Cruel Zinc Melodies

by Glen Cook

  Garrett.

  “And that answers the big question. Himself is awake. Now, if Dean happened to be hard at work womping up a supper, in quantities adequate to fill me and my sweet patootie, life could be reclassified as perfect.”

  Tinnie growled, “Don’t you ever turn it off?”

  “Tight shoes,” I told Singe. “And no lunch.”

  “Next time I come down here I'll wear my winter boots.”

  “Not the pretty ones. Bring the work ones.”

  “The midthigh tops? With a shovel?”

  I disengaged from further discussion of shoes. “Singe, something that came up today got me wondering about the differences between ratpeople and humans.”

  “Yes?” Instantly defensive.

  “We saw ghosts. All of us. Some of us heard music.” I told her about it. I didn’t scrimp on details. Old Bones was listening, too. “But you and your brother, and his guys, never saw anything.”

  Singe managed a facial tick that resembled a puzzled look. “I'll take your word for that.”

  Damn! It would be ridiculous if she started managing human facial expressions, too.

  I’d have to head that off, for sure. She’d end up burned at the stake.

  “Come help us mull it over with the Dead Man.” Or whatever you call the situation where His Nibs picks the brains of mere mortals, to help us discover the meaning of life.

  Your cynicism has migrated from the realm of the mildly amusing to the uglier principality of the irritating.

  “Oh, good. You’re still awake.”

  So we communed, brainstormed, and schemed. The sad truth, though, was, we needed more information. My sidekick knew no more than I did about ancient, dramatically powerful things buried under TunFaire. He recalled no legends, fairy tales, or religious fancies that accounted for what was stirring.

  The Tenderloin is a storied moral sink. It’s been the bad part of town since the first nomad families pitched their tents on a hospitable riverbank and never got around to moving on.

  I was particularly pleased. My sweetie, once she had some food in her, dropped the attitude and focused on the problem at hand.

  We ate while we worked. And Dean’s effort made the wait worthwhile.

  Amazing what that old man can do with a capon, wine, mushrooms, and a few tubers that aren’t supposed to be in season. All washed down by a fine, potent Weider winter wheat lager.

  44

  Tinnie went to bed. Likewise, Singe. And Dean beat them all to the friendly sheets. I stayed where I was, enjoying my beer. And persevering.

  Old Bones had let me know he wanted a word in private. Whatever that meant to somebody who could carry on multiple silent, isolated conversations at once.

  I permitted myself a presumption this morning, once you were on your way. Penny came for a lesson. I hired her to check into a few things.

  Brilliant me, intellect puffed by the Weider brew, I asked, “Like what?”

  The histories of the properties involved in the World construction site. The background of the man you knew as Handsome, for Mr. Weider and Mr. Gilbey, because you have not found time for that. I also asked her to see what she could find out about members of the Faction for whom we have names. And about their families. And I tasked her to find out what she could about the history and ownership of the property the Faction turned into their clubhouse.

  “And I thought you made ridiculous demands on me. A grown man.”

  Sneer.

  “All right. All right. Whatever you’ve got, go ahead and crow.”

  Some things you learn just being around him long enough. Like his need to show off how good he is. Or how good his protégé can be.

  The experience was humiliating. During a single day Penny Dreadful, totally marginal teenage person who would play no other role in the case, had, as a favor to her pal the Dead Man, dug out almost all the information he wanted checked.

  History of the ground where the World was going up? Bland. Nondescript. Nothing interesting had happened there as far back as available records went. The first several slumlords who sold to Max were convinced that they had hornswoggled the beer baron. The procession of ownership started with an uprising two hundred eighty years gone that had destroyed every older record.

  Who owned the ruined property? Fellow name of Barate Algarda. He bought it off the wife of a once-famous smuggler who got put out of business permanently by Chodo Contague’s predecessor, thirty years ago. Algarda’s daughter had used it for a playhouse, growing up. It had had a reputation as a deadly place, back then. Old hands still steered clear.

