Whispering Nickel Idols

1

There I was, galumphing downstairs, six feet three of the handsomest, ever-loving blue-eyed ex-Marine you’d ever want to meet. Whistling. But it takes me a big, big bucket to carry a tune. And my bucket had a hole in it.

Something was wrong. I needed my head examined. I’d gone to bed early, all by my own self. And hadn’t had a dram to drink before I did. Yet this morning I was ready to break into a song and dance routine.

I felt so good that I forgot to be suspicious.

I can’t forget, ever, that the gods have chosen me, sweet baby Garrett, to be their special holy fool and point man in their lunatic entertainments.

I froze on the brink of my traditional morning right turn to the kitchen.

There was a boy in the hallway that runs from my front door back to my kitchen. He was raggedy with reddish ginger hair all tangled, a kid who was his own barber. And his barber was half blind and used a dull butcher knife. There were smudges on the boy’s cheeks. He stood just over five feet tall. I made him about twelve, or maybe a puny thirteen. His tailor was a walleyed ragpicker. I assumed he had a pungent personal aura, but wasn’t close enough to experience it.

Was he deaf? He’d missed the racket I’d made coming down. Of course, he had his nose stuck in the Dead Man’s room. That view can be overwhelming, first time. My partner is a quarter ton of dead gray flesh resembling the illegitimate offspring of a human father and pachydermous mother, vaguely. In the nightmare of some opium-bemused, drunken artist.

“Makes you want to jump in his lap and snuggle up, don’t he?”

The kid squeaked and backed toward the front door, bent over so he sort of probed his way with his behind.

“And you would be?” I asked, more interested than I could explain just by my finding a stranger marooned in my hallway.

The kitchen door squeaked. “Mr. Garrett. You’re up early.”

“Yeah. It ain’t even the crack of noon. Clue me in, here.”

The party exiting the kitchen was Dean, my live-in cook and housekeeper. He’s old enough to be my grandfather but acts like my mom. His turning up explained the kid. He was lugging something wrapped in dirty old paper.

Dean collects strays, be they kittens or kids.

“What?”

“You’re up to something. Else you wouldn’t call me Mr. Garrett.”

Dean’s wrinkles pruned into a sour face. “The sun always sets when there is fear of saber-tooth tigers.”

That means you see what you’re afraid to see. My mother said it a lot, in her time.

“This house is safe from tigers.” I stared at the boy, intrigued. He had a million freckles. His eyes sparkled with challenge and curiosity and fright. “Who’s this? How come he’s poking around my house?” I kept on staring. There was something appealing about that kid.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I expected psychic mirth from my deceased associate. I got nothing.

Old Bones was sound asleep.

There’s good and bad in everything.

I focused on Dean. I had a scowl on. A ferocious one, not my “just for business” scowl. “I’m not whistling now, Dean. Talk to me.” Grease stained the packet the old boy carried. Once again, at second hand, I would be feeding a stray.

“Uh… this is Penny Dreadful. He runs messages for people.”

Dreadful? What kind of name was that? “There’s a message for me, then?” I gave the urchin the benefit of my best scowl. He wasn’t impressed. Likely nothing troubled him as long as he stayed out of grabbing range.

I saw nothing suggesting aristocratic antecedents, though Dreadful is the sort of name favored by the sorcerers and spook chasers on the Hill, our not so subtle secret masters.

“Yes. There is. In the kitchen,” Dean blurted. He pushed past. “I’ll get it in a minute. Here, Penny. Mr. Garrett will let you out. Won’t you, Mr. Garrett?”

“Sure, I will. I’m one of the good guys, aren’t I?” I stood against the wall as Dean pushed past again, headed the other way.

The kid clutched the packet and retreated. Odd. My internal reaction wasn’t overpowering, but it was of a strength usually reserved for those darlings who make priests regret their career choices.

I opened the door. The ragamuffin slid out and scurried away, hunched like he expected to get hit. He didn’t slow down till he reached the intersection of Macunado Street with Wizard’s Reach.

He looked back while he was eating, saw me watching. Startled, he zipped around the corner.

Buzz! Buzz! Tinkling, musical laughter. Something tugged my hair. A tiny voice piped, “Garrett’s got a girlfriend.”

“Hello, Marienne.” Marienne was an adolescent pixie of the female variety. A squabbling nest of the wee folk live in the voids inside the exterior walls of my house. Marienne loved to give me a hard time.

“Looked a little young to me,” a second voice observed. My hair suffered again. “Too tender for a butcher whose forest is getting a little thin in back.”

“Hollybell. You horrid little bug. I knew you’d never let Marienne out of your sight.” Hollybell and Marienne are inseparable. Before the leaves finish falling, though, they’ll discover boys who aren’t all smell and dirt and stupid. Soon the slightest sigh would have universe-shuddering importance.

“Mr. Garrett?”

Dean wanted me. He always horns in when I want to play with little girls.