Whispering Nickel Idols

21

I was being followed. As I’d reported. But now I had an entourage. The guy in the green pants was only the closest and most obvious tagalong. And the least skilled or most naive. He seemed to think I wouldn’t notice him. He didn’t notice the parade behind him. Which, at first, I thought was Morley’s crew.

Using a few tricks meant to look like accidents, I decided I was wrong. One was a man who worked for Relway. And Spider Webb, an enforcer for Teacher White, who was a small-time renaissance crook Chodo never liked but who’d always avoided giving offense enough to get his run canceled.

Why would Webb and Teacher be interested in me? White wasn’t big enough to try for Chodo’s spot.

Were my fans aware of one another?

They all knew about Ugly Pants. Webb didn’t seem to notice Relway’s people, maybe because half a dozen were taking turns.

I decided to forget Harvester Temisk. I angled off toward the Bledsoe. I took a stroll through a tight neighborhood, turned a few corners quickly, ducked into a church. I scampered up into its bell tower. That gave me a view of the developing confusion.

Morley did have men out, including himself. They laid way back, observing. Morley eyed the belfry as soon as he knew that I’d disappeared.

The Watch had a less relaxed attitude. Their immediate response was to arrest Spider Webb and Ugly Pants. Spider surrendered meekly. He knew you don’t mess with Relway’s Runners.

When I left the church there were six people dead or crippled. Ugly Pants had developed a bad case of being the former. I was glad I didn’t like green. The secret police were about to make green pants a lethal stylistic faux pas. Meantime, Spider would be back on the street before dark. He’d helped them drop the moron in the ugly trousers.

I’d just hove in sight of the Bledsoe when Morley fell into step beside me. “Any theories?” he asked.

“Other than that Ymber breeds them strong but stupid?”

“That was a dirty trick, back there.”

“I learned from a master.”

“Conscience not bothering you?”

I looked inward. “You know, it isn’t.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“You’ve turned into one of the boss class since you got involved in that manufactory business.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Some other time. I have a new venture, too. It’ll be a place where crackpots can spout whatever nonsense infests their pointy heads.”

“We have a place for that. The Chancellery steps.”

“Not anymore. Relway is moving them out. Nobody was making any money off it, apparently.”

“Sure there was. The sausage guys. The rat-on-a-stick guys. The tempura tarantula guy.”

“Who bought those?”

“I don’t know. Somebody. Or he wouldn’t be out there every day. Yuck!”

That wasn’t a comment on deep-fried spider. We were close enough to the Bledsoe to hear and smell the place.

It’s a hell in brick. Those who deliver themselves to the hospital’s mercy are, generally, thoroughly desperate. Meaning parts may be falling off already. The stenches of disease, rotting flesh, and deep despair lie heavy on the whole area. The neighbors pray for foul weather to wash and blow the stink away.

The sound was the choir of madness singing in the insane wards-lair of the Bledsoe’s deepest and most abiding horrors.

Those wards do help finance the hospital. For a few coppers you can tour them. For an extra copper you can rent a stick to torment the mad folk. You can even rent the most dramatic loons for home entertainment.

Money. That’s why.

Money and the complete indifference of ninety percent of the population. That’s why.

The Bledsoe is a charity hospital. Its main support comes from the family that provided emperors to the Empire before the kings of Karenta replaced them. The Empire survives in the imaginations of that one family, so there are still emperors around. But nobody cares. Other than the directors of the Bledsoe, who depend on the imperial family for the donations they steal.

The Bledsoe is the most corrupt institution in TunFaire. We’ll see truly interesting, entertaining times if Director Relway ever goes after the parasites there.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, stopping to stare once I got a clear look at the hospital. Its face was covered by scaffolding. Masons, hod carriers, and other workmen bustled around cleaning and restoring the facade. Though there weren’t many of them.

“You know, I don’t know,” Morley said. “This is new to me, too.”

Repairs were decades overdue. How come the money for this hadn’t gotten stolen? I had no trouble imagining somebody donating enough to renovate the place. But I couldn’t believe that its directors would use the money for its intended purpose. “We need to look into this.”

“Why?”

“Uh…” He had a point. This wasn’t a battle that needed Garrett galloping in in rusty, secondhand armor. Garrett was here to look dark and dangerous and make sure a client of Belinda’s got the sort of treatment the Bledsoe can provide when its staff wants to bother. “You’re right. One thing at a time. I’ll do what I came to do. Relway will get to this place someday.”

“I’ll just stroll along with you. I’m curious about the construction.”

He did sound curious. Like a gangster wondering how anybody would be doing something without getting his permission first.

A large man without a hair on his head had a notion not to let us in. I’d never run into guards before. Morley asked, “You’re kidding, right? You don’t really want to be the next patient here, do you?”

My guess is, the bald guy recognized Morley. He got out of the way.

Next obstacle, an admissions clerk. Who was no challenge at all.

The clerk was a volunteer. Of the female persuasion. Ellie Jacques. Meaning it took Morley about thirty-seven seconds to have her ready to jump her counter and devour him. She gave up the whereabouts of the burned woman immediately. The patient was Buy Claxton. She was getting the best care the Bledsoe could deliver. With Morley making eyes Ellie admitted Mrs. Claxton was getting the best because the doctors knew the Contague name.

The Contagues and the Relways tend to get results.

I asked the clerk, “What’s going on outside?” Which earned me a look of disdain. How dare I intrude on her romantic interlude?

