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Nether led me downstairs again and into a small and cluttered room that could only be the office of a person for whom paperwork is a necessary chore, to be avoided or at least deferred wherever possible, rather than an end in itself. There was a row of four-drawer filing cabinets with at least two drawers open and papers resting loose on the files within. There was a desk with a computer screen and a printer, although keyboard, mouse and - I hoped - telephone were buried beneath. Nearby was a waste paper bin full to overflowing with geological layers of discarded correspondence and at least two pencils broken in apparent frustration. "Your Rosie's not keen on the paperwork, then?" I said to Nether wryly. My brother regarded the explosion of misfiled paper and shook his head. "It does tend to get on top of her," he admitted. If it really did, I thought, she would be buried forever, never to be seen again. Nether waded forward and gingerly lifted some of the more easily moveable paperwork. After a minute or so, he unearthed a telephone, one of the new-fangled push-button ones which have become popular up here in recent decades. Up here, everything's so fickle, fashion's changing for no apparent reason; what's wrong with a simple, reliable mechanical dial, I wondered. I levered myself into the swivel chair - human-sized, so I felt like a child again - and Nether handed me the telephone. I dialled Gumshoe's office number from memory - meaning I pressed the over-sized buttons - and waited patiently. No answer. Too early for the hard-pressed PI to be in the office just yet. I tried his home number instead; he answered on the fourth ring. "Morning, Gumshoe," I said as brightly as one who already had his morning coffee twice over could seem. "Gask!" he answered, already sounding a lot more alert, "What's up?" "I need your help, and quickly, please," I replied directly, "You still got a car?" "Yeah," he replied, "You just want a taxi service, then?" "I could just take a yellow cab," I snorted. New York cab drivers pay little enough attention to what's in the back seat, "I'd rather have the use of your eyes and your brain." He chuckled. "Okay. Where are you?" "Chill's Bar. Meet us out the front." "Us?" "Rosie's turned up. And Nether. I'll explain later." "Right," I replied, "Twenty minutes - no, make it twenty-five at this hour." "We'll be waiting." Gumshoe's car was one of those vast old-fashioned Oldsmobiles styled by some designer with a vision of what the next century would look like, but now looked quirky and aggressively retro. It was well-looked after, though, and there was plenty of space in the back for two large Goblins and a smallish human female. Now that she was not swaddled in bedclothes, it was apparent that Rosie was a petite and shapely red-head with a positive outlook on life and an energetic way of moving. Gumshoe had held the car door open and nodded politely to both her and Nether when I introduced them, although I did notice that the two humans made eye contact for fractionally longer than I might have expected. He slid his bulk into the space between steering wheel and the worn leather of the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. He put the automatic transmission in Drive, set off from the kerb with a jerk and slotted neatly into the traffic. "Where to, Gask?" he asked. I looked at Rosie, who appeared to be searching her memory, then reeled off one of those number-and-avenue locations that mean nothing to anybody who has not spent at least five years in New York. Gumshoe grunted in acknowledgement, then pulled a highly illegal U-turn at a traffic light with a squealing of tyres and the sounding of horns. "The purpose of car horns in this city," Gumshoe said conversationally as we accelerated, "Is for feedback: to let the other guy know that you know he is driving like an idiot." By the time we were in the vicinity of the intersection Rosie had named, there was no problem with driving slowly. The rush-hour traffic was so dense that Rosie had plenty of time to study the shop-fronts and alley entrances for anything she might recognise. We criss-crossed the area for at least an hour without any response from her other than occasional apologies. It must have been at least the second time along this particular street when Rosie pointed at a shop-front and said: "I'm sure this looks familiar." "Can we park up?" I asked Gumshoe. He swung the car right at the next junction and drove for a block or two, then managed to slip the vehicle into a spot vacated for all of ten seconds by the previous occupant. We got out. There were a few pedestrians about. The thing about humans on New York streets is that nobody really looks at you, regardless of how outlandish your appearance. "Know anything about this part of the city?" I quizzed Gumshoe as we walked. He looked up and down the street for a moment, obviously deep in thought. "Uh, no," he said finally, "It's, like, nowhere in particular. Sure, Upper Broadway's about ten blocks that way" - he waved a hand vaguely - "and I thought I'd been everywhere in this town."
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Part 29