Dread Brass Shadows Page 16

  Chodo isn’t a forgiving sort. These people had stomped on his toes, sort of. . . . He has no trouble conjuring justifications.

  A half-dozen thugs shuffled off with the Serpent. Crask and a few buddies hung around.

  Well. I thought to me, I thought, I guess this means Chodo wants him a little light reading, just to pass those chilly winter nights. A little something to peruse beside the fire.

  He wouldn’t get the book from the Serpent. She didn’t have the foggiest where it was. But he’d get something. He always did. And she had managed to become a credible ratman . . . Ah! There Crask went, back into that tenement, shoulders set like he meant to find something.

  That would have been a good time to stroll on out of there—if about four of Crask’s buddies hadn’t been hanging out, keeping a wary eye.

  I got me comfortable in a good position for shivering and thought about Holme Blaine. Why had he come to me as Carla Lindo? Why had he come at all? How had he known to come to me? Through contact with Easterman I could pursue that. Come morning. After a good sleep. If I thawed out enough. Sure be nice to head for bed. Why wouldn’t Crask’s clowns clear the street?

  They didn’t do me any favors. In fact, I was getting suspicious that they had something on their pea brains besides the Serpent and her improbable book. They spread out, started poking into shadows and alleys. So.

  Crask passed below me, massaging his arm. He muttered something about the cold and “I don’t get it. One second he’s right there beside me, the next he’s gone. He ain’t no spook. How’d he disappear?”

  Who? Bet you guessed as fast as I did, What a bunch of guys.

  I’d suspected it for a while. The kingpin’s boys don’t generally do you many favors I’d tried setting it aside because I didn’t want it to be true. But there it was. Chodo had something special in mind for a guy named Garrett. Maybe just a fancy dinner, a dip in the inside pool he’s got out to his place, with the hot and cold running blondes Maybe. Maybe Just a friendly chat, old times, like he’d mentioned in the coach. I didn’t want to find out. The streets aren’t filled with guys who have had chats with Chodo.

  One of Crask’s boys came over and mumbled something I couldn’t catch Crask cussed and growled. “Keep looking!” Then he did an odd thing, for him. He went and perched on the steps of the raided tenement, rubbed his arm for a minute, rested his chin on his good fist, went away somewhere inside. If he hadn’t been Crask of the Crask and Sadler torture show, I’d have pegged him for a man wrestling with his conscience.

  He stuck with it till all his boys had given up and gone away. Naturally, I stayed put. Me and my frozen fanny Ever have yours up in the air with a winter breeze tickling it? I wasn’t in any shape to outrun or outfight Crask, or even somebody’s granny, had no interest in trying and even less interest in visiting Chodo or maybe checking out the attractions on the bottom of the river. Frostbite can have its attractions.

  Garrett is tough and patient. I outstubborned Crask. He finally had enough and went away. I pried my stiff bones loose from that porch and did the same. In another direction.

  Boy, was I glad people never think to look up.

  31

  I swung through the Safety Zone, found exactly what I expected to find. A big nothing. Morley’s place was dead and dark. I was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t time to start thinking about a wake.

  I approached my place carefully. Crask might have it staked out.

  Here was a problem that deserved some thought. I was too dependent on my home. If the bad boys wanted to hand me real trouble sometime, they’d just have to cut me off from my base.

  Didn’t seem to be anybody around. Even that off-and-on presence behind me was absent. Nice that whoever that was occasionally slipped up or needed rest.

  I hustled to the door and banged away. Dean opened up. I crabbed, “What took so long?” He answered me with one of his better glowers. He hadn’t taken long at all. The house was quiet. “Carla gone to bed?”

  “Yes. I shall do so myself, now.”

  “Where? Across her door?”

  “The daybed.”

  He didn’t give me what I deserved for my crack. Oh, well. “Sleep well.” I clumped into the Dead Man’s room. “Awake there, Old Bones?” It would be like him to take a two-week nap in the middle of things.

  Yes. I gather you were frustrated again.

  “It just gets worse,” I told him. “Any suggestions?”

