by Tom Holt
On the third day, Matasuntha brought him a sandwich around noon. She looked tired and irritable and she was covered in dust. “Eat,” she grunted, and slammed the plate down on the desk.
“Thanks,” he replied. “Keeping busy?”
For a moment he thought she was going to hit him. Then she climbed into a smile. “Cleaning the wine cellar,” she said. “It’s filthy down there.”
The wine cellar. Where else? “That’s a big job. It’s huge.”
“Yes.” The smile held, like a pressurised cabin at fifty thousand feet. “You’ve been down there, then?”
“Couple of times.”
“Well, you’ll know how dirty it is.”
“Quite. But at least you can always find what you’re looking for.” He smiled back at her. “Thanks to the inventory on the computer, I mean.”
“That needs updating,” she said. “My next job.”
“Ah.”
“You should count yourself lucky,” she went on, gazing into his eyes like a cat at a mouse hole. “Sitting up here behind this nice clean desk while I’m down there, rummaging about among all those dusty old bottles.”
He tried to do a nonchalant shrug. It came out as the sort of gesture you’d expect from a giant centipede trying to pass itself off as human. “Swap jobs if you like,” he said. “You do the desk, I’ll muck out the cellar.”
“Sweet of you, but we’d better stick to the rota. Otherwise Bill won’t like it.”
When she’d gone, he realised he was sweating. Not, he was reasonably confident, that there was any immediate cause for concern. Thousands, tens of thousands of bottles; it’d take her weeks to pull each one out and look at the label. Time, though, was definitely on her side. Call-me-Bill could strand him here on the desk for weeks, months even, while Matasuntha fumbled about among the grime and the cobwebs. The sensible thing, therefore, would be to retrieve the bottle and find another hiding place; but he wasn’t sure that’d be wise. He wouldn’t put it past them to be staking the cellar out during his off hours, expecting him to do just that. What he really ought to do, he told himself gloomily, was go back into YouSpace, find out about Max, and then give them the stupid bottle and put them out of their misery. It’d be the humane thing to do (it’d be unfortunate if Matasuntha caught something nasty down there in all the dirt and grime, and her quest was clearly having a bad effect on her temper) and it’d mean he could stop worrying and get on with his life. As for the whole trap thing, he wasn’t so sure about that any more. Not a trap as such; more likely some gag or practical joke Pieter had set up for him, under the bizarre impression that YouSpace was fun. A door with a bucketful of soot balanced on top of it, or something equally sophisticated. Get it over with, he told himself.
At a quarter to midnight, when the end was in sight and he could hear the mattress on his bed calling to him like a phantom lover, Mr Nordstrom came in. He was wearing full evening dress, the effect of which was spoilt rather by the torn trouser knees and the missing left sleeve. His hair, however, was neatly combed, and he appeared to be perfectly sober.
“Brandy,” he said. “Remy Martin, quick as you like.”
“I’m sorry,” Theo started to say, “I’m not supposed to leave the—”
“I’ll look after the goddamn desk,” Mr Nordstrom growled. “Brandy. Now.”
The toes of his shoes were scuffed, and could that possibly be a tooth embedded in the welt between sole and upper? “That’ll be fine,” Theo said. “Won’t be a tick.”
He scampered down the stairs, his mind racing. They’d assume he was on the desk, so they wouldn’t be watching, but they must’ve given up searching and gone to bed by now, because even junior hotel staff don’t have that sort of stamina. The perfect opportunity, therefore, to grab the bottle –
“What are you doing down here?” Matasuntha snapped at him as he walked though the door. “You’re supposed to be on Reception.”
She’d climbed up to the very top row of the tallest rack, apparently without a ladder, and was hanging by one hand and a very precarious foothold. In her other hand was a dusty bottle. “Mr Nordstrom sent me down for a bottle of brandy,” he said. “Are you all right up there?”
“I’m fine.”
“It doesn’t look terribly safe.”
“I’m fine,” she practically shrieked. “Leave me alone.” She was taking enormous pains not to look down, and he couldn’t say he blamed her.
“Right, fine. Oh, the Remy Martin. Any idea?”
“Row C, stack 4, shelf 17.”
Two coincidences. It was the next row along from where Matasuntha was perched, and it happened to be where he’d hidden his bottle. If he’d come along ten minutes later, chances were she’d have found it. A single fat drop of sweat trickled down his forehead and hung in his eyebrow, just inside his field of view.
“Thanks,” he said. “Well, I’ll let you get on.”
He found the brandy easily enough, and, at the end of the row, Pieter’s bottle, which he slipped into his pocket. Then he rolled a couple of bottles along half an inch or so to close up the gap. He looked up, and saw Matasuntha’s three-inch heel pecking wildly at a shelf as she struggled to climb down. “Are you sure you’re—?”
“Go away.”
Fine. He got out of there quickly and sprinted halfway up the stairs. Then he stopped.
No time at all, in this universe. Well, why not? Then he could turn round, nip back, leave the bottle lying around somewhere obvious, where she couldn’t help finding it, and that’d be the end of all that. And what a relief that would be –
Yes. It would. Really.
