Red Iron Nights (5 page)

“Probably so.” I’d never spent much time wondering about Barking Dog. Occasionally I’d given thought to whether or not he believed what he said. It was common knowledge his claims about his family were exaggerated. None of his conspiracy claims had borne fruit, and that in a town where everybody who was somebody wanted scandal ammunition to use against other somebodies. Nobody tried to shut him up.

“What did they nick you for?” What the hell. I wasn’t going to get much wetter. And the damp was toning down the miasma around Amato.

“Sixty days.”

A comedian. “What was the charge? It’s a matter of record. Wouldn’t take me an hour to get the story.”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“Public nuisance.” He didn’t boom this time either.

“They don’t give you two months—”

“Third complaint.” His excitement over being persecuted had faded. Now he was embarrassed. He was a convicted public nuisance.

“Even so, more than a few days seems excessive.”

“I kind of got carried away at my hearing. Fifty-five days were for contempt.”

Heavy time, even so. The magistrates I knew were pretty contemptible. They ran their courts like feeding time at the zoo. It would take some barking to aggravate any of them.

I recalled outrageous claims I’d heard Amato make.

Yep. He had run into somebody with no sense of humor, somebody who didn’t know Barking Dog was a genuine loony, harmless in the extreme. Nobody else could get away with the stuff he said. “Maybe you were lucky,” I told him. “You get somebody really pissed, they could toss you into the Bledsoe.” Part of the charity hospital is a madhouse. You get stuffed in there, you won’t get out unless somebody outside springs you. There are plenty of stories about people who have gone in and been forgotten for decades.

Barking Dog went pale under his tan.
That
scared him. He started to leave.

“Hang on, old-timer.”

He settled, resigned. He thought the threat had come. The Bledsoe. Just sitting there beside him, talking to him, I’d begun to feel like a candidate for the cackle factory. “You won’t talk, eh?”

“No.”

I shook my head. Water from my hair dribbled into my eyes. “I’m getting paid, which maybe ought to be enough, but I’d sure like a hint why I’m spending time with you.”

I suspected that, on reflection, he’d decided that
he
didn’t know. A cold drizzle can be a great cure for a case of the fantasies.

My thoughts flitted like drunken butterflies, trying to make sense of what was happening. The only answers I found were that this was a practical joke, or a mistake, or a sinister plot, or something. It couldn’t be the job advertised.

I heard the Dead Man: “Three marks a day and expenses.” I hadn’t thought to ask if we’d taken a retainer.

“What’re your plans?” I asked. “Right now.”

“You’re going to get wet, son. First I’m going to go see if I still got me a place to live. If I do, then I’m going to go buy me a bottle and get drunk. You want to hang around, wait for me to sneak off and make contact with your boss’s secret enemies, you just go ahead.” He spoke with conviction when he mentioned getting drunk. That wouldn’t be the first thing I’d go for after leaving jail, but he was maybe a little past catching honeys. As a second choice it didn’t sound bad.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow it’s back to the old grind. Unless it’s raining. Then I’ll stay in and make the acquaintance of another bottle.”

I got up. “Let’s walk over where you live, then. Get you tucked in. Then I’ll see this Hullar clown, find out what’s shaking.” Nobody likes being made a fool—and I was developing the sneaking suspicion I’d done it to myself. I should’ve asked more questions when I was talking to the Dead Man.

I decided to start with him, work my way back to Bishoff Hullar.

7

Dean let me in. “What in the world are you doing home?” He hoisted his nose at the dripping I did.

“Need to consult the genius.” I pushed past but hung a surprise left into the small front room. Huh. No cat. No sign of a cat. But I smelled it.

Dean shuffled from foot to foot. I gave him my most evil look, pretended to twist a neck to the accompaniment of dramatic noises. I headed for the Dead Man’s room.

He was pretending to sleep.

I knew he wasn’t. He wouldn’t nod off before he heard the latest from the Cantard. He was obsessed with Glory Mooncalled and expected news of the republican general’s adventures momentarily.

I went inside anyway. Dean hustled in with a raggedy blanket he tossed over my chair so it wouldn’t get wet. I settled, stared at the Dead Man, said, “That’s a pity, him drifting off just when we finally hear something from the war zone. Make me a quick cup of tea before I hit the street again.”

