The workers on the factory floor glared at Michael and me as we went by. Not everybody loves the EPA. Too bad.
The Confederation would be contaminated a lot worse than it is if we weren’t around.
Squares of flayed human skin substitute lay at the bottom of vats. Even though the stuff was legal, it turned my stomach. Michael said, “Take one out for me, please.” Vasquez translated his request into Spainish. One of his men reached in and fished out a dripping sheet “It’s darker than the substitute you have in your lot,” I remarked.
Vasquez said, “This is the residue of the tanning baths.
Proper cleansing will restore the usual shade.”
Michael Manstein raised an eyebrow at that but he didn’t say anything, so I let it ride. I said, “I trust you have proper import certificates for the flayed human skin substitute?”
“I shall fetch them immediately,” Vasquez said. “Please do not let my absence delay you in your tests.” He headed back toward his office.
Michael got to work with his sheet of human skin substitute and the one the worker had pulled out of the vat. I clutched my kabbalistic amulets. I was ready for anything from his sheet of substitute starting to bleed to all hell breaking loose. I was ready for what might have been worse than hell breaking loose: I was ready for Huitzilopochtli alive and in Person and in a bad mood. I wasn’t sure I’d get out of Chocolate Weasel in one piece if that happened, but I had a chance.
Jorge Vasquez came back while Michael was still incanting. He handed me the certificates I’d asked for. Sure enough, they showed he was bringing in flayed human skin substitute produced by the law of similarity, as certified by some high sorcerer down in Tenochtitlan, the point of origin of the stuff. The certificate had Aztecian export stamps and Confederation import stamps right where they belonged. On parchment Chocolate Weasel was as legal as could be.
“Thanks very much, Mr. Vasquez,” I said. “You maintain excellent documentation.”
“I have to,” he answered, his tone bitter, “It is the only way I can protect myself from harassment because I am an Aztecian businessman serving my people on Confederation soil.” He was back to that song again. I let it alone; nothing I could say was going to make him change his mind.
Michael spoke a last couple of magical words, lifted the wet sheet of flayed human skin substitute from the one he’d taken out of his little black bag. “No skin of bleeding,” he said, sounding as surprised as he ever did—which is to say, Vasquez, who didn’t known him well, wouldn’t have noticed any change in his voice. “I must conclude that the specimen from the vat is thaumaturgically inactive with respect to Huitzilopochtli.”
“I could have told you as much,” Vasquez said. “In fact, I did tell you as much, but you chose not to listen. Are you satisfied?”
I nodded, reluctantly. I’d thought we’d surely find the pot of gold at Chocolate Weasel (which reminded me I’d have to do something one of these days about the study on naturalizing leprechauns). Michael said. The data we have obtained leave us no reason to be dissatisfied,” which struck me as damning with faint praise. He must have been disappointed, too.
“I presume you will have the courtesy to mention this in your written report,” Vasquez said with icy, ironic politeness.
“I also trust you will be making that report soon.”
I knew a hint to get out of there when I heard one. I’d have liked to stay and snoop some more, but after Michael failed to find any trace of Huitzilopochtlic influence on the flayed human skin substitute, I didn’t see how I could. I waited for Michael to finish packing the tools of his trade, then dejectedly followed Vasquez back to his office.
In front of that office, he sank another barb: “I hope you gentlemen can find your own way out. Good day.” He went inside and closed the door after him.
We found our own way out. Once again, nobody up front took any interest in us except to speed us on our way. I was ready to go, too. I’d had such high hopes everything would break open at Chocolate Weasel. But what did we get there?
Nothing, the same as we’d got everywhere else. It wasn’t just a case any more, either. Judy’s life lay on the line.
“Damnation,” I said as we scuffed our way across the lot toward Michael’s carpet “No skin of it there, not so far as I could prove,” he said,
“although, so far as I know, flayed human skin substitute, unlike the authentic product, comes in only one color and is merely toughened, not darkened, by the tanning process.”
