Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Forty-one
On Foreign Shores
Daphne smelled burlap.
Putting the smell of burlap together with the feel of rough material on her cheek, Daphne deduced that she had been hooded, overpowered and transported. Before she could react her arms had been tied, as well as her wrists. Someone had been nimble enough to slip her wand out of her sleeve while she was immobile.
"Hello?"
Daphne listened with her ears while initiating occlumency and legilimency. A witch of Daphne's skill and experience, not to mention daring, would not find a hood or bonds of cordage any sort of challenge. At the same time, if she were being watched, the watchers and/or kidnappers might take offense if she overcame their measures too easily. Better to play along for a bit and let them lower their guard.
Daphne detected one additional person nearby. It wasn't much of a surprise when she made a quick tour of the person's psyche and found he was Laurent Selwyn. Daphne fought a desperate internal battle to control her temper. She was a noble witch, a married woman and a free citizen of London. Empires had been destroyed for taking that combination lightly, that was a simple historical fact. Sitting on what felt like a wooden stool, wearing her hood, Daphne occupied a commanding position. It wouldn't do to give that away without getting some advantage in return.
"Whoever you are, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble for this," she said. "If you want me to negotiate in good faith on your behalf you'll have to cease this imitation criminality."
"SHUT UP!" came Selwyn's reply.
Another mind came within range, but it wasn't close by. Daphne couldn't understand the language of the mind's internal dialog but she could grasp a little of the thinking. The person didn't seem overly bright, focusing on some errand they had been given.
"Can you tell me what you want?" Daphne asked.
Selwyn was agitated, not yet critical but getting there. Daphne formed a working theory that Selwyn had gotten involved in something that seemed like a good idea, at the time, but was now having second thoughts. She wondered if a peaceful resolution was obtainable. Selwyn was conflicted. One side of his brain wanted to stick to the plan. The other side didn't think things were going according to plan and argued for getting out while that was still possible.
"If you want to walk this back and minimize your accountability, perhaps I can help," Daphne said. "Every second you let go by makes that harder."
Selwyn gave a great sigh and Daphne felt the burlap being pulled up. Without the jute to cover it up she smelled mildew mixed with oily smoke.
"Laurent," Daphne sighed. "What have you gone and done?"
She was sitting on a wooden stool in a room with stone walls and a heavy door made of substantial lengths of wood bound together with thick steel straps.
Selwyn stared, anger showing on his face.
"What have I done? What have I done? Your father took me and my entire family for fools!" shouted Selwyn. "It's payback time. You are going to help me bring Harry Potter here. The people outside have a disagreement to settle. As a reward for my help, I'll court you, however you wish, but you will become Mrs. Laurent Selwyn. Eventually you'll be Lady Selwyn. That is not something to sniff at, Daphne."
"And Harry?" asked Daphne.
Laurent Selwyn smirked.
"He won't be a consideration."
"Oh, Laurent, you will not come out of this at all well, don't you see?" Daphne asked. "Harry won't let this go. You haven't gone too far to turn back. Why don't we just get out of here and go back to London? You had a little episode, we can check you in with the unit at St. Mungo's and they'll help with the stress until you can see everything clearly."
"Translation: Plead insanity and spend a good chunk of my life drinking blah-blah potions," Selwyn answered. "No thank-you. Cyrus Greengrass opened negotiations with the Selwyns for your hand. Then he broke everything off! You can't do that without repercussions. We offered to take Astoria, but apparently, we weren't good enough for her, either! Well, this is all going to be made right, and you are going to help make it so, Daphne. Then when we're married, we'll put this all in the past and I will make you happy. You know I can do that, and I will, Daphne, so help me Merlin."
Daphne stared at Selwyn. She couldn't remember feeling such a mass of conflicting emotions before. Daphne knew she had to keep her head because Laurent Selwyn was most definitely out of his.
"Sort this through, be systematic," Daphne heard. She was repeating the words of one of her favorite tutors as they reviewed her notes from a patient interview. There were multiple symptoms, some related and others completely alien. Where was the healer to begin?
Daphne entered practice and started seeing such cases immediately. The remedy for a simple case might be a simple potion that had not changed in fifty years. If the condition that brought on the initial complaint was overlaid by another disorder, the practitioner will be confronted by the question of which to treat first? Was there a compound treatment? What if the standard treatment for one condition aggravated the other? What if the visible symptoms masked another, more serious condition? Answering those kinds of questions was a big part of how a healer made a living.
