Cruel Zinc Melodies

by Glen Cook

  When first I met Pular Singe she pretended to be deaf. That let her hide her brilliance from Reliance, the then master of the ratpeople underworld. Her half brother eventually replaced Reliance.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said. “Next thing you know, it'll be standing up on its own hind legs.”

  Another contraction. And this the first I’d heard that didn’t involve a sibilant.

  “Are you in a bad mood today?”

  “I am in a very good mood, Garrett. While you were away there were deliveries that included two hundredweight of apples, two kegs of beer, and forty-three angels in gold.”

  “Huh? Angels?”

  “A trade coin from the Tamedrow League. A mercantile consortium way up the north coast. These were minted in PeDiart-meng Arl. We do not see their sort often.”

  “Huh?” More piercing wit.

  I’d started to slide off my afternoon high.

  Singe can’t help it. She has to go all out when she knows something I don’t. “Angels are the standard monetary unit for coastal trade as far north as anybody from Karenta ever goes. Somebody must have regular connections up that way.”

  “Pull the other one now. See if it’s got bells on.”

  She is one hundred percent correct.

  “You! You’re awake?”

  I am. Today was a tutoring day.

  My sidekick and junior partner is mentoring a fifteen-year-old high priestess from a rustic cult. She’s almost a pet. Or intern.

  There went a scary notion. Him crafting a small, mobile version of himself. A wicked deed I had no trouble seeing him doing.

  “I don’t get it. She used to be scared to death of you.”

  Without cause. While those who should be wary consider themselves immune to enjoying their just deserts.

  I told Singe, “The money is from Max. An advance against expenses.”

  “We have a commission?”

  “Yeah. It looks pretty simple.” I explained. And told her what I planned.

  The Dead Man tickled the inside of my head. I suggest that you do not discount the matter of the ghosts.

  “You see something in my head that I don’t?”

  He has developed a bad habit of assuming my permission to rummage or eavesdrop inside my skull.

  No. Yet ghosts figure prominently in several reports. Though everyone seems inclined to discount their reality. And their music.

  “Where are you going?” I asked Singe. She had finished the bookwork resulting from our receipt of a pot of gold. She’s much too efficient.

  “To see John Stretch. You'll need his help to make your plan work.”

  “I wasn’t feeling fanatical about getting started right this minute.”

  Singe said, “The pixies are still hibernating. You will not get help from them.”

  A pixie colony lives in the void between the inner and outer brickwork in my front wall. They’re boisterous, obstreperous, obnoxious, unpredictable, and exasperating. And extremely useful. When they’re not doing their damnedest to drive me nuts. Melondie Kadare is queen of the nest. And a dedicated drunk.

  “Wave a beer around. They'll fly in their sleep.”

  Singe made a brief, weird snorting noise. Her excuse for a laugh.

  “Go,” I told her. “Once your brother gets here we'll adapt the plan.”

  “You think he will just drop everything and run to help you?”

  “I have a bottomless war chest. And it’s honest work.”

  Besides being a crime lord, John Stretch is a ratpeople community leader. Successful crooks are the only real leaders the ratpeople ever produce. The broader society won’t tolerate anything more.

  Most people, if they think about ratpeople at all, would rather they just went away. Unless they can trick up a way to exploit them.

  I throw what work I can to John Stretch. Not that I’m any reformer.

  Poor humans have it better. Men can sell their strength and violence. Women can sell their flesh. Not many folks want to boff a ratgirl. And ratmen aren’t long on strength, only on sneak.

  Pular Singe is mistress of the one special skill a handful of ratfolk can market. She’s a tracker. The best there is. She can follow a fish underwater. That and her knack for bookkeeping are what she brings to the team.

  She went out.

  Dean came in. “Suppertime.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Chicken stew.”

  I gave him the look.

  He ignored it. He’s immune.

  “Yesterday: fish stew. The day before: rabbit stew. Before that: beef stew. I’m sensing a pattern. What next?”

  “Pigeon? Snake? I'll come up with something.”

  “How about a new job? Could you come up with that?”

  “Not working the slave’s hours I put in here. I don’t have time to look.”

  Children. Stop squabbling. Pick up your toys and do your chores.

  9

  Singe likes having her brother visit. She enjoys socializing but doesn’t have the nerve to meet people on her own.

  She came back with John Stretch before I could finish supper, have a cup of tea, and get my ego mildly bruised by my partner, who would not tell me what he had discussed with his student.

  John Stretch stands four and a half feet tall. Five when he forces himself as upright as he can get. His real name is Pound Humility. To my human eye, he has only his rat-ness in common with Singe.

  They have the same mother but different fathers. Which means nothing in their matrilineal society. The females have little control once they come into season. John Stretch was born in the litter before Singe? s. Unusually for their folk, they get along like brother and sister.

  John Stretch was dressed flamboyantly, in bright colors and high sea boots. His shirt was a rusty orange. It had fat, loose sleeves. The laces in front were loose. His trousers were baggy, too. They were black. And patched.

  He was trying to keep a low profile, though. The shirt had arrived hidden inside a ragged brown coat so long its hem was wet.

