Summary: Ed Leadly and Happy Peppy Gary in the same kitchen? Smells like trouble to me.
Characters: Gary, Ed Leadly, Betty (Mentioned), Sanderson (Mentioned), Hadley (Mentioned)
Rating: T
Prerequisites: "Solo", "Loyalty"
A/N: See also, "The Boss of Me" and "Dog Gone"
Posted: October 17, 2017
94. Opportunity (Four days after the "Loyalty" Prompt)
Sunday June 30th, 2002
Year of Leaves; Summer of the Last Berry
"So, Cabrera, are you ever going to open this door, or are you just going to stare at me through the peephole thinking I'll keel over and die before the hour's out?"
Gary rested his forehead against his wrist instead of answering, leaning on his arm. His tongue folded along the backs of his teeth. The short man on the door's other side tapped his foot. It echoed despite the carpet, thumping in the dark silence of the apartment complex's second floor hallway. The second floor because it wasn't high enough that you would break your arm if you fell off the balcony. Safety first.
"Capybara," the man said after another thirty seconds passed in silence. "I'd like to see you open this door. I believe we have some business to discuss."
"Mr. Leadly, please. It's six in the morning. I'm not even dressed." Seriously, when had the guy gotten up if he'd had time to throw on the prim suit, comb that little scruff of dark hair clinging to the top of his head, and haul himself all the way across town for this? Maybe he owned one of those magical hair-straightening brushes. Maybe he could ping too. Honestly the clues of Pixie intervention clinging around this guy were getting so obvious by this point that Gary wouldn't put it past him. The only question was, if Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Head Pixie had other puppets hanging around Dimmsdale, why had he and Betty never been informed?
Probably? Because Mr. Sanderson feared Betty would panic that she would be replaced and Gary would get jealous. Which he was. His dress code was pink sweater vests and graduation caps, and Mr. Leadly got his own office in the eraser of his pencil-shaped skyscraper and his fancy yellow suits?
"Not dressed? Then open the door naked, dangit! Boy, this is a money-making opportunity for you. You can't just let it pass you by. That's rule number one. I sent you a letter informing you of exactly what time I was planning to be here. Keep on top of things, Cabronco. You're giving off a poor impression."
Gary unlocked and pulled open the door, but he didn't do it naked. Sure, he felt naked talking to people in his white shirt and sweatpants without his usual sweater vest, bow tie, and graduation cap, but it wasn't exactly the same thing. Automatically, Mr. Leadly slid his foot between the door and the frame and blinked up at him in a dull manner. An almost familiar dull manner. Gary didn't follow that train of thought, even though it hurt his feelings, and folded his arms. The door was open, yes, but he didn't move his knee out of the way.
"Betty and I aren't interested in selling the Learnatorium, Mr. Leadly. Please don't badger us at our apartment anymore. It's our private residence and we're off the clock."
"Hey." Mr. Leadly's hands went up near his chest. "Don't talk business before I'm even sitting down. That's bad manners. I see Robert didn't do a great job with you before he embezzled all that cash and ditched the 'diots."
"He didn't embezzle from us! His parents came from Las Vegas and met up with him for the first time in thirty-seven years and…" Gary took a breath. His hands went up near his nose, fingertips pressing together in a steeple. Deep inhale through the mouth. Calming exhale through the nostrils. That's it. After a few quick seconds of meditation, he opened his eyes and looked down at Mr. Leadly again. "Ooh, I know how we can both be happy. I'll let you share your thoughts, without judgement, if you sit at the counter without getting up and don't start rummaging through our things. Sound excellent?"
Mr. Leadly's lower eyelid twitched in one corner. For almost a minute, he didn't answer. Then he broke eye contact. "That's fair. Let me in."
There was yet another pause as Gary wrestled with the urge to ask the man to say 'Please'. The pause won. He held open the door. Mr. Leadly crossed the kitchen mechanically and circled around to the counter. Once he got there, he pulled Gary's blue backpack off the nearest barstool and used both hands to climb up in its place. Gary closed the door and stood beside the fridge. Okay. So. Um. With two pinching fingers, he tugged at the collar of his shirt.
"Alrighty then! You can totally talk, sir, and I will listen patiently to everything you want to say and all the feelings you want to share. Buuut, just so you know, Elizabeth is still sleeping, and we would absolutely love it if you'd please keep your voice down. We were up late last night and she needs a lot of rest to grow big and strong."
