Whispering Nickel Idols

29

Once again I got up earlier than was rational. Since I’d gone to bed early, though, I missed no sleep. I just didn’t regain what I’d lost the day before.

Everybody else was up before me. Of course. Go figure. And they were all in good moods, despite wet and windy weather. Dean had a warm fire going. I settled in and observed professionally while he continued to deal with the storm damage. “How much do we need to replace?”

“I’m making a list. Not a lot. We had too much to begin with, since we never entertain.” He produced tea in a cracked beaker. I drank.

“What’s Singe up to?”

“She and her brother are in talking to the thing.”

“The thing? Old Jolly woke up? Why didn’t you say so?”

“It may be old age confusing me. I thought I just did. The fury of the storm woke him up.”

I didn’t buy that. Now I knew why I’d felt weird after I got home yesterday. Old Bones was awake and lying back in the weeds.

“Give me a refill, here, and I’ll be off.”

He muttered something about my not needing any tea to get there.

Singe had half the lamps in the house in the Dead Man’s room. He makes her nervous. Though I don’t know many people who are comfortable around corpses. Particularly around corpses still inhabited by the original occupants, like a ghost that can’t get up and walk.

Asking what kind of mood he was in would waste time. Ill-tempered usually covered it. Instead, I asked, “Where are the cats?”

“Hiding,” Singe said. “They are terrified.”

“Makes sense. In his time His Nibs was known as Terror of Kittens.”

John Stretch eyed me like he wasn’t sure I was joking. He was rattled. If he were human, he’d have been a bloodless white.

“You sure he’s awake?” I asked. “I’ve been in here a whole minute and he hasn’t contradicted me yet.”

There are matters of greater weight to consider, Garrett. A dozen minds in the street outside need examination. Employing a pickpocket’s touch inasmuch as they believe that I am no longer viable.

“Ah. Were you ever?”

And still the man wonders why I prefer sleep to suffering his company.

He was employing one of his lesser minds to communicate. He didn’t have his heart behind his snaps. He was distracted. Which was a good sign. He’d found this new world exciting enough to engage his intellect.

Here is what you must do. Beginning immediately. Have Mr. Tharpe and Ms. Winger come see me. Employing your considerable talent for fabrication, get each of the following to visit, as well. Colonel Block and Deal Relway. Miss Contague. The child, Penny Dreadful. Any of the men who wear green pants. Or their handlers. The priest you visited. Teacher White or one of his henchmen.

Once I have interviewed a few of them it should become possible to develop strategies. Finding Mr. Contague and Mr. Temisk will be critical. Those two will be able to clarify the developing shakeout in organized crime.

That’s the Dead Man. He goes on and on. And on. The bottom line is legwork for me.

Where is the bird? I do not sense the parrot.

“Gone,” I said. I tried to sound thrilled, but the truth is, I do miss the foulmouthed chicken. Just a little. In rare, maudlin moments.

Ah. An interesting turn of events. Most of which I am thankful to have missed.

“You didn’t miss much.”

Do you honestly believe you can mislead me?

“I don’t remember who, but somebody said that where there’s life, there’s hope.”

My cousin Duphel said it first.

“What?”

He responded with the mental equivalent of a shrug. He had wasted time enough. Here is your schedule.

My partner. Already in there bullying me to collect the bits he needed to make sense of the senseless. He makes connections quicker than I do.

Should you prove able to approach Mr. Dotes in such fashion that his subsequent actions appear to be independent of your visit, ask him to stop by. Then go to the Bledsoe. See what more the outlanders have done.

Didn’t seem like they could’ve gotten much done. Most of them were in jail.

There is a witch you know.

“I know several.”

Exclude your stable of floozies.

“Ouch! I was.”

Retain one and ask her to come here.

“One who doesn’t know about you?”

That would be preferable.

“I’m starting to wonder why I’m always determined to wake you up. Life is simpler when you’re asleep.”

But it goes nowhere.

“Wrong, Butterbutt. It goes the best places of all.”

He started rummaging around inside my head, evidently under the delusion that he’d been invited. In seconds he was appalled in a big way.

Whereisthe parrot?

“Mr. Big? Pursuing a higher calling.” The Goddamn Parrot belongs to days gone by and other stories. If there’s any mercy in heaven, he’ll never be more than another dyspeptic memory.

Chuckles tromped around inside my skull like twenty drug-crazed home invaders wearing sensible shoes. Being Himself, he dropped the question of the pestiferous, overdressed chicken like a maggoty dead mouse. He plowed on as though Mr. Big never existed.

“Speaking of critters. Tell me about the cats infesting the house. They don’t seem normal.”

It is impossible to slip anything past you.

“Answer the question.”

They are not normal cats. As you have surmised. They do demonstrate points of character we associate with domestic cats. I am unable, yet, to see into their minds. They are afraid of me.

“Sounds like a healthy attitude. Everybody ought to be.”

You might adopt it yourself.

“But I know what a big old cuddle bear you really are.”

Be careful when you leave. The kittens may attempt to escape.

I was being dismissed. Told to get on with my chores. Sometimes he forgets who the senior partner is.

I returned to my office, found me a scrap of paper with a little clean on one side, made myself a list.