Страница 35 из 54
It didn't last. The kingpin's men started dragging captives outside, began forcing them to undress
Uh-oh. The Dead Man's prophecy had come true.
I couldn't hear the orders and threats Crask issued but didn't need to. He had to be looking for tattoos.
I didn't see the Serpent among the prisoners. Neither did Crask. He stomped around and cussed theatrically. I rested my chin on my forearms, shivered, and wondered how he'd known about the tattoos. Had I mentioned them? I couldn't recall. I guess I must have when I was trying to direct Chodo's attention toward the Serpent.
Crask didn't accept defeat. He had his troops drag out the dead and wounded, lined everybody up, started his inspection all over again. The prisoners shivered and whimpered. The wind was merciless.
He found her. She'd assumed the form of a ratman. Short fur hid her tattoo. The second he made her he popped her upside the head, got a gag stuffed in her mouth and about forty-three miles of rope wrapped around her. She looked like a mummy. He wasn't going to take no chances with a witch.
He barked orders, The wind stole them away I didn't need to hear them. The hard boys started marching prisoners toward the river. I had a suspicion their life expectancies weren't those of immortals.
Chodo isn't a forgiving sort. These people had stomped on his toes, sort of... He has no trouble conjuring justifications.
A half-dozen thugs shuffled off with the Serpent. Crask and a few buddies hung around.
Well. I thought to me, I thought, I guess this means Chodo wants him a little light reading, just to pass those chilly winter nights. A little something to peruse beside the fire.
He wouldn't get the book from the Serpent. She didn't have the foggiest where it was. But he'd get something. He always did. And she had managed to become a credible ratman... Ah. There Crask went, back into that tenement, shoulders set like he meant to find something.
That would have been a good time to stroll on out of there—if about four of Crask's buddies hadn't been hanging out, keeping a wary eye.
I got me comfortable in a good position for shivering and thought about Holme Blaine. Why had he come to me as Carla Lindo? Why had he come at all? How had he known to come to me? Through contact with Easterman I could pursue that. Come morning. After a good sleep. If I thawed out enough. Sure be nice to head for bed. Why wouldn't Crask's clowns clear the street?
They didn't do me any favors. In fact, I was getting suspicious that they had something on their pea brains besides the Serpent and her improbable book. They spread out, started poking into shadows and alleys. So.
Crask passed below me, massaging his arm. He muttered something about the cold and "I don't get it. One second he's right there beside me, the next he's gone. He ain't no spook. How'd he disappear?"
Who? Bet you guessed as fast as I did. What a bunch of guys.
I'd suspected it for a while. The kingpin's boys don't generally do you many favors. I'd tried setting it aside because I didn't want it to be true. But there it was. Chodo had something special in mind for a guy named Garrett. Maybe just a fancy di
One of Crask's boys came over and mumbled something I couldn't catch. Crask cussed and growled. "Keep looking!" Then he did an odd thing, for him. He went and perched on the steps of the raided tenement, rubbed his arm for a minute, rested his chin on his good fist, went away somewhere inside. If he hadn't been Crask of the Crask and Sadler torture show, I'd have pegged him for a man wrestling with his conscience.
He stuck with it till all his boys had given up and gone away. Naturally, I stayed put. Me and my frozen fa
Garrett is tough and patient. I outstubborned Crask. He finally had enough and went away. I pried my stiff bones loose from that porch and did the same. In another direction.
Boy, was I glad people never think to look up
31
I swung through the Safety Zone, found exactly what I expected to find. A big nothing. Morley's place was dead and dark. I was begi
I approached my place carefully. Crask might have it staked out.
Here was a problem that deserved some thought. I was too dependent on my home. If the bad boys wanted to hand me real trouble sometime, they'd just have to cut me off from my base.
Didn't seem to be anybody around. Even that off-and-on presence behind me was absent. Nice that whoever that was occasionally slipped up or needed rest.
I hustled to the door and banged away. Dean opened up. I crabbed, "What took so long?" He answered me with one of his better glowers. He hadn't taken long at all. The house was quiet. "Carla gone to bed?"
"Yes. I shall do so myself, now."
"Where? Across her door?"
"The daybed."
He didn't give me what I deserved for my crack. Oh, well. "Sleep well." I clumped into the Dead Man's room. "Awake there, Old Bones?" It would be like him to take a two-week nap in the middle of things.
Yes. I gather you were frustrated again.
"It just gets worse," I told him. "Any suggestions?"
Get some sleep. While the implications are disturbing, the information is tenuous. I will have to do considerable thinking.
"Get some sleep? That's the best idea you've had in years."
Do not allow frustration to embitter you, Garrett. We all suffer our unproductive days.
Easy for him to say. He had unproductive centuries. "Your talent for noting the obvious remains unblunted."
Indeed. But we ca
"We can't? Want to bet?"
Despair does not become you, Garrett. Dawn follows the darkest hour as surely as the rains fall to earth. Put Chodo Contague out of mind. Rest. That is the most useful thing you can do at this point. Relax. And rejoice. He does not have the book itself.
He was right. The dead fat genius usually is. Sometimes he can't be wrong if he wants. But: "No. He's just got somebody who knows how to make a book. That son of a bitch would write his own." I was in one of those moods where you're contrary for contrariness's sake. But maybe I've grown up some. I didn't overindulge. "While you're pondering, conjure me up a theory that explains the disappearances of Morley Dotes, Saucerhead Tharpe, and Sadler. And figure out who's following me like a ghost, so good I've never caught a glimpse."
As to those disappearances, I do have a hypothesis. Two, in fact. But they must be tested. And I refuse to discuss them till you have slept.
I knew better but wasted time trying to pry something out of him. He wouldn't budge. Does anybody ever budge? I don't think they can. They only don't or won't. It's always negative. How come?
See what kind of mind is out there leading the war on evil? Tsk-tsk.
He wouldn't budge. And even a boulder anchored to bedrock is less stubborn than a dead Loghyr.
I gave up, shambled toward the doorway.
What news from the Cantard, Garrett? As though he hadn't read my mind and found that. I hadn't bothered asking around. Just a little nudge, there—nudge, unfortunately, being one of those words that doesn't come standardly negative. Old Bones nudges me a lot. Hinting that maybe if I cooperated more with him, he'd help me more. Right. Laziness is his reason for hanging around. He's too damned lazy to finish dying.