Red Iron Nights (27 page)

The sun hadn’t yet risen when word came that they’d found Emma Setlow, AKA Dixie Starr, in the usual state. The troops had arrived while the ritual was winding down. Winchell had taken another successful powder but his helper had been captured. The knives had been recovered.

“Knives?” I asked. “What knives? We already broke the knives.”

The knives in question turned out to be plain old kitchen knives, not the best for the job they had done.

The Dead Man observed,
Isuspect we will find that the knives were not the vehicle for the curse.

“Hell,” I muttered, “I had that figured. Winchell wouldn’t still be on the hoof if they were.”

The knives are broken, shattered, but the curse goes on.

“Cute. What about the guy they caught?”

The helper was a retarded ratman (an oxymoron again) who admitted he’d been baby-sitting Dixie since her kidnapping, which had taken place well before the snatch on Candy. Meaning Winchell had decided to stock up on brunettes. After he had escaped from Block and the Prince he’d just run off to where he’d had Dixie stashed.

I muttered, “I don’t like this. This Winchell sounds too damned smart.”

“Winchell?” Block sneered. “Winchell needs help tying his shoes.”

It is the curse, gentlemen. This time around
—
meaning this return to the world
—
it has reached some critical stage of growth. I suspect it would not be false to state that it has reached a point where it has begun to teach itself, not just to learn in the slow way a dog does, through numerous repetitions. It might behoove us to consider the horror of the possibility that it may develop an ability to reason.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. A curse makes your cow go dry or gives you shingles or makes your kid crosseyed. It isn’t something that—”

In the world of your village charm seller, you are correct. Probably no sorcerer alive today could cast this spell. But this spell comes down from a time when giants walked the earth.

Giants were walking the earth right outside. Well, within a mile, anyway. But I didn’t argue. One of the earliest lessons I learned about dealing with Old Bones is: don’t get him going on the good old days. “Giants? Well, maybe. But we’re here to develop a strategy.”

Considering the Prince and Captain Block, that strategy would be as much political as it was aimed at removing a major villain from the streets.

The Dead Man agreed with me.
Winchell will keep as short a profile as possible but he will not be able to remain hidden. He may be able to do without a helper, but his need to kill is on a short and shortening cycle. Six nights from tonight he will have to kill again. Inasmuch as Miss . . . Altmontigo . . . has been rescued, he will have to develop his next victim from scratch
—
assuming we can keep our two houseguests isolated.
That he sent to me alone. Our guests didn’t need to know we had anyone special squirreled away.
He will be hunting. If he manages to get his victim without help this time, he will still have to recruit helpers. He cannot stop killing and he cannot stop the circle of death growing smaller every time, so that he has to kill sooner.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Block said. “There a point to all this yammer?”

Yes. Winchell’s financial resources cannot be vast. Counter his recruiting efforts by offering a substantial reward for his capture.

“Who’s Miss Altmontigo?” I asked, regretting it before I finished speaking. Yet I wondered why he’d hesitated that instant, before and after. Because of Block and the Prince?

Candy to you. Or Mickey.

One very unsettling point here. The Altmontigos are an ancient and honored family from the highest heights of the Hill. What was I getting into? I had a royal prince and as high-toned a young woman as could be found visiting at the same time? Not to mention I was giving shelter to a princess of the underworld.

All of that meant notice. I don’t like being noticed by people with that kind of power.

The arguments went on and on. Dawn came and went. I said the hell with it. I wasn’t contributing anything and wasn’t hearing anything useful to me. What suggestions I did make were ignored. So let the great powers scope things out their own way. After they screwed up and looked like complete fools, I could lean back smugly and tell them they should’ve listened to me in the first place.

I stopped at the foot of the stairs. Belinda was up there. Candy was up there. Dean was on the daybed in the small front room again.

That damned kitten started rubbing up against my ankle, purring, trying to get in good. I picked him up. “Little buddy, first thing in the morning you get to learn a valuable lesson. You can’t get by on cute and the kindness of strangers. You’re going to hit the street.”

The cat purred. And somebody pounded on the door.

51

I didn’t get in any hurry. I ambled toward the front door wondering if I couldn’t booby-trap the front steps, putting in something where if you didn’t trip the secret safety you got dumped into a bottomless pit.

