by Glen Cook
I was about to explain that it wasn't likely the false Bic Gonlit had the boy. Playmate nudged me. That was irrelevant. It was time to go.
Good idea, too. Because, atop everything else, Kayne Prose had a kind of narcotic quality to her. I could see myself sliding into addiction. Just like my dusky pal.
I kept thinking that, if she hadn't had so many incompatible personality quirks, she could've set herself up for life by getting into the mistress racket. In a prime position.
That she was where she was, looking as good as she did, never having done better, was one more warning flag about the woman inside that marvellously attractive shell.
A long time ago, almost a whole day now, Playmate had told me that Cypres Prose's mom was different and had pointed to his temple. Based on information gleaned, I'd say the man was right. But that didn't stop me from wanting to turn right around and go back and try to score some points for the future.
24
Playmate asked, "What did you think of Kayne?"
"Honest answer, Play? I never saw her before in my life. But I wanted to trip her and beat her to the floor. And ten seconds after that I just wanted to beat her. And ten seconds after that I was completely confused about what I wanted. And right now the animal side of my soul is screaming at me not to walk away from this wonderful chance. There's a perverse, self-destructive urge in there somewhere that she just shrieks out to."
He wasn't offended. "That's how a lot of men react. You a little faster than most, but that's just you being you. And after years of studying Kayne Prose I think it's all because of what's going on inside her. She doesn't just hurt herself in these doomed relationships. And the harder it is on the guys, the harder they try to make it work."
We were strolling. Playmate needed to air out some thoughts. It was clear that he was a Kayne Prose addict and willing to risk destruction. And maybe Kayne Prose thought too much of Playmate to give him a hit of poison.
People are the strangest creatures.
"What's it all mean?" I asked, just to keep open the windows of his mental house.
"I think it means that Kayne has a low-grade form of what the Dead Man has. The mind thing." Which could mean another wizard in the woodpile, a generation further back. "Just enough to read you faintly and to touch you just as weakly. Without knowing it on a conscious level. But using it all the time when men are around. In such a way that whatever is going on inside her will be reflected right back at her from outside. And maybe it'll feed on itself if it starts running into something dark."
I considered. "You could be right." I started trying to compare, in my head, Kayne Prose's impact with the jolt my friend Katie could deliver. Katie can reduce this man to jelly with just a look. When Katie gets interested there are no distractions. Katie is the closest I've ever come to having had a religious epiphany.
I'd just considered that to be a matter of focus. But maybe it was something more. Maybe there was a weak, crude mental connection involved.
Playmate said, "It's just a hypothesis." With a tone so defensive that an apology was implied.
"A damned good hypothesis, I'd say. You ought to get completely alone with her sometime, no distractions whatsoever, and test it out."
He sputtered.
"Play? You're embarrassed?"
"I'm not that kind of guy, Garrett."
"Maybe you ought to be. Tell me about Kayne's other kids. Are they problem folks like their mother and brother?"
"Not like their mother and brother. But problems enough. You'll like Cassie."
He didn't tell me much more. But he was right about Cassie. Cassie was a very likeable child indeed.
25
Cassie Doap was nineteen. Physically, Cassie was her mother a decade and a half younger, with the overpowering sensuality less controlled. Cassie Doap would break hearts just by going out where men could see her and understand that they would live out their years never having gotten any closer than they were at the moment when first they spotted her. Cassie Doap filled up a room with her presence but didn't spark the confusion that came with being around her mother.
Cassie Doap was smarter than Kayne, too. She understood the impact she had on men but had no intention of letting that define who and what she was. If Kayne Prose had done one useful thing for her daughter it was to set an example of how not to live her life.
All that I understood before Cassie Doap and I exchanged a word. Because Cassie Doap was an easy read. She wanted it that way.
I wondered what hidden, horrible flaw had a poor woman as gorgeous as this still living with her mother at her age. A hyperactive sense of self-worth?
Playmate performed the introductions. I managed to shake hands while avoiding stepping on my tongue, distracting myself by concentrating on business. I'm able to do that occasionally, though there're some who would have the world believe otherwise. It's just that the Kaynes and Cassies of the world make it so hard.
With Cassie there I almost overlooked her brother Rhafi. He wasn't the sort to attract much attention.
I told Cassie, "We're trying to find Kip. We think... "
"If Play hadn't guaranteed it was the real thing I would've bet the little twerp staged the whole damned thing."
"Why would you think that?" I noted that, unlike her mother, Cassie did nothing to make sure I understood just how much woman she was.
"Because that's the way his evil little pea brain works." Brother Rhafi nodded his head vigorously. "He lives inside his own imagination. Everything in there is high drama. Perilous chases, deadly duels, narrow escapes, beautiful princesses, and monstrous villains."
Playmate chuckled. "Sounds like your life, Garrett," he quipped.
"Except for a severe shortage of princesses, beautiful or otherwise. You wouldn't be a long-lost princess, left in a basket on your mother's doorstep, would you, Cassie?"
