Whispering Nickel Idols

65

Tinnie was there when I woke up, but she wasn’t feeling playful. I avoided irritating questions till after breakfast. Then I asked about the weather.

“Am I supposed to know? You were there. Did I suddenly pop outside?”

I sighed.

Singe cursed. Dean cursed. A drunken Melondie Kadare cursed like a platoon of Marine storm troopers. Incoherently. She’d been in the kitchen sucking it down when we’d brought Chodo and Harvester in. We needed to put her in a cage. Those cats couldn’t ignore their own nature forever.

“So the weather hasn’t gotten any better.”

Tinnie growled and grumbled like it was all my fault she couldn’t go home and get to work.

Being a rational, reasonable man, I noted, “If you can’t get to work, neither can anybody else. So there wouldn’t be any reason for you to try.”

“You are so full of crap…” And so forth.

The patient sort, I waited for the black tea to kick in.

Garrett.

I jumped and ran. Pure horror reeked off the Dead Man’s summons.

“What the hell?”

Do not speak. Not one more word.

I’m a quick study. I sealed my yap. It had to be hugely important.

We are on the brink of a holocaust.

I’m so good I just stood there and said a whole lot of nothing.

Being careful not to let Mr. Contague or Mr. Temisk see you, pocket those firestones and get them out of the house. I believe you can fathom why. Several seconds later, he added, We should have recognized that danger earlier. I should have seen it.

Somebody should have. It was right there in front of us. The end of us all. Maybe the gods do love fools, drunks, and their favorite toy. Or they’ve got something uglier planned for later.

This once I was in such a hurry I forgot to look out the peephole first. I opened up and got smacked between the eyes with the wonder of snow gone wild. I told Singe, “I was six last time I saw it like this.”

There was a fresh foot on top of the old mess. More pounded down in hunks so big each flake should’ve made the earth shake. I couldn’t see the other side of the street. Meaning a watcher over there couldn’t see me slide out.

I trudged over to Playmate’s place. That took an hour. I wasn’t in good shape when I got there. It was going to be a long time before I got my old vigor back. And I didn’t like this feeble new me, even temporarily.

I needed to get into a conditioning routine. Right after… whatever I thought up as needed doing first.

I’d give procrastination a bad name-if I ever got around to it.

Playmate asked, “So what’s this I hear about you trying to die on us?”

“It wasn’t quite that bad.” I gave him the full story.

“Your luck amazes me. The Dead Man was awake and Tinnie put aside her grudges.”

There was no arguing that. I explained our current best theories. And added, “I need to know what to do with these firestones.”

“You brought them with you?” That made him nervous.

“They don’t blow up. They need a psychic nudge to set them off.”

“Tell me about them.”

I did. It didn’t take long.

“I wish I could experiment. Since I can’t, let’s put them in a lead-lined iron casket and bury them under the stable floor. If they go off and melt through the box they’ll just sink down into the earth.”

“Ingenious.” I got the stones out. I’d also brought the little box we’d taken off the deacon. “Put this in there, too. No! Don’t open it.” I explained about the nickel idols. “They turn into pure, concentrated despair when they’re charged up. You’re close to them when they cut loose, you hear ghosts telling you to kill yourself.” Maybe you took sick, too.

What a weapon for someone into dirty politics.

Playmate considered, then asked, “You poked around inside the Bledsoe?”

“I visited the woman Temisk tried to kill. That’s all.”

“I’m wondering if there isn’t an upside to this villainy. A chance that, with evil intentions, they might be managing something good.”

Playmate might be the only guy in TunFaire able to worry about the pavements of the road from hell. I asked, “How so, Swami?”

“If the nickel idols suck despair out of the Bledsoe, then the inmates might be getting better.”

“The statues might drive wack jobs sane?”

“Seems logical. Though despair isn’t the only reason people go mad.”

I began to see possibilities. I began to get excited. “The right arms get twisted, the Bledsoe could actually do some good.”

“You’d need the Ymberians. They know how the system works. I doubt they’re interested in curing anyone, though. But yes, think about it. Just suck the pain right out. Smash it into the idols and… uh-oh.”

“Yeah. The charged idols would be dangerous. And men who’d use them for their own purposes outnumber you and me. This’ll take some thinking. We’ve got to get it right.”

“We?”

“What?” He never shirked a chance to do a good deed.

“I do see it, Garrett. But I’m only one man. Who’d have to fly into a frenzy of ambition. Which I don’t have much of anymore.”

“I see.” I saw. “It wouldn’t be a one-man mission, Play. If it’s workable. We can worry about that later. I’ll see what Max Weider thinks. I just had to get this stuff out of the house. We’d be in deep brown if Chodo had one of his psychic spasms.”

“Is there anything else?” Playmate hadn’t offered the customary hospitality. I could’ve used a drink. He must’ve had a woman stashed. Or wanted to get back to work. Or something less flattering to my ego.

I thought I’d stop by The Palms, take a break. After half an hour of slogging through snow up to my knees, into the wind. Uphill. Barefoot… But the place was boarded up and showing no light.