Either Crouch was incapable of speech…or he was just phenomenally stubborn. And since I have encountered more stubborn men in my life than mute ones, I was betting on stubbornness. Twisting a flailing arm around his back and giving it a good, stiff upward yank should elicit a word or two. Lucky for him I had a policy against making physical contact with anyone in greasepaint.
While Crouch performed a stilted “glass box” routine for Sabina, Rufus wandered off. I joined Dixon in his office to figure out our next move.
Dixon brushed away a stray cricket and set the Crafting in the center of his desk. He crossed his arms and considered it. “Go-getters get their goal. Innocent enough.”
“Until it falls into the wrong hands. Is there room on the paper to Uncraft it?”
“Maybe…but there aren’t many words that end with go. Dingo? Virgo? Ooh, wait, maybe bongo has some promise….”
“And then Pinyin Bay will be crawling with Beatniks. If anyone can turn the Crafting around, it is you. But whoever is behind the push to buy the Boardwalk must have money. If you do not first root out the source, they can simply go to a different shop and buy another piece of Spellcraft.”
Dixon rubbed his hands together in delight. “I’ve always been curious about the South Dock Boardwalk—and, for the record, I most certainly did not lose my virginity there. Boardwalk folk aren’t exactly my type. They’re insular and clannish and play by their own set of rules.”
Should I state the obvious correlation? No. Too easy.
Dixon went on. “Plus, they generally don’t take too kindly to strangers.”
“The fact that we are preserving their livelihood should be enough of an inroad.”
“You’d think so. But Boardwalkers are leery of outsiders poking around in their business. If we hope to get to the bottom of this, we’ll need to fit in.”
I very much disliked where the conversation was headed. “I can just force Crouch to talk.”
“No, Crouch must be just as much in the dark about whoever commissioned the Crafting as we are. I’ll bet one of their own is selling them all out. And we’ll need to get in there ourselves and expose the traitor.”
“Or we could simply ask your father who bought the spell.”
“We…could.” It was obvious Dixon wished to do no such thing. “But what if he did lose his virginity under the pier? He’ll be devastated to learn his Crafting was part of some scheme to sell off the whole shoreline. I can hardly let him bear that burden. It would be un-son-like of me.”
“You just want to wear a disguise.”
“Okay—you got me. When else would I have the chance to dress up like some kind of kooky street performer? Except Halloween. Or a costume party. Or, really, any day of the week I wanted to make a bold fashion choice….”
It was not the things he said as he rambled on about costumes—those were all one-hundred percent Dixon—but the way he said them. He’d agreed with me far too quickly.
“…and, of course, there’s always the hand-eye coordination it takes to create a plausible suit of armor from a bunch of industrial-sized tin cans without cutting off your own finger—”
“Dixon.” He stopped mid-stream. “What is the real reason you won’t ask your father?”
He sighed, then went serious. “It’s a funny thing, Yuri. Uncrafting. I have no problem dismantling the work of strangers. And it goes without saying that I would at least try to fix the one-word wonders Uncle Fonzo penned with Hawthorn Strange’s quill. But…this is my dad’s Crafting. I don’t want to be the one to tell him it needs to be reversed. What if he tries it himself and only ends up setting the magic like a stubborn stain? Or what if he does leave the job to me, and I fail? Or even worse, what if I succeed?”
I would love nothing more than to best my own father at something—and then to rub his nose in it once he was defeated. But Johnny Penn was nothing at all like the sullen, angry man who’d raised me. In fact, Johnny Penn had shown me more kindness than my own father. When I needed a work visa, he signed off on the forms without hesitation. But more than that, when I needed a kind word, he was ready with a joke that was so bad, it was almost good.
“Fine,” I said. “Before we hurt anyone’s feelings, we check out the Boardwalk ourselves. That does not mean we concoct some sort of ludicrous story about who we are and why we are there—”
As I attempted to set a few “boundaries,” the Practical Penn Seer paused in the doorway. I have not yet determined if the man’s stream-of-consciousness was sincere, or if it was all some sort of persona designed to keep everyone off-balance. Rufus bared his teeth at us, held up a book, and said, “Check this out, guys—I found a copy in my art reference library.” He ambled over and opened the book on the desk beside the Spellcraft. “I’ve Been in Pinyin by Mildred Merriweather Block. Some name!”