"Laurent, can you listen, for just a couple of minutes?" asked Daphne, trying again. "I am the reason Cyrus couldn't go on with your discussions. I didn't want to marry so I helped Father out with some financial difficulties which took away his incentive for selling me off to the Selwyns. Oh, don't make that face, Laurent, we both know he was selling me, plain and simple. It was my name and my blood status that made me a commodity. You weren't looking for a wife who was competent at healing, who had her own income, who'd lived independently. You wanted someone to live at Selwyn Manor and be an apprentice hostess to your mother, someone to take to dinner someplace in London where you'd be recognized so you could read about yourself in the next Prophet's social column. Look at me, Laurent! Do I look to you like that kind of wife?"
Selwyn was temporarily out of words. Once he'd vented his rage at the insult to himself and the Selwyns conveyed by Cyrus' perfidy in negotiations he discovered his tank was empty.
"I would have been a good husband for you, Daphne," said Selwyn, "And I will be, you'll see."
Daphne felt she had hit refusal. A miner can go so far with his pick and shovel, as long as he doesn't dig his way to bedrock. When he gets to the bedrock he must change tools.
"What do you want me to do, Laurent?" asked Daphne. "What is my role in this plan?"
"Right now, you sit there on that stool, you don't make trouble, and you wait," said Selwyn, standing up and reaching for the heavy iron door bolt. "Things are in motion. Harry Potter will arrive, our hosts will take care of their business, and we'll be on our way. You'll see, Daphne, I'm going to give you a wonderful life."
With that comment, Laurent Selwyn left Daphne alone and closed the heavy wooden door, sliding the exterior bolt noisily into its stop.
Daphne had encountered serious mental illness from time to time during her studies. She had not had any show up in her private practice. Psychotic episode cases were brought to emergency now and then. Daphne's preliminary diagnosis was based on her direct observation of Laurent Selwyn over the course of their conversation. Selwyn was convinced he had a good command of the relevant facts and that Daphne Greengrass, once free of Harry Potter, would be happy as Mrs. Laurent Selwyn. In other words, Laurent Selwyn had an insufficient grip on reality. In laymans' terms Laurent Selwyn was batshit crazy.
Daphne would have liked to have her wand back but it wasn't necessary for what she was going to do. After casting a couple of silent spells and getting out of her restraints, she stepped over to the door and looked out the tiny, barred window. She didn't have a very good angle on the corridor but she could see whitewashed walls and sconces. No people were visible. Daphne went back and picked up her stool, which she moved to the corner with the most shadow.
Daphne took a few moments to clear her mind. She rubbed her wedding ring and thought of Harry's, visualizing it on his hand. She raised her right hand and whispered to Iolanthe's ring.
"Iolanthe, I'm going to need a portal so that I can speak to Harry, wherever he is," Daphne said.
She sat on her stool, rubbing her wedding ring and focusing, focusing, focusing, trying to see Harry's in her mind. When she felt ready, Daphne put her forefinger and thumb tips together in a triangle and slowly pulled them apart. Looking at the space between her hands through half-closed eyes, Daphne saw portraits, shelves of books and paneled walls. Harry wasn't in sight, nor did she hear voices. The picture became distorted and Daphne thought she was losing it, until she refocused and began to pan slowly to the right. A leather chair appeared, and it was occupied. Daphne's heart leapt.
"Harry, it's Daphne…"
"Daphne! Where are you? Should I make tea?" Harry called out.
"SHHHH! We have to be very quiet," Daphne said. She related a short version of her exit from St. Mungo's and subsequent incarceration.
"I think I must be at the Bergs' place," she concluded.
Harry jumped up, drawing his wand.
"Coming through!" Harry said.
"No, not just yet," Daphne insisted. "If we have to fight I'll need to get my wand back first and I'll just be a drag on you until I do. Listen to this, I've got a couple of things I want you to do…"
Five minutes later Daphne reopened her portal to the salon at Potter Manor.
"Harry?"
"Right here," said Harry.
"All set?" asked Daphne. "Come through anytime."
Harry Potter and Narcissa Malfoy stepped out of Potter Manor and into a stone cell occupied by Daphne Greengrass.
"Here," Harry said, handing Daphne his holly wand. "Just a thought: it isn't a stranger to a bit of power and it's very faithful, so if you want it to clobber something, or someone, it won't hold back."
"You're such a good husband," said Daphne. "What are you going to use?"
"Oh, I've got a spare," Harry said. "Now, I propose Madame Malfoy and I conceal ourselves in the interest of surprise. The door opens that way so we'll want to be in the shadow."
