by Glen Cook
He gave me the hardeye like he wondered if something so sweet would he safe if lie visited the kitchen, decided maybe I could restrain myself that long, stalked out. Carla Lindo Ramada told me, “Dean is a sweet man.”
“Yeah. Sometimes we have trouble keeping the bees off him. We use him to bait our flytraps. And he’s a sucker for a girl in trouble.” But not me. Oh, no, not Garrett. Garrett is hard as nails, “How come you were hiding out there?”
“When I arrived in TunFaire, I stayed with people the Baron knows On the Hill. I asked everybody I saw who might be able to help me. Everybody recommended you.”
Gahk! I hadn’t thought my name was common coin on the Hill. That could be bad news.
“They say you’re honest but you do things your own way and you have a reputation as a chaser.” Her eyes sparkled She definitely wasn’t as naive as she looked.
“Me? They must’ve been thinking about somebody else. I’m pure of heart and soul. Pure as the driven slush.
“But maybe a little lax in mind and body?” More eye twinkle. She was coming back from her fright. Fast. I bet she kept that mountain castle simmering.
She smiled. Her freckles danced And I knew why she stood out from the other redheads. They didn’t have freckles Even Tinnie doesn’t have them Many Where they show.
We could’ve gone on like that all night, but there was a job to do. And Dean would be back any second, pushing his scowl before him. “Guilty more often than not Let me tell you about the Carla Lindo Ramada who was here before You tell me when her story doesn’t match up with yours.”
She listened attentively. Her eyes never stopped sparkling and her freckles never stopped dancing, even when Dean brought our tea. He looked at her looking at me and sighed. He never does quite abandon hope that he can stick me with one of his nieces.
Carla Lindo sipped her tea, seemed startled. Dean had broken out one of his reserve blends. She took another sip, told me, “That’s exactly the way it happened, Mr. Garrett. I think.”
“You think?”
‘I wasn’t there. He sent me away so I’d be safe.”
‘He did? He wanted you safe from the rowdiness at home, but he packed you off to the wicked city alone?” That didn’t seem consistent.
“He didn’t want to send me. Probably she got here before I did because he spent so much time making up his mind. But he didn’t have any choice. I was the only one left that he could trust.”
“Why?”
’The Serpent tried to enlist everybody else. Some of them had to be with her. The trustworthy ones all got killed trying to get the book. She never tried to get to me because she knew I’d never do anything against him.”
“Why not? We all can be tempted.”
“Because he’s my father, Mr. Garrett. My mother was a chambermaid, too, so there was no way he could legitimize me, but their relationship wasn’t any secret. He never denied me, even to his wife. She hates me and my mother. But she hasn’t dared do anything.” She shivered, suddenly frightened. There was a big yet unspoken there. If Dean had been anywhere else, I would’ve bounced over to comfort her.
This was getting more complicated by the minute, at the far end, where the story started, but I wasn’t a step nearer getting things unraveled here. “Wait up. I’m getting confused. We have a wife and a witch and a mistress and a daughter, all for a guy who’s supposed to be two hundred years old, bedridden, and under a curse that won’t let him die?”
She looked at me funny. I ran past her what the other Carla Lindo had told me. Maybe she hadn’t been listening the first time.
“Oh. That’s not quite true. Father is old and bedridden, but he wasn’t always. And he’s not two hundred; she just says that. He’s sixty-eight. She put the curse on him when I was four, when he stopped even pretending about my mother and sent her to live in the other tower.”
“Huh?”
Dean got it first. “His wife would be the Serpent, Mr. Garrett. He exiled her to a separate part of the castle.” So much for my steel-trap mind. Maybe if I was a little less pained and tired.
The girl nodded.
“Oh. Right. I got it now. Should have said so.” I wondered if that changed anything. I wondered why I cared. The carryings-on of the denizens of a faraway castle were no business of mine. Unless those people wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought out loud, “It seems we know who and why, Dean. You think?”
