Bitter Gold Hearts

by Glen Cook

  All the while I stared smoke and fire at Saucerhead. He had to mention Donni Pell in front of the wife! I’d wanted to reserve Donni Pell for the moment of maxi­mum impact.

  She hadn’t reacted to the name at all.

  “I suppose the thing to do is hire you, Mr. Garrett. Then you might be more responsive.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I do my job my own way. Be­tween the hiring and the results I don’t put up with meddling from my principal. I’m the specialist. If I can’t be trusted to do the job without interference, I shouldn’t be hired in the first place.” I don’t think my voice squeaked. I sure hoped it didn’t. “What did you want to hire me for, anyway?”

  She looked at me like I was a moron.

  “I don’t mind having multiple clients, but I don’t take them on when their goals conflict.”

  She continued to stare. Serpents of temper had begun to stir beneath the surface of her calm. No more pushing permitted.

  “Before we go on there’s something I’ve got to show you, Stormwarden. I warn you up front, you’re not going to like it. You’re going to be upset. But you need to see it so you don’t walk into anything with the web of illusion across your eyes.”

  The Dead Man brushed me with a touch of approval. The Stormwarden rose, her face carefully composed. I said, “You ought to finish that glass and pour yourself another before we go.”

  “If it’s that tough, I’ll take the bottle along.”

  Just one of the guys. “Come on, then.”

  I crossed the hall to the Dead Man’s room, stepped inside, stepped aside. The parade followed, the Storm-warden first. The boys lined up against the wall beside the door. Crask and Sadler stared at the Dead Man and went gray around the edges.

  Seeing is believing.

  “A dead Loghyr!” The Stormwarden enthused, sound­ing like she’d just spotted a cute fairy toddler peeking out of the bushes. “I didn’t know there were any around anymore. What do you want for it?”

  “You wouldn’t want this one. He’s a social parasite. My personal charity project. He does nothing but sleep and amuse himself by playing with bugs.”

  “Laziness is a Loghyr racial characteristic. But even the dead can be trained to harness when you use the right lash.”

  “You’ll have to explain that to me sometime. I can’t get any work out of him. What you need to see is over here. Dean! Get some decent damned lamps in here!” He was supposed to have done that already. He came sidling in with the necessary and stammered apologies. He was shaking all over, and I didn’t blame him. This was the moment that could explode.

  She stood there staring at the bodies, not a hairline cracking her composure. She raised a hand, beckoned Dean, took the lamp, knelt. She studied Karl for a long time, taking him in inch by inch. Finished, she took a long pull on the brandy bottle, then did it all over again with Amiranda. Amiranda didn’t get a second’s less at­tention. In fact, she got a moment more.

  The Stormwarden grunted, then set her bottle aside and rested the tips of two fingers on Amiranda’s belly. After a minute she muttered, “So!” and reclaimed the bottle. She drew another healthy draft.

  She rose. “I owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Garrett.” She returned the lamp to Dean. “Can we talk now? Seriously? The two of us?”

  “Yes. Dean, take these guys into the kitchen and feed them. Bring me a mug and a pitcher. In the office.”

  “Yes sir. Gentlemen?”

  They didn’t protest. I guess Chodo had given them orders to cooperate.

  __XLV__

  I settled behind my desk. The Stormwarden sat op­posite me, devoting herself to her bottle and her inner landscape. Finally, she said, “Karl was murdered.”

  “He was. By a man named Gorgeous and an ogre breed named Skredli. Gorgeous is dead. Skredli is on the loose but we intend to find him. He also led the gang that killed Amiranda. But he was just a hired hand. Someone paid for the blood.”

  “You have a great deal to tell me.”

  “If I take you as a client.”

  She thought for a while. “Your task now is to find the person responsible for Amiranda’s murder. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a great deal of power, as you’re aware. But I don’t know how to go about rooting out a killer. Suppose I hire you to find Karl’s murderer?”

  “That might work. Assuming we agree on precedence of claims if the same hand directed the blades in both murders.”

  “There’ll be no problem of precedence if you meet one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “You may take precedence for yourself, your friends, and your client — if you’ll permit me to be present when you handle your end of it. It won’t matter what you do. Not even death will be an escape for whoever did that in there.”

  I felt a surge of elation, wondered why, then realized that most of it came from the Dead Man. He knew something, or had something. “I think we can deal.”

  “I’ll stay out of your way, Mr. Garrett. I’ll give you whatever aid and assistance you require.”

  Dean brought the beer in. I poured my mug full, damned near drained it. The Stormwarden did likewise with a second mug Dean thoughtfully provided.

  The Stormwarden said, “I expect you’re out of pocket considerably for the bodies. You wouldn’t have gotten them cheaply.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Add that to what you need for a deposit against your expenses and fee.”

  “Let me make sure we understand one another. You’re willing to take me on and turn me loose, without shoving your hand in, as long as you’re there for the showdown?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll lend me your authority along the way?”

  “If that’s necessary.”

  “It will be in a few cases.”

