Glen Cook

Dread Brass

Shadows

From the files of Garrett, P.I.

1

Whew! The things I get me into!

We had snow hip deep to a tall mammoth for four weeks, then it turned suddenly hot and the whole mess melted quicker than you could say cabin fever. So I was out running and banging into people and things and falling on my face because the girls were out stretching their gorgeous gams and I hadn’t seen one leg, let alone two, since the snow started falling.

Running? Garrett? Yeah. All six feet two and two hundred pounds, poetry in motion. All right. Maybe it was bad poetry, doggerel, but I was getting the hang of it. In a few weeks I’d be back to the old lean and mean I’d been when I was twenty and a crack Marine. And pigs would be zooming around my ears like falcons.

Thirty isn’t old to somebody who’s fifty, but when you’ve spent a few years making a career of being lazy and the belly gets a little less than washboard and the knees start creaking and you start puffing and wheezing halfway up a flight of stairs, you feel like maybe you’ve skipped the twenty in between, or maybe just started spinning The digits over on the left-hand side. I had a bad case of got-to-do-something-about-this.

So I was out running. And admiring the scenery. And huffing and puffing and wondering if maybe I ought to forget it and sign myself into the Bledsoe cackle factory. It wasn’t a lot of fun.

Saucerhe.ad bad the right idea. He sat on my front stoop with a pitcher Dean kept topped. Each time I lumbered past he got his exercise by throwing up fingers showing the number of laps I’d survived without a stroke.

People shoved me and cussed me, Macunado Street was belly button to elbow with dwarves and gnomes, ogres and imps, elves and whatever have you else, not to mention every human in the neighborhood There wasn’t room for pigeons to fly because the pixies and fairies were zipping and swooping overhead. Nobody in TunFaire was staying inside but the Dead Man. And he was awake for the first time in weeks, sharing the euphoria vicariously.

The whole damned city was on a peak high. Everybody was up. Even the ratmen were smiling

I churned around the corner at Wizard’s Reach, knees pumping and elbows flailing, gawking ahead in hopes that Saucerhead would be struck as dumb as he looks and would lose count, maybe a couple laps in my favor. No such luck. Well, some luck He showed me nine fingers and I figured he wasn’t lying much. Then he waved and pointed. Something he wanted me to see. I cut to the side, apologized to a couple of young lovers who didn’t even see me, bounced up the steps with all the spring of a wet sponge. I looked out over the crowd,

“Well.”

“Tinnie.”

“Yeah.” Well, indeed. My gal Tinnie Tate, professional redhead, She was still a block away but she was in her summer taunting gear, and wherever she walked, guys stopped and bounced their chins off their chests. She was hotter than a house afire and ten times as interesting. “There ought to be a law.”

“Probably is but who can keep his mind on legalities?” I gave Saucerhead a raised eyebrow. That wasn’t his style.

Tinnie was in her early twenties, a little bit of a thing but with hips that were amply ample and mounted on gimbels. She had breasts that would make a dead bishop jump up and howl at the moon. She had lots of long red hair. The breeze threw it around wilder than I suddenly hoped I might in about five minutes if I could run off Saucerhead and Dean and get the Dead Man to take a nap.

She saw me gaping and panting and threw up a hand hello and every guy in Macunado Street hated me instantly. I sneered at them for their trouble.

“I don’t know how you do it, Garrett,” Saucerhead said. “Ugly dink like you, manners like a water buffalo. I just don’t know.” My pal. He got up. Sensitive guy, Saucerhead Tharpe. He could tell right away when a guy wanted to be alone with his girl. Or maybe he was just going to head her off and warn her she was wasting her time on an ugly dink like me.

Ugly? A vile slander. My face has gotten pushed around some over the years, but it has all the right parts in approximately all the right places. I can stand to look at it in a mirror, except maybe on the morning after. It’s got character.

As I grabbed my mug and took a long drink, just to replace fluids, a dark-skinned, weaselly little guy with black hair and a pencil-stroke mustache grabbed Tinnie’s chin with his left hand. His other hand was behind her, out of sight, but I never doubted what he was doing.

Neither did Saucerhead. He let out a bellow like a wounded bison and flew off the stoop. His boots never touched the steps. I was right behind him yowling like a saber-tooth with his tail on fire, eyes teared up so I couldn’t see who I was trampling.

I didn’t run into anybody, though. Saucerhead broke trail. Bodies flew out of his way. It didn’t matter if they were two feet tall or ten. Nothing stops Saucerhead when he’s mad. Stone walls barely slow him down.

Tinnie was down when we got there. People were clearing out. Nobody wanted to be near the girl with the knife in her back, especially not with two madmen roaring around.

Saucerhead never slowed down. I did. I dropped to one knee beside Tinnie. She looked up. She didn’t look like she was hurting, just kind of sad. There were tears in her eyes. She reached up with one hand. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask anything. My throat wouldn’t let me.

Maybe it was our bellowing. He squatted down. “I’ll take her inside, Mr. Garrett. Maybe His Nibs can help. You do what you have to do.”

I grunted something that was more of a moan than anything, lifted Tinnie into his frail old arms He was no muscleman, but he managed I took off after Saucerhead.

2

Tharpe had a block lead but I gained ground fast. I wasn’t thinking. He was. He was pacing himself, matching the assassin’s stride, maybe following to see where he led. I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t look around to see what else was happening on the street. I wanted that blademan so bad I could taste blood.

I came churning up beside Saucerhead. He grabbed my shoulder, slowed me down, kept squeezing till the pain took the red out of my eyes. When he had my attention he made a couple of gestures, pointed.

I got it. First time, too. Must be getting smarter as I age.

The skinny guy didn’t know his way around. He was just trying to get away. There aren’t many straight streets in old TunFaire. They wander like they were laid out by drunken goblins blinded by the sun. This character was sticking to Macunado Street even though we had passed the point where it changes its name to Way of the Harlequin and then again to Dadville Lane after it narrows down.

“I’m gone.” I cut out to the right, into an alley, through, darted down a narrow lane, ducked into a breezeway, skipped over some ratmen wasted on weed and a couple of blitzed human winos, then blasted out into Dadville Lane again, where it finishes the big, lazy loop around the Memorial Quarters. I chugged across the street and leaned against a hitching rail, waiting, puffing, and wheezing and grinning because boy, was I in shape for this.

I was ready to dump my guts.

And here they came The gink with the mustache was going all out, scared to death, trying so hard he wasn’t seeing anything. All he knew was the pounding feet were catching up.

I let him come, stepped out, tripped him. He flew headlong, rolled like he had some tumbling experience, came up going full speed—wham! Right into the end of a watering trough. His momentum kept his top half going. He made a fine big splash.

Saucerhead got on one side of the trough I got on the other. Tharpe slapped my hand away. Probably that was best. I was too upset.

He grabbed that gink by his greasy black hair, pushed him under, pulled him up, said, “Winded as you are, you ain’t gonna hold your breath long.” He shoved the mustache under again, pulled him up. “That water’s going to get cold going down. You’re going to feel it going and know there ain’t one damned thing you can do to stop it.” The big louse was barely puffing. The guy in the trough was wheezing and snorting worse than me.

Saucerhead shoved him under, brought him up a half second before he sucked in a gallon. “So tell us about it, little man. How come you stuck the girl?”

He would have answered if he could. He wanted to answer. But he was too busy trying to breathe. Saucerhead shoved him under again.

He came up, swallowed an acre of air, gasped, “The book!” He gobbled some more air—and that was the last breath he drew.

“What book?” I snapped.

A crossbow bolt hit the guy in the throat. Another thunked into the trough, and a third put a hole through Saucerhead’s sleeve. Tharpe came over the trough in one bound and landed smack on top of me. A couple, three more bolts whizzed past.

Tharpe didn’t bother making me comfortable. He did stick his head up for a second. “When I roll off, you go for that door.” We were about eight feet from the doorway to a tavern. Right then, that looked like a mile. I groaned, the only sound I could make with all that meat on top.

Saucerhead roiled off. I scrambled. I never really got myself upright. I just sort of got my hands and feet under me and made that door in one long dive, dog-paddling. Saucerhead was right behind me. Crossbows twanged. Bolts thunked into the door. “Boy!” I said. “Those guys are in big trouble.” Crossbows are illegal inside the city wall.

“What the hell?” I gasped as we shoved the door shut. “What in the hell?” I dived over to a window, peeked through a crack in a shutter still closed against winter.

The street had cleared as though a god had swept a broom along it, excepting a mixed bag of six nasties with crossbows. They spread out, weapons aimed our way. Two came forward.

Saucerhead took a peek. Behind us the barkeep went into a “Here, now! I won’t have trouble in my place! You boys clear out!” routine.

Saucerhead said, “Three dwarfs, an ogre, a ratman, and a human. Unusual mix.”

“Odd, yes.” I turned. “You got trouble already, Pop. You want it out of here, lend a hand. What you got under the bar to keep the peace?” I wasn’t carrying anything. Who needs an arsenal to lumber around the block? Tharpe didn’t carry, usually. He counted on his strength and wit. Which maybe made him an unarmed man twice over.

“You don’t get going you’re going to find out.”

“Trouble’s the farthest thing from my mind, Pop. I don’t need any. But tell that to those guys outside. They already killed somebody in your watering trough.”

I peeked again. The two had pulled the mustache Out of the water. They looked him over. They finally figured it out, dropped him, eyeballed the tavern like they were thinking about coming inside.

Saucerhead borrowed a table from a couple of old boys puffing pipes and nursing mugs that would last them till nightfall. He just politely asked them to raise their mugs, picked the table up, and ripped a leg off. He tossed me that, got himself another, turned what was left into a shield. When those two arrived, he bashed the dwarf’s head in, then mashed the ogre against the door-frame with the table while I tickled his noggin with a rim shot.

One of their crossbows didn’t get broken. I grabbed it, put the bolt back in. popped out the door, and ripped off a one-handed shot at the nearest target I missed and pinked a dwarf ninety feet away. He yelped. His pals headed for the high country.

Saucerhead grumbled, “You couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a ten-foot pole if you was inside the barn.” While I tried to figure that out, he grabbed the ogre, who was as big as he was, and tried to shake him awake. It didn’t work. Not much of a necromancer, my buddy Saucerhead.

He didn’t try the dwarf That guy had gotten pounded down a foot shorter than he started out. So Tharpe just stood there shaking his head and looking baffled. I thought that was such a good idea I did it, too. And all the while, that old bartender was howling about damages while his clientele tried to dig holes in the floor to hide in

“Now WHAT ?” Saucerhead asked.

“I don’t know.” I peeked outside.

“They gone?”

“Looks like. People are starting to come out.” A sure sign the excitement was over They would come count the bodies and lie to each other about how they saw the whole thing, and by the time any authority arrived—if it ever did—the story’s only resemblance to fact would be that somebody got dead

“Let’s go ask Tinnie.”

Sounded like a stroke of genius to me.

   3

Tinnie Tate wasn’t some mousy little homemaker for whom the height of adventure was the day’s trip to market. But she Wasn’t the kind of gal who got messed up with guys who stick knives in people and run in packs shooting crossbow volleys at citizens, either. She lived with her uncle Willard. Willard Tate was a shoemaker. Shoemakers don’t make the kinds of enemies who poop people. A shoe doesn’t fit, they bitch and moan and ask for their money back, they don’t call out the hard boys.

I thought about it as I trotted. It didn’t make sense. The Dead Man says when it doesn’t make sense, you don’t have all the pieces or you’re trying to put them together wrong. I kept telling me, Wait till we see what Tinnie has to say. I refused to face the chance that Tinnie might not be able.

We had a curious and rocky relationship, Tinnie and me. Sort of can’t live with and can’t live without. We fought a lot. Though it hadn’t been going anywhere, the relationship was important to me. I guess what kept it going was the making up. It was making up that was two hundred proof and hotter than boiling steel.

Before I got to the house, I knew it wouldn’t matter what Tinnie had done, wouldn’t matter what she’d been into, whoever hurt her would pay with interest that would make a loan shark blush.

Old Dean had the house forted up. He wouldn’t have answered the door if the Dead Man hadn’t been awake. He was, for sure. I felt his touch while I was pounding on the door and hollering like a Charismatic priest on a holy roll.

Dean opened the door. He looked ten years older and all worn out. I was down the hall pushing into the Dead Man’s room before he finished bolting the door behind Saucerhead.

Garrett!

The Dead Man’s mind touch was a blow. It was an icewater shower, It stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to scream. That could only mean.

She was there on the floor. I didn’t look. I couldn’t. I looked at the Dead Man, all four hundred fifty pounds of him, sitting in the chair where he’d been since somebody stuck a knife in him four hundred years ago. Except for a ten-inch, elephantlike schnoz he could have passed for the world’s fattest human, but he was Loghyr, one of a race so rare nobody has seen a live one in my lifetime. And that’s fine by me. The dead, immobile ones are aggravation enough.

See, if you kill a Loghyr, he doesn’t just go away. You don’t get him out of your hair that easy. He just stops breathing and gives up dancing. His spirit stays at home and gets crankier and crankier. He doesn’t decay. At least mine hasn’t in the few years I’ve known him, though he’s a little ragged around the edges where the moths and mice and whatnot nibble on him while he naps and there’s no one around to shoo them away.

Do not act the fool, Garrett. For once in our acquaintance astound me by pausing to reflect before you leap.

That’s the way he is. Usually more so. My tenant and sometime partner, sometime mentor. Despite his control I croaked, “Talk to me, Chuckles. Tell me what it’s all about.”

Calm yourself Passion enslaves reason. The wise man. .

Yeah. He does go on like that, hokey philosopher that he is. Only not in the really grim times . . . I began to suspect something.

Once you get used to a particular Loghyr, you can read more than words when he thinks into your head. He was angry about what had happened but not nearly so outraged and vengeance hungry as he should have been. I began to control myself.

“I did it again, eh?”

You get more exercise jumping to conclusions than you do running.

“She’s going to be all right?”

Her chances seem good. She will need the attention of a skilled surgeon, though. I have put her into a deep sleep till such time as one becomes available.

“Thanks. So tell me what you got from her.”

She had no idea what it was about. She was involved in nothing. She did not know the man who wielded the knife. He left out his usual stock of sarcastic comments when he added, She was just coming to see you. She went to sleep completely bewildered.

He loosened his hold on me, let me settle into the big chair that’s there for me when I visit.

Till you lumbered in with your recollections, I assumed it was random violence. Meaning he had sorted through my memories of the chase.

Saucerhead joined us. He leaned on the back of my chair, stared at Tinnie. He jumped to the same conclusion I had. I admired his self-control. He liked Tinnie and had a special place in his heart for guys who wasted women. He’d lost one once, that he’d been hired to protect. No fault of his own. He’d wiped out half a platoon of assassins and had gotten ninety percent killed himself trying to save her. He hadn’t been the same since.

I told him, “Smiley over there put her to sleep. She’ll be all right, he thinks.”

“Sons of bitches must pay anyway,” he growled, hanging on to the tough, but he looked relieved all over. I pretended I didn’t see his show of “weakness.”

The book? the Dead Man asked. That is all you got before the sniping started? Like it was my fault. Some sniping was about to get started here. He knew damned well that was all we’d gotten. He’d sifted our minds.

“That’s all.” Play it straight. That was my new tactic. It drove him crazy when I didn’t fight back.

There was nothing in her thoughts about a book.

“Ain’t much to go on,” Saucerhead said. He had lost his mad urgency. Tinnie was going to be all right. He didn’t have to go out and lay waste. Not right away, anyway. He—and I—would keep an eye out for the characters responsible, though.

No. I suggest you both calm yourselves, then recall those blackguards carefully. Any insignificant detail might be consequential. Garrett, if you feel this is of great importance, you might consider collecting the debt that Chodo Contague imagines he owes you.

A reflection of my thoughts, that. “I will if I have to. Too soon to think about that. I need to see Tinnie taken care of and get my mind straightened out before I go off on any crusade.” That was a straight line of the sort he scarfs up usually, but this time he let it slide. “Something happens and she goes, I’ll ring in Chodo like that. . . .“ I snapped my fingers. I’m a fountain of talent.

Chodo Contague, often called the kingpin, is the grand master of organized crime in TunFaire. In some ways he’s more powerful than the King. He’s no friend. He’s damned near the embodiment of everything I hate, the kind of creep I got into my line to pull down. But just by doing my job I’ve managed to do him some accidental favors. He has an obsessive, if skewed, sense of honor. The slimeball thinks he owes me, and I’ll be damned if he won’t do almost anything to pay the debt. If I wanted, I could say the word and he’d put two thousand thugs on the street to make us square.

I’ve avoided collecting because I don’t want my name associated with his. Not in any way. Be bad for business if people suspected I was on his pad.

Hell. I haven’t really said what I do I’m what the guys who don’t like me call a peeper. An investigator and confidential agent, the way I put it. Pay me—up front— and I’ll find out things. More often than not, things you didn’t really want to know. I don’t dig up much good news. That’s the nature of the racket.

On the confidential-agent side I’ll do a stand-in, like pay off a kidnapper or blackmailer for you, and make sure there’s no last-second comedy. I’ve worked hard to build a rep as a straight arrow, a guy who plays square, who comes down like the proverbial ton if you mess with my client. Which is why I wouldn’t want anybody to think I’d roll over for Chodo.

If Tinnie died, I’d change my rules. For Tinnie it would be dead ahead full speed, and whoever got in my way had best have his gods paid off because I wouldn’t slow down till I ate somebody’s liver. If Tinnie died.

The Dead Man said she ought to pull through. I hoped he was right. This once. Usually I hope he’s wrong because he’s damned near infallible and works hard reminding me of that.

Dean came in with a tray, beer, and stronger spirits if we needed them. Saucerhead took a beer. So did I. “That’s good. That hits the spot after all that running.”

The Dead Man sent, I suggest you go see her uncle. Inform him what has happened and find out about arrangements. Perhaps he can give you a clue.

Yeah. He had to bring it up. I’d been wondering about who was going to tell the family. There had to be somebody I could stick with that little chore.

The candidates constitute a horde of one, Garrett.

He figured that out all by himself. He is a genius. A certified—and certifiable—genius. Just ask him. He’ll tell you about it for hours.

Any other time I would have given him a ration of lip. This time the specter of Willard Tate got in the way. “All right. I’m on my way.”

“Me too,” Saucerhead said. “There’s some things I want to check out.”

Excellent. Excellent. Now everything is under control I can catch up on my sleep.

Catch up. Right. In all the years I’ve known him his waking time hasn’t added up to six months.

