Mister Max: The Book of Secrets: Mister Max 2

  The stranger waited and waited and waited until at last Kip had to ask, “What’s that?” He’d heard about the French Foreign Legion. Who hadn’t? An army for hire, men who’d fled their own lands and lives for one reason or another, usually to save their own skins, men trained in the art of battle, trained to be ruthless, heartless, merciless, so that anybody who came up against them arrived already terrified. The French Foreign Legion had always sounded pretty good to Kip. He wondered what one thing kept the stranger from sending him there, but he was afraid he knew the answer.

  When the man spoke, however, Kip was surprised. “A soldier in the Legion has to be one of his unit, one finger on a hand, not a fist of his own. The men of the Legion stand together or fall together, and anyone who isn’t willing to die for his comrades, or with his comrades, makes a weak link in the chain. You always take the lion’s share, that’s the way you like things. I don’t see you being willing not to be top dog, and I certainly can’t imagine you standing firm in a chain when the chain’s in trouble. Which is too bad for you because it means I’m going to have to turn you over to the police, who, I’m sure, won’t take long rooting out your little extortion racket—You’re surprised? You didn’t really think you were getting away with it, did you? It’ll be the law for you, then the courts, and then the hangman.” He smiled at Kip.

  Kip didn’t bother trying to look like he was smiling back. He couldn’t think and smile at the same time. He didn’t know just what had really happened here and he suspected that it was the murderer himself standing there, in a fancy red jacket with two rows of gold buttons down the front and more gold buttons on the sleeves, with the kind of sash across his chest that only powerful men wore, with a sword he obviously knew how to use already out of its sheath, with—most alarming of all—the obvious intention of finding someone else guilty of his own crime. If this man ran Kip through with that sword, the law would sing his praises, for bringing down a murderer (what did the law care if he was innocent?) and ending the extortion, too. Kip was trapped.

  When you were in a trap, you got yourself out of it.

  “I’ve got a policeman waiting for you in the corridor,” the stranger announced. “If you’d care to let us know where you’ve stashed the body, I’d be grateful.”

  Kip looked at the man. How grateful? he wondered, and was about to ask that when the man spoke again.

  “Not grateful enough to do you any good,” he said—with that smile. He smiled like someone who didn’t care about anybody else, who was so sure of his position in the world and his power to get whatever he wanted that all the other people were no more than beetles, running around underfoot, to be stepped on. With a satisfying crunch. “Or maybe I would be. Do you want to risk it?”

  But Kip couldn’t tell him where the body was, and the man knew it.

  “No? Not willing to help us out here? That’s too bad, Kip,” the stranger said, although his voice didn’t sound like he thought it was too bad at all.

  Kip took off. He’d take his chances with the policeman in the hallway and let Colly and Blister take their chances with the law. He whipped around and was through the door, the knife out of his jacket pocket and ready. He threw the door shut behind him but didn’t lock it. He couldn’t take the time. He almost didn’t notice the figure, two figures it was, stationed beside the stairs up to the stage door.

  Kip ran right at them—the policeman and his girlfriend! A country girl, by her red embroidered skirt and braids. What a fool she was, to let a policeman court her when everyone knew policemen got the worst of everything. But what a piece of luck for Kip that this policeman was the kind whose girlfriend followed him onto the job. More luck that she was a screamer, howling away like that. Of course the fool would take care of her first, protect her. Kip only had to shove at him with one big hand and threaten her with the knife held in the other, to open the way to the stairs, out the door to the alley, and the street, and the docks, and—he hoped—the French Foreign Legion.

  What Blister understood was: There was blood and the boy was gone and the rope his hands had been tied up with lay in the blood like a long, twisted noodle. Blister understood right away that Kip was in trouble, with his knife. Blister didn’t like kneeling in the blood, and his palms were smeared with it, but he didn’t want to move. He had to twist his head to see what was going on.

  The trouble was, Blister didn’t know what Kip would do. Except that what he would do was probably going to hurt because when things didn’t go the way Kip wanted, Blister ended up black-and-blue. He cringed away, and down, as if Kip wouldn’t be able to see him, and waited for the blow. The trouble was, when Blister was frightened he couldn’t think at all. When he was frightened, everything swirled and wound and blew around him and he couldn’t understand any of it. The trouble was, Blister was almost always frightened.

  Something was different with Kip. Blister wasn’t surprised when Kip shoved Colly—hard—into the man in the red coat, but he didn’t expect not to get a good kick as Kip ran out of the room. There was so much fear in the shadowy little room at that moment that Blister gulped for air. His mind swooped and darted, unable to land anywhere and rest.

  But he didn’t like this blood on his hands.

  “Can I wash my hands, Colly?” he asked. He didn’t want to look at the man in the red coat. Blister thought that if he didn’t look at the man, the man might not notice him. He knew this was one of his stupid ideas but he didn’t dare change it. He looked only at Colly.

  Colly did dare to look at the man and then he said, “Sure, go ahead.” So Blister stood up and stepped out of the blood on the floor. The water in the sink was cool and in no time his hands were clean again, and the water was swirling around down into the little round drain, turning from pink to clear.

