Cruel Zinc Melodies

39

I told Gilbey, ‘‘There’re some ragged potato sacks over there. One of the dead guys was using them to keep warm.’’

‘‘Figuring on swapping them out for that coat? Where did you get that thing?’’

‘‘No. I thought you might help me stuff Alyx into one.’’

‘‘I’m about ready.’’ Gilbey was out of patience with Alyx.

I couldn’t figure what her problem was. She was a long step past the usual. Maybe she was trying to impress old Belle. Now insisting on being called Bill.

Poor Alyx. Bill wrote her off two minutes after they met. Beauty can take a girl just so far—especially if she’s only one of a posse of smoking-hot females and the rest all come equipped with manners.

Bill went to work. Or so he said. He ambled on inside the World.

I cut my sweetie out of the pack. ‘‘How come you guys are down here? And how come you’re all the time running with this bunch instead of being over at the manufactory busting that sweet patootie to make me rich?’’

‘‘Why, Mr. Garrett! I do declare! You say the most romantical things. You in your fancy coat. You who could be over there making your own self rich.’’

‘‘I just can’t help being romantic when I’m around you. My brain turns to mush. I drool. And the most absurd things—’’

‘‘Quit while you’re ahead, Malsquando.’’ Referring to a legendary lover of ages past. He’d even seduced the queen. And her daughter. And her son, according to some. The king hadn’t been pleased. It’s not a good idea to piss off the king if you haven’t seduced him, too.

‘‘I quit.’’ I’m no fast learner with some of this stuff. But pain is a fine teaching tool. Tinnie has been plying that one for a long time. She’s almost got me broken in.

‘‘Come here, Malsquando.’’

Good little doggie, I heeled and trotted after.

She turned on me as soon as we were safe from eyewitnesses.

I didn’t even have to apologize for something I didn’t know I did.

I came up for air about ten years later, panting and speaking in tongues. But feeling a certain pride of workmanship. My favorite redhead was thoroughly disheveled and fighting for breath herself. She gasped, ‘‘So where have you been lately?’’

I’m so smart. I have skills I haven’t even used yet. I made dead sure nothing left my mouth that even remotely sounded like words. Words are treacherous. They could clump together to offer some silly notion about me having been in exile because of the quirks of somebody who wore her hair big, long, and criminally red.

When you’re the guy in the couple that includes one of those women, you’re right there at the end of the rainbow. But you pay for it. You’re always in the wrong.

‘‘Will you kids quit snogging long enough to get something accomplished, here?’’

Manvil Gilbey had found us. And was not happy to see us preoccupied by trivia.

Heather Soames was right behind Gilbey. And looked like she envied us our distraction.

Manvil told me, ‘‘If you can drag yourself away, Bill is back. He says he needs to talk to you. He seems rattled.’’

Uh-oh. That didn’t sound like anything I wanted to hear.

Bill had reacquired most of the years he’d shed coming over from the Busted Dick. He radiated grim seriousness. He reached up and took me by the elbow, eased me away from the crowd. I steeled myself for a sales pitch.

‘‘What’s the story, Bill? And how much is it going to cost me?’’

Naturally suspicious right down to my brittle little toe-nails, I even wondered if Bill might not be the one haunting the World. Just to provide himself some employment. Which wasn’t rational thinking.

He said, ‘‘My profession brings out the cynic in clients like no other. They come crawling, desperate because they don’t know where to turn. But then they can’t trust me to do what they need to have done.’’

Had he been following me around, making notes?

‘‘So, tell me the horrid news, Bill. How much special equipment and how many specialist sorcerers from the underground economy am I gonna need to deal with this?’’

‘‘Your cynicism spring is wound too tight, boy. Hear me out before you decide you’re being scammed.’’

I have been known to accept good advice when I hear it. ‘‘My lips are sealed. For the moment.’’

‘‘Excellent. Here goes. There’s something down there.’’ He wagged a finger. ‘‘Uh-uh. You’ll learn more with your mouth shut.’’

More good advice. Given me on a regular basis by various associates. Especially the big guy at home. I’ll get it someday. ‘‘Go.’’

‘‘Excellent. Again. There’s something down there. It’s big. It’s alien. And it’s ugly. It’s still a long way from being wide awake. It considers the world its nightmare. Your bug makers disturbed it. The bugs are still disturbing it. Bugs that it may have helped dream. Yes. There are a lot of bugs down there. Thousands. Still. Probably feeding on the thing. Something beyond my knowledge. Or maybe anyone else’s.’’

Oh no! Hang on! This time was supposed to be simple. Deal with some bugs. Stop some sabotage. A couple days of easy work for a bucketful of gold.