I let Saucerhead out the front door. Then I headed for the kitchen, got Dean to draw me another of those wonderful beers. “Have to replace everything I sweated out.”

He scowled. He has some strong opinions about the way I Jive. Though he’s an employee, I let him speak his mind. We have an understanding. He talks, I don’t listen. Keeps us both happy.

I hit the street without much enthusiasm. Old Man Tate and I aren’t bosom buddies. I did a job for him once, and for a while afterward he’d thought well of me, but a year of me playing push-me pull-you with Tinnie had somehow soured his outlook.

4

The Tate place will fool you. It’s supposed to. From outside it looks like a block of old warehouses nobody bothered to keep up. You can see why from the street out front. First, the Hill. Our overlords are buzzards watching for fortunes to flay through the engines of the law Second, the slums below. They produce extremely hungry and unpleasant fellows, some of whom will turn you inside out for a copper sceat.

Thus, the Tate place pretending to be poverty’s birthplace.

The Tates are shoemakers who turn out army boots and pricey stuff for the ladies of the Hill. They’re all masters. They have more wealth than they know what to do with.

I gave their gate a good rattle. A young Tate responded He was armed. Tinnie was the only Tate I knew who faced the world outside unarmed. “Garrett. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Tinnie and I were feuding again.”

He frowned. “She went out a couple hours ago. I thought she was headed your way.”

“She was. I came to see Uncle Willard. It’s important.” The kid’s eyes got big. Then he grinned. I guess he figured I was going to pop the question. He opened up. “Can’t guarantee he’ll see you. You know how he is.”

“Tell him it can’t wait till it’s convenient.”

He muttered, “Must have been hell being snowed in.” He locked the gate. “Rose will be devastated.”

“She’ll live.” Rose was Willard’s daughter, his only surviving offspring, hotter than three little bonfires and as twisted as a rope of braided snakes. “She always bounces back.”

The kid snickered. None of the Tates had much use for Rose. She was pure trouble. And she never learned.

“I’ll tell Uncle you’re here.”

I went into the central garden to wait. It looked forlorn. Summertimes it’s a work of art. The Tates all have apartments in the surrounding buildings, They live there, work there, are born and die there. Some never go outside.

The kid came back looking pained. Willard had scalded his tail for letting me in but apparently hadn’t told him to get hurt trying to throw me out.

The thought made me grin. The kid was as big as any Tate gets, about five two. Willard once told me there was elvish blood in the family. It made the girls exotic and gorgeous and the guys handsome but damned near short enough to walk under a horse without banging their heads.

Willard Tate was no bigger than the rest of his clan. A gnome, almost. He was bald on top, had ragged gray hair that hung to his shoulders in back and on the sides. He was bent over his workbench tapping brass nails into the heel of a shoe. He wore a pair of TenHagen cheaters with square lenses. Those don’t come cheap.

One feeble lamp battled the dark. Tate worked by touch, really. “You’ll ruin your eyes if you don’t spring for more light.” Tate is one of the wealthiest men in TunFaire and one of the tightest with a sceat.

“You have one minute, Garrett.” His lumbago was acting up. Or something Couldn’t be me.

“Straight at it, then. Tinnie’s been stabbed.”

He looked at me for half the time he’d given me. Then he put his tools aside. “You have your faults, but you wouldn’t say that unless you meant it. Tell me.”

I told him.

He didn’t say anything for a while. He just stared, not at me but at ghosts lurking behind me. His had been a life plagued by loss. His wife, his kids, his brother, all had gone before their time.

He surprised me by not laying it off on me “You got the man who did it?”

“He’s dead. I ran through it again.

“I wish I could have had a piece of him.” He rang a bell. One of his nephews responded. Tate told him, “Send for Dr Meddin. Now. And turn out a half-dozen men to walk Mr Garrett home.” Now I had me a “mister.”

“Yes sir.” The nephew bounced off on a recruiting tour.

“Anything else, Mr. Garrett?”

“You could tell me why anybody would want to kill Tinnie.”

“Because she was involved with you. To get at you.”

“A lot of people don’t like me.” Present company included. “But none of them work like that. They wanted to get my goat, they’d burn my house down. With me inside it

“Then it has to be senseless. Random violence or mistaken identity.”

“You sure she wasn’t into anything?”

“The only thing Tinnie was involved in was you.” He didn’t say it but I could hear him thinking, Maybe this will learn her a lesson. “She never left the place except to see you.

I nodded. Undoubtedly he kept track.

I wanted to believe it was random. TunFaire is overcrowded and hagridden by poverty and hardly a day passes when somebody doesn’t whittle on somebody with a hatchet or do cosmetic surgery with a hammer. I would have bought it except for those guys who danced the waltzes with me and Saucerhead.

I said, “When we caught him, the guy said ‘the book’ just before his friends croaked him.” If those were his friends. “Mean anything to you?”

Tate shook his head. That straggly hair pranced around. “I didn’t figure it would. Damn. You get any ideas, let me know. And I’ll keep you posted.”

“You do that.” My minute had stretched. He wanted to get back to work.

The nephew returned and announced he had a squad assembled. I said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’d rather it had been me.”

“So would I.” Yes. He agreed a hundred percent. Man. You be nice to some people. .

5

I plopped into my chair, reported to the Dead Man while the Tate boys collected Tinnie. They had a cart to carry her home. The best medical care would be waiting. It was out of my hands now.

Nothing gained, the Dead Man sent when I finished.

“I think Tate hit it. They got the wrong woman. You’ve been around awhile.” Like half of forever. “You sure ‘the book’ doesn’t ring any bells?”

None. There are books and books, Garrett. Even some men would kill for, considering their rarity or content. I do not hazard uninformed guesses. We cannot, now, be sure that man even meant a book as such. He may have meant a gambling book. He may have meant a personal journal capable of indicating someone. We do not know. Try to relax. Have a meal. Accept the situation, then put it behind you.

“Nobody came around asking about the dead men?” TunFaire’s Watch aren’t exactly police. Their main mission is to keep an eye out for fires or threats to our overlords. Catching criminals is way down their list, but sometimes they do bumble around and nab a baddie. TunFaire is blessed with some pretty stupid villains.

No one came Go eat, Garrett. Attend to the needs of the flesh. Allow the spirit to relax and become refreshed. Forget it. All is well that ends well.

Good advice, even coming from him. But he’s always so damned reasonable and wise—when he isn’t trying to play games with my mind. He got my goat, being cool and sensible. I headed for the kitchen

Dean was in shock still, distraught because uncaring fate had cast a cold eye so close to home. His mind was a thousand miles away as he stirred some kind of sauce. He didn’t look at me as he handed me a plate he’d kept warm. I ate without noticing what, which is a crime itself, considering the class cook Dean is. I was drifting around a few yards away myself. I didn’t interrupt the old man’s brooding. I was pleased that he cared.

I rose to leave. Dean turned. “People shouldn’t ought to do like that, Mr. Garrett.”

“You’re right. They shouldn’t ought. You’re a religious sort. Tell the gods thanks for not making it worse than it was.”

He nodded. He’s a gentle sort generally, a hardworking old fellow trying to support an ungrateful gaggle of eligible but terminally homely nieces who give him more grief than any ten men deserve from their female kin. Generally. Right now he had him a bloodthirst bigger than a vampire who hadn’t fed for a year.

I couldn’t relax. It was over, but my nerves just wouldn’t settle. I prowled up the hail to the front door, peeked outside. Then I checked the small front room to the right like there might be a forgotten blonde cached in there. I was fresh out. I trudged back to the deluxe coffin I call an office, waved at Eleanor on the wall, then crossed the hall to the Dead Man’s room. That takes up most of the left side of the house. It contains not only himself but our library and treasury and everything we particularly value Nothing for me there. I glanced up the stairs without going up, went into the kitchen, and got a mug of apple juice. Then I did the whole route over, taking a little longer at the door to see if my place had become a dwarfish tourist attraction. I didn’t see any watchers. Time dragged.

I got on everybody’s nerves. That’s what I do best, anyway, but now I was fraying my own. Now even I resented my mumbled wisecracks. When Dean growled and tested the heft of his favorite frying pan, I decided to take myself upstairs.

For a while I looked out a window, watching for

Saucerhead or somebody in a black hat watching me back. The watched pot didn’t boil.

When I got tired of that, I visited the closet where I keep the more lethal tools of my trade. It’s a nifty little arsenal, something for every occasion, something to go with every outfit. You never catch me carrying a weapon that clashes.

Everything was in tip-top shape I couldn’t work off any nervous energy sharpening and polishing. I eyeballed the ensemble. Nothing I had was worth much in a scrimmage with crossbowmen.

I did have a few little bottles left over from the time I’d done undercover work for the Grand Inquisitor. I took the case down, looked inside Three bottles, one emerald, one royal blue, one ruby, each about two ounces. You threw them. Once they broke, the stuff inside took the fight right out of guys. The contents of the red one would melt the flesh off their bones I was saving that for somebody who really got on my nerves. If I ever used it, I’d have to stand back a ways.

I put the case away, secreted knives all over me, hung the longest tool legal on my belt, then took down my most useful all-round instrument, an oaken headthumper eighteen inches long. It had a pound of lead inside the business end. It did wonders making me more convincing when I got into an argument

So what was I going to do now? Go looking for some villains, just on general principles? Sure. Right. The way my luck runs, I’d have a building fall on me before I found any bad boys to astonish and dismay.

I managed to kill time till supper came along. I spent most of it trying to figure out why I was restless and uneasy. Tinnie had been hurt, but she was going to make

it. Saucerhead and I had—sort of—dissuaded her attacker from becoming a repeat offender. Everything had turned out all right. Things were going to be fine.

Sure.

6

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

It was a time of weirdness for TunFaire, maybe because of the weather. The whole world had turned cockeyed, not just me with my running and my going to bed early so I could get up before anybody sane was oriented vertically. Mammoths had been seen from the city wall. Saber-tooth tigers were at large within a day’s travel. There were rumors of werewolves. There were rumors of thunder-lizards being sighted near KirtchHeis, just sixty miles north of TunFaire, two hundred south of their normal range. To our south, centaurs and unicorns, fleeing ferocious fighting in the Cantard, had penetrated Karentine territory Every night, here in the city, the sky filled with squabbling morCartha, weird creatures who traditionally confined their brawls to rain-forested valleys on the marches of thunder-lizard country.

Where the morCartha disappeared during the day no one knew—nobody gave a big enough care to find out— but all night they zoomed over the rooftops settling old tribal scores or swooped down to mug citizens or to steal anything not nailed down. Most people accepted their presence as proof the thunder-lizards were migrating. In their own country morCartha lived in the treetops and slept during the day. That would make them easy snacks for the taller thunder-lizards Some of these stand more than thirty feet tall.

Despite the morning’s excitement I tried going to bed at what Dean and the Dead Man perversely call a reasonable hour. My theory was that if I rolled out early,

my neighbors wouldn’t be out to giggle and point at the spectacle of Garrett running laps. But that night the morCartha brought their flying carnival to my neighborhood. It sounded like the aerial battle of the century. Blood and broken bodies and war cries and taunts rained down. Whenever I threatened to drift off, they staged some absurd, cacophonous confrontation right outside my window.

I decided it was time somebody on the Hill suffered a stroke of smarts and enlisted them all as mercenaries and sent them down to the Cantard to look for Glory Mooncalled. Let him lose sleep while they squabbled over his head.

Old Glory probably wasn’t getting much sleep, anyway. The Karentine powers that be had thrown everything into the cauldron down there They were grinding his upstart republic fine, inexorably and inevitably, permitting him no chance to catch his breath and turn his genius toward their despair.

The war between Karenta and Venageta has been going on since my grandfather’s time It’s become as much a part of life as the weather. Glory Mooncalled started out a mercenary captain in Venageti service, had a major falling out with the Venageti warlords, and came over to our side swearing mighty oaths of vengeance. Once he had smashed everybody who offended him, he suddenly declared the Cantard—possession of which is what the war is all about—an autonomous republic. All the Cantard’s native nonhuman races supported him. So, for the moment, Karenta and Venageta have a common cause, the obliteration of Glory Mooncalled. Once he’s gone, it’ll be back to war as usual.

All of which is of more interest to the Dead Man than me. I did my five years in the Marines and survived. I don’t want to remember. The Dead Man does. Glory Mooncalled is his hobby.

Whatever, I didn’t sleep well and I was less cheerful than usual when I got up, which is saying something. On my best mornings I’m human only by charity. Morning is the lousiest time of day. The lower the sun in the east, the lousier that time is.

The racket in the street started about the time I got my feet on the floor.

A woman screamed. She was frightened. Nothing galvanizes me so quickly. I was down at the door with a small arsenal before I started thinking. Somebody was pounding on that door now, yelling my name and begging to be let in. I peeped through the peephole. One ounce of brain was working. I saw a woman’s face. Terrified. I fumbled at bolts, yanked the door open.

A naked woman stumbled inside. I gawked for half a minute before my brain started chugging. Then I checked the street. I saw nothing till a thing slightly larger than a spider monkey, built along similar lines but hairless and red, with batlike wings instead of arms and with a spadelike point at the end of its tail, crashed and flopped around, squealing. A city ratman ambled over. The moment it stopped moving, he shoveled it into his wheeled trash bin. The creature’s kin didn’t protest or claim the body. The morCartha are indifferent to their dead.

So now they were doing it in the daytime, too. If you could call it daytime Just because it was light out. Personally, I don’t believe daytime really starts till the sun is straight overhead.

I slammed the door, spun around. The woman had collapsed. What I saw in that bad light was enough to make my hair stand up and get split ends.

Not a stitch on her, like I said, but she had the body to wear that kind of outfit. She clutched a raggedly wrapped package in her left hand. I couldn’t pry it loose.

The word flabbergasted gets bandied about in this age of exaggeration, but you don’t often get into a situation where it’s appropriate. This was a time when it was appropriate. I didn’t know what to do.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against naked women. Especially nothing against naked women when they’re beautiful and running around my house. Most especially not when I’m chasing them and they have no Intention of getting away. But I’d never had one come to the door all ready to race. I’d never had one drop in and instantly transport herself to dreamland with such diligence that I couldn’t wake her again.

I was still trying to figure out what to do when Dean showed up for work.

Dean is my housekeeper and cook, in case you haven’t figured that out. He’s a sour-faced but sentimental guy about a thousand years old who should have been born a woman because he’d make somebody a great wife. He can cook and keep house and has a tongue to match the nastiest of them. He took one look at the woman. “I just cleaned that carpet, Mr. Garrett. Couldn’t you confine your games to the second floor?”

“I just let her in, Dean. She came this way, right off the street. I opened the door, she stumbled in and passed out. Maybe she was hit by the morCartha. She’s gone into a fugue I can’t wake her up.”

“Must you stare so shamelessly?”

“I don’t notice you studying the fly specks on the ceiling.” He wasn’t that old. Nobody ever gets that old. And the lady deserved a stare or two. She was the nicest package I’d had stumble in in a long time. “Hell, yes, I must. How often do the gods bother to send us the answer to our prayers?”

He’s more alert at that hour than I’ll ever be. He honestly believes that getting up before sunrise is a virtue, poor misguided soul. “Attempt at levity noted, Mr. Garrett Noted and found wanting. I suggest we move her to the daybed and cover her, then get some breakfast into you. You’re less at the mercy of adolescent fantasies once you’ve gotten your blood moving.’

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is the tongue of an ingrate servant.”

He knew I couldn’t be talking about him. He wasn’t a servant. He was an in-house working partner.

He grabbed the woman’s ankles. I took the heavy end. Maybe he was put out because the woman had gotten several of his nieces’ shares of natural goodies. “Red hair, too,” I muttered. “Isn’t that nice?” I’m a sucker for redheads. I’ve been known to favor the occasional blonde, brunette, whatever, too.

Dean would just say I’m a sucker. He might have a point.

We put her on the daybed in the small front room, on the right side of the house. Your left, coming in the front door. She hung on to her package. Once she was set, I moved to the kitchen. Reluctantly. I was thinking maybe I should be there for her when she woke up, just in case she needed to throw herself into somebody’s arms and be comforted.

Dean filled me up with breakfast. As I finished up Saucerhead arrived, to supervise me in my pursuit of physical excellence. Or incapacitating cramps, whichever came first. We yakked over tea for a while, me somehow forgetting to mention my nude. Would you tell a pirate where you’d found buried treasure. Then we went outside and got busy with our respective exercise regimens. I wore him down. He ran out of fingers before I ran out of laps.

Puffing and panting and aching, I forgot my mystery guest. Puffing and wheezing is a full-time job.

7

Last lap. Beer ahead. Relief only a few yards away. I came off Wizard’s Reach full speed, about a walk and a half, snorting like a wounded buffalo, listing from side to side, steering like a ship without a rudder. Only my neighbors watching kept me from getting down and crawling the last hundred feet

I’d lost count of my laps. Saucerhead had slipped a few extra in on me. I hadn’t figured that out till a minute ago. If I lived, I’d get even with him if it was the last thing I did. If that involved running, it would be the last thing I did.

I had my chin down. You’re not supposed to do that, but I had to keep an eye on my feet. Otherwise they might quit. Meanwhile, I tried to figure how many laps Tharpe had shafted me. I’d lost count because there had been no landmark events to separate one lap from another. There were none to help me come up with an actual number, either. But I knew he’d done it to me.

I reached the foot of the steps honking and snorting, grabbed the handrail, dragged myself up toward the pitcher that would help put the misery behind me.

“This the character I’m looking for?” The voice wasn’t familiar.

“That’s him.” Saucerhead. “Don’t look like much.”

“I can’t help that. I ain’t his mother.”

My pal. I got my chin up. Huff. Puff. Saucerhead wasn’t atone. Being brilliant, I’d worked that out, all ready. What I hadn’t figured out was that he was talking to a woman. Maybe.

At first glance she looked like Tharpe’s big sister. Maybe she had a touch of giant in her. She was taller than me by an inch. She had stringy blonde hair that would’ve been nice if she’d washed and combed it. In fact, she had nice stuff in all the right places, only she was so damned big. And so uncaringly kempt. And looked so damned hard.

“The name’s Winger, Garrett,” she said. “Hunter.” Her stance dared me to treat her like a lady. She wasn’t dressed like any lady. Lots of worn leather and stuff, that needed cleaning as much as she did. Lots of metal, stuff hanging all over her. She looked like a hunter. She looked like she could whip thunder-lizards with one hand tied behind her. Hell, she could knock them down with her breath.

The name meant nothing to me. She had to be new in town. I would have heard of an amazon like her if she was a regular.

