Faded Steel Heat gf-9

by Glen Cook

  The tip of a wing whipped across the back of my hair. The Goddamn Parrot was showing off for his plain-feathered cousins. "I know a Yessiley place where they put pigeon in everything they cook. And they don't care if the pigeon is really a pigeon."

  "Awk! I want to soar with eagles and am forced—"

  "You want me to call one of those hawks down? They'll soar with you."

  "Help!"

  "Hey, Mister. Does your bird really talk?"

  "Hush, Bertie. The man's a ventriloquist." Bertie's mom gave me a look that said I ought to be ashamed, trying to scam people with an innocent bird.

  "You're probably right, ma'am. Why don't you take the poor creature and give him a decent home?"

  The air crackled around woman and child so swift was their departure.

  Nobody wanted poor old lovable Mr. Big.

  11

  The place has pretensions toward being a class eatery. It doesn't compete for the Yessiley trade. Its fashionable dishes never include anything harder to catch than squash or eggplant. Its name varies with the mood of its owner, Morley Dotes. The Palms is the moniker he's hung on it lately. His target clientele has gone from being blackhearted second-string underworlders foregathering to plot, negotiate, or arrange an expedient truce to upscale subjects foregathering to plot, negotiate, or arrange an expedient truce.

  The staff, however, is a constant.

  It was an off-peak hour when I invited myself into Morley's place. Diners of any station were conspicuous by their absence. Staff were making preparations for the hour when the crowd would show. Morley's new gimmick was a money cow. The place reeked prosperity.

  "Shee-it! I done thunk we was shut of dis perambulatin' sack a horse apples."

  "Better watch using words like perambulate, Sarge. You'll throw your tongue out of joint." How long did it take him to latch on to the word's meaning, so he could use it? It was several syllables longer than any in his normal vocabulary.

  A voice from the shadowed back growled, "You let dat damned dog in here again, Sarge? I smell doggie do."

  "Dat ain't dog shit, Puddle. Dat's Garrett."

  "Tossup which is worst."

  "Fugginay."

  "You guys ought to take your routine on the road." I couldn't see Puddle but he had been struck from the same mold as Sarge. Both are big and fat and sloppy, tattooed and almost as bad as they think they are.

  "Fugginay, Garrett. We'd have 'em rollin' in da streets. Be up to our friggin' noses in hot little gels... Nah. I don't tink. I'm gettin' too old for all dat."

  "Watcha want, Garrett?" Puddle demanded. "I tink we done you ‘bout enough favors for dis week."

  "I don't need any favors," I fibbed. "I wanted to let Morley in on some bad news."

  Back there in the shadows Puddle must have reported through the speaking tube to Morley's office upstairs. Dotes' voice came from the stair. "What bad news is that, Garrett?"

  "Crask and Sadler are back."

  Morley didn't say anything for a good ten seconds. Then he asked, "Where did you get that?"

  "Can't tell you." Which told him.

  "Shee-it!" Sarge observed. "What'd I say? It smells like poop it's proba'ly gonna be poop. He wants sometin' again."

  "Fugginay," Puddle replied. "I'm gonna have me a case a da brown-leg trots he comes in here someday an' he don't want nuttin'."

  I tried a ferocious scowl on Sarge as I passed him. He grinned amiably. He doesn't scare. "Nice shoulder ornament dere, Garrett. We knew you'd take to da bird eventually."

  These people are my friends. Allegedly.

  I told Morley, "You know eggplant used to be poisonous?"

  "Yes. I keep a few of the undomesticated variety around in case I want to cook up special dishes for people who don't respect our dress code here." He led the way upstairs. "So who's going to hear you now? Block told you about Crask and Sadler?"

  "He got it from Relway."

  "Oh. In here." Morley ducked across the room he uses for an office, settled into a plush chair behind a big table. He slipped a toothpick into a forest of nasty sharp teeth, looked thoughtful. "Crask and Sadler. Interesting."

  12

  Morley Dotes is the kind of guy nightmares are made of if you have a daughter. He's so damned handsome it's painful, in an olive, slim, dark-elven fashion. Anything he throws on makes him look like he spent all last week at a tailor's. He can deck himself out in white and prance through a coalyard without getting a spot on himself. I've never seen him sweat. Females of numerous species stop thinking while he's around.

