by Glen Cook
"You recall a blonde gal used to belong to the Doom, used a lot of made-up names, told a lot of lies about herself to make herself look important?"
" Hester Podegill?"
"That's one name she's used. She may be a little crazy."
"More than a little, Garrett. Sure, I remember her. Hester was her real name. She wanted to be crazy. She said when you're crazy the truth is whatever you want it to be. She wanted what she remembered not to be true."
I gave her the hard eye again. "You were close?"
"I was her only friend because I was the only one who listened. I was the only one who understood. I was the only one who knew what she had to forget."
Sometimes you cross the river so fast you don't get your toes wet getting to the other side. I flashed on all those lamps in Jill's apartment. "She started the fire that killed her family."
Tey nodded. "She dumped a gallon of oil on her stepfather when he was passed out drunk. She didn't think what the fire could do. She just wanted to hurt him."
If I'd killed my whole family I'd want to be somebody else, too. I'd want to be crazy. I might even want to be dead like them.
"What about her?" Tey asked.
"She's the key in the mess Maya and I were snooping around." I gave her more background. "She might be able to tell us something." I spoke softly, not wanting word to get around that Garrett wasn't the only one who might get a line on Jill Craight. For my sake and the Doom's.
Like I said, Tey had a brain. I'd told her enough for her to put a lot more together. "You're a snake, Garrett. A slick-talking snake. We're going to turn you loose. But next time you see me I just might be Maya's maid of honor.''
I didn't handle that well. She laughed at me. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. She said, "I have some ideas where to look for Hester. I'll let you know."
I wanted to argue but it was too late. My convoy had decided I was safe and had faded. If I pressed I'd get the hostility perking again. So I sat quietly while the girls went off to do the hunting themselves.
I could think of nothing better to do so I went home, where Dean told me there had been no message and no visitors. I told him Maya might be in trouble. That upset him. He blamed me without saying a word. I asked if the Dead Man's temper had improved. He told me the old sack of lard had gone back to sleep.
"Fine. If that's the way he wants it, we'll just leave him out of our lives. We won't even bother him with the latest about Glory Mooncalled."
I was bitter. I blamed me for Maya's predicament, too. I had to take something out on somebody. The Dead Man could handle it.
31
I took a bath, changed again, ate, then for lack of any brilliant plan, walked up to the Tate family compound and had a big row with Tinnie. Then we made up.
Making up was so much fun we decided to do it twice.
It was getting dark by the time we finished making up for the third time and I started having trouble keeping my mind off business, so we had another little row to give us an excuse to make up again later. Then I headed out.
On the way I bumped into Tinnie's uncle Willard and he kind of obliquely wondered when Tinnie and I would be setting the date. He had the same problem Dean had.
It was going to start with him, too?
How come there are so many people trying to get other people hitched? Maybe if they backed off and didn't keep reminding a guy, he might drift into it before he sensed his danger.
Why was I so sour?
Because it had been such a nice afternoon. Because while I was playing, the bad guys were hard at work. Because a troubled kid that I liked was in it up to her ears and I hadn't lifted a finger to do anything about it.
"Oh, boy. Here we go again." I knew the signs. Out comes the squeaky old armor and the rusty old sword. Garrett was going to get all noble.
At least this time somebody would pay me for my trouble—though I wouldn't exactly be doing what they were paying me to do.
But I never quite do what they want done. I do what I think needs doing. That is why not all of my former clients give me favorable references.
Not having any better idea what to do, I headed for the Old Shipway theater district. Who knew? I might stumble onto something blonde.
My convoy went with me. The faces changed periodically but there were never fewer than four men hovering around. It's nice to know you're loved.
I wondered why the Master's gang hadn't tried to pick me up again. Those I'd seen already had been too unskilled to notice I was traveling with protection.
I talked to everybody I knew in theater. They knew gorgeous blondes by the cartload, but none they could connect with any of the names I could tie to Jill. Since there was nothing about her that wasn't shared by a platoon of others, my sources couldn't help much. They were reduced to showing me the crop of blondes (some of them very) available, all of them squeezably lovely, and none of them Jill Craight.
Some of those lovelies were pleased to speculate on other lovelies not present, usually in less than flattering language, but that didn't help. Some just purred and begged to be petted.
It's a hard life.
Had I been in another mood it might have been a marvelous little treasure hunt. I made a mental note to cook a similar story someday and come wander through wonderland again, taking time to smell the flowers.
Where did they all come from? Where were they on my better days?
Sometime toward the end what was old news to everybody else caught up with me when I overheard a conversation among City Watch officers and their wives.
What the Watch is most famous for is its invisibility. TunFaire has one thousand men employed in the interest of public safety, but over the past century the Watch has become a place to hide freeloading nephews and other embarrassing relatives without recourse to the familial purse. These days ninety percent of those guys do their damnedest to stay out of harm's way and not interfere with the disorderly progress of life. When they do try something, it's invariably the wrong thing and they screw it up anyway.
The officers get to wear pretty uniforms and they like to show them off. The theater is a good place.
