Cruel Zinc Melodies

by Glen Cook

  The Dead Man was awake but in a contemplative mood. He wasn’t inclined to be social.

  I told Singe, “When you have time, see what we need to do to turn the small front room into workspace for you. The smell is almost gone. And we ought to keep it cooler in here.”

  That brightened her morning.

  I told the brightness in mine, “I'll walk you home. Then I'll duck over to the manufactory to see if I can lay hands on Kip Prose. Or get a line on where I can lay hands on him.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, you don’t want to do that. If he’s there he'll duck out when he hears you showed up.”

  Probably true. “But won’t he be a little nervous about you? I figure he knows you know me.” Me smirking. But her being literal.

  “Of course he does. It won’t be me that sets him up.”

  “Then who?”

  “Leave me in charge of the vamping.”

  “I generally do.”

  There was a hint of amusement in the air. His Nibs enjoying himself at my expense. I told him, “I’m not as dim as you think.”

  He didn’t respond but he held a contrary opinion. Though if he peeked inside my head he knew I suspected that Tinnie wanted to keep me away from the manufactory.

  They really don’t want an untamed conscience roaming around over there. That just isn’t best business practices.

  Breakfast done, I readied myself for the world. Tinnie did the same. She needed to go home. She needed a change of clothing. Which observation you couldn’t have tortured out of me. Nor could slivers under my nails get me to suggest she keep a change or two at my place. Not because she’d think I was hinting at some deeper commitment but because she’d consider me presumptuous, assuming there was more going on than she was ready to admit.

  And we’re both grown-ups.

  Be careful out there.

  “Always.” I thought he meant to beware the weather, which had turned unpleasant during the night. Tinnie and I retreated to find winter coats, she helping herself to my best while I made do with a jacket I should’ve passed on to the street people early in the last century. My sweetie told me, “I'll give it back as soon as we get to the house.”

  Grumble, grumble.

  We hit the street, headed west on Macunado, uphill. We made it as far as the Cardonlos homestead before the darkness closed in.

  I told Tinnie, “Now you see why I’d rather not get up before the crack of noon.”

  Four men had appeared, boxing us in. They looked spiffy in the latest Civil Guard apparel. And altogether businesslike. Which meant they had checked their senses of humor and humanity when they got to work.

  The guy in charge was an old acquaintance. “Mr. Scithe. You moved in with the Widow Cardonlos now?”

  “My wife likes it that way. She said tell you thanks for getting her moved up the waiting list, next time I saw you. So, thanks.”

  “I promised. I delivered.”

  “Miss Tate. Haven’t you outgrown this artifact yet?”

  “It’s a disease. Won’t go away. Is that an officer’s pip on your cap?”

  “Yeah. I did too good a job back when your addiction was trying to engineer the downfall of Karentine civilization. So they gave me a fancier hat and made me work longer hours. Garrett. The Director wants to see you.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “If you insist. If you don’t come, we get to hit you with sticks, hog-tie you, and drag you through the slush.”

  I decided not to call his bluff. “All right. But one of your guys has to see Miss Tate home.”

  Scithe betrayed a momentary longing. And who could blame him? To know her is to yearn.

  Scithe said, “Mistry. Accompany Miss Tate to the Tate compound.” Making sure the Watchman knew which family claimed this flaming glory.

  “Yes, sir.” Not even a little disgruntled about being handed this tough assignment.

  “The Al-Khar?” I asked. “Or am I lucky enough to find him hanging out with Ma Cardonlos?”

  “You wish.” Scithe glanced at the remaining two men. They’d positioned themselves so as to foil any escape attempt by the infamous desperado, Garrett. Scithe whispered, “He never leaves the Al-Khar anymore.”

  He lied. I know Deal Relway. He’s a slinking weasel who’s always somewhere in the shadows, watching. He’s no desk-bound bureaucrat.

  “This going to take long?” After giving Tinnie a quick parting kiss that left every guy in sight hating me for being so lucky. “I’m not dressed for the weather.”

