Going Postal (24 page)

Moist hadn’t paid much attention to the Grand Trunk Company. It was too big, and from what he’d heard it practically employed its own army. Things could be tough in the mountains, where you were often a long way from anything that resembled a watchman. It wasn’t a good idea to steal things from people who did their own law enforcement. They tended to be very definite.

But what he was intending wouldn’t be stealing. It might not even be breaking the law. Fooling a maître d’ was practically a public service.

He looked at the picture again. Now, how would a man like that sign his name?

Hmm…flowing yet small, that would be the handwriting of Reacher Gilt. He was so florid, so sociable, so huge a
personality
that one who was good at this sort of thing might wonder if another shard of glass was trying to sparkle like a diamond. And the essence of forgery is to make, by misdirection and careful timing, the glass look so much more like a diamond than a diamond does.

Well, it was worth a try. It was not as though he was going to swindle anyone, as such.

Hmm. Small yet flowing, yes…but someone who’d never seen the man’s writing would expect it to be extravagantly big, curly, just like him…

Moist poised the pen over the headed paper, and then wrote:

Maître d’
,

Le Foie Heureux

I would be most grateful if you could find a table for my good friend Mr. Lipwig and his lady at eight o’clock tonight
.

Reacher Gilt

Most grateful
, that was good. The Reacher Gilt persona probably tipped like a drunken sailor.

He folded the letter, and was addressing the envelope when Stanley
and
Groat came in.

“You’ve got a letter, Mr. Lipwig,” said Stanley proudly.

“Yes, here it is,” said Moist.

“No, I mean here’s one
for
you,” said the boy. They exchanged envelopes. Moist glanced cursorily at the envelope and opened it with a thumb.

“I’ve got bad news, sir,” said Groat, as Stanley left.

“Hmm?” said Moist, looking at the letter.

Postmaster,

The Pseudopolis clacks line will break down at 9am tomorrow.

The Smoking Gnu

“Yessir. I went round to the coach office,” Groat went on, oblivious to this, “and told them what you said, and they said you stick to your business, thank you very much, and they’ll stick to theirs.”

“Hmm,” said Moist, still staring at the letter. Well, well. “Have you heard of someone called ‘The Smoking Gnu,’ Mr. Groat?”

“What’s a gernue, sir?”

“A bit like a dangerous cow, I think,” said Moist. “Er…what were you saying about the coach people?”

“They give me
lip
, sir, that’s what they give me,” said Groat. “I
told
’em, I
told
’em, I was the Assistant Postmaster and they said, ‘So what?’ sir. Then I said I’d tell you, sir, and they said—you want to know what they said, sir?”

“Hmm. Oh, yes. I’m all agog, Tolliver.” Moist’s eyes were scanning the strange letter over and over again.

“They said, ‘Yeah, right,’” said Groat, a beacon of righteous indignation.

“I wonder if Mr. Trooper can still fit me in…” mused Moist, staring at the ceiling.

“Sorry, sir?”

“Oh, nothing. I suppose I’d better go and talk to them. Go and find Mr. Pump, will you? And tell him to bring a couple of other golems. I want to…impress people.”

I
GOR OPENED
the front door in answer to the knock.

There was no one there. He stepped outside and looked up and down the street.

There was no one there.

He stepped back inside, closing the door behind him—and no one was standing in the hall, his black cloak dripping rain, removing his wide, flat-brimmed hat.

“Ah, Mither Gryle, thur,” Igor said to the tall figure, “I thhould have known it wath you.”

“Reacher Gilt asked for me,” said Gryle. It was more a breath than a voice.

The clan of the Igors had any tendency to shuddering bred out of it generations ago.

This was just as well. Igor felt uneasy in the presence of Gryle and his kind.

“The marthter ith expecting—” he began.

But there was no one there.

It wasn’t magic, and Gryle wasn’t a vampire. Igors could spot these things. It was just that there was nothing
spare
about him—spare flesh, spare time, or spare words. It was impossible to imagine Gryle collecting pins, or savoring wine, or even throwing up after a bad pork pie. The picture of him cleaning his teeth or sleeping completely failed to form in the mind. He gave the impression of restraining himself, with difficulty, from killing you.

