I waited till we had a good head start, just in case the hospital gang did decide to come after me. Then I grabbed Winger’s hand in a comealong grip.
“Hey! What the hell you doing, Garrett?”
“You and me are going to sit here on these steps like young lovers and you’re going to whisper sweet nothings about what the hell is going on. Got it?”
“No.”
I added some muscle to the hold.
“Ouch! Ain’t that just like a man? No gratitude. Save his ass and—”
“Looked to me like I was doing an adequate job of saving it on my own. Sit.”
Winger sat, but she kept grumbling. I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t get any answers if I did.
“Tell me about it, Winger.”
“About what?” She can turn into the dumbest country girl that ever lived.
“I know you. Don’t waste stupid on me. Tell me about Maggie Jenn and her missing daughter and how come as soon as I take this job I get jumped, cold-cocked, and shoved into the cackle factory in such a big hurry the fools don’t bother to empty my pockets? All the time I’m in there, I’m wondering how this could happen to me when only my pal Winger knows what I’m doing. And now I’m wondering how my pal Winger knew I needed help getting sprung from the Bledsoe. Stuff like that.”
“Oh. That.” She thought a while, making something up.
“Come on, Winger. Give truth a try. Just for the novelty.”
She offered me a Winger-sized dirty look. “I was working for this pansy name of Grange Cleaver . . . ”
“Grange Cleaver? What kind of name is that? Come on. Tell me there ain’t nobody named Grange Cleaver.”
“Who’s going to tell this? You or me? You want to sit there and listen to the echo of your lips clacking, that’s all right with me. Only don’t expect me to hang around listening, too. I know how corny you get when you’re up on your high horse.”
“Me? Corny?”
“Like some holy joe Revanchist roll in the aisles preacher.”
“You wound me.”
“I’d like to, sometimes.”
“Promises, promises. You were working for a character with a name even a dwarf wouldn’t tolerate.”
“Yeah. His mom and dad were probably named Trevor and Nigel.” She gave me another dirty look, thought about getting stubborn. “I was working for him, you like his name or not. He had me watching Maggie Jenn. Because he expected her to try to kill him, he said.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. The kind of mood he was in most times, it didn’t seem like a bright idea to nag.”
“Not even a guess?”
“What’s with you, Garrett? I get three marks a day if I mind my own business and do my job. I maybe get kneecapped if I don’t.”
Thus did we head for an argument about moral responsibility. We’d had it about fifty times before. The way Winger saw it, if you covered your own ass you were doing your part.
She was trying to divert me.
“Guess it don’t matter, Winger. Go on. Explain how you ended up here.”
“That’s easy. I’m a big dummy. I figured you for a pal. Somebody what didn’t deserve that raw a deal.”
“How come I feel like there are some details shy here? You think you could put a little flesh on those bones?”
“You can be a real pain in the butt, Garrett. Know what I mean?”
“I’ve heard that rumor.” I waited. I did not relax my grip on her hand.
“All right. All right. So I was working for this Cleaver. Mostly on watching the Jenn bimbo, but on other stuff sometimes, too. It was like regular work, Garrett. Top pay and always something needed doing. Tonight I figured out why. Cleaver was putting me out front. People watched me while him and his nancy boys pulled stunts in the shadows.”
I grunted but provided no sympathy. I can’t find much of that for somebody who won’t learn. Winger had gotten herself used before. She was big and good-looking and a woman, and because she was a woman hardly anyone took her seriously. This Grange Cleaver probably just thought she was a handy freak, though he was a freak himself.
“I know, Garrett. I know. You heard this one before. Probably you’ll hear it again. Sometimes it works out profitable.”
Meaning she took advantage of those who used her, playing dumb country girl while she pocketed their silver candlesticks.
I gave her a shot at my famous raised eyebrow.
“I know. I know. But I got to get by while I build my reputation.”
“I suppose.” Getting a nasty rep was an obsession with her.
“Thanks for the passionate support. At least I caught on before it was too late to get out.”
“Did you?”
“Get out? Damned right I did. See, this Cleaver told me, yeah, Winger, that’s a great idea, putting somebody next to Maggie Jenn. Somebody else on account of she’d recognize me. But when I told him it was you I got to cover it, he got a face looked like he was about to have a shit hemorrhage. You’d a thought one of his buddies sneaked up and showed him he loved him by surprise. He got me out so fast I got suspicious. I sneaked around to where I could listen in on him.”
I suspected Winger had done plenty of eavesdropping. “I’ve never heard of Cleaver. How come he’s shook up about me?”
She spat. “How the hell should I know? You do got your rep as a super straight-arrow simp. Maybe that done it.”
“Think so?” Winger was after an angle all the time. “So you wised up. Hard to believe. Usually it takes—”
“I ain’t as dumb as you think, Garrett.” She refused to provide proof, though. “What Cleaver was up to, he called in this bunch of street brunos. Not his regular butt buddies, just some muscle. He told them he had this big problem name of you and asked could they solve it for him? How about they sent you off to the Bledsoe? The brunos said sure and laughed and joked about how they done it before with some guys Cleaver didn’t like. He’s got people on the inside on the pad. He’s connected to the hospital somehow. Probably through that blond baggage you was drooling on when I was trying to get you out of there.”
“Yeah. Probably.” But I didn’t believe that and neither did she.
“Anyways, it took me a while to get away without nobody noticing. I came straight to the hospital.”
I could imagine why it had taken her so long to slip away. Once she decided to quit Cleaver, she would want to collect everything valuable she could carry. Then she’d have to take that wherever she kept her stuff. Then she might have tested the waters to see if she couldn’t carry off another load before she finally got around to me.
She knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
The big rat.
“So you came whooping to the rescue only to find out that, through my own cunning, I had proceeded to effect my own release.”
“You was doing all right,” she conceded, “but you wouldn’t never of gotten out of there if I hadn’t whipped up on all them guys what would’ve gotten in your way downstairs.”
Whatever else, Winger was a woman. I granted her the last word.
“You can let go the hand now,” she said. “There ain’t nothing left to squeeze out’n me.”
“That a fact?” Then how come the country was coming on stronger all the time? She was putting on her camouflage. “And just when I was thinking it might be useful to learn how Maggie Jenn knows you. Just when I was getting curious about your pal Grange Cleaver. Since I’ve never heard of the guy, it’d probably save me a lot of time if you were to clue me where he lives, is he human or whatever, is he connected with the Outfit or anybody, stuff like that. Details. I’m a detail kind of guy, Winger.”
Winger is your basic jump on the wagon and head out without checking to see if the mules are hitched up kind of woman, never long on scoping out plans or worrying about consequences. Neither past nor future mean much to her. That isn’t because she’s stupid or foolish, it’s because that’s the way she’s made.
“You’re a royal pain in the ass kind of guy, Garrett.”
“That too. Hear it all the time. Especially from you. You’re going to give me a complex.”
“Not you. You got to be sensitive to get a complex. You’re sensitive like a stinky old boot. Grange Cleaver, now he’s a sensitive kind of guy.” She grinned.
“You ever going to tell me something? Or you just going to sit there smirking like a toad on a cowpie?”
She snickered. “I told you, Garrett, Grange Cleaver is the kind of guy wears earrings.”
“Plenty of guys are the kind of guys who wear earrings. That don’t make them poofs. They might be fierce pirates.”
“Yeah? He’s also the kind of guy wears wigs and makeup and likes to dress up in girl clothes. I heard him brag about how he used to work the Tenderloin without the johns ever knowing how unique an experience they’d had.”
“It happens.” In the Tenderloin, in TunFaire, everything happens. I didn’t consider this big news, though Cleaver did seem careless with his secrets. You get too public you can end up with more trouble than you can handle. Asking for trouble is plain dumb.
“He human?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“And don’t hide his quirks?”
“Not around home. I never saw him go out in the street and run after little boys. Why?”
“He don’t sound careful enough. You got any idea what a poof goes through in the army? Hell like you wouldn’t believe. Bottom line is, any of them that don’t hide it damned good don’t last. The Cantard is no place to belong to an unpopular minority.”
“I don’t think Grange was in the service, Garrett.”
“You’re on a first-name basis?”
“He has everybody call him Grange.”
“Real democratic kind of guy, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. So. He’s human and male, he had to be in some service, Winger. They don’t allow exceptions.”
“Maybe he was a dodger.”
“They never give up hunting those guys.” They don’t. Not ever. There is no privilege when it comes to conscription. Say that for our masters. No favoritism is shown there. In fact, in that regard they pay more than their share of the price. They do lead from the front.
Notice how Winger got me off on a tangent? I did. She had dropped out on this Cleaver princess but did not want to give up any information about him. That meant she still saw an angle.
Winger always sees an angle.
“Let’s get back to the high road. What’s between Cleaver and Maggie Jenn? If he’s a shrieking faggot, why is he interested at all?”
“I think she’s his sister.”
“Say what?”
“Or maybe his cousin. Anyway, they’re related somehow. And she’s got something he wants. Something he figures is his.”
“So she’s going to kill him?” This was getting weirder by the minute.
I hate family wars. They’re the worst kind. They put you out in no-man’s land all alone without a map. Whatever you do turns out wrong. “What’s he after, Winger?” “
“I don’t know.” Now she was getting long suffering, the way people do when small children ask too many questions. “I just worked for the guy. I didn’t sleep with him. I wasn’t his social secretary. I wasn’t his partner. I didn’t keep his diary for him. I just took his money and did what he said. Then I came out to save your butt on account of I kind of felt responsible for getting you into a jam.”
“You were responsible. You were running a game on me. I don’t know what it was because you’ve kept it to yourself. Chances are you’re still running a game on me, you being you.”
I was a little tired of Winger, which was another of her talents. She could exasperate you till you ran her off, leaving you thinking it was your idea that she was gone; leaving you feeling guilty for doing her that way.
“So what’re you gonna do?” she asked. I had let go of her hand.
“I figure I’ll suck up a few beers, then I’ll get me some sleep. After I get me out of this clown costume and delouse myself.”
“Want some company?”
That’s my friend Winger.
“Not tonight. I just want to sleep.”
“All right. You want to be that way.” She got gone before I could react to the smug smile she left floating behind her. Before I fully realized that she was going without having told me anything useful, like where the hell I could find friendly Grange Cleaver.
“I just want to get some sleep.” Usually famous last words for me when I’m working. I’d get three hours of shuteye the rest of the month.
The gods were toying with me—nobody messed with me at all. So naturally I kept waking up to listen for pounding at the door. Somewhere up there, or down there, or out there, an otherwise useless godlet was earning his reputation by tormenting me in ingenious ways. If he keeps on, he may get promoted to director of heavenly sewers.
So I failed to rest well despite the opportunity. I wakened cranky and stomped around cussing Dean for being out of town. There was no one else I could make miserable.
The true breadth and depth of my genius didn’t occur to me till I was well along toward whipping up a truly awful breakfast of griddle cakes. I had forgotten to ask Winger about the guy who had followed me to Maggie Jenn’s place.
Someone tapped on the front door. What the hell? It was a civilized hour, almost.
The knock was so discreet I almost missed it. I grumbled some, flipped a flapjack, and headed up front.
I was astounded when I peeped through the peephole. I threw the door open to let the radiance of that blond beauty shine on me. “Didn’t expect to see you again, Doc.” I examined the street behind the lovely, in case she headed up a platoon of Bledsoe guys who couldn’t take a joke. I didn’t see anybody, but that meant squat. Macunado Street was so crowded you could have hidden the entire hospital staff out there.
“You invited me.” She looked like she had come directly from work, like maybe she’d pulled a double shift cleaning up. “You were panting over the idea.” She had a sarcastic tone to counterweight a blistering smile. “Your big friend dunk you in icewater?”
“I just didn’t expect to see you again. Look, I’m sorry about that mess. I just get wild when somebody pulls a dirty trick like dumping me in the cackle factory.”
Her lips pruned up. “Can’t you use a less contemptuous term?”
“Sorry. I’ll try.” I encouraged myself by recalling a thing or three people have said about my profession, most of it unflattering.
She relaxed. “The dirty trick is why I’m here. What is that smell?”
I whirled. Tendrils of smoke slithered from the kitchen. I shrieked and bounded down the hall. Our lady of the marvelous legs followed at a dignified pace.
I scooped blackened griddle cakes into the sink. They sent up smoke signals denouncing my skills as a chef. Hell, I was so bad I might be able to get on in Morley’s kitchen. They had an opening. “I can use these to patch the roof,” I grumbled.
“Too brittle.”
“Everybody’s a comedian. You had breakfast?”
“No. But . . . ”
“Grab an apron, kid. Give me a hand. A little food will do us both good. What you want to know, anyway?”
She grabbed an apron. Amazing gal. “I didn’t like the way you were talking last night. I decided to check it out. There was no record of your commitment, though when I joined the orderlies carrying you they assured me that you had been brought in by the Guard and the records were in order.”
I made rude noises, started flapping a new generation of flapjacks.
“That was easy to check. A ranking Guard officer is an old friend of my family. Colonel Westman Block.”
I squeaked three or four tunes before I managed to ask, “Colonel Block? They made a colonel out of him?”
“Wes speaks highly of you, too, Mr. Garrett.”
“I’ll bet.”
“He told me you were not sent to the Bledsoe by his people—though he wished he’d thought of it.”
“That’s Block. Playful as a hogshead of cobras.”
“He did speak well of you professionally. But he warned me to remain wary in other respects.” She could get a laugh into her voice, too.
“You going to want bacon?”
“You just starting it now? You’re supposed to start the bacon first. It takes longer.”
“I cook one thing at a time. That way I only burn one thing at a time.”
“A daring approach.”
“Holds down expenses.”
We cooked together and ate together and I spent a lot of time appreciating the scenery. The lady didn’t seem to mind.
We were cleaning up when she said, “I won’t tolerate this sort of thing. I won’t tolerate the corruption that allows it to happen.”
I stepped back, checked her out with different eyes. “You just start working there? You’d have to look hard to find a place more corrupt than the Bledsoe.”
“Yes. I’m new. And I’m finding out how rotten the place is. Every day it’s something. This is the worst yet. You might’ve spent your whole life wrongfully imprisoned.”
“Yeah. And I wasn’t the only one in there. You an idealist and reformer?” TunFaire is infested with those lately.
“You don’t need to make me sound like a halfwit.”
“Sorry. Most wannabe Utopians are, reality-wise. They come from well-to-do families and haven’t the vaguest notion what life is like for people who have to depend on a Bledsoe. They can’t imagine what life is like for the kind of people who work in a Bledsoe. For them taking bribes and selling donated supplies are perks of the job. They wouldn’t understand you if you bitched about it—unless they figured you were trying to increase the override you take off the top.”
She gave me a disgusted look. “Somebody suggested that yesterday.”
“There you go. I bet you blew up. And didn’t get through. And now everybody in the place thinks you’re crazy. Maybe the better-placed guys in the bigger money are wondering if you’re dangerous crazy. They worry about these new Guards kicking ass and taking names. It takes a while to corrupt reformers.”
She settled with a fresh cup of tea, honey and mint in it. She eyed me, then mused, “West says you can be trusted.”
“Nice of him to say. Wish I could say the same.”
She frowned. “Point is, I’m dangerous already. A few days ago, several thousand marks worth of medical supplies vanished. Right away I filled two orderly slots with men I knew personally. Men I can trust.”
