Dangerous Hardboiled Magicians

by Mel Gilden

  Renaldo’s, a one-room place with stucco walls, specialized in Mexican food. There were thousands of joints like it all over town. Good smells floated in the air, and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I sat down at a Formica-topped table.

  Soon a pretty dark-haired girl in a dress encircled with colorful flounces took up the classic position near my table with book in hand and pencil poised. I ordered the plato de enchiladas, and when she came back with it a few minutes later, I asked her about the boss. She didn’t know much about him, being new on the job, but she described him as “a nice man.” To her knowledge he had nothing to do with any of the other names I mentioned.

  The enchiladas were good, and when I got up to pay the bill she showed me a photograph hanging over the cash register. In the photograph a man in a black charro outfit stood next to a man in a business suit. The man in the business suit was clean shaven, and except for the slightly pudgy cheeks and the tan, he looked a lot like I had before Lord Slex put a spell on me.

  I thanked the girl and went outside sucking on a toothpick. A bottle-green Circe was parked at the end of the block.

  The air had been warming up all afternoon, and now it was hot enough that I was uncomfortable in my jacket. When I put the jacket into the trunk of my car, I noticed the copy of The Rack of Time I’d gotten signed for my father the night before. It reminded me that I had to pick Dad up from the airport at four. That gave me just enough time to visit Joe Flynn’s house, with maybe a little over.

  In my shirtsleeves I strolled down to have a look at the Circe. Now the driver was a television alien, with a lot of extra bumps on its face and long stringy orange hair. The alien didn’t look at me as I passed. I quickly walked around to the driver’s side and leaned in at the open window.

  “Everything all right here?” I asked.

  The alien looked astonished. “What?” it croaked in what may or may not have been the real voice of the person inside.

  “Are you a fan, or are you just tailing me for practice?”

  “I haven’t been—” the alien said.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I just wanted you to know that I’m now going to the airport to pick up my dad. After I take him home, I’ll be going home myself. It’s been a long tiring day, what with being followed and all.”

  Without another word the alien started the bottle-green Circe and drove away. I had to leap back or be run over. I watched the car scuttle to the end of the block and turn right.

  I walked back to my car wondering whether Herb Hillyer was in the alien suit. But he had been driving a Honda, and I didn’t think he could afford even the basic Circe, let alone a Circe equipped with options like a car-of-a-different-color. Of course it could have been somebody else entirely, somebody else with an interest in Misty Morning or Eulalie Tortuga. I was pretty sure I would find out. The tailer almost always crosses paths with the tailee eventually.

  Joe Flynn lived nearby. I suspected that visiting his house would be pointless, but I had to do it anyway, just for the sake of completeness.

  Joe lived in a small house on a wide street full of small houses, none of them with walls thicker than cardboard. A square of anemic-looking grass lay defeated in front of each one. I put on my coat again, so as to look more respectable-like, and walked up the cement path to the front door. I knocked on the door and shortly spoke with a plain woman dressed in jeans and a colorful shirt that was frayed at the cuffs and elbows, the kind of outfit a woman might wear to do her chores. When I told her why I was there, all the life drained from her face but she invited me in. We talked for a while, she nervously and on the edge of tears. Nothing that she told me seemed useful. While she went on, I looked for a space pucker but failed to see one. When she was finished, I asked if I could see the rest of the house.

  “Why?”

  “Clues,” I answered vaguely.

  She nodded.

  The place was full of plastic curtains and cheap furniture, but it was fairly clean. In the bedroom, Joe Flynn was lying flat on his back on his side of the bed, looking as if he were asleep. He was even snoring. On the dresser was a photograph of the woman, much younger and happier, standing next to a man who looked like a younger version of the guy on the bed. “Handsome dude,” I said. She got all dreamy-eyed and dabbed at her eyes as if she were about to cry. When we got back to the living room, I told her that I was sorry about her husband, and she nodded again.

  I thanked her for her time and went out to my car feeling generally crummy about getting up the hopes of people who would probably never again have a meaningful relationship with their loved ones. I had seen a big space pucker near the ceiling in the bedroom but had not mentioned it. I had learned as little as I had feared. That space pucker and our similar looks was all these guys had to do with either Misty Morning or Eulalie Tortuga. I shook my head.

  The airport was a straight shot down the San Diego Freeway. On the way I saw a few Circes of various colors, each driven by a person who looked more or less normal. I couldn’t even guess whether I was being followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  HOUNDS OF HELL

  When I got within spelling distance of the airport, every surface in my car sparkled briefly. Seconds later, like a trained pig, I took my place in line with about a thousand other cars. I was behind three men in a rowboat that carried a few square feet of calm water around it. The airport spell shunted each vehicle to where it needed to go. When my turn came, a ramp dropped in front of me and I drove up it to the lot where people picking up passengers parked.

  The federally mandated traffic spells around the airport were a real pleasure. It was too bad the voters were too cheap to pay for enchanting the freeways and surface streets.

  I found the Golden Broom terminal and walked inside as a broomstick boomed overhead and shook the windows. The terminal was filled with large black cats. One of them waved its tail as it rubbed against my leg. I wasn’t carrying anything more dangerous than a ring of keys, so the cat soon trotted off to pass another customer through security.

