by Glen Cook
"It's just to pick up street talk about Maggie Jenn."
Eleanor didn't believe one word.
I had to find me a new girlfriend.
13
Morley Dotes never changes but his neighborhood can. Once upon a time, that was the worst. You weren't alert, you could get killed for the price of a bowl of soup. For reasons to do with Morley's intolerance of squabbles and his sometime role as arbitrater of underworld disputes, the neighborhood grew almost reputable and came to be called the Safety Zone. Those who worked the shadow side met and did business there, with every expectation of suffering none of the embarrassment, unpleasantness, or disappointment one faced at the hands of lone wolf socialists in other neighborhoods.
Every city needs some quiet area where business can get done.
"Waa-hoo!" shrieked the guy who came sailing out the door as I walked up to Morley's place. I ducked. That fellow touched down halfway across the street. He made a valiant effort to land running and did a laudable job till a watering trough slunk into his path. Slimy green water fountained.
Another man came out sprawled like a starfish, spinning and howling. He was one of Morley's thugs-turned-waiter.
This was backwards. The way these things go is Morley's people toss troublemakers. They don't get dribbled along the cobblestones themselves.
The howling waiter went across the street like a skipping stone. He crashed into the guy trying not to drown in the horse trough. If you ask me, putting those things around was a grave mistake. Horse troughs are sure to draw horses. TunFaire is infested by enough evils.
On hands and knees, I peeped around the edge of the door frame and discovered true pandemonium.
A behemoth of a black man, who beat my six feet two by a good three feet, and who had to slouch so he wouldn't split his noggin on the ceiling, was having himself a grand time cleaning house. He snarled and roared and tossed people and furniture. Those few men accidentally exiting through the front door were lucky. They were out of the action. Those who tried to leave under their own power got grabbed and dragged back for the fun.
The feet of the walls were littered with casualties. The big man had a fire in his eye. No mere mortal was going to quiet him down. Some very skilled mortals had tried and had found places among the fallen.
I knew the berserk. His name was Playmate. He was one of my oldest friends, a blacksmith and stable operator, a religious man who was as gentle a being as ever lived. He went out of his way to avoid stepping on bugs. I had seen him weep for a mutt run down by a carriage. Like all of us, he had done his time in the Cantard, but I was sure that even there he had offered violence to no one.
I thought about trying to talk him down. I left it at a thought. We were good friends, but Playmate had equally good friends among the fallen. Everybody loved Playmate.
And I had learned about being a hero doing my five years as a Royal Marine.
No way could Playmate have gone this mad.
Morley Dotes himself, dapper and exasperated, watched from the stair to his office. He was a darkly handsome little character, dressed way too slick for my taste. Anything he put on looked like it was baked onto him. Anything I put on looks slept-in after ten minutes.
Morley was so distressed he was wringing his hands.
Guess I'd have been upset myself if someone was busting up my place. The Joy House started as a front—Morley was an assassin and bonebreaker—but it had grown on Dotes.
A short, slim form snaked through the crowd and leapt onto Playmate's back. The big man roared and spun. He did not dislodge his rider, Morley's nephew Spud, whose mother had passed him to his uncle because she could not manage him anymore.
For a while, Spud just held on. Once he was confident of his seat, though, he let go with one hand and fumbled at his belt. Playmate kept spinning. The idea gradually got into his head: spinning and prancing and roaring would not get the weight off his back.
He stopped, got his bearings by consulting stars only he could see. He decided to run backwards and squish Spud against a wall.
Spud had his own plan, though.
Spud was set on being a hero in his uncle's eyes.
The kid wasn't stupid, he just suffered from natural elvish overconfidence.
His hand came up from his belt clutching a black cloth sack. He tried popping that over Playmate's head. Guess who did not cooperate?
That sack was a mark of the esteem in which Playmate was held. The guy was set on destroying the world, but nobody wanted to stop him badly enough to kill him. Not one soul inside the Joy House wanted to do anything but get him under control. Not your true TunFairen attitude, I guarantee. Life is the cheapest commodity of all.
