Whispering Nickel Idols gf-11

by Glen Cook

  “Tinnie knows you pretty well, then.”

  “Unfortunately. But my personal life isn’t what I meant.”

  “You’re afraid of me?”

  “There’s that. You’ve got a temper. But the real problem is, you swim with sharks. I expect jaws to clamp on me any minute.”

  “With all your guardian angels?”

  “Angels? Name two.”

  “Morley Dotes. Deal Relway. Westman Block. Playmate. Saucerhead Tharpe. Not to mention your business partners. Max Weider is no angel. Neither is Lester Tate. And then there’s me.”

  Made me feel humble. For maybe ten seconds. Then my natural cynicism got its second wind. Someday I should fake my own death and see how things shake out.

  “So you lost track of your dad. Let’s slink on down to the bottom line. How come you’re in a state where you sneak off?… You aren’t just looking to hide out, are you?”

  “No. I walk back out of here in the morning and be who I’ve been since the first time we met.”

  “In the morning?”

  “I don’t have anywhere to go tonight.”

  I began to fiddle with that slingshot stone a whole lot more seriously.

  “It isn’t like you don’t have other friends stay over.”

  “You want to know the truth?”

  “Maybe not, the way you’re looking at me.”

  “None of those friends are as scary as you.”

  Belinda went on petting that kitten, scowling because she’d heard something she didn’t like. She stared at my hands. “What the hell is that thing? What’re you doing?”

  I explained. “I left it here before I went to the party. I don’t know. It relaxes me when I handle it.”

  Belinda extended a hand. I let her have the stone. “You’re right.”

  Dean stuck his head in. “You need anything before I go to bed?” He was lugging a brat cat of his own.

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  He scowled at Belinda but couldn’t get his heart into it. He sighed and went away.

  Singe didn’t bother to check us out. Which meant she was sulking but didn’t have ambition enough to make anybody miserable.

  Belinda poured herself a beer once she finished her tea. We played with kittens and let our hair down, talked like teenagers deep into the night, giggling at stupid jokes. I found out that she’d never had any girlfriends when she was younger. Never had the chance. Her role models were all the sort polite folk don’t invite to holiday dinners.

  We drank a lot of beer.

  25

  Singe wakened me at some godsforsaken hour, chivied in by Dean, who couldn’t face direct evidence confirming or disclaiming the prurient imaginings slithering round the interior of his hard black skull. The fact that his imaginings were exactly that, and only that, meant nothing.

  By the time we’d retired neither Belinda nor I was sober enough for anything more energetic than sleep.

  Singe’s attitude was sour enough.

  “What?” I snarled. The morning light at play on my curtains shrieked that it wasn’t anywhere near noon. In fact, it had to be closer to dawn, a time when only mad dogs and madmen got after the early worm.

  “A messenger brought a letter from Colonel Block.”

  A kitten crabbed out of the covers, stretched, hopped down, and stalked proudly out of the room. Belinda made “Leave me alone!” growls and burrowed deeper into the covers. “Do I need to sign or something?”

  “No. It was just a letter.”

  Then why was she waking me up now? “Then why are you waking me up now?”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Sure, you did.”

  Feelings bruised, Singe left. I didn’t care. There is no courtesy and no compassion before noon.

  I didn’t care, but I couldn’t get back to sleep.

  When Belinda started snarling about the tossing and turning and threatened me with an amateur sex reassignment, I surrendered to my conscience and dragged on out.

  I sipped black tea thick with honey. No help. I kept seeing two of everything. If I hadn’t spent five unforgettable years as a Royal Marine, I might’ve suspected double vision to be nature’s revenge on fools who believe rational behavior includes hauling out at sunrise in less than apocalyptic circumstances.

  Singe bustled around, doing chores, so Dean could do even less real work to earn his board and bread. She was fanatically perky and cheerful. And her coconspirator had put the butcher knives out of reach.

  “You are awful in the morning,” Singe declared.