This bunch was grumbling about a crime so monstrous that popular outrage might get their butts kicked until they had to go out into the streets and do something. The consensus among the wives was that the Army ought to evict all the lower classes and nonhumans.
I wondered who they thought would cook for them and garden and do their laundry and make their cute little shoes and lovely gowns.
"What the hell was that all about?" I asked the guy who was squiring me from blonde to blonde at the Stratos.
"You haven't heard?"
"Not yet."
"Biggest mass murder in years, Garrett. A real massacre. It's all over town. You had your head under a rock?"
"A sheet. Cut the editorializing. What happened?"
"In broad daylight this afternoon a bunch of gangsters busted into a Wharf Street flophouse down in the South End and killed everybody. Smallest number I've heard is twenty-two dead and half a dozen dragged away as prisoners. They're saying Chodo Contague did it. Looks like we're in for a gang war."
I muttered, "When Chodo gets mad you don't have any trouble understanding his message." I wondered what Crask and Sadler were getting out of their prisoners. I'd hate to think they were ahead of me because they were less restrained in their methods.
What could I do? The one angle I had was Jill Craight. And that was turning up a big dead end.
Hell. Might as well go home, get in eight hours, and make an early start in the morning.
32
As Dean let me in he whispered, "There's a young woman here who wants to talk to you about Maya." His wrinkled nose told me what he thought of the visitor. And gave me a good idea who she was.
"Tey Koto?"
"She didn't offer a name."
Tey had gotten into the beer while Dean was away. "You got it whipped, you know that, Garrett?" She tried to pour beer dow
n like she'd been drinking for twenty years, got some down the wrong pipe. She coughed foam all over the kitchen. Dean wasn't pleased. I pounded her on the back.
And as though he'd been waiting for me to get home, someone started pounding on the front door.
"Damn it! Now what?" I stomped up the hall, took a peek. It wasn't anybody I knew. He did have the rangy, weathered, impoverished look I associated with the Master's gang. So Chodo hadn't gotten them all.
I gave a look around to make sure he wasn't part of a tribe, then eyeballed him to get an estimate of what he might do himself. He kept pounding away.
"Guess I'd better talk to you before Saucerhead eats you up." Having a flight of guardian angels occasionally gets in the way.
I yanked the door open, grabbed him by the jacket, jerked him inside, and slammed him against the wall. He was astonished. "What?" I demanded.
He gobbled air and stammered.
I slammed him against the wall a couple more times. "Talk to me."
"The Master... The Master..." He had a set speech to make me think my welcome had put him off his pace. He'd lost his lines.
Slam! "I can't play all night, low grade. You got something to say, spit it out. I'm ticked off at you guys already. Try my patience and I'll hurt you."
In a semi-coherent babble he let me know that the Master felt the same about me and was going to allow me one chance to get out of his way and start minding my own business. Or else.
"Or else he'll put a bug down my shirt? Come on. The creep has more nerve than brains. He's dead meat. He's got about as long as it takes Chodo Contague to find him. If you and your buddies have the sense of a goose you'll dump him and run back where you came from." I started muscling him out the door. "Tell your harebrained boss he is my business and I intend to mind it real close."
"Wait!"
The "or else" came. It wasn't the personal threat I expected. I've been threatened plenty so I don't pay much attention anymore. But this guy told me, "The Master said to tell you he has your friend Maya Stump and it will be she who pays if—"
Wham! Back against the wall. "And I have you, old buddy."
"I am nothing. I am a finger on his hand. Cut me off and another will grow in my place."
"You really believe that crap?" He did. What our commanders in the Cantard wouldn't give for a few thousand guys who didn't mind being expendable. "Tey! Come in here."
She came. She'd been eavesdropping, anyway. "What?"
"This guy says his boss has got Maya and they're going to do nasty things to her. He doesn't care what we do to him."
She sneered. "He'd care before I got through with him." Oh, the easy cruelty of the young.
"He would. But his boss wouldn't have sent him if he knew anything. So I think I'll just bruise him a little and throw him out with the trash."
Like I said, she was a smart kid. She figured out what to do. "Well, if I can't have him, the hell with you." She pranced back to the kitchen. And out the back door to talk to the Sisters she would've left around the neighborhood.
I banged the guy off the wall again. "You tell your boss if he messes with Maya he better pray Chodo finds him first. All Chodo wants to do is kill him.
"There. We've threatened each other and pounded our chests and acted like jerks. Get out before I lose my temper."
He looked at me like he thought it was a trick. Then he edged toward the door. When he was almost there I jumped at him. He yelped and took off.
I settled on the stoop and watched him go.
All that bullying hadn't accomplished a thing. I hadn't gotten any pleasure out of it. It didn't make me feel good now. I couldn't even convince myself there had been purpose in it.
33
Tey came out of the dark. I asked, "You got somebody tailing him?"
"Yeah."
"So that's taken care of. Why did you come? Dean said it was about Maya."
"Yeah. I think we've got a lead."
I gave her my raised eyebrow. It went to waste in that light, so I said, "How's that?"
