Whispering Nickel Idols (2 page)

I worry about being one of the other four. I have no trouble seeing the logic of reducing four to a more manageable three. Or even two.

The Outfit may collapse into civil war when the underbosses find out that their orders come from a woman. Though Belinda has worked hard to restructure the organization, advancing people she finds more congenial.

I didn’t want to attend Chodo’s party. Too many people connect me with the Contagues already. My being there would only convince the secret police that I’m more significant than I am.

Beyond the accusatory note, the packet contained documents signed by Chodo. Before the incident that resulted in his coma, presumably. Maybe Chodo saw it coming.

Harvester Temisk held the opinion that his employer conspired against the future as a matter of course.

He had given Temisk a power of attorney, picked some fool named Garrett to handle his mouthpiece’s legwork.

All through his dark career Chodo had guessed right. He’d been in the right place at the right time. The exception — perhaps — having been that one time when it had become possible for his daughter to live a nightmare, keeping the man she hated most where she could torment him daily.

The Contagues aren’t your ideal, warm and loving, fuzzy family. They never were. Chodo murdered Belinda’s mother when he found out she was cheating on him. Belinda is still working on forgiving him. She hasn’t had much luck.

Dean arrived with breakfast.

Temisk didn’t say what he wanted me to do. Mostly, he was worried about whether or not I would keep my word.

I thought and ate and couldn’t conjure one workable way to weasel out of the obligation.

I owed Chodo. Multiple ways. He’d helped me frequently, without being asked. He’d known me well enough to understand that I’d trudge through life oppressed by the imbalance.

As well as always being in the right place at the right time, Chodo understood what made people work. Except Belinda. The mad daughter was his blind spot. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in a wheelchair drooling on himself.

Dean brought more tea. “Do we have a new case?” He was up to something for sure.

“No. I’m about to pay the vig on an old debt.” He grunted, underwhelmed.

3

Pular Singe wandered in later. She didn’t fit well, on account of her tail. She lugged a big, steaming bowl of stewed apples. “Want some?” She was addicted to stewed apples, a food you don’t usually associate with rats.

“No, thank you.”

TunFaire is infested with rats, including two species of the regular vermin and several kinds of ratpeople. Ratpeople are intelligent, smaller than human critters, with ancestors who came to life in the laboratories of mad sorcerers early last century. As ratpeople go, Singe is a genius. The smartest I’ve ever met, the bravest, and the best tracker ever.

“What’ll you do after you’ve gobbled this year’s whole apple crop?”

She eyed me speculatively, sorting potential meanings. Ratpeople have no natural sense of humor. Singe does have one, but it’s learned and can take a bizarre turn.

She knows that when I ask a question with no obvious connection to daily reality, I’m usually teasing. She even manages the occasional comeback.

This wasn’t one of those times. “Is there a new case?” She hisses, dealing with her sibilants. Those old-time sorcerers hadn’t done much to make it easy for rats to talk.

“Nothing I’m going to get paid for.” I told her about Chodo Contague and my old days.

Singe got hold of her tail, wrapped it around her, and hunkered into a squat. We have only one chair tha suits the way she’s built. That’s in the Dead Man’s room. Her usual dress is drab, durable work clothing tailored to her odd dimensions.

Though they walk on their hind legs like people, ratfolk have short legs and long bodies. Not to mention funny arms. And tails that drag.

“So you blame yourself for what happened to that man.” Clever rodent.

“Even though it was unavoidable.”

Time to change the subject. “Got any idea what Dean is up to?”

Singe still isn’t used to how human thought zigs and zags. Her genius is relative. She’s a phenom for a rat. As a human she’d be on the slow side of average — though that fades as she gets a better handle on how things work.

“I did not notice anything unusual. Except the bucket of kittens under the stove.” Her nose wrinkled. Her whiskers wiggled. No cat smaller than a saber-tooth was likely to trouble her, but she had the instincts of her ancestors.

“I knew it. Kittens, eh? He hasn’t tried that for awhile.”

“Don’t be angry. His heart is in the right place.”

“His heart may be. But he does this stuff at my expense.”

“You can afford it.”

“I could if I didn’t waste wages on a do-nothing housekeeper.”

“Do not yell at him.”

