by Glen Cook
A nice gap opened. Me and fifty other apolitical types decided to go for it.
"Hey! Garrett! Wait up!"
I knew that voice. Unfortunately. "Damn!" Maybe I could outrun her.
21
"Garrett!" That was my pal Winger doing the hollering. Winger is a big old country girl as tall as me, a good-looker, who abandoned her husband and kids to chase her fortune in the city. "Dammit! You stop right there, Garrett!"
"Wait," the Goddamn Parrot squawked in my ear. I stopped. I was well trained. Several people nearby stopped, too, all startled by the bird's having spoken.
A kid asked, "Does your bird really talk, Mister?" She was maybe five with blond hair in ringlets and the biggest innocent blue eyes ever invented. I wanted to make a date for about fifteen years but her dad looked like a guy who thought too much like a father. "Yes, he does. But it's hard to get him started."
"Awk! Pretty baby! Pretty girl!"
"Unless you're someone special."
The bird spotted Winger. "Awk! Holy hooters! Look at them gazoombies!" Nature had been generous to Winger.
I squeezed the bird's beak before he got me assassinated.
"I love you, too, Mr. Big," Winger said, hustling up. She ignored kid and dad completely. The father decided he wanted nothing to do with lowlifes like us. He took off across the street. Winger demanded, "Where do you think you're going, Garrett?"
"I was seriously contemplating crossing the street while the goofballs don't have it blocked, Hawkeye."
"He was trying to get away from you, genius," said a voice from behind me.
"Saucerhead!" I turned. Saucerhead Tharpe is a mountain of a man whose face has been rearranged several times too often. He grinned down at me. His teeth were stunted, black, and broken.
Between them Saucerhead and Winger have about enough sense to get out of the rain. After a lively debate obese with irrelevance. But you can count on their friendship. Well, all right, you can count on Saucerhead's friendship. Winger's tends to get slippery if money is involved.
"Hello, Winger my love. Hello, Saucerhead. How are you? I'm just fine myself, thank you. Nice to see you. I can't chat right now. I've got to run."
"We'll run with you," Winger told me.
"Why?"
"Because your sidekick isn't athletic enough to do it hisself so he hired us. He figures you might need your diaper changed."
"Yeah," Saucerhead said. "He's got a notion somebody might actually want to hurt you."
"I can't imagine why."
"I can't imagine why, neither, Garrett," Winger grumbled. "I mean, you only trample all over people's feelings—"
"Stuff it, Winger. Last time you had a feeling you beat it to a midwife to find out if it was gas or pregnancy."
Winger grinned.
The man with the cute little girl increased his pace. He ignored her demands to hear the pretty bird talk again.
The Call guys started a chant and cheer combination that was both moving and chilling. Then they started marching in place. Their feet shook the pavement. They had a band, too, we discovered to our dismay.
I never liked military bands. I don't get real excited about patriotic marches, either.
I paid attention and concentrated when I was in the Corps. I got real good at what I did. I became one of the best in a force made up of the elite of the elite. That helped me stay healthy. Never before then, then, or even now, has my soul suffered any compulsion to become an anonymous fraction of a brainless mass that has its thinking done for it by somebody who shouldn't ought to be trusted to water horses.
Another chance to cross presented itself. I stepped out. Winger and Saucerhead stepped with me, one on either side. What was going on in the Dead Man's minds?
Maybe he was finally drifting away for good, tarrying in a paranoid fantasy before letting go?
"This political crap is out of hand," I told Saucerhead.
Tharpe is no thinker. He takes a while to form an opinion so he must have applied some serious mind work to the matter. "I don't get it, Garrett. They're overreacting. It's like they're screaming because TunFaire is full of people who live here."
If Saucerhead has a prejudice, I've never noticed. Of course, he can develop one professionally if the pay is right. He's a bone-breaker by trade, though he needs odd jobs to keep body and soul together.
"The other day you told me these times would be good for you."
"Yeah. But times being good for me don't mean it's right, what's happening. People are going crazy. It's like some mad wizard cast a hate spell so everybody would act twice as stupid as usual."
Saucerhead and Winger searched the shadows as we walked. I kept an eye on the darkness myself. I was edgy. Times had not been easy lately. I thought about penning an autobiography called Trouble Follows Me or maybe Danger Is My Business.
Nothing happened except that we had to detour one small riot. Straggler rightsists had run into night folks who didn't share their viewpoint. Most of the night crowd aren't human and none have had sensitivity training so they respond to offensive behavior by breaking heads.
I don't know why when you put three drunks together they decide they can conquer the world. If they choose to start with a troll, they get hurt. No matter how much they drink that troll is still impervious to just about everything but lichen infections.
Beer may not be the root cause of social problems at all, despite what the teetotallers claim. Old Man Weider may be producing the cure for our social ills. Suppose we let the morons get tanked and go looking for big trouble? Big trouble can eliminate them. Bingo. No more problem.
You can't convince me that I'm obligated to save you from yourself. If you want to head for hell by way of smoking weed or opium, or by drinking, or by being dim enough to call a giant names to his face, go head. Enjoy the slide. I won't get in your way.
