Making Money (32 page)

“As a director of the bank and, of course, a concerned citizen,” he said dreamily, “I shall now write a letter to the Times.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” said Heretofore, “and shall I send for a jeweler, sir? I understand they have some fine little snips that—”

“No pain without gain, Drumknott. It sharpens my thinking.” The glove went back on.

“Er…” and then Heretofore gave up. He’d tried his best, but Cosmo was bent on his own destruction, and all a sensible man could do was to make as much money as possible and then stay alive to spend it.

“I’ve had another stroke of luck, sir,” he ventured. He’d have liked more time, but it was clear that time was getting short.

“Indeed? What is this?”

“That project I have been working on…”

“Very expensively? Yes?”

“I believe I can get you Vetinari’s stick, sir.”

“You mean his sword stick?”

“Yes, sir. As far as I know, the blade has never been drawn in anger.”

“I understood it was always close to him.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy, sir. Or cheap. But after much, much work I now see a clear way,” said Heretofore.

“They say the steel of the blade was taken from the iron in the blood of a thousand men…”

“So I have heard, sir.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Very briefly, sir.”

For the first time in his career, Heretofore found himself feeling sorry for Cosmo. There was a kind of yearning in the man’s voice. He didn’t want to usurp Vetinari. There were plenty of people in the city who wanted to usurp Vetinari. But Cosmo wanted to be Vetinari.

“What was it like?” The voice was pleading. Poison from the sickening finger must have got to his brain, thought Heretofore. But his mind is pretty poisonous to begin with. Perhaps they will be friends.

“Er…well, the handle and scabbard are just like yours, sir, but a little worn. The blade, though, is gray and looks—”

“Gray?”

“Yes, sir. It looks aged and slightly pitted. But here and there, when the light catches it, there are little red and gold flecks. I have to say that it looks ominous.”

“The flecks of light would be the blood, of course,” said Cosmo thoughtfully, “or, possibly, yes, very possibly the trapped souls of those who died to make the dreadful blade.”

“I had not thought of that, sir,” said Heretofore, who had spent two nights with a new blade, some hematite, a brass brush, and some chemicals to produce a weapon that looked as though it’d spring for your throat of its own accord.

“You could get it tonight?”

“I think so, sir. It will be dangerous, of course.”

“And require yet more expense, I imagine,” said Cosmo, with rather more insight than Heretofore would have expected in his current state.

“There are so many bribes, sir. He will not be happy when he finds out, and I daren’t risk the time it would take to make an exact replacement.”

“Yes. I see.”

Cosmo pulled off the black glove again and looked at his hand. There seemed to be some greenish tint to his finger now, and he wondered if there was some copper in the ring’s alloy. But the pink, almost red streaks moving up his arm looked very healthy.

“Yes. Get the stick,” he murmured, turning his hand to catch the light from the lamps. Odd, though, he couldn’t feel any heat on the finger, but that didn’t matter.

He could see the future so clearly. The shoes, the cap, the ring, the stick…Surely, as he filled the occult space occupied by Vetinari, the wretched man would feel himself getting weaker and more confused, and he’d get things wrong and make mistakes…“See to it, Drumknott,” he said.

L
ORD
H
AVELOCK
V
ETINARI
pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day and was clearly going to be a long evening.

“I think I need a moment to relax. Let’s get it over with,” he said.

Drumknott walked over to the long table, which at this time of day held copies of several editions of the Times, his lordship being keen on keeping track of what people thought was going on.

Vetinari sighed. People told him things all the time. Lots of people had been telling him things in the last hour. They told him things for all sorts of reasons: to gain some credit; to gain some money; for a favor quid pro quo; out of malice, mischief, or, suspiciously, out of a professed regard for the public good. What it amounted to was no information but a huge, Argus-eyed ball of little, wiggling factoids, out of which some information could, with care, be teased.

His secretary laid before him the paper, carefully folded to the correct page and place, which was occupied by a square filled with a lot of smaller squares, some of them containing numbers.

“Today’s ‘Jikan no Muda’ sir,” he said. Vetinari glanced at it for a few seconds, and then handed it back to him.