  He was kind enough not to ask whose fault that was. “I don’t know. Way I see it, that depends on you. If you’re your normal self, weather might not be something you need to worry your pretty little head about. Much.”

  I sighed. Nobody in the law-and-order racket appreciates my wit.

  I miss the old days. The original Watch was completely corrupt and totally incompetent. Efficiency was a word that hadn’t yet been imported into TunFairen Karentine.

  “I suppose we should get on with getting on, then, Brother Scithe.” I glanced up the street. Tinnie had Mistry totally subverted already.

  We talked about the weather as we walked. Scithe wasn’t a big fan of winter. “On the other hand, summer is worse,” he opined. “I spent my war in the deep desert of the Cantard. You went out in the sun in the afternoon there, your weapons started to melt.”

  Army types.

  My war had been all that, with bugs, snakes, crocodiles, and incredible humidity. And command stupidity. I didn’t one-up him. He’d just come back with scorpions, jumping spiders, more snakes, bigger snakes, and command authority fuckups so awful they'll be remembered throughout the ages. Those Army guys are like that. I just said, “Winter, you can always put something else on. Including another log on the fire.”

  “That’s the way I see it.”

  “Can I ask a question? Professional courtesy kind of thing?”

  He was alert and suspicious instantly. “Yeah?”

  “Ever heard of a character called Lurking Felhske?”

  He appeared to give that an honest think. After being startled because I hadn’t asked something weightier. “Can’t say that I have. No. Put the question to the Director. There aren’t many actors in this burg he doesn’t know.”

  I filed that usage of actor in my mental dictionary.

  The Civil Guard had evolved to the point where it was deploying its own inside language.

  “I'll do that. If I can get a word in edgewise.”

  “You’ve talked to him before.”

  “Listened. Several times.”

  “All right. Here’s one for you. The people building that theater down there. The World. I hear they plan to put together a whole chain of theaters.”

  “Sure. Max Weider is behind it. He’s thinking if he goes a little down-market compared to other theaters, and he’s got a bunch of theaters, he’s got him a fresh way to move a lot more of his product.”

  Scithe went off on a rant about how that was typical of Weider’s class. I reminded him, “You don’t like that kind of people, you shouldn’t make deals with me. I should let natural forces work on your wife’s place on the three-wheel waiting list.”

  What I’d said sounded weird. But Scithe sometimes spouts strange nonsense about class and social standing. He thought we all ought to be absolute equals because we’re all born or hatched out naked.

  One of Scithe’s men said, “It’s all envy. The subaltern forgets that some folks pick better parents than some others. And some people were behind the door drooling instead of being in line when the brains were passed out. And some people got talents when some others don’t. And some got ambition when some others don’t.”

  “That'll be enough, Teagarden!” Scithe snapped. He admitted, “I loathe myself for working the system so Vinga could get a better number.”

  “And she’s getting close to the top.” I didn’t observe that he hadn’t been relucta
nt when we made the deal. I didn’t mention his having accepted a job where he was in charge of other men - and obviously proud that somebody thought well enough of him to put him there. I just nodded when Teagarden said, “Only way you’re gonna have a world with universal equality is if you got one where there’s only one guy left standing.”

  That is so blazingly obvious that I’ve never understood how some people can’t see it.

  Every nut notion that ever was is floating around TunFaire somewhere, keeping itself alive inside at least one human head. Most are like diseases. The benign ones spread slowly. The deadly ones spread fast. The more virulent they are, the more quickly they consume their carriers.

  I’m no thinker. I never cared about much as long as there was beer and a pretty girl somewhere handy. Though I do have a hyperactive sense of right and wrong. Which irks my business associates. And sometimes makes me slap on the rusty armor to go tilt at windmills.

  The Al-Khar isn’t far outside my neighborhood. We got there before the discussion could get much deeper.

  “The place hasn’t gotten any prettier, I see.” Which wasn’t entirely true. Prisoners get exercise cleaning it some now.

