by Tom Holt
He examined himself in the mirror, and then stopped for a moment to remove a last splash of something nasty from his left cuff.
A date, in the late twentieth century. Some rather peculiar events, which could only be explained by reference to (a) the supernatural, (b) the considerably aggrieved, and (c) the extremely childish. Could be; or was it just coincidence?
Not that Nostradamus was in fact the greatest seer the world had ever known, he reminded himself, as he opened the door and walked out of the washroom. If he’d been any good at all, it was a safe bet that he’d have made bloody sure he spent Thursday March 16th, 1498 in a locked stone-walled room surrounded by armed guards.
It had been a long time since Lundqvist had last been in Amsterdam, or almost. In fact, he’d been here the previous week - May 9th to 16th, 1995 - but that was seven years ago . . .
He tried to remember if there were any warrants out for his arrest. Or was that next month? Probably, he decided with a grin, that was after he’d done whatever it was he’d come here to do.
Lucky George.
George and Lundqvist went way back (and forwards, of course). Not that he’d ever had a failure, exactly; at the end of the day, he’d served the warrant, collected the subject and delivered him, in accordance with the terms of the retainer. But even he had to admit that Lucky George hadn’t come quietly. In fact, he’d come very noisily indeed, and nearly taken a substantial tranche of the fabric of reality with him. There had been moments - April 1563, for example, and December 1749, not to mention February 1255 and August 2014 - when he’d been sure that the bastard was slipping through his fingers. Likewise, just as the thing any cop dreads most of all is having his own gun used against him, he particularly resented the way George had made him look a fool in the final showdown. Even bounty-hunters have their feelings, and nobody likes being chased round the centre of a densely populated city by a seven-foot-tall scale replica of himself, brandishing an array of hopelessly anachronistic weapons and calling out for all to hear, ‘Look at me, I’m a pillock!’
And they’d let him escape! The idiots!
Outside the airport he found a telephone booth with a directory in it. He skimmed through it until he found what he was looking for.
TROY, H.O.
Relieved, he made a note of the address, fed the machine some money and dialled the number.
The lady in question was, just then, having a bit of a problem at the port of Rotterdam.
She’d got as far as ‘I name this ship . . .’, and then dried. Buggery!
Trying not to appear conspicuous, she glanced out the corner of her eye at the big letters painted on the side. That wasn’t much help; they called ships some pretty weird things these days, but even so she had a feeling that Passengers are not allowed beyond this point probably wasn’t the damn thing’s name. She’d have to mumble.
‘I name this ship rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb,’ she therefore said, ‘and God bless all who sail in her.’ Then she smiled. That was okay.
I needn’t have worried, she told herself later, on her way home. The chances of anybody listening to what Miss World actually says are pretty minimal. In fact, it’s reasonably safe to say that nobody takes any notice of Miss World at all, except in a fairly superficial way. Otherwise, how come she’d held the title forty-seven times under various assumed names, and nobody had ever noticed? The number of people who look at her face is, after all, limited; the number who remember it, more limited still.
Which was, she reflected, a pity, for them. It was a nice face, besides having been extremely useful over the years to the shipbuilding industry.
For the time being, Home was a flat in one of the terribly old, terribly beautiful houses beside the Kaisergracht. It was hellishly expensive and the stairs half killed her unless she took her heels off and walked up them in her stocking feet, but that’s the price you have to pay for being sentimental. For it was in this very room, in this very building, that she and George . . . She blushed.
The building had been new then; in fact, not completely and one hundred per cent finished. No roof, for one thing. But they’d been young, and in love, and it’s nice to be able to lie in each other’s arms and look up at the stars. They’d been on a day trip to the seventeenth century, and had been so wrapped up in each other (literally as well as figuratively) that they’d missed the last time-warp home. Not that they’d minded terribly much about that. It had been, she remembered with a slight shudder, about four months before George’s year ran out, and even then they’d both spent an awfully large proportion of the time Not Thinking About It.
