“Nothing.”
“Garrett.”
“Just trying to help my best pal get a chance to experience an amazing phenomenon.”
“I think you are up to something.”
“Really? Look, I need to talk to Playmate.” Playmate had Kip in tow but not Kip’s mother or sister. Or Rhafi. Mustn’t ever forget poor, invisible Rhafi.
Playmate looked exhausted. “It’s getting to me, Garrett. Having the Guard watching the place all the time. Having them come around asking questions at all hours.”
Even Kip seemed subdued. He hardly fidgeted. He made no effort to wander away from Playmate. He didn’t insult anyone.
I asked, “Where are the rest of them?”
“I don’t know if they’re coming. Kayne said she was but I expected her to get here before we did.”
“She has to come. We’ll be on real thin legal ice if we put together a company where one of the partners isn’t even old enough to draft. We need his mother here.”
“I understand that. But you need to realize that Kayne’s custodial status won’t stand up if somebody big really challenges it. She’s a woman. So she’s pretty much handicapped when it comes to making contracts herself. If this turns into something involving really big money, you know the jackals are going to start gathering.”
Playmate was right. Women who make a name and place for themselves have to do so against the ancient tide of the law. Kayne had the legal advantage of being a widow, had no living father, and neither son had reached his majority. Still, as Playmate said, add money to the mix and somebody would take legal action to become Kayne’s legal guardian.
Playmate mused, “I’m worried that the father will turn up and stake a claim.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“No. He disappeared. He’s presumed dead. Even if he is dead, somebody could claim to be him. It would be his word against Kayne’s. A woman. Of questionable morals. The sorting out would give somebody plenty of time to do some mischief.”
“People can’t do much mischief if their legs are broken.”
“It wouldn’t be that simple.”
“I hate people sometimes, Play. In times like these I have trouble convincing myself that Relway doesn’t have the right idea about how to handle humanity’s scum.”
“Might not be your best simile, Garrett. The scum is what rises to the top. Well, somebody is here.”
Somebody proved to be Max Weider and his beautiful daughter Alyx. Alyx was coifed and dressed to kill. Alyx loved every second of the attention she attracted. Manvil Gilbey and our first uninvited guest, Congo Greeve, straggled in behind, the bad and the ugly. Congo looked like he had broken out the special, formal occasions cranial wax. His eight-inch part glistened.
Wicked, wicked Alyx headed straight for me, blue eyes sparkling like a bucket of diamonds. She showed me a wicked, wicked smile and leaned forward to offer me a world-class glimpse of a wicked, wicked decolletage.
“Bad girl,” I told her. “Daddy’s going to spank.”
“Promise?”
“You’re hopeless.”
“I’ve got plenty of hope. I know you can’t resist forever. I see you took the trouble to dress up.” She grabbed my right arm, did a little wriggle-and-spin move before I realized what she was doing.
Her daddy was not amused.
“I... What’re you doing?”
“Tinnie was right behind us.”
The devil herself stepped into the room. Red hair, green eyes, freckles, a shape to make men sit up nights cursing the sun and the moon and the stars because there was only one of her to go around. She wore green velvet. She eyed Alyx, checked the goofy look on my clock, shook her head and allowed Puddle to guide her to the side of the table where the Tates would be stationed. Like most everyone else I know who passes as more than a remote acquaintance, Puddle treats Tinnie like an empress.
Alyx said, “Damn. That didn’t get a rise out of her. How’bout you?”
“Well, you did get your dad all steamed up. You’ll hear from him later.” Max and I might be friends but there was no way he was going to let me get involved with his baby. Not that he’s a snob. He just don’t think my prospects are any better than those of highwaymen or pirates, professions notorious for their high rate of turnover.
Alyx went over and dropped inelegantly into a chair beside Tinnie. They fell into conversation instantly, probably beating up on me. They were close friends, despite Alyx’s relentless campaign to slide her shoes under the end of my bed.