“Yeah, I’m Garrett. So what?” Still gulping air by the bucket, I couldn’t get gracious.

“I’m looking for work. New in town.”

“No kidding?”

“People I talked to said we might could kind of team up sometimes.” She looked at Saucerhead, jerked her head at me. “Kind of puny to have such a big rep.”

Tharpe grinned. “Things get exaggerated.” He was loving it, The big goof. The way he was grinning I was sure there were wonders yet to come.

“Not much call for hunters in the city,” I told her. “We can catch our dinner at the corner butcher.”

“Not that kind of hunter, Ace. Manhunter. Bounty hunter.” Just in case I’d mistaken her meaning. “Tracker.” Her gaze was hard and steady. She worked at being tough. “Trying to make contacts. Trying to get set up. I don’t want to have to cross the line to make it.”

She had small hands for a woman her size. Her nails were trimmed neatly. But her palms were used to hard work. Looked like she could bust boards with them. Or backs. I wanted to chuckle but decided I might be smart to keep my amusement to myself. Not more than ten thousand people ever said I wasn’t smart. “What do you want from me?”

“Whyn’t we get in out of the sun, set a spell, down a few brews, let me tell you what I can do?”

Saucerhead was behind her now. Grinning from ear to ear. She must have tried to sell him already. I kept a straight face. “Sure. Why not?” I hammered on the door, glared Tharpe a dagger or three. He thought he’d set me up. I was going to get him for this. Right after I got him for skewing the lap count. Right after I got him for about seven other things on my list.

Dean opened up. He looked at Winger in awe. She snapped, “What you staring at, runt?” Still working hard at that tough.

“Dean, we’ll be in the office. Bring us a pitcher, After you lock up.” No more free drinks for Tharpe.

I stepped out of Winger’s way. “Straight up the hail.”

I followed her while Dean locked up. She looked around like she was trying to memorize every crack in the walls.

I guess Saucerhead was outside har-harring.

“Take that chair,” I told Winger, indicating the client’s seat. It’s wooden, hard as a rock. It’s supposed to discourage prolonged visits. They’re supposed to sit there only long enough to tell me what they have to, not long enough to bury me in trivia. Theoretically. The real whiners enjoy being miserable.

Winger kept looking around like she was sneaking through enemy territory. I asked, “You looked for anything in particular?”

“You stay alert when you’re a woman in a man’s racket.” Another dose of tough.

“I imagine. What can I do for you, anyway?”

“Like I said, I’m new here. I need to make contacts, You could use an extra hand sometimes, probably. Finding people.”

“Maybe.” Her alertness had me wound up now, She had something on her mind.

Dean brought the pitcher. 1 poured. Winger downed a mug, stared at the painting behind me. She shivered. Eleanor can have that effect. The man who painted her was a mad genius. He filled her portrait with indefinable creepiness.

I glanced back. And Winger moved so fast I barely had time to face her again before she had a knife at my throat. A long knife. A knife that looked like a two-handed broadsword right about then. “I’m looking for a book, Garrett. A big one You wouldn’t have it, would you?”

Sure I wouldn’t. “I wish I did.” Rut her tone said she wasn’t going to believe that. She wasn’t going to get confused by facts.

Her knife pricked my throat. Her hand was steady. She was a pro. Not even a little nervous. Me neither. Not much. “I don’t have it. How come you think I do?”

She didn’t tell me. “I’m going to look. I’m going to take this place apart. You want to stay healthy, stay out of my way. You want your house to stay healthy, give me the book now.”

I gave her a look at my fluttering-eyebrow trick. I tossed in a big smile. “Have fun.”

She smiled back. “Think you can take me? Don’t even think about trying.”

“Little old me? Perish the thought. Hey, Chuckles. Time to do your stuff.”

Winger glanced around. Her knife hand remained steady. She couldn’t figure out who the hell I was talking to. “Who the hell you talking to?”

“My partner.”

She opened her mouth. That was as far as she got. The Dead Man turned her into a living statue. In the last instant her expression turned to horror. I edged away from her knife, got out of my chair. “You got nerve,” I said. She could hear and understand. “But nerve isn’t everything.” Nobody who’d studied me would try to take me in my own house. The Dead Man doesn’t get out much, but that hasn’t kept him from acquiring a reputation.

I patted Winger’s considerable shoulder. It was rock hard. “Live and learn, sweetheart.” I finished my mug, strolled across the hall. “What’s the story, Smiley?”

No story, Garrett. She has told you everything. She is looking for a book. This is her first job in TunFaire. She was hired by a man named Lubbock. He paid her thirty marks to shake you down. He will give her forty more if she finds the book.

“Interesting coincidence. What’s she know about that gang yesterday?”

Nothing. Obviously she was selected for that reason. She can tell no one anything because she knows nothing.

“I guess friend Lubbock did his research.”

Perhaps.

“She has an accent.” She was Karentine but from way out there somewhere.

Hender. West Midlands.

“Never heard of it.”

Not surprising. Population less than a hundred. A farming village. A suggestion. Assuming your curiosity has been piqued, as mine has, have her watched. Her contacts might prove interesting. It seems likely that Lubbock is not her employer’s real name. She believes it to be a pseudonym herself

Sounded good to me. Something was going on. And I don’t like sitting around waiting for things to happen. “Right. Can’t use Saucerhead, though. She knows his face. I could dash over to Morley’s.”

Quickly?

Sarky old clown can put a lot into a single word. He’d recovered from his earlier consideration for my feelings, was back to letting me know what he thought of my ways.

“I’m gone.”

I got back faster than either of us expected. I had some luck.

Saucerhead was still loafing on the stoop. He hadn’t finished the pitcher Dean had provided for my run. He had company again, a local blackheart called Squirrel. I don’t know Squirrel’s real name. I never heard him called anything else. He was a skinny little gink with atrocious posture, a pointy face and buckteeth, and huge ears that stuck straight out from the side of his head. He’d have trouble making any headway walking into a light breeze.

They didn’t call him Squirrel because of his looks.

Somebody left something out when they gave him his brains. He was a first-class goolball.

And a second-class thug.

He worked for Chodo Contague. He was more than a gofer but not one of the heavyweights, like Sadler and Crask. I didn’t know Squirrel well but did know he wasn’t somebody who was going to elevate the standards of the neighborhood.

I looked at him. He gave me a grin full of teeth. Friendly as hell. That was Squirrel. Always trying to be your pal—till it came time to put a knife in your back. Squirrel desperately wanted to be liked. And wanted to make Chodo’s first team even more. “Garrett. The boss heard about your trouble.” Chodo hears everything, “Sent me over to help. Said if you need anything, just yell. Said he don’t hold with anybody hurting women.”

Sure he didn’t. Unless they worked for him, showed a wisp of independence. But he probably doesn’t consider hookers women.

I didn’t want to take anything from Chodo, but, on the other hand, using Squirrel was so damned convenient. So what the hell “You showed up at the perfect time.”

Squirrel grinned. He loved praise. If that was praise. Weird little guy. “How’s your woman, Garrett? I should’ve asked. Chodo wanted to know. Said he’d send somebody to look after her if you want.”

“She’ll be fine. Her family is taking care of her.” They could afford the same quality care Chodo could provide. “If something turns bad, they’ll let me know.” Willard would do that. He’d expect me to hunt down everybody even remotely responsible if Tinnie died. Then he’d cut out their livers and eat them.

“So I’m right on time. What can I do for you?”

I shivered. Squirrel had a whiny voice to go with an ingratiating manner. Slimy little weasel. But dangerous. Very dangerous.

“There’s a woman going to come out of here. Tall blonde amazon type. Follow her. See where she goes. Be careful. She’s maybe some bad road.” I had no idea how good Squirrel was. His only recommendation was that he had stayed alive so far.

“I can handle it.” Like he heard me wondering.

“What’s up?” Saucerhead asked.

“She pulled a knife on me. Wanted a book The Dead Man put her in freeze

“A book again?”

“Yeah.”

“You getting into it even if Tinnie’s all right?”

“Say I’m curious.” I wasn’t getting into anything. I didn’t have a client. I don’t like work, anyway. I mean, why bother as long as I’ve got a roof over my head and something to eat?

On the other hand, I might fish a fee out of this somehow And it does take money to pay Dean and to keep the house from falling down.

“Spread out,” I told those two. “Saucerhead, take off. She’d recognize you.”

“Sure. You need me, check Morley’s place.”

I waved them good-bye. Slipped inside, stuck my head into the Dead Man’s room, whispered, “Turn her loose?” I whispered because I didn’t want Winger to hear me.

Yes.

I returned to my office, pried the knife out of Winger’s hand, settled myself, started cleaning my nails. The Dead Man turned loose. If somebody could jump out of their skin, Winger would have. “Welcome to the big city, Winger. Something to keep in mind. Everybody has a trick up his sleeve here

She gobbled air and headed for the hallway. I asked, “You mind telling me where to find Lubbock? Can’t say I like people I don’t know sicking hired blades on me.”

That shook her even more. She hadn’t mentioned the name.

I followed her to the door, adding more questions calculated to rattle her so she wouldn’t look for Squirrel. She was almost running when she hit the street.

I looked around. I didn’t see Squirrel or Saucerhead. I didn’t spot anybody interested in my place, either. I went inside to talk to Dean about supper.

8

Dean didn’t want any suggestions He never does, but he doesn’t mind having me offer. Then he can turn me down.

I settled at the table. Dean asked, “What was that all about?”

“I’m not sure. Somebody called Lubbock sent her to shake me down for a book.”

He frowned. He’s mastered the art. His face turns into a badland of shadowed canyons “That fellow who stabbed Miss Tinnie . .

“Yeah.”

“There’s something going on. Another genius. My place is lousy with them.

“Yeah.”

“You going to find out what?”

“Maybe “ I didn’t have much inclination. The world is full of mysteries Do I have to solve them all? Without even anybody paying me? But I did wonder why Winger had come to me.

Somebody pounded on the front door. I grumbled something about maybe it was time to move. Too many people knew where I lived. Dean said, “That’s Mr. Tharpe.”

“You can tell from here?”

“I know his knock.”

Right. Sure he did. But why argue? Let him have his little fantasies. I headed up the hall…” Whoa!” There was Saucerhead. Inside. “What the hell?”

He looked a little croggled himself. “It just opened up when I knocked.” He stared at the door like it would maybe sprout fangs.

Couldn’t be. I’d locked it myself. That’s a prime rule. There are people on those mean streets dumb enough to drop in. Dumb enough not to worry about the Dead Man. I just sent one packing.

I puzzled it for half a minute before I caught a glimmer of a possibility. “Three geniuses!” Saucerhead scowled, baffled I popped my head into the small front room.

My guest had vanished “Dean!” I’d forgotten her in the excitement of my run and those cozy moments with Winger

“Mr. Garrett?”

“Something’s missing.” I indicated the small front room. “And Saucerhead found the door open.”

Dean looked properly amazed. He went into the room and sniffed around, making sure everything was there. Like it was his own stuff. “The blanket is gone.”

She would’ve taken something. You have to work to attract attention on a TunFaire street, but naked will do it every time

Saucerhead asked, “What’s going on?”

“You know as much as I do. Dean, get Mr. Tharpe a beer. I’m going to talk to the Dead Man.”

Dean herded Saucerhead toward the kitchen. I dropped in on my permanent guest, who—I sensed before I said a word—had fallen into a surly mood. His natural state. “What’s eating you all of a sudden?”

You failed to mention this visitor who has vanished.

“Why should I?” He knew all the comings and goings. He was so disturbed he didn’t prance around it. I was unaware of her presence. This is unprecedented. I had not thought it possible. He went off somewhere inside himself, looking for explanations for the impossible.

He was disturbed? I was beside myself. On both sides. All three of me were one breath short of a panic. Somebody could come and go around here without us having any warning?

“This doesn’t sound good, Mr. Garrett,” Dean said from behind me.

“Not only a genius but a master of understatement.” I considered. “She can’t have much of a head start. She’ll stand out in the crowd. I better catch her.”

“Catch who?” Saucerhead asked. So I explained. “Naked women just falling through your door.” He sneered. “How do you do it? That don’t never happen to me.”

“You don’t live right. We don’t have time to hang around yakking.”

“We? You got a pixie in your pocket?”

“You’d be impressed. That is, if you ever saw her. Imagine Tinnie but with a little more in the lung department.”

“I wasn’t up to much else anyway. Let’s go.”

But that little weasel of a god who watches out for Garrett’s affairs didn’t figure I ought to go chasing redheads. No sense of proportion at all.

9

Maybe he was just trying to save my legs. He did deliver another one to my door.

Dean was there already. He’d been fixing to let us out when the knock came. Now he was wringing his hands. I asked, “What have we got?”

“Another woman.”

I opened up and looked her over. That took a while. You’re going to do a job, do it right. There was plenty there to appreciate, though in a small package. I was surprised the whole neighborhood wasn’t howling. Hot stuff. All the right goodies packed together in all the best ways. Big green eyes. Big, big green eyes. Lips a dangerous red and puffy, the kind that yell, “Come and get it, I can take it, what are you waiting for?” Breasts like man oh man how did she get that on and how does she keep them in there?

But.

She was a little thing, maybe five feet two on her tiptoes. And she was another redhead. She had lots of wild red hair the way Tinnie had wild red hair. The way my naked visitor had had wild red hair. In fact, she was a ringer for that gal but definitely not the same woman. I wondered if she was a sister. Or was that little weasel in the sky just poking me in the eye by piling on the redheads?

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just led her into that pretentious closet I call an office. Dean brought a pitcher without being asked. He looked numb. The way I was going to be numb if I kept getting pitchers delivered.

Another redhead. I hoped some light was going to get shed here. Real soon.

All of a sudden I was convinced that guy with the mustache had thought he was hitting this woman, or the naked one, when he’d stabbed Tinnie. 1 settled, drank a mug, studied her. She looked back boldly, still without having spoken. She didn’t go for come-hither but, damn, it was built in, part of the package. She was the kind of woman who’d sit there and smolder while darning her grandfather’s socks. The kind that makes me want to run out back and yell at the sky in sheer joy that I share the same world.

I squeaked. “I’m Garrett. I guess you want to see me.” Sometimes I’m so cool I amaze even me.

“Yes.”

Yes what? I took a drink so I wouldn’t pant all over her. I believe in long courtships. Fifteen minutes at least. I swallowed and croaked, “So?”

“I need someone to help me. Someone like you.”

I grinned from ear to ear. Could I help her? You betcha . . . I’d give it my best shot. . . . Hey! Garrett! Let’s calm down a little. Let’s get the chemistry under control. Anyway, I’d already begun to suspect that this wasn’t a match made in heaven. She was smoldering, but that wasn’t my fault. That, was just her being her. Whoever she was. “Well?”

“I need someone to find something for me.”

“That’s what I do. Find things. But sometimes people are sorry when I do.”

She just sat there heating the place up while I started to sweat. I turned sideways and studied Eleanor out of the corner of my eye. A tall, cool, slim, ethereal blonde, Eleanor has what it takes to bring me back to earth. I talk to Eleanor when no one else will listen. She’s my rock in turbulent seas. I wondered what the real Eleanor would think if she knew how I used her portrait. I didn’t think she’d mind.

The redhead asked, “Is that someone special?”

“Yes. Her name was Eleanor Stantnor. She was the wife of a client. I never really met her. He murdered her twenty years before he hired me. All he got for his trouble was found out for his old crime. I took the painting for my fee. Yeah. She’s special. And if she was around, she’d be as old as my mother. But I’d probably fall in love with her anyway.” I faced the redhead. “Let’s get down to it.”

“Have I come at a bad time?”

“You’ve come at the perfect rime. You’re almost a ringer for a friend of mine somebody tried to kill out front yesterday. I have a feeling you could maybe shed some light on why.”

She started to say something. What I’d said sank in. Her mouth made an 0. Her eyes got even bigger. She started to get up, sank back, shook fetchingly.

“My friend’s name is Tinnie Tate. She never hurt anybody. She’s got hair like yours and she’s about your height. A little less rounded, here and there, near as I can tell from here, but not enough so anyone could make a case of it. She was coming to see me when some scumbag stuck a knife in her. For no damned reason I could figure till I got a look at you.”

“Oh, my,” she breathed. “I’ve got to get out of here. He knows. I’ve got to go.”

“You aren’t going anywhere, sweetheart. Not till I know what the hell is going on.”

She just sat there oh-mying and heating up the room. I thought about having Dean throw cold water on her, but that would just steam the place up and cause the wallpaper to peel. I said, “Tinnie getting hurt makes me mad. Some other guys, too. Some bad people. Rich people. Her people. They want blood. You look like a gal who knows how to take care of herself. Maybe you wouldn’t want to get caught in the middle of all those angry people.”

Her pretty little face turned puzzled.

Was I trying to scare her? You bet I was.

She just said, “Oh,” like it wasn’t very important.

“I figure the guy who stuck Tinnie thought he was getting you.” Sure, I was fishing. You don’t throw out a hook, you never get a nibble. “That’s the only way it makes any sense. He mistook her for somebody else. So let’s you and me get to the point.” I got up and walked around the desk.

“I made a mistake coming here.” She started to get up.

I sat her down. “You made your mistake when you told somebody somewhere that you were thinking about coming here. That worried somebody. He tried to off my lady. Spill. I’m not in a good mood anymore.”

Actually, I was being gentle. I had the Dead Man across the hall. All I needed to do was keep her mind frothing so he could get at anything interesting in there.

She tried to get up again. I sat her down with more force. She looked more irritated than scared. That didn’t fit.

“The story, lady. Maybe starting with your name.”

She looked down at her hands. Man, those were fine hands.

“My name is Carla Lindo Ramada. I’m a chambermaid in the home hold of Lord Baron Cleon Stonecipher.”

“Never heard of him.” But if all his help looked like this, I’d consider relocating. “Out of town, I take it. What about this baron?”

“He’s kind of at the edge of the story. He’s about two hundred years old and just lies in bed waiting to die. Only he has a curse on him. He can’t. He just keeps getting older. But that’s not important. The witch is. The one that put the curse on him. They call her the Serpent. She lives in the castle, too, only nobody ever sees her. Nobody knows what she looks like except her own men. All anybody really knows is she won’t take the curse off the baron until he makes her his heir.”

“Huh?”

“She wants the castle. It sits way up in the Hamadan Mountains, near the border between Karenta and Therpra.

Both kingdoms claim it, but neither has any real control.

The Serpent wants the castle because it’s invulnerable.’