  For all his faults he's a good friend. Albeit a friend of the sort who would give you a talking parrot as a gift—and do it in a way that would tie you in knots of obligation that keep you from disposing of said gift in any sensible fashion. Sort of the way an old hag witch might put a curse on you that you can shed only when some other fool volunteers to take it upon himself.

  No doubt Morley chuckles himself to sleep every night thinking about me and the Goddamn Parrot.

  I said, "Looks like the new scam has the marks rolling in."

  "It was the right move at the right time, Garrett. Took a while to convince the neighbors that they would benefit, though."

  I could imagine. The area had been known as the Safety Zone till recently. It was neutral ground where gentlemen of unsavory enterprise who were business rivals or outright enemies could sit down with some expectation of personal safety. The Joy House had been the heart of the Zone. Morley made the Zone work and therefore profitable for the whole area.

  A shift in market focus certainly would disconcert the neighbors.

  "Rich people have the same requirements and vices as poor people," Morley observed. Lamplight sparkled off the points of his unnaturally white teeth. "But they have more money to pay for them. That convinced everyone."

  That and, I didn't doubt, the marketing strategems of Sarge and Puddle and their compatriots.

  "Uhm. Crask and Sadler."

  "Block do any guessing about who brought them in?"

  "Nope. I thought Belinda should know they'd been seen." Morley has better contacts in the Outfit.

  "If she doesn't know, she'll be grateful for the warning."

  I said, "I'd like to break the news personally."

  Morley gave me a double dose of the fish-eye. "You sure that would be smart?"

  "She used me up and left. No hard feelings from me."

  "From you. Belinda Contague is a strange woman, Garrett. Might not be healthy to get within stabbing distance of her."

  "We understand each other. But it'll be easier for both of us if I have you contact her."

  "I'll pass it on this time, you bullshitter. But you need to find somebody else to run your love notes. I'm out of that life."

  Who was bullshitting who? But I didn't ask. Let the man think he can kid a kidder. If he did. It could be a useful lever later.

  "What have you been into lately?" Dotes asked. "We haven't had a chance to just sit and talk and find cures for the ills of the world." His notions for the latter involve either forcing everyone to turn vegetarian or necessitate wholesale slaughters. Or both.

  I told him about my adventures among the gods. And goddesses. "I thought about getting you together with Magodor. She was your type."

  "Uhm?" He looked speculative.

  "She had four arms, snakes for hair, green lips, teeth like a cobra. But she was to kill for otherwise."

  "Oh, yes. I've dreamed about her for years."

  "Elves don't dream."

  He shrugged. "What about now?"

  "Now?"

  "You didn't visit Block to tip a few beers and reminisce about old murders you solved together."

  "Sure I did."

  "I know you, Garrett. You have a case."

  "It isn't really a case. I've got the deal with the brewery. Somebody threatened the old man. Maybe." I sketched the situation.

  "You have yourself a situation fraught with peril, Garrett." He smirked.


  "Potential violence. Weider won't stand for it. And if The Call tries moving into the rackets—"

  "The Call probably wouldn't. But several fringe groups are trying. They don't attract people with money. We'll see some excitement there. I can hear Belinda sharpening her knives. You going inside?"

  "Inside?"

  "Into the movement. As a spy. You wouldn't have any trouble. You're ethnically pure. You're a war hero." Morley is a war hero himself, in his own mind. He stayed behind and did yeoman service comforting many a soldier's frightened wife. "You're healthy enough to stand on your hind legs. You're unemployed. Makes you the perfect recruit."

  "Except for I don't buy the doctrine."

  Morley smiled his sharp-toothed finest. "You better not be seen here if you're going inside. You shouldn't even be around the Dead Man."

  "Oh." I didn't swear any oaths with Relway, did I? No thumb-cutting and blood-mixing. Obvious as it was I hadn't thought about the fact that infiltrating the rightsists meant my own lifestyle would have to reflect rightsist prejudice.