The Patrician shut his eyes, drummed his fingers on the desktop for a moment. “Hmm…nine six three one seven four—” Drumknott scribbled hastily as the numbers streamed, and Vetinari eventually concluded: “—eight four seven three. And I’m sure they used that one last month. On a Monday, I believe.”

“Seventeen seconds, sir,” said Drumknott, his pencil still catching up.

“Well, it has been a tiring day,” said Vetinari. “And what is the point? Numbers are easy to outwit. They can’t think back. The people who devise the crosswords, now they are indeed devious. Who would know that ‘pysdxes’ are ancient Ephebian carved-bone needle holders?”

“Well, you, sir, of course,” said Drumknott, carefully stacking the files, “and the curator of Ephebian antiquities at the Royal Art Museum, ‘Puzzler’ of the Times, and Miss Grace Speaker, who runs the pet shop in Pellicool Steps.”

“We should keep an eye on that pet shop, Drumknott. A woman with a mind like that content to dispense dog food? I think not.”

“Indeed, sir. I shall make a note.”

“I’m pleased to hear that your new boots have ceased squeaking, by the way.”

“Thank you, sir. They have broken in nicely.”

Vetinari stared pensively at the day’s files.

“Mr. Bent, Mr. Bent, Mr. Bent,” he said. “The mysterious Mr. Bent. Without him, the Royal Bank would be in far more trouble than it has been. And now that it is without him, it will fall over. It revolves around him. It beats to his pulse. Old Lavish was frightened of him, I’m sure. He said he thought that Bent was a…” he paused.

“Sir?” said Drumknott.

“Let us just accept the fact that he has, in every way, proved to be a model citizen,” said Vetinari. “The past is a dangerous country, is it not?”

“There is no file on him, sir.”

“He has never drawn attention to himself. All I know for sure is that he arrived here as a child, on a cart owned by some traveling accountants…”

“W
HAT, LIKE TINKERS
and fortune-tellers?” said Moist, as the cab rocked its way through streets that grew narrower and darker.

“I suppose you could say so,” said Miss Drapes with a hint of disapproval. “They do big, you know, circuits all the way up to the mountains, doing the books for little businesses, helping people with their taxes, that sort of thing.” She cleared her throat. “Whole families of them. It must be a wonderful life.”

“Every day a new ledger,” said Moist, nodding gravely, “and by night they drink beer, and happy, laughing accountants dance the Double-Entry Polka to the sound of accordions…”

“Do they?” said Miss Drapes nervously.

“I don’t know. It would be nice to think so,” said Moist. “Well, that explains something, at least. He was obviously ambitious. All he could hope for on the road was being allowed to steer the horse, I suppose.”

“He was thirteen,” said Miss Drapes, and she blew her nose loudly. “It’s so sad.” She turned a tearful face toward Moist.

“There’s something dreadful in his past, Mr. Lipstick. They say one day some men came to the bank and asked—”

“This is it, Mrs. Cake’s,” said the cabman, pulling up sharply, “an’ that’ll be eleven pence and don’t ask me to hang about ’cos they’ll have the ’orse up on bricks and its shoes off in a wink.”

The door of the boardinghouse was opened by the hairiest woman Moist had ever seen, but in the area of Elm Street you learned to discount this sort of thing. Mrs. Cake was famously accommodating to the city’s newly arrived undead, giving them a safe and understanding haven until they could get on their feet, however many they had.

“Mrs. Cake?” he said.

“Mother’s at church,” said the woman. “She said to expect you, Mr. Lipwig.”

“You have a Mr. Bent staying here, I believe?”

“The banker? Room seven on the second floor. But I don’t think he’s in. He’s not in trouble, is he?”

Moist explained the situation, aware all the while of doors opening a fraction in the shadows beyond the woman. The air was sharp with the smell of disinfectant; Mrs. Cake believed that cleanliness was more to be trusted than godliness and, besides, without that sharp note of pine half the clientele would be driven mad by the smell of the other half.

And in the middle of all this was the silent, featureless room of Mr. Bent, chief cashier. The woman, who volunteered that her name was Ludmilla, let them in, very reluctantly, with a master key.

“He’s always been a good guest,” she said. “Never a moment’s trouble.”

