The Little Country by Charles de Lint
For now.
While the Order was still of interest to him.
“I had Willie go into their house last night,” she told him. “He found a box of Dunthorn’s manuscripts.”
Bett’s eyebrows rose with interest and he looked about the room. “Where is it?”
“Ah . . .” She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Where is it?”
“He got surprised by some thug and only just got away himself.”
Wonderful. Now the Littles would be more on their guard than ever.
It was too bad that Madden was so certain that Tom Little would take his friend’s secret to the grave, because the simplest solution to all of this would be to just snatch the old man and let Bett have him for a few days. Madden’s beliefs notwithstanding, Bett didn’t doubt he’d pry the secret from Little. Maybe he could just cut Little’s granddaughter in front of him until her bleeding jogged his memory. . . .
He put the pleasant image from his mind.
“A thug, you said?” he asked.
Lena shrugged. “A big man, according to Willie. Arriving with luggage. Looked a bit like a sailor, but then everyone does around here.”
“Would he recognize the man from a photo?” Bett tried, but Lena was off on a tangent now.
“I mean, what a dismal place. There’s no water pressure in what they call a shower so I can’t wash my hair properly. The food’s abysmal. There’s nothing to do. The air stinks. Everywhere you turn there’s—”
“Shut up,” Bett said.
He spoke quietly, but with enough force to get an immediate result. She blinked with surprise, then pointed a manicured finger at him.
“If I tell Daddy how you treat me, he’ll—”
“Complain to John who’ll do nothing. Tell me about this man.”
Again the pout. “What’s to tell? Maybe they’ve hired a bodyguard.”
Of course she couldn’t have taken the initiative to find out who he was and what he was doing at the Littles’. Though if Bett thought about it for a moment, perhaps that was a blessing. Who knew how she’d mess that up.
“You’re to have nothing to do with the Littles from now on,” he told her. “And you’re to act as though you don’t know me if we should happen to meet. In fact, it would be better if you simply didn’t go out at all.”
“I’m not staying cooped up in this room.”
“Then perhaps you should go home.”
She laughed without humour. “I can’t. Daddy wants me to do this.”
Bett nodded. He’d heard talk among some of the old guard of the Order. They weren’t happy with Lena. For all that she carried their mark on her wrist, she was simply too much the debutante to be trusted. Never mind how she lacked the necessary regimen to follow their studies, what they were most afraid of was the possibility of her committing some indiscretion such as having one of her sulks and talking to a tabloid about the Order: revealing what they stood for; who was a member; what they did. With the continuing rise of the Fundamental Christian contingent in business and politics, that could be a disaster.
If her father hadn’t been among Madden’s oldest confederates—Grant had been one of the founding members of the Order—she probably would have been dealt with a long time ago. As she might still be.
Bett hoped they’d give the job to him.
Until then, he had to deal with her as best he could.
“If you can’t go,” he said, “then you’ll just have to do as I say. I’ve got the full confidence of the Order behind me and—”
“I know, I know. You’re their Golden Boy.”
Bett realized that they could continue along this tack forever, so he shifted gears and put on a new mask. He smiled, winningly, charming her despite herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s hard for you, all this business. But we’re both in the same situation. Do you think I want to be here? Madden insisted that I do it. But if I fail. . . that’s it for me.”
“What do you mean?”
Her voice was less sulky, betraying her interest.
“You’re born to your position,” he said. “I have to work at it constantly. If I fail this job, I’m out.”
She was unable to resist his false sincerity. “They wouldn’t, would they?”
He nodded, eyes downcast. “I don’t get a second chance.”
“That’s horrible. I’ll talk to Daddy. . . .”
“That won’t do any good.”
“No,” she said, obviously thinking of the grim old man she knew Bett’s mentor to be. “Not with Madden.”
Bett glanced at her through lowered lashes. It never ceased to amaze him how easily some people could be manipulated. A moment ago she’d hated him with all her shallow heart. Now they were confederates.
“We could help each other,” Bett said. “Let me do this my way—but we’ll share the credit. That way we both win out.”
“Why would you do that for me?” Lena asked, suspicion finally aroused.
“I’m not just doing it for you—it’s for me as well. I can’t fail.”
Lena sighed. She walked over to him and trailed a hand along the front of his jacket.
“You’re such a confusing man,” she said. “Sometimes you’re just like ice and I’m sure that you hate me, then there are moments like this when you’re just so . . . I don’t know, vulnerable, I suppose . . . that all I want to do is protect you from the rest of the world.”
“This is me,” Bett said. “I’ve got to act cold—that’s what Madden wants—but it’s hard to do that with you.”
“Really?”
He met her gaze, his blue eyes opened wide and guileless. “Really.”
She seemed to make a decision and let her hand fall to her side.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll wait here for you and I won’t get in your way. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That you won’t be mean to me anymore. When it’s just us, you don’t have to put on a face. I’d like us to be friends.”