“Really?” I said. “That’s interesting, but if you found no skin of Huitzilopochtli, it’s nothing more than interesting.”
“My thought exactly,” he said, sitting down and reaching for his safety belt A tattered old carpet on its last fringes flew slowly into the lot, settled into a parking space maybe fifty feet from us. The two guys on it were talking in Spainish, and paid us no attention whatever. One of them wore a red cap, the other a blue one.
That rang a vague bell in my mind, but no more. Then the fellow in the blue cap turned his head so I got a good look at his face. You don’t soon forget the looks of a guy who’s tried to bounce your balls—it was Carlos, the charming chap from the swap meet. And the man with him was Jose. They got off their carpet—they didn’t bother with safety belts—and went on into Chocolate Weasel.
I stood there staring after them. “Come on,” Michael said, a little querulously. “Having failed here, we may as well return to the office and more productive use of our time.”
“Huh?” He snapped me back to myself. “We haven’t failed here—your test may have, but we haven’t.” He looked at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about. After a moment, I realized he didn’t. I explained rapidly, finishing, Those are the two who sold Cuauhtemoc Hemandez his poison, full of real human skin and the influence of Huitzilopochtli. What are they doing at Chocolate Weasel if it’s really as legit as your test showed?”
“A cogent question.” But Michael was frowning. “Yet how could the similarity test I employed on the flayed human skin substitute be in error? It was conducted under universally valid thaumaturgic law.”
A dreadful suspicion was growing in me. I didn’t want to speak it out loud, for fear of making it more likely to be true—or maybe it was more the worry that comes out in the phrase. Speak of the devil. I did say, “I’m not questioning supernatural law, just the assumptions you made the test under. And I think I know how we can find out if I’m right. Come on.”
“What are you doing?” Michael said, but he unbuckled, got off his carpet, and, little black bag in hand, followed me across the street.
A salesman came up smiling when we walked into the Spells ’R’ Us store, me still a couple of paces in front of Michael. “Good morning, sir—sirs,” he said, amending things when he realized we were together. “What sort of home thaumaturgics can I interest you in today?’
I showed him my EPA sigil. A couple of seconds later, Michael got his out, too. He still didn’t know what I was up to, but he’d back my play. The salesman—he looked like a college Idd—stopped smiling and looked real Serious.
“As you see, we’re from the Environmental Perfection Agency,” I said. “We’re in the middle of an investigation and we urgently need a spellchecker. I’d like to borrow one from you and activate it for a few minutes.”
The kid gulped. “I can’t authorize that myself, sir. I’ll have to get the manager.” He fled into the EMPLOYEES ONLU section of the store to do just that.
The manager looked like what his salesman would turn into in about ten years: he’d added a mustache to the mix, and lost his zits and some callowness. He listened to my story, then asked, “Are you investigating us?” I got that one real quick: if I said yes, he’d say no.
But I could say no with a clear conscience. When I did, the manager led Michael and me over to the display of spellcheckers against one wall and waved to show us we could help ourselves.
Since money was no object, I chose a f
ancy Wmesap from Crystal Valley. Then I asked the fellow, “Does that liquor store next door carry Passover wine, do you think?”
“You use that ritual, do you?” He looked interested, as if he wanted to talk shop but knew it wasn’t the right time or place. “Yes, I think they would, sir. This part of the Valley has a fairly large Jewish population.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “May we use this unwrapped one here? I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than I have to. Believe me, I appreciate your cooperation.” I turned to Michael. “You can wait here, if you like. I’ll bring back the wine.” At his nod, I trotted out of the Spells ’R’ Us.
Sure enough, the liquor store had what I was after: big square bottle with a neck long enough to use as a clubhandle in a pinch, label with a white-bearded rabbi, a fellow who looks like the Catholic conception (excuse me) of God the Father peering out at you. Because it’s specially blessed, Passover wine is thaumaturgically more active than your average enspirited grape juice, so it’s available all year round.
