'Does he have to read all this?' said Moist.
'No, sir.'
'Then I won't. It's a bank. You've given me the big tour. It's not as though it's got a wheel missing. Just show me where to sign.'
'Just here, sir. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here…
The lady in the boardroom was certainly an attractive woman, but since she worked for the Times Moist felt unable to award her total ladylike status. Ladies didn't fiendishly quote exactly what you said but didn't exactly mean, or hit you around the ear with unexpectedly difficult questions. Well, come to think of it, they did, quite often, but she got paid for it.
But, he had to admit, Sacharissa Cripslock was fun.
'Sacharissa! This is a should-have-been-expected surprise!' he declared, as he stepped into the room.
'Mr Lipwig! Always a pleasure!' said the woman. 'So you are a dog's body now?'
That kind of fun. A bit like juggling knives. You were constantly on your toes. It was as good as a workout.
'Writing the headlines already, Sacharissa?' he said. 'I am merely carrying out the terms of Mrs Lavish's will.' He put Mr Fusspot on the polished tabletop and sat down.
'So you're now chairman of the bank?'
'No, Mr Fusspot here is the chairman,' said Moist. 'Bark circumspectly at the nice lady with the busy pencil, Mr Fusspot!'
'Woof,' said Mr Fusspot.
'Mr Fusspot is the chairman,' said Sacharissa, rolling her eyes. 'Of course. And you take orders from him, do you?'
'Yes. I am Master of the Royal Mint, by the way.'
'A dog and his master,' said Sacharissa. 'How nice. And I expect you can read his thoughts because of some mystic bond between dog and man?'
'Sacharissa, I could not have put it better.'
They smiled at each other. This was only round one. Both knew they were barely warming up.
'So, I take it that you would not agree with those who say that this is one last ruse by the late Mrs Lavish to keep the bank out of the hands of the rest of her family, believed by some to be totally incapable of running it anywhere but further into the ground? Or would you confirm the opinion of many that the Patrician has every intention of bringing the city's uncooperative banking industry to heel, and finds in this situation the perfect opportunity?'
'Some who believe, those who say… Who are these mysterious people?' said Moist, trying to raise an eyebrow as good as Vetinari's. And how is it that you know so many of them?'
Sacharissa sighed. 'And you wouldn't describe Mr Fusspot as really little more than a convenient sock puppet?'
'Woof?' said the dog at the mention of his name.
'I find the very question offensive!' said Moist. 'And so does he!'
'Moist, you are just no fun any more.' Sacharissa closed her notebook. 'You're talking like… well, like a banker.'
'I'm glad you think so.' Remember, just because she's shut the notebook doesn't mean you can relax!
'No dashing around on mad stallions? Nothing to make us cheer? No wild dreams?' said Sacharissa.
'Well, I'm already tidying up the foyer.'
Sacharissa's eyes narrowed. 'Tidying the foyer? Who are you, and what have you done with the real Moist von Lipwig?'
'No, I'm serious. We have to clean up ourselves before we can clean up the economy,' said Moist, and felt his brain shift seductively into a higher gear. 'I intend to throw out what we don't need. For example, we have a room full of useless metal in the vault. That'll have to go.'
Sacharissa frowned. 'Are you talking about the gold?'
Where had that come from? Well, don't try to back away, or she'll go for the throat. Tough it out! Besides, it's good to see her looking astonished.
'Yes,' he said.
'You can't be serious!'
The notebook was instantly flipped open, and Moist's tongue began to gallop. He couldn't stop it. It would have been nice if it had talked to him first. Taking over his brain, it said: 'Deadly serious! I am recommending to Lord Vetinari that we sell it all to the dwarfs. We do not need it. It's a commodity and nothing more.'
'But what's worth more than gold?'
'Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?'
Sacharissa looked momentarily flustered, to Moist's glee. 'Well, in a manner of speaking—'
'The only manner of speaking worth talking about,' said Moist flatly. 'The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where's the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Is it all about the gleam? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!'
'Surely not!'
'If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?'
