Red Iron Nights Read online

  “Crask?” Wary, suddenly.

  “Crask. Like from the outfit. He was talking to the musicians.”

  “If you say so. I don’t remember.”

  He remembered fine. Else he wouldn’t have so much trouble with his memory. “A girl walked in just as I was going to leave. She headed for Crunch like she had something on her mind, only she spotted Crask and suddenly hightailed it.”

  “If you say so. I don’t remember none of that.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Nothing.” He was real definite about that. So definite it was a cinch I’d be beating my head against a wall if I kept after him. I’ve used my noggin to dent a few walls in my time. All that banging has taught me how to tell when it’s going to be the head and not the wall that gets broken.

  I dropped it. “Who’s the new girl?”

  He shrugged. “They come and go. They don’t stick for a while, you never find out. Calls herself Candy. That’s not the truth. Why?”

  My turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Something different about her. She’s having fun.”

  “Get those sometimes. Do it for the kick. Takes all kinds to make a horse race, Garrett.” He tapped Barking Dog’s report. “What’s this shit say? He alive?”

  “Same old Barking Dog, only going bonkers because the rain won’t let up long enough for him to preach.”

  “Good. Next time, just tell me that. Never mind you bury me with five hundred pages of every time he picked a zit. I maybe agreed on expenses, but not on that much paper.”

  I didn’t look at Hullar. He wasn’t in one of his better moods, but neither did he want to be left alone. Tenderloin people are that way. They want to spend time with somebody from outside who isn’t a customer or somebody with a moral ax to grind. They just want to feel like real people sometimes.

  They are real people. Maybe realer than most. They’re more in contact with reality than are those who buy their time or those who condemn them. Their real sin is that they’ve shed their illusions.

  Hullar missed his illusions. He wanted to be distracted from those nights when this was as good as it got. “Up for a story?” I asked.

  “What kind?”

  “Good guys and bad guys and lots of pretty girls. What I’m doing besides peeping Barking Dog.”

  “Shoot. But don’t look for me to give you no help.”

  “Gods forfend. It’s just an interesting mess.” I gave him most of it, edited where appropriate.

  “That’s sick, Garrett. Real sick. I thought I heard of every freak there was, but this’s a new one. Them poor girls. And butterflies?”

  “Butterflies. I don’t know if they’ve got anything to do with it.”

  “Weird. You got a curse at work. Or something. Maybe you ought to find you a necromancer. Hey! I know. I know a guy, weird but real good, goes by Dr. Doom—”

  “We’ve met. I don’t think he’d be much help.” Weird for sure, Doom was more fraud than expert. I think. He did have a knack for laying ghosts. I’d bring him in if that was what it took.

  Hullar shrugged. “You know your situation.”

  “Yeah. Desperate.” I eyed the happy brunette. “In more ways than one.” I wondered if there might not be something to the idea of apologizing to Tinnie. Fate wasn’t throwing anything else my way.

  Hullar saw me looking. He snickered. “Go ahead, Garrett. Give it your best shot. But I’ll tell you this. Candy’s all talk and no play. She’s the kind that, far as she’s concerned, it’s good enough to know she could’ve got you if she wanted. She gets you there, she starts looking for the next one.”

  “Story of my life.” I levered myself off my stool. “Catch you later. Got an appointment with an overcooked roast.”

  32

  Dean does miracles when he wants. The roast wasn’t a disaster, considering. The go-alongs were excellent. I ate till I was ready to pop. Then, though it was early, I rambled into the hall and stared upstairs, awaiting a flood of ambition. It was a long climb to a cold, lonely bed.

  This is where the sad strings are due—only with my luck, the orchestra would whip into an overture.

  Right. It wasn’t mood music I got, it was: Garrett! Come report. Not quite an overture. But close enough.

  No point arguing. The sooner done, the sooner to sleep.

  What sleep? When I finished telling about my visit to Hullar I got: Iwant you to go back there. Work the Tenderloin for the next nine evenings. Spend time with that Candy.