I bought a bottle of sweet Concord—just picking it up brought back memories of childhood Seders, when it was the only wine I got to taste all year—and took it back to the home thaumaturgics emporium.
Michael said, “If you plan to go back inside, David, and if your conjecture is accurate, there is a significant probability that the staff will make a sizable effort to disrupt your activity.”
My feeling was that there was a significant probability the Chocolate Weasel staff would make a sizable effort to disrupt me if I was right, and never mind my activity. But I said, “If they’re doing what I think they’re doing in there, I don’t think we’ll need to go back inside.”
While we talked back and forth, the salesman and Spells ’R’ Us manager stood off to one side, listening so hard I thought they’d grow asses’ ears the way King Midas did in the Greek myth. At another time or place, it might have been funny. I went outside, Michael following again. The two guys from Spells ’R’ Us watched through their plate—glass window.
I could figure out what they were thinking when they saw me point a spellchecker probe at Chocolate Weasel—something on the order of. What’s been across the street from us for God knows how long? It was a good question. With luck, I’d have a good answer soon.
The rich, fruity smell of the Passover wine came welling out of the bottle when I broke the seal. I poured a capful (they make the cap just the right size to hold the usual activating dose—good ergonomics) into the spellchecker receptacle and chanted the blessing. No sooner had I finished the boray pri hagcfen and added omayn than the screen lit up with a smile. The microimps inside were happy and ready.
But, even though I aimed the probe at the Chocolate Weasel building, the spellchecker didn’t pick up anything from it. It identified the magic associated with the flyway, and also the crosswalk cantrips, not all of which, as I’ve noted, are Christian by any means. I said something unfortunate and added disgustedly, “You’d think they didn’t work any magic at all in there.”
“Which we know is not the case,” Michael said. “This suggests to me that the building is shielded against probes from outside.”
“You have to be right,” I said. “But what can we do now?
Go on in? Like you said, if we do that, we’re liable not to come back out again.”
“I am of the opinion that we have sufficient information to seek a warrant and let the constabulary deal with the matter from here on out,” Michael said. “The staff of Chocolate Weasel are consorting with criminals, and the building’s being so tightly sealed is suspicious in and of itself. The blanking of the sorcery within goes far beyond any that would be required to prevent industrial espionage.”
Just then the front door to Chocolate Weasel opened and a couple of women came out. No matter how good the place’s shielding was, I’d already found out it wasn’t topologically complete like the Devonshire dump’s: I hadn’t had to cross over an insulated footbridge to get in. That meant influences could go out through the opening, too.
I looked down at the ground glass on the spellchecker.
The microimps saw something across the street, all right, something they didn’t like one bit. Words started forming:
UNIDENTIFIED—FORBIDDEN. I felt as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water down my back. The door to Chocolate Weasel closed quickly and the damning words disappeared from the ground glass, but they remained imprinted on my mind. I’d hoped never to see their like again, but here they were.
“That’s the same spellchecker reaction I got when I probed the potion that curandero gave Lupe Cordero,” I said. “Now I know why your similarity ritual failed, Michael.”
I was glad I hadn’t had lunch yet; I might have thrown up right on the sidewalk in front of Spells ’R’ Us.
Michael shook his head. “I’m afraid your logical leap went past me there.”
“You were testing for similarity to flayed human skin substitute,” I said. “I don’t think that’s substitute in there—I think that’s real flayed human skin.”
“Yes, that might conceivably throw off the accuracy of the test.” Sometimes Michael is almost off in a virtuous reality of his own. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised he thought about the testing first, but I was. Still, he does connect to the real world. After a couple of seconds, his eye got wide behind his spectacles. “Dear God in heaven, there are thousands of square feet of flayed human skin substitute in those vats. If it is the genuine material rather than the substitute—”
“Then a lot of people have ended up dead, Huitzilopochtli is well fed, and the whole stinking world may come down on our heads.” I didn’t realize I’d started spouting doggerel till the words were out of my mouth.