One glance took in everything: the narrow room, the narrow bed, the clothes hanging neatly around the walls, the tiny jug-and-basin set, the incongruously large wardrobe. Lives collect clutter, but Mr. Bent’s did not. Unless, of course, it was all in the wardrobe.

“Most of your long-term guests are unde—”

“—differently alive,” said Ludmilla sharply.

“Yes, of course, so I’m wondering why…Mr. Bent would stay here.”

“Mr. Lipwick, what are you suggesting?” said Miss Drapes.

“You must admit it’s rather unexpected,” said Moist. And, because she was already distraught enough, he didn’t add: I don’t have to suggest anything. It suggests itself. Tall. Dark. Gets in before dawn, leaves after dark. Mr. Fusspot growls at him. Compulsive counter. Obsessive over detail. Gives you a gentle attack of the creeps which makes you feel mildly ashamed. Sleeps on a long, thin bed. Stays at Mrs. Cake’s, where the vampires hang up. It’s not very hard to connect the dots.

“This isn’t about the man who was here the other night, is it?” said Ludmilla.

“What man would that be?”

“Didn’t give a name. Just said he was a friend. All in black, had a black cane with a silver skull on it. Nasty piece of work, Mum said. Mind you,” Ludmilla added, “she says that about nearly everyone. He had a black coach.”

“Not Lord Vetinari, surely.”

“Oh, no, Mum’s all for him, except she thinks he ought to hang more people. No, this one was pretty stout, Mum said.”

“Oh, really?” said Moist. “Well, thank you, ma’am. Well perhaps we should be going. By the way, do you by any chance have a key to that wardrobe?”

“No key. He put a new lock on it years ago, but Mum didn’t complain because he’s never any trouble. It’s one of those magic ones they sell at the university,” Ludmilla went on, as Moist examined the lock. The trouble with the wretched magical ones was that just about anything could be a key, from a word to a touch.

“It’s rather strange that he hangs all his clothes on the walls, isn’t it?” he said, straightening up.

Ludmilla looked disapproving. “We don’t use the word strange in this household.”

“Differently normal?” Moist suggested.

“That’ll do.” There was a warning glint in Ludmilla’s eye. “Who can say who is truly normal in this world?”

Well, being someone whose fingernails don’t visibly extend when they’re annoyed would be a definite candidate, thought Moist. “Well, we should get back to the bank,” he said. “If Mr. Bent turns up, do tell him that people are looking for him.”

“And care about him,” said Miss Drapes quickly, and then put a hand over her mouth and blushed.

I just want to make money, thought Moist, as he led the trembling Miss Drapes back to the area where cabs dared to go. I thought life in banking was profitable boredom punctuated by big cigars. Instead, it has turned out differently normal. The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I’m not sure about the turnip.

He dropped the snuffling Miss Drapes off at her lodgings in Welcome Soap, with a promise to let her know when the errant Mr. Bent broke cover, and took the cab onward to the bank. The night guards had already arrived, but quite a few clerks were still hanging around, apparently unable to come to terms with the new reality. Mr. Bent had been a fixture, like the pillars.

Cosmo had been round to see him. It wouldn’t have been a social call.

What had it been? A threat? Well, no one liked being beaten up. But perhaps it was more sophisticated. Perhaps it was we’ll tell people you are a vampire. To which a sensible person would reply: Stick it where the sun shineth not. That would have been a threat twenty years ago, but today? There were plenty of vampires in the city, neurotic as hell, wearing the black ribbon to show they’d signed the pledge, and in general getting on with, for want of a better word, their lives. Mostly, people just accepted it. Day after day went past with no trouble, and so the situation became regarded as normal. Differently normal, but still normal.

Okay, Mr. Bent had kept quiet about his past, but that was hardly a pitchforking matter. He’d been sitting in a bank for forty years doing sums, for heavens’ sake.

But perhaps he didn’t see it that way. You measured common sense with a ruler, other people measured it with a potato.

He didn’t hear Gladys approach. He just became aware that she was standing behind him.

“I Have Been Very Worried About You, Mr. Lipwig,” she rumbled.

“Thank you, Gladys,” he said cautiously.

“I Will Make You A Sandwich. You Like My Sandwiches.”

“That would be kind of you, Gladys, but Miss Dearheart will be joining me shortly for dinner upstairs.”