by Glen Cook
"What's the bottom line?"
"Them documents showed he wasn't in the Cantard no more. Our big boys been chasing shadows."
I have my moments. "And the only documents the republicans did destroy were ones that might say where the boss was?"
"How'd you know?"
"I'm a good guesser." This would interest the Dead Man. His hobby was tracking and anticipating Glory Mooncalled.
"They get anything out of the prisoners?"
"Didn't take no prisoners, Garrett."
"You always take prisoners."
"Not this time. Them guys never had no chance, but they wouldn't give up."
I couldn't believe that. However fanatic a group is there's always a member who doesn't want to die.
"But that ain't why I come here, Garrett."
"Oh?"
"Winger wanted me to—"
"Winger! Where is that oversized... ?"
"If you put a clamp on it, I might tell you something."
The best advice I ever got. It repeated suggestions from my mother and the Dead Man. You have a hard time hearing with your mouth open. I shut mine.
"Winger said tell you that you and her ain't pulling the same oar no more but you ought to know them West End pansies was coached to tell you what they told you. You was supposed to head off in a new direction."
He looked at me like he hoped I would explain.
I considered. I thought Robin and Penny had talked straight. They maybe forgot a fact or three but steered a tack close to the truth. Why point me at Marengo North English? Why would Winger turn me away?
Smelled like somebody was dragging a squashed skunk across the trail. Somebody big and blond with too much faith in my naivete. "How would she know?"
"I figure she got it from her boyfriend."
"Her what? Boyfriend? Since when?"
Saucerhead shrugged. "Been around a while, off and on. She never made no announcement. I don't figure she wants us to know. You'd come out of your hole and hang out, you would know, though."
He had a point. Information was the blood of my trade and connections the bone. I wasn't taking proper care of either. I did before I moved in with the Dead Man. "Go on."
"She just wanted to warn you. Didn't want you should step in anything unexpected."
"That's my pal. Always thinking of me. She couldn't drop by herself, eh?"
Saucerhead grinned. "You ask me, she don't want to get close enough you can get your hands on her."
"Surprise, surprise." I glanced over my shoulder. The boys and bird weren't watching. "Think I'll wander over to Morley's. I'll buy, if you want to come along."
48
Morley didn't seem thrilled to see Saucerhead. He gave me a dark scowl. I couldn't understand why. Tharpe was a good customer.
Dotes joined us anyway. It was obvious immediately that he was distracted. He listened with half an ear, kept one eye on the door all the time.
I told him, "I've got most of it figured."
"Uhm?" How did he get so much incredulity into one grunt?
"When Maggie Jenn left town, she was so bitter she never wanted to come back. Her lover had been murdered, his people hated her, but she still had to go through the motions to keep what he gave her, for the kid's sake as well as her own. Her old pal and maybe brother Grange Cleaver played her to get the skinny on the Hill places he robbed, so she got him to play her whenever it was time to make her annual shows. Cleaver was happy to help. It gave him a way to get into and out of TunFaire without getting gobbled up by Chodo Contague. Along the way, he hooked up with the imperials, sold them some con, and got involved with the Bledsoe. Bet you he's been stealing from the hospital and the Hill place both.
"Now get this. One day along come Crask and Sadler with a tale about Chodo and his little girl. Cleaver eats it up. This is what he's been waiting for. This is his big chance to get back into the big time in the big town. But there's a loose end: Emerald Jenn. She's in the city. A runaway. She knows the truth about Maggie Jenn and Grange Cleaver. And she'll tell it."
Morley and Saucerhead looked like they were having trouble grasping it. Why? It wasn't hard.