  The city prison is ancient. It is built of a soft, yellowish sandstone that absorbs dirt and flakes away with changes in the weather. It won’t last another two hundred years? even assuming responsible upkeep and the absence of civil unrest or war.

  Scithe admitted, “Thisis the house where Ugly was born.”

  27

  It’s another world inside the Al-Khar. Someone who hasn’t been there can’t begin to imagine it.

  First, the place is a cathedral dedicated to the religion of bureaucracy. And always has been. Deal Relway and Westman Block have ground away, but even after sustained, relentless attention from Prince Rupert’s hounds, whole departments still suck up funding in order to monitor the performance of departments devoted to keeping an eye on departments tasked to keep an eye on. Here and there, like a blind pilgrim caught in a maze, is somebody actually trying to accomplish something. And having big trouble getting there because of the friction of the Al-Khar culture.

  Scithe turned me over to a Linton Suggs. Suggs is a dangerous little man. He could be standing right next to you and you’d never notice. He looks like nobody’s idea of a tin whistle. He has a shock of wild hair mostly gone gray, watery gray eyes, a big red nose and sagging jowls. He’d attract attention nowhere but in a girls? public bath. He accepted my handshake politely. “Glad you could make it. Follow me,” in a tone that belied his words.

  He didn’t care that I’d shown up, one way or another. I was a body in need of moving from hither to yon.

  Following, I noted that Suggs was even shorter than he’d seemed when facing me. And heavier around the hips.

  Short is common on Deal Relway’s side of the law-and-order industry.

  Partly, that’s because people aren’t as wary of short.

  Suggs walked me a long, long way, up and down, right and left, through numerous cell blocks. There wasn’t much room at the inn. I was supposed to be intimidated. And too confused to find my way to the Director’s hideout on my own.

  Scithe might be right about Relway turning into a recluse.

  Suggs handed me off to an anonymous little man he didn’t introduce. This one had less hair, slimmer hips, and wasn’t interested in small talk. He didn’t bother with the maze. We passed through only one cell block. I saw faces I recognized. They belonged to men who had been overly passionate in denouncing the selfless labors of the new police forces. Or overly loud as racialist enthusiasts.

  Anonymous Small Man planted me on a hard wooden chair inside what used to be a cell. He had no reason to suspect it, but I knew where I was. I’d been there before. One weak clay lamp beat back the gloom. There was nothing to do but sit. Unless I was in a mood to practice my soft-shoe routine. He told me, “Wait here.”

  This was supposed to give me time to start sweating. My dance routine had all the polish it needed. And I hadn’t forgotten other skills, picked up during wartime.

  I went to sleep.

  The small man poked me. He was upset. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to make me uncomfortable.

  And I was. I was thoroughly miserable just being there with him. But he didn’t need to know. I asked, “You done fiddle-farting around?”

  “The Director will see you now.”

  “Oh, goodie! This will be the high point of my young life. Better than shaking hands with the Crown Prince when he welcomed my company back from the Cantard.”

  He did not fail to take note of my sarcasm.

  A big black checkmark was about to go into a ledger with my name on it.

  Relway was two cells away from where I’d waited. He had removed the bars between two cells. The larger space was his living and work space.

  Guys who don’t need more than that scare me more than do the totally corrupt.

  I’d visited him here before. I didn’t remind him. Nor did I criticize the gamesmanship. This was like a visit to a physician. I’d do what it took to get it over with fast.

  The Director felt no need to put his stamp on the space. It was no more colorful than it had been as a cage for bad people. An unmade cot, rather than a reed mat on a cold stone floor, was his concession to luxury. Dirty or discarded clothing lay in one corner.

  Relway was absolutely profligate with the lighting. He had four lamps burning.