  Exercising maximum restraint, I chirped, “Yep.”

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  “I could say, ‘Eat mud and die!’ But you’d get your feelings hurt. I have more consideration for you than that. So how about we get together with this critical communique?”

  Dean and Singe installed me in my office with hot black tea, biscuits, and honey. I got started. More or less. Weighted heavily toward the less.

  “What does the note say?” She’d tried to read the message but Colonel Block’s clerk had inscribed it in cursive. She can’t read that yet.

  She’s a fast learner, though she’ll never teach Karentine literature. Which consists mainly of sagas and epics inhabited by thoroughly despicable people being praised by the poets for their bad behavior. Or passion plays, which are hot today, but which are moronic if you read them instead of watching them.

  “It says the priest at the temple of Eis and Igory, in the Dream Quarter, is from Ymber. It says the Watch wouldn’t be disappointed in their old pal Garrett if his curiosity caused him to visit this Bittegurn Brittigarn, whose thoughts about guys in green pants might be of mutual interest.”

  “Meaning they do not think the priest will talk to them and they have no convincing excuse to pull him in.”

  “Basically.”

  “Garrett, what would the world be like if everyone was as caring as Dean?”

  “It would be knee-deep in hypocrisy, standing on its head.”

  “Which still makes him better than most everyone else.”

  “Glory be, girl. Don’t you go turning into a street preacher.”

  “The more I become a person, the more I get upset by how people treat each other for being different.”

  “I don’t want to get into a debate.”

  “Too early in the morning?”

  “No. Because I’d have to play devil’s advocate and argue that stranger means danger. Which nobody can say is wrong. We’ve all got those harsh moments somewhere in our lives.”

  “Very good, Mr. Garrett,” Dean said from the office doorway. “Indeed, flawless.”

  “We can’t afford it.”

  “Sir?”

  “Whatever you’re buttering me up for. Hey, I don’t want either one of you outside today.” I heard Belinda beginning to stir upstairs.

  Dean and Singe looked puzzled.

  “The Dead Man. ” I told them, “We’ve had several visitors the last couple days. The kind that pay attention. They’ve probably picked up on the fact that he isn’t doing much singing or dancing right now. Folks tend to get bold when they think he’s snoozing.”

  Dean looked numb. This was his nightmare. He loathes the Dead Man. But we need the Loghyr’s protection. People carry grudges.

  “It would help if you two took a real shot at waking him up while I’m out there, one lonely man, a flawed white knight holding the fragile barricade between honor and the chaotic abyss.”

  Belinda appeared behind Dean. “Gorm, Garrett. You couldn’t be more full of shit if they pounded it in with a hammer.”

  Dean headed for the kitchen. He came right back with everything Belinda needed to tame a hangover and get set herself for another glorious day of crime and corruption.

  She announced, “Whatever Garrett claims, it’s a lie. He was snoring before I got my shoes off.”

  Dean was pleased. Though he’d heard it before, from me. But th
at was different. My version didn’t signify. He preferred not to believe me if that could be avoided.

  I asked, “What am I supposed to do with you? Besides get you out of here before Tinnie hears rumors?”

  She hadn’t considered that. But really didn’t care.

  “Take care of it, Dean,” I said. “Try to avoid making a millennial-celebration kind of production moving her out.”

  The old man gave me a look. It said I had the advantage of him, this once. And he didn’t like it. “I’ll handle it, Mr. Garrett.”

  I might ought to put on my chain mail underpants.

  26

  I didn’t wander alone. A secret-police tail fell in behind me half a block from the house. He made no effort to be discreet.

  Spider Webb was intimidated. But he didn’t give up. He just dropped back. He vanished later, when I wasn’t looking. So did several others whose fashion sense suggested a connection with the world of untaxed adult entertainment. But my main man just shuffled along with me, so close I had to listen to him hum.

  He never stopped. But he had more trouble lugging a tune than my favorite antisinger, me. I never could tell what he was laying down.