Wonderful idea but, unfortunately, not really practical. The practical thing to do was ignore the door. Only most people who want to see me know I have that habit and know that I’ll storm to the door eventually if they just raise hell long enough.

This little nightmare visitor was one neglected subject slash coconspirator name of Barking Dog Amato. Just what I needed in the middle of the night. Well, morning. It had turned morning when I wasn’t looking.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No. Me? I haven’t been to bed yet. I was just heading there. It’s been a nasty day in a nasty week in a nasty month.”

“The girl killer? I heard there was another one.”

“That’s on the street already?”

“Word gets around when people are interested.”

“I guess. Come back to the kitchen.” I jerked a thumb at the Dead Man’s door. “Your old pal Block is in there cooking up something with His Nibs.” I settled Amato at the kitchen table. “Beer?”

“Sure.”

“What’s up?” I asked as I drew two.

“Well . . . It’s an imposition, I know. I got up, it was raining out, I was sick of doing signs and handbills. So I got out and started walking. My feet brought me here.”

What the hell? I didn’t need sleep. Who needs sleep when you lead a righteous life? “Some leftover apple pie here. Want some?”

“Sure. I don’t get much decent food. What did you think the other day?”

“You made a hell of a start. I didn’t get to see it all, though.”

“I noticed you disappeared.”

“Not by choice. Some of Chodo Contague’s thugs came around, told me the man wanted to see me.”

“I thought I saw some of those guys just before you disappeared.”

“You know Chodo’s people?”

“Not by direct experience, thank heaven. But I’ve watched the outfit for years, gathering information. They haven’t tried to profit at my expense yet, but when they do, I’ll be ready.”

Which meant what? There was someone inside the outfit who suffered from mercy and tolerance? Not hardly.

Belinda walked in. Candy was right behind her. Neither was formally attired. Barking Dog immediately proved that he wasn’t all crazy. His eyes bugged. He drooled. If the moon had been up, he would have howled at it. He squeaked, “Who are these lovely ladies, Garrett?”

“They’re involved in the serial-killer thing. This one is Belinda and this one is Candy. Guys, this is Kropotkin Amato.”

Belinda wasn’t impressed but Candy practically jumped out of her underwear. She just
had
to ask: “Barking Dog Amato?” Looking me right in the eye, “Sas’s father?”

In two blinks Amato was a changed man. “Sas? Like in a nickname for Lonie? You know Lonie Amato?”

Belinda caught on, grabbed Candy’s hand. Candy was chalk pale but, apparently, Belinda’s move wasn’t fast enough to stifle her. She said, “Sure. We work with Sas. Don’t we?” So, I thought. You girls have wasted the night away having a hen session upstairs. I hoped a guy named Garrett hadn’t played too prominent a role.

Barking Dog said, “Lonie is my daughter. Not many people know . . . I haven’t seen her since she was five. My wife . . . She never believed in what I was doing. She thought I was crazy. Maybe I was. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. She took off. With Lonie. You know Lonie? You really know Lonie?”

Even crackpots get to shed their tears.

The girls didn’t know what to say. I waved them off. I said, “Old buddy, I guess I owe you a little confession. The reports we’ve been doing? They’ve been going to your daughter through Hullar. Yeah. He was a nominee but not a villain.”

“Lonie? Really? You know my daughter, Garrett?”

“I’ve seen her, that’s all. I don’t know her.”

“Is she all right? Tell me about her. Tell me everything.”

“I’m going to break your heart, old buddy. I can’t. We get along and we’ve worked some things together, but you aren’t my client. Hullar is, for your daughter. I can’t tell you anything unless they say it’s all right. I will tell you that she’s healthy. She ain’t up in the world, but she’s a long way from down. You want to know more, I’ll see what Hullar says.”

Belinda said, “I’ve changed my mind. You’re a real shit, Garrett.”

“What if I was working for you? Would you want me telling your business without permission?”

She grumbled. She made noises. She understood. Barking Dog might well be enthusiastic about news of his daughter, but would the daughter be eager to have him intrude upon
her
life?

Lonie’s wishes had to be consulted.

