Then she was there. For one moment, I lapsed into a daydream and suddenly I wasn’t alone.
Spooky.
She looked me in the eye. “You grew up with some sense after all.”
“Only a fool goes around touching stuff in a place like this.”
“Not what I meant, boy. You learned better than that when you was a pup. I’m talking about you having sense enough to know you’re in over your head.”
I did? I was? I nodded. I never shatter illusions.
“Garrett men just bull ahead, confident they can handle anything.”
That was me, sort of. Except the part about the confidence.
“Explains how you managed to come home when they didn’t.”
Mystified, I let her talk. Patience is a sound strategy when you don’t know what is going on. When she did slacken, I wedged in, “Wixon and White did know the girl. But it looks like Grange Cleaver faked up the black magic connection.” I related the details of my adventures as I would have done for the Dead Man.
Handsome let me run dry. She let me stand empty a while, too. Then, “Why would the Rainmaker want to find the girl?”
“I don’t have a clue. Maybe her mother is dead and he needs Emerald to control the estate.”
“She is valuable or dangerous. One or the other.”
“Or both.”
“You’ll have to find her to know which. Can you?”
“Given time.”
“You’ve made enemies. And you let someone mark you with a finding spell.”
“I was afraid of that. The stumblebum?”
“He’s tracking you. He didn’t mark you.”
“Winger or Maggie, then.”
“And the Jenn woman seems to be the Rainmaker in drag.”
“Who wants me sleeping with the fishes.”
“And who wouldn’t be above using a dollop of sorcery to get his way.”
“No way can this klutz be Cleaver’s. Whenever I sit still long enough to draw a crowd, I accumulate one of Cleaver’s own kind. So who could the guy work for?”
“Am I a mind reader? You want that, go home.”
“Why did Cleaver get after me in the first place? I just can’t figure that.”
“At this point, why don’t matter. He is. Deal with that.”
I moved slightly. Just a twitch of impatience, really. But the old cat hissed.
“Patience, boy. And caution. These days a hundred evils could jump you before you got a hundred paces from this shop.”
“I know.” That was why I was there.
She told me, “I’m not going to let you go back out there till you’re better prepared.”
Who, me argue? “Thank you. That was in the back of my mind.”
“I know.”
“I’d be eternally grateful for any help.”
“Don’t heap it on with a manure fork, boy. It’s all part of putting the Rainmaker in his place.”
She knew the rules. Never let on how much you care. If you care, you’re vulnerable.
The cat hissed again.
“What? I didn’t do anything.”
“Never mind Malkyn. She can smell the trouble on you. She worries about me.”
Malkyn. Of course. What the hell else? “I smell the trouble on me, too. It’s a curse.”
“Or a calling.” Her right eyebrow rose. Excellent! There was one talent I hadn’t known she commanded.
“No. I just wish I could wash it off. I don’t want to get into all these crazy things. I’d rather sit around the house drinking beer and —”
“You’re bullshitting an old bullshitter, boy. I know more about you than you think.”
My cue to hoist a brow.
“That don’t slice no ice.” She started moving around, fiddling, muttering. I realized she was naming names. “Hey! Wait a minute! What do they have to do with anything?”
“You wouldn’t have met one of those ladies if you’d stayed holed up. And you ain’t going to meet no more —”
“All right!” Truth is pain. Female remains my great weakness. A flashy smile and saucy wink can lure me away from safety.
Grinning evilly, Handsome cleared nonhuman skulls off a fern stand, started assembling her candidates for weirdest items in the shop. I started to say something but didn’t get past opening my mouth.
“Give me that stick, boy.”
I surrendered my headknocker, then opened my flycatcher again.
She didn’t give me a chance to speak. “We don’t got no idea what you’re gonna run into, so what I’m gonna do is give you a range of generic defenses.”
Oh, that sounded good. If it meant anything. “What are you doing to my stick?”
“Toughening it up, boy. When I get done with it, you’re going to be able to whack right through all the common protective spells. You see that red thing there?”
“Looks like a dried-out sow’s ear somebody dyed red?”
“The very thing. It looks like a sow’s ear on account of once upon a time somebody hacked it off the side of a pig’s head. I want you should take it and put it in your right front pocket. And keep it there until you settle up with the Rainmaker.”
“Why?” She was getting ahead of me.
“On account of the Rainmaker is the kind who would get a laugh out of fixing you so’s you wouldn’t have no more reason to leave your house looking for women.”
Ouch! I needed only about a quarter-second to mull things over. I accepted the sow’s ear, placed it as directed. “You’re the expert.” Some fates are too horrible to contemplate.
“Remember it.” She aligned four more objects, then regrouped them. One was a small wooden box given to fits of angry buzzing. Whatever was in there sounded huge for a bug.
Handsome noted my interest. “It’s more wicked than it sounds.”
“I wanted to hear that.”
“It’s not gonna bother you, son. Once I tell it you’re its friend.”
“Oh, hey, by all means. I’m a bug-lover from way back. I probably met most of its family when I was in the islands. I got intimate with lots of bugs when I was down there.”