‘‘How would that tie into ghosts?’’

‘‘Susceptible minds might think they saw ghosts if their obsessions reflected off the dreams of the thing down below.’’

I grasped what he meant because I live with a dead Loghyr. I didn’t like it. Nor did he convince me, really. ‘‘Any idea what it is?’’

‘‘No. But there’s precedent for ancient horrors wakening.’’

‘‘Of course. Suggestions?’’

‘‘Keep people away. Find experts. Do research. Look through ancient records.’’

I sighed as vistas of work expanded before me.

I beckoned Gilbey. ‘‘Come on over here. You need to hear this.’’ I told Bill, ‘‘He does. He’s the money.’’ I told Gilbey, ‘‘You’ll love this.’’

Gilbey listened. He didn’t interrupt. Bill expanded on what he’d told me. Gilbey said, ‘‘First step, identify the threat. Determine the extent and magnitude.’’

‘‘Right.’’

Gilbey looked at me. ‘‘I blame you for this.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘If we’d sent anybody but you, it would’ve been over after those Bustee kids got rounded up.’’

He was joking. I didn’t feel it. It did seem like this stuff happened to me all the time. ‘‘Yeah. Well, I did take care of them. I can follow up with the Guard and the Outfit, if you want.’’

‘‘The Outfit?’’

‘‘The Chodo family enterprise. The Combine. The Syndicate.’’

‘‘I know who you mean. Why bring them up?’’

‘‘They’re very territorial. The World is at the edge of their territory. It ought to spin off a demand for secondary entertainment. Which would be why you haven’t heard from them. Chodo and Belinda understand business better than most people.’’

‘‘We’re going to help them get better, too?’’

‘‘A fair dinkum, I’d bet. Anyway, they don’t allow competition. And no freelancing on their patch. You’re safer down here than you’d be anywhere but the Dream Quarter.’’

Gilbey grunted. ‘‘So there are several things going on.’’

‘‘Yeah.’’ Seems to be my fate. ‘‘Like this. Looks like. You decided to build a theater. To anchor a chain. But you picked a spot where something ancient and unpleasant is buried way down deep. The enterprise attracted wannabe gangsters from the Bustee.’’

‘‘And the bugs?’’

‘‘Teenagers. Psychotically brilliant kids, mostly off the Hill. They found a secret place to indulge some strange hobbies. The bugs they made got loose. Besides getting up here to the surface, they went down and irritated whatever it is that’s buried down there.’’

I was cooking. Who needed the Dead Man to work this stuff out?

Gilbey asked a trick question. It wasn’tthe trick question but it was a good one. At that point I had only a glimmer of the key question myself. ‘‘What are you going to do about it?’’

‘‘That’s the big one. It’ll take some thought. Right now, recruit a gang of thugs and take complete control here. Then find out why the workmen won’t show up when jobs are so scarce. Maybe go down under to look around. If the sulfur I left burning hasn’t made the air unbreathable down there.’’

‘‘That’ll take time.’’

‘‘Everything takes time. Even taking time. The impossible especially takes a little longer. Here’s what you can do. Tell your construction foremen I want their men here tomorrow. Or they can kiss their jobs good-bye.’’

‘‘We don’t operate that way, Garrett.’’

‘‘Why not?’’

‘‘We’d rather look out for our people.’’

‘‘They know that. Right? So, you talk this way, they know you’re serious. Bill. Suggestions?’’

Belle—Bill—was looking a little younger. ‘‘Before anything else, you need to tell me what you want to accomplish.’’

‘‘We’re building a theater. Shooting for an early spring opening date. We’ve had problems. Vandalism. Theft. Giant bugs. And the haunting I brought you over to check out. The theft and vandalism have been dealt with. I used to think we had the bug problem licked, too.’’

Using a slick redhead’s slide, Tinnie eased in close, inside my left arm, while I was talking to Bill and Gilbey. ‘‘You were way too optimistic about that, Malsquando.’’ She pointed.

Up where the roof sheathing should start going on soon, a brace of foot-long blue beetles decorated the World, glistening in the afternoon sun. Something the size of a small terrier perched up top, between naked rafters, wearing big antennae. It sparkled in the sunlight, too. I couldn’t make out the color. Black or dark brown, and very shiny. ‘‘All right. I got way ahead of myself.’’

The neighborhood had been quiet. Today. Enough for me to make out the chatter of a sizable group headed my way.

That turned out to consist of Morley Dotes, Singe, Saucerhead, and several of Morley’s troops. I’d asked Morley to find Tharpe. I told Manvil and Bill, ‘‘Let me talk to these guys.’’ Noting the wench pack starting to size Morley up already.

