Deadly Quicksilver Lies

  “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.

  36

  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.

  37

  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.

  38

  “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’r
e 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?”