Angry Lead Skies

by Glen Cook

  “Everything.” There was something here. Maybe nothing I’d find useful but definitely a connection.

  Again she glanced at Playmate. So I did the same, only to have him shrug in response, then ask, “Will you be more comfortable if I go outside, Kayne?”

  Kayne Prose winced.

  I doubted that the woman was long on sensitivity. Life wouldn’t have afforded her the luxury. But she had something on her mind. She thought Playmate would be disappointed or hurt. She cherished his good opinion. Or maybe needed it as an emotional foundation stone. Whatever, she could see some value in a man who was too good to become an active accomplice in her game of self-destruction.

  Playmate is one of those guys who is just too damned nice for his own good. And everyone in the place recognized that Playmate felt that his good could be the woman who looked like she had made a pact with the agents of darkness. Except for Kayne Prose herself, of course.

  Kayne Prose told Playmate, “You don’t need to go, Play. If I’m embarrassed by something I tell Mr. Garrett, then I deserve the full impact. Mr. Garrett, I enjoyed — for want of a more appropriate description — a brief relationship with Bic Gonlit not long ago.” Her fingers flew, sewing a sleeve onto something for a child maybe six years old. Something for a little girl who would never suffer the miseries and indignities so intimately known to the woman who had assembled her dress. “I don’t believe he saw it in the same light as I did, though.” With an intonation implying that they never do.

  “Interesting.” The Dead Man hadn’t mentioned this tantalizing tidbit. Did he want me to find out for myself? Or wasn’t there anything interesting there? Or maybe Bic hadn’t remembered because it wasn’t important to him. “Was this anytime recently?”

  Kayne nodded. “I ended it three days ago. When I realized he was using me.” Damn! The woman made the act of breathing a sensual promise. No wonder old Bic took her wrong.

  The rest of the women adjusted their positions as Kayne finished, each commenting without saying a word. Possibly unfairly. I didn’t get the feeling that Kayne Prose made herself a public utility, only that she really enjoyed men but always conspired with her own inner devils to make sure she picked the ones who would be bad for her.

  “I see. This was a good idea, Play. I’ve learned more in the last three minutes than I did up till then. Kayne, did it get physical? Did he ever take his boots off?” Rumor suggested that Bic might not.

  Kayne Prose turned bright red, something her co-op pals probably found amazing. I wondered if that would have happened had Playmate not been with me.

  “He... He had a problem. He said... What do you mean about boots?”

  “Bic Gonlit’s big legend revolves around his custom-made, hugely ugly, possibly magical boots. They’re boots a ratman wouldn’t steal. They’re white with fake gems all over them. They have thick elevator soles. You’re probably a good four inches taller than Bic in his bare feet.”

  “He’s as tall as me. And I never noticed any special boots. Or shoes. Or anything else.”

  I exchanged glances with Playmate.

  “What?” Kayne demanded.

  I told her, “That wasn’t the real Bic Gonlit, then. That was one of the elves who’re looking for Kip’s friends. He uses some kind of sorcery to make people think they’re seeing Bic Gonlit. But the illusion doesn’t include the boots. Or enough of the short.”

  “You know, you’re right. I never thought about it before. When we were kids Bic always had a thing about his shoes.”

  “You’ve known him a long time?”

  “Not well. But since I was Kip’s age. We grew up on the same street. I saw him around sometimes. We said ‘Hi.’ I never paid him much attention. And he never paid me any. I thought that was because he might be a little... fey. Like maybe he didn’t know what he wanted to be. And he was always kind of a jerk. But a month ago he started coming around and acting like he was really interested. He’d gotten a case of the manners and he could talk a pretty good game. But he never did nothing else. Sooner or later, and mostly sooner, the conversation got around to Kip and his friends. He was always asking questions. A man who never does nothing but talk about your kids don’t stay real interesting and ain’t much fun.”

  You hear that, Play? I thought. This one has a “me” streak. And it’s what keeps causing her problems. Clever men would play to it. And would think less of her because they were able to.

