Brothers to Dragons (11 page)

* * *

Job had been to the house with the red door and black shuttered windows at least a dozen times. But the shutters were always closed, and he had never been invited inside.

After his first visit, each pickup had had the same format. He knocked on the red door. Within a few seconds it opened, and the face of the androgynous Sammy glowered out through a three-inch opening. Job gave his coded message, different for each visit. The face vanished without a word. A few minutes later a small package was thrust out for Job's acceptance. The door closed.

Now it was different. When Job knocked on the door of the four-story row house and repeated Tracy's words, Sammy for a change did not retreat. Instead there was a slow, thoughtful nodding of the head, and the door opened wide.

"Come in," said the musical tenor. "Walk careful."

The warning was unnecessary. There was enough space to walk through the long hall and up the steep stairs, but only just. On either side, built into tottering piles, were wooden and cardboard boxes. Job smelled mildew, plus a strange odor that caught at his sore throat and irritated his anguished lungs. He was so weak that he had to pull himself up the stairs using the handrail.

Sammy led the way into what had once been an elegant kitchen. The electric light was a hanging bare bulb, and the gas oven and range were not working. A portable gas stove in the middle of the room provided both cooking and heat—unnecessary, the second, because the whole house was already stifling hot.

"Food over there," said Sammy. "What time professor coming?"

"Don't know." Job's voice would produce nothing above a hoarse whisper.

"Hmph. And Trace don't want me to call, she say? OK,
hombre-delgado.
We wait. Bed for you in basement, whenever you ready."

Job was ready now. He was lightheaded and dizzy. But he could smell food, and see a pot on the stove. It might not be there later. As Sammy left he grabbed an old cane-bottom chair, hobbled with it to the table, and sat down.

The four-quart crockpot held a fish and oyster stew, thick and milky and full of bits of yellow corn. The stove was turned off, and the side of the pot was little more than blood heat. But that was good. Job's throat was so sore that hot food would have been more than he could stand. He hunted around until he found a spoon. He did not bother with a dish but ate direct from the crock, cramming solids and liquid into his mouth until his stomach bulged round below his thin ribs and refused to admit another mouthful. He put down the spoon. He could eat no more to save his life.

He felt his way downstairs, hardly knowing if lights were on or off. The basement was a junkman's dream, even more crowded than the upstairs.

Job noticed nothing, except that near the bottom of the narrow stairs was an old mattress. He collapsed onto it. His bloated stomach gave a mild twinge, and then a more painful spasm. For a few moments he thought he had eaten too much and was going to lose everything. He tried to sit up. But before he could lift his head more than a few inches he was gone, swallowed by a sleep so deep and close to death itself that Sammy, checking a few hours later, had to listen and look hard to be sure that the uninvited guest was still a living, breathing boy.

* * *

The basement of the house had no windows. It was thick-walled and quiet, holding its temperature night and day close to seventy-five degrees.

For the first twelve hours Job did not move or dream. In the next half-day he ran a temperature, tossing on the mattress in semi-delirium. Occasionally he knew where he was, lying in Sammy's cellar. But most of the time he was in Cloak House and the streets around it, with Father Bonifant and Laga and Nurse Calder and Colonel della Porta and Skip Tolson, all jumbled up together. In one terrible dream he woke inside the incinerator itself, surrounded by and tangled with dead boys. When they felt the heat they awoke to awful, twitching life. He broke loose and crawled away from them, across red-hot plates that seared his hands and made the blood boil in his veins. He screamed in agony and tried to lift smoking palms that stuck to the glowing metal.

"Hey, you," said a tenor voice. Job was being shaken, violently. "You wanna stay in my house, you don't make so mucha that damn noise."

It was Sammy, gripping him in strong, sinewy arms. Job gasped and shivered.

"Dreaming." Clotted tongue, thick head. He was still half in his dream, heart pounding wild within his chest.

"Hold quiet." Sammy had lifted Job's arm and was holding a black square instrument over his right wrist.

Job sat up, stared blank-faced at grimy walls and felt-wrapped pipes. He did not remember coming here. "Is it morning?"

"Evening. You slept round."

