Red Iron Nights gf-6

by Glen Cook

  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 hunchbacks, 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.

  40

  "The man's damned clever."

  I boun
ced high enough to bruise my skull on low-flying clouds.

  "I mean, using the truth to tell lies that way." Crask had appeared out of nowhere, behind me.

  I barked, "Why the hell you got to do that?"

  He grinned. "Because it's fun watching you jump." He meant it. He would keep trying to make me jump till the day he really did greet me with a knife.

  "What do you want?" My mood wasn't what it had been.

  "It's not what I want, Garrett. It's never that. It's what Chodo wants. You know that. I'm just an errand boy."

  Right. And a saber-toothed tiger is just a pussycat. "I'll play. What does the kingpin want?" I tried to keep one eye on Barking Dog. Amato was into a foaming-mouth frenzy now, excoriating and denouncing everyone and everything and drawing one of the best crowds of his career. But I couldn't keep my mind on him with Crask so near.

  Crask said, "Chodo wants to talk about the girl."

  "The girl?"

  "Don't get cute. She's his kid. It ain't right she's down to the Tenderloin, whatever she's doing there. That don't look good. That can't get out."

  "You don't like it, tell her to knock it off."

  "There you go again. Cute. You know it ain't that simple, Garrett."

  "Sure. It isn't like she was some kid off the street, just slap her around, maybe kick in a few ribs when she don't do right."

  "You got a problem with your mouth, Garrett. I been telling Chodo for a long time you got a problem with your mouth. For a while there he couldn't see that. But he's maybe seeing things clearer these days. You'll maybe want to keep a lid on the wise-guy stuff when you see him."

  I always had... See him? I hadn't planned to see that old coot ever again. I told Crask that.

  "We're all entitled to our opinions, and maybe even our little dreams, I reckon. But sometimes they got to change, Garrett."

  I glanced around. Crask wasn't alone. Naturally. He'd brought enough help to carry off three or four uncooperative characters my size. "I suppose you have a point." I stood, indicated he should lead the way.

  I considered taking a powder. Barking Dog's crowd might have made escape possible. But I had a feeling I wasn't in danger. Yet. Had I reached the head of the kingpin's list, they'd have just hit me. Killing was a businesslike business with Chodo and his main men. They didn't waste time tormenting their victims—unless there was a big public-relations dividend to be gained from killing somebody an inch at a time.

  "Pity to miss the rest of this." I nodded at Barking Dog.

  "Yeah. Old goof's on a roll. But business is business. Let's go."

  Our immediate destination stood at the curb on the far side of the Chancery. It was a big black coach similar to the one the old butterfly man had ridden. Chodo Contague's personal coach.

  "How many of these does he have?" It hadn't been that long since I'd fallen out of a similar one scant seconds before it became a lunch bucket for a thunder-lizard taller than most three-story houses.

  "This is a new one."

  "I figured." Since it looked and smelled new. You can't fool us trained investigators.

  That other, earlier ride had sprung from a misunderstanding that had irked me at the time. So much so that I'd decided to whack Chodo before he came after me again. I'd joined forces with this very Crask to see the job done.

  But Chodo was still alive, still in charge.

  I couldn't figure it.

  Crask is smart but he isn't much of a talker. It's a long haul from the skirts of the Hill out to Chodo's estate. You have plenty of time to consider the meaning of life. If you're traveling with a Crask and a couple other stiffs who lack even the redeeming value of having brains, you tend to drift away into philosophy. There's only so much amusement to be had from farting contests and exchanges of grotesque misinformation about female anatomy.

  Try as I might, I couldn't get anything better going. All I got out of Crask was an indefinite impression that there was more going on than he cared to tell me.

  Which made perfect sense if he planned to break my neck. You don't tell the pig ahead of time that it's come the day for making bacon. All I had going was the dubious comfort I could take from knowing that Crask had no cause to go to all this trouble just to ice me.

  I hadn't seen Chodo's place since the night Winger and I broke in planning to hasten Chodo's journey to the promised land. Nothing appeared changed except that the damage had been repaired and a fresh herd of small thunder-lizards had been brought in to patrol the grounds and graze on intruders. "Just like old times," I muttered.

  "We've added a twist or two," Crask informed me, grinning evilly, like he hoped I'd think he was bluffing and would have a go at sneaking in. That would appeal to his selective sense of humor.

  41

  Like old times. Chodo greeted his company in the pool room.

