath, and made the plunge. It was a marvellous performance; you’d have paid good money to see it in the theatre. Percy fixed me with what he thought was a commanding gaze and leaned forward confidentially.
“Usually my whole existence is very simple, and I like it that way. I show up at all the right places and at all the right parties, mingle with my friends and my peers, dazzle everyone with my latest fashions and devastating bon mots, and thus ensure that the occasion will be covered by all the right media. I do so love to party, and make the scene, and generally brighten up this dull old world with my presence. There’s a whole crowd of us, you see; known each other since we were so high, you know how it is . . . There isn’t a club in the Nightside that doesn’t benefit regularly from the sheer spectacle of our presence . . . But now it’s all changed, Mr. Taylor! And it’s not fair! How can I be expected to compete for my moment in the spotlight when all my friends are cheating? Cheating!”
“How are they cheating?” I said, honestly baffled.
Percy leaned in very close, his voice a hoarse whisper. “They’re staying young and beautiful, while I’m not. I’m aging, and they’re not. I mean; look at me. I’ve got a wrinkle!”
I couldn’t actually see it, but I took his word for it. “How long has this been going on?” I said.
“Months! Almost a year now. Though I’ve had my suspicions . . . Look, I know these people. Have known them all my life. I know their faces like I know my own, down to the smallest detail. I can always tell when someone’s had a little work done, around the eyes or under the chin . . . but this is different. They look younger, untouched by time or the stresses of our particular life-style.
“It started last autumn, when some of them began patronising this new health club, the Guaranteed New You Parlour. Very expensive, very elite. Now all my friends go there, and every time they appear in public, they’re the absolute peak, the very flower of beauty. Not a detail that isn’t perfect, no matter how dissolute their private lives may be. I mean, people like us, Mr. Taylor, we live . . . extreme lives. We experience . . . everything. It’s expected of us, so the rest of you can live the wild life vicariously, through us. Drink, drugs, debauchery, every night and twice on Saturday. It all gets just a bit tiring, actually. But anyway, as a result, we’ve all been in and out of those very discreet clinics that provide treatments for the kind of diseases you only get by being very social, or help in getting over the kind of good cheer that comes in bottles and powders and needles. We all need a little help to be beautiful all the time. A little something to help us soldier on to the next party. We all need damage repair, on a regular basis.
“But that’s all stopped! They don’t need the clinics any more, just this Parlour. And they all look like teenagers! It’s not fair!”
“Well,” I said reasonably, “If this Parlour is doing such a good job, why don’t you go there, too?”
“Because they won’t have me!” Percy slumped in his chair, and suddenly looked ten years older, as though he could only maintain his air of glamour through sheer effort of will these days. “I have offered to pay anything they want. Double, even triple the going rate. I begged and pleaded, Mr. Taylor! And they turned me away, as though I were nobody. Me! Percy D’Arcy! And now my friends don’t want me around any more. They say I don’t . . . fit in.
“Please, Mr. Taylor, I need you to find out what’s going on. Find out why the Parlour won’t let me in. Find out what they’re really doing behind those closed doors . . . and if they are cheating, shut them down! So I won’t be left out any more.”
“It’s not really my usual kind of case,” I said.
“I’ll pay you half a million pounds.”
“But clearly this is something that needs to be investigated. Leave it with me, Percy.”
He stood up abruptly, pulling his dignity back about him. “Here’s my card. Please inform me when you know something.” He tossed a very expensive piece of engraved paste-board on to the table before me, then stalked off back through the crowd with his head held high. A smattering of applause followed him. I picked up the card, tapped it thoughtfully against my chin a few times, and looked at Suzie.
“It’s something to do,” I said. “You interested?”
“I’ll come along,” said Suzie. “Just to keep you company. Will I get to kill anybody?”
“Probably not.”
Suzie shrugged. “The things I do for love.”
In the sane and normal world outside the Nightside, if you’re getting older and starting to look your age, there’s always cosmetic surgery and associated treatments. In the Nightside, the rich and the famous and the powerful have access to other options, some of them quite spectacularly nasty and extreme.
The Guaranteed New You Parlour was situated in Uptown, the very best part of the Nightside, offering only the very best services for the very best people. Suzie and I went there anyway. The rent-a-cops in their colourful private uniforms took one look at us and decided they were needed urgently somewhere else. The neon there was just as hot, but perhaps a little more restrained, and the clubs and restaurants and discreet establishments glowed in the night like burning jewels. And the lost souls filling the streets and squares were all pounding the pavements in search of a better class of damnation.