Whispering Nickel Idols (6 page)

Karentine wasn’t as polished as his sister’s. “Let’s get those critters into the coach, then.”

“Where is Singe?”

“Taking her good sweet time getting ready. You sure you can manage this?”

“Will have Singe to help. And them. Yes?” Pixies swarmed into the coach like Melondie meant to bring all her friends and relations.

Playmate remarked, “You’re looking pretty good there, Garrett. Did you hire a consultant to dress you up?”

I spread my arms to the sky. “You see the torments I suffer? Take me home now.”

Singe came fluttering out of the house, a young woman running late. Though how you get behind when your wardrobe is as limited as hers, I don’t know. But what I know about women, even limiting the sample to my own tribe, would fit in a thimble with room left over for a brigade of dancing angels.

Singe brought the kittens with her. She piled into the coach.

“We’re ready,” I told Playmate. I glanced at the goat cart. “John Stretch, you’ll lose your cart if you just leave it there.”

“No problem. Is not my cart.”

Great. So now the Watch would find a stolen goat cart in front of my house. Because, with my luck, the damned thing would sit there undisturbed for six months if it took that long to embarrass me.

I clambered aboard the coach. Total silence reigned inside.

The pixies warily split their attention between the baby cats and the rat cages. The baby cats peeked out of their bucket, intrigued by the bug people and the rats. The rats glared at everybody.

What should have become chaos on the hoof declined into inexplicable relaxation. “Well,” I said, relaxed myself, despite what lay ahead. “How about that?”

The pixies found perches. They gossiped. They didn’t squabble and they didn’t bother the rats. Normally, given half a chance, they would’ve swarmed any rodent. A plump rat could provide the main course for a huge feast.

Singe couldn’t control the kittens, though. Several got away and began investigating everything. Without bothering the rats or bugs. They were remarkably well-mannered, for cats.

As we turned into Wizard’s Reach I glimpsed a familiar face outside. It belonged to the man Morley and

I had had the misfortune to catch earlier. He was watching my house. From a bruised visage.

His presence made me nervous. If he got obnoxious and kicked my door in, the Dead Man would be no help at all.

I couldn’t turn back. I’d have to trust the process. A notion I find dubious in the best of times.

My neighbor Mrs. Cardonlos is a police spy. And, possibly, a friend of Mr. Deal Relway, director of what, this week, is called something like the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. Mrs. Cardonlos’ great pleasure in life is spying on me and imagining my life being more exciting than it is. Relway pays her a small stipend.

She’d keep an eye out while I was gone. The most interesting stuff happens at my place when I’m not home. That’s when the stupid shines. That’s when the unprepared find out that they should’ve done more research. The Dead Man has fun with stupid thugs. My partner can be as cruel as a cat with an unbreakable mouse. But, oh, woe! He was on a sleeping holiday today. “What kind of kittens are those?” I wondered out loud. They looked like basic gray stripy alley lurkers, but not quite. They were odd. However, all I know I about cats is that I like them better than dogs, except maybe beagle and sausage dog puppies.

Oh, wondrous day! Singe and John Stretch both actually understood that I didn’t expect an answer. Both looked like they expected praise for being that clever.

I nodded and smiled my approval.

Speaking of pixies, which I wasn’t, “Melondie. Did you guys get into some poison, or something? I’ve never heard you all so quiet.”

Miss Kadare fluttered over a tad drunkenly. She assumed a widespread stance on my left palm, hands on hips, wobbling, not in time to the coach’s rocking.

“You been drinking?” Pixies love alcohol.

“Not a drop.” She staggered, plopped down on her tiny but gorgeous behind.

“You are drunk!” I accused.

“No way!” she snapped. Then she giggled. “I don’t know what’s happened. I was fine when we flew in here.”

The other pixies were drunk, too. Most more so than Melondie Kadare.

I nudged a curious kitten away from a male pixie who had fallen to the coach floor and lay there on his back, buzzing occasionally, like a downed locust.

It was weird. But I had trouble giving a rat’s ass. I was mellow, at peace. Without personal ambition whatsoever.

Some acquaintances would insist that was nothing new. Singe and John Stretch seemed vaguely puzzled and sleepy. Ditto, the rats.