Morley moved as soon as he understood what the kid was doing. He didn't run or appear to hurry, but he got there right on time, a moment after Spud did get his bag into place, a moment after Playmate started his all-out plunge toward the nearest wall. Morley hooked a foot behind the big man's heel.
Boom!
Playmate sprawled. Spud separated just in time to keep from being sandwiched. He was a lucky kid. Instead of getting squashed and collecting some broken bones, he just got coldcocked.
Not so Playmate. My old pal tried to get up. Morley popped him a bunch of times, so fast you barely saw him move. Playmate didn't like that. He figured maybe he ought to take that sack off and see who was aggravating him. Morley hit him a bunch more times, in all those places where blows are supposed to incapacitate.
There came a day when Playmate, buried under a dozen people, finally stopped struggling.
14
Morley looked down at Playmate. He was breathing hard. I strode inside, chirped, "Congrats. You wore him down."
Morley checked me from glazed eyes, failed to recognize me for a moment, then wailed, "Oh, damn! You. On top of everything else."
I looked behind me to find out who was causing my best pal so much distress. I'd fix him! But the guy was too fast for me. The doorway was empty.
I put on my best hurt face. I get to practice a lot around the Joy House. Morley's guys are always riding me. Naturally, I play along.
I righted a table, selected a chair, made myself comfortable. I eyeballed Playmate. "What happened? You have to pump that guy up on weed to get him to swat flies."
Morley took several controlled breaths, picked up a chair, and joined me. "Excellent question, Garrett." Playmate wasn't doing anything now. In fact, the roars from beneath the flesh pile sounded suspiciously like snores.
Morley Dotes is a bit short for a grown man but isn't entirely human. He has dark-elf forebears. But he never lets the human in him get in his way.
Maybe the mix is responsible. He is a mass of contrasts, especially in his profession as opposed to his hobby. His health food haven has become a hangout for half the villains of TunFaire. Contrast again: the clientele is half those double-nasties and half the kind of clown you expect to find gnoshing tubers of uncertain provenance.
"Boy did pretty well," Morley observed, glancing at Spud. The kid's real name was Narcisio. Only his mother used that.
"Pretty good," I admitted. "More balls than brains."
"Runs in the family."
"What happened?"
Morley glowered. Instead of answering me, he shocked the house by bellowing, "Eggwhite! Get your heathen ass out here!"
I was amazed, too. Morley employs vulgarity only rarely. He fancies himself a gentleman rogue. Gentlemen rogues are slick like they're covered with lard. But a villain is a villain, and Morley is one of the worst because he gets away with everything. I should try to take him down. I don't because he's my friend.
A thug ambled out of the kitchen. He wore cook's garb but carried his professional resume scarred on his face. He was old and looked as stupid as a stump, which answered a question: what becomes of hard boys if they live long enough to get old? They become waiters. I didn't see how this goon had survived to get there, though. He looked like a guy who needed a major run of luck
to get through any given day.
Maybe the gods do love the incapacitated.
Morley beckoned.
Eggwhite edged our way. His gaze kept darting toward Playmate. Playmate had begun to reappear as guys climbed off and went to set the bones of their buddies.
"Big mess, huh?" Morley said.
"Yeah, boss. Big ole mess."
"You have any idea why I would entertain the notion that you might have been at fault? Can you tell me why your face popped into mind the moment my friend asked me what happened?"
Will wonders never cease? He never called me friend before.
Eggwhite muttered, "I guess on account of I got a weakness for doing jokes."
Morley grunted. "That one of your pranks?" Playmate was sleeping like a baby now, but he was going to be hurting when he woke up. "That big ha-ha there?" Morley's tone was hard, the street leaking through. He was angry. Eggwhite was petrified.
Morley asked, "What did you do?"
"Put angelweed in his salad?" Eggwhite made it a question, like a kid caught in a lie experimenting with a new tactic.
"How much?"
