Making Money (23 page)

When the man had disappeared above him, Moist ran down the rest of the flight, slid across the polished marble on his dust-rag-covered boots, found the door that led down to the basement, opened it quickly, and remembered just in time to close it quietly behind him.

He shut his eyes and waited for cries or sounds of pursuit.

He opened his eyes.

There was the usual brilliant light at the far end of the undercroft, but there was no rushing of water. Only the occasional drip demonstrated the depth of the otherwise all-pervading silence.

Moist walked carefully past the Glooper, which tinkled faintly, and into the unexplored shadows beneath the wonderful fornication.

If we build it, wilt thou comest? he thought. But the hoped-for god never came. It was sad but, in some celestial way, a bit stupid. Well, wasn’t it? Moist had heard that there were maybe millions of little gods floating around in the world, living under rocks, blown about like tumbleweeds, clinging to the topmost branches of trees…They awaited the big moment, the lucky break that might end up with a temple and a priesthood and worshipers to call your own. But they hadn’t come here, and it was easy to see why.

Gods wanted belief, not rational thinking. Building the temple first was like giving a pair of wonderful shoes to a man with no legs. Building a temple didn’t mean you believed in gods, it just meant you believed in architecture.

Something akin to a workshop had been built on the end wall of the undercroft, around a huge and ancient fireplace. An Igor was working over an intense, blue-white flame, carefully bending a piece of glass pipe. Behind him, green liquid surged and fizzed in giant bottles: Igors seemed to have a natural affinity with lightning.

You could always recognize an Igor. They went out of their way to be recognized. It wasn’t just the musty dusty old suits, or even the occasional extra digit or mismatched eyes. It was that you could probably stand a ball on the top of their head without it falling off.

The Igor looked up.

“Good morning, thur. And you are…?”

“Moist von Lipwig,” said Moist. “And you would be Igor.”

“Got it in one, thur. I have heard many good thingth about you.”

“Down here?”

“I alwayth keep an ear to the ground, thur.”

Moist resisted the impulse to look down. Igors and metaphors didn’t go well together.

“Well, Igor…the thing is…I want to bring someone into the building without troubling the guards, and I wonder if there was another door down here?”

What he did not say, but what passed between them on the ether, was: You’re an Igor, right? And when the mob are sharpening their sickles and trying to break down the door, the Igor is never there. Igors were masters of the unobtrusive exit.

“There ith a thmall door we ueth, thur. It can’t be opened from the outthide tho itth never guarded.”

Moist looked longingly at the rainwear on its stand.

“Fine. Fine. I’m just popping out, then.”

“You’re the bothth, thur.”

“And I shall be popping back shortly with a man. Er…a gentleman who is not anxious to meet civic authority.”

“Quite, thur. Give them a pitchfork and they think they own the bloody plathe, thur.”

“But he’s not a murderer or anything.”

“I’m an Igor, thur. We don’t athk quethtionth.”

“Really? Why not?”

“I don’t know, thur. I didn’t athk.”

Igor took Moist to a small door that opened into a grimy, trash-filled stairwell, half-flooded by the unremitting rain. Moist paused on the threshold, the water already soaking into the cheap suit.

“Just one thing, Igor…”

“Yeth, thur?”

“When I walked past the Glooper just now, there was water in it.”

“Oh, yeth, thur. Ith that a problem?”

“It was moving, Igor. Should that be happening at this time of night?”

“That? Oh, jutht thyphonic variableth, thur. It happenth all the time.”

“Oh, the old syphonics, eh? Ah, well, that’s a relief—”

“Jutht give the barber-thurgeon’th knock when you return, thur.”

“What is the—”

The door closed.

Igor went back to his workbench and fired up the gas again.

Some of the little glass tubes lying beside him on a piece of green felt looked…odd, and reflected the light in disconcerting ways.

The point about Igors…the thing about Igors…

Well, most people looked no further than the musty suit, lank hair, cosmetic clan scars, and stitching, and the lisp. And this was probably because, apart from the lisp, this was all there was to see.

And people forgot, therefore, that most of the people who employed Igors were not conventionally sane. Ask them to build a storm attractor and a set of lightning-storage jars and they would laugh at you.
*
They needed, oh, how they needed, someone in possession of a fully working brain, and every Igor was guaranteed to have at least one of those. Igors were, in fact, smart, which was why they were always elsewhere when the fiery torches hit the windmill.

