Red Iron Nights

31

Crunch and I were getting to be buddies. After only five minutes of squinting and thinking he remembered that I preferred beer. That saved him one question in his routine. I saved him the others by asking for a pint of Weider's pale lager, then told him, "Tell Hullar Garrett's here."

"Garrett. Right." He tiptoed away. I waited for his feet and beard to disagree. No such luck. That dwarf defied the laws of nature.

He took a while. I sipped beer and surveyed the place. I'd never seen it so busy. It was jumping. Three couples were dancing while the band snored through something I might have recognized had it been played by real musicians. Three tables boasted customers. There wasn't a girl left over to hustle me—though by now they had me pegged for a waste. They remembered better than Crunch did.

One of the girls caught my eye. She was new. She had some life left. And she was a great actress—unless she really was having a good time. She was younger than the rest, an attractive brunette who looked enough like the brunette I'd seen earlier to cool my fantasies.

"Be out in a minute," Crunch said behind me. I'd turned to lean against the bar while I studied the local wildlife. I glanced over my shoulder. Crunch looked back, puzzled. He didn't understand what was going on. He had an idea I was a bagman for the outfit, only I made deliveries instead of collections.

I'd caught him on a real good day first time around. Most of the time he was like this. Puzzled. By everything.

"Who's the brunette there, Crunch?"

He squinted, had trouble making her out. He fumbled out a pair of cheaters, perched them on his nose, pushed them back with a finger like a dried-out potato. I was surprised. Glasses are expensive. "That there's the new girl, mister."

Right. "Come with a name?" Her or me?

He puzzled it but didn't come up with anything before Hullar descended on the stool beside me, his back to the bar too. He accepted a mug from Crunch. "It don't get no better than this, Garrett."

I glanced his way. I read no more from his expression than from his tone. Was he saying this was heaven on earth? Was he stating a fact about business? Was he being sarcastic? Maybe he didn't know himself.

I handed him Barking Dog's latest.

"Shit. Don't you got nothing else to do? All I want to know is, is the crazy bastard getting his tit in a wringer? I don't need to know every time he picks his nose."

A point I kept trying to get across to Barking Dog. I said, "First time I dropped in here, Crask was here."

"Crask?" Wary, suddenly.

"Crask. Like from the outfit. He was talking to the musicians."

"If you say so. I don't remember."

He remembered fine. Else he wouldn't have so much trouble with his memory. "A girl walked in just as I was going to leave. She headed for Crunch like she had something on her mind, only she spotted Crask and suddenly hightailed it."

"If you say so. I don't remember none of that."

"What can you tell me about her?"

"Nothing." He was real definite about that. So definite it was a cinch I'd be beating my head against a wall if I kept after him. I've used my noggin to dent a few walls in my time. All that banging has taught me how to tell when it's going to be the head and not the wall that gets broken.

I dropped it. "Who's the new girl?"

He shrugged. "They come and go. They don't stick for a while, you never find out. Calls herself Candy. That's not the truth. Why?"

My turn to shrug. "I don't know. Something different about her. She's having fun."

"Get those sometimes. Do it for the kick. Takes all kinds to make a horse race, Garrett." He tapped Barking Dog's report. "What's this shit say? He alive?"

"Same old Barking Dog, only going bonkers because the rain won't let up long enough for him to preach."

"Good. Next time, just tell me that. Never mind you bury me with five hundred pages of every time he picked a zit. I maybe agreed on expenses, but not on that much paper."

I didn't look at Hullar. He wasn't in one of his better moods, but neither did he want to be left alone. Tenderloin people are that way. They want to spend time with somebody from outside who isn't a customer or somebody with a moral ax to grind. They just want to feel like real people sometimes.

They are real people. Maybe realer than most. They're more in contact with reality than are those who buy their time or those who condemn them. Their real sin is that they've shed their illusions.

Hullar missed his illusions. He wanted to be distracted from those nights when this was as good as it got. "Up for a story?" I asked.

"What kind?"

"Good guys and bad guys and lots of pretty girls. What I'm doing besides peeping Barking Dog."

"Shoot. But don't look for me to give you no help."

"Gods forfend. It's just an interesting mess." I gave him most of it, edited where appropriate.

"That's sick, Garrett. Real sick. I thought I heard of every freak there was, but this's a new one. Them poor girls. And butterflies?"

"Butterflies. I don't know if they've got anything to do with it."

"Weird. You got a curse at work. Or something. Maybe you ought to find you a necromancer. Hey! I know. I know a guy, weird but real good, goes by Dr. Doom—"

"We've met. I don't think he'd be much help." Weird for sure, Doom was more fraud than expert. I think. He did have a knack for laying ghosts. I'd bring him in if that was what it took.

Hullar shrugged. "You know your situation."

"Yeah. Desperate." I eyed the happy brunette. "In more ways than one." I wondered if there might not be something to the idea of apologizing to Tinnie. Fate wasn't throwing anything else my way.

Hullar saw me looking. He snickered. "Go ahead, Garrett. Give it your best shot. But I'll tell you this. Candy's all talk and no play. She's the kind that, far as she's concerned, it's good enough to know she could've got you if she wanted. She gets you there, she starts looking for the next one."

"Story of my life." I levered myself off my stool. "Catch you later. Got an appointment with an overcooked roast."