Lubbock smiled a smile that got lost in the ruddy landscape of his face. It made me think of the wax dripping down around the top of a candle. "Ah, Winger. You've managed to get the man here at last. Pay her, Pestilence." A woman who looked like she might be the old guide's grandmother brought Winger a small leather bag. Winger made it disappear fast.
"Mr. Garrett." Lubbock tried to bow. I tried to keep a straight face. Neither of us was completely successful, though I managed well enough.
That old boy had one spooky voice. It sent chills scampering around my back. I bet he spent hours practicing to get that effect. "I had begun to wonder if I hadn't made a mistake employing you."
I thought she'd made the mistake, taking him on as an employer. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep body and soul together. I asked, "How you doing, Lubbock?"
He threw up his hands and crossed his wrists in front of his heart, palms toward me. He made fists but left his little fingers standing. He waggled his pinkies furiously. He had nails almost two inches long. I guessed that was some kind of sorcerer's move. I think I was supposed to be impressed.
And some people I know say I belong in the Bledsoe cackle factory because I don't have a firm grasp on reality.
Winger whispered, "At least pretend to be courteous, Garrett."
"I asked him how he was when I don't care, didn't I? What more do you want?" Blame it on nerves. When people give me the creeps, I get flip. "Get him talking." I wanted answers from Lubbock but had the heebiejeebies bad enough to think of walking.
He got himself started. "Mr. Garrett," again. "Good day. I have awaited our meeting anxiously."
"Pleased to meet you. Whoever you are." See? Courteous. I could have said whatever you are.
Another smile tried to break through and died young, smothered by fat. "Yes. As you surmise, my name is not Lubbock. No sir. That is merely wishful thinking, the heartfelt desire to walk the same path as the great Lubbocks of centuries past."
He rolled his fists over heel to heel with their backs toward me, looked at me between raised forefingers that, more or less, made the ancient sign against the evil eye. "Unfortunately, my dream is denied me by harsh reality."
I recalled Willard Tate mentioning a couple of dead double nasties named Lubbock. Sorcerer types. This guy obviously had less talent than I do. His harsh reality. So he was playing some whacky game.
If you're rich enough, you're allowed
"As you surmise, sir," he repeated, "my name is not Lubbock. Hiding the truth from a man of your profession would be foo(ish. You need but poll the neighbors to learn that madman Fido Easterman lives here."
"Fido?" People don't even name their dogs Fido anymore.
"It means Faithful, Mr. Garrett Yes sir. Faithful My father, rest his soul, was an aficionado of imperial history. Fido was an imperial honorarium. Rather like a knighthood today. Though it could be bestowed upon anyone, not just those nobly born. Yes sir. The man whose name I took in vein, like a momentary domino, my kinsman Lubbock Candide, attained that very distinction. He was an ancestor of mine, you know. The glittering star atop my family tree. Yes sir. But the power in the blood failed after his daughter, Arachne. I know I abuse the gods for that jest."
Man. This clown was a one-man gale. "What's that got to do with me?" Trying to get to the point. "Why am I here?" I tried to figure the color of his eyes. I couldn't make them out behind all that fat
"Patience, my boy. Patience. One never hurries the headsman." He chuckled wickedly. "Just my little joke, sir. Just my little joke. You are in no danger here."
Like hell. Wouldn't take too much of this to get me foaming at the mouth and talking to little men who weren't there.
I kept an eye on the staff. They came and went in the background, eager to see their boss in action. He was a real three-ringer They all wore costumes and spooky makeup. Easterman could afford to pay people to pretend that he was bad.
Hell, maybe he was. In a more mundane way. Amongst the remote voyeuis I spotted one of the men who had chased me away from my place
Don't call him crazy, though. The Eastermans of the world are never crazy. When you have money, you're eccentric
"Fido Easterman, yes sir " He put all his fingers together and made a spider doing push-ups on a mirror.
Then he pulled his hands apart slowly, as though he was pulling against tremendous forces. His fingers shook like he was coming down with a disease.
"I've been hearing rumors about a marvelous book, Mr. Garrett. Yes sir, a masterpiece. I wish to obtain that book, sir. I will pay very well indeed to obtain it. Winger has been doing my legwork for me, searching. As you can see, I am not cut out for strenuous effort, however much I might wish it to be otherwise. She has been hunting diligently, of course hoping to separate me from a substantial portion of my wealth. But fortune has not been kind to her. Her only success has been to discover that you may have some knowledge of the book's whereabouts." He beamed at me Before I could get a word in, he continued, "Well, then, sir, from what I have learned of your situation, it's likely you could use a substantial sum. Paid in the metal of your choice."
"I sure could. I wish I had something to sell. I don't know where she got the idea I know anything about any book."
"Come, sir. Come. Let us not play games with one another. Let us not bandy words I have said that I will pay well to obtain that book, and I will. My word is good, as any fool can discover by posing a few questions in the ores and metals community. But if you do go asking about me there, you will also discover that I have a reputation for getting what I want."
I didn't doubt it a bit "All I can tell you about the book is that it exists, maybe, supposedly incomplete. But I don't have the faintest idea where."
"Come, sir. Surely you don't expect me to . .
"I don't expect you to do anything but stay out of my hair."
"Sir . .
"I told you I don't know where it is. You did some checking on me, eh7 I tefl the truth? The truth is, I was looking for it myself. For a client. I succeeded only in finding the man who stole it."
"Ah, sir. Now we're getting somewhere."
"We're getting nowhere The guy was dead."
He chuckled. "Unfortunate. Most unfortunate." I got the feeling this wasn't news.
I spotted another of those guys who had chased me. It finally sank in. Here was my third force. This nut and his brunos. Those guys probably sent Blaine to the promised land. Maybe they'd done the same with Squirrel. I said, "I don't want anything more to do with this book. It's gotten a bunch of people killed already. It's got the Dwarf Fort dwarves on the warpath. It's got Chodo Contague out for blood because one of his men got cut." That got a small reaction. "It's got a witch called the Serpent and a bunch of renegade dwarves running around the city sniping with crossbows. I don't need to get in the middle of any of that."
Easterman closed his eyes and started talking. Actually, he made some kind of speech, but it wasn't in Karentine. I'd guess Old Forens, which is still around as a liturgical language amongst some of the more staid of TunFaire's thousand cults. I don't know ten words of Old Forens but I've heard it used and this had that cadence.
Good old Fido was a linguist like he was a sorcerer. But what he lacked in talent he made up in enthusiasm. He howled and foamed at the mouth.
I'd come with Winger hoping to ask some questions. Now I didn't care. All I wanted was out. Things were sane outside. There were thunder-lizards in the air for the first time since TunFaire's founding. There were thunder-lizards at the gates. There were centaurs in the streets There were saber-tooth tigers and mammoths and morCartha and gnomes. My friends had disappeared. Crask and Sadler were acting spookier than ever. But it was sane out there. I could survive in that world out there I told Winger, "I'm thinking about becoming a bricklayer Bricklayers don't have these problems."