Barking Dog reached that conclusion too. Maybe faster than I did. He said, “Garrett, you talk to her. See if she’ll meet me. You work that out, where I can see her, I’ll be your slave for life. Anything you want, it’s yours. I loved that girl. And I haven’t seen her since she was practically a baby.”

Belinda and Candy looked at me like they expected pearls of wisdom to drip from my lips, as though with a wave of rusty knight’s blade all could be made right between Barking Dog and his long-lost child. There was a lot of sentimental emotion floating around. If I was going to gain any ground with either of these beauties, I was going to have to play for the reunion.

I’m a cynic. I admit it. I had to do it to maintain my chances. No way was I going to waste my precious time on that out of sentiment. I’m one of the hard guys. You can’t get me with that mush.

I hoped Amato’s heart didn’t break when he found out what his daughter did.

Hell,
I
didn’t know what she did. Did I? She danced for Bishoff Hullar. That didn’t make her a whore. Anyway, that wasn’t any of my business.

I said, “I don’t want to be impolite, guys, but I really am beat. I’ve been hustling all day. You ladies want to stay up, talk to Mr. Amato, that’s fine with me. Make sure the front door is locked when you go to bed. What that means is, one of you has to stay up till Mr. Amato and those clowns in there with His Nibs leave.”

The Dead Man proved that one of his brains had room left for me while he entertained royalty.
You need not concern yourself, Garrett. I suspect that I will not get rid of this prince short of being so rude he hauls us up on charges. I am confident Dean will be awake in ample time to see our last guest out. Do get some sleep.

That didn’t sound good at all. He isn’t kind to me unless he has plans for me. If he wanted me rested, he meant to run me into the ground later.

I patted Amato’s shoulder. “Talk to the girls. I’ll see about your daughter.”

Two minutes later I was between the sheets. I killed the lamp and was unconscious before my head hit the pillow.

52

The Dead Man ran me into the ground for days. I got to do all the legwork Block’s men were supposed to have done already.

Actually, they
had
gathered all the relevant records into one room in the Chancery cellar. They just never got around to doing anything with the documents. So I got to winnow and collate—where I could. I had to bring in help with the older documents, which were recorded in the abandoned Odellic alphabet and wouldn’t have been readable anyway because the language has changed so much.

While I goofed off days and spent profligate evenings in the Tenderloin, Block hunted Winchell and tried to avoid public notice. Word was out that he was the man charged with ending the killings. It was also out that he wasn’t having much luck. The scale and scope of the mess were getting exaggerated. The precursors of hysteria filled the air—which made no sense because people get murdered every day, curse or no curse.

I think Block’s mistake was offering a reward for Winchell, despite that being the Dead Man’s idea. That focused attention. Attention got the poor fool working on an ulcer. His buddy Rupert couldn’t shield him from all the high-ranking dolts who just had to explain to him the best way of doing his job. The Prince himself was guilty of forgetting they were after a killer who was a bit out of the ordinary.

“Tell the man,” Block grumbled. “He don’t listen to me.”

“Getting disenchanted?”

“Not yet. But close. I can still realize that he’s got his own problems and that’s why he can’t give us more help. It’s just a tad irritating when he shuts out whatever he doesn’t want to hear, though.”

I shrugged a cynic’s shrug. I had no faith in his prince.

So Block made excuses for him. “He does have enemies, Garrett. Plenty of people think TunFaire is just dandy the way it is now. Mostly they’re people whose fortunes would suffer from an outbreak of law and order.”

“If it isn’t law and order it’ll be an outbreak of something.” The signs were growing stronger. “I ran into some old ladies who want to demolish all the breweries, wineries, and distilleries.”

“That’s going too far.”

“I tried to tell them. I said, ‘There
is
no civilization without beer. Beer is the lifeblood in the veins of society.’ They wouldn’t listen.”

That put a smile on his face. “Fanatics. What can you do? We get fifty complaints a day about these religious nuts, Mississans, whatever they are.” His grin meant he thought I’d invented the old ladies. I hadn’t. They were working the Chancery steps a few levels above Barking Dog, crowded into a spot nobody else wanted. I wasn’t worried about them. In no rational society would theirs be an idea whose time could come.