Bitter Gold Hearts

by Glen Cook

  The woman looked at me like I was either a potentially contagious disease or an especially curious specimen in the zoo. One of the uglier ones, like a thunder lizard.

  There are times when I feel like I belong to one of the dying breeds.

  “Thank you, Amiranda. Have a seat, Mr. Garrett.” The “mister” left her jaws aching. She wasn’t used to being nice to people like me.

  I sat. So did she. Amiranda hovered.

  “That will be all, Amiranda.”

  “Domina —”

  “That will be all.”

  Amiranda left, furious and hurt. I scanned the clutter on the secretary’s desk while she glared the girl from the room.

  “What do you think of our Amiranda, Mr. Garrett?” Again she got a jaw ache.

  I tried putting it delicately. “A man could dream dreams about a woman with her —”

  “I’m sure.” She scowled at me. I had failed some test.

  I didn’t care. I’d decided I wouldn’t like the Domina Willa Dount very much. “You had a reason for asking me to come here?”

  “How much did Amiranda tell you?”

  “Enough to get me to listen.” She tried to stare me down. I stared back. “I don’t usually have much grief to spare for uptown folks. When the fates want to stick them I say more power to them. But to kidnapping I take exception.”

  She scowled. I give the woman this — her scowl was first rate. Any gorgon would have been proud to own it. “What else did she tell you?”

  “That was it, and getting it took some work. Maybe you can tell me more.”

  “Yes. As Amiranda told you, the younger Karl has been abducted.”

  “From what I’ve heard, there aren’t many more de­serving guys around.” Karl Junior had a reputation for being twenty-three going on a willful and very spoiled three. There was no doubt which side of the family Junior favored. Domina Dount had been left to keep it civilized or to cover it up.

  Willa Dount’s mouth tightened until it was little more than a white point. “Be that as it may. We aren’t here to exercise your opinions of your betters, Mr. Garrett.”

  “What are we here for?”

  “The Stormwarden will be returning soon. I don’t want her to walk into a situation like this. I want to get it settled and forgotten before she arrives. Do you wish to take notes, Mr. Garrett?” She pushed writing materials my way. I figured she supposed me illiterate and wanted to enjoy feeling superior when I confessed it.

  “Not till there’s something worth noting. I take it you’ve heard from the kidnappers? That you know Ju­nior hasn’t just gone off on one of his adventures?”

  By way of answering me she lifted a rag-wrapped bun-die from behind the desk and pushed it across. “This was left with the gateman during the night.”

  I unwrapped a pair of silver-buckled shoes. A folded piece of paper lay inside one. “His?”

  “Yes.”

  “The messenger?”

  “What you would expect. A street urchin of seven or eight. The gateman didn’t bring me the bundle till after breakfast. By then the child was too far ahead to catch.”

  So she had a sense of humor after all. I gave the shoes the full eyeball treatment. It never works out, but you always look for that speck of rare purple mud or the weird yellow grass stain that will make you look like a genius. I didn’t find it this time, either. I unfolded the note. We have yore Karl. If you want him back you do what yore told. Don’t tell nobody about this. You be told what to do later.

  A snippet of hair had been folded into the paper. I held it to the light falling through the window behind the secretary’s desk. It was the color I recalled Junior’s hair being the few times I had seen him. “Nice touch, this.”

  Willa Dount gave me another of her scowls.

  I ignored her and examined the note. The paper itself told me nothing except that it was a scrap torn from something else, possibly a book. I could go around town for a century trying to match it to torn pages. But the handwriting was interesting. It was small but loose, confi­dent, the penmanship almost perfect, not in keeping with the apparent education of the writer. “You don’t recog­nize this hand?”

  “Of course not. That needn’t concern you, anyway.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Yesterday morning. I sent him down to our warehouse on the waterfront to check reports of pilferage. The foreman claimed it was brownies. I had a feeling he was the brownie in the woodpile and he was selling the Stormwarden’s supplies to somebody here on the Hill. Possibly even to one of our neighbors.”

