Gilded Latten Bones (7 page)

The runt had peeked through the curtains of my dreams.

Given time, I relaxed enough to realize that Relway had come fishing. He hungered for information on something that troubled him deeply — and I hadn’t helped despite my honesty.

Relway’s crew left Fire and Ice in stages, careful to protect the Director. So Crush said when she brought lunch, once the scary little man was gone. I loathed myself for my idiot response to a girl her age — while aching because a girl her age considered a guy my age a bad joke.

But she could go cow-eyed over Morley Dotes, thinking it somehow wondrous that she had gotten to change the diaper of a bad boy dark elf a whole lot older than me.

Crush was indifferent to Garrett the man. Our basis for interaction was Morley. She admitted that she had no idea who he really was. DeeDee might know him, though. The whiny guy inside asked, “So why are you drooling all over him?”

She rose dramatically in my estimation. She gave my question some thought. “I don’t know. Not when I try to logic it out. Is he a sorcerer?”

“Your guess would be better than mine. You’re female. I’ve never figured it out. Maybe he gives off a smell because he’s a vegetarian.”

“I doubt that. Anyway, with me it’s probably about competition with DeeDee. And he has an exciting reputation. He’s bad, he’s beautiful, and he has been connected with some famous women. Strip everything else away, there’s still bare-naked curiosity. What did those other women find so special?”

I considered Morley sourly. He had told me once that he had worked hard crafting his reputation. By building it and broadcasting it, he guaranteed himself a bottomless pool of ladies wondering what the excitement was all about. He had insisted that there was no trickery involved. He was providing excuses so women could pursue their own wicked desires.

Crush finished her work. She had no excuse for hanging around. She left without an apology, a farewell, or a broken heart.

I shut the door, pushed my cot against it. I lay down for a nap that didn’t last but two or three hours. Then I was wide awake again. I took advantage of the chamber pot, then checked the window.

It was still nailed shut.

On the other hand, it was glass. Glass could be broken.

18

Sound came from the bed. I dropped Jon Salvation’s omnibus of masterpieces. I thought Morley was choking.

He was. On words. His eyes were open. He was trying to talk.

His eyes were wild. He did not want to know where he was or what was happening. His latest memories were of being stabbed. Seeing me did not help. He did not recognize me.

Time was on my side. He wasn’t going anywhere. He had neither the strength nor the will to do so. He was feeling every wound. One try to get up left him clear on how he would spend his next few weeks.

He didn’t quite scream. He wasn’t loud enough to bring on the rest of the house. He lay there panting, collecting himself. He did recognize me now.

“You finally irked somebody a little too much. Maybe laid your blessings on the wrong wife or daughter.”

He made a sound of negation.

“Then it’s business or your past catching up.”

He did not respond. He turned thoughtful. Since he was supposed to be an honest restaurateur these days, I surmised that he was mining memory for a connection.

He continued not to respond.

Should I put aside the notion of a vengeful revenant? There would be few such who remained alive and dangerous. The Morley I knew when we were younger didn’t leave live enemies behind.

He lapsed into sleep, then wakened again a few hours later still unable to speak. He did make me understand that he was thirsty.

He was asleep when DeeDee and Crush came for the evening cleaning and feeding. I did not share the good news. I wanted them out of the way quickly.

Miss Tea looked in during the cleanup but left without saying anything.

Morley went for a long, deep doze. When Jon Salvation became too much for me — I kept hearing his irritating, whiny, scratchy voice as I read — I turned down the lamps, sprawled on the cot, and got busy doing some snoozing of my own.

At some point I halfway wakened with the vague notion that Morley was trying to say something. Very mechanical and as clear as a falling-down drunk speaking his native tongue. Later still, I halfway wakened thinking something was trying to open the window. The glass squeaked. The frame creaked.

There was a flash and bang outside, followed by yelling and screaming. The shrieks of Civil Guard whistles followed. I saw nothing when I got to the window. There was no light. There was a heavy overcast.

I heard nothing more till early birds DeeDee and Hellbore wakened me by banging the door against my cot.