Thoughtfully, Igor went down to his little room off the kitchen and checked that his little leather bag was packed, just in case.

In his study, Reacher Gilt poured a small brandy. Gryle looked around him with eyes that seemed not at home with the limited vistas of a room.

“And for yourself?” said Gilt.

“Water,” said Gryle.

“I expect you know what this is about?”

“No.” Gryle was not a man for small talk or, if it came to it, any talk at all.

“You’ve read the newspapers?”

“Do not read.”

“You know about the Post Office.”

“Yes.”

“How, may I ask?”

“There is talk.”

Gilt accepted that. Mr. Gryle had a special talent, and if that came as a package with funny little ways, then so be it. Besides, he was trustworthy, a man without middle grounds. He’d never blackmail you, because such an attempt would be the first move in a game that would almost certainly end in death for
somebody
; if Mr. Gryle found himself in such a game he’d kill right now, without further thought, in order to save time, and assumed that anyone else would, too. Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase “differently normal” might do instead. After all, Gryle could probably defeat a vampire within ten seconds, and had none of a vampire’s vulnerabilities, except perhaps an inordinate fondness for pigeons. He’d been a real find.

“And you have found out nothing about Mr. Lipwig?” Gilt said.

“No. Father dead. Mother dead. Raised by grandfather. Sent away to school. Bullied. Ran away. Vanished,” said the tall figure.

“Hmm. I wonder where he’s been all this time? Or
who
he has been?”

Gryle didn’t waste breath on rhetorical questions.

“He is…a nuisance.”

“Understood.” And that was the charm. Gryle
did
understand. He seldom needed an order, you just had to state the problem. The fact that it was Gryle that you were stating it to went a long way toward ensuring what the solution was likely to be.

“The Post Office building is old and full of paper. Very
dry
paper,” said Gilt. “It would be regrettable if the fine old place caught fire.”

“Understood.”

And that was another thing about Gryle. He really did not talk much. He especially did not talk about old times, and all the other little solutions he had provided for Reacher Gilt. And he never said things like “What do you mean?” He understood.

“Require one thousand, three hundred dollars,” he said.

“Of course,” Gilt said. “I will clacks it to your account in—”

“Will take cash,” said Gryle.

“Gold? I don’t keep that much around!” said Gilt. “I can get in a few days, of course, but I thought you preferred—”

“I do not trust the semaphore now.”

“But our ciphers are very well—”

“I do not trust the semaphore now,” Gryle repeated.

“Very well.”

“Description,” said Gryle,

“No one seems to remember what he looks like,” said Gilt. “But he always wears a big golden hat, with wings, and he has an apartment in the building.”

For a moment, something flickered around Gryle’s thin lips. It was a smile, panicking at finding itself in such an unfamiliar place.

“Can he fly?” he said.

“Alas, he doesn’t seem inclined to venture into high places,” said Gilt.

Gryle stood up.

“I will do this tonight.”

“Good man. Or, rather—”

“Understood,” said Gryle.

CHAPTER 9

Bonfire

“Slugger” and “Leadpipe” • Gladys pulls it off
• The Hour of the Dead • Irrational fear of dental
spinach • “A proper brawl doesn’t just happen”
• How the trunk was stolen • The etiquette of knives
• Stanley’s Little Moment • Face to face • Fire

T
HE MAIL COACHES
had survived the decline and fall of the Post Office because they had to. Horses needed to be fed. But in any case, the coaches had always carried passengers. The halls went silent, the chandeliers disappeared along with everything else, even things that were nailed down, but out back in the big yard the coach service flourished. The coaches weren’t exactly stolen, and weren’t exactly inherited…they just drifted into the possession of the coach people.

