Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  “Then why are you here?”

  She leaned back in her chair, folded her hands in her lap and exhaled, long and slow, like she was breathing out a lifetime. Her eyes closed, almost as if she’d forgotten I was there. Time floated by. I felt like I was intruding in my own office. Even the building stopped creaking in respect. The world went silent, watching the old lady swim through a century of memories behind her eyes.

  “A stranger came to my door,” she said eventually. “Three days ago. He was a large man: bald, with dark glasses and a blond beard. Half-Ogre, I think. He wore a suit. Inexpensive. The kind you might wear when you want to look sharp but are also prepared to get dirty. He was a gangster, Mr Phillips, and he came looking for my husband to collect on an outstanding debt.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth. That my husband wasn’t a gambler. That my husband is dead. That this man had no business at my door and should kindly take his leave.”

  I had to stop myself smiling at the image of this sweet lady shooing away a professional gangster like he was a pigeon on her doorstep.

  “And how did he respond?”

  She took another long, sad exhale.

  “He smiled, Mr Phillips. And in that smile I saw that my words were not the truth. That my husband was a gambler and that he owed money to men who would do terrible things to him if he didn’t pay them back. Suddenly, all the little things made sense. The confused back-and-forth with his boss about where he’d been. The knowing looks from the police force when they asked about his hobbies and his friends. People have spent the last three months looking at me with pity. Not because of my husband’s passing, but because they knew about something I didn’t even suspect.”

  She squinted up her face, as if that fact made her more frustrated than the rest of the story.

  “How much did he owe?”

  “Ten bronze. Not a fortune, but more than I had on hand.”

  “What did the Half-Ogre do?”

  “Nothing. That was the strangest part. He told me to forget about it and he left.”

  “Are you afraid that he’ll come back? You want to hire me as protection?”

  She laughed, and I tried not to look insulted.

  “No, I don’t think so. Nothing like that.” Carissa Steeme reached into her bag and pulled out a roll of bronze bills wrapped up in a black ribbon. “Ten bronze. This is the money my husband owed. This is what I’m going to offer you.”

  Her eyes were as clear as polished crystal. That’s the difference between the really old Elves and the younger ones who were robbed of their youth too soon. Their skin is the same but their eyes still hold an eternity of life.

  “To do what?”

  “To find out who killed my husband and make them pay. If Harold died with debts, I doubt that this was the only one. I believe some other piece of muscle in a cheap suit came after him first and I believe they gave him more than a mean smile. You’re going to find out who killed Harold and make things right.”

  I looked at the roll of bills, all dressed up and hoping to impress. They weren’t doing a bad job.

  “If you’re right, and some gambling house knocked off your husband for racking up a loan, then there isn’t going to be anything to find. Operations like that don’t stay in business leaving evidence. At least, not the kind of thing that holds up in court.”

  “I tried the law, remember.”

  She was as cool as a shot of iced liquor. I didn’t know whether to be turned on or terrified. I looked down at the roll of bills, then back at those evergreen eyes.

  “Mrs Steeme, I’m not a killer. Even if I was, I don’t hold out hope of digging up any proof of a three-month-old murder. Guys like that don’t leave bloody daggers on their bedside tables, waiting for someone to sneak in and find them. If I go knocking around the gambling houses it will put me, and you, in a lot of trouble. And for what? I can’t imagine coming back with anything more than a hunch. Nobody is going to confess and you’re not going to find his body in someone’s basement. He’s gone. You’re not. Spend that money on something for yourself.”

  That was usually the part when people got angry. Not her. She nodded like she understood, picked up the cash, peeled off two bills and dropped them on the desk. There weren’t as many of them now but they were all undressed and winking at me.

  “Go get your hunch,” she said. “See what your instincts tell you. Let me know what you find out and I’ll take it from there.”

  I tried to stare her down but you couldn’t win with those eyes. They didn’t push back. They drew you in. She knew I was going to say yes before I did.

  I snatched up the bills, threw them in my top drawer, and nodded.

  “Now,” she said, “what have you done to yourself?”

  “Sorry?” Carissa pushed back her chair and came around behind me. “Oh, my last case got a little rough.”

  She unwrapped my homemade, bloody bandage and gasped.

  “Mr Phillips, you have a hole in your head.”

  “Believe it or not, you ain’t the first person to tell me that.”

  She sniffed. “What have you been putting on this?”

  “Alcohol.”

  “Whiskey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you a moron?”

  “It’s been suggested.”

  Her fingers combed my hair away from the wound.

  “You need to see a doctor.”

  “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “Right after hunting for termites, is it?”

  “And breakfast.”

  She was less amused than she’d been all morning. Carissa threw the bandage on the desk, walked over to the sink, turned on the tap, then pointed at the hand-towel and sneered.

  “Has this place ever been cleaned?”

  “Maybe. You’ll have to ask the last guy who lived here.”

  She shook her head again, more serious than when she was trying to hire me to kill someone.

  “Stay right where you are. Do not move an inch, Mr Phillips, or when I get back you’re going to regret it.”

