Whispering Nickel Idols (16 page)

Singe’s eyes went wide with terror. John Stretch’s, too. The primal rat took over. They didn’t run only because there was nowhere to go.

Melondie Kadare was out cold.

“That was a close one,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me. I felt rather than heard the thunder rumble off into the distance. “That must have hit down here in the neighborhood.”

Saucerhead grunted feebly.

I’ve never been bothered by thunder and lightning. I find a good lightning show enjoyable. But I’d

seldom had the hobnailed boot of a god slam down quite so close. “That ought to break up the mob out front, Saucerhead.”

He couldn’t hear me, but the idea occurred to him on its own. He got moving toward the front door. Dean returned, half of his favorite teapot dangling from his right forefinger. There were tears in his eyes. A second peal of thunder started way off to the east and stumbled toward us, roared overhead, hugely loud, then ambled on westward, diminuendo. Soon afterward a lightning symphony opened to a vast audience.

Then some antic vandal of a boy god knocked open the sluice gates of heaven. The rain came. Torrents hammered the house.

Kittens poked their noses out of hiding places. Well. The world was still here.

Saucerhead came back. “That broke them up. Man, you got to see the hailstones coming down.” He was more awed than frightened now.

I went to look.

Tharpe was right. It was an awesome show, the lightning flailing around, thunder’s hammers pounding the anvil of the sky, hail coming in a downpour heavier than any I’d ever seen.

People always exaggerate the size of hailstones. That’s human nature. So I’ll say only that there were tons of them, they were big, and on the ricochet they knocked over carts and wagons. Then daring, enterprising, dim-witted youths hit the street with buckets and baskets, harvesting the ice while it still hammered down.

A flash almost blinded me. Thunder’s roar came a heartbeat later, so strong I felt it right through my body. Had gangs of stormwardens decided to rumble? My ex-army pals claim they saw a lot of this sort of thing in the main war theater.

There were material as well as social advantages to being a Marine. Marines on swampy islands in the

Gulf didn’t have to worry about getting caught between dueling sorcerers. Sorcerers, on both sides, didn’t mind cruel and deadly warfare, but they refused to become physically uncomfortable while they were fighting.

Saucerhead pushed past behind me. “I might freeze or drown, but I’m getting while I can get.”

I had a couple of kittens underfoot, trying to figure out what hailstones were. They weren’t impressed. I asked, “You want a cat?”

Tharpe gave me a look colder than a bushel of hailstones. “They’re cute.”

He left me with a one-finger salute.

29

Once again I got up earlier than was rational. Since I’d gone to bed early, though, I missed no sleep. I just didn’t regain what I’d lost the day before.

Everybody else was up before me. Of course. Go figure. And they were all in good moods, despite wet and windy weather. Dean had a warm fire going. I settled in and observed professionally while he continued to deal with the storm damage. “How much do we need to replace?”

“I’m making a list. Not a lot. We had too much to begin with, since we never entertain.” He produced tea in a cracked beaker. I drank.

“What’s Singe up to?”

“She and her brother are in talking to the thing.”

“The thing? Old Jolly woke up? Why didn’t you say so?”

“It may be old age confusing me. I thought I just did. The fury of the storm woke him up.”

I didn’t buy that. Now I knew why I’d felt weird after I got home yesterday. Old Bones was awake and lying back in the weeds.

“Give me a refill, here, and I’ll be off.”

He muttered something about my not needing any tea to get there.

Singe had half the lamps in the house in the Dead Man’s room. He makes her nervous. Though I don’t know many people who are comfortable around corpses. Particularly around corpses still inhabited by the original occupants, like a ghost that can’t get up and walk.

Asking what kind of mood he was in would waste time. Ill-tempered usually covered it. Instead, I asked, “Where are the cats?”

“Hiding,” Singe said. “They are terrified.”

“Makes sense. In his time His Nibs was known as Terror of Kittens.”

John Stretch eyed me like he wasn’t sure I was joking. He was rattled. If he were human, he’d have been a bloodless white.

“You sure he’s awake?” I asked. “I’ve been in here a whole minute and he hasn’t contradicted me yet.”

