So: he is looking for the most likeable and maybe even kindred-spirited people in Umbar.
He is looking for them in order to kill them.
What was that Haladdin used to say? “Do the ends justify the means? Stated generally, the problem lacks a solution.”
Chapter 45
Umbar, Lamp Street
Night of June 14, 3019
The Umbarians all say that whoever has not seen the Big Carnival has not seen anything worthwhile in his life. Arrogant as it sounds, there are solid grounds for saying so. It is not the beauty of the fireworks and costumed processions, although they are magnificent. The most important part is that on the second Sunday of June all societal barriers crumble into dust: streetwalkers turn into highborn damsels and the damsels turn into streetwalkers, while a couple of comedians performing a skit making fun of famously slow-witted inhabitants of the Peninsula may turn out to be a senator and a member of the paupers’ guild. It is a day when time runs backward and everyone can reclaim their wonderfully reckless youth, like the warm gentle lips of some girl in a black mask you just stole from her previous partner; it is a day when profiting is sinful and stealing is just déclassé. On that day everyone is allowed to do anything except breach another’s incognito…
In that sense the actions of two noble sirs who had fallen behind a bead-strung firecracker- popping procession making its way down Lamp Street at the Mint Alley intersection should be termed improper, although said actions were apparently well-intentioned. Those two persons – one in a multicolored bodysuit of a circus gymnast, another decked out in jester’s bells – were bending over a third one, in a blue-and-gold stargazer’s cloak, who was prostrated on the ground. Not too skillfully trying to revive him (“Hey, man, wake up!”), they have removed his silvery mask; it was plain that the would-be rescuers themselves were barely on their feet.
A chirping flock of three girls in assorted dominos emerged from the alley straight onto the scene. “Partners, partners!” they chorused, clapping, “and just the right number! The gymnast is mine! Come along, pretty boy!” “Easy, sisters, easy!” the gymnast responded. “See, our third friend is kinda out of it…”
“Oh, poor kid! Drink too much?”
“Dunno. Just been dancing his feet off in the procession and then suddenly whoa! and he’s down. Not as if he’s been drinking much…”
“Maybe I can bring him back to life with a kiss?” the blue domino purred coquettishly.
The jester grinned: “Go ahead, baby – maybe he’ll throw up, it’d help for sure!”
“Yuck! Jerk…” the girl was offended.
“There, my beauties, don’t get all upset, all right?” the gymnast said amiably, hugging the purple domino a bit below the waist with a steady arm (rewarded with an immediate sultry “Ah, the cheek!”). “You’re all total hits, we love you all to death and all that. Got any wine?.. Too bad. Here’s what we’ll do: you take the Mint to the seashore, buy enough Núrnen for all of us,” with those words he handed the girl a small pouch full of small silver coins, “and, most importantly, stake out some seats close to the musicians. We’ll catch up with you in a few minutes, as soon as we drag this character to that lawn over there, let him sleep it off on the grass… Imagine being saddled with this on Carnival!..”
When the girls disappeared in the alley, their heels clicking loudly on the flagstones, the jester let out his breath and shook his head, as if disbelieving his luck: “Phew! I thought that was it and we’d have to off them…”
“Yeah, I know you like swift and drastic solutions,” grumbled the gymnast, “that’s why I have to watch you like a hawk. Did you stop to think of how we’d get rid of three bodies here, eh?”
“No idea,” the other admitted honestly. “So what now, chief – are we all right?”
“Not sure, so – no wet work, but following up on them is necessary. Who the hell knows who these girls are, though they don’t look like cover. Track them to the shore and double back immediately if anything is amiss.”
“What about you, all by yourself?”
“Mantzenilla is good stuff, the guy won’t come around for at least an hour. Here, help me pick him up,” the gymnast crouched by the still stargazer, “I’ll manage the hundred yards to our door somehow.”
…The stargazer’s surfacing from his drugged stupor was slow and labored, but the moment he stirred he got his nostrils pinched and a draught of cola-based stimulant poured down his throat – time was short, the interrogation could not wait. He coughed and hacked (some of the burning liquid went down the wrong pipe) and opened his eyes. The first glance told him clearly enough the predicament he was in: a windowless room (but still more likely a ground floor than a basement), two men wearing carnival outfits of a gymnast and a jester; wait, wait… yes, these two had danced in the same procession with him, and then – right! – the gymnast gave him some wine to drink from a glass flask with merry eastern dragons on its sides. And an excellent wine it was, except two draughts knocked him out to then find himself who knows where with his arms securely tied to an armchair, with a nausea- inducing array of tools in a large tin bowl on a stool in front of him. A cold hand seemed to grab his guts at a mere look at them. How’s this possible – he remembers the gymnast drinking from the same flask? An antidote? Actually, who cares, the most important part is who these guys are – the Department or 12 Shore Street? He looked away, at the fire-lit masked face of the jester, who was busily stirring the coals in a large floor censer, and shuddered almost violently enough to spasm his back muscles.