Nope. I won't hand you a bucket of grease, either. You've got to do it on your own.
22
"What's the drill?" I asked as we turned into Macunado east of my place. I spoke for the Goddamn Parrot, in case the Dead Man needed to let me know about any special plans. Saucerhead and Winger thought I was asking them. They were unaware of the special relationship between the character with no mind and the one with way too many.
Winger said, "We walk you to your door and make sure you're safely inside. You pay us."
"Pay you? That's going to come out of the Dead Man's side of the business. I didn't ask for baby-sitters."
His Nibs didn't rise to the bait. He didn't want anybody to know he used the parrot.
Saucerhead said, "Will you look at them kids, Garrett? That's disgusting."
He meant several youths of preconscription age gathered on a street corner. They were baiting a covey of adolescent elf girls who were way out of their own neighborhood, not to mention out after dark. Their fathers would have whipped their bottoms purple had they witnessed what was happening. The boys were uncomplimentary in the extreme, their vocabularies heavily racist—although the clothing they affected was borrowed directly from elven styles. The girls giggled at the boys and dared them to do something. Anything. Because then they would make the boys look as stupid as they were talking.
"You want me to go tell them to mind their manners?" I asked.
"Huh?" Tharpe responded, baffled. "Manners? What're you talking about, Garrett?"
"No. What're you talking about? If not their behavior?"
"Their hair, man!" Tharpe eyed me like he wondered if I was going blind. "Look at their hair."
"They've got a lot of it." Most of them had it up and artificially curled and it looked like hell, but so what? It was obvious already that they didn't mind being the butt of mockery.
Saucerhead never outgrew his military haircut. He grumbled, "What kind of parents would let their kids go around looking like that? You want to know why Karenta is going to hell... "
I did but I didn't think Saucerhead's theory would hold much water.
H
air had nothing to do with those boys' behavior—though behavior and hair might be two symptoms of the same disease. And the girls bore an equal responsibility. Hardly anybody, human or elven, would argue that there are any women more beautiful or sensual than the elven—and these girls were blessed additionally with the glow of youth. And they flaunted every weapon they had to get those boys to humiliate themselves.
The boys were too naive to realize they were going to lose no matter what they did. That's a hard lesson for even a man of my mature years. I'm past standing on street corners and howling at the unattainable but I suspect no woman ever gets entirely beyond belittling you, however subtly, for finding her attractive.
I was stretching Saucerhead's mind to its limit trying to explain what was going on across the street when Winger opined, "You're really full of shit, Garrett."
"Tell you what, Winger. You tell me about the women you hang out with."
"Huh? What's that got to do with anything?"
"You're going to tell me how women really think. But you hang out with me. You hang out with Saucerhead when he doesn't have a girlfriend tying him down. You hang out in lowlife taverns trying to get into fights with guys who remind you of your husband. You hang out with thieves and thugs and confidence men and none of them are women so I don't think the fact that you squat to pee qualifies you as an expert on female culture as practiced in our great metropolis."
"Shee-it. There you go cutting me down again 'cause I come from the country."
This could go on for hours. Winger always has a comeback, even if it doesn't make much sense. Lucky for me, we came to my house. It was night out and as quiet as it gets in my block but damned if Mrs. Cardonlos wasn't outside watching my place like she expected entertainment of the sort only I can provide.
I studied the area carefully. First I get an armed escort, then I find my neighborhood nemesis on point. "What's happening, Old Bones? How come the wicked witch of Macunado Street is on patrol?"
Saucerhead looked at me like I'd gone goofier than he'd ever expected. "Just thinking out loud," I said. "Priming him."
"Yeah?" Winger said. "Then tell him to read his account book. There's two marks each due here."
"Two marks? Don't be ridiculous."
It is indeed ridiculous, Garrett. The woman has swung into her avaricious mode. And she is testing our ability to communicate, to establish, if she can, our limits. Two pennyweights silver was the agreed upon fee. And that was overly generous. On reflection I believe you ought to convince them to take an equivalent value in copper sceats. The price of silver is depressed. It will stabilize at a higher level once the euphoria of victory is swept away by reality's breeze.
What was he going on about? "Euphoria? You've got to be kidding. You know what's happening in these streets?"
Winger and Saucerhead gaped.
Yes. I do know. Would you say that what is happening involves the sort of people who deal in large quantities of noble metals?
"All right. I understand." Dummy me. I understood, too, that I had given Winger a bucket of information for free.
Please deal with those two quickly. We have company and I am impatient to correct that.
Oh my.
23
Winger wouldn't take copper. She wasn't bright but she was possessed of a certain cunning. If we didn't want to let go of our silver, we must know something.
She respected the Dead Man's brains.
Saucerhead followed her lead though he wasn't sure why. He gave me a black look for trying to pay him in copper. I told him, "Don't spend it all in one place."
"It's already spent, Garrett. I owe Morley."
Imagine that. Tharpe runs a tab at Morley's place. Even now that it's The Palms. How come Morley lets him?
Winger told me, "You need to consult some kind of expert, Garrett."
"Expert?"
"About your habit of talking to birds."