  Brent Talanta, also known as Handsome? No children. Wife deceased. Survived only by his mother. Handsome was her only source of support. A forensic sorcerer had connected the knife found in the hand of a Stomper known as Funboy to Handsome’s wounds. Likewise, the shoes of several gang members to bruises on the corpse. Handsome’s remains had been sent on for cremation at a contract crematorium. Funboy’s body had been sold to a resurrection man. The rest of the Stompers were headed for a labor camp.

  I told Old Bones, “I have to admit that I forgot all about Handsome. Even though I promised Max.”

  Miss Pular wrote the report. Joe Kerr will take it to Mr. Weider in the morning. Mr. Weider will do the right thing. Now. For someone who keeps telling himself how amazed he is by his advancing maturity, you do seem to work with a solid teenage mind-set most of the time.

  Ouch. Possibly true. But doubly hurtful since the harvester of so much marvelous information barely qualified as a teen herself.

  But wait! There is more!

  There would be, wouldn’t there?

  The keg I’d found down under the ruin had been purchased from the Goteborg Enterprise by Riata Dungarth. Riata Dungarth was the personal servant of Elmet Starbottle, a member of the Faction known to his crew as Slump, who was a cousin of the twins, Berbach and Berbain, who seemed to have walked away from the Faction. The keg had been delivered to the ruin, wrestled downstairs, and installed by Idris Brithgaern, who made all the deliveries for the Goteborg Enterprise brewery. Mr. Brithgaern delivered a new keg the first day of each week, always prepaid by Riata Dungarth. The ruin was outside Brithgaern’s normal range, but he did not mind. He got to keep the beer in the old keg. Sometimes that had not been touched. He could sell that beer, legally, off the back of his wagon. But, mostly, he took it home and enjoyed it himself. It was a beer that deserved a man with a discerning palate.

  By this point I was ready to whimper. The little tramp obviously vamped.... I had a couple smart-ass questions in inventory but reserved them because I was afraid the little witch had reported what color socks Idris Brithgaern wore.

  Mismatched. Gray to the left, brown on the right.

  “Argh!”

  I jest. But there is a lesson in all this.

  “Yeah. And I don’t need help from you figuring out what it is, Laughing Boy.” Simply, Penny Dreadful had no trouble with the concept of hard work. Given a task, she whapped it in the schnoz with both fists and pounded it into instant submission.

  I could fake that kind of youthful enthusiasm. For a few minutes. Sometimes. “So, who does this Brithgaern creature work for?”

  The Goteborg Enterprise craft brewery.

  “All right. My mistake. Let me get focused.” Weider Dark Select might not match up with Goteborg, but it’s pretty damned good. “Make that Riata Dungarth. Who’s he work for?”

  Elmet Starbottle. Where Elmet Starbottle would seem to be a name chosen by the person wearing it. There are no Starbottle families amongst the elites in this city.

  I could have told him that. Silly-ass name. Starbottle. Ha. “What you’re doing now is prancing around the fact that you don’t know which one of the Faction uses the name Starbottle.”

  Pretty much, there. Yes. Pretty much. Unless it might be the boy they call Slump, as I might have mentioned earlier.

  He’s so smug.

  I expect all that will be cleared up for s
ure next time I see Penny.

  “You mean next time she decides to mooch a meal?”

  I believe she has earned a few.

  And I did feel petty even before he chastised me. So I punished myself by draining another mug of beer. Then I trundled on upstairs, clambered into bed behind my favorite gal in the whole wide world, and fell asleep in about seven seconds.

  45

  Tinnie didn’t put away as much holy elixir as her favorite man. But she had less experience handling it. She woke up with a pounding head an hour before the early birds took wing. She turned into the beautiful woman who never heard of mercy.

  “Rise and shine, Malsquando. For the first time in your life you’re going to do an honest day’s work.”

  “Ow!” Not good news. Not good news at all. I’m no Morley Dotes but I am acquainted with the comfort of a dishonest day’s work. A day with as little real work in it as I can arrange.

