right. The instructions had been simple: come to 125th Street, come at night. That was all Rad had got. He’d looked it up on a map back in his office but the map hadn’t shown anything except a street like any other, running across the upper part of the city, west to east, at a bit of an angle.
“The King of 125th Street…” said Rad, mostly to himself, but his words elicited more vigorous nodding from the barman.
“Lives in a castle.”
Rad glanced up from the bar to the barman. “Lives in a… castle?”
“There’s a light on the top sometimes, green one.”
“Huh,” said Rad. He was getting closer. Whoever this King was, he was involved with something fishy involving robot gangsters and a warehouse full of strange equipment and an army of tin soldiers. He could pay the King a little visit, find out more, and take the information to Jennifer Jones.
“But, mister, come on,” said the barman, pleading. “You gotta go home. Toss that thing in the river and forget you ever came to Harlem.”
Rad smiled and pocketed the rod. He lifted his hat from the bar and placed it on his head. The hat was still cold from being outdoors, and Rad could felt the moisture on the rim against his scalp. Rad patted the pocket of his trench coat, feeling the dead weight of the pistol in it. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
The barman sniffed. “You don’t know what’s out there,” he said. Then he stood back and folded his arms. Rad watched as he chewed, and he saw that the man’s saliva wasn’t black, it was green. He thought back to the antifreeze in Cliff’s hip flask. Suddenly a reason why the barman was interested in the metal rod came to mind. Rad gasped.
“You a robot?” he asked.
The barman’s thin lips split into a lizard grin and he slurped a mouthful of green saliva before leaning back in across the bar. “What, are you crazy? I’m as real as you are.”
Rad retreated from the bar, transfixed by the man’s chewing. The man wasn’t as big as Cliff, and while he wasn’t exactly a perfect human specimen there was a certain handsomeness hidden behind the grime and grease.
“What are you eating?” Rad asked, peering at the barman’s ever-moving mouth. “You chewing a battery or something?”
The barman stopped chewing and sniggered. “Trust me, you don’t want any of the green.”
Rad’s eyebrow went up. Green? “I guess not”, he said. Then he lifted his hat. It was time to go. “Sir, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll be sure to pass my regards on to the, ah, King.”
He turned and made his way to the door, the barman not saying anything but chewing, chewing, chewing.
When the door closed behind Rad, he thought he heard the barman say “good luck” or “go home”, but he wasn’t sure which.
SEVEN
Harlem was quiet and sharp, the sound of Rad’s shoes on the ice-clad pavement the only noise as he walked onward. The street was lit in a dull orange from the clouds above, and ahead Rad could see the black conglomeration of buildings merge into something much larger, a squat skyscraper of the sort more common to downtown, the shouldered setbacks outlined against the dull sky behind. There was no light, green or otherwise, but the building had to be it. He was on 123rd already. Maybe the King of 125th Street was watching his progress, and would put the light on when he was nearer.
Rad stopped. He hadn’t seen anyone since leaving the tavern, and the trailing footsteps hadn’t reappeared.
Except… there they were. But they sounded different now: not just one set of footsteps but several. They shuffled rather than stepped, a group moving slowly and far away, at least at the moment. Rad thought again that the King might have invited him into an ambush.
Rad ducked into an alleyway that was just a tiny gap between two buildings. The brickwork was rough and layered with ice perfectly clear and perfectly smooth. Rad slid his back along it until he was in the shadows, then ducked down and moved forward to peer around the corner, his hand already reaching for the gun in his pocket.
“They’re following us.”
Rad jumped at the whisper in his ear, turning his head sharply to find a face-full of fur. He spluttered and tried to brush it away, before realizing it was Jennifer Jones’s hat. Rad hissed, and Jennifer shushed him.