Red Iron Nights

by Glen Cook

  “Half the guys here would say that if I asked.”

  I understood, then, what Downtown was doing in the Passionate Witch. He was working. Looking for faces he might sell later. I told him, “I’m working.”

  “Something maybe I can help with?”

  “Maybe. I’m looking for a girl. A special kind. Brunette, seventeen to twenty-two, five-feet-two to five-ten, long hair, reasonably attractive, high-class.”

  “You don’t want much, do you? She got a name?”

  “No. It’s a type. I’m interested in any woman like that working the Tenderloin.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  “Because some creep is snatching them and cutting their guts out. I want to find him so I can explain why we don’t consider that behavior socially acceptable.”

  Downtown eyed me a moment, weasel mouth open. “Come on over here, Garrett. I got a table with some pals.”

  I followed but feared it was a mistake. Byrd ran his mouth steadily. How long before word spread? I wouldn’t catch anybody if the girls hid out and the bad guys lay low.

  Downtown led me to the worst table in the dive. You had to send carrier pigeons to the bar. Waiters got lost trying to get back there.

  Downtown’s two pals looked sleazier than he did. Cheap flash must have been in, along with mustaches.

  They had bought their night’s supplies before lighting.

  “Sit, Garrett.” There was a spare chair. “Shaker, give the man a beer.”

  “Screw you, Byrdo.” Shaker had a palsy. He had a face like a rat’s. It was loathing at first sight. “What you giving away our beer?”

  “Don’t be a butthead, Shaker. Business. The man might maybe be in the mood to buy. We got something he might want.”

  Shaker and Downtown glared at one another while the third man contemplated the secrets inside a beer bottle. Then Shaker pushed a bottle my way. It was the old-fashioned stone kind, not used by commercial breweries anymore. Which meant the beer inside was cheap stuff from a one-man cellar operation, fit only for the poorest of the poor. My stomach started whimpering before the first blast headed south.

  I couldn’t be intimidated. We investigators fear no beer. Besides, I’d swilled so much already that it had become hard to care what went down next.

  Downtown didn’t introduce anybody. Common practice on the street. Nobody wanted anybody to know them. But Downtown didn’t bother not dropping names, either. “Garrett’s looking for a guy that snatches girls.” He looked at me. “Cuts them open, right? The one doing the jobs we been hearing about?”

  I nodded, sipped from my bottle, was pleasantly startled. That was damned good for cellar beer. I found the trademark. It didn’t match that on the other bottles, so the brewer was putting his product up in whatever came his way. Too bad. I said, “Way I figure it, he grabs rich girls working the quarter for kicks. I expect he scouts them before he grabs them. I want to spot him doing it before he snatches the next one.”

  Downtown eyed Shaker. “What do you say now, butthead?”

  I asked, “There something that I’m not getting, Downtown?”

  “One minute, Garrett.” He kept looking at Shaker.

  “Well?” His minute had flown.

  “I figure you got somebody big behind you, Garrett. Some girl’s father. Maybe a bunch of them. Somebody what’s got more money than sense and is out to buy revenge. Right?”

  “Something like that.” Downtown’s bunch would melt like salted slugs if I told them who was paying.

  “Somebody that might pay damned good if somebody handed them the whole thing on a platter?”

  “I don’t think you can, Downtown. You’re shucking me. Running a game. You heard I was asking around. You decided to see if you couldn’t rip me off.”

  Wound a man to the heart. Downtown Billy was in pain. “Garrett! My man! This is me! Your old buddy, Downtown Billy Byrd. I never done you wrong.”

  “Never was anything in it for you.”

  “You just being nasty. You know that ain’t my style.”

  He’d never gotten caught. Everything was his style if he thought he could get away with it. “So I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. What’ve you got?”

  “I tell you, then I don’t got nothing to sell.”

  “I’m not buying a pig in a poke, Downtown. I’ve got enough cats already.”

  His face screwed up into a frown that had to hurt. He didn’t understand. In the old days, less-than-scrupulous peasants sold gullible city folks baby pigs in tied sacks. Only when the sacks were opened, out jumped some very unhappy cats.

