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I do have a few contacts up in the Surface world. I was on my way to see one right now. This particular Goblin was called Tarsapple. He was a member of a certain secretive organisation whose name I have never discovered and does not appear in any government records I have been able to access. This group's purpose was to police those few Goblins who choose to visit or even remain on the surface. Not necessarily to return them to the Lower Realm: like I said before, it's not actually illegal to stay up here and, in some cases, the authorities appeared to prefer it if some individual quietly disappeared from general view. Given the preference for most Goblins to live underground, it was inevitable that this un-named organisation is entirely staffed by weirdos, malcontents and sociopaths of one flavour or another. The worst of the roughness in new recruits tends to get knocked out in the first few decades, but the weirdness tends to persist for centuries. If they manage to last that long, of course. In person, Tarsapple was a wrinkled veteran imbued with considerable quantities of attitude and the most seriously notched ears I had ever come across. Not that I could see his ears just at the moment, of course. As he walked towards me, I could see he was bundled up in an oversize duffel coat buttoned to the throat and with the collar turned right up, topped by an oversize woolly hat with a bobble on top. By dint of long practice, he had perfected the art of moving like a human - a geriatric but still sprightly oldster, but definitely a human gait. Not that he would have fooled me for more than a few minutes, of course. But it's remarkable how poor at spotting the tell-tale clues the average surface-dweller is, or maybe it's just that Goblins do tend to stick to the shadows and dark places. I had tracked him down, at only the third attempt, to one of his usual haunts: one of the dingier coffee-shops in New York, one where the (human) proprietors somehow managed to make coffee and donuts that tasted very much like the authentic items from the Lower Realms. Tarsapple and his cohort were hanging out around a table at the window, all in more-or-less human disguises. Keeping a good lookout, though: he had spotted me through the window almost as soon as I can round the corner, and he had hurried outside on an interception course. I wondered idly what he was hiding from his colleagues, but I concluded this was not the time to find out. "Tarsapple!" I cried out as he got closer, exactly as if I was greeting an old friend. One hand extended ready for a warm handshake, the other spread wide in welcome. Method acting at its finest, naturally. He completely ignored my outstretched hand, barely paused to glare at me, then walked on as if I wasn't there. I turned and smirked at his retreating back, then caught him up in just a few strides. We rounded a corner, just out of sight of his gang, then he spun around to face me. "You're not fooling anyone here, Gask," he growled, "And I'd thank you not to go stalking me like this." "Hey," I replied casually, "Just looking up an old friend." "Huh. Calling in an old favour, more like." "Well, since you mention it," I began, "There is a little matter you might help me with." "Of course there is," he grunted, "Okay, split it out. I haven't got all day." I didn't press the matter of exactly what he might be doing with his time instead of talking to me. There's only so much coffee a Goblin can drink, after all. "I've a case," I said, "Involving a dead human and a missing Goblin. I can't tell you much about the circumstances..." "Of course not," Tarsapple snarked, "Playing your cards close to your chest, as always." "But I need to find out more about the dead man." Tarsapple's eyes narrowed. He wasn't stupid, not in the slightest, and his grumpy act really was an act, mostly. And he probably wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible. "To find a human," he said carefully, "Even a dead one, you need another human." After a moment's hesitation, he dug in a pocket and pulled out a fat collection of bills, receipts, banknotes in various denominations and other random paperwork, and thumbed through it for a few moments. He selected a business card - slightly grubby and obviously a long-term resident in the paper pile - and handed it to me. "Gumshoe is the man you need," he said, "Now get out of my face."
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Part 13