“I see.” In view of her Guard connection, I guessed they were Block’s men. He had a character named Relway working for him, running his secret police force. Relway was nasty.
If Relway became interested in the Bledsoe, heads would roll and asses get kicked. Relway doesn’t let bureaucratic roadblocks and legal technicalities get in his way. He gets in there and rights those wrongs.
I suggested, “You be careful. They think you brought in spies, they could forget their manners.”
She sipped tea, studied me, which made me uncomfortable. Not that I object to having a beautiful woman check me out. I was born to be a sex object. But this beautiful woman had something less thrilling in mind. “I’m not as naive as you think, Garrett.”
“Good. That’ll save you a lot of pain.”
“You have any idea who signed you in?”
“No. I was asleep. But I hear the prince who paid for it goes by the name Grange Cleaver.”
“Cleaver? Grange Cleaver?”
“You know him?”
“He’s a hospital trustee. Appointed through the imperial household.” She studied me some more. “I told you I’m not as naive as you might think. That does include understanding that I might be in danger.”
Could be was not how I would put it. “So?”
“So maybe I should get somebody to stick close by till the dust settles.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“You game?”
I was game, but not for that. “You want a bodyguard?”
“Wes says you won’t sell out.”
“Maybe not. But there’s a problem.”
“What?” She sounded irked.
“I don’t do bodyguard work. Sorry. And I have a client already. Wouldn’t do to let that obligation slide, much as part of me wants to. Also, your staff is going to harbor grudges. I wouldn’t dare hang out around there.”
She looked like she was getting mad. “Then what would you suggest?” She didn’t try to change my mind. My feelings were hurt. Maybe she could have talked herself into something.
She was too damned businesslike.
Maggie Jenn would have tried to talk me into something.
“Friend of mine, Saucerhead Tharpe, could do the job. Or several other guys I know. Trouble is the best guys all look like what they are.” Then my muse inspired me. “My friend from last night will be looking for work.”
My guest brightened, her mind darting past all the obvious caveats that would have obtained had Winger been male. “Can she do the job?”
“Better than I could. She doesn’t have a conscience.”
“She trustworthy?”
“Don’t put her in temptation’s way. The family silver might accidentally fall into her pockets. But she can get a job done.”
“She tough?”
“She eats hedgehogs for breakfast. Without peeling them first. Don’t get into a tough contest with her. She don’t know when to quit.”
She smiled. “I understand the impulse. When you step outside tradition, there’s a temptation to show the boys you can do everything they can do better. All right. Sounds good. I’ll talk to her. How do I get in touch?”
Finding Winger isn’t easy. She wants it that way. There are people she’d rather not have sneaking up.
I explained what worked for me. She thanked me for breakfast, advice, and help, and headed for the front door. I was overwhelmed still. She was ready to let herself out before I got myself together. “Hey! Wait up. You didn’t introduce yourself.”
She smirked. “Chastity, Garrett. Chastity Blaine.” She laughed at my goofy look, slipped out, and closed the door behind her.
By daylight, the Joy House is dull. Lately Morley has been open continuously, driven by some bizarre civic impulse that wants weeds and grass clippings made available to all. I was concerned. The place might start attracting horses.
I invited myself up to the bar. “Cook me up a rare steak, Sarge. And let Morley know I’m here.”
Sarge grunted, scratched his crotch, hitched his pants, thought about it before he did anything—which was mainly to wonder aloud why I thought Morley Dotes gave one rat’s ass whether I was infesting the Joy House or stinking up the place in Hell, where I belonged.
“You ought to open a charm school for young ladies of superior breeding, Sarge.”
“Fugginay. Ain’t dat da troot?”
I settled at a table. My steak arrived before Morley did. It was a thick, rare, prime center cut. Of eggplant. I forced part of it down by holding my breath and closing my eyes. If I didn’t have to smell it or see it, it wasn’t too bad.
Sarge’s buddy Puddle trundled out of the kitchen, half a foot of hairy bare belly hanging out from under his shirt. He paused to blow his nose on his apron. He had him some kind of key on a rope around his neck. I asked, “What the hell are you supposed to be? One that got away? They didn’t tie the noose tight enough?”
“I’m da wine stewart aroun’ here, Garrett.” My worst fears were confirmed—not only by ear but by nose. Puddle’s breath told me he diligently tested his vintages. “Morley says we got to attrack a better class a’ custom.”
Time was you could have done that by dragging in a dozen derelicts. “You’re just the guy who can do it, Puddle.”
“Fugginay. Ain’t dat da troot?”
These guys had the same rhetoric teacher.
“You want some wine, Garrett? To go wit’ what you’re havin’ dere we got us a perky little fortunata petite what’s maybe not as subtle as a Nambo Arsenal but—”
“Puddle!”
“Yeah?”
“It’s spoiled grape juice. If they call it wine, it’s spoiled grape juice. I don’t care if you call it coy or brujo or whatever. Talk that wine snob talk till doomsday, that don’t change the main fact. Hell, go look at the stuff while it’s changing into brassy brunette or whatever. It’s got mold and shit growing on it. What it is, really, is how you get alcohol that winos and ratmen can afford.”
Puddle winked and whispered, “I’m wit’ you. The gods meant real men to drink dat stuff dey wouldn’t of invented beer.”
“What you do, you get Morley to serve beer by telling him it’s cream of barley soup?”
Morley arrived during this exchange. He observed, “Wine is how the smart restauranteur fleeces the kind of man who walks around with his nose in the air.”
I asked, “How come you want that kind of guy cluttering up your dance floor?”
“Cash flow.” Morley planted himself in the chair opposite me. “Plain, simple, raw money. If you want it, you have to find ways to pry it loose from those who have it. Our current clientele doesn’t have it. Often. But I’ve noted that we’ve begun to attract adventurers. So I’ve started positioning us to become the in place.”
“Why?”
He looked at me funny.
“Don’t let me throw you with the trick questions, Morley. If they get too tough for you, holler.”
“Look around. There’s your answer.”
I looked. I saw Puddle and Sarge and a few local “characters” using the place to get out of the weather. “Not real appetizing.” I meant Puddle and Sarge.
“It’s that old devil Time, Garrett. We’re all a pound heavier and a step slower. It’s time to think about facing realities.”
“Puddle and Sarge, maybe.” Morley didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. I did my famous eyebrow trick, one of my more endearing skills.
He read that right. “A guy can get a step slow between the ears, too. He can lose that lean and hungry way of thinking.” He eyed me as though I, of all people, should know that.
“Or he can start thinking like a cow because he doesn’t eat anything but cattle fodder.” I laid a pointed stare on the corpse of my eggplant filet. It had failed to live up to even my low expectations.
Morley grinned. “We’re breaking in a new cook.”
“On me?”
“Who better? Right, Puddle? No way we can disappoint Garrett. He was disappointed when he walked in the door. He’ll bitch and gripe whatever we serve him.”
I grumped, “You could poison me.”
“If it would improve your disposition.”
“There’s an idea!” Puddle enthused. “Hows come I never thought a’ that one?”
“Because you’ve never had a thought. If one got loose in that abandoned tenement of a head, it’d never find its way out,” I muttered, but Puddle caught on anyhow.
“Yo! Sarge! We got any of dat rat poison left? Tell Wiggins to bring dis guy Garrett a special chef’s surprise dessert.”
I made noises to let them know what I thought of this level of humor and told Morley, “I need the benefit of your wisdom.”
“You going to cry on my shoulder about one of your bimbos?”
“There’s a thought. I never tried that. Maybe by way of a little sympathetic magic . . . ”
“Don’t expect sympathy from me.”
“What I want to do is listen to you, not have you listen to me.”
“This has to do with your Maggie Jenn thing?”
“Yes. The name Grange Cleaver mean anything?”
Morley glanced at Puddle. A shadow crossed his features. Puddle exchanged glances with Sarge. Then everybody faked indifference. Morley asked, “You saying the Rainmaker is back?”
“Rainmaker?”
“The only Grange Cleaver I know was called the Rainmaker. He was a fence. Big time. Where did you come onto the name?”
“Winger. She said she was working for him.”
“That woman isn’t your most reliable witness.”
“You’re telling me. But she did have an interesting story about how this guy was using her to keep tabs on Maggie Jenn. She said she thought Cleaver was Maggie’s brother. Or some sort of close relation.”
Again Morley tossed a glance at Puddle, then looked thoughtful. “I’ve never heard that one.” He chuckled. There was no humor in the sound. “It can’t be true, but it would explain a lot if it was. Maybe even including why she is back in town.”
“You changing your position?”
“Huh?”
“You said she was in exile. What’re you going on about, anyway?”
“All right. Grange Cleaver, alias the Rainmaker, was a very famous fence years ago.”
“How can you be a famous fence? Seems to me you could be one or the other but not both.”
“Famous among those who use the services of fences, wholesale or retail, supplier or end user. The Rainmaker operated on the swank. There were rumors he choreographed several big jobs himself, that he had a connection who got him the inside information he needed. He hit several Hill places. There weren’t many guards back then. His raids were one reason the Hill folk set up their goon squads.”
“This all connects with Maggie Jenn?”
“Maybe. It just occurred to me that the Rainmaker’s heyday coincided with Maggie Jenn’s famous affair. Specifically, with those months when Theodoric was dragging her around in public, not giving one good goddamn what anyone said.”
“You have to admit nobody would’ve figured her for a spotter.”
“Exactly. Her social crimes were reason enough to hate her.”
“All of which is interesting but, as far as I can see, doesn’t have anything to do with the job I’m getting paid to do.” Though I might be wrong. Cleaver hadn’t drafted me into the crackdome brigade because my colors clashed when I dressed. I was a threat somehow. “You still say Maggie Jenn doesn’t have a daughter?”
“I said I didn’t know about one. I still don’t. But now I have a notion there’s a lot I don’t know about Maggie Jenn.”
“Heard anything off the street?”
“Too soon, Garrett. It’s a big town. And if the Rainmaker is in it, people who remember him might not talk.”
“Yeah.” A big town. And somewhere in it, a missing girl.
Somewhere in TunFaire there are scores of missing girls. More vanish every day. This just happened to be a girl who had someone willing to look for her.
I started toward the street.
“Garrett.”
I stopped. I knew that tone. The real Morley was about to speak from behind all the masks. “What?”
“You be careful about the Rainmaker. He’s as crazy as they come. Dangerous crazy.”
I leaned against the door frame and did some ruminating. “I’ve got some real funny people in this one, Morley.”
“How so?”
“They all have two faces. The Maggie Jenn I know and the one Winger told me about aren’t much like the woman you describe. The Grange Cleaver Winger worked for and the one you describe aren’t anything like the Grange Cleaver I heard about from another source. That Cleaver is one of the directors of the Bledsoe. He’s connected with the imperial family.”
“That’s another new one on me. But so what?”
Yeah. So what? It occurred to me that Chastity’s troubles with theft and corruption might stem from the very top.
For some reason, I just can’t get used to the thinking it takes to encompass that kind of villainy. It doesn’t seem reasonable to steal from the poor and the helpless, though I’m sure Morley could paste on his puzzled frown and make it all clear: you steal from the poor and helpless because they can’t fight back. Because nobody gives a damn. But you do have to do one hell of a lot of stealing in order to make much money.
That’s why most thieves prefer wealthier victims.
I decided my best course was to go home and settle in with a beer or five while I figured out how to do my job. Grange Cleaver was a side issue. Maybe I’d put time in on him after I found the missing daughter. I owed the clown. But Emerald came first.
Speaking of debts, by now his people inside the Bledsoe should have reported my brilliant, dashing escape. It might behoove me to keep a close watch on my behind.
You work yourself into the right frame of mind, it’s sure something will happen. I was all primed to turn paranoid. Naturally, fate just had to set me off.
“How are you doing? I’m Ivy.”
I squeaked and jumped up there where the pigeons fly. I could have clicked my heels and turned a somersault on the way down but was too busy making funny noises. I landed. And there, by the gods, was my old prison pal Ivy.
And not just Ivy. Behind Ivy, grinning merrily, was that big bozo who’d helped me with my breakout.
“You guys made it, eh? That’s great.” I tried easing around them. That didn’t work. “How many others managed? Any idea?” I was just being sociable. You do that with unpredictable and potentially dangerous people. Hell, you should do that with anybody you don’t know. You should be rude only to friends you’re sure won’t slice you into cold cuts. That’s what manners are for.
The grinning fool grinned even wider. “Most everybody scooted, Garrett. The whole ward, I think.”
“How did that happen?” I’d thought the staff were gaining control when I ran out.
“Some of us guys that had uniforms on decided to go get some paybacks after we got the smoke out of our lungs. And then a bunch of the guys still inside went berserk.”
“Lucky for us they weren’t crazy before.” But they were crazy now and on the loose. I tried easing away again. The big guy had a knack for staying in my way.
I hadn’t overlooked the fact that he knew my name even though I hadn’t introduced myself. “How did you guys come to be here?” Here being Macunado Street less than two blocks from my house. A coincidence that monstrous could occur only every third leap year. It wasn’t leap year.
The big guy got red. He confessed, “We was sneaking around trying to find a way out and we heard you talking to Doc Chaz. So we’re on the street all this time, we don’t know where to go or what to do. I ast Ivy and he don’t got no suggestions.”
Ivy’s face brightened at the mention. He introduced himself, in case he’d forgotten his manners, then went back to studying the street. He seemed more perplexed than frightened, but I didn’t think it would be long till he was ready to go back inside. I suspected that would be true for a lot of men.
“So you came looking for me.”
The big guy nodded like a shy kid. “Seemed like you was a guy would know what to do.”
I cussed myself silently for being the kind of fool I am. “All right. I got you into this, I’m kind of responsible. Come on. I’ll get you fed, put you up tonight, maybe help you make arrangements.”
Yeah. I know. Chances were good they would smell like long-dead fish before I got them out. But I did have a card up my sleeve. The Dead Man isn’t handicapped by manners or an overdeveloped sense of social obligation. Guests don’t overstay his welcome.
I wondered if it wasn’t maybe time to start nudging him. I could use a little advice.
I let my guests into my house. The big guy was as nervous as a kid in unfamiliar territory. Ivy was as curious as a cat. Naturally, the Goddamn Parrot started raising hell in the small front room. Ivy invited himself in there while I tried to solve a problem by asking the big guy, “Do you have a name? I don’t know what to call you.”
Mr. Big cussed Ivy for not bringing him food.
I was beginning to miss Dean for yet another reason. He had dealt with that foul feathered fiend before he left. I still wasn’t used to it.
It went into its act. “Help! Rape! Save me! Oh, please, mister, don’t make me do that again.” It managed to sound like a preadolescent girl. The only parrot in captivity smart enough to remember more than four words, and some wit had taught it that. I just knew if the neighbors ever heard the beast I’d never convince the lynch mob that a parrot had done the squawking. The bird would not say boo till I was swinging high.
Meantime, the big fellow stood around wearing a thoughtful look, trying to remember his name. His wits seemed to turn through seasons. Must have been summertime when he helped me at the Bledsoe. Now it was late autumn or early winter. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with him all the time. I could go crazy myself.
Powziffle.
Ivy closed the door to the small front room. The Goddamn Parrot went right on screeching. Ivy grinned from ear to ear. I had a feeling I knew what was going to become of that bird. He could become the companion of a tortured fellow who needed a friend desperately.
The tortured fellow roamed on down the hall while his sidekick continued to ruminate the big question.
