Part 20 (1/2)

”Just the one thing,” the colonel said. The old service revolver was still in his hand. He looked surprised to see it there. ”I took only what I needed.”

Screed had his pistol out, but there was nothing he could do to stop the colonel from turning the gun on himself. Unwin looked away just before the shot that signaled the fourth and final death of Colonel Baker.

Screed dropped his pistol on the table and picked up the napkin. He put it to his face and breathed quickly, making little sounds into the fabric. A minute later he put the napkin down and drank his whiskey sour. When that was gone, he started drinking Unwin's.

Unwin stood with his back against the restaurant's dappled green wallpaper. He could not remember when he had risen from his chair. Screed was saying something to him, but Unwin could only see the detective's lips moving. Gradually his hearing returned.

”You were telling the truth,” Screed said. ”About Sivart's cases.”

On the floor the man with the blond beard had stopped chattering.

”Yes.”

”I don't want the cases,” Screed said. ”I want Enoch Hoffmann.”

Unwin allowed himself a few more breaths, taking time to think that over. ”And in exchange you'll let me go.”

Screed's mustache twitched, but he said, ”Yes, I'll let you go.”

A plan was forming in Unwin's mind. It was full of holes, and he did not have time to check it against the recommendations of the Manual. Manual. Still, it was all he had. ”Okay,” he said. ”I'll make the arrangements.” Still, it was all he had. ”Okay,” he said. ”I'll make the arrangements.”

”What do you need?” Screed asked.

”I need my alarm clock.”

Screed fished it out of his jacket and thrust it at him, its alarm bell jangling.

”Go to the Cat & Tonic at six tomorrow morning,” Unwin said. ”Go to the room that was Colonel Baker's study and wait.”

”Why?” Screed asked.

”Hoffmann will be there, and he won't be ready for you. You have to wait for the right moment, though. You'll know it when it comes.” It was the sort of bold statement Sivart would have made in order to buy himself more time. Sometimes the detective delivered, sometimes he changed the rules enough that his promise no longer mattered. Unwin would be lucky, he thought, if he managed to survive the night.

He put the alarm clock in his briefcase and left through the front door. In the alley he found his bicycle chained to the fire escape, right where he had left it the night before. He had been correct about one thing. The chain would need a good deal of oiling.

SEVENTEEN.

On Solutions A good detective tries to know everything. But a great detective knows just enough to see him through to the end.

Unwin walked his bicycle toward the street but found the Gilbert's bellhop at the entrance of the alley, blocking his way. The boy stood under a broad black umbrella. He held it out to Unwin and said, ”This was in lost and found. I thought you might need it.” The boy's voice was perfectly clear, but his eyes were half closed and unfocused.

Unwin approached slowly, then ducked under the umbrella with him. ”Tom,” he said, reading the name tag on his red jacket, ”what makes you think I need this more than anyone else?”

Without looking at him, the bellhop said, ”It's a long ride from here to the Cat & Tonic.”

Unwin felt suddenly colder. In spite of himself, he stepped back into the rain, rolling his bicycle with him. He remembered his vision of that morning-the game at the cottage, Hoffmann's blank stare: The magician could be anyone. The magician could be anyone.

”Tom, how do you know about the Cat & Tonic?”

The bellhop frowned and shook his head, struggling with the words. ”I don't,” he said. ”I'm just the bellhop. But Dad says I might get promoted to desk clerk if I keep my head screwed on straight.”

While the bellhop was talking, Unwin began to circle slowly around him. But Tom grabbed his wrist and held him there. The boy's grip was strong. ”I don't know anything about the Cat & Tonic,” he said. ”But I'm good at getting messages to people.”

”You have a message for me? From whom?”

Unwin could see the boy's breath as he spoke. ”She's on the fourteenth floor right now, asleep with her head on your old desk. Mr. Duden is trying to wake her, and he might succeed soon. In the meantime she and I are in . . .” Tom trailed off, frowning again. ”We're in direct communication.”

Unwin looked around. He saw no one on the street, no one looking down from the windows above. He moved back under the umbrella and whispered, ”Direct communication? With Penelope Greenwood, you mean.”

”No names,” Tom said. ”Don't know who-”

”Don't know who might be listening in,” Unwin said. ”That's fine, Tom. But what's the message?”

”She and her dad are in the mist. No, the midst. Of a contest of wills. She's trying to stop him. She says she's on your side.”

”But I saw their reunion,” Unwin said. ”Her father said they would work together. He said it wasn't the first time.”

Tom tilted his head, as though his ears were antennae and he was trying to improve reception. ”She was eleven years old on November twelfth. He . . . conscripted her.”

”Into what, exactly?”

Tom closed his eyes and breathed slowly, swaying a little. A minute pa.s.sed, and Unwin thought that he had lost him, that the connection to Penelope-whatever its nature-was broken. Then the bellhop said quietly, ”Her father is no puppeteer. But she had another teacher. From him she learned to . . . to let herself in, but also to leave things behind.”

”What sorts of things, Tom?”

”Instructions,” he said.

This was the part of Hoffmann's scheme that had boggled Edwin Moore that morning. The magician did not know how to plant suggestions into a sleeping mind-but his daughter did. Caligari had taught her how.

”Instructions,” Unwin repeated. ”To get up in the night and cross tomorrow off your calendar. Or to steal your neighbors' alarm clocks. Or worse, to abandon all sense and help turn the world upside down.” Unwin gestured toward a man who had exited the hotel with a suitcase. He was going along the sidewalk, leaving his clothes draped over everything he saw. He had already dressed a letterbox and a fire hydrant. Now he was trying to b.u.t.ton a jacket around a lamppost.

”She says that's not her doing,” Tom replied. ”They went together through the sleeping minds of the city last night, and she did what he asked. She opened up their deepest selves and jammed them open. But she made sure you and everyone at the Agency were left alone. And in some people she planted the . . . seeds of resistance. A limin . . . a liminal . . .”

”A liminal directive,” Unwin said, recalling the words of the underclerk in the third archive: something to do, someplace to go. something to do, someplace to go. So the sleepwalkers Moore had gone off with So the sleepwalkers Moore had gone off with were were special operatives. But they were working for Penelope Greenwood, not Enoch Hoffmann. ”She tricked him, then. But what was the directive? What were her instructions?” special operatives. But they were working for Penelope Greenwood, not Enoch Hoffmann. ”She tricked him, then. But what was the directive? What were her instructions?”

Tom tightened his grip and shook Unwin's arm. ”You have to stop him, Charles. Her father's onto her, and she doesn't have much time.”

”What about Sivart?”

”There's barely anything left of him.” Tom was looking directly at Unwin now, his eyes nearly open. ”He's been broken. None of us can help him.”

”I have a plan-”