"Professor Buckler—"

"No professor." Sammy was peering through a glass panel in the middle of the instrument. "Sweet Jesus. You been jaded. Whyn't you tell me?" The musical voice rose an octave. "Tonight, the professor come an' explain. Or you go."

Sammy turned and ran up the steps, lithe as a snake. Job followed, slowly. On the way he took a first good look at the house. It was narrow, no more than fifteen feet from wall to papered wall. Piled boxes, high as Job's head, left a four-foot tunnel through the center. Job lifted the lid of one. It was crammed with wigs and toupees, of all colors. The next held women's hats, feathered and plumed and pom-pommed and in every style that Job could imagine. A third was filled with coat hangers.

The stairs were steep and narrow. By the time Job reached the second floor he was breathing hard and his legs were wobbly. There was no sign of Sammy. Job went into the kitchen and found the same crockpot simmering on the portable stove. He helped himself, and ten minutes later had the strength to climb more bare wooden stairs. The third floor was like another kitchen, except that there were two stoves, half a dozen locked cupboards, and a long work-bench filled with glass beakers and measuring cups. An unfamiliar tart smell crinkled Job's nose. There was no sign of Sammy.

He kept going. The fourth floor was clearer than the rest. The walls were fresh-painted, and the landing window was free of grime. Job knew he was intruding, but he went on to the end of the landing. He found himself in a sky-lighted bedroom. Sammy was there, stretched out unconscious on a broad bed. A little twist of paper sat on the pillow beside the dark head. An urgent whisper of "Sammy" and a tug of the bare arm produced no effect. Sammy was out more deeply than Job had been, twenty-four hours earlier.

Job's first reaction was relief. Sammy was warm and breathing—and if Sammy were not awake, Job could not be cast out into the night. That thought changed quickly to alarm. This wasn't sleep; it was a coma, like Laga's coma.

He reached over and shook harder. "Sammy!"

There was no response. Job ran down the stairs to the first floor, opened the front door, and stood hesitating on the threshold. It was warmer than last night, but already quite dark. The vendors would have long since packed up their wares and gone, and any street
basura
still outside would be more likely to loot than help.

Job closed the door firmly and hurried away along the sidewalk. Bracewell Mansion would not welcome him, but people there knew Sammy. They would have to help, no matter what they did to Job afterwards.

The night was still, with a rising moon casting shadows from tall buildings. Job steered clear of the dark areas. He had gone no more than a couple of blocks when a tall, hooded figure stepped suddenly in front of him and grabbed his arm. He gasped in terror, jerked loose, and began to run.

"Job!" An urgent hiss from behind stopped him. "It's me."

He turned. Tracy was standing on the sidewalk, the cowl pulled back onto her shoulders to reveal her coiffured hair.

"I was coming to see you." Her voice was soft, and she was staring all around her. "I've only got an hour, then I have to go back."

"The professor never came."

"I know. That's what I wanted to tell you."

"And Sammy's sick—maybe dying."

"What!" They fell into step together and hurried back towards the house. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know. Unconscious, upstairs. I thought Sammy was a man."

"She was once. Now she isn't. How long has she been sick?"

"Not long. Less than an hour. She was talking to me. She said that if the professor didn't come tonight, I have to leave."

"He won't be coming. I told him last night that you'd been at the mansion looking for him, and he fell apart. He's been drinking ever since. He's scared of Miss Magnolia. That's why I had to come."

They had reached the narrow house, and Tracy went in first. She stood staring around at the jumble of boxes and cartons.

"Straight up," said Job. "Up to the fourth floor." He led the way, wheezing, until they came to Sammy's bedside.

Tracy leaned over the silent body, feeling the reddened cheekbone with the back of her hand and rolling back Sammy's eyelid. A brown iris rolled into view, its pupil like a tiny black pinpoint. "Is she dying?"

Tracy had picked up the twist of paper on the pillow and was sniffing it. She shook her head. "This is a case where the shoemaker
ought
to go barefoot. Sammy'll be all right. Get me cold water."

"What's wrong with her?" Job took a bowl and went through into the bathroom.

"She's been sampling her own products. I thought she'd kicked that, years ago."

"She found out I'd been jaded. I think it really frightened her."