  “I have one goal only, Mr. Garrett. Laying my hands on the person or persons responsible for what happened to my children. Cost is no obstacle. Neither is the em­peror himself. Do you understand me?” Those ice-blue eyes were ablaze now. “You do what you have to do to deliver. I’ll back you to the gates of hell itself.”

  “Pact?”

  “You want a witch’s oath, written in blood?”

  “The sworn word of the Stormwarden Raver Styx will do.”

  She did the whole formal thing after allowing me to word the undertaking.

  “Settled,” I said. “We’re on. I owe you a story.” And I began telling it from the moment it intruded upon my life. J gave her the crop, reserving only my personal interactions with Amber and Amiranda. I don’t think she was fooled.

  I reserved a couple thoughts about the gold, too. I did have a client, after all.

  It took several hours. She didn’t interrupt. Dean kept the pitcher full and brought in food when he felt it was time. She didn’t immediately comment when I finished. I gave her a few minutes, then asked, “Am I still retained?”

  She gave me a don’t-be-stupid look. “Of course.” She thought awhile longer. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not from where we stand now. It probably looked slick at the start. Before people started doing unto one an-other and things started going wrong. Before the terror set in.”

  “It doesn’t make much sense from that perspective, either. Not to me.”

  “Don’t go closing your mind now.”

  She came into the real world for the first time in hours, fixing me with a basilisk’s stare. “What?”

  “You’re ignoring the centerpiece at this hell’s feast. The shadow that falls upon it all. The Stormwarden Raver Styx.”

  “Explain yourself, Mr. Garrett.” “Iwill. By example. Suppose everyone involved was exactly who he or she is, but you, instead of being the dread Raver Styx, were the heiress to the Gallard wine fortune, that what’s-her-name. Would anyone have done what they did if you were her and she’d gone out of town for six months? Would anyone have been tempted? Donni Pell and her gang, maybe, but they were motivated by
greed going in. Who you were or weren’t didn’t matter till the double crosses and foul-ups started and asses had to be covered.”

  She didn’t like it a bit, though I’d barely skimmed the edges. But that woman had to be the most hardhearted damned realist ever to cross my trail. She swallowed her ego. “I see.” She made Willa Dount look like a kitten. She took time out for more reflection. Then, “What do you plan to do, Mr. Garrett?”

  “I’d like to interview your husband and Willa Dount in circumstances where they can’t evade questions or avoid answering them.”

  “It can be arranged. When?”

  “The sooner the better. Today. Now. That old man with the black sword has been busy enough. Let’s not give him time to sniff out anybody else.” Old Death is supposed to be blind but I’ve noticed he never misses.

  “That’s probably wisest. How do you want to set it up?”

  We talked about it for fifteen minutes. I said I’d play it by ear, making sure she understood I wanted to be given my head. Then she rose. “I’ll have the bodies taken away now, Mr. Garrett.”

  “Out the back would be best. They’re supposed to have been cremated already. Nobody outside this house knows they haven’t been.”

  “I understand.”

  I followed her to the front door, where she paused before she allowed me to let her out. “Take very good care of my daughter, Mr. Garrett. She may be all that I have left.”

  “I intend to, Stormwarden.”

  We locked gazes for a moment. We understood one another.

  It is a pitiful truth that people like Raver Styx cannot express their love in any way that their beloved will find meaningful.

  __XLVI__

  The door shut. I leaned against it and let out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. I shook for about a minute while the tension drained away. I wanted to let out a big old war whoop. Saucerhead leaned out of the kitchen. “She finally go?”

  “Finally.”

  He counted my arms and legs. “Guess you worked something out.”

  “Yeah. We’ll see how it stays together.”

  “What’s the game?”

  “First thing is, some of her boys are going to come to the back door to pick up those bodies. You guys can hand them over. I’m going to set a fire under the Dead Man.”

  Saucerhead gave me a dirty look, grumbling about “them that puts on aristocratic airs,” but he went and got Sadler and Crask. I waited while they removed the corpses.

  There, now. That was not so bad after all, was it, Garrett?

  “A snap. So why the hell are you sweating?”

  That startled him. I could almost see him checking to see if, by some miracle, some of life’s processes had resumed. Point for Garrett.

  “You had some kind of epiphany while I was talking to her. What was it?”

  /realized that by taking a short trip upcountry you could probably put the cap on the affair. He was all set to do some crowing about his genius.

  “You mean by going out to that farm and rounding up Donni Pell?”

  You reasoned it out!

  “You’ve been telling me I have to use my own head.

  Using yours is too much like work. All the kingpin’s hounds and all the kingpin’s men couldn’t catch more than a few whiffs of old back trails. She’d used up her friends here in town. Where else would she go?”

  Very good. Though we do rely on the assumption that she has not taken the proceeds of her multifarious treach­eries and gotten herself somewhere where she can become a new and possibly even respectable person.

  “I don’t think she has the sense or character to make the clean break. If she did, she would’ve gotten out days ago.”

  You are going to return to that farm?

