Whispering Nickel Idols (26 page)

I stared at Kolda. Stared and stared. The man almost killed me. Though not deliberately. Teacher White asked for a tool. Kolda delivered. He would’ve sold the same drug to me if I’d asked, with silver in hand.

He does not know who you are.

“Too bad. Suppose we put him to work.” I’d get even later.

Before he started on the Green Pants crew, the Dead Man rifled Kolda’s head. He didn’t find much. You have brought women home who have more between the ears
.

“Hey! Tinnie resents that!” Knowing he wouldn’t have included her in his last.

He is a power within his own field, however. He could write a major grimoire on medicinal herbs. He is not a social creature. Though he does have a wife and three children.

“Marvelous. Good for him. I can barely keep my eyes open. Before I fall asleep I’d like to know if you mined any nuggets out of these fools.”

Kolda and the Ymberian foreman became suspicious. Kolda turned scared. The Dead Man calmed him down, set him up to record what he dug out of the other two.

Ah. Here is an interesting tidbit. Our once-upon-a-time friends Mr. Crash and Mr. Sadler began their careers as sextons in the A-Laf cult. Chodo Contague suborned them. Not that they were especially devout. Being sextons allowed them to indulge their needs to hurt people.

That sounded like those boys. And my old pal Chodo.

The Dead Man made the equivalent of a girlish squeal of dismay.

“What?” I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Tinnie had gone up to bed already. But she’d had a hard few days.

The smaller one has hidden defenses. Nasty ones. He is pulling them together now. He has only just realized the truth of his situation.

“A little slow, is he?” Not surprising, though. A lot of line boss types amble around with their heads stuck in dark and smelly places.

Our friends in the Unpublished Committee treated him with a preparatory drug, too. Therefore, he is slower than he might be.

Ouch!

“What?”

There are mousetraps in there. I got a finger nipped. This will be challenging.
He was excited.
And dangerous. He has some minor training in the use of sorcery
.

Oh, hell. What did I get myself into now?

I’d worry about it after another nap. If Butterbutt didn’t provoke the Ymberian into imploding the house.

54

Three hours was time enough to restore me to a functional level.

There’d been changes. Saucerhead had turned up. He nursed a mug of something warm. John Stretch was in Singe’s personal chair, hard at work on a big bowl of stewed apples. My mouth watered. Melondie Kadare was absent. I hadn’t seen her for a while. The weather must have caught up with her tribe.

Singe brought me a bowl. Summoned by Chuckles, no doubt. It was gruel.

“I see the place is still standing.” Both the Ugly Pants foot soldier and Ugly Pants manager appeared to be sleeping.

The most powerful wizard who ever lived cannot work his wickedness if he cannot focus. The key to sorcery is will and concentration.

What might the Dead Man be doing inside the deacon’s skull? He had me confused and boggled without even trying.

“Good to know. To what do we owe the honor of foul-weather visits from Saucerhead Tharpe and John Stretch?”

Ask them. I am occupied. As you proceed, however, go through the pockets of the sexton.

Singe brought John Stretch another bowl of apples and a mug of beer. Saucerhead had a beer himself. Singe is a generous girl when it isn’t her purse that’s being drained.

Saucerhead seemed less likely to be distracted. “So what’s the word?”

“I got your rock back. Bitte put up a fight, but actually, I brung that back when you was still sick. It’s on your curio shelf.”

We have a set of shelves where we keep memorabilia. Some are good for a chuckle. Now that the pain has gone away.

“Thanks. And?”

“I been going on tracking down all those times where somebody caught on fire and died.”

That must’ve been exciting. Maybe the gods did me a big favor, letting me get poisoned. “So?”

“So I started with forty-one cases where human combustion was supposed to be involved. That was bullshit, mostly.”

Huh? “All right. Go on.”

“Well, right away I found six times when what it was, it was kitchen accidents. Grease fires. And with the other cases, almost every time they was a ordinary explanation. What’re you doing to that guy?”

“Rolling him. Chuckles thinks he has something in his pocket.”

Singe, pandering to our freeloaders, asked, “How is the new girlfriend?”

