Whispering Nickel Idols

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-Laf’s 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-Laf’s 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.”