Morley reappeared. He had changed clothing. He wore a lady-killing costume now. I kept a straight face. He cast covert glances into the dark corner where Singe and Evas lurked, trying to avoid notice. Evas was busy playing peekaboo with the Goddamn Parrot but didn’t miss Morley’s return.
Kip had discovered Evas, too. He was scared to death. I said, “Play, tell Kip it’s all right. She’s on our side.”
Well, I was hoping she was. Things might change suddenly if she found out she had a ride home.
“Are you ready to begin serving?” Morley asked. “The kitchen is ready for you.”
“Not yet. I’m waiting for the boy’s family to show.”
He stared at Evas and the jungle chicken, which Evas had just uncovered. “There’s something about that creature...”
Something she was projecting herself. I’d felt it back at the house more than once. “Yes, there is. Would you like me to introduce you?”
“I’m talking about Mr. Big, Garrett,” he lied.
“That’s one of the better straight lines you’ve ever handed me but I’m going to let you off. You were distracted. Let me mingle with my guests. You want something to do, a wine course might be appropriate right now.” A suggestion that Dean had offered on the way over, as a way of dealing with time that had to be filled.
There was an extra Tate as well as the Weider lawyer. His name was Lister. He was a cousin in his thirties. Outsiders occasionally confused him with Tinnie’s deceased pop, Lester. Lister passed as the family legal expert. He was a square-jawed, dark-haired, immaculately clothed and groomed, painfully handsome character who had a hint of the weasel gleaming from the corners of his eyes. For some reason I think of him as the Lawyer of Times to Come.
I know of no one in the Tate clan who likes cousin Lister. He’s tolerated because he’s kin and because he’s good at what he does.
Cousin Lister has no clue how his relatives really feel about him.
Like every human family in TunFaire, great or small, the Tales have menfolk buried in the Cantard. Full-length frog fur coats are more common than grown men who avoided military service in the war zone.
Lister Tate, without halfway trying, wangled himself an army assignment that kept him right here in TunFaire, as the armed forces’ liaison with their biggest suppliers of boots and leather accouterments. He didn’t even move out of the family compound. Nevertheless, he promoted himself an out-of-barracks housing allowance that exceeded the pay rates of men like myself, at my highest rank, even including the combat bonus I got while I was in the islands.
I worked my way around to Tinnie. “My good fortune never ceases to amaze me. I was daydreaming about meeting a beautiful redhead. Look what walked through the door.”
“I saw what you were daydreaming about. A slutty blonde young enough to be your baby sister.”
Alyx snickered and bounced over a seat so I could settle between her and the redhead. She made some crude remark about the chair’s warmth, that would’ve had her father looking for a switch had he heard it. I gave her a wink. “You could come be my baby-sitter.”
Tinnie told me, “You ever call her bluff for real, big boy, you’d better have your running shoes on.”
Alyx said, “If he does, he won’t be able to do anything but crawl.”
“You’re going to put it all on me when she’s talking like that?” I winked at Alyx again. She stuck her tongue out at Tinnie and started to hop into my lap. Then she
noticed her father, Gilbey, and Congo Greeve all glaring at her. She needed to learn that some teasing wasn’t acceptable in public.
“Yes. Because I expect you to know how to say no.”
That seemed a tad unrealistic but I didn’t insist. Instead, I said, “Uh-oh,” with very little regard for Tinnie’s opinion.
Kayne Prose had arrived. Making a grand entrance, just ahead of Cassie Doap, who seemed to have adopted a flamboyantly flirtatious personality for the evening. Tinnie stomped a foot. She wasn’t used to this level of competition.
In fact, she was rather exceeded.
Mother and daughter wore newly made gowns. Their creation must’ve required the needles of all Kayne’s cooperative sisters. Both gowns flattered outrageously what begged for very little flattery in the first place.
Slack-jaw disease raged among the menfolk in Morley’s private dining room.
Even Dean’s imagination seemed to come to life.