Morley offered a whispered apology. I was good of heart. And the question intrigued him, too.

Homely and middle-aged, Ellie was desperate to please. “A charitable trust came in. They wanted to fix the place up. But they wouldn’t hand over the money. I guess they’re not stupid, even if they are bumpkins. They insisted on doing the work themselves. The directors resisted till they came up with the notion of going after matching funds.”

Morley batted his eyes and made implied promises. Ellie implied a willingness to play any game Morley wanted.

Bumpkins? Yes. A consortium of civic-minded, successful businessmen from Ymber. Yada yada yada. The “give something back” yammer nobody with smarts enough to get in out of the rain ever buys. Give it back? What did you get in the first place? From whom?

Morley suggested, “Why don’t you visit Mrs. Claxton?” Reminding me that I had a mission. He swung the charm beam back to the volunteer. Who admitted she was a Mrs., too, but wasn’t fanatic about it.

“Right,” I said. “Why don’t I go check on her while you hang around here?”

“Absolutely perfect, my friend.”

Enjoying the therapeutic aroma of the Bledsoe, I climbed two flights of stairs to one of the hospital’s celebrity suites. The crooks in charge are clever enough to keep a few available in case somebody with lots of money stumbles in, bleeding. Belinda’s father had used one occasionally when he was younger and got into those sorts of situations.

Buy Claxton’s physicians had betrayed their normally hidden competence by making her pain go away, then followed up by doing mysterious, wonderful things to reduce the damage caused her by burns. Their respect for the Contague name led them to bring in a wizard with a strong healing talent.

I don’t doubt that they found gentle, unobtrusive ways to pad their fees.

Buy was awake. “I remember you. You tried to help.”

“Yes, I did. Miss Contague asked me to make sure they’re taking care of you. And to see if you need anything.”

“They’re treating me like a princess. Because they’re scared shitless of what’ll happen if they don’t.”

“Are you unhappy about that?”

“Shit, no. I’m thinking maybe I’ll just camp out here from now on. I got no desire for my ass to be some kind a symbol to them what thinks the ruling class…” They must have drugged her as soon as I showed up downstairs. Just in case. She mumbled through most of that, then faded completely.

“Belinda put the fear of God in them,” I told Morley as we left. “And how was your day?”

“The things I suffer for friendship.”

“Bet you she cooks you a nice two-pound steak… What do you suppose these clowns are really doing?” We’d stopped to watch the men working on the Bledsoe’s sad face.

“Looks like they’re taking bad bricks out and putting in new ones.”

“No. They aren’t. I worked as a bricklayer’s apprentice for about six months one week, back before I went in the Marines.”

“You left an honest career for life as a tick on society’s underbelly?”

“I got fired. I couldn’t make them understand that the workday shouldn’t start before noon.”

“All right. You’re an authority on bricklaying. What do you see that I don’t?”

“They’re fixing things that aren’t broken. This place is still sound. It just needs the rotten mortar scraped out and new mortar tucked in. But they’re making holes in the wall.” I could see several places where bricks had been removed to create hollows.

“All right. I see that.”

“Didn’t your friend say most of the workmen didn’t show up today?”

“She said the financing came from Ymber. I recall that.”

“Why don’t you pop back in and find out if those philanthropists had bad taste in trousers. I’ll talk to these guys here.”

Dotes looked sour, but he went. He had his own beef with the Ugly Pants Gang.

I strolled over to a hod carrier of fifteen summers who seemed to share my youthful lack of enthusiasm for clambering up ladders lugging mass quantities of bricks or mortar. “I’m trying to figure out what they’re doing up there.”

I got the right note of naive bewilderment into that. After an instant to decide whether the old guy deserved some attitude, the kid grunted. “They’re just tuck-pointing and replacing bad bricks.” TunFaire is built almost entirely of brick. Everybody knows something about the upkeep of brick buildings.

“I get that. I did your job when I was your age, a couple hundred years ago. I never saw nobody pull good bricks out.”

“Oh. That. They’re making these niches. Usually, there’s a lot more guys working. They put these metal things inside, then brick them up. Over there you can see where they’ve already done that about ten times.”

“So you’re, like, getting in on a slow day, eh?”

He chuckled. “This is the best day I’ve had since this job started. Aw, crap! I had to open my yap. Now my old man wants me to bring up some mortar.”

The boy stirred the mortar in a nearby mixing boat, splatted twenty pounds into a mortar hod, then went up the ladders and scaffolding like a monkey. I wasted ten seconds hating him for being that young, then drifted over to where the boy had pointed out some finished Ymber craftsmanship.

They weren’t bricklayers by trade. Not even apprentice bricklayers.

Morley said, “You’re psychic,” from behind me.

“I’ve been accused of everything else. Why not that?”

“The philanthropists from Ymber brought a crew of volunteer workmen. Every single one wore filthy green plaid pants.”

My new young friend spidered to the ground as Morley made his remarks. He overheard. I asked, “Would those be the guys who didn’t show up today?”

“Yeah. And I ain’t missing them, neither. I never seen such a bunch of useless assholes.”

I tried to find out more, but somebody up top kept hollering nonsense about lollygagging and slacking. I told Morley, “Sounds just like the guy who fired me fifteen years ago.”

The kid said, “That’s my old man. Don’t worry about him. He’s all hot air.” But he got busy working the mortar boat. You don’t, the mortar sets up.