Free The Wanderer in Unknown Realms by John Connolly Page A

nobody I encountered appeared to want to waste any words on him at all. I began asking about him in the vicinity of the Chevrah Torah but was directed gruffly to the Princelet Street Synagogue farther along the way. There, questions about Maggs were greeted with dark looks and, in one case, a veritable fountain of mucous spittle that missed my boot by an inch. Eventually, an old Hasidic man wearing an ancient spodik on his head directed me to a laneway that smelled of cat piss and stagnant water. There a doorway stood open, revealing a veritable warren of small apartments. A young woman, who might well have been a tart, stood smoking outside.
    â€œDo you live here?” I asked her.
    â€œLive—and work,” she said, and the way she tipped her head in the direction of the stairs removed any doubts I might have had about her profession. When I didn’t bite, she sucked deeply on her cigarette and ran her soft pink tongue over her lips.
    â€œYou a copper?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou look like a copper.”
    â€œIs that a good thing?”
    â€œNot around here.”
    â€œI’m trying to find a man named Maggs. I was told he lives nearby.”
    â€œHe in trouble, then?”
    â€œWhy would you say that?”
    â€œBecause men who look like you don’t go asking after men like Maggs unless there’s trouble involved.”
    â€œAnd what kind of man is Maggs?”
    â€œHe’s the kind of man I wouldn’t roll with if his cock was dipped in gold and he gave it to me after for a doorstop.”
    It was an arresting image.
    â€œI’ve been struggling to find anyone who might say something pleasant about him,” I said. “When he dies, it’s likely to be lonely by the graveside.”
    â€œShouldn’t have thought so. Lot of people will show up just to make sure he’s dead.”
    â€œThey offer dancing shoes for just such occasions, I believe.”
    She smiled. “If they don’t, I’ll make do with what I have.”
    â€œIs he about, this Maggs?”
    â€œThink so. He came in earlier, I believe. I heard him going up. He coughs a lot, does Maggs. Coughs, but doesn’t die.”
    â€œYou really don’t like him, do you?”
    â€œHe looks at women like he’s planning to slice them and sell them by the pound. He stinks because he’s bad inside. He’d steal the smell from a corpse, and he wouldn’t spare a penny if it would save a life.”
    She finished the cigarette and tossed it into the shadows.
    â€œNumber nine, top of the stairs,” she said.
    â€œYou, or him?”
    â€œHim. I’m in number five, if you change your mind.”
    â€œI won’t, but thank you anyway.”
    â€œWhy? Because you’re too good for a tart?”
    â€œNo, because the tart’s too good for me.”
    I found some money in my pocket, and I slipped her what she would have charged for a roll with me. As with the boy from thepost office, I didn’t ask for a receipt: Fawnsley and Quayle would just have to take it on trust.
    â€œYou don’t have to do that,” she said, and her voice was softer than it had previously been.
    â€œYou’ve saved me that much in time,” I said.
    The money vanished.
    â€œYou watch out for Maggs,” she said. “He’s been inside.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œMurder, they say. With a knife.”
    Maggs, it seemed, belied the impression some might have had of the book world as a place filled with the shy and the studious.
    â€œThank you for the warning,” I said.
    I was about to leave her when a thought struck me. I took the picture of Lionel Maulding from my pocket and showed it to her.
    â€œHave you ever seen this man around here?”
    She held the picture steady and stared at it for a long time.
    â€œI think so, but he was older than he is in this picture.”
    â€œWhen was this?”
    â€œI can’t be sure. Not as