Once More With Footnotes

AROUND.
     
                  "Can't say I've noticed you." And I w ould have done. You don't meet many seven-foot, seven-stone people every day, especially ones that walked as though they had to think about every muscle movement in advance and acted as though they were alive and dead at the same time, like Cliff Richard.
     
                  YOUR FRIEND HAS AN INTERESTING CHOICE OF MUSIC. "Yes. He's a collector, you know."
     
                  I KNOW. COULD YOU PLEASE INTRODUCE ME TO HIM? "Could I stop you?" I DOUBT IT.
     
                  All right, perhaps four cups. But the lady serving said there was hardly anything in it a t all except orange squash and home-made wine, and she looked a dear old soul. Apart from the Wolfman mask, that is.
     
                  But I know all the dancers were standing like statues and the music was just a faint buzz and there were these, all these blue and purple shadows around everything. I mean, drink doesn't do that.
     
                  Wayne wasn't affected. He stood with his mouth open, watching us.
     
                  "Wayne," I said, "this is — "
     
                  A FRIEND.
     
                  "Whose?" I said, and you could tell I didn't take to the person, because his flares w ere huge and he wore one of those silver identity bracelets on his wrist, the sort you could moor a battleship with, and they look so posey; the fact that his wrist was solid bone wasn't doing anything to help, either. I kept thinking there was a conclusio n I, ought to be jumping to, but I couldn't quite get a running start. My head seemed to be full of wool.
     
                  EVERYONE'S, he said, SOONER OR LATER. I UNDERSTAND YOU'RE SOMETHING OF A COLLECTOR.
     
                  "Well, in a small — " said Wayne.
     
                  I GATHER YOU'RE ALMOST AS KE EN AS I AM, WAYNE.
     
                  Wayne's face lit up. That was Wayne, all right. I'll swear if you shot him he'd come alive again if it meant a chance to talk about his hobby, sorry, his lifetime's work.
     
                  "Gosh," he said. "Are you a collector?"
     
                  ABSOLUTELY.
     
                  Wayne peered at him. "We haven't met before, have we?" he said. "I go to most of the collectors' meetings. Were you at the Blenheim Record Fest and Auction?"
     
                  I DON'T RECALL. I GO TO SO MANY THINGS.
     
                  "That was the one where the auctioneer had a heart attack."
     
                  OH. YES. I SEEM TO REMEMBER POPPING IN, JUST FOR A FEW MINUTES.
     
                  "Very few bargains there, I thought."
     
                  OH. I DON'T KNOW. HE WAS ONLY FORTY-THREE.
     
                  All right, inspector. Maybe six drinks. Or maybe it wasn't the drinks at all. But sometimes you get the feeling, don't you, that you can see a little way into the future? Oh, you don't. Well, anyway. I might not have been entirely in my right mind but I was beginning to feel pretty uncomfortable about all this. Well, anyone would. Even you.
     
                  "Wayne," I sai d. "Stop right now. If you concentrate, he'll go away. Settle down a bit. Please. Take a deep breath. This is all wrong."
     
                  The brick wall on the other side of me paid more attention. I know Wayne when he meets fellow collectors. They have these weekend ra llies. You see them in shops. Strange people. But none of them as strange as this one. He was dead strange.
     
                  "Wayne!"
     
                  They both ignored me. And inside my mind bits of my brain were jumping up and down, shouting and pointing, and I couldn't let myself be lieve what they were saying.
     
                  OH, I'VE GOT THEM ALL, he said, turning back to Wayne, ELVIS PRESLEY, BUDDY HOLLY, JIM MORRISON, JIMI HENDRIX, JOHN LENNON ...
     
                  "Fairly wide spread, musically," said Wayne. "Have you got the complete Beatles?"
     
                  NOT YET.
     
                  A nd I swear they started to talk records. I remember Mr. Friend saying he'd got the complete seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century composers. Well, he would, wouldn't