Faust Among Equals (7 page)

Having paid off her taxi, she let herself in, slipped off her shoes, and trotted up the stairs. As she reached the second-floor landing, she started to feel that faint prickling down the back of the neck that means either a premonition of terrible danger or too little fabric softener. Since she was wearing a backless dress, she decided it was probably danger.

Unfortunately, she had a very bad attitude towards danger, mainly because when she was around, it tended to be something that happened to other people. Ninja-silent in her shoe-lessness, she crept along the landing and pushed the door of her flat with the tip of one finger.

It swung open.

She swore.

At first sight, it looked like the aftermath of a visit from an incredibly conscientious burglar - you know, one of those dreadfully pernickety perfectionist types who insist on knifing the cushions for concealed pearls and ransacking the shelves for hollowed-out books. Unless, however, he had also been an extraordinarily picky burglar, brought up on only the finest aristocratic country houses and the hunting lodges of minor royalty, it would only be reasonable to expect him to have taken something; and he hadn't.

Or rather he had. And that was something of a bitch, because it was the one thing she would really rather not have parted with, given that it was genuinely irreplaceable. A framed portrait, early sixteenth century.

She made sure that the intruder had gone, and then sat down on all that was mortal of the bed and had a good swear. While she was doing this (and doing it ever so well) a thought struck her like a Mack truck and she froze in mid-oath.

If they'd come here just to steal his picture . . .

Why would they want to steal his picture?

And who the hell were they, anyway?

From the epicentre of the mess she extracted a suitcase, a few changes of clothing and a big, heavy, silver candlestick. Then she left the flat and caught a taxi.

H
aving concluded his interview with Lucky George, Sitting Bull had a wash, brushed his teeth and put on his body.

For someone who'd been dead for over a century, his wardrobe was extensive and reasonably fashionable; a credit to his good taste and the lucky fact that he could put on a lot of noble savage/oppressed ethnic minority chic without actually trying. He selected one of his favourite outfits - the Mexican/Chicano adolescent streetfighter with designer scars and matching paranoid psychosis - and took the elevator down to his grave.

Not so much a grave; more a sort of pied-à-terre. It was perhaps the only grave in the entire United States that had remote-control operated hydraulic car-port doors.

Down at the Silver Dollar on Whitier Boulevard, heart of the
barrio
, is one of the best places to pick up anything that's new on the street in downtown LA; at least, that's what they say in the brochure for the Los Angeles package tour offered by Mob 18-30, the holiday company specialising in tours for militant activists. When Sitting Bull wandered in and ordered a beer, the place was empty except for two old men playing dominoes and the brewery rep. And a strangely obscure figure, sitting on a bar stool by the juke-box drinking a pineapple juice.

‘Hiya, Jack,' said Sitting Bull. ‘How's it going?'

‘I got a cold,' replied Don Juan, heavily.

‘Too bad. You want to play some pool?'

They strolled over to the pool table, and Don Juan racked up.

‘How's business?' Sitting Bull asked, chalking his cue and examining it for straightness. Don Juan shrugged.

‘Not so good,' he replied, ‘not so bad. Still, I think maybe I did wrong to change my career direction. As a philanderer I was good. This I don't do so well.'

Sitting Bull tossed a coin and called heads, accurately. ‘Maybe,' he said. ‘Then again, maybe not. The way I see it, Jack, informing is good, steady work. Philandering, you're only ever as good as your last job.' He drew back his arm and shot the white against the pack with a satisfying crack. Nothing went down. ‘Is there much about right now?'

‘Pretty quiet, Bull, pretty quiet.' Don Juan crouched down over the table, examining the lie of the cue ball. ‘You know how it is. All the guys are out of town right now. Nobody who's anybody sticks around this dumb century for June these days.' He executed a tiny, stabbing movement that sent the white ball spiralling across the cloth like a vertiginous comet. ‘Things'll pick up again in July, probably. I'm okay,' he added, straightening up and noting the position of the balls with approval. ‘I had a good May, so I'm not complaining.'

‘Anything special?'

Don Juan nodded. ‘I turned in the captain of the
Marie Celeste
,' he said. ‘There's some guys in the insurance business in London who want to see him real bad, you know?' He chuckled without humour. ‘This time I have the feeling he's going to disappear
completely
. Your shot.'

Sitting Bull examined the table, calculating angles of incidence and refraction. He liked his new lifestyle (deathstyle, whatever). It was lower profile, but it was worth it simply for not having to shave every day. The hair and the fingernails were a nuisance, of course, but you can't have everything.

‘I heard,' he said, perhaps trying a little too hard to sound as if he was just making conversation, ‘that there's something really big going down in your line right now.'

‘Maybe.'

Sitting Bull addressed the cue ball, made the shot and chalked his cue. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘I heard Lucky George is back on the street.'

‘That's interesting.'

‘I heard,' Sitting Bull continued, sizing up the chances of cannoning off the back cushion to bring the cue ball back for the seven, ‘that there's a nice long price waiting for anyone with good information.'

‘Could be.'

‘Wish I could get me a piece of that,' said Sitting Bull to the cue ball. ‘Just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't take it with you.'

He watched the cue ball drift down the baize, clip the lip of the middle pocket and run with a clatter into the remains of the pack. Too much goddamn left hand side. Don Juan clicked his tongue sympathetically and sank four balls in quick succession.

‘You got anything, then?' he asked.

‘Who, me?' Sitting Bull drank some beer. ‘I was just interested, that's all. In case I'd missed something.'

‘I wouldn't bother,' Don Juan replied. ‘The latest is, they've called off all agents, what with the trouble and everything. Pity about that,' he added sideways. ‘If you had got anything, I mean.'