He put the brandy down carefully, then fished about in his pocket for the manila envelope. A moment later –
“I said,” said the man in the hat, “you calling me a liar?”
It was a big hat; black, with a broad brim, casting a shadow over the man’s face. In doing so it performed a public service. Thanks to the hat, all Theo could definitely make out was the man’s piercingly bright eyes. That was more than enough to be going on with.
“Um,” he said.
As well as the hat, the man was wearing an old-fashioned black suit and a bootlace tie. Oh yes, and a gun belt, in which sat an ivory-handled revolver, over which the man’s gloved hand hovered like a mushroom cloud over a Pacific atoll.
“Say again?”
“Um,” Theo repeated. “I mean, no. Definitely not.”
The hat quivered slightly. “You saying you didn’t call me a liar, son?”
“Absolutely not.” Theo couldn’t quite bring himself to break eye contact, even though he was curious to find out what the heavy weight hanging from his own belt might be. That said, he had a pretty shrewd idea. “Wouldn’t dream of suggesting such a thing.”
The man under the hat was thinking. “So,” he said, “you’re saying that when I said you called me a liar, I was lying.”
“Yes. I mean—”
“So you’re calling me a liar.”
“Um.”
“Them’s fighting words, stranger.”
“What, um?”
The man under the hat frowned. “Yup.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.”
“And in these parts—”
“What I really meant,” Theo heard himself gabble, “was that when you said I called you a liar, you were quite justifiably mistaken, because I expressed myself so badly, for which I apologise. Really and truly. Really.”
The man frowned, as though he’d taken a wrong turning several blocks ago and was trying to figure out where he was. “So,” he said, “you’re saying you didn’t call me a liar.”
“That’s right, yes.”
“You’re lying.”
Oh for crying out loud. “Well, yes, quite possibly. In fact—”
“I’m calling you a liar.”
An old man who’d dived under a table a moment ago reached out a hand and retrieved his hat. A cat wan
dered across the floor, stood next to the man under the hat, looked up at him, arched its back, rubbed its head against his left boot, curled up and went to sleep. “Yes,” Theo said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes you’re calling me a liar, and yes I am one.”
The man nodded. “We got our own way of dealing with liars in these parts, stranger,” he said, with a degree of satisfaction mixed with relief. “We give ’em a wooden overcoat and a one-way ticket to Boot Hill.”
“You don’t say.”
The man grinned. “Did you,” he said with great pleasure, “just call me a liar?”
Sod it, Theo thought, and without really knowing what he was doing, he reached for his gun. The next millionth of a second was a blur; then there was a very loud noise, something bashed against the web of his thumb, making him whimper, and the hat wearer’s gun flew out of his hand and sailed across the room.
There was a deadly silence, during which the cat got up and slowly walked away with its tail in the air. The man under the hat was staring at him in abject terror.
“Sorry,” Theo said. “Butterfingers.”
Very slowly, the man raised his hands and backed away. Theo looked round nervously, but instead of the traditional henchman with shotgun taking aim at the small of his back, all he saw was a bemused-looking man at a table near the window, staring dolefully at the ivory-handled butt of a revolver sticking up out of his bowl of chilli beans. Theo waited until his erstwhile opponent had retreated through the swing doors, then walked slowly and rather unsteadily to the bar.
“Whisky?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “And a doughnut.”
“Coming right up.”
He realised that he was still holding the gun he’d apparently disarmed the hat wearer with. He put it back in the holster. He had to have three goes at it.
The bartender was back with a half-tumblerful of whisky and an elderly-looking doughnut. Theo scrabbled in his pockets, which were empty.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have any money.”
“On the house,” the bartender said. “That was some mighty fine shooting, stranger.”
“Was it? Oh, good.” He lifted the glass, considered knocking it back in one, decided against it and nibbled at the meniscus like a tiny wee mouse. There was a brief moment of extreme disorientation, which he guessed was a bit like being sneezed on by a dragon. He put the glass down very carefully.
“Ain’t many folks in these parts as’d stand up to Big Red,” the bartender went on. “Leastways, not living. You’re a mighty cool hand, mister, and that’s no lie.”
Oh please don’t start all that again, Theo thought. “Awfully nice of you to say so,” he muttered. “Look, I was wondering. Is there anybody in this town by the name of Max?”
“Max?”
“Yes. Short for—”
“Let me see, now,” the bartender said. “There’s Big Max, Little Max, Cheyenne Max, Little Big Max, Banjo Billy Max, Max the Knife and Max Factor. Would the guy you’re after be one of them?”
“Um,” Theo replied. “OK, how about a short, round man with a bald head?”
The bartender scratched his chin. “Might you be meaning Doc Pete?”
“Mphm.”
“Hangs around with Nondescript Max at the Silver Dollar next to the livery,” the bartender said. “I don’t let ’em in here, see. They cause trouble.”
There was a soft clunk, which Theo identified as the chilli eater by the window fishing the gun out of his dinner and placing it on the table. Trouble, he muttered to himself, as opposed to the peaceful equilibrium of the average uneventful day. “I can see why you wouldn’t want any of that,” he said. “Um, what kind of trouble?”
