Stalking The Zombie: Fables of Tonight Page 10

  “Why did he send four non-tarot cards along with that first one.”

  “His notion of misdirection.” Mallory smiled. “Sharks aren’t the brightest fish in the sea.”

  Mallory and Winnifred tentatively sipped their soup.

  “You know, it’s not bad,” remarked Mallory, surprised. “Maybe we should have left Skippy to Noodnik’s tender mercies.”

  “It would have saved the city a lot of money,” acknowledged Winnifred. “There’ll be a trial, and then the expense of keeping him—and he’ll probably go free in two years and come right after you again.”

  Mallory cracked open his fortune cookie.

  “Oh, I doubt it,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He laid the fortune slip down in front of her.

  Good fortune is in the cards,’” she read.

  “So much for Death By Card Shark,” said Mallory. He stared at the fortune again. “Do you suppose this also means Flyaway has a chance tomorrow?”

  Winnifred wondered if a sharp blow to the head might cure her partner’s obsession, but decided it would probably just be a waste of good pottery.

  THE CHINESE SANDMAN

  Mallory put the final thumbtack into his Playmate centerspread, then stood back to admire it as it hung above his desk in all its pneumatic glory.

  “Just what the Mallory & Carruthers Detective Agency needed to make me feel at home,” he said at last.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, John Justin,” said his partner, turning her head away in distaste.

  “And I wish you wouldn’t keep drawing underwear on them with your magic marker every month,” replied Mallory.

  “It’s indecent,” snorted Winnifred Carruthers.

  Mallory stared at the centerspread. “You know,” he remarked, “I don’t think it’s silicon at all.”

  “Certainly it is,” said Winnifred.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I think it’s helium.”

  He waited for her to smile at his joke. When no smile was forthcoming, he sat down at the desk and picked up a Racing Form.

  “I see Flyaway is running again today,” he noted.

  “How many has he lost now?” asked Winnifred. “Something like 40 in a row?”

  “42,” said Mallory.

  “43,” purred a feminine voice. ‘You’re forgetting the one at Saratoga where he refused to leave the gate.”

  “That doesn’t count,” said Mallory. “They refunded all the bets.”

  “43,” persisted the voice.

  “Why don’t you go kill a fish or something?” muttered Mallory.

  A feminine figure jumped down from her perch atop a magic mirror that continually played the fourth inning of a 1932 American Association game between the Stranger City Mauve Devils and the Raddish River Geldings. She was young and slender, and looked human at first glance —but her limbs were covered with a fine orange down faintly striped with black, while her face, neck and chest were cream-colored. Her orange irises were those of a cat, her canines were quite pronounced, and she had whiskers —feline, not human—growing out of her upper lip. Her ears were a little too rounded, her face a touch too oval, her nails long and lethal-looking. She wore a single garment, a short tan dress that looked like it had been rescued from a trashcan.

  “Because,” she said.

  “Because why?”

  “That’s what humans are for,” said Felina. “The God of the cat people put you here to feed us and keep us warm and dry and to scratch between our shoulder blades.”

  “Well, I’m glad we got that straight,” said Mallory sardonically. “I’ve often wondered what I was put here for.”

  She lay, stomach down, on his desk. “Now you know.”

  He reached forward and scratched between her shoulder blades for a moment. When her purring became too loud and annoying he stopped.

  Felina sat up, her legs dangling over the edge, and stared out the window into the fog.

  “What do you see?” asked Mallory, also looking out.

  “Nothing,” she said, staring intently.

  “OK, what don’t you see?”

  “Quiet!” said Felina. “I’m listening!”

  “For what?”

  “Hush!” snapped Felina, extending the claws on her right hand and taking a half-hearted swipe at Mallory’s face.

  Mallory’s hand shot out, and he grabbed her by the nape of the neck. “You do that once more and I’ll throw all 90 pounds of you out on your ass. This is a place of business and you’re the office cat, who is here on sufferance. Try not to forget it.”

  She hissed at him, then turned her attention back to the window. Finally she relaxed.

  “He’s not here yet,” she said to Winnifred.

  “Who’s not here?” demanded Mallory. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s nothing, John Justin,” said his partner. “Just forget it.”

  “How can I forget what I don’t know?” said Mallory. “Are you expecting someone?”

  Winnifred sighed. “No, not really.”

  Mallory shrugged. He was used to not understanding Felina, but Winnifred was always an open book, and her demeanor disturbed him. He decided to cheer her up.

  “Why did the politician cross the street?” he asked.

  Winnifred merely stared at him.

  “What’s a politician?” asked Felina. “Is it something to eat?”

  “To get back to the middle of the road,” said Mallory, laughing at his own joke.

  Winnifred sighed and made no comment.

  “Okay, maybe I won’t become a nightclub comic after all,” said Mallory.

  A tear rolled down Winnifred’s cheek.

  “It was that bad?” asked Mallory.

  “Do be quiet, John Justin,” she said.

  “You want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “This is your partner you’re talking to,” said Mallory. “I know better. You’re 68 years old, so it can’t be PMS.”

  “That was an uncalled-for remark!” said Winnifred heatedly.

