The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online Page B

cutting edge. If it were my column I’d advise celibacy. Either that, or go wild in the other direction. Advise them to heap the bed with suggestive fruit—peaches, bananas, split figs, that sort of thing. Call it the Freudian approach, just to give it legitimacy. And use
Dr
. Pickett as a byline.” Andrew studied his list again, then went after it with his eraser. “I’ve got ice picks, ice tongs, ice scoops, ice shavers, ice buckets, ice molds, and ice dyes. What have I left out?”
    Pickett shook his head. “What kinds of molds?”
    “Mermaids, toads, comical hats, and high-heeled shoes. I’m purposely staying away from gag items. No eyeballs, bugs, or naked women.”
    “Wise,” said Pickett, nodding. “No trash.” He looked over the list. “What’s a muddler?”
    “I don’t know, entirely. I looked it up but there was nothing in the dictionary after muddleheaded. It has something to do with stirring things up, I think.”
    “Couldn’t just use a spoon, then?”
    “Go down to the Potholder if you want spoons. Here we use muddlers. At least I think we do. I’ve got to call down to Walt’s to find out what they are.”
    Pickett stepped across to the street window and rubbed off a little circle of glass wax so that he could peer out better. “I’ve been having a look at Pennyman’s books. At several of them.”
    Andrew nodded. “Anything telling?”
    “I think he bears watching.”
    “In what way? Has an eye for the silver, does he? Waiting to rob us blind and go out through the window?”
    “Hardly. I don’t think he needs to rob anyone. I’ve got a hunch that your Uncle Arthur would know something about him—though he’d never let on. It’s more than just his name.”
    “Names, names, names. Remember what you said about old Moneywort. If anyone was less likely than Moneywort to be involved in that sort of thing, I can’t think who it might be. Poor devil, crippled by some wasting disease. What was wrong with him, anyway?”
    Pickett frowned. “I’m not sure, exactly. Age, maybe. A bone disease. He couldn’t get up from his chair there in the end.”
    “And then cut to bits in his shop by a dope-addled thief! My God that was grisly.” Andrew shuddered, remembering the account in the newspaper. “I’ll say this, though, if Moneywort was up to some sort of peculiar shenanigans, that wouldn’t be the way he’d die. You know that. It would be something exotic. Something out of Fu Manchu.”
    “That’s exactly what it
wouldn’t
be. Not necessarily. That’s where you’ve got to get ‘round them. Sometimes it’s the slightest clues that give them away, rather than anything broad. You won’t see them driving up and down in limousines. Have you gotten a glimpse of Pennyman’s walking stick?”
    “Of course I have.”
    Pickett squinted at him, nodding slowly. “Remember Moneywort’s hat—the one that was all over fishing lures?”
    “Vaguely.”
    “Well
I
remember it. There were things hanging from that hat that no sane man would try to entice a fish with. Most of them were smokescreens, if you follow me. But there was one that signified—a sea serpent, curling around on itself and swallowing its own tail. What did he hope to catch with that? A blind cave fish? That wasn’t any lure, and you can quote me on it. And the devil who sliced him up wasn’t some down-and-out dope addict looking for a twenty. Do you know that the murderer died before coming to trial?”
    Andrew looked up at Pickett, widening his eyes. “Did he?”
    “For a fact. Poisoned. Fed the liver of a blowfish, scrambled up in his eggs. Pitched over nose-first into his plate. I got it out of the police report.”
    “Just like—what was his name? The man with the eyeglasses. Or with the name that sounded like eyeglasses—impossible name. Must have been a fake. Remember? Sea captain. Died in Long Beach back in ’65.
You
told me about it. Didn’t they find blowfish poison in his whisky glass?”
    Pickett