The book? Or the author? I did not suppose it mattered.
“Back in the day,” Rufus explained, “you could hardly turn around without tripping over this book. The resale shop has so many copies, they’ve stopped accepting them. But there’s lots of nice pictures inside.” The book was a few decades old. It was a cloth-bound hardback, the sort of coffee table book most people just bought, flipped through once, then left to molder in some corner of the living room. Rufus paged through. The photographs inside were clearly dated, but there were plenty of them. “Get a gander at the living statue. He holds the world’s record for most defecated on by birds.”
Dixon scrutinized the photo. “Huh. I did not know such a record existed.”
“He must’ve lobbied for the category himself…then went and sat under the eaves of the municipal garage where the seagulls all roost. I guess he’d be dead by now—unless he lived to be a hundred and twenty…in which case, there’s another record he could add to his portfolio.” He closed the book and slid it across to Dixon. “Maybe this will help you keep the Boardwalk safe and sound.”
“Wow. Really? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“By all means, take it. I’d hate to lose such a quintessential piece of Pinyin Bay to so-called development.”
It was the most coherent thought he had ever uttered in my presence.
Rufus drifted away—no doubt to fit in another nap before closing time—while Dixon flipped open the book, whispering, “Rufus might seem easygoing, but he’s weirdly territorial about his stuff. The Boardwalk must really mean a lot to him if he’s giving us his book.” He paged through the book, growing more and more animated all the while. “Hey, check this out! The Boardwalk is a haven for performers. There’s a sword-swallower. And a juggler. And a sword juggler. Boy, they really know how to specialize. Anyway, this is the perfect opportunity to learn a new skill we’ve always dreamed of.”
I have certainly never dreamed of making a spectacle of myself in front of mobs of hostile strangers. “We should pose as tourists.”
“Just think. I could be a unicycle rider. Or a one-man-band. Or a contortionist.” Given the things he insisted we try in the bedroom, the contortionist might actually have some promise. Then again, I’ve lost count of the number of times he has nearly thrown out his back. “Ooh, I know, I can take up the mantle of the living statue, minus the bird poop. You can paint me gold…even in the places no one else will see.”
“You are unable to sit still for more than two minutes, at most.”
“Maybe I just need to practice.”
“Be wary of whatever claims you make. Street performers are good at reading people. They will know if you are just putting on an act.”
“And you can be the Strong Man.” He fluttered his long eyelashes and dropped his voice. “Do they have that in Russia, Yuri? All bulging with muscles, barely covered with the skimpiest of faux-fur loincloths, with just a tantalizing little strip of furry fuzz crossing that broad, yummy chest?”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I’ll bet they do. And I’ll bet you’d look phenomenally hot….”
“Maybe later. But for now we must focus on a plausible identity.” Ideally, one from the current century. “The Boardwalk is not far away. We will go check it out—from a distance—and determine how to approach.”
“That sounded just like something out of a movie full of car-chases and explosions.” Dixon surreptitiously hugged himself. “Okay, I’m sold.”
When we returned to the lobby, Crouch was gone. On one hand, I was relieved I would not have to drive him anywhere. On the other…maybe I would have felt better knowing exactly where he was so he couldn’t sneak up on me. “Where is mime?” I demanded.
Sabina glanced up from her pizza. “Beats me. He swung his arms around until finally I nodded like I understood, and then he took off down the street.”
“Come on,” I told Dixon, hoping we could make it to the truck before Crouch came back. “Let’s go.”
The South Dock Boardwalk was just down the road from the cabin I’d once called home. Not a long drive from the office…but long enough for Dixon to regale me with facts from the old history book.
“Say, Yuri, listen to this. In old-timey days, Pinyin Beach used to be known as Coral Beach.”
“On a fresh-water lake?”
“Turns out the ‘coral’ was actually an old pile of bricks that got submerged after a heavy rainfall. Still, too bad the name didn’t stick. It sounds nice and beachy.” He flipped through the book some more, then said, “And another fun fact: back in the fifties, a ship carrying lab animals to a testing facility sank in a freak storm. The crew didn’t make it, but they think the animals survived. To this day, most of the wild mice in Strangeberg are white.”