Harry stepped across the cell as he reached inside his shirt. Once he and Narcissa were in position, Harry unfurled his invisibility cloak and gave it a swirl, up and over the two of them.
"Hey! None of that," Daphne heard Harry say.
"Lady Malfoy, are you taking advantage of my husband under that cloak where I can't see you?" Daphne demanded.
"If you can't see me, then nothing happened, did it, Lady Black?" asked Narcissa, in a very girlish giggle.
Everyone went silent when the sound of a bolt sliding through steel shackles sounded in the cell.
"Who's here?" demanded Laurent Selwyn. Daphne thought his eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull. Selwyn's breathing was rapid. Daphne willed herself not to look at the shadowy corner. If Selwyn kept it going like that for too long he would soon hyperventilate. He looked around the cell, alerting to the changes Daphne had already made.
"Look for yourself, Laurent," said Daphne.
"I heard voices, plural," insisted Selwyn. "There was a rope…"
"It was uncomfortable," Daphne said. "I took it off. I'm a witch and I won't be tied up. Now, if you are convinced you're hearing voices when your eyes can't see anyone, in a material sense, that could be a sign of something more serious, Laurent. That is my professional opinion, of course."
Selwyn looked addled. Daphne surmised he was trying to reconcile conflicting messages from the environment. His hearing told him there was a conversation going on in the cell while his eyes told him there was no one present besides Daphne. Laurent became more of a puzzle by the minute. Daphne's prior experiences with Laurent Selwyn were very limited. They had little contact at school as he was an upperclassman when she and Harry were first years. Her sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts were chaotic, then she studied healing and entered practice. She hadn't heard the name Laurent Selwyn again until Cyrus proposed the marriage contract.
Without a baseline against which she could judge his present behavior, Daphne fell back on a very generalized picture of how a sane, rational, well-integrated magical personality should conduct themselves. Laurent, she theorized, was definitely in the middle of an episode.
"Fine, Laurent, let's just put all the other stuff off until later. We can't do anything about it in our present circumstances, can we? Maybe you could start by telling me what you'll be wanting me to do. What's your plan?" Daphne asked.
"It's a little early for that," said Laurent. "You're going to be the one who brings Harry Potter here. There is an owl on the way with the message. He'll walk into the trap and you'll be free. All I want is the gratitude to which I feel entitled for getting you out of your mess."
"The mess with my husband?" asked Daphne.
"Exactly," said Selwyn.
"And I'll express my gratitude by marrying you? I am interpreting your plan correctly, am I not?" Daphne asked.
"Well, sure," answered Selwyn. "And that's all! I don't want money, you won't have to work, just live with me at Selwyn Manor and be a proper, noble wife. You were born to do it, your father knows it and so do you. You shouldn't be working and you shouldn't have to settle for a money-grubbing landlord of a husband. You're so much more than that."
Daphne was stuck. She had no words to describe what she thought of Selwyn's proposal. It went deeper, actually. Daphne could not formulate a thought, so she had no use for words even if she'd had them. If Selwyn wasn't truly detached from reality he was doing one award-worthy acting job.
Daphne was still awaiting the arrival of a reaction to the obtuse hallucinations of Laurent Selwyn when an owl appeared at a little window in her cell.
"What?" asked Selwyn as the owl began to peck at the glass.
He drew his wand and gave a little wave at the window. It was a casement type with a lever handle, hinged on the right. Once the window was open the owl flew in and circled the room. It went around once, then twice, before settling on Daphne's shoulder and holding out its leg. Daphne reached up as Selwyn extended his hand for the little roll of parchment. The owl wasn't having it and bit down hard on Selwyn's index finger.
"Ouch, damn you, bird!" Selwyn shouted as he brought his wand to bear.
Daphne had been calm and professional but Laurent Selwyn had just, unknowingly, pushed her past her breaking point. The cool, systematic mind flipped as she shifted her right hand out from under her left arm where she had concealed Harry's wand while conversing with Selwyn. Harry liked to use expelliarmus, ever since he learned it by observing Severus Snape using it in second year. Daphne had a similar go-to, one at which she was well-practiced since she found it useful for lots of little tasks around her home or at the office, seldom bothering to use her own wand. Harry's wand didn't know that at the time, of course. Daphne was angry and put some magic behind her spell so the wand went along.
"Depulso!"
