by Glen Cook
“Where you going?” Belinda snapped, the way you might interrogate a three-year-old demonstrating an inclination to wander off.
“I need to see Shadowslinger.”
“And you’re going to head on up there by yourself?”
That was the plan, yes. If plan there was. I would have Brownie and the girls for company.
“How many times has somebody tried to kill you in the last few days?”
Again? People have been trying to break me or end me for years. I’m still upright. But I have been lucky and I have had the backing of good friends. Skills and quick thinking help occasionally, too, but only some.
“Honestly, Garrett. The dogs have a better grasp on life outside the moment.”
She wasn’t far off the mark. I just didn’t have that war-zone edge.
I said, “I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t find a new line.”
“If you make it a hobby you’ll only get killed quicker.”
Too many women have said the same thing the last couple of years.
“You can’t do deadly stuff part-time, Garrett.”
Yeah, yeah. I knew it in my head.
The smith said, “I’ll start binding the grip of the first sword sometime late tomorrow.”
Little hint, there. I grunted. All right. Time to move on. Time to stop acting like a hobbyist.
Actually, time to start thinking like a professional.
Smith said, “I wouldn’t need every tracer right away. Spread them out over three or four days if you have to. But. .”
“Sure. Don’t waste time. Look. It probably won’t be me bringing the tracers.” I offered descriptions of Winger and Saucerhead Tharpe.
“Very big people, sure.” In his world most people would qualify.
“Let’s move, Garrett,” Belinda said. “I hope Elwood doesn’t waste time. These aren’t the best shoes for walking.”
Trivias the smith performed a ritual of parting with the mutts.
Belinda would be better served hoping Old Bones didn’t waste time exploring the boys from Flubber Ducky. Their heads might contain a lot of stuff he would find interesting.
Boys and girls and puppies, away we hiked.
One of Belinda’s goons spotted a red top working ever so hard to look like the last thing that might ever interest him was a mob of thugs and mutts. Then Belinda, I, and the crew all caught a whiff that said a man of unusual talent was in the neighborhood.
Belinda and I exchanged looks. No words needed saying, but she observed anyway, “I’ll have someone look out for the smith.”
Trivias would be at risk if Lurking Fehlske was reporting to the Operators.
38
Elwood and Leon didn’t get the borrowed tailors back to Flubber Ducky before we returned there ourselves. That business was plugging along without them or us.
“Guess that makes sense. They had farther to go than we did.”
On the other hand, though, the Dead Man could manage his interviews faster. He didn’t have to work out who was lying and why.
Trivias had put on a great show of cooperation, but I was not convinced of its sincerity. I should get Trivias together with the Dead Man.
“You’re thinking again!” Belinda snapped. She had begun to limp. We were headed toward Macunado Street, to meet her coach in transit. Her footwear remained inappropriate for hiking. “Why is it so hard to pay attention?”
A damned good question. “A damned good question. I don’t know. I just wonder about something and suddenly everything else goes out of my head.”
“It worries me. It can’t be healthy.”
No kidding. Intellectually, I knew with absolute conviction that distraction could get me killed. A lot of things could, at the best of times, but most lethal stuff can be ducked if you pay attention.
I confessed, “It scares hell out of me sometimes, getting lost inside my head trying to figure out why I keep getting lost inside my head.”
Belinda cursed her shoes, then said, “I’d rather not lose you, Garrett. You’re precious.” Which earned her an odd look from the nearest bodyguard.
She didn’t mean that the way it sounded. That was all a long time ago. But she did count on me as an emotional and moral resource.
“I know. I’m precious to me, too.”
“Can it be because you can’t get your head out of the hole left when Strafa went down?”
“Probably, but that can’t be the whole story. It was a problem before.”
“But not so big till the last few days.”
“Yeah.” And I went away-till she hammered me on the right biceps. “Damn! You got a vicious punch, girl.”
She scowled.
“You’re right. It’s worse lately. Maybe the Dead Man can straighten me out.”
“Maybe he can fix you so you’ll help yourself stay alive.”
“Maybe.” That was worth consideration. . “Ow!”
She hammered me again. “I just had an idea.” She looked downright evil.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Oh, it is. Especially for wiseasses. But you’ll thank me later. Assuming you live. Assuming I don’t kill you myself.”
Some people don’t get my sense of humor.
This Belinda reminded me of Mom and a covey of aunts, mostly related by friendship instead of blood, who had rejoiced in doing stuff for my own good when I was a kid.
I couldn’t resent Mikey in that area. He’d gotten it worse than I did.
Punch!
“That’s going to leave a bruise!” She had hit me in the same spot.
“Good. It’ll be a reminder. Meanwhile, nap time is over. Here come Elwood and Leon.”
The Contague coach rolled up. Belinda yakked it up with her brunos. Me and Brownie and the girls roamed the immediate neighborhood, staying inside rock-chucking distance. Good on me, I was alert the whole time.
A whiff of Lurking Fehlske helped my concentration.
Brownie pawed at her sensitive nose, trying to make it stop.
