Bitter Gold Hearts gf-2

by Glen Cook

  Chodo Contague was the thug who had taken over as kingpin after the old kingpin's demise. He was more powerful than most of the lords of the Hill, though he lived in the shadows.

  "Anything we do that involves Gorgeous, Chodo is going to have to approve." Morley was moving toward the door now. "It could mean war. You guys sit tight. If you need anything, tell them downstairs. I'll be back in a couple hours."

  "Where the hell are you going?" I asked.

  "To talk to Chodo." He was out.

  "You wondering what I'm wondering, Garrett?"

  "I'm not wondering, Saucerhead. I know."

  Chodo Contague was boss of the TunFaire underworld in part because a certain Morley Dotes had presented the old kingpin with a coffin containing a hungry vampire. The old kingpin had opened the box thinking the thing inside had been killed before delivery. Saucerhead and I had been pallbearers in that shenanigan. Our buddy Morley hadn't bothered to tell us what was going down beforehand. His reason for the oversight was sound. He had figured we wouldn't help if we knew. The perceptive little bastard had been right. I was going to collect favors on that scam for a long time.

  "He's in debt again, Saucerhead. The bug races again. But I don't want to try Ogre Town alone, so let him play his game. I'm not going to sit around here waiting for him, though. If I have to kill a couple hours, I'll do it getting something useful done."

  Saucerhead just looked at me, a big, tired guy who had been pushing himself too hard. I knew that if we ended up going after Gorgeous—as I would do, one way or another—Saucerhead would go along if he had to drag himself. "You might as well get some sleep. See you in a couple."

  I got scowls downstairs but nobody stopped me.

  ______ XXXII ______

  I went to Playmate's and pounded around until he got out of bed. He never stopped grumbling and cussing, but he got out the wagon and hitched up a team. He even managed the obligatory refusals when I tried to pay him, though he did end up accepting the money. As he always does. He needs it, no matter how much he pretends. The Larkin crematorium was one mile away. I pushed, though there was no real need. Junior's body had been delivered late, if I'd heard Morley right, so it wouldn't have been sent to the oven yet. That wasn't permitted at night. Religious and secular law both forbid cremation during the hours of darkness. A soul freed during that time would be condemned to walk the night forever. There are only three crematoriums in TunFaire. I was sure Junior was at the Larkin place because it was convenient for anyone coming to my home from the Stormwarden's. And the night porter wasn't an honest man. The world is cancerous with people possessed; some have to vent their sicknesses on the dead and others have to pander to them. I pulled the wagon into an alley near the crematorium and left the team bound in a spell woven of the direst threats I could conjure. At least I got their attention.

  I did it the way I'd heard it was done, going to the side entrance, tapping a code, and waiting while I was examined through some hidden peephole.

  The door opened. I had to grit my teeth to keep from laughing or groaning. The night porter was a character straight out of graveyard spook stories, a hunchback ratman so ugly I suspected his beauty would under shine that of the creature Gorgeous. Hopefully before the night was done I'd have the opportunity to compare. If there was a password I didn't know it and he didn't care. I showed him a gold piece and he showed me the room where the bodies were laid out. Like the old joke, people had been dying to get in. Seven of the ten slabs were occupied by the anxiously waiting dead. Ratman was a born salesman. He lifted a sheet. "This here's the best we got. And you're the only customer tonight." He snickered.

  The girl was about fourteen. There was no obvious cause of death.

  "She might even be a virgin."

  It was one of those times when you want to break bones, but for business reasons you put your feelings on ice and smile. I stepped past him and lifted a sheet at the head of a corpse that looked the right size. Not my man.

  Second time was the charm.

  "This one. How much to take him with me?"

  I've never been looked at like that before and hope never to be again. I saw he was going to argue, so I laid a ten-mark gold piece on an empty slab. I doubt he'd ever seen one before.

  Greed touched those hideous features. But caution was just a step behind. "That one came off the Hill, mister. You don't want to mess with it."

  "You're right. I don't want to mess with it. I want to buy it."

  "But... why?"

  "For a keepsake. I'm going to have the head shrunk and wear it for an earring."

