Red Iron Nights

by Glen Cook

  I said, “Take him downstairs.”

  Tharpe grunted. Block slid around, opened the window. “Got him, Ripley. Get around front.”

  We clumped downstairs. I smelled the fear from behind those doors we hadn’t destroyed. The more I thought how this was for those people, the less I liked what I was doing.

  Our prisoner was groggy when we hit the street. Block demanded, “Is this the man?”

  Downtown and Dickiebird stayed out of the moonlight while edging closer. “Yeah,” Dickiebird said. “That’s him.”

  I asked, “You saw this man help put the girl into the coach?” I was playing a role now and Saucerhead was good enough to catch my cues. I believed Dickiebird. The prisoner was one of the men who’d tried to kidnap Chodo’s daughter. We had a different killer but the same assistants, apparently.

  “That’s the guy, Garrett,” Downtown insisted. “What do you want? Come on. Pay up.”

  Block had his helpers take the prisoner while he paid up. “You know these three men, Garrett? In case this is a con and I want to find them?”

  “I know them.” I was still reserving the incident at Morley’s place, couldn’t explain my confidence in them.

  “Hey, Garrett! I ever do a number on you?”

  “Not yet, Downtown. Go on. Enjoy yourselves.” A man could make ten marks go a long way in this part of town.

  Downtown and his buddies flew off like the breeze. With money in hand, they would be hard to find. For a while.

  “You want to help with the questioning?” Block asked.

  “Not particularly. Only if you insist. What I want is to go to bed. I’ve been knocking myself out finding this lead. I do want to hear what you find out from him.”

  “Sure.” He shook my hand. “Thanks again, Garrett. Winchell. Get him moving.”

  I didn’t say, “Anytime, Captain,” because he was the kind who would take me up on it.

  37

  The Dead Man wasn’t impressed. He refuses to be impressed by anything but himself. He’s afraid I’ll get a big head.

  He did relent, though, when I returned from watching Block and his troops, with great fanfare, before numerous official witnesses, raid an abandoned brewhouse and nab a creepy old man who was, beyond doubt, the perpetrator of the most recent murder. Clothing and body parts were recovered. These monsters liked their souvenirs. Not to mention that the old boy spat a ton of butterflies, some poisonous, before they subdued him.

  Subdued meant dead. Again. I didn’t see that part, but the dozen Watchmen they carried off on stretchers implied that Block was right when he insisted there had been no choice.

  The Dead Man remarked, I do hope Captain Block exercises appropriate precautions.

  “I think he will.”

  Excellent. So it would appear that the matter is closed.

  “Except for collecting from Block.”

  Indeed. Take the rest of the evening off. Sleep in tomorrow.

  “We’re sure generous with time that isn’t our own, aren’t we?”

  Tomorrow you must resume the investigation as though nothing has been accomplished. Continue seeking Miss Contague. Try to identify potential victims. And take a closer look at this fellow you rooted out tonight. He may have had more than one associate.

  “He did. But the other guy headed out of town before we finished arresting the first one. He lived in the same dump. So what the hell? You finally gone gaga? You think we got the wrong killer?”

  I am confident your famous luck held and you swept up the very villain. But you got the right man before and Death did not miss a stroke.

  “You don’t think it’ll take?”

  I have strong hopes. But I think a wise man would prepare beforehand against the wiles of evil and the ineptitude of the Watch. It would be most excellent if everything worked out. But should it not, no time will have been wasted. Not so?

  “All a matter of viewpoint. I’m not the guy who gets to sit here daydreaming. I’m the one who runs back and forth till his legs get worn down to the knees. I’m going to bed. Wake me up when the war’s over.”

  Should the worst occur, you will regret having failed to take minimal precautions.

  Sure. All right. So maybe I’d play with it some more. Just in case. What could it hurt? Did I have anything else going? Anyway, there were some pretty pretties around the edges of the thing. I might luck onto one who was sane and sociable.

