Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [101]
“Why?”
“Because I forged his signature on Grand Trunk notepaper to get us in here, that’s why.”
Moist turned to look around at the great man in the flesh for the first time. He was great, a bear-shaped man, in a frock coat big enough for two, and a gold-braid waistcoat. And he had a cockatoo on his shoulder, although a waiter was hurrying forward with a shiny brass perch and, presumably, the seed-and-nut menu.
There was a party of well-dressed people with Gilt, and as they progressed across the room the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity all of its own. Waiters bustled and groveled and did unimportant things with an air of great importance, and it was probably only a matter of minutes before one of them told Gilt that his other guests had been seated. But Moist was scanning the rest of the room for the—ah, there they were, two of them. What was it about hired muscle that made it impossible to get a suit to fit?
One was watching the door, one was watching the room, and without a shadow of a doubt there was at least one in the kitchen.
—and, yes, the maître d’ was earning his tip by assuring the great man that his friends had been duly looked after—
—the big head, with its leonine mane, turned to stare at Moist’s table—
—Miss Dearheart murmured, “Oh gods, he’s coming over!”—
—and Moist stood up. The hired fists had shifted position. They wouldn’t actually do anything in here, but nor would anyone else be worried if he was escorted out with speed and firmness for a little discussion in some alley somewhere. Gilt was advancing between the tables, leaving his puzzled guests behind.
This was a job for people skills, or diving through the window. But Gilt would have to be at least marginally polite. People were listening.
“Mr. Reacher Gilt?” said Moist.
“Indeed, sir,” said Gilt, grinning without a trace of humor. “But you appear to have me at a disadvantage.”
“I do hope not, sir,” said Moist.
“It appears that I asked the restaurant to retain a table for you, Mr.…Lipwig?”
“Did you, Mr. Gilt?” said Moist, with what he knew was remarkably persuasive innocence. “We arrived in the hope that there might be a spare table and were astonished to find there was!”
“Then at least one of us has been made a fool of, Mr. Lipwig,” said Gilt. “But tell me…are you truly Mr. Moist von Lipwig, the postmaster?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Without your hat?”
Moist coughed. “It’s not actually compulsory,” he said.
The big face observed him in silence, and then a hand like a steelworker’s glove was thrust forward.
“I am very pleased to meet you at last, Mr. Lipwig. I trust your good luck will continue.”
Moist took the hand and, instead of the bone-crushing grip he was expecting, felt the firm handshake of an honorable man and looked into the steady, honest, one-eyed gaze of Reacher Gilt.
Moist had worked hard at his profession and considered himself pretty good at it, but if he had been wearing his hat, he would have taken it off right now. He was in the presence of a master. He could feel it in the hand, see it in that one commanding eye. Were things otherwise, he would have humbly begged to be taken on as an apprentice, scrub the man’s floors, cook his food, just to sit at the feet of greatness and learn how to do the three-card trick using whole banks. If Moist was any judge, any judge at all, the man in front of him was the biggest fraud he’d ever met. And he advertised it. That was…style. The pirate curls, the eyepatch, even the damn parrot. Twelve and a half percent, for heaven’s sake, didn’t anyone spot that? He told them what he was, and they laughed and loved him for it. It was breathtaking. If Moist von Lipwig had been a career killer, it would have been like meeting a man who’d devised a way to destroy civilizations.
All this came in an instant, in one bolt of understanding, in the glint of an eye. But something ran in front of it as fast as a