What news from the Cantard? . . . You are a treacherous beast, Garrett.

“The treacherousest. As bad as the kind of guy who’d send you out to follow a nut case as a joke.”

Joke?

“You can come clean. I won’t hold a grudge. I’ll even admit it was a good one. You had me out there for hours before I figured it out.”

I hate to disappoint you, Garrett, but the fact is we
have
been hired to report the movements of Barking Dog Amato. The client paid a fifty-mark retainer.

“Come on. I admitted it was a good one. Let up.”

It is true, Garrett. Though now, seeing the thoughts and reservations and questions rambling across the surface of your mind, I grow curious myself. I wonder if I, too, have not been the victim of an elaborate hoax.

“Somebody
really
paid fifty marks to have Amato watched?”

There would be nothing under my chair otherwise.

I was sure he wouldn’t take a joke that far. “You didn’t ask questions?”

No. Not the questions you wish I had. Had I known what a Barking Dog Amato was, I would have asked them.

Somebody had begun pounding on the front door. Dean, apparently, was too busy to be bothered. “Wait a minute.”

I looked through the peephole first. I’d learned the hard way. I saw two women. One was hugging herself, shivering. Neither seemed to enjoy the weather.

I opened up. “Can I help you ladies?”

I used “ladies” poetically. The younger had twenty years on me. Both were squeaky clean and wore their finest, but their finest was threadbare and years out of style. They were gaunt and threadbare themselves. One had a trace of nonhuman blood.

Both put on nervous smiles, as though I’d startled them by being something they didn’t expect. The younger screwed up her courage. “Are you saved, brother?”

“Huh?”

“Have you been born again? Have you accepted Mississa as your personal savior?”

“Huh?” I didn’t have the foggiest what the hell was going on. I didn’t even realize they were talking religion. That doesn’t play much part in my life. I ignore all the thousand gods whose cults plague TunFaire. So far I’ve seldom been disappointed in my hope that the gods will ignore me.

Apparently my not slamming the door was great encouragement. Both women started chattering. Being a naturally polite sort of guy, I halfway listened till I got the drift. Then I grinned, inspired. “Come in! Come in!” I introduced myself. I shook their hands. I turned on the old Garrett charm. They became uneasy almost to the point of suspicion. I probed only deeply enough to make sure their brand of salvation wasn’t limited to humans. Most of the cults are racist. Most of the nonhuman races hold to no gods at all.

I confessed, “I’m not free to entertain a new system of beliefs myself, but I do know someone who should see you. My partner is the most ungodly sort you can imagine. He needs . . . Let me caution you. He’s stubborn in his wickedness. I’ve tried and tried . . . You’ll see. Please come with me. Would you like tea? My housekeeper just put the kettle on.” They chattered steadily themselves. What I had to say mostly got shoved in in snatches.

They followed me. I had a hell of a time keeping a straight face. I sicced them on the Dead Man. I didn’t stay around to watch the fur fly.

As I hit the rain I wondered if he’d ever speak to me again. But who needed spiritual guidance more? He was dead already, already headed down the path to heaven or hell.

But the grin on my clock wasn’t any smug celebration of my ingenuity. I’d had me another attack of inspiration. I knew how to turn the Barking Dog business into a scam that would make us both happy.

The man could read and write. He did his own signs and broadsides. And he was harmless. And he needed money. I’d seen that where he lived. So why not have him keep track of himself? I could hand his journal over to my client, split my fee with Barking Dog, save myself hunking around in the weather.

The more I thought about that, the more I liked it. And who’d know the difference?

So the heck with Bishoff Hullar. I wouldn’t press my luck there. I’d stay away except to collect. I chose a new destination.

I went off to sell Barking Dog. I didn’t anticipate any trouble. I would appeal to his sense of conspiracy.

Some white knight, eh? Our hero, third-string con artist.

I didn’t suffer much guilt. The Bishoff Hullars of the world deserve what they get. Hell, before I got to Barking Dog’s place I was chuckling.

8

Some of us take a notion we’re what the world perceives us to be, so we create images the world feeds back. You see it especially with kids. You get some pathetic louse of a parent, always sniping at his kid, telling him he’s no good and dumb, pretty soon he’s got a dumb, no-good kid. That’s your one-way version. I’m talking about creating yourself.