'Yes, but a desert island isn't Ankh-Morpork!'
'And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It's just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you've got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you'll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.'
'Can I assume for a moment that you don't intend to put us on the potato standard?' said Sacharissa sharply.
Moist smiled. 'No, it won't be that. But in a few days I shall be giving away money. It doesn't like to stand still, you know. It likes to get out and make new friends.' The bit of Moist's brain that was trying to keep up with his mouth thought: I wish I could make notes about this, I'm not sure I can remember it all. But the conversations of the last day were banging together in his memory and making a kind of music. He wasn't sure he had all the notes yet, but there were bits he could hum. He just had to listen to himself for long enough to find out what he was talking about.
'By give away you mean—' said Sacharissa.
'Hand over. Make a gift of. Seriously.'
'How? Why?'
'All in good time!'
'You are smirking at me, Moist!'
No, I've frozen because I've just heard what my mouth said, Moist thought. I don't have a clue, I've just got some random thoughts. It's…
'It's about desert islands,' he said. 'And why this city isn't one.'
'And that's it?'
Moist rubbed his forehead. 'Miss Cripslock, Miss Cripslock… this morning I got up with nothing in mind but to seriously make headway with the Post Office paperwork and maybe lick the problem of that Special 25p Cabbage Green Special stamp. You know, the one that'll grow into a cabbage if you plant it? How can you expect me to come up with a new fiscal initiative by teatime?'
'All right, but—'
'It'll take me at least until breakfast.'
He saw her write that down. Then she tucked the notebook in her handbag.
'This is going to be fun, isn't it?' she said, and Moist thought: never trust her when she's put her notebook away, either. She's got a good memory.
'Seriously, I think this is an opportunity for me to do something big and important for my adopted city,' said Moist, in his sincere voice.
'That's your sincere voice,' she said.
'Well, I'm being sincere,' said Moist.
'But since you raise the subject, Moist, what were you doing with your life before the citizens of Ankh-Morpork greeted you with open palms?'
'Surviving,' said Moist. 'In Uberwald the old empire was breaking up. It was not unusual for a government to change twice over lunch. I worked at anything I could to make a living. By the way, I think you meant "arms" back there,' he added.
'And when you got here you impressed the gods so much that they led you to a treasure trove so that you could rebuild our Post Office.'
'I'm very humble about that,' said Moist, trying to look it.
'Ye-ess. And the god-given gold was all in used coinage from the Plains cities…'
'You know what, I've often lain awake wond
ering about that myself,' said Moist, 'and I reached the conclusion that the gods, in their wisdom, decided that the gift should be instantly negotiable.' I can go on like this for as long as you like, he thought, and you're trying to play poker with no cards. You can suspect all you like, but I gave that money back! Okay, I stole it in the first place, but giving it back counts for something, doesn't it? The slate is clean, isn't it? Well, acceptably grubby, yes?
The door opened slowly, and a young and nervous woman crept in, holding a plate of cold chicken. Mr Fusspot brightened up as she placed it in front of him.
'Sorry, can we get you a coffee or something?' said Moist, as the girl headed back towards the door.
Sacharissa stood up. 'Thank you, but no. I'm on a deadline, Mr Lipwig. I'm sure we'll be talking again very soon.'
'I'm certain of it, Miss Cripslock,' said Moist.
She took a step towards him and lowered her voice. 'Do you know who that girl was?'
'No, I hardly know anyone yet.'
'So you don't know if you can trust her?'
'Trust her?'
Sacharissa sighed. 'This is not like you, Moist. She's just given a plate of food to the most valuable dog in the world. A dog that some people might like to see dead.'
'Why shouldn't—' Moist began. They both turned to Mr Fusspot, who was already licking the empty plate up the length of the table with an appreciative gronf-gronf noise.
'Er… can you see yourself out?' said Moist, hurrying towards the sliding plate.
'If you're in any doubt, stick your fingers down his throat!' said Sacharissa from the door with, Moist considered, an inappropriate amount of amusement.
