Tamar barged out, bag in her right hand and a squirming Mr. Tibbles in her left.
“We’re ready to go,” she said. Mr. Tibbles yapped his assent. “Isn’t this exciting? Is Darla coming too? I wore the veil. I can put Mr. Tibbles in the bag when we get there. You won’t mind, will you, Mr. Tibbles?”
Darla laughed softly and let me go.
“Be careful,” she said, and then she was off.
I darted out to hail a cab.
There’s a trick to hiding young women in fancy hotels. If you ever need to do so, never mind the reason, there’s a right way to do it, and a wrong way.
The wrong way seems the best way to honest folk. They think that by slipping furtively into the hotel and speaking in hushed tones to the desk clerk and paying in cash and calling yourself Mr. Smith you’ll simply sink down into a blessed state of total obscurity.
That’s why honest people are so easy to find.
Taking the sneaky approach just brands you as one of two things, in the minds of hotel staff. You’re either sneaking around on your spouse or you’re hiding from someone. So when inquisitive sorts start asking questions and perhaps handing out coins to the talkative, the hiding place is revealed as surely as if a giant hand reached down and ripped off the roof.
That’s the wrong way.
The right way?
Tamar rushed into the hotel lobby a dozen steps ahead of me. The pillow she’d placed under her blouse did a credible job of simulating the middle stage of pregnancy. She let me get in the door and take a single step before she turned on me and let loose a stream of loud, heartfelt invective that turned the heads of everyone in the lobby.
Once all eyes were upon us, she took off her wedding ring, which was actually a bauble purchased moments ago from a shady street jeweler for a couple of coppers, and flung it at my face.
“I told you if your mother didn’t leave I would,” she screamed, putting just enough screech into it. “I will not spend another hour under the same roof as that mean-spirited old warthog!”
“Honey,” I said, raising my arms in surrender. “It’s just another week-”
“You said that last week. And the week before.”
Right on cue, Flowers rushed in, freshly scrubbed and wearing the first new shirt he’d ever seen, much less worn. I didn’t trust his accent or his diction, so I’d told him to keep his mouth shut, and he did.
“Come, Reginald,” said Tamar to Flowers. “See? He can’t stand your mother either. Now pay the man, and pay him enough to keep me here until you remove that awful woman from my house!”
And with that, she turned and stormed up the stairs, Flowers in tow.
The room was suddenly filled with barely-suppressed snickering. I made a heavy sigh and approached the desk clerk, a grinning little man in his early hundreds, with my hands in my pockets.
“Trouble to home, is that it, sir?” he asked.
“Guess you could say that.” I leaned on the counter and lowered my voice to a whisper. The room went as silent as a tomb, as two dozen ears strained to hear something that wasn’t a bit of their business.
“How much for a room for the wife and son, for, let’s say, a week?”
“Might be cheaper to just rent one permanent-like for your mother.”
Laughter rippled through the lobby. The old man cackled.
“Have a heart. How much? I can’t move Mother now. She’s taken to her bed. What am I supposed to do?”
He cackled and named a price. It was a quarter again too much, but I didn’t haggle.
I did tell him my name was Smith, which touched off another round of laughter, and that I’d also want to purchase extra meals for the boy and laundry service for the wife. More coins changed hands. My next sigh was very real.
But it had worked. Anyone sniffing around for word of a single young woman who kept to herself and never left her rooms would be greeted with shrugs and shakes of the head. Tamar was an angry pregnant wife with a son in tow and a milksop for a husband.
And that, my friends, is the right way to hide a woman in plain sight.
I left my curiously estranged wife and headed for Granny Knot’s humble abode. Granny has a shack off Elfways-not on the trendy shops and eateries end, but on the old end, well removed from the last stop on the high- priced curio and ornate hat trail.
Granny wasn’t home. You’d think finding an aged spook doctor during the day would be simple, but most of the times I’ve knocked at Granny’s door I’ve knocked in vain. I gave up after a time and settled in the shade of her porch and watched her ne’er-do-well neighbors sneak by. Crows cawed and pecked and hopped in the cemetery next door. I didn’t care to know what it was that they worried. Sometimes the gravediggers don’t bother to go the full six feet.
My meeting with Lethway would commence in a few hours. I listened to the crows and planned my wardrobe. I’d don my new tan britches, my good white shirt and the shiny black shoes Darla got me for Armistice Day.
I would have to leave Toadsticker in the carriage. Swords simply aren’t worn in places like the Banner. I could probably get away with a dagger in my boot and brass knuckles in my pocket, but that would be the extent of my weaponry. Of course the whole point of surprising Lethway at the Banner with his mistress was to avoid a fight, but when tempers flare there’s no predicting how events might unfold.
I wondered if Pratt would stay away, and decided he probably wouldn’t. He might keep out of sight, but I was betting he’d be nearby. Since seeing Fields use his magic secret door and returning with the head of the walking stick that had killed Tamar’s would-be kidnapper, I’d realized Pratt was playing his own games. I hoped I wasn’t being used as a stepping-stone to further his own agenda.
A pair of street kids hopped up on Granny’s porch and gave me a pair of underfed hard looks.
“Whatcha doin’, mister?” asked one.
“Got any money?” inquired the other.
Combined, they weighed maybe fifty pounds, with ten of that being dirt, but they took another couple of steps forward. The dirtiest one slipped a hand in a pocket.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Beat it.”
“He asked you a question, mister.”
“I said do you have any money?”
I cussed and stood up and whipped Toadsticker out. They were off the porch and well into the street before my knees stopped popping.
Granny Knot herself startled me by cackling.
“I seen you, Bobby Doris,” she shrieked. “I knows where your granny walks.”
The urchins doubled their speed. Granny cackled again, shifted her paper-wrapped parcel in her hand, and fumbled for her keys.
“Wonderful to see you, Mr. Markhat,” she whispered with a wink. “I trust you are well?”
I grinned and nodded and put out my hands. Helping old ladies with bags is just another of my many sterling qualities.
“Don’t you be steppin’ on them bees,” she shouted for the benefit of a couple walking past. “I got ham in all my hats. Ham and windows, so the ghosts can see out.”
We stepped inside, and she slammed the door behind her.
“Ham? Hats with windows?”
Granny shrugged. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to babble inanities all day long, Mr. Markhat? I was rather proud of that one. It was both original and intriguing.”
She walked into her cramped kitchen as she spoke, so I followed.
“You’ve come for word from Mama, I presume.”
“I have. Is there any?”
She shoved a bag of salt into a cupboard and nodded. “On the counter. I’ll brew up some coffee, if you like.”