Having paid off her taxi, she let herself in, slipped off her shoes, and trotted up the stairs. As she reached the second-floor landing, she started to feel that faint prickling down the back of the neck that means either a premonition of terrible danger or too little fabric softener. Since she was wearing a backless dress, she decided it was probably danger.
Unfortunately, she had a very bad attitude towards danger, mainly because when she was around, it tended to be something that happened to other people. Ninja-silent in her shoe-lessness, she crept along the landing and pushed the door of her flat with the tip of one finger.
It swung open.
She swore.
At first sight, it looked like the aftermath of a visit from an incredibly conscientious burglar - you know, one of those dreadfully pernickety perfectionist types who insist on knifing the cushions for concealed pearls and ransacking the shelves for hollowed-out books. Unless, however, he had also been an extraordinarily picky burglar, brought up on only the finest aristocratic country houses and the hunting lodges of minor royalty, it would only be reasonable to expect him to have taken something; and he hadn’t.
Or rather he had. And that was something of a bitch, because it was the one thing she would really rather not have parted with, given that it was genuinely irreplaceable. A framed portrait, early sixteenth century.
She made sure that the intruder had gone, and then sat down on all that was mortal of the bed and had a good swear. While she was doing this (and doing it ever so well) a thought struck her like a Mack truck and she froze in mid-oath.
If they’d come here just to steal his picture . . .
Why would they want to steal his picture?
And who the hell were they, anyway?
From the epicentre of the mess she extracted a suitcase, a few changes of clothing and a big, heavy, silver candlestick. Then she left the flat and caught a taxi.
CHAPTER FOUR
Having concluded his interview with Lucky George, Sitting Bull had a wash, brushed his teeth and put on his body.
For someone who’d been dead for over a century, his wardrobe was extensive and reasonably fashionable; a credit to his good taste and the lucky fact that he could put on a lot of noble savage/oppressed ethnic minority chic without actually trying. He selected one of his favourite outfits - the Mexican/Chicano adolescent streetfighter with designer scars and matching paranoid psychosis - and took the elevator down to his grave.
Not so much a grave; more a sort of pied-à-terre. It was perhaps the only grave in the entire United States that had remote-control operated hydraulic car-port doors.
Down at the Silver Dollar on Whitier Boulevard, heart of the barrio, is one of the best places to pick up anything that’s new on the street in downtown LA; at least, that’s what they say in the brochure for the Los Angeles package tour offered by Mob 18-30, the holiday company specialising in tours for militant activists. When Sitting Bull wandered in and ordered a beer, the place was empty except for two old men playing dominoes and the brewery rep. And a strangely obscure figure, sitting on a bar stool by the juke-box drinking a pineapple juice.
‘Hiya, Jack,’ said Sitting Bull. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I got a cold,’ replied Don Juan, heavily.
‘Too bad. You want to play some pool?’
They strolled over to the pool table, and Don Juan racked up.
&nbs
p; ‘How’s business?’ Sitting Bull asked, chalking his cue and examining it for straightness. Don Juan shrugged.
‘Not so good,’ he replied, ‘not so bad. Still, I think maybe I did wrong to change my career direction. As a philanderer I was good. This I don’t do so well.’
Sitting Bull tossed a coin and called heads, accurately. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Then again, maybe not. The way I see it, Jack, informing is good, steady work. Philandering, you’re only ever as good as your last job.’ He drew back his arm and shot the white against the pack with a satisfying crack. Nothing went down. ‘Is there much about right now?’
‘Pretty quiet, Bull, pretty quiet.’ Don Juan crouched down over the table, examining the lie of the cue ball. ‘You know how it is. All the guys are out of town right now. Nobody who’s anybody sticks around this dumb century for June these days.’ He executed a tiny, stabbing movement that sent the white ball spiralling across the cloth like a vertiginous comet. ‘Things’ll pick up again in July, probably. I’m okay,’ he added, straightening up and noting the position of the balls with approval. ‘I had a good May, so I’m not complaining.’
