by Glen Cook
‘‘Stay with John Stretch. See if he reports anything we can use right now.’’ I headed out fast, worried that I had made a lethal mistake by not staying with Morley and Belinda. How could Morley have abandoned basic common sense? Nobody gets into a pissing contest with Belinda Contague. She’ll whack your pisser off and make you feed it to the hogs.
Puddle and the unnamed henchman were still shuffling around in the cold out front, feeling much put upon by their captain. Puddle had the look of a lost four-year-old. As I passed them I said, ‘‘Come on. Sounds like Morley has done something stupid. We might have to bail him out.’’
Right. If it came to knuckles and head-bashing, Belinda only had her big, healthy six to our seriously-out-of-shape three.
Belinda’s bunch were standing around sharing hot tea and bullshit with Saucerhead’s crew like they were old pals. Which they might be. It’s a big city but guys in similar rackets tend to know each other.
I slowed to what I hoped would appear to be a disinterested pace as I went by. I exchanged good-natured insults with Belinda’s chief driver, who hated me for the luck I’d had. The four footmen didn’t bother to check me out. But the final villain, probably officially Belinda’s bodyguard, tried fixing me with the hard stare. I considered giving it right back. But that’s an invitation to butt heads until somebody can’t crawl away. I didn’t find him scary, unlike some who had gone before him. Who were no longer above ambient temperature. Or ground.
I winked and got on with tracking Morley.
‘‘That one guy is coming after us, Mr. Garrett,’’ unnamed henchman reported nervously.
‘‘All right. If it gets exciting, you and Puddle sit on him while I crack some heads.’’
The storm had passed. Though they still eyed one another sullenly, Morley and Belinda had not come to blows. They were talking business.
Belinda snapped, ‘‘What the hell are you doing here?’’
‘‘Came over to protect my investment.’’
‘‘Investment? In what? You aren’t part of this.’’
‘‘In friendship. There was a rumor that you two were behaving badly. Thought I’d make sure nobody did anything stupid.’’
Miss Contague glowered. She manages that with a furious impact. It’s the blood. You look at her and forget the cold beauty. You just remember that she’s Chodo Contague’s daughter, old Death on the Hoof himself. You recall times when she made her pop look like a pansy dance instructor.
She said nothing now. Nor did Morley. ‘‘Have you worked it out? Morley? You letting a deal float on your skill at predicting the outcome of a water spider race?’’ I tried giving him a meaningful look. No doubt he thought I was constipated.
Puddle, Unnamed, and Belinda’s bodyguard hung out around the doorway, bewildered.
Morley told me, ‘‘I’ve got it under control. Just had a minute when wishful thinking got the upper hand on common sense.’’
Deadly calm, Belinda said, ‘‘He thought he could do business the way he plays at romance. He found me less pliable than his preferred women.’’
‘‘Kind of the way the rumor ran, too, best buddy. Don’t go betting to a pair in the bush that you haven’t even seen yet. When you’ve already agreed to play a different hand.’’
‘‘Your metaphors are as feeble as ever, Garrett. But you are sniffing the right trail. I did let reality get away for a second. It’s slippery, some days. I got a little overheated. Being an adult, I recognized the futility and got it under control. The tempest is over. You had palpitations for nothing.’’
He glanced at the group by the door. The boggled boys. Who really had no part in things. Useless.
Belinda nodded. Agreeing with Morley and, likely, with what I was thinking. For a moment I got lost in those incredible blue eyes. Then managed to mutter, ‘‘Gods damn! It’s hard to be a grown-up.’’
Morley looked disappointed. But I’d gotten the point of his odd little speech. All was not as well as he was saying.
What more could I do? He’d made his bed. I’d made sure the sheets weren’t bloody.
‘‘All right. If all is well, I’m going back to work. But you two better behave. I don’t want my best friends quarreling like street urchins.’’
That fooled nobody. Except maybe the witnesses by the door. But it let Belinda know where I stood. And my opinion, for some reason, does carry weight with her.
