Whispering Nickel Idols

11

Playmate brought a huge mahogany coach. It had to belong to somebody from way up the food chain. “This isn’t going to be missed, is it?”

“Not unless we don’t let it get back before the end of the week.” Playmate jumped down to help load. “I’m more worried about getting blood all over it. Or leaving a corpse inside.”

“That wasn’t my fault. You need to take a more positive attitude.”

“Familiarity with the Garrett experience suggests that guarded pessimism is the safer approach.”

Playmate is a huge black man who looms even huger than he is.

He’s bigger than me, stronger than me, and almost as handsome. His big shortcoming is that he’s a wannabe preacher who isn’t as mean as he looks. Who isn’t really nine feet tall. But seven feet wouldn’t be out of the question.

“You’re sure?” I could see where a crest had been removed from the coach door. “I don’t want some storm warden stomping me because his coach isn’t there when he decides to go for a ride.”

“Want me to take it back?”

“That’s all right. I was just checking. What’s this?” A goat cart stopped behind the coach. No goat was employed in its locomotion, though. A ratman had put himself into the traces. Singe’s brother. With a load of wooden cages filled with large, brown, unhappy rats. “Am here,” John Stretch said. His Karentine wasn’t as polished as his sister’s.

“Let’s get those critters into the coach, then.”

“Where is Singe?”

“Taking her good sweet time getting ready. You sure you can manage this?”

“Will have Singe to help. And them. Yes?” Pixies swarmed into the coach like Melondie meant to bring all her friends and relations.

Playmate remarked, “You’re looking pretty good there, Garrett. Did you hire a consultant to dress you up?”

I spread my arms to the sky. “You see the torments I suffer? Take me home now.”

Singe came fluttering out of the house, a young woman running late. Though how you get behind when your wardrobe is as limited as hers, I don’t know. But what I know about women, even limiting the sample to my own tribe, would fit in a thimble with room left over for a brigade of dancing angels.

Singe brought the kittens with her. She piled into the coach.

“We’re ready,” I told Playmate. I glanced at the goat cart. “John Stretch, you’ll lose your cart if you just leave it there.”

“No problem. Is not my cart.”

Great. So now the Watch would find a stolen goat cart in front of my house. Because, with my luck, the damned thing would sit there undisturbed for six months if it took that long to embarrass me.

I clambered aboard the coach.

Total silence reigned inside.

The pixies warily split their attention between the baby cats and the rat cages. The baby cats peeked out of their bucket, intrigued by the bug people and the rats. The rats glared at everybody.

What should have become chaos on the hoof declined into inexplicable relaxation.

“Well,” I said, relaxed myself, despite what lay ahead. “How about that?”

The pixies found perches. They gossiped. They didn’t squabble and they didn’t bother the rats. Normally, given half a chance, they would’ve swarmed any rodent. A plump rat could provide the main course for a huge feast.

Singe couldn’t control the kittens, though. Several got away and began investigating everything. Without bothering the rats or bugs. They were remarkably well-mannered, for cats.

As we turned into Wizard’s Reach I glimpsed a familiar face outside. It belonged to the man Morley and I had had the misfortune to catch earlier. He was watching my house. From a bruised visage.

His presence made me nervous. If he got obnoxious and kicked my door in, the Dead Man would be no help at all.

I couldn’t turn back. I’d have to trust the process. A notion I find dubious in the best of times.

My neighbor Mrs. Cardonlos is a police spy. And, possibly, a friend of Mr. Deal Relway, director of what, this week, is called something like the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. Mrs. Cardonlos’ great pleasure in life is spying on me and imagining my life being more exciting than it is. Relway pays her a small stipend.

She’d keep an eye out while I was gone. The most interesting stuff happens at my place when I’m not home. That’s when the stupid shines. That’s when the unprepared find out that they should’ve done more research. The Dead Man has fun with stupid thugs. My partner can be as cruel as a cat with an unbreakable mouse. But, oh, woe! He was on a sleeping holiday today. “What kind of kittens are those?” I wondered out loud. They looked like basic gray stripy alley lurkers, but not quite. They were odd. However, all I know about cats is that I like them better than dogs, except maybe beagle and sausage dog puppies.

Oh, wondrous day! Singe and John Stretch both actually understood that I didn’t expect an answer. Both looked like they expected praise for being that clever.

I nodded and smiled my approval.

Speaking of pixies, which I wasn’t, “Melondie. Did you guys get into some poison, or something? I’ve never heard you all so quiet.”

Miss Kadare fluttered over a tad drunkenly. She assumed a widespread stance on my left palm, hands on hips, wobbling, not in time to the coach’s rocking.

“You been drinking?” Pixies love alcohol.

“Not a drop.” She staggered, plopped down on her tiny but gorgeous behind.

“You are drunk!” I accused.

“No way!” she snapped. Then she giggled. “I don’t know what’s happened. I was fine when we flew in here.”

The other pixies were drunk, too. Most more so than Melondie Kadare.

I nudged a curious kitten away from a male pixie who had fallen to the coach floor and lay there on his back, buzzing occasionally, like a downed locust.

It was weird. But I had trouble giving a rat’s ass. I was mellow, at peace. Without personal ambition whatsoever.

Some acquaintances would insist that was nothing new.

Singe and John Stretch seemed vaguely puzzled and sleepy.

Ditto, the rats.

I never heard of a drunk spell, but that didn’t mean one couldn’t exist. It only meant that I’d never been hit by one before.

The pixies passed out. I started suffering urges to sing the Marine Corps hymn or something similarly patriotic. Which don’t hit me when I get snockered the hard way. Not often.

The coach suddenly bucked, jolted to a halt. What the hell? Traffic couldn’t be that bad. Could it?

I was two heartbeats away from falling asleep when Playmate yanked the door open. “We’re here. Huh? What’s the matter with you all?”

I extended a hand. He helped me descend as elegantly as a duchess. Good man he, he did the same with John Stretch and Pular Singe while deftly keeping the kittens from getting away.

He closed the door on the pixies and baby cats. “What I’m going to do now is, I’m going to stay right here. I’ll come in and pull you out if something bad happens.” That said a ton about Playmate. “That’s white of you, Play. I’ll be more relaxed in there, knowing you’ll rescue me if I need it.”

Playmate had nothing more to say. His eyes had begun to wobble. Meantime, I was recovering. Fast.

I was way early in arriving. Even so, several coaches were lined up beside the hall already, each cared for by somebody big and dumb and covered with scars. And with tattoo collections for seasoning. They stared at my companions and their cages filled with rats.

“Round up those kittens, Singe.” The drunk was gone. Just that fast.

“You want to take them inside?”

“Oh, hell yeah. They’re going to be all over in there.”

These kittens did not behave like cats. They weren’t contrary. They let themselves be caught and tucked into their bucket, with the cloth folded over them, theoretically to keep them in. Only a couple had to be caught and tucked a second time.

“How many of these monsters are there?” I asked Singe. I couldn’t get a hard count. Hasty estimates during the day had ranged from four to nine. Since even a dead cat can create havoc in two places at once, I suspected the true number was closer to four. Singe said, “Five or six. It’s hard to tell because their markings are so alike.”

It didn’t matter. As long as I had the majority with me when I went in.

As I approached the goons checking invitations, I tried to work out why I thought I should go armed with baby cats.

I guess because I hoped nobody would stay belligerent with a gang of them underfoot.

One of the goons asked, “The hell you luggin’ a pail a pussy for, slick?”

“Somebody might want a kitten. I got some to adopt out.” I saluted him with my pussy pail and strolled on into Whitefield Hall.