by Glen Cook
“Maya!”
“What do you care, Garrett? You’re not interested. He looked like he might know how to have a good time.”
Damn them all! I swear, before they let them go into puberty, they make them sign a contract in blood saying they’ll cause us all the aggravation they can. “Give me a break, Maya. At least give me a chance to get used to the idea of you being a woman.”
That put a smug look on her face. She chalked up six points for Maya on her secret scoreboard.
The majority of nearby businesses catered to spectators rather than participants. My stomach did a little growl and knot at the thought of Jill Craight starring in one of those shows.
Nothing is impossible, of course. I just didn’t like it.
I didn’t have much trouble believing it. The woman obviously had mental problems. I could see her making the kinds of connections that would convince her she was fit for nothing else. The human mind does weird things.
What amazes me is that we manage to cope as well as we do, that the race not only survives but manages to make the occasional stumbling advance. Maybe there is a force greater than ourselves, an engine driving us toward greatness.
It would be comforting to know my species is destined for something that will outshine its past and present. The Church, the Orthodox sects, all the Hanite cults and factions and denominations, offer that hope, but they’ve surrounded it with so much bullshit and in so many cases have given in to worldly temptations which act against the hope, that they’ve forfeited any right to guide us toward the brighter day.
Maya snuggled a little closer, as though the evening breeze had begun to bite. “What’re you brooding about, Garrett?”
“The Sons of Hammon as a committed entropic force, convinced that our proper destiny is oblivion.”
She leaned back and looked me in the eye. “You trying to shit me? Or are you just talking dirty?”
“No.” I started to explain. After a minute she snuggled up again, got hold of my hands, and rested her cheek on my shoulder. She grunted in the right places to show she was listening. I’m sure we made a touching picture.
After a bit I said, “We got to get our minds back on business.” I had to anyway. The little witch was getting to me. “You know anything about this area?”
“There’s a lot of freaks.”
I didn’t need to be told that. I have pretty fair eyesight.
Six of the nearer buildings hosted live shows. Several more were havens for those who provided special services. A few seemed to be genuine residential hotels. And there was one place I couldn’t pin down at all.
It had no barker. It had no sign. It had no heavy traffic, but in the time we’d been sitting, five men and a woman had entered the place. Four had come out. Only one had shown the furtiveness which characterizes a move toward an act considered perverse. Those who had come out had looked pleased and relaxed, relieved, but not in the way the sexually sated do.
“What about that place?” I pointed. “Know it?”
“No.”
Curiosity had a hold of me. A lamplighter was working his way toward us, pushing his cartload of scented oils from post to post, topping things up and lighting the parti-colored lights that lend Tenderloin evenings a sleazy mask of carnival. When he stopped at the lamppost at the end of the bench I opened my mouth to ask about the place that intrigued me.
Maya elbowed me in the ribs. “My turn, remember?”
She got up.
It must be something they get in their mother’s milk. I’ve never seen a woman yet who couldn’t turn on the heat when she wanted. She whispered. The lamplighter’s eyes took fire without help from his match. He nodded. She touched him over the heart and let her fingertips slide over a half foot of his jacket. He grinned and looked at the place that caught my eye. Then he saw the deaf barker looking daggers his way.
He ran out of words before he spoke. He turned stupider than an ox. I told Maya, “I’m getting irritated. Let’s go.”
I got up, took her hand, headed for the entrance to the curious place.
The barker saw my intent and abandoned his post. He hustled up the street, planted himself in my path. I told him, “Friend, you’re getting on my nerves. In about two seconds I’m going to break your leg.”
He grinned like he hoped I’d try. Maya said, “Garrett, be careful.”
I looked around. Half a dozen natives were closing in. They looked like they’d been deprived of the pleasure of stomping somebody for a long time. But my angels were moving in behind them, and Saucerhead was leading the pack. He could handle this bunch by himself. I told the barker, “Move it or lose it, Bruno.”
“You asked for it. Take him.”
Saucerhead smacked a couple of heads together. Wedge cracked a couple more with a club. The barker’s eyes got big. I asked, “You ready to move?”
Saucerhead said, “Garrett, you got to quit this crap. You’re going to start a riot.”
The barker’s eyes popped. He had a nasty suspicion. “You the Garrett that works for Chodo?” He stepped out of the way. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Saucerhead rumbled. “Yeah, Garrett. Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because I don’t care what Chodo claims, I don’t work for him. I work for me.” I had to keep that point clear for my own peace of mind.
The barker said, “You understand, I didn’t know you was working for Chodo. We get all kinds down here. I wouldn’t of give you no shit if you’d told me.”
It was going to be a long fight, shaking loose from that tie. “Look, all I want to do is go in there and see what goes on.”
The barker said, “You was asking about some blonde bitch. What you want to know? If I can help …”
And Saucerhead, at the same time, said, “I come down here to tell you Morley needs to see you. Says he got some news for you.”
“Good for Morley. If you’ll all excuse me?” I pushed past the barker and headed inside. Maya stuck close and kept her mouth shut. Good for her, too.
