Red Iron Nights gf-6

by Glen Cook

  "What you really mean is, she didn't know a damned thing we could use. And you're thrilled about it."

  After a fashion. I convinced her that it would be in her best interest to remain here, out of sight, in our guest room, till we do something about the killer.

  "Say what?" He doesn't like women, of any species. He doesn't want them in the house to visit, let alone to hide out indefinitely. "You going through some change? Actually recommending that a female stay here?" He sure wasn't trying to do me any favors.

  It would not be the first time.

  "That depends on how you add things up."

  I would love to match wits with you, but that game has lost its savor. I want you to go see if you cannot charm either the Candy woman or the Dixie woman into spending the night here.

  "Why?" He had more faith in me than I did.

  I despair of teaching you to employ your reason. Because once you lure the potential victim close enough, I can make sure she is not out there when the killer goes hunting tomorrow night. Because then I would have two of the three most likely targets under my protection, freeing you and Captain Block to concentrate on the remaining woman.

  "Right. I've watched those two women in action, Smiley. Candy don't play and Dixie is out of my price range. Snowball-in-hell time."

  I have faith. You will find a way.

  "Right."

  This defeatism amazes me in a man who so regularly disturbs my naps with the gales of whooping and snorting emanating from his room.

  "Regularly? I can just about count on the fingers of one finger the number of times—"

  Garrett, I am dead, not stupid.

  "Yeah. Well. So maybe I underexaggerated. But I do wish I was doing half as good as you think."

  I wish you were too. You are more easily endured when —

  "Stow that. How're we going to move a bunch of women in here? We don't have—"

  Dean can see to their wants. I will see to their safety. You go to the Tenderloin, bring us back one.

  "If they're even working. You have to remember, they don't do this stuff for a living. It's part-time, for kicks. Anyway, why should we bother? Did Block catch up on his payments?"

  We came to an agreement. There are no financial obstacles.

  "Really? Nice of you to keep me posted. I hope you took him so bad he won't come around here ever again."

  I suggest you adjourn to the Tenderloin and lay groundwork.

  Is that what you call it? "But I have to—"

  Let everything else ride. Mr. Hullar will not expire if he misses his regular report on the adventures of Barking Dog Amato. I want to be right on top of this killer if he has survived. I insist.

  I was willing to arrange that, only I didn't know how to get him out there—unless maybe I hired a wagon and a dozen sturdy moving men. I could just see him dashing gallantly about town, bringing his special style of derring-do, to the dismay of the wicked and cheer of the downtrodden.

  Your brain has become a snake pit.

  "But I have only one snake pit." I withdrew, danced lightly upstairs to see how my unexpected guest was settling in. Mostly I got to watch Dean help her settle. He interposed himself like he was her maiden aunt.

  Dean had been having his rehab parties for weeks. My bedroom, which lies across the front of the house, and the guest bedroom have been done for a while, but till Dean and his pals went to work, the other two rooms had remained untouched, repositories for junk that should have gone to the basement or street long ago. The parties had gotten the room across the back set for Dean, partly. It wasn't finished. But he no longer had to sleep on the daybed downstairs when we had company. Still, his room needed plenty of work to become really habitable. The more he got between me and Belinda, the more I considered leaving the gaps in the outside walls there for him to handle himself come winter.

  "Look, what I really need to know is whatever you know about the girl called Candy. At Hullar's. I have to come up with a way to make her stay away tomorrow night."

  "I didn't work with her. I barely knew her to say hi."

  "Damn. Somehow I had the idea all you girls should know each other. I'm getting really tired of this whole thing. You can't give me anything?"

  Dean scowled, though even he realized I'd intended no double meaning. Belinda caught his scowl, raised an eyebrow—I fell in love all over again, because that's one of my own great talents—then winked when Dean wouldn't see her. "No."

  I went away wondering.

