Earthly Delights Part 13

'I will! It worked!' she said and floated off. 'Goss'll be in later,' she added from the door.

I was, of course, pleased for them but that did mean I would have to find another shop a.s.sistant. Jason was no use in his present state of extreme shyness. Tuesday was not working out too well, so far.

The morning rush dwindled and I went out the back to find that Jason had talked to the carrier, got a signature on every waybill, and was now eating his way solidly through his leftover baguette. He looked, in his overall, just like every other working boy I had seen.

'Put your sneakers on,' I said. 'Slip out to Cafe Delicious and get some food. I'm going to have a busy day. Get me moussaka if they have some and get some for yourself as well,' I said.

'Thanks.' He took the money. By the time he came back with the moussaka for me, he had already eaten his own portion and was finis.h.i.+ng the last crumbs of the baguette. I suppose he had a lot of starvation to make up for.

'All right,' I said. 'Get changed and come back for the floor as usual. I've got to call Senior Constable White about the graffiti.'

He nodded, changed in the bathroom, and went. Now that my bakery was free of alien influences, I called the number the police officer had given me and she promised to visit. I sold more bread. Customers patted Horatio and the day began to fall into its accustomed pattern. Routine is soothing. I like routine.

Meroe came in about ten, looking shocked. She smelled very strongly of something chemical, which rather clashed with the bread.

'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Sit down, Meroe.'

'Someone poured metho through what they thought was my door last night,' she said. 'Actually it was the gap between the two brick walls. There's a decorative air brick there and it does look like it goes into the shop, if you haven't ever been in it.'

's.h.i.+t!' I remarked.

'He tried to light it. There's a bunch of dead matches outside. But he couldn't. Now the whole place stinks of metho. Luckily I smelt it or I would have lit a stick of incense and that would have been it. I've called that cop,' she said. Things were serious if Meroe called the cops.

'Why couldn't he light it?' I asked.

'Because that sort of fire needs a wick,' said Senior Constable White from the door. 'It was a good attempt at arson, though. He meant to burn you out. We've got to lay hands on this s.h.i.+t. You were right, Ms Chapman, he's escalating. Step by step. Closer and closer to ...'

'Murder,' I said. 'Do come in, officer. If you would like to step through into the alley, I'll show you my latest decoration.'

'I'll mind the shop,' said Meroe. She sat down behind the counter. Horatio sniffed and withdrew to the furthest corner of the counter. Meroe smelt of accelerant and he didn't like it. Cats can wound your feelings, sometimes.

'Same writing,' observed Lepidoptera as she gazed at the inscription. She took a digital camera and a folding ruler out of her bag and snapped several pictures. 'Same weak loops, same unformed hand. Now, at least, we know something about him.'

'What?'

'How tall he is,' she said. 'That's the full reach of his arm, that capital W, and there's nothing here to stand on. Reach up beside it. How tall are you?'

'Five six,' I said, miming a spray can user.

'And I'm five eight. He's about the same height as you. Small man's complex as well as the other problems,' she added. 'Great.'

I led the way back inside and locked up the bakery.

'Any idea when it was done?'

'No,' I said. 'Overnight is all I can say. When I opened the door at five, I didn't notice it. When the sun came up at seven, I saw it. It could have been there all night. There's not a lot of lighting in Calico Alley.'

'Oh, well. I'll ask around. The beat cops come through here at three or so, depending on the rota. This metho-based arson attempt is more serious. If he'd used petrol it could have been very bad.'

'But it's all gone amiss for him,' I commented.

'Well, of course it has,' Lepidoptera smiled. 'Your friend the witch put a curse on him.'

'Do you believe in curses?' I asked incredulously, sure she was pulling my leg.

'In the police force you see a lot of strange stuff,' she evaded.

'How about the heroin deaths?' I asked.

'Another one last night,' she said. 'Found on the steps of the station. Nice boy from South Yarra. Only seventeen.'

'That's awful,' I said.

'Pretty awful,' she said. 'But there's no sign that they're being held down and injected by force, you know. They're doing it themselves.'

'And that makes a difference?' I demanded.

'Yes,' she said flatly. 'It does.'

Clearly this was going to be one of those things on which Ms White and I disagreed. There was nothing much else for me to say so I left Meroe in the shop and went over to Mistress Dread's. I knocked at the door of her salon and she answered in person. Black corset, black fishnets, heels, tumbling red hair today.

'Yes?' she asked from her glorious height.

'I need the name of the firm that cleaned off your graffiti,' I said, daunted as always by her magnificent appearance. And her commanding manner. If I was a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t I would have been crawling on the ground at that point, begging to kiss her stilettos. She unbent immediately.