  “I stand cautioned. But I do have to bring the brats up some in order to get my job done.”

  One of the women groaned dramatically.

  Playmate blessed the lot with a righteous glower. He drew himself up stiffly erect, like he was about to go on a rant about hellfire and sin and chucking first rocks.

  I asked, “Kip did know this Bic, too?”

  “Better than I did. He figured out right away that Bic just wanted to get next to the two spooky critters.”

  “Lastyr and Noodiss.”

  “Still the ones, buddy.” The furnace wasn’t burning nearly as hot as it had.

  I’d managed to work myself down off the A list.

  “You have any idea how I could find this Bic Gonlit? Could you get ahold of him somehow if you wanted?”

  She thought about her answer for a while. I’d begun to suspect that her lights didn’t burn too bright and that the woman was something of a flake besides. More factors contributing to her string of failed relationships.

  The substance behind the beauty and the intense sensuality was thin. Which I wouldn’t find all that big a handicap most of the time. But, businesswise, it makes for endless problems.

  From the corners of my eyes I noted the other women watching to see how long it would take me to catch on — and if it would matter. Maybe with a touch more malice toward me than toward Kayne Prose. In some ways they might live vicariously through Kayne. Kayne wasn’t afraid to indulge herself.

  She let me look and think for a while, probably so I could reflect on what I was talking myself out of, before she said, “Yeah. Play, take Mr. Garrett over to my place. Rhafi can show you guys where Bic used to hole up. And if the creep is still there, break a couple limbs for me. All of them if he don’t give Kip back.”

  I was about to explain that it wasn’t likely the false Bic Gonlit had the boy. Playmate nudged me. That was irrelevant. It was time to go.

  Good idea, too. Because, atop everything else, Kayne Prose had a kind of narcotic quality to her. I could see myself sliding into addiction. Just like my dusky pal.

  I kept thinking that, if she hadn’t had so many incompatible personality quirks, she could’ve set herself up for life by getting into the mistress racket. In a prime position.

  That she was where she was, looking as good as she did, never having done better, was one more warning flag about the woman inside that marvellously attractive shell.

  A long time ago, almost a whole day now, Playmate had told me that Cypres Prose’s mom was different and had pointed to his temple. Based on information gleaned, I’d say the man was right. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to turn right around and go back and try to score some points for the future.

  24

  Playmate asked, “What did you think of Kayne?”

  “Honest answer, Play? I never saw her before in my life. But I wanted to trip her and beat her to the floor. And ten seconds after that I just wanted to beat her. And ten seconds after that I was completely confused about what I wanted. And right now the animal side of my soul is screaming at me not to walk away from this wonderful chance. There’s a perverse, self-destructive urge in there somewhere that she just shrieks out to.”

  He wasn’t offended. “That’s how a lot of men react. You a little faster than most, but that’s just you being you. And after years of studying Kayne Prose I think it’s all because of what’s going on inside her. She doesn’t just hurt herself in these doomed relationships. And the harder it is on the guys, the harder they try to make it work.”

  We were s
trolling. Playmate needed to air out some thoughts. It was clear that he was a Kayne Prose addict and willing to risk destruction. And maybe Kayne Prose thought too much of Playmate to give him a hit of poison.

  People are the strangest creatures.

  “What’s it all mean?” I asked, just to keep open the windows of his mental house.

  “I think it means that Kayne has a low-grade form of what the Dead Man has. The mind thing.” Which could mean another wizard in the woodpile, a generation further back. “Just enough to read you faintly and to touch you just as weakly. Without knowing it on a conscious level. But using it all the time when men are around. In such a way that whatever is going on inside her will be reflected right back at her from outside. And maybe it’ll feed on itself if it starts running into something dark.”

  I considered. “You could be right.” I started trying to compare, in my head, Kayne Prose’s impact with the jolt my friend Katie could deliver. Katie can reduce this man to jelly with just a look. When Katie gets interested there are no distractions. Katie is the closest I’ve ever come to having had a religious epiphany.