“That Serpent person. Wanting to keep Miss Carla from reaching you and getting your help.”
“That’s one. What about Squirrel? Her doing?”
He shrugged. “That blonde woman?”
“Maybe. Now we know this, what should we do?”
Carla Lindo didn’t correct Dean’s lapse. So she was the kind who would let him get away with stuff.
She interrupted my thoughts. “Will you help me, Mr. Garrett?”
I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t let her out of my sight. That that would be too painful, like taking away my vision. My eyes couldn’t stand the darkness when she was gone. But I kept it businesslike. Barely “Yes.
I think our interests run parallel.” Wouldn’t be the first time I’d turned on a client who turned out to be shady.
My comments puzzled Carla Lindo. I glanced at Dean. He shrugged. He hadn’t told her about Tinnie or that the imposter Carla Lindo had hired me.
“Miss Ramada . . . I became involved in this on a personal level yesterday. A. good friend was coming to visit. She’s about your height and has red hair. A man tried to kill her out front. One of the Serpent’s men, evidently. Mistaking her for you, I suspect. So I have a score to settle. I suppose.”
The Dead Man touched me, a summons. He had something he wanted to stick in, in private. “Excuse me. I have to step out for a minute. Finish explaining, Dean.”
The old man nodded. He was looking hurt all over again. Like Tinnie had just gotten hit. He’d probably tell it better than I could. He didn’t pretend to be tough.
I sure didn’t feel tough and invulnerable.
18
I slid into the Dead Man’s room, starting to feel sorry for myself. I hadn’t had me a good dose of that yet. I suppose it was due. Part of being human.
“What’s up? This one a ringer, too?”
This one is genuine. She is an open book, easily read— though the truth be told, there is not much written there. Her light does not shine brightly. Be kind to her, Garrett.
“Aw, hell. That ain’t playing fair.”
He filled my head with a chuckle. There is kindness and kindness, Garrett. I would not ask you to cease being human .
“Big of you.” Not much, he wouldn’t. “What’s up?” Looking at all of him here and thinking of all of Carla Lindo over there, I was headed into withdrawal.
One significant factor has escaped you. No. You need not feel slow. Indulgent of him. It escaped me until you told Miss Ramada about Miss Tate’s narrow escape .
That’s the way he is. Nothing straight out. Try to make me figure it out for myself. “Well?”
He didn’t play with me long. You related the same account to the pretender earlier. That woman, if she is indeed the Serpent—and I now believe she is—then knows that Miss Ramada had not been harmed and was in fact ignorant of that threat, so was in no danger of being scared away. Presumably she had something to do with your adventure near Dwarf House. So. Assuming the house was not watched while you were away, because you were not expected to return . . .
“I’ve got it. Do you think she figured out that you were here?”
That is of no consequence. It is no secret that you share the home of a Loghyr. She will know once she starts to ask questions.
I skipped his invitation to feud over whose house it was. I considered what we knew about the Serpent. Damned little, but if she was heavyweight enough to create the kind of book that was the root of the excitement, she could be heavyweight enough to cause us trouble. The Dead Man can do incredible things, but strength isn’t everything.
Sometimes you have to bob and weave and he just isn’t light on his feet. There are disadvantages to being dead that even he can’t get around.
“Let’s back off and look at this. Why is she here? To get her book back. That’s the big thing. Keeping me out of her way ought to be secondary. When she was here, she got everything I knew. She gave me stuff back, but only because then she figured me to do her legwork.” But if she wanted me to do legwork, why try to hit me? “Maybe she changed her mind when she got wind I was seeing your pal Sneezy.”
Sneezy?
“Gnorst Gnorst Gnorst, and so forth. Maybe she started feeling the heat, realized how much she’d stirred up. She’s got me and Saucerhead and you and the Tates after her on account of Tinnie, as soon as we figure out she isn’t Carla Lindo. She’s got the kingpin after her because he wants whoever cut Squirrel. I visit the head dwarf, he squawks like a stuck turkey when I mention the Book of Shadows, goes into a panic, says he’s going to put his whole mob on the warpath. They’re after her, too. She’s got to make some moves. Maybe she figures if she gets rid of me, everybody will sit back for a while because I was the common denominator tying her enemies together.”