  “It’s always reassuring to know the better classes stand above the sins and temptations of us common folks. You weren’t concerned when he didn’t come home?”

  “I told you I’m not interested in your social attitudes or opinions. Save them for someone who agrees with you. No, I wasn’t concerned. He sometimes stays out for weeks. He’s a grown man.”

  “But the Stormwarden left you here to ride herd on him and his father. And you must have done the job till now because there hasn’t been a hint of scandal since the old girl left town.”

  One more scowl.

  The door sprang open and a man stomped into the room. “Willa, has there been any more word about...?” He spotted me and pulled up. His eyebrows crawled halfway up his forehead, a trick for which he was famous. To hear some tell it, that was his only talent. “Who the hell is that?” He was renowned for being rude, too, though among people of his class that was a trait the rest of us expected.

  __IV__

  Willa dount spoke up. “There hasn’t been any­thing yet. I expect we won’t be contacted for a while.” She looked at me, her expression making that a question. “They like to let the anxiety level rise before they come after you. It makes you more eager to cooperate.”

  “This is Mr. Garrett,” she said. “Mr. Garrett is an expert on kidnappers and kidnappings.”

  “My god, Willa! Are you mad? They said don’t tell anybody.”

  She ignored his outburst. “Mr. Garrett, this is the Stormwarden’s consort, the Baronet daPena, the father of the victim.”

  How he twitched and jerked! Without changing her tone or expression, Domina Dount had hit him with a fat double shot, calling him consort (which labeled him a drone) and mentioning his baronetcy (which wasn’t he­reditary and purely an honor because he was the fourth son of a cadet of the royal house). She may even have gotten in a sly third shot there, if, as you sometimes heard whispered, Junior wasn’t really a seed fallen from the senior.

  “How do you do, Lord? He has a good question, Domina.” I’d been working up to it when he burst in. “Why bring me in when the kidnappers said don’t tell anybody? A man with my reputation, and you sent out what amounted to a platoon of clowns, with the girl dressed flashy enough to catch a blind man’s eye. It’s not likely the kidnappers won’t hear about it.”

  “That was the point. I want them to.”

  “Willa!”

  “Karl, be quiet. I’m explaining to Mr. Garrett.”

  He turned white. He was furious. She’d made it clear who stood where, who was in charge, in front of a lowlife from down the Hill. But he contained himself. I pre­tended blindness. It isn’t smart to see things like that. Willa Dount said, “I want them to know I’ve brought you in, Mr. Garrett.”

  “Why?”

  “For young Karl’s sake. To improve his chances of getting through this alive. Would you say they’re less likely to harm him if they know about you?”

  “If they’re professionals. Professionals know me. If they’re not, chances are they’ll go the other way. You may have moved too soon.”

  “Time will tell. It seemed the best bet to me.”

  “Exactly what do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  She blind-sided me there. “What?”

  “You’ve done what I needed you to do. You’ve been seen coming here to confer with me. You’ve lent me your reputation. Hop
efully, Karl’s chances have been improved.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, Mr. Garrett. Do you think a hundred marks adequate recompense for the loan of your reputation?”

  It was fine with me, but I ignored the question. “What about the payoff?” Usually they want me to handle that for them.

  “I believe I can handle that. It’s basically a matter of following instructions, isn’t it?”

  “Explicitly. The payoff is when they’re most nervous. That’s when you’ll have to be most careful. For your own safety as well as the boy’s.”

  Senior snorted and huffed and stamped, wanting to get his hand into the action. Willa Dount kept him quiet with an occasional touch of her icicle eyes.

  I wondered what the Stormwarden had left her in the way of leashes and whips. She sure had the old boy buffaloed. Karl Senior was still a handsome man though he was running away from forty — if he had not already sneaked past fifty. Time had dealt him a few wrinkles but no extra pounds. His hair was all there, curly and slickly black, the kind that might not start graying for another decade. He was a little short, I thought, but that didn’t hold him back. He looked like a fancy man, and word was that he did night work best.

