by Glen Cook
I went into the room. Dean waited outside. He won’t go in unless he has what he considers a compelling reason. “I’ll keep an eye on those brigands, Mr. Garrett.”
“You do that.” I faced the Dead Man. “So, Old Bones. You will wake up to save your own skin. Now I know how to get your attention. Light a fire under you.”
Garrett, you plague upon my final hours, what have you brought down upon my house this time?
“Nothing.” It was going to be one of those discussions.
Then why are those maniacs pitching bombs at me?
“Those boys outside? Hell. They don’t even know about you. They’re just having fun trying to burn my house.”
Garrett!
“I don’t have the slightest idea. You want to know, poke around in their brains.”
I have. And I have found a fog. They did it because they were told to do it. They believe they need no other reason than the will of the Master. They were joyful because they had been entrusted with a task that would please him.
“Now we’re cooking. The Master? Who is he? Where do I find him?”
I can answer neither question. It may not be possible. I do not exaggerate when I tell you it is their express and certain belief that the Master they serve has neither form nor substance and manifests himself only where and when he chooses, in any of a hundred forms.
“He’s like a ghost or spirit or something?” I wasn’t going to say the word god.
He is a bad dream that has been dreamed by so many so intensely that he has gained a life of his own. He exists because will and belief compel him to exist.
“Woo-oo! We’re getting weird here.”
Why did you stir these madmen up, Garrett?
“I didn’t stir anybody, Chuckles. They stirred me. Out of the blue, for no reason, somebody has been trying to send me off. Crazy stuff has been happening all over. Especially in the Dream Quarter. Maybe I ought to catch you up on the news.”
I am supremely uninterested in your squalid little slithering’s through the muck and stench of this cesspit city, Garrett. Save it to impress the tarts you drag under my nose to harass me.
So, he was crabbed about Jill. He doesn’t like women much. Having one in the house will set him off every time. Tough.
“So we’re going to go straight from the snooze stage to the sulks, eh? Saves us time on courtesy and catching up on the latest adventures of Glory Mooncalled. We’ll just wake up and act like a cranky three-year-old.”
Don’t vex me, Garrett.
“The gods forefend! Me be vexatious? With my angelic disposition?” I didn’t like this.
We go at it tooth and claw but it’s always a game. There was a dark undercurrent of hostility this time. This wasn’t play. I wondered if he was moving into some new and darker phase of being dead. Nobody knows much about dead Loghyrs, or even much about live ones for that matter since both kinds are so damned rare.
You have had the benefit of my wisdom and instruction long enough to stand on your own legs now, Garrett. There is no justification for your incessant pestering.
“There isn’t any for your freeloading, either, but you do it.” My temper was shorter than I’d thought. “The Stormwarden Raver Styx wanted to buy you a while back. She made a damned good offer. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so damned sentimental.”
I stepped out then, before the foolishness got out of hand. I looked for Dean. He was watching the street. The firebombs had burned out. With no entertainment to be had the crowd had dispersed. But the bombers were still there, rigid as lawn ornaments. “Help me carry one of those guys in so I can ask him what he was doing.” I opened the door.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” No Mr. Garrett anymore. He’d stopped being scared.
“No. I’m never sure of anything. Come on … Damn his infantile soul. Look at that.”
The Dead Man had turned loose. The bombers were running like frightened mice.
Even in my anger I didn’t really think he’d let go out of spite. He’s long on argument but he’s also long on sense. My guess was he’d hoped I could track them to their hideout. Which meant he hadn’t taken a close enough look at me.
I couldn’t fault the reasoning but I couldn’t carry it off, either. I didn’t have any energy left. Too much activity, not enough rest.
I shrugged. “The hell with them. I’ll settle up with them pretty soon, anyway.” Garrett whistling in the dark. “Ask Miss Craight to come to my office. Then bring me a pitcher of beer. Then cook supper. Bring it when it’s ready. She knows what’s going on. It’s time to squeeze a little blood out of that stone. Why the hell do you keep shaking your head?’’
“Jill left shortly after you did. She said to tell you she was sorry for the trouble she’d caused you. She hoped your retainer would make up for it. Before you ask, yes, she sounded like she wouldn’t be back. She left a note. I put it on your desk.”
“Beer and dinner, then, and I’ll question the note.” Nothing was going to stay still long enough for me to grab it.
I went to the office, planted myself, put my feet up, and waited until I had beer before I opened Jill’s note.
Garrett:
I really did have a crush on you. But things happened and that little girl’s heart petrified. She is only a bittersweet memory, cold copper tears. But thank you for caring.
Hester P.
I leaned back, closed my eyes, and considered the snow queen.
The little girl wasn’t dead yet. She was hiding, way back somewhere, afraid of the dark, letting Jill Craight take care of the business of staying alive. The little girl wrote that note. Jill Craight wouldn’t have been able. I don’t think she’d have thought of it.
With a few beers inside, then a decent supper stacked in on top, Garrett turns halfway human. I asked Dean to stay late again. Over more beer I told him the whole story, not because he needed to know but because I knew the Dead Man would be listening. If he wouldn’t take my news direct he’d get it this way.