  It was called that because there was a huge indoor bath in there. I've seen smaller oceans. The bath was heated. Usually—though this time was an exception—the poolside was decorated by a small herd of unclothed beauties, there just to lend that final touch of decadence.

  While we waited, I asked, "Where are the honeys? I miss them."

  "You would. Chodo didn't want them around while his daughter was staying here. He never got around to bringing them back."

  What did that mean? That the daughter wasn't staying here anymore?

  Patience, Garrett. All will come clear.

  The man himself arrived, looking little changed. He was in his wheelchair with a heavy blanket wrapped around his lap and covering his legs. Hands like tallow claws lay folded upon his lap. I couldn't see his face. His head had fallen forward. It swayed back and forth.

  Sadler stopped him at the far end of the pool, fiddled with his chair, tilted him back so his head stayed level. I'd never seen Chodo in anything approaching good health, but now he seemed way worse than ever before. He looked like somebody had poisoned him with arsenic, then he'd suffered severe anemia till the vampires got him. His skin was almost translucent.

  He was dressed and groomed as though for dinner with the King—and that only made the sight of him more horrible.

  I started forward. Crask caught my arm. "From here, Garrett."

  Sadler bent to Chodo's right ear. "Mr. Garrett is here, sir." He spoke softly. I barely heard him.

  Nothing shifted in Chodo's eyes. I saw no light of recognition. I saw no evidence that he could see at all. His eyes didn't move and didn't focus.

  Sadler leaned forward as though to let Chodo speak into his ear. He listened, then straightened. "He wants to know about his daughter." No pretense about her now. "Whatever you know. All your speculations."

  "I already told you—"

  "He wants to hear it. With everything you left out."

  Bullpucky. Maybe I wasn't supposed to notice. Maybe they didn't care if I did. Chodo's lips hadn't moved. He hadn't done anything but drool.

  I flashed back to the night we tried to scribble the end of his story. We—Crask, Sadler, Winger, and I—had had him cornered, along with a witch he'd been chasing. The witch did get herself elevated to a higher plane before Winger and I cut out, but she'd made a final gesture before checkout. She'd given Chodo a fist in the face. She'd been wearing a poison ring filled with snake venom.

  So. Rather than killing Chodo, the venom had induced a stroke.

  How nice for Crask and Sadler. They must have thought themselves beloved of the gods when that happened. Their original plan had been to do Chodo and grab control of the outfit before anyone realized what was happening. That was the historically preferred solution to the problem of the transition of power in the underworld. But it meant a long shake-out period while potential challengers were eliminated.

  This way there was no problem with the succession. Chodo was alive. They could pretend he was still in charge while they gathered the reins slowly.

  It was grotesque.

  I played along.

  Not playing along would be a capital crime, I suspected.
>
  Much of the time I function well in tight situations. I didn't betray my thoughts. I pursued a conversation with Chodo, through Sadler, as though I sensed nothing unusual.

  I gave them a thorough briefing on the serial killer and young women frequenting the Tenderloin. Sometimes it's best you don't shield people from the truth.

  "Seen her lately?" Sadler asked.

  "Not since that day at Hullar's."

  "You didn't try to trace her?"

  "Why? No. I lost interest once I knew who she was."

  "You're not as dumb as you look," Crask observed.

  "Like you. Protective coloration."

  Sadler gave me the fish-eye. "You would've known who she was after seeing her at Dotes's place."

  "Speaking of Morley, the reason I asked him to contact you is the girl might know something that would help stop this killer. And I didn't figure hunting her up personally would—"

  Sadler cut in, "You said the killer was dead." He was determined to trip me up.

  "Maybe. We hope. But he's been dead before. The killings didn't stop."

  "You don't think they're going to?"

  "The ritual knives disappeared. A Watchman who was around the corpse and who had access to the knives has disappeared. That may not mean anything, but why take chances? I've identified two women who fit the victim profile. I'll see them covered like a blanket." Did I sound like I was making sense?

  Sadler bent, stayed bent a long time, though Chodo's lips never moved. "Yes, sir. I'll tell him that, sir." He straightened. "Chodo says he has a job for you, Garrett. He wants you to find his daughter. He wants you to bring her home."

  "The resources he has, he can't find her?"

  "Not without everybody knowing he's looking."

  Crask said, "He can't go looking himself, Garrett. That would be like admitting he can't control his own family."

  Yeah. And folks might even wonder why she'd run away. "I see." I turned away, pretended to pace, finally stopped. "I can handle it. But I could use a little something to get started with. I mean, I don't even know her name, let alone anything about her."