It was unbelievable, he thought, and so like her. If everyone acted sweet around her, well then, everything was all right, wasn’t it? Everyone liked her and would be her friend.
“I’d like that, too,” he said.
She leaned forward again and gave him the kind of kiss prevalent among her crowd—bussing the air near his ear.
“I’m glad,” she said, then stepped back. “So what do we do?”
Bett straightened his shoulders. “First we get your man Keel to look at some photos to see if he recognizes the man he saw last night.”
“And then?”
Bett hesitated.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she said. “Honestly. It’s just that nobody ever lets me know what’s going on.”
“All right,” Bett said, and he spun her a tale of how he was going to approach the Littles on the pretense that he was a reporter for Rolling Stone interested in Dunthorn’s work—concentrating his attention not on the old man, but on his granddaughter who was apparently an enthusiast for Dunthorn’s work herself.
It was mostly a lie, but Lena was happy with it.
4.
Bored as she was, Lena was still relieved when both Bett and Willie Keel had left.
Bett made her uncomfortable. She never knew where she stood with him. Most of the time he treated her like a bimbo, but then he’d turn around and be so nice that she just had to like him—even when she knew she couldn’t trust him; knew he disliked her; knew that under the calm mask he turned to the world there lurked something infinitely dangerous. Pressed, she couldn’t have explained how she could be so sure. She simply knew.
Intuition . . . or maybe it was what Daddy called magic.
As for Willie Keel . . . while Jim Gazo might have recommended him—and she trusted her father’s security man implicitly—to put it frankly, Keel was uncouth. He looked like a weasel in his dishevel
Just thinking about him made her feel queasy.
So it was with relief that she stood at the window of her hotel room and watched the two men go their separate ways on the street below. Once they were out of view, she returned to her bed and picked up the photograph that Willie had chosen from the half dozen or so that Bett had presented to him.
This was the man who’d interrupted his burglary at the Littles’ the previous night, he’d assured them, his gaze darting nervously from Lena to Bett, then back again.
Felix Gavin.
A common merchant sailor, Bett had said. Maybe Gavin was, but she liked the look of him. Comparing him to Bett and Willie, she decided that he’d neither smell, nor make her feel uncomfortable.
She turned the picture so that the light didn’t glare on its glossy surface. An old lover of Janey Little’s, was he? Come back to rekindle his romance with her? An old friend such as he was, mightn’t he know something about any Dunthorn heirlooms that just happened to be lying about the Little household? Maybe, at one time or another in their relationship, the Little girl had confided in him . . . confided secrets that were only shared with a lover. . . .
Lena smiled. Perhaps she’d go slumming and show Daddy that she was as good as Madden’s Golden Boy. And wouldn’t it make Bett frown if she was to succeed where everyone else, Bett included, had failed?
The thought of Bett angry brought a return of uneasiness to her.
Best not to think of that. Think of the glow of pride on Daddy’s face, instead.
And she could do it. Like Bett, like Daddy and his cronies with their little tattooed doves—she rubbed the one on her wrist as she thought of the old men’s club that called itself the Order—she had her own secrets. Hadn’t she been taking her acting lessons, twice a week, for two years now? Didn’t her teacher say she was doing as well, if not better, than any of her previous students?
Lena studied herself in the mirror that took up the length of the room’s closet door. She could do it: She could make Felix Gavin tell her anything. But not like this. He’d go for class—his kind always did, because normally a woman such as herself was so unattainable for him—but the way she looked at the moment would just make him nervous.
Still, she could easily fix that.
Humming to herself, she changed into a pair of designer-faded jeans, complete with the appropriate tear in one knee, a tight MIT T-shirt, and a pair of hightops. She removed her makeup, then reap-plied it, this time going for a casual look. When she was done, she put on a leather bomber’s jacket and regarded herself in the mirror.
Yes, she decided. This would do. This would do very well. Felix Gavin didn’t have a chance.
Now all she had to do was find him. Without Bett being any the wiser.
She put in a call to the front desk and left a message that she was sleeping and wasn’t to be disturbed for the duration of the day. Then, feeling deliciously like a spy, she left her room and went to the ground floor by the stairs, waiting until the foyer was empty for a moment before slipping out the front door.
The salty wind tousled her hair as soon as she stepped outside, but rather than irritating her as it had every other time she’d left her hotel, now it just added to the adventure. The skies were grey, promising rain. She turned up the collar of her jacket.
How to find Gavin?
Willie would know.
The Dogs Among the Bushes
Luck is a very good word if you put a “P” before it.
—MARY ENGELBREIT
The nice thing about animals, Jodi thought, was that their hearing was so much better than that of people.
Unfortunately, the witch’s fetch had an acute sense of hearing as well. Its head turned sharply when Jodi and Edern put their fingers to their lips and the shrill squeaks of their whistling rang out—but by then it was too late. Two dogs came bounding into the garden and Jodi recognized them both.