Excellent question. Angelweed didn't earn its heavenly name because it will boost your mind into paradise but because it will send you off to hallelujah land if you aren't careful. Slipping it into a salad would be a clever way to dose somebody. The leaves look like spinach that's gone a little bluish.
"Half a dozen leaves." Eggwhite looked everywhere but straight at Morley.
"Half a dozen. Enough to kill most people."
"He's humongous, chief. A goddamn mountain. I thought it would take—"
"And there's the problem." Morley's voice dropped way down, to a level of softness that meant he was in a killing mood. Eggwhite started shaking. Morley continued, "I told you when I hired you I didn't want any thinking. I wanted you cutting vegetables. Get out."
"Chief, look, I can—"
"You're gone, Eggwhite. Out the door. Walking or carried. Up to you."
Eggwhite gulped. "Uh... Yeah." He headed for the door.
I observed, "He's making off with your cook outfit."
"Let it go. I don't want to make a scene."
I gave him an encore look at my eyebrow trick.
"I hate firing people, Garrett."
I added the fish-eye to the raised eyebrow. This was the most feared hired knife in town? Was he putting me on?
He kept plugging. "I do it only because you have to if you want to be successful in business. Besides, I owe him eight days pay." Before I could comment, he eyed me directly. "What is it this time, Garrett?"
"How about a platter of that stuff with the black mushrooms, pea pods and whatnot, on the wild rice?" I dropped money onto the table.
Morley gave me my fish-eye back with interest. He gathered my coins, examined them as though he suspected they were counterfeit. "You want to eat? Here? And you're willing to pay for it?" He sank his fangs into a coin, the classic hardness test.
"I wouldn't go so far as to employ the concept of privilege, but it is an age of wonders. You've converted me. I'm born again. I'm never going to eat anything but swamp tubers, bark, and gravel ever again."
15
Morley stirred Playmate's fingers with his toe. "He's alive, but I couldn't tell you why." He came back to where I was wolfing the mushroom stuff. It contained more garlic than mushrooms. "Trying to keep the girls away?"
"I don't need garlic for that. I have natural talent."
He wasn't in the mood for banter. Guess I wouldn't have been either had my place just gotten trashed. "What are you into now, Garrett? What do you need?"
"I'm doing a missing person caper." Love that word. I told him the story, leaving out only those parts a gentleman leaves out. "I want to know whatever you know about Maggie Jenn. Felt like she was running a game on me."
"Somebody must be running a game on somebody. I don't think you saw the real Maggie Jenn."
"Huh?"
"Never mind the witty remarks. I'm thinking you must have been chosen for your ignorance."
"Thanks. How about shoving a stick in the spokes of the scheme by lighting a torch in the darkness?"
"That wouldn't be right. Not quite. You not being up on the adventures of the royals could be part of it, but... "
"All right. I don't know what you know, Morley. That's why I'm here."
"It isn't impossible that you spent the afternoon with a king's lover, but I'd call it wildly improbable. Maggie Jenn exiled herself to the Isle of Paise after her Teddy boy died. If there was a daughter I never heard. Kind of thing that would be kept quiet, though. On the other hand, that place on the Hill sounds like the one where Teodoric stashed his doxy. Curious."
That was an understatement. "I'm lost, Morley. None of this makes sense."
"Only because you don't have the key."
"I'm missing the key, the lock, the damned door, and all the hardware. Somebody ran a game on me? I'll buy that. Happens all the time. But the woman also paid me to look for her daughter."
"How well?" Was that smile a smirk?
"Handsomely, shall we say? Enough so I'm sure she expected something in return. Even top of the Hill don't throw money away."
"Good point."
"If Maggie Jenn came back," I mused, "what would she do?"
"She has no reason to come back. She lives like a queen out there. She'd find nothing but trouble here." Morley eyed Playmate. "Pity you didn't get here earlier. He always kept track of the royals."
"He won't be doing anything but whine about his headache for a week."
"You in a hurry?"
