The Philosophical Strangler(137)

So I didn’t get to see much of it myself, since I had to keep my eyes on the Hand at hand and keep the others steady at their work. Which annoyed me even further, until I realized that it really didn’t matter whether I could give a detailed and accurate report to the Records Committee since Greyboar and I were no longer members in good standing of the Professional Stranglers’ Guild anyway.

Which really annoyed me.

So, here’s how it went, as best as I can tell you:

Crunch, crunch. That was the pinky, going first at both joints. I could tell it was the pinky from the—comparatively speaking—delicate sound. I knew then that the Even Worse Hand was in for that they call a “Bad End,” because Greyboar doesn’t normally trifle around with curlicues. This was one of the rare occasions when his temper was up.

But even when he’s pissed Greyboar doesn’t really let his professionalism lapse. So the next thing he did was take care of the middle finger—CRUNCH; broken in half—and the index finger. YERK! Torn out of its socket, no doubt about it.

From there it was all denouement. There was a lot of crunching and yerking, and a stretch of about a minute or so with a lot of thumping when Greyboar put the Hand through a series of what they call “body slams” when it’s an actual body instead of a giant Hand.

Then, silence—except for the sound of Greyboar’s heavy breathing and something which, for lack of a better term, we’ll call a scrinnnch.

At that point, I risked a look. And saw what I expected to see. The Hand itself was nothing more than a pulpy mass, now, and Greyboar was going in for the Final Big Squeeze on the Even Worse Thumb.

Horrible thing to watch, it really is. The Final Big Squeeze, I mean. But I didn’t tear my eyes away until the very end, when Greyboar—

He doesn’t usually do this kind of thing, honest. It’s not like him at all. But the Even Worse Hands had attacked his girl, you see, and even Greyboar can get kinky about stuff like that.

So he finished by tearing off the Even Worse Thumbnail and brandishing it like a trophy. (He’s still got it, too. But at least he keeps the damn stinky thing packed away in a chest somewhere in the cellar.) Then, after the Cat wafted over and steadied him down a bit, he hoisted the Hand’s corpse (is that the right term?) onto his back and brought it over to the kettle.

Plop. Bubble. And it was all over.

“Hand stew,” I announced. “Anybody hungry?”





And that’s another thing about heroes. No sense of humor at all. They even took away my flask and drank all that was left in it.

Said I hadn’t done enough to deserve a drink!





Chapter 31.

Marvelous

There was a spot of trouble getting Benvenuti back through the Evil Horizon. The first time he tried the leap, the Horizon bounced him right back out. Fortunately, Hrundig was there to catch him before Benny went sailing into the kettle of oil.

Greyboar and I had already made the leap, so we weren’t aware of the problem right away. Greyboar was preoccupied with reassuring Gwendolyn that we had, indeed, found Benvenuti and that he was, indeed, in splendid condition. I was preoccupied, of course, with giving Jenny and Angela the same reassurances concerning myself. Deeply distraught, they were.

“Sure, and it got a bit dicey before I took care of the first Hand what with the way it was advancing on me and all, but after I told Greyboar to distract the lefty while I—”

“Ignace!” barked Greyboar. I turned and saw that the Cat had appeared and was jabbering away in the strangler’s ear. (For the record, he’s still “the strangler” as far as I’m concerned. I’ll use “the Hero” for official reports, but not here where I’m telling the straight truth about everything.) “Benny’s having some kind of problem! Go see what it is, will you?”

Of course I dug in my heels right there. Until I found out just what the perks and requirements were for my new job as “Professional Hero, Excelsior, Management,” I wasn’t about to let any precedents get established. Not for nothing does the wise man say: “Lackey once, you’ll lackey forever.”

“Do it yourself!” I snarled. “What? Am I supposed to be some kinda—”

Sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass trying to have a rational discussion with Greyboar. For a guy who claims to love philosophy, he’s got an astonishing lack of appreciation for the dialectic. He picked me up and pitched me through the Evil Horizon.

Having, on occasion, undergone this lowbrow form of debate with him, I landed in a roll and came up to my feet without injuries or too much, even, in the way of damage to my dignity.