by Glen Cook
I said, "Has to be the one with the door, Play."
Curious faces poked out of neighboring doorways, most of them low to the floor and dirty. Only a couple of older people had the nerve to be nosy.
In TunFaire nosiness can be a deadly disease.
Playmate said, "Look at that. A key lock." He knocked. There was no response. "Looks like the one you have over at your place."
"That's because it was made by the same crooked locksmith." After having suffered Dean to spend a young fortune to buy and install a lock I'd learned that the machine could be picked easily. I knew how myself, having had to develop the skill because, once he got the lock installed, Dean used it. Without regard to my location in relation to my front door, or whether I'd remembered to take my key when I went out.
I knocked, too. There was no response to my magic knuckles, either.
I felt the door. Like maybe that would clue me in to what was going on behind it. It wasn't hot or cold or wet so the weather was fine. The door did rattle in its frame, which was no surprise in that dump. It was a replacement door, likely to vanish as soon as some entrepreneur could get on the other side and reach its hinges.
I tried the knob.
It turned. "What the hell?"
The door wasn't locked. It wasn't barred or chained on the inside. It creaked inward at the slightest shove.
With our backs to the wall either side of the doorway, Playmate and I exchanged looks of surprise. There were whispers down the hall, tenants kicking themselves for not having noticed and seized the day.
If you want to live alone in a place this low you'd better have a pet thunder lizard or be able to leave some really nasty booby traps behind when you go out.
Nothing with lots of teeth and bad breath came to see who was calling.
I produced my oaken headknocker. I used it to push the door open a little wider.
The room behind it appeared clean and neat, almost sterile. Its plaster was in perfect repair and had been painted gray. The wooden floor had been sanded and polished. Overall, the place appeared to be in better shape than it had been the day it first accepted a tenant.
There were rugs on the floor. The furniture included a small table and two wooden chairs. One of those sat in front of a fine cherrywood writing desk cluttered with paper and both quill and metal-tipped pens. There was an overstuffed chair that faced the one small window. That window had real, clear glass in it. A little table beside the chair supported a top-quality brass-and-glass oil lamp.
I whispered, "Looks like our man does a lot of reading." There were shelves beside the cherrywood desk. Those held at least thirty books, a veritable fortune. The bindings on the bound volumes suggested old and expensive and rare, which almost certainly meant stolen.
Playmate grunted. "This fellow isn't poor."
"Makes you wonder, don't it?"
"Be careful going in there."
"What's this, army telling Marines how to play the game? Here's an idea. Why don't I just toss Rhafi in? We can wander on in after the smoke clears away." I was beginning to suspect sorcery. I couldn't think of any other reason for anybody to have so many books.
"Do that and you'll ruin your chances forever with Kayne and Cassie both."
"Right now I'm not sure that'd bother me a whole lot, Play. I must be getting old. I'm taking Morley seriously. I'm losing my taste for women who're crazier than me." I dropped down, reached inside with my stick, felt around. Slowly and carefully. The setters of traps like to put their triplines down where you're less likely to notice them. I didn't find the threads I expected. Which is what I'd have used if I was rigging a setup like this. "I can't find anything here, Play. But it still don't smell right."
This time army didn't have any advice. This time army awaited Marine Corps' professional assessment.
The Marine chose to use his magic wand some more. There was a very small throw rug lying right inside the doorway. I started to push it away, to see what was underneath it.
I heard the sound of water falling into a vat of boiling grease. Then came a blinding flash of light accompanied by a baby thunderclap. I flung myself sideways, dragged me upward until I was sitting with my back against the wall.
When my vision cleared and my hearing returned I saw Rhafi swatting at a smoking patch of wall across the narrow hallway. A couple of tenants were yelling for water. The precursors of a human stampede were taking shape.
I smelled the stench of burnt hair.
Playmate told me, "My man, you're going to have to wear a hat for a while."
I felt the top of my head. I spoke a few syllables that my mom wouldn't have approved even on this occasion. "I'll just have Dean give me a haircut. I'm sure he thinks I'm overdue, anyway." I got back down on my belly and poked that little rug again.
Crackle. Flash. Clap. But all much less energetic than before.
I slithered into Bic's place, disturbing that little rug as I went. The booby trap barely popped. And that was the end of that.
27
"This guy had a whole lot of time on his hands," I said. We'd been over the place three times. We hadn't found anything to help us trace Kip. But we knew this Bic Gonlit liked to read books about TunFaire and Karenta, modern and past, and we knew he must enjoy rehabilitating rundown property because he'd completely redone this room and the sealed-up place next door, which he reached through a doorway he'd cut through the separating wall.
"Not to mention having enough spare change to afford several expensive hobbies." Those had to include paying someone to steal all those innocuous texts.
"We need to interview the neighbors."
"They aren't going to say anything. None of their business."
"You just have to know how to ask, Play. They'll sing like a herd of canaries if you happen to have some change in your hand while you're talking."
"Don't look at me."
