I beckoned Gilbey. ‘‘Come on over here. You need to hear this.’’ I told Bill, ‘‘He does. He’s the money.’’ I told Gilbey, ‘‘You’ll love this.’’
Gilbey listened. He didn’t interrupt. Bill expanded on what he’d told me. Gilbey said, ‘‘First step, identify the threat. Determine the extent and magnitude.’’
‘‘Right.’’
Gilbey looked at me. ‘‘I blame you for this.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘If we’d sent anybody but you, it would’ve been over after those Bustee kids got rounded up.’’
He was joking. I didn’t feel it. It did seem like this stuff happened to me all the time. ‘‘Yeah. Well, I did take care of them. I can follow up with the Guard and the Outfit, if you want.’’
‘‘The Outfit?’’
‘‘The Chodo family enterprise. The Combine. The Syndicate.’’
‘‘I know who you mean. Why bring them up?’’
‘‘They’re very territorial. The World is at the edge of their territory. It ought to spin off a demand for secondary entertainment. Which would be why you haven’t heard from them. Chodo and Belinda understand business better than most people.’’
‘‘We’re going to help them get better, too?’’
‘‘A fair dinkum, I’d bet. Anyway, they don’t allow competition. And no freelancing on their patch. You’re safer down here than you’d be anywhere but the Dream Quarter.’’
Gilbey grunted. ‘‘So there are several things going on.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ Seems to be my fate. ‘‘Like this. Looks like. You decided to build a theater. To anchor a chain. But you picked a spot where something ancient and unpleasant is buried way down deep. The enterprise attracted wannabe gangsters from the Bustee.’’
‘‘And the bugs?’’
‘‘Teenagers. Psychotically brilliant kids, mostly off the Hill. They found a secret place to indulge some strange hobbies. The bugs they made got loose. Besides getting up here to the surface, they went down and irritated whatever it is that’s buried down there.’’
I was cooking. Who needed the Dead Man to work this stuff out?
Gilbey asked a trick question. It wasn’tthe trick question but it was a good one. At that point I had only a glimmer of the key question myself. ‘‘What are you going to do about it?’’
‘‘That’s the big one. It’ll take some thought. Right now, recruit a gang of thugs and take complete control here. Then find out why the workmen won’t show up when jobs are so scarce. Maybe go down under to look around. If the sulfur I left burning hasn’t made the air unbreathable down there.’’
‘‘That’ll take time.’’
‘‘Everything takes time. Even taking time. The impossible especially takes a little longer. Here’s what you can do. Tell your construction foremen I want their men here tomorrow. Or they can kiss their jobs good-bye.’’
‘‘We don’t operate that way, Garrett.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘We’d rather look out for our people.’’
‘‘They know that. Right? So, you talk this way, they know you’re serious. Bill. Suggestions?’’
Belle—Bill—was looking a little younger. ‘‘Before anything else, you need to tell me what you want to accomplish.’’
‘‘We’re building a theater. Shooting for an early spring opening date. We’ve had problems. Vandalism. Theft. Giant bugs. And the haunting I brought you over to check out. The theft and vandalism have been dealt with. I used to think we had the bug problem licked, too.’’
Using a slick redhead’s slide, Tinnie eased in close, inside my left arm, while I was talking to Bill and Gilbey. ‘‘You were way too optimistic about that, Malsquando.’’ She pointed.
Up where the roof sheathing should start going on soon, a brace of foot-long blue beetles decorated the World, glistening in the afternoon sun. Something the size of a small terrier perched up top, between naked rafters, wearing big antennae. It sparkled in the sunlight, too. I couldn’t make out the color. Black or dark brown, and very shiny. ‘‘All right. I got way ahead of myself.’’
The neighborhood had been quiet. Today. Enough for me to make out the chatter of a sizable group headed my way.
That turned out to consist of Morley Dotes, Singe, Saucerhead, and several of Morley’s troops. I’d asked Morley to find Tharpe. I told Manvil and Bill, ‘‘Let me talk to these guys.’’ Noting the wench pack starting to size Morley up already.
How does he do that? Get them breathing faster just by showing up.
‘‘Saucerhead. Great. I need you to run security here. Round yourself up five guys you trust, then keep everybody who don’t belong here out of the place.’’
Tharpe’s mouth opened and closed several times before he asked, ‘‘How will I know who belongs?’’
‘‘We’ll work that out after you pull a crew together.’’ He knew where to find the right kind of people.
‘‘Pay?’’
‘‘I’ve got the brewery behind me. As long as people drink beer we’ll get paid.’’
Saucerhead glanced around. He recognized Gilbey. That made my case. ‘‘That’ll do.’’ He headed out without another word.
I faced Singe. ‘‘And what are you up to?’’
‘‘Freelancing. For Mr. Dotes.’’
‘‘I see.’’ I glanced at the sky. ‘‘Are you dressed warm enough?’’ I had a notion what was up. That might take a good, long time. If Singe could find a track at all after the weather we’d been having.
She gave me the kind of look an adolescent does after that kind of question. And added a big rat sneer at my coat.
‘‘All right. You’re a big girl.’’ I told Morley, ‘‘Don’t get her into any tight places.’’ And strained hard not to start moralizing about bounty-hunting somebody who’d never done anything to him personally.
‘‘More bugs,’’ Gilbey said. He pointed. A huge walking stick had appeared up top. It was big enough for me to make out its head rolling right and left, checking the blue beetles. It decided they looked tasty. It charged. Something I’d never, in my limited experience, seen a normal walking stick do. They usually move slow, or just wait for dinner to come to them.
The beetles scooted. One lost its grip on the wall. Down it went. The walking stick fell right behind it. The beetle pounded the air desperately with inadequate wings. It survived its collision with cobblestone. The walking stick did not.
Morley and Gilbey alike hustled over for a closer look. I said, ‘‘They just keep on hatching out. I should head over to the Tenderloin, find out if—’’
Miss Tinnie Tate has mastered the secret of bilocation. She was beside me, gouging me in the ribs, before I could finish my thought. Belle gawked, amazed. Though he seemed more taken with Lindy Zhang. Whenever he looked at her he sloughed a half dozen years.
The years came back the moment he looked somewhere else. Somewhere behind me. I turned but didn’t see what had turned him gray at the gills. He pretended nothing had happened. But he looked around some more, marking lines of retreat.
Morley returned. ‘‘You have an interesting one here, Garrett. Not as lethal as usual, but interesting. Good luck. Singe. Time to go.’’
Gilbey approached. He wore a weak smile. ‘‘Ditto, what your friend said. I understand why it’s taking so long. Alyx! Let’s go.’’
‘‘Hang on. I need to talk to her. Alyx! Come here. Godsdamnit, Tinnie, turn it off for two minutes.’’ There are rare moments when enough Tate is just about enough.
‘‘What?’’ Alyx was pouting now.
‘‘Cut the crap. Give me some straight answers. Why do you keep insisting on ghosts here when nobody else sees them?’’
‘‘I see them!’’
‘‘Seen any today?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘Where do you see them when you do?’’
She waved a hand behind her, indicating the World. ‘‘Inside.’’
‘‘So. You’ve been coming down here despite your dad’s instructions.’’
She stared at the pavements, for once unready to squabble.
‘‘You have. Bad Alyx.’’
‘‘I just wanted to see how things were going. I talked Daddy into building all this.’’
‘‘The ghosts. You keep insisting.’’
‘‘Damn it, Garrett! I saw them! Every time I ever went down into the part that’s going to be under the stage. That’s where everybody else saw them, too. And sometimes even up on the ground floor.’’