Bitter Gold Hearts (6 page)

“See you later, Karl.”

His look of despair brightened as he took the notion seriously. Courter looked at me for the only time during his visit. He had visions of bloodshed echoing through his eyes. I smiled and gave him a big friendly wink. It did nothing for his ulcer. I gave it the old try but I couldn’t gel involved in my drinking. I held a caucus with myself, took a vole, and decided to go home and purge my soul by either subject­ing it to the torment of old Dean’s recitation of the encyclopedia of his eligible relatives, or simply dosing it with a generous helping of the Dead Man’s poisonous humors.

They disappointed me. Both of them. I think they had discussed it while I was gone. Dean was whistling when I walked in. “What happened? Your females ambush a troop of hussars and take them prisoners for life?”

He was in too good a mood to take offense. I couldn’t get a pout from him. I demanded, “What’s going on around here? Why are you grinning like a fox with goose feathers in his whiskers?”

“It’s his nibs. He’s ebullient. Exultant Positively ecstatic.”

“All that, huh? This I’ve got to see.”

“It is one for the books, Mr. Garrett.”

“What’s that you’re working on there?”

“A lamb roast.”

“Lamb is mutton. I don’t like mutton.” I had more mutton than I ever wanted while I was in the Marines. We ate it every meal except when we had to make do with rocklike chunks of salt pork or circumstances forced us to eat our horses or, worse, we had to subsist on roots and berries.

“You’ll like this. You’ll see.” He talked cooking technique.

I walked, grumbling, “Mutton is mutton is mutton,” figuring I would have to eat the stuff with a big show of appreciation because whenever I get critical of Dean’s cooking and he takes umbrage, the next meal is sure to include green peppers. There is no foodstuff in this or any other world quite so hideously nauseating as the green bell pepper. A pig — even a hungry pig — has better sense than to eat green peppers. But not people. It positively astounds me what people will eat.

In such a humor I shoved into the Dead Man’s room.

Ah. Garrett. Good afternoon. Good of you to stop in. How is that kidnapping business going?

“The kid came home in one piece.” I stepped out of the room, looked around, stepped back inside.

Congratulations. A job well done. You will have to tell me all about it. What was that little dance step?

“Just making sure I was in the right house with the right Dead Man. No congrats due. I didn’t have anything to do with it.” I went ahead and brought him up to date, leaving out none of the details but Amiranda’s overnight vacation from the household of the Stormwarden.

An interesting situation, infested with anomalies. Al­most a pity you have no concern in it. A challenge to crack its shell and lay open the meat within.

“Feeling our genius today, are we?”

Indeed. Yes indeed. The mystery of the magic of Glory

Mooncalled is a mystery no more. Subject to observational confirmation, of course.

“You figured out how he does it? When the Venageti War Council can’t do better than stumble over their own feet?”

Indeed.

“How?”

Ratiocination, my boy.

My boy? He
was
in a mood to crow.

Cogitation. Induction. Deduction. Repeated experiment manipulating the possible course of events within the known parameters. And from this came a hypothesis bearing the weight of near certainty. I know how Glory Mooncalled did what he did, and with just a bit more information I could predict with some degree of certainty what he will do next.

“So how does he do it? Does he turn invisible? Does he run through secret tunnels to sneak up and sneak away?”

/
have to reserve the how for now, Garrett. The hypoth­esis is insufficiently tested, based as it is on one assump­tion not yet validated. A bit more observation should confirm it, though, and you will be the first to know.

“No doubt.” He would crow like a herd of roosters watching three suns rising. If he was not already. “Why don’t you —”

“Mr. Garrett?” Dean had his head in the doorway. “Excuse me. There’s a young woman here to see you.”

His nose was up and his choice of the word “woman” over “lady” told me he thought her a floozy and proba­bly some playmate of mine not nearly as worthy of me as any one of a dozen of his nieces.

“Who is she?”

“She wouldn’t say. She seemed perfectly familiar with you, though.” Again with the nose up.

I excused myself and headed for the door expecting Amiranda. They just can’t stay away from you, Garrett. It was Amber. She gave me her big teasing smile as I let her in. Dean had instructions to let no one in without consulting me or the Dead Man first. I scanned the street as Amber brushed past. I didn’t see Courter Slauce but assumed he was out there watching.