‘Anything special?’
Don Juan nodded. ‘I turned in the captain of the Marie Celeste,’ he said. ‘There’s some guys in the insurance business in London who want to see him real bad, you know?’ He chuckled without humour. ‘This time I have the feeling he’s going to disappear completely. Your shot.’
Sitting Bull examined the table, calculating angles of incidence and refraction. He liked his new lifestyle (deathstyle, whatever). It was lower profile, but it was worth it simply for not having to shave every day. The hair and the fingernails were a nuisance, of course, but you can’t have everything.
‘I heard,’ he said, perhaps trying a little too hard to sound as if he was just making conversation, ‘that there’s something really big going down in your line right now.’
‘Maybe.’
Sitting Bull addressed the cue ball, made the shot and chalked his cue. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I heard Lucky George is back on the street.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘I heard,’ Sitting Bull continued, sizing up the chances of cannoning off the back cushion to bring the cue ball back for the seven, ‘that there’s a nice long price waiting for anyone with good information.’
‘Could be.’
‘Wish I could get me a piece of that,’ said Sitting Bull to the cue ball. ‘Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t take it with you.’
He watched the cue ball drift down the baize, clip the lip of the middle pocket and run with a clatter into the remains of the pack. Too much goddamn left hand side. Don Juan clicked his tongue sympathetically and sank four balls in quick succession.
‘You got anything, then?’ he asked.
‘Who, me?’ Sitting Bull drank some beer. ‘I was just interested, that’s all. In case I’d missed something.’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Don Juan replied. ‘The latest is, they’ve called off all agents, what with the trouble and everything. Pity about that,’ he added sideways. ‘If you had got anything, I mean.’
He took his shot, but misjudged it by about an eighth of an inch. The ball quivered in the jaws of the pocket and stayed put.
‘Hey,’ Sitting Bull said. ‘Just as well I don’t, or I’d be disappointed.’ He walked round the table a few times, remembering some very good advice he’d received from the Great Sky Spirit, way back in the old days. Never shoot pool with a spic, the Great Sky Spirit had said, or at least not for money. ‘What would the trouble be, Jack?’
‘A lot of very heavy things, Bull,’ Don Juan replied, stroking his chin. ‘Well, maybe not heavy. More making the administration look a complete asshole without actually breaking anything. Neat touch the man’s got, you’ve got to hand it to him.’ He looked up, his eyes catching Sitting Bull’s attention like, say, a sawn-off shotgun placed two inches from one’s nose. ‘I like Lucky George, Bull,’ he said. ‘A really regular guy.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Got me out of a jam more than once. I hope he makes it all the way.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘That’s good.’ Don Juan bent his back and cleared the rest of the table in successive shots. ‘You know, maybe I am in the wrong business, Bull. Maybe I should try your line, huh?’
‘What, being dead?’
Don Juan shrugged. ‘It’s a living,’ he said. ‘And you don’t have to sell nobody down the river, either. I feel bad about it sometimes, Bull, I really do. Basically I’m a very sensitive person.’
‘Me too. I was misunderstood.’
‘You want another game?’
‘Thanks, but I’ve gotta move.’ He put his cue back in the rack. ‘It’s been good seeing you, Jack.’
‘Yeah, you too.’ Don Juan smiled thinly. ‘And remember,’ he added, ‘if you do get to hear anything about Lucky George, nobody wants to know, right? You got that, Bull?’
‘I got that, Jack. Be seeing you.’
After Sitting Bull had left the Silver Dollar, Don Juan sat for a while, staring at the dregs of his pineapple juice and ignoring the obvious glances of the barmaid. It’s a wonderful thing, being retired.
Some time later, he got up and went over to the payphone.
A trapdoor opened, and four shadowy forms emerged.
So shadowy were they that the driver of the car didn’t see them till too late. It would have been a nasty accident if the shadowy form actually hit by the car hadn’t simply dematerialised.