Tt is now imperative—no, mandatory—that we notify the authorities forthwith,” Michael said.
Since he was right, I shut down the spellchecker (no doubt to the microimps’ relief) and took it back into Spells ’R’ Us.
“Thanks very much, gentlemen,” I said. “We appreciate the help. Now can you tell us where the nearest pay phone is?”
There’s one outside the Golden Steeples,” the manager answered, “if it hasn’t been vandalized.”
The salesman blurted, “But can’t you tell us what’s going on?”
I’m sorry,” I said, “but it’s against EPA policy to reveal the results of an ongoing investigation. As I say, you’ve helped, though.”
Leaving them frustrated, we headed across Mason toward the Golden Steeples. The closer we got, the less optimistic I was about finding the phone in working order. The local street gangs had vandalized the building, scrawling tags like HUNERIC and TBASAMUND on the wall in big, angular letters. Graffiti are an environmental problem, too, one for which we don’t have a good answer yet.
And sure enough, when we came up to the pay phone, I saw that somebody—presumably the punk who went by that monicker—had carved the name GELIMER into the base of the phone and used either a tweezers or a little levitation spell to get the coins out through the narrow slits he’d cut Of course, once he violated the integrity of the containment system, the coin-collecting demon was also able to escape, and pay phones are rigged so their imps stay dormant unless he collects his fee. The phone, then, might as well not have been there.
Unless—I turned to Michael. “Are you a hot enough wizard to get around Ma Bell?”
“Possibly—with time and equipment we lack at the moment,” he said. “Finding another pay phone would be more efficient”
Ergonomics again. Whether it’s what size to make the cap on a bottle of wine or deciding to spell or not to spell, you can’t get away from it. “Let’s go back to the carpet, then,” I said. “We’re sure to pass one as we fly back to the freeway.”
We crossed over to the Chocolate Weasel parking lot. Me, I wasn’t what you’d call enthusiastic about setting foot there again, but I didn’t feel too bad because I was doing it only to leave the place for good.
Though I didn’t really need to, I picked up the map to check the route south. We could either head back to Winnetka the way we’d come and then down, or else we could fly west to…
“Michael,” I said hoarsely, “I know where we can find a pay phone.”
“Do you?” He glanced over to me. “I did not think you were overly familiar with this section of St. Ferdinand’s Valley.”
Tm not,” I said. “But look.” I pointed to the map. The next major flyway, a couple of blocks west of where we were, was Soto’s. And the next decent-sized street north of Nordhoff was Plummer. “I know there’s a pay phone there because that’s where Judy called me from.”
“Good heavens,” Michael said. “The concatenated implications—”
“Yeah,” I said. “Chocolate Weasel is involved in something really hideous, they’re doing their best to hide if it leaks out of the Devonshire dump, we find out about it (I find out about it, I mean), somebody tries to get rid of me, somebody does kidnap Judy, and then they make her call me from a phone just around the comer from Chocolate Weasel.”
“Since there is a phone at that location, and since it was undoubtedly working as recently as last night, I suggest we use it,” Michael said. He lifted the carpet off the Chocolate Weasel parking lot eased onto Nordhoff, and flew west toward Soto’s. Just getting away from Chocolate Weasel felt good, as if I were escaping cursed ground. Considering what I thought was going on inside the building, that might have been literally true.
Michael turned right onto Soto’s and flew up to Plummer.
The comer there had a bunch of little shops. I didn’t see a pay phone in front of any of them. I wondered if Celia Chang and Horace Smidley had screwed up. But what were the odds of their both screwing up the same way? Astrologically large, I thought.
“When a solution is not immediately apparent more thorough investigation is required,” Michael said, a creed which for the research thaumaturge ranked right up there with the one hammered out at Nicaea.
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump Page 32