That had been explained to me, including by the man at risk here, but I still don’t, down in my liver, completely understand. But I found out long since that understanding isn’t nearly as important as acceptance with some things.
Morley said, ‘‘I’ll come over after I finish showing Belinda what we’re going to do here. Ask Singe to wait for me.’’
It was the kind of straight line Morley doesn’t give up often. But I let it go. More of that belated growing up, I guess. Why go for a joke that belittles one friend in order to score a point on another?
Puddle and the others followed me. Puddle said, ‘‘Hey, Garrett. All dat mean evert’ing is gonna be all right?’’
‘‘I hope so, Puddle. I for sure never want to get on the wrong side of that woman.’’
‘‘You said it. Anybody be dat damn foolish oughta get whatever he gets.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ His remark brought back unpleasant memories. ‘‘Hang in.’’
63
I went back to the World. Losing my cadence for half a step, en route, when the breeze hit me with a whiff of incredible body odor. From someone I couldn’t see.
The day, I noted, was getting on. Time flies, fun, like that, I guess. I spied Rindt Grinblatt and pack in the distance, headed my way. Brother Grinblatt looked to be in a foul mood. Though how you tell with a dwarf is subject to debate.
I went inside and found Singe. And hardly anybody else. A whole herd, excepting ratfolk, had skipped. ‘‘Darling, when you all do catch the stinking man, ask him why he’s interested in me. Or the World.’’
‘‘I can do that. Though maybe the Dead Man already knows. He had hold of the stinking man for a while. I think. But not for very long if he did.’’
‘‘I’ll ask.’’ And Old Bones would withhold the answer, most likely. He’d tell me I needed to figure these things out for myself. Or the like.
I went to look into the basement. ‘‘Hey, Rocky. I’m going to need your backup in a minute. Come on up.’’ Saucerhead and his thugs are good at what they do, but some jobs just howl out for a specialist.
Singe needs to get reconnected with her own culture. She has become too human. She was suspicious. ‘‘What are you up to, Garrett?’’
‘‘Nothing. But in about a minute a mightily pissed off dwarf is going to stomp in here. I’d like somebody handy who isn’t intimidated by all those axes and chopping swords and maces. Somebody with a natural-born knack for making hairy folk stand still and listen to reason.’’
Good old Rindt, I suspected, had talked himself into thinking he’d established squatter’s rights over yonder just by virtue of his presence. The sort of magical thinking that makes us think we ‘‘deserve,’’ and ‘‘have a right to,’’ something we didn’t earn, just because we’re breathing and happen to be passing through life. It’s a plague on all intelligent species. I was born. Therefore, I have the right to pick your pocket so I can buy the bottle of rotgut red I want to curl up with tonight.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a new species of graffiti. Traditional Karentine graffiti is human rightsist crap. Or kid gang crap. Or ‘‘Ferdie Pins wants to get into Minnie Tong’s cootch’’ crap. But the new stuff rides the premise that being required to produce, to work, if one would rather not, amounts to an egregious social injustice, inhumane involuntary servitude, and economic terrorism.
Really.
You got to wonder about the magnitude of the brass ones on a guy who could come out in public and, with a straight face, say that. I’d be inclined to give the man what he wants. But not feed him. Loaf on, brot
her! We’ll dump you in a skinny little grave.
That from a guy who is almost allergic to work himself. A guy with a moral imperative to avoid work as much as possible. But a guy who accepts the consequences of his inactions.
Well. There went a parenthetical diversion from the everyday.
Rocky stamped up, providing the closing ellipsis. ‘‘What’s up, Garrett? Better not take long. I’m gonna gotta get out of here in another hour.’’
‘‘Those dwarves I had you check on earlier? They’re going to be here in a minute. On account of getting evicted from under that empty house. Property owners can be such pricks. And dwarves can be so presumptuous.’’ Rocky would grasp that better than a detailed explanation. ‘‘I need you to stand around looking like you’re thinking about dwarf goulash for supper.’’
Rocky grinned. ‘‘I can do that.’’