  Get some sleep. While the implications are disturbing, the information is tenuous. I will have to do considerable thinking.

  “Get some sleep? That’s the best idea you’ve had in years.”

  Do not allow frustration to embitter you, Garrett. We all suffer our unproductive days.

  Easy for him to say. lie had unproductive centuries. “Your talent for noting the obvious remains unblunted.”

  Indeed. But we cannot indefinitely continue to be in the wrong place or to arrive too late.

  “We can’t? Want to bet?”

  Despair does not become you, Garrett. Dawn follows the darkest hour as surely as the rains fall to earth. Put Chodo Contague out of mind. Rest. That is the most useful thing you can do at this point. Relax. And rejoice. He does not have the book itself.

  He was right. The dead fat genius usually is. Sometimes he can’t be wrong if he wants. But: “No. He’s just got somebody who knows how to make a book. That son of a bitch would write his own.” I was in one of those moods where you’re contrary for contrariness’s sake. But maybe I’ve grown up some. I didn’t overindulge. “While you’re pondering, conjure me up a theory that explains the disappearances of Morley Dotes, Saucerhead Tharpe, and Sadler. And figure out who’s following me like a ghost, so good I’ve never caught a glimpse.”

  As to those disappearances, I do have a hypothesis. Two, in fact. But they must be tested. And I refuse to discuss them till you have slept.

  I knew better but wasted time trying to pry something out of him. He wouldn’t budge. Does anybody ever budge? I don’t think they can. They only don’t or won’t. It’s always negative. How come?

  See what kind of mind is out there leading the war on evil? Tsk-tsk.

  He wouldn’t budge. And even a boulder anchored to bedrock is less stubborn than a dead Loghyr.

  I gave up, shambled toward the doorway.

  What news from the Cantard, Garrett?As though he hadn’t read my mind and found that I hadn’t bothered asking around. Just a little nudge, there—nudge, unfortunately, being one of those words that doesn’t come standardly negative. Old Bones nudges me a lot. Hinting that maybe if I cooperated more with him, he’d help me more. Right. Laziness is his reason for hanging around. He’s too damned lazy to finish dying.

  I didn’t answer him. I tramped upstairs and threw myself into bed still clad, lay there searching my soul, tossing and turning, for at least seventeen seconds.

  32

  Dean wouldn’t let me sleep in. I got four hours of the kind of sleep that fires and earthquakes can’t interrupt, then he arrived. The ultimate disaster.

  I cracked one eye a hundredth of an inch, heaved one leg over the side of the bed. That seemed good enough for a day’s work, but that old man wasn’t satisfied. He went for a bucket of water he had cooling out back. He found me sitting up when he got back. I grumped, “How come you couldn’t send Carla?”

  “Because you wouldn’t get up. The sausages would burn, the biscuits would blacken, the kettle would boil dry while you tried to lead her astray.”

  “You’re one suspicious and negative old goat.” I made an epic attempt to stand up. It didn’t work.

  Dean chuckled. “I know you. If I don’t stay between you and Miss Carla, nothing will get done around here for the next two weeks.”

  “I’m hurt. I’m in pain. Why don’t you just bring breakfast up here?”

  He hefted the bucket of ice water.

  “Whoa!” I blinked several times, taking my morning exercise. Dean eased over to
a better spot, started to wind up. The man doesn’t know the meaning of mercy.

  He sneered. “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

  “Huh?”

  “My niece Ruth brought me fresh clothing. She’s downstairs. She’d love to serve you breakfast in bed.”

  I groaned. The man won’t play fair. Talk about your double-whammy threat. Ruth is a nice kid. Lots of personality. You know how that translates. Dogs don’t howl when she goes by, they whimper and slink, hoping she won’t notice them. “I’m Out of my class now.”

  He chuckled again. Evil old man.

  Then I didn’t think well of myself for a minute. Ruth was nice. She couldn’t help her looks.

  I got completely vertical and wobbled toward the hail. I made it downstairs without killing myself. I even pasted on a wan smile for the ladies in the kitchen. Carla and Ruth had a contest to see who could beam back the brightest. It was like staring into the rising sun. I dropped into a chair and shielded my eyes.