"Up late doing what?"
Gary narrowed his eyes. Mr. Leadly's face was more the picture of purposefully projected innocence than it was the blank response he was used to getting from Mr. Sanderson, but he still couldn't tell if the man meant it as a playful jab at… certain activities that he'd been taught weren't safe to engage in before marriage, or if he was referring to the topic that had brought him to the apartment in the first place. His fingers tightened in his collar until his nails threatened to bite skin. "Paperwork."
Mr. Leadly tilted his head to the right. "Well, that sure seems like it breaks child labor laws. Heh, wow. Can't believe Robert left you with so much to do by yourselves. Shouldn't you and the girl be preparing for school this fall?"
"All the legal blather is absopositilutely taken care of." Gary said it through tight teeth, making sure to roll the longer word off his tongue. Sarcasm didn't come all that naturally to him, but Mr. Leadly seemed to get it. He adjusted his weight. The barstool had one bad leg. It clopped when he rocked it. His eyes trailed around the kitchen, from Gary by the fridge to the pink salt and pepper shakers to the unplugged toaster to the bananas with their tops wrapped in plastic in the hopes of keeping them fresh. The sink was empty. It was always empty. Neither of the apartment's occupants could stand the sight of it full of dirty dishes. Despite every instinct screaming at him to turn around and follow the man's gaze, Gary kept all his attention rooted on his face. Even when he had to blink, he tried to make it quick. It was like a super blink.
"Cobra," Mr. Leadly said. He folded his hands in front of him on the counter and leaned forward. "I don't enjoy playing my cards close to the vest, so I'm going to start dealing them out on the table for you. Stop me if you've heard this one."
"Sure thing! I support your decision to share with all of my entire heart." Oh, gross. Double positive. Gary made a face. Mr. Leadly stared at him.
"If you think that my systems didn't detect signs of reality-bending supernatural powers spreading outward from your Learnatorium last week, you are quite frankly mistaken."
He should have said, "Magic isn't real."
He should have said, "Please get out of my apartment and don't ever come back."
He should have said either of those things, and with force. Instead, he said, "I don't know what you're talking about," and his voice cracked down the middle.
"Oh, I think you do." Mr. Leadly reached beneath his coat and withdrew a glittering golden compass the size of a strawberry. This, he placed face-up in his palm. When he moved his hand to the left, the needle whirred in Gary's direction and let out a soft beep. When he moved it to the right, it spun back. Even when Gary held still, the needle quivered and occasionally whisked in circles, jabbing at certain spots throughout the apartment where Mr. Sanderson had stood the longest just yesterday, scratching his hair or brushing at his tie as purple dust flakes rained down, down, down.
"I'm supposed to believe that little piece of plastic actually tracks some mystical imaginary force like magic," Gary guessed, finally letting go of his collar.
"I didn't say it tracks magic. I said 'supernatural powers'."
"Ohhhh. You didn't say magic?" Gary upturned his hands and shrugged. "That's stupendous! Because neither did I. You must be hearing things."
"Anyway, it's good technology for something that looks real simple," Mr. Leadly assured him, setting the compass down. "Expensive technology. Denzel tipped me off about it when bemoaning all the tracking equipment he wants and can't afford. I bought this last month just to make him jealous. As I believe you figured out when we had our last encounter."
"Oh! Well, I'm super sorry, sir, to hear how you wasted your money on that just to realize all your suspicions were wrong. Can I walk you down to the front door?"
Who talks like that when they're innocent? "I'm super sorry to hear how you wasted your money." Brilliant. What he needed right now was to pull off his human face and replace it with a pixie's poker one. Mr. Sanderson didn't go around babbling stupidly like this, did he? Maybe the secret to business was staying quiet.
Staying quiet and letting someone else do the talking. Yeeeah, but that wasn't really an option right now.
Was it? Gary flicked his attention at Betty's bedroom door. She'd never woken up without her alarm before, and she'd been up so late. She'd agreed to seven full hours of sleep, or eight if she wasn't feeling tip top after that. Would it be a breach of contract to drag her into this? After all, she wouldn't really put together the clues about Pixies Inc. if she didn't know what pixies even were. Ed Leadly didn't even know what pixies were. No one knew what pixies were. The real pixies, anyway- the pixies as he knew them. Who would believe a story about little identical men dressed in pressed gray suits floating about and sprinkling tokens of their favor on inventors and innovators whose ideas caught their interest at the time? If interest was even a thing pixies were capable of experiencing…
Right. Betty wouldn't suspect a thing even with Mr. Leadly blabbering on, because pixies were meticulously efficient about covering their tracks. Which was totally the truth despite the fact that both he and the apartment were decorated with bits of dust left over from Mr. Sanderson's visit and under-the-Head-Pixie's-desk paycheck delivery. Maybe he could get Betty out here and-
"Mr. Capricorn."
