The Bone Triangle (8 page)

I decided not to tell her he’d named a deadly lava-slug after her. I had the feeling it wouldn’t make any points.

“So,” I said conversationally, “I’ve heard you and Rostok have a thing going.”

She flashed her eyes at me, then shrugged. She looked shy for a moment. This was difficult to pull off in a nearly topless bodice with tail feathers, but she managed it.

“That was a long time ago,” she said. “But it’s over now—it didn’t work out.”

“Let me guess: he gave you nice things but never took you anywhere except for unusually dark rooms.”

She shrugged. “He was different back then, when we were together. He stayed in this building, sure, but he took me downstairs. We went to the shows in the ballroom and visited the restaurant and the casino floor. He’s become much more reclusive since then.”

I thought that over. “What does he look like?”

Esmeralda shrugged. “I don’t have a picture.”

The elevator door dinged and slid open. Unsurprisingly, there was no one in it. We walked in, and Esmeralda pushed the penthouse button.

“Was he fat, thin, bald, old…?” I asked, persisting.

“Tall, well-built. About forty.”

I frowned at this answer. I’d always gotten the feeling he was a large, bearlike man. Maybe he’d put on a lot of weight. I decided not to ask her about that.

“Does he
ever
turn the lights on these days?”

She glanced at me and shook her head. “Not anymore.”

I nodded. There was an awkward silence, but it lasted only a few more seconds. The elevator dinged and we got off at the penthouse lobby.

“Do you know your way from here, Mr. Draith?”

I nodded, and she took the elevator back down. I tapped at Rostok’s office door and it slid open. I stepped inside into a region of velvety darkness. The first time I’d come to visit the man, I’d found his penchant for sitting in a pitch-black room disconcerting. Now, I was used to it. The door slid shut behind me without a sound.

“Ah, Quentin,” he rumbled in the dark.

I felt a big man get up and walk past me. I tried not to shy away. I wondered for the hundredth time how he could see in this gloom.

I stood still, squinting in the dark. My eyes fought to adjust after the comparative glare of the lobby. Splotchy purple and blue afterimages roamed in front of me. After a short time, I could see the dimly glowing LEDs running in chains around the room. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, I could make out the shadowy hulks of couches, a desk, and two large overstuffed chairs. I sat in one of the chairs when I could see it well enough to steer my butt into it without tripping.

Rostok made me a drink without asking. I heard ice cubes rattle and crack as he poured liquids over them. He handed me the drink, and I took it from his hand when I realized it was in front of my face.

“So, I hear you’ve seen Ezzie?” he asked.

“And Esmeralda.”

Rostok laughed. “Another of my little secrets gone! I tell you, it is unnerving to be in your presence. I’ve long been told I have foresight, but my eyes can rarely see as far as yours.”

Especially not in this pitch-dark room
, I thought. I recalled Ezzie’s story about Rostok’s power to foresee the future. Could it be true? Could he be hinting about it now? I decided to let the probe pass. I didn’t want him to know what I’d heard from Ezzie.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” I said.

“I wonder…Well, no matter. Tell me now, how did you spirit away my Ezzie? Where is she, and how did you manage this feat within my domain?”

“Uh,” I began, taken aback. “I didn’t kidnap her, Rostok.”

“Ah! You claim seduction, then? What did you offer her, a bowl of hot coals? I don’t see how you did it, honestly. I know something about all the loose artifacts floating about this city in the hands of various rogues. I’d been suspecting that fop Gilling up until the moment you came here to confess.”

“I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding…”

“Nonsense,” Rostok said. “Come, boy, confession is good for the soul. Catholics do it all the time! You are in the domain of your lord. You don’t need to lie and shiver here. If this is about a ransom, let me hear your proposal.”

I squinted in the dark and breathed through my mouth for a second. I was uncertain as to how I should proceed. There were underlying threats in everything Rostok was saying. He pretended not to care, but I knew better. If he really
believed I had kidnapped Ezzie, he would not rest until I was dead.

“There is no ransom. There was no kidnapping. I—Ezzie came to me. Then she left me as suddenly as she left you. She seemed to be following a series of portals. She wrecked my house by coming up from the cellar and burning her way down the hall.”

I heard an odd, rhythmic sound. After a moment I identified it: Rostok was drumming his fingers on something, probably the arm of his chair.

“You persist in this fantasy? You claim Ezzie manipulated an artifact on her own and left my domain using it?”

“Let’s deal with facts. I awakened to a burning heat in my house. I found Ezzie coming up from the cellar. She was hot—hotter than I’d ever seen her before. She spoke to me briefly, saying she’d been to her homeworld and enjoyed the heat there. I imagine she’d swam in her native lava pools.”

“Go on,” Rostok said, “tell me your tale. We’ll separate the fact from the fiction later on.”

“She didn’t stay long. You can have a look at the trail yourself, if you like. It is as plain to see as a line of chalk. She said she liked me; she’d left you because she decided she wanted to do as she pleased. She left soon after, saying she couldn’t stay. She said something about following a pathway.”

Rostok had begun pacing heavily around the room, but now he sank into a chair. It creaked under his weight. I looked in the direction I thought he was, wishing I could see in the darkness the way he seemed to be able to. I figured he probably had an object that allowed him to see in the dark and perhaps he found it intimidating to keep his visitors guessing. That made sense, but I believed it was more than
that. I suspected the darkness aided him or that he required it somehow.

“I will check, you know,” he told me. “I will see for myself. I will have recordings made of your home. Forensics will report to me, and the truth will be revealed.”

I leaned back in my chair and sipped the drink he’d given me. It was vodka with a slightly oily taste. I suspected it was a real Russian import.

“Do you like it?” Rostok asked.

