Making Money (38 page)

He looked up into the face of Sacharissa Cripslock.

“Sorry,” she said, “but there were watchmen and guards all around the place last night and we didn’t have much time. And frankly, Mr. Bent’s…attack was enough of a story in its own right. Everyone knows he runs the bank.”

“The chairman runs the bank,” said Moist stiffly.

“No, Moist, the chairman goes woof,” said Sacharissa. “Look, didn’t you sign anything when you took over the job? A receipt or something?”

“Well, maybe. There was a mass of paperwork. I just signed where I was told. So did Mr. Fusspot.”

“Ye gods, the lawyers would have fun with that,” said Sacharissa, her notebook magically appearing in her hand. “And it’s no joke, either.
*
He could end up in debtors’ prison!”

“Kennel,” said Moist. “He goes woof, remember? And that’s not going to happen.”

Sacharissa bent down to pat Mr. Fusspot on his little head, and froze in mid-bend.

“What has he got in his—?” she began.

“Sacharissa, can we go into this later? I really have not got time for it right now. I swear by any three gods you believe in, even though you are a journalist, that when this is over I will give you a story that will tax even the Times’ ability to avoid inelegant and suggestive subjects. Trust me.”

“Yes, but it looks like a—” she began.

“Ah, so you do know what it is and I don’t need to explain,” said Moist briskly.

He handed the paper back to its worried owner. “You are Mr. Cusper, aren’t you?” he said. “You have a balance of seven Ankh-Morpork dollars with us, I believe?” For a moment the man looked impressed. Moist was really good at faces. “I told you we aren’t bothered about gold here,” said Moist.

“Yeah, but…” the man began. “Well, it’s not much of a bank if people can take the gold out of it, is it?” he said.

“But it doesn’t make any difference,” said Moist. “I did tell you all.”

They looked uncertain. In theory, they should be stampeding up the steps. Moist knew what was holding them back. It was hope. It was the little voice inside that said: This isn’t really happening. It was the voice that drove people to turn out the same pocket three times in a fruitless search for lost keys. It was mad belief that the world is bound to start working properly again if I truly believe, and there will be keys. It was the voice that said “This can’t be happening” very loudly, in order to drown out the creeping dread that it was.

He had about thirty seconds, while hope lasted.

And then the crowd parted. Pucci Lavish did not know how to make an entrance. Harry King, on the other hand, did. The milling, uncertain throng opened up like the sea in front of a hydrophobic prophet, leaving a channel that was suddenly lined on either side by large, weathered-looking men with broken noses and a useful cross-section of scars. Along this recent avenue strode Harry King, trailing cigar smoke. Moist managed to stand his ground until Mr. King was a foot away, and made sure to look him in the eye.

“How much money did I put in your bank, Mr. Lipwig?” asked Harry.

“Er, I believe it was fifty thousand dollars, Mr. King,” said Moist.

“Yes, I believe it was something like that,” said Mr. King. “Can yer guess what I am going to do now, Mr. Lipwig?”

Moist did not guess. The Splot was still circulating in his system, and, in his brain, the answer clanged like a funeral bell. “You’re going to put some more in, aren’t you, Mr. King?”

Harry King beamed, as if Moist was a dog that had just done a new trick. “That’s right, Mr. Lipwig! I thought to myself, Harry, I thought, fifty thousand dollars seems a bit on the lonely side, so I’ve come along to round it up to sixty thousand dollars.”

On signal, some more of Harry King’s men came up behind him, carrying large chests between them. “Most of it’s gold and silver, Mr. Lipwig,” said Harry. “But I know you got lots of bright young men who can count it all up for you.”

“This is very kind of you, Mr. King,” said Moist, “but at any minute the auditors are going to come back and the bank is going to be in big, big trouble. Please! I can’t accept your money.”

Harry leaned closer to Moist, enveloping him in cigar smoke and a hint of decayed cabbage. “I know you’re up to something,” he whispered, tapping the side of his nose. “The bastards are out to get you, I can see that! I know a winner when I sees one, and I know you’ve got something up your sleeves, eh?”

“Just my arms, Mr. King, just my arms,” said Moist.

“And long may you keep them,” said Harry, slapping him on the back.

The men filed past Moist and deposited their cases on the floor.

“I don’t need a receipt,” said Harry. “You know me, Mr. Lipwig. You know you can trust me, just like I know I can trust you.”