“You always did have a tongue of nonsense, boy.”
What the hell did that mean?
She continued, “You don’t want to use the little devil, don’t bother. What they call a last resort. When you and your tongue have gotten you into something where there ain’t no weaseling out, just pop that lid open.”
“Yeah?” Call me dubious. I stopped being a bug booster during my Marine days. “Then what? It bites a hunk out of me and I scare the bad guys away with my screams?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it just comes home and tells me you need help.”
Somehow having a bug in a box didn’t sound that useful if I was in it deep, but Mom Garrett never raised her boys to backtalk the likes of Handsome. She always said we should keep our yaps shut when we were around somebody who could turn us into table scraps. There were times when Mom was pretty astute. “Uhm,” I grunted.
Handsome gave me the fish-eye, then resumed her explanations. I did listen. And found my imagination captivated immediately.
Handsome offered me a doodad that looked like a wood chip stained red on one side and green on the other. She told me, “When you want you should turn invisible to that guy following you, you should rub your thumb three times across the red side here. He shouldn’t ought to turn suspicious because the spell he’s using isn’t all that reliable. You think it would be handy having him tag along, you rub your thumb three times on the green side.”
“What? Why would I want him following me?”
“How would I know?” She shrugged. “Reckon that’s all I can do for you right now. Time you were getting along, anyway, boy. I’ve got paying customers backing up.”
Where? But I only thought it.
The old cat looked at me like she was thinking about taking a bite out of my ankle before I got away. Or like she thought she would take a bite, if only she had so
me teeth.
Handsome patted me down, making sure I was carrying everything exactly where she wanted me carrying it.
I kept at it. “What can you tell me about —”
“Go on, boy. Out of here. Shoo. Scoot. How do you kids expect me to get any work done if you pester me all day long?”
Had she gone senile all of a sudden? Or was she trying to make me nostalgic?
I treasured my childhood memories but didn’t consider those times the good old days. The good old days never were. These are the good old days, right here, right now.
Won’t never get no better than this.
45
I’d told Morley I would see Quefour while doubting there was any point. But brave soldier I, dedicated to my mission, I spent a half hour trying to trace that most useless of beings and learned that when last seen he had been floundering around with an inept homosexual murphy in the Tenderloin, which was a stupid game to play. The wise guys could help him take a swim with a hundred-pound rock strapped to his back.
The beauty of being your own supervisor is you set your own hours. If the spirit moves you, you can procrastinate till hunger boots you into action.
I headed for home thinking life couldn’t get any better.
Of course, it could have a Chastity Blaine perched on your front stoop when you came home, so damned radiant all your male neighbors had found some reason to come out and gawk.
She was alone. I broke into a trot, wove through the crowd, felt the deep disapproval radiating from such bastions as Mrs. Cardonlos’s rooming house. Chastity was the only woman in the neighborhood smiling when I puffed up. “Where’s Saucerhead?” I demanded.
“Saucerhead?” She really seemed puzzled.
“You know. Saucerhead Tharpe. Big goof with snaggle teeth. Your bodyguard. Able to outsmart small rocks if you give him an hour.”
She smiled grimly, not in the mood. “I let him go.”
“Why’d you do a fool thing like that?” What a sweet tongue.
“I don’t have to worry anymore. It seems the episode of the escaping patient who couldn’t have been in the first place because there’s no record of any admission tore it for me. The Knopfler Bledsoe Imperial Memorial Charity Hospital no longer welcomes my services.”
“They canned you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a learning experience.”
“Uhm?” Philosophy straight from the Dead Man.
“I discovered that bitter old cynics like my father are right. No good deed goes unpunished.”
“I like his thinking. So how come you’re here? Not that I’m complaining. I couldn’t have daydreamed a nicer surprise.” I was hungry. I couldn’t correct that hanging around on the stoop. I went to work with my key.
“I guess because you’re the only one who knows what’s going on.”
“Boy, don’t I wish.” The door was bolted on the inside. I let out a shriek that got everybody within two blocks looking my way. I pounded away. Nobody responded.
“Is anyone in there? I couldn’t get an answer.”
“They’d better be dead. If they’re not, I’m going to kill them. They’re drinking up my beer and eating up my food and now they won’t let me into my own house. I’m going to skin them and make myself a suit out of their hides.”
“What are you going on about?”
“How many escaped patients have they recovered?”
“Only a few. It’s not like they’re trying real hard.”
“A couple of them turned up here and I let them stay.” The Goddamn Parrot was in there hollering so loud I could hear him through the door. I put on eternity’s most forced smile. “You said it. No good deed goes unpunished.”
“They’re here now?”
“Somebody barred the door. If I have to break in, I’m going to carve somebody into rat snacks.”
“Aren’t you overreacting a little?”
Yes. “No!”
I received a completely unexpected hug. “Guess I’m not the only one who’s had a bad day.”
“Once we get in, let’s butcher one of the clowns and discuss our bad days while we eat him.”
“Don’t be so gruesome. Who are they?”