“It’s very cold.”

“It is best served that way. It is from my homeland. They put glycerin in it, you see. It would not be legal to sell it that way here. The glycerin allows us to freeze it to a very low temperature. Then, it slides away down the throat. It is like drinking frozen fire.”

I chuckled, feeling the cold and the burn of it at the same time. “I have to admit, this stuff is the best.”

We sipped our drinks quietly for a few moments. Then he spoke again, “You visit with me and you drink with me like a friend, but you have stolen away my Ezzie.”

“No, I haven’t. She is not in my care. I would not know how to force her or even to persuade her to do anything. She came to me in the night, then vanished as mysteriously as she arrived.”

Rostok stood up and resumed pacing. For a minute or so, neither of us talked. I continued sipping, trying not to let him make me nervous.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ve come to a decision. You will be believed for now. I hope for your sake you are not seeking to play me false. But I will check your story at your house. Already, my minions are there investigating.”

“I’m glad that misunderstanding is behind us,” I said. “Now, let’s talk about the damage to my house. I came here
to inform you about Ezzie’s visit, but I also have unhappy news. She’s caused a great deal of destruction, and it must be repaired.”

“Then call the repairman, Draith! I’m not your secretary.”

“Of course not. But I’m sorely lacking in funds at the moment, if you could—”

“Ah!” roared the man. “I get it now! All this time,
I’ve
been playing the fool. What does Quentin Draith need? Money. Who has money? Poor Mr. Rostok, that silly man who lives atop a building
made
of money. What does a beggar in your situation do? Why, he takes that which is most dear to the rich man, the honest man of means. Then he offers to return the victim for pay—”

“Mr. Rostok, I—”

“No! Do not seek to wriggle and dodge. You will hear my words. I believe I now have the sequence of events all clearly stuffed into my slow head. When demanding funds, a robber must negotiate from a position of strength, is it not so? But you, sir, you have no strength. You are a rogue. A mean man of the street with a few tricks in your pockets. An individual who swims in filth. Force, therefore, is out of the question. How, then, can a man of your lowly station
take
from his betters? Can you tell me that, Draith?”

“This is getting us nowhere.”

“On the contrary, I think this is making everything clear to me. The answer to my question is well known to you, I suspect. What a lesser man does is
cheat
. He performs a trick of confidence. He sells back what he has taken, while pretending to be the hero who has rescued it. You, Mr. Draith, are conning me!”

I sighed. “I’m doing nothing of the kind. Ezzie ran away. She thought it was cold and dull here. She didn’t want to sit
in the dark in a building forever. Is that so hard to believe? What female wouldn’t agree with her, no matter what her nature?”

There was a long silence. Rostok stood in the dark quietly.

“Rostok?” I asked.

“You have hurt me with your words, sir.”

“I’m sorry. Do you believe me now?”

“I will admit your story could be true. I will proceed on that basis. I will pay you to find her. I will fix your house, and I’ll arrange for your bills to go away. But you must bring her back to me.”

“Uh…” I said. “I can try. All I know is that she went into a rip, but I don’t know where it led.”

“You can bet it was somewhere hot. Ask McKesson about such places.”

I nodded. “I will use your name.”

“There are only a few hot worlds connected to this one. You will search them for me. Now, get out.”

I am many things, but I’m not one who overstays his welcome. I tossed down the rest of my drink and headed for the door. I tripped on the carpet in the blackness but managed to keep my feet. I felt my way by running my fingers along the back of the armchair.

“Draith?” Rostok called after me as I reached the door. “One last thing.”

“Yes?”

“If this is a con job, you will not be successful. I will not allow it.”

“I understand.”

As I rode the elevator back down to the ground floor, my mind whirled. What a strange niche I’d carved out of life for myself. At this point, I was searching for two runaways, both females, but radically different in nature. I smiled as I considered Photoshopping up an image of Ezzie and walking around town, showing it to people.

I walked the Strip to a shopping mall. The building was about to close, but I had just enough time to purchase new shoes, socks, and jeans. I took them to the public restrooms, changed, and shoved the dirty pants and shoes into the trash. They could be washed, I supposed, but I didn’t feel like carting them around with me any longer. I’d endured enough wrinkled noses and whispers already.

Feeling civilized again, I exited the mall under the irritated eyes of a night watchman who was trying to kick everyone out. He rattled his keys in the lock behind me after I exited.

I paused on the sidewalk outside. Getting a sudden impulse, I turned around and tapped on the glass. The watchman waved me away. I placed the picture of Jacqueline Swanson on the glass between us.

“Have you seen her?” I asked, reasoning that a young woman would frequent a mall of this kind, and that a middle-aged watchman like this man might well have noticed her.

Again, he waved me off as if he couldn’t hear me, although we both knew that he could. Irritated, I put my hand on the door handle and pulled. My sunglasses performed their sole trick flawlessly. I leaned into the mall and smiled at him.

“I said, have you seen this young lady?”

The watchman huffed and walked over to me quickly. “How did you open that? I just locked the damned thing.”

“Must not have turned the key all the way,” I suggested.

He came close and fumbled with his keys. “I’m sorry, sir, the mall is closed now. Come back in the morning. We’re open to the public from—”

“Just look at the picture,” I said. “Yes or no?”

He sighed and took it from me. I stood there with one toe of my new shoes and my nose in the door, propping it open. Like all mall doors it was heavy and seemed to want to crush my foot and my face.

“Hmm,” he said. “You know, I think I have seen her around.” He looked at me strangely. “You’re way too young to be her father. Boyfriend?”

I nodded vaguely.

“Well, I think we caught her on camera…you might not want to hear this, sir. But if this is the girl I think it is, she’s a shoplifter.”