I wondered if Miss Ramada could be half as slow as she sounded. I glanced at Eleanor. She didn’t give me a clue. Hell. If she wasn’t a genius, so what? She’d never had to use her head. In this world women who look like that never have to work for anything. The only lesson they need to learn is how to pick the times to wag their tails.

“To the point. What’re you doing here? I want to know why Tinnie got stabbed. We’ll get into background if it seems important.”

She showed that flicker of irritation again. “The Serpent was making a book. They called it a book of dreams or a book of shadows. The Baron thought she was putting most of her powers into it. He thought if he could grab it, he would run her out of the castle. He told his men to steal it. They waited till her guard was down. They grabbed the book. There was a fight. Most of the Baron’s men were killed. So were a lot of the Serpent’s guards. A man named Holme Blaine escaped with the book, but he didn’t take it to the Baron. He brought it to TunFaire. The Baron sent me to get it back because I was the only one he trusted. When I asked around for someone who might help me your name kept coming up. I decided to see you. Here I am. But I think I made a mistake.”

I had a strong feeling she wasn’t telling me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the Dead Man could straighten out the little details. “See me why?”

“I want you to find the book of dreams.”

Sure. I looked at Eleanor. She gave me a blank stare in return. Not much help there, honey. I checked the redhead again. Damn, she was a sizzler. “So who tried to kill my friend? And why?”

“The Serpent’s men, probably. I know they’re here. I’ve seen them. Did you see them?”

I described them carefully.

“The man with the mustache sounds like Elmore Flounce. Even his friends won’t mourn him. The ratman might be Keem Lost Knife. Nastier than Flounce. The ogre could be Zacher Hoe, a hunter and tracker. But the Serpent has other ogres. The dwarves. . . I don’t know. She had dozens around.”

“Hunh. Somewhere to start.” I hoped the Dead Man was taking her apart inside

The redhead started wringing her hands That isn’t something you see much, especiafly in younger people. The only wringer I know is Dean. It seemed studied. “Will you help me find Holme Blaine, Mr. Garrett? Will you help me recover the book of dreams? I’m desperate.”

All alone and desperate, battered by powerful forces. A sure way to sew Garrett up Only I didn’t feel her desperation. I was becoming disenchanted so fast I almost had to work to pant. String her along, Garrett. What’s to lose? “I have problems of my own. But if I come across your book, I’ll snap it up.”

She gave me a look that melted my spine despite my restored cynicism. It made me want to grab up Dean and the Dead Man and toss them into the street. She took out a doeskin sack, removed five silver coins. “I have to keep a little to live on while you find the book. I’m sorry I can’t give you more. It’s all we could scrape together. The Serpent grabs all the silver she can find.”

Silver had gotten scarce since Glory Mooncalled took over the mines in the Cantard. I opened my mouth to tell her she didn’t need to beggar herself. The sucker side of me was wide-awake.

Face it

The Dead Man seldom sends a thought beyond the confines ot his own quarters. If he does, I don’t argue. His reasons generally stand up. But having him jump in ruined my concentration. There were a hundred questions I should have asked the woman, but instead I said, “I’fl have a friend of mine see you safely to wherever you’re staying” Saucerhead was hanging around somewhere.

She stood “That’s not necessary

“I think it is. There’s been a knife used once already. Probably meant for you. By now I expect the people who did it know they missed. Understand?”

“I suppose.” That irritation again. “Thank you. I’m new at this. I don’t expect people to be that way.”

Really?

She was good Give her that. She really was good. I called out, “Dean, tell Mr. Tharpe to see the lady safely tucked away home. Ask him to scout the area, see if she’s being watched.”

Dean stepped into the doorway, nodding. As I’d suspected, he’d been out there eavesdropping. “Miss? If you will?” He could turn on the charm for a guest, that old boy.

I didn’t think about the questions I should’ve asked till after I heard the door close. But what the hell? I could get the answers from the Dead Man.

10

Dean came back from the front door as I headed across the hail. “She was lying, Mr. Garrett.”

“She wasn’t telling the whole truth, that’s for sure

“Not telling a word of it if you ask me.”

“It shouldn’t matter. Let’s find out what old Smiley plucked out of the air between her ears

Dean shivered I can’t figure it, After all this time he ought to be used to the Dead Man.

I added the Ramada woman’s money to the pile under the Dead Man’s chair. I settled into my own, glanced around. Dean had been slacking again He gets the creeps in there, so he lets cleanup slide till I jump on him or do it myself. The bugs were ready to take over. “What did you think of my visitor?”

Will you never outgrow that adolescent sense of humor?

Crumbs. Now he was getting on me for what I was thinking “I hope not, Chuckles.” There. Damned for it, I might as well say it. “Grownups are so stodgy.”

As Dean observed, she was lying

“So what’s her real story?”

I dare not hazard a guess.

Oh-oh. This didn’t sound good

I was unable to capture any but the most fleeting surface thoughts.

Oh, my. What the hell? “I thought you could read anybody “ This was getting to be a bad habit. Was he getting near the end, slipping over the edge?

Only simple minds

Ouch! “And you complain about my sense of humor? What’s it mean?”

That she is no chambermaid. She bears close observation—not that way—though we have no real business mixing in here. I got the distinct impression he wanted to mix.

Not in the manner you have in mind.

“What’s wrong with mixing business with pleasure? She was. . .

Yes. She was. And what else?

“Hey! She’s a client now. A paying client.”

And it is quite obvious why. Amaze me sometime, Garrett. Think with your brain instead of your glands. Just once. Astonish your friends and confound your enemies.

I considered sulking. I considered mentioning the fact that I hadn’t broken a sweat over Winger—though even that wouldn’t have been a definitive truth. Winger’s only distracting feature was her size. “Hell. You’re just being sour grapes because you can’t anymore.”

Which was near enough the truth that he changed the subject. How do you propose finding the book she wants? With no more information than you cozened out of her? You are such a clever interrogator.

“How was I to know you’d gone feeble?”

You have to learn to carry yourself, Garrett. I cannot do it all for you. Rather than start a quarrel, I suggest you try to overtake Mr. Tharpe and engage him to watch the woman.

“How about the book she wants? It has to be the book we heard about before. What about it?”

Nothing about it. A book of shadows, a book of dreams, you tell me. Something mystical, presumably. But the concept is unfamiliar. Knowing what that book is might well illuminate everything else. She suggested a great many dwarves were associated with the woman she called the Serpent. That is unusual. Even unlikely, I would suspect. Perhaps you should visit the local enclave and see if anyone can elucidate. I believe the dwarf Gnorst, the son of Gnorst of Gnorst, is still canton praetor. Yes. By all means. Go see him. Invoke my name. He owes me a favor.

The old bag of bones was getting going. He was more interested than I was. But he s a sucker for a puzzle.

“Come on, Old Bones. Not even a dwarf gets stuck with a name like a hay-fever attack. Does he? And how can he owe you one? I’ve never seen any dwarves around here.”

They are long-lived, Garrett. They have excellent memories and a delicate sense for the proprieties of balance.

That was supposed to put me in my place. Water off a duck, man. Us short-lifers don’t have time to worry about gaffes.

Once you visit the dwarves, you might enlist Mr. Dotes. If Mr. Tharpe learns nothing useful, and the Squirrel person likewise, you might begin researching the woman’s story, detail by detail. Heraldry and peerage experts should know this baron and his stronghold. Traders and travelers who visit the region might cast light on events there.

“Go teach Grandma to suck eggs. You’re on my turf now.”

I am? I am talking legwork here, Garrett. Remember that facet of this business to which you are allergic?

A base canard. The sour grapes of a guy who hasn’t gotten out of his chair for four hundred years. Though it is easier just to stir the pot and see what floats to the top. “Guess I’ll see if Dean will hang around. If he’ll stay late, I’ll head for Dwarf Fort.”

I went to the kitchen. hoisted me a brew. Of course Dean would stay over. Now that things were happening I couldn’t run him off. Tinnie was one of his favorite people. He wanted to see somebody get hurt for hurting her “So hold the fort,” I told him. “His Nibs has me off to the realm of the short and surly.”

“Don’t be out too late I’m making deep-dish apple cobbler. Better when it isn’t reheated.”

Surprise, surprise. That old boy knows how to take my mind off my troubles. One more talent and I’d marry him.

I trotted up to my special closet and dressed myself for the street, then headed out. Not for the first time I didn’t have the foggiest notion what the hell I was doing. Or maybe it was the first time and it just hadn’t ever stopped.

11

The Dead Man had suggested a stop, coming back, at the Joy House, owned and operated by one Morley Dotes, friend of mine, professional vegetarian, assassin, and elfhuman breed. I gave it a think and decided to skip it. Morley is handy when the going gets rough, but he has his liabilities. Most of them are female. No sense bringing him in where he’d face so much temptation. Besides, not having him in meant the odds were better for me.

The Joy House. Some dumb name for a restaurant with a menu fit only for livestock. How about the Manger, Morley? How about the Barn? Or the Stable? Though that kind of smacked of upscale chic.

What people call Dwarf Fort or Dwarf House sits on four square blocks behind the levee in Child’s Landing. The Landing abuts the river north of the Bight, where the big water swings sharply southwest and the wharves and docks start and go on for miles, all the way to the wall. Legend says the Landing was settled when humans first came into the region. First there was a fort, then a village that grew because it lay near the confluence of three major rivers. Then there were more fortifications and a growth of industry during the Face Wars, when human insecurities compelled our ancestors to prove they could kick ass on the older races.

The Face Wars were a Ion? time ago. Things have come full circle. Now the Landing is occupied by nonhumans come to grab at the wealth floating around because of Karenta’s endless war with Venageta.

I can always work up a case of indignation about the war and its spin-offs. One is, the nonhumans are picking our pockets. Our overlords are cheering them on. Someday they’ll be picking our bones.

That’s not racist, either. I get along with everybody but ratmen. Our rulers, in their wisdom, in their infallible opportunism, made treaties with these other races that shield them from military service even if they’ve lived as Karentines for ten generations. They gobble the privileges and don’t pay the price. They’re getting fat making the weapons carried by youths who couldn’t be conscripted if the nonhumans weren’t there to replace them in the economy.

If you’re human and male, you’ll do five years in service. Nowadays, with the Cantard in the hands of Glory Mooncalled and his mercenaries and native allies, they’re talking about making that six years. Meaning even fewer survivors coming home.

I’m bitter. I admit it. I survived my five and made it home, but I was the first of my family to do so. And nobody thanked me for my trouble when I got back.

Hell with it.

Dwarf House covers four blocks. A north-south street cuts through the middle. A canal spur runs through east to west. Rumor says the blocks are connected by tunnels. Maybe. They’re connected by bridges four stories up. Make that four human stories. Dwarves are dwarves. There would be more floors.

The buildings have no outside windows and few doors. Humans seldom get inside, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was if they let me in and didn’t want me out, I was sunk. Not even my pal the King would come rescue me. Dwarf House enjoys virtual extraterritoriality.

I looked the place over before I knocked. I didn’t like what I saw. I knocked anyway. Somebody has to do these things. Generally somebody too dim not to back off.

I knocked again after a reasonable wait. They weren’t in any hurry in there.

I knocked a third time.

The door swung inward. “All right! All right! You don’t have to break it down. I heard you the first time.” The hairy runt in red and green was probably six hundred years old and had been assigned to the door because of his winning personality.

“My name is Garrett. The Dead Man sent me to talk to Gnorst Gnorst.”

“Impossible. Gnorst is a busy dwarf. He doesn’t have time to entertain every Tall One who wanders past. Go away.”

I didn’t move except to insert a foot into the doorway. The dwarf scowled. I guess. He wasn’t much more than eyes inside a beard big enough to hide stork’s nests. “What do you want?”

“Gnorst. He owes the Dead Man.”

The dwarf sighed. What might have been a conciliatory smile stirred the brush on his face. He grunted and made noises that would be considered rude at the dinner table. “I’ll inform the Gnorst.” Bam! He slammed the door. I barely saved my foot. Then I snickered. These characters had to get a little more imaginative. I mean, Gnorst Gnorst, son of Gnorst, the Gnorst of Gnorst? Hell. I guess they don’t have much trouble remembering who’s related to who. If Gnorst lost his voice, he could answer most personal questions by blowing his nose.

I bet it makes perfect sense to dwarves.

The hair ball was back in five minutes. Probably record time for him. “Come in. Come in.” Either the Dead Man’s name was magic or they were short on chow for their pet rats. I hoped the character with the imaginative name was impressed with my credential. “Follow me, sir. Follow me. Mind your head, sir. There’ll be low ceilings.”

The door dwarf did me the added courtesy of lighting a torch off a lamp that yielded a light so feeble it would have done me no good at all. He gave me a look that said this was first-class treatment, properly reserved for visiting royalty.

Dwarf House inside was all gloom and smell, like tenements where families crowd in four to the flat. Only more so. Ventilation was nonexistent.

We trudged up stairs. We went down stairs. I stooped a lot as we marched through workshops where dwarves by the platoon worked on as many projects as there were dwarves working The lighting was uniformly abysmal, but my guide’s torch added enough to reveal that these were all proud craftsmen. Each dwarf’s product was the best he could fashion. Which would make that item the best of its kind Dagger, shield, plate armor, clock, or clockwork toy, each was a work of art. Each was unique. Each artisan was a master.

My lower back was gnawing at me before we were halfway where we were going. I breathed through my mouth because of the smell I hoped nobody took offense. The racket was incredible. Those dwarves banged and clanged and scraped and squeaked like crazy, all for the sake of maintaining an image as industrious little buggers. I bet they started loafing the second I was out of sight.

12

The dwarf with the silly name didn’t look silly. Mostly he looked hairy. I assumed a beard was an emblem of status. He was two beady black eyes peeking out of gray brush. I couldn’t tell what he was wearing behind all the foliage. He did have a standard-issue sort of dwarf’s hat perched on top, complete with pheasant tail feather.

Gnorst of the many Gnorsts met me in a shaded garden on top of one of the buildings. Very stylized and arty, that garden, with white marble gravel paths, teensy trees, little wooden bridges over fish ponds. The works, all in a style usually associated with high elves.

I rubbed the small of my back and gawked. Gnorst said, “An affectation of mine, Mr. Garrett. My tastes are very undwarflsh. My worldly successes allow me to indulge my peculiarities.” This before the introductions and amenities.

“It’s restful,” I said. “I’m surprised to see it atop a building.”

My guide faded away. Another hairball brought refreshments. The goodies included beer. Maybe they’d heard of me. I took a long drink. “You all make beer like you do everything else.”

It wasn’t that good but I had to be diplomatic. Gnorst was pleased. Maybe he’d had some hand in its brewing.

Dwarves shun alcohol and drugs, so wouldn’t have any real standard by which to judge the product.

“I wish I had time for a relaxed chat, Mr. Garrett. I’d love to catch up on the adventures of my old friend, your partner.”

My partner?” Maybe he is but I don’t go around admitting it in public. I laughed. “I’ll forget you said that. I don’t want to give him ideas.”

“To be sure. He’s stubborn at times. I’ll drop in someday. It’s been too long Meanwhile, indulge my impatience. I’m pressed”

“Sure. I’m in a hurry myself.”

“What brought you, then?”

“The Dead Man’s idea, A friend of mine was knifed yesterday. The gang that did it were mostly dwarves.”

Gnorst popped up. “Dwarves! Involved in a killing?”

“Attempted killing So far “ I explained

“Strange. Very strange.” But he relaxed visibly, like maybe he’d concluded his own bunch couldn’t he responsible. “I don’t see how I can help you.”

“The Dead Man hoped you could give me a line on those guys. The dwarf community is pretty tight.”

“This one is. But there are dwarves who aren’t part of this enterprise. Still . . The behavior isn’t to be countenanced. It aggravates prejudice. That’s bad for business. I’ll quiz my people. Someone may know those dwarves— though I hope not. A dwarf gone bad is a bad dwarf indeed

That sounded like a proverb. I told him, “Thanks for your time. I didn’t think it would help One more thing. You ever heard of something called a book of shadows? Or a book of dreams?”

He jumped like somebody goosed him with a hot poker He stared at me a whole minute. I exaggerate not. Then he squeaked, “A book of dreams?”

“A woman came to the house before I came over here. She looked a lot like my friend who got stabbed. I think she was the intended victim. She wanted to hire me. Gave me a long story about a witch called the Serpent and a book of dreams that got stolen from her and is supposed to be in TunFaire now.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Garrett “ Gnorst scuttled off, mumbled at the guy who’d brought the beer. He stomped back over. “I just canceled some appointments. You have more time.”

“I ring a bell or something?”

“A gong. A carillon. I guess you’re unfamiliar with early dwarf history.”

“Everybody else’s, too. What’s up?”

“You’ve recalled an ancient terror.”

“Maybe you’d better explain.” Before I got dizzy.

“The Book of Dreams, more often called the Book of Shadows, is infamous in dwarfish legend. It must be unimaginably ancient to you. It dates from before men walked the earth.”

Yesterday’s breakfast is unimaginably ancient to me most of the time, but I didn’t say so. I didn’t want to seem shallower than I am. Wipe off that sneer.

“In those days dwarfish sorcerers were quite powerful, Mr. Garrett. And some were quite dark. The most powerful and darkest was Nooney Krombach, who created the Book of Shadows.”

Praise me, I kept a straight face. Nooney Krombach. I reminded myself that they probably find our names just as quaint. “Nooney Krombach?”

“Yes. Quite possibly fanciful, of course. Like so many saints in human mythologies. But he doesn’t have to have existed to have influenced his future.”

“I understand.” I did, because just a few months ago I’d survived a case involving several of TunFaire’s religions. This city is cursed with a thousand cults.

“Krombach’s legend has led thousands of would-be masters of the world to attempt to create their own Book of Shadows.”

That was fine by me but didn’t make anything clearer. “\What was it?”

“A book of magic. One hundred sheets of brass hammered paper thin, bound in tooled mammoth leather, every page bearing a spell of immense potency. And every spell created and set down with our dwarfish passion for perfection.”

I began to see why people were after this book. But not why they were after me. I didn’t have any grimoires lying around the house. Gnorst mistook my frown for puzzlement.

“These spells are very specialized, Mr. Garrett. Each enchantment, one to the page, properly employed, will allow the book’s user to assume a different form and character. In other words, the book’s user is able to assume any of a hundred guises by turning to the proper page and reading aloud. He is able to become any of a hundred people—or whatever creature might be inscribed.”

“Huh?” I wasn’t being dumb. But that was a big load. My imagination grabbed the idea and darted around. I gulped. “You saying this Serpent had the Book of Dreams and somebody stole it?”

