The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,58

the floor as Unwin lost his grip on him.

Jasper drew close and said, “My brother has advised me to advise you to hold very still.” He raised the gun over his head and brought it down hard. With it came sleep—sleep, and a very strange dream.

IN THE DREAM, Unwin stood with his head against a tree, hands cupped around his face, counting out loud. When he finished counting, he had to go find some people who were hiding from him. His socks were wet, because he had been running around in the grass without any shoes on.

He stood on a hill near a little cottage, and at the bottom of the hill was a pond. The cottage was the one Sivart had written about in his reports, the one he wanted to retire to.

“Ready or not,” Unwin called, but the words dropped like stones into the pond and fell to the bottom. A tire swing moved back and forth over the water, spinning as though someone had only just climbed off it. That, Unwin thought, was not a detail. It was a clue.

At the bottom of the hill, past a tangle of blackberry briars, he found footprints in the mud. He followed them around the edge of the pond, then down a trail leading into the woods, kicking red and orange leaves as he walked. In the middle of a clearing, the leaves were piled higher than everywhere else, just high enough to conceal a small person.

Unwin smelled something burning. A thin stream of smoke rose up from the leaves. Poking out of them was the tip of a lit cigar. He knelt beside it and cleared away some of the leaves, revealing the face of a young boy. The boy blinked at Unwin, then took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “Okay, Charlie. You got me.”

The boy sat up and brushed the rest of the leaves off his body, off his gray raincoat. Then he stood and put his hat on. “I’ll help you get the others,” he said.

Unwin followed the boy back down the trail. His feet were getting cold. “Detective Sivart?” he said.

“Yeah, Charlie,” said the boy.

“I can’t remember the name of this game.”

“It’s an old game,” the boy said. “Older than chess. Older than curse words and shoeshine. Doesn’t matter what you call it, so long as you know how to play. Everyone’s in on it, except one guy, and that guy’s ‘it.’ Okay?”

“Detective Sivart?”

“Yeah, Charlie.”

“I’m ‘it,’ aren’t I?”

“And quick, too,” the boy said.

They stood together at the edge of the pond, the boy puffing at his cigar. Up in the cottage, someone had turned the radio on. Unwin could hear the music, but he could not make out the words. The sun was going down behind the hill.

“Some birthday.” The boy sighed. “So who’s next?”

“We have to find the magician,” Unwin said.

“They hired a magician? What kinds of tricks can he do?”

“All kinds,” Unwin said.

“Then how do you know you haven’t found him already?”

Unwin looked down. The boy’s face had changed. It was squarish now, and his eyes had turned a dull brown color. He still had the cigar in his hand, but both his sleeves were rolled up, and the coat looked too big on him.

Enoch Hoffmann grinned. “See?” he said. “He could be anyone.”

ELEVEN

On Bluffing

Answer questions with questions. If you are caught

in a lie, lie again. You do not need to know the

truth to trick another into speaking it.

Unwin waited for the world to stop swaying, but it did not stop swaying, because the world was a barge, and the barge was out on the rolling waters of the bay. He tried to check the time, but his arms were tied behind his back. Anyway, he did not need his watch. He was surrounded by alarm clocks—hills, mountains of them. On a dozen of their rain-spattered faces, he read the same time. It was only ten of eight.

Curled at his feet was Edwin Moore, still bound, still sleeping. In this light, Unwin could see the lump at the top of the old man’s forehead. He knew from the throbbing at his own temple that he had one to match.

Next to Moore was the plump body of Detective Pith, his suit waterlogged and bloodstained. Unwin glimpsed the ashen, jowly face above the collar of the herringbone suit. He looked away.

Unwin’s hat was still on his head, and his umbrella was open above him, fixed in place by the same ropes that bound