Red Iron Nights (2 page)

I never did count him as a friend. He just came with my friend Morley—though Morley’s friendship can be suspect enough. “You take the joy out of the Joy House, Puddle.”

“Hey, Garrett. The place was rocking till you walked in.”

Saucerhead’s pal Licks wasn’t even gurgling now, but he kept puffing like a volcano and grinning. I was getting the smoke secondhand but was ready to start humming myself. I lost track of what I was saying, started wondering why the place was called the Joy House, which made it sound a lot more exotic than the vegetarian hangout it is.

Licks suddenly shot up like he’d been goosed. He headed for the door, sort of floating, as though his toes barely reached the floor. I’d never seen anyone do weed so heavy. I asked Tharpe, “Where’d you find him?”

“Licks? He found me. Him and some other guys want to organize the musicians.”

“Say no more.” I could imagine their interest in Saucerhead. Tharpe makes his living convincing people. His technique involves bending limbs in unnatural directions.

Two or three Morleys descended the stair from the second floor, staring toward Licks as the musician hit the exit. Morley had heard about me. Puddle had warned him through the speaking tube to his office upstairs. Hard to tell through the smoke, but Dotes looked irked.

Morley is a breed, part dark-elf, part human. The elf side dominates. He’s short, trim, so handsome it’s a sin. And sin he does, as often as he can with anybody’s wife who’ll hold still. He’d grown a little pencil-stroke mustache. He had his black hair slicked back. He was dressed to kill—though his type looks good in anything. He drifted our way, showing a lot of pointy teeth.

“What’s that thing living under your nose?”

Saucerhead offered a crude suggestion. Morley ignored him. “You quit working, Garrett? You haven’t been around.”

“Why work if I don’t have to?” I tried looking smug—though my finances weren’t comfortable. It costs to keep house.

“You have something going?” He occupied the chair vacated by Licks, waved at persistent weed smoke.

“Not hardly.” I gave him my sad tale of woe. He laughed too.

“Imaginative, Garrett. I almost believe you. I have to admit, when you make them up they sound like things that
could
happen. So what is it? Something hush-hush? I haven’t heard about anything shaking. This town’s getting dull.”

He talked that long only because I was stammering. “Damn! Not you too!”

“You never come around except when you need muscle to hoist you out of a hole you’ve dug yourself.”

Not fair. Not true. I’ve even gone so far as to eat some of the cow chow his joint serves. Once I even paid for it. “You don’t believe me? Then tell me this. Where’s the woman?”

“What woman?” Dotes and Saucerhead and Puddle all grinned like shiteating possums. Thought they had me on the run.

“You claim I’m working. Where’s the woman? I get into one of my weird cases, there’s always a lovely around. Right? So you see a honey on my arm? Hell, my luck’s so bad I’d almost go to work just to . . . Huh?”

They weren’t paying attention. They were staring at something behind me.

2

She liked black. She wore a black raincloak over a black dress. She wore high-top black boots. Raindrops shimmered like diamonds in her raven hair. She wore black leather gloves. I imagined she’d lost a black hat and veil somewhere. Everything about her was black except her face. That was as pale as bone. She was about five-six. She was young. She was beautiful. She was frightened.

I said, “I’m in love.”

Morley’s sense of humor deserted him. He told me, “You don’t want anything to do with her, Garrett. She’ll get you dead.”

The woman’s gaze, arrogant from amazing black eyes, passed over us as though we didn’t exist. She chose to perch at a table isolated from those that were occupied. Some of Morley’s patrons shivered as she passed, pretended they didn’t see her.

Interesting.

I looked some more. She was about twenty. She wore lip paint so red it looked like fresh blood. That and her pallor gave me a chill. But no. No vampire would dare TunFaire’s inhospitable streets.

I was intrigued. Why was she afraid? Why did she scare those thugs? “Know her, Morley?”

“No. I don’t. But I know who she is.”

“So?”

“She’s the kingpin’s kid. I saw her out there last month.”

“Chodo’s daughter?” I was stunned. Also a lot less romantically inclined.

Chodo Contague is TunFaire’s emperor of crime. If it’s on society’s underbelly and there’s a profit in it, Chodo has a piece of it.

“Yes.”

“You went out there? You saw him?”