Hellbore. Wow. What a marvelous name. I would honor her preferences and call her Crush.

19

This time Morley woke up while the women were ministering to him. I got to witness another of those fascinating, inexplicably repugnant things that happen around him.

Two professional comfort women went red with embarrassment when he opened his eyes.

I just leaned against the wall, out of the way, and marveled. Un-bee-leave-a-bull!

DeeDee was in a charitable mood. Or needed to overcome her shyness by diverting her attention toward an unthreatening target. “There was some excitement out there again last night.”

I’d almost convinced myself that I had dreamed it. “I hope it was less deadly than before.”

“I think it was pretty ugly. You should talk to Miss Tea about that.”

“I’ll look forward. Moments with Mike are more precious than pearls.”

DeeDee would never be an aficionado of my special humor. She looked at me blankly, not even wondering if I was poking fun.

Crush, though, rolled her eyes. She awarded me a sneer that said she got me and I was lame.

Morley made noises that sounded like they belonged to the family of questions most frequently asked upon awakening in strange circumstances.

I told him, “We’re hiding out on the second floor of a hook shop called Fire and Ice, a subsidiary of the Contague family enterprise. We’re here at Belinda’s behest. She thought this would be a safe place to hole up till you heal enough to move to her place. Your lovely attendants are DeeDee and her daughter Hellbore, who prefers to be called Crush. They have been tending you since you were brought here. What, four days ago? Ladies?”

DeeDee counted on her fingers. “Yep. Four.” Then she actually curtsied.

Crush rolled her eyes.

Morley made noises. I translated. “He says pleased to meet you and thank you for all the care you’ve lavished upon him.”

Crush said, “Didn’t sound like that to me.”

Nor to me. “He might have expressed himself a little less elegantly. A man with deep stab wounds tends to be curt and cranky, especially when he’s just wakened and the pain is catching up. But those were the core sentiments he wanted to convey. Deep down in his heart of hearts.”

Crush said, “Man, you are full of it.”

“It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

She snorted.

“I’m really a big old lovable stuffed bear once you get to know me.”

Another snort, dismissive but not derisive. “That isn’t going to happen. The Capa left very specific instructions to the entire house. Not even DeeDee is dim enough to confuse them.” She eyed her mother. Who kept right on looking like Crush’s happy younger sister. “Or maybe she is. But she’s already fixated on the bad boy.”

“In another place and time, under different circumstances, we could have been great friends. I like the twists your mind takes.”

That left her speechless. I indulged my evil laughter. I hadn’t had a chance in a long time. Then, being a trained detective, I detected. “You guys didn’t bring breakfast with you this morning.”

DeeDee told me, “It wasn’t ready. There were problems in the kitchen on account of some of the staff are late.”

My paranoid bodyguard side went on alert.

Needlessly. DeeDee explained, “Mostly they’re late because they have to get through all the tin whistles and whatnot that are out there. But some are fighting hangovers and stuff, too. The chief cook’s daughter got married last night and that idiot paid for an open bar after. There’ll be all the food you can eat once they get rolling.”

Crush rolled her eyes again, this time for no obvious reason.

Morley stayed quiet. He listened, building mind pictures of character.

I said, “I’ll need one of you to help feed him when the food does come.”

DeeDee startled me. “That should be Crush. She does it better than me.”

Crush shook her head. She didn’t want the job if her mother didn’t want it.

I opined, “Maybe we ought to let Miss Tea decide.” Because that worthy had arrived. A wondrous medley of breakfast aromas pursued her. A previously unmet young lady deposited a tray on the nightstand. It was beginning to get crowded. If I had been between twelve and twenty-nine, I would have been in heaven. But I was a big boy now, no longer allowed to think that way. And the stench off a side of bacon was a total distraction.

Miss Tea said, “DeeDee, you and Crush go down and help serve. I’ll feed Mr. Dotes while I talk to Mr. Garrett.”

“Serve?” Crush asked.

“I opened the grand parlor to the Civil Guards. Serving tea and sweet rolls. A goodwill gesture.”

“Always helps to be on good terms with the local red tops.”

