Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [131]
“What did the thing do to him?”
“Well, quite, David. Quite. That’s the fucking question, isn’t it?”
There was a tentative rattling at the broken window. Isaac and David looked up to see Teafortwo poking his ugly head forlornly in.
“Oh, shit,” said Isaac in exasperation. “Look, Teafortwo, now’s not really the best time, capiche? Maybe we can chat later.”
“Just looking in, boss . . .” Teafortwo spoke in a cowed voice utterly unlike his usual exuberant squawk. “Wanna know how the Lublub’s doing.”
“What?” said Isaac sharply, standing. “What about him?”
Teafortwo shied away miserably and wailed.
“Not me, squire, not my fault . . . just wondering if he’s better after the big monsterfucker ate his face . . .”
“Teafortwo, were you here?”
The wyrman nodded morosely and shifted a little nearer, balancing in the centre of the window frame.
“What happened? We’re not angry with you, Teafortwo . . . we just want to know what it was you saw . . .”
Teafortwo sniffed and waved its head miserably. He pouted like a child, screwed up his face and blurted out a great gob of words.
“Big fucker comes downstairs flapping big horrible wings make your bonce woozy snapping big teeth and . . . and . . . all over claws and big fucking stinky tongue . . . and I . . . Mr. Lublub’s gawping in the looking-glass and then he turns to face it and goes . . . dopey . . . and I saw . . . me head went funny and when I woke up the thing’s stuck its tongue right in . . . in . . . Mr. Lub’s gob and slurpslurp noises going off in me head and I . . . I buggered off, I couldn’t do nothing, I swear . . . I’m scared . . .” Teafortwo began to cry like a two-year-old, dribbling snot and tears down his face.
When Lemuel Pigeon arrived, Teafortwo was still sobbing. No amount of cajoling or threatening or bribes could calm the wyrman down. Eventually he went to sleep, curled up in a quilt ruined with his mucus, exactly like an exhausted human baby.
“I’m here on false pretences, Isaac. The message I got was that it’d be worth my while to drop over to your gaff.” Lemuel looked at Isaac with a speculative air.
“Godsdammit, Lemuel, you fucking spiv,” exploded Isaac. “Is that what’s bothering you? Jabber and fuck, I’ll make sure you get yours, all right? Is that better? Now fucking listen to me . . . Someone has been attacked by something that hatched out of one of the grubs you obtained for me, and we need to stop the thing before it does someone else, and we need to know about it, so we need to track down whatever cove it was got it in the first place, and we need to do it sharpish. Are you with me, old son?”
Lemuel was quite unintimidated by this outburst.
“Look, you can’t damn well blame me . . .” he began, before Isaac interrupted with a howl of irritation.
“Devil’s Tail, Lemuel, no one’s blaming you, you cretin! Quite the opposite! What I’m saying is that you are by far too good a businessman not to keep careful records, and I need you to check ’em out. We both know everything goes through you . . . you’ve got to get me the name of whoever originally got the big fat caterpillar. The enormous one with really weird colours. You know?”
“Vaguely remember it, yes.”
“Well, that is good.” Isaac calmed a little. He ran his hands over his face and sighed enormously. “Lemuel, I need your help,” he said simply. “I’ll pay you . . . But I’m also begging. I really need you to help me here. Look.” He opened his eyes and glared at Lemuel. “The damn thing may have keeled over and died, right? Maybe it’s like a mayfly: one glorious day. Maybe Lub’ll wake up tomorrow happy as a sandboy. But maybe not. Now, I want to know: one—” he counted off on fat fingers “—how to snap Lublamai