I wondered. "Maybe not. No apparent jeopardy. Just a puzzle. Maggie didn't seem in any hurry, just worried."
"You buy the woman's story?"
I never take a client's story at face value. Some natural law compels them to lie part of the time. "Maybe. Some. It feels like the truth being used for something else."
"I'll put out feelers. Meantime, you ought to corner Winger."
"That occurred to me." I didn't relish trying to get anything out of her, though. "It's not an appetizing idea."
Morley chuckled. "She's a handful. The trick is get her thinking what you want is her idea."
"Ingenious. How?"
"With great difficulty."
"I can get advice like that from my parrot and save the price of this fish food."
"Way I hear, Dean is out of town and the Dead Man is asleep. You being hard up for company, I just wanted you to feel at home. Crumbs! You try to be a pal." He grinned a diabolical dark-elf grin.
"You want to be a pal, find out about Maggie Jenn."
His grin dwindled. "Try to be a pal." He shook his head.
He would check around because he thought he owed me. And I agreed. I collect like a loanshark.
"Bed is starting to sound good," I thought aloud. "It's been a hard day."
Morley grunted. His nephew came to the table. Getting no hint that he ought to take his big ears elsewhere, he spun a chair around and straddled it. Around us, Morley's people, moving slowly and muttering about their aches and pains, put things together again. Spud asked, "How is Mr. Big, Mr. Garrett?"
I cursed.
Morley had sent me the Goddamn Parrot when he was in an Eggwhite mood. That was far enough out of character that I suspected Sarge and Puddle had a hand in developing the scam. The bird came guaranteed to have a major hatred for cats and a habit of attacking them from above. I accepted him because Dean had a habit of accumulating strays.
Spud gave me a dirty look. He was the only one in the world with any use for that foul-mouthed jungle chicken. Make that any love. The Dead Man had a use. Wherever I went, he could send Mr. Big after, nagging.
I had tried to give the beast away. There were no takers. I gave it every chance to fly away. It wouldn't escape. I was getting near taking heroic measures. "Spud, you're so worried about Mr. Big why don't you come get him? He needs a home where he's appreciated."
"No
, you don't," Morley sneered. "That there is your bird, Garrett."
I scowled. This was a squabble I couldn't win.
Dotes showed all those pointy teeth again. "I hear some parrots live a hundred years."
"Some, maybe. In the wild." I could donate Mr. Big to a charity. Like some hungry ratman. "I'm out of here, friend."
Morley laughed.
16
It was dark out. That did not help.
Neither did the fact that I didn't see them coming. I had no chance to get ready.
I put up a fight, though. I dented some heads good with the weighted oak head-buster I carry when I go out. I tossed one guy through the only glass window in the street. But I just never got rolling. I had no chance to use the tricks I had stashed up my sleeves.
Somebody whapped me up side the head with a house. I think it was a house. Had to be a house. No mere man could hit me that hard. The lights went out—with me still trying to figure out who and why.
Ordinarily, I come around slowly if I've had my conk bopped. Not so this time. One minute I was in dreamland, the next I was bouncing along face downward, wrapped in something soggy, staring at a floor sliding past inches from my nose. Four guys were carrying me. I was leaking red stuff. I couldn't recall drinking any wine. I had the worst headache anyone ever had since the dawn of time.
A fine pair of female legs strode along practically in nibbling range. I really wanted to appreciate those. In other circumstances, I would have devoted hours to those legs. But a guy does have to keep some perspective.
Things were not going well. This sort of thing was not a normal part of my life. I tried to shove the pain away long enough to think.
Aha! They had me wrapped in a wet blanket. I didn't want to poop somebody's party, but that didn't make me happy. I roared and twisted and flopped and wriggled and bellowed. I failed to make any impression. I did get a gander at what went with the gorgeous gams. The wealth was piled on all the way to the top. I could have fallen in love. But this was not the time or place. Beside a fire, maybe on a bearskin rug, maybe just her and me and some TunFaire Gold wine...