“The Book of Shadows was destroyed, at great cost to the ancients. The characters it contained were all wicked. If your visitor told the truth, the witch she mentioned was trying to create her own book of shadows. What could she have possibly offered them?”

“Who?” I was having trouble keeping up

“Those dwarves. The ones you encountered. It isn’t possible to create a book of shadows without dwarfish craftsmen. But no sane dwarf would lend himself to an evil of that magnitude. . . . But you don’t care about that.”

I did and I didn’t. I was way out at sea, without a rudder, taking waves and wind on the beam.

Troubled, Gnorst started pacing. He looked like a hairy egg on stubby legs, wobbling. “This is bad, Mr. Garrett. This is very bad.” He repeated himself several times. I didn’t say anything back because I figured I’d said everything I had to say. “This is awful. This is grotesque. This is terrible.” I’d started to get the idea he thought this wasn’t good. He spun on me. “She said the book is here, this woman? Here in TunFaire?”

“She said she thought it was.”

“We have to find it and destroy it before it can be put to use. Did she say it was complete?”

“She said it was taken. Stolen by a character named Holme Blame. That’s all. She didn’t go into details. She just wanted to hire me to find it

“Don’t. Don’t go near the thing. An evil that great Let us handle it. No human is pure enough of heart to resist.” He wasn’t talking to me anymore. He went on not talking to me. “This will ruin me. My production schedule will go to hell. But I have no choice.” He remembered me, whirled. “You’re a cruel man, Mr. Garrett.”

“Say what?”

“You’ve made it impossible for us to get any work done while this monstrosity is loose. Our entire industry may collapse.”

Right after the moon fell into the sea. He was overreacting. “I don’t get it.”

“Imagine yourself to be deeply evil. Then imagine yourself with the power to become any of a hundred other people, each designed to your specification. One might be a super assassin. Another might be a master thief. One might be . . . anything. A werewolf. You see what I mean?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I’d begun to catch on but not clearly enough. The possibilities I’d imagined originally had been much too picayune.

“Armed with a completed book, that witch would be almost invincible. And as long as she lived in the Book of Shadows, she’d be immortal. If you killed the persona she was wearing, she’d still have ninety-nine lives. If she prepared properly. Plus her own. And she’d only be vulnerable in her natural form. Which she would avoid assuming because she would be vulnerable.”

I got it. Sort of. It didn’t make a lot of sense the way be said it, but nothing much about sorcery does, to me. “We’ve got big trouble, eh?”

“The biggest if the book is complete. I doubt that it can be, though. But even incomplete, it’s a powerful tool. And almost anyone who knew what it was could use it—if she was foolish enough to write it in a language someone else could read. You wouldn’t have to be a sorcerer. You’d just look up the page for sorcerer if that’s what you wanted to be.”

I thought about it. Hard. The more I thought, the more possibilities I saw and the less I liked this book. It sounded like a triple shot of Black Plague. “You think there’s a chance it really exists? That it isn’t just somebody’s fancy?”

“Something exists that people are willing to kill for. But it just can’t be complete.” He sounded like he was whistling in the dark. “Else the thief wouldn’t have gotten to it. But it would be dangerous in any state. It has to be destroyed, Mr. Garrett. Please go straight to the Dead Man. Urge him to exercise his entire intellect. My people will do everything within their power.”

Tinnie’s place in the mess was fading fast. The stakes seemed huge. I should’ve known it couldn’t stay simple. My life never does. “Let me know if you come up with anything.”

Gnorst nodded. He had given me more time and information than either of us had planned. Now he seemed anxious to see me go. I said, “We ought to excuse ourselves and attack our respective tasks.”

“Indeed. My life has been complicated no end.” He signalled. The old boy from the front door popped out of nowhere. He took me back the way we had come. Somebody scampered ahead to warn all the dwarves. They were all hard at work when I passed by.

Nobody is that industrious all the time.

13

I slipped out into the afternoon, leaned against the wall a dozen feet from Dwarf House’s door, pondered my place in this exploding puzzle. The Book of Shadows. A real nasty. Did I have a moral obligation here? Gnorst and his gang knew how to handle it.

I understood the danger better by the minute. I was tempted by the book and didn’t yet know how it could be useful to me. Pretty easy to see why Gnorst was scared of it.

If I stayed involved, I was going to have to cover my behind. There were some rough players out there. I didn’t know them, but they knew me. Maybe it was time to drop by the Joy House, see if Morley had anything cooking.

I started toward his place, not hurrying, still trying to figure angles.

I didn’t get there.

There was a whole gang of them but they were dwarves, SO I had the reach. And for once in my young life I’d had the sense to go out dressed. I dented three heads and chucked one dwarf through a window. The owner came out and cussed and howled and threatened and kicked a dwarf I knocked down. Nobody paid him any attention. The rest of us were having too good a time.

I started out not really trying to hurt anybody. I just wanted to fend them off and get away. But they were playing for keeps. I decided I’d better argue more convincingly. My stick wasn’t getting the message across.

Somebody whapped me up side the head with a house. It had to be a house. Nobody dwarf size could hit that hard. The lights went out.

Usually I come around slowly after I’ve been sapped. Not that I have a lot of experience with that. This time I wasn’t slow, maybe because I was so excited about finding myself still alive, if a little run down.

I was bouncing along facedown. Cobblestones slid past inches from my nose. The hairy runts were taking me somewhere rolled into a wet blanket. They were skulking along through an alley. Maybe they wanted us to party some before they let me swim the river with rocks tied to my ankles.

I didn’t like the situation. Naturally, Would you? But there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. I couldn’t even yell. My throat felt like I’d tried to swallow cactus.

However.

The dwarves stopped. They chattered gutturally. I strained, lifted my head, looked around. My temples throbbed. I saw red. When my eyes cleared, I saw a man blocking the alleyway ahead. He was alone and there were eight dwarves around me, but the numbers didn’t bother him.

His name was Sadler. He was one of Chodo Contague’s top boys, pure death on the hoof. The dwarves chattered some more. Someone was behind us, too. I couldn’t twist around enough to see him, but I could guess. Where Sadler went Crask was sure to follow. And vice versa.

Those two are hard to describe. They’re big men, have no consciences, will cut a throat with no more thought than stomping a bug. Maybe less. And you can read that in their eyes. They’re scary. They probably eat lye for breakfast.

Sadler said, “Put him down.” His voice was cold and creepy.

Crask said, “And get out of here.” His voice was so much like Sadler’s, people had trouble telling them apart.

The dwarves put me down, all right, but they didn’t get out of there. Which made it sure they were from out of town. They might be thugs, but any thugs native to TunFaire wouldn’t have argued for an instant. Nobody in his right mind bucks Chodo without he has an army behind him.

Sadler and Crask were efficient and ruthless and not even a little sporting. They didn’t argue, they didn’t negotiate, they didn’t talk. They killed dwarves till the survivors decided to get the hell out of there. The two didn’t chase anybody. They had what they had come for, which was one broken-down confidential agent named Garrett.

Crask grabbed the edge of the blanket and gave me a spin. Sadler said, “You’re keeping weird company, Garrett.”

“Wasn’t my idea. Good thing you guys happened along.” Which I said knowing they hadn’t happened along at all. They probably wouldn’t have lifted a finger if they hadn’t been sent.

“Maybe you won’t think so.” That was Crask. “Chodo wants we should ask you a question.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Your man told us you went to Dwarf House.” Dean would. Even with the Dead Man watching over him. He isn’t that brave. “We saw you get knocked down. You got to learn to control that tongue, Garrett.” I didn’t remember saying anything but I probably did. Probably asked for it. “We don’t want to lose you.” That was Sadler talking. And what he was really saying was that he didn’t want me to get myself smoked before the day came when Chodo decided the world would be better for my absence. Sadler looks forward to that day like it might be for the heavyweight championship of Karenta.

“Thanks anyway. Even if you didn’t mean it.” Crask helped me to my feet. My head whirled. And ached. It was going to ache for a long time. “Maybe we’re even now.”

Sadler shrugged. Damn, he’s a big one. Two inches taller than me, fifty pounds heavier, and not an ounce wasted on flab. He was losing a little hair. I’d guess him at about forty. A real ape. A doubly scary ape because he had a brain.

Crask is the other half of a set of bookends, almost like he stepped out of some mirror where Sadler was checking his chin for zits.

Sadler shrugged because he wasn’t going to put words into the kingpin’s mouth. Chodo has the idea he owes me because a couple of my old cases helped him out in a big way. In fact, I saved his life once. I’d rather not have. The world would be a better place without Chodo Contague. But the alternative had been worse.

“Let’s us guys walk,” Crask said. He got on my left and supported me by the elbow. Sadler got on my right. They were going to ask some questions and I’d better give some answers. Or I’d be very unhappy.

There’s my life in a nutshell. Cheerfully skipping from frying pans to fires.

I couldn’t for the life of me think why they were interested in me now, though. “What’s up?”

“It ain’t what’s up, Garrett, it’s who’s down. Chodo got kind of crabby when Squirrel turned up dead.”

I stopped. “Squirrel? When did that happen?” I nearly fell on my face because they kept on going

“You tell us, Garrett That’s why we’re here. Chodo sent him down to help you. A favor, because he owes you. Next thing we know a city ratman finds him in an alley with his guts hanging out. He wasn’t much, but Chodo considered him family,”

Catch that? Always Chodo, never Mr. Contague? I’ve never figured it out. But I didn’t have time to wonder or ask. It was time to talk “A woman came to the house. Called herself Winger. Not a local. She pulled a knife on me in the office. The Dead Man froze her.” I awarded myself a smirk when Crask and Sadler jumped. The only thing in the world that bothers them is the Dead Man. He’s a force they can’t cope with because they can’t kill him. “I was going to go get Morley Dotes to tag her after I pushed her out, but Squirrel turned up right then and volunteered. I told him to find out where she went and who she saw. The Dead Man said somebody named Lubbock sent her.”

“You know anybody named Lubbock?”

“No. I never saw the woman before, either. She was real country.”

They spread out a little. They were going to indulge me, give me the benefit of a shadow of a doubt. Maybe. Sadler asked, “This tie in with the hit on your woman?”

“Maybe. This Winger was looking for a missing book of some kind. I don’t know why she thought I had it. She didn’t say and the Dead Man couldn’t get it out of her. Later, though, another woman showed up. Wanted to hire me to find a guy called Holme Blaine who stole a book from her boss, who wanted the book back bad. She was a redhead Tinnie’s size and age and build. Maybe somebody mistook Tinnie for her.”

They thought. Crask said, “It don’t add, Garrett.” Accusing me of holding out.

“Damned straight it don’t. It might start to if! can find this Holme Blaine.”

They grunted. They’ve spent too much time around each other. They’re like those married couples that get more and more alike as time goes by. Crask asked, “Why visit the dwarves?”

“There’re dwarves in the thing.”

“No shit. Your pals back there. You smartmouth somebody in Dwarf Fort?”

“Different gang. From out of town.”

“Figured that.” They’re that confident of their reputation. Sadler asked, “How do you get into these weird things, Garrett?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t get into them anymore. It just sneaks up on me. You going to show me where Squirrel bought it?”

“Yeah.”

I was doing something right. We were on the street now. In view of witnesses. I was a little less nervous. Not that those two would scruple against icing me in front of the whole world at high noon if they thought the time was right. Half the unresolved killings in TunFaire can be pinned on the kingpin’s boys. I don’t see anybody rounding them up for it.

Chodos secret of success is he don’t muscle in on our overlords’ rackets. He works his own end of the social scale. He’s much more at peril from his own than from the vagaries of law or state.

Equal Justice for all As long as you make it yourself.

They had me glad I’d done some running by the time we got to Squirrel. It was a hike and a half, all the way to the skirts of the Hill, where our masters have raised their fastnesses upon the heights. I knew our trek was at an end when we reached a block where a few hardcases loafed around, holding up walls, and the street was otherwise empty.

Squirrel had gone to Ins reward in an alley that ran downhill steeply We entered from the high end. Sadler told me, “He got it here,” about fifteen feet into the shadows. It would have been light there only briefly, around noon “You can’t tell ‘cause of the light, but there’s blood all over He ended up down there about fifty feet. Probably tried to run after it was too late. Come on.”

The body lay ten feet from the bottom end of the alley. Somebody with a sharp blade and strong, probably using a downward stroke, had sliced him from his right ear down the side of his throat and chest all the way to his bellybutton Bone deep. “Last time I saw a wound like that was when I was in the Corps.”

“Yeah,” Crask said. “Two-handed dueling saber?”

Sadler demurred. “Couldn’t get away with lugging one around I say Just sharpness and strength.”

Crask squatted. “Could be. But how do you get that close to hit that hard with a legal knife?”

They meandered off into a technical discussion. Crafts men of murder talking shop. I squatted to give Squirrel a closer look.

Some of us never get used to violent death. I saw plenty in the Marines and didn’t get numb I’ve seen more than enough since. I still don’t have calluses where Crask and Sadler have them. Maybe it’s hereditary. Squirrel probably earned what he’d gotten, but I mourned him all the same. I noted, “He wasn’t robbed or anything.”

“He was plain hit,” Crask said. “Somebody wanted rid of him.”

“And him such a sweetheart. It’s a sacrilege.”

If those guys have a weakness, it’s lacking a sense of humor. Their idea of a joke is promising a guy to turn him loose if he can walk on water wearing lead boots. My crack didn’t go over.

Sadler said, “Chodo doesn’t like it, Squirrel getting offed. He wasn’t much good but he was family. Chodo wants to know who and why.”

“You guys using carrier pigeons now?” Chodo lives way the hell and gone out in the sticks, north of town. There shouldn’t have been time for all the back and forth implied here.

They ignored me. They get that way about trade secrets—or anything they don’t think I need to know. Crask said, “You get anything here we don’t?”

I shook my head. All I could tell was that Squirrel wouldn’t be doing much dancing anymore.

Sadler said, “Bet the iceman used both hands. You’d get more on it that way.”

Crask told me, “We’re going to keep an eye on you, Garrett. Something don’t add up here. Maybe you didn’t tell us everything.”

Hell, no, I hadn’t. Some things Chodo doesn’t need to know. I shrugged. “I find out who did it, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Take it to heart, Garrett. Take it to bed with you. Get up with it in the morning. Chodo is pissed. Somebody is going to pay.” He turned to Sadler and started in on whether the killer had cut upward or downward. Ignoring me. I’d been dismissed. Warned and dismissed. Chodo owed me, but not the life of one of his men. Maybe I was nearer even with him than I’d thought.

I checked Squirrel again, but he still wasn’t sharing any secrets. So I got out of there.

Heading home, I saw something I’d never seen in TunFaire before, a centaur family trotting down the street

The fighting in the Cantard must have gone berserk if the natives were fleeing it, too. I’d never heard of centaurs ranging this far north.

Things must be going real bad for Glory Mooncalled and his hatchling Cantard republic. He’d be gone soon and the world could get back to normal, with Karentine killing Venageti in the never-ending contest for control of the mines.

I’d have to mention the centaurs to the Dead Man. Glory Mooncalled is his hobby. The mercenary turned self-crowned prince has lasted longer than even my career houseguest expected.

14

While walking home, I noticed that, though it was still too early for morCartha high jinks, there were plenty of fliers aloft. Like every fairy and pixie in the known universe, with a random sample of other breeds. I nearly trampled a band of gnomes while gawking at the aerobatics. The gnomes yowled and cursed and threatened mayhem upon my shinbones. The tallest didn’t reach my kneecap. They were feisty little buggers.

I stood and gawked while they stomped off, cocky because they’d intimidated one of the big people. I didn’t get around to cussing back because I was numb. You don’t often see gnomes. Not in town. They look kind of like miniature dwarves who sometimes find time to shave. “What next?” I muttered, and “Never mind! I don’t want to find out.” Just in case my guardian angel was going to grant my every wish.

I reported to the Dead Man. He seemed more interested in the gnomes and centaurs than in what had happened to me. I held my tongue while he mulled. what I’d gotten from his pal Gnorst, then digested the news about Squirrel. Then he queried, Why do you not want the killer to have been the woman Winger?

“I liked her. In an off-the-wall sort of way. She had balls that drag the ground.”

You get your priorities scrambled. You mentioned her name to Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler.

“I did indeed. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. A mistake, but with some justification.” They would find her and ask her some hard questions. Unless she did the unlikely and headed for her home village fast. Like about the day before yesterday.

You did not mention the book.

“I was playing with pain. I managed to think a little. I thought I should keep something to myself.”

Wise decision. If for the wrong reason. Consider the power of the book, then consider that in the hands of Chodo Contague.

I did. And maybe had before, unconsciously. “Not a good plan.”

Not for anyone but Chodo Contague. A fancy keeps floating through your mind. It may not be as difficult as you think.

“What?” He’d blindsided me again.

To find an eyewitness to the Squirrel person’s demise.

“You’re kidding. Chodo’s in it. People are going to sew their lips together.”

He does not intimidate everyone.

“You weren’t there, 0 Fearless One. Everybody that he don’t intimidate is buried. Or soon will be.”

You noted considerable aerial activity out there. How often do fairies and pixies catch your attention? More often than children and pets? Generally such remain part of the background unless they force themselves upon you. And in that you are not unique. The Squirrel person’s killer probably was careful about witnesses, but did not think to check the air above.

“It’s an idea. One of your more outrageous ones, but an idea. How am I supposed to con some witness into talking?”

Pass word to the fairy and pixie communities saying you will pay for information about what happened in that alley. Those people are not afraid of Chodo Contague. In fact, they hate him. They would not help him. If he has a similar notion, they will thumb their noses at his men. They can fly faster than his thugs can run.

Legwork again. He was coming up with these things just to get more hoofing around town.

Still, it might be worth a shot. If I could get the message across. It’s hard to communicate with those people. They speak Karentine but somehow it isn’t at-ways the same language I speak. You have to be careful what you say and precise in how you say it. No ambiguities. No words or phrases that can be understood in more than one way. You do and ninety-nine times in a hundred they’ll take you the wrong way. I think they do it on purpose, to give us a hard time.

I’d never thought much about it, but there are peoples with little to fear from Chodo. It might behoove me to find friends among them. Sure as the sun will rise in the east, there’ll come a day when Chodo and I go head-to-head; I don’t want that day to come and I expect he doesn’t, either, but we both know our natures make it inevitable.

I said, “Crask and Sadler got me spooked.”

They did more good than harm.

“I heard that. Those dwarves weren’t taking me to a party.”

Time to consider taking on backup.