He took his shot, but misjudged it by about an eighth of an inch. The ball quivered in the jaws of the pocket and stayed put.

‘Hey,' Sitting Bull said. ‘Just as well I don't, or I'd be disappointed.' He walked round the table a few times, remembering some very good advice he'd received from the Great Sky Spirit, way back in the old days. Never shoot pool with a spic, the Great Sky Spirit had said, or at least not for money. ‘What would the trouble be, Jack?'

‘A lot of very heavy things, Bull,' Don Juan replied, stroking his chin. ‘Well, maybe not heavy. More making the administration look a complete asshole without actually breaking anything. Neat touch the man's got, you've got to hand it to him.' He looked up, his eyes catching Sitting Bull's attention like, say, a sawn-off shotgun placed two inches from one's nose. ‘I like Lucky George, Bull,' he said. ‘A really regular guy.'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Got me out of a jam more than once. I hope he makes it all the way.'

‘Yeah, me too.'

‘That's good.' Don Juan bent his back and cleared the rest of the table in successive shots. ‘You know, maybe I am in the wrong business, Bull. Maybe I should try your line, huh?'

‘What, being dead?'

Don Juan shrugged. ‘It's a living,' he said. ‘And you don't have to sell nobody down the river, either. I feel bad about it sometimes, Bull, I really do. Basically I'm a very sensitive person.'

‘Me too. I was misunderstood.'

‘You want another game?'

‘Thanks, but I've gotta move.' He put his cue back in the rack. ‘It's been good seeing you, Jack.'

‘Yeah, you too.' Don Juan smiled thinly. ‘And remember,' he added, ‘if you do get to hear anything about Lucky George, nobody wants to know, right? You got that, Bull?'

‘I got that, Jack. Be seeing you.'

After Sitting Bull had left the Silver Dollar, Don Juan sat for a while, staring at the dregs of his pineapple juice and ignoring the obvious glances of the barmaid. It's a wonderful thing, being retired.

Some time later, he got up and went over to the payphone.

 

A trapdoor opened, and four shadowy forms emerged.

So shadowy were they that the driver of the car didn't see them till too late. It would have been a nasty accident if the shadowy form actually hit by the car hadn't simply dematerialised.

‘Brilliant,' muttered the leading shadowy form under his breath, as the three survivors paused in a shop doorway to regroup. ‘What bloody genius put the hatch in the middle of a main road?'

They looked back at the scene of the tragedy, which was faintly illuminated by the edge of a streetlamp's penumbra.

‘Stone me,' growled the Number Two form. ‘It's a perishing manhole cover. How cheapskate can you get?'

‘I thought I could thmell thomething while we were coming up.'

The leader shrugged. ‘Ours not to reason why,' he said, with a certain deficiency of conviction. ‘Right, here's what we do. We slip in, we ransack the place, we slip out again, we go home. All clear?'

‘Yes.'

‘Yeth.'

Try as he might, the leader couldn't help but find Number Three's speech impediment tiresome in the extreme. Sheer bias on his part, he knew; spectral warriors are considered fit for active service if they pass a number of physical and mental tests, painstakingly designed after extensive research to ascertain whether the subject is up to the demanding tasks likely to be encountered by Hell's commandos in the field. None of these tasks involved the correct pronunciation of sibilants, and quite right, too. Nevertheless . . .

‘Okay,' the leader sighed. ‘Synchronise your watches, people. Now . . .'

‘I make it nine forty-three.'

‘Nine thorty-
thickth
.'

‘No, you're wrong there, Vern. I checked with the speaking clock before we left, and—'

‘Now,' repeated the leader, ‘according to the street map, we're in Silver Street, so King's College should be . . .'

‘Your watch mutht be thatht. Hey, thkip . . .'

The leader turned slowly round. ‘Yes?'

‘What do you make the time, thkip? Only my watch theth—'

‘Yes, but I checked it before . . .'

The leader winced. ‘It doesn't matter,' he said. ‘Just synchronise them, okay?'

‘Yeth, but thkip, mine theth nine thorty-thickth and hith theth—'

‘Yeah, skip. What does yours say?'

With a gesture of suffering fools, the leader looked at his wrist, only to see the sleeve of a black pullover and nothing else. Dammit, he'd forgotten his watch.

‘Nine forty-five,' he said. ‘Now, can we please get on with it?'

The brief: break into King's College, Cambridge and comb the archives to see if there was anything there which might shed some light on where Christopher Marlowe, sixteenth-century dramatist and graduate of said college, had got his information from. It was, the leader decided, absolutely typical of the bloody stupid, pointless . . .

‘Shit,' observed Number Two, looking up at the gatehouse. ‘It's like a damn fortress. How are we supposed to get into
that
?'

‘Through the door,' replied the leader, mercilessly. ‘They haven't locked up for the night yet.'

‘Oh. Right.'

‘That's the whole idea. We go in, we hide till everyone's gone to bed, we frisk the place and bugger off. Now, when you've quite finished . . .'

‘Hey thkip, that'th pretty neat thinking.'

‘Thanks, Vernon. Come on, follow me.'

Hiding till nightfall in a Cambridge college during termtime is easier said than done. Particularly if you're distinctively dressed in black trousers and pullover, black balaclava and black face-paint. Acting natural and inconspicuous takes just that bit more effort than usual. Stanislavski could have managed it, but not first time out.

‘Thuck thith for a game of tholdierth,' observed Number Three eventually, after they'd been politely requested to leave the boiler room for the third time. ‘I thought you thaid—'