Belinda finished. Her coach rolled on. It had to make a delivery to Flubber Ducky. I rejoined her, suggested that Tribune Fehlske might not be the only watcher. A couple of clever loiterers, dressed too well to be homeless, felt like Civil Guard Specials. Then there was a woman, I think in brown, only glimpsed in the corner of my eye, come and gone so suddenly I couldn’t tell anything. Old Bones could work on that. Even her sex was just an assumption. She’d been done up in old-woman dress.
I’d never done a job as a girl, snarky accusations on the part of the jealous aside, but it was a traditional, respected false-flag ploy.
“Do I have to slug you again?”
“I’m awake, Mom. I’m on the job. We’re being watched. Tracked.”
“I’m not surprised. Let’s hope they don’t work for your Operators.”
“Crap! That wouldn’t be good.”
“It wouldn’t. I’ll make adjustments once Elwood gets back from dumping those poofs.”
I grunted, checked Brownie, wasted a second on wishing that she and hers were pliable dire wolves. I could have them go round up. . Right. How would I deliver my instructions? I don’t speak fluent dog even after several quarts of beer.
Punch!
That arm was going to be useless if I had to defend myself.
39
I eased into the Dead Man’s room. “So, did you get anything out of those guys I sent you?”
Belinda yowled loudly enough to be heard from across the hallway. Dean had her planted with her feet up and was working on her blisters. She had raised a fine crop. The man was a saint, working that harvest.
They knew nothing useful immediately. However, they had picked up several small clues that will help pick those old men out of a crowd. Faces appeared in my mind. One was a generic old man, but the other had wild white hair almost a foot long, plus a nasty wen inside his hairline, above his left eye.
“They might be brothers.”
One of the vis
itors had the same thought.
I started to ask if he thought it would be useful to interview Trivias. .
Of course. Arrange it. Relax for a moment. I need all my attention elsewhere.
I chewed some air.
Well. These people are quite careful about not coming too close. But there is too far to be caught or read and there is too far to be detected. They have failed to stay back that far.
Well, duh! He wouldn’t know about the ones who were smart enough to stay far enough away, would he?
You are correct, sir. And you can forget those ambitions immediately. I will have Singe do whatever tracking needs to be done. Your task will be to return to the Hill, both for your own safety and because that is where the crime took place. You have reports to make and tracers to be created for the smith’s employ.
He was scheming something. I wasn’t sure what. He was too preoccupied to break it down. But he did get back to me eventually.
Our heart-line task must be to unravel and requite what was done to Strafa. The Tournament of Swords is an interesting abomination, of course. It must be stopped. But it is of secondary import to us right now. Do you understand?
“In a personal, emotional sense, of course I do. But I don’t see how we can separate the one from the other.”
That argument does have some odor.
Huh? “It will have a big, fat stinky-cheese smell to any Operators or players who get into the game seriously.”
Even so, we should try to separate, or at least distinguish, the two, till we are given no other choice.
Odd. He made it sound like he’d had a hunch and wanted to chase it without sharing it or even admitting its existence. He didn’t like having to confess when he guessed wrong.
I was vaguely aware of the front door closing. “Where is Singe headed?” She, I assumed, because I hadn’t heard Penny blundering around like a mastodon on crutches.
The girl has trouble being quiet.
In fact, that was Miss Contague departing. However, Singe did leave the house earlier. He did not elaborate.
I didn’t think about that much. Singe did the shopping because Dean no longer had the stamina.
“Have we gained any ground other than where I stuck my nose in? Did you see Race and Dex?”
I did. They were of less value than I had hoped. They merely confirmed my speculation about Strafa having gone out of the house to deal with Min. Ah yes. The point whence the killing bolt was launched has been determined, adding nothing to our knowledge.
Information washed into my head, in no good order. He seemed distracted. I glimpsed the city through Singe’s eyes and nostrils. She was involved in an exchange with one of the Specials outside. The vision slipped away. Old Bones got me involved in a hypothetical reconstruction of what had happened with Strafa.
His scenario hinged on the known facts. Two women had been injured, one severely, the other fatally. One broken bolt had been discovered. The engine necessary to cast that bolt would take a minute to crank to full draw.
Both women must have been injured by the same bolt.
Footnote question: Could there have been a second engine?
“I call ‘miracle shenanigans’ because somebody moved one engine without being seen.” “One bolt takes everybody” is one of those implausible things that seldom happen anywhere but in a war zone.
Old Bones had decided that a bolt meant for Min had ricocheted off bone, breaking as it did, the tip half then going on to bring Strafa down.
The plausibility factor was weak, but he could not come up with a hypothesis that fit the facts better. And, as noted, more absurd stuff had happened in the Cantard every day.
I made sure. “Vicious Min was the target?” No way Strafa could have been that at fifteen feet up in a one-missile theory. “I’m confused.”
Nor are you alone. Your problem, however, is that you are determined to force a pattern onto an inadequate information array.
“I know. Do the outside pieces first. Did somebody say that the red tops found the other half of the bolt?”