Rhafi came in behind his mother and sister, rendered almost invisible by their glory.
As happenstance had it, Lister Tate was the only married man in the room. The bachelors and widowers all looked ready to revel in their status.
When time and doom catch up with me and I have to slough off this mortal realm, I mean to thank the gods for having blessed me with the chances I’ve had to get to know so many comely women. I expect to start working on my speech about ten thousand years from now.
Manvil Gilbey caught my eye, projected the unspoken question: Was this something I’d laid on for Max? Max could not seem to stop staring at Cassie Doap.
I shook my head, mouthed, “But if it’ll help...”
Puddle showed the newcomers to their seats, near Playmate and Kip. Even he was having trouble breathing. There were far too many beautiful women in that room, each of them trying to one-up the others.
Tinnie let me have an elbow, putting plenty of force behind it. “That’s for what you’re thinking.”
“I apologize. I’ll never think of you as an object again. From now on it’s nothing but business. From now on you’ll be Mr. Tate in my every act and thought.”
That earned me a repeat stroke of the elbow. “I’d better not be.” The fickle woman.
Alyx said, “Look at Dad! I think the old bull’s in rut.”
Tinnie muttered, “Alyx, sometimes you’re too juvenile even to amuse me.”
I moved up to my place beside Dean, which was my signal that the evening was about to become serious. Those who weren’t in their official seats found them. Once everyone sat down there was very little room to spare. Morley had another place setting on each long side but it would’ve taken a shoehorn to get anybody in. I introduced everyone, including Morley as host, then Evas and Singe as they took their seats to the left of Dean and to the right of me, without explaining their presence. I thought they ought to stay mysterious. They drew stares but not even Lister Tate was gauche enough to demand information about them.
I let Morley know that we were ready to be served.
Kayne and Cassie both managed admirably during dinner. Tinnie was not amused by the regard they received. She was used to being the center of attention. But all the men at this banquet were related to her or had known her since she was a pup. Except for me and Dean and Kayne’s drooling baby boys. And she already had Dean on a leash and me wrapped around her finger.
Alyx was amused. She liked seeing Tinnie have to take second chair. Just to rub it in she kept right on flirting with me. Her father wasn’t worried about her anymore.
71
I tried not to cry when I thought about how much this evening was costing me. I tried to forget the fact that, if it didn’t work out, I might end up spending several years working fourteen-hour days just to get back to the point where I could afford to save money buying beer by the keg.
As a business convocation the sequestered evening at Morley’s place had to be some sort of precedent. The gang of us came out of there having created a company dedicated to the creation, production, and marketing of the fruits of the imagination of Cypres Prose, ingenious boy inventor. The Weider brewing empire would provide financing. The Tate family would handle the actual production. Kayne Prose and all her offspring would move into the Tate compound, where they would live much better than ever they had before, with no requirement that they do anything but be Kip’s support and inspiration. I myself would be the genius who held it all together. Having been the genius who had gotten it all together.
I had a feeling Kayne Prose wouldn’t have much attention to spare for industry. Not for a few months, at least.
When Kayne Prose met Manvil Gilbey it was lust at first sight both ways. All the rest of us had to be grateful that they didn’t jump on one another right there in the banquet room.
Kayne’s behavior wasn’t exactly a surprise. I had a feeling she seldom met a man she didn’t like. But Manvil Gilbey is as reserved as a wine butt normally.
The absolute absurdity of the universe is declared, in a bellow, once again, by the fact that Max Weider, age sixty, became infatuated with Cassie Doap, a completely ridiculous eventuation not unilateral in nature. Nor did either of those two seem conscious of the fact that Cassie was three years younger than Alyx Weider. And Alyx was the baby of Max’s five children.
Max told me, “Of course it’s stupid. But she’s a dead ringer for Hannah when I first met her.” And he was willing to play delusional games with himself in order to defy his pain.
More or less. Nobody cons Max Weider for long. Not even Max himself.
