Inside, I found pages of the same rough-toothed paper, covered with sketches. I hadn’t seen him sketching at the booth, but suddenly I could see him sitting alone in his room, drawing. Just him and the sketch pad.
He was good. Hell, he’d been good thirty years ago. He was brilliant now. His figures, always strong, were cleaner, simpler—now but just as subtle and lifelike, as if he’d learned to achieve the same results with fewer lines.
The first few pages contained small sketches of various people at the convention. You could tell at a glance how he felt about each subject. He mocked the costumed fans, but gently, as if their antics amused him. He wasn’t quite so kind to the bearded professor or Walker. I was relieved that he hadn’t drawn Michael.
He liked Maggie. He didn’t idealize her, didn’t remove any lines or gray hairs, and yet the sketch of her had a warmth and vibrancy that made you smile just to look at it. It wasn’t unlike the glow Porfiria had in those early comics. Yeah, he liked Maggie.
He liked me, too. The sketches of me didn’t quite have Maggie’s warmth, but they did have their own kind of heat. I didn’t think my Renaissance wench costume was quite as low cut as he’d drawn it, and I knew perfectly well he’d exaggerated my figure. Nice to know I retain my appeal to the criminal element.
But the QB—he’d sketched her, more than anyone, and the pictures radiated a cold hatred that made me hesitate to touch the page. And they made her look startlingly ugly and repulsive. The more startling because they didn’t seem distorted. More like photo-realism, and yet through some subtle alchemy, he’d made the seemingly straightforward lines and curves reveal not only the outer shell but the cruel soul inside. I found myself staring into the eyes of one sketch and thinking that Medusa must have looked just like this, to turn her viewers into stone. I certainly stood staring down at the page for far too long.
A monkey chattered overhead, and I snapped out of it.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered.
But which way? Back the way I’d come, or out the other side of the dealers’ room?
I should have paid more attention to which way Salome was going. Or, for that matter, where Steele went when he left the dealers’ room a few minutes before Francis turned Salome loose.
“Lady killer or tiger?” I muttered, looking back and forth between the two escape routes. Though for all I knew, if I chose the wrong path, they’d both be lying in wait.
Maybe I could sneak out the back way while they were fighting over who got to finish me off.
“Chill,” I told myself. Odds were Steele was outside, with the rest, waiting to hear that Salome had been recaptured. The last time we’d talked, I’d been busy explaining why I suspected Nate. He had no way of knowing that his producer friend had just handed me the clue that gave him away.
“Just move,” I muttered. I decided that if I were Salome, I’d steer for the lobby, so I headed toward the opposite side of the dealers’ room, where the back exit would take me near the ballroom and the green room. It would have taken Salome longer to reach those.
Though between the time I’d spent cowering in the men’s room and the time it had taken me to search the booth, she could have strolled halfway downtown.
I walked as quickly and quietly as possible to the other end of the room and peered out the open door. Quiet out there.
Possibly too quiet? Would the parrots and monkeys shut up if they knew Salome was nearby?
No way to tell. I peered around the doorway, carefully. Nothing. I slipped out and headed toward the ballroom door. My plan, to the extent I had a plan, was to slip into the ballroom and then out again through the back door Michael and I had used the night before. Odds were few people at the convention knew that route, and Salome would have trouble with the door handles.
Halfway down the hall, I heard a noise. From the ballroom.
Or was it my imagination?
I crept into the ballroom. Definitely a real noise, and coming from a utility closet. Which was locked, from the outside. Perhaps someone had taken refuge in the closet, as I had in the bathroom, and been locked in.
I opened the door and found the bound, gagged figure of the man from the health department.
“Ah, so that’s where you went,” I said.
He wriggled frantically, and made a lot of loud umphing noises that didn’t really need translation.
“Yes, I can untie you if you like,” I said, “but it really might be better to wait until they catch the tiger, and besides—”
Just then, I felt the point of a sword at my back.
Chapter 41
I react quickly in moments of crisis. Not always usefully, but quickly. This time, I managed to whirl and meet Steele’s sword with mine, slamming the closet door along the way.
Which would have made me feel better if the smile on Steele’s face didn’t suggest that he wanted me to fight back, and if I hadn’t realized, a second too late, that slamming the door might be a bad idea. Now Steele didn’t have to worry about a possible eyewitness if he slit my throat.
“I’d like my sketchpad back,” he said, with a token thrust of his sword by way of emphasis.
I shook my head. I tried to think of something suitably cutting to say, but the brain wasn’t cooperating, so I settled for parrying and returning to my best on-guard pose.
“Yeah, you’re one tough dame,” he said, with a sneer. “But I never bothered with that pretty, choreographed stage combat you and Chris like. I learned to use this thing as a weapon.”
“I should have known the name was too good to be true,” I said. “A blacksmith named Steele.”
“Well, I got to choose,” he said.
“I think Ichabod Dilley suits you better, though,” I said. “Mind if I call you Ichabod?”
“Yes, I mind,” he said, taking a step forward—not quite a lunge, but enough to make me scramble back a few steps as I parried. “Alaric Steele is my legal name now. Ichabod Dilley is that little twerp in the cheap suit.”