I do not recall that. If so I have not been so informed.
I mused, “I need to take a closer look at Vicious Min.” Again we faced the fact that our only witness to murder was someone who might be vested in avoiding the truth.
The Dead Man put nothing in concrete form, but he was thinking the moral equivalent of “Don’t teach Grandma to suck eggs.”
He offered a scenario in which Vicious Min was the assassin and the sniper was there to protect Strafa.
“Logically absurd,” I said. “Anyone trying to cover Strafa would have started making excuses before she hit the ground. Speaking of grandmothers. .”
As he sent, Speaking of Vicious Min. . Be careful out there!
I needed a moment to get that he meant that for Penny.
“You sure you want to let her go out?”
She will be at less risk than you would be. She will pay attention to her surroundings.
I stomped my pride down. “Yeah. About that. .”
40
I wasn’t listening well. I missed Penny’s return till she came into the Dead Man’s room to say, “I could only find Dollar Dan.”
“I have an ever higher regard for you, too, girl-child.” Dollar Dan Justice oozed past her. He is a rat man. At five feet six he is a hulking brute of his kind, but, like Singe’s brother, whose second in command he is, he is more than a thug. He is a thinker and definitely a would-be lover.
Dan said, “John Stretch is away on business. He left instructions to help you any way we can.”
Dollar Dan was eager to be my pal, more so than Singe’s brother was.
He had an ulterior motive.
He announced, “I have a detail waiting outside.”
It had been a while since I had seen Dan. He had begun trying to upgrade himself. His apparel was finer, more stylish, better kempt, and less garish than usual for rat men. I saw no yellow, orange, or electric green whatsoever.
Singe was why.
Poor guy. He was spitting into the wind with those hopes.
He knew it, too. But where there is life there is hope, as some word slinger once claimed.
I asked, “A detail?”
“Six good rats and true.”
To accompany you on your progress to the Hill, where you will take up that more valuable part of the investigation. There being no one else available to guard your back.
“My progress to the Hill, eh?”
Miss Contague and her friends have departed. As with Mr. Dotes, she has other demands on her time. Those occasionally trump her devotion to you.
He was being critical in some shadowy, oblique way. Didn’t she owe me? Didn’t I just save her sweetie from the zombie masters?
“Aren’t I old enough to take care of myself?”
He sent me a one-second vision of a ridiculously powerful sorceress lying in a glass-face coffin. If you insist on suicidal actions because of an inability to control massively misplaced adolescent pride. .
Before Strafa’s death I might have pitched a snit. Before Strafa I could’ve altogether thrown a heavy-caliber tantrum out of dimwit pride, yes. The woman had taught me to get past my worst knee-jerk responses.
And I had a mission. I had to stay above the grass in order to put some Operators under it.
“I’ve got hold of the reins. I’ll be a responsible adult, cautious and rational at all times. I will consider consequences before I speak or break anything.”
Rat men can’t grin. Dollar Dan would have been ear to ear if they could. Penny did so, with some skepticism. Himself was amused. And all full up on “I’ll buy that when I step in it.”
Excellent. So. Here are some angles you might pursue.
What he wanted to see get poked was obvious, mostly. See if Shadowslinger was avoiding him. Likewise, Vicious Min. He wanted to get together with Min as soon as she could survive the haul to Macunado Street. I should consult Dr. Ted in both cases, ge
t a read on him, and get him to come with one of the women.
Ah, Dr. Ted. I’d been considering having a chat with him, even if I had to hunt him down.
41
Brownie and crew were not fond of rat people. Dollar Dan and his pals felt the same about dogs. Good thing those mutts weren’t rat terriers.
The tribes came to a silent accommodation. Brownie and Number Two got to stick to me, at their usual posts. The other two ranged ahead, in nervous pairings with a brace of young bucks far too proud of their gang connections. They put on way too much swagger.
I cautioned Dollar Dan.
“They have to learn the hard way.”
John Stretch was a power only inside his own community. Plenty of beetle-brow humans would not be intimidated, regardless. The possibility that they should be would be beyond their ability to grasp.
The boys didn’t learn their lesson while I watched. We ran into no one inclined to teach them.
We did collide with some attitude, though.
A fat man about forty, wearing the cap of the disbanded City Watch, intercepted us soon after we passed the bounds of the Hill, a private security type. He was shorter than me, sloppy because a master tailor would not be able to make clothing flatter his shape, and maybe a little dangerous in the way that Saucerhead Tharpe is dangerous.
He looked like a guy you could hammer on all you wanted and he would keep on keeping on, with no skill but definitely with a long supply of stubborn. He did not favor the presence of known felons within the bounds he was pledged to defend, his root assumption being that all rat people are criminals.
That stereotype isn’t far off the mark, actually. That’s how rat people have survived since their forbears escaped the laboratories where they were created.
I glanced past the man, who didn’t seem to understand that he was outnumbered, and, bam! There was the pretty blonde and her humongous friend, half a block ahead. She glanced our way, maybe startled. She said something to her companion. He scooped her up and headed out at a pace no horse could match.
