Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook

overhead.
    I glanced back. Somebody I didn’t know was suffering through Saucerhead’s checkpoint.
    Maybe Tharpe did do me a favor. He never patted me down like that. Though if I wanted to sneak something in, I would’ve hidden it under a stack of docile baby cats.
    Whitefield Hall had been slapped together with nothing but function in mind. It was mainly an open floor where you could dance, hold a banquet, have a grand meeting, put on a play, do anything you wanted to do without having to endure a lot of weather. Nowadays plays were the big thing.
    Plays are a big thing around town, period. Drama is the latest fad.
    The memorial commission also rented the hall for private functions. Like wedding receptions. Or birthday parties for underclass personalities who loom large in city life.
    The floor had enjoyed loving care forever but remembered generations of feet shod in working-class shoes. The ceiling was twenty feet high. There were tilt windows up there so you could let the heat out in summer — or whenever there were too many bodies jammed into the hall. There was a stage at the end opposite the main entrance, facing it from a hundred feet away, three feet higher than the floor. Bickering workmen dragged tables in through a door to the left of the stage.
    The two directing setup might have been chosen for their devotion to stereotype. Their wrists were limper than a dead octopus’s arms. They bullied one another like a pair of harebrained girls. Still, there’s hardly an adult male human today who isn’t tough. Anybody over twenty-four had what it took to get through five years of wartime service with his ass still attached. Including this squawking brace of fancies.
    The guys doing the actual work were the sort you don’t offend gratuitously. They didn’t have half a neck between them. If their shirts got ripped off by a freak wind, they’d show more body hair than cave bears. They probably had trouble recognizing their own names in print even if you gave them two weeks’ head start.
    Our hostess made her appearance through the doorway to the right of the stage, from the kitchen area. She wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Yet. “Garrett. You sweet man. You came early.” Strange. My eyes didn’t roll up inside my head. I didn’t drool. No gush of nonsense syllables erupted from my mouth. I didn’t forget she was deadly and dangerous. Maybe I was immune. Finally.
    Belinda Contague is a tall, slim woman in her mid-twenties, as beautiful as you can imagine a woman to be. Her hair, as ever, was absolute black, with sheen. Her skin she’d whitened whiter than ivory, I hoped with makeup rather than arsenic. Her eyes were so blue I suspected cosmetic sorcery. Her lips were the color of arterial blood. She has serious emotional problems.
    And all this before she put herself together for the evening.
    “I had to be early. I heard there’ll be some unsavory characters showing up. Have you lost weight?”
    “You noticed. You are a good man. Yes. A few pounds.”
    Too many pounds, I thought. She was gaunt. Another indication of internal problems? She was in a positive mood. That’s always good. She said, “I need to get Keron and Arnot focused on their work. They shouldn’t bring personal problems with them.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. It was one of her specials. It told me she’d gladly put it somewhere else. “Then I’ll have the technical staff try to turn me into something presentable.”
    “You’re a step or two beyond that already.”
    “Hardly. Wait till you see. You won’t be able to resist.”
    “Go. Do what you need to do. And don’t blame yourself if you find out that I’ve turned into an old man.”
    “Why do you have a pail of kittens? Are they dead? I guess not. One just winked at me.”
    “You know Dean. He took in a litter. I brought them because I had this crazy notion somebody might want one.” A mad idea, indeed. Most people looking for free cats are furriers, violin