Then, according to Groat, who regarded himself as the custodian of all Post Office knowledge, the other coach drivers had been bought out by Big Jim “Still Standing” Upwright with the money he won betting on himself in a bare-knuckle contest against Harold “The Hog” Boots, and was now run by his sons Harry “Slugger” Upwright and Little Jim “Leadpipe” Upwright.

Moist could see that a careful approach was going to be required.

The hub, or nerve center, of the coach business was a big shed next to the stable. It smelled—no, it stank of—no, it
fugged
of—horses, leather, veterinary medicine, bad coal, brandy, and cheap cigars. That’s what a fug was. You could have cut cubes out of the air and sold it for cheap building material.

When Moist entered, a huge man, made practically hemispherical by multiple layers of waistcoats and overcoats, was warming his backside in front of the roaring stove. Another man of very much the same shape was leaning over the shoulder of a clerk, both of them concentrating on some paper.

Some staffing debate had obviously been in progress, because the man by the fire was saying, “Well, then, if he’s sick put young Alfred on the evening run and—”

He stopped when he saw Moist, and then said, “Yes, sir? What can we do for you?”

“Carry my mailbags,” said Moist.

They stared at him, and then the man who’d been toasting his bottom broke into a grin. Jim and Harry Upwright might have been twins. They were
big
men, who looked as though they’d been built out of pork and fat bacon.

“Are you this shiny new postmaster we’ve been hearing about?”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah, well, your man was already here,” said the toaster. “Went on and on about how we should do this and do that, never said anything about the price!”

“A price?” said Moist, spreading out his hands and beaming. “Is that all this is about? Easily done. Easily done.”

He turned, opened the door, and shouted: “Okay, Gladys!”

There was some shouting in the darkness of the yard, and then the creak of timber.

“What the hell did you do?” said the spherical man.

“My price is this,” said Moist. “You agree to carry my mail, and you won’t have another wheel dragged off that mail coach out there. I can’t say fairer than that, okay?”

The man lumbered forward, growling, but the other coachman grabbed his coat.

“Steady there, Jim,” he said. “He’s gov’ment and he’s got golems working for ’im.”

On cue, Mr. Pump stepped into the room, bending to get through the doorway. Jim scowled at him.

“That don’t frighten me!” said Jim. “They ain’t allowed to hurt folks!”

“Wrong,” said Moist. “Probably dead wrong.”

“Then we’ll call the Watch on yer,” said Harry Upwright, still holding back his brother. “All proper and official. How d’you like that?”

“Good, call the Watch,” said Moist. “And I shall tell them I’m recovering stolen property.” He raised his voice. “Gladys!”

There was another crash from outside.

“Stolen? Those coaches are ours!” said Harry Upwright.

“Wrong again, I’m afraid,” said Moist. “Mr. Pump?”

“The Mail Coaches Were Never Sold Off,” the golem rumbled. “They Are The Property Of The Post Office. No Rent Has Been Paid For The Use Of Post Office Property.”

“Right, that’s it!” Jim roared, shaking his brother away. Mr. Pump’s fists raised instantly.

The world paused.

“Hold on, Jim, hold on just one minute,” said Harry Upwright carefully. “What’s your game, Mr. Postman? Our dad used to run the coaches in the old days, right? He always took passengers, too, right? And then there was no mail to take but people still wanted to travel, and the coaches were just standing around and the horses were needing to be fed, so he paid for the fodder, and the vet’s bills, and no one—”

“Just take my mail,” said Moist. “That’s all. Every coach takes the mailbags and drops them off where I say. That’s all. Tell me where you’ll get a better deal tonight, eh? You could try your luck pleading finders-keepers to Vetinari, but that’d take a while to sort out and in the meantime you’d lose all that lovely revenue…No? Okay. Glady—!”

“No! No! Wait a minute,” said Harry. “Just the mailbags? That’s all?”

“What?” said Jim. “You want to negotiate? Why? They say possession’s nine points of the law, right?”

“And I possess a lot of golems, Mr. Upwright,” said Moist. “And you don’t possess any deeds, mortgages, or bills of sale.”

“Yeah? And you won’t possess any teeth, mister!” said Jim, rolling forward.

