"Know them?"
"I know the type."
Saucerhead said it for me. "Don't we all."
The scar-faced guy looked around. He spotted the girl. He started moving. Somebody yelled, "Shut the goddamned door!" The two heavies there took their first good look around and got a read on what kind of people hang out in a place like the Joy House. They shut the door.
I didn't blame them. Some very bad people hang out at Morley's place.
Scarface didn't care. He approached the girl. She refused to see him. He bent, whispered something. She started, then looked him in the eye. She spat. Chodo's kid for sure.
Scarface smiled. He was pleased. He had him an excuse.
There wasn't a sound in the place when he yanked her out of the seat. She betrayed pain by expression but didn't make a sound.
Morley said, "That's it." His voice was soft. Dangerous. You don't mess with his customers. Scarface must not have known where he was. He ignored Morley. Most times that's a fatal error. He was lucky, maybe.
Morley moved. The thugs from the doorway got in his way.
Dotes kicked one in the temple. The guy was twice his size but went down like he'd been whacked with a sledge. The other one made the mistake of grabbing Morley.
Saucerhead and I started moving a second after Dotes did. We circled the action, chasing the scar-faced character. Morley didn't need help. And if he did, Puddle was behind the bar acquiring some engine of destruction.
Rain hit me in the face, like to drove me back inside. It was worse than it had been when I'd arrived.
"There," Saucerhead said, pointing. I spied the loom of a dark coach, figures struggling as Scarface tried to force the girl inside.
We pranced over, me unlimbering my favorite oak headknocker as we went. I never leave home without it. Eighteen inches long, it has a pound of lead in its business end. Very effective, and it don't usually leave bodies littering the street.
Saucerhead beat me there. He grabbed the scar-faced guy from behind, twirled him around, and threw him against the nearest building with a force that drowned the rattle of distant thunder. I slithered into the vacated space, grabbed the girl.
Somebody was trying to drag her into the coach. I slipped my left arm around her waist, pulled, pushed my headknocker past her, figuring I'd pop a bad boy between the eyes.
I saw eyes, all right. Eyes like out of some spook story, full of green fire, three times too big for the wizened little character who wore them. He had to be a hundred and ninety. But he was strong. He hung on to the girl's arm with hands like bird claws, pulled her in despite her and me both.
I swished my billy around, trying to avoid seeing those eyes because they were poisonous. They scared hell out of me. Made me feel cold all the way down to my tail-bone. And I don't scare easy.
I got him a good one upside the head. His grip weakened. That gave me a chance to line up another shot. I let him have it.
His mouth opened wide, but instead of a scream, butterflies poured out. I mean like about a million and two butterflies, so many the coach was filled. They were all over me. I stumbled back, flailed around. I'd never been bitten by a butterfly, but who knew about the kind that come flapping out of some old geek's mouth?
Saucerhead pulled the girl away from me, tossed me back like a rag doll, dived in there, and pulled that old guy out. You don't want to get in Saucerhead's way when he's riled. He breaks things.
The old man's eyes had lost their fire. Saucerhead lifted him with one hand, said, "What the hell you think you're pulling, Gramps?" and tossed him over to ricochet off the same wall that had been Scarface's undoing. Then Tharpe went over and started kicking, one for this guy, one for that, no finesse. I heard ribs crack. I figured I ought to calm him down before he killed somebody, only I couldn't think how. I didn't want to get in his way when he was in that mood. And I still had a flock of soggy butterflies after me.
Tharpe calmed himself down. He grabbed the old man by the scruff of the neck and pitched him into the coach. The old boy made a sound like a whipped puppy. Tharpe tossed Scarf ace in on top of him, then looked up. There wasn't anybody on the driver's seat, so he just whacked the nearest horse on the rump and yelled.
The team took off.
Hunching down against the rain, Tharpe turned to me. "Takes care of those clowns. Hey! What happened to the girl?"
She was gone.
"Damned ingrate. There's a broad for you. Hell." He looked up, let the rain fall into his face a moment, then said, "I'm going to get my stuff. Then what say you and me go get drunk and get in a fight?"
"I thought we just had a fight."
"Bah. Bunch of candyasses. Wimps. Come on."
I had no intention of going trouble-hunting. But it did seem like a good idea to get in out of the rain, away from the butterflies. I told you I hadn't used up my ration of sense.
One of the two thugs was blocking the water flow in the gutter in front of Morley's door. The second came flying out as we started in. "Hey!" Tharpe yelled. "Watch where you're throwing your trash."
I looked around inside. The girl hadn't gone back in there. Morley and Puddle and I settled down to wonder what it was all about. Saucerhead went off looking for a real challenge.
3
I did my best to get my money's worth out of Puddle's keg while Morley and I dissected cabbages and kings and butterflies and the old days that never were that good—though I'd had me a moment now and then. We solved the ills of the world but decided there was nobody in authority with sense enough to implement our program. We were disinclined to take on the job ourselves.
Women proved a topic of brief duration. Morley's recent luck undershone my own. It was too much to take, seeing that great blob Puddle tipped back in his chair, thumbs hooked in his belt, grinning smugly in regard to his own endeavors.
The rain continued relentless. At last I had to face facts. I was going to get wet again. I was going to get a lot wet if Dean failed to respond to my pounding and whooping at the door. With set jaw and scant optimism I took my leave of Morley and his establishment. Dotes looked as smug as his man. He was home already.
I hunched my chin down against my chest and wished I'd had the sense to wear a hat. I wear one so seldom it doesn't occur to me to top myself off when that would be wise. Right away rain started sneaking down the back of my neck.
I paused where we'd rescued Chodo's mysterious daughter from her more mysterious assailants. There wasn't much light. The rain had swept away most of the evidence. I poked around and was on the verge of deciding half had been my imagination before I found one big bedraggled butterfly. I salvaged the cadaver and carried it as carefully as I could, cradled in my left palm.
My place is an old red brick house in a once-prosperous stretch of Macunado Street, near Wizard's Reach. The middle-class types have all abandoned ship. Most of the neighboring places have been subdivided and rented to families with herds of kids. Usually when I approach my house I pause to inspect it and reflect on the good fortune that let me survive the case that paid me enough to buy it. But cold rain down the back of the neck has a way of sapping nostalgia.
I scampered up the steps and gave the secret knock, bam-bam-bam, as hard as I could while bellowing, "Open up, Dean! I'm going to drown out here." A big flash of lightning. Thunder rattled my teeth in their sockets. The sky lords hadn't been feuding before, just tuning up for another Great Flood. Thunder and lightning suggested they were about to get serious. I pounded and yelled some more. The stoop isn't protected from the weather.