by Glen Cook
"You're trying to find Miss Jenn."
Miss Jenn, eh? "Give me some details. I'm a detail kind of guy."
The staff type went to talking like he'd contracted diarrhea of the mouth. I squatted beside the flood and panned for nuggets.
He claimed a character named Davenport, good buddy of Marengo North English, didn't much like the idea of me maybe finding Emerald Jenn, so he'd asked some pals to discourage me. His pals had no idea why Davenport gave a damn who did or didn't find Emerald.
I poked in a question whenever he paused for breath. He answered everything. He couldn't shut up now. In time I did understand that I hadn't gotten on the wrong side of Marengo North English himself. This was Davenport's alone. Good. I have no desire to get noticed by the lunatic fringe.
I said, "I know this is going to break your hearts, guys, but I don't give a rat's ass about that kid. I'm not on that case anymore. These days I'm hunting a creep named Grange Cleaver. You help me out there, I'll forget you messed up my hallway. I won't even go break Mr. Davenport's arms."
I harvested a crop of blank looks. None of those guys ever heard of Grange Cleaver.
"All right. Out of personal curiosity, because of all this, I would like to talk to Emerald. Pass that on to her. I want to ask about her mother and Cleaver." I gestured. Ivy and Slither both got my drift without elaborate instructions. Ivy opened the door. Slither herded the gang that way. The Goddamn Parrot got into the game, encouraging their departure. "Hey! You guys want a talking chicken?" Sometimes people are just too fast. Those guys got out without answering or even looking back.
You'd think a talking bird would be a real prize—wouldn't you?—if you hadn't been around him long enough to know better.
I watched the watchers watch the flight of the four dismayed human rights activists. Their going didn't generate much excitement.
Could I lay hands on one of those fierce pirates? If he talked, I could get the Firelord what he wanted fast. Maybe. Cleaver had spent a life being light on his feet. He wasn't about to convenience anybody now.
I went back to the kitchen, built another sandwich. I checked on the Dead Man. Out of it still. I went back to the peephole. Evening had started lowering its skirts. Which made no difference. The street was as crowded as ever. My fans hadn't called it a day.
My gaze swept a pair of earringed angels—and I suffered a mighty intuition.
I knew where to find Grange Cleaver. He hadn't hauled his buccaneer behind out of TunFaire. He was still around, laughing at everybody trying to track him down. It was a game for him. A vicious game. If he feared he risked losing, he'd cut and run.
I summoned Ivy and Slither. "I admit I wanted you guys out of my hair. Didn't work, but my misfortune looks lucky now." The Goddamn Parrot didn't like being left alone. He started spouting off in a big way. I stepped over where he could see me, gave him the evil eye. He shut up while he considered the situation. "I need you to hold the fort."
Ivy stared. Slither said, "Huh?"
Great. "I'm going out the back way." I spoke slowly and clearly. "I'm leaving you in charge. Anybody knocks, either ignore them or don't tell them anything." I donned my best scowl, faced the Dead Man's door. Old Bones was way overdue.
Hell, maybe I'd grown too dependent on him. I reminded me that in real life you can't count on anybody but you, yourself, and you.
"All right, Garrett." Ivy's voice was half-strength. Was he fading?
It could be worse. The Dead Man says it can always get worse. Don't ask me how.
I slid out the back way.
55
"What's dis shit?" Sarge bellowed. "I got ta put up wit' you tree times a day now?"
"Bask in the reflection, my man. Morley is my number one boy now. He up there showing some married lady the ins and out of cross stitch? I could maybe tell him something he wants to hear."
"Yeah? Like what?" I wasn't selling Sarge no swamp.
"Like where to find some buried treasure."
Sarge moved out.
We've all endured one another so long we all know when the yak means something and when it's just macho yammer. Sarge figured I had something, so he got intimate with the speaking tube. I didn't hear what he said, but hardly three minutes passed before Morley descended the stairs. A woman of astonishing beauty peeked down for a moment, as though she just had to see what improbability could distract Morley Dotes from her. From what I saw of her, I had to consider that an excellent question.