“Hey! Yeah!” His face brightened. “Slither.” Brighter still. “Yeah! That’s it. Slither.” His grin dwarfed Ivy’s.
“Slither?” What the hell kind of name was that? A nickname for sure, though he didn’t look like a Slither to me.
Ivy had his face shoved into my office. He froze. Eventually he let out a little squeak of dismay, the first break in his six-word pattern. From the direction he was facing, I guessed he’d gotten a look at Eleanor. That painting had plenty to say to anyone with the open eyes of madness.
Slither preened, proud that he had recalled his name.
I said, “You guys come back to the kitchen. We’ll have us a beer and a snack.” I suspected that they hadn’t eaten since their flight from the hospital. Freedom does have its disadvantages.
Slither nodded and flashed his grin. Ivy ignored me. He crossed the hall to the Dead Man’s room, went inside, and got himself a shock even more horrible than the terror in the shadows behind Eleanor. The Dead Man isn’t furry, little, or cuddly. He can’t win instant love through cute.
I pried Ivy out of there and got him into the kitchen. We settled down to a snack of cold roast beef, pickles, cheese, mustard with verve enough to water your eyes, and adequate quantities of beer. I did more sipping than eating. Once Slither and Ivy slowed enough so they took time to breathe as well as eat, I asked, “You guys able to do anything?”
“Huh?” That was Slither. Ivy was sucking up another mug of beer, his fifth. He’d begun to look brighter, more human. I’d begun to suspect the nature of his madness. He was a wino.
“What did you do before they put you in that place?”
Slither started another five-fall match with his memory.
I wondered how well he’d done before his venture inside.
Ivy drained his mug and headed for the cold well. I caught his wrist. It didn’t take much to set him down. “Don’t let’s overdo, Ivy.”
He stared at his plate a minute, then lifted a sliver of meat to his lips. He chewed slowly for a long time. After he swallowed he startled me by saying, “You can’t forget to eat, Garrett. That’s the thing you’ve got to hang onto. You can’t forget to eat.”
I stared at him. Slither stared at him. Slither howled, “I’ll be damned! I’ll be double dog damned, Garrett! He talked. What did we do? I never heard him talk before.”
The event seemed to give Slither’s intellect a kick in the slats, too. He started chattering at Ivy, trying to draw him out. Ivy didn’t want to be drawn. He stared at his plate and picked at his food. He looked up only once, to toss a longing glance toward the cold well. The object of his affection, my keg, lay there all alone.
“Well?”
Slither looked at me. “Huh?”
“I asked what you did on the outside, before you went in.”
“How come you want to know?” The fires of genius never burned real hot here.
I had to move before he faded again. “I want to know because if I know what you can do maybe I can find somebody who’ll pay you to do it.” There is no shortage of work in TunFaire, honest or otherwise, what with all our young men spending five years in the Cantard and a lot of them never coming home.
“Mostly I done bodyguarding. I was pretty good when I started, but I figure I picked up something when I was down south. I started kind of fading out sometimes. I started making mistakes sometimes. I screwed up on a real good job I got on account of my size mostly, so I took another one that wasn’t quite as good and I screwed up on that one, too, so I took another job and all the time the fading got worse and worse. I started not remembering anything sometimes. Nothing. Except I kept getting the feeling that I was doing things that weren’t right. Maybe really wicked things, only whatever I was doing I wasn’t getting caught by nobody because I always woke up at home. Sometimes I had bruises and stuff, though. And then I was right in the right place at the right time and landed me a real sweet job. I don’t know what happened or how. One day I wake up, I’m there where you found me and I don’t know how long I been there or what I done to get myself put inside.”
I’d seen him during one blackout. Powziffle. Maybe that one had been mild and harmless. Maybe he went berserk sometimes.
But then he’d have been in the violent ward. Wouldn’t he?
“What did you do in the army?” I asked.
“Nothing, man. I wasn’t no friggin’ ground-pounder.”
I knew that tone and that look and that fire in the eye. “You were a Marine?”
“Absofugginiutely. First Battalion. Fleet Marines.”
I was impressed. That meant something to a Marine. Slither had been one of the elite of the elite. So how come ten years later he set up housekeeping in the charity bughouse? The man had to be tougher than rawhide.
On the other hand, how many tough guys fall apart with a nudge in the right way at the right time?
Slither asked, “What about you?”
“Force recon.”
“Hey! All right!” He reached out to slap my hand, a silly habit left over from the Corps.
They told us when we went in we’d never stop being Marines.
“If you can keep your head together, I could maybe use you on the job I’m doing.”
He frowned. “What kind of work you do? Besides bust places up like you was trying to turn the whole world into a barroom brawl?”
I explained. I explained again. He didn’t get it till I told him, “It’s kind of like being a mercenary—only I just find things or figure things out for people who can’t handle their problems themselves.”
He still frowned but got the basic idea. His trouble was that he couldn’t grasp why I’d galavant around like I was some kind of white knight.
So I put that into terms he could understand. “Most of my clients are loaded. When things go my way, I can soak them for a bundle.”
Even Ivy brightened at that. But he kept looking at my cold well like it was the gate to heaven.
I got up, dug out a bottle of wine that had been around since the dawn of time, plopped it down in front of Ivy. I drew more beer for Slither and me. I settled. Ivy went to work on his bottle. After he finished a long pull, I asked, “How about you, Ivy? What did you do in the war?”
He tried. He really did. But his tongue got tangled. Gibberish came out. I suggested he take another long drink and relax. He did. That worked. Sort of.
“So?” I urged, gently, in the back of my mind beginning to hear guilt nag because I was getting soaked with a pair of fruitcakes when I ought to be hunting a missing daughter. “What did you do down there?”
“La-la-long ra-range re-re-recon. Ra-ranger stuff.”
“Excellent!” Slither murmured. Civilians wouldn’t understand.
I nodded encouragement and tried to cover my surprise. Ivy didn’t look the type. But a lot of guys don’t. And it’s often guys who make the elite outfits who’re good enough to survive. They know how to take care of themselves.
“Pretty grim?” I asked.
Ivy nodded. Any other answer would have been a lie. The fighting had been tough, vicious, endless, and unavoidable. Mercy had been an unknown. The war seems won now, years after our hours in the ranks, but fighting continues on a reduced scale as Karenta’s soldiers pursue diehard Venageti and try to stifle the guttering republic created by Glory Mooncalled.
“Dumb question,” Slither observed.
“I know. But once in a while, I run into somebody who insists he liked it down there.”
“He was rear echelon, then. Or a liar. Or crazy. The ones that can’t live no other way just stay in.”
“You’re mostly right.”
In a thin voice, Ivy said, “Th-there’s sp-space for them na-now we ga-got out.”
I agreed with him, too.
“Tell us more about what you do,” Slither said. “What you working on now that got somebody so pissed they shoved you into the Bledsoe?”
“I’m not sure anymore.” I saw no reason not to so I shared most of the details. Till I mentioned Grange Cleaver.
“Wait a minute. Whoa. Hang on. Cleaver? Like in the Rainmaker, Cleaver?”
“He’s called that sometimes. Why?”
“That last job I had. The plush one. I was running errands for that faggot asshole.”
“And?” I suffered a little twinge.
“And I don’t remember what the hell I was doing before I woke up in the bughouse, but I’m damned well sure it was the Rainmaker what put me there. Maybe on account of I bucked him.”
“This is interesting. How come you’re so sure?” It wasn’t that long since he couldn’t remember his name.
“Account of now we’re talking about it, I remember two times I helped carry guys in there myself. Guys what the Rainmaker didn’t figure was worth killing but what he had a hard-on for anyway, one reason or another. He’d say anybody crazy enough to give him grief belonged in the bughouse.”
I held up a hand. “Whoa!” Once he got rolling he was a rattlemouth. “I have a feeling I need to talk to Mr. Cleaver.”
Slither got pale. I guess the idea didn’t have a universal appeal.
My conscience insisted I do something to fulfill my compact with Maggie Jenn. What? Well, her daughter’s backtrail had been strewn with mystical whatnots, supposed surprises to mom, indicators that Emerald was into that old black magic.
The juju stuff had been so plentiful and obvious that you had to wonder about a plant. Then you had to wonder who and why (guess I should have been digging into that), and then you had to wonder if the obviousness of the evidence argued against its having been planted. Could anybody be dumb enough to think someone would buy it?
Well, sure. A lot of TunFaire’s villains aren’t long on brains.
I decided I’d follow the road signs, genuine or false. If they were false, whoever planted them could tell me something.
I couldn’t discount the witchcraft angle. My fellow subjects will buy anything if the guy doing the selling is a good enough showman. We have a thousand cults here. Plenty lean toward the dark side. Plenty go in for witchcraft and demon worship. Sometimes bored little rich girls amuse themselves by dabbling.
Maybe I should have inquired after the state of Emerald’s virtue. That had not seemed important at the time. From her mother’s account, she was in good health and otherwise normal. There was no apparent reason for her to suffer virginity at her age. Most adolescents cure that before they get rid of their acne.
If you want information about something, it always helps if you corner an expert. Sure, the street is a great source of news, but out there sometimes you have to separate raindrops from the downpour. That’s maybe a lot of needless sorting if you know somebody who stays on a first-name basis with all the interesting raindrops.
People had called her Handsome for as long as I can remember, for no reason I know. Though mostly human, she had enough dwarf blood to give her a very long life. She’d been a cranky old woman when I was a kid. I was sure time had not improved her temper.
Her shop was a hole in the wall in my old neighborhood. It lay down an alley so dark and noisome even homeless ratmen would have avoided it had it not led past Handsome’s place.
The alley was worse than I remembered. The trash was deeper, the slime was slipperier, the smell was stronger. The reason was simple. Every day things do get worse than they’ve ever been before. TunFaire is falling apart. It’s sinking into its own offal. And nobody cares.
Well, some do. But not enough. Scores of factions front as many corrective prescriptions, but each group prefers to concentrate on purging heretics and infidels from the ranks, which is easier than improving the state of the city.
I should complain? Chaos is good for business. If only I could recognize lawlessness as a boon.
No wonder my friends don’t understand me. I don’t understand me.
There were ratmen sheltering in that alley, which was so insignificant it didn’t merit a name. I stepped over one and his wine bottle bedmate to get to Handsome’s door.
A bell jangled as I entered. The alleyway had been dark. Handsome’s hole was darker. I closed the door gently, waited for my eyes to adapt. I didn’t move fast, didn’t breathe deeply for fear I would knock something down.
I remembered it as that kind of place.
“Gods be damned! It’s that Garrett brat. I thought we got shut of you years ago. Sent you off to the war.”
“Nice to see you again, too, Handsome.” Whoops! Big mistake there. She hated that name. But she was in a forgiving mood, apparently. She didn’t react. “You’re looking good. Thank you for caring. I did my five. I came home.”
“Sure you didn’t dodge? Garrett men don’t never come home.”
Gave me a twinge there. Neither my brother nor my father, nor my father’s father, had come home. Seemed like a natural law: your name was Garrett, you got the glorious privilege of dying for crown and kingdom. “I beat the odds, Tilly.” Handsome’s real name was Tilly Nooks. “Guess that old law of averages finally caught up with the Venageti.”
“Or maybe you’re smarter than the run of Garrett men.”
I’d heard similar sentiments expressed before. Tilly spoke more forcefully than most. She carried a grudge. My Grandfather Garrett, who went long before my time, jilted her for a younger woman.
That bitterness never kept her from treating us kids like we were her own grandchildren. Even now I can feel her switch striping my tail.
Handsome entered the shop through a doorway blocked by hanging strings of beads. She carried a lamp that had shed no light on the other side. The lamp was for me. Her dwarvish eyes had no trouble with the gloom.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Tilly.” And that was true. She was just as I remembered.
“Don’t feed me that bullshit. I look like I been rode hard and put away wet about a thousand times.”
That was true, too.
She looked like a woman who’d survived seventy very hard years. Her hair was white and thin. Her scalp shone through even in that light. Her skin hung loose, as though she’d halved her weight in a week. It was pale though mottled by liver spots large and small. She moved slowly but with determination. It hurt her to walk, but she wouldn’t surrender to her frailties. I recalled those making up the bulk of her conversation. She complained continuously but wouldn’t slow down. She was wide in the hips and her flesh drooped badly everywhere. Had I been asked to guess, I would’ve said she’d borne a dozen kids from the shape she was in, only I’d never seen or heard of any offspring.
She peered at me intently, trying to smile. She had only a few teeth left. But her eyes glittered. The mind behind them was as sharp as ever. Her smile turned cynical and weary. “So, to what do we owe the honor, after all these years?” Maybe she wasn’t going to catch me up on her lumbago.
The rest of “we” was the scroungiest calico cat that ever lived. Like Handsome, she was ancient. She, too, had been old and scroungy and worn out all those long years ago. She looked at me like she remembered me, too.
You can’t lie to Handsome. She always knows if you do. I learned that before I was six. “Business.”
“I heard the kind of business you’re in.”
“You sound like you disapprove.”
“The way you go at it, it’s a fool’s game. You’re not going to get you no happiness out of it.”
“You could be right.”
“Sit a spell.” Groaning, she dropped into a lotus position. That she could had amazed me as a kid. It amazed me now. “What’s your business here?” The cat set up camp in her lap. I tried to remember the beast’s name, couldn’t, and hoped the question wouldn’t come up.
“Witch business, maybe. I’m looking for a missing girl. The only clue I have is that I found witchcraft type stuff in her rooms.”
Handsome grunted. She didn’t ask why that brought me to her. She was a major supplier of witchy stuff; chicken lips and toad hair and frog teeth. “She left it behind?”
“Apparently.” Handsome provided the very best raw materials, but I’ve never understood how. She never left home to acquire stock and I never heard of anybody who wholesaled that stuff. Rumor says Handsome is rich despite the way she lives. Makes sense to me. She’s supplied the witch trade for generations. She’s got to have chests full of money somewhere.
“Don’t strike me as the kind of thing a witch would do.”
“Didn’t me, either.” Occasionally a bunch of baddies will ignore the lessons of history and try to rob Handsome. None succeed. Failure tends to be painful. Handsome must be a pretty potent witch herself.
She’s never said she’s a witch. She’s never claimed special powers. The fakes do that. The fact that she’s grown old swimming with sharks says all that needs saying.
I told her my story. I left nothing out because I didn’t see any point. She was a good listener.
“The Rainmaker is in it?” Her whole face pruned into a frown. “I don’t like that.”
“Oh?” I waited.
“We haven’t seen him for a while. He was bad news back when.”
“Oh?” Handsome liked to talk. Given silences to fill, she might cough up something especially useful. Or she might take the opportunity to catch me up on her illnesses and infirmities. “People keep telling me he’s bad, but it’s like they’re embarrassed to say how. It’s hard to get scared once you’ve spent five years nose to nose with Venageta’s best and more than that butting heads with people like Chodo Contague.” Chodo used to be the kingpin of crime in TunFaire.
“A Chodo uses torture and murder and the threat of violence like tools. The Rainmaker hurts people on account of he enjoys it. My guess is he’s anxious not to get noticed. Otherwise he wouldn’t stuff people into the Bledsoe. We’d find pieces of them all over town.” She went on to paint the portrait of a sadist, yet another view of Cleaver.
I was starting to have misgivings about meeting the guy. But I had to do it, if only to explain that not liking a guy isn’t any reason to shove him into the cackle factory.
