Castle Murders

Twenty St. Valentine's Hospital

They wouldn't let Carney into the emergency room no matter how much persuasion magic he worked, so he had to be content with word from a sympathetic nurse that Tony's condition was stable. They would operate in the next hour to get the slugs out. Tony had a good chance of pulling through.

He went back to the waiting room, where Velma was smoking and reading a two-year-old copy of Liberty magazine. He beckoned and she put out the butt, got up and came to him.

"How is he?" she asked.

"He'll pull through. This stuff" ― he patted the neck of the bottle in his coat pocket ― "probably helped."

"Is it helping you?"

"I'm as high as a Mass at St. Peter's. Let's get out of here."

"Hey, Carney."

Carney turned. It was Detective Sergeant James "Mack" Duffey of the Necropolis P.D., smiling a coldly cynical smile, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his baggy brown wool pants.

"What can I do you out of, Sergeant?"

"Want to take a look at your future?"

"Sure. Whaddya got?"

"We got Duke Holland for you. Or should I say, somebody got him? Good."

"I thought he was dead."

"He's been on his way to Hell for the past five hours. Thought you might want to pay your respects. After all, he's a colleague of yours."

"Lay on, Mack Duffey."

Duffey led him down the hall. A uniformed cop, standing guard outside a door, let them into small examination room and closed the door. Velma stayed outside.

There were two more cops in the room, along with a plainclothes clerk with a steno pad, scribbling away in shorthand. Holland lay on a gurney, shirtless, his upper body ventilated with bullet holes. Carney wondered how he could still be alive. But he was. He was talking continually in a low, breathy murmur. The stenographer seemed to be trying to take down every word.

"Delirious," Duffey said. "He's been gabbling away like that for hours."

"Can't anything be done?" Carney asked.

"Nah. The docs say it's only a matter of time."

"They came up with that prognosis all by themselves, eh?"

Duffey guffawed. "They didn't need no coachin'."

Carney laughed mirthlessly. "What's with the steno?"

"Evidence."

Carney nodded. "Can I try talking to him?"

"Be my guest. But you'll get nowhere."

Carney approached the gurney. Holland's head shifted slowly from side to side. Dried blood caked his lips. His eyes were glazed, his sight on sights unseen. On and on he droned, the words slurred together, almost unintelligible.

Carney moved closer. He bent over the dying man, turning his ear toward those cracked lips:

"… Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing! And my cold cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw Waterhouse's clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh. When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach! I'd want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong. There's the Belle for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay, we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I'll spread mine on mine…."

Carney straightened, backed off.

"He was a big man," Duffey said, with underlying satisfaction. "Look at him now."

"Don't rejoice so loudly, James."

Duffey opened the door for him.

Velma was engaged in casual flirtation with the door guard. She saw Carney, and rounded it off nicely with a smile and a squeeze of the cop's big biceps. The cop grinned droolingly.

Carney took her arm and guided her down the hall, except she should have been guiding him; he wobbled like a loose wheel.

"How is he doing?" she asked.

"Not bad for a guy with no education," he said.

The Leland had bullet holes in it but still worked. Carney turned east, toward the river. The hole in the back window sucked out all the heat the heater threw at them, but the flow warmed them a little. Carney drank as he drove.

"We'll wreck if you keep doing that," Velma said.

"Possibly."

"You could at least offer me a drink."

"Powerful stuff, Velma, honey."

"I can take it. I can swill any kind of booze."

She took the bottle and had a swig. She choked, and sprayed all over the windshield.

He laughed, taking the bottle.

"What… is that stuff?"

"A little saint remover, my darling turpentine, eye of newton, denatured spirits, a little o' this an' for a' that."

"It's awful."

"Oh, it be, it be. _O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth.' Havin' a good time. Yessuh."

Velma fanned the fumes away from her mouth. "What bathtub did that come out of? That's not liquor, that's poison."

"Why, hell, woman, it's full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, with beaded bubbles winking all over the bloody brim." He belched. "'Scuse me."

She laughed. "You're drunk."

"Yes, ma'am. Ah is drunker'n a skunk sunk in a sump. Smashed to smithereens, colleen. I gots the spirit!"

"God, are you drunk. You didn't seem so potted in the hospital."

"I was like unto a fern. But I was a-workin' a sober spell. A straightening-up spell. A sorites of sobriety. But now it's gone, gone. Now I drunk, man."

"You sound like that old codger."

"He the man with the power. What power? The power of ―"

He had to make a hard right to get onto the bridge. He just made it, swerving the Leland crazily.

"Hey, take it easy," Velma said. "Good gravy!"

"Good night. Good night, good night, Irene, I'll see you in my dreams, wetly."

"Watch it. They're still looking for you."

"Oh, they seek me here, they seek me there. Those demons seek me everywhere."

"They're not through with you yet."

"Am I in heaven, am I in heck? What do I need with all this dreck?"

"You're not drunk. You're looney."

"La lune, la lune, keep a-shinin' in jejune. Oh, they won't bother me again. They know I'm coming to pay a visit. Why waste energy? If the mahatma can't come to the mountain, then the mountain'll come over the moon, and the dish ran away with the spoon."

"I'm cold," Velma said.

"Don't worry. Sumer is icomen in. Lhoude sing couscous, or maybe shishkebab. Hey, what can I do to warm you up, babe?"

"You're one to talk."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I had you pegged as one cold fish."

"You'd rather hot crabs?"

"How come you haven't made a pass at me?"

"Was it expected?"

"You're a guy," she said.

"Oh, we're back to that again, are we? Do the bastards make the passes? I guess, huh, 'cause the simps simper. Or is it the big fish? Oh, such a beeg feesh."

"Guys only think of one thing."

"Monists, all. I myself am of that stripe, but a fecal monist. Know what that is?"

"Uh-uh."

"That's the philosophical position that everything is shit."

"That's right. For the birds."

"Turd thou never wert. Okay, I'll make a pass."

They were across the river. He veered right and bumped up onto the curb, bumped down again. The car screeched to a halt. He pulled back the hand brake and shut off the motor.

"I'm a simpering bastard, but I hope I'm acceptable."

He took her in his arms and their mouths met. Her tongue was as quick as Dara Porter's, but smoother, less sharp. His hands went a-roving, and the moon was still as bright. She was soft, yielding, eager, and warm.

"We can go to my place," she said, her breath hot on his face.

"I thought you bunked at the Tweeleries."

"Only sometimes. I have a place in Hellgate. Put your hand there. Right there."

"Ah, _Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures pr ― '"

She stopped his mouth with hers.

A time later he went on, "_ ― Ae fond kiss, and then we sever… flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless… '"

He stopped and pulled away. He shook his head and it seemed, to his dismay, to rattle.

"Whoa! Ye gods! This is working up to be one monster of a spell. I've never seen its like. I'd as lief never see it again. But… on the other tentacle, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, do." He popped the cork and took a drink.

"Give me that," she said, grabbing the bottle away from him. She took a pull, and it went down successfully. Her eyes bulged.

"Smooth, huh?"

She gasped. "Yeah." She took another.

"You got yo' mojo workin' now, babe."

"C'mere, you beeg feesh."

She drew him to her and they sank together into the depths, while the Lethe flowed softly by, dark and deep in the night.