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 sound 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? Awa
ke 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, tipped 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.
He turned out to be one of those guys who is such a good listener you tell things you didn’t know you knew. That skill would have served him well in the war zone. The best leaders are those with ears.
He interrupted only twice, with penetrating questions. Before I finished, I adopted the attitude I take when reporting to the Dead Man or chatting with Eleanor. I talked to me, thinking out loud.
I finished. Chaz looked at her father. He stayed clammed. I asked, “So how come you’re interested? Because of Chaz and the hospital?” He called her Chaz, too.
“Our home was looted during the crime spree that paralleled Teodoric’s affair with Maggie Jenn.”
I gave Chaz a mild fish-eye. She hadn’t mentioned that.
“A few items were recovered. They traced back to a Grange Cleaver — who couldn’t be found.”
“You didn’t connect him with the hospital Cleaver?”
“I wasn’t here when Chaz decided to work charity. Nor would I have looked for a thief in such a high place.”
“No? I think I’d look there...” I got control of my mouth when Chaz kicked me under the table.
The firelord’s expression told me I was fooling no one. He was right, really. We look for shady characters in the shade. Unless we’re cynics.
“I always thought Jenn was involved, Garrett. That raid took military timing. No outsider knew the family schedule. But you can’t accuse the royal mistress of theft.”
“I see.” Sort of. Chaz offered a smile meant to give me heart. Didn’t work. I had a notion where her dad was headed.
I wasn’t wrong.
Elaine said, “I’m as vindictive as the next guy. Even now I can’t go after Jenn, however much the royals hate her. They take care of their black sheep, too. But Cleaver has no friends that count and no guardian angels. Chaz says she told you we know Colonel Block. I’m pulling strings with the Guard and elsewhere, but I’d really like you to find Cleaver. If Block does it, it ends up on a court docket. I want to deal with Cleaver personally.”
Ker-pungk! The daddy of all fat leather wallets hit the table. “Nice workmanship,” I noted.
Faint smile. “Chaz gives you glowing reviews, Garrett. Westman Black, though, suspects that you can’t dance on water.” I gave Chaz a look. She reddened. “But I know Block, so I solicited other opinions.”
Was I supposed to be impressed? Blaine had begun to sound pompous.
Maybe there was a problem with my hearing.
I gave the Firelord an opportunity to appreciate my raised eyebrow trick. It worked. He told me, “They say you’re the best but you’re no self-starter.” He caressed that wallet like it was a special lady. “Devil snatch you, man! Don’t you have a bone to pick with Cleaver? You could’ve spent your life in a lunatic ward.” He edged that wallet half a foot closer.
Chaz smiled, nodded encouragement. Maybe her daddy danced on water, too.
“I did talk to Block, Garrett. There’s more than money here.” Caress, caress. “There’s a letter of introduction over my chop. Use it any way you want. It says you’re my agent and anyone who won’t help you just might find life unrewarding. There’s also a warrant from the good colonel that you can use to commandeer help from city employees. There are letters of credit that should be sufficient to cover your expenses and fees.”
Oh? And the damned wallet jingled like it was stuffed with more gold than a troll could hoist.
Chastity’s old man had come prepared to do business. He didn’t expect to go home disappointed. And I couldn’t argue with him.
He wouldn’t let me.
He was like all his class — though he did seem inclined to play fair.
Chaz kept right on saying nothing and grinned like she was watching me being inducted into paradise. I stalled. “I’m not sure what you want.”
“Find Grange Cleaver for me. Bring him to me or lead me to him. Once we’re face-to-face, you’re out of it.”
Reluctantly, like that wallet was a real troll-buster, I dragged his bribe toward me. I peeked. I saw pretty calligraphy, nifty official seals, a sweet double handful of shiny gold. And... a wishbone? “A killing
bone?” I asked.
“What? Oh. That’s right. You served in the islands.” Where the natives owned their own special nasty magic. To which Karenta and Venageta reacted by exterminating its practitioners wherever they were found.
“Yes.” Growl and scowl.
“This isn’t that. This is just a gimmick. Should you get into terrible trouble, spit on the bone. You’ll go out of focus to anyone concentrating on you. Any disinterested observer will see you fine, but somebody trying to kill you won’t be able to fix on you. Clever, eh?”
Maybe. I didn’t say so. I didn’t say his kind were so clever they fooled themselves most of the time.
“All right. It isn’t much. My talents run more toward smashing cities.”
And Chaz kept on smiling like she meant to melt me down.
The firelord excused himself. “Got to run. You’d think I could back off and take it easy now we’ve won the war. You two don’t need me getting in the way, anyhow.”
This guy couldn’t be real. I waved bye-bye. My new boss. Like it or not.
The thrill doesn’t last like it used to.
“Isn’t it great?” Chaz asked. She was so excited. I wondered if somebody had hit her with a stupid spell.
“What?”
Her smile turned puzzled. “What’s the matter?”
“Your daddy.” I kept a firm grasp on that wallet.
“I don’t understand.” She thought I should be pleased.
“I’m concerned about his agenda.”
“Was he indirect? Did he blow a lot of smoke?”
“No.” I couldn’t deny that. “What do you recall about this big ripoff?”
“Nothing. I wasn’t here.”
“Uhm?” I reached deep into my trick bag and came up with my best eyebrow lift. That drives them wild.
“I was away at school. Being finished. Boys go to the Cantard as subalterns.” Her class, she meant. “Debs go to finishing school.”
“Let’s don’t fight.” Especially since I’d survived a face-to-face with a father who wasn’t overburdened with ordinary paternal prejudices.
“Daddy’s people are rustics, hon. He doesn’t fake it. Forget his fire talent. He calls it a curse.” She kept scooting her gorgeous little tail ever closer. I didn’t think she wanted to talk about Daddy anymore.