Handsome rattled on, passing along fact, fancy, rumor, and speculation. She knew an awful lot about Cleaver—in the old days. She could tell me nothing about him now.
“All right,” I finally put in, stopping that flood. “What about witchcraft cults today? The kind of black magic stuff that would appeal to bored kids? Any of that going around?”
Handsome didn’t say anything for a long time. I wondered if I’d overstepped somehow. Then she said, “There could be.”
“Could be?” I couldn’t picture her not knowing everything about such things. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t got a monopoly on witchcraft supplies. They’s other sellers around. None to match me for quality or inventory, but they’s others. Been new people coming into the trade lately. Mostly they go after the nonhuman market. The folks you want to talk to is Wixon and White. They don’t ask questions the way I would and their slant is toward your rich crowd.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
“What? Don’t you jump to no conclusions about folks on account of where you find them, boy. They’s geniuses in the Bustee and fools on the Hill.”
“I don’t see what you’re saying.”
“You always was dense.”
“I’d rather people said things straight out. That way there’s no confusion.”
“All right. I don’t know anything about anything like what you’re hunting, but I got me a strong suspicion that they’s a whole passel of rich folks getting used by some real nasty demon worshippers. Wixon and White is where you start. They’ll sell anything to anybody what’s got the money.”
“That’s all I wanted. A place to start. You remember Maggie Jenn?”
“I recollect the scandal.”
“What kind of woman was she? Could she have been connected to the Rainmaker?”
“What kind of woman? You think we was friends?”
“I think you have an opinion.” If she didn’t, it would be a first.
“They was a thousand stories. I think maybe they was some truth in all of them. Yes, she was connected. Bothered that Teodoric considerable. One time he threatened to have the Rainmaker killed. Worried the Rainmaker enough that he got out of town. I heard Teodoric was plotting to hunt him down when he got killed hisself.”
“Any connection?”
“Coincidence. Every king makes him a crop of enemies. The Rainmaker staying away after Teodoric died says he had other reasons to go. There was talk he got the wise guys mad. I wonder what brought him back?”
She mentioned wise guys. It could have to do with Chodo’s semi-retirement. Already several ambitious men had tried to take advantage, but Chodo’s daughter played the game as hard as her father. She would cast a cold eye on the Rainmaker if he made a wrong move.
And on the law side we had us the new Guard, who would love to lay hands on a famous villain—if one could be found who didn’t have connections. The Rainmaker might do.
I inched toward the exit. “Wixon and White?” I was afraid she’d do the old give us a kiss.
“That’s what I said. You come around more than once every twelve years, you hear?”
“I will,” I promised, with all the good intentions I always have when I make that promise.
She didn’t believe me. It was getting so I was beginning to doubt myself.
I’ve done some dumb things in my time—for example, forgetting to ask Handsome where Wixon and White hung their shingle. I remembered after I was three blocks away. I hustled back—and got what I deserved.
Her shop wasn’t there anymore. The alley wasn’t there. I was boggled. You hear about that stuff, but you don’t expect it.
After that disappointment, I just strolled to the nearest place where I knew somebody and asked if they’d ever heard of Wixon and White. It’s a fact. Somebody you know will at least know somebody who knows the person or place you want.
That’s the way I got to it. A bartender I knew, name of Shrimp, had heard of Wixon and White from a client. So Shrimp and I shared a few beers on me, then I started hiking. The Wixon and White establishment lay way out in the West End.
They were closed. Nobody answered my knock. The place was a rental. Wixon and White were so highly priced and cocksure they didn’t live on the premises.
That part of the West End is pure upscale. The shops all serve those who have money they don’t know what to do with. Not my kind of people. Not any kind of people I can understand, buyers or sellers.
I kept an eye out for armed patrols. Those had to be around, else the shops would all be boardups. I wondered if the Outfit wasn’t involved. Some of the shops had glass windows. That meant real heavyweight protection.
Wixon and White looked like a place that would serve upper-crust dabblers in black magic, at embarrassing prices. Wixon or White, whoever did the buying, probably acquired inventory from Handsome, tripled her retail, then tripled it again. Then they’d probably jack up the price on particularly thick-witted customers. The people who shopped the area would be the kind who got off on telling friends how much they paid for things.
Feeling my prejudices coalesce into an urge to break glass, I got me out of there.
I had nothing to do and no inclination to go home to a house where all I’d have for company would be a psychotic parrot and a couple of bark-at-the-moon boys. I hoped that foul-mouthed squab was starving to death.
I asked myself why I didn’t stop in and see how Playmate was doing. He might have regained consciousness by now.
Damn! Playmate looked none the worse for wear. I snapped, “What the hell are you? Twins?”
“Garrett!” He swept out of the shadows of his stable, arms spread wide. He’d been using a pitchfork to do what you do a lot of if you operate a stable. He didn’t seem stiff or sore. He swept me up in a hug. He’s never stopped being demonstrative when I come around, though it’s been a long time since I saved his business.
“Easy, man. I’m breakable. Unlike some I could name.” The tenderness wasn’t gone from my ambush bruises.
“You heard about my mishap?”
“Heard? I was there. I’m surprised you can walk, what they had to do to bring you down.”
“I am a little sore. But somebody’s got to care for the beasties.”
“So send for the boys from the tannery.” Me and horses don’t get along. Nobody takes me seriously, but I know for a fact that the whole species is out to get me. The moment nobody is looking, the moment I have my back turned, those damned oatburners start moving in.
“Garrett! What a cruel thing to say.”
“You think the best of everybody.” They’ve got Playmate fooled. They stood right there in their stalls sneering and measuring me for a shroud while he defended them. He actually loves the monsters. He thinks I’m just ribbing him, making jokes in bad taste.
Somebody he’ll learn. When it’s too late.
I asked, “Got a lot of work to do?”
He indicated the manure pile. “You have to haul the hay in and the fertilizer out. They don’t take days off.”
“Make that pressing work. You have time for a few beers? On your old buddy? That pile won’t go anywhere.”
“Not if I don’t move it.” He frowned. “On you? Must be an awful big favor.”
“What?”
“Must be some giant favor you want. You never offered to buy me a beer before.”
I sighed. “Wrong.” This was a battle I’d been fighting for years. All my friends insist I never come around unless I want something. Wasn’t all that long since I’d bought Playmate dinner and all the beer he could drink, so he’d introduce me to a man who made coaches. “But I’m not going to fight.” I’d show him.
“You coming?”
The trouble with a guy Playmate’s size is, he can’t just drink a beer. One beer is a drop in the necessary stream. The man decides to get seriously ripped you have to send for the beer wagons.
He picked the place. It was a small, dark, shabby one roomer furnished in Early Thrownaway. Everyone there knew Playmate. They just had to come say hello. It was a long time before we could talk—and that got interrupted every time another body arrived.
Meantime, we ate. And drank. On me. Ouch, said my purse.
Hole in the wall though that place was, it served a fine dark ale supposedly brewed on the premises. And someone in the kitchen had a more than nodding acquaintance with the art of cookery. I devoured slice after slice of a roast that would have embarrassed Dean’s best effort.
The prices were reasonable, too—for those not trying to support a one-man regiment in the habit of eating only when someone else was buying. I asked, “How come this place isn’t swamped with customers?”
Playmate awarded me one of his righteous, thoughtful looks. “Prejudice, Garrett.”
“Uh-hum?” It was testing time again. Playmate, who wanted to be a priest once, has to keep checking to make sure I stay more good guy than bad.
Forewarned, sure he was going to zing me by telling me the place was run by ratmen—whom I dislike more than I dislike horses, with, admittedly, weaker cause—I was pleasantly surprised when he told me, “It’s run by centaurs. A refugee family from the Cantard.”
“Where else?” Through a heroic effort I kept a straight face. “I can see how they might have trouble building a clientele.” Centaurs aren’t beloved. They’d long served Karenta’s forces as auxiliaries in the Cantard. But when the mercenary Glory Mooncalled defected and proclaimed the Cantard an independent republic, every centaur tribe joined him. Chances were this family had fought Karenta till recently. When things fell apart down there, where did they run? Straight to the cities of Karenta, whose soldiers they’d been killing.
I don’t understand why they’re welcomed. Sure, there’s room in the economy, what with all the young men gone for soldiers. But all those young men are going to be coming home. Venageta has been driven from the Cantard. Glory Mooncalled has been crushed. Sort of.
Centaurs. Bloody hell.
I kept my thoughts to myself, shifted subjects, told Playmate what I was doing for Maggie Jenn. I didn’t overlook such embarrassing adventures as my unexpected visit to the Bledsoe. Playmate wasn’t Winger. He wouldn’t spread it all over town. He smiled gently and forebore the opportunity to score a remark on the state of my mental health. That’s why I love the guy. None of my other friends could have resisted.
He asked, “What do you need from me?”
“Need? Nothing.”
“You come, brought me out here, fed me, and filled me up with beer, Garrett. You got to want something.”
“That stuff used to be funny, Playmate. About a thousand years ago. Ragging me for the fun, I can go along with that. For a while. But it’s gotten real old. I wish you guys would find a new song to sing.”
“You mean that?”
Butter wouldn’t have melted in my mouth. “Damned straight.” I was getting what I needed already, an uncritical ear and a break from loneliness.
“You just don’t realize,” he muttered. Louder, “In that case, maybe I can help.”
“Huh?”
“I know a little something about the witchcraft scene. I have clients who belong to that world.”
I was surprised. His religion, a self-defined offshoot of Orthodoxy, doesn’t hold much truck with witches. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about how big sorcery and demonism are in this burg. But I have a suspicion that religion isn’t supposed to make sense. If it did, there’d be no buyers.
This was Playmate showing off his tolerance again.
“All right. I’ll take you up on it. There any new covens around?”
“Of course. In a city this size, there are always covens forming and falling apart. Human nature, being what it is, there are always egos getting bruised and—”
“I understand. You heard of any in particular? Any that have been recruiting young women?”
“No.”
“Damn! So, that’s that. Well, then, tell me about Maggie Jenn. Morley tells me you’ve got the skinny on the royals.”
“Tell me what you already know.”
I highlighted.
He told me, “There isn’t much I can add. She did have a daughter. I thought the girl died but evidently not. Nobody’s proved it, but Maggie probably was a pricy pro before Teodoric took her up. Under a different name, of course. Morley was wrong about her being in exile. She does spend most of her time on the Isle of Paise, but that’s preference. She spends a month each year in the Hill place. If she doesn’t use it, she loses it. She does keep her head down when she’s in town. She doesn’t want her enemies to get too unhappy.”
I nodded, understanding. I signaled for more of that excellent house brew. I had enough inside me already that sounds had buzzes around their edges, but that superman Playmate hadn’t yet stumbled over his tongue.
“Grange Cleaver,” I said. “The Rainmaker. What about him?”
“Been a while since I’ve heard of him. Curious that he’s back in town.”
“Maybe. I think it has something to do with Maggie Jenn.”
“You be careful of him, Garrett. He’s crazy. Blood crazy. They called him the Rainmaker because he left so many weeping widows around. He was big into torture.”
“Just your average, everyday psycho next door. What was between him and Maggie Jenn?”
“I can’t swear. From the little I’ve heard, he could’ve been her pimp.”
“Her pimp?” I tried it out. “Her pimp.” That had a feel to it, all right.
I dropped some money in front of Playmate, for the house. “Enjoy. I’m going to go put my thinking cap on.”
Playmate divested himself of various remarks of the sort that have become fashionable among my acquaintances. I ignored him.
That last piece of news put a whole different weight on everything. Unless I was guessing way wrong.
It could happen.
Once bitten, twice shy? How often have I gotten nipped because I don’t have the sense to get out of this racket? Often enough that I no longer wander around without tools to defend myself. Often enough that I stay alert once somebody starts getting physical.
Despite a few ales too many, I spied the ambush on Macunado—mainly because the night traffic was missing. The denizens of my fair city can smell trouble at a thousand yards, like small game when a troll is prowling the woods.
So it was as rowdy as a desert ruin around my place. It was so quiet I had trouble picking out the ambushers.
I finally caught the stir of a shadow in a breezeway across Macunado. There was no way to sneak up from where I was, so I retreated, took a long way.
All of a sudden I felt cheerful, the prospect of cracking heads making me high. That wasn’t my way. The case was getting to me—if it was a case. I wasn’t convinced.
I came at the guy from behind, singing a ratman working song. Far as I know it’s the only working song they have, so few of them actually hold jobs—
Between the fake accent and fake drunken singing, my man was way off guard. He cussed me instead of getting set for trouble.
I staggered up and popped him between the eyes with my headthumper. He said “Gleep!” and stumbled backward, his knees watery. I grabbed his shirt, pushed him down onto his knees, slipped behind him, and laid the length of my stick under his chin. “All right, bruno, I lean back sudden and you find out what it’ll be like the day you hang.” I gave a little jerk to make my point. Also to keep him from getting too much air. He wouldn’t be interested in much else if I kept him on short rations. “Get the point?”
He got the point. He grunted cooperatively—after I’d cut him off for a while.
“Excellent. Now here’s the part where you tell me who sent you and how many buddies you have and where they’re hanging out.”
Give the guy credit. He was loyal to his pals. You don’t see a lot of that in street thugs. He made me take him to the brink of the big sleep before he gave in. That was right after I whispered, “I’ve always found that the best way to run a bluff is don’t be bluffing. You don’t help me out here I’ll just hunt me down another guy.”
I was bluffing.
He made noises indicating that I’d smooth-talked him into cooperating. I eased off on the stick. “Maybe you better talk on the exhale. Or I might get edgy. You guys messing with me last night got my dander up.”
Wham! I quick thumped him for thinking about what he was thinking of trying. “So who sent you?” I went back to choking him.
“Cleafer,” he gasped. “Guy named Cleafer.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered. “He happen to say why?”
Grunt and choke. Meant no, and who gave a damn why anyway? This Cleafer was paying real money.
“How may pals you got with you?”
Seven. Seven? “I’m flattered. This Cleafer must have a high opinion of me.” I have a high opinion of me, but my enemies don’t usually agree.
My man made sounds indicating he couldn’t have agreed less. I took that to mean that he was recovering too fast. I popped him again.
I get less nice as I get older.
We chewed the fat till I knew where his buddies were hiding and I understood their grand strategy, which was to round me up and drag me off to their boss’s hideout. Friendly Grange Cleaver, pre-owned property salesman, wanted to have a chat.
“Yeah. I like that idea. We’ll do that. Only maybe we won’t stick too close to the original scheme.”
I popped the guy again, hard enough to put him to sleep. He was going to have a headache worse than the one his gang had given me.
Funny. I didn’t feel bad about that.
So I went around pounding the stuffings out of guys till thumping heads no longer made me feel better. I wondered what folks on the shadow side would say when word got around. After the usual exaggerations, it might start worrying the kind of people who get in my way.
Nobody would believe it, probably. Everybody thinks I use Morley Dotes for all my heavy work.
I rounded up the smallest thug, a bit of a guy so tiny he had to be a breed. I slung him over my shoulder and headed for the Joy House.
Sometimes you can use a helping hand.
Morley tousled the little fellow’s hair. “He’s mad, Garrett. This is one you’d better not leave behind.” We were in Morley’s office upstairs at the Joy House. The veggie killers were rioting downstairs.
“And after I decided to give him a break. Any of those guys related to you, Stubby? Your lover or something?”