  I was over last night already.

  “This may be why we can’t get to a grown-up solution to our grown-up problems,” I grumbled. “Here you come, six hours too early for even thinking, let alone working.”

  No argument. No snide commentary. Just another stiff finger and sharp nail between a couple of my favorite ribs.

  I almost said something I couldn’t take back. Lucky me, though. I have a resident guardian angel.

  Do not! open your idiot mouth!

  I clung to that advice for the dozen seconds my sweetie needed to lose focus and fall asleep again.

  I went back to sleep, too. Wondering, for the first time, about the discrepancies between my partner’s report on the compliance device and Kip? s. Kip isn’t real good about making up plausible stories.

  Next time I woke up it was time to set the beer free. That took a while. Then I poured a little in to replace what had gone away. Tinnie snorted and snored worse than Saucerhead or Playmate, both true champions. The racket didn’t bother me. I climbed back into bed and, after a few random thoughts, got down to business making it through to the crack of noon.

  Old Bones? or maybe the gods themselves? did something to the redhead while she slept. She woke up in a sunny mood. Unfortunately still convinced that Ma Garrett’s boy ought to haul out and become an important ingredient in her wonderful day. “Don’t you got some books to balance? Or maybe some bribe sheets to update?”

  Tinnie has some big generational differences with the elder Tates. But none having to do with milking maximum cash from folks interested in our manufactory’s products. Her number-one mission is to maintain the waiting list of three-wheel buyers.

  Bribes paid to move names on the waiting list generate more cash flow than sales of the units themselves.

  Every entrepreneur and financier in this burg hates us.

  I don’t get it, myself. I really don’t. People are nuts over the three-wheels. I’ve ridden them. They’re fun. They make getting around a little faster. But not much. Not when you have to deal with everyday traffic in twisty, narrow streets. And, more especially, not when you have to deal with the upsides of hills. Not to overlook the ride on cobblestones. And the even harder pull where there are no pavements at all.

  And then there are thieves. Though my senior partners had been smart about that.

  Every three-wheel has a unique signature spell applied, traceable by the company Charmstalker. Should your three-wheel be commandeered by a freelance socialist, it can be located, and justice can be delivered, with dramatic quickness. It happens often enough to discourage all but the terminally stupid.

  If only there were some way to deal with those people before they breed.

  Deal Relway may be on to something. He’s clearing the raging idiots out of the criminal class.

  There are people out there in definite need of disappearing. Problem is, once you start, how do you confine yourself to the “right” bad guys? And do we want our only surviving criminals to be people too smart to get caught?

  Garrett. It is past time you dragged your self-deluded posterior out of bed.

  Everybody has an opinion. And, as my old platoon sergeant explained, they all reek like the waste sphincter everyone also has.

  Garrett.

  The sending was gentle. Like the soft voice of your father just before he lets you have it upside the head.

  Old Bones wasn’t in a patient mood.

  Truth on a silver tray. Get dressed. Eat. Then get in here.

  While I endured attitude from my sidekick, my favorite redhead vanished. She dressed, headed downstairs, ate, and was gone before I tied into my own sausages with biscuits and gravy. A country-style breakfast Dean uses as a hammer when he thinks I need reminding that I’m not nobility.

  “You’re losing it, old man. Or maybe you’ve just gone loony.”

  He was ahead of me. Knowing I’d think the menu was a statement. “The thing in there expects you to work a long day. What little is left. I wanted you to eat something that will stay with you.”

  “Dean, you need to test the job market. See what’s available for a man your age, with your skills. After that, come give me another ration of shit.”

  Oh. I was feeling it now. My head throbbed. My patience was short. I couldn’t work up a good goddamn’s worth of care about anything. Faced with the worst atrocity in all history? or its all-time best moment? my response would have been an indifferent, “Ain’t that some shit?” While I felt around for my beer mug.

  “I hope your attitude improves before you have to deal with people who might not suffer in silence.”

