Red Iron Nights

48

Block still held me in high enough esteem that he sought approval before he moved. "The place is surrounded. Gonna take some doing for anybody to get out."

"Dead Man says take them alive if you can. The curse probably can't transfer while they're still alive."

"They?"

"Part must be touching Ripley somehow. Or Winchell, whichever isn't the primary carrier."

"Yeah. Got you. I guess there's no reason to stall anymore. Might as well do it."

A thought had wormed through my head several times lately. I'd pushed it out over and over. It came back again. I was going to be sorry, but, "I maybe ought to go with the first rush. The girl will recognize me. If I let her know it's a rescue, we can maybe keep the panic level down, maybe save ourselves some people getting hurt."

"That's up to you. You want to go, go. I'm giving Relway first shot. Tell him what you're doing, then don't give him no grief while he's doing his job. He's better than any of my regulars."

"Right." I joined Relway. "I'm going in with you. The girl knows me."

"You armed?"

"Not for blood." I showed him my headknocker.

He shrugged. "Don't get in the way of the real cops."

What a straight line. It was all I could do to avoid temptation.

Relway's storm group were armed up to take a town from a Venageti Guards division. I hoped they'd had some experience along those lines. They hadn't had any training since.

"You figure to face that much trouble?"

"No," Relway said. "But this bunch will be ready for whatever trouble they do find."

"Good thinking. No way you can get chewed out for not being ready when you go in ready for everything."

Relway smiled. "There you go."

I looked across the street. Spike was restless. "Things always get more real at moments like this."

"You had it that way down there?"

"Worse. Lots worse. I was a scared kid then."

"Me too. You ready?"

"I won't get any readier."

"Follow me." He took off. Garrett the white knight pranced the cobblestones a step behind, followed by a half-dozen uniformed champions of justice who had no idea how to accomplish what they'd been ordered to do. They hadn't joined the Watch to capture madmen or protect TunFaire from villains.

The ratman had a tiny basement window scouted. As we arrived, he dived through, wriggling, his hideous naked tail lashing behind him. I think that's what gets me about ratmen. The tails. They're really disgusting.

"After you," Relway said as that tail slithered inside.

"What?" That window was too small. It wasn't meant to pass a body. It was as big as it was only because some small-timers had worked on it so they could get inside and clean the place out. Of what, I can't imagine.

"You said you're the hero she knows."

"Shit." And I did volunteer for this.

I flopped on my belly and shoved my feet through the window. The ratman pulled. Relway shoved. I popped through, hit the floor, stumbled over a loose brick, muttered, "Where are they?"

"Back where you see the light," Spike whispered. That made him real hard to understand. Ratmen have trouble enough talking without whispering. Their throats aren't made for speech. "You cover while we get more men down." This ratman had spent a lifetime dealing with humans. He hadn't hidden himself away from the mainstream, content to live in society's cracks, taking only what no one else wanted. My respect for him rose.

I readied my headknocker, advanced toward the light, which leaked around a poorly closed door. I wondered why Winchell and Ripley hadn't either attacked us or made a run for it. Seemed to me we were making an armageddon sort of racket.

All of a sudden I had three guys behind me and Relway telling them, "We've got the other way out covered. Let's do it. Garrett?"

I took a deep breath and hit the door. I hurled myself at it, expected to demolish my shoulder.

The door collapsed. I didn't know my own strength. I was a regular Saucerhead Tharpe. I tore it right off its hinges.

I collapsed after two staggering steps over a footing of broken bricks.

Elvis Winchell and Price Ripley were hard at work snoring on beds of sacks and rags. Evidently carrying a curse was exhausting work. The only open eyes around belonged to Candy. She responded to my entrance but not in any wild display of joy.

Hell. She didn't know why we were there. For all she knew, we were pals with Winchell and his sidekick. I stumbled to my feet. "We're the rescue crew." Winchell and Ripley had begun to respond, finally. Relway bopped Ripley over the head before the poor guy could get his eyes open. Relway wasn't having any trouble with the footing. He looked positively graceful.