The little breed glared.
“I like this guy.” Morley frowned at Spud, who was sizing the prisoner up for some painful burns.
“What?” the kid demanded.
“He’s still officially a guest.”
“Sure. And if I was here with a guy who’d just offed my whole gang but me I think I’d be a little more disturbed. Look at that fool. He’s already sizing us up for some pain when it’s him that’s in the shit.”
“Narcisio! Language!”
“He’s got a point, Morley,” I said. “The clown ought to be more scared.”
“He’s going to be, Garrett. It’s just that he’s from out of town.”
I agreed. “How can you tell?” I wanted to see if his thinking paralleled mine.
“Because he isn’t scared. Look, now he’s got an idea who has him. He’s starting to tense up. They didn’t tell him anything when they gave him the job. They just put money in his pocket and told him to help with a snatch.”
“I do believe you’re right.” I tried out a ferocious smile, like the guys from the violent ward would wear if they were sent out to play.
Morley was right. The little guy had heard of Morley Dotes even if he hadn’t heard of me. He squeaked. Maybe Winger was right about reputation’s tool value.
“I do believe he has a notion to deal,” Morley observed.
“So,” I said. “You want to be lucky number seven, the one who got away, or just another stiff?”
“Lucky seven sounds great to me.”
“Look at that. He kept his sense of humor, Morley. I think that’s great. All right, Lucky, what was the plan?” I told Morley, “Be a shame to let it go to waste.”
Morley flashed a humorless grin. “Best thinking you’ve done in years.” He was ready to go. I’d been surprised by how quickly he’d agreed to help. I recalled the glances between him and Sarge and Puddle. Was there old business between them and the Rainmaker?
I worry when Morley gets agreeable. I always end up getting jobbed.
“How much are you ready to spend, Garrett?”
I considered my agreement with Maggie Jenn, then the size of my advance. “Not much. You have something in mind?”
“Recall the Rainmaker’s reputation. We could use some specialists to calm him down if he gets excited.”
“Specialists?” Here comes a sales pitch. “Like who?”
“The Roze triplets.” Naturally. Perennially underemployed relatives.
Specialists I wouldn’t call them, but those guys could calm people down. Doris and Marsha were about sixteen feet tall and could lay out a mammoth with one punch. Part giant, part troll, the only way to beat them was to booby-trap their resolve with barrels of beer. They’d drop anything to get drunk.
The third triplet was an obnoxious little geek barely Morley’s size good for nothing but translating for his brothers.
“No, Morley. This is a freak show already. I just want to talk to the guy, find out why he’s messing with me.”
Morley stared at Lucky. “Garrett, Garrett, just when I thought you were developing sense. You don’t talk to the Rainmaker. All he understands is raw power. Either you can kick his ass or he can kick yours. Unless he’s changed his spots in a big way.”
I grimaced.
“What?”
“My budget is pretty tight.”
“Big news, big news.”
“Hey!”
“There you go getting cheap again, Garrett. You want to save money? Don’t bug the Rainmaker. Just lock your door and snuggle up to your moneybags and hope he can’t think of a way to get to you. After tonight, he’ll be trying for real.”
I knew that. Cleaver sounded like he was all ego and no restraint. All the reason he needed I’d already provided.
What a dummy, Garrett. Your troubles are all your own fault. You should try a little harder to get along.
I mused, “How did he know I was out of the Bledsoe?”
Morley and Spud perked up, smelling a tale not yet told. I had to yield enough sordid details to get them off my back. Which was way more than I wanted anyone to know, really. “I get any razzing back off the street I’m going to know where to lay the blame.”
“Yes.” Morley gave me his nasty smile. “Winger.” That smile turned diabolical. He saw he’d guessed right. I hadn’t thought about who knew the story already.
What Winger knew could spread from river to wall in a night. She liked to hang out with the guys, get drunk and swap tall tales. The story would grow into a monster before she was done with it.
I said, “You really feel like we need the Rozes, get the Rozes.”
“You gave me a better idea.”
“Well?”
“Use those clowns you have stashed at your place. Make them earn their keep. You said the big one owes Cleaver anyway.”
“That’s an idea. Lucky, what direction are we going to head?”
Morley added, “Keeping in mind that I’ll be a lot deadlier a lot quicker than Cleaver if Garrett is disappointed.”
“West.” The little fellow’s croak contained undertones of frightened whine. I didn’t blame him. He was in the proverbial between of the rock and the hard place.
“West is good,” I said. “West means we can drop by my place on the way.”
I assumed Lucky’s buddies would have cleared off.
Morley and his bunch looked unexcited by this opportunity. They’re villains, though, and no villain in his right mind got within mind reading range of the Dead Man. However strong my assurances that he was asleep.
“His bark is worse than his bite,” I said.
“Right,” Sarge sneered. Puddle and Morley backed him up. Spud took that as his cue to ape his elders. I gave up.
I found Ivy in the small front room arguing with the Goddamn Parrot. The Goddamn Parrot was making more sense. Beer and brandy odors were potent. Which had drunk more? Who knows? The Goddamn Parrot would suck it up as long as you let him.
Ivy seemed determined to clean me out before he got kicked out. I told him, “You’d better ease up or there won’t be anything left for breakfast.”
Ivy looked distressed. You could see him struggling to light a fire under the pot of his thoughts. I doubted he’d get them simmering. He did seem to grasp the notion that my alcohol reserves were finite.
“Where’s Slither?” The big guy was nowhere in sight. There was a racket from upstairs, but nothing human could be making that.
I could see through the open kitchen doorway. The view set me to talking to myself. Friend Slither was trying to do to my larder what Ivy was doing to my drinking supply.
So much for good deeds.
They start preaching at you when you’re barely old enough to walk. But what the hell happens when you do try to help your fellow man? You get it up the poop chute every time. Without grease.
Where do the preachers get their crazy ideas? How many cheeks do they have to turn? How come they aren’t hobbling around with bandages on their butts?
“Where’s Slither?” I demanded again.
Ivy answered with a slow shrug. I don’t think he understood anything but my tone. He started trying to explain Orthodox transcircumstantiation to the Goddamn Parrot. The Goddamn Parrot made remarks with which I agreed.
I commenced a quest for Slither. Snores from above seemed worth investigation.
Slither was sprawled across Dean’s bed, on his back, his snores like the bellows of mating thunder-lizards. Awe held me immobile. The man couldn’t be human. He had to be a demigod. He was producing an orchestra of snores, humming and roaring and snorting and sputtering. He seemed capable of combining every known species of snore. All in the same breath.
When I could move again I went to my own room. I hate to disturb an artist at work. I shut my door, went to the window, checked Morley and his crew and the ever astonishing traffic on Macunado. Where could all those creatures be going? What drove them to be out at this hour? Was just my neighborhood in a ferment? I couldn’t recall seeing as much traffic anywhere else—though the whole city seemed crowded these days.
I could hear Slither’s every snore. I’d hear every snore plainly for however long he remained in my house.
So much for doing good deeds.
Morely gave the boys a glance and said nothing. He did shake his head. Even I now wondered if they hadn’t made it all up about their service. Especially Ivy. He had the Goddamned Parrot on his shoulder. It mixed its finest gutter observations with declarations of, “Awrrgh, matey! We be ferocious pirates.” That naturally drew a lot of attention. Just the thing you want when you’re out to sneak up on a guy calls himself the Rainmaker.
My prisoner indicated a brick and stone monstrosity he insisted was the Rainmaker’s headquarters. Dotes opined, “You get what you pay for, Garrett.” His glance speared Ivy and Slither. “You didn’t pay for the Roze brothers.”
“Don’t remind me.” Slither was awake but might as well have been snoring. It was winter at his house. Ivy was still trying to argue with the Goddamn Parrot. The feathered devil figured he’d sorted Ivy out already and had turned to reminiscing about his sailing days.
Morley tossed a glance sideways, checking to see how near Spud was. He flexed his fingers like he suffered the same temptations I did. “Go ahead,” I said.
He scowled. “Can’t. But I’ll figure a way.”
I said, “The course of our relationship has shown me a few things about dear Mr. Big.” More cunning than usual, having foreseen the possibility that the Goddamn Parrot might become a liability, I’d brought a little flask of brandy I’d dug out of a cache Ivy hadn’t found.
Morley snickered. So, he knew. I said, “We need to keep Ivy away long enough to get the bird snockered.”
“He was a scout, send him scouting. Along with Spud.”
“You sneak.” I looked at Cleaver’s place. “What did they do to the guy who designed that place?” The building had been a small factory once. Undoubtedly manned by the blind. It was ugly. I was amazed that so much ugliness could be committed with simple construction materials.
“Probably burned him at the stake because they couldn’t think of a punishment nasty enough to fit the crime.” Dotes chuckled. He was going to have some fun with me playing high-nose elf.
His tastes in art and architecture naturally weren’t human. For all I knew, the lunatic who designed that factory was one of his forebears.
I expressed that opinion and added, “It may be on the elvish list of historic structures.”
Morley scowled. He wasn’t pleased. He grabbed Spud and Ivy and told them to go check the place out. “And leave the bird here. It doesn’t have sense enough to keep its beak shut.”
Off they went. The rest of us got out of sight and listened to Cleaver’s man bitch because I hadn’t cut him loose yet. “I’m busy, man,” I told him. “I’m feeding my parrot.” The Goddamn Parrot was sucking up the brandy. “I’ll cut you loose as soon as I know you didn’t job us.” I didn’t think he had. Nobody sane would pick such an ugly hideout. Cleaver did sound like he had the kind of ego that would appreciate the place.
Ivy and Spud scurried back. The kid said, “The place is occupied. I didn’t ask names, though. The guys I did see looked antisocial enough to be the sort Mr. Garrett wants to find.”
I didn’t want to find anybody. “You been giving him lessons?”
“It’s in the blood. Needs to work on his diction and grammar, though.”
“Definitely. Smartass ought to know how to talk good.”
“Can I go now?” the prisoner asked.
Spud demanded, “What happened to Mr. Big? Hey! He’s drunk. Uncle Morley, did you? . . . ”
“No, Lucky,” I said. “I still don’t know you didn’t job us. Suppose you just led us to a place where some hard boys hang out?”
Morley opined, “That monstrosity is the kind a fence would use. Plenty of storage. Probably an owner who hasn’t been seen in years. No traceable connection to anyone if you looked for one. You going to do it?”
I considered my help. Neither Ivy nor Slither incited confidence. “Looks like we’re as ready as we’re gonna get. Any tactical suggestions?”
“Straight through the front door might work.”
“Wise ass. Slither, Ivy, come on.” I trotted toward that monument to ugliness. My strange assistants toddled after, bewildered but loyal. Morley told Sarge to stick with us, just in case. He came himself. So Spud and Puddle volunteered, too. Spud was protesting, “Mr. Garrett, you shouldn’t give Mr. Big alcohol.”
What I always wanted to do: storm a fortress at the head of a pack of killer elves, fugitives from an insane asylum, and a drunken parrot.
The Goddamn Parrot was muttering something about its imperiled virtue but in Drunkenese so fluent even a tipsy ratman would have had trouble following him.
Spud said, “Uncle Morley, did you? . . . ”
“Be quiet.”
I looked at that jungle chicken and grinned like a dwarf just awarded an army weapons contract.
The place was ugly, but it was no fortress. We found an unguarded side door. I cracked the crude stopper and invited us in. Dean should’ve been there to see how much good locks do.
“Dark in here,” Ivy said. What did he expect?
He sounded troubled, like somebody wasn’t playing fair.
“Crackbrain’s got one sharp eye on him,” Sarge sneered. “Goddamn Rainmaker can’t fool him for a secont.”
“That’s enough,” Morley snapped. He peered around. Elves really can see in the dark, almost as good as dwarves.
“What you see?” I whispered. We all whispered. Seemed the sensible thing to do.
“What you would expect.”
What kind of answer was that? What I’d expect was filth and squatters and a lot of upset on account of the style of our entrance. But only the rats seemed disturbed—and they were so confident they just went through the motions.
According to Spud, the natives resided on the other side of the building. And so they did. Mostly.
We were sneaking along a hallway illuminated by one halfhearted candle, me thinking what a cheapskate the Rainmaker had to be, when some sleepy-eyed goof ruined everything.
He stepped out of a room just ahead, both hands harrowing hair already well-harvested by time. He woke up fast, generated one man-sized squeal before I bopped him with my second-best headthumper. He squealed even louder. I had to pop him four times before he laid down.
“That tears it,” Slither muttered. It was hard to hear him because of the racket being raised by people I couldn’t see wanting to know what the hell was going on.
“Never mind the opinion survey. You know this place?”
“Never seen it before.”
“Thought you said . . . ”
“Never was here. That I remember.”
The hall hung a right. I stayed with it. I met a native coming the other way. He had a stick, too. His eyes got big. So did mine. I swung first. He ducked, showed me some heel, whooped and hollered.
“You could have moved a little faster there, Garrett,” Morley suggested. The racket ahead grew louder. Morley was concerned.
The fugitive blew through a doorway. I was only two steps behind, but when I got there the door was closed and locked. I flung one granite shoulder against it. It gave about a thousandth of an inch.
“You do it.” Morley indicated Slither. “Stop whimpering, Garrett.”
“I dislocated everything but my ankle bones.”
Slither knocked on the door with his very large feet, smashing away numerous times before he risked his own tender shoulder.
The door exploded like stage furniture. Guess you have to have the knack.
We’d reached the warehouse area. Only a few lamps burned there. Definitely a cheapskate, the Rainmaker. Looked like the place was being used as a barracks. People flew around like startled mice, headed for other exits. Only the guys from the hall looked like fighters.
Curious.
Amidst the howl and chaos I glimpsed a familiar gargoyle, my old pal Ichabod. Excuse me. My old pal Zeke. Zeke did a fast fade. I went after him. We needed to have a talk. My pretty Maggie Jenn had troubles enough without her butler being hooked up with the Rainmaker.
I didn’t find a trace. He vanished like the spook he resembled.
We searched the dump. We found no sign of Grange Cleaver. We caught only three people—the guy from the hall who I’d bopped, plus an old couple who hadn’t reached their walkers in time to grab a head start.
The old woman was about a week younger than Handsome. Her husband and the thug showed little inclination to talk, but she chattered like she was so full of words they ripped out of her like gas after an unfriendly meal.
“Whoa, granny, whoa!” She’d lost me in some kind of twin track complaint that blamed her lumbago on the incredible ingratitude of her willfully neglectful children. “That’s unfortunate. It really is. But what I need to know is where is Grange Cleaver?”
“You might try to be more diplomatic,” Morley suggested. Like he had the patience of a saint when he was after something.
“I was diplomatic the first three times. I did my part. Now I’m not in the mood for diplomacy, I’m in the mood for busting heads.”
I didn’t do it good enough. Nobody was impressed until Spud let his young mouth run too long and the bad folks figured out that they were in the hands of the infamous Morley Dotes. Then, even the hard boy developed a mild case of cooperation fever.
Yep, maybe Winger was right.
Fat lot of good that all did. Granny Yak-Yak had the definitive answer and the definitive answer was: “He just went out, him and his boys. He never said where, but I figure he was gonna check on some guys he sent out a long time ago. He paid them and they never reported back.” She laid a hard look on pal Lucky.
Lucky looked a tad frayed. The old folks understood whose information had brought us to uglyville. He was growing concerned about his boss’s temper.