  I didn’t even nod.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She walked out the door and I heard the rhythm of her feet disappear downstairs. I did exactly as she said, not moving a muscle, other than to reach into my drawer, past the two curly bronze bills, and dip into my overflowing collection of Clayfields.

  I didn’t want this job. Not because it was pointless. Not because Simms told me to stay put. But because of where it was asking me to go.

  The darkest corner of Sunder was the gambling district known as the Sickle. The last time I’d been there was back before the Coda, and I’d barely made it out alive.

  I decided that I was going to give her back the bronze. This case wasn’t going to get either of us anywhere good. If her husband got on the wrong side of a gambling house, then wherever he ended up, I didn’t want to join him. I’d just come to that conclusion when Carissa came back through the door carrying a small glass bottle and a steaming pot of water.

  “Well, isn’t he just a darling?” she said brightly.

  “Oh. You met Georgio?”

  “What an incredible fellow.” She put the pot down on the desk and rummaged around in the little handbag she’d left on her chair. “Just as filthy as you are but far more entertaining.”

  She pulled out a crisp, white handkerchief and came back behind me to deal with my wound. She dipped the cloth into the boiled water and then I felt the gentle touch of it on the top of my head. We didn’t say anything while she worked. I just listened to her dip her hand into the water, wring out the cloth, and then slide it down my scalp to clear away the dried blood, dirt, and any ideas I had about refusing this lady my services. I was just starting to relax when she said…

  “Don’t flinch.”

  … and dabbed again.

  “Shit!” I jerked my head forward. She’d switched out the water for rubbing alcohol while I was daydreaming.
>
  “I told you not to flinch.”

  “Sorry.”

  The next part wasn’t anywhere near as relaxing. She rubbed alcohol over everything and pulled hairs out of the cut. When she picked up the bandage, I thought she was preparing to wrap it back around my head, but she threw it in the dustbin and washed her hands in the sink.

  “Stay right there, sitting up, and do not leave the house today.”

  “I thought I needed to see a doctor.”

  “I called one from downstairs. She’ll be over in an hour. Don’t you dare lie down and fill that wound with dirt before she arrives.”

  I’d spent my youth around army generals and political leaders but this lady put them all to shame.

  “Uh… sure. Thanks.”

  “When the doctor leaves, go back to bed and get some rest. You can look for my husband’s murderer in the morning.”

  I watched her age-defying body slide out into the hall and waited thirty seconds before I went back to digging up the floor. I cut a hole around the shiny object, put the blade underneath and flicked it out onto the rug.

  It was metal. Gray and burned. The fireball had propelled it out of the machine hard enough to sink it into the floor.

  I rolled the misshapen ball around in my fingers. It was so small. Seemingly insignificant. Surely something so tiny couldn’t do any real damage. Not like the magic of old, or even what Tippity had been throwing around.

  I pulled out the bottom drawer and looked at the machine. It was just a piece of pipe with a wooden handle. Nothing remarkable. Nothing to worry about.

  I put the projectile beside the machine and closed the drawer carefully, so as not to set it off again. Then I closed my mind on all the uncomfortable questions that were coming to the surface. Questions about Lance Niles and the Bluebird Lounge and the mysterious present.

  I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t have to. Because I had a new case all lined up.

  Find out who killed Harold Steeme.

  Simple. Better.

  Even though I’d told myself that I’d never go back to the Sickle.

  17

  The doctor came over and patched me up properly. There was too much skin missing for stitches but she shaved a bit of my head and glued a bandage over it. Then she made some recommendations: get myself a hat to cover the wound, take a few days off, ease up on the Clayfields, quit the hooch and eat something that didn’t come from the greasy diner downstairs once in a while.

  I ignored it all except the bit about the hat.

  East Ninth Street was luxuriously wide and paved with large, red stones instead of cement. Haberdasheries and tailors lined both sides of the street, occasionally dotted with cafés, bars and shoe stores. A lot of them were still open. Not booming, like they used to, but seemingly getting by.

  There was a leather worker’s window full of scabbards, dusters, belts and a wooden mannequin with a chest-strap made to hold a hidden dagger. It was impressive work, and if I ever started to take my job seriously, it would be the perfect place for a shopping spree.

  Wren’s Hatters was across the road. The window was full of hand-made, expertly crafted specimens but, as soon as I stepped inside, it was clear that most of his business was cheap woolen beanies, bakerboy caps and earmuffs. This time of year, in this cold new world, most folk favored warmth and affordability over style.

  That was all I needed anyway; just something to cover the top of my broken head and hold in the heat. What I didn’t need, at all, even remotely, was the weather-beaten, brown/blue, wide-brimmed hat on the top shelf.

  The spectacled Warlock in white shirt and green waistcoat saw my eyes land on it and didn’t miss a beat.

  “It’s rabbit,” he said.

  “Looks sturdy.”

  “Decades old but in beautiful condition.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Of course not. Nobody needs it.”

