Neverwhere

«That’s how it’s done,» he said.
There was an old telephone in the corner of the room, an antique, two-part telephone, unused in the hospital since the 1920s, made of wood and Bakelite. Mr, Croup picked up the earpiece, which was on a long, cloth-wrapped cord, and spoke into the mouthpiece, which was attached to the base. «Croup and Vandemar,» he said, smoothly, «the Old Firm. Obstacles obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome limbs removed and tutelary dentistry.»
The person at the other end of the phone said something. Mr. Croup cringed. Mr. Vandemar tugged at his left hand. It wasn’t coming free.
«Oh. Yes, sir. Yes, indeed. And might I say how your telephonic confabulation brightens up and cheers our otherwise dreary and uneventful day?» Another pause. «Of course I’ll stop toadying and crawling. Delighted to. An honor, and—what do we know? We know that—» An interruption; he picked his nose, reflectively, patiently, then: «No, we don’t know where she is at this precise moment. But we don’t have to. She’ll be at the market tonight and—» His mouth tightened, and, «We have no intention of violating their market truce. More of waiting till she has left the market and scrobbling her . . . » He was silent then, and listened, nodding from time to time.
Mr. Vandemar tried to pull the knife out of the wall with his free hand, but the knife was stuck quite fast.
«That might be arranged, yes,» said Mr. Croup, into the mouthpiece. «I mean it will be arranged. Of course. Yes. I realize that. And, sir, perhaps we could talk about—» But the caller had hung up. Mr. Croup stared at the earpiece for a moment, then put it back on its hook. «You think you’re so damned clever,» he whispered. Then he noticed Mr. Vandemar’s predicament and said, «Stop that.» He leaned over, pulled the knife out of the wall and out of the back of Mr. Vandemar’s hand, and put it down on the table.
Mr. Vandemar shook his left hand and flexed the fingers, then wiped the fragments of damp plaster from his knife-blade. «Who was that?»
«Our employer,» said Mr. Croup. «It seems the other one isn’t going to work out. Not old enough. It’s going to have to be the Door female.»
«So we aren’t allowed to kill her any more?»
«That, Mister Vandemar, would be about the short and the long of it, yes. Now, it seems that Little Miss Door has announced that she shall be hiring a bodyguard. At the market. Tonight.»
«So?» Mr. Vandemar spat on the back of his hand, where the knife had gone in, and on the palm of his hand, where the knife had come out. He rubbed at the spit with a massive thumb. The flesh closed, knitted, was whole again.
Mr. Croup picked up his old coat, heavy, black, and shiny with age, from the floor. He put it on. «So, Mister Vandemar,» he said, «shall we not also hire ourselves a bodyguard?»
Mr. Vandemar slid his knife back into the holster in his sleeve. He put his coat on as well, pushed his hands deep into the pockets, and was pleasantly surprised to find an almost untouched mouse in one pocket. Good. He was hungry. Then he pondered Mr. Croup’s last statement with the intensity of an anatomist dissecting his one true love, and, realizing the flaw in his partner’s logic, Mr. Vandemar said, «We don’t need a bodyguard, Mister Croup. We hurt people. We don’t get hurt.»
Mr. Croup turned out the lights. «Oh, Mister Vandemar,» he said, enjoying the sound of the words, as he enjoyed the sound of all words, «if you cut us, do we not bleed?»
Mr. Vandemar pondered this for a moment, in the dark. Then he said, with perfect accuracy, «No.»
«A spy from the Upworld,» said the Lord Rat-speaker. «Heh? I should slit you from gullet to gizzard and tell fortunes with your guts.»
«Look,» said Richard, his back against the wall, with the glass dagger pressed against his Adam’s apple. «I think you’re making a bit of a mistake here. My name is Richard Mayhew. I can prove who I am. I’ve got my library cards. Credit cards. Things,» he added, desperately.
At the opposite end of the hall, Richard noticed, with the dispassionate clarity that comes when a lunatic is about to slit your throat with a piece of broken glass, people were throwing themselves to the ground, bowing low, and remaining on the floor. A small black shape was coming toward them along the ground. «I think a moment’s reflection might prove that we’re all being very silly,» said Richard. He had no idea what the words meant, just that they were coming out of his mouth, and that as long as he was talking, he was not dead. «Now, why don’t you put that away, and—excuse me, that’s my bag,» this last to a thin, bedraggled girl in her late teens who had taken Richard’s bag and was roughly tipping his possessions out onto the ground.
The people in the hall