The Stranger (58 page)
Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic
“He doesn’t want to get mixed up with us, that’s for sure,” I said nodding.
“With the Secret Investigative Force? Stands to reason. There’s something fishy about this pâté.”
“Was that all the news?”
“No, there’s more. Do you know where Boboota ate yesterday?”
“Gosh, it wasn’t here, was it?”
“It most certainly was. And it wasn’t the first time. It turns out that General Boboota developed a passion for luxury a dozen days ago. And recently he’s been eating exclusively at the
Hunchback
.”
Hunchback
.”
“I don’t think his salary is less than ours; but every day, that’s a bit excessive!”
A curious and thrifty little fellow with an inordinate interest in Boboota’s pocketbook suddenly took over in me.
“Oh, it’s much less, Max. A general of the Police Force makes half as much as an ordinary Secret Investigator. Didn’t you know?”
“Well, that proves my point. I don’t like the sound of this, Melifaro. Not one bit. From what I know of fellows like Boboota, they don’t like throwing their money around on the sly. They want everyone to see them. And here . . . these idiotic private booths! Like some underworld den. It’s convenient for a fellow like me. I can lose my appetite when I’m surrounded by the unpleasant faces of total strangers. But that can’t be a problem for Boboota. Why would he eat in such an expensive place, if not to let everyone see him indulging his taste buds in solitary contemplation?”
“What’s a ‘den,’ Max?” Melifaro asked. “You’re a fount of new words today.”
I scratched my head. How do I explain what a den is? And why were the characters of my favorite books, with Sherlock Holmes leading the procession, always hanging around in ‘dens’? Oh, right, to smoke opium! And how did those visits sometimes end up? Right! Poor Boboota. But would someone mind telling me how opium would have found its way into Echo? And of what possible use it would be for people who can absolutely openly and legally, in the company of their families at home, partake of their Soup of Repose and boggle their minds to their heart’s content?
“Kofa didn’t happen to say which booth Boboota had eaten in, did he?”
“Just a second, I’ll ask.”
Melifaro again seemed to turn to stone, this time only briefly.
“Great,” he said in a moment. “People always take notice when it’s such a renowned person. Several times Boboota was seen coming out of the far booth—the one on the right, if you’re standing at the entrance.”
“Excellent!” I said. “That’s just where I wanted to go. How about you, Melifaro?”
“Absolutely! Shall we go now, or after we eat?”
“However we can, without being noticed.”
“Why?” Melifaro asked in surprise. “Do you think anyone would dare try to stop us?”
“No. But all the same, I don’t want anyone to see us. We Borderlanders are so shy and inscrutable.”
“Yes, especially when you’ve had a drop too much of Elixir of Kaxar. Well, if you don’t want anyone to notice us, so be it. How do you suggest we pull it off?”
“For a start, we tactfully send a call to that booth, to find out whether anyone is there. If there is, we’ll just have to wait while they split their sides laughing. If not, we’ll have to hurry before someone comes. Shall we?”
“I’m only doing it for your sake. Yes, there’s one fellow in there. A very sleepy one! He didn’t notice a thing. He didn’t even twitch.”
“Well, we’re in luck. That means we’ll have time to eat.”
“I hope so. I was already starving when we were in the Archive, if you’ll remember. Then what will we do?”
“Nothing much. We’ll wait till that gloomy damsel returns to the kitchen. Then we’ll just slip into the booth and find out how it smells.”
“Smells? Do you think—”
“I don’t think anything. We’ll just have to wait and see. But I smell a rat.”
“A rat? What’s a rat, Max? Is it some delicacy from the Barren Lands and you recognize he smell?”
I was already weary of idiomatic misunderstandings, so I didn’t say anything.
The gloomy old lady, who entered bearing two trays in her muscular hands, distracted us from the talk of rats that so confounded my colleague. Then we attacked the food with gusto. ‘Crystal clarity of taste’ was a very apt description. Even I was able to appreciate it.
“Try to exercise a bit of restraint,” I suggested to Melifaro. “Don’t eat everything at once. Leave a bit on your plate.”
“Why should I? Oh, I understand. You mean we might have to hang around here a while. Don’t worry. The sleepyhead’s on his way out, I’m keeping track of him.”
“Ah! Well, don’t hold back, then. Dig in. I grant you permission.”
“Thank you,” Melifaro mumbled, his mouth full of food. When we both had nearly cleaned our plates, he said, “I think we can venture out now . . . no, wait a second. He’s still standing in the hall.” He paused. “Perfect. I needed to finish chewing that last morsel. Come on, Max. The moment has arrived. The old shrew isn’t anywhere in sight.”
We slipped out, and in a matter of seconds we were inside the booth, which the magnificent General Boboota had lately graced with his world-renowned presence.
“Sinning Magicians! That smell!” Melifaro whispered in alarm. “The smell was coming from here. The sleepyhead was feasting on King Banjee, or whatever the dish is called. They’ve already cleared away the dishes, but it smells just like the kitchen!”
“Not ‘like’ the kitchen. It’s coming from the kitchen.”
“No, Max. The kitchen is to the left of the entrance. Didn’t you see where the hunchback went with our order?”
“That means there are two kitchens,” I murmured. “Think about it. The smell is very powerful just here. And it’s the only smell around. Why don’t you tell me something else, Sir Ninth Volume—can your limitless wisdom lead us to find a door that a blockhead like me would have to look for until tomorrow morning?”