  Staying in just meant doing time with Dean’s cronies, anyway. The amount of beer those old boys were putting away while they were supposedly rehabbing upstairs, it would’ve been cheaper to hire professional help.

  38

  It was like nothing in my experience. I couldn’t fathom it. The Dead Man was frothing with ambition. He had hold of the case like a starving dog a bone. He wouldn’t let go.

  It was easier to get out of the house, into the drizzle, and do legwork than it was to stay in and argue. Especially with Dean taking the Dead Man’s side.

  It might be time to think about an apartment.

  The Dead Man still had Block digging through the records too. Block was our best buddy now. We’d turned him into the Prince’s fair-haired boy. He was the hero of the Hill. His name was at the top of the short list to head the new, improved, serious, and hopefully useful Watch. What we hadn’t been able to get him to do was pay his bill. He meant to stiff us.

  He said he’d pay up just as soon as he was sure we’d given him the permanent solution he’d wanted to buy. Right. He meant to stiff us.

  I didn’t care if he was the Dead Man’s buddy. I didn’t care if he was tight with Prince Rupert. I had him on my list to turn over to the Saucerhead Tharpe collection agency.

  Meantime, amidst all else, I maintained my thrilling surveillance of that ferocious threat to the peace, Barking Dog Amato, mainly by collecting his reports, skimming them, then passing a few appropriate comments to Hullar so he could give something to the daughter. Barking Dog’s autobiographical ambitions dwindled as he foresaw the advent of better weather. I was grateful, especially after he went into rehearsals for his new, more forceful act, designed with the help of the Dead Man.

  Days hurried past. I lumbered around town trying to get some line on the old-time killings. I got nowhere. If there was any glory to be had, Block wanted his boys to get it. I wasn’t allowed access to any public records.

  Evenings fled too. I made and lost friends in the Tenderloin. People down there were appalled by what had been done to those girls—but they were more appalled by what making potential future targets safe might do to business.

  The consensus was, you got the guy. Don’t bother us.

  The Dead Man fell back on an ancient and adolescent device for getting some of the women out of the Tenderloin. He sent anonymous notes to their families.

  Six days after my amazing coup involving Downtown Billy Byrd, I told the Dead Man, “I’ve found the girl. In fact, I’ve found two of them. One of them would have to be it.”

  Candy, at Hullar’s place, of course. And the other?

  “Dixie Starr. She works Mama Sam’s Casino.”

  Dixie Starr?

  “Really. Call it her business name. Barbie was the only victim who came close to using her real name.” The most recent victim had been one Barbra Tennys, daughter of a viscount with obscure connections to the royal family, said family including Prince Rupert. Barbra’s mother was a stormwarden on duty in the Cantard. No proofs would convince her father that his daughter had been selling her favors at auction, for kicks, before reality slithered dread tentacles into the fantasy. “Dixie’s name came up before, at the Masked Man. This is a girl with problems. Candy, on the other hand, is a real innocent on the street. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find out who she is. I doubt she’d notice if I just followed her home.”

  And the identity of the Dixie woman?

  “I have it already. She’s Emma Setlow. Her father and grandfather are meat packers who found a better way to preserve sausages
. They made their mint off army contracts.”

  And you have gotten nothing useful from your search for information from the past?

  “Block’s made sure I can’t get near any official records. From what I can see, though, he’s not doing much looking himself. Whatever he says. He’s too busy making political hay and spreading his influence throughout the entire Watch.”

  I suspect he will change his attitude.

  Damn if I didn’t think he knew something he wouldn’t share.

  There came a dawn when there was an actual break in the rains. Dean became so excited that it was still dawn when he wakened me. I cussed and threatened, but he won out. He got me interested. What did daylight look like without rain? My body whined and dragged, but I hauled out and headed for breakfast.

  Dean had the kitchen curtains back and the window open. “Place needs airing out.”