"What?"
Mr. Leadly was still watching him across the speckled counter. Back still straight. Eyes still up. Expression calm or nonexistent. His hair was still combed in that perfect shiny sweep. His yellow suit had stayed perfectly unwrinkled during their talk, even though Mr. Leadly had grabbed the two lapels in his fists and you thought it should bunch up. He held himself relaxed. At ease and in control. Mr. Head Pixie would be proud, Gary couldn't help but think, and the thought made him want to kick his backpack through the window.
Sure, he didn't have proof yet that the pixies had had a secret hand in Mr. Leadly's rise to success however many years ago, or that they favored him over he and Betty on the opposite side of town, but come on. Neat suits custom-colored and custom-fit to his bizarre tastes and body type? A new shiny skyscraper what seemed like every other year? A product that the public wasn't likely to stop clamoring for any time soon? The guy was walking pixie catnip! If nothing else, the near-invincible pencils were kind of a gigantic tip off. Mr. Sanderson had given he and Betty each a box of those every year on their birthdays, actually smiling sometimes when he reminded them that they were of the finest caliber in the known universe. Every Fairy in the cloudlands used them when the situation didn't call for permanent pens. You couldn't even chop them up in a blender. Well, you could, but not without causing the blender to explode and the fire alarms to go off. The pencil bodies were tough, but as if by magic, the wood remained soft and chewable somehow because it made the pixies happy. Gary was sure of it.
"Realize that I'm here to cut you a deal we're both happy with," Mr. Leadly went on, patiently redirecting Gary's attention back on him. "Money is no object. I'm glad you agreed to meet with me. I'm willing to sort this out once and for all."
"Jeepers, look at the time! We're going to have to cut things a little short, sir. Betty and I need to be getting ready for… not going to work… because it's Sunday. Uh." Gary felt for the handle of the fridge door behind him. He didn't know what exactly he could do with it, but clutching it in his fingers gave him the strength he needed to stay standing up when his stomach wrung itself in twists and flips.
Mr. Leadly leaned forward again, the smirk that had started to prick at his lips evaporating instantly. "You can stop playing dumb, Caprison. It's entertaining, but it's not going to get you out of this. I've seen supernatural voo-doo. I know those sorts of things are real. Hidden from the public eye, but ohh, they're real, all right."
"Oh?"
"Mmhm. See, a scruffy little ghost has been paying visits to my hot tub for months now. In fact, I know all about the rumors of ghosts that cling around Amity Park. When I ordered my lethal offbeat security system, the two blockheads from Muckledunk who installed it for me told me no end of stories about their backwoods town's history. Heard of it? Little place in Ohio at the edge of Lake Erie? Epicenter of the war of Man vs. Creature that drove Beasts underground and sent the undead back where they came from? Come on, it was only two centuries ago."
"Ooh, I don't know anything about it, sir!" Technically, that wasn't a lie, which made saying it a whole lot easier. Gary sort of knew of the war, but only from the Creature side of things. All but a few random Fairies had abstained and tucked themselves away in the clouds, which was why it wasn't one of the five official Fairy wars, but some bad business with the Anti-Fairies had gone down last he'd heard. When he and Betty were little tots, back when they even shared the same bedroom, Mr. Sanderson used to hover over their beds after he'd tucked them in. He'd adjust his shades by the arm as he sized them up, one hand tucked away in his pants pocket. Let me think. Which unsafe act of violence do you two want to hear about tonight? He'd left out none of the gruesome details of carnage, sitting on the end of the bed and staring into space, voice falling into a spooky whisper every time he told them of the elves who had been sealed in their caves during the Revolutionary War. "Hundreds of them starved to death," he always murmured. "No one knew until dozens of anti-elves started going up in smoke… By the time Hawkins and I found them, it was too late."
"Oh, you don't want to talk about the war, Catscan."
"Um. Right. Hey, uh, it's Cabrera, sir. You know, kind of like 'Abracadabra'."
Gary's fingers clenched around the fridge handle when he realized what he'd said. Oh. Well. Smoof.
