moment later there was the unmistakeable sound of a safety being pulled back, with a slight catch along the way, into the on position. The son of a bitch had had the gun cocked. If he?d sneezed at the wrong moment he could have blown my head off. I looked up, moving my head as little as possible, to find him sliding the gun back into a shoulder holster. Meeting my gaze, he shook his head.
?We were watching you at the mall,? he said. ?At that point, killing you was very definitely part of my night?s work. But then I saw you and the woman?is she a woman??dealing with the possessed and saving the hostages. I?ll admit that wasn?t what I was expecting?and it made me a little uneasy. You see, if I?m going to turn Zucker and Po loose on you, I?d rather do it with a clear conscience.?
?They didn?t seem to be on the leash last night,? I wheezed.
?At that time, they were under orders not to kill you. Hurting you wasn?t particularly discouraged. Castor, I?m going to ask you again, and probably for the last time. Whose side are you on in this??
If I?d had more notice of that question, I might have given it some thought and come up with a cute, ambivalent answer. As it was, I didn?t hesitate.
?Abbie Torrington?s side.?
Gwillam made a sound that was halfway between a snort and a chuckle. ?That?s even possible,? he said. ?If so, those stories about you not being a fool may just about be true. Although it?s still more likely that someone is playing you the way you play that whistle.?
He went quiet for long enough that I thought he?d finished.
?If I stand up,? I asked, risking a very slow and very gradual glance over my shoulder, ?will this asshole knock me down again??
Gwillam went on as if I hadn?t spoken. ?You were ahead of us at the
Well, I had about a half of one, and I was keeping it to myself. I got a hand up on the crash barrier and began to lever myself back up onto my feet. My teeth were clenched shut with the effort, so of course I couldn?t answer Gwillam?s question.
He sighed again, sounding like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
?If I tell you to find your reverse gear and back out of this?say until you hit China?is there any chance that you?ll do it??
It?s probably a sin to lie to a priest, and I?ve got enough sins on my conscience already without going out looking for new ones. I just shook my head once: more than once would have been pushing it, given that I?d only just got myself back on the vertical.
?I didn?t think so,? said Gwillam sadly. ?But I?m telling you anyway. It?s by way of being an acknowledgment of what you did tonight. A professional courtesy, let?s say. It?s the last you?re going to get. Good night, Castor?and good-bye.?
He made the sign of the cross over me?not threateningly, or ironically, but deadpan serious. Then he signed to the two werewolves and they fell in to either side of him as he walked back to the car.
As they drove away Zucker misjudged the angle?or maybe, got it exactly right?and scraped along the passenger side of Matt?s Civic with a sound like the shriek of a neutered elephant. Then he accelerated into the eastbound traffic and within a few seconds their taillights had merged with the rest of the river.
* * *
Imelda Probert, better known as the Ice-Maker, lives in a squalid little third-floor flat in Peckham, in a block whose brickwork has been painted black in some sort of abortive experiment with stealth technology. The door off the street is boarded up, so you go in around the side through a yard that?s like an urban elephants? graveyard, strewn with the rusting, wheelless hulks of expired cars. It?s something of a conundrum, given how much hard cash the Ice-Maker must pull down, week in and week out. After all, she offers a specialized and much sought-after service. But then again, I guess by the same token she doesn?t have to worry about bringing in the passing trade: people who need her, find her.
Before I went in, I checked an additional piece of equipment that I?d picked up along the way. It was a sprig of myrtle, borrowed from a graveyard. Myrtle for May: if I?d been on the ball, I should have had some already, then I wouldn?t have to shinny up cemetery walls after midnight. I whispered a blessing to it, feeling like a fraud as I always do when I?m mucking about with things that laypeople would call magic.
The stairwell smelled of piss and stale beer?two stages in a conjugation that usually ends with ?dead-drunk guy facedown in his own vomit.? But I didn?t meet anybody on the way up, and when I knocked on the door on the third floor?the only door that wasn?t covered over with plywood and nailed shut?the sound echoed through the building with telling hollowness.