  Adopting a false identity would be too iffy. Too many veterans knew me. One thing you do when you're single and don't work is hang out with people like yourself. I prefer the company of women but there are rare occasions on an almost daily basis when no woman prefers mine. Hard as that is to believe.

  "It won't go that far." I hoped. "I'm going to the brewery to poke around. If Ty is trying to scam Pop's cash prematurely, I'll scare him off. If he's playing straight, I'll still get an idea of the real problem. I can't believe any of our racist lunatics have balls big enough to go after Weider."

  "You have true believers involved, Garrett. You ought to know reality doesn't faze those people. They're right. That's their armor. That's all they need." Morley sat up straight. He wanted to move on to something else. "Be careful out there, Garrett."

  "I'm always careful."

  "No, you're not. You're lucky. And luck is a woman. Be careful. You learned from the best. Take my lessons to heart."

  "Right." I chuckled. Morley doesn't lack for self-image.

  "Tell Puddle to come up. I need him to run a message."

  "I don't think he'll do much running." I did as Dotes asked, though.

  Morley never said a word about the Goddamn Parrot. Never asked a question. Never even looked at the bird. Never smirked or rubbed it in.

  Morley was playing with me again.

  I ought to slice the little buzzard into thin strips and slip them to him buried in one of his strange, overly spiced vegetarian platters.

  13

  I watched Puddle strain his way upstairs. "That man needs to eat more of what he serves," I told Sarge, who isn't a single pound lighter.

  "Fugginay. We're all puttin' on da pounds, Garrett," Sarge muttered, polishing a mug. Though they're all thugs, Morley's guys pretend to be waiters and cooks. "Ya tink about it hard when ya ain't eatin' but den ya wander inta a place where dey got da good beer and da great food, ya go bugfuck and don't tink what ya done till ya done et half a cow."

  "I know what you mean." Dean was too good a cook.

  Couldn't be the beer. Beer is good for you.

  "Fugginay. Hey, I got work to do, Garrett."

  "Yeah. Later."

  "You be careful out dere, pal. Da world's goin' crazy."

  That was the nicest thing Sarge ever said to me. I hit the street wondering why.

  A bird's wing brushed the back of my head. Again.

  My live-in clown was restless. He didn't speak, though. Luckily. Had the Dead Man not been controlling him, he would have screeched about me abusing infants. Or something. There was an unnatural rapport between the Loghyr and the bird. The Dead Man could touch his mind from miles away. Me he can barely reach in the street outside the house.

  It's bad enough to have the Dead Man after me constantly at home. Having him use Mr. Big to keep tabs everywhere else had gotten old two minutes after he found out he could do it.

  I reminded him, "I'm going to the brewery." Shift change was coming up.

  People noticed me talking to the bird. They gave me a more than normal amount of room.

  Because the streets are filled with men who talk to ghosts and shadows. For them the Cantard opened doors to realms the rest of us never see.

  War may not be Hell itself but it definitely does weaken the barriers between us and the dark regions.

  The Goddamn Parrot took wing. He followed me from above. The Dead Man's control slipped. The jungle vulture squawked insults at passersby. Some hurled sticks or bits of broken brick. The bird mocked them. He fears nothing that goes on two legs.

  Hawks are something else.

  A pigeon killer of uncertain species arrowed down out of the blue. Mr. Big sensed his peril at the last instant. He dodged. Even so, bright feathers flew but only the parrot's feelings suffered any real injury. He shrieked curses.

  I chuckled. "That was close, you little pervert. Maybe next time I'll get lucky."

  The little monster returned to my shoulder. He wouldn't leave again. The hawk circled but lost patience quickly. There is no shortage of pigeons in this burg.

  "Argh!" I said. "Where's me eye patch, matey?" I took a few crabbed steps, dragging my left foot. Folks didn't appreciate the effort, thought. Almost everybody has a disabled veteran in the family.

  14

  Stragglers from the early shift still drifted into the street as I reached the brewery. The stench of fermentation drenched the neighborhood. The workers didn't notice. Neither did the residents. Their noses were dead.