  “Huh?”

  A notion has been brooding in the back of my rear brain. Your assessment of Candy as out-of-place hatched it.

  “Huh?” What repartee. “What about all the legwork? The research on olden villains?”

  Take care of that days. Work the Tenderloin nights, watching for young ladies off the Hill amusing themselves by playing lower-class roles.

  It clicked. Candy. Chodo’s kid. High-class girls hanging out in low-class dives. For the kicks? Not unlikely. “If that’s some fad—”

  I will ask Captain Block to revisit the families of the dead girls. I may have interviewed the wrong people. Sisters and girlfriends might have been wiser. Parents are the last to know what their youngsters are doing.

  “You may be onto something.” Only a few victims had known one another, and that only casually. But if you put sisters and girlfriends and a fad for slumming into the gaps, you might find a pattern.

  We might indeed.

  “What do I look for?”

  Girls who fit the killer’s particulars. Maybe we can identify the next victim before she is taken. We have nine days before the killer must slake his need. If the pattern proves out, if the girls were playing games, we will know how and where the killer selects his victims. With Captain Block’s help we can watch all potential victims and grab our man when he strikes.

  “I’m way ahead of you now. Only, do we have to start tonight?”

  TNT, Garrett. You have not been shortchanged on sleep recently.

  True. And I was too fired up to sleep now anyway. Might as well go drink beer and ogle girls in the line of duty.

  Hell. All of a sudden this mess had begun to look a little interesting.

  TunFaire by night becomes a different city. Especially when there’s no rain. It had stopped raining. For the moment. I carried my raincloak over one arm and strolled, checking out the nightside.

  The ratman hordes were about their legitimate tasks of cleaning and illegitimate tasks of removing everything not nailed down. Kobolds and gnomes and numerous varieties of little people dashed here and there on business. Sometimes I wonder how so many peoples can live side by side with so little contact. Sometimes I think TunFaire is a whole series of cities that just happen to occupy the same geographical position.

  I saw a troll family, obvious bumpkins, gaping at the sights. I got propositioned by a giantess of ill repute who was, evidently, suffering a business slump. I ran into a band of goblins riding red-eyed hounds that looked more wolfish than domesticated. I’d never seen goblins before. I walked with them a ways, swapped stories.

  They were bounty hunters. They specialized in tracing runaway wives. They were a ferocious, unpleasant bunch clinging grimly to an old trail. The goblin woman they were after was, evidently, smarter than the bunch of them put together.

  They had plans for when they caught up. They never doubted they could outlast a mere woman.

  It would seem wives are a premium commodity amongst goblins, where five or six males are born for every female. Goblins don’t go in for polyandry or equal rights or homosexuality or any of that wimp stuff. Real macho men, male goblins. One-third will die in fights over females before age twenty-three.

  I watched the hunters ride off and didn’t blame goblin wives for cutting out first chance they got.

  I encountered several families of centaurs, refugees from the Cantard, working together, doing bearer-type jobs. What a concept. Jackasses with the brains and hands to load and unload thems
elves.

  I have almost as little love for centaurs as I do for ratmen. The only centaur I ever knew well was a thorough villain.

  There were dwarves everywhere. Day and night, TunFaire teams with dwarves. They’re industrious little buggers. All they do is work. If they could figure out how, they’d do without sleep.

  What you don’t see much of at night, outside certain areas, is human people. You do see a human, be careful. Chances are his intentions aren’t honest or honorable.

  That, in fact, can usually be counted on to get you by—if you’re young and strong and don’t look an easy mark. Most people will stay away. Only the nastiest, craziest bad boys prey on other bad boys.

  Hell. There I go giving the wrong impression. What I’m talking about is late nights, after the entertainment hours. Much later than it was then. People were out. I wasn’t seeing them because I wasn’t following the streets they usually chose for safety.

  Sometimes I tempt fate.

