Gilded Latten Bones gp-13

by Glen Cook

  "Sicko."

  Probably. Undoubtedly. In the spirit of open cooperation, I began to quiz Berry about crimes that might have been related to what had happened here. Relway had mentioned a deep interest in a pattern of ugliness.

  I did not get to run with that.After discovering that she could not open the window to yell at me, Miss Tea began pounding on glass to get my attention. She beckoned vigorously.

  "Got to go, Sergeant. Thanks for everything."

  21

  Miss Tea did not give me a chance to ask what was happening. "I didn't tell you to take the rest of the day off, I'd cover for you."

  "The red tops gave me the first-class tour. I've never seen them this serious. We may have Prince Rupert himself up here later."

  She wanted to go on being irritated but put that aside. A visit from the Crown Prince had a ton of meaning. "I see."

  "Our own prince say anything while I was out?" Dotes was sound asleep again.

  "He proposed. A two-hour common-law marriage. After he gets on his feet again. I'm thinking about it."

  "Another sign that he's recuperating."

  Miss Tea scowled at me and grumbled something I don't think Morley would have found endearing. She absented herself in quest of more important duties. She didn't take the breakfast tray. I poured cold tea, put my cot back down, settled, picked up the Salvation omnibus and tried reading Star-Crossed Love. The title said it all. The theme animated most of the plays put on in TunFaire's theaters. There were autobiographical elements to this one. The female protagonist, instead of being the usual fainthearted rose, resembled Salvation's girlfriend, Winger.

  After a few pages I glanced over, wondered aloud, "What did you get yourself into this time?"

  It looked big. That didn't fit. Morley would not do anything to invite the attention of Prince Rupert.

  That left me thinking about the attack on me and Tinnie.

  We weren't involved by choice, either.

  I went back to the play. I needed to clear my head.

  I finished the first scene in act three, looked over, found Morley looking back, not brightly. "What the hell did you do?"

  He gave me a weak smile, said, "Water!" in a raspy little croak.

  I dribbled water. When he had enough he went back to sleep, nothing said and no questions answered.

  Crush brought lunch and took breakfast's remains away. I told her, "I need more water and a chamber pot change."

  "I need a diamond tiara."

  Despite the attitude, all was handled quickly.

  Morley woke up, drank water, dispensed no wisdom, and went back to sleep. An hour before supper the healer returned, tricked out in his best mourning outfit. I did not care enough to ask why the Children dressed that way. I was getting jaded. And distracted.

  Accompanying the healer was a serious surprise from yesteryear, the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light.

  She was surprised to see me, too. And a tad embarrassed, I think. She lowered her big, beautiful violet eyes.

  I greeted the sorceress politely, inwardly pursuing a goofy calculation trying to connect a heavyweight off the Hill with a cult healer because of the word Light. I don't have an adequately developed paranoid imagination.

  Belinda Contague accompanied them but stayed in the hall, observing. I did some observing myself.

  The Windwalker hadn't aged a minute. She remained totally waiflike and utterly delicious but today she was all business. She moved to the window, looked out, paid almost no attention to Morley. I tried to remember if they had met. Those were confusing times. Antediluvian times. I was a different man in a different world, then, not a respectable member of the bourgeoisie.

  I couldn't help but snicker. That earned a scowl from all women present.

  The healer asked, "What's happening with him?"

  "He sleeps and he drinks water. I think he's getting better."

  "He drinks water."

  "He wakes up, makes a little croak that means he's thirsty. I use the pipe. He sucks it down; then he goes back to sleep." For the lady in the hallway, I added, "Miss Tea claimed he made a pass this morning. She was just trying to get my goat."

  "It will be a long time before this fellow sins again." He examined Morley's wounds while he talked. "He is the luckiest knife victim I've ever seen. Some of these wounds are six inches deep, yet not one cut an artery or hit a vital organ. There is no infection, either. Don't press him with questions. He won't be able to answer for a while. Ah! Here he is now."

  Morley's eyes opened. He cataloged the crowd, made his "Water," sound.

  The healer produced a black glass bottle the size of my thumb. It had a clear glass stopper. "Three drops into each pitcher of water. Keep his water separate. This is for pain. There is a good deal of pain still, isn't there?" he asked Morley.

  Dotes grunted, closed his eyes.

  The healer spoke to the doorway. "I've done what I can. He'll recover. How well depends upon how firmly he clings to my instructions. No straying from the diet. All the water he wants. The drops are not addictive. They will cause considerable drowsiness. Keep him clean. Turn him once in a while. Time is what he requires. There was a timetable in the instructions I gave you, madam. Enforce it to the letter."

  Wow! I'd never heard anybody give Belinda Contague orders. This nut was doing it. And she was nodding! She understood the instructions, too. Morley was sure to try going before he was ready.

  Furious Tide of Light said nothing. After the early glances she ignored Morley. She was fascinated by something in the street. "Your rat associate is quite clever."

  The fit was tight but I managed to join her. Singe was down below, talking to several senior red tops and a brace of wide loads from middle management in Belinda's enterprise. I was pleased to see my little girl getting the respect she was due as the finest tracker in the city.