"It's Spanish," he finished lamely as Mr. Leadly looked him over from plain white shirt to loose gray sweatpants. "It means 'Home of the goats'. Mr. Sanderson said it was perfect for Dimmsdale, which is why he brought me here from Kansas, since you guys - I mean we - have the town goat. Ooh, you should just decide not to process all those things I just said too closely. Everything's dandy." His toes curled. "Uh. Tell me about the America War. I wasn't even born yet, but I'm sure you have all kinds of fascinating stories to share!"
Mr. Leadly looked at him. Then he raised one eyebrow.
"Passed down from your ancestors," Gary hurried to amend, inwardly kicking himself for forgetting he was talking to someone who hadn't been alive two hundred years ago.
"You know, Cabrera, what's interesting to me is that most people call it the 2nd Creature War."
"… Do they?"
"Mmhm. Because that's the side they were fighting against."
"Haha, weeellll…" Gary rolled his eyes to the ceiling and let them stay there for a minute. His fingertips tingled against the insides of the fridge handle, the way they did whenever he shook Mr. Sanderson's hand. "Like I said, I wasn't even born yet, so it's really not my fault if I got it wrong. Whoopsie daisies. Little slip-ups happen to everyone now and again, y'know?"
Um. Why wouldn't Mr. Leadly stop looking at him like that? Gary loosened and tightened his toes again. Could the guy smell the sweat gathering above his upper lip and under his arms? Creepy! What was he, a cù sith?
Wait, no. Fairy dogs only tracked down women who were feeding milk to their babies. And as far as he knew, Betty hadn't had a polar bear cub with Pe- Okay, weird thought. Weird thought! Abort! Abort!
Mr. Leadly shifted slightly on the barstool and brought his hands from his lapels down to his lap. "Anyway Cabrera, I didn't come here to talk about the Creature War or argue about whether the undead were really part of it when there's very limited historical evidence to back up that they even exist. You should do your homework on your own time. I'm here to talk about all the nights I've caught my daughter's budgie throwing parties in the bathroom with purple ferrets, pink parakeets, and green snails. Some people, including my ex-wife, don't seem to think that's weird. Dunno why, but they just ignore it. But I've noticed. I think it's unusual. I'd go as far as saying they're Supernatural."
"Oh?" It took only a few seconds for Gary to trace through his memories of paperwork and allergies and identify the daughter in question, since he'd lived in Dimmsdale for most of his life and had gotten pretty familiar with the kids and all. Oooh, riiight. She'd introduced herself as Hadley Harrington, even though her papers had read Hadley Leadly and arguably the latter sounded much better. Gary hadn't met her fairy godparent, exactly, but he kind of knew, y'know? Once you see a few kids milling about the daycare and muttering to their watches or bracelets or the unfamiliar toys in their hands, you kind of pick up a sense for these things. He hadn't been wrong about Timmy that fateful Monday all the way back in April, aka The Worst Day In His Entire Life. And apparently, he hadn't been wrong about Hadley either.
Good to know. Gooood to know.
"So? I know Supernatural Creatures are real. You know Supernatural Creatures are real. Ellie Sunshine and Denzel Crocker know Supernatural Creatures real, and all four of us picked up on the reality shift last week. All of a sudden there was a snap and I was dressed in pink instead of yellow, Cranium. Trust me, I never wear anything but yellow, so I knew immediately that something was up. I'm not an idiot." He knit his fingers together, placing them on the counter again. "Denzel and Ellie can't afford you, and that's where I come in."
"Um." Gary risked a glance down at the lavender and silver glitter now clinging to his fingertips. "Betty and I don't want to sell, Mr. Leadly. Not the Learnatorium. And not any company secrets either. Those are confidential business matters. It's serious and unfun business."
Mr. Leadly leaned back as Gary bit his lower lip. "Mm. I don't know if you've realized this, but you are a very popular boy in the Supernatural-tracking community. Couple times a month, this apartment goes off like lightning. We're all thinking it. You're hiding something."
"Oh, that's just weather balloons."
"Listen, Cabbyrare. I came here to give you and the girl a warning. Now that Robert's out of the way and the Learn-A-Torium-"
"It's actually Learnatorium, sir. Without the hyphens. Betty and I changed it."
Pause.
"What?"
