Frank sighed wearily. “Mr. Orcrist, in honor of our coup tonight, do you suppose a bit of scotch would be out of order?”
“Not at all, Frank, help yourself.” Frank opened the liquor cabinet. Orcrist sat silently, massaging the wrist and fingers of his right hand.
“Oh, by the way, Mr. Orcrist. ...”
“Yes?”
“What becomes of the paintings once they’re duplicated here? Do you sell both the original and the copy to collectors?”
“Uh ... no. If I steal one painting and sell two versions of it, the word would eventually get around. I only sell the forgeries.”
Frank waited vainly for Orcrist to go on. “Well,” he said finally, “what do you do with the originals?” Orcrist looked up. “I keep them. I’m a collector myself, you see.”
DURING the following week Frank worked on the forgery of the Monet. It was difficult for him to assume the impressionist style, and he tore up two attempts with a palette knife. As the second imperfect copy was being hacked into ragged strips, Orcrist, sitting in his easy chair, looked up from his book. “Not making a lot of headway?” he asked.
“No,” said Frank, trying to keep a rein on his temper. What a cheap waste of good canvas, he thought. Dad never would have behaved this childishly. Where’s my discipline?
“What you need, Frank, is a bit of recreation. Go spend some of your wages. You know the safe areas of Understreet Munson—go have some beer at Huselor’s, it’s a good place.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Say, what’s the date?”
“The tenth. Of May. Why?”
“The Doublon Festival is going on in Munson! On the surface, I mean. I haven’t missed it in the last six years! Why don’t I take my wages and spend the evening there?”
Orcrist frowned doubtfully. “That wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said. “You can’t really afford to be seen topside yet. You’re wanted by the police, you know. Stay underground.”
“It’ll be all right,” Frank insisted. “I’ll go when it’s dark; and everyone wears masks anyway. You’ve shown me a couple of safe routes to the surface streets, and I’ve been to the Doublon Festival a dozen times, so I won’t get lost. I won’t do anything foolish.”
“I’ll send a couple of bodyguards with you, anyway.”
“No, I’d rather be on my own.”
Orcrist considered it for a minute. “Well, it’s a bad idea, but I won’t stop you.” He stood up and crossed to a desk against the wall. “Be back by one o’clock in the morning or I’ll send some rough friends to bring you back. Here's ten malories. That ought to buy you a good time.”
Frank gratefully took the money and turned to get dressed.
“Wait a minute,” said Orcrist.
Frank turned around in the doorway. Orcrist was rummaging in another drawer. “Take this, too, in case of a real emergency,” he said, holding a small silver pistol. “It only holds one bullet, but it’s a forty-five. And don’t lose it; the damned thing cost me quite a bit.”
“I won’t lose it,” said Frank, taking the little gun. It was the first time he’d ever held a gun, and he felt ridiculously over-armed.
“The safety catch is that button above the trigger. Push it in and the gun will shoot. Leave it where it is for now. And for God’s sake keep it in a secure pocket.”
“I will,” said Frank. “And thanks. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”
After Frank had left the room, Orcrist rang for Pons. “Pons,” he said, “young Rovzar is determined to go to the Doublon Festival tonight. I could have forbidden it, of course, but I don’t like to operate that way. So I want you to contact Bartlett and ... oh, Fallworth, and tell them to follow him and keep an eye on him.”
“Yes sir.”
“No, dammit. Wait a minute.” Orcrist scowled. “I guess he’s able to take care of himself. Forget it, Pons.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
FRANK dressed in the subdued clothes Orcrist had given him, put on his newly-polished bronze ear, and then left the apartment, the gun and the ten malories each occupying a safe inner pocket. He cut across Sheol to a street that was really little more than a tunnel. After following it for three hundred feet, he turned suddenly to the right, into an alcove that could not be seen a yard away. It led into a much narrower, darker tunnel, and Frank proceeded slowly, his hand on his knife. He still didn’t think of the gun as a practical weapon.
Water swirled around his heels, and he was glad when his groping right hand found the rungs of the ladder he’d been heading for. He climbed up it through a round brick shaft whose sides were slippery with moss and flowing water, and eventually came to the underside of a manhole cover. This he pushed up cautiously, peering about carefully before sliding it aside. He quickly climbed out of the shaft and pushed the manhole cover back into place with his foot.
He was now on the surface, breathing fresh night air for the first time in almost a month. The stars looked beautifully distant, and he felt almost uneasy to see no roof overhead. The manhole was several blocks away from Kudeau Street, where the Doublon Festival was held, but he could hear the shouts and music already.
I’ve been cooped up too long in that little sewer world, he realized. Let’s see how much money I can spend in one night.
He followed the alley to Pantheon Boulevard and headed east toward Kudeau Street. Long before he reached it, he was surrounded by masked dancers, and the curbs were crowded with the crepe-decorated plywood stands of vendors. The music was a crashing, howling thing, yelping out of guitars, slide whistles, trumpets and kazoos, and crowds reeled drunkenly down the streets, swaying unevenly to the chaotic melody. The warm night air smelled of garlic and beer.
Frank bought a sequined cardboard mask and a cup of cloudy, potent beer from the nearest booth. After putting on the mask and downing the beer at a gulp, he joined the dancing mob. He linked arms with a groaning rummy on his right and a startlingly fat woman on his left, following Pantheon’s tide of revellers as they emptied slowly into the packed expanse of Kudeau Street. The moon was up now, shining full behind the ragged Munson skyline.
After an hour of dancing and drinking, Frank stumbled over a curb and crossed the sidewalk to lean against a pillar and catch his breath. He was somewhat drunk, but he could see a great difference in the Doublon Festival this year; in past years, when he had come with his father, it had been a festive, fairly formalized celebration of the spring.
This year it was something else. Screams that began as singing were degenerating into insane shrieks. The dancing had become a huge game of snap-the-whip, and people were being flung spinning from the end of the line with increasing force. People had stopped paying for the beer. Couples were making frantic love in doorways, under the vendors’ booths, even in the street. And over all, from every direction, skirled the maddening noise that could no longer really be called music.
Time for a decision, Frank told himself. Go home now or stay and take whatever consequences are floating around unclaimed. I need another beer to decide, he compromised, and began elbowing his way toward a beer-seller’s stand.
Before he reached it he sensed a change in the crowd. People paused, and were craning their necks, peering up and down the street.
“What is it?” Frank shouted to the man next to him.
“Costa!” the man answered. “The Duke!”
Frank looked around but could see nothing because of the crowd. His drunkenness left him, and he felt a cold emptiness in his stomach. Costa! he thought. Here! He ducked into the nearest building, ran up the stairs, and blundered his way out onto a second floor balcony that overlooked the choked street.