That would take half the fun out of having Dean around. “I won’t yell. I’ll just get him a pail of water. Or maybe a gunnysack with a brick in it.”

“You are awful.” Then she observed, “You have a lot to do if you are going to be ready for the birthday party.”

True. Besides the business of getting cleaned up and dressed up, I needed to visit Harvester Temisk.

“I just had a great idea. I can take those baby cats along tonight and give them away as party favors.”

“You are so bad. Go see them before you decide their fates.”

“Cute don’t work on me.”

“Unless it comes in girl form.”

“You got me there.”

“Come see the kittens. Before Dean finds a better place to hide them.” She rose, collected her empty bowl and my tray. We were getting domestic.

“How do you hide a bucket of kittens? They’d be everywhere.”

“These are well-behaved kittens.”

That sounded like an oxymoron. “I’ll just look in on the old bone bag, then be right with you.”

4

One weak candle burned in the Dead Man’s room. As always. It’s not there to provide illumination. It gives off smoke that most bugs find repugnant.

Old Bones has been dead a long time. But his species, the Loghyr, get in no hurry to leave their flesh. When they’re awake they do a fair job of discouraging vermin. But my partner has a tendency toward sloth, as well as championship procrastination. He’s getting raggedy.

The candles work pretty good on people, too. They don’t smell much sweeter than the northernmost extremity of a southbound polecat.

I try to keep the Dead Man’s door closed. But kids keep wandering in. They never leave anything the way they find it.

I entered the kitchen saying, “His Nibs is really asleep. I dumped my trick bag. Nothing worked.” Dean looked worried. Singe sort of collapsed in on herself.

“It ain’t a big deal. He’s taking a nap. We always get through his off-seasons.” Dean didn’t want to be reminded, though. I never do things the way he wants them done.

I said, “So, Dean, I hear tell a tribe of baby cats has infiltrated my kitchen.”

“They aren’t ordinary kittens, Mr. Garrett. They’re part of an ancient prophecy.”

“A modern prophecy has them taking a trip down the river in a gunnysack with a couple broken bricks as companions on the voyage. What’re you babbling about?”

“Penny isn’t just another street urchin. She’s a priestess.”

I poured some tea, eyed the bucket of cats. They looked like gray tabby babies. Though there was something strange about them. “A priestess. Right.” No surprise in TunFaire, the most god-plagued city that ever was.

“She’s the last priestess of A-Lat. From Ymber. She ran off to TunFaire after her mother was murdered by zealots from the cult of A-Laf. Who’re in TunFaire now, looking for the kittens.”

Somebody had gotten somebody to invest heavily in off-river wetlands. Similar scams are out there every day. People turn blind stupid if you say there’s a god involved.

Even Singe looked skeptical. She said, “They are cats, Dean.” Coolly.

“Ymber, eh?” I had only vague knowledge of that little city. It’s up the river several days’ journey. It has problems with thunder lizards. It’s supposedly a party town, ruled by a very loose goddess of love,

peace, and whatnot. Ymber ships grain, fruit, sheep, cattle, and timber to TunFaire. And lately, thunder lizard hides. It’s not known for exporting religious refugees. Or zealots.

One of TunFaire’s own main products is flimflam folk. Though I did not, immediately, see how the girl could sting Dean with a bucket of cats.

The religious angle was suggestive, though.

I said, “I’m listening. I haven’t heard how the cats tie in.”

“They’re the Luck of A-Lat.”

I tried to get more than that. He clammed. Probably because that’s all he knew.

“I’ll have to bring the big guy in on it, then.” The whole front of the house shuddered. I growled like a hungry dire wolf. I’ve had it with people trying to break down my door.

5

My current front door was next best to a castle gate. I had it installed on account of the last one got busted regularly by large, usually hairy, always uncouth, violent fellows. The character I spied through the spy hole, rubbing his shoulder and looking dimly bewildered, fit all those categories. Especially hairy. Except the top of his head. Its peak glistened.

He wore clothes but looked like Bigfoot’s country cousin. With worse fashion sense. Definitely a mixed breed. Maybe including some troll, some giant, gorilla, or bear. All his ancestors must’ve enjoyed the double uglies. He hadn’t just gotten whipped with an ugly stick — a whole damned tree fell on him, then took root.