“Now, now,” said Moist, stepping quickly in front of Mr. Pump and raising a hand. “Don’t kill me again, Mr. Upwright.”

Both brothers looked puzzled.

“I’ll swear Jim never laid a finger on you, and that’s the truth,” said Harry. “What’s your game?”

“Oh, he did, Harry,” said Moist. “Lost his temper, took a swing, I went over, hit my head on that old bench there, I got up not knowing where the hell I was, you tried to hold Jim back, he hit me with that chair, the one just there, and down I went for keeps, the golems got you, Harry, but Jim went on the run, only to be tracked down by the Watch in Sto Lat, oh, what scenes, what chases, and you both ended up in the Tanty, the charge against the pair of you being murder—”

“Here,
I
didn’t hit you with the chair!” said Harry, eyes wide. “It was Jim—here, hang on a minute…”

“—and this morning Mr. Trooper measured you up for the last necktie and there you were, standing in that room under the gallows, knowing that you’d lost your business, you’d lost your coaches, you’d lost your fine horses, and in two minutes—”

Moist let the sentence hang in the air.

“And?” said Harry. Both brothers were watching him with expressions of horrified confusion which would coalesce into violence inside five seconds if this didn’t work. Keep them off balance, was the ticket.

Moist counted to four in his head, while smiling beatifically.

“And then an angel appeared,” he said.

T
EN MINUTES
can change a lot. It was enough to brew two cups of tea thick enough to spread on bread.

The brothers Upwright probably didn’t believe in angels. But they believed in bullshit, and were the type to admire it when it was delivered with panache. There’s a kind of big, outdoors sort of man who’s got no patience at all with prevaricators and fibbers, but will applaud any man who can tell an outrageous whopper with a gleam in his eye.

“Funny you should turn up tonight,” said Harry.

“Oh? Why?”

“’Cos a man from the Grand Trunk came round this afternoon and offered us big money for the business. Too much money, you could say.”

Oh
, thought Moist…
Something’s starting…

“But
you
, Mr. Lipwig, is giving us nothing but attitude and threats,” said Jim. “Care to raise your offer?”

“Okay. Bigger threats,” said Moist. “But I’ll throw in a new paint job on every coach, gratis. Be
sensible
, gentlemen. You’ve had an easy ride, but now we’re back in business. All you have to do is what you’ve always done, but you’ll carry my mail. Come
on
, there’s a lady waiting for me and you know you shouldn’t keep a lady waiting. What do you say?”

“Is she an angel?” said Harry.

“He probably hopes not, hur, hur.” Jim had a laugh like a bull clearing its throat.

“Hur, hur,” said Moist solemnly. “Just carry the bags, gents. The Post Office is going places and you could be in the driving seat.”

The brothers exchanged a glance. Then they grinned. It was as if one grin spread across two glistening, red faces.

“Our dad would’ve liked you,” said Jim.

“He sure as hell wouldn’t like the Grand Trunk devils,” said Harry. “They need cutting down to size, Mr. Lipwig, and people are saying you’re the man to do it.”

“People die on them towers,” said Jim. “We see, you know. Damn right! The towers follows the coach roads. We used to have the contract to haul lads out to the towers and we heard ’em talking. They used to have an hour a day when they shut the whole Trunk down for mait’nance.”

“The Hour of the Dead, they called it,” said Harry. “Just before dawn. That’s when people die.”

A
CROSS A CONTINENT
, the line of light beads on the pre-dawn darkness. And then, the Hour of the Dead begins, at either end of the Grand Trunk, as the upline and down-line shutters clear their messages and stop moving, one after the other.

The men of the towers had prided themselves on the speed with which they could switch their towers from black-and-white daylight transmission to the light-and-dark mode of the night. On a good day, they could do it with barely a break in transmission, clinging to swaying ladders high above the ground, while around them the shutters rattled and chattered. There were heroes who’d lit all sixteen lamps on a big tower in less than a minute, sliding down ladders, swinging on ropes, keeping their tower alive. “Alive” was the word they used. No one wanted a dark tower, not even for a minute.