"You hear about that mess on Wharf Street? Where Chodo's boys offed a whole mob? That sounded like some of what you told me about. We went down there and talked to kids who live there. Some of them saw the whole thing. Chodo's guys didn't kill everybody. A bunch got away out the back. They dragged a couple people with them. One of them sounded like Maya."
Well, well. "Very interesting. Where did they go?"
"We couldn't find out. They jumped into boats and headed down the river. But they didn't go far. The kids told us what the boats looked like. We found one of them a half mile away. And we know they didn't leave TunFaire because that one just came here to threaten you."
I sure as hell didn't feel like taking a walk but I said, "Suppose we go nose around?"
I told Dean what I'd be doing. I expected some backchat, because he'd had to stay away from home a lot. But he didn't say a word. I bet he would've said a few if I hadn't been looking for Maya.
It was several miles to the Wharf Street massacre site. Tey's boats had gone south from there, a goodly hike. After a while we started talking, mostly Tey making herself shine bright in the Doom. I asked her about Maya. She wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. From time to time a messenger came to tell her about the man being followed. He was headed the same direction we were. Tey told the messengers our anticipated route so she could be found again.
My angels were out there, too, shadowing me.
We had a parade going.
"I tried looking for Hester tonight," I said at one point. "I looked at every blonde who works Old Shipway. None of them were her."
Tey laughed. "Old Shipway? You're precious, Garrett."
"Eh?" Precious?
"You believed that actress stuff?"
Well, yes, I'd bought it after Peridont validated it.
"Garrett, the only acting she ever did was the kind where the other actors are donkeys or guys that should have been born donkeys or ogres or trolls. You know what I mean?"
I grunted. I knew. I was disgusted, not so much because of what Jill might be doing as because of a failure of my vaunted eyesight. I'd let myself see only what I'd expected to see. I'd swallowed it whole when Peridont had fed me a whopper about the provenance of his mistress. I'd forgotten the first rule: everybody lies about sex, and the client always lies about it.
I felt pretty dumb.
Tey said, "She's back in the Tenderloin. I had a couple kids go down there. They saw her but she disappeared before they got close enough to find out anything."
I wondered if I ought to buy that. Jill had come up with the Doom. They didn't have much reason to turn her up for me.
This was an odd one, all intangibles. In a case where a pot of money is the stake, you know where the axis is. You watch the money and soon enough everything becomes clear—even when some of the players aren't motivated primarily by greed. For them the pot becomes an excuse, a lever.
So far I hadn't caught a whiff of a pot, excepting maybe the Relics Peridont had mentioned the first time we talked, or whatever it was the boys had been so sure they could steal from Jill. That seemed to have been forgotten in the fusing and feuding since.
I'm a guy who doesn't understand intangible stakes. I know some would argue that I have a set of values I take pretty seriously, but if I can't eat it or spend it or make it go purr in the night, I don't know what to do with it. It's a weakness, a blind spot. Sometimes I forget there are guys willing to get killed over ideas. I just go bulling ahead looking for the pot of gold.
We got onto Wharf Street. The guy who had dropped by my place was still ahead of us. My angels were out there in the dark, probably cussing me for my thoughtlessness in running them all over the city. Didn't I ever sleep?
Guys, I was cussing me, too. For the exact same reason.
"There's the place where it happened."
Wharf Street, the waterfront, the whole commercial and industrial strip down there facing the river, i
s a whole lot like me. It never goes to sleep. When the day people move out, the night workers come in and the economy keeps rolling along.
Forty or fifty goblins and ogres and whatnot were standing around gossiping while a group of city ratmen got set to load the bodies on wagons for delivery to crematoria. Moving with its customary lightning efficiency the city was just now getting around to cleaning up.
The operation was proceeding in the usual fire-drill state of confusion.
The ratmen moved at a velocity barely perceptible. I said, "I'm going to go nose around."
"Won't they stop you?"
"Maybe. But any human who turns up this time of night looking officious they'll figure belongs."
I was right. I got some dark looks but they were the kind reserved for bosses in general, for being bosses. Nobody said a word.
I didn't expect to find much and I was right again. The scavengers and sightseers and souvenir hunters had picked the bones clean. They'd even stripped the stiffs. The rat-men were bitching because there wasn't anything left.
If they want the cream, they ought to get there in time to skim it.
I did notice one thing right off. Those sopranos had taken over the whole building and had been there long enough to turn it into a weird residential temple. One wall in every room had been replastered and painted with murals depicting creatures with eight limbs, no two the same. I saw a spider, a crab, an especially ugly octopus, and a lot of things that don't come with eight limbs, including a ringer for the thing that had visited Chodo. One double-ugly was human except that it had a skull for a face and something disgusting in every hand. Above him was the same motto as on the temple coins, "He Shall Reign Triumphant."
I said, "I don't think I'd like that."
"Ugly mother, ain't he?" a ratman remarked.
"He is. Any idea who he's supposed to be?"
"You got me, chief. Looks like something somebody dreamed up while he was doing weed to get him through a withdrawal fit."
"Yeah. Not your average boy next door."
There wasn't anything else. I hit the street. We headed south. I didn't have much to say. I was thinking that if I ever stopped chasing around long enough I'd have to spend some time researching these guys and their devil god.
