Introduction

I stood in the tube car, mesmerized. I don't know for how long I stood, I could not know, time, like nighthoover standing before me seemed somehow nonexistent.

'Hello I am nighthoover' repeated the figure before me, I almost came to from my mesmerized state and looked again at the figure.

It was still the same, so nondescript… a man? A woman? Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? All and yet none, all and more, yet none and less. It hurt my eyes to look upon the figure, and the figure gazed back, or was the figure looking at something else?

I turned instinctively and looked behind me, and it all went fuzzy again.

The tube station, the tube train, the figure, were they real? Was I really here? Where was I and what was I doing?

Yet again so many questions filled my head where there should have only been answers.
The bruise on teh back of my head where teh lycra clad guitarist had hit me with the Fender began throbbing and I passed out again.

Chapter 1

I was in the dark.

I don't know for how long, but it seemed ages have passed before I woke up.

It took me a while to realise I have woken up, because everything was still dark.

I opened my eyes.

I was still in the tube car, but nighthoover was gone. I had no idea where I was - all I could see through the windows was pitch black night. But that wasn't the first thing that drew my attention, because I was not alone.

In the far end of the car Pottsy was standing with the three suits that I saw before at the bar, holding a lantern in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

'Ah,' she said, 'I see you're up. Good.'

'Oh no, not again' I moaned from on the floor. I began to notice the pain, though at first its location seemed obscure.

Eventually it resolved itself to an electrical plug on teh floor, upon which I was lying. My eyes followed the lead that emerged from it, and had traced it some way when Pottsy spoke again.

'Pay attention, for once will you please pay attention and stop falling unconscious? It is beginning to get very boring.'

I blinked, and looked at Pottsy. She was being serious, no smirk, no smile, she was being serious, about what she was being serious, like normal, I had no idea.

It seemed that more so than when I was in the darkness itself, or perhaps especially when I wasn't, that in the light, the darkness and uncertainty seemed even more than the darkness and uncertainty and unanswered questions that plagued me in the dark did. This thought worried me, not least because of what it meant, but mainly because it also made no sense whatsoever, and didn't even 'read' as a proper sentence, or coherent thought. I gave up on it, and filed it away in that part of my memory marked 'unfounded thoughts and unanswered questions', which I noted was getting particularly full at the moment.

It felt like I was about to pass out again, but at that moment the gorillas grabbed me and hoisted me to my feet, and I stood, unsteady at first, but as my confidence grew I realised I was standing quite normally.

The bruise on the back of my head still hurt though, and I mentally cursed the lycra clad guitarist and his Fender Strat.

Pottsy looked down at me, then turned to her clipboard. 'You failed, buddy... big time. Nighthoover won't be coming back now that Semchevsky took over the town. What have you got to say for yourself?'

I mumbled. I muttered. I stammered. I just didn't know what to say. I could tell I wasn't making a very good impression by the look of obvious distaste in Pottsy's eyes. She tapped her clipboard impatiently, and then turned to the suits.

'Get rid of him,' she said, and the next thing I knew I was chucked out the window of the moving train.

Chapter 2

'Marshmallows.'

'Marshmallows.'

'Marshmallows.'

I contemplated saying it a further time, but by this point I imagined it would not help resolve the un-resolvable, it wouldn't help cure the incurable, and it wouldn't help, for sure, it wouldn't help cure the bacon.

I shook my head.

'Think, think, think' I mumbled to myself. I was unsure of many, well, almost all, things, but the one thing I was sure of was that I really wanted things to start making sense.

The time for things to make sense was getting close.

The time for things to make sense was now.

I opened my eyes again, and tried to think.

'Marshmallows.'

Damn!

'Marshmallows.'

What for Bob's sake was with the marshmallows?

Where was I?

Why did I recently have seemed to have hit a slump where the questions 'where am I', and 'why am I here', and 'how did I get here', and 'what for Bob's sake is going on', seemed to play a increasingly large part in my minds wonderings and thought-processes?

I tried a third time, this time with my eyes closed.