Spike had less luck putting Winchell back to sleep. Winchell evaded his blows, scooted away, his eyes trying to sparkle green. Maybe he didn't quite have the hang of it yet.

Gods, he looked awful. Like he'd aged fifteen years in the time since he'd helped bring in the villain Downtown Byrd had given us. Ripley, too, looked bad, but not nearly as bad as Winchell.

"Rescue crew? You sure? You look more like a circus act."

Spike and two Watchmen were chasing Winchell. Winchell wasn't cooperating at all. Relway and the other man were stuffing Ripley into a big sack.

Block appeared at the other entrance to the cellar, was careful not to place himself in extreme danger. I called, "Hey, Captain. This one don't need rescuing. She's got it under control already."

Candy said, "You're the guy who's been hanging around Hullar's." I cut the cords binding her ankles. They were nice ankles. I hadn't noticed how nice before. I'd been entranced by all the nice stuff higher up. "Garrett?"

"That's me. Trusty knight-errant. Invariably refused and abused for trying to warn people that they're in danger."

"Watch the hands, boy. I've heard about you."

Ripley was headed for the street now, out of it, but Winchell was putting up a fight, even though Relway and Spike, working together, had a sack over his head and arms. Neither Relway nor Winchell was in uniform. Having been employed, both had been able to afford reasonably nice civilian clothing. Vaguely surprised, though, I noted that Winchell used a rather heavy-looking piece of rope for a belt.

"I've heard about me too. Sometimes I don't recognize myself. What did you hear? Obviously not that I'm a prize."

Spike, Relway, and the gang managed to get Winchell tipped over and all the way into the giant sack. Relway got busy tying it shut.

"Prize pig. You remember a Rose Tate?"

Relway kicked the flopping sack. "Better than a cell on wheels," he told nobody in particular.

"Ah, sweet Rosie again," I said. "Yes. Let me tell you about Rose. This is a true story that you'll believe if you know Rose and will call a fairy tale if you don't." I had time. The boys seemed to be getting along fine without me. Just to make sure I didn't lose my audience, I became totally inept at untangling and cutting. Relway and the boys started dragging Winchell toward the door. Winchell writhed and cussed all the way. He wasn't alone in that sack. In fact, green butterflies fluttered around the basement, confused, more worried about the single candle burning than anything else. Again I wondered what the butterflies had to do with anything, if they did. Maybe they were just something like a skunk's spray.

Then there was just Candy and me, and she didn't seem distressed by my lack of haste as I talked about Rose Tate. In fact, I started looking around for the knives I'd seen at the Hamilton place while I talked. In the back of my mind was a curiosity about how she knew Rose. When I finished my story I asked, "How'd you come to meet Rose?"

"You have a good idea what's going on with me? I know you've been asking around. Hullar told me."

"I was just trying to keep you from having a date with the guy they just hauled out of here. He likes to whittle on rich girls."

"I got that part. I guess maybe I should thank you for not letting him eat my liver."

"That would be nice." I finally found the knives under the mess Winchell had been using for a bed. I didn't want to touch them, but supposed they'd be harmless as long as Winchell was breathing.

"Thank you, Garrett. And I do mean it. I get real sarcastic when I'm scared." Notice how we weren't talking about how she'd met Rosie? I didn't.

"You must be scared shitless all the time when you're down to Hullar's, then." That was how she was known there. As a sarcastic bitch.

"You're going to ruin your chances, Garrett."

I made a sound like a steam whistle. "You're beautiful, but I'm losing interest fast. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder why I wasted my time here. Your personality is sabotaging the advantages nature gave you."

"Story of my life, Garrett. I make a point of shoving my foot into my mouth whenever things start going good. I'm predetermined to fail, that's what my mother says. All right. I promise. I'll try. Thank you. You saved my life. Other than the obvious, what can I do for you?"

Block appeared in the doorway and stuck his oar in. "What are you up to down here, Garrett?"