I’d gone from explaining to thinking out loud. “She’s going to push hard, going after that book. She might take another whack at me when she finds out I got away from her boys. Now I can raise the heat even more.”
Yes.
“Can there really be a book where you just read a page and turn into whoever’s written there?”
She believes it. Gnorst believes it. The girl and those who sent her believe it. The man who stole the book believed it. Miss Tate was wounded because people believe it. What I believe does not matter. This has become a race, Garrett. You have to find that woman before she finds the book.
“How about I just find the book and wait for her to come to me?”
An admirable strategy, simple and direct. I should have seen it myself. How do you propose to execute it?
Sly, sarcastic old devil. Of course it would be easier to find the witch than the book. She was running with a strange pack. Even in TunFaire, it would stand out like pants on a mare.
“I shouldn’t be here. I should be at Morley’s, in case Sadler gets an interesting report.”
Mr. Dotes’s establishment would be convenient. I can get a message to you there. Though perhaps a modicum of rest would better serve you at the moment.
“Right.” He was. “I’m on my way.”
Dean looked expectant when I returned to the small front room. “He wanted to remind me that we told the other woman about Tinnie. Which means she knows Carla Lindo is still kicking.”
The redhead’s eyes got huge. Damned if that didn’t make me want to charge over there and set her in my lap and tell her everything was going to be all right. Even if I didn’t know everything was going to be all right. Because things would be plenty all right with me as long as she remained perched there.
I said, “We figure there’s no reason for you to worry. The cat’s out of the bag. Killing you won’t chase it back in. She’ll concentrate on finding the book.”
“You can’t let her find it!”
“Take it easy. She’ll need some fantastic luck to find it before she gets found herself. In about a minute I’m going to take a walk and tell a man about her, and before you can wink there’ll be about three thousand bad people looking for her.” I had a thought, which sometimes happens. Sometimes even before it’s too late. “What’s she look like when she’s not being you?”
Carla Lindo just looked at me.
“Well?”
“I’m trying to think. I don’t know. I don’t think I ever saw her. At least not and know it was her.”
“Say what?” The Dead Man had warned me. “You lived in the same place and you never saw her? She had to see you if she put a page in her book that was you.” Had to see her pretty damned close. About all she’d left out was the freckles.
“She stayed locked up in her tower. Nobody went in there but people she wanted in there. All those dwarves and ogres and creepy ratmen. If I ever saw her, I didn’t know it was her. I’m sure I never saw her.”
The Baron’s castle had to be some weird place. Not one where I’d like to spend a lot of time. Unless Carla Lindo had her four or five sisters. Maybe I ought to find out if there were any more at home like her.
I must’ve been showing my thoughts. She gave me a look like she was reading my mind. I stammered some, then managed to say, “You can’t give me anything to go on?”
“No. Yes. I never saw it, but they say she wears a ring. Middle finger of her right hand. She never takes it off. It’s a snake that wraps around her finger three times. It has a cobra head. They say there’s venom in the ring that can kill you instantly.”
“That’s handy to know.” I reflected. “The woman who was here wasn’t wearing a ring. I don’t think.” That was still foggy. “Did you see one, Dean?”
“No.” Good man. He refrained from mentioning the extra redhead.
“Then she will take it off in some circumstances. Is there anything else?”
Carla Lindo reddened, which was surprisingly fetching considering her coloring. But I couldn’t imagine her doing anything that wasn’t fetching. She only had to breathe.
She said, “She has a tattoo. They say. It’s how she got her name. The Serpent.”
“Huh?” Vagrant memory, of a guy in my company when I was in the Marines. He’d been stuck with the name Donkey Dick till one night he’d gotten all drunked up and had a tattoo artist go to work. After that we called him Snakeman. If he’s still alive, I’ll bet he regrets it. Unless he’s turned it into a carnival act.