I never heard of a drunk spell, but that didn’t mean one couldn’t exist. It only meant that I’d never been hit by one before.

The pixies passed out. I started suffering urges to sing the Marine Corps hymn or something similarly patriotic. Which don’t hit me when I get snockered the hard way. Not often.

The coach suddenly bucked, jolted to a halt. What the hell? Traffic couldn’t be that bad. Could it? I was two heartbeats away from falling asleep when Playmate yanked the door open. “We’re here.

Huh? What’s the matter with you all?”

I extended a hand. He helped me descend as elegantly as a duchess. Good man he, he did the same with John Stretch and Pular Singe while deftly keeping the kittens from getting away.

He closed the door on the pixies and baby cats. “What I’m going to do now is, I’m going to stay right here. I’ll come in and pull you out if something bad happens.” That said a ton about Playmate. “That’s white of you, Play. I’ll be more relaxed in there, knowing you’ll rescue me if I need it.”

Playmate had nothing more to say. His eyes had begun to wobble. Meantime, I was recovering. Fast.

I was way early in arriving. Even so, several coaches were lined up beside the hall already, each cared for by somebody big and dumb and covered with scars. And with tattoo collections for seasoning. They stared at my companions and their cages filled with rats.

“Round up those kittens, Singe.” The drunk was gone. Just that fast. “You want to take them inside?”

“Oh, hell yeah. They’re going to be all over in there.”

These kittens did not behave like cats. They weren’t contrary. They let themselves be caught and tucked into their bucket, with the cloth folded over them, theoretically to keep them in. Only a couple had to be caught and tucked a second time.

“How many of these monsters are there?” I asked Singe. I couldn’t get a hard count. Hasty estimates during the day had ranged from four to nine. Since even a dead cat can create havoc in two places at once, I suspected the true number was closer to four. Singe said, “Five or six. It’s hard to tell because their markings are so alike.”

It didn’t matter. As long as I had the majority with me when I went in.

As I approached the goons checking invitations, I tried to work out why I thought I should go armed with baby cats.

I guess because I hoped nobody would stay belligerent with a gang of them underfoot. One of the goons asked, “The hell you luggin’ a pail a pussy for, slick?”

“Somebody might want a kitten. I got some to adopt out.” I saluted him with my pussy pail and strolled on into Whitefield Hall.

12

Belinda had a second goon squad set up behind an inverted L of tables inside the front entrance. Clever girl, she’d made sure these guys weren’t beholden to her. They were freelancers. Saucerhead Tharpe was one. I recognized two of his three companions, Orion Comstock and June Nicolist. Both had reputations much like Tharpe’s. Absolutely neutral. “Garrett.”

“Mr. Tharpe.” I’ve known him for years, but his real first name escaped me. No matter. He prefers Saucerhead.

“Anything to declare?”

“Eh?”

“Weapons. Of any sort. You got’em, you got to declare’em. You don’t got to surrender’em, though we’d rather you did. You do, June gives you one of them beautiful scarves. You collect your tools when you leave.” June held up a bright green kerchief. He had a pile handy, and a grin that betrayed teeth of the same shade. Saucerhead said, “That’ll mark you safe.”

“All right. Give me a hankie. This’s all I’ve got. One bucket of cats.” One bucket of remarkable cats. There was something wrong with them. Any other litter would have staged several jailbreaks by now.

Saucerhead eyed the kittens. He looked at me. “You’re serious.”

“As a dose of typhoid.” I needed to move on. I had to fix up some way for Melondie Kadare to sneak inside.

Tharpe asked, “You didn’t even bring your knob-knocker?”

“Nope. Nothing but my own bare hands.”

Saucerhead sighed. “You may be sorry.”

“I’m a trained Royal Marine.”

“You used to be. Here.” He handed me a yellow kerchief instead of letting June give me a green one. “Yellow, huh?”

“It don’t mean nothing. Green and yellow was what was the cheapest.”

“What keeps a guy from just stuffing the hankie in his pocket?”

“Nothing. Except that you should be wearing it.”

He waved me past. I proceeded to hunt for a window to crack. Behind me, Saucerhead’s pals expressed doubts about me being the famous Garrett.