Color appeared in Tharpe’s cheeks.

I said, “Huh?”

Far be it from me to discourage a man, however hopeless. I did not pursue it now, though I did wonder how Saucerhead had found time to get involved with another woman. “So most of the supposed. what did you call them? Human combustions?”

“Yeah. Spontaneous human combustion. It’s sorcerer talk.”

Really? We’d look at that later. “So most weren’t what rumors make them out to be.”

“Nope. They was some that there wasn’t no explanation for, though. I got the feeling some more could be explained if somebody can work themselves up to admit that they done something really stupid. But, even so, some has got to be them spontaneous human combustions.”

“Including Buy Claxton?”

“Who?”

“The woman who caught fire during Chodo’s birthday party.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about her. I didn’t look at her. But she was in a kitchen when it happened, wasn’t she? What did you find?”

I’d found a little green egg in Big Boy’s pocket. A dead ringer for the one on my curio shelf. Interesting. Some secret mutual identification charm for members of A-Lafs gang?

My partner could root that out.

“How many cases?”

“Seven that need a closer look on account of they all involved Chodo.”

“Ah. Ah?”

“Chodo owned the places where the fires happened. Some of the other ones, too, but in these ones Chodo was there.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Not hardly. You’re my favorite turd.”

“Saucerhead. We’re in mixed company here.”

“As mixed as it gets, I’d say.”

“Talk to me about Chodo’s part.”

“He was there. Every time. Hang on. I might be misspeaking. Somebody in a wheeled chair was there before the fires happened. But not when the bodies was found.”

At this point Saucerhead’s marvelous legwork petered out. Meaning there might yet be legwork reserved for me.

I went through the other Ymberian’s pockets. He didn’t have his own roc’s egg. He did come equipped with a little teak box. Inside: “One of them metal dogs.” Frost formed on it. Despair hit like a kick in the gilhoolies. Whispers of darkness filled my head. I just managed to shut the box. “Whoa! That was ugly.”

Saucerhead and John Stretch were glassy-eyed, with Tharpe smitten harder than the ratman. Cutlery hit the floor in the kitchen. A-Lafs boys didn’t react. Because the Dead Man had frozen up. Those he controlled had followed his lead.

Old Bones had taken the psychic equivalent of a punch to the breadbasket. He huffed and puffed, on the mental side, getting his balance back.

“That was some bad shit,” Saucerhead rumbled, shivering. “How about you don’t open that friggin’ box no more?”

“You got a deal, buddy.”

55

The situation improved once those of us who weren’t guests of the Crown surrounded a few beers. I told John Stretch, “You’ve been quiet.”

“As a mouse.” A joke? “My mouth has been full.”

“You got a point. It’s not full now, though. What’s up?”

“We have located your lawyer.”

“What?” I chomped down on Harvester Temisk’s name in a moment of paranoia. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did. And your partner has known since my arrival.” John Stretch no longer seemed intimidated. “There is no need for haste.”

It was night out and winter out and the Dead Man wasn’t excited about getting something done right away.
Maybe it could wait
.

Saucerhead reminded me, “Chodo don’t move so fast and light no more, Garrett. I figure, wherever the mouthpiece has got him stashed, that’s where he’ll stay till he gets flushed out.”

“That’s the common wisdom now? That Temisk kidnapped him at Whitefield Hall?”

“Ain’t no better theory ever come up. Some folks even wonder if the Green Pants guys wasn’t just a diversion for to cover his getaway.”

Interesting theory. “And, flushes him?” What? I felt an idea trying to be born. Kolda. Yeah. And my late bout with herbal poisoning. “Hey. Old Bones. What’re the chances Belinda’s been poisoning her old man? Temisk might be trying to get him straight.”

If so, the woman is more clever than we credit. She has been here many times, betraying only her ongoing complicity in profiting from her father’s misfortune. In the financial and emotional senses alike.

There may be substance to your speculation, however. If other parties had regular access.

“Didn’t Merry say Rory has somebody inside?”

Interesting. Yes. Let me reflect on the possibilities.

“It would explain some stuff. You sure I shouldn’t hit the bricks right now?”