  Weider's main brewery is a great gothic redbrick monster that looks more like a hospice for werewolves and vampires than the anchor of a vast commercial empire. It has dozens of turrets and towers that have nothing to do with what goes on inside the building. Bats boil out of the towers at dusk.

  The monstrosity sprang from Old Man Weider's imagination. A smaller duplicate stands directly across Delor Street, Weider's first effort. He'd meant that to be a brewery but it turned out to be too small. So he remodeled and moved his family in while he built a copy ten times bigger, to which all sorts of additions have attached themselves since.

  We TunFairens love our beer.

  The brewery doen't have a real security team. Senior workers take turns patrolling and watching the entrances. Outside villains don't get in. The workforce protects the place like worker bees protect their hives.

  A spry antique named Geral Diar had the duty at the front entrance. "Hey, Gerry," I said as I walked up. "Checking in."

  "Garrett?" His eyes aren't the best. And he was surprised to see me. That was a good sign. If nobody expects me, any bad guys will have no time to cover up. "What're you doing here?"

  "Snooping. Same as always. The big house says it's time. Been stealing any barrels?"

  "You enjoy yourself, young fellow. Somebody should."

  "Oh? You're not?"

  Diar is one of those guys who can't not talk if anybody stops to listen. "Not much joy around here lately."

  "How come?"

  "State of the kingdom. Everybody's got a viewpoint and nobody's got a pinch of tolerance for the other guy's."

  This might be germane. "Been some political friction here?"

  "Oh, no, not around here. Mr. Weider wouldn't put up with that. But it's everywhere else and you got to get through it to get to work. You can't hardly go anywhere without you run into a brawl or demonstration or even an out an' out riot. It's all a them foreigners from the Cantard. They just act like they want to cause trouble."

  "I know what you mean." I was in my chameleon mode, where I mirror whomever I'm with. That loosens people up. Diar's comment, though, complimented the Dead Man's suspicion that Glory Mooncalled was trying to destabilize Karentine society.

  "Gets depressing, Garrett, knowing you have to go out there. Things was better back when all you had to worry about was thieves and strong-arm men."

  "I'm sure the King will do something soon." Like the traditional turn
-of-the-back till the mob sorted itself out. Not that the royals deign to spend time in TunFaire, where the upper crust bears them far less goodwill than does the factious, fractious rabble.

  "Well, you just have yourself a wonderful day, Garrett."

  "And you, too, Gerry. You, too."

  When you think brewery mostly you picture the finished product: beer, ale, stout, whatever. You don't consider the process. First thing you notice about a brewery is the smell. That isn't the toothsome bouquet of a premium lager, either. It's the stench of vegetable matter rotting. Because that's the process. To get beer you let vats of grain and water and additives like hops rot under the loving guidance of skilled old brewmasters who time each phase to the minute.

  There are no youngsters working in the brewhouse. In the Weider scheme even apprenticed sons of the brewmasters start out as rough labor. Weider himself was a teamster before he went to the Cantard and believes that physical labor made him a better man. But when he was young everybody over nine had to work. And jobs were easy to find.

  Weider does know every job in the brewery and occasionally works some of them just to keep in touch with a workingman's reality. He expects his senior associates to do the same.

  Manvil Gilbey wrestling beer barrels is a hoot. Which might explain why Gilbey isn't entirely fond of me. I've witnessed his efforts and feel comfortable reporting that as a laborer he's pretty lame.

  I said hello to the brewmasters on duty. Skibber Kessel returned a sullen greeting. Mr. Klees was too busy to notice a housefly like me. They were dedicated men, disinclined to gossip at the most relaxed times. I supposed they were happy with things the way they were. No brewmaster is shy about raising hell when he's bothered. The finest brewmasters are like great operatic performers.

  When I go to the brewery I try to stay unpredictable. The bad boys don't need to catch me in a routine. Sometimes I hang around only half an hour. Other times I just won't go away. I become like some unemployed cousin loafing around the place, though I will help the guys on the docks, loading and unloading. I shoot the bull with the apprentices, shovel with the guys in the grain elevator, just watch the boys in the hops shed. I wander, double-check counts on the incoming barley, rice, and wheat, calculating inflow against recorded output. In all ways I try to be a pain in the ass to would-be crooks.