  I looked at a pile of plain, sweat-shop beanies in a barrel.

  “How much?”

  “For…?”

  “The rabbit.”

  He used a stepladder to pull down the hat that was taunting me. I changed my mind.

  “Actually, I just need something simple to—”

  He dropped it on my head and it slid down gently, resting just above the top of my ears.

  “How does that feel?”

  I reached up, gripped the sturdy pinch of the crown and pushed it down on my forehead. When I looked up, a mirror had materialized in the hatter’s hands.

  There I was.

  One of the reasons I’d never been a “hat guy” was because it always felt like I was dressing up. Graham, my first adopted father, wore a hat. Tatterman, my first Sunder boss, wore a hat. I was just the boy they ordered around.

  But now? The eyes in the mirror were cold and ringed with folds of dark skin. There was gray in my stubble. Scars, old and new, ran down my cheeks. It wasn’t a boy’s face anymore, and somehow the hat suited it.

  The hatter slipped the tip of his finger in between the hat and my forehead.

  “Almost your size. I’ll put in some lining. Do you have a preference for what kind of fur?”

  “I don’t really—”

  “What’s this?” He put his hand on my collar and rubbed the material between his fingers, trying to guess its origin. “Is this fox?”

  “Lion,” I said. “A big one.”

  A thread of mischief sowed its way across the hatter’s face.

  “Come with me.”

  The old man took me out back to his workroom. A single cluttered desk was crammed in between shelves, racks and wooden crates, all stuffed with strips of leather and reams of colored ribbon. Offcuts and trimmings were strewn across the floor, dusty and covered in hair.

  The hatter hunched down and moved from box to box, reading labels out loud to himself. He pulled open cupboards, rifled through the folded material inside, then slammed them closed. Finally, in a suede sack at the back of a closet, he found what he was looking for.

  “Take a gander at this.”

  He brought the sack up onto the desk and opened it. Inside was a fur of familiar color. The hatter pulled out the pelt and unrolled it, revealing a terrifying face wrapped in brown hair.

  There were no eyes in the lion. No teeth either. They’d probably been used as cufflinks or buttons. The boneless head was all misshapen from being rolled up for so long. Its muzzle was squashed and its lips were inside out. The mane was matted, dry and malting. The beast still had its front legs but the body went to pieces after that, disappearing into strips where the fur had been used to make hatbands and lining. The Warlock looked from the lion to the Chimera fur on my collar and nodded with approval.

  “Looks like a match to me.”

  I kept my eyes on the cat. He was right. It was just like the Chimera I’d killed in my youth. A tenth of the size, but similar. The hollow eyes made it easier to look at than the bigger one, whose eyes had been full of pain. This one was empty all the way through.

  “What do you say?” asked the hatter. “Shall we complete the set?”

  With a disappointed shrug, the hatter passed the poor-boy cap over the counter. When I put it on, the saggy crown fell over my ears. It was a little too big but at least the small brim didn’t cut into my vision. He reached for the mirror.

  “Leave it,” I said.

  I pulled the hat down on my head and went out to make some mistakes.

  18

  It isn’t smart to leave the house with a hole in your head. It isn’t smart to take a case when the cops have told you to sit tight. It isn’t smart to ask a loan shark what he does when poor fools fall behind on their repayments. And it’s never smart to walk on down to Sickle Street.

  On the south-eastern corner of the city, the Sickle was a cut in the belly of Sunder that bled down into the slums. When I’d first arrived in town, I took every paying job that was on offer, including being sent down onto the curve of the blade to pick up c
urious packages, deliver sealed messages, or search for a particularly troubled missing person. Never by Hendricks, though: his quaint fascination with Sunder’s dark side didn’t stretch that far into the shadows.

  My first trip to the Sickle was for the mundane task of asking somebody a question and coming back to The Ditch with the answer. A hooded Gnome with an unconvincing smile asked me to find his friend and enquire whether he would still be coming for dinner, now that the third party was out of the picture. It sounded like an easy way to make a few bucks until the Gnome handed me a set of brass knuckles. With sober seriousness, he told me to keep them wrapped around my fist from the moment I stepped onto Sickle Street.

  Despite the Gnome’s intimidating instructions, the job went smoothly and I made my way back to The Ditch without needing to use my new weapon on anyone. When I got back, the Gnome was gone and the brass knuckles became my payment.

  The success of that trip made me cocky. I took more trips down to the sharpest corner of the city, not realizing why people were choosing to send me. It wasn’t because I was tougher or braver than their usual goons. It was because I was expendable. If I got stabbed, tied up, and thrown into the Kirra Canal, they might lose their merchandise but they wouldn’t lose the trusted service of one of their more capable employees. For one-off, risky deliveries, Fetch Phillips was on the top of everyone’s list.

  I even started bragging about it. One night, picking up dirty glasses at The Ditch, I overheard a couple of shady characters talking about the trouble they were having finding someone called Hank.

  “I know Hank,” I said.

  “You do, kid?”

  “Yeah, I met him a few times.”