  “Okay, I apologize. Now will you tell me what’s wrong?” “No.”

  “Aha!” said Mallory. “A minute ago nothing was wrong. Now you simply don’t want to tell me.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it, John Justin.” “How do you know, if you don’t tell me?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He turned to Felina. “Has this got something to do with whoever you were listening for?”

  Felina smiled at him. “Yes. No. Maybe. Certainly. Perhaps.”

  “I see you’re about as helpful as ever.”

  “Get me a parakeet and I’ll tell you.”

  “You will not!” yelled Winnifred.

  Felina stared at her for a moment, then turned back to Mallory. “Three parakeets. And a macaw.” She lowered her head in thought, then looked up. “And a goldfish.” “Why not ask for the Robert Redford of the cat people while you’re at it?”

  “I never thought of it,” admitted Felina, her face suddenly animated with interest.

  “Don’t think of it now.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I say our friend has a problem, and you’re not helping either of us solve it.”

  “I am too!” Felina shot back. “I told her he probably won’t be coming today. Now she doesn’t have to stay here and wait for him.”

  “He’s never coming,” said Winnifred, and suddenly Mallory had the odd experience of watching his partner cry, her burly body wracked by sobs.

  Mallory walked over to where she sat and knelt down next to her, taking a gentle hold of her plump pink hand.

  “What is it?” he asked gently. ‘You are the bravest woman—the bravest anything—I’ve ever known. You spent thirty years as a white hunter, facing gorgons and dragons and things that would have had hunters on my world running for cover. When the Grundy declared war on me, you were the only person in t
he whole of this Manhattan who didn’t desert me.”

  “I didn’t either,” said Felina. “Exactly,” she added thoughtfully.

  “Shut up,” said Mallory. He turned back to Winnifred. “You’re not just my partner. You’re my only friend in this world. If something’s wrong, you’ve got to let me help you.”

  “No one can help me,” said Winnifred miserably.

  “Come on,” urged Mallory. “My business is helping people.”

  She wiped her eyes and finally faced him. “Can you seize the wind? Can you catch a moment of time and put it in a box?”

  “Not without a lot of special equipment,” said Mallory wryly. ‘You’re not about to tell me someone has stolen the wind?”

  She shook her head. “No. Just that what’s been stolen is as hard to retrieve.”

  “It’d help if you told me what it is.”

  “Do you remember a conversation we had when we first met?”

  “We had a lot of conversations,” said Mallory.

  “This one was about my lover.”

  Mallory frowned. “I didn’t know you had a lover.”

  “I didn’t,” said Winnifred.

  “Uh . . . I’m a little confused.”

  She closed her eyes. “I remember it as if it were yesterday,” she said. “I remember silver moonlight over a tropical lagoon, and the smell of jasmine. I remember the feel of a strong hand on mine, and the whisper of words over the rippling of the water.” Suddenly she opened her eyes. “Except that I’m just mouthing the words. I don’t remember it at all.”

  “That’s because you made it up,” said Mallory. “It never happened.”

  “Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t,” said Winnifred. “It’s harder than you think to know what’s a dream and what isn’t.”

  “I don’t want to be obtuse, but I still don’t understand the problem.”

  “Look at me, John Justin,” she said. “I’m a fat, ugly old woman.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Thank you for that, but I know what I am. Well, fifty years ago I was a fat, ugly young woman. I went into the jungle to make my fortune, because I knew I could never compete with other women for a man’s love. And when I came out of the jungle thirty years later, I knew I’d made the right decision.” She paused. “One thing kept me sane all those years, the same thing that kept me sane until the day I met you two years ago and you gave me a new purpose in life—and that thing was my memory of that one romantic night. Did it really happen? It’s been so long that I don’t know, I can’t be sure—but whether or not the night was real, the memory was real. It was my most cherished possession.” Tears welled up in her eyes again. “And now it’s gone.”

  “But you just described it to me,” said Mallory, puzzled.

  “I can describe it, but I can’t feel it any longer!” wept Winnifred.

  “It was the old man with the horse,” said Felina.

  Mallory turned to her. “What old man? What are you talking about?”

  “He’s like the old clothes man, only different,” said Felina helpfully.

  “I was a fool!” whispered Winnifred.

  “Tell me about this man,” said Mallory.

  “He’s the Chinese Sandman,” replied Winnifred dully.

  “The Chinese Sandman?” repeated Mallory.

  “Did you ever hear the Andrews Sisters sing about the Japanese Sandman?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “It’s about an old second-hand man, the kind who drives his horse-drawn wagon through your alley, collecting things you don’t want. In the case of the Japanese Sandman, he trades new days for old.”

  “It’s an interesting notion, trading new days for old,” remarked Mallory. “But what does he have to do with the Chinese Sandman?”

  “They’re cousins,” said Winnifred.

  “So does the Chinese Sandman trade new days for old, too?”

  She shook her head. “No, John Justin. He trades new dreams for old.”

  “And you’re saying that—?” began Mallory.

  “That I traded him my most precious possession,” said Winnifred bitterly.

  “But why?”

  “I didn’t believe in him,” she replied. “I didn’t think he could do it.”