“Yeah.” He was being awful practical. “I wanted to keep the little leaf-eater out of it but I’m really not at my best when the odds are eight to one.”

I sensed faint amusement over there. There are other possibilities. The groll brothers, Doris and Marsha, make effective bodyguards.

“They also tend to stick out in a crowd.” Grolls being part giant, part troll, and the brothers in question being twenty feet tall and green. And they don’t speak Karentine. The only man I know who speaks grollish is Morley Dotes. I’d have to enlist him anyway. “Why don’t I sleep on it?”

Because if you sleep now, you may waste the chance to enjoy sleeping a few thousand times more. It is not legwork that is going to kill you, Garrett. It is lack of legwork.

“Who walked twenty miles today? And who stayed home contemplating his own genius?”

I pondered the mystery of Glory Mooncalled.

“That’ll help us out.” How old Chuckles preens and crows when he guesses right what the mercenary will do next. And how he cringes and whines when that sumbitch surprises him.

I hate to admit it, but I kind of long for the old days last year when Mooncalled was on our side and just gave the Venageti fits and made our generals look like simpletons.

Maybe I should worry more. Mooncalled may be the most important man alive today. The fate of his republic will shape that of Karenta and Venageta. If the two kingdoms can’t squash him and regain access to the silver mines that are the object of the ancient war, sorcerers on both sides will soon be out of business. Silver is the fuel that makes their magic go.

Mooncalled’s strategy is to hang on till the wizards fade. He doesn’t fear our mundane generals. Most of them can’t find their butts with a seeing-eye dog. They get their jobs through brilliant selection of parents, not competence. Mooncalled may not be a genius, but he can find his butt with either hand, in the dark, which is plenty good enough when dealing with Karentine generals or Venageti Warlords.

I said, “I take it you think something is about to happen down there.”

Perhaps. And the news may be less than favorable to those who find hope in Mooncalled’s mutiny. Both Karenta and Venageta have kept the pressure on but have not run blind into his traps. His native support appears to be dwindling. You mentioned spotting a centaur family today. A few months ago centaurs were Mooncalled’s most devoted allies, vowing to fight till they were extinct if that was the price of ending foreign domination of the Cantard.

I hadn’t thought about the political implications of a centaur presence here. Did it mean negotiations for a sellout? Usually I turn a deaf ear to such speculation. I have the romantic, silly idea that if I ignore politics steadfastly, maybe politicians will ignore me. You’d think I’d have learned after having spent five years helping kill people on behalf of politicians.

Don’t tell anybody on the Hill, but I—like almost everybody who doesn’t live up there—have rooted for Glory Mooncalled in my secret heart. If he actually manages the impossible and hangs on, he’ll break the backs of the ruling classes of both of the world’s greatest kingdoms. In Karenta’s case that could mean the collapse of the state and either the return of the imperials from exile or evolution into something entirely new and unique, built upon a mixture of races.

Enough. Whatever happens on the Hill, or in the Cantard, it won’t change my life. There’ll always be bad guys for me to chase.

You had better get on your horse.

“Yuk! Don’t even mention those monsters.” I hate horses. They hate me. I think there’s a good chance they’ll get me before the kingpin does. “I’m on my way.”

15

Morley Dotes’s Joy House is only a short way from my place, but by the time you get there you wonder if you haven’t fallen through a hole into another world. In my neighborhood—though it’s not the best—the nonhumans and baddies are mostly passing through. In Morley’s, the Safety Zone, they’re there all the time.

TunFaire is a human city, but just about every other species has an area of its own staked out. Some are a quarter unto themselves, like Ogre Town or Ratman Creek. Some occupy only one tenement. Even though individuals may live anywhere in town, somewhere there’s a home turf that’s fiercely defended. There’s a lot of prejudice and a lot of friction and some races have a talent for that which makes our human bent toward prejudice look wimpy. Thus the Safety Zone evolved, of its own accord, as an area where the races can mix in relative peace, because business has to get done.

Morley’s place is right in the heart of the zone, which seems to have gelled around it. It was always a favorite hangout for baddies who mix, before the zone became an accepted idea. Morley is becoming a minor power. I’ve heard he’s turned into a sort of judge who arbitrates interracial disputes.

Useful, but he’d better not get too ambitious. Chodo might feel threatened

Chodo only tolerates Morley now because he owes him. Morley spiffed his predecessor and created a job opening at the top. But Chodo remains wary, maybe even nervous. What Morley did once he might do again, and there’s no more sure an assassin than Morley Dotes.

Killing people is Morley’s real line. The Joy House started out as cover. He never expected the place to become a success and probably didn’t want it to.

Thus do the fates conspire to shape our lives.

It was getting on dusky, with the first morCartha out reconnoitering, as I approached Morley’s place. “Well,” I muttered unhappily as I turned into the street that runs past the Joy House. And “Yeah, hello,” as a couple of overdeveloped bruisers fell into step beside me. “How’s the world treating you guys?”

Both frowned as though trying to work through a problem too difficult for either. Then Sadler materialized out of shadow and relieved them of the frightful and unaccustomed task of thinking. Sadler said, “Good timing, Garrett. Chodo wants to see you.”

They must have seen me coming. “Yeah. I suspected.” A big black coach stood in front of Morley’s. I knew it better than I liked. I’d ridden in it. It belonged to that well-known philanthropist, Chodo Contague. “He’s here? Chodo?” He never leaves his mansion.

Crask appeared, completed the set. I had me bookends who would strangle their own mothers not only without a qualm but who wouldn’t recall it a day later with any more remorse than recalling stomping a roach. Bad, bad people, Crask and Sadler. I wish I didn’t, but whenever I run into them I waste half my little brain worrying about how bad they are.

I’m glad they don’t make a lot like them.

Crask said, “Chodo wants to talk, Garrett.”

“I got that impression.” I kept my tongue in check. No need to mention that Sadler had told me already.

“He’s in the coach.”

They couldn’t have been sitting there waiting for me. That wasn’t their style. They must have had business with Morley and I was just a target of opportunity.

I walked to the coach, opened its door, hauled my carcass inside, settled facing the kingpin.

You take your first look at Chodo, you wonder why all the fuss. Everybody’s scared of this old geek? Why, he’s in such lousy shape he spends his whole life in a wheelchair. He can barely hold his head up, and that not for long unless he’s mad. Sometimes he can’t speak clearly enough to make himself understood. His skin has no color and it seems you can see right through it. He looks like he’s been dead five years already.

Then he works up the strength to meet your eye and you see the beast looking out at you. I’ve been there several times and still that first instant of eye contact is a shocker. The guy inside that ruined meat makes Crask and Sadler look like streetcorner do-gooders.

You get in Chodo’s way, you get hurt. He don’t need to be a ballerina. He has Crask and Sadler. Those two are more loyal to him than ever any son was to a father. That kind of loyalty is remarkable in the underworld. I wonder what hold he has on them.

He has them and a platoon of lieutenants and those have their soldiers on the street. Those have their allies and informants and tenants. Chodo flinches or frowns, somebody can die a gruesome death real sudden.

“Mr. Garrett.” He had the strength to incline his head. He was having a good day. Wiry wisps of white hair floated around.

“Mr. Contague.” I call him Mr. Contague. “1 was considering coming to see you.” But not very seriously. His place is too far out. It’s a disgustingly tasteless mausoleum (sour grapes, Garrett?) that dwarfs the homes of most of our overlords. Crime pays. And for Chodo it pays very well indeed.

“I thought you might when I heard from Dotes.”

Thanks a bunch, Morley. There you go thinking for me again.

“I know how a man feels in such a situation, Mr. Garrett. I once lost a woman to a rival. A man grows impatient to restore the balance. I thought I would save time if I came to the city.”

Huh? Didn’t he know Tinnie was going to be all right? Or did he know something I didn’t? That was likely, since almost everybody knows something I don’t—but not about Tinnie, he shouldn’t. “I appreciate it more than you know.” He had a girl once. Funny. I’d never thought of him having been anything but what he is right now.

“You’re surprised. It’s a pity you’re so determined to maintain your independence.” That’s a problem between us. I want the world to know I’m my own man. He’d like to get a hold on me. He said, “I admire you, Mr. Garrett. It would be interesting to sit and talk sometime about have-beens and might-have-beens. Yes. Even I was young once. Even I have been in love. I once considered getting out of this life because a woman caused me such despair. But she died. Much as yours did. I recall the pain vividly. For a time it left my soul as crippled as my flesh is now. If I can help, I will.”

For the first time I began to suspect there was something going on between me and Chodo that was on a level having nothing to do with antipathies and favors accidentally or knowingly done. Maybe he’d glommed me as some kind of tenuous lifeline from his shadow world to one where “higher” standards reigned. And maybe his continued attempts to seduce or coerce me into his camp had something to do with tempering that lifeline.

Whoa! Hip boots time, Garrett. “Sure. Thanks. Only, Tinnie didn’t die, see? She was hurt, but they say she should get better. Squirrel was supposed to tell you, only…”

His face darkened. “Yes. Squirrel. Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler told me what you said. I failed to make sense of it.”

“I can’t, either. But the whole world is going crazy. We got morCartha fighting all night, mammoths and saber-tooth tigers roaming around, thunder-lizards maybe migrating south. Today I saw centaurs on the street and almost tromped a gang of gnomes. Nothing makes sense anymore.”

He made a feeble gesture with one hand, a sure sign his blood was up. He seldom spends the strength. “Tell me.”

“You have a professional interest?”

“Tell me about it.”

My mama didn’t raise many kids dumb enough to argue with Chodo Contague while hip-deep in Chodo’s headbreakers. I gave him most of the bag. Exactly what I’d given Crask and Sadler. I didn’t contradict myself. The Dead Man taught me well when it comes to retaining detail. I added some speculation just to give the impression that I was making a special effort for him.

He listened, relaxed, chin against chest, gathering his strength. What went on inside that strange brain? The man was a genius. Evil, but a genius. He said, “It makes no sense in terms of the information at my disposal.”

“Not to me, either.” I arrowed to the key point. “But there’re dwarves under arms roaming the streets.”

“Yes. Most unusual.”

“Is there a dwarfish underworld?”

“Yes. Every race has its hidden side, Mr. Garrett. I’ve had contact with it. It’s trivial by human standards. Dwarves don’t gamble. They are incapable of making that mental plunge into self-delusion whereby others become convinced that they can beat the odds. They don’t drink because they make fools of themselves when they’re drunk and there is nothing a dwarf fears more than looking foolish, They shun weed and drugs for the same reason. There are individual exceptions, of course, but they’re rare. As a breed, they have few of the usual vices. I’ve never known one to become excitable enough to employ lifetakers.”

“Pretty dull bunch.”

“By your standards or mine. All work, all business, very little play. But there is one game they do enjoy. One weakness. Exotic females. Any species will do, though they gravitate toward big-busted human women.”

So do I. I made an unnecessary crack about, well, if you’ve taken a look at your average dwarf woman

He shut me up with a scowl.

“They can’t resist, Mr. Garrett—if you give them half a chance to convince themselves that they won’t get found out. They can be as vulnerable as priests that way. In the area around Dwarf Fort there are half a dozen very discreet and exclusive hook shops catering to dwarves. They are quite successful enterprises.”

Which meant they were pouring gold into Chodo’s pockets. I wondered if he was trying to tell me something. Probably not. He isn’t one to talk around the edges of something—unless he’s handing you a gentle admonition concerning a possible catastrophic decline in the state of your health. “You make anything of the book angle?”

“They would get excited if someone got hold of one of their books of secrets. But that can’t be done.”

Such a flat statement. He’d tried. I flashed on what the Dead Man had said. Damn, I shouldn’t have gotten him thinking about books.

He said, “There’s no way to get enough leverage on a dwarf to make him turn over any secret. Those people are perfectly content to die first.”

“How about a thief?” Maybe I could nudge this into safer channels.

“Their books are too well guarded to be reached.” Again that flatness. He knew whereof he spoke. “That enclave is a puzzle box, a series of fortresses going inward. You need a guide to get through it. The army, backed by every wizard off the Hill, couldn’t take the place fast enough to keep them from destroying whatever they don’t want to get out.”

“It was a notion. I thought it might explain what’s been happening.”

“What’s going on is something else entirely. You tell me your young lady is alive and mending. Does that mean you’re out of it?”

I answered honestly. “I don’t know where I stand. Every time I decide I don’t have any stake, something happens. Those dwarves Sadler and Crask ran off

They were out to get rid of me. It can’t be sound business practice to let people get away with something like that.”

He looked at me in a way that told me he knew I was holding out, but he said only, “That’s true, Mr. Garrett. A first principle. Don’t let anyone get away with muscling you. For the moment, let me counsel patience. Let me put my eyes out. These people have dragged me into their affairs. Someone beholden to me will know something about them. It’s impossible for those people to exist in the cracks without being noticed. My people will catch some of them and ask questions. If I learn anything of interest to you, I’ll inform you immediately.”

“Thank you.” I couldn’t tell him to get out of my face, go home, I didn’t need him stomping around in my life. Even if I’d wanted to.

“I’m going to have Mr. Sadler set up headquarters here so my people have a central reporting site.” He meant the Joy House. That would thrill Morley all to hell. It would shoot the guts out of his business.

Chodo read that thought in my face. He’s good at reading people. “Mr. Dotes won’t lose because of it.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Contague.” I managed to keep sarcasm from creeping in. Dean and the Dead Man would have been amazed. They don’t think I can do that.

“Don’t thank me. You’ve done me numerous good turns. This may be my chance to pay some back. Maybe to lay a little good karma on my soul.”

Another surprise. That old boy is full of them. I thanked him again, climbed out of the coach. It rolled away immediately. Most of Chodo’s bodyguards went with it.

16

Morley’s place was deserted. I stepped into half the usual light and none of the usual uproar. I looked across the desert at Puddle, behind the serving counter, polishing glassware. “What the hell?”

“Not open tonight, buddy. Come back some other time.”

“Hey! It’s me. Garrett.”

He squinted. Maybe his eyes weren’t so good anymore. He was going to flab fast, but that didn’t keep him from being a bad man. “Oh. Yeah. Maybe I ought to say we’re double not open for you, pal. But it’s too late. You done got Morley dragged in.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Morley shut the place down. You think anybody’s going to come in here with that circus parked out front?”

“He here?”

“Nope.” He didn’t volunteer any information. Most of Morley’s people think I take advantage of his good nature. They’re wrong. He doesn’t have a good nature. And he owes me for a couple stunts he pulled on me back when he was hooked on gambling and he had to cut things fine to keep from taking that long swim in the river. “What you want him for?”

“Just talk.”

“Right.” His tone said I was full of it.

“He leave any word for me?”

“Yeah. Have a beer. Hang in there till he gets back.”

“Beer?” Morley never has anything drinkable around except a little brandy upstairs for special guests of the female persuasion. The kind that always scurry for cover when I show up, afraid I work for their husbands.

Puddle swung a pony keg onto the bar, grabbed the biggest mug he had, drew me one. I arrived as he topped it off. I noted that the keg had been tapped already. I noted that Puddle had brew breath. I grinned. Another of Morley’s bunch who didn’t share his boss’s religion. Puddle pretended he didn’t know why I was showing my teeth

“Seen Saucerhead?”

“Nope

“Morley supposed to be back soon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Know where he went?”

He shook his head, Probably afraid he was going to get a sore throat with all this yammer. A real heavyweight conversationalist, Puddle. Always ready with a lightning riposte. Rather than subject myself to any more abuse, I went to work on my beer.

It went down smooth. Almost too smooth. I let him draw me another and finished half before I thought about all I’d put away already today. Where was the point of the running if I was going to fix myself up to look like Puddle anyway?

“You got anything back there ready to eat?”

A big, wicked grin grew on Puddle’s homely face. Before he turned toward the kitchen, I was sorry I’d asked. He was about to make me pay for my sins.

He came back with something cold smeared on a bed of soggy noodles. “Chef’s surprise.” It looked like death and didn’t taste much better

“Now I know why all those breeds are so damned mean. Can’t help it, eating like this.”

Puddle chuckled, pleased with himself.

I ate. To get through a mess like that, all I have to do is recall what I’d had to eat as a Marine. I could dig in and feel pampered.

Saucerhead ambled in. “Where you been, Garrett?”

I filled him in

“I heard about Squirrel. Can’t figure it.”

“What about the redhead?”

He frowned. “She went home meek. And disappeared.” He shook his head. “Went in the place where she stayed. Wanted to ask her a question. I looked all over. She wasn’t in there no more. And I know she never come out. Only two people ever did and she wasn’t one of them. And she never came back.” He shrugged and forgot it. Not his problem anymore. “They tried to ice you, eh?”

“Yeah.”

He sighed. “Hey. Puddle. Whup me up a double load of whatever this glop is Garrett’s got.” He asked me, “Where’s Morley?”

“I don’t know. Puddle ain’t saying.”

“Hmm. Chodo’s in it now. Account of Squirrel. What you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I have a couple grudges. And like Chodo told me, letting them slide isn’t good for business.”

“You think that Winger smoked Squirrel?”

“Maybe. I think Chodo’s going to find out.”

“Pretty pissed, eh?”

“Yeah. Probably hasn’t had a good excuse to off somebody for days.”

Saucerhead drank about a quart of beer, inhaled the food Puddle brought him, shoved back, said, “Well, it’s been an interesting day. I got to get on home. Got a little gal waiting.” Off he went.

I sat quietly for a while. It got dark outside. I waited some more. I asked Puddle, “You sure Morley didn’t say when he’d be back?”

“Nope.”

Puddle seemed to be the only body in the place. Where were all the help? Where was Sadler, who was supposed to set up his headquarters? Where the hell was Morley Dotes?

I waited some more. Then I waited some. And when I didn’t have anything else to do, I waited. Then I got up and said, “I’m going home.”

“See ya.” Puddle grinned me out the door. He locked it behind me in case I had a change of heart.

The morCartha were zooming around, trying to undress the night. I recalled Dean saying we were going to have cobbler for dessert. I cussed. I’d eaten that sludge at Morley’s place and now I wouldn’t have room for decent cooking.

Story of my life.

17

I almost made it home without getting distracted.

I’d just crossed Wizard’s Reach. I was beginning to feel optimistic. I’d decided I was going to wrap myself around another gallon of beer, then throw myself in bed and sleep till noon. The hell with running and everything else. I justified future loafing the old-fashioned way. I told me I’d earned it.

Somebody hissed at me from the shadows beside a neighbor’s stoop.

