The Dragon Done It (5 page)

"Oh, don't be such a sissy!" said Harry. "She's just a fat wrinkled old broad. Go up and take the gun away from her."

Suddenly the Magnum was aimed right between Harry's eyes.

"What did you call me?" asked Winnifred.

"It was a term of endearment!" cried Harry. "My wife's a fat wrinkled old broad, and I love her with a passion that knows no bounds."

"Or loyalty," put in the leprechaun.

"You shut up!" snapped Harry. "You're her target! I'm just a distraction."

The elf looked at his bare wrist. "My, my," he said. "Eleven twenty-six and forty seconds already. Time for me to clock out."

"What are you talking about?" demanded the leprechaun. "We don't punch a clock!"

"I have three personal days and two weeks of vacation coming to me," said the elf stubbornly. "I'm taking them right now."

The troll sidled over to Mallory. "Pathetic, aren't they?" he said. "They just don't know how to deal with new situations."

"How would
you
deal with it?" asked Mallory.

"Easy," said the troll. He pulled out a five-dollar bill and slipped it to Mallory. "When you go in to see the boss, tell him we scared the shit out of you."

Mallory returned the bill. "I don't think so."

"What kind of demented fiend won't accept an honestly-offered bribe?" demanded the troll.

"A fiend who's getting tired of trolls, elves, goblins and leprechauns," said Mallory.

"Did you hear that?" shrieked the troll. "Tired of
us
? You're
sick
, Mallory! Sick! I'll see you later!"

He started walking away.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked Winnifred.

"To file a complaint with the union," said the troll.

"I'd better go with you," said the leprechaun, quickly joining him. "They may want corroborative testimony."

"Good point!" chimed in the elf, falling into step. "I'll support both of your stories."

"What about you?" Mallory asked Harry the goblin.

"I'm just a spear carrier in the vast tapestry of the fat old broad's life," replied the goblin with a sudden show of confidence. "She doesn't care about me."

"What makes you think so?" asked Winnifred, lining him up in her sights.

"Mallory, tell her it's not sporting to shoot someone with glasses!"

"You're not wearing any glasses," said Winnifred.

"I left them at home," said Harry. "But if I'd known what kind of tempers you fat old broads had, I'd have worn them to work."

"Get out of here," said Winnifred.

"No offense intended," said Harry quickly.

"Now!" said Winnifred, firing a shot into the concrete just in front of his feet.

Harry proceeded to run the fastest fifty yards on record, and was threatening Secretariat's time for the mile and a half when he raced out of sight.

Mallory turned to Felina. "Thanks for your help," he said sardonically.

"I'm sulking," said the cat-girl. "You wouldn't let me kill any of them, but you let the fat old broad shoot at them."

"Watch it, cat," said Winnifred ominously.

"Shall we get to work?" said Mallory. Winnifred nodded, and Mallory turned to Felina. "You stay out here until you learn how to behave." She turned her back on him and concentrated on licking her forearm. Then, as he opened the door, he felt ninety pounds leap onto his back.

"I forgive you, John Justin," purred Felina.

"Welcome back," said Marvin the Mystic, standing up to greet them. "I had a feeling you'd be returning."

"Well, you
did
lie to me before," said Mallory.

"It was privileged information," said Marvin. "A matter of mage/client confidentiality."

"Call it what you will," said Mallory. "You lied."

"I prefer to think that I refused to betray a sacred trust."

"Do you know how many years in the slammer you could get for not betraying that particular sacred trust?"

"I was mostly truthful," replied Marvin. "You asked me if I had any grudge against Micro and Macro, and I told you truthfully that I didn't, that they were my good friends."

"Then why did you put a spell on them?" asked Mallory.

"They're my friends, and the salt of the earth and all," answered Marvin, "but friends come and go. Money stays."

"Not when John Justin goes to the track, it doesn't," said Felina helpfully.

"Who paid you to do it?" asked Mallory.

"You're the detective," said Marvin. "Can't you guess?"

"How many women in the show?"

"Seventy-three."

"That narrows it down to seventy-two suspects," said Mallory. "It doesn't really matter. We're not cops, and we're not here to arrest anyone, but my money's on Madame Nadine."