“It is. Move along, ladies. Garrett, before you pig out totally, hand me that glass and the long spoon.”

“That glass” contained a greenish sludge made from something a starving pig probably would refuse but which might be good for a guy full of knife holes. Miss Tea said, “Some water, too.”

That got to Morley via a reed, Miss Tea trapping a small quantity by holding a thumb over the reed’s upper end, then releasing the dribble into Morley’s mouth. It worked better when he was awake.

He was very thirsty.

Miss Tea fed him patiently, in little bits. “There was more excitement last night.”

“So I heard. The neighborhood is overrun by red tops.”

“They’re everywhere. Half my people can’t get to work. I try to make the tin whistles comfortable while they waste their time. And mine.”

“What happened?”

“The night visitor came back. The Capa had a specialist waiting. And Director Relway had a team of Specials in the area, too.”

“I thought I heard an explosion but I didn’t see anything when I looked out the window.”

“There
was
an explosion. Why don’t you go down and see for yourself while I do this?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Here.” She pulled a slip of parchment from its nest in her cleavage. It was warm and lightly scented.

“What’s this?”

“An employee pass. It will get you in and out if you have to deal with people who don’t know you.”

“Thank you. That should be useful.” For a moment I wished I could spread the brag amongst my circle. I had written proof that I was a bona fide employee at a top-level brothel.

On reflection, though, it might be better to keep it to myself. I would hear every possible bad joke from people determined to undermine my dignity. Towel boy would be the most generous accusation I’d hear.

20

The pass proved unnecessary. Several tin whistle sergeants remembered me and had been tipped that I had semiofficial standing. This one time only, my presence within sight of a crime scene was to be tolerated.

Barry Berry was a humorless man but a good guy. He attached himself to me like that was his special assignment. He took me on a tour. “Everything is right where it fell. The Director and General Block want to see it all for themselves before we start the cleanup.”

There would be some of that to do. The neighborhood had been blessed with five corpses. Two had been Civil Guards. Another had been one of Belinda’s men. The remainder were unknowns presumed to have been companions of the perpetrator. They wore tattered gray wool. They had wooden helmets encasing their heads.

I observed, “Somebody believes in living on the edge.”

“The prevailing theory is that it’s somebody who can’t make the connection between actions and consequences. We got a sicko out there, Garrett. A huge sicko.”

A race was on, now, between the Outfit and the Guard. Honors to the winner would be first chance to have a long, painful sit-down with whoever was behind these deaths.

The mystery men in gray had fallen in the street on a line from under Morley’s window to the place where Belinda’s watcher had perished earlier. The force of the bang had hit them from behind, hurling them a dozen yards across cobblestones. A blood trail said one crawled twenty feet before expiring. The broken remains of a cart and roasted carcasses of two goats marked the beginning of his brief trek. Against the brick wall, below the window, lay a chunk of something that put me in mind of squid. There were no tentacles or anything, it was just that the skin on the uncooked side had a texture that stirred the squid notion.

Berry said, “Most of the guys were reminded of snails. I guess because of the crust on the brick.”

“No shell.”

“No tentacles, either.”

“That’s true. Do we know what happened?”

“We know exactly what happened, minute by minute.”

“Give me the highlights. If you would be so kind.”

“The goat cart showed up just like it did before. Like whoever was bringing it had no idea that we might be watching.”

“But with two thugs along.”

“Stupid. Totally overconfident stupid. Miss Contague had a friend off the Hill tucked in to watch, same place as the guy who got waxed. He used a stealth spell that wasn’t completely effective. The villain didn’t notice him right off. When he did the Hill guy unleashed the lightning.”

“And that caused all this?”

“It did. Miss Contague used somebody from the first string.”

“Where’s the villain?”

“Got away. Come over here.” Berry led me past the wreck of the cart to a patch of what looked like candle black fifteen feet across. At its center was a circle of perfectly pristine cobblestones a yard across. The black around the circle was an eighth of an inch thick. Small footprints left, passed all the casualties, and headed toward downtown. “There was a running fight. That’s when we lost our guys. And the Outfit soldier.”