Dotes shrugged. ‘‘Forget about it. Five percent isn’t juice enough. How long do you think the fad will last?’’
‘‘A long time if the Tates are as clever at promoting three-wheels as they were combat boots back when Tate shoes became the thing for the in-crowd.’’ They’d been supposed to make those boots exclusively for the Army.
‘‘Snob appeal.’’
‘‘The worst you ever saw.’’
I took a moment to enjoy The Palms. Good smells wafted in from the kitchen. My long affair with an omnivorous diet prevented my saying so. My best pal is a born-again vegetarian.
‘‘An interesting notion,’’ Dotes mused, mind a hundred yards away. ‘‘Change the menu. Come up with something the punters won’t get anywhere else. Then get out the word about how exclusive it is. You’re not as dumb as you let on, Garrett.’’
‘‘A thought for the ages.’’ And, ‘‘Thanks for caring enough to send Sarge out. I’d better get moving. There was a bunch of stuff I was supposed to do today. I haven’t done any of it yet. And I’m hungry.’’
There was a lot of garlic in the air. I do like a dish with ample garlic flavoring the meat.
‘‘Don’t forget your coat.’’ Dotes ignored my gratitude. In his world, doing for friends wasn’t something you talked about.
It was a real men thing.
I held the coat at arm’s length. ‘‘This was my best coat.’’
I didn’t hear an offer to make good, or even an apology for the damage. I didn’t challenge Dotes. The clever little villain would turn it around to make the damage my fault because I’d been dumb enough to loan my best coat to a redheaded woman.
I dragged the remnants on over top of the tattered beast I wore already.
29
The snow had eased up. What had fallen was too wet to drift. The wind had weakened, too. Excellent, considering the state of my winter apparel.
I hit the World. Men were working. I approached the carpenter in-laws. ‘‘Any trouble today?’’
‘‘Nope.’’ The surly one wasn’t, this time. He pointed. ‘‘There’s your only bug today. That sulfur brought them up good.’’
A dead roach, lacking a couple legs, lay fifteen feet away. Interesting. ‘‘I didn’t think it would do any good. But I paid for the stuff so I used it. So. I heard there were all kinds of bugs last night.’’
‘‘Right after you burned that sulfur, eh?’’
Yikes! It really was my fault the Tenderloin had gone into a recession? ‘‘The other thing. Ghosts. My boss says I got to ask about ghosts.’’
The in-laws traded glances. Their faces went blank. Formerly Sullen said, ‘‘I don’t know where that came from. Except them bugs could make enough noise to get your imagination going. And this place gets plenty spooky if you’re in here by yourself.’’
I gave him the hard fish-eye. No way he was being straight. But he didn’t smell like a guy being maliciously evasive, either. There was something these guys didn’t want to talk about. Like it might be embarrassing, not some heinous crime.
The carpenter who had done no talking got a sudden case of the big eyes. I turned around. The foreman was headed our way, past what looked like a momentary heat shimmer. Could have been. It was hot in there.
The foreman, Luther something, wanted to know if there wasn’t some way I could do my job without keeping his people from doing theirs. ‘‘I got six guys showed up today. Outta thirty-two. I’m falling behind fast.’’
So I talked to him. Being management, he had nothing constructive to do.
He hadn’t seen any ghosts. It was his considered opinion that the ghost stuff was all bullshit from workmen who wanted an excuse to lie out for a day or two. There were no days off on this project.
The weather continued to improve. I was almost comfortable walking over to the ruin where those kids had made their bugs.
The structure remained uninhabited. I’d thought its notoriety would draw squatters.
I climbed the wobbly steps. I went through the doorless doorway, triggering spells meant to discourage trespassers. The first was subtle but powerful. It made me think that I was about to lose control of my bowels. I didn’t, but they churned. Another sliding step on the creaky floor and I started seeing shapes move in the corners of my eyes. Were the ghosts at the World a spillover? If ghosts indeed there were?
There were other spells, all with a similar feel. Meaning they’d been set by the same caster, someone powerful but not polished. A professional would have been less obvious. I shouldn’t have noticed that I was being manipulated.
I strolled on. Carefully. That floor was treacherous.
The spells worsened. When had they been cast? Anything there the day before yesterday should have broken down when the mob rushed in.
The floor creaked and sank. Likewise, the steep stair down into a fresh set of discouragement spells, one of which added violent wind to my tummy troubles. Looked like the point was to make an intruder flee his own exhaust.
I discover a less rickety stair to a cellar below the cellar. The floor down there was wooden but camouflaged by dirt so it would be taken as the bottom level. I knew better. I hadn’t seen anything interesting yet.
Not much natural light made it down there. There had to be a handy source. Those kids wouldn’t have come down blind.
It was easy. They trusted their spells too much. But Kip would be the only one of the crew who had ever stood chin to chin with somebody really bad.
I felt around till I got hold of something like cold cobwebs. I shuddered. Something wentker-chunk! A tiny flame, from a tiny lamp, fixed to a reservoir that would keep it burning for weeks, came alive in a little eye-high alcove. Its weak light revealed an iron ring only partly hidden in the dirt at my feet.
There were more cellars, three in all, below that. The lowest had to be below river level but was no more damp than those above it. It was a place where mildew would feel at home.
Curious. Not once did I see evidence of any actual explosion. Had that been an illusion? Or something that happened on the same psychic level as the Dead Man’s communications? Or just some very clever fireworks, meant to scare off potential invaders?
Lighting was always the same, a weak little lamp fixed in an alcove. Enough once your eyes adapted but you wouldn’t be reading many books.
So. No more down. The last steep stair ended in the middle of a stone floor. The overhead was just high enough that I didn’t have to stoop. The whole was eight feet to a side. The weeping walls were stone. Each had a wooden door in the middle, none of those showing more use than the others. None of them looked new.
Everything seen so far had been there a long time. Excepting the spells.
How had the kids found the place?
When in doubt, trust your right hand. I went to the door to my right as I left the stair. It wasn’t locked. The darkness beyond fled when I stepped forward.
A dozen lamps came alive. An interesting bit of witchcraft. Which could have lots of commercial applications.
The lamplight revealed a square room twenty feet to a side and just like what I’d expect a rich kids’ hideout to look like. There was furniture, nice but slightly worn. There were carpets. There were games, a couple in progress. There were books. There were toys. There was a three-wheel in a corner. I got the serial number. Overall, the evidence suggested that there were more kids in the group than I’d thought.
There was even a keg of beer from one of those snooty boutiques that serve only the lords on the Hill. I’d never tasted it. I gave it a try.
I’ll spare Max. But it was better than Weider Dark Select. I was tempted to enjoy another. And another. But dedicated operative Garrett resisted temptation.
Beer reminded me that Singe had mentioned a strong wort odor. I’d caught the edge of that myself. There was none of that now. Basic cellar smells, fairly light, and something remote that had a touch of animal den to it. But no birth of the beer.