  "How so?" I asked.

  "She means to backtrack instead of trail forward."

  Backtrack goats? Easier than following some human who killed three people while making a getaway. Safer, too. And more useful. Both incursions had come from the same direction and had gone on toward the Hill. "The girl is scary smart. What are you doing here?"

  "Personal appeal from Prince Rupert."

  Ah. A family friend, I recalled. "And how is your dad and your daughter Kevans?"

  "We're not getting along at the moment. Let's concentrate on the task at hand. I'm not the woman you remember." She turned her cool, emerald eyes my way. I was afraid I was going to drown there.

  "I'm sorry. I'm probably not the man you think you remember, either." I watched some of John Stretch's ratman associates emerge from shadows as Singe moved out with a train of thugs behind. Those hailed from several sides of the law. They stayed back so as not to distract her.

  I asked, "You know why this mess is causing so much excitement?"

  The Windwalker met my gaze. Her eyes were a striking blue. The shy girl I remembered emerged. "I can comment only from a position of vast ignorance. Prince Rupert is concerned about a possible Hill connection."

  I met the Crown Prince once. He'd asked me to be his personal agent. He was as determined as Deal Relway to afflict TunFaire with great gobs of law and order. Someone who failed to acknowledge that rules existed would be a definite black beast to him.

  "What I wanted to know was, what are you doing here in this room, with us?"

  "I had a notion that, with the healer's assistance, I might learn something useful. I was wrong. Then I was so startled by seeing you. . I should get back to work. I need to be with those people out there."

  Tight as it was, she got past me and Belinda without getting intimate. She left me totally rattled. Those eyes. . I had forgotten those eyes.

  22

  Belinda gave the Windwalker a short lead. "There something between you two? I thought I knew all the bimbos that came after me."

  "Only in her head. Maybe. She took a weak run at me once upon a time. It didn't go anywhere. Tho
ugh. . She's a multiple personality type."

  "She'd have to be to come down off the Hill to chase you."

  Belinda was kidding but was so tired and worried she made it sound serious.

  I kept my mouth shut. Belinda wasn't really interested. She held Morley's hand and asked, "Where the hell were you for those ten days?"

  I got confused. "Ten days? There some things you haven't shared with me? The backstory changes as we move along?"

  "What are you yammering about?"

  So I thought back. And decided I was a dumbass. All she had said was that he had been laid up here three days before she brought me in. "I don't know. I'm having trouble getting my mind into fighting trim. You did wait three days before you came to me?"

  "I was rattled. You, of all people, understand that we do stupid things when we aren't thinking straight."

  "He could have died."

  "But he didn't. And I did get around to you and the Children of the Light."

  "Sorry for barking."

  "I had it coming." Belinda looked at Morley with the same cow eyes I have seen on a thousand other women. I took a short ramble through the realm of intuition.

  "Belinda?"

  "Uhm?"

  "Were there any weird events around here before I showed up?"

  Sometimes Miss Contague is a mind reader. "You suggesting that they suspected he was still alive but didn't know where to look? So they watched you. They raided your place to get you moving. . No. That doesn't hang together."

  "They watched you till you contacted me. Then they watched me. That's how I would've done it. How come they're so desperate? Where did it happen? What did the people who found him say?"

  "I don't know where, yet. I'm supposed to go look at a place. They found him dying. That's about it. It was obvious he wouldn't need his stuff anymore so they started turning out his pockets."

  "And found something to connect him to you. So they did the right thing."

  "They did what they thought might put money in their pockets."

  "Did they bet wrong?"

  "No. That's just good public relations. You feed the beast sometimes."

  "Did you get his stuff back?"

  "I did. I thought he might have been hit because of something he was carrying. He had nothing on him. But he might have been cleaned out where he was attacked."

  "How about dead attackers? Nobody could do this much damage without Morley doing some damage back."

  "The place I'm going to check, there was some blood and others signs of a big fight. But no bodies. My people found two wooden buttons, a scrap of gray wool cloth, and a broken wooden mask with cast glass eyehole covers. Weird, huh? I hoped Pular Singe could do something with them. She said it's too late. That trail is long gone."

  "He was missing for ten days?"

  "Yes. Again."

  "He really never told Sarge or Puddle or any of his mugs anything?"

  "No. I went there even before he turned up full of holes. We talked about this already."

  "I have to ask over and over. You had a witness."

  "One who can't be found by anyone anymore."

  "Put away for safekeeping." In the river, with big rocks for shoes.

  "I'm thinking ringer. Not based on any evidence, just intuition."

  "No marvelous body in tight black leather?"

  "Not him. We'll find him eventually."

  We would, of course. "I can't see Morley wandering off for that long. For one night, maybe. But he's a hands-on guy with his business."

  "You're not producing original thought."

  "I'm not trying. I'm musing out loud. But here's a question of personal interest. How close are you working with the Director?"

  "We pretend not to see each other poking around. Communication between foot soldiers will be overlooked."

  "Last time our paths crossed, Relway was putting together teams of specialists. One was supposed to do forensic sorcery."