  “You know the kind of magic that goes on in this Manhattan. You’ve seen what creatures like the Grundy can do. You should have known better.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” said Winnifred miserably. “To tell you the truth, I thought that dream was getting shopworn. It comforted me like nothing else in the world, but it’s been inside my head for almost half a century. I thought I might find something newer and more exciting.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “God, what a fool I was!”

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how many regretful husbands and wives I’ve heard that from,” said Mallory sympathetically. “They’re always sorry, and they never realize what they had until it’s gone.”

  “What makes us behave so self-destructively, John Justin?” she asked.

  He sighed deeply. “You’re asking a guy whose wife ran off with his partner, and whose sole possessions after 43 years of life are two beat-up suits and the office cat.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Winnifred. “I don’t want to burden you with my problem.”

  “It’s our problem now,” said Mallory, as Felina raced to the window and pushed her face up against it. “What I don’t understand is this guy’s racket. I mean, who the hell would want to buy your old dream?”

  “That’s easy,” said a low voice with a strange accent, and Mallory turned to see a thin, almost emaciated Oriental man, his hair in a braid down his back, decked out in a patchwork outfit of old, unmatched silks and satins, standing in his doorway.

  “It’s him!” exclaimed Winnifred.

  “That’s figures,” said Mallory. “Nothing else has gone right this month.” He stood up and faced the old man. ‘You were about to say something?”

  “You wanted to know who would buy an old dream,” said the Chinese Sandman with a smile. “The person who traded it, of course.”

  “Every customer wants it back?” asked Mallory.

  “Of course,” said the Sandman. “But they never know it until they’ve lost it.”

  “Then trade it back to her.”

  The Chinese Sandman chuckled. “I made a fair trade for it. I gave her a wonderful dream, full of excitement and romance, of distant and exotic terrains, of handsome men and beautiful women, and she was the most beautiful of all.”

  “I don’t want it!” said Winnifred.

  “Of course you don’t want it,” agreed the Sandman. “It’s not yours.”

  “So take it back, give her her own dream, and we’ll call it square,” said Mallory.

  “How would I stay in business if I did that?” replied the Chinese Sandman. “She traded a valueless dream to me. But now it has a value, doesn’t it? Quite a high one.” “All right,” said Mallory. “Name your price, and try to remember that we’re not made of money.”

  “I’m not some nondescript huckster,” said the Sandman, making a face. “I don’t sell—I trade.”

  “Look around the place,” said Mallory. “We’ll trade anything you want for it.”

  “Even the cat woman?”

  Felina hissed at him and displayed her claws.

  “No!” said Winnifred firmly.

  Felina jumped lightly onto the back of Winnifred’s chair, purring loudly.

  “Anything but the cat,” said Mallory.

  The Sandman looked around the room. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “There’s nothing here that I want—not even the cat woman.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Mallory. “No one else in the world wants Winnifred’s dream. If you want to unload it, you’ve got to deal with us.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say we couldn’t do business,” said the Sandman. “I merely remarked that there’s nothing in your office that I want.”


  “You were here before, when you traded dreams, so you knew there was nothing in the place that you wanted,” said Mallory “So cut the crap and tell us what you do want.” “How very astute of you, Mr. Mallory,” said the Chinese Sandman. “You give me hope that we may be able to reach an equitable agreement.”

  “You name it, and I’ll tell you if we have a deal.” “Very well,” said the Sandman. “I want you, Mr. Mallory”

  “Me?” said Mallory, surprised.

  “Well, not you personally. But I want your skill. In fact, I shall be perfectly forthright: I want an item, a trinket, a tribute if you will, that I think only you can secure for me. If you bring me what I desire, I will return Colonel Carruthers’ dream to her. If not, well . . .” He shrugged his shoulders regretfully and let the sentence hang in mid-air, unfinished.

  “Don’t do it, John Justin,” said Winnifred. “It was my blunder. I’ll live with the consequences.”

  “It can’t hurt to hear him out,” said Mallory.

  “7 heard him out,” Winnifred pointed out.

  “He doesn’t have anything I want,” said Mallory.

  “You’d be surprised,” said the old Chinese man with a smile.

  “Spare me your surprises and just tell me what you want.”

  “There is an amber egg,” said the Sandman, outlining its size with his gnarled fingers. “Inside it is a tiny pegasus, a blood bay colt with three white feet and golden wings. I want it.”

  “What’s the catch?” said Mallory. “Why don’t you just buy it instead of having me rob whatever store is selling it?”

  “It’s not in a store, John Justin Mallory,” said the Sandman.

  “Shit!” muttered Mallory. “I don’t even want to think about what you’re going to say next.”

  “It resides on the nightstand next to the Grundy’s bed.”

  “I knew it!”

  “When you bring it to me, I will give your partner what she wants.”

  “Why don’t you ask for something easy, like the key to Fort Knox?”

  “Each dream has its own price,” answered the Sandman. “For the partner of John Justin Mallory, the price is higher than most.”

  “Why?” demanded Mallory.

  “Because no one else can retrieve it for me. You, at least, have a chance of success, however small and unlikely.”