  "Mister, I told you, that one's off the Hill. People are going to come for the ashes."

  "Give them ashes. How many of these are city projects?" TunFaire has a pork-barrel ordinance requiring unclaimed, found, and paupers' corpses to be distributed in rotation among the dozen mortuary businesses, paid for out of the public purse. It's a racket that accounts for the majority of each business's income. Most families just bury their dead in the nearest churchyard.

  "Four. But I'd have to bring the boss in—"

  "How much?" He wouldn't be doing his business without the silent approval of his employer. "Without being greedy. I could just take it and leave you in its place." It was a definite temptation.

  The ratman gulped. "Twenty marks."

  "There's ten. Ten more when I have it loaded. I'll be back in a minute." He might have taken his chances and locked me out, but that was unlikely while ten more marks were afloat. He gobbled some but I ignored him. Ten minutes later I had what was left of Junior daPena installed in the wagon. I faced the hunchback, gold in hand. "The same people will bring another one today. Unless they insist on watching the job, I want that one, too. It'll be female. The gods help you if it's touched. Do you understand?"

  He gulped.

  "Do you understand?"

  "Yes sir. Yes sir." Cautiously, he reached for the gold.

  I avoided his touch when I let him have it.

  Dean answered on the second knock. He was dressed. "Haven't you been to bed?"

  "Couldn't sleep. What is this? Are you collecting bodies now, Mr. Garrett?"

  "Just a few that might be useful. I'm taking it into the Dead Man's room. Get the doors for me. If he wakes up and wants to know about it, tell him it was Junior daPena and I'm saving him for his mother."

  Dean turned green but handled his part. The corpse settled, a little shaky. I returned to the kitchen and put away a couple quarts of beer before leaving.

  "You're off again, Mr. Garrett?"

  "The night's work isn't done."

  "Won't be night all that much longer."

  He was right. The light would soon make its presence known.

  ______ XXXIII ______

  I beat Morley back to his place, but barely in time to waken Saucerhead. Then Dotes came with his men— Blood, Sarge, and the Puddle. He also had two other guys in tow. I didn't know them personally and didn't care to get acquainted. Because I knew who they were: Crask and Sadler, Chodo Contague's first-string lifetakers. They had been born human. Since then they'd been embalmed and turned into zombies without the nuisance of dying first.

  "What the hell are those guys doing here?" I snapped. It didn't help that they seemed equally pleased to see me and Saucerhead.

  Morley was up to his old tricks.

  "Calm down, Garrett. Unless you want to go after Gorgeous by your lonesome."

  I bit my tongue.

  Morley said, "This is the way it's got to be, Garrett. Gorgeous holes up in Ogre Town. He's got those people buffaloed down there. But they won't lift a finger if he suddenly turns up missing. Him and his number-one boy Skredli. You want him. Chodo wants him. Chodo will back your play as long as you're the face out front. But he wants first crack at them once they're rounded up. You give him a list of questions you want asked, he'll get the answers."

  "Wonderful. Thoroughly wonderful, Morley." I was hot. So hot I didn't trust myself to say anything else. Morl
ey met my gaze evenly, shrugged. I got the message but I didn't have to like it.

  Saucerhead was steamed, too, but he covered it better. He rose, laced his fingers, and bent them back until the knuckles cracked. "You got to live with what you got to live with. Let's do it while they're still asleep." He headed for the door.

  "Wait!" Morley said. "This isn't a stroll in the woods with your girlfriend." He stepped behind his desk and fiddled with something. Part of the wall opened, exposing the biggest damned collection of deadly instruments I've seen since I parted with the Marines.

  Saucerhead looked at the arsenal and shook his head. It wasn't a shake of refusal, but of astonishment. He joined Morley's thugs in stocking up. Crask and Sadler had brought their own. I had, too, and thought I was adequately outfitted. Morley's scowl told me he saw it otherwise. I selected one knife long enough to be a baby sword and another prissy little thing of the sort ladies (who aren't) carry on their garters. Morley didn't stop scowling but didn't comment, either. I preferred my head-knocker for all but the most desperate situations. And for those I had what the witch had given me. We trooped downstairs, Morley's boys in the lead, Chodo's headhunters behind. Speculative eyes observed our descent and pursuit of the pathway I'd used on Pokey earlier. But at that hour there were few customers left and most of those were beholden to Morley. There should be no rumors born soon or messages run.