  I walked along the crowded concourse, following arrows to the Golden Broom waiting area while trying to avoid suitcases floating behind people hurrying to their brooms.

  After a long hike I found the gate through which Dad would come and sat down to wait. While I had nothing better to do, I studied the people around me. No mice. No ladies with hair the color of white-hot metal. Not even a TV alien. Just a lot of blank expressions on people waiting for somebody or something that could not come soon enough.

  Outside the big windows a broom slid in for a landing across the tarmac and taxied up to the gate. Even in the slanting late-afternoon sunlight a golden halo showed around its brush. A few minutes later the door into the waiting room opened and people poured eagerly out of the broomway. Some were met; others walked off while attempting to get their luggage into the air with a wave of a hand and a packet of commercial spell dust.

  Dad strolled through the doorway schlepping his overnight bag. I was afraid he might have forgotten that I didn’t look the way I normally did, but he smiled when he saw me, and I went over to greet him. Suddenly I was struck with a dismaying idea so obvious I was horrified that I had not considered it before. I swear that it was not until I saw Dad step off the broomway that it occurred to me how much I normally resembled him and, therefore, how much danger he was in.

  My smile was friendly enough as I approached him—I was genuinely pleased to see him, after all. “Trouble,” I whispered hoarsely when I got close enough that only he would hear me. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

  His smile fell as if someone had let the air out, and his eyes shifted up and back. He nodded once, and we marched from the waiting area.

  As we entered the concourse, a man fell into step beside us. He wore a red satin baseball jacket with the words “Hounds of Hell” stitched across the back. His black hair stuck up in untidy spikes above a square face that was ugly in a heavy, determined
way.

  I was so surprised that it took a moment for me to process what I was seeing: it was the same guy who’d attacked me at Harold Silverwhite’s cottage! Before I could do anything, even warn Dad, the guy grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from me. Though Dad struggled, he had no more chance of escaping than a mouse has when caught in a spring trap.

  “Hey,” I cried while I reached out for Dad’s other arm and grabbed air.

  Shooting dirty looks, people dived out of our way as I hurried after Dad and his captor. I heard a police whistle, but it was too far away to do me any good. The guy pulled Dad through a door with a stenciled number on it. I got to the door just before it clicked closed behind them. By the time I got through, the two of them were far down a long empty cement corridor lit by tubes of industrial fairy dust. Our racing footsteps echoed into the hot heavy air.

  When they exited through a swinging metal door at the other end, I was right behind them—so close I could see the acne pits on the back of the guy’s hairy neck. Dad was sweating but still struggling, bless him. We entered a large room where big muscular men lifted impedimenta from rolling green conveyer lawns and dropped it through a hole in the floor.

  Three airport security officers were waiting for us. My friend in the red jacket didn’t even slow down. He dragged Dad across the room as if he were a doll and jumped into the hole while the luggage handlers watched with amazement. I made a small animal noise and leaped down the hole myself. The officers may have followed—I didn’t know.

  A moment later I was falling through a baggage cyclone, one more clumsy, oddly shaped package dropping from the sky. I almost lost my enchiladas. At the bottom, the baggage cyclone whirled me around, and through the dizziness I got a quick impression of people waiting for their luggage, now surprised by the sudden appearance of yet another man. I leaped over bags, suitcases, and trunks, then across an expanse of open floor to an escalator where Dad and the guy were already halfway up to the next level. At the top I found myself on another concourse. Neither Dad nor the guy in the red jacket was anywhere in sight.

  People shrieked, getting out of the way as more security officers approached at a gallop. While I waited for them to arrive I turned my head, hoping to spot Dad and his buddy. All I saw was a fist the size of City Hall slicing toward my chin. I felt momentary pain and saw a bright hard flash, then knew nothing but darkness.

  * * * *

  I awakened to harsh medicinal smells and bright light that came through my eyelids. My jaw throbbed, but that was OK. It was my jaw and I was glad to have it. I moved a little and stiff paper rattled under me.

  “He’s moving,” a female voice said. I had heard it before but couldn’t place it. There were a lot of things I couldn’t place right at that moment.

  “How are you feeling?” Dad said, and I opened my eyes. He was looking at me with concern.

  I made some experimental sounds, which didn’t do my jaw any good. “Fine,” I managed after a while and passed out.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was in the same place, but this time I was alone. I sat up on the edge of the bed, making it rattle again, dangling my feet and supporting my head with my right hand. I was in a small clean room, probably part of the airport infirmary. Through the open door I saw a waiting room from which three concerned faces looked at me.

  Dad rushed into the infirmary with two women close behind. One was obviously a nurse, a middle-aged woman with a face that was not beautiful but full of kindness. The other was wearing a denim outfit and motorcycle boots—it was Lyda Firebough, Vic Tortuga’s current squeeze. Even if I hadn’t just been slugged by a guy in a red satin jacket, you could have blown me over with a summer breeze.

  “How are you feeling?” the nurse asked professionally.

  “Like the inside of a cement mixer,” I said.