38
The door to the place was unlocked. Maybe it couldn’t be locked. It sagged in its frame. Inside there was a scrawny old guy in a rickety chair shoving sticks into a stove. It was hot enough to broil steaks but he was grumbling about the cold. He was one giant liver spot. “Drop it on the counter,” he said, not bothering to look up.
“What?”
He looked, then. At me, then at Maya. His brushy white eyebrows wormed around. “You together?”
“Yes.”
“Well, whatever. Have to charge you. Six marks silver. First time? Take any box where the curtain is open. You don’t like what you get, you can move once on the house. You still ain’t satisfied, it’s another mark every move until you light.”
I put the money down. He went back to feeding the fire. Maya gave me a puzzled look. I shrugged and stepped up to a curtained doorway.
It opened to reveal a long hallway. A half-dozen curtained alcoves opened to either side. Four had their curtains drawn. We walked down the hall and back. I heard soft voices behind the drawn curtains. Where the curtains were open there was nothing but a chair and a table pushed against a wall of glass. There was nothing behind the glass but darkness.
“What is this place, Garrett?”
“I guess if you have to ask you don’t belong here.” I led her into the nearest open room and drew the curtain. The place was five feet deep by six wide and very dark with the curtain closed. I felt for what looked like a pull cord and gave it a tug. Bells tinkled somewhere overhead, muted. A light appeared high on the other side of the glass.
A well-dressed and impossibly beautiful woman came down a spiral staircase into an eight by twelve room that might have been a lady’s bedroom transported from the Hill. It was a set, obviously, but just as obviously perfect in every detail.
“Garrett,” Maya whispered, “that woman isn’t human. She’s pure high elf.”
I saw it but I didn’t believe it. Who ever heard of
an elfish whore? But Maya had it right. She was elfish, and so damned beautiful she hurt my eyes.
She began to undress as though unaware that she was being observed, pulled a chair up to a table facing the glass from the far side, then sat in her under things. She began removing makeup slowly. The glass must be a mirror on her side.
Maya pinched me. “Stop panting. You’ll fog the glass.”
The elfish woman heard something. She cocked her head quizzically. She asked, “Is someone there?”
That was a voice men could kill for. I didn’t know her from dog food. I like to think I’m as hard-nosed a cynic as they make, but I had no problem imagining that silver-bells whisper on my pillow, sending me whooping through the teeth of Hell.
She stood up and slipped out of another layer of clothing.
Maya said, “I’m not going to ask what this one has that I don’t.” She sounded awed.
I was petrified.
“Is someone there?” she asked again.
I reached out and touched the glass. A sound-permeable glass that could be seen through from one side only? Someone had invested heavily in some very specialized designer sorcery. And I could see the touch of genius in it. This mundane bit of voyeurism and pretense was a hundred times as erotic as any crude stage coupling of women with one another, nonhumans, apes, or zebras. And the main reason was the natural talent of the woman behind the glass. She turned every move into something ripped out of a blazing fantasy.
She touched the glass where my fingertips rested. “That’s all right. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want.” It felt like my fingers were pressed to a grill.
I wanted. I wanted desperately. I was in love. And I was as tongue-tied as a twelve-year-old with designs on someone Maya’s age.
I yanked my hand away.
I didn’t know what to do.
Maya stepped in. “Who are you?”
“I’m whoever you want me to be.” She registered no surprise at a woman’s voice. “I’ll be whatever you want. I’m your fantasy.”
Yes. Oh, yes.
She started on the last layer of clothing.
I turned around. I couldn’t handle it, not with Maya there.
I wondered if there was some drug in the air, or maybe a subtle sorcery that enhanced the normal magic of a beautiful woman disrobing.
I knew what kind of acting Jill did. She’d be a natural here. She had the looks, she had the style, and she had the heat when she wanted. Put her in one of those rooms, and she could be bewitching.
I rested my hand on Maya’s shoulder, whispered, “I’m going to check the other boxes.”
She nodded.
When I stepped out only two sets of curtains were drawn. A man was just leaving. I went up and down the hall quickly. Four of the empties had signs up indicating there would be no response if you rang. I guessed the place was a twenty-four-hour operation and only one woman used a setup. Most would be on duty now because the Tenderloin was headed into its busy hours.
I rang a bell and conjured a redhead who reminded me of Tinnie but wasn’t Jill Craight. I got out before she worked a spell on me.
The old man was in the hall. He looked at me quizzically. I dropped coins into his hand. “I’m going to take the tour.”
“Suit yourself.” An old veteran of the Tenderloin. No surprises. None of his business what I did as long as I paid.
Each woman was as marvelous as the last but none were Jill. I even waited out the occupants of the two busy boxes. One of the ladies wasn’t Jill and the other put out her sign and refused to answer her bell.
Twelve possibilities whittled down to five. I considered working on the old man, discarded the idea. Unless I wanted to sit on him he’d warn Jill that somebody was asking questions. I knew where to look now. All I needed to do was come back until I’d seen them all.
I went back to box one. Maya and the elfish woman were chattering like sisters. The woman had her clothes on. Just as well. There are limits to what a man can take.
Maya glanced back to make sure it was me. “I’m almost done. Time’s up anyway.”