  The barman beckoned Morley as we passed. Dotes stopped to trade whispers. He caught up at the door to the alley. "That was the latest from the river. The Stormwarden's boat was spotted at dusk twenty miles down tying up for the night."

  "Then she'll be here tomorrow afternoon."

  "Late, I'd guess. The winds are unfavorable."

  It was something to think about. I didn't have enough to ruminate already.

  The alley was filled with the huge black hulk of a four-horse closed coach. And two gargantuan characters with shiny eyes and sparkly fangs grinned down from twenty feet. "Hi, guys."

  They were grolls—half troll, half giant, green by daylight, all mean, and tougher than a herd of thunder-lizards. I knew these two. They were two-thirds of triplets who had gone with me into the Cantard to bring out a woman who had inherited a bundle. Despite what we had been through together, I hadn't the slightest notion whether or not I dared trust them.

  They had been cursed with unlikely names, Doris and Marsha.

  "A little of what I call ally insurance," Morley told me. "You think I'm a raving moron for bringing Chodo in?"

  "No. I think you think it'll get you out from under your debts. I hope you're right."

  "You're a cynical and suspicious character, Garrett."

  "It's people like you who make me that way."

  Morley's troops were inside the coach and Saucerhead was clambering aboard. Crask and Sadler were up on the guard's and driver's seats, donning the traditional tall hats and dark cloaks. Each man had immediate access to a pair of powerful, ready crossbows. Such items are necessary on TunFaire's night streets if you're rich enough to use a coach but not powerful enough to have its doors blazoned with the arms of someone like a stormwarden.

  Most high-class folk travel with outriders. We made do with a pair of grolls toting their favorite toys, head-bashers twelve feet long and almost too heavy for a runt like me to lift. Morley followed me into the coach, then leaned out and told Crask to go. The vehicle jerked into motion.

  "I suppose you've made a plan?" I said.

  "It's all scoped out. That was one of the reasons I brought Chodo in. His boys know Gorgeous's place. I've never seen it. And neither have you."

  I grunted. The rest of the ride passed in silence.

  ______XXXIV______

  Ogre town was quieter than death at that hour. There seems to be a cultural imperative that sends them to bed very late and brings them out in the afternoon. We were going in soon after most ogres had sacked out. The streets weren't entirely deserted, but it made little difference. Those who were out were scavengers. They made a point of being blind to our presence. Twelve hours earlier or later we might have been in trouble. The streets would have featured a more treacherous cast. We swung into a passage between buildings just wide enough for the coach, then continued until we could open the doors. Crask told us to disembark. We tumbled out. He backed the coach into the passage again so we could gather in the shadows, off the street.

  "That's the place." Morley indicated a four-story vertical rectangle a hundred yards down the street. "The whole thing belongs to Gorgeous. He had the buildings on either side demolished so nobody could get to him that way. We're going after him that way."

  "Wonderful." Light still shone in a couple windows on the top two floors. "You're a genius."

  The buildings in Ogre Town are fifty to a hundred years older than the tenements in Fishwife's Close. In many cases that showed. But they had built in brick and stone in those days and Gorgeous's citadel had been kept up. It didn't need to lean on neighbors to remain standing.

  There was a ghost of a promise of dawn.

  Morley said, "Doris and Marsha are going to climb the buildings on either side. They'll drop ropes. Me, Crask, Blood, and Sarge will go up top the nearer one. The rest up the other. After we get our wind ..." He droned on with the plan.

  "It sucks," I told him.

  "You want to march in the front door and fight your way to the top?"

  "No. Hell, if I didn't have questions to ask, I'd just go start a fire on the ground floor. Ought to go up that thing like smoke up a chimney."

  "But you do want to ask questions. Ready? So let's go." Doris and Marsha were already gone, not bothering to wait out my protests.

