I didn’t have weeks. I didn’t feel I could waste the time I’d spent inside already. The Dead Man might chuckle and tell me to consider it a learning experience, which is what he does when I have a bad day.
If I didn’t break out, it was going to be the all-time bad day to start a long string of bad days.
The woman stayed at the observation window. I kept howling my head off and throwing people around and strangling other guys making noise.
The thing that got me, down deep, was that almost half the guys in the ward didn’t get involved. Most of those never opened their eyes. They just laid there, indifferent.
Man, that was scary. That could be me in twenty years if I blew this.
Fear provided the inspiration I needed to keep howling and foaming at the mouth. I tried speaking in tongues. That came to me naturally. A little something for when I got too old to make it on the street. A good howl and roll man can start his own church.
The door opened.
Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, those dopes actually opened the door.
It swung outward. Attendants boiled inside. They knew something was up. They were ready for bear. They had clubs and small shields. They all looked about twelve feet tall. They formed in a tight knot before they started forward.
A few months earlier, in a moment of weakness brought on by engulfing an inland sea of beer, I’d bought some stuff from a third-rate wizard who’d called himself Dread but whose name was really Milton. You don’t never trust the skills of a wizard named Milton — as I’d learned to my sorrow on trying to use one of his charms. His stuff came with a warranty, but he wasn’t around to make good on it.
In my pockets were several tiny bottles, the last of my purchase. According to Dread, they constituted the ideal means of dealing with unfriendly crowds. I didn’t know, never having tested them. I wasn’t sure I even recalled Dread’s instructions. It was real drunk out that night.
I told me I had another good reason for wanting out. I had to find old Milt and register a consumer complaint.
As I recalled, all I had to do was throw a bottle against a hard surface, then stand back.
I did the throwing part. My bottle missed all the boys and bounced off the wall. It skittered back into the midst of the attendants. Guys walked all over it, but it didn’t break.
My guardian angel was on the job. Cursing him, I tried again.
The second bottle broke. Gray mist boiled off the wall. It reached the attendants. They started cussing. Cussing turned to howling fast.
Meantime, my little breed volunteer slithered into the doorway so it couldn’t be closed. His job was going to get nasty if the staff got determined.
The attendants in the ward lost all interest in quieting people down. They were too busy scratching and rubbing and yelling.
Maybe Dread wasn’t a complete fraud.
I inhaled a bushel of clean air and charged. I was ashamed of me for pulling such a dirty trick. Almost. I wouldn’t take it back. If I spent much time hanging out with Ivy and the boys, I’d end up singing in the same choir.
The mist didn’t bother me much. I did start itching a little. Since I had a major headache and an acre of bruises, an itch seemed pretty trivial.
Somebody was hollering in the corridor. They’d left somebody to cover the door. He was aggravated at my breed doorstop.
Who wasn’t doing so good. The mist tended to settle. He’d gotten more than the attendants had.
Nonetheless, he fulfilled his mission.
I smashed into the door so hard I feared I’d dislocated my shoulder. Oh, damn, did that hurt! And that damned door only gave barely enough to let me skip over the whining breed.
“Surprise!” I popped the guard outside. A whole herd of patients stampeded out behind me. Those that didn’t have scores to settle with particular attendants still inside.
Naturally, luck would have another squad of staffers arriving just then. I did my banshee routine and charged. Boy, was I going to have a sore throat when all the hollering was over.
These attendants were bigger and meaner than the first bunch. There were eight of them. That put the odds in my favor because I was mad enough to whip a whole battalion. “Nothing personal, guys.” Then I recognized two of the clowns who had carried me in the wet blanket. “Like hell!”
I didn’t get a lot of help at first. Surprise did for a couple of attendants, but then the others got going. They played a game using me for a shuttlecock. My companions had been beaten too often. They held back till my nine-foot buddy jumped in.
“Oomph!” I said, breaking some guy’s knuckles with my forehead. “Took you long enough.”
It turned into a real brawl. Fists and feet and bodies flew. I skinned my knuckles to the elbow pounding handy chins and jaws. I got my own chin and jaw liberally pasted. My nose avoided rearrangement.
All that thumping was just the thing for a headache.
I had opportunities to be thankful that I have good teeth as I sank them into people who didn’t have my continued good health foremost in mind.
When the fur stopped flying and the dust settled, me and the big guy were the only ones standing. And I needed the help of a wall.
I stumbled to the door at the end of the hall, beyond the vanquished attendants. It was locked. It looked every bit as massive as the door to the ward. Well, all that work for nothing. I exchanged glances with the big guy. He grinned, said, “I told you.” He wiped blood off his face, grinned some more. “They going to have a time cleaning this one up, though. We got most of the night staff in here.”
“Fine. We’re a step closer. Let’s drag these guys into the ward.” Maybe we could use them as hostages.
All of a sudden, we had plenty of helpers. Guys turned brave, thumped heads soundly whenever an attendant threatened to wake up.
I checked the end of the hall I hadn’t checked before. Another locked oaken vault door. Of course. “I guess this just isn’t my day.” It had had its moments earlier, but the downs were starting to outweigh the ups. “Anybody want to guess how long it’ll be before they come after us again?”