I’d try to talk to him in the morning, when I was rested and feeling civil and he’d had a chance to contemplate his sins.
I set a record falling asleep.
27
I didn’t set any record staying asleep, though I did get in four hours of industrial-weight log-sawing before Dean interceded. “Hunh? Wha’zat? Go way.” Other highly intellectual remarks followed. I don’t wake easily.
“Mr. Dotes is here,” Dean told me. “You’d better see him. It’s important.”
“It’s always important. Whoever it is or whatever it is, it’s always more important than whatever I want to do.”
“If that’s the way you feel, sir. Pleasant dreams.”
Of course it was important if Morley had bestirred himself enough to come over personally. But that didn’t touch off any fires of enthusiasm.
It just isn’t good to ask me to do more than one thing at a time. And right then sleeping was the skill I was honing.
Dean came back after only a flirtation with retreat. “Get up you lazy slob!”
He knows how to get me started — just get me mad enough to want to brain him.
His technique is somewhat like the way I get the Dead Man started.
Rather than endure his harassment I got me up and halfway dressed and headed downstairs.
Dean had Morley settled in the kitchen, where he was drinking tea and commiserating with the old man over the trouble he was having getting his gaggle of nieces decently — or even indecently — married and out of his house. Dean nattered on about how they were driving him crazy. I think he has some notion that someday I’ll feel guilty enough to take one of them off his hands.
I suggested, “Why not sell them?”
“What?”
“They’ve got some good years on them yet. And they’re all good cooks. I know a guy might give fifty marks apiece. He sells brides to the guys who hunt and trap up in thunder lizard country.”
“Your sense of humor leaves somethi
ng to be desired, Mr. Garrett.” He used his admonitory “Mister.”
“You’re right. I’m not at my best lately. Not getting enough rest, I think.”
“You can relax now,” Morley told me. “Your nemesis, Jerce, got excited and lost his head a while ago.”
The way he made a joke of it I suspected he’d had something to do with that.
It is his line and he’s the best there is. And two thousand is enough to get his attention.
Maybe I should have been grateful. But grateful doesn’t come easy for most people and my mood was too black to make me the rare exception. I kept it bottled up. I kept most of my sour in there with it, too, though. I didn’t need to hand out more excuses for folks to get ticked off at Garrett. So I just hinted. “I wonder what he could have told me.”
Morley scowled. “What difference does that make? He’s a closeout. You can get on with your life without watching over your shoulder.’’
“Want to bet?”
He gave me an ugly look.
“Sorry. Bad choice of words. What I mean is, he wasn’t the source. He was an agent of the source. Unless his getting killed is enough to scare them off, we’ll both hear from them again. I don’t have the faintest idea what they’re up to, but they’re serious about it and they’re not worried about the costs or consequences.”
Morley wanted to disagree but had no facts. He was wishful thinking and he knew it.
I asked, “What became of the guy who was following me?”
“I put Puddle, Wedge, and Slade on him. They followed him following you here. He tried to talk to some men who were part of the excitement. They decided to each take one and see what happened.”
I know my Morley Dotes. He was stretching it out because he didn’t want to get to the bad news. “So what happened?”
“Puddle and Wedge lost their men. Slade hasn’t reported back yet.”
So the big news was that there was no news. “Odd. Those guys strike me as amateurs.”
Morley shrugged. “Even an amateur is hard to stay with one-on-one.”
True. A decent tail job needs at least four men.
Somebody pounded on the front door. I told Dean, “I’d better,” and wondered what it was now. I’d just started wondering how I could ease Morley out and now somebody else wanted in. Jill, I figured, after some thinking about being a walking target.
I peeked before I opened up.
There were no gorgeous blondes on Garrett’s stoop this time, panting for protection. This was an ugly, little old Magister who was very unhappy.
I opened up and checked to make sure nobody would come speeding in behind him. “Come in. I’d given up on you.” Actually, I’d forgotten he’d said he’d be coming.
He pushed inside. “Those morons! Those shortsighted fools! They force me — me! — to sneak out in the dark, like a thief, because they’re too scared to let me out on my own.”
What the hell? At least he wasn’t mad at me. I guided him into my office, planted him in the good chair, got some lights burning, and asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Brandy. In a jar. I haven’t gotten blotted since I was in the seminary. If ever there was an appropriate time, it’s now.”
“I’ll find something.” I hustled into the kitchen. Dean and Morley had heard enough to keep them quiet.
Dean had drawn my pitcher and was digging for a bottle of brandy. Morley tried to look like he’d explode if I didn’t whisper a name. I didn’t. He stayed in one piece. I grabbed everything and headed for my office.
We got comfortable. Peridont poured himself some brandy, sipped, looked surprised. “Not bad.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it.” I wet my whistle. “I gather things aren’t going well.”
“To understate. My brothers in God are cowards. I presented my information and suspicions and instead of responding vigorously, with the full power of the Church, they’ve chosen to turn their backs and hope the whole thing fades. They’ve withdrawn permission for me to employ you. They’ve enjoined me from telling you anything. They’ve done their damnedest to sew me up, to tie my hands, to shut my mouth, knowing I can’t possibly disregard canon law after having spent a career enforcing it.”