Cassie’s positive response, wholly genuine, was a good deal more puzzling. We knew already that neither Cassie nor her mother were out for the easy ride, bought with their looks and bodies.
There’re times when people do, honestly, connect on something besides the physical level.
That became one of the fine evenings of my life. One of those times when everything works out even better than you’d dared hope.
Sometime during the socializing, following the creation of the Articles of Agreement encompassing the founders of the new company, my good pal Morley Dotes and the silver elf Evas disappeared.
I suspect that couples who do that tell one another no one will notice but, secretly, don’t give a rat’s ass if anybody does because their minds are fogged by anticipation.
The capper came when Lister Tate proved he wasn’t a complete waste of flesh by, belatedly, providing a device for getting around the legal age problem, as well as the potential problem of a fatherly return. “Willard Tate can adopt the boy. The device goes all the way back to imperial times, when the emperors wanted to handpick their successors. It’s not much used anymore, except on the Hill, but the tool is there. Mrs. Prose can allow it. If nobody challenges right away only a Royal proclamation can reverse it. And we could argue against that that only an imperial edict is valid since the adoption went forward under a pre-Karantine law. I believe there are precedents.”
I told Tinnie, “Promise me you’ll keep Kip away from Rose.”
“I plan to keep him for myself. He has good prospects.”
“He’ll be your cousin.”
“Spice is nice but incest is best. Ouch! You meanie. I’ll bet he’s got stamina, too.”
“My prospects are looking up, too. I won’t need a business excuse to get my foot in the door at the Weider place anymore. Ouch! Alyx. She’s hurting me.”
72
Do you feel like a captain of industry? the Dead Man asked.
I waved a hand in a dismissive gesture he couldn’t possibly see. “What I feel like is a guy dancing six inches above the ground because I have completely, thoroughly, irrevocably nailed Morley’s mangy hide to the wall. I have hoisted him on his own petard. I’ve spent months and months and months trying to map out some absurdly complicated revenge scam to get even with him for the Goddamn Parrot. And in the end a better answer just dropped her bottom into my lap. I just had to introduce Morley to Evas, let Morley be Morley, let
Evas be Evas, and let Deal Relway be his own suspicious self.”
The Dead Man wasn’t pleased. Once I’d decided to point Evas at my pal Morley, I’d launched a companion scheme which resulted in her wanting to keep the feathered clown with her.
Evas couldn’t leave The Palms, now. There were too many watchers outside who reported to the Emergency Committee for Royal Security. It may be a long time before they tire of observing comings and goings at Morley’s place.
Oh, me! Oh, my! I love it!
I wonder how long it’ll take Morley to realize that he’s reaped the whirlwind?
No more Mr. Big, trying to get me stoned on the streets, following me everywhere, keeping track, nagging me. No more... “Gah!”
A ferocious squabble had broken out inside the front wall.
Soundless, almost gloating laughter seemed to fill the atmosphere.
Well, hell! He might not miss a step.
Still, I could cherish thoughts of Morley’s delicious plight.
Although Fasfir didn’t approve.
She had managed to establish communications with the Dead Man. She found it painful to be completely alone. When Old Bones didn’t make her feel better she joined me in my office. By means of notes, a few words spoken with difficulty, and my small ability to sense moods, she made it known how cruelly terrifying being alone and lonely was for her kind.
I told her, “Casey’s here.”
But Fasfir found Casey nearly as alien as she did me, and he was a lot less fun after dark. I could scramble her brains and push the fear away for a while.
“Huh? You worked hard enough but I never felt like you got much out of it.”
She informed me that she was much more diverted when I was with Evas and she was in Evas’ mind. Evas’ flesh responded more readily, thoroughly, and willingly than did her own. Though her problem probably existed entirely within her own mind.
Odd. Though she believed she had mental hang-ups she admitted to being every bit as enthusiastic as Evas. Only she enjoyed it best at second hand.
Life gets stranger by the hour.