  “All right, Garrett. I got your point. Here’s the way it is. Gal like the one you’re looking for, name of Barbie, worked here up to last night. Ain’t in tonight, you’ll notice.”

  “So?”

  “So the bidding went outrageous. Way high. And when it come time for her to deliver her half, two guys come in to pick her up and take her somewhere, not upstairs.”

  It might be a lead. But I was less than excited. I’d dealt with Downtown before. He’d try to make a mountain out of some molehill and sell it for a fortune.

  “You aren’t impressing me yet. It isn’t unusual for the high bidder to take his prize home. Not even unusual for him not to show his face.”

  “He showed his face when he was bidding. Scruffy little dink. Like a bum somebody cleaned up, but not much. Definitely not no high roller.”

  “Was a bum.” That was the third man. Downtown grinned. “Dickiebird says he seen the guy before, on the down-and-out. Anyway, it all looked funny. We decided to scout it out. You never know what might be handy to know. Like, here you are already, wanting to know what we saw.”

  “Maybe I do. What did you see?”

  “You want it all for free, don’t you? No way, Garrett. We got to live too. You ain’t heard enough to know if you want more, then you’re gonna have to do without.”

  I pretended to study it. Then I dug out a few small coins. “I’m interested. But you’ll have to talk a lot more than you’ve done.”

  Downtown traded looks with his pals. They had to trust his judgment. That put them in a spot I hoped I’d never occupy. I’ve never understood how Downtown survived his five in the Cantard.

  “Going to take a chance, Garrett. Going to tell you more than I would anybody else, but only on account of I know you. On account of I trust your rep for playing square.”

  “My hair’s getting gray.”

  “Looks to me like it’s falling out. Whoa! Touchy!”

  “Talk, Downtown.”

  “Right. Always in a hurry. Here it is. The two guys that come in for Barbie put her into a coach with the dink that did the bidding. Only he’d changed somehow. Gotten spooky. She didn’t want to go, but he grabbed her. I thought maybe I’d give her a hand, only the guy’s eyes got weird.”

  “Green?”

  “Yeah. Like green fire.”

  “You’re holding my interest, Downtown. But if that’s all you’ve got . . . ”

  “Shaker knew one of the guys helped push her into the coach.”

  “Ah!”

  “I don’t know him, see,” Shaker said. “It’s like I seen him around. He’s not somebody I pal with, like Downtown. Just a guy I seen around.”

  “Here’s the one that makes or breaks you, guys. You know where to find him?”

  Shaker said, “I know where he cribs.”

  I dropped coins on the table. “I’ll be back in a while. I’m going to bring a guy to talk to you. If you put us together with this guy you know, he’ll fill your pockets.” I was out of there before any of them could respond.

  35

  Morley had company. I had to wait. Then wait. Then wait some more. While I waited, Saucerhead came in. I waved. He joined me, glumly. “Cheer up. I need some muscle,” I told him.

  “Like now?”

  “Right away. Unless your investments—”

  “Can’t wait?”

  “Would I be . . . ? What
’s the matter?”

  “Just don’t feel like it, Garrett. Not in the mood.”

  “Since when do you have to be in the mood to make yourself a mark?”

  “Hey, busting heads ain’t all the fun it looks like, Garrett.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “How would you? You don’t wale on nobody unless—”

  “You feel good enough to pick up a few coppers running a message?”

  “I guess. Yeah. I could handle that.”

  I sent him to fetch Captain Block. If I had to wait around forever for Morley to finish playing, I might as well pull in the money man while I did.

  I did wait. And I waited. And then I waited. I waited so long I got sober. No Morley. Block and Tharpe showed up, dripping. It was raining again. I thought some more about getting into the boat business. When Morley still showed no sign of growing bored with his guest, I said, “The hell with him. We can handle it without him. Let’s go.”

  Block was relieved. He didn’t think it would be politic for him to associate with a professional killer.

  Saucerhead said, “I’ll tag along.”

  “Thought you weren’t in the mood.”

  “Maybe I’ll change moods.”

  “It’s raining out there.”