  I’d just considered that to be a matter of focus. But maybe it was something more. Maybe there was a weak, crude mental connection involved.

  Playmate said, “It’s just a hypothesis.” With a tone so defensive that an apology was implied.

  “A damned good hypothesis, I’d say. You ought to get completely alone with her sometime, no distractions whatsoever, and test it out.”

  He sputtered.

  “Play? You’re embarrassed?”

  “I’m not that kind of guy, Garrett.”

  “Maybe you ought to be. Tell me about Kayne’s other kids. Are they problem folks like their mother and brother?”

  “Not like their mother and brother. But problems enough. You’ll like Cassie.”

  He didn’t tell me much more. But he was right about Cassie. Cassie was a very likeable child indeed.

  25

  Cassie Doap was nineteen. Physically, Cassie was her mother a decade and a half younger, with the overpowering sensuality less controlled. Cassie Doap would break hearts just by going out where men could see her and understand that they would live out their years never having gotten any closer than they were at the moment when first they spotted her. Cassie Doap filled up a room with her presence but didn’t spark the confusion that came with being around her mother.

  Cassie Doap was smarter than Kayne, too. She understood the impact she had on men but had no intention of letting that define who and what she was. If Kayne Prose had done one useful thing for her daughter it was to set an example of how not to live her life.

  All that I understood before Cassie Doap and I exchanged a word. Because Cassie Doap was an easy read. She wanted it that way.

  I wondered what hidden, horrible flaw had a poor woman as gorgeous as this still living with her mother at her age. A hyperactive sense of self-worth?

  Playmate performed the introductions. I managed to shake hands while avoiding stepping on my tongue, distracting myself by concentrating on business. I’m able to do that occasionally, though there’re some who would have the world believe otherwise. It’s just that the Kaynes and Cassies of the world make it so hard.

  With Cassie there I almost overlooked her brother Rhafi. He wasn’t the sort to attract much attention.

  I told Cassie, “We’re trying to find Kip. We think...”

  “If Play hadn’t guaranteed it was the real thing I would’ve bet the little twerp staged the whole damned thing.”

  “Why would you think that?” I noted that, unlike her mother, Cassie did nothing to make sure I understood just how much woman she was.

  “Because that’s the way his evil little pea brain works.” Brother Rhafi nodded his head vigorously. “He lives inside his own imagination. Everything in there is high drama. Perilous chases, deadly duels, narrow escapes, beautiful princesses, and monstrous villains.”

  Playmate chuckled. “Sounds like your life, Garrett,” he quipped.

  “Except for a severe shortage of princesses, beautiful or otherwise. You wouldn’t be a long-lost princess, left in a basket on your mother’s doorstep, would you, Cassie?”

  “Long-lost, anyway. If that was intended to be a compliment you get points for being a little more subtle than the usual, ‘Gods, you’re beautiful. Lie down because I think I love you.’”

  “Must’ve been army type guys. Marines are all smooth and crafty.” Had we just gotten a hint of why Cassie Doap hadn’t wriggled her way into the sweet life? Everybody knows that’s a girl’s easiest way out of the poor side of town. Or was she in a constant rage because Fate had decreed she should be so beautiful that everybody wanted her? I don’t recall ever having run into a woman who resented her own appeal, only women who hated their sisters for having more of it than they did. But I could understand the notion, in principle. In someone who could, genuinely, separate self from body.

  Possibly Kayne’s past behavior had loaded Cassie up with outside expectations as well. Perhaps the whole neighborhood figured like mother, like daughter. That’s the sort of ignorant thinking you can expect from human type beings. And the sort that would park a big old chip on somebody’s shoulder.

  Playmate said, “Kayne told us you could show us where Bic Gonlit stayed when he was coming around here.” His tone was strained, neutral. And Cassie heard that. And she understood.

  “I can’t. I stayed away from that creep. He was always trying to get me to go somewhere with him when Kayne wasn’t around.”

  But Kayne had told us that Bic hadn’t shown any physical interest in her. If he hadn’t gone for the mom why would he take a run at the daughter?

