“You in a hurry?”
I wondered. “Maybe not. No apparent jeopardy. Just a puzzle. Maggie didn’t seem in any hurry, just worried.”
“You buy the woman’s story?”
I never take a client’s story at face value. Some natural law compels them to lie part of the time. “Maybe. Some. It feels like the truth being used for something else.”
“I’ll put out feelers. Meantime, you ought to corner Winger.”
“That occurred to me.” I didn’t relish trying to get anything out of her, though. “It’s not an appetizing idea.”
Morley chuckled. “She’s a handful. The trick is get her thinking what you want is her idea.”
“Ingenious. How?”
“With great difficulty.”
“I can get advice like that from my parrot and save the price of this fish food.”
“Way I hear, Dean is out of town and the Dead Man is asleep. You being hard up for company, I just wanted you to feel at home. Crumbs! You try to be a pal.” He grinned a diabolical dark-elf grin.
“You want to be a pal, find out about Maggie Jenn.”
His grin dwindled. “Try to be a pal.” He shook his head.
He would check around because he thought he owed me. And I agreed. I collect like a loanshark.
“Bed is starting to sound good,” I thought aloud. “It’s been a hard day.”
Morley grunted. His nephew came to the table. Getting no hint that he ought to take his big ears elsewhere, he spun a chair around and straddled it. Around us, Morley’s people, moving slowly and muttering about their aches and pains, put things together again. Spud asked, “How is Mr. Big, Mr. Garrett?”
I cursed.
Morley had sent me the Goddamn Parrot when he was in an Eggwhite mood. That was far enough out of character that I suspected Sarge and Puddle had a hand in developing the scam. The bird came guaranteed to have a major hatred for cats and a habit of attacking them from above. I accepted him because Dean had a habit of accumulating strays.
Spud gave me a dirty look. He was the only one in the world with any use for that foul-mouthed jungle chicken. Make that any love. The Dead Man had a use. Wherever I went, he could send Mr. Big after, nagging.
I had tried to give the beast away. There were no takers. I gave it every chance to fly away. It wouldn’t escape. I was getting near taking heroic measures. “Spud, you’re so worried about Mr. Big why don’t you come get him? He needs a home where he’s appreciated.”
“No, you don’t,” Morley sneered. “That there is your bird, Garrett.”
I scowled. This was a squabble I couldn’t win.
Dotes showed all those pointy teeth again. “I hear some parrots live a hundred years.”
“Some, maybe. In the wild.” I could donate Mr. Big to a charity. Like some hungry ratman. “I’m out of here, friend.”
Morley laughed.
16
It was dark out. That did not help.
Neither did the fact that I didn’t see them coming. I had no chance to get ready.
I put up a fight, though. I dented some heads good with the weighted oak head-buster I carry when I go out. I tossed one guy through the only glass window in the street. But I just never got rolling. I had no chance to use the tricks I had stashed up my sleeves.
Somebody whapped me up side the head with a house. I think it was a house. Had to be a house. No mere man could hit me that hard. The lights went out — with me still trying to figure out who and why.
Ordinarily, I come around slowly if I’ve had my conk bopped. Not so this time. One minute I was in dreamland, the next I was bouncing along face downward, wrapped in something soggy, staring at a floor sliding past inches from my nose. Four guys were carrying me. I was leaking red stuff. I couldn’t recall drinking any wine. I had the worst headache anyone ever had since the dawn of time.
A fine pair of female legs strode along practically in nibbling range. I really wanted to appreciate those. In other circumstances, I would have devoted hours to those legs. But a guy does have to keep some perspective.
Things were not going well. This sort of thing was not a normal part of my life. I tried to shove the pain away long enough to think.
Aha! They had me wrapped in a wet blanket. I didn’t want to poop somebody’s party, but that didn’t make me happy. I roared and twisted and flopped and wriggled and bellowed. I failed to make any impression. I did get a gander at what went with the gorgeous gams. The wealth was piled on all the way to the top. I could have fallen in love. But this was not the time or place. Beside a fire, maybe on a bearskin rug, maybe just her and me and some TunFaire Gold wine...
I didn’t like the looks of the guys. They weren’t the brunos I danced with earlier. Those had been standard lowlife, out for the price of a drink. These clowns wore dirty, ragged uniforms.
That failed to cheer me up.
They were unreasonable. They wouldn’t answer questions. Nobody responded at all, except Miss Legs. She just seemed sad. I hollered and flopped some more. They kept on lugging me down a long hall.
Long hall, huh? And what was that smell?
Everybody stopped but me. I thrashed some more. I was serious about it now. I knew where I was. This was the crazy floor of the Bledsoe, the imperial charity hospital.
The empire is long gone, but its works and the imperial family linger, the latter hoping for a recall. They sustain the hospital, which serves the indigent poorly.
The cackle factory is a bad place. They stick you in there you could be gone forever. Wouldn’t matter that somebody made a mistake.
“Hey! Put me down! What the hell is this? What am I doing in here? Do I look like I’m crazy?”
That was the wrong question. I had to look like a prime specimen. And the way things work, they would assume that they wouldn’t have me if I didn’t belong.