You are not yet recovered.

John Stretch said, “My people will keep watch.”

That wasn’t reassuring. Ratfolk are notorious for cashing in on anything salable. The whereabouts of the kingpin might be the most marketable commodity in TunFaire today.

John Stretch tried to reassure me. “My watchers do not know who they have staked out. They believe we are watching a burglary ring whose plunder hoard we intend to convert to our own advantage. They know only that they are to inform me who goes in and out.”

This ratguy was a natural. Dangerously bright. “Can you track somebody to their next hideout in this weather?”

“Singe can.”

I was skeptical.

Your anxiety is understandable, Garrett. And not misplaced. But you must regain strength. You are not yet capable of an extended journey, let alone physical excitement.

“If John Stretch can find them, so can Rory or Teacher.” Chodo had had friends on the Hill. No doubt Rory Sculdyte did, too. Those people and Syndicate bosses are sides of the same coin, down in their bloody, greedy black hearts.

And there are countless low-talent, self-taught storefront and street-corner magicians. Not all of them are charlatans.

“Good work, all,” I said. “What do I owe you, Saucerhead? After deductions for food and beer?”

“What? You got no sense of hospitality. I wouldn’t never try to charge you if you was a guest at my place.”

“How do I know that? I don’t even know where you live.”

Saucerhead showed me one of his professional hard-guy looks. It didn’t take. After a pause, he said, “Singe paid me.”

“If I go get in line now, a place might open up in the workhouse before I’m completely destitute.”

“I wish I was half as bad off as you’re always poor-mouthing. I’d have to go live on the street.”

I could see how. Saucerhead comes equipped with low expectations and a knack for showing up at suppertime.

John Stretch told me, “The stewed apples and Weider’s Select are compensation enough for me.” He had to work at “compensation.”

I nodded but thought, “Not good.” What insanity would the rat king drag me into if I stumbled into his favor-for-a-favor universe?

That kind of nightmare had me chasing Chodo now.

The Dead Man suggested,
You all should turn in for the night. Garrett, I will generate a distraction that will allow you to leave unnoticed in the morning. Mr. Tharpe. We have further need of your services.

Evidently I was expected to improve dramatically during the night.

So I went upstairs and slept some more. I had to move Tinnie with a crowbar. If she’d been any more asleep, we would’ve needed an undertaker.

56

Singe woke me.

“Don’t you ever sleep, girl? Where’s Tinnie?” I was alone.

“She went home. Saucerhead took her. She was not feeling well. She was afraid she caught what you had. She wanted to be where she could get a real physician to visit.”

“Crap!” Something to worry about on top of everything else. “She said don’t worry on her account. She will be with her family.”

“Double crap. You know what that means.”

“In my limited experience, I would say it means you had damned well better find room in your busy day to go hold Tinnie’s quivering hand. You can rest after you are dead.”

She’d read Tinnie pretty good. “Nothing I can do about that right now. So why wake me up?” There was no light from outside.

“The Dead Man says it will be time to get moving when Saucerhead gets back. Also, Mr. Dotes just returned. I thought that might be important.”

I glanced at the window. It had better be real important. It was flat dark out there.

Singe told me, “Dean is grumbling like a volcano god, but he is cooking and fussing about going back to bed later. When you dress, remember that it is raining again. And looks likely to turn to ice or snow.”

“Sounds exciting.” I swung my feet onto the floor, stood. I didn’t know how bad I’d felt before until I realized how good I felt now. “Wow! I think I’m cured.”

“Yes. And your bed buddy left a little too soon.” She nodded toward half-mast.

I glanced down. And flushed. “We’re getting too casual and comfortable with each other around here.”

Singe resisted further comment. “I should consult the poisoner. I’m due for a season. None of us need that distraction.”

She was right. Ratgirls in heat distract everybody. They have no more control than a cat in heat. “Where are our kittens? I haven’t seen them for a while.”

“Hiding from A-Lafs wicked men.”

“I see.” Interesting.

We all breakfasted while Morley explained his appearance at such an ugly hour. “My place caught on fire.”

“With you there? Your boys are more clever than I thought.”