After a few seconds, the door was opened by a skinny black girl of about sixteen or so, whose eyes were each, individually, bigger than her whole face. I only knew she was a girl by the pigtails: the hard, hatchet face was one-size-fits-all, and the black jeans and manga-chick T-shirt were unisex.
?Yeah?? she said.
?Friend of Nicky?s,? I told her.
She frowned at me with truculent suspicion. ?You got a pulse??
I checked. ?I do, but it?s running kind of slow. Is that a deal- breaker??
She swiveled her head and looked behind her into the flat. ?Mom,? she called. ?There?s a live man out here.?
?Is he police?? a much deeper voice answered from somewhere inside. ?If he?s police, Lisa, you tell him to go fuck himself because I paid already.?
The moppet turned her face to me again. ?Mom says if you?re police, you can??
?Yeah,? I said. ?I got it. I?m not police. The name?s Castor. If Nicky Heath is in there, I?m here to see him and give him a ride home.?
She called out over her shoulder, keeping her eyes on me this time in case I tried to steal something. It would have had to be the door or one of the walls: there was nothing else on the landing, not even carpet to cover the warped floorboards. ?He says he?s Castor and he?s gonna give Nicky a ride.?
?Oh, Castor.? There was edgy disapproval in the voice, and I knew exactly why. ?Yeah, you show him into the parlor, Lisa. He can just hold his horses until I?m done here.?
Rolling her eyes to show what she thought of these instructions, Lisa flung the door open. Showing me into the parlor meant pointing to a door off the narrow entrance hall to the left as she took off in the opposite direction herself. There was a door right at the end of the hall where I could see Imelda?s back as she labored over her latest patient. She was singing to herself, a gospel song, most likely, but it was under her breath and from this distance I couldn?t make out either the words or the tune.
I?d been here before, about two years back, so I knew the drill. I also knew that Imelda didn?t like me very much: exorcists were bad for business. Sending me into the parlor to wait was a piece of calculated sadism, but there wasn?t a hell of a lot to do about it, so I just took a deep breath, held it, and walked in.
The Ice-Maker is basically just a faith-healer with a very specialized clientele: a clientele whom no other doctor, whether alternative or vanilla, is likely to want to poach. She deals exclusively with zombies, and she claims, by laying-on of hands, to slow the processes of decay almost to a standstill. I always thought it was bullshit, but Nicky goes to her twice a month without fail?and he?s been dead a long while now, so I respect his judgment on matters of physical decomposition. Her monicker?Ice- Maker?comes from her boast that her hands are as good as a deep-freeze in terms of keeping dead meat fresh.
But the smell in the parlor, I have to say, was one of sour-sweet decay, deeply ingrained. Like I said, this wasn?t my first visit, so I knew what to expect, but it still hit me like a wall and almost knocked me down. I went on inside, and six or seven of the walking dead glanced up to appraise the newcomer. The sitting dead, actually, since the room was laid out like a doctor?s waiting room with chairs all around three walls, and most of the chairs were taken. There were even magazines: a chalk-faced woman in the corner with a small hole in the flesh of her cheek was flicking through a vintage copy of
Zombies don?t breathe, so sharp intakes of breath were out of the question; and there wasn?t a stand-up piano to tinkle and plunk its way into shocked silence as I walked in. All the same, though, I could feel the tension. The zombies who?d already looked up to clock me carried on staring: the others, catching the mood, glanced up to see what was happening.
I sat down, just inside the door, and picked up a
Sadly, though, I wasn?t going to be allowed to attain a lower consciousness tonight. Over the top of the magazine, I saw a man?s broad torso heave into view.
?You?re alive,? said a harsh voice, through a bellowslike soughing of breath.
?Yeah,? I agreed, without looking up. ?I?m working on it, though. You know how it is.?
?The fuck you doing here, you blood-warm piece of shit?? This was said more vehemently, and the waft of fetid breath made me wince.
