Inigo, for his part, was startled at Fezzik’s strange behavior. He saw no reason for it whatsoever, and was about to call after Fezzik when he saw a tiny green speckled spider scurrying down from the door handle, so he stepped on it with his boot as he hurried to the cage.
Fezzik was already inside the place, kneeling over the body.
“Don’t say it,” Inigo said, entering.
Fezzik tried not to, but it was on his face. “Dead.” Inigo examined the body. He had seen a lot of corpses in his time. “Dead.” Then he sat down miserably on the floor and put his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth like a baby, back and forth, back and forth and back.
It was too unfair. You expected unfairness if you breathed, but this went beyond that. He, Inigo, no thinker, had thought—hadn’t he found the man in black? He, Inigo, frightened of beasts and crawlers and anything that stung, had brought them down the Zoo unharmed. He had said good-by to caution and stretched himself far beyond any boundaries he ever dreamed he possessed. And now, after such effort, after being reunited with Fezzik on this day of days for this one purpose, to find the man to help him find a plan to help him revenge his dead Domingo—gone. All was gone. Hope? Gone. Future? Gone. All the driving forces of his life. Gone. Snuffed out. Beaten. Dead.
“I am Inigo Montoya, the son of Domingo Montoya, and I do not accept it.” He sprang to his feet, started up the underground stairs, stopping only long enough to snap commands. “Come, come along. Bring the body.” He searched through his pockets for a moment, but they were empty, from the brandy. “Have you got any money, Fezzik?”
“Some. They pay well on the Brute Squad.” “Well I just hope it’s enough to buy a miracle, that’s all.”
When the knocking started on his hut door, Max almost didn’t answer it. “Go away,” he almost said, because lately it was only kids come to mock him. Except this was a little past the time for kids being up—it was almost midnight—and besides, the knocking was both loud and, at the same time, rat-a-tatty, as if the brain was saying to the fist, “Hurry it up; I want to see a little action.”
So Max opened the door a peek’s worth. “I don’t know you.”
“Aren’t you Miracle Max that worked all those years for the King?” this skinny guy said.
“I got fired, didn’t you hear? That’s a painful subject, you shouldn’t have brought it up, good night, next time learn a little manners,” and he closed the hut door.
Rat-a-tat—rat-a-tatt.
“Get away, I’m telling you, or I call the Brute Squad.”
“I’m on the Brute Squad,” this other voice said from outside the door, a big deep voice you wanted to stay friendly with.
“We need a miracle; it’s very important,” the skinny guy said from outside.
“I’m retired,” Max said, “anyway, you wouldn’t want someone the King got rid of, would you? I might kill whoever you want me to miracle.”
“He’s already dead,” the skinny guy said.
“He is, huh?” Max said, a little interest in his voice now. He opened the door a peek’s worth again. “I’m good at dead.”
“Please,” the skinny guy said.
“Bring him in. I’m making no promises,” Miracle Max answered after some thought.
This huge guy and this skinny guy brought in this big guy and put him on the hut floor. Max poked the corpse. “Not so stiff as some,” he said.
The skinny guy said, “We have money.”
“Then go get some great genius specialist, why don’t you? Why waste time messing around with me, a guy who the King fired.” It almost killed him when it happened. For the first two years, he wished it had. His teeth fell out from gnashing; he pulled the few loyal tufts from his scalp in wild anger.