Soul Music

that I could help you there. I’m a businessman. I do business. I can see you boys are musicians. You play music. You don’t want to worry your heads about money stuff, right? Gets in the way of the creative processes, am I right? How about if you leave that to me?”
    “Huh,” said Glod, still smarting from the insult to his financial acumen. “And what can you do?”
    “Well,” said Dibbler, “I can get you paid for tonight, for a start.”
    “What about the furniture?” said Buddy.
    “Oh, stuff gets busted here every night,” said Dibbler expansively. “Hibiscus was just having you on. I’ll square it with him. Confidentially, you want to watch out for people like him.” He leaned forward. If his grin had been any wider, the top of his head would have fallen off.
    “This city, boys,” he said, “is a jungle.”
    “If he can get us paid, I trust him,” said Glod.
    “As simple as dat?” said Cliff.
    “I trust anyone who gives me money.”
    Buddy glanced at the table. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that if something was wrong, the guitar would do something—play a discord, maybe. But it just purred gently to itself.
    “Oh, all right. If it means I get to keep my teef, I’m all for it,” said Cliff.
    “Okay,” said Buddy.
    “Great! Great! We can make beautiful music together! At least—you boys can, eh?”
    He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. In Dibbler’s eyes, the lion roared.

    Somewhere high in the Ramtops, Susan rode Binky over a cloud bank.
    “How could he talk like that?” she said, “Play around with people’s lives, and then talk about duty?”

    All the lights were on in the Musicians’ Guild.
    A gin bottle played a tattoo on the edge of a glass. Then it rattled briefly on the desk top as Satchelmouth put it down.
    “Doesn’t anyone know who the hells they are?” Mr. Clete said, as Satchelmouth managed to grip the glass on the second try. “ Someone must know who they are!”
    “Dunno about the boy,” said Satchelmouth. “No one’s ever seen him before. An’…an’…well, you know trolls…could’ve been anyone…”
    “One of them was definitely the Librarian from the University,” said Herbert “Mr. Harpsichord” Shuffle, the Guild’s own librarian.
    “We can leave him for now,” said Clete. The others nodded. No one really wanted to attempt to beat up the Librarian if there was anyone smaller available.
    “What about the dwarf?”
    “Ah.”
    “Someone said they thought he was Glod Glodsson. Lives in Phedre Road somewhere—”
    Clete growled. “Get some of the lads over there right now . I want the position of musicians in this city explained to them right now . Hat. Hat. Hat.”

    The musicians hurried through the night, the din of the Mended Drum behind them.
    “Wasn’t he nice,” said Glod. “I mean, we haven’t just got our pay but he was so interested he gave us twenty dollars of his own money!”
    “I tink what he said,” said Cliff, “was dat he’d give us twenty dollars with interest.”
    “Same thing, isn’t it? And he said he could get us more jobs. Did you read the contract?”
    “Did you?”
    “It was very small writing,” said Glod. He brightened up. “But there was a lot of it,” he added. “Bound to be a good contract, with that much writing on it.”
    “The Librarian ran away,” said Buddy Cooked a lot, and ran away.”
    “Hah! Well, he’ll be sorry later on,” said Glod. “Later on, people’ll talk to him and he’ll say: I left, you know, before they became famous.”
    “He’ll say ‘ook.’”
    “Anyway, that piano’s going to need some work.”
    “Yeah,” said Cliff. “Like, I saw once where dis guy made stuff out of matches. He could repair it.”
    A couple of dollars became two lamb kormas and pitchblende vindaloo at the Curry Gardens, along with a bottle of wine so chemical that even trolls could drink it, too.
    “And after this,” said Glod, as they sat down to wait for the food, “we’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
    “What wrong with your place?” said Cliff.
    “It’s too drafty. It’s got a piano-shaped hole in the door.”
    “Yes, but you put it there.”
    “So what?”
    “Won’t der landlord object?”
    “Of course he’ll object. That’s what landlords are for . Anyway, we’re on the up-and-up, lads. I can feel it in my water.”
    “I thought you were just happy to get paid,” said Buddy.
    “Right. Right. But I’m even happier to get paid a