I worked at it, not always consciously, when I wanted the world to think I was bad. I didn’t make my bed. I changed my socks only once a week. I cleaned house once a year whether the place needed it or not. When I wanted to look real mean, I stopped brushing my teeth.

Barking Dog must have lived in those same two rooms for about eleven thousand years without cleaning once. The place could become a museum where mothers showed their kids why they ought to pick up after themselves.

The smell suggested it was the one place in TunFaire not infested by vermin. The smell was the smell of Barking Dog Amato, confined and reinforced by time and made heavier by oppressive humidity. Barking Dog had no handle on the principles of hygiene.

Thank whatever gods he’d been out of there awhile.

I’d never seen that much paper anywhere, not even in the offices of royal functionaries. Once Barking Dog muffed both sides of a handbill sheet, he flipped the cull over his shoulder. When he brought in food, its wrappings, paper or cornhusk, joined the rejected handbills. The broken cadavers of earthenware wine bottles lay everywhere. Unscathed survivors apparently were returned for the deposits.

The entire history of Barking Dog Amato lay there, in sedimentary layers, ready to be excavated by a historical adventurer unencumbered by a sense of smell.

I took that in at a glance after Amato invited me in. I wasted a second glance on his furniture. That amounted to an artist’s easel where he painted posters and placards and a rickety table where he calligraphed handbills. A semiclear corner boasted a ragged blanket.

Two steps inside, I saw that I’d leapt to an erroneous conclusion. Barking Dog did indeed clean house. There was a second room, with no door in its doorway, where he moved his trash whenever his primary got too deep.

He didn’t apologize. He seemed unaware that his housekeeping varied from the norm. He just asked, “What did you find out from that Hullar?”

“I didn’t go see him. What happened was, I had an idea.”

“You didn’t strain nothing doing that?”

It must be on my forehead in glowing letters that don’t show up in a mirror. “You’ll like it. Be good for both of us. Here’s the plan.” I told him how we could make a few marks. His eye developed a malicious twinkle.

“Son, I’m maybe gonna like you after all. You ain’t as dumb as you look.”

“It’s my disguise,” I grumped. “Want to do it?”

“Why not? I can always use an extra mark. But don’t you figure we ought to go fifty-fifty? When I got to take time out of my busy schedule to do all the work?”

“I figure the split’s fine at two for me and one for you. I have the contract. I’ll have to rewrite whatever you give me. And I’ll have to hike over to the Tenderloin to deliver it.”

Barking Dog shrugged. He didn’t argue. “Found money,” he muttered.

“Speaking of money. How do you live? Not to mention pay for all that paper?” Even junk paper isn’t cheap. Papermaking is a labor-intensive industry.

“Maybe there’s some with enough sense to see the truth and want to spread it.” He glowered. He wasn’t going to tell me squat.

Could be a helpful believer. TunFaire boasts a fine crop of lunatics, with more ripening daily. Or maybe he was stealing paper. Or maybe he had a fortune stashed with the gnomish bankers. You never know. In this town, almost nobody is what he seems.

I answered surliness with a shrug. “I’ll catch you every couple days.”

“Yeah. Hey! Maybe you could give me a hand.”

Only at long range. His breath had taken on new freight, a heavy wine odor that combined with its previous fetor in a lethal gas. Maybe we could bottle it and send it to the Cantard. It could discourage entire Venageti brigades.

“How?”

“Some religious nut grabbed my spot while I was away.”

“Set up next to him, stick close, outlast him.” The man’s faith wouldn’t outlast Barking Dog’s aroma. “That don’t work, then ask me.”

“All right.” He was doubtful. He couldn’t smell himself. His nostrils were corroded to the bone.

“See you.” I had to get out. My eyes were watering. My nose was running. My head was spinning.

I didn’t hurry home. I let the rain rinse the smell off me. I wondered if it would ever stop raining. Should I invest in a boat?

The weather had a bright side. Flying thunder-lizards hadn’t pestered TunFaire since the rains started.

Everyone cheered when those monsters first appeared. They gobbled rats and cats and squirrels and, most especially, pigeons. Pigeons don’t have many fans. But the thunder-lizards shared some of the pigeons’ worst habits. The missiles they launched were both larger and more precisely targeted.