  When he’s in public John Stretch swaggers and is loud. At my house, with nobody to impress, he'll turn mildly intellectual. He’s marginally less smart than Singe. And less driven to learn and excel. Even so, he has a knack for insights into motivation, human and rat.

  And he has one incredibly useful extra talent.

  He can reach inside the heads of ordinary rats. The way the Dead Man taps into mine. He can read them and, I think, can control them. Thus, he can know what they know, see what they see, and smell what they smell.

  I extended a hand. John Stretch shook. He still had trouble with the mechanics. I said, “Let me guess. Singe went straight to the kitchen.”

  “Yes.” His sibilants were harsher than Singe? s. But he was polishing them. He worked on his Karentine almost as fiercely as she did. He’d leave a mark. If he survived. “She said there is something I can help with.”

  “On a strictly cash for labor basis.” I explained what I wanted to do.

  “The bugs are how big?”

  “The one I saw up close was about this long.” I resisted the temptation to exaggerate.

  “Sounds like some good eating. For regular rats,” he hastened to add. “They like roaches.”

  “Then they’re living large in this town. TunFaire has the finest herd of roaches anywhere.”

  I caught a mental sneer from my deceased sidekick. He disagreed. He wasted no time telling me where they were bigger and better, more numerous and tasty, though.

  John Stretch disagreed, too, offering as proof testimony from rats off foreign ships. Then Singe arrived with mugs and a pitcher. The mugs came fully charged with proof that mortal men are beloved by the gods. At least, by those gods who favor fermented barley.

  Singe and John Stretch are bottomless sumps when it comes to beer.

  I asked, “How much organizing time would you need?”

  “A few minutes,” John Stretch said. “Getting a pack of rats
together does not take long if you know where to look.”

  It wouldn’t in this berg. If you had a magic whistle.

  “Then I'll just holler whenever Playmate comes up with a coach.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  We got serious about the beer. Singe asked me questions about my childhood. “What’re you, writing a book?”

  “I have one written already. Now I need some stories to put in it.”

  “Huh?” Maybe that made sense to her.

  “You know that Jon Salvation who follows Winger around?”

  “The Remora? The playwright? What about him?”

  “He just finished his second story about her adventures. They are making the first one into a play.”

  “I don’t believe it. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in the real world. Damn! Who’d come knocking at this time of night?” I looked at my sidekick.

  He didn’t help out.

  Singe was wobbly already. She mumbled something about it not really being all that late.

  Dean was preoccupied in the kitchen.

  I pried myself out of my chair.

  10

  I opened up after a look through the peephole, mainly out of habit. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Colonel Westman Block stepped forward. I let him come. Because the Dead Man sent, Let him enter if he wishes. He has no ulterior motive.

  That I did not buy. Block is head of the City Watch and Civil Guard. Lurking behind him, like shadowy, avenging devils, is the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. Whatever their handle may be this week.

  They change names but never stop being the secret police. And they’re having a huge impact on TunFaire’s darker side.

  Block said, “I’ve been to the Hill. Enjoying a first-class ass-reaming. A certain sorcerer’s overly indulged second son is locked up in the Al-Khar. All he did was rape some foreigner’s four-year-old daughter. Prince Rupert showed up during the chat. I don’t know how he knew what was going on. Maybe Deal. But he told the Windsinger to be grateful that we didn’t cut the little asshole’s pecker and balls off.”

  Prince Rupert had a set of his own.

  “So you thought you’d drop by, mooch a beer, and fill me in?”

  “I did want to ask why a known criminal was seen entering your house an hour ago.”

  “So now I’m a known criminal?” I failed to steer him away from the Dead Man’s room. Once he invited himself in he had no trouble seeing John Stretch.

  “I’m not convinced. Deal has fewer doubts.”

  “Deal thinks everybody but Deal Relway is a crook. And he’s keeping an eye on himself.”

  Block chuckled. “Letting you run free is more profitable than pulling you in. We’re like gulls behind a ship. We follow you and pick off the fish you turn up in your wake.”

  Took me a second to get it. I had to go back to the islands, us moving from one hellhole to the next aboard troop transports.

  Singe left the room as we entered. She returned with a new mug and the pitcher refilled. Block accepted the mug. He didn’t mind it having been touched by a ratperson.

  He took a long drink. “That’s good.” He eyed the Dead Man.

  “He’s asleep,” I lied. That being Old Bones’s preferred state.

  “I don’t believe you. But it doesn’t matter. The world is at peace. I hope winter never ends. So, what do you have going?” He looked at John Stretch.

  I saw no reason not to tell him. He wouldn’t believe me, anyway.

  I didn’t betray John Stretch’s secret power. The Crown doesn’t need to know everything. Especially if that might cause feelings of vulnerability.

  “Giant bugs? You’re shitting me.”

  “I might be. By accident. I only saw one. But it was huge. I’m more worried about the ghosts.”

  “Why would there be ghosts around there?”

  “I don’t know. An old burial ground?”

  “With the tenants just now getting disgruntled? Be rational. The usual reasons ghosts jump up would’ve brought them out a long time ago.”

  I’d spotted that flaw on my own. “Weider thinks it might be somebody angling for a payoff.”

