The Stranger - Max Frei [166]
“Well, as long as you don’t peek when I’m in the bathroom . . . I guess I won’t fret about it. But were you really worried?” I asked uncertainly, and accidentally bumped my forehead against the doorframe.
“Do you think yours is the only heart that sends out distress signals?”
Juffin finally took pity on me and casually placed an icy palm on my sore forehead, which relieving the pain instantly.
“Let’s go! If you stare at the door another minute, it may disappear altogether. Don’t get vindictive, now: you made two major blunders, which only someone as lucky as you could have gotten away with.”
“Blunders?” I echoed, mortified. “But I thought this was when you’d start praising me.”
We entered the Glutton.
“I am praising you. In our profession, being lucky is much more important than being thorough or quick on the uptake. Luck isn’t something you can learn. Don’t pout, son. You don’t need me to tell you about all your genius and the consequences thereof. What will you order?”
“Nothing!” I exclaimed in disgust. “After a spectacle like that . . . Well, maybe I’ll have some pastries. Anything, as long as it’s not meat.”
“Are you that impressionable? Well, it’s up to you. How about a drink?
“No. That is . . . If only . . .”
“Good golly! That potion’s going to be the death of you! Fine. Take it—but just a drop, mind you.”
Juffin held out the invisible bottle of Elixir of Kaxar.
“Oh, you brought it along!”
I broke into a grateful smile and took a sip. That was all I needed.
“Tell me about my blunders, Juffin. Now I’m ready even for a public thrashing.”
“To begin with, Max, you forgot to ask Sir Kofa to go to the morgue to sniff out and identify the smell. He would immediately have told you what it was. And you might have been able to get along without your uncanny good luck. What made you decide to eat at the Hunchback, of all places? Can you explain that to me?”
“I can. My preternatural intuition,” I said, and burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself. “Not really. It was my preternatural pettiness. Melifaro owed me a good meal in exchange for the use of my favorite blanket. I value my blanket very highly, so we had to go to the most expensive restaurant.”
“Hm. Life hasn’t seemed this entertaining in a long time! All right, then. You got the point about Kofa?”
“Got it,” I said. “Sheer stupidity on my part. At least I did send all the others down there.”
“A sound decision. Never mind, it happens to everyone.”
“What else?” I asked dully. “What else did I do wrong?”
“You and Melifaro didn’t sense the danger. Do you know the hunchback had every intention of poisoning you? From the very first, he was sure you had come to look for Boboota, and because madmen have their own logic, I myself didn’t anticipae it until it was too late. Or maybe it’s just hard to see through a madman. In short, after you had sniffed the King Banjee, Itullo was determined to treat you to a good dose of poison.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing, obviously. I was all ready to intervene, but the hunchback just forgot to do it! As soon as he entered the kitchen, the decision evaporated from his sorry head. So you were spared, and I was very surprised. I haven’t been so surprised in, well, about five hundred years! That a poisoner forgets to add the poison—well, that flies in the face of the basic laws of the universe.”
“You said yourself I was lucky,” I said with a shrug. I finally decided to ask a question that had been bothering me for a long time. “Did you say about five hundred years? How old—”
“How old am I? Not as old as I might seem. Just seven hundred, and then some. Compared to Maba Kalox I’m just a spring chicken.”
“Seven hundred? You’ve got to be kidding!” I shook my head in admiration. “Will you teach me?”
“This, coming from the fellow who frightened poor Melifaro with his talk about immortality? Better keep quiet . . .”
At that moment, a flaming red comet seemed to