They exchanged a few pleasantries in a way that made me suspect I’d interrupted some girl talk. Maya got up and leaned close, whispered, “You have to leave a tip. That’s the way they make their money. The old man keeps what he takes.”
Except for the kingpin’s cut, of course. Which would come out of the tips, too.
“Where?”
Maya showed me a slot in the tabletop which was the only way to pass objects from one side of the glass to the other. I rilled it with a generous sprinkle of silver. I wasn’t out much. It had come from the kingpin to begin and some of it might have gone to him from here.
Maya squeezed my arm. She was pleased with me. I figured the woman had run a good game on her. I led her out of there.
A man was coming in the front door as I parted the hall curtains for Maya. I caught only a glimpse of a little dink with a shiny head and an epic schnoz. He froze. Maya froze. I walked into her. We tangled. When we untangled he was gone. “What the hell?”
“That was him, Garrett. He recognized me.”
“That was who?”
“The guy that was in that apartment. The one that ran me over.”
The old man fed his fire. He saw nothing. He heard nothing.
That runt had some eye if he’d recognized this Maya as the filthy girl who’d been in that apartment.
I plunged into the street and saw a lot of what the old man saw inside. The dink was a magician. Or maybe he was just so short he couldn’t be spotted in the crowd.
It’s carnival every night down there. I have to admit it’s not all whoring and sleaze. There are tamer entertainments. Hell, two doors from where I stood there was a bingo hall with the vanguard of its regiment of old ladies just arriving. But sleaze is the axis of the Tenderloin and the misery there outweighs the innocuous entertainments.
I asked my angels if they’d seen the little guy. They didn’t know what I was talking about. I asked the barker. He hadn’t seen a thing and was too busy to chat. Irked, I told him, “I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll talk when you’re not so pressed.”
“Yeah. Sure. Nobody’s going to say I don’t cooperate with the organization.”
Exasperated, I collected Maya and headed home.
39
We didn’t say much for a while. Then I recalled something and changed course abruptly.
“What’re you doing now?”
“Almost forgot I have to see Morley.”
“Oh. Mr. Charm,”
“He gets a look at you tonight you might have to fight him off with a stick.’’
She gave me a look. “Thanks for the compliment. I think.”
Half a block later she told me, “I was going to seduce you tonight. But now I can’t.”
“Hunh?” Investigators are fast on their feet and quick with a comeback.
“If I did, it wouldn’t be me you were with. You’d be thinking about her.’’
“Who her?” Look at that footwork. The boy is so fast you can’t see him move.
“Polly. The elfish girl.”
“Her? I’d forgotten her already,” I lied.
“And the moon is made of green cheese.”
“That’s what the experts say. But as long as you bring her up, what’d she have to say?”
“I couldn’t get specific because I didn’t want her to know what we were up to. She might tell Hester. I think you’re right. One of the girls sounds like her. Polly doesn’t like her. Polly is kind of a prude.”
“A what?” I laughed.
“It’s all look-and-don’t-touch on the premises there, Garrett. Polly says her regulars just want to talk to somebody who’s easy on the eyes. Somebody who can listen and talk back, and who isn’t any kind of threat. She never actually sees any of them. She says some of them must be important men but she doesn’t know who they are. She never sees them outside. Some of the other girls do. Polly cla
ims she’s a virgin.”
Maya found that hard to swallow. I didn’t want to think about it.
It was a strange setup but I could see how it could be a gold mine — without extortion. The one thing the movers and shakers lack is somebody they can relax with and talk to without risking betrayal.
That was the essence of the racket. Polly harvested enough in tips to satisfy herself. But some of her co-workers wanted more.
“It’s because she’s elfish,” Maya guessed. “She doesn’t have to hurry. She can trade on her looks for a long time. Human women only get a few years.” Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge. The girl had her own talent for distraction. Had to be inborn. How would she learn it running with a street gang?
We got to Morley’s place. Maya reaped a harvest of appreciative looks. Nobody paid any attention to me. So that was the secret of getting in without the gauntlet of hostile stares — bring a woman to distract them.
Slade was behind the counter. He lifted the speaking tube and pointed upstairs. We took the hint. I knocked on the office door. Morley let us in.
“Your taste has improved, Garrett.” He ogled Maya.
I slipped my arm around her waist. “Didn’t have time to get her into the disguise we use to protect her from characters like you.”
His eyes popped. “You’re the lady he was with the other night?’’
She just smiled mysteriously.
“Miracles do happen,” he said. And whined, “But they never happen to me.”
At which point a gorgeous half-caste brunette stepped out of his back room and draped herself on his shoulder.
“I hope your luck turns, Morley. Saucerhead said you had some news for me.”
“Yes. Remember the man whose name you mentioned to the kingpin? The one who visited you the night you got into your mess?”
I presumed he was being cagey about naming Peridont. “That religious character?”
“The very one.”
“What about him?”
“Somebody sent him to his reward. Put a poisoned quarrel in his back. About four blocks from your place. I figure he was going to see you. He wouldn’t have any other reason to be around there dressed like somebody’s gardener.”