Man, this was the dirtiest trick anybody ever played on me.
A door crashed open. It was oak and iron and about nine inches thick. I glimpsed my destiny.
One of my guides bellowed. Somebody scuttled away. The boys tossed me through the doorway without missing the frame. I landed hard. The Legs gazed at me pityingly. The door closed before I convinced her this was all a horrible mistake.
I unwrapped myself by rolling around, stumbled over and wasted energy pounding on the door. I exercised the full range of situationally specialized vocabulary, but without the enthusiasm I might have managed had my head not hurt so much. You do these things even when you’re wasting your time. The rituals must be observed.
I heard noises behind me. I spun around.
At least a dozen men stood staring at me. I checked the ward beyond them. There were lots more men back there. Plenty were wondering about the new guy. Some studied my outfit. Plainly, there had been no general clothing issued in years. Nor had anyone taken a bath during the modern era. Here was the source of the odor I’d caught in the hall. A glance told me the welcoming committee all belonged inside. It was obvious in their eyes.
I pounded and yelled some more. Service did not improve.
At least they hadn’t dumped me into the violent ward. Maybe I stood a chance.
An old character who looked like he weighed about fifty pounds stumbled toward me. “How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
“I was doing great till about five minutes ago, Ivy.”
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
“He don’t say nothing else, Ace.”
Right. I’m a quick study. Ivy never even looked at me. “Gotcha.”
A guy about nine feet tall guffawed. “You don’t pay Ivy no nevermind, boy. He’s crazy.”
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
This was the tip of the iceberg. The part that would be easy. It was sure to get weird.
After thinking a while, somebody yelled at the big guy, “You got so much room to talk, muddlebrain?”
“Yeah? What do you know? I don’t belong in here. I was set up. Somebody drug
ged me or something. I woke up in here.”
Oh, my. A fellow traveler as bad off as I. I had a lot of sympathy for him — till some grinning idiot shrieked, “Powziffle! Powziffle pheez!” Or something like that.
The big guy hunched up, stooped, made gurgling noises, and started running around the ward like a gorilla, howling. His howls would have chilled the spine of a banshee.
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
The big man’s racket started some other guy screaming. His cries were a species I’d heard in the islands, coming from a guy caught out in no-man’s land with a bad gut wound, begging for somebody to kill him. Soldiers from both sides would have done so gladly after a while. But nobody was dumb enough to go out there and let the other side snipe. So we’d all just laid low and listened, ground our teeth, and maybe thanked our personal gods it wasn’t us.
I glared at that door. Maybe I could chew my way through.
Or maybe... My pockets hadn’t been cleaned. They must’ve been in an awful hurry to get me put away. A real bunch of screwup Charlies.
Patients came to check me out — those who still had a foot in our world. Many were timid as mice. A look sent them scurrying. Others... Some might have been there as accidentally as I, only instead they belonged in the ward for the dangerous.
I wished everybody would back off.
Any doubts I had about the irregularity of my commitment disappeared when I discovered that they hadn’t cleaned my pockets. Had I been brought in legitimately, all my possessions would have been taken from me and would never have surfaced again.
I was encouraged. About a roach-weight worth.
The physical plant wasn’t encouraging. The ward was a hundred feet wide, three hundred feet long, and two storys high. There were rows and rows and rows of sleeping pallets but not nearly enough to go around.
The ceiling was way up there, a good twenty feet. Windows peeked through the wall opposite the door, way high, too small for a man to get out even after he cut the bars. I supposed they passed light during the day. What little light was available now leaked through windows high on the door side wall, there so the ward could be observed by hospital staff.
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
“I’m doing just fine, Ivy. What say you and me bust out of this toilet?”
Ivy looked at me directly, startled, then scampered away.
“Anybody want to break out?”
17
My suggestion drew an underwhelming response. I gathered that half the patients could not be dragged out and the other half thought I was crazy. There? Forsooth!
The big man who had cautioned me about Ivy’s lack of capacity recapacitated himself. He came over. “Ain’t no way out, Slick. They was, half these guys would be long gone.”
I glanced around again. The prospects seemed ever less promising. “They feed us?”
The big guy grinned that grin the old salts put on when they see a chance to teach a greenhorn. “Twice a day, you’re hungry or not. Through them bars down there.”
I looked. I shrugged. Them bars was hopeless. “Things are that bad I might as well get me some shut-eye before I start my serious worrying.” I looked for an empty pallet. I had some thinking to do. Especially about why I found myself in such straits.
I wanted to scream as loud as any of the whacks in there with me.
“You get in line for a bed,” the big guy cautioned me. “You make friends, maybe somebody will share. Otherwise, you just wait till enough guys die to leave you your own.” His casual manner told me this was one of the capital laws of the ward. Amazing. You’d expect it to be total survival of the strongest.
“My kind of flophouse.” I settled near the door. That didn’t seem to be a popular area. Plenty of elbow room there. I pretended to fall asleep.
There were no corpses in the ward and no smell of death. That suggested that staff removed the dead quickly. So, how to use that in a scam the staff hadn’t seen before?