I pulled off the road where an unofficial parking lot existed. The grass was patchy and the earth packed from the accumulated weight of all the vehicles compressing the soil. As I searched for a spot that wasn’t too muddy, Dixon said, “Now, here’s something I didn’t know. Pinyin Bay was in the running to be the fire hydrant capital of the world…until a town in Alabama stole the title. Which was totally not fair, since they had a fire hydrant factory, whereas Pinyin Bay just had an enthusiastic fire chief who lobbied for lots and lots of hydrants.”
“I’m sure the architecture in Scrivener Village had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, that and the fact that our water pressure is so good. It’s just common sense to use that feature to its best advantage.”
As I climbed out of the truck, it was hard to say if it was the volshebstvo which played across my scalp, or just a breeze coming off the bay. Despite living just down the shore, I had never had a reason to visit the Boardwalk. In the winter, the only thing open was the tourism office with their ungainly slogan, You’re in Pinyin Bay! (The city, not the body of water. Otherwise, you’d be wet.) And I had no need of an outdated map or a coupon for a rental car upgrade.
From where we stood, the Boardwalk looked much as I expected: garish, somewhat shabby, and entirely underwhelming. An ancient yellow Ferris wheel creaked as it made a slow circle. Tourist shops lined the wooden walkway, selling souvenirs made halfway around the globe. The street performers outnumbered the tourists nearly two-to-one, and throngs of seagulls lurked nearby—waiting for a french fry to drop, or perhaps calculating whether they could get away with stealing a small child.
Hardly the spot where we could hope to lose ourselves in a crowd and blend in, I thought. Until a massive tour bus rounded the bend and pulled up alongside my truck. It was a deep maroon, with Big Burgundy Bus Tours painted in a swoosh down the side. The door swung open and a throng of middle-aged humanity in matching, hot pink Back to Nature T-shirts piled out. Every seat on the bus must have been full. And every person in the group turned an expectant eye toward the Boardwalk.
Last off the bus was the driver. He wore a burgundy uniform which matched the bus—and an expression of stupefied bewilderment. He was maybe forty, though given the dishwater blond dreadlocks and the braided beard, it appeared he hadn’t outgrown his twenties. Either that or he had never heard of a barber. “Wassup?” he said to me. “Are we in Strangeberg yet?”
Dixon popped up beside me. “Strangeberg is on the other side of Pinyin Bay...the body of water. This is Pinyin Bay, the city.”
The bus driver glanced down at a map on his phone, then turned it upside down. The map reorientated itself to the same direction it faced before. He shrugged and introduced himself as Isaac. Dixon introduced himself and then me—as his grown man friend—then said, “What’s with the bus?”
“A bunch of nature lovers on their way to some annual shindig. At least they’re pretty chill. Not like that busload of auditors I had to cart around last week. Their idea of fun was doing math, and at every darn rest stop, it took ’em forever to split the check.”
“Do you have any extra T-shirts?” Dixon asked.
Reflexively, I said, “I do not want pink shirt.”
“Because we’re huge fans of…random T-shirts. With slogans on them. From groups we know nothing about.”
Isaac scratched his beard. I shuddered at the thought of what sort of mites were probably living in it. “The tour group did bring one for me, but it says in my contract I’m supposed to wear this uniform at all times for the duration of the trip—unless I’m asleep. Then I can wear my own clothes.” He looked back through the door of the bus and scratched his beard some more. “I’m not sure what I did with the shirt, but I’ll let you know if it turns up. Speaking of sleep…if you don’t mind, I’m gonna catch a few z’s.”
Was everyone in America so fond of napping? Dixon did not fall unconscious in the middle of the day. But I strongly suspected he produced enough adrenaline for the whole of Pinyin Bay.
“Come on,” I told Dixon. “We do not need pink shirts to blend in. All those bodies are camouflage enough.”
“I can’t disagree. That’s more action than the Boardwalk’s seen all year.” Dixon looped an arm through mine. “Let’s go eavesdrop and find out the scuttlebutt.”
“Scuttle…butt?”
“It’s one of those words that means what it sounds like.”
“It sounds like nothing.”
“Hey, look, there’s a gap in the crowd. Let’s go.”