  Age had apparently not slowed him down. Those looks, a smooth tongue, his toy title, those magical eyebrows, and soulful big blue eyes all conspired to drop into his lap the sort of soft morsels we ordinary mortals have to scheme and fight just to get near.

  It was a certainty he was no use in a crisis. He danced and twitched like a desperate kid awaiting his turn at the loo. He would have panicked if Domina Dount would have let him. He was a member of the royal house, those wonderfully firm and decisive folks who had blessed the Karentine people with their war against the Venageti.

  Natural son or not, Karl Junior was a seed that had not fallen far from the tree. He was the image of Karl Senior in body and character, and to that menace to feminine virtue, he had added a generous helping of arrogance based on the fact that his mommy was the Stormwarden Raver Styx and he was her precious one and only, whose misdeeds would never be called to account.

  Senior didn’t like my being there. Maybe he didn’t like me. If so, the feeling was mutual. I’ve been busting my butt since I was eight and I don’t have any use for drones of any sort, and those from the Hill least of all. Their idleness got them into the kind of mischief that resulted in sending a whole generation south to fight over the silver mines of the Cantard.

  Maybe Glory Mooncalled would turn on his Karentine employers once he polished off the Venageti Warlords. It wouldn’t hurt.

  I said, “If you’ve had your way with me, then I’ll be running along. Best of luck getting the boy back.”

  Her expression said she doubted my sincerity. “You can find your way to the street?”

  “I learned scouting when I was in the Marines.”

  “Good day, then, Mr. Garrett.”

  Karl Senior exploded the second I closed the door. It was a good door. I couldn’t decipher his yells even when I put my ear to the wood. But he was having a good time working the panic and frustration out.

  __V__

  Amiranda caught me just before I reached the gate. I caught my breath, then chewed on my tongue a little so I could still fake being a gentleman. She’d changed from the show ensemble she’d worn to fetch me and now, in her every days, looked like something I find only under the covers of midnight fantasies. She looked good, but she also looked worried. I told myself this was no time for one of my routines. My sometime-associate Morley Dotes tells me I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress. He tells me many things about myself, most of them wrong and unwelcome, but he has me on the damsels. A good-looking gal turns on the tears and Garrett is a knight ready to tilt with dragons.

  “What did she say, Mr. Garrett? What does she want you to do?”

  “She said a lot of not much at all. What she wants me to do is nothing.”

  “I don’t understand.” Did she look disappointed? I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m not sure I do, either. She said she wanted the kidnappers to see me around the edges of the thing. So my reputation will shade him and maybe give him a better chance.”

  “Oh. Maybe she’s right.” She looked relieved. I won­dered what her stake was. I’d formed a suspicion and didn’t like it. “So do you think he’ll be all right, Mr. Garrett?”

  “I don’t know. But Domina Dount is a formidable woman. I wouldn’t want her on my back trail.”

  A black-haired looker of the late teens or early twen­ties variety left a doorway about thirty feet away, caught sight of us, gave me a once-over she followed up with a come-and-get-it smile, then walked off with a sway to still the tumult of battles.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “You needn’t pant, Mr. Garrett. You’d be wasting your time. You don’t dare touch her with your imagina­tion. That’s the Stormwarden’s daughter, Amber.”

  “I see. Yes. Hmmm.”

  Amiranda placed herself in front of me. “Put your eyes back in, mister. You made a big show of wanting to see me outside of all this. All right. Tonight at eight. At the Iron Liar.”

  “The Iron Liar? I’m not from uptown. How could I afford...?” I had to put that excuse away. This was the same little gem that had counted the hundred gold marks into my paw a couple hours ago. “Eight, then. I’ll spend the rest of the day breathless with anticipation.”

  I smiled smugly after I hit the street.

  I wandered down the Hill wondering why I’d never heard of daughter Amber when the Stormwarden and her family played such a big part in TunFaire’s news and gossip. We had obviously been missing the best part.