  "The Specials. There are a dozen squads, now, and more to come."

  "If the forensic sorcery group is up, maybe you can get Relway to check out this place when you visit it."

  "I'll suggest it. But the red tops don't give a shit about Morley."

  I eyeballed Dotes. What secrets would we prize forth once he could sit up and talk? He looked more relaxed. The drops in the water must have been working.

  "There is one obvious answer to why Morley was missing for ten days."

  "He was a prisoner."

  "Fits what we know. And might explain why someone tried to kill him, assuming he escaped."

  "He showed no signs of having been restrained."

  I picked up a hand, looked at the wrist. Nothing, of course. "Meaning he wasn't kept in chains."

  Belinda stood at the window and watched the street, likely not seeing anything. "I'm considering changing my mind."

  "About?"

  "Moving Morley to your house."

  "Really?" Warily.

  "Two birds, I think. He wouldn't be safer anywhere else. And your partner could find out things we need to know."

  Belinda is ever-capable of doing the startling thing.

  "One problem. Old Bones is dead to the world right now."

  "You always say that."

  "This time it's true. Actually, it's almost always true."

  "And you're here. The one man able to stir the relict out of his dreams."

  Marginally true.

  Crush and DeeDee arrived.

  23

  As mistress of an empire spanning the full underbelly of TunFaire, employing more than a thousand people, Belinda had obligations outside Fire and Ice. And she had digging to do. Yet she just sat there staring at Morley, muttering, while seated on a hard folding chair, courtesy of the genius of Kip Prose and the production acumen of the Amalgamated Manufacturing Combine.

  Miss Tea had brought four chairs.They took hardly any room when folded. No doubt they cost a fortune. And cheap knock-offs would be available within weeks if I remained unavailable to fight for Amalgamated's intellectual property rights.

  There are laws but we have to enforce them ourselves.

  "Belinda?"

  She did not respond.

  "Hey. Girl. Listen up. Investigator working here. Let's get on with the questions and answers."

  She turned weary eyes my way.

  "A long time ago, two days and a few hours, you told me some things about Morley's situation. There have been changes since, all moving toward the less specific and more ambiguous."

  "That can happen when you talk to witnesses."

  "True. You had an eyewitness. Now you don't?"

  "Like I told you, he disappeared. His story didn't hold water, anyway."

  "A ringer."

  "Looking back, I think he was fishing for a trace on Morley. I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't hide the fact that he was alive."

  "Could he have been the villain himself?"

  "I don't know."

  "Sergeant Berry insists that we're up against a sicko. Could he be one of those who feeds on the action around his crimes? Some even try to get in with the tin whistles so they can tag along during the investigation."

  "Could be. I'll bet this one is sick in more than one dimension."

  "Remember what he looked like?"

  "If I was an artist I could paint his picture."

  "You have trouble drawing stick figures."

  "I do."

  "We could recruit an artist."

  "I don't think. . Hell. I know my powers of description aren't good enough."

  "I was thinking we could have the Dead Man capture the image and pass it to a skilled painter. We have some good portraitists in TunFaire."

  Belinda glared like she meant to cause spontaneous human combustion through sheer willpower.

  "I thought you'd be too paranoid to do it the easy way."

  "Paranoid? Me? You're the loon if. ."

  "Suppose he did rummage through your head?"

  S
he did not answer. The idea terrified her.

  "He's done it before. You survived. What would he do with anything he found? Besides sit around radiating smug because he'd gotten a peek up your skirt?"

  She had no ready answer. The arrival of a flustered Miss Tea saved her the need. Miss Tea gushed, "You better come down, ma'am. The bloody, frigging Crown Prince his own self is here."

  Belinda said, "Looks like I'm needed."

  "Want me to come with? I know the man."

  "Bullshit. You don't even ooze between the toes in his circle, let alone run."

  "Bet that and you'd be wrong. He asked me to be his own personal, private investigator one time." And I turned him down. I like being my own boss. As I have been since I told him, "Sorry, no." The job had gone to a clever rascal called Lurking Felhske instead.

  Felhske was sure to meet a bad end. So I told myself while stalking the floors of Amalgamated's manufactories, hoping to intimidate the rare fool who would steal from his employer at a time when people starved if they lost their job. Amalgamated and Weider Brewing were the only employers creating jobs, these days. And I worked for both.

  Sitting there in the waning hours with the queen of crime and a best friend who couldn't show me his mocking smile, I had no choice but to look at who and what I had become. Which left me a little embarrassed.

  Belinda told me, "You stick to your job. I'll charm Rupert."

  "Try not to hit him. If you do, though, try to pull your punches."

  "Wiseass. I keep telling you I'm not that girl anymore."

  Yes, she was. She just hid it better. And she was about to go into the presence of an abrasive and condescending personality.

  For all his high-mindedness and determination to do right for Karenta, Rupert was a dork. He was a hard case about his good works but did not have a ghost of a concept of royal subjects being anything but social and mental inferiors.

  He was a shepherd oath-bound to shield his dumb animals from danger.