  That made her smile. “He’ll live,” she said to Dad. “Don’t leave without seeing me,” she requested. “You’ll have to sign some papers.” She left.

  “Who was that guy?” Dad asked.

  Before I could answer, a short man in a blue blazer and white turtleneck entered. He had an enormous prow of a nose, and his skin was dark, as if he were always standing in shadow. On the pocket of his blazer was a complicated insignia involving a lot of keys and firearms.

  “I am Stan Perisegian,” he said in a somewhat foreign but melodious voice. “I am head of security here at the airport. As you might expect, I have a few questions.”

  I nodded, wished I hadn’t, and grabbed my head again to keep it from rolling across the floor.

  “You and your playmate caused quite a disturbance,” he said.

  I said nothing, just waiting for the good parts to come.

  Mr. Perisegian shifted his weight. “Your father, here, tells me he has no idea who tried to abduct him or why. Do you know?”

  “It involves a case I’m working on.”

  “Oh? Police?”

  “Private.”

  He nodded but did not seem impressed. “You’ll have to give me a little more than that,” Mr. Perisegian said. “I have a report to fill out.”

  I had as much interest in his report as he had in the pain in my head, but I also knew he could give me a hard time if he thought I was hiding something that might endanger his airport.

  “I’d like to know who the guy is, myself,” I said. “He could probably help me solve my case.” Which was true as far as it went. I assumed that the guy in the red satin jacket was the same joker who had been stealing souls all over town and shoving them down the oubliette of the space pucker. I was sure knowing that would not help Mr. Perisegian write his report.

  “And he wanted what?”

  “My father,” I replied. “Or somebody who looked like him.”

  Mr. Perisegian smiled. “With those cagey answers you probably think you’re protecting a client or some other ethical garbage, but really all you’re doing is making trouble for yourself. If I don’t get the answers I want, I intend to call the police.”

  “It’ll be nice to see them again.”

  His smile wilted a little, but he was still game.

  “Look,” I said, “I know you have an airport to protect. And you believe I can tell you something that will help you do your job. But I don’t think so. It’s true that guy in the red jacket might return and cause more trouble if somebody who looks like my father passes through. But I have no idea how to stop him. I didn’t stop him this time. I don’t know how he was stopped.”

  “This young lady here seemed to surprise him,” Dad said.

  I looked at Lyda Firebough. She appeared to be a little tired, but she tried a smile on me. “We used to know each other,” she said.

  “And his name is?” Mr. Perisegian asked.

  “Eddie ‘The Ender’ Tips,” Lyda said.

  “Sounds like a wrestler,” Mr. Perisegian remarked. “What do you think he wanted with Mr. Cronyn?”

  “I couldn’t say. He never showed any particular interest in guys when I knew him.”

  Mr. Perisegian sighed. “Would you care to press charges, Mr. Cronyn? Either of you?” He looked from me to Dad.

  “Against whom, for instance?” I asked. “You don’t need my permission to look for the guy. I wish you luck. I’ve been looking for him for a few days and haven’t found him yet.”

  Mr. Perisegian nodded as if that was just the sort of answer he had been expecting to hear. “Why don’t you nice people just kind of scram? Okay with you, nurse?”

  “Somebody has to sign the release.”

  Mr. Perisegian stayed in the small, clean room and watched us through the doorway while I signed the release form and we filed out onto another crowded concourse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE BLUE DIAMOND

  Lyda walked arm in arm between us. Mostly for my benefit, we walked slowly. I ached all over, as if I had taken Eddie’s punch with my entire body. In a sense I guess I had.

  “How are you feeling, Dad?” I ask
ed.

  He shrugged. “Pretty good, actually. I haven’t had that much exercise since the last time I let your mother take me grocery shopping.”

  I smiled, understanding.

  A little farther down was a small, sparsely attended bar. Nobody paid attention to the TV on a high shelf mumbling to itself about sports.

  The short walk had tired me out, but I felt better than I had. Lyda and I settled at a metal table far away from the other customers and not much larger than a dime, while Dad went to get three beers.

  “You look like hell,” Lyda said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Nice to see you again, too.”

  She nodded. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Home, I guess. And Astraea and I are not exactly partners.”

  “Somebody should tell her.”

  “I see,” I said. “Guilt by association.”

  A hefty security woman sauntered by and took up a station between the two doors of the men’s room across the way. She began picking at one hand with the other. When she caught me staring at her, I smiled and waved. She didn’t seem surprised. She didn’t seem anything. She went back to picking at her thumb.

  Dad came back to the table with three beers in plastic steins and set them down, leaving just enough room on the table for our elbows, if any of us wanted to be so crude. We all did. Between sips we spoke softly into each others’ faces.

  The first tide of cold bitter taste swept mental cobwebs before it. Feeling a little more alert, I put down the stein and leaned forward. “Before we discuss my professional connections, Lyda, perhaps you can tell us how you come to be here. It must be quite a story.”

  She shrugged. “It’s simple, really. I’ve been following you all day.”

  “That must have been you in the Circe-of-a-different color—the mouse, the blonde, and even the TV alien.”