"Nothing! Sorry. Sorry, just- sorry." Gary pushed his back harder against the fridge and rubbed the handle again. "I- I could tell you were thinking it with hyphens. It's this thing I do. It's definitely not because somebody magical touched this fridge handle I'm holding yesterday and I accidentally just picked up on the glittery dust he left behind. You were saying?"
Mr. Leadly blinked. "Uh. The Learnatorium is being run by a couple of nutty teenagers, it looks to me like things are about to become very unsafe for you around the rest of Dimmsdale."
He really tried not to flinch. He did.
Mr. Leadly just kept watching him. His fingers tightened, squeezing against the knuckles of his left hand. "I'd like to point out that you've got a handful of Creature hunters sniffing at your tracks. The three of us have bumped into each other before to compare notes, and that's all the proof we need to know we're on the right trail. We all want what you have to offer. Doug's been scoping you out too, but all he wants is your land. The rest of us are smart enough to know your land isn't the most valuable thing you've got under your lid."
"I don't know what you're talking about?"
"You're one weird freak of nature, kid."
Gary wrinkled his nose. "Hey. In this home, we don't allow name-calling."
"I have had several personal dealings with Ellie and Denzel, Cabinetborrow," Mr. Leadly said, completely ignoring him. He flicked a stray bread crumb off the counter. It bounced off the wall and hit the plywood. Mess. "Suffice to say, they're both maniacs without any qualms about hurting people to get what they want. Denzel's got tenure and Ellie, to put it nicely, is certifiably insane. You'd be way better off selling your secrets to me. As I believe I said, money is no object."
Gary fingered the fridge handle once again. It was warm, for a fridge handle. The tingle of pixie dust on his skin was comforting and familiar, but it didn't feel like there was enough there for him to actually do anything with it. Not that he had any idea what he might dare to do if he even could; he wasn't exactly the violent type. It took all his energy just to scare teenagers on Halloween. "I don't really have any secrets about Fairy World, sir. To tell you the truth, I think you're absolutely nutty."
"Oh? Let's start off by talking about Fairy World. What's that?"
Oh, gosh. Gary finally let go of the handle and reached up to shove his fingers through his hair. "Mr. Leadly, I'm really not the one you should be talking to about this stuff. If you would wait until the woman of the house wakes up-"
"I don't want anything from the girl." Mr. Leadly threw a meaningful glance at the little compass still on the counter between them. "She's clean. You're not."
Gary gulped. He tried to open his mouth, but saliva had welded it shut. He dabbed his tongue around his lips. Was this happening? It didn't feel like this was happening. This day wasn't all that special. This couldn't be the day everything changed. This couldn't be the day he betrayed everyone. Not yet. Not yet. He wasn't that desperate.
"What even are you?" Mr. Leadly asked, tipping his head to the left. "You're not really human."
Gary blinked. That was an easy one. He knew this one! He laughed. "Whoa-oh! Of course I'm human! Do you see any wands or wings or floaty crowny things on me?"
"Floaty crowny things?"
… Oh. His fingers tightened in his hair.
"I mean- I just meant- Um. Hypothetically, if there were such things as fairy godparents, and they did have floating crowns, I'm not- Oh, smoof." Gary covered his face. "Smoofy, toofy, poofy, bad words I'm not allowed to say."
Mr. Leadly leaned his forefingers against his lips. "Godparents. So then Hadley's bird…"
"No, no- you-" Gary grabbed his hair with both fists. "You can't talk to her about it, or her fairy godparent has to go away forever, and her memory gets wiped, a-and it's awful. Humans aren't supposed to know!"
Silence. Mr. Leadly looked him up and down.
"Seems like you know."
"That's… different." Gary squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm kind of special?"
Mr. Leadly picked up his compass again. "You're clearly not human. But you're not one of Denzel's fairies either. You're a crossbreed. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder…"
"Um… I have mixed heritage, but I really don't think I'm a Fairy crossbreed, sir. I don't think that's a thing. Mr. Sanderson always told me and Betty that all our parents died in a… car… crash. Um." He watched Mr. Leadly watch him, and scratched behind his ear. "Okay, I get how that sounds totally super suspicious, but it's the honest-wonest truth! Really! It's not like Mr. Sanderson is mine and Betty's real dad or anything. Okay, yeah, that's gross, not gonna think about that anymore."
Fingers tapped, and Gary looked up again. Mr. Leadly slid his compass across the counter from one hand to the other and back again, over and over, like a hockey puck. As he flicked it back and forth, he said, "It sounds like this Mr. Sanderson is the one I want to talk to."