“In other words you came over to tell me to forget it instead of to point me in the right direction.”
He smiled. The nasty man of legend shone through. “Not quite. They overlooked a possibility. They didn’t rape away my rights as a private person.”
I tried my eyebrow trick. This time it worked.
“Mr. Garrett, they failed to overrule my right to, say, employ an investigator to look into the death of Wesley Pigotta. I give you that as your express brief. Whatever else you stir up, well, that’s beyond my control.”
I smiled back. “You think as sneaky as a lawyer. I like that. In this case.” I put the smile away. “How blind do I have to fly?”
“Almost completely. They sewed me up on that. You already know enough to realize you have to be careful. You’re well grounded in the basic information. You’ll have to develop from that. Once you flush the villains we can put our heads together again. My brethren might be moved by an opportunity for a quick resolution.”
I don’t like that kind of game. But I smiled and pretended. I wanted to stay on good terms with him. He could be helpful even while playing mental chess to get around telling me anything. “All right. I’ll play along.” That had been my intention no matter what he wanted. “Is there anything you can give me?”
He took a long pull of brandy. He was serious about getting ripped. He grinned and tossed a bag of money my way. A big bag. “My own money. Not Church money.” He sobered a little. “The only thing I can tell you is that the woman who occupied the apartment where Pigotta died was my mistress. I knew her as Donna Soldat. I think that was a false name. She was a difficult woman. Though I kept her in style she had other lovers. One of those men may have been why Pigotta went there that night.”
I asked him some standard questions about his relationship with Jill and got some ordinary, sleazy answers. They embarrassed the hell out of him.
“I’m sure this is all more amusing than sordid to you, Mr. Garrett. I’m sure you see worse every day.”
Right.
“For me it was a traumatic surrender to my sinful side.” He took a long pull of brandy. He was drinking straight from the bottle now. “I’ve always suffered from a weakness for female flesh.”
“Don’t we all.”
He scowled. “That wasn’t a problem when I was younger. If I visited a prostitute and she found me out, she’d laugh. Priests are their best customers. But if I were found out now I could be destroyed.”
I understood. It was not that it would make him a better or worse person, but it would be a tool that could be used to bludgeon him.
“I wrestle the demon within but in the end I always lose, so discreet women are a must. Donna was a godsend. Whatever her faults, she kept her mouth shut.”
She did that. “Did she know who you were?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot of power to hand a working girl.”
“It was accidental. And she never abused it.”
Maybe. “How did you meet her?”
“She was an actress. Working in a playhouse on Old Shipway. I saw her. I wanted her. She led me on a long chase but persistence paid off.’’
For both of them. But I didn’t say that.
“I moved her into that place barely three months ago. It was less dangerous to visit her there. Those were three happy months, Mr. Garrett. And now all this.”
He finished the brandy. He looked the sort to become a maudlin drunk. I didn’t need that. I had no time to feel sorry for anybody but me. It was time to start easing him toward the door. “How should I get in touch?”
“Don’t try. I’ll find a way to see you.” Suddenly, he was as ready to leave as I was to have him go. The beer had me too sleepy to concentrate. He started t
oward the door. “Good luck, Mr. Garrett. And thank you for a fine brandy, though I cheapened it by swilling it like bottom-grade wine.”
I got him out the front door, locked up, and hurried back to see how many marks could be stuffed into a bag a little bigger than my clenched fist.
Morley invited himself in as I got started. “What was that, Garrett? He was weird.”
“A client who prefers to remain anonymous.”
He didn’t like that. Like everybody else, he thought I should make an exception and trust his discretion.
“I don’t want to seem impolite, Morley. But I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
“I can take a hint, Garrett. Let me say good night to the old man.”
“Go ahead.”
A minute later, as I took the money to the Dead Man’s room, I overheard him giving Dean advice about how to adjust my diet so I wouldn’t be tired and cranky all the time.
Good old Morley, looking out for my well-being behind my back. If Dean started trying to feed me salads and bean curd, I’d strangle them both.
28
I closed the door behind Dotes, bolted up, leaned against the door frame and sighed. Now back to my dreams of blonde sugarplums. I’d stay with them a while. No need to be a fanatic about getting an early start.
Then I recalled that I hadn’t tried to straighten things out with Tinnie. The longer I let that slide, the more difficult it would be. And I really needed to find Maya and apologize to her.
There are only so many hours.
The street was so quiet I heard the hollow, echoing clop-clop of horse approaching, the metallic rattle of iron rims on cobblestones. I listened. There isn’t much vehicular traffic after dark. It advertised the fact that here was somebody worth robbing.
The sound died.
My heart sank, though there was no obvious reason it should.
I went to the kitchen to see if Dean could use some help. Maybe I’m a little psychic and sensed there was no point in trudging upstairs.
Someone pounded on the door. The knock had a ring of determination, as though whoever was there had no intention of going away.