Morley spun him around. “Cleaver brought you from out of town. He do that with a lot of men, Lucky?”
Lucky gave us the daggers glare. We were leaving him no exit. “Yeah.” Sullenly. He thought we were cheating on our end of the deal. Maybe we were. Tough.
“Why?”
“I guess on account of he couldn’t find anybody here what was willing to work for him. ’Specially after they found out who he was when he was here before. Way I hear it, he made him some enemies back then what nobody wants to piss off.”
I gave Morley a look. Some people might consider him major bad news, but he wasn’t big enough bad news that his displeasure would intimidate thugs working for somebody he didn’t like. I didn’t think. “Chodo,” I said. Call it intuition.
Morley nodded, “There was a little brother who died badly. Chodo was way down the ladder then. He couldn’t get the go-ahead. But he didn’t forget.”
Not once in his life had Chodo Contague let a debt go unpaid. “But . . . ”
“You and I know. No one else does.”
He and I knew that Chodo had become a vegetable after suffering a stroke. These days, his daughter was the power in the outfit. She only pretended to take instructions from her father.
“Crask and Sadler.” Those two knew, too.
Morley inclined his head slightly. “They might explain a few things.”
Crask and Sadler had been Chodo’s chief bone-breakers before they turned on him, caused his stroke, tried to take over. They disappeared after Chodo’s daughter outmaneuvered them.
Coincidentally, there’d always been some doubt about their commitment to masculinity, despite the fact that they were two human mountains on the hoof.
I described them. Lucky’s discomfort made it obvious he had met the boys. I shot Morley a look. “I don’t need any more complications.”
Morley prodded Lucky. Lucky admitted, “You won’t see them guys around here. Grange, he’s got a straight look to him back home. Didn’t want them guys turning up in his public life. Figured they’d be lightning rods for trouble around here. So he gave them jobs in Suddleton.”
Where, I had no doubt, they spent their spare time scheming revenge on me. “Morley, you get the feeling pal Lucky is holding out? He knows an awful lot about the Rainmaker’s business.”
“I noticed that.”
Lucky protested. “I just heard his regular guys gossiping. You know how it is, guys sitting around, killing time drinking.”
“Sure. Tell me, Lucky, where you going to run when we cut you loose?”
Lucky checked the old folks, shrugged. He was scared. They weren’t, though the old woman had chattered. I wondered if they were something special to the Rainmaker.
I was about to ask about Zeke when Morley remarked, “We’ve spent enough time here, Garrett. Help could be on its way.”
Yes, indeed. It could be.
“You just walk along with us, answer a couple more questions,” I told Lucky and the old folks, “and we’ll be done.” I gestured, a comealong. “There was a guy named Zeke . . . ”
The Goddamn Parrot did the only worthwhile thing I ever saw him do. He flailed out of the darkness shrieking, “Save me! Oh, save me, mister.” His tone suggested he wasn’t just being obnoxious.
He wasn’t.
There were eight of them. Wasn’t hardly fair to them, even considering they were all big, experienced villains. Sarge and Puddle pounded our captives, then vaulted the leftovers and began twisting limbs. There was something evilly fascinating about them at work. It was kind of like watching a snake swallow a toad.
I didn’t have time to be fascinated. I was up to my crotch in crocodiles. I held them off till help arrived.
Morley and Spud flew around like they were part of some absurd combat ballet. Mr. Big flapped and squawked. He made more racket than a herd of peafowl. His vocabulary achieved new lows. Puddle, Sarge, Slither, Ivy, and Cleaver’s thugs tried to help him expand that but had nothing to teach him.
Four brunos took quick dives.
I’ve heard people that’ve never been there claim it’s impossible to lay somebody out with your fists. That’s true for your average drunken amateur who gets into it with his brother-in-law at the corner tavern but not so for the unrestrained violence of professionals.
Puddle developed a bloody nose. Spud managed to get kicked in the funny bone. He leaned against a wall clutching his elbow, face pale, language vile. Such a look Morley gave him.
“Kill them, damnit! Kill them all!” The girlish voice slashed through the mayhem. “Stop playing with them and kill them!”
I spotted a short guy screaming from what he thought was a safe distance. Cleaver? The Rainmaker himself?
Morley spotted him. Cleaver’s brunos were coming to the conclusion that it was not a bright idea to piss off guys who could handle them so easily. They didn’t follow orders. Morley grinned and headed for the Rainmaker.
I was on my way already.
The Rainmaker, however, did not care to join the party.
That little bastard could run!
Naturally, our whole crowd dropped everything and lumbered after us, with predictable results. The Rainmaker vanished down the same rabbithole that had swallowed Zeke. His people grabbed up each others’ parts and headed for the exits. Suddenly, we had us nothing but one big empty building and one hysterical parrot. And, according to Morley, “The Guard’s on its way.”
“You could be right.” These days, people actually called for official help. These days, the police forces sometimes actually responded.
Morley snapped, “Narcisio, catch that faggot pigeon and shut it up.” Mr. Big was no joke right then.
I checked to see if all our people could leave under their own power. No major injuries. Workable legs were available. It was brains that were in short supply.
Slither and Ivy helped round up the GDP. Mr. Big made it easy. He flew into a wall full speed, cold-cocked himself.
Pity he didn’t break his neck.
I considered wringing it and blaming it on the bird’s own erratic piloting, but Spud kept too close an eye on the beast.
As we hustled into the street, I asked Slither, “That short guy was Cleaver, wasn’t it? The shrimp with the girl voice?”
Morley seemed intensely interested in Slither’s reply. Could it be he’d never seen Cleaver before?
“Yeah. That was him. That hunk a shit. I’da caught the little turd I’da turned him into a capon. Put me in the bughouse. I’da used my bare hands. Twisted ‘em off. I’da fixed him.” But he was shaking. He was pale. He was sweating. Rock-throwing range was as close to Grange Cleaver as he wanted to get.
Cleaver must be some swell guy.
I checked Ivy. Ivy didn’t have an opinion. Ivy was all wrapped up in his feathery buddy.
Morley opined, “Cleaver is going to turn scarce now.”
“Think so?”
“His being in town is no secret now, Garrett. A lot of people who don’t like him will hear. And he’ll have a good idea how many enemies he has once he gets together with Lucky.”
“Think he’ll leave town?”
“No. But he would if he had the sense the gods gave a goose. You going to have another chat with Winger?”
Guess who was hiding in the shadows outside when we came thundering out. “You saw her, eh?”
“I saw her.”
We cleared the area before the Guard arrived. Safely away, I checked our surroundings more carefully. No more sign of my oversize blond friend. Maybe she wasn’t interested anymore.
“You need to get her to talk, Garrett.”
“I know. I know. But I want to let her come in when she’s ready.” I wondered why Winger wasn’t off looking out for Chastity Blaine.
Morley made no mention so I supposed he’d missed the other watcher, the character who’d followed me to Maggie Jenn’s place.
I was confused. Nothing made sense.
It wasn’t going to get any better.
“Don’t wait too long,” Morley told me. “Two tries in two nights means the Rainmaker is serious.”
“Seriously disturbed.” Cleaver’s enmity made the least sense of all. “Yeah. With that thought in mind, I’m going home and get some shut-eye.”
Spud had the Goddamn Parrot. He kept whispering to the fancy pants little drunk. I tried to ease away before anyone noticed. Morley grinned and shook his head. “No, you don’t. Narcisio.”
My luck stays stuck in the same old rut.
Slither surprised me. He was a decent cook, which I learned when I stumbled down for breakfast, after having been rousted out by Ivy, who must have caught something Dean had left behind.
“You have to loosen up, Ivy,” I grumbled as I toddled into the kitchen. “This isn’t the service. We don’t have to haul out before the goddamn crack of noon.”
“My daddy always told me a man’s got no call lying in bed after the birds start singing.”
Inertia more than self-restraint kept me from expressing my opinion of that perverted delusion.
One songbird was wide awake up front, rendering chorus after chorus of such old standards as, “There was a young lady from . . . ” I wondered if Dean still had some of that rat poison that looked like seed cakes. The rats were too smart to eat it, but that bird . . .
“You’re working on a job, aren’t you?” Slither was still vague about what I do.
“The mission,” Ivy mumbled. “Old first rule, Garrett. Even a jarhead ought to know. Got to follow through on the mission.”
“Watch that jarhead stuff, Army. All right. All right.” Good old attitudes from the bad old days. But was the mission more likely to be advanced at sunrise than at high noon? Excuse me for entertaining doubts.
I wondered if they had noticed the changes in TunFaire. Probably not. Neither was in close touch with the world outside his skull.
I surrendered. “I guess we can hit Wixon and White.”
At the moment, the occult shop was my only angle. Mugwump had not yet materialized with the promised list of contacts.
Slither’s cooking would have appalled Dean and sent Morley into convulsions. He fried half a slab of bacon while baking drop biscuits. He split the biscuits and soaked them in bacon grease, then sprinkled them with sugar. Poor people food. Soldier food. Food that was darned tasty when it was hot.
It had rained during the night. The morning air was cool. The breeze was fresh. The streets were clean. The sky was clear. The sun was bright. It was one of those days when it was too easy to relax, too easy to forget that a brighter sun means darker shadows.
Fortunately, even the shadows were relaxing. Not a one belched a villain bent on mischief. The whole town was in a rare humor. Hell, I heard singing from the Bustee.
It wouldn’t last. Before sundown, the wicked would be slashing throats again.
We did develop a following, including the inept creature who had followed me to Maggie Jenn’s place and a guy with an earring who was maybe a ferocious pirate, but I doubted that.
Even Ivy noticed the clumsy guy.
“Let them tag along,” I said. “They’ll go cross-eyed. What I do is excruciating to watch. Not to mention tough on the feet.”
“Be like being back in the Corps,” Slither observed.
Ivy had the Goddamned Parrot with him. That obscene buzzard had a great time. “Holy hookers, check them melons. Oh. Look it there. Come here, honey. I’ll show you . . . ” We were lucky his diction was sloppy.
The streets were crowded. Everybody wanted a lungful of rain-scrubbed air before TunFaire returned to normal. The old and weak would be falling over left and right. All that fresh air would be poisonous.
Before we reached the West End, I spotted another tail. This guy was a first-string pro. I made him by accident, my good luck and his bad. I didn’t know him. That troubled me. I thought I knew the top players.
It was quite a parade.
Wixon and White were open. I told Ivy, “You stay out here. You’re the lookout.” I went inside. Slither followed me. I wished I was as bad as I tried to look.
Both Wixon and White were on board, but no other crew or passengers were. “Bless me,” I murmured, pleased to have something go my way. And, “Bless me again. More fierce pirates.”
The guys eyeballed us and took just an instant to decide we weren’t the sort of customers they hoped to attract. Neither mislaid his manners, though. Neither failed to notice that between us Slither and I outnumbered them by two hundred pounds.
“How might we help you?” one asked. He made me think of a begging chipmunk. He had a slight over-bite and the obligatory lisp. He held his soft little hands folded before his chest.
“Robin! . . . ”
“Penny, you just hush. Sir?”
I said, “I’m looking for somebody.”
“Aren’t we all?” Big smile. A corsair comedian.
Penny thought it was funny. Penny tittered.
Slither scowled. Garrett scowled. The boys got real quiet. Robin looked past us, toward the street, as though he hoped the answer to his dilemma might show up out there.
“I’m looking for a girl. A specific girl. Eighteen. Red hair. So tall. Freckles, probably. Put together so nice even fierce pirates might take a second look and maybe shed a tear about choices made. Probably going by either Justina or Emerald Jenn.”
The guys stared. My magic touch had turned them into halfwits.
Outside, Ivy told a dowager type that the shop was closed, only for a little while. She tried to disagree. The Goddamn Parrot took exception and began screeching crude propositions.
I moved around the shop, fingering whatever looked expensive. The boys had a lot of square feet and plenty of bizarre furnishings. “That description ring any bells?” I couldn’t read their reaction. Its schooled neutrality gave nothing away.
Penny sneered, “Should it?” I could tell him from Robin only by the size of his mustache. Otherwise, they could have passed as twins. A strong strain of narcissism united these wild and woolly buccaneers.
“I think it’s likely.” I described the black magic stuff I’d found in Emerald’s rooms. My descriptions were faultless. The Dead Man taught me well. Those studied neutral faces betrayed teensy cracks.
Penny for sure knew what I was talking about. Robin probably did. Robin was a better faker.
“Excellent. You guys know the items. Presumably, you provided them. So tell me to who.” I picked up a gorgeous dagger of ruby glass. Some true artist had spent months shaping and carving and polishing it. It was one beautiful, diabolic ceremonial masterpiece.
“I wouldn’t tell you even if . . . Stop that!”
The dagger almost slipped from my fingers.
“What? You were going to say even if you knew what I was talking about? But you would tell me, Penny. You’d tell me anything. I’m not nice. My friend isn’t as nice as I am.” I flipped the dagger, barely caught it. The boys shuddered. They couldn’t take their eyes off that blade. It had to be worth a fortune. “Boys, I’m that guy in your nightmares. I’m the guy behind the mask. The guy who’d use a priceless glass ceremonial dagger to play mumbletypeg on a tempered oak floor. The guy who’ll vandalize you into bankruptcy. Unless you talk to me.”
I put the dagger down, collected a book. At first glance it seemed old and ordinary, shy any occult symbols. No big thing, I thought, till the boys started squeaking answers to questions I hadn’t asked.
They babbled about the man who’d bought the stuff I’d described. Puzzled, I examined the book. And still saw nothing special.
Why had it loosened their tongues so?
Its title was The Raging Blades. That made it the central volume of the semi-fictional saga trilogy No Ravens Went Hungry. The Raging Blades was preceded by The Steel-Game and followed by The Battle-Storm. The whole related the glamorized story of an historical character named Eagle, who plundered and murdered his way across two continents and three seas nearly a millenium ago. By today’s standards, the man was a total villain. Friend or foe, everyone eventually regretted knowing him. By the standards of his own time, he’d been a great hero simply because he’d lived a long time and prospered. Even today, they say, kids in Busivad province want to grow up to be another Eagle.
I asked, “Might this be an early copy?” Early copies are scarce.
The boys redoubled their babble. What was this? They were ready to confess to murder.
“Let me check this. You say a man with red hair, some gray, green eyes, freckles, short. Definitely male?” Nods left me with one theory deader than an earthworm in the noonday sun. Not even these rowdy reever types would mistake Maggie Jenn for a man. “Around forty, not eighteen?” That fit no one I’d encountered so far, unless maybe that nasty runt in the warehouse. “And you don’t have any idea who he was?” I hadn’t caught the colors of Cleaver’s hair and eyes. “You know anything about him?”
“No.”
“We don’t know anything.”
Eyes stayed stuck to that book while their owners tried to pretend everything was cool.
“He paid cash? He came in, looked around, picked out what he wanted, paid without quibbling about inflated prices? And when he left, he carried his purchases himself?”
“Yes.”
“A peasant, indeed.” Smiling, I put the book down. “You see? You can be a help when you want. You just need to take an interest.” Both men sighed when I stepped away from their treasure. I asked, “You don’t recall anything that would connect all that junk together?” It had seemed of a sort to me when I’d seen it, but what did I know about demon stuff? Mostly, I don’t want to know.
I got headshakes.
“Everything had its silver star with a goat’s head inside.”