  Probably. I shrugged, sipped tea. “Streets are going to be crazy.”

  Dean nodded. “I need to do some shopping.”

  I nodded back. “Barking Dog will launch his new show, the rain doesn’t start up. I can’t miss that.”

  Everyone in town would find some excuse to get out, even knowing everyone else would be in the streets.

  “At least the city will be clean,” Dean observed.

  “It will. The rains lasted long enough for that.”

  “Now, if people would just keep it that way.” He delivered a plate of biscuits, steaming, straight from the oven. Drooling, I left him to do the talking.

  I didn’t hear it, which meant I’d grown distracted. That had been happening more and more as more and more the women of my heart became the women of my imagination. Anyway, I looked up and found the old boy absent. Puzzled, I started to get up. Then I heard him coming down the hall, talking. He’d answered the door. He’d let someone inside.

  Going to have to have a talk with him.

  “Someone” just had to be Captain Block.

  “Not again,” I muttered loudly enough to be heard.

  Dean set another place, poured tea. Block settled, went to work daubing a biscuit with honey. I ignored his existence.

  “Not sure yet, Garrett,” Block said around a mouthful of biscuit. “May be trouble again.”

  “Ain’t my problem. Ain’t going to be my problem. Only problem in my life is deadbeats.”

  Block got hot, sudden and major. He thought we were trying to exploit his misfortune. He was right. But he’d set the terms. And I figured he was getting off cheap, considering the alternative.

  Block cooled down before he risked speaking. “Garrett, do you recall the knives from the Hamilton place?”

  “The ritual tools? What about them?”

  “They’ve disappeared. We got them back when we went after Spender.” Spender having been the accursed bum in the abandoned brewery.

  “Huh?”

  “They was locked up in the barracks armory. I got space there for keeping evidence. I saw them there day before yesterday. Last night they was gone.”

  “So?”

  “Tomorrow night is the next time the killer would strike.”

  “Wow. That’s right.” I laid on my most sarcastic tone, like I was amazed a Watchman could work that out.

  “A Corporal Elvis Winchell, who was part of the raid force the other night, disappeared yesterday sometime. He had access to the armory. Apparently he and a Private Price Ripley were isolated with the killer’s corpse for about seven minutes during its trip to the oven.”

  “And you’re afraid Winchell will—”

  “Yes. I need your help again, Garrett.”

  “It’s wonderful to be appreciated. It really is. But you’re talking to the wrong guy. You need to see my accountant.”

  “Huh?”

  I’d lost him. “The Dead Man. But he’s put out with you too. With me, it’s money, with him, it’s information.”

  “Oh. Back to that.”

  “Back to that. It’s the bottom line. I have a feeling that if you talk him into anything, he’ll insist on payment up front.”

  Block didn’t argue. He didn’t dare. We were about to discover how desperate he really was. I passed him on to the Dead Man.

  39

  I slipped out while their backs were turned. It was going to be a long, dull argument. Block hadn’t yet panicked.

  Negotiations are fun for the Dead Man. My tastes are more earthy, more basic. Maybe not as simple as a hotfoot, but not cerebral. It always helps if there’s a lady along. Especially if she’s no lady.

  Barking Dog got the better of his crackpot religious squatter by showing up earliest. The nut was there when I arrived. He was sullen. He growled a lot. Amato tended his placards and ignored him. Barking Dog looked confident. He was ready.

  His return had been noted. His normal audience consisted of functionaries who worked in the area. They kept an eye on him, wondering when he’d start raving. Speculation was rife. His absence had left him looking primed with fresh madness. His reappearance was a happening resented by a single soul.

  The holy crackpot finally left in a huff.

  Barking Dog’s venue is the Chancery steps. Seems appropriate, in a sense. In the old days the Chancery was a court of equity, but time changes everything. Today it’s mostly a place to store official records, civil type, for the duchy, plus some royal records. Half the main floor has been occupied by the functionaries who manage military conscription in this end of Karenta. They migrated from the military Chancery years ago, after having been crowded out by procurement offices that grow faster and faster as the war winds down.