How does he do that? Get them breathing faster just by showing up.

‘‘Saucerhead. Great. I need you to run security here. Round yourself up five guys you trust, then keep everybody who don’t belong here out of the place.’’

Tharpe’s mouth opened and closed several times before he asked, ‘‘How will I know who belongs?’’

‘‘We’ll work that out after you pull a crew together.’’ He knew where to find the right kind of people.

‘‘Pay?’’

‘‘I’ve got the brewery behind me. As long as people drink beer we’ll get paid.’’

Saucerhead glanced around. He recognized Gilbey. That made my case. ‘‘That’ll do.’’ He headed out without another word.

I faced Singe. ‘‘And what are you up to?’’

‘‘Freelancing. For Mr. Dotes.’’

‘‘I see.’’ I glanced at the sky. ‘‘Are you dressed warm enough?’’ I had a notion what was up. That might take a good, long time. If Singe could find a track at all after the weather we’d been having.

She gave me the kind of look an adolescent does after that kind of question. And added a big rat sneer at my coat.

‘‘All right. You’re a big girl.’’ I told Morley, ‘‘Don’t get her into any tight places.’’ And strained hard not to start moralizing about bounty-hunting somebody who’d never done anything to him personally.

‘‘More bugs,’’ Gilbey said. He pointed. A huge walking stick had appeared up top. It was big enough for me to make out its head rolling right and left, checking the blue beetles. It decided they looked tasty. It charged. Something I’d never, in my limited experience, seen a normal walking stick do. They usually move slow, or just wait for dinner to come to them.

The beetles scooted. One lost its grip on the wall. Down it went. The walking stick fell right behind it. The beetle pounded the air desperately with inadequate wings. It survived its collision with cobblestone. The walking stick did not.

Morley and Gilbey alike hustled over for a closer look. I said, ‘‘They just keep on hatching out. I should head over to the Tenderloin, find out if—’’

Miss Tinnie Tate has mastered the secret of bilocation. She was beside me, gouging me in the ribs, before I could finish my thought. Belle gawked, amazed. Though he seemed more taken with Lindy Zhang. Whenever he looked at her he sloughed a half dozen years.

The years came back the moment he looked somewhere else. Somewhere behind me. I turned but didn’t see what had turned him gray at the gills. He pretended nothing had happened. But he looked around some more, marking lines of retreat.

Morley returned. ‘‘You have an interesting one here, Garrett. Not as lethal as usual, but interesting. Good luck. Singe. Time to go.’’

Gilbey approached. He wore a weak smile. ‘‘Ditto, what your friend said. I understand why it’s taking so long. Alyx! Let’s go.’’

‘‘Hang on. I need to talk to her. Alyx! Come here. Godsdamnit, Tinnie, turn it off for two minutes.’’ There are rare moments when enough Tate is just about enough.

‘‘What?’’ Alyx was pouting now.

‘‘Cut the crap. Give me some straight answers. Why do you keep insisting on ghosts here when nobody else sees them?’’

‘‘I see them!’’

‘‘Seen any today?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Where do you see them when you do?’’

She waved a hand behind her, indicating the World. ‘‘Inside.’’

‘‘So. You’ve been coming down here despite your dad’s instructions.’’

She stared at the pavements, for once unready to squabble.

‘‘You have. Bad Alyx.’’

‘‘I just wanted to see how things were going. I talked Daddy into building all this.’’

‘‘The ghosts. You keep insisting.’’

‘‘Damn it, Garrett! I saw them! Every time I ever went down into the part that’s going to be under the stage. That’s where everybody else saw them, too. And sometimes even up on the ground floor.’’

‘‘Who else saw them? I can’t find anybody.’’

‘‘They all quit. Or lie because they don’t want to talk about it.’’

I didn’t get that. Ghosts aren’t common but so much weird stuff happens around this burg that I couldn’t see anybody getting rattled over a spook or two. Unless . . . ‘‘What did you see?’’

‘‘I don’t know. It was just there. All kind of formless. And there was, like, music. Or something. Really faint.’’

Had I not had Bill’s report I would’ve discounted everything Alyx said. As it was, I couldn’t get anything more useful than her stubborn insistence that shehad seen ghosts.

‘‘All right. Go on home with Gilbey. Take the ladies with you.’’ Bill, I noted, had managed to spark a conversation with Lindy. Which he was using to cover his moving continuously to survey the neighborhood.

I had a distinct feeling that Bill had seen a ghost of his own. One that made him extremely nervous. Which just added on to the pile.

I invited myself to interrupt. ‘‘Bill, talk to me some more about what’s going on down there. I really don’t understand.’’