'Oh, Corinna, you, too? Same guy?'

'Yes, he's got an extremely limited vocabulary.'

'I've got their card somewhere. They did a very good job, not a trace of red left. Here.' She fished a card out of a tall bra.s.s urn by the door.

'Also, he tried to burn down Meroe's shop,' I added. Mistress Dread drew herself up to her full height, an awe-inspiring sight.

'If you can point him out, dear,' she said in her deep growl, 'I'll deal with him. Personally,' she added, cracking her riding crop against her muscular thigh.

'If only I could,' I said. I went back to Earthly Delights where Meroe was selling apple and spice m.u.f.fins and Ms White was examining the Bosch picture which gave the shop its name.

'Very interesting,' she said. 'Was the artist on drugs?'

'Don't know,' I said. 'Probably,' I added, when I had thought about it. 'But they must have been herbal ones.'

'Might have been mushrooms,' Meroe commented. 'Or he might have been licking toads.'

Ms White and I looked at each other.

'I expect you are going to explain that,' I said.

'Certainly. Grab a toad and frighten it and it exudes a poison, called bufotoxin, which deters predators. Cane toads do it. Poisons dogs. But a small dose of it sends humans off on interesting trips. A large dose of it sends them into their eternal rest, and the trouble with bufotoxin is that an effective dose is very close to a fatal dose. Witches were supposed to use it. You know, "eye of newt and tongue of frog". Also, a certain stone was supposed to be found in a toad's head which counteracted all poisons. It was called a bezoar stone and-'

'Enough,' I said. She had started a train of thought.

'And you don't sell anything like that in your shop?' said Senior Constable White.

'Of course not,' snapped Meroe. 'You could eat your way through my shop from end to end and all you'd get would be a bellyache.'

'I'm sure,' said Lepidoptera. She still had reservations about Meroe. I, of course, didn't.

But I drew Ms White out of the shop and suggested a line of inquiry to her. I even provided the phone number. She looked dubious but said she'd look into it, advised Meroe to flood the metho with water. And not to use any naked flames for the rest of the day.

This meant that Meroe was not going to open, as she relies on incense to create an ambiance. She left my shop to put up her closed sign, drag Belladonna out from under the desk and carry her upstairs into her own apartment, Leucothea. She did not seem too badly scratched when she came back so I a.s.sumed that Belladonna had been glad to get out of the metho-scented room.

I left Meroe in the shop while I fetched the flyers from the Lone Gunmen. Gully was seated behind the desk, barely visible over unfiled doc.u.ments. How they did their GST I could not imagine. When he saw me he jumped and knocked the pile over.

I knelt to gather great swathes of paper into my arms. Gully danced around begging me not to bother. He was reacting very strangely. What did he think I would find? Their weekly p.o.r.n video order? All I had were invoices, made out in the proper form. Why was Gully behaving like a Mexican jumping bean? Was it a by-product of their unhealthy diet of chili con carne and tacos?

I dumped the papers on a chair and received a nicely packaged bundle of flyers. They had done a really good job. I bought a large roll of sticky tape and paid the modest total. Gully was avoiding my gaze. But I had things to think about other than the sins of the Lone Gunmen (in any case, erk!). I had, with any luck, the magnet which would draw Cherie Holliday back to her father.

In the shop I displayed one to Meroe and Goss.

'Do you think that is enough text?' asked Meroe doubtfully. 'It's a bit X-Files.'

But Goss was wholly in favour. 'It just tells her what she wants to know,' she said, holding out her hand for the sticky tape.

The flyer had the picture in the middle, Cherie's name at the top, and under that was the legend 'I believe you' and her father's name and phone number.

'Let's go,' said Goss, and she and Meroe took half the flyers and left the shop to placard both stations. I put one up in my own window and saved the rest for Daniel and the Soup Run. It was an ordinary sort of day thereafter. I called the wall-cleaners and they came, armed with some frightful compound which probably sterilised newts but which got red spray paint off walls at the speed of lightning. Goss and Meroe came back at one pm, reporting that they had put up a flyer wherever young persons gathered, like picture theatres, fast food restaurants and clubs. They seemed to have had a lovely time. I paid Goss off and she left, still floating on air from a combination of a good deed done and a three-month contract gained.

Then I did the was.h.i.+ng. When Jason turned up I marched him to the nearest shoe shop and bought a pair of white cook's shoes in his size, also some new underwear, another overall and a couple of white t-s.h.i.+rts.