Where were the Grinblatts, anyway? Dwarves aren’t famous for getting in a rush but Rindt and family should have arrived by now.
And here they came.
I’d just started wondering if cold weather effected dwarves the way it does trolls. But that was silly. The hairy folk hail from wild mountains where it’s chilly during the summer and there are recorded instances of snow falling during Midsummer’s Night.
If this crew got slowed down it was because their hob-nailed boots couldn’t get much purchase on icy cobblestones. And it was, for sure, cooling down out there. The slush had begun to firm up.
The Grinblatts entered, all hair, clatter, and attitude. Which began to change after one look at Rocky. Rindt shed surly with every step. Had he had a few miles to warm up he might have mustered a passable diplomatic smile.
‘‘We kind of got distracted over there, boss. Sorry.’’ He was awash in remorse. But Rindt Grinblatt just being aware of the concept was more proof that he had gone native. ‘‘Some people showed up and run us out.’’
‘‘Those would be the owners,’’ I exaggerated. ‘‘You weren’t rude to them, were you? They’re off the Hill. The skinny one is Prime Circle, though you’d never guess to look at her.’’
Dwarves can’t manage the color changes we see in the paler breeds of human. Otherwise, Rindt Grinblatt and his lady would have gone white as death.
There was an event somewhere deep in dwarfish history that marked them with a dread of sorcerers that had gotten into the blood itself.
‘‘Rindt, they aren’t looking for trouble. They just want to know what’s been going on behind their backs.’’
‘‘You knew that when you sent us down there?’’
‘‘I did not. No. They turned up. They asked questions. I answered. That’s how it’s done.’’ He knew. He’d gone native. ‘‘Now. Your job was to go down under and scout around. So tell me what you found.’’
I noted several people sliding our way, meaning to eavesdrop.
Then came Morley. Through the front door, looking like he’d barely survived a heavy date with a vampire.
Rindt Grinblatt was calm enough to earn his pay now. He began a detailed report. His family felt free to jump in wherever a point needed clarification.
It took a while. As I’d suspected, Kip and his friends had done a good deal of housekeeping.
Before the Grinblatts wrapped it up Belinda wandered in, curious. At which point I noted that I was now the only other one hundred percent pure member of the master race in the whole damned place. Most everyone else had gone off without saying good night. ‘‘Singe, you want to take Rindt back to the house so you can pay him?’’
‘‘Sorry, Garrett.’’ She had been muttering with my best pal. ‘‘Previous obligation.’’
‘‘Damn! Rindt, you go on back out to my house, my man Dean will see that you get what you’ve got coming. Damn! Poor choice of words, that.’’ They were accurate but that lineup usually rolls out only where vengeance is about to be done.
Grinblatt was distinctly unhappy. He had a few things to say about my ancestry, incestry, and sexual proclivities. But Rocky was standing by. And Rindt was hungry. He went. Leading his family gang and grumbling all the way.
I hoped the Dead Man drained him dry.
Belinda screamed.
64
I’d forgotten the ghosts. They hadn’t been much of a nuisance since the dwarves showed up. They’d faded, maybe because they were kind of used up. Or maybe the cold getting down under had begun to have an impact.
But now they were back and there were only two human targets, one already immunized by knowledge.
Belinda screamed. Her behavior baffled the nonhumans.
The shade troubling her was, to me, an indistinct, pus-colored shimmer.
She screamed again. Why didn’t she just run away? That would solve it. Though the racket sounded more horrified than terrified. A distinction sometimes difficult to see. Stipulated.
I shed my marvelous loaner coat, stepped over, wrapped Belinda’s head so she couldn’t see. I don’t know where that came from. Maybe from having seen a tinker do it to his cart dog when the mutt had a seizure.
It worked.
The shimmer faded right away. It tried to assume several familiar shapes. I showed it my back and hung on to Belinda till she stopped struggling.
Saucerhead appeared in the doorway. ‘‘Hey, Garrett. The drivers are here to get your ratpeople.’’
I turned to look for John Stretch. The ratman nodded my way. He’d heard. He went to gather his henchrats.