"Well, you can't. Humans… aren't supposed to know. About Fairies and things…"
"Until they met me, you mean. I always get what I want. And I want you to take a message for me. Hey Cattleprod, relax." Mr. Leadly glanced up again. "As long as you cooperate, I'm not going to hurt you. Ellie and Denzel are the nutsos in this town. I don't intend to get physical if I don't have to. The legalities get decently messy. I've got cash. I could compensate you handsomely if you took a message to your fairy friend for me."
"I don't have a-"
"Or should I say, your pixie friend?" Mr. Leadly's finger tapped the compass hard. "Unlike you, I do my homework, Cabrera. I'm still learning the ropes, but when I heard about the little identical men in the gray suits said to be spirits of posterity, let's just say my interest was piqued. Take a message and I'll make it worth your time."
Owwie. Gary stared down at his twiddling thumbs. Well, why not? He'd already kind of blown the secret. Kind of a lot, actually. And it was just a little message, right? Mr. Leadly was giving him time. Time to talk to Mr. Sanderson about what to do. Maybe Mr. Sanderson would even get him and Betty out of there, and the Pixies could deal with the Learnatorium. Yeah. Yeah, that would work great!
Right?
"Erm. If Mr. Sanderson was real… and if I was going to see him sometime in the next few weeks… What would you want me to tell him?"
Mr. Leadly coughed into his fist. "Tell him that I'd be interested in treating him to a human lunch sometime when he's available, and I'd like to know about this… crossbreed business."
Gary stared at him. And almost threw up in his mouth. He felt the blood in his cheeks even before he saw their color reflected dimly in Mr. Leadly's dark eyes. "Oh my gosh. You don't mean you want to ask if… Didn't people say you were thinking about getting remarried to that perfume lady, though? The CEO of Sprita Spritz, I think?"
"For her money," Mr. Leadly said disinterestedly, waving this little detail about his steady girlfriend off like it was something to slide between parentheses instead of something to be bolded and centered at the top of the page. "She's not exactly Miss Dimmsdale. When a better opportunity comes along, I do what I always do, and take it."
"Y-you're crazy."
"Everyone in the Creature-hunting business is crazy, kid. That's what keeps us sane when everyone else is telling us we're nuts."
"Um." Gary clenched the front of his shirt again, using both hands this time. "Okay. Just so you know, it's actually the, um, the boy Fairy who has the baby, and the, um… You can't just… Girls."
Mr. Leadly studied Gary's face again. His mustache twitched. "You know, these are magical creatures we're dealing with, and I'm filthy rich. I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out."
"Ooookay, nope, nope, nope, aaand who wants to have a subject change party? D-didn't you come here to ask about buying out the Learnatorium? Because Betty and I still aren't interested in selling."
"Not even for seventeen million dollars?"
"Wait. Seventeen million…" With that kind of money, why- He and Betty could afford to pay all the Learnatorium costs for the rest of their lives!
Oh.
Yeah, the-
Oh.
Right.
Gary shook his head and forced himself to laugh. "Mr. Leadly, you're trying to barter with someone who's been involved in the magical world since he was eight. Money doesn't matter to us. Magic is better than money. There's only thing I want, and you can't offer it to me."
"And what's that?" Mr. Leadly asked, leaning forward on his crossed arms. "Cabrera, I always get what I want."
But Gary shook his head. He put his hand back to the fridge handle, but this time he turned his back, pulled it open, and grabbed the soy milk. "Sorry. It's not something you can buy, even with seventeen million dollars."
"It's the girl, isn't it?"
The carton plunged from his fingers and hit the plywood with a solid thud. It didn't burst open, though Gary wished it would have. That would've given him something to do with his hands instead of just stand there and let them shake.
"Oh my smoof," he said, still staring into the fridge. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and clenched them into fists. "Don't talk about her like that. She's not… That's not… Th-that's not what I meant!"
"No love potions?" Mr. Leadly pressed. "No magic spells or charms? Come on. There's got to be something you want in return for that money-draining dump on Strawberry Street."
"Stop it." Gary grabbed for his nose. His palms were cold from the milk, and his face warm from the flush. "Please don't push this! Betty doesn't like me like that. I really want to respect her boundaries. I'm really trying. I don't want a love potion. That would be so wrong. Unless- Oh smoof, I shouldn't even be thinking about this. That's so wrong." He would have smacked himself, but that wouldn't have been very safe for his face.