“Your call,” I said.
“Give me the damned sketchbook,” he said.
“Just for the sake of argument, what if I do give you the sketchbook?” I asked. “You’re going to say, ‘Gee, thanks,’ sheathe the sword, and go away quietly?”
“No, but I’ll make it quick and painless,” he said.
“Like I’ve been meaning to tell you all weekend, you’re a lousy salesman,” I said.
“But a damn fine swordsman,” he said, lunging forward, and for a few terrifying moments, I parried frantically and backed up as fast as I could, Steele following, until we reached the open area in front of the stage. Then Steele’s attack eased off and we went back to circling each other warily.
The blacksmith part of my brain noted with disapproval that both our blades had gotten rather nicked in that last flurry of thrusts and parries. Another part, probably inherited from Dad, observed that it was certainly a lot harder to avoid being hit when you’re fighting someone who really wants to kill you, wasn’t it? And didn’t the snick of the blades sound just like in the movies? I’d have told both parts to shut up, except that they seemed to be drowning out, for now, the part that kept yelling at me to drop the sword and curl up in a little ball. Not a good plan.
Do something to distract him, I thought.
“So,” I said, backing away a little more. “While you’re trying to kill me—I say trying, because of course I plan to stop you if I can—satisfy my curiosity, will you?”
“You want to know if I killed her?” he said, stepping forward and gently brushing his blade against mine. “Well…if you really want to know…YES!”
As he shouted, he lunged, aiming for my throat. I parried easily and backed away again.
“Lucky you,” he sneered.
Lucky, my eye. Powerful lunge, well executed…but telegraphed. I’d known the answer to his question, of course, and I’d suspected he would lunge when he said it.
I managed to back up the stairs onto
the stage, which was damned hard in long skirts. I resented the fact that Steele got to see where he was going when he bounded up the stairs after me.
Of course, if I’d known I’d be dueling a crazed killer, I’d have worn something more suitable than a low cut, full-skirted wench costume.
“Of course you killed her,” I said. “You must have gotten a good laugh, sitting there listening to me telling you all the reasons why Nate had to be the killer. But I was wondering why.”
“Why?” he snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
And again, he’d lunge on the words he wanted to emphasize. I was starting to like his fighting style. Predictable. Although I wished the monkeys overhead would stop chattering. They distracted me, and he didn’t even seem to notice.
“I mean, was it really just about the show and a bunch of comic books?”
“A bunch of comic books? Are you trying to tick me off?”
Actually I was. Make someone lose his temper and you have an advantage over him, my martial arts teacher always used to say. Of course, he wasn’t necessarily thinking of people waving yard-long sharpened broadswords.
Steele stopped for a moment, pulled his sword back, and took a breath.
“It was mine,” he said, “and she made a travesty of it.”
“You did sell her the rights, you know,” I said, as gently as I could.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a real sale,” he said. “I had these guys after me, trying to collect money I couldn’t possibly pay, and I had to disappear.”
“I figured your disappearance had something to do with the debt collectors,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, how did you get so far in debt? Your nephew thinks drugs.”
“Drugs,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “You can tell who raised him. Just what my brother would say.”
“So if it wasn’t drugs—”
“I paid for printing the last four issues of the comic,” he said.
He was getting caught up in what he was saying. Maybe if I kept him talking, he’d put down the sword, or at least give me a chance to knock it out of his hands.
“The publisher claimed he had cash-flow problems, so I borrowed the money,” he continued. “And then he disappeared, leaving me with all the bills. He never even printed the last issue.”
“The thirteenth issue,” I murmured.
“Exactly,” he said. “Tammy and I figured if we could get a bigger publisher to pick up the comics, I’d have more than enough to pay back the loan sharks. Or better yet, a movie deal. And once we had all that money, I could pay off my debts and resurface. But for the time being, I had to disappear, so I pretended to sell her the rights so she’d have legal authority to cut a deal.”
“And you didn’t have a backup plan in case she couldn’t cut the deal?”
He shook his head.
“I know it sounds stupid, but I never imagined it wouldn’t happen.”
“So you changed your name, faked your death under the old name, and waited for her to sell the comics and rescue you.”
“And she never did a damned thing,” he said. “The bitch!”
Predictably, he lunged on the last word, sending me scuttling backward again while overhead the monkeys shrieked and leaped about. Glad someone was enjoying the show. I wasn’t; this time he kept coming, testing my defenses again and again while I backed away, step by step. So much for distracting him.
“You never asked what happened?” I said.
“She never took my calls or answered my letters,” he said. “Didn’t want to admit she’d stopped trying.”
“Or maybe she didn’t want to admit she’d failed,” I said. “From what Nate says, she put a lot of work into it, over the years, but selling an idea for a movie or a TV series isn’t easy.”
“And when she sold it, look what happened. Crap. And you know what really ticked me off?”
I shook my head, and got ready, because I knew he’d strike when he snarled out whatever he was about to say.
“The credits!” he roared, and even though I was expecting it, I almost didn’t manage to parry. “She stole my creation, after thirty years she finally did something with it, and then she didn’t—even—mention—me—in the credits!”