“Wow!” I said. “You guys got to see this. He’s wearing green plaid pants.”

Nobody answered. Dean was fumbling with a crossbow. Singe had disappeared. Nothing could be felt

from the great blob of sagging meat who was supposed to apply ferocious mental powers at times like this.

The door took another mighty hit. Plaster dust shook loose everywhere. I used the peephole again. Yeti man wasn’t alone. Two more just like him, also in baggy green plaid, polluted my steps. Behind

them lurked a guy who might’ve been their trainer. He wore an anxious exapnredssaionhideous pair of

pants.

A crowd began to gather.

Most of the adult pixies from my colony were out.

Some buzzed around like huge, colorful bumblebees. Some perched in nooks and crannies, poised for action. And, of all people to reveal a hitherto unsuspected talent for timing, I spied my pal Saucerhead Tharpe half a block down the street. I glimpsed Penny Dreadful, too. I strolled back to my office, flirted with Eleanor, dug through the clutter, ferreted out my lead-weighted oaken knobknocker. The stick is a useful conversational ploy if I get to chatting with overly excitable gentlemen like the hair ball out front.

Said gentleman continued exercising his shoulder. My door remained stubbornly unmoved by the brute side of the force. “You ready yet, Dean? Just point the business end between his eyes when he stops rolling.”

I stepped up to the peephole. Big Hairy was rubbing his other shoulder. He looked down at the man in the street. That guy nodded. One more try.

Saucerhead stood around awaiting events. Big Hairy charged.

I opened the door. He barked as he plunged inside, somehow tripping on my foot. My toy made a satisfying thwock! on the back of his skull.

The other two hairy boys started to charge, too, but became distracted as their pelts started to crawl with tiny people armed with tiny weapons. Really, really sharp little weapons. All crusty brown with poison.

Singe leaned down from the porch roof, poking around with a rapier. Its tip was all crusty, too. She’d picked up Morley’s wicked habit.

Saucerhead grabbed the guy in the street, slapped him till he stopped wiggling, tucked the guy under one arm, then asked, “What’re you into now?”

“I don’t got a clue,” I said. “You didn’t break that guy, did you?”

“He’s breathing. He’ll wake up. Might wish that he didn’t, though, when he does. You want to go clubbing tonight?”

“Can’t. I’ve got a command performance. Chodo’s birthday party.”

“Yeah? Hey! Is that at night? Damn! I forgot. I’m supposed to. work security.” Tharpe started walking away.

“Hey!”

“Oh. Yeah. What do you want me to do with this guy?”

“Put him down and head on out. Relway’s Runners are coming.”

An urban police force sounds like a good idea. And it is. If it don’t go getting in your way. Which it’s likely to do if you spend time tiptoeing around the edge of the law.

Three Watchmen materialized. Two were regular patrolmen. The third was a Relway Runner. Scithe. He recognized me, too. “You just draw trouble, Garrett.” He eyed my house nervously. The Runners

are the visible face of the secret police, known by their red flop caps and military weaponry. They have a

lot of power but don’t like getting inside reading range of mind-peekers like the Dead Man. I said, “He’s asleep.”

Nothing lies more convincingly than the truth. My reassuring Scithe assured him only that the Dead Man was pawing through every dark recess of his empty skull.

He stuck to his job, though. “What were these guys up to, Garrett?”

“Trying to kick my door in.” He had to ask. I know. I have to ask a lot of dumb stuff, too. Because you have to have the answers to build toward more significant stuff.

“Why?”

“You’ll have to ask them. I’ve never seen them before. I’d remember. Look at those pants.” While we chatted, the patrolmen bound the hairy boys’ wrists. “There’s another one of those inside, guys. My man’s got the drop on him.” I moved toward the character that Saucerhead dropped. I wanted to ask questions before they dragged him off to an Al-Khar cell.

A patrolman called from the house, “This asshole won’t cooperate, Scithe.”

“Keep hitting him. His attitude will improve.” Scithe blew his whistle. Seconds after, whistles answered from all directions.

I stirred the unconscious man with my foot. “These guys have a foreign look.”

Scithe grunted. “I can tell right off you’re a trained detective. You realized no local tailor would ruin his reputation that way. People! Gather round. What happened here?” He was talking to onlookers who’d come out to be entertained.