  The Chancery structure is a relic of the empire, built late, evidently with an eye to impress. To reach the huge brass doors of the main entrance, you have to climb eighty dark granite steps that span the entire front of the building. Each twenty steps there is a level stretch ten feet wide. Vendors and people like Barking Dog take advantage of those. If it can be sold from a tray hung from the neck, you’ll find it for sale outside the Chancery.

  Amato’s spot was at the left end of the first landing. Most of the traffic in and out of the building naturally passed that way, plus Barking Dog was just high enough to be seen and heard easily from the street.

  I planted myself on the stone rail alongside the next landing up, nodded to Barking Dog. He acknowledged my presence with a smile. He adjusted his placards. He had four, all on sticks with bases meant to hold them upright.

  Whether entering the Chancery or just passing in the street, people slowed, paused, hoping the merriment would break out soon. Several clerk types accumulated, looking uncomfortable. Their superiors had sent them to keep track and to call when the nonsense began.

  Barking Dog was as crazy as a herd of drunk possums, but he had his fans.

  Judging from his placards, his text for the day would be a traditional crowd pleaser, the international conspiracy which denied Barking Dog Amato his rights and properties.

  He let word spread before he spoke. He waited past the commencement of the business day. Then he started, soft and slow, without the brass megaphone, while word spread that he was starting.

  I noticed something that had escaped me during more casual viewings. Barking Dog had him a kettle out, marked to encourage donations. Passersby surprised me with their generosity.

  Maybe Amato was less the fool than I thought. Maybe this was how he paid for supplies. Maybe this was the whole point . . . No. That couldn’t be true. He’d live better than he did.

  He started gentle and slow and sane, almost conversationally. His chats with the Dead Man had paid dividends. His soft voice arrested passersby, made them strain to hear. I couldn’t hear from behind him.

  “Signs and portents,” he said when he did raise his voice slightly. “Yea! Signs and portents! The hour is coming! It is at hand! The wicked shall be revealed in all their ugliness. They shall be found out and rooted out, and we who have endured, who have borne their weight upon our shoulders till we have become hunchb
acks, we shall see our agony repaid.”

  I glanced around. Was there anybody here who might know me? That sounded suspiciously like he was going to take a plunge into sedition. That seemed an unwise career move to me. Sedition was the sort of talk that could get you thrown into a real prison—if you were dumb enough to talk it on the Chancery steps instead of at the bar in your neighborhood tavern. Outside, in broad daylight, it might sound serious instead of just bitching.

  Ha! Fooled you, Garrett!

  Everyone listening heard hunchbacks and jumped to the same conclusion. The crowd grew quieter, waited for Barking Dog to step into it up to his knees, then shove his foot in his mouth.

  How come people get such a kick out of watching a disaster in progress?

  Barking Dog veered off ninety degrees. “They have stolen my houses. They have stolen my lands. They have stolen my family titles. Now they strive to steal my good name so they can silence me when I denounce their wickedness. They had me incarcerated in the Al-Khar in their efforts to stifle me. They have tried to silence me through fear. But by stealing everything from me they have left me entirely without fear. They have left me nothing to lose. By stealing everything they have also taken those signs which remind them of who I am. They forget whom they consigned to vile durance.

  “Kropotkin F. Amato will not yield. Kropotkin F. Amato will fight on so long as a single breath remains in his abused flesh.”

  That was all old stuff, excepting the prison references. He began to lose his audience. But then he did something he’d not done before. He named names. And he started moving, stalking back and forth, flinging his hands around, shrieking in rage. Again I thought he was digging himself a grave, but then realized he’d named only names on the public record. And he hadn’t said anything objectionable about them, he’d just surrounded their names with racket that might nail them through guilt by association. The man was damned clever.