“Yes.” He sounded a little vague, there.

“He’s really alive, then.” I’d heard but I’d had trouble believing it.

See, my last case, the one with all the redheads, ended up with me and my friend Winger and Chodo’s two top lifetakers going after the bastard. Winger and I took a powder before the dirty deed, figuring we’d be next if we hung around. When we left, Crask and Sadler had the old boy ready to go on the meathook. But it hadn’t taken. Chodo was still boss wazoo. Crask and Sadler were still his top headcrushers, like they’d never had a thought of putting him to sleep.

That worried me. Chodo had seen me plain enough. He wasn’t the forgiving sort.

“Chodo’s daughter! What’s she doing in a dump like this?”

“What do you mean, a dump like this?” You can’t even hint that the Joy House might be less than top of the mark without Morley gets his back up.

“I mean, obviously she thinks she’s a class act. Whatever you or I think, she’s got to figure this’s a dive. This isn’t the Hill, Morley. It’s the Safety Zone.”

That’s Morley’s neighborhood. The Safety Zone. It’s an area where folks of disparate species get together for business reasons with a lessened risk of getting murdered. It’s not your upper-crust part of town.

All the time we’re rattling our mouths, whispering, I’m trying to think of some good excuse for going over there and telling the girl she’s made me her love slave. And all the time I’m doing that, my little voice is telling me: don’t make a damned fool of yourself, any kid of Chodo’s is going to be murder on the hoof.

I must have twitched. Morley grabbed my arm. “You’re getting desperate, hit the Tenderloin.”

Common sense. Don’t stick your hand in a fire. I hung on to my ration of sense. I settled back. I had it under control. But I couldn’t help staring.

The front door exploded inward. Two very large brunos brought half the storm in with them. They held the door open for a third man, who came in slow, like he was onstage. He was shorter by a couple of inches but no less muscular. Somebody had used his face to draw a map with a knife. One eye was half-shut permanently. His upper lip was drawn into a perpetual sneer. He radiated nasty. “Oh, boy,” Morley said.

“Know them?”

“I know the type.”

Saucerhead said it for me. “Don’t we all.”

The scar-faced guy looked around. He spotted the girl. He started moving. Somebody yelled, “Shut the goddamned door!” The two heavies there took their first good look around and got a read on what kind of people hang out in a place like the Joy House. They shut the door.

I didn’t blame them. Some very bad people hang out at Morley’s place.

Scarface didn’t care. He approached the girl. She refused to see him. He bent, whispered something. She started, then looked him in the eye. She spat. Chodo’s kid for sure.

Scarface smiled. He was pleased. He had him an excuse.

There wasn’t a sound in the place when he yanked her out of the seat. She betrayed pain by expression but didn’t make a sound.

Morley said, “That’s it.” His voice was soft. Dangerous. You don’t mess with his customers. Scarface must not have known where he was. He ignored Morley. Most times that’s a fatal error. He was lucky, maybe.

Morley moved. The thugs from the doorway got in his way.

Dotes kicked one in the temple. The guy was twice his size but went down like he’d been whacked with a sledge. The other one made the mistake of grabbing Morley.

Saucerhead and I started moving a second after Dotes did. We circled the action, chasing the scar-faced character. Morley didn’t need help. And if he did, Puddle was behind the bar acquiring some engine of destruction.

Rain hit me in the face, like to drove me back inside. It was worse than it had been when I’d arrived.

“There,” Saucerhead said, pointing. I spied the loom of a dark coach, figures struggling as Scarface tried to force the girl inside.

We pranced over, me unlimbering my favorite oak headknocker as we went. I never leave home without it. Eighteen inches long, it has a pound of lead in its business end. Very effective, and it don’t usually leave bodies littering the street.

Saucerhead beat me there. He grabbed the scar-faced guy from behind, twirled him around, and threw him against the nearest building with a force that drowned the rattle of distant thunder. I slithered into the vacated space, grabbed the girl.

Somebody was trying to drag her into the coach. I slipped my left arm around her waist, pulled, pushed my headknocker past her, figuring I’d pop a bad boy between the eyes.