  __VI__

  Strange noises were coming from the Dead Man’s room. I went into the kitchen, where old Dean was cooking sausages over charcoal with one eye on an apple pie that was about ready to come out of the oven. When he saw me, he began hoisting a pony keg out of the cold well I’d had installed with the proceeds of the Starke case. By damn, I was going to have cold brew whenever the whim hit while I could afford it.

  Dean asked, “A good day today, Mr. Garrett?” as he drew me a mug.

  “Interesting.” I tipped my head back and swallowed a pint. “And profitable. What’s he up to in there? I’ve never heard him make such a racket.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Garrett. He wouldn’t let me in to clean.”

  “We’ll see about that after I wrap myself around an­other one of these.” I eyed the sausages and pie. If he expected me to eat that much, he was more optimistic than I thought. “Did you invite a niece over again?”

  He reddened.

  I just shook my head and said, “I have to go out this evening. Part of the job.”

  There was a little troll blood on all sides of his family. I don’t have any particular prejudices — who was going out with a part-fairy girl? — but those poor women had gotten a double dose of the troll ugly from their parents. Like they say, personality plus, but horses shied and dogs howled when they passed. I wished old Dean would stop matchmaking. I had given up hope that he would run out of eligible female relatives to parade past me.

  Three sausages, two pieces of the world’s best apple pie, and several beers later I was ready to beard the Loghyr in his den. So to speak. “Food fit for the gods as usual, Dean. I’m going in after him. If I’m not out by the weekend, send Saucer head Tharpe to the rescue. His skull is so thick he’d never know Old Bones was thinking at him.” I thought about recommending Saucer head to Dean’s eligibles. But no, I couldn’t. I liked Saucer head.

  The Dead Man sensed me coming. Get away from here, Garrett.

  I went on in. It was war in the Cantard again, and this time the god of the wall had all the hordes of bug Dom enlisted in his enterprise. It was the combined racket of their creepy little feet and wings that I had been hearing.

  “Caught him yet?”

  He ignored me.

  “That Glory Mooncalled is a t
ricky bastard, isn’t he?” I wondered if he meant to clean up the entire bug popu­lation of TunFaire. For a service like that, we should find some way to get paid.

  He ignored me. His bugs got busier. I sat in the only chair available to me and watched the campaign for a while. He was experimenting, not re-creating. It was no campaign I recognized.

  Maybe he was even making war upon himself. The Loghyr can section up their brains into two or three discrete parts when they want.

  “Had an interesting day today.”

  He didn’t respond. He was going to punish my imperti­nence by pretending I didn’t exist. But he was listening. The only adventures he truly had were the ones 1 lived for him.

  I gave him all the details, chronicling even the most trivial. Somewhere down the line I might have to call on his genius.

  I finished and watched him play general for a while. I got the feeling there was a hidden pattern that I was too dense to see.

  It was nearing time to meet Amiranda. I pried myself from the chair and headed for the door. “See you when I see you, Old Bones.”

  Garrett. If you get lucky, don’t you bring her back here. I will not endure such foolishness in my house. I seldom did, though occasionally circumstances insisted. It seemed too much like mocking his handicap. In life the Loghyr are as randy as a pack of seventeen-y ear-old boys. It was my suspicion that his misogyny was his way of compensating.

  I was almost out the door when he sent, Garrett. Be careful.

  I am careful. Always. When I’m paying attention and when I figure I have something to worry about. But how do you get into trouble just walking up the block to buy a bottle of stink-pretty from the neighborhood chemist?

  Believe me, it can be done.

  It was my lucky day in more ways than one, I smelled weed smoke and that got me curious. Not many in the neighborhood use weed, and this was less of a cloud than a minor storm. I started looking for the source.

  Source was five breeds, all with a lot of ogre in them. Ogres are not fast at the best of times and these boys had spent their take getting so high their pointy heads were bumping the belly of the sky. Their professional sins were legion. They hadn’t done their homework, either.