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She finally stopped for breath and gave me the big smile again, accompanied by the big, big eyes and a deep breath to show off her bosoms. I gave her a smile of my own, no more sincere than hers. For all her artless honesty and finishing-school accent, Holly was as phony as a banker’s principles. All the time she’d been talking to me, her gaze had been darting all around the bar, hardly ever looking at me, an
d never making eye contact for more than a few seconds. Which is a pretty reliable sign that someone is lying to you. But that was okay; I’m used to clients lying to me, or at the very least being economical with the truth. My job is to find what the client asks for. The truth makes the job easier, but I can work around it if I have to.
“What kind of a witch are you, Holly?” I said. “Black, white, Wiccan, or gingerbread house?”
She bestowed a happy wink on me. “I never allow myself to be limited by other people’s perceptions. I’m just a free spirit, Mister Taylor; or at least I was, until I met Gideon Brooks. Nasty man. Say you’ll help me. Pretty please.”
“I’ll help you,” I said. “For one thousand pounds a day, plus expenses. And don’t plead poverty. That dress you’re wearing costs more than I make in a year. And don’t get me started on the shoes.”
She didn’t even blink. Just slapped an envelope down on the table before me. When I opened it, a thousand pounds in cash stared back. I gave Holly my best professional smile and made the envelope disappear about my person. Never put temptation in other people’s way, especially in a bar like Strangefellows, where they’ll steal your gold fillings if you fall asleep with your mouth open. Holly leaned forward across the table to fix me with what she thought was a serious look.
“They say you have a special gift for finding things, Mister Taylor; a magical inner eye that can See where everything is. But that won’t help you find my heart. Gideon placed it inside a special protective rosewood box, called Heart’s Ease. No one can pierce the magics surrounding that box—and only Gideon can open it. And you won’t be able to find him or his house, either. Gideon lives inside his own private pocket dimension that only connects with our world when he feels like it. I only saw him when he let his house appear, at various places throughout the Nightside. And I haven’t seen him since he stole my heart.” She looked me right in the eye while she told me this, so I accepted most of it as provisionally true.
She leaned back in her chair and gave me her big smile again. It really was quite impressive. She must have spent a lot of time practicing it in front of a mirror.
“I know: Find a missing heart, and a missing man, in a missing house. But if finding them were easy I wouldn’t need you, would I, Mister Taylor?”
She got up to leave. As entirely calm and composed as when she’d entered, despite her fascinating sob story.
“How will I find you?” I said.
“You won’t, Mister Taylor. I’ll find you. Toodles.”
She waggled her fingers at me in a genteel good-bye, and was off, striding away with a straight back, ignoring her surroundings as though they were unworthy of her. Which they probably were. Strangefellows isn’t exactly elite, and you couldn’t drive it upmarket with a whip and a chair. I sipped thoughtfully at my wormwood brandy for a while, and then strolled over to the long mahogany bar to have a quiet word with Strangefellows’ owner, bartender, and long-time pain in the neck, Alex Morrisey. Alex only wears black because no one has come up with a darker color, and he could gloom for the Olympics, with an honorable mention in existential angst. He started losing his hair while he was still in his early twenties, and I can’t help feeling there’s a connection. He was currently prodding the bar snacks with a stick, to see if they had any life left in them.
A bunch of spirits were hanging round the bar: shifting semitransparent shapes that blended in and out of each other as they drained the memories of old wines from long-empty bottles. Only Alex could sell the same bottle of wine several times over. I made the sign of the extremely cross at the spirits, and they drifted sulkily off down the bar so Alex and I could talk privately.
“Gideon Brooks,” Alex said thoughtfully, after I’d filled him in on the necessary details. He cleaned a dirty glass with the same towel he used to mop up spills from the bartop, to give him time to think. “Not one of the big Names, but you know that as well as I do. Of course, the really powerful ones like to stay out of sight and under the radar. But the rosewood box, Heart’s Ease . . . that name rings a bell. Some sort of priceless collectible; the kind that’s worth so much it’s rarely bought or sold, but more often prized from the dead fingers of its previous owner.”