"Well, we're getting somewhere. That's a start." The sound behind him was one of a wallet popping open. Bills and checkbooks rustled. "So do they have currency exchange down in Fairy World or what?"
Instead of answering, Gary shook his head very, very slowly. Cold fridge air leaked down his front and made the hairs on his arms quiver to attention. He picked up the soy milk, passed it from hand to hand for a moment, then replaced it in the fridge and shut the door. He leaned his forehead against a magnet shaped like the letter B. "Mr. Leadly, I already have plenty of lagelyn. Uh, Fairy money. If I wanted a love potion, I could get it myself. I… don't want anything from you. We're not selling the Learnatorium. It's home."
When he turned around, Mr. Leadly was watching the needle on his compass spin again. "I want that place, Cabrera," he finally said. "We all know you're hiding something big there. Could be a portal to the Creature Worlds. Could be a secret library of information. Could be a daycare full of baby Beasts and Fairies. No one really knows for sure. What we do know is, your place is the second biggest blip on the radar for a hundred miles, and we want it. Watch your back."
"Hey, are you threatening us?" It slipped out a liiittle bit more like a squeak than the indignant snap he'd been aiming for.
"I wouldn't dream of it." Mr. Leadly slid down from the barstool and took his coat in both fists. He straightened, lifting on his toes, and plopped down on his heels again. "The only thing I'm saying is, Denzel's a sneak and Ellie's a wrecking ball. He's a fairy catcher. She's a fairy hunter." His palms went up. "I'm the good guy here. I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm just a multimillionaire who's gotten bored playing king of the hill in this shoddy town and is looking for a nice retirement community to settle in down the road. Heh. You feel that, don't you?"
Gary bit his lip. "You don't even know if Fairies are nice. They could be tiny blood-suckers like mosquitos. Why would you even think Fairy World is a happy place full of rainbows and clouds?"
Mr. Leadly just chuckled and flapped his lapels again. "I've started to fund a lot of cryptozoology research, kid. Denzel and Ellie have both got years and years of notes on me, but I find that tracking their research and throwing money at the actual guys who do it is a good way to speed up the process. Those two idiots are too proud to work together. I take a little of this from him, a little of that from her, and presto- I start filling in the gaps between. I know a little more than they think I do."
"Oh." Yeah, he should- he should definitely talk to Mr. Sanderson.
Mr. Sanderson who was probably going to fire him when he heard how many confidential magical secrets Gary had spilled in a single day. Mr. Sanderson who was probably going to stop paying for this apartment after he got fired. Mr. Sanderson whom he would probably never see again if he and Betty were left, post the thirty-seven year plan they'd been raised for, to wander the streets of Dimmsdale hungry and alone.
Um. Maybe he wouldn't deliver Mr. Leadly's message to Mr. Sanderson after all.
"On an unrelated note, you seem to be doing okay, halfling. I've got millions of dollars worth of tech. What's old-fashioned magic got against weapons of the modern age? Not that I'd use them unless I was attacked first. I'm not a murderer, because that would be illegal. According to human laws, anyway." Mr. Leadly shrugged, modestly ducking his head as Gary twitched on the spot. "Hey. I'm disappointed that you've decided to turn me down again, but I realize you need a little more time to think my offer over. I'm sure it's a really tough choice to make considering how the other cuckoos who want to sway you to their side are a nutso who keeps trying to build a portal to Fairy World on a teacher's salary and a woman who'd just love to see halflings like you and the girl dissected with an axe." He walked over to the door.
"But- I- Betty- We're not-"
Mr. Leadly grabbed the door handle and pointed his finger Gary's way. "When you figure out what you actually want out of life and decide to sell that money drain of yours, you know where to find me. If I'm not around, I'm just in Amity Park. Leave a message with my secretary and she'll phone me right away. Anything Doug Dimmadome offers you, I'll up it by thousands, so take him out of the equation. That leaves you with three coin sith sniffing at your heels. We all want what you've got, but I'm the only one willing to legitimately pay for it. Keep that in mind as you think it over. It's me, Crocker, or Sunshine. I trust you'll make the right choice."
He shut the door behind him in a polite and soft way, which was really nice of him since it was polite and soft, and Betty was still asleep and everything. As he moved away down the apartment hall, big shoes clopping, Gary heard him chuckle and whistle an old, familiar tune. Creatures are different, different is good, you want Creatures in your neighborhood…