  “I’m still formulating strategy,” I fibbed. “Meanwhile I’ll go up to the daPena place for a chat with the Stormwarden’s old man and Willa Dount — maybe even her staff if it looks like that’ll do any good. And in the back of my head I’ll be trying to decide if Skredli is smart enough to have scoped it out himself.”

  /had not thought of that.

  “Because you don’t think like a thug. I guarantee you, the first thing Skredli did after he decided it was safe to stop running was start looking for somebody to blame for the fix he’s in. It would be easy for him to get all righteous about Donni. And look what a great target she makes. She’s got no friends left. No protector or avenger. And she’s got buckets of money that can be taken with­out any comebacks. And on top of that, she’s a woman.”

  You pity her?

  “Not much. She’s the one who decided to play with the hard boys.”

  Saucerhead was in the doorway, waiting for me to stop talking. I beckoned him inside. “They off?”

  “Gone.”

  “You know what I was saying?”

  “I heard your side.”

  “You heard everything worth hearing.” I got the maps I’d studied after my talk with Skredli and opened one. “You see this? That’s the crossroads where you and the girl had your run-in with Skredli’s gang. If you head west to about here, you come to two young mulberry trees hiding the end of an old road. About a half mile down that road is an abandoned farm. The place where they took Junior back when this mess was just a kidnapping. I think that’s where we’ll find Donni Pell.”

  “You want me to go drag her back here?”

  “Oh, no. I want her right where she sits. I’m going to organize a family outing to convene out there. But when I get there, I want to know what I’m walking into.”

  “You want me to go scout it out, then.”

  “Can you handle it?”

  “No problem. When?”.

  “Soon as you can. Don’t come at the place down that road.”

  He snorted. “Give me some credit, Garrett.”

  “Meet me at the crossroads tomorrow. I’ll try to be there as close to noon as I can. I’ll have some stops to make along the way.”

  Tharpe jerked his head in the general direction of the kitchen. “What about those guys?”

  “I don’t care. Let them tag along if they want. Or they can stick with me. If they decide to go with you, make sure they don’t start playing their own game. I’ve got to head up the Hill in a few minutes. Go find out what they want to do.”

  What are you planning, Garrett? The Dead Man sounded suspicious.

  “I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go along.”

  It feels like you’re setting something up.

  “I wish I was. There’re tags and threads that’re going to hang loose after this’s over and they could cause problems.”

  For instance, a certain Garrett getting caught in a colli­sion between a young woman used to getting what she wants and a somewhat older, no-nonsense redhead who feels she has a certain proprietary interest in the man?

  “That one hadn’t occurred to me. I was thinking more along the lines of the Stormwarden wanting to get me for my presumptions and disrespect after she no longer has any use for me. Amber won’t have any interest in me if she gets her meat hooks in that ransom money.”

  Garrett, you are, for the most part, an unusually sound-thinking representative of your species. But where mem­bers of the opposite sex are concerned, you are often a fool.

  “A congenital weakness. My father was subject to it too. I’m working on it.”

  You will break your beer habit first, I am certain.

  “Speaking of Amber, I should let her know what’s going on.”

  One piece of advice, since you wish to avoid a prime position on the Stormwarden’s get-even list.

  “What’s that?”

  Try to restrain that part of you which insists on being sarcastic, abrasive, and confrontational.

  “I’m working on that, too. I think I’ll clear that up right after I get straightened out about women.”

  I went to the kitchen doorway and stuck my head in. Saucerhead said, “They decided to stick with me.” His smirk said that was becau
se they weren’t interested in doing anything that would bring them to the attention of Raver Styx. I winked and headed upstairs.

  __XLVII__

  I tapped on Amber’s door. “You there?” “It’s not locked.”

  I went inside. She was seated on the edge of her bed, looking pale and tired. “Is she gone?”

  I settled into the room’s sole chair. “She left. We managed to work something out.”

  “How heavily did she outbid me?”

  “I don’t like your mother, Amber.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “People I don’t like never outbid people I do like.’ Though sometimes I’ll let them think they can.”

  “Thanks.” She didn’t sound cheered.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s almost over, isn’t it?”

  “I expect to put the noose around somebody’s neck tomorrow.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Not for certain. Not yet.”

  “It’s not going to make anybody happy, is it?”

  “No. Murder never does. Not for long.”

  “Then I won’t be seeing you....”

  I had an impulse to trot down and give the Dead Man a swift kick. He was listening in and snickering, proba­bly. Why is the old blubber boat always right?

  “Who knows? Look, I’m just about to go up to your mother’s house to question your father and Domina Dount. How’s your nerve? You want to go along and stand silent witness? Maybe pick up a change of clothes?”

  “Do I smell bad, or something?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. What’s a silent witness?”

  “Somebody who just stands there and makes people stick to the truth because they know the silent witness can contradict them.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “I don’t know if I’m up to that. My own father....”

  “It’d be a chance to see Domina Dount pick her nose with her elbow.”

  She rose immediately. “All right.”

  “My god. What enthusiasm.”

  “I don’t want to hurt my father, Garrett. And I know you’ll back him into a corner where things will come out that my mother won’t be able to forgive.”