  44

  "Look," I snapped when the Dead Man started in on me during my report, "I did my best. I let Barking Dog drive me crazy telling me about his day so I'd have something to tell Hullar. Then I spent two hours trying to get somewhere with a dame so dizzy she thought me trying to save her life was a new pickup routine. She finally told me to screw off and die. Not exactly a boost for the ego. But I did find out that she won't be working tomorrow night. She has family obligations."

  Excellent. If we fail tomorrow, we will have her as bait next time.

  "How come you're so sure we'll have more trouble with this killer?"

  I am not sure. I am taking a page from your philosophy, looking on the dark side, expecting the worst. If nothing happens, I will have had a wonderfully pleasant surprise.

  "Yeah? I hope you get your wonderfully pleasant surprise. I'm going to bed. It was a bitch of a day."

  All that beer, in the line of duty.

  "There are limits. Stand watch. If that woman finds she can't control her urges—"

  Ha. She is sound asleep, without a thought of anyone named Garrett anywhere in her mind.

  "What is she, then? A nun? Never mind. I don't want to know. I want to sleep. Good night. Tight. Bedbugs. Bite. All that stuff."

  I made it upstairs before the summons came. Garrett! Come down here.

  Rather than prolong the pain by fighting, I went. "What?" This would have to be good.

  You did not tell me about the other woman. Dixie. At Mama Sam's. Remember?

  "I remember. She didn't show up for work. She was expected in but she didn't make it. Nobody was surprised. That was the way she was. All right? She was time wasted. But she's supposed to be there tomorrow for sure. She'll be our bait. Good night."

  Whatever questions he had, he took answers directly, without forcing me to spend more time on one of our famous exchanges. I climbed the stairs again. This time I made it all the way to my room before he prodded me. Garrett! There is someone at the door.

  Hell with them. Let them come back at a civilized hour. I settled onto the edge of my bed, leaned forward to untie my shoes.

  Garrett, Captain Block is at the door. I believe he has brought bad news but he is too excited to read reliably.

  Great. For Block I'd make special arrangements. He could come back next week.

  Nevertheless, I pried my carcass off my bed and trudged down the hall, downstairs, up the ground-floor hall to the door, peeped through the peephole. The Dead Man was right. That was Captain Block out there. I held another brief debate about whether or not to admit him. I finally gave in and unlocked the door.

  I was a tad more frank than usual. "You look like death on a stick."

  "I'm considering suicide."

  "And you came here for help? That's not one of our services."

  "Ha. Ha. He grabbed a march on us, Garrett."

  Bring him in here, Garrett.

  "Say what? You can't go talking around things tonight. I'm so tired I'm wasted."

  "Winchell. He snatched the Candy woman. Tonight. Because he knew we'd be set for him tomorrow night. Ripley was with him."

  "How do you know?"

  "I saw them. I was down there scouting out how I wanted to do cover tomorrow night. I saw them snatch her when she left work. I chased them till I collapsed. They saw me too. They laughed at me."

  "You lost them?"

  "I lost them. I'm going to kill myself."

  I told the Dead Man, "You want to let him do that now so
I can get some sleep? I'll get rid of the body tomorrow."

  Nonsense. Captain Block, you must return to your barracks and turn out every man who knew Corporal Winchell or Private Ripley. Determine if any knows where either man might hide. Send squads to check those. Worry more about saving the girl than capturing the villains. A success there will endear you to the public and your superiors alike. I suggest you begin moving now. If, in fact, you do manage to overhaul the villains, do capture rather than kill them. The curse will be easier to control with its carrier still alive.

  "I tried that last time. The clown made us kill him."

  I suspect that, too, is part of the curse. Whoever cast it originally, for whatever reason —you seem to be taking an inordinately long time examining the official records —was a genius. He did not just toss off a spell that compelled someone to go forth and slaughter a certain sort of woman. He created a curse that interacts with its environment, that learns when it fails, that goes on and gets harder to overcome with time.

  Block had grown pale. "There's no way to beat it? If I do stop it today, it gets harder to stop tomorrow?"

