Monsters and Magicians (27 page)

"What I'm telling you, son, is this: in this county and the most of this state, for that matter, you'll be judged based on what sort of man you are, not on the religion you practice, the political views you espouse, the color of your skin or how you part your hair. For far too many years, right many of the best and brightest of our young folks have left the state, gone north to make their mark in life, so what you now are in is sort of like the frontier used to be and, like the builders and the planners back then, we'll do our level best to attract young folks from elsewhere who look like they'd made us good citizens, who'd work hard with us toward the tremendous things that are coming to this area sure as horses drop road-apples. You're prime, David, whether you ki>ow it now or not, and I want to get you before some other county does. Have I made myself clear this time, son?"

David placed the call to his father immediately he got back to his borrowed office and, after a delay, the elder Klein came onto the line. He heard his son out in silence save for a few, probing questions, then asked, "David, just why did you telephone me?"

Taken aback, his offspring stuttered, "Why ... to

... I thought I needed advice . . . your advice and »

"Advice, you want? My advice, David?" was the response. "Well, maybe, just maybe, your uncle and

brothers are wrong and you're going to grow up, after all. All right, you want advice from me, you get advice from me.

"David, you thank that man, Mills, on your knees, you thank him after you've thanked God. Then you accept his offer and you work, you work for him harder than you've ever thought of working before. I don't know the man, but I do know about Hanratty. Hanratty was one of my Uncle Saul's students, years back, and he so impressed Uncle Saul and your grandfather, too, that they tried everything short of kidnapping to get him to stay up here and join the firm, but he went back down south, instead.

"David, please hear me and believe me. If you accept this opportunity and foul it up as badly as you've seemed prone to do in recent years, then do not ever, ever phone or write or wire me or the firm again for any reason. Goodbye, David."

Pedro had nodded. "Yes, I learned that a long while back; that's why all of the metal items I customarily carried around are of gold, silver, copper, bronze or brass. I even managed to find an all-bronze pocket knife, made in Thailand, and it takes and holds quite a nice edge, too. It's also one of the reasons why I don't go around with a hideaway revolver or pistol, as an increasing number of our professional colleagues seem to be doing these days. You do, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yes, but in my purse, in a special holster I had sewn into it—a Browning twenty-five caliber." Upon seeing his frown and grimace, she hurried to add, "Yes, I know, it's not much of a self-defense weapon; both Fitz and my shooting instructor told me that early on, but that three-fifty-seven weighs a metric ton in comparison and I just couldn't see lugging it around all day when I'm out of the office. I don't own any other handguns."

"Oh, yes, you do," said Pedro. "You forget fast and easily, lady. Out at your country house there are enough handguns, rifles, shotguns and ammo to start a banana-republic revolution, at the least. I looked them over, once or twice, and I'm sure I recall seeing at least one Walther PPK or PP. Compared to the three-fifty-seven, of course, or even the thirty-eight special, the three-eighty the PPK fires is a weak, ineffectual cartridge, true, but compared to the twenty-five ..." He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, then added, "And the PPK is not all that big or bulky and not too heavy either, Danna.

"But whether you have the Browning, the PPK or the revolver, always remember this, my dear: Never

ever draw the weapon out of your purse until you are absolutely convinced that there is no other choice, that you'll certainly be killed or hurt if you don't shoot your attacker. And when you draw it, Danna, use it immediately. I know of far too many sad cases wherein well-armed people tried to use their weapons as a threat or a bluff long enough to have those weapons taken away and used on them. A handgun, any handgun, large or small, is made for one purpose and one purpose only: that of expelling hunks of lead alloy with considerable force along a relatively straight course.. If you're not prepared to utilize it for the purpose for which it was designed and manufactured, then don't buy it at all, or keep it unloaded in a locked display case, not in your purse or on your person."

Then he chuckled. "Sorry, I do get preachy sometimes, don't I?"

She smiled. "No more than Fitz or my shooting instructor, Pedro, and I appreciate it, I really do; feminism is all well and good, but a woman who really likes men also usually likes being looked after, it's just the nature of the beast, I guess.