"I'm sorry." The woman retreated, but my imagination went with her. I hated Morley for having found her first. How did he do it? "Who was that?"
He sneered. "Wipe the drool off your chin. Someone might mistake you for a mad dog werewolf."
"Who is she?"
"No, you don't. I was a gentleman about Chaz. I suffered in silence while you wasted Tinnie Tate. I didn't birddog when that went bad because it might get good again. So forget my little Julie, eh?"
"I'll give you half a minute."
"Generous, Garrett. Generous. How come you're down here making my life miserable again?" Oddly, he seemed anxious. He covered by glancing upstairs like he was thinking about maybe spanking somebody for revealing herself to the rabble. Then he eyed me like he really did expect to hear about buried treasure.
"While back I got the impression you wanted to get face-to-face with the Rainmaker."
He glanced at the stairway. Glorious, lovely Julie was very much with us even though she remained unseen. He said, "Tell me about it."
I wondered. I knew Morley's priorities. Seldom did he find a Julie less interesting than revenge. "I think I know where to find him."
Morley cast one more longing glance upstairs. "How did you manage that? You turn psychic? Or psycho? Or did the Dead Man wake up?"
"Through the exercise of reason, my man. Pure reason."
Morley offered me one of his special looks, just to let me know I couldn't fool a stone with a learning disability. "I'll bite, Garrett. Where?"
"On the Hill. Maggie Jenn's place."
He made a show of thinking about it before he smiled nastily. "Damn if I don't think you stumbled into it and came up smelling sweet. I should have thought of that. Let's go."
"What? Me? No way. I did my part. Take your help. Sarge and Puddle need the exercise. I'll stay here and hold the fort."
"Ha. That's ha, like in half a ha-ha, Garrett."
"Some guys got no sense of humor."
"You talking about me? I gave you a parrot, didn't I?"
"My point exactly."
"What can you do? People just won't show any gratitude anymore. All right. Let's go see the man."
I smirked. Behind Morley's back. No sense having him figure out who was manipulating whom. Not just yet.
56
I began to wonder if there wasn't an alert out with my name on it. Three times we tried to go up the Hill and three times patrols got in our way. Unbelievably bad luck.
Morley snapped, "Don't be so cheerful!"
I started to open my mouth.
"And don't give me that dog barf about never being disappointed if you only look for the worst."
"You are in a fine mood, aren't you?" I reflected a moment. "We've known each other too long, you realize?"
"You can say that again."
"All right. We've known each other... "
"And you turn into a bigger wiseass every day I know you. The Garrett I used to know... " Off he hared on an expedition into reality revision. We live in different worlds. He remembers nothing the way I do. Maybe that's cultural.
The old work ethic paid off. Fourth try we got through. As we gained the high ground, I muttered, "I was beginning to think my magic gizmo was working backwards."
"Your what?"
"Uh... I have this amulet thing. Somebody uses a tracing spell on me, I can steer them off."
"Oh?" Morley eyed me suspiciously.
I don't tell him everything. And he keeps things from me. You just don't share everything,
friends or not.
As we neared that grim gray canyon of a Hilltop street we grew cautious. I found myself feeling nervous in a premonitory way. And Morley said, "I have a strange feeling about this."
"It is quiet. But it's always quiet up here. These people want it that way."
"You feel it, too."
"I feel something."
But we saw no one, sniffed out no slightest scent of a patrol ambush.
We approached the Jenn place through the alley. And strolled right on past, pretending we were scouts for the ratmen who would come for the trash.
Someone had employed the balcony route to get inside. Someone not very circumspect. We judged the break-in to be recent because there was no evidence of the patrol having taken corrective action.
I told Morley, "I need to go in there."