One was a small mixed breed—part terrier, part who knew what—named Kitey. The other was a border collie named Ansum. Both lived within a few doors of Aunt Nettie’s house and had gone for many a long ramble by the cliffs with Jodi and Denzil.
Kitey barked shrilly when he caught sight of the fetch and pounced towards it, Ansum hard on his heels. Windle fled at their enthusiastic approach. The fetch leapt over Jodi’s and Edern’s heads, over the rosebushes, and went straight through the window, landing with an audible crash on the worktable inside. Kitey ran back and forth in front of the bushes, then burrowed into them through a gap and ran up to the window where he stood on his hind legs, yapping cheerfully. Ansum stayed on the lawn side of the bushes and pushed his head in towards the spot where Jodi and Edern stood.
Edern backed nervously away. When he looked as though he was about to bolt himself, Jodi caught hold of his arm.
“They know me,” she told him.
Ansum continued to peer curiously at the two mouse-sized people. A few moments later Kitey left off his vigil at the window and joined the border collie, prancing about on the lawn with barely contained excitement.
“They won’t hurt us,” Jodi said.
I hope, she added to herself.
As Ansum thrust his nose in towards them, obviously puzzled at the familiar scent coming from such an unfamiliar tiny creature, Jodi moved up to him.
“Hello there, old boy,” Jodi said.
She put out a hand to touch his muzzle and was shocked at how tiny her fingers were compared to his nose. Ansum backed nervously away and whined.
“Right,” Edern said, his voice betraying his own nervousness. “They won’t hurt us at all.”
“Oh, do be still,” Jodi told him, starting to feel cross. “They’re just confused by my size.”
“It’s more like they’re trying to decide whether we’re worth eating,” Edern muttered. “If you ask me, I’d . . .”
His voice trailed away when Jodi glared at him.
“Come on, then, Ansum,” she said. “Hey, there, Kitey.”
While the terrier continued to rush about the garden, letting off the odd zealous yap, Ansum lay down on the ground and pushed his muzzle forward until his nose was only inches—by a normal-sized person’s reckoning—from Jodi. He made a contented throaty sound when Jodi scratched his muzzle.
“Now what?” Edern asked, still keeping his distance.
“Now we make our escape.”
“But the dogs—”
“Are here to help us. Did you never hear of good fortune where you came from?”
Edern sighed. “To be sure. But I’ve also heard of hungry dogs and I don’t much care to—”
This time he was interrupted by the sudden change in pitch and volume of Kitey’s barking.
“Evil little creatures,” cried an all-too-familiar voice.
“It’s the bloody witch,” Jodi said.
Ansum started to lift his head, but stopped when Jodi called his name.
“It’s now or never,” she told Edern as she hurried forward.
Edern could only stare at her as she hauled herself up the border collie’s neck, then snuggled in behind his collar so that she was braced between it and his fur.
“You’re mad,” Edern said.
“Then stay and get turned into a toad. No!” she added as Ansum began to rise again. Then to Edern: “Are you coming? Last chance.”
“Go away!” the Widow was crying. “Get out of here, you filthy creatures.”
“I’m mad,” Edern said as he hurried forward.
Moments later he too was hanging on to Ansum’s collar. The border collie surged to his feet. White-faced, Jodi and Edern held on for dear life as the dog bolted out of the garden, the yapping Kitey running at his side, head turned back to voice his disdain at th
It was a mad, jolting journey for the two of them as the dogs raced through Bodbury’s narrow streets, making for the harbour. They clung to Ansum’s collar, gritting their teeth against the bounce and jolt of their ride.
“Slow down, slow down!” Jodi tried crying, but neither dog heard her.
Finally they came to a panting halt on the cobbles near the wharves. Crates rose like mountains about them on the dock. Foothills of fish netting lay in untidy piles and heaps. Before the dogs could run off again, Jodi gave Ansum a poke with her elbow. The dog shook his head.
The world spun and her stomach lurched. Frowning, she gripped the collar for all she was worth.
“Will you stop that!” Edern cried as she lifted her elbow to poke the dog again.
“We have to get down, don’t we?”
Ansum stood very still at the sound of the tiny voices coming from below his chin. He gave his head another experimental shake, pausing when Jodi shouted at him.
“I’m going to be sick,” Edern said.
Jodi knew just what he meant. It was disconcerting and altogether unpleasant to be hanging here from the dog’s collar in the first place, without having Ansum try to shake them off as well.
“Down!” she cried as loud as she could. “Lie down, Ansum, there’s the boy.”
The border collie merely stood there with a puzzled look on his face. Kitey gave a quick yap.
“Don’t you start, Kitey!” Jodi cried.
She could feel herself losing her voice from having to shout like this.
“Lie down!” she cried again.
And finally he did.
Before he could change his mind, Jodi and Edern crawled out from behind the dog’s collar and scrambled down to the ground. They wobbled about unsteadily on the cobblestones, feeling all off-balance from their wild ride. One of Ansum’s enormous eyes turned to solemnly regard them. Kitey yipped and yapped happily.