  The Dream Quarter gets its name because humanity’s spiritual imagination runs riot there. And because the war in the Cantard produced generations of veterans so cynical that belief in anything traditionally religious could only be a bad joke that nobody got. In the Cantard nobody prayed for help cleaving to the path of righteousness. It was all, “Dear Lord, won’t you please save my scruffy butt?”

  Heavenly responses were random and erratic. Some of the sorriest clowns in the Cantard were guys who got what they asked for. Life with an ass but no arms or legs ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  The Dream Quarter is one long street that runs from the river’s edge deep into one of TunFaire’s wealthiest enclaves. Location on the street defines the status of the deities established there. In a complex dance that remains mysterious even after my several encounters, the gods and goddesses of the Dream Quarter move sedately up and down the street, from temple to temple, according to how many worshippers they claim. And, more significantly, according to how rich their congregations are.

  One rich, backsliding hypocrite of a parishioner is worth a gaggle of destitute mendicants, however devoted. A god can make the eye of a needle big enough to pass the whole damned herd of camels. And try to find a goddess who doesn’t have six or eight hands out for contributions.

  Bizarrely, the temples change to accommodate the look expected of their particular gods, goddesses, or pantheons.

  I’ve heard that the gods reflect us instead of the reverse. Well, a smart god would have better sense than to create worshippers in his own image. Given a choice.

  My instincts told me to start at the bottom end, down where a couple temples teeter over the chunky russet flood. The first person I asked indicated wreckage two steps short of the worst on the street. I’d visited the place once before, a while back, on another case. New management hadn’t made any improvements.

  Eis and Igory were doing better than other cults. Which meant the river would have to go a yard over flood instead of a foot to sweep their cathedral away.

  Mind like a steel trap, I realized that this Ymber cult was faring better locally than the two visiting the miseries on me. A-Laf and A-Lat had no temples at all.

  Even after having lived with me for thirty years I was reluctant to approach the hovel. It boasted one open room capable of holding thirty people-if they were small and didn’t mind finding their noses in each other’s armpits.

  The priest wasn’t what I expected. Which should have been no surprise since religion and I have so little in common. He could’ve passed as a fat apprentice friar from one of the regular churches at the successful end of the street. He even wore similar black robes. But his had eluded soap and water for so long that, at this late date, congress would be fatal for the cloth.

  It was still some unholy hour before noon when I stepped inside. Brother Bittegurn Brittigarn got his tongue tied trying to introduce himself in turn. He’d already had a couple or nine pick-me-ups to start his day. By the time he pulled himself together he’d forgotten my name. “Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want?”

  “I hear you’re the top expert on the religions of Ymber. I’ve got problems with people from Ymber. I’m knee-deep in cats and plagued by big guys too stupid to know that you ought to grin and suffer frostbitten buns before you wear plaid green pants.”

  “Huh?” Brittigarn took a pull of wine. He was my kind of guy. He had his priorities set. He wouldn’t fake anything to please anybody.

  The Dead Man encourages me to cope with the unexpected by drawing on experience and common sense. Meaning, basically, don’t run blindfold sprints in an active cemetery. Experience suggested that Bittegurn Brittigarn was dimmer than a bushel of rocks.

  Bittegurn had a round, apple-cheeked face notable for a huge white drooping mustache. The hair had migrated there from the top of his head. He growled, “Well, is it a secret?” He took another swig of wine. I could smell the vinegar from ten feet away. “Smooth.” He sneered, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  I explained again. “I’m Garrett. I find things out. I look for people. I ask questions. I’m here to ask questions about religion in Ymber.”

  “Ain’t no religion in Ymber.”

  “What?”

  “It’s all here in TunFaire now. Which one are you doing now?”

  “Asking questions so I can figure things out.”

  He waited. Probably hoping I’d offer a bribe. I waited. He asked, “You going to start?”