  Deal Relway is a small man of mixed ancestry, ugly as original sin. Rumor says a dwarf might have swung through his family tree a couple of generations back. He started out as a volunteer informant and vigilante helping track and control the virulent human rights movement. Superiors liked his dedication. Especially Colonel Block, who gave the little man a job as soon as he was able to hire people. Now he’s the number-two man.

  “Still working the smart-ass angle, eh?” Relway asked. He had one of our writing sticks clutched in his crabbed little fingers. He used that to point, indicating a chair. This one had a thin pad, thus pretending to be more comfortable than the one down the corridor.

  I planted myself. “A man does what a man needs to do.”

  He cut slack. “I understand.”

  I became doubly paranoid. Slack he offered was sure to get tossed over a handy tree branch. Better keep an eye out for the hangman’s knot.

  Relway grinned. He could guess my thoughts. He said, “I asked the boys to bring you by because I want to consult you. Professionally.”

  My eyes must have bugged.

  “Really.” He grinned again. His teeth were not attractive. “There’s something afoot. You seem to have dipped your toe in it already. The reports say you’ve been reasonably cooperative for the last year or so.”

  “Couldn’t tell that by the way your troops talk.”

  Yet another snaggled-tooth grin. “They have a manual to follow. How to deal with guys like you. And you don’t make it easy for them to give you a break. You just keep on trying to poke them in the eye with a stick.”

  I didn’t see it that way. But I’d heard something similar so often that it might be worth some thought. “I have challenged social skills.”

  “Don’t we all? Some folks take the trouble to learn to fake it, though. But none of that is why I want to see you. Tell me about what you’re involved in now.”

  I’d thought it out. There was no need to hold much back. He’d know most of it, anyway. I started at the beginning and told it to date, editing only enough to cover John Stretch and Kip Prose.

  “No significant deviation from what’s been reported. How do the ratmen manage those rats?”

  “I don’t think they do. They just trap them and let them get hungry. They took them to the World and turned them loose. I could be wrong, though. I just have business arrangements with them, not a social relationship. My sidekick is as baffled as I am.”

  “The Dead Man can’t read them?”

  “He can. But all he gets is confused. That’
s not unusual, though. It’s way less easy for him to read somebody than he pretends,” I lied.

  “Interesting. I suppose you haven’t heard. There’s been a development.”

  “Um?”

  “Big bugs. All over, down there. In the Tenderloin, especially. Not a real problem, the way I see. People are having a good time trying to catch them. And the weather ought to finish any of them that get away.”

  “Um?” A leading question, this time.

  “The numbers are surprising, considering how many rats you used. But your real problem may come up on the dark side of the legal divide.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the bug problem has scared off folks who like to off-load their excess cash in the Tenderloin. Business was way down last night.”

  I shrugged. He needed to take that up with somebody who cared. Though I amused myself with thoughts of the local underbosses putting the button on giant bugs.

  “We’ve had a discreet inquiry from the Hill. As to why a certain freelance agent was seen in a certain location before a certain blowup. There was an implication that stolen sorcery may have been involved. And, possibly, some illegal research. You know anything about that?”

  I knew that about the only person likely to have mentioned me to a denizen of the Hill would be the mysterious Lurking Felhske. I showed the Director my famous eyebrow trick. “Illegal? How? Those people decide what’s legal.”

  “Exactly. If they agree something is too dangerous, anybody who goes ahead is making a rogue play. Then the rest come down like the proverbial ton. Wearing their hobnail boots.”

  “You don’t sound distressed by the possibility.”

  “It’s attractive on an intellectual level. Practically, I have to consider potential collateral damage. But that doesn’t matter now. I’m just interested in hearing more from someone who was there.”

  And if I swallowed that whole he’d be around later with a bargain offer on a gold mine in a swamp somewhere.

  He flashed his dirty teeth. “How about the spooks?”

  “What spooks?”

  “I hear part of your job is to work on some ghosts that are bothering the builders.”

  “I didn’t see any. I didn’t find anybody who admitted seeing any. I’m beginning to think somebody just heard the big bugs scratching around in the walls.”