Amber did some posing, showing off her best features, of which she had several. “Aren’t you dressed for the kill today? What’s the occasion?” I gave the street another scan. Nothing. But women from the Hill don’t wander my end of town unchaperoned. Not unless they’re so severely unaware of personal danger that the bad guys shy off as if they were holy madmen.

“A hunt. Of sorts.” She did have a promising smile.

“I see. How old are you, Amber?”

“Twenty.” She lied. My immediate guess was eighteen going on thirty.

“Uhn. This way.” I stalled for time while I led her to my office. There is a side of me that is very fond of women. There is also a side that’s wary of those who bring gifts without being asked. When they stand near a center of power and are as changeable and spoiled as this one probably was, I want to play it very carefully. I thought I saw a way.

“I’m a charming scamp, I know. Hurt me to the quick though it does, I’m old enough, plain enough, and poor enough to suspect that maybe my profession has more to do with you being here.”

“Maybe.” She went on trying to flirt. I had a bad feeling she might be one of those who couldn’t deal with a man until she proved to herself she could lead him around by his hopes and fantasies. That kind regards consummation as something to avoid at all costs. She was young but she knew her men well enough to know actu­ally giving in would dilute her power. I assumed she was playing that game, so I did my best to let her think she might get what she wanted without stretching her virtue.

She did appeal. A whole damned lot. But I’ll have to know a Stormwarden’s daughter a lot better before I take the risks inherent in such a situation.

“There is one thing you could do,” she admitted. “But that can wait. Don’t you feel crowded in here? Isn’t there somewhere else? That old man could walk in anytime.”

At which point I made the mistake of sitting down. My sitter was barely in place when a hundred pounds of potential parked
her
sitter on my lap. So much for Garrett’s infallible estimates of members of the female species. She had me going for a minute — until she giggled. I don’t like my women to giggle. It makes me doubt their maturity. Still, when the culprit is sitting on your lap, wagging her tail...

“Mr. Garrett.” It was that old man. “Mr. Dotes is here. He says it’s important.”

Saved!

Damn it.

__XI__

“Do you have to, Garrett?” “You don’t know Morley Dotes. If he comes here, it’s important.”

I had Amber about half pried loose when Dotes blew in. He stopped and gawked, then that sparkle flashed in his eye. I’m going to throw pepper in there someday just to get tears to wash it out.

“Down, boy. What’s going on?”

Amber made a show of neatening herself up. I guess she knew she had it and couldn’t help flaunting it.

“Your pal Saucer head. He’s in the Bledsoe carved up bad enough to kill a mammoth.”

“Bound to happen in his line of work.” Which was pretty much the same as Morley’s less public line, so he gave me a sour look when he could steal a second from appreciating Amber. “How did it happen?”

“Don’t have much yet. He staggered in from some­where way the hell out in the country. They say he shouldn’t have made it, but you know him. Too stubborn and stupid to die. They don’t think he’ll make it.”

“Who does, down there? What the hell was he doing out in the boondocks?”

Morley gave me a funny look. “I thought you’d know. He left the place early last night because he had a job. Said you recommended him.”

“Me? I never... Oh. Damn. I’d better get down there.” I had butterflies the size of horses. Amiranda. Had to be.

“I’ll stroll along with you, then. I haven’t had my exercise today.” Far be it from Morley Dotes to admit he had a friend anywhere in the known universe. As he turned to leave, Amber whispered, “Wait, Gar­rett.” The music was out of her voice.

“Is it critical?”

“To me it is.”

“Wait for me at the front door, Morley. So. Tell me.”

“My brother came home this morning. They let him go.”

“Good for him.”

“That means Domina paid the ransom.”

“Seems likely. So?”

“So there’s two hundred thousand gold marks out there somewhere that belong to my family, that somebody couldn’t yell about if it got taken away. Do you think you could find it?”

“Maybe. If I wanted to bad enough. A chunk like that, in the hands of amateurs, would leave a trail like a rogue mammoth. The trick would be getting to it before all the other sharpshooters in town.”

“Help me find it, Garrett. You can have half.”