Ah ha! A train, Pottsy, nighthoover? Some things mustered themselves, and it felt as if my mind was getting ready for the final push.

'Over the top', I muttered, and then I remembered.

Adding insult to insult, adding assault to assault, I'd just been thrown out of a moving train.

Fine.

I seemed to be uninjured.

So what for Bob's sake was with the marshmallows?

I resolved that staying in a perpetual state of not knowing what was happening was a bad thing to do, and resolved to start finding answers.

I remembered that 'finding answers' was what had lead me to enter that train, to see… see what? Nighthoover? The figure, it seemed to haze and fade as I tried to picture it.

'Marshmallows.'

I acted.

I stood up and began acting, an old routine from a long-forgotten Broadway hit that had been the biggest thing since the last biggest thing, for about a week, some two years earlier.

I realised I was losing a grip again and I stopped acting, and started breathing, and looking about.

Marshmallows. Fine.

I was surrounded by, and indeed had been lying on marshmallows.

Fine.

I looked for a way out.

Perhaps an exit from here would lead somewhere where things would begin to make sense.
I realised that if 'things began making sense', I'd most probably be dead now, having been thrown out of the window of a moving train.

Well, if you can't beat them eat them, as my Grandfather used to say of eggs.

I closed my eyes, hummed slightly, and reached out in front of me and opened the door I knew wasn't there.

Chapter 3

Two minutes later and I was out on the street, though looking behind there was no indication from where I had joined the street, let alone what street, and perhaps more importantly, where this street was.

'Normality', whatever that was, seemed almost tangible, and I resisted the urge to do what I always seemed to do recently in such situations, I didn't faint, pass out, or fall into a lobster infested pit.

It began to rain.

I did what I always did when it was raining - I got cold, wet and miserable and trudged along the street looking for a shelter out of the rain. I came across a little café and got in.

'Morning luv, cani'elpya?'

There was something weird about that girl, but I couldn't put my finger on it. She looked absolutely normal for a waitress... short platinum-blonde hair, nose piercing, contemptuous expression... a really familiar contemptuous expression...

By Bob, she looked just like Pottsy! Give or take a few years, of course, and definitely take the nose piercing and hair dye, but otherwise exactly the same.

'Can I 'elp ya?!'

'No, no, I'm fine...' I mumbled. 'I'll just have a look at the menu.'

'A'right, thereyago.' She threw a menu my way and went away to chat with the guy on the other side of the counter.

I took another look at him... he also looked familiar. A quick search of my memory revealed he was a spitting image of one of Semchevsky's goons, only with longer hair and no broken teeth.

Horrified, I took another look at the place. Every single person in there looked like somebody I knew. I was about to freak out when I remembered my decision not to pass out again, and ordered a very large coffee instead.

As Pottsy – no, that was silly. As the waitress came back with the coffee my mind did a little flip, a small curtsy, and a kind of 'shuffle' dance, and I found myself asking for a plate of flatjack biscuits.

When the waitress returned I reached into my pocket, pulling out a few coins, and sending a couple of marshmallows to the floor.

I ignored the marshmallows, handed over the coins and found an empty table to sit at.

Once seated at the table I smelt the coffee, letting its hot steam sting my eyes, I breathed deeply, consciousnessly, and took my first sip of the strong black coffee.

The coffee was good, strong, bitter, hot, it felt good.

There was a pen on the table, and I picked it up, testing it on the edge of the napkin, and began to write down my thoughts.

After five minutes or so, and a couple more slurps of coffee, I looked at what I'd wrote:

1. I have no idea who Semchevsky is, other than
   
   A. I was hired to kill him.
   
   B. He is in with Pottsy.
   
   C. He doesn't carry a Fender Stratocaster or wear spandex.
   
   D. Pottsy hired me to kill him (this does not add up with Pottsy seeming to be in league with him).

2. Pottsy is after me, or has it in for me, this is because either
   
   A. I haven't killed Semchevsky (see above point in brackets, I think I thought that Pottsy had hired me to kill him, but this does not seem to add up.
   