He nicked me, once, during that mad flurry of thrusts, and I could feel a trickle of blood running down my arm. Maybe more than a trickle; I didn’t dare take the time to look too closely. I’d backed up, nearly to the edge of the stage. I was panting a little—as much from stress as exertion. Steele wasn’t. He was still feinting and slowly advancing. He didn’t really look all that winded. Just my luck to tangle with the one fifty-something at the whole convention in better shape than me.
“Maybe she thought you were dead?” I suggested, sliding to the side as I parried and parried again. His style was getting better, dammit. Fewer dramatic lunges and more constant pressure.
“She knew I wasn’t dead,” he said. “She helped me fake it.”
“That was in 1972,” I said. “You could have died for real in the thirty years since.”
“And that makes it all right to pretend I never existed?”
“Maybe she thought you wouldn’t want to be credited as Ichabod Dilley!” I suggested, “And it would spoil the whole purpose of the phony death if she credited Alaric Steele.”
“Hardly matters now,” he said. “She’s dead. And it’s her fault I had to give up my art all these years.”
“Give it up?” I asked. “You mean completely?”
“Going from one lousy job to another,” he said.
“Until you took up blacksmithing,” I suggested.
He shrugged.
“Gives me independence, I’ll say that much for it,” he said.
Maybe it was the insult to my chosen profession, but I parried his next several feints a lot more easily.
“Why didn’t you do another comic, when you saw Tammy wasn’t going to sell Porfiria?” I suggested. “Make your own deal.”
“Didn’t dare,” he said. “I had people after me, remember? What if they recognized my style?”
“I think you’re overestimating the aesthetic sensibilities of your loan sharks,” I said. “Not to mention their staying power—why would they keep chasing you after your brother paid your debts?”
“Well, I didn’t know that until yesterday,” he said. “That’s another thing she did to me…she had my address, and never passed along any messages from my brother. If I’d known he paid them off, I could have come out of hiding then.”
“So you were mad that you gave up your art all these years for nothing.”
Probably the wrong thing to say—he snarled and lunged again.
“You’re wasting my time,” he said. “I want my sketchbook—”
“Over there, by the door,” I said, jerking my chin in the right direction. “I dropped it when you surprised me.”
“And that little scrap of paper—”
I was running out of space to retreat.
“And then—”
Bad luck. This time, when he lunged, I tripped over a power cable and went sprawling. He loomed over me, sword in hand, and the smile on his face wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
“And then I’m going to make sure you can’t tell anyone. Sorry you—”
Help arrived. One of the monkeys dropped onto Steele’s head, shrieking, clawing, and biting. He grabbed at the monkey with both hands, nearly skewering me with the sword when he dropped it. Half a dozen other monkeys were swinging about overhead, shrieking and chattering as if working up their nerve to join the attack. It only took a few seconds for Steele to throw the monkey off, but when he turned around again to look for his sword, he found himself staring at the business end.
“You won’t use that, you know,” he said, with a menacing smile.
“Really? Try me,” I said.
“It’s a lot harder to kill than most people think,” he said.
“I’ll just have to try, won’t I?” I said. “Inflictin
g grievous bodily harm is also fine. I’m not going to stand here and let you kill me.”
I could see him tensing his muscles for a spring, and I didn’t even know myself whether I’d have the nerve to impale him when he did. I never found out. Just as he was about to move, I heard a noise overhead.
A low, rumbling growl.
We both froze.
I could see that Steele was darting his eyes up, above my head, to the left, to the right. Since he kept flicking his eyes in different directions, he obviously wasn’t seeing anything. I was doing the same thing, only I finally did spot something.
An African Grey parrot.
As I watched, the parrot opened its mouth again, produced a surprisingly low, rumbling growl, and then preened its feathers, looking very pleased with itself.
And rightly so. Now that I knew it was a parrot, I thought I could tell that the growl was a little less deep and resonant than Salome’s. Then again, maybe I only thought that because I was looking at the parrot. If you expected—perhaps dreaded—hearing a tiger, maybe it sounded just fine. I hoped so, anyway.
I leveled my gaze on Steele.
“Supposedly tigers have very bad eyesight,” I said, very quietly. “They attack on motion. Maybe if we both keep very, very still.”
The parrot conveniently practiced its growl again. I imitated Steele’s menacing smile.
Steele stayed very, very still.
Now what? We couldn’t stand here forever, me holding the sword pointed at Steele’s throat. Sooner or later, my arm would get tired. Or the parrot would switch from menacing growls to knock-knock jokes and give the game away. Or the real Salome would turn up.
Just when I was about to turn and make a run for it, I saw Steele begin to move. I stepped out of the line of his attack and was aiming a thrust at his midsection when I realized he wasn’t lunging at me—he was falling. I barely avoided skewering him as he flopped face first to the floor, with a small projectile protruding from his left buttock. A dart.
“Got him!” came a voice.
A woman in some kind of uniform appeared over the edge of the stage.
“Roger,” came a voice from the back of the ballroom. “You stay there; we’ve got a location on the tiger.”
We’ll Always Have Parrots Page 23