  I grumbled some. Fortified by breakfast and armed with a fresh round of honeyed tea, I trudged off to play dueling sullens with my business partner.

  46

  Singe came out of the Dead Man’s room. She glowed like fresh-minted sunshine. Her arms were full. I didn’t volunteer to help. She chirped a bright greeting. It’s hard to be nasty toward Singe, however bleak I feel. The guilt afterward is poisonous.

  She explained, “I’m moving my business stuff. The furnishings are supposed to come today.”

  Even a mention of frittering my money didn’t set me off. I grumbled politely. Though not politely enough to suit. She got huffy.

  I settled into my chair. I drank tea. As he sometimes does, Dean had spiked the pot with something to ease my headache and stomach.

  The biscuits and greasy gravy were lying heavy already.

  I said, “I never learn. Is it possible that I can’t?”

  His Nibs was feeling less confrontational. That is not quite the case. Your people, despite their gifts of memory and senses of history and mortality, despite their being able to foresee the consequences of actions taken, seldom bother.

  “Huh?”

  You people cannot shed your animalistic tendency to live life in the moment. Even the most brilliant of you ignore tomorrow’s certain pain in order to enjoy today’s fleeting pleasure. The hangover is Nature’s perfect metaphor.

  “All right.”

  He did have that right. Dumb as it sounds when you have your reason kicked in. You tipple of an evening, you don’t think about how you'll feel in the morning. No matter how often you’ve been disinclined to wake up and suffer the consequences.

  And you for damned sure do not want anyone to remind you.

  “Hey!”

  Singe was back. She made a startled squeak.

  “Sorry. I was barking at him, not you.”

  She loaded up, went away.

  Are you ready? There is work to do.

  He seemed eager. That was disturbing. He is more allergic to real productivity than I am.

  We face a mighty challenge! You cannot imagine how much I am enjoying myself, winkling out the hidden meanings of everything going on with all that you have stumbled into or over.

  He was going to be cheerful? Sickening. Just sickening.

  “I do hope you enjoy yourself. Big time. Because it just occurred to me that my boy genius, Cypres Prose, on whose freaky brain the company depends for prod
uct ideas, is a serious candidate for Mr. Deal Relway’s special justice.”

  Pursuant to his bad habits, which keep getting badder, Old Bones took a look inside my head without asking.

  Oh my! That had not occurred to me, either.

  Two bodies had been found at the World, both mutilated by bugs. One was still breathing when the vermin started chewing. The law could lay that death on whoever created the bugs.

  Kip Prose might be facing a manslaughter rap. Him and the Faction.

  I regained confidence quickly. Kip’s pals came off the Hill. Their mommies and daddies would cover them. They’d cover Kip. And my cut of the ingenious ideas would keep right on coming.

  After his moment of self-disgust? he was supposed to see things I didn’t, and had lapsed several times lately? Old Bones moved on. None of that is germane at this point. We are being paid to end the problems at the World. Anything else would be incidental and serendipitous. Not so?

  “So.” He was right. He always is about business responsibility.

  But it is all still a hugely exciting puzzle.

  What the hell was he thinking? I was getting worried.

  We are going to do two things immediately. And a few things more once the right people have passed through my sphere of influence.

  Naturally, he did not explain his thinking.

  You are too easily distracted. Though, admittedly, less so now that your involvement with Miss Tate is progressing beyond the adolescent.

  That involvement ought to concern him. If it gets much more serious, him and Dean and Singe will have to find new digs.

  Diffuse amusement. Cause not explained.

  Your immediate task is to visit the Royal Library. See if you can find anything that sheds light on our situation.

  “And then what?” Because I wouldn’t be at the library long. They weren’t going to let me in. I was in deep, bad odor with my friend there because of all my hanging out with Tinnie. I hadn’t been round to see Lindalee in ages. And Lindalee’s boss has me on her all-time shit list.

  Bad memories. Last time I went to the library I’d been ambushed by a guy who was mostly troll or ogre. I wasn’t sure which. I was too busy getting away.