I took a deep breath, sighed, looked for signs of trouble, looked at that shadow, didn’t go any closer. I couldn’t make out whoever was there. Mama Garrett didn’t raise many fools who lived to be thirty. I didn’t go over there. “Come out, come out, whoever you are. Allee allee in free.”

“I can’t. They might be watching.”

“Too bad.” Very too bad.

My mood had plunged. I didn’t bother asking who might be watching.

The voice sounded a tad familiar. I couldn’t place it, though.

I laid a hand on my belt. No headknocker. Still down somewhere near Dwarf Fort. I resumed walking, wondering if I’d see that billy again. I wasn’t ready to go looking. Too many dwarves down there and I can’t tell one from another. I don’t think they’d accept a kill-them-all-and-let-the-gods-sort-them-out approach.

My egg might be scrambled some but it does me just fine, thank you.

The dark behind me moaned. Feet pitty-patted toward me, I eyed the house, wondered if I’d have lime to get Dean’s attention before somebody did something unpleasant and maybe left the old boy a mess to clean up.

That’s the power of positive thinking there After having had my head redesigned—it was throbbing and pounding—I saw no dawn on any horizon Funny how one little thing can cause your mood to change so fast.

I sidestepped, dropped into a crouch, and came around with a fist meant to drive right through somebody’s ribs and let me get hold of his backbone from the front. Then, if I was feeling mean, I’d shake him till his ears fell off

I tried pulling it. I fell on my face, rearranged my nose into an even less appealing mess, and still folded the little darling up around my fist

I got myself up, wobbled around a little, wiped the fuzz out of my eyes. The girl stayed down, holding herself and making strangling noises Moo, boy. What a lady-killer, Garrett. It wasn’t my week for women If it kept up, it wasn’t going to be my year.

I felt my nose to see if anything was left. Hard to tell from here, but there seemed to he a nub under the ick. It hurt enough to be my nose. I shook some more cobwebs and knelt. “You shouldn’t ought to run up on a guy like that.”

She made noises like she was trying to heave up her stockings. I scooped her up and headed for home, caveman Garrett bringing home the goodies

She felt like a real treat, curled in my arms. It was hard to tell by eyeball in the available light. Curious morCartha cruised around as I climbed the steps, kicked the door, and hollered They didn’t bother me. I felt the Dead Man touch me, just to make sure it wasn’t somebody trying to get past Dean disguised as a freshly slaughtered side of beef.

Dean opened the door after peeking through the spyhohe. He looked at the girl. “Got lucky again, eh?” He stepped aside

I took her into the small front room, put her down on the daybed “See what you can do while I clean up.” I sketched what had happened. He gave me one of his better looks of exasperation.

“You missed supper.”

“I ate out. At Morley’s. Get a light in here so we can see. I’ll be back in a minute.” I left him and dashed upstairs faster than a wounded snail. After I washed my face and rechecked it for missing parts, I put on clean clothes and scooted downstairs and stuck my head into the Dead Man’s room “Company, Smiley.”

I am aware of that, Garrett. Try to restrain your animal urges. She may be of some help, though I cannot get anything yet. She is too frightened and confused.

“Restrain myself? I’m a paragon of restraint. I’m the guy they invented the word for. I’ve never burned the house down around you.”

It was one of those rare times when he didn’t try to get in the last word Chalk one up in the history books. Might not happen again in my lifetime. She knows something, Garrett.

Hell. Score one for him That was worse than one of his standard digs. It was tone rather than words. He was accusing me of goofing off.

I stomped into the small front room.

Dean was bent over the woman, blocking her from view, talking softly. I paused, looked at him with an affection I’d never show to his face. He had been the luckiest find of my life. He did everything around the house that I hated, cooked like an angel, put in absurd hours, and more often than not was as emotionally involved in my cases as I was. I couldn’t ask for much more but maybe a little less lip and a little more enthusiasm about keeping the Dead Man clean.

If he has a failing, it’s his disapproval of my work habits Dean believes in work for its own sake, as a tonic for the soul.

I coughed gently to let him know I was there. He didn’t hear Was he going deaf? Maybe. He had to be pushing seventy, though he wouldn’t admit it.

“How is she, Dean? Settled down any?”

He tossed a glower over his shoulder “Some. No thanks to you.”

“I should let somebody run up on me and maybe change the shape of my head?” I was getting irritable. Can’t understand why My face hurt? My head ached? My shoulder throbbed? My legs were cramping from all the walking and running? That’s no excuse I was headed for despair mode, where you keep on fighting the fight but you’ve decided it isn’t worth it You just can’t stop

Facts don’t bother Dean much. He’s still fifteen years old inside. He never stopped believing in the kind of magic kids carry around inside them before reality beats them down. He gave me another look at his glower. He was on a roll, He said, “Give me a couple more minutes

I’ll go report, then,’’ I went and told the Dead Man about my excursion into that world where Dean’s brand of magic has died

He had no direct comment. Go meet the girl. Chuckle. You will be surprised.

The Dead Man scores his points I was surprised.

She was gorgeous. Luscious. I’d had my suspicions, of course. I’d carried her in and there’s nothing wrong with my sense of touch. But there hadn’t been light enough to reveal all that red hair.

Yeah She was a ringer for the gal who’d told the Baron Stonecipher story, who was a ringer for the naked gal. This one with a difference. This one had an air of innocence “It’s raining redheads, Dean.”

He grunted. Like he didn’t care.

She was sitting up now, no longer green around the gills. She looked at me. Green eyes. Again. Gorgeous big naive green eyes Lips like I only dream about. Freckles

Down, boy.

I gaped. Dean gave me the evil eye. I said, “We need a name for this case Maybe call it Too Many Redheads.

“Mr. Garrett?” Who! That voice! Like the last redhead’s voice, but with added bells and promises whatever

“That’s me. Garrett Ferocious dragon fighter and unwitting stomper of damsels in distress. And that’s on my good days.”

She looked puzzled

“Sorry.  It’s been a rough day.  I’m on edge Let’s start over. I promise not to sock you it you promise not to run up behind me in the dark.  In the street, anyway. We could put the Dead Man to sleep and run Dean off and she could chase me all ever the house if she wanted. I wouldn’t try too hard to get away In the interest of science, of course To see how closely she compared with my nudist visitor, say

She smiled. The freckles on her cheeks danced.  That almost made my day worthwhile

Almost

“Dean explained,” she said Funny how he gets on a first-name basis so fast. “I should apologize. That wasn’t smart. I’m not used to the city.’ She stood. My eyes bugged. Her movements were unpretentious and unaffected and I had to grind my teeth to keep from howling and whistling She was a natural heart-stopper. Wherever she came from, she’d been wasted on them there. They’d been dumb enough to let her get away. Send more of hei kind to TunFaire. Take our minds off poverty and war and despair. Talk about your bread and circuses. This gal was a three-ringer all by herself

She stuck out a hand. It wasn’t half as big as mine. I took it. It was a chock full of warmth and life—which reminded me that Tinnie almost wasn’t. That brought me back to earth. She said, “I’m Carla Lindo Ramada, Mr. Garrett. I came here from . . .”

Oh boy “Hold it. Let me guess. The castle of Baron Stonecipher in the Harnadan Mountains. Where you’re a chambermaid. The baron sent you after a guy named Holme Blaine who kyped a book from a witch called the Serpent.”

Her jaw dropped.

Outside, overhead, the morCartha started up. The racket was so close and so loud it sounded like they were using my roof for landings and takeoffs I told Dean, “They’re going to make themselves unpopular if they keep that up.”

The redhead realized her pretty little mouth was open, so she closed it, but it sagged open again. She stood there like a goldfish gulping air.

I asked, “Was I close”

“How did you. . . ?“

I wanted to brag about what a great investigator I was. No point exaggerating, though. “Take it easy. I’m not a psychic.” He was in the other room. “You’re at least the second gorgeous redhead named Carla Ramada who turned up today. You want me to find the book, right?”

“Carla Lindo Ramada,” she said. Apparently that was important. “But. . . How… ?“

“I don’t know.” There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that this wasn’t the woman who had been here earlier. I was pretty sure she wasn’t the naked woman, either. I couldn’t tell you what it was. A subtle clue of some kind. I had only minimal reservations about her being the real Carla Lindo Ramada. She wore the name more comfortably.

Her face went through the changes, all of them fetching. I was thinking the thing to do was get her Out of town before she started riots because there was only two or three of her to go around—then I finally started wondering how come there were two or three. Or were there four or five? Was there a whole legion of her out there? Did redheads grow on trees in the Hamadan? Gods, get me into the forestry racket

Her features settled into solid fear. “It must have been her! She must have a page in the book that’s me.”

“What?” It sank in. “The villain of the piece came here masquerading as you?” Well. Well again. And she was my client. More or less. “But how? If she doesn’t have the book anymore?”

She didn’t ask how I knew what the book did. She thought about my question. “First draft? Maybe she brought draft pages with her. You couldn’t really mistake her for me, could you?”

She wasn’t that naive after all.

No. I couldn’t mistake her, having seen her. I thought back to that earlier visit. It wouldn’t come clear. That was odd. The Dead Man has taught me to pick up details and retain them. But I found only mists where I should have had cleat, crisp recollections.

“Dean, make us a pot of tea. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.” And who could get any rest with all that racket going on outside? I was beginning to hope they’d wipe each other out. “We might as well relax before we start

He gave me the hardeye like he wondered if something so sweet would he safe if lie visited the kitchen, decided maybe 1 could restrain myself that long, stalked out. Carla Lindo Ramada told me, “Dean is a sweet man.”

“Yeah. Sometimes we have trouble keeping the bees off him. We use him to bait our flytraps. And he’s a sucker for a girl in trouble.” But not me. Oh, no, not Garrett. Garrett is hard as nails, “How come you were hiding out there?”

“When I arrived in TunFaire, I stayed with people the Baron knows. On the Hill. I asked everybody I saw who might be able to help me. Everybody recommended you.”

Gahk! I hadn’t thought my name was common coin on the Hill. That could be bad news.

“They say you’re honest but you do things your own way and you have a reputation as a chaser.” Her eyes sparkled She definitely wasn’t as naive as she looked.

“Me? They must’ve been thinking about somebody else. I’m pure of heart and soul. Pure as the driven slush

“But maybe a little lax in mind and body?” More eye twinkle. She was coming back from her fright. Fast. I bet she kept that mountain castle simmering.

She smiled. Her freckles danced And I knew why she stood out from the other redheads. They didn’t have freckles Even Tinnie doesn’t have them Many Where they show.

We could’ve gone on like that all night, but there was a job to do. And Dean would be back any second, pushing his scowl before him. “Guilty more often than not Let me tell you about the Carla Lindo Ramada who was here before You tell me when her story doesn’t match up with yours.”

She listened attentively. Her eyes never stopped sparkling and her freckles never stopped dancing, even when Dean brought our tea. He looked at her looking at me and sighed. He never does quite abandon hope that he can stick me with one of his nieces.

Carla Lindo sipped her tea, seemed startled. Dean had broken out one of his reserve blends. She took another sip, told me, “That’s exactly the way it happened, Mr. Garrett. I think.”

“You think?”

‘I wasn’t there. He sent me away so I’d be safe.”

‘He did? He wanted you safe from the rowdiness at home, but he packed you off to the wicked city alone?” That didn’t seem consistent.

“He didn’t want to send me. Probably she got here before I did because he spent so much time making up his mind. But he didn’t have any choice. I was the only one left that he could trust.”

“Why?”

‘The Serpent tried to enlist everybody else. Some of them had to be with her. The trustworthy ones all got killed trying to get the book. She never tried to get to me because she knew I’d never do anything against him.”

“Why not? We all can be tempted.”

“Because he’s my father, Mr. Garrett. My mother was a chambermaid, too, so there was no way he could legitimize me, but their relationship wasn’t any secret. He never denied me, even to his wife. She hates me and my mother. But she hasn’t dared do anything.” She shivered, suddenly frightened. There was a big yet unspoken there. If Dean had been anywhere else, I would’ve bounced over to comfort her.

This was getting more complicated by the minute, at the far end, where the story started, but I wasn’t a step nearer getting things unraveled here. “Wait up. I’m getting confused. We have a wife and a witch and a mistress and a daughter, all for a guy who’s supposed to be two hundred years old, bedridden, and under a curse that won’t let him die?”

She looked at me funny. I ran past her what the other

Carla Lindo had told me. Maybe she hadn’t been listening the first time.

“Oh. That’s not quite true. Father is old and bedridden, but he wasn’t always. And he’s not two hundred; she just says that. He’s sixty-eight. She put the curse on him when I was four, when he stopped even pretending about my mother and sent her to live in the other tower.”

“Huh?”

Dean got it first. “His wife would be the Serpent, Mr. Garrett. He exiled her to a separate part of the castle.” So much for my steel-trap mind. Maybe if I was a little less pained and tired

The girl nodded.

“Oh. Right. I got it now Should have said so.” I wondered if that changed anything. I wondered why I cared. The carryings-on of the denizens of a faraway castle were no business of mine. Unless those people wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought out loud, “It seems we know who and why, Dean. You think?”

“That Serpent person. Wanting to keep Miss Carla from reaching you and getting your help.”

“That’s one. What about Squirrel? Her doing?”

He shrugged. “That blonde woman?”

“Maybe. Now we know this, what should we do?”

Carla Lindo didn’t correct Dean’s lapse. So she was the kind who would let him get away with stuff.

She interrupted my thoughts. “Will you help me, Mr. Garrett?”

I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t let her out of my sight. That that would be too painful, like taking away my vision. My eyes couldn’t stand the darkness when she was gone. But I kept it businesslike. Barely “Yes. I think our interests run parallel.” Wouldn’t be the first time I’d turned on a client who turned out to be shady.

My comments puzzled Carla Lindo. I glanced at Dean. He shrugged. He hadn’t told her about Tinnie or that the imposter Carla Lindo had hired me.

“Miss Ramada . . . I became involved in this on a personal level yesterday. A. good friend was coming to visit. She’s about your height and has red hair. A man tried to kill her out front. One of the Serpent’s men, evidently. Mistaking her for you, I suspect. So I have a score to settle. I suppose.”

The Dead Man touched me, a summons. He had something he wanted to stick in, in private. “Excuse me. I have to step out for a minute. Finish explaining, Dean.”

The old man nodded. He was looking hurt all over again. Like Tinnie had just gotten hit. He’d probably tell it better than I could. He didn’t pretend to be tough.

I sure didn’t feel tough and invulnerable.

18

I slid into the Dead Man’s room, starting to feel sorry for myself. I hadn’t had me a good dose of that yet. I suppose it was due. Part of being human.

“What’s up? This one a ringer, too?”

This one is genuine. She is an open book, easily read— though the truth be told, there is not much written there. Her light does not shine brightly. Be kind to her, Garrett.

“Aw, hell. That ain’t playing fair.”

He filled my head with a chuckle. There is kindness and kindness, Garrett. I would not ask you to cease being human.

“Big of you.” Not much, he wouldn’t. “What’s up?” Looking at all of him here and thinking of all of Carla Lindo over there, I was headed into withdrawal.

One significant factor has escaped you. No. You need not feel slow. Indulgent of him. It escaped me until you told Miss Ramada about Miss Tate’s narrow escape.

That’s the way he is. Nothing straight out. Try to make me figure it out for myself. “Well?”

He didn’t play with me long. You related the same account to the pretender earlier. That woman, if she is indeed the Serpent—and I now believe she is—then knows that Miss Ramada had not been harmed and was in fact ignorant of that threat, so was in no danger of being scared away. Presumably she had something to do with your adventure near Dwarf House. So. Assuming the house was not watched while you were away, because you were not expected to return .

“I’ve got it. Do you think she figured out that you were here?”

That is of no consequence. It is no secret that you share the home of a Loghyr. She will know once she starts to ask questions.

I skipped his invitation to feud over whose house it was. I considered what we knew about the Serpent. Damned little, but if she was heavyweight enough to create the kind of book that was the root of the excitement, she could be heavyweight enough to cause us trouble. The Dead Man can do incredible things, but strength isn’t everything. Sometimes you have to bob and weave and he just isn’t light on his feet. There are disadvantages to being dead that even he can’t get around.

“Let’s back off and look at this. Why is she here? To get her book back. That’s the big thing. Keeping me out of her way ought to be secondary. When she was here, she got everything I knew. She gave me stuff back, but only because then she figured me to do her legwork.” But if she wanted me to do legwork, why try to hit me? “Maybe she changed her mind when she got wind I was seeing your pal Sneezy.”

Sneezy?

“Gnorst Gnorst Gnorst, and so forth. Maybe she started feeling the heat, realized how much she’d stirred up. She’s got me and Saucerhead and you and the Tates after her on account of Tinnie, as soon as we figure out she isn’t Carla Lindo. She’s got the kingpin after her because he wants whoever cut Squirrel. I visit the head dwarf, he squawks like a stuck turkey when I mention the Book of Shadows, goes into a panic, says he’s going to put his whole mob on the warpath. They’re after her, too. She’s got to make some moves. Maybe she figures if she gets rid of me, everybody will sit back for a while because I was the common denominator tying her enemies together.”

I’d gone from explaining to thinking out loud. “She’s going to push hard, going after that book. She might take another whack at me when she finds out I got away from her boys. Now I can raise the heat even more.”

Yes.

“Can there really be a book where you just read a page and turn into whoever’s written there?”

She believes it. Gnorst believes it. The girl and those who sent her believe it. The man who stole the book believed it. Miss Tate was wounded because people believe it. What I believe does not matter. This has become a race, Garrett. You have to find that woman before she finds the book.

“How about I just find the book and wait for her to come to me?”

An admirable strategy, simple and direct. I should have seen it myself. How do you propose to execute it?

Sly, sarcastic old devil. Of course it would be easier to find the witch than the book. She was running with a strange pack. Even in TunFaire, it would stand out like pants on a mare.

“I shouldn’t be here. I should be at Morley’s, in case Sadler gets an interesting report.”

Mr. Dotes’s establishment would be convenient. I can get a message to you there. Though perhaps a modicum of rest would better serve you at the moment.

“Right.” He was. “I’m on my way.”

Dean looked expectant when I returned to the small front room. “He wanted to remind me that we told the other woman about Tinnie. Which means she knows Carla Lindo is still kicking.”

The redhead’s eyes got huge. Damned if that didn’t make me want to charge over there and set her in my lap and tell her everything was going to be all right. Even if I didn’t know everything was going to be all right. Because things would be plenty all right with me as long as she remained perched there.

I said, “We figure there’s no reason for you to worry. The cat’s out of the bag. Killing you won’t chase it back in. She’ll concentrate on finding the book.”

“You can’t let her find it!”