  Make the assumption he wasn’t a good, red-blooded Karentine boy and you might think he could want something else. Maybe he’d had a notion that snatching Cassie would give him a lever he could use to get Kip to tell him what he wanted to know.

  Hard to imagine just wanting Cassie as a hostage. She was the kind of girl you have to keep away from the old men. Or you’ll have them dropping like flies from strokes and heart attacks. Hell, I was having palpitations myself and I was just there looking for her nimrod brother.

  I had trouble seeing anything else. Especially not brother Rhafi, who vanished in Cassie’s glare. That poor kid didn’t even have Kip’s unpleasant character traits. He was just there, a gangly six-footer with unkempt dark hair, brown eyes, a ghost of a mustache, the beginnings of a set of bad teeth, and no meat on his bones. I got the impression that he’d rather be somewhere else. That, like his brother, he had a preference for the habitués of worlds of his own devising.

  Physically, it was obvious that Rhafi did not share a father with Kip. Cassie... She might pass as Kip’s full sister if anybody wanted to pretend. But she did have that different last name.

  No matter. As pleasant a task as it was staring at Cassie and drooling, I was in the business of rescuing obnoxious teenagers. “Rhafi, I’m Garrett.” Like maybe he’d forgotten. But I’d decided to deal with him the way I dealt with Singe. Carefully. He seemed of an age to be volatile. “I specialize in finding things that get lost.” Or about anything else that needs doing, that clients don’t want to do for themselves, and that I don’t think is wrong.

  “Like Bic Gonlit.”

  “Well, sure. Though the reason I want to find him is because he may know where to find your brother.”

  Petulantly, “I mean, Bic Gonlit finds things that’re missing. He said so.”

  “The real Bic Gonlit specializes in finding people for other people. People who’re willing to pay well to have them found.”

  Playmate told me, “Let’s don’t complicate things, Garrett. Rhafi, please show us where Bic Gonlit stayed.”

  “He tried to get me up there, too, you know. Like he did Cassie.”

  “And you found out where he stayed. Good job.” Playmate’s approach was the same as mine but the boy responded better. Probably because he knew and
trusted Playmate.

  Playmate does exude trustworthiness. I’ve seen total strangers entrust him with everything but their souls.

  Playmate kept talking. And Rhafi responded.

  The boy did not enjoy Kip’s one redeeming quality. He wasn’t bright. And he was spoiled. As much as a near-destitute child can be spoiled.

  I stepped back and let the master work.

  “Shall we?” I asked Cassie, offering her my arm and a glimpse of my raised eyebrow. The trick that kills them dead.

  “I think I’ll just stay here.”

  Whimpering, every bone crushed, I dragged my battered carcass out of the Prose flat, following Playmate and Rhafi.

  26

  Playmate said, “I told you you’d like Cassie.”

  “Hell, I love her. But I’m not so hot for the thing that’s inside of her, wearing her like a suit.”

  Rhafi started laughing. I mean, he got one of those cases of the giggles where you just can’t shut it off, no matter how hard you try.

  “I didn’t think it was that funny,” I said.

  Playmate agreed. “It wasn’t funny at all.”

  Rhafi gasped, “But you don’t know Cassie. You don’t have to live with her. You don’t have to suffer through it when she tries on different personalities like some rich bitch trying on different clothes.” He hacked and gasped all the way through that. “I know it isn’t that funny. But it was just so perfect for the bitch that she’s trying to be this week.”

  “She’s always been an actress,” Playmate said, demonstratively not using the word in its pejorative form, which means whore. “That’s her way of coping.”

  “Ever get the idea that the dysfunctional folks outnumber those who aren’t? Every damned day I’m more of the opinion that everybody’s knot is tied too loose or too tight. And some just cover it up better than others. It’s only a matter of time. Except for me and thee, of course.”

  “And sometimes we wonder about thee, Garrett. I’m sorry you feel that way. You might consider surrounding yourself with different people. Excluding myself, naturally. Or you might find a different line of work. One less likely to turn you cynical.”