  Colly was talking to the man now, and talking about Blister. “You can’t pin this on Blister, you know. Blister didn’t do anything. I don’t think he knew anything. I think Kip acted alone, because I certainly didn’t—I wouldn’t ever—Although, why should you believe that? But Blister couldn’t. Anybody can see that.”

  “What better use can he be put to?” the man asked.

  Blister had a use?

  “You know that if I turn him loose he’ll just find himself another master. If you’re so smart, you’ll have figured that out.”

  Colly didn’t say anything. But Blister didn’t think he’d found Kip. Kip had found him, and saved his life. But now his life had been saved already and he didn’t need anyone to save him again.

  After a while, the man said, “Somebody has to be found guilty and your leader has scarpered, so if it’s not Blister, that leaves just you, doesn’t it?”

  Colly was silent.

  Blister decided—all by himself, he decided it; he felt himself deciding—to keep silent, too. He was trying to think and it was not a quick and easy process.

  The man said, “That leaves just you, Colly. When the body turns up. And I expect that nobody would be surprised to learn that you were a murderer.”

  Colly said, “She was defending herself—and me, too—and it was an accident that he fell down the stairs.”

  The man laughed. “What are you now, a lawyer?”

  “I could be,” Colly answered, and he didn’t sound at all frightened.

  Blister saw that the sword had been returned to its sheath, so maybe Colly didn’t need to be frightened anymore.

  “My mother didn’t have money for a lawyer and that’s probably why they could send her to the gallows. If I were a lawyer, things like that wouldn’t happen to people like her.”

  The man was staring at Colly, and something about him had changed. Blister didn’t know what. The man’s coat was just as red and his boots just as high and shiny and he stood just as straight as before, but he was different.

  This was all because of that boy they had tied up and left here, and now there was only blood. Blister knew he hadn’t come back to do something to the boy, and Colly said he had
n’t, and Kip denied it, too. So what had happened to the boy? “Where is the boy?” Blister asked.

  Then he clapped his hand over his mouth, sorry he had spoken.

  “Good question,” the man answered, not at all angry.

  “In one of the other rooms?” Blister suggested. He explained to the man, “This is our hideout, because the people that own it went away for a long time. There isn’t any electricity or gas, but we don’t come here when it’s dark so that doesn’t matter. But there are more rooms … One is filled with costumes. Even swords, and three have mirrors. Could the boy be hiding in one of those rooms?”

  “Probably not hiding,” Colly told him, as if he were warning him. Warning him about what? “Who are you?” Colly asked the man.

  The man smiled, although not in a mean way now, and told Colly, “You’ll find out if and when you need to.” He looked at Blister and said, “I know a man who isn’t young and his wife isn’t young, either. He has a herd of goats, up in the hills, and he could use a boy to work with him. His own sons have gone to live and work in the village because the work of the farm is so hard, the winters so long and cold, the paths so steep and dangerous. The old man needs someone strong and brave. That boy would have a warm home and all the food he could eat, and he would work for a master who has rough manners and a kind heart.” He kept on looking at Blister, as if waiting for the answer to a question.

  Blister understood, but he had to admit, “I’m not strong. I’m not brave.” He held out his hands, palms up, to show the man how helpless he was.

  “Maybe,” the man said. “Then again, maybe you can be.”

  Blister thought for a minute, no longer. “Do they have a dog?”

  “They have two dogs. The dogs guard the herd from wolves and watch over the house and the old couple. They herd the goats, and they’ll find a goat that’s gotten lost. They sleep by the fire.”

  Really, Blister had decided as soon as he heard they needed a boy. He was a boy and he needed a warm home and food. “How do I get there?” he asked.

  Colly interrupted. “Are you sure?” he asked Blister.

  Blister nodded. “I’ve decided,” he told Colly, but he didn’t know how to explain to Colly how exciting it was, to decide that something would happen and then it happened.

  “I think you’re right,” said Colly. “Good luck, Blister.” And Blister could tell he meant that. Colly asked the man, “How does he get there?”

  The man opened the door and called out, “Girl?”

  There were quick footsteps and a girl with two long white pigtails, wearing a bright red skirt with yellow flowers and green vines, came into the room. She curtsied to the man, who told her, “Take this boy with you, in the carriage, down to the docks. Put him on The Water Rat for Passway. Tell Carlo to wait at the dock until he is met.”

  “Should I—?” she started to ask, but with a stern look the man silenced her.

  “Blister,” he said then, and Blister stood up straighten. “There will be a man sent to meet you. He will know your name and he will take you up to the village where the goatherd will come to fetch you. The goatherd is named Joseph Ruvid. You can call him Uncle Joseph so there won’t be any questions. Have you got that?” he asked.

  “Uncle Joseph,” Blister said. “Yes.”

  “He’ll probably want to name you something new,” the man said.

  He waited, so Blister said, “Something new, yes.”

  The man said, “I want to be sure: Do you really want to do this?”

  Blister nodded, then thought of something he wanted to say so he said it: “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” the man said matter-of-factly. “Off you go then, girl.” He handed the girl a purse and told her, “Give this to Carlo; he’ll see that everyone is paid.”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said, and she curtsied again. “Come on then, you,” she said to Blister.