  “It’s always raining. Let’s go.”

  Block said very little till we enjoyed the privacy of the street. “I hope this is something good, Garrett. I need it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pressure again. You don’t feel it down here. The Hill is in a panic. Some people up there are carrying on like the Venageti were at the gates. I need something fast. Anything.”

  “Tell you what. This doesn’t pan out, you pass the word for them to keep their daughters out of the Tenderloin.”

  “Give me a break, Garrett.”

  “I mean it. There’s a fad amongst the deb set. Go down and play sleazegirl. That won’t make their fathers happy, but it’s a fact. It looks like our killer picks his victims from rich girls working the quarter.”

  “That won’t make anyone happy.”

  “Not when it gets out. You recall, none of the stories we got about the victims ever mentioned anything like that. I think we talked to the wrong people. People who didn’t know and didn’t guess because the bodies weren’t found near the quarter.”

  “Maybe some suspected. I can think of several stories that sounded like somebody trying to make somebody look good.” Block sniffed, grunted, hawked. He was working on a cold. “We get lucky, maybe we won’t have to deal with any of that.”

  “We don’t get lucky, maybe we can let the word get around without it looking like it’s your fault. It will come out if this goes on much longer.”

  Block grunted again.

  I glanced over my shoulder. My instincts were right. We were being followed. “Did you maybe bring a few helpers?”

  Block glanced back. “Yeah. They’re mine. Clumsy, aren’t they?”

  “They don’t get much practice.”

  “Thought it might be handy having a few guardian angels hovering.”

  “Aw. You don’t feel comfortable in the Tenderloin?”

  “Make fun while you can, Garrett. Things are gonna change.”

  Nice talk, but I wouldn’t put one copper on it. Good intentions can’t overcome the inertia of decades.

  We reached the Passionate Witch. I checked my companions before I went inside. Tharpe was fine. And Block didn’t look like the law. “We’re going to be talking to some real lowlifes. Let me do all the jawing. No matter what. Understand?”

  Saucerhead said, “Means you, Captain. You want to lose these guys fast, let them get a notion what you are.” I gave Tharpe the fish eye. He said, “I know Downtown Billy Byrd, Garrett. Bottom of the barrel.”

  I said, “I’m going to try to bring them out here. You bring money?” I asked Block.

  “Some. I won’t let them rob me.”

  “They don’t have imaginations that big. What they’d call robbery you’d call a tip.” I shoved into the Passionate Witch.

  The evening was fading but Downtown and his pals were hanging on, nursing their stone beer bottles, waiting for opportunity to knock. I knocked. Downtown grumbled, “I thought you forgot us.”

  “Had trouble finding my man.”

  “Huh?”

  “Guy I work for. One who wants to know what you know. He’s outside. Wants to listen. He brought money. You ready to deal?”

  “Now?”

  “You want to wait for the King’s birthday? He don’t have time to waste.”

  “Why don’t he come in? It’s wet out there.”

  “He don’t want to show his face. You have to get wet anyway. You got to show us the way, right?”

  “I guess. Shaker. Take care of the bottles.” To recover their deposits, of course. “Dickiebird. C’mon.”

  I led the way. Downtown and Dickiebird followed like they counted on trouble. Each kept a hand inside his shirt. Knives. Shaker wasn’t near the bar, getting deposit refunds. He’d vanished. “Awful nervous, aren’t you, Downtown?”

  “Think about it, Garrett. We got a bunch of murders, Hill gals what probably got daddies that eat no-counters like you and me for snacks. Could get hairy.”

  “Sure could.” I didn’t like being included in his no-count family. I’m at least a one-counter. “But it hasn’t yet. We’re counting on what you tell us fixing it so it never does.”

  “Yeah?” He was starting to think about holding me up.

  Block stepped out of the shadows. “These the men?” Saucerhead wasn’t to be seen. Somebody had to watch for Shaker. Block looked damned evil in a bad light. He might do.

  “Yes. They say they think they saw the last victim, who called herself Barbie, get snatched. They think they knew one of the snatchers.”

  Block eyed Downtown and Dickiebird. “What’s the deal?”