I saw eyes, all right. Eyes like out of some spook story, full of green fire, three times too big for the wizened little character who wore them. He had to be a hundred and ninety. But he was strong. He hung on to the girl’s arm with hands like bird claws, pulled her in despite her and me both.

I swished my billy around, trying to avoid seeing those eyes because they were poisonous. They scared hell out of me. Made me feel cold all the way down to my tail-bone. And I don’t scare easy.

I got him a good one upside the head. His grip weakened. That gave me a chance to line up another shot. I let him have it.

His mouth opened wide, but instead of a scream, butterflies poured out. I mean like about a million and two butterflies, so many the coach was filled. They were all over me. I stumbled back, flailed around. I’d never been bitten by a butterfly, but who knew about the kind that come flapping out of some old geek’s mouth?

Saucerhead pulled the girl away from me, tossed me back like a rag doll, dived in there, and pulled that old guy out. You don’t want to get in Saucerhead’s way when he’s riled. He breaks things.

The old man’s eyes had lost their fire. Saucerhead lifted him with one hand, said, “What the hell you think you’re pulling, Gramps?” and tossed him over to ricochet off the same wall that had been Scarface’s undoing. Then Tharpe went over and started kicking, one for this guy, one for that, no finesse. I heard ribs crack. I figured I ought to calm him down before he killed somebody, only I couldn’t think how. I didn’t want to get in his way when he was in that mood. And I still had a flock of soggy butterflies after me.

Tharpe calmed himself down. He grabbed the old man by the scruff of the neck and pitched him into the coach. The old boy made a sound like a whipped puppy. Tharpe tossed Scarf ace in on top of him, then looked up. There wasn’t anybody on the driver’s seat, so he just whacked the nearest horse on the rump and yelled.

The team took off.

Hunching down against the rain, Tharpe turned to me. “Takes care of those clowns. Hey! What happened to the girl?”

She was gone.

“Damned ingrate. There’s a broad for you. Hell.” He looked up, let the rain fall into his face a moment, then said, “I’m going to get my stuff. Then what say you and me go get drunk and get in a fight?”

“I thought we just had a fight.”

“Bah. Bunch of candyasses. Wimps. Come on.”

I had no intention of going trouble-hunting. But it did seem like a good idea to get in out of the rain, away from the butterflies. I told you I hadn’t used up my ration of sense.

One of the two thugs was blocking the water flow in the gutter in front of Morley’s door. The second came flying out as we started in. “Hey!” Tharpe yelled. “Watch where you’re throwing your trash.”

I looked around inside. The girl hadn’t gone back in there. Morley and Puddle and I settled down to wonder what it was all about. Saucerhead went off looking for a real challenge.

3

I did my best to get my money’s worth out of Puddle’s keg while Morley and I dissected cabbages and kings and butterflies and the old days that never were that good—though I’d had me a moment now and then. We solved the ills of the world but decided there was nobody in authority with sense enough to implement our program. We were disinclined to take on the job ourselves.

Women proved a topic of brief duration. Morley’s recent luck undershone my own. It was too much to take, seeing that great blob Puddle tipped back in his chair, thumbs hooked in his belt, grinning smugly in regard to his own endeavors.

The rain continued relentless. At last I had to face facts. I was going to get wet again. I was going to get a lot wet if Dean failed to respond to my pounding and whooping at the door. With set jaw and scant optimism I took my leave of Morley and his establishment. Dotes looked as smug as his man. He was home already.

I hunched my chin down against my chest and wished I’d had the sense to wear a hat. I wear one so seldom it doesn’t occur to me to top myself off when that would be wise. Right away rain started sneaking down the back of my neck.

I paused where we’d rescued Chodo’s mysterious daughter from her more mysterious assailants. There wasn’t much light. The rain had swept away most of the evidence. I poked around and was on the verge of deciding half had been my imagination before I found one big bedraggled butterfly. I salvaged the cadaver and carried it as carefully as I could, cradled in my left palm.

My place is an old red brick house in a once-prosperous stretch of Macunado Street, near Wizard’s Reach. The middle-class types have all abandoned ship. Most of the neighboring places have been subdivided and rented to families with herds of kids. Usually when I approach my house I pause to inspect it and reflect on the good fortune that let me survive the case that paid me enough to buy it. But cold rain down the back of the neck has a way of sapping nostalgia.