And they were perfectionists. Ask them to build you a device and you wouldn’t get what you asked for.

You’d get what you wanted.

In its web of reflections, the Glooper glooped. Water rose in a thin glass tube and dripped into a little glass bucket, which tipped into a tiny see-saw and caused a tiny valve to open.

O
WLSWICK
J
ENKINS’S
recent abode, according to the Times, was Short Alley. There wasn’t a house number, because Short Alley was only big enough for one front door. The door in question was shut, but hanging by one hinge. A scrap of black-and-yellow rope indicated, for those who hadn’t spotted the clue of the door, that the place had come to the recent attention of the Watch.

The door fell off the hinge when Moist pushed at it, and landed in the stream of water that was gushing down the alley.

It wasn’t much of a search, because Owlswick hadn’t bothered to hide. He was in a room on the first floor, surrounded by mirrors and candles, a dreamy look on his face, peacefully painting.

He dropped the brush when he saw Moist, grabbed a tube that lay on a bench, and held it in front of his mouth, ready to swallow.

“Don’t make me use this! Don’t make me use this!” he warbled, his whole body trembling.

“Is it some kind of toothpaste?” said Moist. He sniffed the very lived-in air of the studio and added: “That could help, you know.”

“This is Uba Yellow, the most poisonous paint in the world! Stand back or I will die horribly!” said the forger. “Er…in fact, the most poisonous paint is probably Agatean White, but I’ve run out of that, it is most vexing.” It occurred to Owlswick that he had lost the tone slightly, and he quickly raised his voice again. “But this is pretty poisonous, all the same!”

A gifted amateur picks up a lot, and Moist had always found poisons interesting.

“An arsenical compound, eh?” said Moist. Everyone knew about Agatean White. He hadn’t heard of Uba Yellow, but arsenic came in many inviting shades. Just don’t lick your brush.

“It’s a horrible way to die,” he said. “You more or less melt over several days.”

“I’m not going back! I’m not going back!” squeaked Owlswick.

“They used to use it to make skin whiter,” said Moist, moving a little closer.

“Get back! I’ll use it! I swear I’ll use it!”

“That’s where we get the phrase ‘drop-dead gorgeous,’” said Moist, closing in.

He snatched at Owlswick, who rammed the tube in his mouth. Moist tugged it out, pushing the forger’s clammy little hands out of the way, and examined it.

“Just as I thought,” he said, pocketing the tube. “You forgot to take the cap off. It’s the kind of mistake amateurs always make!”

Owlswick hesitated, and then said: “You mean there’s people who commit suicide professionally?”

“Look, Mr. Jenkins, I’m here to—” Moist began.

“I’m not going back to that jail! I’m not going back!” said the little man, backing away.

“That’s fine by me. I want to offer you a—”

“They watch me, you know,” Owlswick volunteered. “All the time.”

Ah. This was slightly better than suicide by paint, but only just.

“Er…you mean in jail?” said Moist, just to make sure.

“They watch me everywhere! There’s one of Them right behind you!”

Moist stopped himself from turning, because that way madness lay. Mind you, quite a lot of it was standing right here in front of him.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Owlswick,” said Moist. “That’s why—”

Moist hesitated, and thought:—not? It had worked on him.

“That’s why I’m going to tell you about angels,” he said.

P
EOPLE SAID THERE
were more thunderstorms now that Igors were living in the city. There was no more thunder now, but the rain fell as if it had got all night.

Some of it swirled over the top of Moist’s boots as he stood in front of the bank’s unobtrusive side door and tried to remember the barber-surgeon’s knock.

Oh, yes. It was the old one that went rat tat a tat-tat TAT TAT!

Or, to put it another way: Shave and a haircut—no legs!

The door opened instantly.

“I would like to apologithe about the lack of creak, thur, but the hingeth jutht don’t theem to—”

“Just give me a hand with this lot, will you?” said Moist, bent under the weight of two heavy boxes. “This is Mr. Jenkins. Can you make up a bed for him down here? And is there any chance you could change what he looks like?”

“More than you could poththibly imagine, thur,” said Igor happily.