"Why her?" asked Marvin.

"She's the one who warned you I was coming."

"Well, you're partly right," said Marvin. "That's not bad for one morning's work. If I ever need a detective, you're the man I'll come to."

"Reverse the spell or you're going to need an intensive care unit long before you need a detective," said Winnifred, who hadn't put her Magnum away.

"You don't have to return the money," said Mallory. "Like I said, we're not cops. All our clients want is for you to reverse the spell."

"That's all
my
clients want too," said Marvin with a sigh.

"Explain," said Winnifred.

"It wasn't just Madame Nadine," said the magician. "She delivered the money, but
all
the women were jealous of Circe. They offered to pay me to turn her into a sea slug, or a fat old wrinkled broad"—he missed Winnifred's outraged glare—"or something like that. But no red-blooded man would ever do that to anything as perfect as—" a deep sigh "—Circe, so I told them no. Then the women decided that if they couldn't have Micro and Macro, they'd take up a collection—Madame Nadine paid me, but they all chipped in—and fix it so they would have to leave the show and Circe couldn't have them either."

"Okay, that's about what I figured once I saw Circe," said Mallory.

"Isn't she something?" said Marvin enthusiastically. "You get the feeling that if you live an absolutely perfect life, she'll be waiting for you at the end of it."

"I don't think I want to hear any more of this," said Winnifred irritably.

"Let's have the rest of it, Marvin," said Mallory.

"It turned out that the women missed Micro and Macro so much they decided half a loaf—well, actually, about an eighth of a loaf once Circe arrived—was better than none. So they offered me double what they'd paid me to reverse the spell."

"Then why didn't you?"

"I
can't
!" Marvin said miserably. "This spell can only be stopped. It can't be reversed."

"You're sure?"

"They're my friends. Why would I do this to them? And more to the point, the money was twice as good."

"So if you stop it today, they'll each be six-footers for the rest of their lives?" said Mallory.

"That's right."

"Could you make me big enough to kill and eat a gorgon?" asked Felina hopefully.

"Certainly," said Marvin. "After all, I
am
Marvin the Mystic." He frowned. "But I couldn't make you small again."

"I'd be too big to sleep on top of the refrigerator," said Felina. "Maybe you could shrink one of the gorgons instead. They look so tasty!"

"John Justin," said Winnifred, "you suddenly have the strangest expression on your face."

"Felina just gave me an idea," said Mallory. "Marvin, can I borrow your cell phone for a minute?"

The magician muttered a chant and snapped his fingers, and suddenly Mallory found a Louisville Slugger in his hand.

"Oops, wrong spell," said Marvin apologetically. He tried again, and this time Mallory wound up with a phone.

"I'm just going to step out into the locker room for a couple of minutes to make a private call," he said. "I'll be right back."

He left the office, and Felina spent the next few minutes naming every monster in the circus and asking Marvin if he could shrink it to the point where she could play with it a bit before killing and eating it.

"Okay," said Mallory, reentering the office. "I've spoken to our clients, and I've come up with a solution that's acceptable to them—and, I think, to all parties involved."

"What is it?" asked Marvin and Winnifred in unison. Felina, who wanted to ask about still more animals, turned her back and stared intently at a wall.

"They both agree that they're a little long in the tooth to retrain. They
like
doing nothing but being short and tall—and being irresistable to women, of course."

"But I can't put them back the way they were," said Marvin. "I've already explained that."

"You can do the next best thing," said Mallory.

"I don't follow you."

"You said you can stop the spell, you just can't reverse it, right?"

"That's right."

"Then let Macro keep shrinking until he's nineteen inches tall, and stop him there. And let Micro keep growing until he's ten feet."

"They don't mind?" asked Marvin, surprised.

"They'll still be the world's tallest giant and smallest midget, and they'll still have more girlfriends than they know what to do with."

"Oh, they knew what to do with them," said Marvin. "That's why the women tried to pay me to reverse the spells." Suddenly his eyes widened. "I could accept their fee now, couldn't I? I mean, they wanted a big one and a little one, and that's what they're going to get." He turned to Mallory. "Of course, I'd slip you ten percent for keeping your mouth shut. And ten percent for the fa—for the lovely lady with the gun. Maybe I'll even shrink a three-headed dragon down for your cat."

