“You’re greasing our wheels,” Ryan said. “You mean all that other stuff is faked?”
“Sorry.” He smiled thinly, the eyes staring at them, magnified by the enormously thick lenses of his spectacles. “Like I said in the schoolroom, I have talents in that line. Though spelling has, sadly, never been among them. As a child I was whipped by my father for that failing. I can read well enough. Always could. But when I try and scratch the black marks on the page, they become muddled and jumbled.”
“We noticed that,” J.B. said, sitting where Gribble indicated.
“That was why I abandoned my attempt to copy Mr. Poe’s wonderful verses about the raven onto the board. I knew things had run away from me.”
Ryan sat down and looked at the groaning table, hardly able to believe that so little of it was real. Until he spotted that imperfection meant reality.
The bread was burned on one side and looked underbaked in its heart. The bowl of venison was thick with grease, a clotted scum floating on its top.
Everything else was flawless.
The salmon, freshly caught, with its scales shining like a thousand rainbows, was dry and dull to the touch. The quail, every feather vibrant with life, was long dead. The pile of fruitpeaches, a mango, oranges, bananas, a pineapple and some unskinned lycheeswas made from clay, glazed and fired.
“Did all that myself,” Gribble said. “Like I say. God gave me a real talent for that. Got my own kiln out back by the generator. Drives the electrics. And for the embalming. In return, He made words and letters go into a corkscrew dive when I come anyplace near to them.”
J.B. ladled some of the venison stew onto a cracked dish, hacking off a slice of the bread. He sniffed suspiciously at the food, looking up at their host.
“Yeah” Gribbte said sorrowfully. “Cooking isn’t a skill I possess, either. Sorry.”
During the next half hour Ryan and the Armorer learned most of what there was to know about Malachi Gribble.
He’d been born on the edges of old Denver, fifty-three years ago, when there were plenty of serious hot spots around Colorado. His parents died of rad sickness when he was eleven, and he headed for the hills, lived in a ville near Telluride and learned all about taxidermy from an old-timer.
“Had a store. Did some hair-cutting. Claimed to do manicures, though I never saw him do that. And embalming. Called his place ‘Buff ’em, Fluff ’em and Stuff ’em.’ Honest. Left him. Married. Had a couple of kids. All died. Cholera. Found this place about four years ago. Going to call it Gribbleville once it’s done.”
The little blue eyes, behind the dense, magnifying lenses, really came alive when Malachi talked about his dreams and ambitions. He wore a three-piece suit that looked like it came from the same era as the clothes of the children in the schoolhouse. As he talked he slurped stew all over the vest and dropped crumbs in his lap. But he seemed oblivious to the mess.
“I want to have this place looking so real you can kind of squint and believe it. Did all the voices myself. Never have guessed that, would you?”
Both J.B. and Ryan shook their heads, battling with the rotten food.
“Moving onto smaller animals.”
“Like dogs?”
Gribble blushed at Ryan’s words. For a moment there seemed a fiery glimmer of real anger behind the glasses, but if it had ever been there it was swiftly gone.
“They’re a mistake, aren’t they? Come on, now. Admit it. Mistake. Error city. Failure avenue. Lapse of taste. On a scale of one to a hundred, the dogs rate a flat zero. I know that. But it’s hard to get hold of children.”
Ryan couldn’t eat any more. His stomach was already revolting at the greasy mess. “Where do you find your”
“Specimens?”
“That’ll do for a name. Yeah.”
Gribble was helping himself to the last of the venison, shreds of gristle and sinew plopping into his dish. “Oh, here and there.”
“They dead when you get them?”
“Of course, Mr. Dix.” A vacuous smile of dubious morality pasted itself onto the pallid cheeks.