There are matters of greater weight to consider, Garrett. A dozen minds in the street outside need examination. Employing a pickpocket’s touch inasmuch as they believe that I am no longer viable.

“Ah. Were you ever?”

And still the man wonders why I prefer sleep to suffering his company.

He was employing one of his lesser minds to communicate. He didn’t have his heart behind his snaps. He was distracted. Which was a good sign. He’d found this new world exciting enough to engage his intellect.

Here is what you must do. Beginning immediately. Have Mr. Tharpe and Ms. Winger come see me. Employing your considerable talent for fabrication, get each of the following to visit, as well. Colonel Block and Deal Relway. Miss Contague. The child, Penny Dreadful. Any of the men who wear green pants. Or their handlers. The priest you visited. Teacher White or one of his henchmen.

Once I have interviewed a few of them it should become possible to develop strategies. Finding Mr. Contague and Mr. Temisk will be critical. Those two will be able to clarify the developing shakeout in organized crime.

That’s the Dead Man. He goes on and on. And on. The bottom line is legwork for me.
Where is the bird? I do not sense the parrot.

“Gone,” I said. I tried to sound thrilled, but the truth is, I do miss the foulmouthed chicken. Just a little. In rare, maudlin moments.

Ah. An interesting turn of events. Most of which I am thankful to have missed.

“You didn’t miss much.”

Do you honestly believe you can mislead me?

“I don’t remember who, but somebody said that where there’s life, there’s hope.” My cousin Duphel said it first.

“What?”

He responded with the mental equivalent of a shrug. He had wasted time enough.
Here is your schedule.

My partner. Already in there bullying me to collect the bits he needed to make sense of the senseless. He makes connections quicker than I do.

Should you prove able to approach Mr. Dotes in such fashion that his subsequent actions appear to be independent of your visit, ask him to stop by. Then go to the Bledsoe. See what more the outlanders have done.

Didn’t seem like they could’ve gotten much done. Most of them were in jail. There is a witch you know.

“I know several.”

Exclude your stable of floozies.

“Ouch! I was.”

Retain one and ask her to come here.

“One who doesn’t know about you?”

That would be preferable.

“I’m starting to wonder why I’m always determined to wake you up. Life is simpler when you’re asleep.”

But it goes nowhere.

“Wrong, Butterbutt. It goes the best places of all.”

He started rummaging around inside my head, evidently under the delusion that he’d been invited. In seconds he was appalled in a big way.

Where is the parrot?

“Mr. Big? Pursuing a higher calling.” The Goddamn Parrot belongs to days gone by and other stories. If there’s any mercy in heaven, he’ll never be more than another dyspeptic memory.

Chuckles tromped around inside my skull like twenty drug-crazed home invaders wearing sensible shoes. Being Himself, he dropped the question of the pestiferous, overdressed chicken like a maggoty dead mouse. He plowed on as though Mr. Big never existed.

“Speaking of critters. Tell me about the cats infesting the house. They don’t seem normal.”

It is impossible to slip anything past you.

“Answer the question.”

They are not normal cats. As you have surmised. They do demonstrate points of character we associate with domestic cats. I am unable, yet, to see into their minds. They are afraid of me.

“Sounds like a healthy attitude. Everybody ought to be.”

You might adopt it yourself.

“But I know what a big old cuddle bear you really are.”

Be careful when you leave. The kittens may attempt to escape.

I was being dismissed. Told to get on with my chores. Sometimes he forgets who the senior partner is. I returned to my office, found me a scrap of paper with a little clean on one side, made myself a list.

30

I leaned into the Dead Man’s room. “You awake enough to reach somebody a block away?”

Be more specific.

“I just took a look out front. If you can reach a block, you can nab a character called Skelington, who works for Teacher White.”

Where?

I described the spot.

It may be that I am not
sufficiently
awake. If that bird was here, I could send him out and ride along.

“Gotcha.” He wanted me to go out there. “Don’t be surprised if Skelington runs when he sees me coming, though.”

At this point in your career you should be capable of making an unthreatening approach.