"All right. Tell me something, then. Who's the client in this case? I didn't come to you and Kip. Am I getting my head shaved by some kind of lightning just for the exercise? I don't like exercise. Am I short the most focused and talented girlfriend I've had in a while because I'd rather be out rolling around in the slums with the lowest of the low-lifes, spending my own money so that they'll maybe give me a clue how to find a kid who probably should've been sewn into a sack with some bricks and thrown in the river ten years ago?"
"Don't go getting cranky on me, Garrett. I need some time. I honestly didn't think it was going to get this complicated."
"You didn't think. You're an idealist, Play. And like every damned idealist I've ever met you really think that things should happen, and will happen, because they're the right things to happen. Never mind the fact that people are involved and people are the most perverse and blackheartedly uncooperative creatures the gods ever invented."
"Garrett! That's enough logs on the fire."
"I'm just getting going."
"Never mind. You've made your point."
"So we'll start talking to people out in the hall. You will." I didn't want anyone else getting into our quarry's rooms. There'd be too much temptation to make off with inexplicable trinkets.
There were unknown items everywhere that resembled the little oblongs and soap bar-size boxes that had been left behind when Kip was snatched. They had foreign writing on them. Which in itself is a big so what in TunFaire, where almost everyone speaks several languages and maybe one in ten people can even read one or more. They had little colored arrows and dots. I assumed they were some sort of sorcerer's tools and left them alone.
There wasn't much else to see in the first room. The second was used as a bedroom and was set up pretty much like my own, with the wall where the hallway door used to be concealed behind a curtain, which made a closet. That contained clothing in a broader range of styles than you'd find anywhere else, and a rack of sixteen wigs. The diversity amongst those told me our boy enjoyed going out in disguise. But nothing I uncovered ever moved us one step closer to findi
ng Cypres Prose.
I gave Playmate what coins I had. After a careful count. "Don't be generous. These people won't expect it."
"What should I tell them when they ask me why we want to know?"
"Don't tell them anything. We're collecting information, not passing it out. Just let them see the money. If somebody tells you something interesting, give him a little extra. If he sounds like he's making it up to impress you, kick his ass and talk to somebody else. I'll listen in from back here."
Rhafi wanted to know, "How come you want Play to do all the asking?"
"On account of he looks more like a guy they can trust." It was that preacher man look he cultivates. "I look like a guy who'd send for the Guard if I heard anything interesting. If I'm not underground Guard myself."
The simple existence of Deal Relway's secret police gang was making life more difficult already. People were paranoid about those in authority. No doubt with good reason in most cases.
I continued to potter around the place while Playmate and Rhafi held court in the hallway. I invested a fair amount of time examining the door lock.
It exhibited no scratches to indicate that it had been picked. There was no damage to show that the door had been jimmied. There was nothing else to make me think anything but that our man had gone out without locking his door.
I found that hard to credit. This is TunFaire. Despite having heard a thousand times from country folk how they never had to lock their doors at home, I couldn't believe that anyone would do it here. But there was no evidence whatsoever to indicate otherwise. Unless the man who lived here wanted somebody to walk in. And maybe get blasted.
I called Rhafi in from the hallway. "Is there any way you know of that Bic Gonlit could've been warned that we were coming?"
"Huh? How could anybody know that?"
How indeed?
28
I'd caught a whiff of a red herring. And in less time than it takes to yell, "I'm a dope!" I sold myself a duffel bag full of wrong ideas.
Lucky for me somebody came along before I invested a whole lot of time and anger in trying to figure out how Kayne or Cassie or somebody had gotten word over in time for a trap to be set.
First hint came when the fourth floor hallway suffered a case of illuminated roaches effect. In less than a minute, without explanation to anyone whatsoever, the entire population of the ugly yellow tenement took cover in their home rooms.
I beckoned Rhafi and Playmate into Bic's room. "Go hide out in the bedroom. And stay quiet." I pushed the door shut behind them, locked it, then recalled that it hadn't been locked and undid that. Then I nudged the little throw rug into place just behind the door.
We waited.
I wasn't yet sure what for. When a whole crowd of people suddenly do something all together, like a flock of birds turning, and you don't get it, you'd better lie low and keep your eyes open.
That was my master plan for the moment.
The door handle jiggled as a key probed the lock. I tensed. The tenant was home? Was that why everybody had scattered? Playmate's interviews hadn't achieved much but to reveal that the denizens of the tenement were scared of him. Though nobody had produced a concrete reason.
How would he respond to finding his door unlocked?
Probably with extreme caution. Unless he'd left it unlocked.
I continued to nurse a paranoid streak on that matter.
The door opened. Nobody came in right away. I held my breath. I was thinking that only a blind man could've overlooked the scorching on the wall across the hallway. Only a man with no sense of smell would miss the stink of burnt hair.
But then somebody did a little hop forward, over the throw rug.
I shoved the door shut. "Play."
Playmate popped out of the other room before the man finished turning toward me. He considered his options and elected to do nothing immediately. He was trapped in a confined space, between two men much bigger than he.
He was just a little scrub, maybe five-foot-seven, and skinny. He was much too well dressed for the neighborhood.