The big guy shrugged. Now that the active part was over he seemed to be losing interest.
I produced two tiny folding knives that hadn’t been taken, reflected that this incident was going to generate strident calls for an investigation of how blades and sorcerous gook and whatnot had gotten to the inmates. Like there’d ever been a doubt that any inmate who could flash the cash couldn’t buy any damned thing he wanted.
An investigation might mean hope. If it was serious, it would require my testimony. That would mean the pointing of fingers at the kind of people who’d take bribes for falsely imprisoning heroes like me. Ugh! They’d be villains who’d be aware of the distress my testimony could cause their careers. Surely they’d take steps to assure a paucity of witnesses likely to testify.
I gave the big guy a knife. “Carve me some kindling out of anything wooden. If we get a decent fire going, we can burn our way through those doors.”
He grinned but without the wild eagerness he’d shown before. He was winding down.
The notion of arson did excite some of the others. We all got to work ripping the stuffing out of pallets and whittling on the ward door.
Then I suffered another brainstorm, way late, unlike the hero of an adventure story. I claim genius only because nobody else thought of the obvious first. The adventure boys would have planned it from the start. It’s one of their old tricks.
The Bledsoe staff wore uniforms, scruffy though those were.
I got my fires burning at both ends of the hall. Ivy tended them. His vocabulary didn’t improve, but he became more animated. He liked fires. He even paid attention when I said, “Use plenty of horsehair. We want plenty of smoke.” The horsehair came out of the pallets.
Ivy grinned from ear to ear. He was one fulfilled lunatic.
The people outside would have to make a move. They couldn’t wait us out once
we had fires burning. Fires had to be fought.
I had to have a guy follow Ivy and make sure his fires didn’t grow too fast. Already they seemed likely to burn through the floor before they ate through the doors.
Once the smoke was thick enough, I picked an attendant my size and started trading clothes. He got the best of the deal.
My companions caught on. Soon they were squabbling over the available uniforms. I made sure Ivy and the big guy got theirs. I wanted one for the little breed who’d body-blocked the ward door, but he’d have gotten lost in a shirt.
Interesting that I had so many supporters now that it looked like I had prospects.
The smoke almost got too thick before somebody outside decided action had to be taken now.
19
They brought almost every warm body they had left. They burst through both doors at once, behind thrown buckets of water. They concentrated on the fires to begin, taking what lumps they must until those were extinguished, then they started whipping on anybody in arm’s reach. When they got into the ward, they started hauling fallen comrades away.
It was real exciting for a while. The issue was definitely in doubt.
The smoke got to me more than I expected. After they dragged me out and I decided it was time I made a run for it, I found that my legs were saying no way.
“Don’t. You aren’t ready yet.”
I didn’t look up and give myself away. Around me, impelled by the cunning of madness, my buddies did the same. What a team!
There were better than twelve men scattered along the hallway, many from the ward. The rest had gone down in the current invasion.
The speaker was a woman, the owner of the legs. She added, “Get the smoke out before you do anything.”
I coughed and made noises and kept my face hidden. She moved on, evidently to tend someone else who was stirring. A female doctor? How about that? I never heard of such a thing, but why not?
I scooted back till my spine found a wall, raised myself up against that, lifted my head to scope out an escape route. I kept seeing two of things when I could see through the water in my eyes. I got my feet under me again and practiced standing up till I could do it with no hands.
My chosen escape route did not become overgrown while I was catching my breath. I shoved off the wall and started staggering. There was a stairwell door straight ahead, out in the remote distance, on the far horizon, about twenty feet away. All kinds of racket came from behind it, as though thunder-lizards were mating in the stairwell. I didn’t pay the racket any mind. I didn’t have any mind left over. What I had was busy thinking “out.”
I was chugging right along, hardly ever falling down, when she of the glorious gams intercepted me. “What are you trying to do? I told you... Oh!”
I grinned my winningest grin. “Oh-oh.”
“Oh, my god!”
“Hey, no. I’m just a regular guy.”
Maybe she had trouble hearing over the racket from the stairwell. Or maybe she had trouble hearing over the uproar from the hall and ward. She sure didn’t get my message. She whooped and hollered like she thought she was going to get carried off by a lunatic or something.
I grabbed a wrist, mostly to keep from falling down. I noticed that she was blond and recalled that that was one of my favorites but I didn’t have oomph enough to let her know. The bleeding had stopped a long time ago, but my head wasn’t much better. The smoke hadn’t done me any good, either.
I hacked out, “Pipe down! We’re going for a walk, sister. I don’t want anybody should get hurt, but that ain’t my top priority. You get the drift? You keep on wailing —”
She shut up. Blue eyes big and beautiful, she bobbed her head.
“I’ll cut you loose at the front door. Maybe. If you’re good and I don’t get no more trouble.” Snappy rhetoric, Garrett. Your roots are showing.
I was getting the edge on the smoke, though. I was ready to bet myself she would be good. A figure like that, it burned. No. Forget fire. Fire means smoke. I just swallowed enough smoke to last forever.