   B. I am attempting to kill Semchevsky.

3. Nighthoover is the key.
   
   A. Does/did nighthoover own the hoover factory?
   
   B. is nighthoover alive?
   
   C. was it really nighthoover on the train and where did he/she go?

4. Dyson has taken over the nighthoover factory.

5. I have to get Dyson out of town and restore the indistinct, inimitable, ephemeral person on the train (nighthoover?) to the factory, and return Dysonville to Nighthooverville.
   
   A. why do I feel I have to do this?
   
   B. how can I do this?
   
   C. this does not make sense.

I read the list again.

Most of it still seemed foreign to me.

I looked up from the list on the napkin, and picked up my coffee cup, and suddenly noticed that I had been joined at the table by someone who didn't look like anyone I knew, this at least was a relief, a doubleganger of the motel room-service boy would have been too much to take and I'd probably have to had resorted to fainting or passing out again.

She caught my eye, smiled, and took one of my biscuits.

'errrrrr, help yourself' I mumbled.

It wasn't that she was good looking, it wasn't that she was beautiful, it wasn't that her chest did that nice up and down thing I liked so much.

It was that, for the time being at least, she didn't seem to want to kill me, drug me, tie me up, or otherwise mess with me.

I found myself smiling, and quickly regained my composure by taking a deep sip of coffee.

'This your first time in nighthoove- sorry, I mean Dysonville?' she asked.

'I've been here a while' I replied, 'I was here before it became Dysonville'.

I reached over and took a biscuit.

'How is life in town since Dyson took over the nighthoover factory?' I asked.

I was back on the game, I suddenly realised, things seemed to be looking up, my head felt better (well, except the constantly throbbing bruise where the spandex guitarist had beaten me more senseless than usual with the Fender), and things looked for the first time in a while like they might start making sense.

'This isn't a good place to talk' she whispered, moving closer, and doing that up and down thing again with her chest.

'Is it safe?' I found myself asking, and quickly resolved not to resort to any more cheap quotes from film and TV.

'I am on your side' she whispered, bending forward over the table in such a way as to obscure my vision of the up and down thing with her chest; no bad move, I was beginning to get distracted by her chest.

'I believe we both want to restore nighthoover, do we not?' she said, taking my napkin with the list on it and slipping it up her sleeve.

I finished my coffee, but before I could rise to leave, and subject this woman to some in-depth probing, the waitress had appeared, and refilled my cup.

'refills free today, mate,' she chirped, 'refills always free on Wednesday afternoon.' She smiled, and for a moment she lost the look of Pottsy, perhaps I was concussed from that bruise on the back of my skull, perhaps the lighting was bad, perhaps I was about to pass out again.

I pulled myself together, ate the penultimate biscuit, giving the final one to the girl at the table, and swiftly drained my coffee.

I felt good as I stood up, better than I had… than I had in… I realised I'd totally lost all notion of the passage of time, but I felt good, the coffee, the biscuits, the two saxophonists standing either side of the door, it felt good, better than it had in a long while.

I was almost at the doorway before I double-checked, I suddenly got the feeling I had thought a thought that didn't fit into the new found sobriety and logic I'd seemed to have found again in this café of doublegangers and girls who take my biscuits without asking.

I moved back through my thoughts, ignoring the elderly gentleman who pushed past me, getting into the café.

'Saxophonists.'

Yep, that was it, two saxophonists standing either side of the door outside.

'2 Saxophonists either side of the door', Yep, definitely that, that was the thing that didn't fit with the recently refound logic-and-sensible-things-happening-feeling, that I'd regained in the café.

I'd had my share of run-ins with musicians, I absently felt the bump on the back of my head.
I turned to the girl who had eaten some of my biscuits, nodded to her and gestured with my head towards the large window next to the door.

I turned, smiled at the saxophonists and threw myself out of the window of the café, hitting the street running and careering off along the road.

Chapter 4

The only problem was, this no longer seemed to be a street. Streets usually have more houses along the road, not so many trees... and undergrowth... and-

My train of thought was cut at this point, because I tripped over a tree stump and fell down on the grassy path I was now running along.

