The Philosophical Strangler(26)

When Greyboar was finally finished, she continued staring at him for a while. Then she said, very abruptly: “Stand up.” Greyboar stood. The Cat got up and slowly walked around him—for all the world like a lumberjack sizing up a tree.

She sat back down and stared at him a bit more.

“You know,” she said, with an actual tone in her voice, “you’re kind of cute. For a gorilla.”

Well, I’m a man of the world, so I quickly made a graceful exit. Figured I’d leave the two of them alone for a half hour or so—just long enough to let a little warmth get started, but not so long that Greyboar would ruin it with another philosophy lecture.

But when I went back to the table, they were gone. Didn’t see either of them for two weeks. Furious, I was—you wouldn’t believe the business I had to turn down!

Finally, Greyboar showed up, smiling like an imbecile, laughing at everything like a tot, practically had to have his chin wiped. Said he’d fallen in love, no less.

It figured. Leave it to a philosophical strangler to fall in love with the weirdest woman in the world. But I was still happier listening to him babble about the Cat than babble about ontology. Leastwise, I could understand some of what he was talking about. Quite a bit, actually.





Chapter 4.

Portrait of a Strangler

But all that came later. In the immediate aftermath, the Baron’s choke resulted in a completely unexpected hitch. Greyboar’s sister Gwendolyn came back to haunt us. In a strange sort of way.

Late in the afternoon of the very next day, while we were at The Trough having a friendly argument over my idea of “life’s big questions”—stout or lager—a stranger showed up. The first we knew of him was when Leuwen came over and started muttering and mumbling something incoherent. He was wiping his hands on his rag, too, in that particular way he has whenever he’s got something to say to Greyboar that he thinks the big guy won’t like.

Silly habit. Greyboar’s never been one to blame the messenger, and, even if he were, he certainly wouldn’t take his peeve out on a professional Flankn barkeep. Just isn’t done. Your imperial-level ambassadors don’t hold a candle to Flankn barkeeps when it comes to real diplomatic immunity.

“Stop mumbling,” growled Greyboar. “Just spit it out.”

“Well, see, it’s like this, Greyboar. There’s this guy here—he’s a stranger. An outlander, actually, damned if he isn’t an Ozarine—but he’s vouched for by The Roach himself, if you can fathom that. It’s the truth! He came here once before, Oscar and the lads brung him, and spent a fair number of hours quaffing ale with The Roach in one of the small private rooms, although The Roach let it be known in the main room right here—in no uncertain terms—that Benny—that’s his name, this stranger I’m talking about—was a friend of his and not to be meddled with. If you know what I mean.”

(What it means, if you’re not familiar with the personage involved, is that The Roach passed the word in The Trough—the Flankn’s combined heart and central nervous system—that if any Flankn cutpurse or mugger so much as looked cross-eyed at this Benny fellow, well, they’d have The Roach to deal with. And The Boots. Among the lowlife of New Sfinctr, that’s as good as gold. Quite a bit better, actually. Even gold wears out, eventually. The Boots and their effects are eternal.)

Leuwen was still droning on and around and about and up and down and sideways, so Greyboar cut him short: “Get to the point.”

Again, the frantic wiping of the hands. Then: “Well, you see, actually, the point is—he wants to talk to you.”

Greyboar lifted his eyebrows. “So? Send him over, then.”





Some few moments later, Leuwen was wending his way back through the crowded taproom with a stranger in tow. The man was carrying a cloth sack filled with something or other in one hand, and an odd-looking object of some sort in the other. The thing was flat, almost like a board, and about four feet wide by three feet tall. Couldn’t figure out what it was.

As he drew near, the man subjected us to a very close scrutiny. Well, subjected Greyboar, I should say. He didn’t give me but a glance. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual. Strangers often stared at Greyboar when they first met him, even if they didn’t know who he was. If they did, the stare became an ogle.

But there was something odd about this fellow’s stare. There was no fear in it, not even apprehension. Instead, there seemed to be some kind of weird recognition. Almost as if he were seeing a ghost, or something.

But I didn’t spend much time trying to figure out what the stranger was thinking. I was much too busy wallowing in an immediate, overwhelming, intense, detestation of him.