"Looking for stuff."

"Find anything?"

"Yeah. Those knives. The Dead Man said we should break them."

Block came a couple steps closer, looked at the four naked blades. "Is it safe to mess with them that way?"

"Winchell and Ripley still healthy?"

"Yeah."

"Then they're safe. Unless you go sticking yourself."

He made a rude sound, took the knives. "I'll bust them up right now." He left.

I told Candy, "Other than the obvious, which is less obvious than you think, you can come to my place and talk to my partner. He's the brains of the outfit. He wants to see you."

"He some kind of freak? Can't come see me?"

"He's handicapped." I hid my grin. Nobody is handicapped like the Dead Man is handicapped.

We climbed out of the cellar. Candy never stopped yammering. I did gestures of defeat, tried to introduce her to Block formally so she'd know who got official credit for her rescue. It didn't sink in. She was chattering at me. He was interested only in breaking the knives, which he accomplished thoroughly, cracking each into four pieces. "That ought to take care of that." Block was puffed up and happy.

Pride goeth before, I told myself. "Better make sure they don't have anything else off that bum. We don't know it's the knives carrying the curse."

"We burned the bum and everything he was wearing. Now we'll burn these... Yeah. Right. Not before we can do something about the curse."

"Later." Candy was still after me. I said, "Woman, I'm not going to keep on. I don't do masochism. But do walk along with me, see my partner. My place is right on your way home."

I paused to stare at the captives. Both were lost inside burlap sacks. Winchell's seethed. Ripley's did nothing, but left me with an uncertain frown. A little bitty thing like a clothes moth fluttered away while I was looking.

Meantime, Candy demanded, "How do you know your house is on my way home?"

"I admit I haven't figured out who you really are yet. But I do know you come off the Hill. Rich girls are the only kind this killer liked. So if you're going to go home and hide out from the real world and tell yourself how lucky you were and forget all this and treat the lower—"

"You an Acmeist? Or an Anarchist?"

"Huh? You lost me." But I hadn't lost her. I was heading home and she was tagging right along. The Dead Man would be pleased.

"They're crackpot underground groups, Garrett. There are dozens of those. Pointillists. Deconstructionists. Calibrators. Avatars, Atheists, Realists, Post-Moderns. The way you were going on... "

"I don't have anything to do with politics, mainly in hopes that politics won't have anything to do with me. It's my considered, cynical opinion that, no matter how much we're overdue for a change, any human-directed change will be for the worse, to the benefit of a smaller and more corrupt ruling class." At that moment I saw the face of the next fad: revolution. "Meantime, do you have a name? A real name?"

All those ists would have as their troops poor little bored rich girls.

"Candace."

"Really? You're using your real name?"

"Might as well. Nobody ever used it but my brother. He died in the Cantard last year. He was a cavalry captain."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Garrett."

"Huh?"

"You lost somebody there too."

I got it. "Yeah. Not like it's a unique experience, is it? So what do most people call you?"

"Mickey."

"Mickey? How did they get Mickey out of Candace?"

She laughed. She had a wonderful laugh when she was doing nothing but being happy. I could feel myself becoming distracted. "I don't know. From my nanny. She had pet names for all of us. What?"

I was chuckling. "You wakened a memory. My little brother. We called him Foobah."

"Foobah?"

"I don't know. My mom. She called me Wart."

"Wart? Yeah. I can see that." She danced away, pointed. "Wart! Wart!"

"Hey! Knock it off." People were staring.

She did a pirouette. "Wart. The famous investigator, Wart." She laughed, took off running.

She ran because I started after her. She could run pretty good. She had the legs. They were such nice legs, I didn't try too hard, just floated along enjoying the view.

That started when we weren't far from home. It swept into Macunado Street, so I caught up, said, "Couple blocks up that way. This is my neighborhood. People know me."

She laughed as she fought for breath. "Yes, sir, Mr. Wart. I'll maintain your dignity, Mr. Wart." She was still laughing and giving me a hard time when Dean opened the front door.