I leaned on the lady like she was my sweetie. “I need your help.” Rotten to the heart, I am. But this would be our only date.
She nodded again.
Then she tripped me, the naughty girl.
And then my friend Winger blasted through that stairwell door, flinging battered orderlies ahead of her. “Goddamn, Garrett! I bust in here fixing to save your ass and what do I find? You trying to bop some bimbo in front of the whole damned world.” She grabbed my collar, hoisted me away from my latest daydream, who had gone down when I had. Winger set me on my feet, then proceeded to whip the pudding out of a burly, hirsute attendant who meant to object to the irregularity of the way she was checking me out. Between punches she grunted, “You got to get your priorities straight, Garrett.”
No point mentioning who tripped who. You don’t explain to Winger. She creates her own realities.
While she was amusing herself with the hairy orderly, I asked the lady doctor, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She wouldn’t answer even after I apologized for playing so rough.
“For heaven’s sake, Garrett, give it a rest,” Winger snapped. “And come on.”
I went along because she grabbed hold and took off. I grabbed the blonde as we went past. Down those stairs we went, stepping over the occasional moaning attendant. Winger had come through like a natural disaster. I bubbled, “I do hope I haven’t been too much trouble. Unfortunately, I can’t hang around just because somebody out there wants me in here instead of stomping on his toes.” I put on my grim face. “When I catch up with him, I’ll make sure he gives you a big donation. Big enough to cover damages.”
Winger rolled her eyes. She didn’t slow down and she didn’t let go.
The lady of the legs said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Winger grumbled, “As serious as he can get when he’s in rut.”
My new friend and I ignored her. I said, “That’s right. I find things for people. Just this morning, a lady from the Hill asked me to find her daughter. I’d barely started looking when a band of ruffians set upon me. Next thing I knew, I was coming to and there you were and I thought I’d died and gone to one of those afterlives where they have angels, only my head hurt too much.”
“I risked life and limb for this,” Winger muttered. “Your head is about to hurt a whole lot more.”
The lady doc looked at me like she really wanted to believe. She said, “He does spread it thick, doesn’t he?”
“With a manure rake,” Winger growled, reverting to uncultured country ways. You can take the girl out of the sticks, and so forth.
I said, “You ever feel the need to get in touch, just go up Macunado Street. When you get to Wizard’s Reach, start asking around for where the Dead Man stays.”
The lady offered a weak smile. “I might do that. I just might. Just to see what happens.”
“Fireworks. For sure.”
Winger suggested, “Save yourself for marriage, honey. If there’s anything left.”
The lady’s smile vanished.
You can’t win them all. You especially can’t when you have friends intent on throwing the game.
We’d reached the street in front of the Bledsoe. I tried to sprint off into the night at a fast shamble. I figured I ought to make tracks before some avenging orderly appeared.
After I’d gone a few steps, Winger observed, “That was the most disgusting display I’ve seen yet, Garrett. Don’t you ever stop?”
“We have to get out of here.” I glanced over my shoulder at the Bledsoe. A glimpse of the place nearly panicked me. That had been close. “We got to disappear before they send somebody after us.”
“You think they’re not going to know where to look? You all but gave that bimbo your address.”
“Hey! You’re talking about the love of my life. She won’t give me away.” I didn’t let her see my crossed finger
s.
Winger shifted ground. “Why would they bother, anyway? Really?”
At this point, they probably wouldn’t. Anything they did now was likely to draw more attention than they could stand.
I shrugged. That’s always a useful, noncommital device.
20
I waited till we had a good head start, just in case the hospital gang did decide to come after me. Then I grabbed Winger’s hand in a comealong grip.
“Hey! What the hell you doing, Garrett?”
“You and me are going to sit here on these steps like young lovers and you’re going to whisper sweet nothings about what the hell is going on. Got it?”
“No.”
I added some muscle to the hold.
“Ouch! Ain’t that just like a man? No gratitude. Save his ass and —”
“Looked to me like I was doing an adequate job of saving it on my own. Sit.”
Winger sat, but she kept grumbling. I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t get any answers if I did.
“Tell me about it, Winger.”
“About what?” She can turn into the dumbest country girl that ever lived.
“I know you. Don’t waste stupid on me. Tell me about Maggie Jenn and her missing daughter and how come as soon as I take this job I get jumped, cold-cocked, and shoved into the cackle factory in such a big hurry the fools don’t bother to empty my pockets? All the time I’m in there, I’m wondering how this could happen to me when only my pal Winger knows what I’m doing. And now I’m wondering how my pal Winger knew I needed help getting sprung from the Bledsoe. Stuff like that.”
“Oh. That.” She thought a while, making something up.
“Come on, Winger. Give truth a try. Just for the novelty.”
She offered me a Winger-sized dirty look. “I was working for this pansy name of Grange Cleaver...”
“Grange Cleaver? What kind of name is that? Come on. Tell me there ain’t nobody named Grange Cleaver.”
“Who’s going to tell this? You or me? You want to sit there and listen to the echo of your lips clacking, that’s all right with me. Only don’t expect me to hang around listening, too. I know how corny you get when you’re up on your high horse.”