"I bet it did. My fault, I should have told you to mention that first thing." Tracy took the bowl of water. "Get out. Come back in twenty minutes. When you do, let me handle the talking."

"Is she—"

"She'll be fine. Close the door as you leave."

Job wandered back down the stairs. He didn't know what to do. He had slept and eaten all that he could, and it was not safe to be on the streets so late. For the next quarter of an hour he rambled from room to room, lifting lids off boxes, peering into storage rooms, poking around dark closets, counting dresses and musty suits on old hangers. By the time he went back upstairs he was sneezing from dust and dazed by excess.

Sammy was sitting on the side of the bed, cheerful and dreamy-eyed. She smiled at Job.

"She's still way up there," said Tracy. "But she's coming down. And I have to get out of here in the next ten minutes, or Miss Magnolia will crucify me."

"What is this place?"

Tracy's stare was as blank as Sammy's.

"I mean," said Job, "there's all these old clothes and boxes and furniture . . ."

"Ah." Tracy nodded. "The house. When the owners went broke and skipped, Sammy took it over. Used to be a theatrical costumer and supply center. All the good stuff's gone, though."

"And he gotta go, too." Sammy was more alert, and she was no longer smiling. "I can't have a J-D here. Too dangerous."

"He has nowhere to go, Sam."

"Tough. You think I run a welfare house? You shoulda told me he been jaded."

"Do you know
how
he got jaded? Trying to make a delivery of one of your packages to the Mall Compound."

"Not my business . . .
you
sent him to the Mall. You take him, if he got nowhere to go."

"I can't. Miss Magnolia was the one sent him to the Mall, but she'd turn him right in. You know Miss Magnolia."

Job was going to speak but Tracy caught his eye and shook her head.

"Hmph." Sammy's scowl said that she knew Miss Magnolia, and did not think well of her. She stood up from the bed and went into the bathroom.

"What you think, I need charity boarders?" She was at the mirror, peering at her face. "No way. I'm on the edge, Trace. Broke."

"You need somebody around here, Sammy. For yourself. He found you, and he thought you were OD-ing. He went out looking for help. How many people would do that?"

"I didn't need no help."

"This time, maybe. What about next?"

"May be no next time." Sammy was applying a new layer of makeup, and the face beneath the powder and blusher was pale. "How he gonna pay if he stay?" she said over her shoulder. "I told you, I'm broke. He can't pay, he gotta go. I don't need anyone do pickup an' drop-off for me. My business come right here."

"He has no money. You know that, Sam." Tracy shrugged at Job.
Sorry. I tried.
She stood up. "I have to get back to Bracewell."

"It's true that I have no money." Job's face was paler than Sammy's. Tracy had told him to keep quiet, but she was getting nowhere. "I might be able to make some money for you, though."

"How? You got nothing, you don't know nothing."

"I know how the street vendors work. I know how they talk, how they think, how they set prices."

"You got nothing to sell."

"I know. But you do. I don't mean the drugs." Job waved his arm around. "I mean everything else in this house, the clothes and fixtures and fake jewels."

"Is junk. All of it."

"
You
think it's junk. But people
buy
junk. I know. I bought enough, when I worked with Mister Bones. People buy
anything
, if it's cheap enough."

"That don't make sense."

"What you got to lose, Sammy?" said Tracy. "You let him try street vending, if he doesn't make enough you kick him out. If he does, you're ahead."

"He been jaded."

"So what? If there's ever a bust on this house, you think they'll bother with a jaded kid? They'll be after the real stuff."

"Still no. Too dangerous. I don't want him in the house."

"All right. So he doesn't stay here. But will you let him try being a street vendor, selling some of the stuff? You say it's junk. He says he can move it."

Sammy turned from the mirror. Her makeup was perfect again. "He can't move nothing, Trace," she said. "I'll bet on it. But you say you gotta go. So he stays one more night, we talk tomorrow morning. If you want."

"All right. That's a deal. One more night, Sammy."

One more night.

And then Job would be out on the frozen streets of the city. He had argued with Sammy, and failed to convince her. He knew it. He could see no reason for the look of sly triumph on Tracy's face.