"I could cure it in a minute. Faster, even. Take him home with you. He idolizes you. And he makes more sense than most people do."
Winger responded with a big raspberry. As they walked away Saucerhead tried to convince her that she'd just blown the best offer she'd had all year. Nobody human had shown as much interest.
"You want a knuckle sandwich for supper you just keep on jacking your jaw," Winger growled.
"Where we gonna eat, anyway?"
I shut the door, pleased that we'd gotten by without Winger trying to enlist me in some harebrained scheme for replacing the Crown Jewels with paste. They say you can't pick your relatives but you can pick your friends. I must have some really strange secret urges.
Garrett. Cease dallying.
I entered the Dead Man's room, calling to the kitchen, "Dean, I need you to come bear witness." I knew the signs. I was about to be granted a nose-to-the grindstone lecture by the all-time grandmaster procrastinator and slough-off artist. Trouble was, the only witness who could really indict him would be another Loghyr. "A little chow wouldn't hurt, either." My own particular Loghyr, despite having been dead for ages, has the reputation of being one of the most ambitious of his kind ever.
Some battles you can't win. Wisdom is attained when you start to recognize those beforehand and slink onward in search of ground you do have a chance to hold.
Dean, please bring our guest when you come. And do put together a platter for Garrett, if you will be so kind. He is hungry and becoming cranky.
I was going to get crankier. His attitude earlier and that message told me our guest was female and under forty. Dean has a way with women young enough to be his daughters. They like to hang out in his kitchen. Partly that's because he's safe, partly because he indulges them like they were favorite daughters, partly because he's a nice old guy.
"Is Tinnie here again?"
No. Tell me what happened out there.
"The Goddamn Parrot was on top of me the whole damned time."
The beast is more limited than you believe. The bird is keen of ear but only in a narrow range. And his visual acuity and sense of smell leave much to be desired.
"You ought to find yourself a human tool." But not me.
Perfect idea. Unfortunately, no human has a mind sensitive enough for remote access. No intelligent creature, whatever the species, fits my particulars exactly. There would appear to be a relationship. I must examine that someday.
"Yeah," I muttered, completely confident that I was a failed experiment.
The door swung open. Dean, platter in hand, held it for someone.
Someone stepped inside.
"You?" I was surprised.
"Me," said Belinda Contague. "Your lack of enthusiasm is breaking my heart."
The woman doesn't have one. But I didn't remind her.
She likes black. She positively loves black. She wore a black evening cloak over a masculine-cut black suit of very supple leather. She wore black boots with raised heels. A pair of long black-silk gloves were folded over her black-leather belt. When she arrived, I was sure, Dean had taken her black hat and veil and put them in the small front room. She'd painted her nails black and had put something on her lips to darken and gloss them. Then she'd used a face powder to make her skin appear more pallid.
I have seen vampires with more color.
Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, she was incredibly beautiful. More, she exuded something that made it difficult to cling to common sense and the urge to self-preservation. That bizarre look was very erotic.
"You sent a message. I was in town. I had no other demands on my time. I came here. You were out but Dean was kind. As he ever is."
I glared at the Dead Man, thought hard: You should have warned me.
He didn't respond.
Damn, the woman was bold. She knew what the Dead Man was. Nobody with a conscience as black as hers ought to be anywhere near him.
Back in those remote times when the Outfit was in transition, passing into Belinda's regency, we had a brief fling. I might consider myself lu
cky because I got out alive. Belinda is very strange. And when it comes to hardness she makes her daddy look like a pet bunny.
I gobbled, "I'm sorry. You took me off guard. You're the last person I expected."
Belinda Contague stands five feet six inches. She looks twenty-five, says she's twenty. She lived a rough life before she took over. Lived like she was trying to kill herself. She was in good shape now, as her apparel proclaimed eloquently. Nature blessed her with a shape that would have them kicking the lids off their coffins if she strolled through a mortuary. Her dark eyes fell smack into the center of that semi-mythical "windows of the soul" class. You will discover more warmth and compassion in the stare of a cobra.
I can't imagine what she ever saw in me.
I always knew she would come back to haunt me, though.
"I'm not as bad as you think, Garrett."
Her daddy used to say the same thing. "Huh?"
"My father turned out to be a good friend, didn't he?" She sounded wistful.
I grunted. My relationship with Chodo Contague had been strange, too. I did him a big favor once, accidentally, and forever afterward he felt he owed me. He did me good turns even when I didn't ask. He covered my ass. He tried hard to entangle me in the Outfit's webs so I'd become one of his soldiers. I repaid him by helping take him down.
"Crask and Sadler are back in town." That would take the play out of Belinda.
"You saw them?" She actually became more pale.
"No. I heard it from Relway. Via Captain Block. He traded the information for a favor." She understood that kind of deal.
She didn't question my source. "What favor?"
"It doesn't involve you or yours."
"Relway isn't interested in us?"
"Of course he is. He's interested in everything. But he's a realist. He knows you offer services the public wants, nor are you breaking the law, mostly. Whatever the priests and reformers say. He's really interested in people who hurt people. Or people he thinks threaten society. But he's Relway. He's a slave to his obsessions. He wants to know everything about everything."