  Blister took two steps to follow her out of the little room. Her shirt was as white as clouds.

  “Blister?” the man called after him.

  He turned around again. Maybe it was not going to happen, after all.

  “Tell the man who meets you to give you a bath. First thing. Tell him, it’s an order,” the man said.

  “Yes, sir,” Blister said, as the girl had done, but he knew boys didn’t curtsy. He went into the hallway after the girl. A policeman was there, sitting on the stairs, his back against the wall, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Probably asleep, Blister thought. No wonder Kip got away so easily. But Blister wasn’t getting away. He was going away, because that was what he had decided.

  Left alone with the handsome, redheaded, princely man, Colly resigned himself to another run of bad luck. He knew he hadn’t murdered anyone, but who would believe him? He figured that this man didn’t want to accuse Kip—whose father was a silversmith with commissions from important people. He wouldn’t want to accuse Blister, who was such a sad story that the newspapers would probably turn him into a hero. That left Colly.

  All of Colly’s life, bad luck had tripped him up and trapped him.

  All Colly had had, from the age of seven, was his own desire to put himself in a position to live the life he would choose for himself. He had thought that going to school would give him a way to do that, but school had been taken away from him. Then he’d thought that working, at however low and unpleasant a job, would give him a few pennies to gradually pile up until they were enough to let him set out on his own—but everything he earned was paid to his grandfather, to cover the cost of feeding and housing him, they said. Even the spare hours of his day were not his, but belonged to the chores his grandparents required of him.

  All Colly had ever been able to keep, of his own, was being a person who did not whine and complain, who gave an honest day’s work for his pay, who performed his chores reliably and well. Colly was a person who played fair, and he was proud to be that. There wasn’t anything else he could be proud of, but most of the time, that was enough.

  Then that, too, had been taken away from him, when he had chosen to go along with Kip’s scheme to get shopkeepers to pay protection money. To be honest, and Colly always tried to be honest with himself, nobody had taken anything from him in this case. He’d given it away, his pride or his honor or whatever it is that you surrender because you’ve convinced yourself that the future prize makes present bad behavior good. Or even OK. Colly had done this to himself, he knew that.

  He looked at the red-coated man, at the colorful medals displayed on the broad blue sash he wore across his chest—an awful lot of medals for such a young man, he thought—and understood that he deserved whatever bad luck awaited him.

  Colly squared his shoulders. He couldn’t complain about fair. He’d gambled that he wouldn’t get caught—as foolish as his father—and he’d lost. He looked right into the proud face, ready to hear whatever the man had to say to him. But first, he wanted to say it clearly, whether he was believed or not. “I didn’t kill him. That boy.”

  “But you did exact protection money.”

  “Yes. I did do that,” Colly answered, not allowing himself to look down.

  “Are you sorry now?” the man asked.

  At that question, all the worry, and relief, and dread, and fear that Colly had been feeling for the last several hours exploded in him, like a boat on the lake bursting into flames. “Of course I am,” he answered impatiently. “How could I not be, when I was sorry even when I was doing it? But sometimes you have to do things you don’t much like doing, with people you don’t much like, to get what you need.”

  “I don’t know about have to,” the man protested mildly.

  Colly shrugged. The man was right, of course.

  The man waited, but Colly had nothing more to say. His boat had blown up, and sunk.

  The man waited some more.

  Colly said, “Why don’t you just call in your policeman and have me arrested.”

  “For something you didn’t do?”
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  Colly shrugged. “Well, if the body never turns up, how can anyone say I murdered him? And if it does … I should have stopped Kip, I know. Somehow. Turned him in before he had a chance to …” He made himself keep looking straight into the man’s brown eyes and made himself say it, “I didn’t think he’d actually use the knife, but that’s no excuse, not really. I knew Kip was getting greedier and meaner.”

  “You weren’t greedy?” the man asked coldly.

  Colly shrugged, because he hadn’t refused to take his share of the coins. That was true. But he didn’t like being the mouse to the man’s cat, so he said, “I don’t know what you’re up to. You said Kip had done you a favor, so why are you delaying things like this?”

  The man said nothing, just smiled, and Colly started to wonder. He looked at the blood on the floor of the small bathroom and the bloody rope curled up in it. You’d have thought some blood would have been spread around, in whatever struggle there was—because wouldn’t there have been some kind of a struggle? And if the body had been dragged out of the room, or even if Kip had picked it up and carried it, there wouldn’t be just a kind of puddle on the floor. Besides, didn’t blood dry pretty quickly? Wasn’t that how scabs formed when you had a cut or a scrape? Why was this blood so red and runny? Was it fresh? If it was fresh because Kip had just murdered their captive only minutes earlier, Colly didn’t believe Kip would have met up with them that morning.

  The pieces did not fit together. The more Colly thought, the less the pieces fit together, until he asked, “What’s going on here? Who are you?”

  The man kept smiling, and now it was the kind of expression Colly remembered appearing on the face of a teacher at one of the questions Colly asked. Now the man seemed not so powerful, or cold, or cruel, or even unfriendly. “Who are you?” Colly asked again.