He grabbed the dog and hurried through the far door, after the girl. It led to a narrow and not particularly well decorated corridor with a green door at the end, from which came the sound of voices.
Moist barged through it.
In the small, neat kitchen beyond, a tableau greeted him. The young woman was backed against a table, and a bearded man in a white suit was wielding a big knife. They looked shocked.
'What's going on?' Moist yelled.
'Er, er… you just ran through the door and shouted?' said the girl. 'Was something wrong? I always give Mr Fusspot his appetizer about now.'
'And I'm doing his entree,' said the man, bringing the knife down on a tray of offal. 'It's chicken necks stuffed with giblets, with his special toffee pudding for afters. And who's asking?'
'I'm the— I'm his owner,' said Moist, as haughtily as he could manage.
The chef removed his white hat. 'Sorry, sir, of course you are. The gold suit and everything. This is Peggy, my daughter. I'm Aimsbury, sir.'
Moist had managed to calm down a little. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I was just worried that someone might try to poison Mr Fusspot…'
'We were just talking about that,' said Aimsbury. 'I thought that— Hold on, you don't mean me, do you?'
'No, no, certainly not!' said Moist to the man still holding a knife.
'Well, all right,' said Aimsbury, mollified. 'You're new, sir, you're not to know. That Cosmo kicked Mr Fusspot once!'
'He'd poison anyone, he would,' said Peggy.
'But I go down to the market every day, sir, and select the little dog's food myself. And it's stored downstairs in the cool room, and I have the only key.'
Moist relaxed. 'You couldn't knock up an omelette for me, could you?' he said.
The chef looked panicky. 'That's eggs, right?' he said nervously. 'Never really got involved with cooking eggs, sir. He has a raw one in his steak tartare on Fridays and Mrs Lavish used to have two raw ones in her gin and orange juice every morning, and that is about it between me 'n' eggs. I've got a pig's head sousing if you'd fancy some of that. Got tongue, hearts, marrowbone, sheep's head, nice bit o' dewlap, melts, slaps, lights, liver, kidneys, beccles—'
In his youth, Moist had been served a lot off that menu. It was exactly the sort of food that you should serve to kids if you want them to grow up skilled in the arts of barefaced lying, sleight of hand and camouflage. As a matter of course Moist had hidden those strange wobbly meats under his vegetables, on one occasion achieving a potato twelve inches high.
Light dawned. 'Did you cook much for Mrs Lavish?' said Moist.
'Nosir. She lived on gin, vegetable soup, her morning pick-me-up and—'
'Gin,' said Peggy firmly.
'So you're basically a dog chef?'
'Canine, sir, if it's all the same to you. You may have read my book? Cooking with Brains?' Aimsbury said this rather hopelessly, and rightly so.
'Unusual path to follow,' said Moist.
'Well, sir, it enables me to… it's safer… well, the truth is, I have an allergy, sir.' The chef sighed. 'Show him, Peggy.'
The girl nodded and pulled a grubby card out of her pocket. 'Please don't say this word, sir,' she said, and held it up.
Moist stared.
'You just can't avoid it in the catering business, sir,' said Aimsbury miserably.
This wasn't the time, really wasn't the time. But if you weren't interested in people, then you didn't have the heart of a trickster.
'You're allergic to g— this stuff?' he said, correcting himself just in time.
'No, sir. The word, sir. I can handle the actual allium in question, I can even eat it, but the sound of it, well…'
Moist looked at the word again, and shook his head sadly.
'So I have to shun restaurants, sir.'
'I can see that. How are you with the word… "leek"?'
'Yes, sir, I know where you're going, I've been there. Far leek, tar lick… no effect at all'
'Just garlic, then— Oh, sorry…'
Aimsbury froze, with a distant expression on his face.
'Gods, I'm so sorry, I honestly didn't mean—' Moist began.
'I know,' said Peggy wearily. 'The word just forces its way out, doesn't it? He'll be like this for fifteen seconds, then he'll throw the knife straight ahead of him, and then he'll speak in fluent Quirmian for about four seconds, and then he'll be fine. Here' — she handed Moist a bowl containing a large brown lump — 'you go back in there with the sticky toffee pudding and I'll hide in the pantry. I'm used to it. And I can do you an omelette, too.' She pushed Moist through the door and shut it behind him.