The girl stood up. “The whole front of her is supposed to be a snake’s face.” She gestured. “Her breasts are supposed to be the snake’s eyes.”
Boy. There was a thought. Imagine waking up and looking over at that next to you. That would dampen your ardor. No wonder old Stonecipher took up with a chambermaid. “That’s a vivid image. Anything else?” I could just see me going around ripping open the blouses of suspects.
She shook her head. All that copper hair flying around left me with another vivid image. But this one faded to red hair against cobblestones.
I wondered if Tinnie was going to haunt me. Maybe I’d better go see how she was doing. Tomorrow.
“I have to go out, Dean. Over to Morley’s.”
His face pruned up with concern. “Is that wise?”
“It’s necessary. Put Miss Ramada in the front guest room. She’ll be safe enough there.”
His look said she’d be safe only as long as I was Out of the house. I didn’t argue. I seldom do. There’s no way to change Dean’s mind. Maybe he should’ve gone ahead and become a priest. You sure can’t rattle him with facts.
He’d make a great little old lady, too.
Probably comes of having to live with all those nieces. I hate to wish them on anybody, but I do wish they’d find husbands and get Out of his hair.
Dean nodded. I stepped out of the room, deaf to the girl’s appeals. I went upstairs and rearmed, then came down and stopped by the office to say good-bye to Eleanor. “Wish me luck, lady. Wish me better luck.” I hadn’t saved a soul in the case that had involved her. Unless, maybe, in a way, I’d saved me. After the hurting went, I’d found a renewed resolve to do my bit to make the world a better place.
19
You get wary when people have been pounding on you. Even when you’re so tired even snazzy redheads have begun to lose their appeal. Before I’d gone a block I sensed I was being watched. I’m not sure what it was. Certainly nothing I could spot. The watcher was that good. Maybe it’s a sense you develop in order to survive in this business, in this city.
I decided I’d stay out of places so tight I’d have nowhere to run, which was just common night sense anyway.
I was halfway to Morley’s place, dodging low-flying morCartha, when suddenly I was no longer alone. “Shee-it! You
guys got to stop doing that. My heart can’t handle it.” Despite my wariness, Crask and Sadler had surprised me, appearing out of nowhere. An object lesson, most likely. In case I ever became inclined to line up against them. They like to play those games.
I supposed it was their people who had tracked me from my place and sent them word I was coming.
Sadler smiled. At least I think that was supposed to be a smile. Hard to tell in the dark. “Really thought you’d appreciate some good news, Garrett. But if you ain’t happy to see us.
“I’m overjoyed. I’m thrilled right down the quicks of my toenails.” Thrilled like they were double pneumonia with a raging dysentery tossed in. “Why can’t you guys just walk up to me like normal people? You always got to be jumping out of alleys and stuff.”
Crask said, “I like to see the look on your face.” He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t kidding.
Sadler said, “My, my. We’re crabby tonight. Did we have a bad day?”
“You got your kicks. So tell me what’s the good news?”
“We found your man Blaine.”
“Huh?”
Sadler said, “Come on. You ask, we deliver.”
Deliver, sure, but without any guarantees about condition. It’s hard to read those two, but I did get a feeling all was not well during our stroll to see Blain. So I wasn’t surprised when, after we’d passed a platoon of henchmen and climbed to a third-floor one-roomer, he turned out to be in a poor state of health.
Some unaccountably thoughtful soul had covered the body with a blanket.
I glanced around. The room’s door had been busted off its hinges. And I don’t mean just kicked in but torn up like it had gotten in the way of a troll in a hurry who didn’t want to be bothered with latches. The room itself was ripped all to hell, like a squad of werewolves had gone berserk there. But there wasn’t any blood. “You guys get a little overwrought?”
Sadler shook his head. “Somebody else. We come here when he heard about the racket.”