"So Cleaver tries to set up an operation here, and nobody signs on because they know about Chodo's old grievance. Except Winger. And she starts wondering what's what. But she smells a chance to score. When Cleaver mentions he wants to look for the girl without it being obvious it's him looking, Winger drops some hints about me, figuring to use me somehow. Cleaver puts on his Maggie Jenn face and hires me, only I mess up by letting it drop that I was warned Maggie was coming. He smells a rat inside his outfit. Who it is doesn't click right away. Being a good actor, he doesn't have any trouble staying in character long enough for me to finish up at the Hill place. Soon as I'm gone, though, he takes off for his headquarters and sets it up to get rid of me. He'll get somebody else to look for the girl.
"Winger hears him sending his men out. She realizes it won't be long before he figures out who told me he was coming. She grabs anything she can carry and takes off. She helps me get away from the Bledsoe.
"She gives me a double ration of bullshit when I ask her what's really going on. She still thinks she can make a big score, so now she's staying away from me."
Sarge brought tea while I theorized. Morley poured, sipped, grimaced. Evidently the tea hadn't been brewed from anything off a tea bush. Big surprise. They serve nothing normal there.
Dotes was distracted. He was listening, but every time the door opened he lost his concentration. Still, he'd remained attentive enough to observe, "Your hypothesis doesn't contradict any of the known facts."
"Hell, I know that. I made it up. But? I can tell—you have a but."
"Couple of them. You don't contradict any known facts, but you don't account for everything that's been happening around you. And you've done a feeble job of examining Cleaver's motives."
"What? Wait. Whoa. You just lost me."
"Chodo's kid shirked any of the duties of a kingpin?"
"Hardly. Ice and iron." I had the gashes and frostbite to prove it.
"Exactly. So whatever Crask and Sadler might claim, being here is a major risk for Cleaver. I've identified the pro who's dogging you. His name is Cleland Justin Carlyle. He's a specialist assigned to watch you. You get three guesses why. Only the first counts."
I nodded. "And, wonder of wonders, C.J. was never seen in these parts before I mentioned the name Grange Cleaver to my pal Morley Dotes, once said pal failed to meet up with Cleaver his own self."
Morley shrugged, which was as good as a confession.
He had no regrets. He never looked back and seldom apologized. He saw no need to apologize now. He asked, "What's Winger's angle?"
"I don't know. I doubt that it matters. She probably doesn't know what she's doing herself, she just wants to keep the pot boiling till she finds a way to score."
Morley slew a pity smile a-borning.
"You know something I don't?"
"No. You're ahead of me. Though you do seem to be late catching on to an essential point."
"Really? What?"
"That Winger lied about everything. Right from the beginning. That not one word she said can be counted on to be true. That anything that comes from her should be thrown out altogether."
"Oh. Yeah. I knew that."
I knew it now. Now that I looked at it. Forget everything Winger said. Sure.
49
"I conned Puddle into doing you a favor, Garrett," Morley told me. I didn't ask; I just waited for the inevitable wisecrack.
He fooled me again. The crack didn't come. "Uhm?"
"I had a feeling you wouldn't get around to Quefours."
"Puddle scare him up?"
Morley nodded.
"Waste of time, right?"
"Puddle's still sulking."
"What's the story?"
"Quefours hasn't seen the girl for eight months. His choice. He broke it off because she wouldn't play his way. Made her s
ound prudish."
"And Quefours doesn't have the ghost of a notion where to find her now. Right?"
"Wrong."
"Huh?" I've always had a knack for witty repartee.
"He said dig around among the witchcraft community. The girl is looking for something. His notion was you should start with the blackest black magicians. That was where she was headed when they split." Dotes appended a big nasty smile.
"You saying Cleaver framed her with the truth?"
"Maybe just to get you headed in the right direction." More teeth. He had to have about two hundred. Looked like he'd been filing them again, too. "Thought you'd get a kick out of that."
"A kick in the butt." It just got more confusing. I started to get up.
"Hey!" Saucerhead growled. "You told me... "
"Feed this beast, Morley. Something cheap. Like alfalfa."
"Where are you going?"
I opened my mouth to tell him and realized that I didn't know.
"Like that? Then why not just go home? Lock your doors. Get comfortable. Read. Wait for Dean. Forget Grange Cleaver and Emerald Jenn."
