The Philosophical Strangler(20)

“The address is right,” I answered. “And, yeah, there’s the flower box outside the window, just like the Baron said. This is it, all right.”

Greyboar shrugged. I snuck up the front steps and checked the lock. What a joke! I’d been all geared up for the usual—armed guards in front of the mansion, mastiff watchdogs, locks like they were guarding the Crown Jewels of the Kushrau Kaysar, the works. Have a vastly overrated opinion of their real worth, your noble types. But this!

I picked the lock in six seconds flat. A moment later we were both inside the front room downstairs. I checked for a possible watchdog. But the only thing on watch was a mouse, who disappeared into its hole quick as lightning.

Everything downstairs was dark, but we could see the room well enough to size it up. Much like the outside—shabby, everything threadbare, but well kept. Little woman’s touches here and there. Homey like, I mean to say. Definitely not your usual rich young bachelor’s love nest.

“Must be her poor old mother’s place,” I whispered. “Probably she’s trysting here with some guy who’s so noble he can’t soil his palace with the likes of some money-grubbing trollop. Gold runs through his veins, I bet.” Greyboar motioned me to silence. He pointed up the stairs to the floor above. Listening closely, I could hear voices. Couldn’t make out any words, though.

But by the time we got to the top of the stairs, moving like cats, I could make out the words all right. Such as they were, yes sirree. Mostly just meaningless noises, don’t you know? Well, not exactly meaningless—it was impossible to miss the emotional content, so to speak. You know: passion, ecstasy, etc., etc.

We crept up to the bedroom door. The noises beyond the door seemed to be reaching that stage which genteel society likes to call a “climax.” Silly word, really, like you were struggling up a mountain, huffing and puffing and gasping for breath, instead of whooping like a kid while you slide down—well, let’s keep it couth.

Greyboar reached for the doorframe, his huge shoulder muscles starting to move like a tidal bore. His normal approach to opening doors, don’t you know? But before he got halfway into it he dropped his arms and stared down at the doorknob. I looked around him and saw what he was staring at. The door wasn’t even closed, much less locked!

For a moment, Greyboar and I looked at each other, almost as if we were helpless. I mean, what a ridiculous situation! The greatest strangler in the world—he was, too, don’t ever doubt it—and he’d been hired to do a job a ten-year-old could have handled, at least so far.

I made a face and a couple of gestures, which more or less expressed the idea: what the hell, maybe the guy inside is built like a bull. He must be, judging from the noise coming through the door.

Greyboar took a deep breath, shook his head, and charged through the door into the bedroom, his hands ahead of him ready to deal death and doom and destruction.





Well, the next few minutes were touch and go. I do believe the wings of the Angel of Death brushed me more than once. I do, I do, I do.

Never did a mouse staring up an eagle’s beak talk faster than I did. Trying to convince the big bird to forego lunch.

Funny thing was, it was probably the girls who saved my weasand from undergoing the Really Big Squeeze. I talked just fast enough and long enough that they stopped screaming and started listening to what I was saying and eventually they started talking too and what they said backed up my story. Not a moment too soon, either. First time I’d ever seen Greyboar’s eyes red with rage, actually. Not a sight I recommend for tourists.

Eventually, the red started fading into a kind of pink-orange, and I knew I’d make it to another sunrise. Still had to keep talking, of course. It’s nice to live, but not all that nice when you’ve managed to get yourself into Greyboar’s Black Book, page one, line one. I grant you, it was a small black book, Greyboar’s—he wasn’t the type to nurse grudges, don’t you know? But, oh, it was a very very very very black little book.

“He told me ‘his rival,’ ” I said, for maybe the tenth time in the last few minutes. “I told him ‘no girls’ and he nodded,” I said, for maybe the twentieth time in the last few minutes. “How was I supposed to know?” I said, for maybe the thirtieth time in the last few minutes. “It’s not my fault!” I said, for maybe the hundredth time in the last few minutes.

The girls were still scared to death, clutching each other, trembling, pale as ghosts down to the soles of their feet. Oh yeah, you could see the soles of their feet, all right. Not surprising, they were both naked as the day they were born. Under other circumstances, it would have been distracting, as young and good-looking as they were. But at the moment, my thoughts were entirely focused on the survival of me rather than the species.