I was still looking for a window when I spied a plump brown rat. The critter took time out to stop and wink.

Once I jiggered a window, Melondie and her swarm wobbled inside and fluttered around, finding places to hide. Nobody noticed. Everybody focused on a screeching knock-down-drag-out about table setups.

I shut the window, grabbed my bucket, went looking for the hostess and guest of honor. I heard scurryings in the walls and floors and the hum of little wings overhead.

I glanced back. Somebody I didn’t know was suffering through Saucerhead’s checkpoint.

Maybe Tharpe did do me a favor. He never patted me down like that. Though if I wanted to sneak something in, I would’ve hidden it under a stack of docile baby cats.

Whitefield Hall had been slapped together with nothing but function in mind. It was mainly an open floor where you could dance, hold a banquet, have a grand meeting, put on a play, do anything you wanted to do without having to endure a lot of weather. Nowadays plays were the big thing.

Plays are a big thing around town, period. Drama is the latest fad.

The memorial commission also rented the hall for private functions. Like wedding receptions. Or birthday parties for underclass personalities who loom large in city life.

The floor had enjoyed loving care forever but remembered generations of feet shod in working-class shoes. The ceiling was twenty feet high. There were tilt windows up there so you could let the heat out in summer — or whenever there were too many bodies jammed into the hall. There was a stage at the end opposite the main entrance, facing it from a hundred feet away, three feet higher than the floor. Bickering workmen dragged tables in through a door to the left of the stage.

The two directing setup might have been chosen for their devotion to stereotype. Their wrists were limper than a dead octopus’s arms. They bullied one another like a pair of harebrained girls. Still, there’s hardly an adult male human today who isn’t tough. Anybody over twenty-four had what it took to get through five years of wartime service with his ass still attached. Including this squawking brace of fancies.

The guys doing the actual work were the sort you don’t offend gratuitously. They didn’t have half a neck between them. If their shirts got ripped off by a freak wind, they’d show more body hair than cave bears. They probably had trouble recognizing their own names in print even if you gave them two weeks’ head start.

Our hostess made her appearance through the doorway to the right of the stage, from the kitchen area. She wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Yet. “Garrett. You sweet man. You came early.” Strange. My eyes didn’t roll up inside my head. I didn’t drool. No gush of nonsense syllables erupted from my mouth. I didn’t forget she was deadly and dangerous. Maybe I was immune. Finally.

Belinda Contague is a tall, slim woman in her mid-twenties, as beautiful as you can imagine a woman to be. Her hair, as ever, was absolute black, with sheen. Her skin she’d whitened whiter than ivory, I hoped with makeup rather than arsenic. Her eyes were so blue I suspected cosmetic sorcery. Her lips were the color of arterial blood. She has serious emotional problems.

And all this before she put herself together for the evening.

“I had to be early. I heard there’ll be some unsavory characters showing up. Have you lost weight?”

“You noticed. You are a good man. Yes. A few pounds.”

Too many pounds, I thought. She was gaunt. Another indication of internal problems? She was in a positive mood. That’s always good. She said, “I need to get Keron and Arnot focused on their work. They shouldn’t bring personal problems with them.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. It was one of her specials. It told me she’d gladly put it somewhere else. “Then I’ll have the technical staff try to turn me into something presentable.”

“You’re a step or two beyond that already.”

“Hardly. Wait till you see. You won’t be able to resist.”

“Go. Do what you need to do. And don’t blame yourself if you find out that I’ve turned into an old man.”

“Why do you have a pail of kittens? Are they dead? I guess not. One just winked at me.”

“You know Dean. He took in a litter. I brought them because I had this crazy notion somebody might want one.” A mad idea, indeed. Most people looking for free cats are furriers, violin makers, or those guys who turn up at the edge of crowds, selling pigs in a blanket and other theoretically meat-based products of mysterious provenance.

Belinda shrugged, then set sail toward the two men trying to set up according to two different plans. The squabbling ceased instantly, and was heard no more. The two clowns turned almost as pale as Belinda herself.

You could look her in the eye and know, absolutely, that you were nose to nose with swift, remorseless death. There would be no appeals, no continuances, no stays, no reprieves, no commutations, no mercy. This death no more cared for your soul or emotions than it did for those of a roach.