Dotes didn't argue, but he wasn't enthralled by the notion. He observed, "The roof hatch is unlatched—if nobody cared how we got out before."
We'd left it unlatched because the catch couldn't be worked from outside. "Just what I wanted to do today. Clamber around rooftops."
"You're the one can't leave well enough alone."
"The firelord is paying me very well not to."
"All right. Let's don't bicker." Morley looked around. I looked around. We could've been surrounded by a ghost city. Other than the buildings, there was no evidence of human presence.
"Spooky," I muttered, while Morley scampered up a downspout like some pointy-eared ape. I dragged my bulk after, groaned as he helped me roll onto a flat roof. "I thought I was getting back in shape." Puff puff.
"Tipping a beer stein doesn't stress your leg muscles nearly enough. Come on."
Beer stein? I was getting to be a wiseass? Uh-oh.
Starting after Morley, I glanced back into the alley and spotted a housemaid on a balcony down the way, gaping at us. She had come out while we were climbing. "Trouble," I told Morley. "A witness."
"Keep low, then. If she doesn't see where we go, we'll have enough time."
But time for what? I had real strong doubts about the wisdom of my approach, now.
As we neared the roof hatch, I noted that Morley seemed to lack confidence, too. But he was a dark elf, partly. He wouldn't back down without more reason than a growing premonition.
57
We listened intently, heard nothing on the other side of the hatch. Grimly, I prized it open an inch. Morley listened with his better ears, peered into the inner darkness with his better eyes. He sniffed, frowned slightly.
"What?" I whispered.
"I don't know."
"Someone there?"
"Not that. Open it up. We need to hurry."
I lifted. There was no racket in the street yet, but I doubted that that would last. Light poured into the stairwell. Neither villain nor monster rose to greet us.
Morley descended quickly. I followed less swiftly, it having gotten inky dark in there once I shut the hatch again. We entered the top story without incident. Morley kept sniffing the air. So did I. I sucked in enough dust to have to fight sneezing. But there was something...
A sound echoed up from below, a moaning wail like the last cry of a lost soul. "Spooks," I said again.
"No."
No. He was right. Somebody was being hurt badly. I'd just have preferred spooks.
We grew more cautious.
Confident that that floor was untenanted, we stole down a level. I murmured, "We're going too slow."
Morley agreed. "But what can we do?" Twice more we heard that cry of agonized despair.
What we could do was get out before the goon squad showed.
The next floor down showed evidence of human habitation. Morley and I held silent debate over the numbers, which had to have been more than a half dozen and possibly the whole crowd from that ugly warehouse.
Another cry. From the top of the stair that led down to the second floor we could hear remote voices engaged in argument. Morley held up three fingers, then four. I nodded agreement. Four. Plus whoever was getting hurt.
The Rainmaker had his reputation for torture, I recalled.
That smell in the air was stronger but not yet strong enough to identify.
Morley kept hesitating about going on down. I no longer wanted to risk even a whisper so had to trust his instincts. As he did start down, something made a clunking racket on the floor below. We froze. Surprise, surprise.
Three very large male individuals dripping sharp steel galumphed across our field of view and headed down the stair to the ground floor. Patrol thugs. Come on the scene via the balcony door, I guessed. Moving fast because somebody tripped over his bootlace and gave them all away.
Morley whispered urgently, "Hide!" He jerked a thumb heavenward. I nodded. It did seem likely that younger and more agile guards would take the path we'd used.
Our timing was superb. No sooner had we ducked under the dustcovers shielding adjacent antiques than we heard lots of boots hustling down from above. I worried about sneezes betraying me. Then I worried about footprints in the dust. I couldn't recall if there had been enough prior traffic to disguise our movements.
An uproar broke out downstairs. Sounded like a major battle: lots of metal banging metal, people yelling and screaming, furniture crashing. I guessed patrol types had entered at ground level, too.