Moist shut his eyes, just for a moment. To think that he had worried about ending the day hanging.

“Your money is safe with me, Mr. King,” he said.

“I know,” said Harry King. “And when you’ve won the day, I’ll send young Wallace along and he’ll have a little chat with your monkey about how much interest I’m gonna get paid on this little lot, all right? Fair’s fair?”

“It certainly is, Mr. King.”

“Right,” said Harry. “Now I’m off to buy some land.”

There was some uncertain murmuring from the crowd, as he departed. The new deposit had thrown them. It had thrown Moist, too. People were wondering what Harry King knew. So did Moist. It was a terrible thing, to have someone like Harry believing in you.

Now the crowd had evolved a spokesman, who said, “Look, what’s going on? Has the gold gone or not?”

“I don’t know,” said Moist. “I haven’t had a look today.”

“You say that as if it doesn’t matter,” said Sacharissa.

“Well, as I have explained,” Moist said, “the city is still here. The bank is still here. I am still here.” He cast a glance toward Harry King’s broad, retreating back. “For the moment. So we don’t need the gold cluttering up the place, do we?”

Cosmo Lavish appeared in the door behind Moist. “So, Mr. Lipwig, it would appear that you are a trickster to the end.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Moist.

Other members of the ad hoc audit committee were pushing their way out, looking satisfied. They had, after all, been woken up very early in the morning, and those who are awakened very early in the morning expect to kill before breakfast.

“Have you finished already?” said Moist.

“Surely you must know why we were brought here,” said one of the bankers. “You know very well that last night the City Watch found no gold in your vaults. We can confirm this unhappy state of affairs.”

“Oh well, you know how it is with money,” said Moist. “You think you are flat-broke and there it was all the time in your other trousers.”

“No, Mr. Lipwig, the joke is on you,” said Cosmo. “The bank is a sham.”

He raised his voice. “I would advise all the investors you have misled to take their money back while they can!”

“No! Squad, to me!”

Commander Vimes pushed his way through the bewildered bankers at the same time as half a dozen troll officers pounded up the steps and ended up shoulder to shoulder in front of the double doors.

“Are you a bloody fool, sir?” said Vimes, nose to nose with Cosmo. “That sounded to me like incitement to riot! This bank is closed until further notice!”

“I am a director of the bank, Commander,” said Cosmo. “You cannot keep me out.”

“Watch me,” said Vimes. “I suggest you direct your complaint to his lordship. Sergeant Detritus!”

“Yessir!”

“Nobody goes in there without a chitty signed by me. And Mr. Lipwig, you will not leave the city, understood?”

“Yes, Commander.” Moist turned to Cosmo. “You know, you’re not looking well,” he said. “That’s not a good complexion you have there.”

“No more words, Lipwig.” Cosmo leaned down. Up close, his face looked even worse, like the face of a wax doll, if a wax doll could sweat. “We’ll meet in court. It’s the end of the road, Mr. Lipwig. Or should I say…Mr. Spangler?”

Oh, gods, I should have done something about Cribbins, thought Moist. I was too busy trying to make money…

And there was Adora Belle, being ushered through the crowd by a couple of watchmen who were also acting as crutches. Vimes hurried down the steps as if he’d been expecting her.

Moist became aware that the background noise of the city was getting louder. The crowd had noticed it too. Somewhere, something big was happening, and this little confrontation was just a sideshow.

“You think you are clever, Mr. Lipwig?” said Cosmo.

“No, I know I am clever. I think I’m unlucky,” said Moist. But he thought: I didn’t have that many customers, surely? I can hear screams!

With triumphant shouting behind him, he pushed his way down to Adora Belle and the cluster of coppers.

“Your golems, right?” he said.

“Every golem in the city just stopped moving,” said Adora Belle. Their gazes met.

“They’re coming?” said Moist.

“Yes, I think they are.”

“Who are?” said Vimes suspiciously.

“Er, them?” said Moist, pointing.

A few people came running around the corner from the Maul and sprinted, gray-faced, past the crowd outside the bank. But they were only the flecks of foam driven before the tidal wave of people fleeing from the river area, and the wave of people broke on the bank as if it was a rock in the way of the flood.