  At one point I joined several ratmen in a fast fade into an alley. We watched a gang of ogres tramp past, grumbling and cussing. They were headed for the north gate, on their way to hunt thunder-lizards. Night is the best time to hunt them. The beasts are sluggish then. There’s good money in thunder-lizard hides. They make the toughest leather.

  I don’t like ogres much either, but wished this bunch luck. The southward migration of the thunder-lizards has been rough on the farmers, who have been losing both fields and livestock. More, it’s always nice to see an ogre doing something honest. You don’t very often.

  33

  Crunch recognized me right away. He plopped a pint onto the bar. “You back?”

  “No. It’s my evil twin.”

  He thought about that, couldn’t make sense of it, asked, “Need to see Hullar?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt. If he’s not busy.”

  “Hullar’s never busy. Got nothing to do.” Off he went. He didn’t step on his beard this time either. He was a magician.

  I scanned the place. Business had dropped off, but the girls were still occupied. There were two I hadn’t seen before. Two daytime girls were gone. The new girls were a blond and a brunette not of the sort at risk. Both seemed out-of-place.

  Maybe the Dead Man was right. Maybe the girls were slumming.

  The streets are no place to play if you don’t know them. You’ll make more than your share of lethal mistakes if you come down off the Hill wearing your arrogances and assumptions. The natives won’t be impressed.

  Of course, if it’s a game, maybe you’ll forget your superiorities while you’re playing. Until you get into a tight place.

  Hullar waddled out, dragged himself up onto a stool, sucked up a beer Crunch had waiting, scanned the action, shrugged. You couldn’t disappoint Bishoff Hullar. A man after my own heart, he expected the worst. “Slumming, Garrett?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve taken a shine to the place. A man with your rep.”

  “No. This has to do with that other thing I’m working.”

  “The murders. You didn’t tell me there was another one last night.”

  Word was getting around. “I got to thinking over supper. About Candy and the girl who wasn’t in here the other day, that you and Crunch never saw and don’t know. Occurred to me the rich girls might be playing bad girls, just for fun. Like the blond and brunette, there. Don’t look like the sort I’d expect in here.”

  “Uhm?”

  “You know the Tenderloin, Hullar. You know what’s going down. There a fad among the rich girls, bored because the guys are off to war?”

  “How come you want to know?”

  “Maybe my girl-killer spots his victims down here. Maybe I can spot him looking for his next target.”

  “You in the guardian-angel racket?”

  I grunted.

  “You been out of touch, Garrett. Yeah. The rich broads been coming down. Not just the kids, neither. Them that only want into it at the edge work places like mine. The wild ones, mostly older ones, end up peddling their asses at the Passionate Witch or Black Thunder or someplace. The outfit goes easy on them. They’re good for business. You got a skillion lowlifes would love to throw the pork to some high-tone lady.”

  “I understand the psychology.”

  “Don’t we all. Don’t we all. And that’s what’ll cause the trouble.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Good for business, having all this fine young stuff down here. Gotten a lot of cash moving despite the weather. But how long before their fathers and husbands catch on? Then what do we got? Eh?”

  “Good point.” The parents wouldn’t be pleased. And, human nature being what it is, the girls wouldn’t get the blame. The richer people are, the less they seem able to hold their kids responsible for their actions. “How many of them you figure there are?” Couldn’t be a lot or there would’ve been a lot of excitement already.

  “I don’t get around much, Garrett. I ain’t out there counting heads and figuring who’s working the Tenderloin why. You know what I mean?”

  “I know.”

  “But they do stand out. People talk. You ask me, tops, there’s maybe been a hundred. Biggest part is over now. Just a few come-latelies and them that gets a special jolt from going bad. You got maybe thirty these days, mostly hard-core. Ones like my Candy are the exception now. Whole thing’ll be dead in two months.”

  “They’ll find some other game.”

  Hullar shrugged. “Could be. I don’t worry about rich kids.”

  “Makes you even. They don’t worry about you.” I eyed Candy. Didn’t look like I’d get a chance to talk to her. She had a couple of sailors on the string. Hullar or Crunch would have to do some bouncing if she led them on too far.