"Long-lost, anyway. If that was intended to be a compliment you get points for being a little more subtle than the usual, ‘Gods, you're beautiful. Lie down because I think I love you.' "
"Must've been army type guys. Marines are all smooth and crafty." Had we just gotten a hint of why Cassie Doap hadn't wriggled her way into the sweet life? Everybody knows that's a girl's easiest way out of the poor side of town. Or was she in a constant rage because Fate had decreed she should be so beautiful that everybody wanted her? I don't recall ever having run into a woman who resented her own appeal, only women who hated their sisters for having more of it than they did. But I could understand the notion, in principle. In someone who could, genuinely, separate self from body.
Possibly Kayne's past behavior had loaded Cassie up with outside expectations as well. Perhaps the whole neighborhood figured like mother, like daughter. That's the sort of ignorant thinking you can expect from human type beings. And the sort that would park a big old chip on somebody's shoulder.
Playmate said, "Kayne told us you could show us where Bic Gonlit stayed when he was coming around here." His tone was strained, neutral. And Cassie heard that. And she understood.
"I can't. I stayed away from that creep. He was always trying to get me to go somewhere with him when Kayne wasn't around."
But Kayne had told us that Bic hadn't shown any physical interest in her. If he hadn't gone for the mom why would he take a run at the daughter?
Make the assumption he wasn't a good, red-blooded Karentine boy and you might think he could want something else. Maybe he'd had a notion that snatching Cassie would give him a lever he could use to get Kip to tell him what he wanted to know.
Hard to imagine just wanting Cassie as a hostage. She was the kind of girl you have to keep away from the old men. Or you'll have them dropping like flies from strokes and heart attacks. Hell, I was having palpitations myself and I was just there looking for her nimrod brother.
I had trouble seeing anything else. Especially not brother Rhafi, who vanished in Cassie's glare. That poor kid didn't even have Kip's unpleasant character traits. He was just the
re, a gangly six-footer with unkempt dark hair, brown eyes, a ghost of a mustache, the beginnings of a set of bad teeth, and no meat on his bones. I got the impression that he'd rather be somewhere else. That, like his brother, he had a preference for the habitués of worlds of his own devising.
Physically, it was obvious that Rhafi did not share a father with Kip. Cassie... She might pass as Kip's full sister if anybody wanted to pretend. But she did have that different last name.
No matter. As pleasant a task as it was staring at Cassie and drooling, I was in the business of rescuing obnoxious teenagers. "Rhafi, I'm Garrett." Like maybe he'd forgotten. But I'd decided to deal with him the way I dealt with Singe. Carefully. He seemed of an age to be volatile. "I specialize in finding things that get lost." Or about anything else that needs doing, that clients don't want to do for themselves, and that I don't think is wrong.
"Like Bic Gonlit."
"Well, sure. Though the reason I want to find him is because he may know where to find your brother."
Petulantly, "I mean, Bic Gonlit finds things that're missing. He said so."
"The real Bic Gonlit specializes in finding people for other people. People who're willing to pay well to have them found."
Playmate told me, "Let's don't complicate things, Garrett. Rhafi, please show us where Bic Gonlit stayed."
"He tried to get me up there, too, you know. Like he did Cassie."
"And you found out where he stayed. Good job." Playmate's approach was the same as mine but the boy responded better. Probably because he knew and trusted Playmate.
Playmate does exude trustworthiness. I've seen total strangers entrust him with everything but their souls.
Playmate kept talking. And Rhafi responded.
The boy did not enjoy Kip's one redeeming quality. He wasn't bright. And he was spoiled. As much as a near-destitute child can be spoiled.
I stepped back and let the master work.
"Shall we?" I asked Cassie, offering her my arm and a glimpse of my raised eyebrow. The trick that kills them dead.
"I think I'll just stay here."
Whimpering, every bone crushed, I dragged my battered carcass out of the Prose flat, following Playmate and Rhafi.
26
Playmate said, "I told you you'd like Cassie."
"Hell, I love her. But I'm not so hot for the thing that's inside of her, wearing her like a suit."
Rhafi started laughing. I mean, he got one of those cases of the giggles where you just can't shut it off, no matter how hard you try.
"I didn't think it was that funny," I said.
Playmate agreed. "It wasn't funny at all."
Rhafi gasped, "But you don't know Cassie. You don't have to live with her. You don't have to suffer through it when she tries on different personalities like some rich bitch trying on different clothes." He hacked and gasped all the way through that. "I know it isn't that funny. But it was just so perfect for the bitch that she's trying to be this week."
"She's always been an actress," Playmate said, demonstratively not using the word in its pejorative form, which means whore. "That's her way of coping."
"Ever get the idea that the dysfunctional folks outnumber those who aren't? Every damned day I'm more of the opinion that everybody's knot is tied too loose or too tight. And some just cover it up better than others. It's only a matter of time. Except for me and thee, of course."
"And sometimes we wonder about thee, Garrett. I'm sorry you feel that way. You might consider surrounding yourself with different people. Excluding myself, naturally. Or you might find a different line of work. One less likely to turn you cynical."
"Me? Cynical? That's impossible. I am one with the universe. I have the perfect life. Except for the fact that I do have to work once in a while."
"You should've picked a mother who lived on the Hill."
