Petulantly, "I mean, Bic Gonlit finds things that're missing. He said so."
"The real Bic Gonlit specializes in finding people for other people. People who're willing to pay well to have them found."
Playmate told me, "Let's don't complicate things, Garrett. Rhafi, please show us where Bic Gonlit stayed."
"He tried to get me up there, too, you know. Like he did Cassie."
"And you found out where he stayed. Good job." Playmate's approach was the same as mine but the boy responded better. Probably because he knew and trusted Playmate.
Playmate does exude trustworthiness. I've seen total strangers entrust him with everything but their souls.
Playmate kept talking. And Rhafi responded.
The boy did not enjoy Kip's one redeeming quality. He wasn't bright. And he was spoiled. As much as a near-destitute child can be spoiled.
I stepped back and let the master work.
"Shall we?" I asked Cassie, offering her my arm and a glimpse of my raised eyebrow. The trick that kills them dead.
"I think I'll just stay here."
Whimpering, every bone crushed, I dragged my battered carcass out of the Prose flat, following Playmate and Rhafi.
26
Playmate said, "I told you you'd like Cassie."
"Hell, I love her. But I'm not so hot for the thing that's inside of her, wearing her like a suit."
Rhafi started laughing. I mean, he got one of those cases of the giggles where you just can't shut it off, no matter how hard you try.
"I didn't think it was that funny," I said.
Playmate agreed. "It wasn't funny at all."
Rhafi gasped, "But you don't know Cassie. You don't have to live with her. You don't have to suffer through it when she tries on different personalities like some rich bitch trying on different clothes." He hacked and gasped all the way through that. "I know it isn't that funny. But it was just so perfect for the bitch that she's trying to be this week."
"She's always been an actress," Playmate said, demonstratively not using the word in its pejorative form, which means whore. "That's her way of coping."
"Ever get the idea that the dysfunctional folks outnumber those who aren't? Every damned day I'm more of the opinion that everybody's knot is tied too loose or too tight. And some just cover it up better than others. It's only a matter of time. Except for me and thee, of course."
"And sometimes we wonder about thee, Garrett. I'm sorry you feel that way. You might consider surrounding yourself with different people. Excluding myself, naturally. Or you might find a different line of work. One less likely to turn you cynical."
"Me? Cynical? That's impossible. I am one with the universe. I have the perfect life. Except for the fact that I do have to work once in a while."
"You should've picked a mother who lived on the Hill."
"That was a little shortsighted of me, wasn't it?"
Rhafi, in a moment when the giggles were under control, observed, "You guys must be getting older than you look." Outside of the Prose flat, out of the shadow of his intimidating sister, he developed some substance.
"Yeah? How come do you say that?" That was a bitter draught, even from a kid as strange as he.
"You both think too much."
The little philosopher. "Damn!" I said. "There's an accusation that hasn't been flung in my face for a long time."
"Possibly never," Playmate opined. "I recall the opposite fault getting mentioned with some frequency, however... Hello. What do we have here?"
Clumps of people occupied the street ahead, staring down a cross lane and pointing at the sky.
"I have an uncomfortable feeling. Rhafi, how far to Bic Gonlit's place?"
"Next block. I bet they're looking at one of those... Oh, yeah!"
The crowd all made awed noises. Everyone pointed, reminding me of crowd scenes in paintings of the imperial circus, the people saluting as the emperor arrived.
A silvery discus, that I guessed to be pretty high up in the air, had appeared from behind a tile rooftop. It drifted our way for a few seconds, then moved back out of sight again. Some of the watchers complained bitterly because it hadn't come closer. I supposed similar groups of gawkers could be found all over town.
I overheard several people claiming to have had contact with creatures who lived inside the silver disk. One insisted that he had been a captive of creatures who lived inside the balls of light I had seen last night. That turned into a contest: who could concoct the tallest tale about the outrages done them by the silver elves.
The human imagination is very fertile. And exceedingly grotesque.
"Did I say something about them outnumbering us?" I asked. "Play, you heard of those silver things coming out in the daytime before?" Sightings had been going on for at least a month but I hadn't paid much attention. There's always something weird going on in TunFaire. Like most of His Majesty's subjects, if the something weird ain't happening to me I don't worry about it.
"Oh, sure. Just as often as at night. As I recollect, all of the earliest sightings, over a year ago now, came during the daytime."
"I do remember. It was one of those one-day wonders. Nothing happened so I forgot about it. These people are getting a little thick here," I grumbled. I eased into Playmate's wake. He had little trouble pushing through the crowd. Many of them probably recognized him. He was always out here doing the charitable side of the ministry thing.
Always something weird happening. These flying things. The silver elves. People catching on fire and burning up, up on the north side. The other day news that another juvenile male mammoth had wandered in through an un-watched gate and was creating havoc, also on the north side. If one of Block's people was supposed to have been on duty there he'd better be prepared to eat the mammoth. Dereliction of duty was close to a capital crime in the eyes of Colonel Westman Block and Deal Relway.
It might behoove me to keep better track since so much of the weird stuff pulls me in eventually.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Garrett?" Rhafi asked from behind me. "You jumped."
I'd thought about voluntarily creating work for myself, that was what was the matter. No need to share that with the kid, though. "Aren't we there yet?"
"The yellow brick dump."
And dump it was. The tenement in question, easily more than a hundred years old, was a hideous four-story memorial to the disdain lavished on housing for the poor during the last century. When they actually still built tenements with the idea that poor people needed housing. I knew the inside perfectly before we ever passed through the doorless entry, stepping over and around squatters, trying not to inhale too deeply. The nearest public baths would be miles away.
Cooking smells, heavy on rancid grease, did help suppress the body odors somewhat.
Every room in the structure would be overcrowded. Entire extended families would occupy a space at most ten feet by eight, some members possibly sleeping standing up, leaning on a rope. Certainly sleeping in shifts, the majority always on the street trying to score an honest or dishonest copper. When you're that poor that distinction is too fine to notice.
It's the way of much of the world. And once you've looked into a place like that tenement you tend to appreciate your own better fortune a good deal more.
That tenement made Kayne Prose's situation appear considerably less awful.
I asked Rhafi, "You know where he stayed here?"
The boy shrugged. "Upstairs. I think he said the top floor."
"Oh, my aching knees."
"Not exactly the digs you'd expect of the Bic Gonlit who enjoys gourmet dining and fine wines," Playmate observed.
"Definitely not. You think Bic maybe used this place as a safe house?" I stepped over and past several big-eyed ragamuffins, the eldest possibly four, all huddling on the bottom steps of the stairs.