  I can think of several ways to stop it. None are especially appealing. You can make certain the current curse-bearer dies in the presence of someone so handicapped that he cannot manage a killing. Or with a prisoner who will never be released. I am now convinced that the accursed must be kept alive while the appropriate experts study him and determine how to deactivate the curse, cantrip by cantrip.

  Alternatively, inasmuch as each transfer has been from a dead man to a living one through direct association, we might experiment with a live burial. Even better might be a live burial at sea. Perhaps entombment if we could be certain the tomb would remain unopened forever.

  "You saying the curse itself can't be stopped, only the guy wearing it?" I asked.

  That has been the situation to date. In reality, burial has just been a means of passing the problem to a subsequent generation.

  "I smell legwork."

  Indeed. Much of it legwork that should have been done already. I suspect actual dismemberment of the curse will require identification of the sorcerer who cast it and a clear picture of circumstances surrounding the casting. Motive may be as important as means. Knowing why the curse was created could provide a clue as to how to get at it, where to start unraveling it.

  I told Block, "I'll bet he's been thinking this way since the first time you came around. And you've been sloughing off the research on account of it seemed like too much trouble."

  He didn't argue and neither did the Dead Man.

  I said, "Whatever's happening now, I'm not involved. I've got sleep to catch up on."

  Block opened his mouth.

  "Don't start on me, Captain. How many times do I have to drag your ass out of the fire before you're satisfied? You have the same equipment I have. Old Bones here told you what to do. Go do it. Save a life. Get famous. Where's Dean? Can't he let Block out? Gone to bed? Come on." I grabbed Block by the elbow. "Do what he says. Get that research when you can. Good night." Out the door he went, sputtering.

  45

  I got me a few hours of horizontal, but not hardly enough. A big racket awakened me. I smelled food cooking, so it must've been around the solar dawn, though still a long way from any time when a rational being would be awake.

  For whatever irrational reason, I pulled on my pants and stumbled downstairs. I rambled into the kitchen, dropped into my customary chair. "I thought those little shit morCartha were all taken by the army for aerial scouts in the Cantard." MorCartha are a flying race, knee- to hip-high, resembling old-fashioned red devils with bat-style wings, only they're more brown than red. They're a contentious, loud, and obnoxious species possessed of no consideration whatsoever. They came from the north, fleeing thunder-lizards. TunFaire had been plagued by them till somebody suffered a seizure of smarts and hired them as auxiliaries. If they did what they were paid for, they could have a dramatic impact.

  "These come from a new wave of immigrants, Mr. Garrett." Dean handed me a cup of tea. "Or so they say. I suspect the hired tribes are returning, hoping they can get paid to leave again."

  "Likely. Why couldn't we have lived in imperial times? It's one damned thing after another. Look at all this shit. MorCartha on the rooftops. Thunder-lizards everywhere. One of those five-horned things swam the river and went crazy on the Landing last month."

  "I felt sorry for him."

  "Huh?" I cracked an eyelid, looked to my left, discovered that I was sharing the table with my houseguest. And me in nothing but my pants.

  "I felt sorry for the big stupid thing. It didn't know what was happening. It was terrified, all those little creatures screaming and throwing pointy things at it."

  "You hear that, Dean? Ain't that a woman for you? Here's a monster going berserk, stomping people to death, ripping up property, and she feels sorry for it."

  "Actually, I rather felt that way myself."

  Yeah. And so had I. And probably everyone else who hadn't suffered directly from the poor beast's fear and confusion. When you went and looked at the thing, now caught in a big pen on a vacant lot, it just seemed a big lovable puppy that looked like it had moss and lichen growing on it. I don't see how you can call something that weighs in at fifteen tons cute, but it was cute.

  "I guess it was good practice in case one of the big carnivores tries the same trick."

  "He always have to play hardass, Dean?"

  Come on. On a first-name basis already? The old boy drives me crazy doing that.

  "Always, Miss Belinda. Pay him no mind. He means well."

  "Dean, you checked how you feel lately?"

  "Sir?"

  "You said something nice about me."

