mind is that the Garuda Bird is the great enemy of serpents, being the representative of birth and the heavens, while serpents are in the camp of death, the underworld, and poison.”
“The great enemy of serpents,” For a second, it didn’t mean anything—I was beat Then an alarm dock started yelling inside my head. “Quetzalcoati.”
“This though had occurred to me, yes,” Henry Legion said.
“What do we do?” I demanded.
“Prayers come to mind,” the spook answered, which, while sensible, was not what I wanted to hear. He added,
“Past that, the best we can. Call if you require my assistance, Inspector Fisher; I shall do what I can for you.”
“Thanks,” I said. I was talking to a dead line; he’d hung up.
Someone tapped on the door. I looked up. Now, as the day wound down, it was Bea. I gulped. She wasn’t the person I wanted to see right then. Or at least I thought she wasn’t, until she said quietly, “I just want you to know, David, that my prayers will be with you tonight.”
From Henry Legion, the suggestion of prayer had had the undertone that even that probably wouldn’t help the mess we were in. Bea, though, sounded calmly confident it would make everything all right. I liked her attitude better than the spook’s. But then, Henry Legion knew more about what all was wrong than she did.
I’m sorry I didn’t come see you,” I muttered. I wasn’t just sorry; I was ashamed of myself. But that’s not something you can casually say to your boss.
I guess she was good at reading between the lines. She said, “If you like, we can talk about it more tomorrow. Why don’t you go home and try to get some rest now? You’ll be better for it” She made shooing motions, then smiled. “My mother used to do that to chase chickens off the back porch.
I haven’t thought about it in years. Go on home now.”
“Thank you, Bea,” I said humbly, and I went on home.
I don’t remember what I cooked for supper that night, which is probably just as well. I thought about going to bed right afterward, but if I did that, I knew I’d wake up at three in the morning and stay up. So I rattled around in my flat instead, like a pea in a pod that was much too big for it. The quiet in there felt very loud. I wished I had an ethemet set to give myself something to occupy my ears and maybe my mind. Being alone with yourself when you’re worried is hard work. I tried to work, but I couldn’t concentrate on the words.
The phone yelled. I banged my shin on the coffee table in the front room as I sprang up and dashed off to answer it. It was some mountebank selling microsalamander cigar lighters. I’m afraid I told him where to put one before he let the salamander loose. I limped back out front after I hung up.
I picked up my book again. I should have been reading something useful, maybe about the Garuda Bird or Quetzalcoati. But no, it was a thriller about thirteen guys on a spy mission to Alemania during the Second Sorcerous War.
I was at the exciting part—the Alemans were trying to drive them into the alkahest pits still bubbling from the First Sorcerous War. Even so, I kept losing track of what was going on. The phone again. I almost hoped it was another huckster, I’d taken savage, mindless pleasure in baiting the first one.
Too much had happened to me, with no chance for me to hit back at anyone. If a miserable salesman chose that moment to inflict himself on me, it was his lookout “Hello?” I snapped.
“David?” The progressive distortion from two phone imps couldn’t mask the voice. All my rage evaporated even before she went on, “It’s Judy.”
“Honey,” I whispered; just hearing for sure that she was alive took my breath away, I made myself talk louder: “Are you all right?”
“I’m—fair,” she said, which made me fearful all over again. She hunted on: “Don’t ask questions, Dave. You have to listen to me. They won’t let me talk long. They say you have to stop messing around with things that aren’t your business, or else—” I waited to hear what the “or else” was, but she’d stopped. I was afraid I could figure it out for myself.
“Tell them I say I’ll do whatever they want,” I answered. I hoped she’d get the distinction: just because I said it didn’t mean I would.
“Be careful, Dave,” she said. “They aren’t joking. They—”
Her voice cut off. Faintly, as if the imps were reproducing the words of someone farther from the phone, I heard,
“Come on, you.”
“Honey, I love you,” I said. While I was talking, though, somebody hung up the phone. I don’t think Judy heard me.
I spent a while wishing damnation on the wretches who’d snatched her, then pulled myself together and called the Long Beach constables. Plaindothesman Johnson had the night off; I got some other worthy, name of Scott. He heard me out, then said, “Thanks for passing on the information, sir. We’ll do what we can with it”
Which meant as I knew only too well, they weren’t going to do much. It did tell them, as it had me, that Judy was still on This Side. That did count for something to them, and it had counted for a lot more than something to me. I had fresh hope.
I called the CBI. Saul Klein had gone home, but the fellow who answered the phone knew what was going on with the case. I asked him, “Can you send someone down to try to trace the call? Your Mistress Chang managed to do it earlier today.”
“Well, why not?” the CBI man said after he thought it over. “Don’t hurt to try.” He read me back my home address to make sure he had it right, then said, “We’ll have someone there in half an hour or so.”
It was more like forty-five minutes, but that didn’t surprise me. I drive St. James’ Freeway every day; I know how things can be down there. When the rap on the door came, I opened it with my left hand. My right hand was holding the blasting rod; after what had happened to Judy, I wasn’t taking any chances.
The weedy little fellow outside gave back a pace when he saw I was carrying a rod, which meant he almost went ass over teakettle down the stairs. He rallied fast, though.
“Can’t say as I blame you, six,” he said, and flashed a CBI sigil that said he was an intermediate thaumaturgic analyst—by which I learned the CBI has silly job tides, too—named Horace Smidley. I lowered the rod right away. He might not have looked like the light-and-magic show version of a CBI man, but he sure did look like a Horace Smidley.
I led him to the phone. He went through the same tracing ritual Celia Chang had used earlier in the day back at the office. He wasn’t as smooth as she had been—he was only an intermediate thaumaturgic analyst after all— but he got the job done. The quasi-mouth that formed Ehgors seal spoke its series of digits, then fell sflent once more.
That’s the same number they used when they called before,” I said.
“Is it? Careless of them.” Smidley made a ducking noise in the back of his throat; I got the idea that he disapproved of carelessness no matter who perpetrated it, even if it made catching the bad guys easier. He went on. “I’ll take the information back with me.”
“What do you think it means?” I asked. “Are they holding Judy somewhere dose to there and using that phone because it’s convenient to them?”
That is most probable,” he said; he and Michael Manstein would have got on well together. The other possibility is that they are deliberately transporting her a long distance to mislead us. Possible, as I say, but risky: any accident or flying violation that a constable happens to observe destroys what up to now has appeared a well- organized scheme.”
Again, you could tell he liked organization, no matter who was using it or for what purpose. I worry about people like that; the Leader of Alemania had had a lot of them behind him. Horace Smidley, though, was on my side, for which I was duly grateful. I thanked him for taking the trouble to come down at night “My pleasure,” he said, and then, to my mind, weakened the answer by adding, “And my duty.” He headed down the stairs—intentionally this time—and then, I presume, on back to Westwood.
Me? I shut the door after him, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. I don’t remember another thing until the alarm clock scared me awake the next morning.
It was going to be a hot one. I could tell as soon as I got out of bed. Even after a long night’s sleep, I still felt tired, but out my bedroom window I saw that the wind stirring tile eucalyptus tree next door was some from out of
