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My key priority was to keep Mayfield alive. Apart from the obvious reasons, there might be something she knew, or had, which would crack this one wide open. I was convinced that the case revolved around Mayfield, whether she knew it or not. Besides, there's a degree of personal and profession pride involved: to lose one client was unfortunate; to lose two might just be a coincidence. I definitely did not want to lose a third. My first task was to track down some of the stash I had previously secreted hereabouts. From various cupboards, drawers and less conventional hiding-places I retrieved a couple of handguns and a large handful of those little cardboard boxes which contain glamours. Mayfield watched me wide-eyed, but perhaps with just a little reassurance that I did in fact know what I was doing. I was in the cleft of a dichotomy: I had to ensure the protection of my remaining client while I continued investigations in the Lower Realms. As long as I was stuck up here, I wouldn't get anywhere. Somehow I needed to be in two places at once. Not possible, of course. I was forced to consider the next best thing. I do have a number of contacts in the surface world - most, but not all, of them humans - who might consider a favour being called in. I even have a partner, one Martin Gamshack - known to all as Gumshoe - a man I have known a long time, worked together on innumerable occasions, which fused into a loose but formal partnership a few years ago after a particularly unusual adventure in the lowest of the Lower Realms. Gumshoe was a man I would trust with my life - indeed, I had done so on more than one occasion - and knew more than almost anybody on the surface about the habits and characteristics of the Goblin race. Unfortunately, he has a horror of flying - exactly why I have never found out - and I knew he could not bring himself to board a plane. So getting him to track down Glen in person was not practicable; it would take too long for him to get there. The alternative, of course, was to use the transit tubes in the Lower Realms. This would be much quicker. But an unescorted human in the caves of the Goblins would attract a lot of attention and possibly a certain amount of difficulty, although I suspect that Gumshoe knew enough about the geography of the cavern system to be able to make the journey if he really had to. Still, there was something I could get Gumshoe to do easily, which might just be very helpful, without him having to travel far. He was domiciled here in New York, where he ran a one-man private detective agency - our partnership was not widely advertised - and where he maintained a considerable number of contacts on both sides of the law. Contacts who might be able to come up with information. Indeed, the bar where we were hiding was run by Rosie o'Chill, a lady who is not Gumshoe's wife, although I understand they do see rather a lot of each other. I think that both of them are too independent to be tied down by anything as conventional as marriage, or even some more informal approximation thereto. People like that should be left to make their own arrangements, I always think. "We need to think round all the angles," I replied to Mayfield thoughtfully, "And one angle is your friend Glen. Somebody might think of getting to him." Mayfield looked startled again. "Hurt Glen? Why?" "As a way of getting to you, maybe. Can you get hold of Glen now?" "I'll try," she responded prompty, picking up the phone again. "He's not answering!" she said after a minute, looking panicky, "He always answers when I call." "Look, I've got friends who can help," I said as Mayfield seemed increasingly worried, "I want to get hold of one of them right now. Can I use your phone?" She handed it to me with a certain amount of ceremony. I nodded my thanks. Fortunately, it was fully charged and it showed a reasonably strong signal; even so, I never like using human telephones as they seem to distort Goblin voices to the point of unintelligibility. Still, I had no real choice right now. I dialled a long string of digits from memory, Gumshoe's office number. By good fortune he answered it immediately. "Martin Gamshack, Private Detective." "Gumshoe!" I said cheerily, despite the seriousness of the situation, "You old rascal! Still in the office at this hour?" "Gask!" he returned, equally avuncular, "Some of us have to work, you know! But good to hear from you. How ya doin'?" The tone of voice is a code, of course. If our language is subdued, or even just neutral or quietly professional, it means somebody is listening. The faked bonhomie indicates we're alone, or at least anybody listening is to be trusted implicitly. We could talk easily now.
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Part 45