  “Huh?”

  I asked, “You have a plan, Downtown? You got a price? Talk to us.”

  “Uh. Oh.” Downtown looked around for eavesdroppers, or maybe to see if Shaker had him covered. “Yeah. Like this. You pay half now. We show you where to find your guy. He’ll be home, I guarantee.” Like he’d maybe checked while I was collecting Block. “He don’t go out. You pay us off. We split. You forget you ever saw us.”

  “Not bad,” I said. “Only let’s make it you get the other half after we grab the guy and make sure he’s the one you saw.”

  “Garrett! Take it easy, man. He’ll know who fingered him.”

  “If he’s the real thing, you won’t have to worry about what he knows,” Block said. “How much?”

  Downtown tried to get a better look at Block. “This don’t sound like nobody off the Hill, Garrett.”

  “Don’t worry about where he comes from. Worry about earning his money.”

  “Yeah. Right. We figured about thirty marks would be fair. Ten apiece.”

  Small men have small ambitions. Block had trouble keeping a straight puss. He jingled coins, handed me three gold five-mark pieces. I passed them to Downtown, who stared at them in the light leaking from the Passionate Witch. “Damn.” He was stunned by the certainty that he’d just blown a rare opportunity.

  “Too late, son,” I told him when he started to say something. “You set the price. Time to deliver.”

  “Uh. Yeah.” He led off.

  36

  We walked maybe a mile, into an area of dense tenements occupied mostly by newcomers to TunFaire. Reasonable enough. The man we wanted couldn’t have been in town long. Only the ignorant would’ve gotten into what he had.

  Downtown and Dickiebird led us to a four-story row place in the middle of a long block. Pure people storage, though more upscale than most. Depressing.

  The clouds parted, let a moonbeam sneak through. It was the only light, but I didn’t complain. It was nice to have the drizzle stop, even for a little while. Downtown said, “Top floor, rear door. Hired a sleeping room all to hisself.” />
  “You did a lot of research, Downtown.”

  His weasel face stretched in a nasty smile. “I knew somebody was going to want the goods on this one.”

  Block growled but stifled his opinion. Even starry-eyed idealists knew you couldn’t sell TunFaire’s people the idea of civic responsibility. Not after they’d watched their betters do nothing but look out for themselves for centuries.

  “Top-floor rear,” I grumbled, thinking of the climb. “Inconsiderate bastard.”

  “Right. You get him out, we’ll finger him, we’ll all go home. Right?”

  “Right. Saucerhead?”

  Tharpe materialized. He lugged a limp Shaker over one shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Just making sure you were there.” Why had he bopped Shaker? Maybe just for the hell of it.

  Block said, “Ripley, scout the place out.”

  Shadows detached from shadows. Downtown gawked as two men entered the row building. He knelt beside Shaker, muttered about maltreatment and distrust. I asked, “If you was us, would you trust you?” He didn’t have an answer for that.

  Block’s man returned, puffing. “Somebody’s in there, all right. He’s snoring. There’s only one door. Ain’t no other way out. Unless there’s a window.”

  Downtown volunteered, “There is. If he’s got real spring in his legs, he could maybe jump across to the roof behind this place.”

  I said, “If he’s asleep, he shouldn’t have time to get up, open a window, make a jump.”

  “Better let me make sure,” Saucerhead suggested, gently pointing out that he was the specialist.

  “All right.”

  Saucerhead and Block and I went upstairs while Ripley went around back, just in case. We tried to be quiet, but there’s something about your step when you’re headed for trouble. I sensed sudden fear and alertness behind those doors where people were awake.

  Block’s other man waited upstairs. Block whispered, “Still snoring?”

  He had to ask? Hell, yes, he was still snoring. I never heard anything like it. That ripping and roaring had to be one of the wonders of the world. “Careful,” I told Saucerhead. He nodded.

  Everybody got out of Tharpe’s way. He seemed to swell up, then charged. The door exploded. Though I was right behind Saucerhead, it was over before I could contribute anything. Meat hit meat, snores turned to baffled groans, Saucerhead said, “Got him under control.”