"I'm going to go check on the prisoners," Blaise repeated numbly through swollen, cracked lips.
"Casual," Jay stressed. "Make it real casual. Then get the fucker back here with one of his knives and have him cut me loose. Once my hands are loose, we're home free. I'll pop you back to the Marriott and you can bring the cavalry. Okay?"
" I don't know," Blaise said.
" I thought you were part Takisian," Jay whispered with all the scorn he had in him. "You guys good for anything but crying?"
Blaise blinked back tears, then nodded slowly. "I'll try." The boy's battered face twisted in concentration. Jay held his breath. The singing went on for what seemed like an eternity. Then a chair pushed back and he heard a thin voice announce, much too formally, "I'm going to go check on the prisoners."
The singing stopped. Jay heard footsteps. Too many footsteps.
The centipede crossed the cellar like a sleepwalker, knelt down in front of Jay, groped behind him, and started sawing at his bonds with a knife. From the sound it made, Jay had the sick realization that his hands were bound with wire, not rope.
Charm came in just behind him, lurching forward with a ponderous stumbling gait. One head glanced over at Jay and the centipede, and ignored them. All the other eyes stayed fixed on Blaise. "No," the boy whimpered as the joker's vast dark shadow fell across him. He tried to scuttle back on the mattress, but there was no place to hide.
One of Charm's hands reached up into the pipes that ran along the ceiling and emerged with a baseball bat. The first swing caught the boy's head with a crack that made Jay nauseated.
2:00 P.M.
This time Brennan's approach was straightforward. He knew where he was going, he knew what he wanted to do. Quinn's garden was gorgeous in the afternoon sunlight.
He either had tremendous horticultural skills or had hired a superb landscaping service. Brennan wouldn't mind talking gardening with the Eskimo, and if things went right, he'd have his chance.
He cut through the poppy bed and approached the caterpillar sentinel from the rear. As it had done the first time he stumbled upon it, the machine turned its head slowly, grinned, welcomed him, then dispersed a billowing cloud of gas in his direction.
Brennan fell, artistically he hoped. He winced when his right arm hit the turf and twisted so that his left hand was under his body. He held his breath as the gas dissipated, and took shallow, cautious breaths when he had to. He got a little dizzy from the residue gas, but then he was still feeling woozy from his medical treatment, anyway.
He lay there for ten minutes before he heard approaching footsteps and a grumbling voice. "Sunday afternoon," it was saying, "Sunday afternoon. Can't a man be left in peace to enjoy himself even on the weekends? What's this world coming to?"
The grumbling stopped and through slitted eyes Brennan saw Quinn staring down at him.
"Now who's this?" Quinn continued his monologue. "Who's caught in the web spun by my caterpillar? Wait a minute. Caterpillars don't spin webs, do they?"
"That's right," Brennan said, sitting up and pointing his gun at Quinn. "You're thinking of spiders."
"You're unconscious," Quinn said. "You can't talk." Brennan could see that the Eskimo was badly ripped, but that wasn't unusual. He peered doubtfully at Brennan, seemingly not even cognizant of the gun Brennan was pointing at him.
"Running downs through your system this afternoon, Quinn?"
He nodded tranquilly. "Quaaludes."
"Lucky me. Now here's what we're going to do. We're going back to your place, then we're going to call up someone else and have a little party. That all right with you?"
Quinn nodded agreeably. "Sure. Sundays are boring anyway. There's usually nothing on television worth watching at all."
"You first," Brennan said, waving his gun at Quinn. He didn't want to get within reach of the doctor in case Quinn realized what was happening and tried to sink his finger needles into him again.
Brennan got a better view of the inside of the mansion than the last time he was there. Whatever taste Quinn had in landscaping didn't extend to interior design. The inside of his Magic Kingdom was decorated in what could best be called exotically eclectic taste. The entrance hall was lined with portraits of famous drug addicts of the past, including Edgar Allan Poe, Sherlock Holmes, Elvis Presley, and Tom Marion Douglas.
The room Quinn led him to had a group of display cases that housed, among other things, a collection of Chinese opium bottles and antique Turkish water pipes. Against one wall were terrariums with rare and delicate species of fungus and cactus, against another were aquariums with various species of puffer fish.
"Quite a place you've got here," Brennan said, gazing about in wonder.
"Thanks." Quinn beamed. "It's thematic, you know."
"Yeah," Brennan said. "Now I want you to make that phone call."
"Who are we calling?"
"Fadeout. I want you to get him here fast. Tell him you've discovered something new. Something important that he has to see right away. Can you handle that?"
"Hey!" Quinn stood straight up. "Sharp as a tack!" But he stopped and peered at Brennan. "But why should I?" Brennan decided that subtlety was out of the question. "Because I got a gun," he said, pointing it at Quinn. "And I want you to."
"Hey," Quinn said, backing away. "I was only asking." He went to the telephone, and Brennan kept pace behind him, out of arms' reach. He peered at the number that Quinn was trying to dial. It was different than the number that Fadeout had given him, as Brennan had suspected it might be. He didn't -think Fadeout would hand out his secure number to just anyone.
Quinn, meanwhile, was having difficulty dialing, but finally made it through on the third try. Brennan positioned himself before Quinn, where the Eskimo could see his gun.
"Hey, hey!" Quinn said into the receiver. "Guess who?… That's right. Coo-coo-ka-choo… No, wait a minute. That's the walrus… Anyway, it's me, Quinn. Yeah, listen, Phil old boy, I was fooling around in the lab today and came up with something you've just got to see… Sure I'm sure… Everybody's gonna jump for joy… Hey, has the Eskimo ever let you down?… Well, recently, I mean… Okay… okay… When you can make it… Sure… Adios."
He hung up the phone. "Well?" Brennan asked.
"He's got some stuff to do, but he'll be by in a hour or so. Say, want to see my greenhouse? I've got a great collection of marijuana plants."
"Sure," Brennan said. "Why not?"
3.00 P.M.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs made Jay open his eyes.
It was very quiet. He had been sleeping… or drifting in and out of consciousness, it was hard to be sure. He glanced over toward the mattress and saw Blaise staring at him. The boy's eyes were wide open, fixed in terror. A froth of blood bubbled out of his mouth where Charm had knocked out some teeth. He didn't seem aware of it. He didn't seem aware of anything.
The footsteps got louder. Jay squirmed along the couch, his useless hands still bound behind his back, and tried to get a good look into the next room.
Hiram Worchester stepped into the basement.
Jay blinked. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating. Then he gathered all the strength he had in him and screamed. "Here! Hiram, I'm back here!"
Hiram's head snapped around. Charm lurched to his feet and moved slowly out of the shadows. "Watch out!" Jay yelled.
He heard Ezili laughing.
Hiram was carrying a suitcase, huge and black, closed with three bright brass hinges. It was so large it was almost a trunk, but he carried it as easily as a normal man might carry a briefcase, and Jay realized he had made it light. Charm took it from him and set it on its end, reverently. Six hands began working simultaneously on the latches.
Jay Ackroyd went cold all over.
Hiram looked at him across the length of the basement. The ace looked rumpled and tired, his impeccably tailored suit stained with sweat. Jay met his eyes; they were full of pain, and shame, and something that might have been terror. He looked as though he was going to cry. When he raised a hand in a gesture that had grown all too familiar to Jay and rubbed at something on the side of his neck, Ackroyd wanted to cry himself.