Free The Night Mayor by Kim Newman Page A

through his withered Chinese mask.
    ‘Mr Tunney,’ he gasped – mistaking me for someone else? – as he reached for me with a flailing hand. ‘Mr Tunney, don’t forget who you are. It’s important. Mr…’
    He fell back onto the Buddha, dead again.
    Tunney. The name meant something to me. It was as familiar almost as my own, but I couldn’t pin a face to it. I had a few nagging associations, a snatch of a song (‘Beautiful Dreamer’), a girl’s name (Lissa), and a big white room like a hospital ward.
    The driver was still laughing. Chinatown was too hot even for me. I swore I’d never go back.

8
    T he bard was striding along the Boulevard, cloak wrapped tight against the rain, iron-tipped stick striking sparks from the sidewalk.
    He had woken from his walking death a while before, in the middle of a quote from
Coriolanus
. It was his habit to patrol the streets of the City, declaiming the Gospel according to Shakespeare to passers-by, emoting his way through the great speeches in the hope of earning a few drinks. In his time, he had been a poet, a preacher, a cowhand, a scientist, an adventurer, a hobo. Now he was the Bard of the Boulevard. He was known in every bar and diner in town, and tolerated in most.
    Like everyone in the City, he had been as one dead. His creator had fashioned him from clockwork and set him to go through the motions of living without giving him the actual breath of life. He had followed his script, fulfilled his stereotyped purpose, but never really acted of his own accord. He had been one of the supporting players of the City, a Harmless Eccentric.
    ‘He wants nothing of a God but eternity and a Heaven to throne in,’ he shouted at Gail Russell, frightening the girl off the street. Good job too, a young thing like her oughtn’t to be out late on a pestilential night like this.
    It struck him like fire, and the scales were lifted from his eyes. Surrounded by enslaved automatons, he was a free man. For the first time, he felt – really
felt
– the rain in his face, the weight of his stick, the pull of his waterlogged cloak.
    He stopped reciting, he stopped walking. He nearly stopped breathing. Given unexpected control of his lungs, he spluttered and drew breaths until his body took over. He bent double, hugging his thin chest inside his cloak, then drew himself up to his full height.
    His heart beat, and his wet hands ached.
    It came to him as a Revelation, descending upon his mind in all its complex glory, that there was a man in the City in need of his help, and that the man – his name didn’t matter – would free everyone as this awakening had freed him.
    In an instant he had decided. He would find this man, help this man. The City would be free, whether it wanted to be or not.
    With an added purpose in his step, he continued on his way, returning to
Coriolanus
with renewed vigour.
    Above him, in the night, eyes twinkled.

9
    T helma Ritter, the woman behind the counter in Kelly’s, looked at me sideways when I paid for doughnuts and coffee with a wet hundred-dollar bill. But she still made change. On the jukebox, the Ink Spots were crooning ‘Don’t Get Around Much Any More.’ The song reminded me of my ex-wife, only the group were trying for wistful melancholy and my associations were screaming nightmare.
    ‘How d’you like your java?’ Thelma asked, a Brooklyn croak in her voice.
    ‘As it comes.’
    She sloshed coffee into an uncracked cup and disinterred two doughnuts from their sugared resting place under glass. I sipped the black brew, my body tense, waiting for the tug at my arm. Flashing that kind of money in this kind of joint could lead to either of two things, a uniformed policeman or a chippie. The doughnuts were okay, and the coffee helped with the fog in my brain. I bought a pack of cigarettes – the brand an indistinguishable smear – and lit one up. Outside in the street, a few cars cruised. From my stool, I’d be able to see anyone coming into the