  We were halfway there when the man came out the front door. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he was looking down. He was human, not ogre. He walked fifty feet toward us before he realized he wasn't alone. He halted, looked at us, and his eyes bugged.

  "Bruno," I hissed.

  He whirled and headed for the building.

  Sadler's crossbow twanged.

  It was a damned good try for a snap shot. I think it clipped Bruno's left arm. He veered right and headed up the street, concentrating on speed.

  "Let him go. I'll hunt him down later," I said. "He has some answers I need."

  While I talked, Crask sped a bolt that split Bruno's spine three inches below his neck. Sadler reached him seconds later and dragged the twitching body into the nearest shadows.

  "Thanks a bunch," I snarled.

  Crask didn't bother turning that embalmed face my way. Doris and Marsha reached the roofs of their respective structures. They anchored ropes and dropped them. Inside Gorgeous's place the lights were dying. Saucerhead and I stood at the foot of the rope. "You going to make it?" I asked.

  "You worry about yourself, Garrett. Ain't nothing going to stop me now." He started climbing. I held the rope taut. Saucerhead went up like he was seventeen and had never been hurt in his life. Sadler followed with not one but two crossbows slung on his back, then the Puddle. Lucky Garrett got to do it with no one to tauten the rope. When I reached the roof, I found that Marsha had already leaped to Gorgeous's roof. Saucerhead was tying off the rope the groll had tossed back. Sadler was leaning on the chimney that anchored both ropes, sighting one crossbow on the top-floor window. Light still leaked through its shutters. I wondered if Marsha's rooftop landing had been heard below. I didn't see how Gorgeous could help but be forewarned with nearly two tons of groll prancing over his head. Puddle joined Marsha. Saucerhead and I followed. I pretended the void below was really just water a foot beneath my dangling toes.

  The pretense didn't help.

  Sadler stayed where he was. He untied the rope so Marsha could haul it across and resumed his lethal posture. Marsha bent one end of the rope into a harness for me. As I got into it I wondered what was wrong with Gorgeous and his boys. Were they deaf? Or just chuckling as they got a little surprise ready for us?

  I was going to find out all too quickly. There w
as enough light now to see Morley getting into a similar rig. Doris hoisted him and dangled him over the side.

  The universe twisted. An abyss appeared beneath me. I turned at the end of the rope, glimpsing Sadler aiming too close for contentment. Marsha swung me in against the brick, then over to peek through the cracks in the shutter. At first I saw nothing. No ambush evidence, no excitement, nobody. Just an empty room. Then an ugly someone opened a door and shoved his face into the room and said something I couldn't hear to someone I couldn't see. The back of the other someone appeared momentarily as he followed the ugly someone out the door. The set of his shoulders said he was aggravated.

  I waved. Saucerhead tied the rope to something. They left me hanging.

  Evidently the report from the far side was favorable, too. Marsha leaned over the edge and let go a mighty bash with his club. A second later he lowered Saucerhead at the end of a mile of arm and flipped him through the window. Saucerhead grabbed me and dragged me inside. Puddle came through an instant later. The room was uninhabited except for the insect life infesting the stack of bunk beds. Saucerhead and Puddle headed for the door while I battled ropes like a moth in a spider web. There was one hell of a racket going on somewhere else.

  A guy came charging through the doorway just as Saucerhead got there. His nose and Saucerhead's fist collided. No contest. The ogre's eyes rolled up. Saucerhead thumped him again as he went down, just for spite. I got loose and charged after Saucerhead and Puddle, into a narrow hallway that dead-ended to our left. As we turned right a couple of breeds popped out of another bunk-room doorway. They were no more fortunate than their predecessor. Saucerhead was in one of those moods. In the meantime, heaven put on its dancing shoes and began hoofing it on the roof. The grolls were pounding away with their clubs.

  The racket elsewhere revealed itself as a lopsided battle between Morley's crew and Gorgeous and about ten breeds. Several more ogres were down, with quarrels in them, and as we came to the rescue yet another made the mistake of stepping in front of the window. He squealed like a throat-cut hog as he fell. The bolt had gotten the meat of his thigh. Poisoned? Probably.