“Ivy and Slither.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s the names they use. What they want to be called.” I pounded on the door and howled some more. “Soon to be past tense.” Across the street, Mrs. Cardonlos came to her window and gave me that look. I was going to get another protest from the citizen’s committee. How dare I raise hell on my own front stoop?
I sent Mrs. Cardonlos a smile. “Wait till I get my next psychopathic killer, lady. I’ll tell him you’re desperate to meet a real man.”
“You don’t have some secret way to get in?”
“You didn’t grow up in this neighborhood, did you? If I had a secret entrance, the villains would have used it to clean me out a long time ago.”
“You don’t expect me to apologize for where I grew up?”
Careful, Garrett. “You didn’t pick your parents. Just ignore me. I get testy when I can’t get into my own house.” I went to work on the door again.
The lady had begun to doubt the wisdom of being with me. I made a special effort to remain calm and reasonable when Ivy finally cracked the door an inch, keeping it on the chain while he checked me out.
“Ivy, it’s me. I’m home and I’d really like to visit my kitchen. Think you could speed it up?” I scanned the street quickly. Looked like everybody who’d shown any interest lately was out there watching. Even a guy with an eyepatch and an earring. I couldn’t see if he had a pegleg, but I knew where he could pick up a parrot cheap.
The door opened. There to greet me was Slither. “Doc Chaz. Garrett. Sorry. I was in the kitchen whipping something up. I thought Ivy was taking care here.” Ivy was at the door to the small front room, looking inside with eyes that had glazed over. “Looks like he’s having one of his spells.”
“I’m about to have one of mine.”
“Bad day?”
“That catches the spirit of it.” Slither wasn’t listening. He was headed for the kitchen.
Chastity asked, “These men escaped with you?”
“Not with me. But they were both in my ward.”
“I know Rick Gram.” She indicated Ivy. “The other one is a stranger.”
“Slither claims he got in there the same way I did. And the same guy put him there.”
“Grange Cleaver?”
“The very one.”
“Maybe. I don’t recognize him. But there were four hundred men in your ward. And I was expected to concentrate on the female population.”
We hit the kitchen. Slither announced, “Not a lot of supplies left here, Garrett. You need to do some shopping.”
Scowling, I put an arm around Chastity’s shoulder and headed for the back door. I didn’t want to be home after all. With the thumb of my free hand I stroked the red side of a wood chip. “I’m ducking out the back way, Slither. The front door ever gets barred again I’m going to cut somebody’s heart out. You make sure Ivy understands.” Intuition told me that was all Ivy. He been Long Range Recon once upon a time, but he was afraid of his own shadow now. “My house, Slither. My rules and my ways.”
“Stay cool, Garrett. I got it under control. You and Doc Chaz go somewhere, have a good time.”
46
“I hope every villain in town is camped out in front of my place.” Chastity and I were enjoying a perfect evening. Nearly perfect. I had one bad moment at a place where I caught a glimpse of Maya Stuub. Once upon a time Maya had thought more of me than I’d thought of myself.
Maya didn’t see me. I put her out of mind and had a nice time.
Chastity was all right. I could relax with her. I told her tales of the Garrett that was, suitably edited for modern audiences, and she did the same with Chaz Blaine — though she didn’t say much about her family. We lost track of time. Time lost track of us. An apol
ogetic fellow with a grungy towel on his arm advised us that it was time to close. We nodded and apologized back and left too much money and went out to wander streets we didn’t see. For both of us the world had come into narrow focus. We were our universe — that teenage feeling...
“My gods you’re beautiful,” I told her in a place that wasn’t mine. And she was. More than I had imagined.
Her insecurities burned through. She protested, “My nose is crooked and one eye is higher than the other and my mouth is tilted and one boob is bigger and higher than the other.”
“You got weird toes, too, but I don’t give a damn. You hear me howling about what a prize I am? Lucky you, not even having to find the end of the rainbow.”
“We’re all overstressed these days, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely.” Nobody anywhere was comfortable. Conflicts were feeding upon one another. “A moment that loosens us from the cycle of despair is a treasure.”
“Was that a compliment? I’m going to take it in that spirit.”
Actually, it was a quote from the Dead Man, but why disappoint the lady?
Got to be getting old. I woke up feeling guilty about not having done anything useful about Emerald Jenn. I watched Chaz sleep. I recalled Morley’s comment about her quality. I remembered seeing Maya. I felt a twinge of pain.
Chaz opened an eye, saw me looking, smiled, stretched. The sheet slipped off her. I gulped air, astounded all over again.
Next time I knew it was an hour later and I hadn’t heard a word from my might-have-beens the whole time.
“So what do you intend to do?” Chaz asked, having heard the details of the case.
“That’s my problem. Common sense says walk away. Tell myself some people tried to use me, I made some money, we’re even.”
“But part of you wants to know what’s going on. And part is worried about the girl.”
I admitted nothing.
“Waldo told me about the case he helped you with.”
Naturally. He wouldn’t have missed a chance to play his big It Was All My Fault scene. “Waldo?” They were on a first-name basis?