One thing I notice, he's still got the Compass Bug with him. It's dead, of course. Beetles don't live very long, do they? He keeps the dead thing in a matchbox. Keeps it in his pocket. He says to me that he's never going to throw it away, not ever. He reckons it's his way forward, his pointer. He says his needle is really spinning now, spinning fit to burst. That's good, as well. That's something. I can understand, or at least, I can say I do.
And all his new friends, and this Valerie, they all call him the Beetle now. That's his new name. The Beetle. That's good, isn't it? It suits him.
'Come on, Beetle,' says Valerie. 'Let's go do that feather.' Eliot pulls a feather out of his jacket. It's a blue one. He waves it in my face. He's laughing at me. I don't know where he got it from. And they set off together, him and his mates, and I don't know whether to follow or not.
FETISH BOOTH #7
He had no specific means of removal: no loaded gun, no carefully knotted noose, no dissolving of pills. Nothing so crude. Rather, he would lay himself open to circumstance. Somehow or other, the New Year's Eve celebrations would finish him. That's all he knew.
Apart from the ending, Fontaine's final day was well planned. At nine in the morning he awoke, heavy with last night's wine. He had a sliver of beef lodged behind a molar, which he niggled at with a furry tongue. Ten o'clock found him showered and shaved, and sprucely dressed as though for a business appointment or a romantic assignation. He took a late breakfast (full English with extra toast) in the dining hall of the Hotel Abyss. It was the first meal he had eaten outside his room.
He had arrived here from Manchester, only a week ago, and had refused all calls from the housekeeping staff, saying he could not be disturbed, even for a change of sheets. The occasional meal was to be left outside his door, along with copious amounts of alcohol.
As you can imagine, the sudden appearance of the guest from room 417 caused much speculation. He seemed normal enough, as he sipped his coffee and perused the morning's news. Some of the older staff remembered him from his better days, when the hair wasn't so thin, nor waist so thick, nor eyes so dim, and the voice not so bereft of song. One of them even approached him for an autograph, which was gladly given. Fontaine then paid his bill in full at the desk, and ventured forth. He had no luggage with him.
Informed that the occupant of room 417 had now left the
hotel, the unluckiest cleaner in the world was assailed by a terrible stench of decay. The hotel room as battleground: all the towels were stained with excrement and blood; the bed-sheets thick with dried semen; the obligatory watercolour landscapes hacked to ribbons; the screwed-down television smashed to pieces, as were all the mirrors. Broken wine bottles glittered the carpet; cigarette smoke mapped every drift of air. A slew of pornographic magazines covered the bed.
Ten thousand pounds, in loose notes, lay on a bedside table, with a brief letter thanking the staff.
By this time, Janus Fontaine was pushing through the crowds on Tottenham Court Road. London town, the seething city. A palpable expectancy that was easy to get lost in. The people were too busy buying cameras, camcorders and dictaphones to recognize him. Janus was captured on a thousand lenses as he walked along, but only as just another face on that momentous day.
He wandered along aimlessly, allowing the crowd to carry him into the maelstrom of Oxford Street. He visited five or six stores during this period, spending some time in each one. He didn't buy anything. The longest time was spent in one of the larger record shops. Only two of his seven albums were represented, and those only in the 'Rock Bottom' bargain section. Eventually he reached Marble Arch and Speakers' Corner; he listened, for a while. Then he took a light lunch at one of the better hotels on Park Lane, using a tiny sliver of the large roll of cash he had folded in his pocket. His last resources. The waiter couldn't stop looking at the lone diner, and eventually got up the courage to ask if he really were 'Janus Fontaine, the pop star?'
Janus smiled.
'Oh, my mother will be thrilled when I tell her.'
A time to take stock.
The Encyclopaedia of Popular Music has little to say about Janus Fontaine, unable even to give his real name. He was born in Manchester. His first single, 'Plastic Flowers', was a number-one hit around the world. As was the follow-up. Even the third single did well. Following a marketing scandal, his fourth single, 'Pixelkids Come Out Tonight', reached only number ninety-five in the charts. His fifth, 'Sooner Than Summertime', along with the album (his second) of the same title, disappeared without trace. Nothing was heard from him for ten years, when he started a long, arduous come-back campaign, this time as a serious, adult-orientated artist. He made a series of critically acclaimed albums for a small, obscure record label. None of them sold very well. Current whereabouts unknown.