  “All right. To review. You’re from Ymber. Supposed to be an expert on its religions. I’m having trouble with religious people from Ymber. My house is overrun by cats dumped on me by a street urchin who’s supposedly a religious princess. Who’s disappeared. Now my neighborhood is infested with thugs wearing hideous green pants. They supposedly work for a god named Aleph. When they’re not destroying private property they do volunteer maintenance and rehab at the Bledsoe. Where they’re putting metal animal statues in the walls.”

  “A-Laf.”

  “Huh?”

  “The god’s name is A-Laf. Not Aleph.”

  “I stand corrected. Is that important?”

  “I doubt it. Damn. That dead soldier was the last of his regiment.”

  Subtle.

  “I’ll see if I can’t scare up some recruits. As soon as we finish.” Part of being a crack investigator is finding a thread to tug. I’d grabbed hold of a rope.

  “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “That thing you’re fiddling with.”

  “A rock. Somebody tried to kill me with it. Tell me about A-Lat.”

  He didn’t correct my pronunciation. “A-Lat is the Queen of the Night. The Mother of Darkness. Love and death wrapped up in one ugly bundle. Her cult used to be big on temple prostitution. It doesn’t exist anymore. Can I see the stone? It don’t look natural.”

  “How long ago did you leave Ymber? If the cult is extinct, how come I’m up to my ears in its enemies?”

  “I’ve been here two years. My faith fled when the A-Laf cultists began murdering unbelievers. Especially A-Lat’s women. They tortured the last high priestess to death. They sacrificed the goddess’s sacred feline avatar to the idiot idol in A-Laf’s temple.”

  Ah. Finally. Actual information.

  The Dead Man is right. Patience wins.

  Notions fell into place. There was a pattern and rhythm here. TunFaire would be the secondary impact zone. In Ymber there’d be prophecies and rumors of secret heirs to unknown obligations. There’d be brave fighters continuing the struggle even though all hope seemed lost. One-eyed men and left-handed men missing a finger from their right hand. The stuff of high heroic tales. On a farm community scale, of course. Where most of the king’s subjects don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. They have thunde
r lizards to skin and crops to get in.

  “Let me see that thing.”

  I handed BB the stone despite an instant of irrational reluctance.

  He grunted. He stared. He grew pale as he moved deeper into the light flung off by a phalanx of votive candles. He squeaked, fumbled the stone, regained control, shoved the rock back at me. “Keep that away from fire. Any kind of fire. No matter what else you do.”

  “Huh?”

  “You let a flame touch it, you’ll be sorry the rest of your life. Which will last maybe as long as another minute. If you’re friggin’ beloved of the gods.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What the hell?”

  “You don’t got no idea what you got there, do you?”

  “I have a green rock. Somebody tried to brain me with it. I started carrying it around because I tend to slow down, relax, and think clearer thoughts when I’m fiddling with it.”

  “Your hands are warm. It likes that. So it makes you feel good.”

  Warm hands? Tell that to Tinnie. “How about a little hint?”

  “It’s egg shaped. Right? That’s on account of it’s an egg.”

  “Huh?” Old Garrett is quick as a glacier sometimes.

  “Friend, you’ve laid hands on a roc’s egg. I don’t know why anybody would try to brain you with it, but-”

  “Great pun, Slick. Egg-shaped rock. Rock’s egg. Where baby boulders come from.”

  “Roc. Bird of fire. Burn your house down around you in half a minute if the egg touches flame and it hatches, roc.”

  “Bird of fire? I thought that was a phoenix.”

  “Same difference. I was you, I’d jump outside and see how far I could fling it out in the river. It’d stay plenty cold down in the mud.”

  “Rocs are huge. They carry off mammoths.”

  “An exaggeration. There are four species around Ymber. The biggest might be able to take a lamb or a small dog. People remember them big because they’re so busy getting under cover they don’t have time to look close. The littlest roc ain’t much bigger than a sparrow. Zips around like a hummingbird. That egg you got, that’s from what they call the bird of paradise phoenix. Looks kind of like a pheasant in a clown suit.”