I asked Playmate, "You know this guy?"
Playmate shook his head.
"Rhafi? How about you?"
"I seen him around. I don't know him."
"Sit, friend," I directed. "Hands on top of the table." Playmate moved the chair for the elf, then positioned himself behind it. Mindful of what we'd found in the other room, I said, "Pull his hair."
His hair came off. And when it did bits of flesh began to peel back along the former boundary between hair and naked skin. The part of the head that had been covered by the wig was hairless and pale gray.
I tugged at the peeling edges of the face. It came off. What lay beneath was a ringer for one of Playmate's elf sketches. The gray face betrayed no more emotion than had the motionless human mask when that had been in place.
"Holy shit!" Rhafi burst out. "It really is one of them things Kip was always talking about. I never believed him, even when he got Mom to say she'd seen them, too. He was always making up stories."
"I've seen them, too," Playmate said. "So has Mr. Garrett. But never quite this close."
"Which one is this?" I knew it wasn't any of the ones I'd seen before. It had more meat on it.
"I don't know. Not one of Kip's friends, though. It might be the first one who came looking for them."
I considered the elf. So-called because we didn't know what he really was. The Dead Man's suggestion of kef sidhe half-breeding didn't seem more likely than true elven origins. Maybe it hailed from the far north or from the heart of the Cantard. Some strange beings have been coming out of that desert since the end of the war with Venageta.
The elf seemed calm. Even relaxed. Without a concern.
I said a little something to Playmate in the pidgin dwarfish I could manage. Playmate nodded. He thought the elf was too confident, too.
I told the critter, "I owe you one for bopping me in that alley, guy. But I'm going to try not to remember that while we're talking."
My words had no effect. In fact, I got the distinct impression that the elf felt that he was in control of the situation, that he was playing along just to see how much he could find out.
I said, "Rhafi, go into the other room and see if you can find something we can use for a bag. A pillowcase, for instance. Anything will do."
Rhafi was back in seconds with an actual bag. It was made of that silvery stuff we had found right after Kip was taken.
I said, "Just start throwing in all the little odds and ends and knicknacks. Keep your back to us when you do. And stay between whatever you're bagging and our friend." I wasn't quite sure why I was giving him those instructions but it sure seemed like the right thing to do. And Rhafi was a good boy who did exactly what he was told.
I told Playmate, "Kayne maybe did her best job with this one."
"Don't be fooled," he whispered. "You're on him at a good time. He can be more trouble than the other two put together."
I jerked my head toward our captive. "Does this guy talk?"
"I expect so. He's been getting by by pretending to be human. Can't manage that without saying something sometime."
A touch of tension seemed to have developed in the elf. He wasn't pleased with Rhafi's activities.
"Good job, Rhafi," I said. "When that bag is full I want you to take it downstairs and leave it in the street." It shouldn't take more than a few minutes for the contents to disappear forever, whether or not anyone could figure out any use for the trinkets.
I watched the elf closely. So did Playmate. This would be the time when he would try something. If he was going to do so.
The gray elf's strange Y-shaped nostril opened wide. Air whistled inside. The nostril closed. The elf s skinny little mouth began to work, though no sounds came forth.
The elf exhaled, then drew a second deep breath. I got the notion he'd tried something he hadn't expected to work and had been disappointed by the results.
The el
f spoke. "Mr. Garrett. Mr. Wheeler."
Who the hell was Mr. Wheeler?
Oh. I'd never known Playmate by any other name, except once upon a time when I'd told everybody his name was Sweetheart, just to confuse things if they decided to go looking for him.
Playmate shook his head and pointed at Rhafi. Three different fathers. Well. I hadn't thought about the kid's patronymic. Or even that Kayne might have used it if she wasn't married to the man. But she had been, hadn't she? As I recalled Playmate explaining it.
Meantime, my new pseudoelven buddy was going on, "I believe that we may be able to help one another." His Karentine was flawless, upper-class, but more like a loud, metallic whisper than a normal voice. It took me a moment to realize that that was because he wasn't really using a voice.
More legs on the millipedal mystery. Every intelligent creature I've ever met had a voice. Even the Dead Man did, back when he was still alive.
"Who are you?" I asked. "What are you?"
"Policeman? One who tracks and captures evildoers and delivers them to the justiciars? Do you have that concept?"
"Sure. Only in these parts it's track and catch lawbreakers, not evildoers. Big difference, here in TunFaire. Where are you from?"
He ignored my question, more or less. "The distinction, perhaps, is not always observed in my country, either, though there are those of us who refuse to bend in the wind."
Damn! I got me a gray-skinned Relway?
He continued, "Be that as it may, I have come to your country in search of two criminals. They have proven extremely elusive. And lately my search has been complicated by the arrival of other hunters, newly alerted to approximately where these two now can be found."
Damn. Wouldn't it be great to have the Dead Man listening in here? The guy's story was good, so far, though hard to follow because it was delivered in six- or eight-word puffs separated by long inhalations.
I was inclined to suspect that the creature normally communicated mind to mind, like the Dead Man.