The Hour of the Dead was different. That was one hour for repairs, replacements, maybe even some paperwork. It was mostly replacements. It was fiddly to repair a shutter high up on the tower, with the wind making it tremble and freezing the blood in your fingers, and always better to swing it out and down to the ground and slot another one in place. But when you were running out of time, it was tempting to brave the wind and try to free the bloody shutters by hand.

Sometimes the wind won. The Hour of the Dead was when men died.

And when a man died, they sent him home by clacks.

M
OIST’S MOUTH
dropped open.

“That’s what they call it,” said Harry. “Not lit’rally, o’course. But they send his name from one end of the Trunk to the other, ending up at the tower nearest his home.”

“Yeah, but sometimes they say the person stays on in the towers, somehow,” said Jim. “‘Living in the overhead,’ they call it.”

“But they’re mostly drunk when they say that,” said Harry.

“Oh, yes, mostly drunk, I’ll grant you,” said his brother. “They get worked too hard. There’s no Hour of the Dead now, they only get twenty minutes. They cut the staff, too.

“They used to run a slow service on Octedays, now it’s high speed all the time, except towers keep breaking down. We seen lads come down from them towers with their eyes spinning and their hands shaking and no idea what day it is. It drives ’em mad. Eh? Damn right!”

“Except that they’re already mad,” said Harry. “You’d have to be mad to work up in them things.”

“They get so mad even ordinary mad people think they’re mad.”

“That’s right. But they still go back up there. The clacks drives them back. The clacks owns them, gets into their souls,” said Harry. “They get paid practically nothing but I’ll swear they’d go up those towers for free.”

“The Grand Trunk runs on blood now, since the new gang took over. It’s killin’ men for money,” said Jim.

Harry drained his mug. “We won’t have none of it,” he said. “We’ll run your mail for you, Mr. Lipwig, for all that you wear a damn silly hat.”

“Tell me,” said Moist, “have you ever hear of something called the Smoking Gnu?”

“Dunno much,” said Jim. “A couple of the boys mentioned them once. Some kind of outlaw signalers or something. Something to do with the overhead.”

“What
is
the overhead? Er…dead people live in it?”

“Look, Mr. Lipwig, we just listen, okay?” said Jim. “We chat to ’em nice and easy, ’cos when they come down from the towers they’re so dozy they’ll walk under your coach wheels—”

“It’s the rocking in the wind,” said Harry. “They walk like sailors.”

“Right. The overhead? Well, they said a lot of the messages the clacks carries is
about
the clacks, okay? Orders from the company, housekeeping messages, messages
about
messages—”

“—dead men’s names—” said Moist.

“Yeah, them, too. Well, the Smoking Gnu is in there somewhere,” Jim went on. “That’s all I know. I drive coaches, Mr. Lipwig. I ain’t a clever man like them up on the towers. Hah, I’m stupid enough to keep my feet on the ground!”

“Tell Mr. Lipwig about Tower 93, Jim,” said Harry. “Make ’is flesh creep!”

“Yeah, heard about that one?” said Jim, looking slyly at Moist.

“No. What happened?”

“Only two lads were up there, where there should’ve been three. One of them went out in a gale to budge a stuck shutter, which he shouldn’t’ve done, and fell off and got his safety rope tangled around his neck. So the other bloke rushed out to get him, without
his
safety rope—which he shouldn’t’ve done—and they reckon he got blown right off the tower.”

“That’s horrible,” said Moist. “Not creepy, though. As such.”

“Oh, you want the creepy bit? Ten minutes after they was both dead the tower sent a message for help. Sent by a dead man’s hand.” Jim stood up and put his tricorn hat on. “Got to take a coach out in twenty minutes. Nice to meet you, Mr. Lipwig.” He pulled open a drawer in the battered desk and pulled out a length of lead pipe. “That’s for highwaymen,” he said, and then took out a big, silver brandy flask. “And this is for me,” he added with rather more satisfaction. “Eh? Damn right!”