Laurent Selwyn hit the stone wall across the cell, hard, before he got his own wand properly trained on the owl. His back hit with a very definite thump. His head whiplashed backward in turn, giving Daphne a satisfying CRACK for her trouble. Daphne stood up, the indignant owl still on her shoulder, as Selwyn slid to the floor.
"I guess you'd just as well come out now," said Daphne. "Laurent won't be carrying any tales. Not for a while, anyway."
Harry lifted the invisibility cloak off of Narcissa, who dashed across to the door and closed it, using her own wand to slide the bolt closed. She joined Daphne, who was kneeling over Selwyn. The healer went straight to diagnostic charms, out of long habit, while Narcissa, the practical-minded survivor, found both Daphne's and Selwyn's wands before patting him down.
"Is he going to make it?" Harry asked as he folded the cloak, over and over by halves.
"He ought to, but you never know with the head," said Daphne. "He's fine for right now unless he incurred a little intracranial bleed."
She sounded a bit distressed, a healer who had just done physical harm to another human. Narcissa pivoted, put an arm around Daphne's shoulders and pulled her close.
"Lady Daphne, you did nothing wrong," she said. Narcissa used the voice she'd used on the infant Draco, the one in which she'd spoken to her Death Eater husband when he returned from another humiliating encounter with his psychopathic master. Narcissa had had lots of opportunities to practice and Daphne calmed down quickly.
"That cad wants to murder your husband, besides turning his wand on an innocent creature that was just doing its duty. He deserves a sound thrashing. Besides, he tried to abscond with my beautiful daughter-in-law on the cheap by taking advantage of a wizard in distress. Don't think about right or wrong now. Believe me, if Laurent Selwyn were to just go to sleep right here and not wake up, he'd owe you a debt of gratitude."
Daphne looked at Harry.
"Narcissa is right, Daphne," he said. No anger showed on his face. Daphne would have understood anger. She didn't understand looking at the familiar face of her beloved husband and seeing the featureless blank that stood at the opening of the tunnel that continued straight to the void at the center of all that was. Daphne felt the chill run up her spine, the one that age-old superstition asserted someone had just walked across her future grave.
Harry wasn't angry, Daphne saw. He wasn't agitated or in a mind to mete out revenge on the Selwyns or the Bergs. He simply WAS, she understood, one with the implacable cycle. Daphne realized with a start what was coming, unless Harry met some obstacle.
"No, Harry, we won't," Daphne said.
Nothing changed in Harry's face. Daphne still had Harry's holly wand in her right hand. She looked at the wand Harry held. It looked familiar. Merlin.
"Harry? That wand…didn't Dumbledore use that wand?"
Harry looked down at the Elder Wand, then at Daphne.
"Yes," he said. He raised the wand, pointed it at the door and moved the tip in a little circular motion. The door seemed to de-materialize in the middle, where Harry was pointing. He enlarged the transparent circle until it resembled a ship's porthole. Harry moved the tip of his wand a few degrees left, and the image moved left, then back to the right when Harry moved the tip that way.
"Useful," Harry said. "No one right outside, if you want to get going."
Daphne tried to parse Harry's words. She wasn't afraid of a fight, she just didn't want to start one unnecessarily.
"Instead of going that way, it might be better to open the portal and go home," Daphne suggested.
"Hullo!" said Harry as the owl launched from Daphne's shoulder and moved to Harry's, where it again raised the leg with the little scroll of parchment. Harry pulled the tube from the loop of thread, unrolled it, and began reading to the witches.
"Mr. Potter," he said.
"Your wife will be the guest of the Berg-Mendini family until you join her at our seat. The location is unplottable so you will present yourself before the Café Louisiane in Ramosch and you will be conducted here by a guide."
Harry looked at his confederates.
"I don't think we can get out of this one," he said. "They'll assume I am out for blood now, for as long as I live. We can disappear for now, especially with Laurent sound asleep over there, but that won't be the end of it."
"Lady Daphne?" said Narcissa.
Daphne shrugged.
"What do you think?" Daphne asked.
"Harry is right," said Narcissa with no hesitation. "Whatever got their attention did a good job. They won't be distracted now. They've conspired with a British wizard to kidnap and ambush two of our own. They can't be thinking strategically or about longer-term consequences."
"I'm in," sighed Daphne. "It truly hurts to say it but know you're both right. What do you want to do?"
Harry wished he had the time to think everything through, but that was a luxury for another time. The witches let him finish then began going over details. They weren't picking at the plan, which was good. They did make a couple of very fortunate changes.
"The sky is getting light enough that I think I should go. Can you two sustain that long enough for me to get brought back here from Ramosch?" Harry asked.