“I was thinking of, well, a shave and a haircut. You can do that, can’t you?”

Igor gave Moist a pained look.

“It is true that technically thurgeonth can perform tonthorial operations—”

“No no, don’t touch his throat, please.”

“That meanth yeth, I can give him a haircut, thur,” Igor sighed.

“I have had my tonsils out when I was ten,” said Owlswick.

“Would you like thome more?” said Igor, looking for some bright edge to the situation.

“This is wonderful light!” Owlswick exclaimed, ignoring the offer. “It’s like day!”

“Jolly good,” said Moist. “Now get some sleep, Owlswick. Remember what I told you. In the morning, you are going to design the first proper one-dollar bank note, understand?”

Owlswick nodded, but his mind was already elsewhere.

“You’re with me on this, are you?” said Moist loudly. “A note so good that no one else could do it? I showed you my attempt, yes? I know you can do better, of course.”

He looked nervously at the little man. He wasn’t insane, Moist was sure, but it was clear that mostly, for him, the world happened elsewhere.

Owlswick paused in the act of unpacking his box.

“Um…I can’t make things up,” he said.

“What do you mean?” said Moist.

“I don’t know how to make things up,” said Owlswick, staring at a paintbrush as if expecting it to whistle.

“But you’re a forger! Your stamps look better than ours!”

“Er…yes. But I don’t have your…I don’t know how to get started…I mean, I need something to work from…I mean, once it’s there, I can…”

It must be about four o’clock, thought Moist. Four o’clock! I hate it when there are two four o’clocks in the same day…

He snatched a piece of paper from Owlswick’s box, and pulled out a pencil.

“Look,” he said, “you start with…”

What?

“Richness,” he told himself, aloud, “richness and solidarity, like the front of the bank. Lots of ornate scrolling, which is hard to copy. A…panorama, a cityscape…yes! Ankh-Morpork, it’s all about the city! Vetinari’s head, because they’ll expect that, and a Great Big One, so they get the message. Oh, the coat of arms, we must have that. And down here—” the pencil scribbled fast “—a space for the chairman’s signature, pardon me, I mean paw print. On the back…well, we are talking fine detail, Owlswick. Some god would give us a bit of gravitas. One of the jollier ones. What’s the name of that god with the three-pronged fork? One like him, anyway. Fine lines, Owlswick, that’s what we want. Oh, and a boat. I like boats. Tell ’em it’s worth a dollar again, too. Um…oh yes, mystic stuff doesn’t hurt, people’ll believe in any damn thing if it sounds old and mysterious. Doth not a penny to the widow outshine the unconquered sun?”

“What does that mean?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” said Moist, “I just made it up.” He sketched away for a while and then pushed the paper across to the awestruck Owlswick.

“Something like that,” he said. “Have a go. Think you can make something of it?”

“I’ll try,” Owlswick promised.

“Good. I’ll see you tomo—later on. Igor here will look after you.”

Owlswick was already staring at nothing. Moist pulled Igor aside.

“Just a shave and a haircut, okay?”

“As you with, thur. Am I right in thinking that the gentleman doeth not want any entanglementth with the Watch?”

“Correct.”

“No problem there, thur. Could I thuggetht a change of name?”

“Good idea. Any suggestions?”

“I like the name Clamp, thur. And for a firtht name, Exorbit thpringth to mind,” Igor sprayed.

“Really. Where did it spring from? No, don’t answer that. Exorbit Clamp…” Moist hesitated, but at this time of the night, why argue? Especially when it was this time of the morning. “Exorbit Clamp it is, then. Make certain he forgets even the name of Jenkins,” Moist added, with what, he later realized, was in the circumstances a definite lack of foresight.

Moist slipped back up to bed without ever having to duck out of sight. No guard is at his best in the small hours. The place was locked up tight, wasn’t it? Who would break in?

Down in the well-fornicated vault, the artist formerly known as Owlswick stared at Moist’s sketches and felt his brain begin to fizz. It was true that he was not, in any proper sense, a madman. He was, by certain standards, very sane. Faced with a world too busy, complex, and incomprehensible to deal with, he’d reduced it to a small bubble just big enough to hold him and his palette. It was nice and quiet in there. All the noises were far away, and They couldn’t spy on him.