Penny insisted, “That’s generic demon worship stuff. Our stock is mass-produced by dwarves. We buy it in bulk. It’s junk with almost no intrinsic or occult value. It isn’t fake, but it doesn’t have any power, either.” He waved a hand. I stepped to a display box filled with medallions like the one I’d found in Justina’s suite.
“You know the girl I described?”
Headshakes again. Amazing.
“And you’re sure you don’t know the man who bought the stuff?”
More of that old shaka-shaka.
“You have no idea where I might find this guy?”
They were going to make themselves dizzy.
“I might as well go, then.” I beckoned to Slither.
Wixon and White ran for their lives for their back room. I don’t know what they thought I meant to do next. Nothing pleasant. They slammed the door. It was a stout one. We heard a heavy bar slam into place. Slither grinned as he followed me outside.
Slither glanced back. “How come you didn’t push them harder? You seen how they sweated, ’specially when you was messing with that book.”
“Sometimes I take the indirect approach. Ivy, wait right here. Whistle if anybody comes snooping.” Right here was the end of a breezeway that led to the skinny alley behind Wixon and White.
The shop had no back window. Surprise, surprise. Even in the best parts of town there are few windows at ground level. You tempt fate as seldom as possible.
The place did have a rear door, though. And that wasn’t much more secure than a window. I wondered what the boys did that they needed a sneak-out door. Was that how they handled customer complaints?
That back door led to the room whither the boys had fled. It did little to muffle their argument.
“ . . . could you have been thinking of, leaving it lay out like that?”
“I forgot it. All right?”
“You forgot it. You forgot it. I don’t believe this.”
“He didn’t think anything about it. You saw that. All he cared about is where the Jenn chit is.”
“Then why couldn’t you tell him and get him out? He has to be suspicious, the way you were . . . ”
“I didn’t tell him because I don’t know, love. She hasn’t been seen since her mother came to town.”
Well, well, well.
“Stop worrying about the damned book. A thug like that can’t read his own stupid name.”
Slither said, “Garrett . . . ”
I waved him off, listened as hard as I could. I had to fill in here and there, from context, to get everything.
Me and the occult corsairs were going to have another talk.
“Garrett!”
“Wait a minute!”
An unfamiliar voice observed, “You guys better be ratmen trash hogs in disguise because if you ain’t . . . ”
“Which one you want I should eat first, Garrett?”
“ . . . if you ain’t, you’re gonna be going outa here on a trash wagon.” This sweet-talker was the spokesman for five thugs in slapdash butternut costume. I assumed that was the uniform of the neighborhood watch. I did mention how peaceful and confident the area seemed? Getting old and slow. I’d forgotten that, then I’d failed to stay alert.
They’d come from the direction Ivy wasn’t covering.
I heard no more conversation behind the alley door. Naturally.
“Which one first?” Slither asked again. He was hot to go and sure he could handle them all. They weren’t big guys and they all had bellies that hung over their belts. They had mean little pig eyes. Slither’s growling got the boss pig thinking. He got a look like he thought maybe Slither could follow through.
Didn’t seem like the best time to get into a fight. I still had a bottle of Miracle Milt’s Doc Dread magic getaway juice. Last one. I whistled so Ivy would know something was up, then slammed the bottle into the bricks at the toes of the guardians of order.
I was lucky. The bottle broke.
A nasty dark stain spread like something alive. And nothing else happened. The brunos didn’t twitch. They understood that something was supposed to happen. They didn’t want to get it started.
I grabbed Slither’s arm. “Time to take a hike.”
A thin feather of mist curled up off the bricks. Well, better late than never. Only it leaned toward me, the one guy moving.
Slither said, “Aw, Garrett. Do I have to? Can’t I just bust up one or two?”
“Go right ahead. But you’re on your own. I’m leaving.” The streamer of mist reached farther toward me.
I exercised my philosophy of discretion swiftly and with great enthusiasm. I grabbed Ivy as I flew out of the breezeway. That startled the Goddamn Parrot into one of his more memorable sermons.
Slither must have had an epiphany because he was stomping on my heels.
The Wixon and White street door was locked. The closed sign stood in the window, supported by drawn shades. I had a feeling the boys wouldn’t answer if I knocked.
I said, “We’ll check back after those characters start thinking we’ve forgotten them. Right now, we’ll find the weather friendlier in another part of town.” I could see several butternut outfits. They weren’t easily overlooked since all normal traffic had deserted the street. Way it goes in TunFaire.
We moved out as fast as Ivy would travel with that idiot bird. The butternut brunos were content to let us take our trouble elsewhere.
After a while, I asked, “Slither, you know why I like working alone?”
“Huh? No. How come?”
“On account of when I’m working alone, there’s nobody around to call me by name in front of people I don’t want to know. Not even one time, let alone four.”
He thought about that and eventually concluded that I was peeved. “Say! That was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Why shield the man’s feelings? That kind of mistake can be fatal.
On the other hand, the butternuts had no reason to keep after me. They had run me off before my pockets filled with doodads they doubtless felt only they had the right to pilfer. They could beat their chests and tell the merchants association they were mighty hunters and protectors.
I couldn’t see the swashbucklers pursuing the matter. All they cared about was that book. I growled, “Shut up, you mutant pigeon.”
I wondered about the book. I’d read all three volumes of No Ravens Went Hungry, waiting around at the library. What set the story in motion was a dynastic squabble among mobs of people who were all related somehow. The prize was an almost nominal kingship over a loose association of barbarian clans. Not one person in the whole saga was the sort you’d ask into your home. This hero, this thug Eagle, murdered more than forty people during his life.
No Ravens Went Hungry was based on actual events that marinated in the oral tradition a few centuries before being recorded.
I hadn’t enjoyed it, partly because no likable people were involved, but more because the author had felt a duty to name every player’s antecedents and cousins and offspring and, likewise, those of everyone they ever murdered or married. After a while, it got hard to keep track of all the Thoras, Thoralfs, Thorolfs, Thorolds, Thords, Thordises, Thorids, Thorirs, Thorins, Thorarins, Thorgirs, Thorgyers, Thorgils, Thorbalds, Thorvalds, Thorfinns, and Thorsteins, not to mention the numerous Odds and Eiriks and Haralds—any one of whom could change his name any time the notion hit him.
“What now?” Slither asked, prodding me out of my thoughts.
Ivy looked over his shoulder, expectant. He seemed more disappointed than Slither about having missed a brawl. But he did stifle the Goddamn Parrot whenever that stupid harlequin hen started propositioning passersby.
“I’m going to go home, get me something to eat. That’s what now.”
“What good will that do?”
“It’ll keep me from getting hungry.” And it would set me up to get shut of him and Ivy and the parade that stretched out behind us.
I had plans.
I let Slither and Ivy make lunch. I retreated to my office to commune with Eleanor. Eleanor didn’t help me relax. My restlessness wouldn’t go away. Curious, I crossed the hall. The Dead Man appeared to be soundly asleep, but I wondered. I’d suffered similar restlessnesses before.
I didn’t feel up to dealing with him, so I gobbled some food, fed the boys a quick, plausible lie about ducking out for just a minute, hit the cobblestones. I lost the people watching me by using the density of the crowds. The streets were busier than usual. There were refugees everywhere. In consequence, every street corner boasted its howling mad bigot who wanted to run them all out. Or worse.
I sensed another crisis in the wind.
Sure I was running free, I headed for the Hill.
I strode up to Maggie’s door as bold as if I’d been summoned. I used that discrete knocker, over and over. Nobody responded.
Was I surprised? Not really.
I studied that grim, featureless facade. It remained grim and featureless. And uninviting.
I wandered the neighborhood for a while and wasn’t challenged. I didn’t stick with it long enough to press my luck.
I was halfway to Morley’s place when I realized that I was no longer without a tail. The inept guy was on me again. Say what? Maybe he had something going after all.
I walked into the Joy House. There sat my two best pals, Morley Dotes and Saucerhead Tharpe, making goo-goo eyes at my favorite fantasy. “Chastity! What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Morley gave me a look at his darkest scowl, the one he reserves not for victims but for guys who venture to hint that they might possibly think the Joy House is less than the epitome of epicurean paradises.
Saucerhead grinned. He is one great huge goof. I love him in a brotherly way. I noticed he was missing another tooth.
Chastity said, “I was checking up on you.”
“Don’t believe anything these guys tell you. Especially Morley. Can’t tell the truth when a lie will do. Just ask his wife or any of his seventeen demented children.”
Morley showed me a bunch of pointy teeth. He looked pleased. Saucerhead’s grin got bigger. He had teeth like yellow and green spades.
I figured it was time to check my shoes, see what I’d stepped in because my feet were whizzing past pretty close to my mouth.
Unlikely as it seemed, folks had been saying nice things. I sat down. “Puddle! I need some apple juice. Shoeleather leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
Dotes and Tharpe kept smirking. Spud brought me my drink, like to dumped it all over me. The kid couldn’t keep his eyes off the lady doctor. I couldn’t fault his taste. She sure looked good.
I told her, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Why I’m here? Mr. Tharpe suggested we eat here before we go to the hospital.”
“We? The Bledsoe?” Mr. Tharpe hated the Bledsoe with a blind passion. Mr. Tharpe was poor. Mr. Tharpe had been born in the Bledsoe and had been forced to rely upon its medical care all his life, excepting during his years in military service, when he had discovered what real doctoring could be. I could not imagine Saucerhead going near the place voluntarily.
A lot of people will suffer almost anything before letting themselves be committed to the Bledsoe. Many see it as the last gate to death.
“I’m bodyguarding her,” Saucerhead told me.
“What? I thought . . . ”
“I saw your friend.” Chastity smiled. My best pals snickered.
“My friend? I’m beginning to wonder. She didn’t want the job?”
“Sent her on to me,” Tharpe told me.
That deserved some thought.
Morley asked, “Where are your buddies, Garrett?”
“Home minding the Goddamn Parrot. Slow roasting it, I hope. Why?”
“There’s a story going around about the three of you trying to rob some nancys out in the West End.”
I frowned. Strange that should be out already. “I was trying to get a line on Emerald. I never pushed that hard.” I told the story.
Morley soon developed a deep frown. He let me talk, but when I finished he asked, “You’re sure it was an old copy of one of the volumes of No Ravens Went Hungry?”
“It was The Raging Blades. You know something I don’t?”
“Do you know the story?”
“I read the book.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” He grinned. He recalled my troubles with Linda Lee. “Since you’ve read it, you know what happens at the end. Eagle is in his eighties, still hale except that he’s going blind. The women start pushing him around, probably getting even for the way he always treated them. He gets pissed off, grabs a couple of slaves, takes the treasure he’s stolen over the past seventy years, and heads for the boondocks. A few days later, he comes home alone and empty-handed and never says a word about what happened to the slaves or the treasure.”
“So?”
“So Eagle’s treasure is one of the big prizes treasure hunters yak up when they get together. One of their myths says the earliest version of No Ravens Went Hungry contains all the clues you need to find it. The copyists supposedly actually found the treasure, after they produced maybe five copies of each volume, but they murdered each other before they dug it up.” Morley touched the highlights of a tale of greed and double-dealing worthy of Eagle himself.
Tell the truth, Morley’s story sounded like one of those worth the paper it was written on. If he hadn’t had a certain familiar gleam in his eye, I would have ignored everything he said. But that gleam was there. I knew his gold sniffer had been excited. He believed. He was thinking of paying Wixon and White a visit that had nothing to do with mine.
“The second volume?” I asked, hoping to cool him down. “Why that one? It wasn’t until the end of the third that Eagle buried the treasure.”
Morley shrugged, smiled. Poor dumb Garrett couldn’t see the obvious. Chastity gave us a funny look. She knew something was going on but wasn’t sure what it was. Morley said, “You could be right,” which I assume he said to confuse everybody.
He knew something he didn’t want to tell. Like everyone lately. I shrugged and said, “I’m going to visit Maggie’s house. Want to come along?” His gold sniffer would respond to that, too.
He said, “Why not?”
Saucerhead got it, too. He gave me a dubious look but asked no questions. No need letting Chastity in on everything. Especially since she had friends in the Guard.
She knew we were closing her out. She didn’t like it, but she had a strong notion she wouldn’t want to know anyway.
I asked her, “You familiar with Grange Cleaver? He ever hang out at the Bledsoe?”
“I’ve seen him. More lately than in the past. He seems to be living in the city, now. He’s Board. Board are in and out all the time. The rest of us only pay attention if they start throwing their weight around.”
“I see. What’s he do there?”
“I don’t know. I’m a ward physician. I don’t fly that high.”
Morley was ready to go. He asked, “What’s he look like these days? He used to play around with disguises. Only his closest friends knew what he looked like.”
Perplexed, Chastity said, “How would a disguise do him any good? There aren’t many men that short.”
“He wasn’t always a man,” Morley told her. “He could be a dwarf if he wanted.”
“Or an elf?” I suggested.
“Never was an elf that ugly, Garrett!” Morley snapped. “Not that lived long enough to get out of diapers.”
I thought about the prince at the warehouse. Effeminate but not ugly. Just an unlucky gal fate stuck with the wrong plumbing. “Could you describe him, Chastity? I mean, besides as short.”
She did her best.
“Good enough for me. That’s the guy, Morley.”
Morley grunted irritably. Chastity looked perplexed again. “I’ll explain later,” I promised. I wondered what it was between Dotes and the Rainmaker.
Morley did have his share of feuds. I stayed out of them. And I figured it was just as well I didn’t know their details. I hoped he would explain if I needed to know.
I would keep my eyes open, though. He’d been known to wait a bit too long in the past.
“You going or not?” he grumped.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I told Chastity.
“Promises, promises.”
Saucerhead gave me a look that told me, yes, he would look out for her. I wouldn’t suggest it because it was a big sore spot with him. Once upon a time, I asked him to guard a woman and he didn’t come through. She died. He slaughtered a whole herd of villains and came within an inch of death himself, but all he saw was that he’d failed. There was no talking him out of thinking that.
Chastity was as safe as it was possible for her to be.
“Hey, Garrett! How about you do away with the goofy grin and the glassy eyes long enough to let me in on the plan?”
“Jealous.” I wrestled with the grin, got the best of it. “We’re going to take what I call the Dotes Approach.” We were nearing the Hill. Soon we would be on patrolled streets. I had to get my grin under control, stop daydreaming about remarkable blondes. The thugs up there had no patience with happy outsiders.
“The Dotes Approach? Dare I ask?”
“You ought to know. You invented it. Straight ahead and damn the witnesses—we’ll just bust in.”
“One time. During a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Talk about exaggeration.”
I didn’t grace his protest with a reply. I told him, “There’s an alleyway runs behind those places. Used for deliveries and by the ratmen who haul the trash away.”
“Haul the trash away?”
“A novel concept, I admit. But it’s true. This alley is cleaner than the street out front. I never saw anything like it.”
“Almost unpatriotic, what?”
“Un-Karentine, certainly. High weirdness.”
“A conspiracy.”
He was needling me, probably because I was running the inside track with Chastity.
“That thing about a wife and kids wasn’t playing fair.” He glanced back casually.
“Sure it was. You’re just sore because you didn’t try the gag first. They still back there?”
“Stipulated. Maybe. She is worth a trick or two. They’re still there. A whole parade of potential witnesses. This one is a first-class lady, Garrett. Don’t mess up the way you did with Tinnie and Maya.” Before I could object, he added, “You do attract it, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You said it. High weirdness.”