I responded with my most suspicious look.
"You got your advance, didn't you? This Jenn chit sounds like she can take care of herself."
"Answer me one answer, Morley. Why did she run away from home?" Might be important if the whole thing had to do with a missing kid after all.
"There are as many reasons for going as there are children running."
"But they mostly boil down to a perceived need to escape parental control. I don't know enough about Emerald. I don't know enough about her mother. Their relationship is a mystery."
"What did I just recommend? Don't keep gnawing on it, Garrett. You don't have any reason. You don't need any more grief. Turn loose. Spend some money. Spend some time with Chastity."
"What?"
"Gods preserve us," Saucerhead muttered. He stopped attacking his dinner long enough to sneer, "He's got that look, ain't he?"
"Got what look?"
Morley told me, "The dumb stubborn look you get when you're about to jump into something without a reason even you understand."
"About to? I've been in it four days."
"And now you're out because you know it was a game that didn't take. You did your usual stumbling around and knocked over everybody's apple carts. Now it's over. You're out. You're safe as long as you don't go around irritating people. Consider it a phenomenon. You don't go charging around like a lunatic trying to find out why if it happens to rain live frogs for three minutes in the Landing. Do you?"
"But... " But that was different.
"There's no need to find the girl now. Not for her sake, which is the thing that would bug you."
"Garrett!" I jumped. I hadn't expected Saucerhead to horn in. Everybody in the place stared at him. He told me, "He's making sense. So listen up. Nothing I heared about this makes me think these folks're really worried about the kid."
"He's making sense," I admitted. "Morley always makes sense."
Dotes gave me a hard look. "But?"
"I'm butting no buts. I mean it. You're dead on the mark. There's no percentage messing with this anymore."
Morley eyeballed me like he believed me so surely he wanted to wrap me in another wet blanket. I complained, "I really do mean it. I'm going to go home, get ripped with Eleanor, grab me a night's sleep. Tomorrow I get to work on running my guests off. All of them. Only one thing I'm wondering."
"What's that?" Morley remained unconvinced. I couldn't believe that they really thought I had the white knight infection that bad.
"Could Emerald be another Cleaver disguise? You think he could manage makeup good enough to pass for eighteen?"
Morley and Saucerhead opened their mouths to ask why Cleaver would want to, but neither actually spoke. Neither wanted to feed me any reason to go chasing something potentially lethal.
"I'm just curious. He has a rep as a master of disguises. And Playmate told me he'd always thought that the daughter was dead. I wonder if maybe the plot wasn't more complex than we suspected. Maybe Cleaver didn't just plant clues up on the Hill. Maybe he created a whole character."
Morley snarled, "You're psycho, Garrett."
Saucerhead agreed. "Yeah." He was so serious he put his fork down. "I know I ain't no genius like neither one of you guys, but I do know you got to go with the simplest explanation for something on account of about a thousand times out of nine hundred ninety-nine that's the way the real story goes."
What was the world coming to when Saucerhead got a smart tongue on him? "Am I arguing? I agree. Sometimes I think this brain of mine is a curse. Thank you, Morley. For everything. Even when you didn't mean it." I left enough money to cover Saucerhead's meal, though I could have made it to the street before anyone realized that the tab hadn't been satisfied. I figured Saucerhead deserved it. His luck rolled down a steeper incline than mine. He seldom lived better than hand to mouth.
Me, I, Garrett, was out of the game. Whatever it might be. I was going to go home, get organized, drink some beer, have a bath, scope me out a master plan that included seeing a lot of Chastity Blaine.
But I left Morley's place with my hackles up, like some atavistic part of me expected the same old gang to be out there set to reintroduce me to the pleasures of the Bledsoe. I was on edge all the way home.
The Bledsoe was a sight, they said. Supposedly it was disappearing behind fast-rising scaffolding.
My tension went to waste. Nobody paid me any mind. I didn't even get followed. Made me feel neglected.
