Timothy Hallinan - Everything but the Squeal

“You're just fine, Mountain.”

“She kissed me good-bye.”

“Hell,” I said, “if I'd been there I'd have kissed you myself.”

“Then I'm glad you weren't here.”

“Remember when I told you I might need help?”

“Sure.”

“How about I pick you up a little after three behind the Thrifty at Sunset and Fairfax? I don't want anyone to see you get into my car. And, Mountain,” I said, “bring a gun if you can get one.”

He considered it. “I can't,” he said. “Anyway, I hate the goddamn things. But I don't need one.”

Three hours later, I was early and Mountain was late. I used the time to go into the Thrifty and call Morris to synchronize our watches. It wasn't necessary, but I knew it would thrill him.

“They look great,” he said, meaning the pictures. “You should see them on the screen.”

“And the message?”

“All in caps, like you said. I found this really fancy font. They look like they came out of the Bible.”

“That's great, Morris. I'm going to buy dinner for you and your parents if this works. Someplace fancy.”

“Just not Cap'n Cluckbucket’s,” he said. I realized that Morris had made a joke, and I was so nonplussed that I laughed. “And Jessica,” he added, sounding gratified. “Can Jessica come too?”

“Morris,” I said, “you're on your way to being a mensch ”

The Mountain was waiting in the parking lot, red-faced, sweaty, and fetid, when I came out of the store. A tight little band of Japanese tourists was giving him a wide berth, trying desperately to pretend he wasn't there. Once they were safely behind him, one of them, a shrunken old man in loud plaid slacks, lifted a little camera to one eye and snapped a picture. Theygotpeopletherewholooklikethis , he would say as his neighbors in Osaka registered thrilled disbelief.

“So,” the Mountain said, lumbering toward me as the tourists climbed hurriedly into their van, “what's the skinnies?”

“You go with me to Sunset Plaza,” I said, maneuvering upwind. “I go into an office and you wait in the car. Then I come out and we see what happens.”

“And?”

“And maybe all hell breaks loose.”

He gave me the kind of gargoyle's smile that you sometimes see in cognac-fueled dreams. If you're lucky, it wakes you up. The last time I'd seen one, I'd sworn off cognac. Temporarily. “Here's hoping it does,” he said.

It was almost four when we rolled into the parking lot at Brussels' Sprouts. The weather was obliging us: an oppressive lead-gray layer of clouds had rolled in from the Pacific, and senior-citizen drivers, alert to any impending emergency, were driving dead center in the street with their headlights on full bright. The lights were on in the stores of Sunset Plaza too, picking out the spangles and bugle beads sprinkled across the fronts of overpriced dresses and the gleam of silk in handmade men's shirts. None of the little spotlights, I noticed, was focused on a price tag.

“Nice neighborhood,” the Mountain said. “How much per breath?”

“If you have to ask, you can't afford it,” I said, quoting J. P. Morgan. “Exhale only.” I opened Alice's door. “You're going to stay right here, right? When I come out we may have to move in a hurry. I don't want to have to go looking for you.”

“What a shame,” the Mountain said, gazing with exaggerated longing at a beauty parlor. “I'm overdue for a facial.”

“If this works out,” I said, “I'll buy you a new face.” I closed the door and started across the parking lot. A muffled rapping sound made me turn back. The Mountain had been knocking on the passenger window. Now he held up two crossed fingers and shook them at me. I returned the salute and went around to the front of the building, checking my watch as I went. It was 4:03.

Morris was supposed to start sending at ten after four.

The doors into Mrs. Brussels' waiting room whispered open. Birdie's desk was empty, and the Flash Gordon door leading into the inner sanctum gaped at me. One of the lines on the phone was blazing away. Woofers' plaster-of-paris pawprint still sat on the desk, but the appointment book was missing. Presumably she'd taken it inside. It was 4:04.

I could hear her voice from the other room. She sounded normal, sane, persuasive. If I hadn't seen obedience school and if Jessica and Morris hadn't figured out the code identifying the pictures in the Actors'Directory , I would have begun to wonder whether I were right.

The voice stopped.

“Mrs. Brussels,” I called. “Mrs. Brussels, I'm here.”

My pulse was hammering against my wrists. It was pounding with such urgency that I thought it might show, so I jammed my hands into my pockets and waited. After a moment she came out. She was wearing a tailored buff-colored linen suit with the trendy linen wrinkles in all the trendy linen places. A ruff of collar rose up almost to her chin, covering the not-so-trendy wrinkles on her throat. The smile she gave me was professional but hardly warm. It was, if anything, a conspirator's smile.

“Mr. Ward,” she said. “So glad you could make it. I'm afraid we're a bit crazy here, what with Bertram gone missing.” She gestured at the empty desk.

“Does he do this often?”

“Only when he's got boyfriend trouble,” she said, speaking to me as though I were already one of the family. “Frankly, I thought he'd finished with all that a year ago. Birdie's meticulous ,” she said, “but he's not really stable .”

“Can you trust him?” I asked.

She gave me a measured glance. “He worked for my husband before I took over,” she said. “He's proved himself. Some of the information he handles is extremely sensitive.”

I tried not to imagine the way Birdie would look by then. “I'm sure it is,” I said. “I just need to know.”

“Of course you do,” she said with the barest of smiles. “Jewel's your ward and I'm sure you must love her very much.” She managed to make the words sound as though they'd been coated in rancid baby oil, smooth, shiny, and foully suggestive.

I just smiled.

“Come in,” she said, all business. “I've found your papers.”

She turned her back and vanished through the door. Wisps of hair hung over her collar. As I followed I yanked a hand out of my pocket and sneaked a look at my watch: 4:05.

Mrs. Brussels was fast; she'd already seated herself behind her desk by the time I entered the room. The desk was clean and uncluttered except for a wad of stapled legal-size sheets of paper covered with very small writing. The computer console was turned part of the way toward me. My heart sank as I realized that its screen was dark.

That was something that had never occurred to me. In my projections of the scene, it had always been on. I developed an immediate stomachache.

“The contracts,” she said, lifting one corner of the stack and then letting it flop back onto the desk. Then she sat back and threw one arm over the back of her chair, regarding me like a fisherman estimating the weight of his catch. Without the third-grade teacher's smile she looked older and considerably meaner. Gravity had done its work on her face; gravity and something else, something she supplied from within.

“We're going to need many signatures,” she said, tilting the chair back even farther. “I hope your writing hand is in good shape.”

“I even brought a pen,” I said, pulling out one I'd stolen from Morris. I was trying to figure out how to get her to turn the damned computer on.

“Good, good, good,” she said automatically. “But first, before you sign, I'd better tell you that I think we can put Jewel to work almost immediately. Will that be all right with you?”