No point debating. “I’m on my way.” I hitched my pants, patted myself down. I had an adequate low-intensity arsenal on board.

I was ready.

The weather drama was over, but a drizzle continued. Not a day when I’d work if Himself weren’t back there with a sharp stick, poking.

Skelington was less thrilled to be out than I. Huddled in misery, he failed to see me coming till it was too late.

I told myself, “That went well,” as Skelington entered my house. Maybe drizzly weather wasn’t all bad, after all.

Nobody was at home at Saucerhead’s place. He hadn’t been seen since yesterday. So he hadn’t gone home from my place. I left a message mentioning the possibility of paid work.

Winger wasn’t in her usual haunts. I couldn’t run her down at home because I didn’t know where she lived. I left word that Garrett had cash for her if she came to my house.

I couldn’t think of a scheme to lure Block or Relway.

I strolled past Morley’s place. Sarge was out front doing some wet-weather sweeping, pushing litter and horse apples over in front of a neighbor’s dump. He showed me a scowl so black I waved and kept rolling. Just passing through. Didn’t have no notion to drop in.

At Harvester Temisk’s place two no-neck types muttered to one another about the chances of snow. I didn’t recognize them. I did spot a familiar Relway Runner keeping an eye on the two brunos.

Not once during my icy-drizzle-down-the-back-of-my-neck wanderings did I spot Penny Dreadful. Which goes to show that even a fourteen-year-old girl has better sense.

Belinda I disregarded. I had no idea where to look for her nor any notion where to leave a message. I wandered over to Playmate’s stable, just to get in out of the miseries.

“Garrett, you look like that thing they talk about the cat dragging in.” Playmate was banging hot iron in the smithy of his stable. Building horseshoes. Weather got in because he hadn’t repaired all the damage done during some excitement we were involved in not long ago. He grumbled about not having the money.

Money couldn’t be the problem. He had points in the same manufactory I did. “Us honest folk got to work no matter what the weather is like.”

Play whopped a hot horseshoe. “You make me regret that I’ve heard a calling, Garrett. Sometimes I want to cut loose and tell you how full of the stinky you are. This is one of those times.”

“How come everybody does me that way, Play?”

“Everybody knows you.”

I grumbled but didn’t remind him that I was always there when any of them needed something. “So to what do I owe the honor of your presence? What favor do you want now?”

“Nothing. Except to get in out of the rain. I’m headed somewhere else.”

“Why aren’t you home resting up for an evening of debauchery?”

“The Dead Man is awake.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“You see? You’re forewarned. The only guy in this cesspool of a city who is. So don’t pass it along.”

“I said thank you. Want some tea? There’s water.” He never lacks for heat in the smithy.

“Sure. Hey. You have any idea what happened to Antik Oder, used to have a storefront down the street?”

“Aha! So now we get to it.”

“To what? The Dead Man wants a witch. Elderberry Whine kicked off when I wasn’t looking.”

Playmate made tea, his grin ivory in a mahogany sea. “Antik is still there. She isn’t what you’re looking

for, though.”

“Why not?”

“She’s a fraud.”

I grunted, sipped tea. “There’s something in this.”

“I dribbled in a dollop of vanilla rum.”

I’m not big on hard liquor, but this was
good
. I rendered myself incapable of competent behavior in minutes.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Playmate isn’t the kind who lets friendship get in the way of business. Much. “Rain’s slowing down, Garrett. Time to move on.”

I’d told him most of what was happening, hoping he’d have a suggestion. I’d wasted my breath. He asked, “Where are you headed from here?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking about crawling into the hayloft and grabbing forty winks.”

Playmate frowned. He thought I was scamming, but couldn’t figure my angle. “I guess it can’t hurt. But shouldn’t you show more ambition?”

“Ambition? About what?”

“Your job.”

“Why? There ain’t nobody paying me.”

He doesn’t stint the critters. The hay in the loft was first-rate. It retained enough sweet clover smell to remind me of idylls in country pastures.

He was wrong. The drizzle hadn’t slowed. It had grown into a steady rain. The rattle on the shingles overhead was a powerful soporific. Or maybe that was the rum.