"It's not necessary," said Mallory. "We're getting paid enough by our clients."

"And we don't think much of your business practices," added Winnifred harshly.

"I thought fat people were supposed to be jolly," said Marvin.

He hit the floor a fraction of a second before the bullet passed through the spot where he'd been and tore into the wall behind him.

Felina refused to speak to Mallory all the way home, and announced her intention of never saying another word to him until he went back and let Marvin shrink a dragon for her. Her resolve lasted almost half an hour, when she decided to forgive him and let him skritch between her shoulder blades.

Micro and Macro returned to the circus the next morning. Just before dinnertime a week later there was a knock at the office door. Mallory opened it and stepped aside as a uniformed delivery man brought in seventy-three long-stemmed roses, each with a scented thank-you note.

Winnifred decided to burn the notes before Mallory could answer them. Especially the one with the faint odor of a centaur still on it.

The man in the hat burst through my office door, closely followed by the bullet that killed him.

Don't you just hate that?

Me, I kept my feet up on the desk. Sometimes it just doesn't do to move too fast. All the same, even before the big guy hit the floor I was reaching for the desk holster. I didn't release it though, not yet. I just held my finger over the lever and stared out the open door into the rain.

It's hard to see much through the rain. Of course, it's always raining here, which is why I never use the door. There's more than one way in and out of this office. It's ten years now since I took over the business and I've already found eighty-nine exits. I figure that's around half. I use whichever one suits the case. The door I leave to the clients.

So there I was, feet on top of the desk, fingers itching underneath it, with rain lashing in and a man with a hat on, breathing his last on the floor. I kept one eye on the rain and flicked the other towards my visitor.

"You all right, buddy?" I said.

What came out of the guy's mouth was muffled, on account of his face being buried in the carpet. But I did catch two words: ". . . 
hilfe . . ."
and ". . . 
knock
 . . ."

Another bullet cut through the rain. Whining like a mosquito, it struck the steel sole of my left shoe and ricocheted into the coffee-machine. Like I said, it doesn't always do to move too fast.

With a shriek, the machine shattered, spraying hot coffee up the wall. I ground my teeth in fury—that coffee-machine and I went back a long, long way. But still I didn't move.

I let the next four bullets hit my feet before pulling the lever. The desk holster launched the little pistol into my hand.
Then
I moved.

Rolling off the chair, I jumped the man in the hat and shouldered the door shut. Just in time: the invisible shooter had already reloaded. Six fresh bullets bounced off the glass, just below my nameplate. I told the door to stay shut, no matter what, and heard the satisfying clicking sounds as it dead-bolted itself into the floor.

Knowing I was safe, I knelt down beside my visitor. The carpet he'd buried his face in was now soaked in blood as well as rainwater. Each time he breathed out he made little red bubbles. He made three more bubbles before giving up for good.

Great. Now I had a corpse on my hands, my office was a crime scene and I had to get my carpet cleaned—again.

And things just kept getting better.

I was about to roll the stiff on to his back, so as to get a good look at his face, when he started to twitch.
Undead
, I thought at once. It was the obvious conclusion. Feeling in need of a little extra protection, I tucked the pistol into my shoulder holster and grabbed my coat off the wall. Some folk might think it odd that a guy like me should turn to his coat in times of trial but, trust me, that coat and I go back even further than the coffee-machine.

I turned the coat inside-out four times until its lining was made of titanium (chain links, herringbone weave) and put it on.

When I turned back to look at the dead man in the hat, he was already halfway through changing into a wolf.

Okay, a word about werewolves. You've seen it all before. We all have. Feet stretching out to become enormous paws, fur exploding everywhere, this great, fanged muzzle punching out from inside the guy's jaw . . . all accompanied by a sound like a championship knuckle-cracking team making popcorn in a fireworks factory. Yeah, there was all that—there always is—but what most folk don't realize is that there's this weird kind of
beauty
to it all. No really, trust me, there is.