  “Villains. Breathing villains. Stupid, breathing villains.”

  We were getting sloppy already.

  Possibly with a little subtle assistance.

  I closed the door behind the colonel. “What was that all about, Chuckles?”

  He was passing by. Feeling lonely. Colonel Block will not admit it, especially to himself, but he is a lonely man. He may have created an adversarial relationship here but it is a relationship.

  None of which was alive in his surface mind.

  11

  Another day, half of it wasted on morning. I wakened early, feeling good, and couldn’t go back to sleep. I ambled down to the kitchen, where I surprised Dean, though he wouldn’t admit it. He just poured tea and started the eggs and sausage. “This could turn into a habit.”

  “A good one, I’m sure you'll argue.”

  He wasted no breath responding. “There was a message from Miss Weider.”

  “Um? What does she want?”

  “To know why you haven’t cleaned up the world.” He seemed both amused and puzzled.

  “It’s a big place. And I don’t run so fast anymore.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t what she meant.”

  “That kid Penny still running messages?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. But I don’t know how to get hold of her.”

  “Figures.”

  “You need a message carried?”

  “I do. To Playmate.”

  “There’s a new family moved in down by the corner. They have a boy who could do it. Joe Kerr. He seems like a good kid.”

  I gave him the look. “You’re kidding.”

  “What? How?”

  “Joe Kerr?”

  “Yes? So? There’s a problem with that?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me. Is he trustworthy?”

  He shrugged. “I trust people till they give me reason not to.”

  “I’ve noticed. But see if you can recruit him.”

  “Me?”

  “They very one. He knows you. He’d think I’m some pervert trying to pull him in.”

  “I can see how he’d think that. You have that look.”

  I speared a sausage and ignored him, except to say, “Round him up. As soon as you can.”

  I met the kid on the stoop. He was nine or ten. There was nothing remarkable about him. Wild red hair. Freckles. Big ears and fat front teeth. Gray-green eyes. Ragged clothes. Nervous smile. I gave him two coppers, the message, and instructions on how to get to Playmate’s stable. “Three more coppers when you bring back an answer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Off he went. He acquired an escort of three younger siblings before he got to the intersection with Wizard’s Reach.

  12

  Singe wandered into my office. “Playmate is here.”

  “His own self? Already?”

  “Yes. And yes. I’m off to get John Stretch. Close the door behind me.”

  Instead, I closed the door behind me. Playmate couldn’t leave his coach unattended. A coach that wasn’t his to lose. He has a mildly disreputable penchant for borrowing vehicles left in his care. Sometimes to help me. We’ve been fortunate enough not to destroy one yet. But one time we did forget to take a body out.

  Play brought the children back. The message kid met me with both hands out. I paid even though he hadn’t brought a message.

  “What’s this?” I asked Playmate. Indicating the huge, burr-headed man leaning on the mahogany coachwork. Play hadn’t left the driver’s seat. “How you doing, Saucerhead? What’re you doing here?”

  “I was over to Play’s when your message come. I didn’t have nothing to do. Any shit involving you usually gets entertaining. So I decided to tag along.”

  Probably hoping to pick up a few loose coins himself.

  Sauce
rhead Tharpe isn’t quite as big as Playmate. And not much smarter than the horses pulling that coach. But he is more social. Than both. And he’s handy to have around.

  People don’t argue with Saucerhead. Not for long.

  “I’m not hiring,” I said. “Not right now.”

  Tharpe shrugged. His shoulders were mountain ranges heaving. He needed new clothes to cover them. A bath would contribute something positive, too. And a date with a razor would help. “Don’t matter, Garrett. I’m not working. Not right now.”

  “You'll be the first to hear when I do need help.”

  “Yeah.” He scowled. He knew where I’d turn first. “Thanks.”

  I throw work his way when I can. He’s a good friend, long on loyalty but short on critical life skills. He never learned how to think about tomorrow.

  “Tag along if you want. I’m just gonna shake some bugs out of a place Old Man Weider is building.”

  “You in the extermination racket now?”

  “Not quite. These are special bugs. Here they come.” Meaning Singe, John Stretch, and several of Stretch’s associates. Each lugging a clever wicker cage filled with quarrelsome critters. Up close, those were the nastiest rats I ever saw. Pit bull rats. Champion fighting cock rats. I grumbled, “Did you need to bring the ones that are foaming at the mouth?”

  Singe countered, “There you go, exaggerating again. Hello, Mr. Tharpe. How is Grosziella?”

  Grosziella? Who would that be?

  “We broke up. I...” Saucerhead launched a tale told many times. The names change but he keeps connecting, and disconnecting, with the same woman. They could wear the same underwear.

  John Stretch told me, “I thought you would want enthusiasm.” The last word arrived in a flurry of lisps.

  “As long as they save it for the bugs. Everybody set? You bringing all these handlers?”

  “Have to. Too many rats for me to manage alone.”

  Singe said, “I need to run inside for a minute.”

  I told John Stretch, “I don’t see how we can get them and the cages all inside the coach.” I watched Singe climb the steps. She’s worse than Tinnie, sometimes. And Tinnie must have a bladder the size of a grape.