I gave the notion of a riot a look. Feeble. If I was the Bledsoe staff, I’d just let everybody starve till the fuss stopped.
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
My act wasn’t fooling Ivy. I considered putting him out of his misery.
Which gave me an idea. A twist on the riot scheme. I went looking for the big guy. I found him seated against the far wall. I planted the reverse side of my lap on the hardwood, grunted. “I got about enough splinters.”
“Send out for a chair.”
A wise guy. “How come it’s so quiet?”
“Maybe on account of it’s the middle of the goddamn night.” Eloquent verbal stylings, too.
“I mean, we only had one screamer.” Not counting him. Nobody was yelling at the moment. “I heard there was lots of screamers. Mostly guys who can’t handle what they remember about the Cantard.”
His face darkened. “Yeah. There’s some of them. They get drugged if they get too bad. Like they get each other going.”
Interesting. “Know any way to set one of them off now?”
He studied me narrowly. “What you up to, Slick?” He thought there had better be a damned good reason for pulling a stunt like that.
“Up to getting out of here.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Maybe not. But they didn’t empty out my pockets before they dumped me in here. You game to try?”
He thought about that. His face grew darker. “Yeah. Yeah! I got business out there. Yeah. You get the damned door open, I’ll go.”
“You figure any of these guys would help?”
“Plenty would go if the walls fell down. I don’t know how many would help make them fall.”
“So could you get some guy screaming as the first step?”
“Sure.” He got up, strolled to the far end, messed with somebody a minute, headed back. Plenty of inmates watched him. The man he’d visited started screaming. Chills slithered all over me. He was one of the lost souls.
The big man asked, “Good enough?”
“Perfect. Now try to round up some guys willing to help out.”
He went away again.
I went into my act. “Shut up down there! I’m trying to sleep.”
The guy didn’t stop screaming. I’d been afraid he would. I glanced at the observation windows. Someone was up there, but the racket didn’t interest him. Were they that indifferent? I needed to be seen.
I yelled at the screamer. Somebody yelled back at me. I yelled at him. Some genius yelled at both of us like that would shut us up. The racket picked up. We were like a troop of monkeys. Some of the men started moving around, just shuffling numbly, without purpose.
The uproar finally caught the ear of whoever was on duty. He looked down but didn’t seem concerned.
I screamed louder than the screamer, threatening mayhem if he didn’t shut it up.
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
“Pack your trunk, Ivy. We’re checking out of this cuckoo inn.”
The big guy came by. “I got a dozen guys willing, Slick. You want more?”
“That’s plenty. Now I need everybody back away from the door. It’s going to get nasty there when they come in.” I hoped. If I hadn’t been suckered too bad.
“They’ll figure we’re up to something, Slick. They only look dumb.”
“I don’t care. That won’t matter. I just need the door open.”
He sneered, confident I was on a fool’s quest.
I screamed some more at the screamers.
There were several people at the observation windows now — including she of the glorious gams.
I chuckled, sure I was on my way out. No woman would work the Bledsoe unless she had a giant soft spot. I roared, bounded over pallets, started strangling the loudest screamer.
The big guy came by and pretended to drag me off. I gave him further instructions, then ran him off. He wasn’t a bad actor.
Me, I was a master. I made it look real good. To my surprise, no
ne of my fellow patients tried to stop me.
I only strangled my victim a little, enough to cause unconsciousness.
I galloped to the other end of the room, went to work on another screamer.
Soon there were guys flying all over the place. The majority got into the spirit. It wasn’t exactly a riot, though. Real violence was almost nonexistent. But the pandemonium was not pretend.
I glimpsed the woman arguing with the men. She wanted to do something. They didn’t.
Excellent.
A little goblin breed three feet tall scrunched himself into a ball near the door.
Upstairs, charity apparently overcame common sense.
I kept the show rolling. People did get hurt, but I wasn’t in a charitable mood, to put it mildly. If I stayed a nice guy, I wasn’t ever going to get out. If I didn’t get out, I’d never get the chance to crack the heads of the clowns who’d put me in.
The big guy came around again. He bounced me around some. “They’re coming,” I told him. “And you don’t have to be so enthusiastic here.”
He seemed scornful. I don’t know about what.
18
I glanced at the door, then cautioned the big guy, “Take it easy. We don’t have to convince them now.” No one was near the door but the little breed. He would be sorry he had volunteered. “How many will come?”
The big man shrugged. “Depends on how worried they are. Least eight or ten. You better watch out.” He tripped me. I tripped him back. We rolled around and punched each other. He was having a great time. “They have a policy of kicking the living shit out of troublemakers.”
“I kind of figured that was part of the program. Hell, I’ve stopped bleeding. I’m ready for anything.” I wasn’t looking forward to the kicking part. You lays your bets and takes your chances, but I was hoping things would go well and I would not have to deal with any boots.
You have to believe you’re going to win.
I did have to win. Nobody knew where I was. It could be weeks before anybody even missed me, what with Dean out of town and the Dead Man sleeping. It might be weeks after that before anybody tracked me down. If anybody bothered to try.