As I lay in the mud and grass on the tree stump my mind wheeled, did a little swoop and almost passed me out again. Luckily this time the coffee I had consumed seemed to prevent my immediate disappearance once more to unconsciousness.

I lay quite still. Would the saxophonists be chasing me? What had the girl who stole my biscuits done?

It was about this time I heard footsteps behind me, and I cursed, the obviously 'hit-me-here' region of my head was the bump on teh back of my skull where I'd been clouted by the Fender Strat, and I didn't think adding a saxophone to the list of weapon-instruments would help me any, but did I have the strength to get up?

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and the voice of the girl came to me as if from a very long way away....

'Don't believe anything you see.'

The girl pulled me up and smiled. 'I know it's strange, but you'll get used to it. Come this way.'

She started walking down the path and I followed her, not sure what all this was about. Only after some minutes I remembered to ask her for her name, since 'the girl that ate some of my biscuits' was too long and clotted up my mind every time I tried to think about what the hell was going on.

I said 'What's your name?'

Though, despite my best efforts, I hadn't managed to come up with a questioning line of any other nature which would result in my getting the correct information, her name, so I went traditional and asked.

She didn't respond, so I asked again.

'Sorry, I don't know your name, what is it?'

She stopped, turned and looked at me, her chest did that up and down thing again, and she sighed.

'You want to know my name?'

'Yes' I replied.

'Why?' She retorted.

'Because calling you "the girl that ate some of my biscuits" is not only a bit of a mouthful but not very, well, easy to use is it?'

'I suppose not' she said.

She turned and carried on. I smiled and carried on following her, and it wasn't for a few minutes of walking that I realised she still hadn't answered.

I shrugged, was her name important? Was any of this important? Had anything important happened since the marshmallows? In fact, had anything important happened since the drag act from those heavies in the hoover/Dyson factory? I wasn't sure, so I did what I normally did, ignored it for the time being.

I kept walking after the girl that ate some of my biscuits, that will be referred to from now on as the Girl, just to make things easier. As we went on the path got wider and more like a road, but I still had no idea where we were.

At some point, that looked exactly like any other point, the Girl turned away from the path into the wood, and for a while we made our way through the thick - and rather thorny - undergrowth. Then we stopped.

'What do you think you see?' asked the Girl.

I looked around - nothing but trees and annoying thorn bushes. And birds. And other sorts of forest-like stuff that are totally irrelevant at this point.

'Looks like we're in the wood' I answered carefully, not knowing what to expect.

'Good,' said the Girl, 'open that door please.'

I looked at where she was pointing, and was not exactly surprised to see an old rusty steel door that did not seem to lead anywhere. I opened it, and we stepped into the room.

I knew this room. It took me a little while to get my eyes used to the dark, but I recognised it right away. This was the room in the factory where Semchevsky caught me and tortured me with that horrible drag act. I shuddered.

Semchevsky, oh how I wish I'd never came across his low down dirty, drag acting face... But I had, and it had ended me up in this mess, just another mess in a long string of messes I tended to get myself into, the detective line of work is not good at the best of times, and this case had looked like the gem in the crown jewels.

Perhaps it was. How could I tell, doors appeared where no doors should be, waitresses began to look like people who wanted to kill me or hire me, and marshmallows appear from nowhere whilst at every corner a saxophonist or spandex clad guitarist tries to knock me out.

I sighed, and turned to the girl, who, sensing I was about to speak, spoke first.

'I'm Semchevsky's daughter. My name, well, I don't use it, but you can call me Bob'.

'Bob?' I asked quizzically.

'Yes, Bob, as in Bob.'

'Bob as in Bob' I repeated.

'Let's cut the parrot act mate, we need to get to the top of this whole fiasco'.

'But' I said.

'What' I continued.

'Who, But' I added.

'Don't you' I began to get the hang of this sentence.

'But, you, you, you do know I'm meant to be, well, "removing" your Father?'