The bartender looked both ways, then bent forward and lowered his voice. “Weird stuff,” he hissed. “Crazy stuff.”
“Ah.”
“It was getting so honest decent folk was scared to come in here.” The bartender shook his head sadly. “So I told them, get out and stay out, and you can get your doughnuts someplace else.”
Theo nodded slowly. “The Silver Dollar.”
“Mphm. That woman as runs it, she just don’t give a damn.”
The customer by the window had finished his chilli, and put the plate on the floor for the cat to lick out. “Near the livery stable, you said.”
“Turn left out of here, seventy-five yards on your right, you can’t miss it.”
The bar of the Silver Dollar was practically deserted. The only customer was a tall man, leaning up against the counter. His face wasn’t familiar, but his hat was. He turned to stare as Theo walked in, recoiled in terror, looked around wildly for somewhere to run, lunged sideways, slipped in a pool of spilt beer, skidded five yards, crashed into a wall and slowly crumpled into a heap. The woman behind the bar gave Theo a startled look, then beamed at him. “Drinks on the house, stranger,” she said. “Anyone who can throw a scare like that into Big Red—”
“Could I possibly have a glass of water, please?” Theo said.
“Water.” She said it the way a professor of geography might say “Atlantis”. “Sure. You want whisky in that?”
“Not really, no.”
She turned and examined a row of bottles lined up on a shelf behind the bar, eventually picking one out. It was dusty and draped in cobwebs, and a peeling handwritten label read WATR. She poured two fingers into a glass and slid it along the bar. Theo took a sip. It tasted of watered-down whisky.
“I’m looking,” he said, “for someone called Max.”
“Right. Would that be Crazy Max, Spanish Max, Big Little Max, Max the Axe—?”
“Nondescript Max.”
“Oh, him.” She frowned. “You just missed him. He was in here earlier with that other one.”
“Short fat bald—”
“I threw them out.” She peered at him closely. “You a friend of theirs?”
“Sort of.”
“Door’s right behind you, mister.”
It was the same story in the Golden Garter, the Long Branch, the Birdcage and the Lucky Strike. That just left the Last Chance –
“Well,” said the bartender, “there’s Slim Max, Fat Max, Apple Max—”
“Nondescript Max,” Theo said wearily. “Goes around with a short, fat, bald guy called Pete. They’re weird.”
The bartender nodded. “Wait there,” he said.
He scurried off into the back; and, for the first time since he’d arrived in wherever the hell it was supposed to be, Theo felt a tiny spasm of hope. He wasn’t kept waiting long. A few minutes later, the bartender was back. He’d brought some people with him. About twenty of them, including the sheriff.
“That’s him,” the bartender said.
They took him outside, put him on a horse and led him to the edge of town, where a single sad-looking tree stood beside the road. All of its branches had been sawn off except one, which stuck out at right angles, parallel to the ground. Why would anyone do that, he asked himself. Oh, he thought.
“Any last request?” the sheriff asked, as he threw the other end of the rope over the horizontal branch.
“Yes,” Theo replied. “I’d like a doughnut, please.”
“What is it with you people and doughnuts?” the sheriff asked; but he sent a runner to the Last Chance all the same. He looked surprised and hurt as Theo looked at him, through the doughnut’s hole, just before dematerialising –
He landed on the wine cellar stairs and there was still a noose around his neck. He clawed at it with both hands until he managed to prise open the knot and drag it off over his head. It was, of course, his tie.
The hell with you, Pieter, he thought, as he tottered up the stairs on legs that seemed to have no bones in them; and also with you, Max, even though you’re dead. When he reached the top of the stairs he couldn’t bear to put the tie back on, so he stuffed it in his pocket.
“Your brandy,” he said. “Sorry I was so long, but—”
Mr
Nordstrom grabbed the bottle, ripped off the foil with his teeth, unscrewed the cap and swallowed five eye-watering mouthfuls. Then he wiped his mouth and put the bottle on the desk. “Why aren’t you wearing a tie?” he asked.
“Um.”
“Sloppy,” he said. “Improperly dressed. I never take my tie off, no matter what.”
Interesting mental images, for which he didn’t have the time or the processor capacity. “Sorry,” he said. “I won’t—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Mr Nordstrom glugged another three mouthfuls. The bottle was a third empty. “Charge it to my room, all right?” He stood up, straight and perfectly steady. “Oh, there was a phone call while you were gone. I wrote it down.”
The message, in immaculate old-fashioned copperplate on a yellow sticky –
Janine called. No message. Wouldn’t leave number. Will call back.
Well, of course. She probably had private detectives watching the hotel through lenses the size of rhino horns; the moment he left the desk, they called her and she called him. It was the sort of thing she might just conceivably do too.
When he got back to his room, he found the door was locked, which surprised him since the last time he’d looked there hadn’t been a lock on the door. But there was one there now. Also, a note-
Theo-
You must be sick to death of this rabbit hutch by now, so I’ve moved you to Room 9998 on the ground floor. It’s much nicer.