"I'll tell you, I'll drive out to the house this weekend—I'd thought about doing that anyway—and I'll look around for that pistol and the ammunition for it. Can you show me at least a picture of one so I'll know what I'm looking for, Pedro?"

He nodded. "Can do, lady. I've got some gun books at home; 111 bring one in tomorrow. One of the best things about the PPK is that you can safely carry a round chambered in it, release the safety and fire off the first load double-action, no need to have

to use your other hand to pull back the slide, as with your little Browning.

"Oh, and Danna, you'd better get in touch with Fitz, too, this week sometime, if you can. I just may need to talk with him soon."

Danna grimaced. "Blutegel?"

"No." The man shook his head. "The I.R.S. thing is still hovering over Fitz, of course, but we've done about all that we can for the nonce. I still wouldn't advise him to make a big public thing of coming back to this country if he does come back, but Blutegel's superiors now know that certain monies are in an escrow account, so they're not as likely to get a federal warrant for Fitz as once they were.

"No, this is a new can of worms that's unexpectedly popped open, Danna, or rather an old can that's showing new life after a lengthy hiatus . . . and I just may have been part of the reason it's now reraised its ugly head."

"What in the world are you talking about, Pedro?" she asked. "How could you have gotten Fitz into more trouble?"

"Simple," he replied. "Completely unintentional, of course; I like everyone else thought that the U.S. Customs-Interpol aspect was over and done, long ago. But it now appears that the powers that be in those two groups have never been completely sold on the Irish provenance of the gold coins and those artifacts, and my recent release of that batch of coins Fitz had had hidden in his freezer in that bucket of stewed squid has set them off again.

"The first I knew of it was when a Customs agent, one Evan Stilton, rang me up earlier today, asking

Fitz's whereabouts. I told him the usual, that Fitz was on safari, whereupon he demanded to know exactly where he was hunting, saying that an Interpol type could question him wherever he was. They want, it develops, to search the house and grounds— the grounds in particular, or so it sounds—but they want to do it with Fitz's permission, sans a warrant."

"Looking for what?" she queried, blank-faced. "As Fitz tells it, the first bunch of them broke into that house on at least two occasions and searched it rather thoroughly on both visits. And why the grounds? The only thing that can't be seen clearly from almost any point outside the back fence is the interior of Fitz's fallout shelter, that and the crawlspace under the house itself."

"Beats me," he shrugged. "But my experience with these lands of bureaucrat is to try to at least give the appearance of bowing to their requests before they reach the stage of demands, no matter how petty, silly, meaningless or quasi-illegal those requests might seem to be. I told him that, although I was not at all certain just which country Fitz currently was in, I could arrange for him a meeting with the owner-in-fact of the property. He has an appointment with me, here, for tomorrow at two. He mentioned that he would be bringing along a couple of his professional colleagues. We'll get them in here, hear them out, then take us a little stroll through their minds and find out just what they're really up to—what they know, what they think they know, what they suspect, what they hope to find out by searching that place out there in the county.

"And, recalling the last bunch of these types, should

we find that they're up to something other than official business . . . ? Ah, then you and I just might play us a little psionic game or three with them, Danna."

Even as the dragon rushed from its place of concealment, hissing, tooth-studded jaws agape, Kaoru's katana left its case and the tip of its blade took the reptile—which had chosen to attack on all four feet, in this instance—directly across the hinges of both sides of the jaws, severing the powerful tendons there as well as deeply gashing the ultra-sensitive tongue, but even as the beast screamed and swerved its hard-lashing tail took the man's bare legs from under him and he fell, his head coming into contact with a rounded boulder half buried in the soil, whereupon his mind became a momentary blur of bright red, then a blank nothingness.

In his aerie up in the towering oak tree, Fitz willed himself to fly to the assistance of the now-unconscious Japanese officer, for he knew that the lizard or dragon or whatever was not anything approaching dead and, although only about ten or twelve feet long, could doubtless still do fatal damage to the senseless and near-naked body of the little man. He willed, but nothing happened, nothing at all.