Floating on the sea of heads, as it were, was a circular canvas about ten feet across, of the sort that gets used to catch people who very wisely jump from burning buildings. The four people carrying it were Dr. Hicks and four other wizards, and it was at this point you would notice the chalked circle and the magic symbols. In the middle of the portable magic circle sat Professor Flead, belaboring the wizards unsuccessfully with his ethereal staff. They fetched up alongside the steps as the crowd ran onward.

“I am sorry about this,” panted Hicks, “it’s the only way we could get him here and he insisted, oh how he insisted…”

“Where’s the young lady?” Flead shouted. His voice was barely audible in the living daylight. Adora Belle pushed her way through the policemen.

“Yes, Professor Flead?” she said.

“I have found your answer! I have spoken with several Umnians!”

“I thought they all died thousands of years ago!”

“Well, it is a department of necromancy,” Flead said. “But I must admit they were a wee bit indistinct, even for me. Can I have a kiss? One kiss, one answer?”

Adora Belle looked at Moist. He shrugged. The day was totally beyond him. He wasn’t flying anymore; he was simply being blown along by the gale.

“All right,” she said. “But no tongues.”

“Tongues?” said Flead sadly. “I wish.”

There was the briefest of pecks, but the ghostly necromancer beamed. “Wonderful,” he said. “I feel at least a hundred years younger.”

“You have done the translations?” said Adora Belle. And at that moment Moist felt a vibration under foot.

“What? Oh that,” said Flead. “It was those gold golems you were talking about—”

—and another vibration, enough to cause a sense of unease in the bowels—

“—although it turns out that the word in context doesn’t mean ‘gold’ at all. There are more than one hundred and twenty things it can mean, but in this case, taken in conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, it means ‘a thousand.’”

The street shook again.

“Four thousand golems, I think you’ll find,” said Flead cheerfully. “Oh, and here they are now!”

T
HEY CAME ALONG
the streets six abreast, wall to wall and ten feet high, water and mud cascading off of them. The city echoed to their tread.

They did not trample people, but mere market stalls and coaches splintered under their massive feet. They spread out as they moved, fanning out across the city, thundering down side streets, heading for the gates of Ankh-Morpork, which were always open, because there was no point in discouraging customers.

And there were the horses, perhaps no more than a score in all the hurrying throng, saddles built into the clay of their backs, overtaking the two-legged golems, and not a man watched but thought: Where can I get one of those? The rest of the golems marched on with the sound of thunder, heading out of the city.

One man-shaped golem stopped in the middle of Sator Square, dropped on one knee, raised a fist as if in salute, and went still. The horses halted beside it, as if awaiting riders.

And when the many-walled city of Ankh-Morpork had one more wall, out beyond the gates, they stopped. As one, they raised their right hands in a fist. Shoulder to shoulder, ringing the city, the golems…guarded. Silence fell.

In Sator Square, Commander Vimes looked up at the poised fist and then at Moist.

“Am I under arrest?” said Moist meekly.

Vimes sighed. “Mr. Lipwig,” he said, “there’s no word for what you are.”

T
HE PALACE’S BIG
ground-floor council room was packed. Most people had to stand. Every guild, every interest group, and everyone who just wanted to say they had been there…was there. The crowd overflowed into the palace grounds and out onto the streets. Children were climbing on the golem in the square, despite the efforts of the watchmen who were guarding it.
*

There was a large ax buried in the big table, Moist noticed; the force of it had split the wood. It had clearly been there for some time. Perhaps it was some kind of warning, or some kind of symbol. This was a council of war, after all, but without the war.

“—However, we are already getting some very threatening notes from the other cities,” said Lord Vetinari, “so it is only a matter of time.”

“Why?” said Archchancellor Ridcully of Unseen University, who had managed to get a seat by dint of elevating its protesting occupant out of it. “All the things are doin’ is standin’ around outside the walls, yes?”

“Quite so,” said Vetinari, “and it’s called aggressive defense. That is practically a declaration of war.” He gave a sad little sigh, the sign of a brain shifting down a gear. “May I remind you of the famous dictum of General Tacticus: ‘Those who desire war, prepare for war’? Our city is surrounded by a wall of creatures each one of which, I gather, could only be stopped by a siege weapon. Miss Dearheart,” he paused to give Adora Belle a sharp little smile, “has been kind enough to bring Ankh-Morpork an army capable of conquering the world, although I’m happy to accept her assurance that she didn’t actually mean to.”