‘Brilliant,’ muttered the leading shadowy form under his breath, as the three survivors paused in a shop doorway to regroup. ‘What bloody genius put the hatch in the middle of a main road?’
They looked back at the scene of the tragedy, which was faintly illuminated by the edge of a streetlamp’s penumbra.
‘Stone me,’ growled the Number Two form. ‘It’s a perishing manhole cover. How cheapskate can you get?’
‘I thought I could thmell thomething while we were coming up.’
The leader shrugged. ‘Ours not to reason why,’ he said, with a certain deficiency of conviction. ‘Right, here’s what we do. We slip in, we ransack the place, we slip out again, we go home. All clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yeth.’
Try as he might, the leader couldn’t help but find Number Three’s speech impediment tiresome in the extreme. Sheer bias on his part, he knew; spectral warriors are considered fit for active service if they pass a number of physical and mental tests, painstakingly designed after extensive research to ascertain whether the subject is up to the demanding tasks likely to be encountered by Hell’s commandos in the field. None of these tasks involved the correct pronunciation of sibilants, and quite right, too. Nevertheless . . .
‘Okay,’ the leader sighed. ‘Synchronise your watches, people. Now . . .’
‘I make it nine forty-three.’
‘Nine thorty-thickth.’
‘No, you’re wrong there, Vern. I checked with the speaking clock before we left, and—’
‘Now,’ repeated the leader, ‘according to the street map, we’re in Silver Street, so King’s College should be . . .’
‘Your watch mutht be thatht. Hey, thkip . . .’
The leader turned slowly round. ‘Yes?’
‘What do you make the time, thkip? Only my watch theth—’
‘Yes, but I checked it before . . .’
The leader winced. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just synchronise them, okay?’
‘Yeth, but thkip, mine theth nine thorty-thickth and hith theth—’
‘Yeah, skip. What does yours say?’
With a gesture of suffering fools, the leader looked at his wrist, only to see the sleeve of a black pullover and nothing else. Dammit, he’d forgotten his watch.
‘Nine forty-five,’ he said. ‘Now, can we please get on with it?’
The brief: break into King’s College, Cambr
idge and comb the archives to see if there was anything there which might shed some light on where Christopher Marlowe, sixteenth-century dramatist and graduate of said college, had got his information from. It was, the leader decided, absolutely typical of the bloody stupid, pointless . . .
‘Shit,’ observed Number Two, looking up at the gatehouse. ‘It’s like a damn fortress. How are we supposed to get into that?’
‘Through the door,’ replied the leader, mercilessly. ‘They haven’t locked up for the night yet.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘That’s the whole idea. We go in, we hide till everyone’s gone to bed, we frisk the place and bugger off. Now, when you’ve quite finished . . .’
‘Hey thkip, that’th pretty neat thinking.’
‘Thanks, Vernon. Come on, follow me.’
Hiding till nightfall in a Cambridge college during termtime is easier said than done. Particularly if you’re distinctively dressed in black trousers and pullover, black balaclava and black face-paint. Acting natural and inconspicuous takes just that bit more effort than usual. Stanislavski could have managed it, but not first time out.
‘Thuck thith for a game of tholdierth,’ observed Number Three eventually, after they’d been politely requested to leave the boiler room for the third time. ‘I thought you thaid—’
‘Well I didn’t,’ the leader replied. ‘Just count yourselves lucky this is a university. Here, the weird is commonplace, so we should be okay. Let’s go and have a drink in the bar.’
‘Have they got a bar, skip?’
‘They’d bloody well better have.’
They did. Huddled in a corner of the Junior Common Room over three pints of Abbot Ale, just under the dartboard, they looked totally inconspicuous.
‘Real bummer, Howard getting run other like that,’ observed Number Three, wiping froth from the mouth-hole of his balaclava.
‘Yes.’
‘You’d have thought they’d have warned uth.’
‘Yes.’
‘Maketh you thick, thometimeth.’
‘You are already, Vernon.’