I'd never had a case as exciting as this just sputter and fade away, but some jobs have. Those kind usually see me ending up snacking on my fee. I recalled with pride that this time I'd been clever enough to snag a percentage up front.
I wouldn't win any kudos from the Dead Man, but he would have to admit that I was capable of being businesslike on occasion, even in the face of a lusty redhead.
50
Despite sleeping well I wakened restless. I chalked it up to rising before noon even though Ivy hadn't pestered me. Once again I wondered if the Dead Man wasn't stirring. I looked in but saw no sign that he was. But what could you expect? Awake or asleep, the Dead Man's physical appearance changes only as time gnaws.
Slither and Ivy were unusually subdued. They sensed that I planned to move them out. I had a notion where to send them, too. But old lady Cordonlos wouldn't believe a word I said to make them sound like worthy potential tenants. Darn her.
So after lunch I consulted someone who might actually give a rat's whisker about their welfare.
Wonder of wonders, Playmate had some ideas. Before long, my old campaigning pals had probationary jobs and probationary housing and I found me, O miracle of miracles, with my own place all to my ownself again. Except for the Dead Man and the Goddamn Parrot. That cursed bird had gone into hiding before Ivy could hunt him down and take him along. My generous self-sacrifice wasted.
It would be a while yet before I saw Dean again. I hoped. What with Chaz and all...
I talked it over with Eleanor. She had no objections, so I wrote a letter and hired a neighborhood kid to deliver it to Chastity. He insisted on a bonus for approaching a wizard's house.
I checked and rechecked the street while I gave the little mercenary his instructions. I saw no one even vaguely interested in the Garrett homestead. Even my neighbors were ignoring me. Still, I was uneasy.
I squabbled with the Goddamn Parrot till that got old, then communed with Eleanor. I was lonely. Your social circle isn't much when it consists of a talking bird, a painting, and a character who hasn't only been asleep for weeks and dead for centuries, he hasn't been out of the house since you met him.
My friends were right. This was no way to live.
There was a knock. I would've ignored it had I not been expecting to hear from Chaz.
Even so, I used the peephole.
It was the kid. He held a letter up. I opened the door, tipp
ed him extra, checked the lay of things again, still saw nothing unusual. I like it that way.
I settled behind my desk, read, then shared the news with Eleanor. "Chaz says she's gonna pick me up. How about that? One bold wench, eh?"
After a pause, I continued, "All right. Call her a role-breaker, not a bold wench. And she's gonna stay nontraditional. Taking me someplace she likes. And she's bringing her father."
Only a painting, I reminded myself. This chatter was only an affection. No way could Eleanor taunt me with a spectral snicker.
I didn't much want to meet Chaz's pop, him being one of the top twenty double-nasty wizards infesting this end of the world. I hoped he wasn't a real old-fashioned kind of dad. I don't deal well with foamy-mouthed avengers of soiled virtue.
Another ghostly guffaw? "She says he just wants to ask about Maggie Jenn and Grange Cleaver."
Right. That worried me more than if she'd tipped me to expect a daddy smoking with outrage.
No good kicking and screaming now.
Eleanor insisted this was a great opportunity to make contacts among the high and mighty. "Right, babe. You know how I value my contacts among the rich and infamous. Exactly what I've always never wanted."
I went to make myself lunch.
My guests had left me my shoes and half a pitcher of water.
51
I went into that evening with my philosophy of life firmly fixed in mind: expect the worst and you can't possibly be disappointed. Chastity's old man was a boomer. If he took a notion, he could flatten me like a cow patty and skip me across the river.
He surprised me. He was no centenarian gargoyle. He looked like an ordinary guy barely on the lying side of fifty. His black hair had gone half silver. He had a small paunch and stood four inches shorter than me. He was groomed till he gleamed. He glowed with good health. Those were obvious badges of power. But he dressed no better than me. And he had the tanned and roughened skin of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors. He didn't seem taken with himself, either.