"Don't worry about us, Harry," Narcissa assured him, her face one huge grin. "We have to test our limits. This is an opportunity, so look at it that way."
Harry thought he probably looked like he was very skeptical of Narcissa's affirmation but there wasn't time to argue. He looked at Daphne.
"Good luck," she said, adding a peck on the lips.
"Want to come along?" Harry asked the owl.
Giving a single hoot, the owl launched from Harry's shoulder and flew out the window.
"You're sure you can find your way?" Narcissa asked.
"As long as I don't get caught in an undetected Alpine gale," Harry said.
"Harry!"
Daphne's scolding coincided with a wave of Narcissa's wand. Just briefly, a translucent gray simulacrum of Harry replaced the solid one, before a column of smoke rose and disappeared out the open window.
"Piss off, Selwyn," said Narcissa. She used a common hex, incarcerous, wrapping several turns of decent rope around and around, binding Selwyn's arms to his trunk with some extra for his wrists and ankles. Checking the door bolt one more time, Narcissa put her left arm around Daphne.
"Wands secure?"
"Uh-huh, let's go," said Daphne, as Narcissa transformed them both into smoke.
Harry drifted over Our Place, the owl keeping pace, flying a little ahead, then dropping back. Harry fought the urge to let the owl navigate. He was the one who did a quick study of the map when Daphne gave him five minutes to get Narcissa to Potter Manor and be ready to join her in her captivity.
The flight gave Harry time to think. The Berg-Mendinis, that was new information. Romilda's de-briefing had alluded to groupings within the population of Our Place, but he had met only Bergs. Of course they had to keep them straight, somehow, so the additional surname made sense. Harry wondered if there were more.
His sense of direction proved adequate, if not perfectly true, and Harry re-formed in a little clump of trees in the corner of a field. He walked across the intersection of two roads and into town. Café Louisiane was a full-service, world tourist facility, with sidewalk signboards and menus in a word salad of languages.
"Okay, I promised, let me find a table," Harry said to the owl. A little round pedestal table needed clearing, but it was vacant, so Harry took a seat. The nearest sign promised breakfast all day. Harry signaled the waiter who zigzagged over and began picking up from the previous customer. The waiter offered Harry a menu, which Harry declined.
"One egg, boiled, bacon, bread. Coffee, please," said Harry.
"Sir," nodded the waiter. He glanced at the owl on Harry's shoulder.
"Begging your pardon, sir, but isn't it unusual to see them in full daylight?"
"I believe so," Harry agreed. He didn't offer anything further and the waiter nodded and went back inside.
"No," Harry advised. His owl companion was eying the sparrows that hopped from flagstone to flagstone, table top to table top, pecking at crumbs fallen from baguettes. The owl looked anxious, seeing all that breakfast on the hoof, so frustratingly close. Talons took a better purchase on Harry's shoulder, the owl rocked slightly back then leaned forward with a great 'HOOT!'
The sparrows broke off their grazing and took flight. Two or three pigeons looked at Harry, assessed the owl wasn't big enough to threaten them, and went on with breakfast. Harry's owl made some subtle chortling sounds. Harry wondered if the owls had been laughing all along, and he'd somehow missed it.
When his breakfast arrived, Harry held up a strip of bacon in one hand while pinching off clumps of bread with the other. He wasn't dressed for the early temperatures, it seemed to the townsfolk hurrying to work or the other up-early travelers out on the street. The owl gave them pause. One of those eccentrics who feed birds or busk in every downtown in Europe, they thought. An occasional tourist strolling by tried to snap a surreptitious photo to document their Alpine sojourn.
The owl quieted right down after the third little piece of bacon. Harry wondered if bacon were really good for owls. It wasn't necessarily good for humans but he'd been around enough to know that bacon overcame the dietary restrictions of various religious groups as well as otherwise-dedicated vegetarians. Why should owls be any different?
Harry was cracking the shell of his boiled egg when a youngish man crossed the sidewalk and stood behind the second chair at Harry's little table.
"Sir, may I? Join you and your companion?" asked the man.
Harry wondered several things at once. Was the man his contact from the Berg-Mendini clan? Was he some kind of con, wanting to do a too-good-to-be-true currency exchange? Was he selling drugs? Was he cruising and just liked Harry's looks?
"Please," said Harry as he waved toward the chair.
"You are Harry Potter?" asked the man, getting off to a very bad start with Harry.
"Mind?" Harry asked, turning his attention to his egg.