"That was a little shortsighted of me, wasn't it?"
Rhafi, in a moment when the giggles were under control, observed, "You guys must be getting older than you look." Outside of the Prose flat, out of the shadow of his intimidating sister, he developed some substance.
"Yeah? How come do you say that?" That was a bitter draught, even from a kid as strange as he.
"You both think too much."
The little philosopher. "Damn!" I said. "There's an accusation that hasn't been flung in my face for a long time."
"Possibly never," Playmate opined. "I recall the opposite fault getting mentioned with some frequency, however... Hello. What do we have here?"
Clumps of people occupied the street ahead, staring down a cross lane and pointing at the sky.
"I have an uncomfortable feeling. Rhafi, how far to Bic Gonlit's place?"
"Next block. I bet they're looking at one of those... Oh, yeah!"
The crowd all made awed noises. Everyone pointed, reminding me of crowd scenes in paintings of the imperial circus, the people saluting as the emperor arrived.
A silvery discus, that I guessed to be pretty high up in the air, had appeared from behind a tile rooftop. It drifted our way for a few seconds, then moved back out of sight again. Some of the watchers complained bitterly because it hadn't come closer. I supposed similar groups of gawkers could be found all over town.
I overheard several people claiming to have had contact with creatures who lived inside the silver disk. One insisted that he had been a captive of creatures who lived inside the balls of light I had seen last night. That turned into a contest: who could concoct the tallest tale about the outrages done them by the silver elves.
The human imagination is very fertile. And exceedingly grotesque.
"Did I say something about them outnumbering us?" I asked. "Play, you heard of those silver things coming out in the daytime before?" Sightings had been going on for at least a month but I hadn't paid much attention. There's always something weird going on in TunFaire. Like most of His Majesty's subjects, if the something weird ain't happening to me I don't worry about it.
"Oh, sure. Just as often as at night. As I recollect, all of the earliest sightings, over a year ago now, came during the daytime."
"I do remember. It was one of those one-day wonders. Nothing happened so I forgot about it. These people are getting a little thick here," I grumbled. I eased into Playmate's wake. He had little trouble pushing through the crowd. Many of them probably recognized him. He was always out here doing the charitable side of the ministry thing.
Always something weird happening. These flying things. The silver elves. People catching on fire and burning up, up on the north side. The other day news that another juvenile male mammoth had wandered in through an un-watched gate and was creating havoc, also on the north side. If one of Block's people was supposed to have been on duty there he'd better be prepared to eat the mammoth. Dereliction of duty was close to a capital crime in the eyes of Colonel Westman Block and Deal Relway.
It might behoove me to keep better track since so much of the weird stuff pulls me in eventually.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Garrett?" Rhafi asked from behind me. "You jumped."
I'd thought about voluntarily creating work for myself, that was what was the matter. No need to share that with the kid, though. "Aren't we there yet?"
"The yellow brick dump."
And dump it was. The tenement in question, easily more than a hundred years old, was a hideous four-story memorial to the disdain lavished on housing for the poor during the last century. When they actually still built tenements with the idea that poor people needed housing. I knew the inside perfectly before we ever passed through the doorless entry, stepping over and around squatters, trying not to inhale too deeply. The nearest public baths would be miles away.
Cooking smells, heavy on rancid grease, did help suppress the body odors somewhat.
Every room in the structure would be overcrowded. Entire extended families would occupy a space at most ten feet by eight, some members possibly sleeping standing up, leaning on a rope. Certainly sleep
ing in shifts, the majority always on the street trying to score an honest or dishonest copper. When you're that poor that distinction is too fine to notice.
It's the way of much of the world. And once you've looked into a place like that tenement you tend to appreciate your own better fortune a good deal more.
That tenement made Kayne Prose's situation appear considerably less awful.
I asked Rhafi, "You know where he stayed here?"
The boy shrugged. "Upstairs. I think he said the top floor."
"Oh, my aching knees."
"Not exactly the digs you'd expect of the Bic Gonlit who enjoys gourmet dining and fine wines," Playmate observed.
"Definitely not. You think Bic maybe used this place as a safe house?" I stepped over and past several big-eyed ragamuffins, the eldest possibly four, all huddling on the bottom steps of the stairs.
I knew the answer to my question. The Bic Gonlit who had come to see me in search of magical boots knew nothing about the other Bic. The Dead Man would have winkled that out right away.
The opposite, of course, could not be true.
Possibly the real Bic had a relationship of some sort with the artificial Bic and didn't know it. Puffing, I asked Playmate, "Bic have any brothers or cousins?"
"Only child of an only child, far as I know. Top floor. How come you're having so much trouble breathing? Which room, Rhafi?"
Rhafi didn't know. Rhafi wasn't bright but Rhafi was cunning enough not to let himself be lured into something by someone weird. Unless that someone happened to be flashing coin.
There were eight doorways on that fourth floor. The one farthest back on the right had an actual door in its frame. Several others had rag curtains hung up. A couple had nothing. And the doorway on the right, next forward from the one with a real door, had been boarded up. So well that no entrepreneur had been able to pry the boards off and return them to the local economy.