"Damn me for a fool!" he thought, furiously, then began to strip himself of the iron and steel items. His next mental willing worked and, pausing only long enough to lift the drilling in one hand by its leather-and-brass sling, he sped through the air in the direction of the imperilled officer.

Among all the laboring, blood-smeared Japanese

infantrymen, only Company Sergeant Kiyomoto saw the flying man . . . and his heart seemed to stop. Then, dropping the wakizashi and grasping the haft of the ancient bronze axe, he shouted exultantly, "He has come! The god has come! We must go and greet him!" Then he set off along the stream bank at a dead run.

The men just looked at one another, then dropped their work and their implements, retrieved their spears and followed in the noncom's wake. None of them could imagine what his strange shouts had been all about, but he was the sergeant and if he said to follow him, then that was clearly their duty.

Cool Blue had not had to go far. In the next vale over from that Fitz was even then following westward, he had encountered Sir Gautier and had very nearly been speared by one of the Norman's retainers into the bargain. The knight had found six of these—every one of them scruffier and smellier than the one before, the blue lion had thought, disgustedly.

Giving Sir Gautier Fitz's instructions, the lion had seen the Normans well on their way toward the rock shelter, then had set himself to hunting for flesh to fill his gaping void of a belly. This day he had been successfiil, and more quickly than he had even hoped. Then, with his belly full of hot meat and blood, he had valiantly resisted the almost overpowering impulse to lie up somewhere and take a lengthy snooze; instead, he had set off after the Norman knight and his stinky retainers as fast as an overstuffed, basically lazy, baby-blue lion could travel, consoling himself with the thought that the Normans would doubtless

camp at the cache overnight and he could sleep there.

He was wrong. The knight and his men, with so much daylight yet remaining and who knew just how far to go to catch up with Fitz, had divided the load and set out following the blazed trees. Indeed, Cool Blue never even got back to the rock shelter, for as he had come down into the vale up which Fitz had travelled, he had smelled, then heard the Normans headed west along the vale and set out after them.

Night had come on them still in the vale and they had camped there, dining well on fish from the burn, a plentitude of snails and an abundance of plant foods. At dawn, they had set out once more, guided by the white slash-marks on the tree trunks, and at the moment that the man they sought was flying to the defense of a man he had never really met, the seven Normans and the big blue cat had arrived atop the waterfall-cliff.

Kneeling, Sir Gautier used the butt of a spear to test the weight-bearing capacities of several of the spray-slickened boulders that projected from the vine-covered face of the cliff, but two out of five, when subjected to any meaningful amounts of pressure, pulled from out their seats to fall in a shower of damp earth and bounce down into the deep bed of pine tags below.

"We could always try joining our sword-girdles, I suppose," the knight mused dubiously, "but I doubt me that a mere seven girdles would own the span to lower a man far enough that he not still suffer sorely upon dropping the remaining distance. What think you, Master Lion?"

Gazing down the face of the cliff, Cool Blue beamed, "Like I could prob'ly jump down okay; it down look like no more than 'bout forty feet, you dig? But any you cats try that way, you gon' be like crawling the resta the way. Must be a way 'round it, but how far is all, you know."

Just then, a short, squat, but muscular towhead tugged at his forelock and addressed the knight, saying, "My lord, know you not this place? Down in that pine grove is where we first found us when we were chasing the camel up that stone-dry wadi . . . and it please my lord."

The knight suddenly struck his fist into his thigh so hard that Cool Blue winced. "Of course! I must be losing my memory. Well done, Rollo, well done! And if it be so, then ..."

With Sir Gautier leading the way, the Normans and the lion retraced their way far enough upstream to be able to wade across the rushing, icy burn, then proceeded back down the opposite bank to the north side of the falls. Here the cliff-top was rocky and uneven, and it grew higher the farther north they went.

"Man," protested the blue lion, "like not even me in this like lion getup could jump down that far. You guys wanta try it, like go right ahead, but them iron tee-shirts and steel pots ain't gonna help you like one damn bit, you know. But if you like do it, at least I won't have to do no huntin' for a while, is all, you