“Bird,” said Angel, a note of warning in his voice.
“He's on my property,” I said, “and he knows it's mine. Whatever he has to say, he's here to say it to my face.”
“Then keep to the right,” he said. “He makes a move, maybe I can take him out before he kills you.”
“Thanks. I feel safer already.” But I kept to the right as I had been told.
When I was within a few feet of him he raised one white hand. “That's close enough, Mr. Parker.” The accent was unusual, with odd, European inflections. “I suggest that your friend also halt his advance through the woods. I'm not going to harm anyone here.”
I paused, then called out. “Louis, it's okay.”
From about fifteen feet to my left, a dark figure separated itself from the trees, his gun held steadily in front of him. Louis didn't lower the gun, but he didn't make any further move either.
Up close, the man was startlingly white, with no color to his lips or his cheeks and only the faintest of dark smudges beneath his eyes. They were a washed-out blue, almost lifeless. Combined with the absence of hair on his face, they made him appear like a wax model that had been left incomplete. His scalp was deeply scarred, as were the places where his eyebrows should have been. I noticed one other thing about him: his face was dry and flaking in places, like a reptile discarding its skin.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I think you know who I am.”
“Golem,” I said.
I expected him to nod, maybe even to smile, but he did neither. Instead he said: “The Golem is a myth, Mr. Parker. Do you believe in myths?”
“I used to discount them, but I've been proved wrong in the past. Now I try to keep an open mind. Why did you kill Carter Paragon?”
“The question is really, Why did I hurt Carter Paragon? For the same reason that you broke into his house an hour later: to find out what he knew. His death was a consequence, not an intention.”
“You killed Lester Bargus too.”
“Mr. Bargus supplied weapons to evil men,” he responded simply. “But no longer.”
“He was unarmed.”
“So was the rabbi.” He pronounced it “rebbe.”
“An eye for an eye,” I said.
“Perhaps. I know something of you too, Mr. Parker. I don't believe you are in a position to pass judgment on me.”
“I'm not judging you. Lester Bargus was a lowlife and nobody will miss him, but I've found in the past that people willing to strike at unarmed men tend not to be too particular about whom they kill. That concerns me.”
“Once again, I do not plan to harm you or your friends. The man I want calls himself Pudd. You know of him, I think.”
“I've encountered him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
For the first time, a note of eagerness crept into his voice. I guessed that either Paragon had died before he could tell all, or, more interestingly, that he had been unable to tell his killer where Pudd had his lair because he didn't know.
“Not yet. I intend to find out, though.”
“Your intentions and mine may conflict, then.”
“Maybe we both have similar aims,” I suggested. “No, we do not. Yours is a moral crusade. Those who engaged me for this task have a more specific purpose.”
“Revenge?”
“I do only what is required of me,” he said. “No more.” His voice was deep and the words seemed to echo inside him, as if he were a hollow man without substance, only form. “I came to give you a message. Do not come between me and this man. If you do, I will be forced to take action against you.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
I didn't even see him move. One moment he was in front of me, his hands empty, the next he was close by my side and a small center-fire derringer was at my throat, the twin barrels pointing upward to my brain. From out of the darkness, the Beamshot laser sight on Louis's gun projected its light as he tried to find a clear shot, but my body and the darkness of the Golem's clothes shielded him from both Louis and Angel.
“Tell them to back off, Mr. Parker,” he whispered, his head behind mine. “I want you to walk me to my car. You have two seconds.”
I shouted out the warning immediately, and Louis killed the beam. The Golem pulled me back through the trees, guiding my footsteps. The sleeve of his overcoat had rolled up on his arm and I could see the first of the small blue numbers etched on his skin. He was a concentration camp survivor. I also saw that he had no fingerprints. Instead, the skin and flesh appeared to have collapsed inward, creating a puckered, indented scar at the tip of each finger. Fire, I thought. It was fire that did this to him; fire that scarred his head, fire that took away his fingerprints.
How do you create a clay demon?
You bake it in an oven.
When we reached his car, he made me stand in front of the driver's door, the gun at my back, as he lowered himself into the driver's seat.
“Remember, Mr. Parker,” he said to my back. “Do not interfere with my work.”
Then, his head low, he sped away.
Louis and Angel appeared from the trees. I was shaking as I reached up and felt the twin marks where the derringer had been pushed into my flesh.
“You think you could have hit him before he killed me?” I asked, as his lights faded away.
Louis thought for a moment. “Probably not. You think he'd have bled?”
“No. I think he'd just have cracked.”
“What now?” said Angel.
“We eat,” although I wasn't sure how steady my stomach was. We began to walk back to the house.
“You sure pick colorful people to fall out with,” said Louis as he fell in beside me.
“Yes,” I said. “I guess I do.”
All three of us heard the car approaching from behind at the same time. It turned into the yard at full speed and we were frozen in its headlights, our guns raised and our eyes wide. Instantly, the driver killed the beams, and still blinking, we scattered left and right. There was silence for a moment, then the driver's door opened and Rachel Wolfe's voice said:
“Okay, no more coffee for you guys. Ever.”
After we had eaten, Rachel went off to take a shower. While Angel sipped his beer by the window, Louis sat at my table finishing a bottle of wine. It was Flagstone sauvignon blanc, from some new winery in Cape Town, South Africa. Louis had two mixed cases imported especially twice yearly and had brought two bottles with him in the trunk of his car. He and Rachel had spent so long cooing over it that I thought one of them must have given birth to the bottle.
“If you're a private eye,” asked Angel at last, “how come you ain't got no office?”
“I can't afford an office. If I had an office, I'd have to sell the house and sleep on my desk.”
“Wouldn't be such a big stretch. You got next to nothing in this old house anyway. You ever worry about burglars?”
“Burglars in general, or just the one who happens to be standing in my kitchen right now?”
He scowled. “In general.”
“I don't have anything worth stealing.”
“That's what I mean. You ever think of the effect a big empty place like this is going to have on some guy who goes to the trouble of breaking into it? You better hope he ain't agoraphobic, else you gonna have a lawsuit on your hands.”
“What are you, some kind of organizer for Burglars Local three-oh-two?”
“No, just a fly on the wall. One of many, judging by the state of your kitchen.”
“What are you implying?”
“What am I always implying? You need some company.”
“I was thinking of getting a dog.”
“That wasn't what I meant, and you know it. How long you planning on keeping her at arm's length? Till you die? You know, they don't bury you side by side. You won't be touching under the ground.”