“So when do I go see Darrow?” Doyle asked. “Today? Tomorrow?”
“Not so soon, must give it a few days. Ah, here are our pies! Thank you. Fall to, Doyle, don’t want to let it get cold.”
“You have mine,” said Doyle, who had never been able to stand the thought of eating kidneys. “So why do we have to wait a few days? Have you lost the hairy man?”
“You eat your damned pie. I ordered it for you.”
Doyle rolled his eyes impatiently. “Stop trying to change the subject. Why the wait?”
“Darrow’s going to be out of town until, uh, Tuesday night. Would you rather have some soup?”
“Not anything, thank you,” said Doyle very distinctly. “So let’s say I go see him Wednesday morning?”
“Yes. Oh, and also I was concerned about a man who seems to be following me. I can’t imagine who he is—a short man with a black beard. I think I eluded him when I came here, but I’d like to be certain. Would you go look outside and see if he’s hanging about? If he is, I don’t want him to know I’m aware of him.”
Doyle sighed, but got up and walked to the door and, stepping out onto the pavement, looked up and down the sunlit expanse of Threadneedle Street. The street was crowded, but Doyle, ducking and pardon me-ing and standing on tiptoe, couldn’t see any short, black-bearded man. Someone was hoarsely screaming up the street to his right, and heads were craning in that direction, but Doyle wasn’t interested in finding out what the commotion was about. He went back inside and returned to the table.
“I didn’t see him.” Doyle sat down. Benner was stirring a cup of tea that hadn’t been there when Doyle went out. “How long has he been following you? And where did you first notice him?”
“Well…” Benner sipped the tea noisily. “Damn, they serve fine tea here. Try some.” He held the cup toward Doyle.
The yelling outside was getting louder and more general, and Doyle had to lean forward to be heard. “No, thank you. Will you answer me?”
“Yes, I’ll answer. But first, please try some. It’s really very good. I’m beginning to think you fancy yourself above eating or drinking with me.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Benner.” Doyle took the cup and tilted it impatiently to his lips, and just as he opened his mouth for a sip Benner reached out and lifted the bottom of the cup, so that Doyle got a real solid gulp. He only just managed to keep from choking on it. “Damn you,” he sputtered when he’d swallowed it, “are you crazy?”
“I simply wanted you to get a good draught of it,” Benner said happily. “Isn’t it savory?”
Doyle smacked his puckered lips. The stuff had been bitterly spicy and thick with leaves and, like a red wine with a lot of tannin, so dry that it made his teeth feel raspy. “It’s horrible,” he told Benner, and then a disquieting thought struck him. “You son of a bitch, let me see you drink some.”
Benner cupped a hand to his ear. “I beg your pardon?
There seems to be—”
“Drink some right now!” Doyle was almost shouting to be heard over the racket that was now just outside.
“Do you suppose I want to poison you? Hah! Watch.” To Doyle’s considerable relief Benner drained the cup with no hesitation. “You’re no connoisseur of tea, Doyle, that’s evident.”
“I guess not. What in hell do you suppose is going on outside? But tell me about this bearded—”
There were some panicky yells in the room behind Doyle, by the front door, and before he could turn around there was an explosive crash and roaring metallic splash as the front window burst inward. The street altercation doubled in volume. As Doyle whirled out of his chair and onto his feet he was peripherally aware of Benner coolly leaping up and drawing a small flintlock pistol from under his coat.
“My God,” someone was screaming, “kill it, I think it’s going for the kitchen!”
Doyle could see a frantically churning crowd on the street side of the room, and sticks from shattered chairs were being swung as clubs, but for the first tense several seconds he couldn’t see who or what was at the center of it; then a waiter was flung tumbling through the air to bowl down half a dozen people, and Doyle saw, in the small central clearing of the riot, a squat ape with fur the color of a red setter. Though shorter than most of its opponents, it managed by sheer, gibbering ferocity to burst through the hole left by the catapulted waiter, and in two bounds it had covered half the distance to Doyle and Benner’s table. In the instant before Benner’s gun cracked at his ear Doyle had time to notice that the ape’s fur was matted with blood in a number of places, and that it seemed to be bleeding more profusely through the mouth.
Doyle felt the concussion of the air slap at his cheek and saw blood jump from the ape’s chest as the slug hammered it right back off its feet. Its shoulders struck the floor ten feet behind where it had last been, and for one moment before its limp, rattling collapse the creature was nearly standing on its head.
In the instant of ringing silence that followed, Benner seized Doyle’s arm above the elbow and marched him quickly into the kitchen and through the back door into a very narrow, shadowed alley.
“Go,” Benner said. “This alley connects with Cornhill.”
“Wait a minute!” Doyle nearly tripped over an old broken cartwheel that had somehow eluded all the scrap scavengers. “That was one of Dog-F—I mean, the hairy man’s cast-offs! Why did it come—”
“It doesn’t matter. Now will you—”
“But it means he’s in a new body now! Don’t you understand—”
“I understand it better than you do, Doyle, believe me. Everything’s under control and I’ll explain later.”
“But—oh, okay. Hey, wait! Damn it, when will I meet you again? You said what, Tuesday?”
“Tuesday’s fine,” said Benner impatiently. “Trot!”
“Where on Tuesday?”
“Don’t worry about that—I’ll find you. Oh, what the devil. Tuesday right here at ten in the morning, does that make you feel better?”
“Okay. But could you loan me some more money? I don’t—”
“Oh aye, aye, mustn’t have you starving yourself. Here. I don’t know how much is there, but it’s bountiful. Now go, will you?”
* * *
The gray-haired waiter had swept the dustpan full of glass bits, and with the napkin he’d tied in a turban-like bandage around his head he looked like some sort of Grand Vizier looking about for a sultan to present a heap of randomly cut diamonds to. “I’m sorry, son, but things were too excited just then for me to really take notes, yes?” He dumped the panful of glass into the trash barrel and stooped to sweep up another load.
“But he was heading for two men at a table?”
The waiter sighed. “Heading for them or more likely just making a break in their direction.”
“And can you remember anything else about the man who shot him?”
“Just what I said, tall and blond. And the guy with him was short and dark and skinny and sick-looking. Now be off home, eh?”
There seemed nothing more to be learned here, so Jacky thanked the man and slouched disconsolately out onto the cobbles of Exchange Alley, where several men were gingerly loading into a wagon the red-pelted corpse of Kenny whatever-his-name-had-been, vacated a week ago by Kenny but only today by Dog-Face Joe.
Damn, Jacky thought. He’s moved on, and now I have no idea at all whose body he may be in.
She stuck her hands deep into the pockets of her oversized coat and, picking her way around the wagon and through the pack of gawking spectators, ambled away down Threadneedle Street.
* * *
Halfway home Doyle started trembling, and when he’d got to his rooftop perch and downed a first quick beer he lowered his face into his hands and breathed very deeply until the shivering stopped.