'Good, pity you couldn't get it right to start with, would have saved a whole lot of marshmallows and not to mention the factory' she retorted firmly, and with a deft up and down movement of her chest.

I sat down, I tried to think, thinking wasn't going well, nothing seemed to be going well, I didn't even know if I were really safe here.

Bob came over, and passed a hot cup of steaming coffee she had maid over in teh corner.

'Thanks Bob' I said and took the cup of coffee and began hungrily drinking it.

Yes, 'hungrily' drinking it, it is of course mostly for food one has hunger, but I was more than slightly aware that the coffee in the café had been the only thing to have brought a mere glimpse of normality to my thinking, though it hadn't done much to remove homicidal musicians or streets that change to forests.

I finished the cup, and sat, looking at Bob, and her chest which kept doing that up and down thing.

'You ready?' She asked, and seeing me nod, Bob walked over to the back of the room to fetch something I couldn't quite see.

Chapter 5

I didn't have to wait long. I was just starting to think about another coffee when Bob came back, holding a smooth black box.

'This is the key' she said and opened it, revealing the oh-so-familiar Fender Stratocaster that hit me on the back of the head not very long ago.

'The key for what?' I asked, looking around, half-expecting another door to appear.

'The key for seeing things the way they really are' she answered, and fiddled with some switches.

The room flickered and then disappeared. I was sitting on a bed, and my suitcase was by the door... I was in the same motel room I booked into when I just got into town, and inside which I always found myself eventually.

I sat on the bed, stunned, confused, I thought back to teh Fender Strat Bob had taken from the case, this made the back of my head begin throbbing again, so I left that line of investigation for teh time being.

'See things as they really are'. I pondered this phrase, was it really the case that something odd was happening here in Hooverville/Dysonville, was it that it was inexplicably linked to the Fender Strat which had contacted the back of my head in such a painful way at the hands of that lycra clad guitarist?

I began to wonder what on earth the saxophones could do if the guitar could 'allow me to see things as they really are'.

I called down to the boy and got him to bring up the latest copy of the local broadsheet newspaper, and lay back on the bed reading the tittles of the main stories.

'Dyson Takeover Revoked by Justice Woolsley' read the main headline, and some way down,
'Hooverville name revived!'

I sighed, breathed deeply and called down for coffee.

This all seemed to make as much sense as it had done since I arrived, none whatsoever.

Had Bob really 'changed things' merely by playing about with teh Fender Strat? Were things really any different at all?

I tipped the boy.

I sat up and drank the coffee.

I looked round the room.

I hadn't noticed the Fender guitar, or at least I presumed it was, was lying in the corner, inside its case.

I rubbed my eyes, and went over and retrieved it, laying it on teh bed, before attempting to open the case.

It was indeed the Fender, but on a closer inspection I realised it wasn't a real guitar, just a good fake. On the back of it was a set of switches and dials, no labels, no idea what they were for - just switches and dials. I flicked a switch, just to see what happens, and found myself in the factory again.

'I see you got the point' said Bob and took away the Fender.

I definitely did not get the point. If anything, I was more confused than before, and not being able to know for certain where I was did not help at all.

'Alright,' I said to Bob, 'can you please explain to me, slowly, what is going on?'

She sighed. 'Oh come on, you're not that thick... you got it. Let's go, it's time.'

She turned a dial, pushed a few buttons, did a few other things, and we were somewhere else.

We were sitting on a park bench that stood on a patch of grass in the middle of an empty hangar. Actually, the hangar wasn't exactly empty - on the far side, right in front of us, was a car, an old Fiat 500.

Bob got up and smiled at me. 'Are you coming?'

I nodded, what choice did I have? I didn't know where I was, I didn't understand where I was, I didn't know where we were going, I didn't understand why we were going to wherever it was we were going, but, at the same time I seemed to have only teh vaguest of ideas as to where it was I had come to get here, and much less of an idea on how I'd come to be here.

This must have almost been teh moment where things really stopped making any kind of sense.

We climbed into the little car.

I sat in the passenger seat.

Bob turned the key in the ignition, started the car, then turned off the engine and got out, beckoning me to follow.