He put down the bowl, to the immediate and fully focused interest of Mr Fusspot.
Watching a dog try to chew a large piece of toffee is a pastime fit for gods. Mr Fusspot's mixed ancestry had given him a dexterity of jaw that was truly awesome. He somersaulted happily around the floor making faces like a rubber gargoyle in a washing machine.
After a few seconds Moist distinctly heard the twang of a knife vibrating in woodwork, followed by a scream of: 'Nom d'une bouilloire! Pourquoi est-ce que je suis hardiment ri sous cape a part les dieux?'
There was a knock at the double doors, followed instantly by the entry of Bent. He was carrying a large round box.
'The suite is now ready for you, Master,' he announced. 'That is to say, for Mr Fusspot.'
'A suite?'
'Oh, yes. The chairman has a suite.'
'Oh, that suite. He has to live above the shop, as it were?'
'Indeed. Mr Slant has been kind enough to give me a copy of the conditions of the legacy. The chairman must sleep in the bank every night—'
'But I've got a perfectly good apartment in the—'
'Ahem. They are the Conditions, sir,' said Bent. 'You can have the bed, of course,' he added generously. 'Mr Fusspot will sleep in his in-tray. He was born in it, as a matter of interest.'
'I have to stay locked up here every night?'
In fact, when Moist saw the suite the prospect looked much less like a penance. He had to open four doors even before he found a bed. It had a dining room, a dressing room, a bathroom, a separate flushing privy, a spare bedroom, a passage to the office which was a kind of public room, and a little private study. The master bedroom contained a huge oak four-poster with damask hangings,
and Moist fell in love with it at once. He tried it for size. It was so soft that it was like lying in a huge warm puddle—
He sat bolt upright. 'Did Mrs Lavish—' he began, panic rising.
'She died sitting at her desk, Master,' said Bent soothingly, as he untied the string on the big round box. 'We have replaced the chair. By the way, she is to be buried tomorrow. Small Gods, at noon, family members only by request.'
'Small Gods? That's a bit downmarket for a Lavish, isn't it?'
'I believe a number of Mrs Lavish's ancestors are buried there. She did once tell me in a moment of confidence that she would be damned if she was going to be a Lavish for all eternity.' There was a rustle of paper, and Bent added: 'Your hat, sir.'
'What hat?'
'For the Master of the Royal Mint.' Bent held it up.
It was a black silk hat. Once it had been shiny. Now it was mostly bald. Old tramps wore better hats.
It could have been designed to look like a big pile of dollars, it could have been a crown, it could have been set with small jewelled scenes depicting embezzlement through the ages, the progression of negotiable currency from snot to little white shells and cows and all the way to gold. It could have said something about the magic of money. It could have been good.
A black top hat. No style. No style at all.
'Mr Bent, can you arrange for someone to go over to the Post Office and get them to bring my stuff over here?' said Moist, looking glumly at the wreck.
'Of course, Master.'
'I think "Mr Lipwig" will be fine, thank you.'
'Yes, sir. Of course.'
Moist sat down at the enormous desk and ran his hands lovingly across the worn green leather.
Vetinari, damn him, had been right. The Post Office had made him cautious and defensive. He'd run out of challenges, run out of fun.
Thunder grumbled, away in the distance, and the afternoon sun was being threatened by blue-black clouds. One of those heavy all-night storms was rolling in from the plains. There tended to be more crimes on rainy nights these days, according to the Times. Apparently it was because of the werewolf in the Watch: rain made smells hard to track.
After a while Peggy brought him an omelette containing absolutely no mention of the word 'garlic'. And shortly after that, Gladys arrived with his wardrobe. All of it, including the door, carried under one arm. It bounced off the walls and ceiling as she lumbered with it across the carpet and dropped it in the middle of the big bedroom floor.
Making Money d-36 Page 10