'These stay in the bakery, right?' I demanded. 'You can't go running around that slate floor in thongs, it's unhygienic. Plus you'll catch a cold and maybe give it to the Mouse Police.'

Jason, who had begun to look a little hunted-what sort of background did he come from anyway?-laughed and promised not to sneeze on the cats. Then we cleaned up as usual, I gave him his ten dollars and a large bag of food, and went upstairs to bathe. Lily of the valley bath foam and cuc.u.mber lotion on my face, a hot washcloth over all and I sank into a trance.

Then, in front of my dreaming eyes, Daniel came in and sat down on the edge of the bath with Horatio. I was so sleepy and comfortable in the warm water that I didn't register his appearance as an intrusion. He smiled gently and caressed my shoulder, sliding his fingers down to cup a wet breast. Then he got up and went into the next room. I would not have sworn that he had really been there, until I got out of the bath, dried and dressed, and found him sitting on my couch.

'Haven't you ever heard of doorbells?' I asked, too comfortable to get very angry.

'I knew you'd be in the bath and I wanted to watch,' he said simply. 'You said that I could, before.'

'Yes, but ...' I had, hadn't I? 'And?'

'You're beautiful,' he said. 'I thought you would be. And as for how I got in, I remembered the door code. I have a good memory,' he told me. 'Have you got the flyers?'

'On the table,' I said. No point in arguing with Daniel. He didn't recognise boundaries and he probably turned into a bat during the full moon, but we could work around that. He examined the face in the photo.

'No, I don't recall seeing her before,' he said. 'But it's hard to add years to a young female face. I've only been on the Soup Run for six months. And what is this?' he asked. I looked and saw that he was holding the glossy folder which James had pressed upon me.

'Some sort of prospectus for a company James wants me to sell my flat to invest in,' I said.

'And are you going to do that?'

'Not a hope. I like it here and, besides, I wouldn't invest in anything which relied on a small player joining up with a big player. Under those circ.u.mstances someone is going to get loaded with the non-yielding or bankrupt bits of the big company and thence misery and ruin. Hinc, as the Professor would say, illae lachrimae.'

'Sorry, I only do Hebrew, Greek and Arabic,' he apologised.

'Do you? How very enterprising. It's Latin. "Hence these tears." I don't suppose you've done any economic studies or accounting? No? Then if you do have any money, never put it into a company whose prospectus cost more than the GNP of a central African republic. Look at this one. New acid-free paper, glossy cover, binding not staples, high resolution images. It's like these beautiful share certificates my grandpa had. Silver River Oil. Argentinian copper mines. An engraver's masterpiece, every one of them, and every one not worth a pinch of pelican s.h.i.+t. A small pinch of pelican s.h.i.+t.'

'So I should go with the company that prints its prospectus on toilet paper?'

'It's a good principle, and indeed, what most prospectuses deserve. s.h.i.+t,' I said, staring at the open page.

'What?'

'The aim of this company is to buy up old, still sound buildings and rebuild them,' I said. 'James told me to sell my apartment to invest in this company. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He always was an utter, utter b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

'Corinna, what are you talking about?' asked Daniel patiently.

'Read this,' I said, thrusting the offending doc.u.ment at him. He scanned it and gave it back.

'I've read it,' he said.

'And?' I demanded.

'And, nothing.' Daniel spread his hands.

'What was the address of the first building they were going to demolish and rebuild?'

'156 Little ...' There was a pause while two was added to two. 'Oh, Lord,' said Daniel.

'Exactly. James wants me to invest in a company that intends to sell the place where I live-in order to invest in the demolition of the place where I live. That's this building. That is Insula.'

I was so angry that I leapt to my feet, almost tripping over Horatio. 'And I tell you who's trying to scare us into selling. It's James, that's who it is.'

'Have you ever invited him into this apartment?' asked Daniel, holding me by the shoulders as I paced by him.

'No,' I said. 'I split with him a year before I bought this place.'

'Does he know anyone here?'

'Only poor Holliday. And all this started before Holliday got here. In any case the man is in no position to hold a paint can. Or even identify one.'

'That's true. But, Corinna, calm down, listen. Even if it is James, it won't help if you just storm up and confront him. His hands won't have a speck of paint on them. He must have an accomplice. Someone who knows how to get in and out. James doesn't.'

'True,' I admitted. 'All right. You can let go of me. I have to apologise to Horatio anyway.'

'I'm going to grease your balcony rail,' said Daniel.

'Strange twisted s.e.xual thoughts about women are two a penny. But money, that's a serious motive.'