“I can’t argue with that. Though this one is only weird because it doesn’t make sense, not because I’ve got guys walking through the sky or refusing to stop committing murder just because we’ve killed and cremated them. I haven’t seen any shapechangers and nobody is going around biting anybody’s neck.”
“There is an occult angle of some kind.”
“I think it was planted by Cleaver. I think Cleaver has the girl. The occult crap is to throw Maggie off the trail.”
“You going ahead anyway?”
I’d been considering. “For now. For them back there. Might be interesting to see who does what once they figure out what we’re doing.” We were on the Hill now, strutting like we were honest. Act like you belong, who notices you? Even on the Hill there’s plenty of legitimate traffic. The local guardians didn’t dare roust everybody. I remarked, “Someday these clowns will recall their training and set up checkpoints and start issuing passes.”
Morley snorted. “Never happen.” He didn’t think much of the Hill brunos. “People who live here won’t tolerate the inconvenience.”
“Probably right.” That’s the problem with public safety. It is so damned inconvenient.
“You counting on those people back there being as crooked as you are? That would be as bad a bet as counting on everyone to be honest.”
“Crooked?” I protested, but I knew what he meant.
“You know what I mean. One might be secret police.” The secret police were a new problem for TunFaire’s underworld. Always flexible, though, Morley seemed to be having no trouble adapting.
“Might be.” But I didn’t believe that and doubted that he did. The Guard were less shy than these people. Even Relway’s spies.
Morley did have to say, “Winger could have that kind of connection.”
Damn! “Yeah. If there’s a profit in it.” I wondered. Could Winger turn up the closest thing she had to a friend, just for money? Scary. I couldn’t answer that one.
I said, “You gave me some advice one time: never get involved with a woman crazier than I am.”
“And I was right. Wasn’t I?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
We turned into the alley that passed behind Maggie Jenn’s place. Luck had given us clear sailing so far. Not one patrol even came into sight. We were as good as ghosts in the official eye.
“Be careful with Winger, Garrett. She is crazier than you.” He stared down that improbably clean alleyway. “Though not by much. It isn’t closed off. Anyone could walk in here,” He sneered, unable to believe the arrogant confidence that showed. Nobody lives so high on the Hill that they’re immune. Even the great witches and wizards, the stormwardens and firelords, who set counts and dukes to shaking in their boots, get ripped off.
“I’ll worry about Winger later. Right now we need to do a B and E before our fans show. Up there.” I indicated a wrought iron balcony that existed as a drop point for garbage. The ratmen ran their waste wagons in underneath and household staff dumped away. Similar balconies ornamented the rough stonework all along the alley.
“Except for the clean, they didn’t do much to put on the dog back here, did they?” Morley asked.
“You want they should’ve done fancy masonry for the likes of us?”
Sneering, Morley darted forward, found handholds in the rough stonework, scrambled up, did a job on the flimsy door, then hung over the rail to help me up. The balcony creaked ominously. I flailed my way aboard. An instant later, Morley and I were inside. We peeked out an archer’s slit of a window, looking for witnesses. It was a minute before any of our tails entered the alley.
Morley chuckled.
I sighed. “Only Winger.”
“Where does she get those clothes?”
“If I knew, I’d strangle the seamstresses. That stuff has got to be against divine law if nothing else.”
“We’re inside. What do we look for?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Anything. Things keep happening that don’t make sense, since I’m only supposed to be looking for a missing girl. I shouldn’t be up to my mammaries in maneating pirates. I’m pretty sure that finding Emerald isn’t the main reason Maggie hired me.”
“Huh?”
“You recall I got into this because Winger wanted me to keep tabs on Maggie. She thought Maggie wanted me to waste somebody.”
“And now you’re thinking maybe Winger was right, that the whole point might have been to get you butting heads with the Rainmaker.”
“Could be. I thought I might find a clue here.”
“So let’s dig. Before Winger figures out what happened and walks through the wall.”
“Absolutely. But first let’s see who else takes a chance on the alley.”
The whole parade passed by before it was over. Morley got a good look at them.
“That one,” I said. “That’s the pro.”
“I see it. I smell it. He’s a major player.”
“Who is he?”
“That’s the rub.” Morley looked worried. “I don’t know him.”
I worried, too. I could figure Winger was working for Winger and anybody else she could get to pay her. The fierce pirate had to be on Cleaver’s payroll. But what about this slick pro?
They did seem to be aware of one another.
Their sneakery caught some squinty eyes. Guard thugs began to appear. Even Winger cleared out rather than tempt those clowns too much.
“Quit your snickering and get to work,” Morley advised. “The guys with the squashed noses won’t hang around forever.”
We started right there in that very room.
We had been whispering. Soon I wondered why. We found no trace of Maggie or her marvelous staff.
I thought it but Morley voiced it first. “People don’t live here, Garrett. They haven’t for years.” Not one room that I hadn’t visited earlier wasn’t in mothballs and choked with dust. I kept hacking and honking.
“Yeah. It’s a stage set they used to play out a drama for me.”
“Make a guess. Why?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out, if Winger wasn’t right the first time.”
Over and over, all we found was more of the same old dusty rooms filled with covered furniture.
“Some nice antiques here,” Morley noted. He pretended indifference, but I sensed his disappointment. He could find no wealth that was easily portable. He was trying to think of ways to get the furniture out.
In time, because we had time to look, we did find an upper-story bedroom that had seen use but which I hadn’t visited before. Morley opined, “This was occupied by a woman with no compulsion to clean up after herself.”
And nobody to clean up for her, apparently. Remnants of old meals provided spawning grounds for blue fur.
Morley said, “My guess is this stuff dates from before your visit. Let’s check this room carefully.”
I grunted. What genius.
A minute later: “Garrett.”
“Uhm?”
“Check this out.”
“This” was a shocker. “This” was a woman’s wig. “This” was a wild shock of tangly red hair so much like Maggie Jenn’s that, in an instant, I was mug to ugly mug with a horrible suspicion.
“What’s that?” Morley asked.
“What?”
“That noise. Like somebody goosed you with a hot poker.”
“I tried to picture Maggie without hair.” I lifted that wig like it was an enemy’s severed head.
“Out with it. Out with it.”
“Know what’s the matter? Here’s a hint. You take a wig like this wig and grab the Rainmaker and stuff his head into said wig, you’d have a dead ringer for the little sweetheart who hired me to find her kid—assuming you dressed her girlie style. A dead ringer for a sweetheart who all but point-blank invited me up here for . . . ”
Morley grinned. Then he snickered. Then he burst out laughing. “Oh! Oh! That would have made the Garrett story to top all Garrett stories. People would have forgotten the old lady and the cat like this.” He snapped his fingers. He started grinning again. “I’ll bet you Winger knew. I’ll just bet she did. At least she suspected. Maybe that’s what she wanted to find out. Send in Garrett. He has a way with redheads. He’ll go for it if you drop one in his lap.” He was breaking up now, the little shit. “Oh, Garrett, she just rose way up in my estimation. That’s a slicking I wouldn’t have thought of.”
“You have a tendency to think too complicated,” I protested. “Winger don’t think that way.” I went on, arguing, I don’t know with whom. My voice rose and rose as I imagined the myriad piratical horrors that might have befallen me simply because of my connoissieur’s appreciation of the opposite sex. Just because Maggie Jenn, who had heated me to a rolling boil, might have been wearing a wig.
I glared at that wig. The fury of my gaze changed nothing. It remained a perfect match for Maggie’s hair.
“You get it?” Morley asked, like it hadn’t been my idea in the first place. “Grange Cleaver put on a wig and fooled you one thousand percent.” His leer set my cheeks ablaze.
“Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Let’s say he did. Just for now, let’s say he’s the Maggie Jenn who hired me. Let’s ignore the fact that that makes things make even less sense than before. Cleaver wouldn’t aim a dagger at himself. So let’s look for the bottom line. Let’s figure out what my employer really wanted, whoever he, she, or it was.”
“Don’t be so touchy, Garrett.” He kept fighting the giggles.
“The question, Morley. The question. I got paid a nice advance. Why?”
“You could always assume you were supposed to do what you were hired to do. Find the girl. When you think about this mess, Maggie Jenn not really being Maggie Jenn makes sense.”
“Huh?”
“Look. If she was Cleaver in disguise, then there’d be no conflicts in what us old experts told you about the woman.”
“I saw that when you waved that damned wig in my face. The real Maggie Jenn is probably on her island with her feet up and not a suspicion that her old pal Grange Cleaver is blackening her reputation by pretending . . . ”
“You have to wonder how much he did that in the old days. When she was involved with the crown prince.”
“Not around the prince, he wouldn’t have. The prince definitely preferred girls and wasn’t patient with girls who played hard to get. He knew the real Maggie Jenn.”
“But a fake Maggie could have gone around looking at places that interested the Rainmaker.”
“Somebody told me Cleaver might be her brother. Maybe they were twins.”
“He was his sister’s pimp?”
“Like that’d be the first time a guy ever sold his sister?”
“You’re right. I lost it for a second. Wishful thinking. Thought I’d outgrown that. Shouldn’t ever forget what slime humans can be.”
“We’ve still got rooms to search.” I didn’t want to get into the subject of necessity—though Morley would have to slither down there under a snake’s belly to hold an opinion of my species lower than I do.
Necessity I understand. Necessity I won’t condemn. The despicable are those who sell their sisters and daughters and wives because that saves them having to work. “Bear with me, Morley.”
“I do, Garrett. And with all your kind. Like it or not, you’re the present and future of the world. The rest of us are going to have to find what niches we can. Otherwise, time will pass us by.”
“Bravo!” I clapped. “You’ve got the vision. Get yourself appointed to the city board of aldermen.”
“I’m not human enough. And I wouldn’t have time.”
I boggled for an instant. My facetious remark had been heard seriously. Interesting. Morley Dotes, bone-breaker and lifetaker, your alderman and mine?
Actually, that could be an idea whose time had arrived. The Goddamned Parrot could do as well as the crooks and incompetents and senile halfwits running things now.
TunFaire is a human city in the human kingdom of Karenta. This is established by numerous treaties. It means human rule prevails except in such ways as may be modified by treaty in particular regards or areas. TunFaire is also an “open city,” meaning any race with a treaty can come and go freely, essentially with the same rights and privileges as Karentine subjects. And, in theory, the same obligations.
In practice, all races come and go, treaty or no, and a lot of nonhumans evade their civil obligations. Centaurs are the outstanding example. All treaties with centaurs perished when the tribes went over to Glory Mooncalled. Legally, they’re enemy aliens. But they’ve been flooding into city and kingdom as Mooncalled’s republic fades and nobody except extremists seems to object.
Guest workers and resident nonhumans make up half of TunFaire’s population. With the war winding down and ever more folks realizing that society is headed for dramatic changes a lot of resentment is building.
Shouldn’t be long before the nonhuman question becomes a central fact of politics. It is now for splinters like the Call. You won’t find any euphemism or circumlocution in the message of the Call. Their strategy is kill nonhumans till the survivors flee.
Gods, I didn’t want this mess of mine to lead me into the snakepit of racial politics. Lords Above or Below, render me outside politics of any stink.
Morley and I pressed on. We searched high and low, right and left, north, south, east, and west. We placed special emphasis on the suite supposedly belonging to Justine Jenn. Morley opined, “Nobody lived here, Garrett. It was stage-dressed.”
I agreed.
“Think there’s anything else to find?” he asked.
“I doubt it. Want to try the basement?”
“Do you?”
“I remember the last time we did a basement. I’m more inclined to go shopping.”
“Wixon and White. The hens’ teeth salesmen. They actually knew the girl?”
“A girl,” I grumped, identities being so shifty lately.
“Good point. But it’s a start. Mind if I tag along? I haven’t been out that way for a while.”
“Gee. I’m psychic.” I’d just known he would want to go. “Wasn’t for those buccaneers, I’d have serious doubts that the girl exists.”
“A girl. Like you said. What say let’s don’t just hit the street?”
“Good thinking.” We checked for observers. Winger and a ferocious pirate type were holding down the alley, pretending they couldn’t see each other. “Nice to see folks get along.”
“Makes the world run smoother. Crack that view slit up front and check the genius out there.”
The front face of the house wasn’t as featureless as it had looked from the street. I peeked.
The pro had decided we would walk out the front door like we lived there. Which he’d have done himself. He had done and admirable job of fading into the background. Nobody looking for him was going to miss him, though.
There was no sign of the inept guy. Curious.
Chuckling, Morley asked, “How long will they wait if they don’t know we’re not in here anymore?”
“How?”
“The rooftops.”
I chuckled right back. “Sounds like an experiment worth making. Let’s do it.”
“We could even sic the brunos on them after we’re clear.”
“No, no. That’s too much. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching over my shoulder for some of Winger’s paybacks.”
“Good point. Let’s go.”
We went. It was easy. The roofs were all flat. The only hitch we encountered was getting down.
We tried three downspouts. None would support me. “Need some home repairs in these parts,” I grumbled. “People ought to show some pride. Ought to keep up their property.”
“Or we could start a weight loss program at the Garrett dump.” Morley, the little weasel, could have gone down any of the spouts.
Worse, last try we had caught the eyes of some prematurely cynical kids who’d jumped to the conclusion we were up to no good. Just because we were running around on the roofs. We could have been roofers shopping for work.
No more fun. The patrol would be along soon.
Morley bent over the edge, tried another downspout. A herd of preadolescents watched from the street. I made faces, but they didn’t scare. Morley said, “This will have to do.”
I shook it myself. Not that I didn’t trust him. He was right. It would have to do. It was more solid.
Still . . .
“We have to get down now, Garrett.”
“I’m not worried about getting down. What concerns me is how many pieces of me there’re going to be after I get there.”
Morley went over the side, abandoning me to my fate. I gave him a head start, then followed, my weight taken by different supports. I had descended about eight feet when furious elvish cursing broke out below me. For a second, I thought I had stepped on his fingers.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m hung up.”
I leaned out so I could see. Sure enough. His shirt was out and tangled in one of the supports that anchored the downspout to the building. He tried to climb a little to get loose. For reasons known only to the gods who engineer these things that only made things worse. I heard cloth tear. Morley started cursing all over again. He let go with one hand and tried to work his shirt loose.
It would not yield. But he was being awfully damned delicate about it.
Down below, some kid came up with the notion that it would be fun to throw rocks at us. First shot he got Morley on the knuckles of the hand he was using to hang on.
Only thing that saved him was that his shirt was hung up.
The gods give and the gods take away.
Morley’s shirt tore a little more.
Morley’s temper ripped. He invented new curses.
“Cut it loose!” I yelled.
“It’s a new shirt. First time I ever wore it.” He continued fighting with it.
Stones peppered the wall. A racket from up the street gave warning of the patrol. “You’d better do something. In a couple of minutes, you’re going to have people throwing more than rocks at you.”
“I am?”
“You am. I’m going to climb down over you and leave you hanging.”
He started to say something testy, but a small stone hit him in the back of the head.
Blur of steel. Pretty cloth flying. Morley down that spout like a squirrel as kids shrieked and scattered. I caught up while he was trying to decide which kid to run down. “Let’s go.” The patrol were damn near in spear-chucking range.
Morley looked like he’d rather stay and fight. He wanted to hurt somebody. He rubbed the back of his head and got set.
“Come on!” I commenced the old high-speed heel and toe work.
Morley opted not to take on the world alone.