“A secret door? Good thinking, Max. Let me look.”
Melifaro closed his eyes. He shuffled around the room uncertainly. I froze, expecting the loud crash of overturned furniture.
It didn’t come. He carefully skirted a chair standing in his path, then continued to inch forward. By the far wall, he stopped, and got down on all fours. Then he went on with his search.
“Here it is!” Melifaro looked up at me, beaming. “Come here, Max. I’ve got something to show you.”
I shuddered. His half-closed eyelids shone with pale green phosphorescence in the murky semidarkness.
“Look!”
“Well? It’s just a regular floor. Ah, I see. It’s warm!” I discovered that one spot on the floor was almost hot to the touch.
“Warm!” Melifaro huffed. “Well, you could have found the blasted door yourself, then!”
“It would have taken me hours to find it, crawling around on my hands and knees. Your way is much better.”
I couldn’t admit that I still had no clue about my own abilities in this area.
“Do you want me to open it for you, too?” Melifaro inquired spitefully.
“It’s in your own best interests. Didn’t Juffin ever tell you how I once tried to open a box containing the Royal Gift?”
“He told us. He gathered us all together and said, ‘People! If you want to stay alive, don’t allow Sir Max to open cans of preserves in your presence!’ We were terribly frightened, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“‘Preserves’? Is that what you said, ‘preserves’?”
For some reason it struck me as very funny that there were also preserves in Echo. Well, where would I have seen them? I almost always ate in restaurants, or was invited to someone’s home as a guest.
“Are you hungry again already?” Melifaro asked in surprise, moving the floorboards aside with a careless gesture.
We stared into the darkness, from which a cloud of delicious odors wafted toward us.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Though we’ll look like a pair of fools if it turns out just to be a side entrance to the main kitchen.”
“Right, disguised like the secret passage into the garden of the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover? Not likely, Max.”
We descended a narrow ladder. Melifaro replaced the false floor behind us, and we found ourselves in utter darkness.
“You don’t have a problem finding your way in the dark, I hope?” I asked.
“Do you?”
“I think I do. I don’t know. In any case, I can’t see a thing.”
“Fine, I’ll guide you. Some Child of the Night you are.”
Hand in hand we groped our way toward the divine aroma that grew stronger with every step. Gradually I discovered that I instinctively knew where to turn so as not to bump my forehead against a wall, and where to raise my foot a bit higher to step over an invisible, but hard impediment in our path.
“Are you joking at my expense?” Melifaro asked, trying to withdraw his paw from mine. “You sure don’t miss any opportunity to make me look like an idiot.”
“My whole life I’ve dreamed of holding hands with you, and now I’ve found a pretext. Don’t be so touchy. I’m absolutely serious. I don’t know whether I can find my way around in the dark or not. I never know anything for sure about myself beforehand.
“You are a lucky fellow, after all. What an interesting life you have. Here we are. We still need some light, though. You are a smoker, I recall.”
“To the degree that I can tolerate the rubbish that passes for tobacco around here. I do have matches, though, don’t worry.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be enough light. You’ll have to smoke your pipe. It’s the only light-bearing apparatus we have that gives off a steady glow.”
“Are you trying to hasten my demise? Well, so be it.”
I quickly filled my pipe. The idea was brilliant. I had only to draw on the pipe, and the dim reddish glow dispelled the darkness around us. We we were standing on the threshold of a small storeroom, stuffed to the brim with huge, oddly shaped cupboards. Strange furniture. I had seen things like this a number of times at home, but never here in Echo, where the spare, elegant objects that functioned as domestic furnishings looked more like works of art.
Since the capacity of my lungs was limited, we were once more plunged in darkness.
“What was that?” Melifaro tugged on the sleeve of my Mantle of Death. “Puff on that pipe one more time, please.”
“If you want to boss me around, you’d better learn to smoke,” I growled.
“When I was eighteen I swiped my older brother’s pipe, smoked nearly all the contents of the snuffbox, and got terribly sick. Please, Max. Give us some light! What are these things?”
I went right up to the nearest ‘cupboard’ and took a mighty draw on the pipe.
Holy cow! It wasn’t a cupboard at all, but a cage! And a person was trapped inside it. He seemed to be sleeping. In any case, the fellow didn’t react when we appeared right in front of him, and the clouds of tobacco smoke that enveloped him didn’t faze him, either.
“He’s neither alive nor dead,” Melifaro observed after a brief silence. “Try sending him a call, Max! Very curious sensation. It’s like talking to a sausage.”
I immediately regretted it. The ‘curious sensation’ turned out to be one of the most uncanny and horrible experiences of my life. I suddenly felt as though I myself was a large, living sausage that had somehow preserved the very human characteristic of being able to contemplate his essence and his fate. I was a sausage that dreams of the moment he will be eaten. I couldn’t extricate myself from the sticky spiderweb of nightmarish sensations. A slap in the face, fairly powerful, made me drop my pipe, then sent me reeling to the opposite wall where, I banged my knee against the corner of yet another cage.
“What’s wrong, Max?” Melifaro asked in a trembling voice. “What is happening to you? Who taught you to do that? What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, fumbling around for my pipe, which had gone out. Now a good draw on the pipe was just what I needed. Sausages don’t smoke, I knew that for certain. The foul taste of the substance that they mistakenly consider to be tobacco here in Echo convinced me I was a human being, and a moment later, I even remembered who I was.
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