  Dean was a prophet. Breakfast was sausages and biscuits, with hot tea. My condition improved radically, though I never achieved sparkle. I staggered up and made the song march to the Dead Man’s room. “I’m here, Chuckles.” Plop into the chair.

  Barely.

  “Huh?” I had to figure it out. I’m not at my best in the morning. You may have noticed.

  We have only one real option left. We have to be the first to find the book. I consider that imperative now. if we fail, it could mean disaster for TunFaire.

  “Eh?” It was too early. I’d left my brain upstairs snoozing.

  After sustained reflection I have come to distrust the motives of my friend the Gnorst. The cues are small but there. He has succumbed to temptation.

  “I thought so.”

  We can, for the moment, ignore the Serpent. She has been neutralized. Easterman is of little account.

  “You think? He’s got Winger playing for him.”

  She is lucky to slay alive. Her luck will not last. No, Chodo Contague is the hunter who concerns me. The focus has shifted to his forces and those of the Gnorst. Both parties are far more formidable than the originals commanded by the witch and the madman. We now have the potential for a substantial conflict, perhaps fired by some personal animus, considering hints you picked up during your interview with the kingpin.

  I had to slap me upside the head to get the clockwork ticking well enough to understand what he was saying. Yeah Chodo had sounded bitter about dwarves and Dwarf Fort. He hadn’t been able to corrupt the place. Knowing him, he’d like to get in there and kick some ass. He don’t like it when folks aren’t afraid.

  “We’re off to a scintillating start today, aren’t we? With your brains and my brawn I just know we’ll wrap it all up before lunch.”

  You appear to be coming to life.

  “Easy for you to say. All I got to do is breathe.”

  We do have a lead, Garrett. An oblique angle that should not be difficult to pursue.

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Assume our unclad guest was Holme Blaine.

  “We know that for a fact.”

  Not exactly, though it is highly probable. Now. Listen. You have spent considerable energy trying to guess why he came here but none on why he chose us in particular.

  I was coming around. I could see both fragments of the hair he was splitting. “I thought about that.” But not very much.

  You thought of the lead, too. The possibility that he came because he knew Miss Ramada was going to come.

  “So you think I should see the people she talked to, find out if he talked to them, too, see if he left something with somebody.”

  Exactly.

  “Guess I might as well ask her, then get cleaned up and changed and climb on my horse. The house being watched?”

  Not obviously.

  “You got any idea who’s been following me?”

  No.

  “Great. Well, what’s become of everybody who’s disappeared?”

  You have not yet reasoned that out?

  “No. I have not yet reasoned that out. Would I ask if I had?”

  You remain as lazy as ever.

  “Damned straight. I got you to figure for me. So give me the benefit of your wisdom. Without the standard shilly-shally.”

  Dotes and Tharpe have gone underground because they expect you to bestride your white horse and charge Chodo Contague. I suspect. They read the signs early and moved quickly, seizing the head start.

  “Wonderful friends I have.”

  I have doubts myself. But I am not as mobile as they. My options are reduced. I am at your mercy. I have to stand and fight.

  I grumped.

  That is but a hypothesis, Garrett. Though a good one, I think. They know you. You are wont to fly in the face of good sense. Do you truly believe that it is your duty to rescue the world from Chodo Contague?

  I grumped some more. How come everybody assumes whenever some baddy poots I’ll grab me my rusty sword? Hell. Considering how Crask wanted to round me up last night, even Chodo thinks that way. Hell again. I don’t want to think I’m predictable any more than the next guy does.

  “What about Sadler?”

  More difficult, as I have not had as many exposures to Mr. Sadler’s thought processes. My best guess is that he saw the implications of Mr. Contague obtaining the book and exhausted his patience.

  “Say what?”

  Have you never wondered about his unswerving loyalty?

  “Only about a million times. Along with anybody else who ever had anything to do with the underworld.”

  Reflect on that patient loyalty in light of what you suspect Mr. Contague might do with the Book of Dreams.