His guest a bit out of sorts from the rebuff, Harry tapped the eggshell with the edge of his spoon while making a surreptitious surveillance of the café and the nearby street. He spotted a younger man dressed in blue jeans and a brown canvas coat, standing directly across the street, who did not take his eyes off of Harry and the stranger. Harry decided to see if he had any influence on the terms of the debate.
Slipping into the rough fellow's mind was easy enough. He didn't seem to have knowledge of occlumency, much less the ability to use it. Harry began by inserting a vague feeling that the man would soon need to visit a restroom, causing him to start shifting his weight from one side to another.
"Don't want to do business on an empty stomach," Harry said. "Can we get you something? The coffee is very good, if you don't want to eat."
"It is," said the man. He gestured to the scalloped edge of their umbrella, which bore the name of a popular coffee brand. "Hence its popularity everywhere you go in Europe."
Harry waved to the waiter, ordering two more coffees. While his guest was distracted Harry went back to his other project and gave the man in work clothes an itch on one shin. He bent to scratch and, looking down, saw a horde of ants coming and going from a crack between paving blocks, directly under his boot. The man turned his full attention to slapping at his trouser leg, trying to remove the ants, which seemed to be coming out of the crack faster and faster, climbing his boot and infesting his outer clothing. He forgot about needing a bathroom.
Harry rewarded the man across the table with a laugh about the coffee.
"Can't argue with you there," he said. "Have you done a lot of traveling?"
"There is a family office in Salzburg. It's a good deal more convenient to deal with business matters there than from here," the man replied. "I was sent to look over some shoulders. No one else wanted to do it so I stayed longer than I intended. Salzburg, Vienna, Zurich, they all have a way about them. I like the way they look. Being in the city is not the same as being right in the mountains, of course."
Harry spooned some boiled egg out of the shell. He had to focus on the spoon, the egg and the shell that he held in his opposite hand, so it probably wasn't all that remarkable that he lost eye contact with the man at his table, whose name he still didn't know. As long as he was free from his social obligations, Harry took the liberty of sending the hallucinatory ants inside the pants of the gentleman across the street. Harry discovered the ants were the kind that liked to bite. The man began to curse the ants in a language Harry couldn't understand.
"Harry Potter," Harry finally acknowledged. He didn't offer his hand, just a nod to affirm his guest's surmise.
"Ricardo Mendini," said the man. "You're in business yourself, there in England?"
"I am," said Harry as he scooped another bit of egg from the shell. Harry liked to get some of the yolk along with the white, although he didn't know why. Most of the time he was unaware he even had a preference.
"Real estate. Some apartments, some commercial. Mostly in mixed London neighborhoods. I try to find under-used buildings with both kinds of spaces, put them in the best possible shape and rent them out. Were you aware we had some internal conflicts within a small community in our country, just a few years ago?"
"I did hear about it," said Mendini. "Word does get around, if a bit slowly, down here. It sounded serious."
"Oh, it was serious, for anyone involved," Harry affirmed. "The damage, particularly property damage, required a lot of remedial action. That is how I got started. After a little time went by it dawned on me the pain and misery were one aspect and the opportunity for someone like me another. So ironic. I'd wait tables in a sidewalk café if I could take back all the pain on both sides from the whole episode. No amount of money is worth what so many people went through."
"You're a humanitarian," said Mendini. "A humanitarian, and a businessman. You have a strong sense of justice, don't you?"
"That depends," said Harry.
The man across the street was still slapping at his outer clothes. Harry showed him a mental picture of ants eating their way into flesh, the man's flesh, down underneath all of his clothing. The man took off his jacket and threw it to the sidewalk, pulled off his boots without undoing the laces, shucked his pants followed by his shirt and underwear. He went running, high-stepping, into the street, finally throwing himself to the cobblestones and flopping, fish-like, first on his front, then back-side, howling out words Harry couldn't understand.
Two policemen in peaked caps ran in from down the street somewhere, blowing whistles. They saw a naked man in an agitated state rolling around on cobblestones, scratching himself and bleeding from nearly everywhere on his body. The police had their batons in hand and Harry thought they were about to try and knock the disturbed man out to make it easier to handle him, but they used the batons to press down on his body so he wouldn't continue to injure himself. The emergency response was swift and barely a minute later the ambulance crew had pumped several injections into the man, lifted him onto a stretcher and sped away.
"Don't see that every day," said Harry.
"Was that necessary?" asked Mendini. "He was no danger to you."
"I prefer the teams to be even, same as the odds," Harry said. "I'll do it again if I find another one."