“Whoa, girl. That’s asking for big trouble with no guarantee of any —”

“This may be my first, last, and only chance to make a hit big enough to get away from my mother. If I could get that money before she comes home, I could disap­pear so thoroughly she couldn’t find me with an army. You could do pretty good with a hundred thousand, too.”

“That I could. That I could.”

She posed. “And there are ancillary benefits, too.”

“Yes. Yes indeed. I’ll need some time to think about what I’d need and what I’d have to do. In the meantime, I’ve got a friend in the infirmary trying to die. I want to see him before he goes.”

“Sure.” She didn’t sound thrilled to hear about obliga­tions imposed by friendship. “I’ll come back tomorrow if I can get away from Courter and his bullies. Next day for sure. Maybe you could give that old man the day off.” She turned on the smile.

“Maybe I’ll think about that too.”

She giggled. “You do that.”

I patted her fanny. “Come on. Off with you. My friend Morley will be getting impatient.” I followed her to the front door. There is nothing I can say to disparage the view from that perspective.

Dean was waiting to bolt up after me, which meant he had been eavesdropping again. I shot him an ugly glare, but it ricocheted like water off the proverbial duck.

Morley was waiting outside. While I stood listening to Dean shoot the bolts, we appreciated Amber’s departure.

“Where do you find them, Garrett?”

“I don’t. They find me.”

“Bull feathers.”

“It’s true. I just sit here like a big old trapdoor spider and nab them when they walk by. Then I turn on the Garrett charm and they swoon into my arms.”

“That one is no swooner, Garrett. The one the other night wasn’t, either. High Hill fluff, both of them. Right?”

“Off the Hill. I wouldn’t call them fluff.”

“No. Probably not.” He sighed. “Why doesn’t some­thing like that ever turn up at my place?”

“You’re doing all right from what I see. Don’t get your heart set on this one. You’d be asking for a visit from the whirlwind. Her mother is a Stormwarden.”

“Another dream shattered by bitter reality. Still, it’s a pity. A pity — that’s sweet. Let’s go see Saucer head and find out which way to lay our bets.”

__XII__

The bledsoe infirmary is an imperial charity, mean­ing it’s supposed to provide medical care for the indigent. If you’re in the place, though, your chances improve a hell of a lot if you or a friend happen to come up with some cash. Human nature, 1 guess. I’m not always the biggest fan of my own species. They weren’t going to let me near Saucer head at first. He was supposedly in real bad shape and would be check­ing out very soon. Then somebody saw the flash of gold between my fingers and heard a hint or two about metal changing hands if the prognosis improved, and first thing you knew the whole infirmary had a new attitude. Zip! Morley and I were in Saucer head’s ward watching a gang of physicians and healers do their stuff.

Saucer head looked terrible when they started, paper pale after losing what appeared to be several gallons of blood. He didn’t look much better when they finished, but his breathing was steadier, less inclined to the charac­teristic sighs. I scattered a few marks and showed that I had a few more that might want to keep the others company. Saucer head didn’t do anything but breathe for a couple of hours. Good enough by me. That put us a few points up on Death.

Morley spoke only once the entire time we were wait­ing, in a tiny whisper. “If I ever get so desperate I come in here, you come cut my throat and put me out of my misery.” The remark illuminated the side of Morley Dotes with a morbid dread of sickness. After this visit he would be on double rations, stoking up on green leafies and whatnot, for weeks.

Not that the Bledsoe was
anybody’s
idea of heaven. One look around was enough to curdle a vampire’s bones. And this was just a ward to die in. The insane wards are supposed to be ripped straight out of the dungeons of hell. I couldn’t figure why Saucer head had picked the Bledsoe. He was no tycoon but he wasn’t a pauper, either.

We saw only one other vertical human being after the staff left, a priest who was probably the only decent human being working the Bledsoe. I knew him vaguely. He was one of the bigger names in one of the more obscure and bizarre of the several hundred cults hag-riding TunFaire. He came over and stared down at the huge slab of muscle that was Saucer head Tharpe. There was a nobility about Tharpe even in his extremity. It recalled the nobility of the lion or the mammoth. A good guy to have on your side, a bad guy to have for an enemy, simple, trustworthy, and as tough as they make them.