  It took me a minute. Hell, it was still early in the morning, remember? I had an excuse. “Say what?” Tell me black is white. Tell me princes of the church are saints, our overlords are philanthropists, lawyers have consciences. I might believe you. I might give individuals the benefit of a doubt. But don’t try to sell me the notion that Sadler would turn on Chodo. “I don’t believe it.”

  Have I not yet convinced you that what you believe is of no consequence? It is obvious, based on his questions, that Mr. Crask suspects a defection. If he acts upon that, the truth and your belief will not matter. My own inclination is to believe he would be correct in his assumption, considering hints underlying your last discussion with Mr. Sadler.

  It’s a fact, perceptions have more impact than absolute truths. We humans belong to a tribe steadfast in its refusal to be confused by the facts. Still . . . “Yeah, but Sadler just wouldn’t.” Would he? Even if the cripple he expected to replace any day came up with a way not only to evade death but to get healthy in the bargain?

  Ah. You begin to use your head for something besides a device which keeps your hair from getting in the way when you eat. Excellent.

  “Even I have a thought sometimes.” Not much of a comeback Hell. It was still morning.

  There is some excitement outside. Perhaps news from the Cantard, long overdue. You might investigate.

  Him and his hobby. “Sure. Why not? I’ll have plenty of time. Hell, I’ll borrow Dean’s broom and help the ratmen clean streets in my spare time.”

  Mental sneer Sometimes he has a higher estimate of my abilities than I do.

  I was losing the war there. Just too damned early. I retreated to the kitchen. “Carla Lindo, my lovely, I need your help. The Dead Man says Holme Blaine must have been in touch with some of the people you were in touch with when you were looking for somebody to help you. I need to talk to them. Soon as you tell me who they were.”

  She eyed me about ten seconds, smoldering and crackling. The homely Miss Ruth lost her smile. I didn’t blame her. It plain wasn’t fair that the gods would give one woman so much advantage over another.

  They ought to make them all gorgeous. Right?

  “Actually, I only asked at the place where I was staying, with friends of my father. Everyone there who could thi
nk of anyone mentioned you.”

  Oh, wonderful. Now I’m a household name. “So where do I go? Who do I see?” I’ll get the Dead Man one of these days. He knew already.

  “I’d better go with you They’re a little odd there.”

  “Wouldn’t be safe.”

  “Why not? Your friend Chodo Contague captured the Serpent, didn’t he?”

  Oh, boy. There just aren’t any secrets around my house.

  I tried arguing. Carla Lindo turned deaf as a post. She wasn’t telling me nothing. It was show me or nothing. “I’ll be ready in a minute, Garrett.” She breezed out, leaving some sort of vacuum there in the kitchen. Dean grinned at me. He enjoys seeing me nonplussed. Actually more than nonplussed. Very misused. Even Ruth got a kick out of it, though I could see she envied Carla her power.

  I never had a chance once Carla Lindo went to work on me. Someday, in about a thousand years, I’m going to develop an immunity to female charm. I don’t know if I look forward to that or not.

  I made a tactical error. I was the one who took a while getting cleaned up and changed They never let you forget.

  Sometimes I have to wonder if I’m as smart as I think. I Carla gave me some pretty good hints, but I didn’t tumble to the facts till we’d damned near walked through old Fido’s front door.

  33

  I stopped dead, stared at that bughouse, and thought I wasn’t going in there never again.

  “Garrett? What’s the matter?” Carla Lindo was a couple steps ahead now, looking back, smoldering. How the hell did she do that? I stared at her some, too. I got a little less reluctant to head that way.

  There wasn’t much traffic, but what there was seemed determined to run over any guys who stood around with their mouths hanging open, staring at pretty women.

  I gobbled, “I’ve had it, babe. All I can take of this mess. I’m up to here with running around like a short-necked chicken, not knowing what the hell is going on, who’s going to do what to who, or why, always being a step too late.” I couldn’t tell her I was afraid to go back in there with that lunatic Easterman. Hell, I wasn’t going to admit that part to me. I just told me the same stuff I told her and added that I don’t much like hanging out with guys whose brains are off in fairyland.