  “Going somewhere?” Eagle-eye Hullar had noticed me getting up.

  “Thinking about eyeballing any other girls I can find. Any suggestions where to look?”

  “You want just brunettes? Candy’s type?”

  “Basically.”

  He got thoughtful. He wasn’t concentrating on my problem, though. He had one eye on Candy’s sailors. He was getting steamed. “Crystal Chandelier. The Masked Man. The Passionate Witch. Mama Sam’s Place. I seen your type all them places, one time or another. Not saying they’s any there now. These gals, they come and go. Don’t do regular hours, neither.”

  “Thanks, Hullar. You’re a prince.”

  “Eh? What’s that?” Crunch snarled suddenly. He came up from behind the bar with a nasty club. “You want to watch your mouth, boy.”

  Hullar shook his head. “Prince!” he yelled in Crunch’s ear. “He called me a prince. Got to pardon him, Garrett. He lip-reads. Sometimes he don’t do so good.”

  Crunch put his stick away but didn’t stop scowling. He wasn’t sure he ought to trust his boss over his imagination.

  Everywhere I go, I get involved with screwballs.

  34

  The Crystal Chandelier, as the name implied, pretended to have class. Hill girls would be just what the management ordered. I headed there first. I was in and out in the time it took to slurp a beer. I didn’t learn anything except that somebody there knew my face and didn’t like what I did for a living.

  I did better at the Masked Man. I knew somebody there.

  The name of the place was appropriate again. People donned masks before they showed themselves inside. Likewise, those who worked the place. The Masked Man catered to a select clientele.

  The guy I knew was a bouncer, a breed nine feet tall with muscles on his muscles and more between his ears than anywhere else. I downed three beers before he understood what I wanted to know. Even then he wouldn’t have talked if he hadn’t owed me. And what he had to say wasn’t worth hearing. Only one Hill-type gal worked the Masked Man these days, a blond so screwed up she scared the owners. He hadn’t seen a brunette in weeks. The last had quit her second night. But he did remember her name, Dixie.

  “Dixie. Right. That’s useful
. Thanks, Bugs. Here. Have a beer on me.”

  “Hey, thanks, Garrett. You’re all right.” Bugs is one of those guys who are always amazed when you do something nice, no matter how trivial. You’d think after a while the whole world would be nice just to watch him be amazed.

  I drifted over to the Passionate Witch. The Witch was strange, even for the Tenderloin. I never quite understood the place. A lot of girls worked there, mostly dancing, mostly without wearing much. They were very friendly. They’d crawl all over you if they thought you might stuff a mark into their pants. They were available, but not to everyone. There was a kind of bid board. The girls worked the crowd, getting guys drunker and randier and driving the bidding up till closing. A crafty girl could pull more with one trick there than some who worked all night the traditional way.

  Whatever will separate a mark and his money. It’s there in the Tenderloin.

  “Ever see so many bare boobs in one place, Garrett?”

  I jumped. You don’t expect your friends in those places.

  I hadn’t found one. “Downtown. Been a while. Nope. Never. And I shouldn’t be seeing some of these here now.”

  Downtown Billy Byrd was the guy they’d had in mind when they’d decided somebody looked like a ferret. He was a walking stereotype. He looked slimy-sneaky and was. He spied on people, sold information to anyone who’d pay. I’d used him myself, which is how he knew me.

  Downtown wore a lot of junk jewelry and flashy clothing. He carried a long-stemmed ivory pipe. He tapped its mouthpiece against his teeth, pointed it at a woman. “Case in point?”

  “Right. Bigger don’t always mean better.”

  “She was something before gravity set in.” Downtown Billy Byrd was the kind who’d think gravity sets in. “You working, Garrett?”

  I didn’t have much use for Downtown’s type but I stayed polite. I wasn’t spending much. It’d help if I stuck with somebody whose cheapness was accepted. Else I might get asked to take my questions to the street.

  “Would I be here if I wasn’t?”