  "This is a nice young lady, Mr. Garrett. I approve thoroughly. I'd like you two to get to know one another."

  Holy shit.

  "Ah. Yes, sir. I know who her father is. We cannot be held accountable for our choice of ancestors. I know who your father was." That was news to me, if he meant that he'd known the old man personally, back in those olden days before Pop went to the Cantard to get himself killed. "As I understand the situation, this isn't a problem. Mr. Contague, begging your pardon, Miss Belinda, is as good as dead, and the real say lies with Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler."

  "Two fun-loving boys who haven't stopped being dangerous because they've started running things by forging Chodo's signature. What're you trying to do, Dean?"

  "I'm doing what I always do, Mr. Garrett. I'm matchmaking."

  His easy admission struck me dumb. Belinda found nothing to say either. We exchanged helpless looks. I added an apologetic shrug.

  Dean said, "I've spoken with Miss Belinda extensively and find her quite your type behind her antagonistic public face."

  Belinda snarled, "Is this some kind of teamwork seduction effort, Garrett?"

  I protested, "You have to excuse him. He's got this thing about getting me involved."

  Dean didn't listen. He hummed and did kitchen work while we traded excuses and accusations, then declared, "The Dead Man is napping. Why don't you two go upstairs, make love two or three times, then finish arguing over lunch?"

  I couldn't believe Dean would say something like that. This just wasn't the Dean I knew.

  Not that I found the idea repulsive. Something about Belinda got to me.

  Belinda just sat there staring while Dean smiled, then winked. I suffered the faintly hopeful suspicion that she didn't find Dean's suggestion entirely repulsive either.

  However, this had become one of those situations where you couldn't carry forward if both of you were randier than a cat in heat.

  I said, "You're pushing your luck, Dean. I'm going back to bed. I'm sorry, Miss Contague. Please don't think ill of me because of Dean's presumptions."

  I thought Dean was going to break out laughing. Was this some scheme to sabotage all hanky before it turned into panky?

  Belinda didn't say anything. As I fled I th
ought I detected the faintest look of disappointment.

  You know how it goes. As soon as I was alone and the risk of her reaction was no longer part of the equation, I stared at the ceiling and entertained regrets while Belinda Contague grew more attractive by the moment, any warts magically fading.

  An incurable romantic. That's me.

  46

  I was about to head out and see what Block had accomplished. Or had not, as was more probable—though the fact that he hadn't been back did seem promising. Belinda came bounding upstairs. "Can I go?"

  "No."

  "Hey!"

  "There're people out there looking for you. I don't think your continued good health is uppermost in their minds. And the way you look, we'd be in trouble before we got two blocks."

  "What's wrong with the way I look?"

  "Not a damned thing. And that's the problem. Was I to walk out of here with you right now, my neighbors would hate me for life. Also, anybody Crask and Sadler might have watching the place would be sure to recognize you. It isn't like they trust me to dig my own grave unsupervised."

  "Oh, hell!" She stamped a foot, a neat move you don't see that often. It felt rehearsed.

  "If you were a redhead, nobody would pay any attention. I mean, the uglies wouldn't. My neighbors would hate me even more. And I don't know if I could stand it if you were everything you are now and a redhead besides."

  Dean leaned out of the kitchen, behind Belinda, gave me a look that said he thought I was laying it on with a trowel.

  Belinda said, "You're laying it on with a trowel, Garrett. But I love it. I hate being cooped up. I'll see about becoming a redhead. Or maybe a blond. Would you like that?" Breakfast was forgotten.

  "Sure. Anything. I'm easy. Just don't put on a hundred pounds and grow a mustache."

  She winked. My spine turned to water. But I wasn't a complete dummy. I wondered why she was getting so nice. I suggested, "You might change your look while you're at it. Especially if the black is like a trademark."

  "Good idea." She blew me a kiss.

  I looked at Dean, who looked back and shrugged, shook his head. I couldn't tell if he meant he didn't know or didn't want to be blamed.