Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [35]
“You knew?” he said. “And you spotted this in the street? I thought you didn’t know anything about pins!”
“Oh, not really, but I dabbled a bit as a boy,” said Moist, waving a hand deprecatingly to suggest that he had been too foolish to turn a schoolboy hobby into a lifetime’s obsession. “You know…a few of the old brass Imperials, one or two oddities, like an unbroken pair or a double-header, the occasional cheap packet of mixed pins on approval—” Thank the gods, he thought, for the skill of speed-reading.
“Oh, there’s never anything worthwhile in those,” said Stanley, and slid again into the voice of the academic: “While most ‘pinheads’ do indeed begin with a casually acquired flashy novelty pin, followed by the contents of their grandmothers’ pincushion, haha, the path to a truly worthwhile collection lies not in the simple disbursement of money in the nearest pin emporium, oh no. Any dilettante can become ‘kingpin’ with enough expenditure, but for the true ‘pinhead’ the real pleasure is in the joy of the chase, the pin fairs, the house clearances, and, who knows, a casual glint in the gutter that turns out to be a well-preserved Doublefast or an unbroken two-pointer. Well is it said: ‘See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin.’”
Moist nearly applauded. It was word for word what J. Lanugo Owlsbury had written in the introduction to his work. And, much more important, he now had an unshakable friend in Stanley. That was to say, his darker regions added, Stanley was friends with him. The boy, all panic subsumed by the joy of pins, was holding the pin up to the light.
“Magnificent,” he breathed, all terrors fled. “Clean as a new pin! I have a place ready and waiting for this in my pin folder, sir!”
“Yes, I thought you might.”
His head was all over the wall…
Somewhere there was a locked door, and Moist didn’t have the key. Four of his predecessors had predeceased in this very building. And there was no escape. Being postmaster general was a job for life—one way or the other. That was why Vetinari had put him here. He needed a man who couldn’t walk away, and who was incidentally completely expendable. It didn’t matter if Moist von Lipwig died. He was already dead.
And then he tried not to think about Mr. Pump.
How many other golems had worked their way to freedom in the service of the city? Had there been a Mr. Saw, fresh from a hundred years in a pit of sawdust? Or Mr. Shovel? Mr. Axe, maybe?
And had there been one here when the last poor guy had found the key or a good lockpick, and was about to open it when behind him someone called maybe Mr. Hammer, yes, oh gods, yes, raised his first for one sudden, terminal blow?
No one had been near him? But they weren’t people, were they…they were tools. It’d be an industrial accident.
His head was all over the wall…
I’m going to find out about this. I have to, otherwise it’ll lie in wait for me. And everyone will tell me lies. But I am the fibbermeister.
“Hmm?” he said, aware that he’d missed something.
“I said, could I go and put this in my collection, Postmaster?” said Stanley.
“What? Oh. Yes. Fine. Yes. Give it a really good polish, too.”
As the boy gangled off to his end of the locker room—and he did gangle—Moist caught Groat looking at him shrewdly.
“Well done, Mr. Lipwig,” he said. “Well done.”
“Thank you, Mr. Groat.”
“Good eyesight you’ve got there,” the old man went on.
“Well, the light was shining off it—”
“Nah, I meant to see cobbles in Market Street, it being all brick paving up there.”
Moist returned his blank stare with one ever blanker.
“Bricks, cobbles, who cares?” he said.
“Yeah, right. Not important, really,” said Groat.
“And now,” said Moist, feeling the need for some fresh air, “there’s a little errand I have to run. I’d like you to come with me, Mr. Groat. Can you find a crowbar anywhere? Bring it, please. And I’ll need you, too, Mr. Pump.”
Werewolves and golems, golems and werewolves, Moist thought. I’m stuck here. I might as well take it seriously.