“Collectibles,” I said. “Always more trouble than they’re worth. And the Nightside is littered with those magic little shops that sell absolutely anything, no questions asked, and certainly no guarantees. Where the hell am I supposed to start?”
Alex smirked and slapped a cheap flyer down before me. ONCE AND FUTURE COLLECTIBLES, announced the ugly block lettering. I should have known. All kinds of rare and strange items turn up in the Nightside, from the past, the future, and any number of alternate earths. The jetsam and flotsam of the invisible world. And, this being the Nightside, there’s always someone ready to make a profit out of it. The Once and Future Collectibles traveling show offered the largest selection of magical memorabilia and general weird shit to be found anywhere. Someone would know about the rosewood box. I made a note of the current address and looked up to find Alex grinning at me.
“You know who you need to talk to,” he said. “The Queen of Hearts. She’s bound to be there, and she knows everything there is to be known about heart-related collectibles. Big Bad Betty herself... I’m sure she’ll be only too happy to renew your acquaintance . . .”
“Don’t,” I said. “The only good thing that woman ever taught me was to avoid mixing my drinks.”
“I thought you made a lovely couple.”
“You want a slap?”
I LEFT STRANGEFELLOWS AND HEADED OUT INTO THE NARROW RAIN-SLICK streets of the Nightside. The night was bustling with people, and some things very definitely not people, all in hot-eyed pursuit of things that were bad for them. Hot neon burned to every side, and cool music wafted out of the open doors of the kind of clubs that never close; where you can put on the red shoes and dance till you bleed. Exotic smells from a hundred different cuisines, barkers at open doors shilling thrills so exotic they don’t even have a name in polite company, and, of course, the twilight daughters, patrolling every street corner; love for sale, or something very like it. You’re never far from heaven or hell in the Nightside, though they’re often the same place, under new management.
I was heading for the old Market Hall, where the Once and Future Collectibles were currently set up, when someone eased up alongside and made himself known to me. He was got up like a 1950s biker: all gleaming black leathers, polished steel chains, peaked leather cap, and an almost convincing Brando swagger. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, seventeen, with a corpse-pale face and thin colorless lips. His eyes were dark, his gaze hooded and malignant. He matched my pace exactly, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his leather jacket.
“The name’s Gunboy,” he said, in a calm, easy monotone, not even looking at me. “Mister Sweetman wants to talk with you. Now.”
“All lines busy,” I said. “Call back later.”
“When Mister Sweetman wants to talk to someone, they talk to him.”
“How nice for Mister Sweetman. But when I don’t want to talk to people, I have a tendency to push them off the pavement and let them go play with the traffic.”
Gunboy took one hand out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at me, the fingers shaped like a child’s imaginary gun. He let me have a good look at it, and then pointed the single extended finger at a row of blazing neon bulbs set above the door to a Long Pigge franchise. His hand barely moved, but one by one the bulbs exploded, sparks flying wildly on the night air. A large man in a blood-soaked white overall came hurrying out to complain, took one look at Gunboy, and went straight back in again. Gunboy blew imaginary smoke from his finger and then stuck it casually in my ribs. He wasn’t smiling, and his dark gaze was hot and compelling.
“Conceptual guns,” he said, his lips barely moving. “Conceptual bullets. Real, because I believe they are. The power comes from me, and so do the dead bodies. Come with me, or I’ll make real holes in you.”
I considered him thoughtfully. Down the years, I’ve acquired several useful and really quite underhanded tricks for dealing with guns aimed in my direction, but they all depended on there being some kind of actual gun to deal with. So I gave Gunboy my best I’m not in the least intimidated smile, and allowed him to take me to his master. Gunboy was kind enough to put his hand back in his pocket as we walked along together. I’m not sure my pride would have survived otherwise.