A pseudopod of combat scaled the stairs. The expected gang from the roof arrived and jumped in. The hollering and cussing grew ferocious, but I kept squeezing my nose anyway. With my luck, those guys would notice even a little sputter of a sneeze.
It got brisk. For a while, despite their edge in the odds, I thought the patrol guys would lose out. They lacked motivation. They hadn't hired on to get killed protecting property.
I never doubted that people were dying.
The guys on the stairs launched an angry counterattack.
After that the battle lasted only minutes. Soon it left the house for the street. The patrol bunch hollered in angry pursuit of those they had routed.
Came a scratch on the sheet concealing me. I gripped my headknocker, ready for a mighty two-handed swing. Morley whispered, "Let's go. Before they come back to look around."
He was right, of course. They would be back. But at the moment we were invisible—assuming the patrol thought the people downstairs were the guys that maid had seen.
The silence didn't last. I picked out a groan followed by something I hadn't heard for years—the rasp of a man with a punctured lung trying desperately to breathe.
Morley and I descended in spurts, always ready to flee. We encountered casualties, all of whom had rolled to the bottom of the stair ending on the second floor. None of the four would brawl again.
I knew that smell—now it was fresh and strong.
Blood.
Three of the fallen wore crude patrol uniforms. The fourth had fought them.
"Know this guy?" I asked Morley, sure he knew pro thugs better than I did. And I had recognized Hammerhand Nicks, middleweight enforcer type for the Outfit.
"Yes." Dotes seemed to grow still more alert.
I told him, "I'm going down." Not that I wanted to.
I made my feet move. I did want to know.
The smell of death grew dense.
Three more patrol types lay dead in the ground floor hall where the stair ended. Blooded steel lay everywhere. I found another syndicate character there, just less than dead. I beckoned Morley. "Gericht Lungsmark?"
He nodded. "Over there. Wenden Tobar."
More Outfit hitters. Lungsmark groaned. I moved away. Didn't want him seeing me if he opened his eyes. "She figured it out before I did."
"Maybe." Dotes eased toward the next room, whence came the sounds of the man with respiratory difficulties. "Or maybe she had help."
"Oh?"
"Lot of ears in my place." He started to say my name, recalled that this was not the best place. "If somebody told somebody and that somebody moved fast... "
Maybe, but I shook
my head. Likely the Outfit did have the pull to get the patrols to do a favor, but... "They—"
Morley made a silencing gesture.
No. The patrols wouldn't get into it with the Outfit without they didn't know they were up against syndicate guys.
Come to think of it, the hoods probably did the logical thing and snatched themselves a pirate off the street outside my place.
Morley gestured again, slipped through the doorway. I went to the other side, crouching.
We found the fellow with the breathing problem, one Barclay Blue, journeyman bonebreaker. "Going to be some advancement opportunities, looks like," I said.
Morley scowled. His situation was way less comfortable than mine. Further, there was the question of why Contague associates had gotten into a deadly battle high on the Hill. Not politic, that.
Next room boasted the remains of the main encounter. The Outfit guys had come from farther back and met the invaders there. At least one patrol bruno had carried a crossbow. I counted eight corpses. Four were Outfit. Some fine antiques had been rendered kindling. Blood covered everything.
I didn't like the implications. Things had gotten way out of hand.
We entered the dining room I'd shared with Maggie Jenn. I understood why the Outfit guys hadn't been willing to surrender.
The stench of death was heavy. Most of the chairs at the table had dead or probably soon to be dead people tied into them. I recognized the old guys from the warehouse, Zeke, the woman who had served Maggie and me, and others I'd seen on the street. Nobody's breathing was real robust.
I said, "They were hiding here."
"There were two battles. Belinda Contague won the first one."
Fourteen people were tied into the chairs. Zeke and Mugwump were among the breathing. Excepting several guys who obviously got themselves killed when the thugs moved in, everyone had been tortured. None of the survivors were conscious.