I got out.

I passed out again.

Chapter 6

When I woke up I knew I was hallucinating again.

It wasn't that I had no idea where I was or why - I was already getting used to that.

It also wasn't that wherever I was looked like the tackiest living room I've ever seen, with way too much stuff in gold and purple and leopard-skin.

It wasn't even the fact that the strange man from Slough with the silver suit was sitting across the room from me in a hideous leopard-skin armchair.

Something was wrong... I couldn't put my finger on it, but there seemed to be something wrong with my sight, or rather with what I was seeing. The lines and colours seemed too sharp, not exactly realistic, strange but still familiar, like something I saw on TV once or something.

Bob showed up, as suddenly as always, with a pot of coffee and three cups. 'You've met Rolf' she said simply.

I tried to think of an answer, but couldn't get my brain to work properly, and all I could finally come up with was 'something's wrong.'

'No' she answered.

'Yes. I'm hallucinating.'

'No you're not.'

'Yes I am. You look like a cartoon character.'

'I AM a cartoon character.'

'WHAT?'

'No time to explain. Drink your coffee and let's go.'

Well, that was more than I could handle. 'No,' I insisted, 'I want to know what's going on! I am obviously dumber than you think I am, and this time I ask you to sit down and explain to me nice and slow what the hell is going on and why I'm in a cartoon!'

'Alright' she sighed, and sat down.

She pulled over the guitar case, and began to talk.

'You were hired to take out a guy, right?'

'That at least is something I am fairly sure of' I replied.

'Good' she continued, 'You were, but you don't understand why, and the reason why is inexplicably linked with nighthoover, the hoover factory, Dyson, and the guitar in this case, and of course the fact, if I can call it a fact, that you are in a "cartoon", she leaned back a bit, and did that up and down thing with her chest again. If I were to stand any chance of understanding what she was saying I really needed to concentrate… I began drinking the coffee.

'Right, I was hired to take out that damn fool, and it went wrong, so, who was actually employing me to do this?'

'Yes, that will help. You were in reality hired by Dyson, for he wanted to take over the nighthoover factory.' She poured herself a cup of coffee.

'So Dyson could take over the town?'

'No, so nighthoover could return to the factory.'

My mind began a slight wobble.

'But, why get rid of nighthoover, to bring him/her back? And who is this nighthoover anyhow?'
I leant back and finished the coffee and poured another cup.

'Nighthoover is the one in charge of Dyson, you saw nighthoover I believe on that train that didn't exist?'

I began to wonder where this was all leading.

'But, hang on, who is nighthoover, and where is nighthoover? What has my being employed to take out that damn guy got to do with nighthoover, and why did Dyson want nighthoover to leave so he could then return nighthoover? This isn't making much sense. And what's with this "cartoon" rubbish?'

I looked round the room again, my mind tentatively checked out a few memories, and I hit on it – the room, the things in it, the girl Bob, and the bloke, well, perhaps not the bloke, were like something from a 1960's movie.

'Nighthoover wanted to leave the factory, but without nighthoover Dyson didn't have a competitor with which to discuss business over cheese and wine, you see its all linked by this guitar.'

Bob opened the guitar case, and I saw inside it again the guitar.

But hang on.

I looked at it again, it wasn't even a bloody guitar!

'Its, its' I tried to speak whilst my mind wheeled and turned, and drifted far overhead on a light breeze. 'Its a hoover!'

'Yes,' Bob replied, smiling slightly, 'So now you see, now you understand, nighthoover had to go so he could come back, but its all gone wrong somewhere, and we need to sort it out, me and you buddy, we need to find nighthoover, and that's why we are in a cartoon, and that is why I have this hoover to guide us.'

I stood up, looked again round the room, my mind was doing some strange things and thinking about what it was doing made it worse, so I stopped thinking.

At that moment, as I stopped thinking, the room disappeared, and I found myself once more back in the motel room, lying on the bed, with the Fender Stratocaster that was really the hoover, and Bob, sitting in the easy chair.

Things, I imagined, were most definitely afoot.