Belinda let me know she was ready to come out. I turned her loose.
‘‘Wash that damned thing, Garrett. It’s ripe.’’ She looked around nervously.
‘‘What did you see?’’
Her honesty surprised me. ‘‘My mother. Looking exactly the way she did when I found her the day she died.’’ Her voice turned chill. Her mother had been murdered. By her father, Chodo, the world assumed. For fooling around. A sport in which Chodo himself had indulged, regularly. Belinda asked, ‘‘What happened? And will it happen again?’’
I tried to explain. Without being sure myself. ‘‘I don’t know why people see what they see. Most get something bad. But I’ve seen my mother, my brother, and a couple people who aren’t dead yet. You saw your mother. Some Hill types who were here earlier shared one ghost and brought it into focus so good that I’d recognize the woman in the street.’’
Aside, I said, ‘‘Good night, Rocky. Thanks for helping.’’
Morley and Singe had vanished.
Belinda maneuvered to keep the ghost behind her.
Did it mean anything that there was only one, now? Why not one for me?
There had been a platoon of the damned things before the Windwalker and her dad showed up.
John Stretch’s people moved out. Soon I’d be alone with Belinda. Not an eventuality to which I aspired. ‘‘Where did your thugs get to?’’
It was absodamnlutely guaranteed that if she maneuvered me into any position where temptation could be laid on, I’d be drowning in furious redheads before the smoke cleared away.
Belinda mused, ‘‘I hadn’t thought about that. Yet. It’s a question I’ll need to explore.’’
Really. She should have had six guys all over her the second she screamed.
She was herself again. ‘‘I’d better go. We don’t want Tinnie frosted about us being alone together with only twenty ratpeople and a few thousand rats for chaperones.’’
‘‘You surprise me sometimes.’’
‘‘I surprise myself. I have these impulsive moments when I turn human.’’
She was a sociopath fully aware of her psychosis.
I meet sociopaths in my line. Most know their heads don’t work like regular people’s. None of them consider that a handicap.
We went outside. Belinda’s men were gathered around the new guard shack, trying to keep their bits and pieces warm. To a man, supported by Tharpe’s crew, they hadn’t heard anything from inside the World.
Curious.
I saw Belinda off, then
John Stretch and the last of his mob, with their harvest of succulent grubs. It was twilight, the sky now cloudless, the night coming up indigo. Shivering flying lizards perched high above, disappointed by the absence of game.
‘‘Don’t got much use for them things,’’ Saucerhead said. ‘‘Though their skin makes a damned good bootlace. But they help keep down the vermin.’’
‘‘Really? How so?’’
‘‘How many pigeons you see?’’ Tharpe isn’t fond of pigeons. Something to do with a strategically placed load at a critical juncture during a pickup game of outdoor passion at some point in the past. He won’t talk about it.
‘‘There is that.’’
‘‘Silver linings, brother. Silver linings.’’
65
I went back inside. It was lonely in there. A couple of ghosts floated aimlessly. They weren’t interested in me. They were too feeble to be scary.
I shut down most of the lamps. Thoughtful Garrett, trying to save the boss a bit of silver.
It was freezing in there now. I closed vents and exits that I couldn’t watch directly. Saucerhead and his guys were good, if they bothered, but there are some slick operators in this burg. I didn’t want any of those faced with too much temptation.
I had no real plan. My hanging around belonged to the category ‘‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’’
I settled against a wall not far from the main entrance and thought about clunky music.
I dozed.
Somebody called, ‘‘Garrett? You in here?’’ Then, in a softer voice, ‘‘You’re sure he didn’t go home, Tharpe?’’
‘‘No, sir, Mr. Gilbey. No, sir. He never would’ve gone off and left the doors unlocked.’’
‘‘Over here.’’ I went to work getting my feet under me. It was hard. I’d stiffened up. ‘‘I fell asleep.’’
Hand on the wall, I looked around. I saw three ghosts, little stronger than heat shimmers, uninterested in the new-comers. The air was warmer now.