“Take it easy. She’ll need some fantastic luck to find it before she gets found herself. In about a minute I’m going to take a walk and tell a man about her, and before you can wink there’ll be about three thousand bad people looking for her.” I had a thought, which sometimes happens. Sometimes even before it’s too late. “What’s she look like when she’s not being you?”

Carla Lindo just looked at me.

“Well?”

“I’m trying to think. I don’t know. I don’t think I ever saw her. At least not and know it was her.”

“Say what?” The Dead Man had warned me. “You lived in the same place and you never saw her? She had to see you if she put a page in her book that was you.” Had to see her pretty damned close. About all she’d left out was the freckles.

“She stayed locked up in her tower. Nobody went in there but people she wanted in there. All those dwarves and ogres and creepy ratmen. If I ever saw her, I didn’t know it was her. I’m sure I never saw her.”

The Baron’s castle had to be some weird place. Not one where I’d like to spend a lot of time. Unless Carla Lindo had her four or five sisters. Maybe I ought to find Out if there were any more at home like her.

I must’ve been showing my thoughts. She gave me a look like she was reading my mind. I stammered some, then managed to say, “You can’t give me anything to go on?”

“No. Yes. I never saw it, but they say she wears a ring. Middle finger of her right hand. She never takes it off. It’s a snake that wraps around her finger three times. It has a cobra head. They say there’s venom in the ring that can kill you instantly.”

“That’s handy to know.” I reflected. “The woman who was here wasn’t wearing a ring. I don’t think.” That was still foggy. “Did you see one, Dean?”

“No.” Good man. He refrained from mentioning the extra redhead.

“Then she will take it off in some circumstances. Is there anything else?”

Carla Lindo reddened, which was surprisingly fetching considering her coloring. But I couldn’t imagine her doing anything that wasn’t fetching. She only had to breathe.

She said, “She has a tattoo. They say. It’s how she got her name. The Serpent.”

“Huh?” Vagrant memory, of a guy in my company when I was in the Marines. He’d been stuck with the name Donkey Dick till one night he’d gotten all drunked up and had a tattoo artist go to work. After that we called him Snakeman. If he’s still alive, I’ll bet he regrets it. Unless he’s turned it into a carnival act.

The girl stood up. “The whole front of her is supposed to be a snake’s face.” She gestured. “Her breasts are supposed to be the snake’s eyes.”

Boy. There was a thought. Imagine waking up and looking over at that next to you. That would dampen your ardor. No wonder old Stonecipher took up with a chambermaid. “That’s a vivid image. Anything else?” I could just see me going around ripping open the blouses of suspects.

She shook her head. All that copper hair flying around left me with another vivid image. But this one faded to red hair against cobblestones.

I wondered if Tinnie was going to haunt me. Maybe I’d better go see how she was doing. Tomorrow.

“I have to go out, Dean. Over to Morley’s.”

His face pruned up with concern. “Is that wise?”

“It’s necessary. Put Miss Ramada in the front guest room. She’ll be safe enough there.”

His look said she’d be safe only as long as I was Out of the house. I didn’t argue. I seldom do. There’s no way to change Dean’s mind. Maybe he should’ve gone ahead and become a priest. You sure can’t rattle him with facts.

He’d make a great little old lady, too.

Probably comes of having to live with all those nieces. I hate to wish them on anybody, but I do wish they’d find husbands and get Out of his hair.

Dean nodded. I stepped out of the room, deaf to the girl’s appeals. I went upstairs and rearmed, then came down and stopped by the office to say good-bye to Eleanor. “Wish me luck, lady. Wish me better luck.” I hadn’t saved a soul in the case that had involved her. Unless, maybe, in a way, I’d saved me. After the hurting went, I’d found a renewed resolve to do my bit to make the world a better place.

19

You get wary when people have been pounding on you. Even when you’re so tired even snazzy redheads have begun to lose their appeal. Before I’d gone a block I sensed I was being watched. I’m not sure what it was. Certainly nothing I could spot. The watcher was that good. Maybe it’s a sense you develop in order to survive in this business, in this city.

I decided I’d stay out of places so tight I’d have nowhere to run, which was just common night sense anyway.

I was halfway to Morley’s place, dodging low-flying morCartha, when suddenly I was no longer alone. “Shee-it! You guys got to stop doing that. My heart can’t handle it.” Despite my wariness, Crask and Sadler had surprised me, appearing out of nowhere. An object lesson, most likely. In case I ever became inclined to line up against them. They like to play those games.

I supposed it was their people who had tracked me from my place and sent them word I was coming.

Sadler smiled. At least I think that was supposed to be a smile. Hard to tell in the dark. “Really thought you’d appreciate some good news, Garrett. But if you ain’t happy to see us .

“I’m overjoyed. I’m thrilled right down the quicks of my toenails.” Thrilled like they were double pneumonia with a raging dysentery tossed in. “Why can’t you guys just walk up to me like normal people? You always got to be jumping out of alleys and stuff.”

Crask said, “I like to see the look on your face.” He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t kidding.

Sadler said, “My, my. We’re crabby tonight. Did we have a bad day?”

“You got your kicks. So tell me what’s the good news?”

“We found your man Blaine.”

“Huh?”

Sadler said, “Come on. You ask, we deliver.”

Deliver, sure, but without any guarantees about condition. It’s hard to read those two, but I did get a feeling all was not well during our stroll to see Blain. So I wasn’t surprised when, after we’d passed a platoon of henchmen and climbed to a third-floor one-roomer, he turned out to be in a poor state of health.

Some unaccountably thoughtful soul had covered the body with a blanket.

I glanced around. The room’s door had been busted off its hinges. And I don’t mean just kicked in but torn up like it had gotten in the way of a troll in a hurry who didn’t want to be bothered with latches. The room itself was ripped all to hell, like a squad of werewolves had gone berserk there. But there wasn’t any blood. “You guys get a little overwrought?”

Sadler shook his head. “Somebody else. We come here when he heard about the racket.”

“Who did it?”

He shook his head again. “Everybody cleared out before we got here. You know how it goes. See no evil, hear no evil, you don’t got to worry about comebacks. We only caught one old guy who was too slow. He didn’t know nothing but the dead guy’s name. Dipshit was so thick he used his own name.”

“Bright.” But what did that mean? None of us knew Holme Blaine. The dead guy could be anybody and we wouldn’t know the difference.

I glanced around again. Looking more closely, I could see the damage wasn’t just insane destruction after all. “Somebody wanted it to look like crazies did it.”

Crask smiled at me like I was a dull pupil who had seen the light at last. “Somebody was looking for something. Maybe some of them looking while some of them were asking. Then we come along unexpected, they do a quick cleanup and fade.”

Ha! “So where are they?”

“Gone. Saw us coming.”

Huh. I wondered why anyone would bother hiding the fact that they’d searched Blaine’s place and fixed him so he couldn’t talk about it. Did we have somebody looking for the book who didn’t want somebody else looking for it to know they were looking, too?

That came to me off the wall but felt so right I went into a trance trying to figure Out why.

Sadler said, “You want something to exercise your mind, check this out.” He yanked the blanket off Blaine.

I gaped. I managed a one-syllable expletive after about fifteen seconds, and a quarter of a minute later said, “That’s impossible.”

“Yeah. Prime example of a mass hallucination.”

Damn. Everybody was getting sarky.

Blaine was half-man, half-woman. Actually, more woman than man. Running from three inches above the waist on the right diagonally to his left shoulder, he was a he. Down below he was a she. Very much a she. In fact, a familiar one. I’d seen that end before.

“What do you think of that?” Crask asked.

I chewed some air. I made my eyes bug. “Looks like he had trouble making up his mind.” I made funny noises. “Bet he had trouble on dates.” They must’ve thought the circus was in town and I was practicing for my audition.

“First time I ever seen him without some wiseass remark,” Crask said. I bet he’d waited a year to pick a time to drop that one.

Sadler asked, “What you know about this, Garrett?”

“I know it’s weird. I never saw anything like it.” Well, like part of it. That bottom had been in my small front room for a while. “It’s like something out of a freak show.”

“Not what I meant.”

I knew that. “Zip.”

“You sure? You wanted this guy.”

“Because he was supposed to have the answers.”

Sadler gave me the fish-eye. “Don’t look like anybody’s going to get to empty him out, now.”

“No. I guess that’s the point.” I leaned against a wall, where nobody could get behind me, and gave the room another took. But there wasn’t anything there to see. Except that body. Whoever did the job, they left nothing of their own. And they didn’t find what they were looking for, else they wouldn’t have been there still when Crask and Sadler showed. “Nobody saw nothing, eh?”

“This’s TunFaire. What do you think?”

I thought they were lucky to have caught the old man they’d caught. I told him so. He grunted.

“You sure you ain’t got nothing to tell us, Garrett?”

“Actually, I do. But let it ride a minute. I want you to understand something. I don’t have a client. There’s no percentage in me holding out.” What’s a little white fib amongst friends?

Crask said, “Would you look at this?” He’d gotten distracted in a big way.

“What?” Sadler.

Crask pointed at the body. We looked. I didn’t get it till Sadler said, “It’s changing.” A little more of it was male than had been before.

Crask knelt, touched it. “And it’s dead enough it’s cooling out. This is weird.”

“This is sorcery,” Sadler said. “I don’t like this. Garrett?”

“Don’t look at me. I can’t change water into ice.”

They both scowled, sure I was holding out. Sure. Blame it on Garrett when weird things start to happen.

Crask said, “I don’t like it. We ought to get out of here.”

I said, “That sounds like a good plan.” I headed for the door. “You guys rounded up any other news? You get a line on those dwarves yet?”

They both got a funny look. Sadler said, “Not yet. And that’s weird, too.”

Crask said, “Yeah. They got to leave a trail. They got to be staying somewhere,”

True. Curious. It bore some thought. Where could they stay and not catch the eyes of the kinds of people who work for Chodo, or who work for the people who work for Chodo? Couldn’t be many places like that around.

I paused in the doorway. “Somebody really blew in here.”

“Yeah,” Crask said. “Hope I never have to arm-wrestle him.”

I went over the fragments, looking for maybe a thread from a knit sweater that came only from one small island off the coast of Gretch, or something. You go through the motions even when you think they’re pointless. A matter of discipline. They pay off sometimes, so you do them all the time. When I found a big lot of nothing, I wasn’t disappointed. I’d fulfilled my expectations. If I’d found something, I’d have been overjoyed, having struck it rich beyond my wildest fancy.

Sadler said, “Let’s not slide out so fast, Garrett. You had something to tell us.”

“Yeah.” I’d been vacillating. Information given up is advantage surrendered.

“Well?”

“Found out about another character who’s got something to do with whatever’s going on. Called the Serpent. She’s the one this guy is supposed to have stolen a book from.” Blaine was changing faster, maybe because he was getting cold.

“Well?”

Sadler ought to get together with Puddle for a gabfest. Sparkling. “The Serpent is a witch. She hangs out with dwarves.” I took it from the top. They had some of it already but I didn’t know how much. I gave them everything I thought they needed to know. I was real ignorant about why the book was a big deal.

“Witch, eh?” Crask eyed Blaine. That was the salient point for him.

“Tattoo?” Sadler asked. He lifted an eyebrow. “That would be a sight to see.”

It would, but I was surprised he thought so. He never showed much interest along those lines. He asked, “You figure she cut Squirrel?”

“If she didn’t, she knows who did.”

“We’ll find her. We’ll ask.”

“Be careful”

He gave me a look. Most’y it wondered about my smarts. He’d be careful. He’d survived his five in the Cantard. He’d survived in his line of work long enough to get to the top. Careful was his middle name, right between bad and deadly.

I took a final look at Holme Blaine, who hadn’t been careful enough. He still didn’t have anything to tell me. I didn’t have anything to say to him, either.

I’d done my duty. It was time to get my bones moving toward a bed. If the morCartha took pity maybe I could get some sleep.

20

Morley’s place wasn’t far out of the way. I ignored my weariness and the racket overhead and the doings of a night proceeding in the streets and headed for the Joy House.

Ratmen were out doing what they do, picking up after everyone if they worked for the city, stealing anything loose if they were self-employed. There were more goblins and kobolds and whatnot out than I was used to seeing. I guess the weather had turned for the night people, too.

I still had that feeling I was being watched. And I still couldn’t spot a watcher. But I didn1t try hard.

Morley’s place was a tomb. Nobody there but a couple of the kingpin’s men. Even Puddle was gone, home or wherever. That gave me pause to reflect. I don’t often think of guys like Puddle, or Crask and Sadler, in human terms. Home. Hell. The guy might have a family, kids, who knew what all. I’d never considered it. He’d always been just another bonebreaker.

Not that I wanted him to ask me over for dinner, to meet the missus and little bonebreakers coming up. I was just in one of those moods where I start wondering about people. Where they came from, what they did when I wasn’t looking, like that. Probably got started when Chodo told me about his girlfriend.

It isn’t a mood I enjoy. It gets me thinking about myself, my own lack of place and depth in the scheme. No family. Hardly any friends, and them I don’t know that well. What I don’t know about Morley or Saucerhead could fill books, probably. They don’t know me any better, either. Part of being a rough, tough, he-.man type, I suppose. On stage all the time, hiding carefully.

I have plenty of acquaintances. Hundreds. We’re all tied together in a net of favors done and owed, all of us keeping tabs on the balance, sometimes thinking it friendship when it isn’t anything but a shadow of the obsession that drives Chodo Contague.

Comes out of the war. There isn’t a human male in this city who didn’t do time in hell. I even have that in common with the nabobs of the Hill. Whatever privileges they claim or steal, exemptions aren’t among them.

Down in the Cantard witch’s cauldron, you keep track of all the little stuff and strive to keep a balance because you don’t want anybody checking Out owing you. And, even though you share a tent, cooking utensils, campfires, clothes, even girls, you never get too close to anybody because a lot of anybodies are going to die before it’s over. You keep your distance and it don’t hurt so much.

You dehumanize the enemy entirely and your comrades enough sG—though you’ll charge into hell behind them or storm heaven to rescue them—-you never open your heart and never let them open theirs.

It makes sense when you’re down there in the shitstorm. And once you’ve survived the storm and they send you home, you’re saddled with that baggage forever. Some come home like Crask and Sadler, purged of everything human.

That got me wondering what those two had done during their duty. I’d never heard. They’d never said. A lot of guys don’t. They put it all behind them.

Then I started wondering why, though the night people were busier than usual, it was so quiet out. Night isn’t Just the time of those races who have to shun the sunshine, it’s the time of the bad boys, the time when the predators come out. I wasn’t seeing anybody dangerous or suspicious.

I guess Chodo had the baddies beholden to him busy, and the free-lancers, not clued in, were lying low so they wouldn’t catch his attention. Or maybe it was just the morCartha being so obnoxious nobody came Out who didn’t have to.

The morCartha weren’t that much trouble if you hugged the edge of the street and kept an eye out. They seldom risked crashing into a building just to swoop down and steal a hat.

Speaking of whom.

The tenor of their aerial pandemonium changed suddenly, radically. A violent outcry spread. It sounded like terror. Hasty wings beat the air frothy. The sky cleared. An almost total silence fell. It was so remarkable I paused to look at the sky.

A broken fragment of moon lay somewhere low in the east, out of sight, casting barely enough light to limn the peaks and spires of the skyline. But there was light enough to show a shape circling high up.

Its wings sprawled out a good thirty feet. It wasn’t doing anything but making a wide, gliding turn over the city before heading back north.

A flying thunder-lizard. I hadn’t known they were night hunters. I’d never seen one before. What I saw of this one made it look a lot like a prototype for all those dragons guys in tin suits are killing in old paintings. I hear they are. The dragons of story are mythical. Which makes them about the only imaginary creatures in this crazy world. Hell, I’ve even run into a god who thought he was real.

“Garrett.”

I turned, less surprised than I expected. There must have been subconscious clues. “Winger. Kinda hoped I’d run into you again. Wanted to warn you. You got some bad people looking for you. Not in too good a mood, either.”

That surprised her. “You can tell me about it on the way. Let’s go.”

I didn’t think to ask where or why because her attitude tapped my anger. “I have a previous engagement. With my bed. You want to talk to me about something, come around in the morning. And try to ask nice.”

“Garrett, you seem like a pretty good guy, considering. So let’s don’t butt heads. Let’s don’t do it the hard way. Just come on.”

She had a problem. A serious problem. Now I wouldn’t have gone anywhere with her even if I’d planned to before. “Winger, I kind of like you. You got balls and style. But you got an attitude problem that’s going to get you hurt. You want to make it in the big city, you got to learn some street manners. You’re also going to have to know who you’re messing with before you mess. You cut somebody who has friends like Chodo Contague, your chances of staying healthy just aren’t good.”

She looked baffled. “What the hell you talking about?”

“That guy you cut in the alley off Pearl Lane. A couple thousand of his friends are looking for you. They don’t plan to slap you on the back and tell you you did a great job.”

“Huh? I never cut nobody.”

“I hope not. But he was following you when it happened. Who else could’ve done it?”

She thought about it for half a minute. Then her frown cleared as she decided not to worry about it. “Come on.”

“Not smart, Winger. You’re pressing where you don’t know what you’re doing.”

She was one stubborn woman. And just a whole lot too confident. Maybe where she came from men wouldn’t defend themselves against a woman. Maybe she was used to them hesitating.

Hell, I might have myself. But she’d let me talk and that had given me time to get my mind right.

She got out a nightstick not unlike my headthumper. So I got out mine, a replacement for the one I’d left down by Dwarf Fort. She came in figuring to feint a few times and tap me up side the head. I didn’t cooperate. My head had taken enough dents already.

I just slipped her guard, rapped her knuckles, then her elbow when the pain froze her for an instant, then jabbed her in the breadbasket as her stick tumbled toward the street. “That’s how you use one of these things.” She wasn’t very good. All bull offense.

She didn’t seem upset because she’d been disarmed so easily, just surprised. “How’d you get so damned fast?”

“There’s two kinds of Marines, Winger. Fast ones and dead ones. Better get something through your head right now, before you run into somebody who won’t cut you some slack. There isn’t a man in this town, over twenty-three, who wasn’t tough enough and fast enough to survive five years in the Cantard. A lot of them, you make a move on them, they’ll leave you for the ratmen and not look back. Especially the bunch that are looking for you. They like to hurt people.”

“I said I didn’t cut nobody. Not yet.”

“Then you’d better be able to tell them who did. Fast.”

She raised both eyebrows. A strange woman. She wasn’t afraid. You have to worry about the sanity of somebody who doesn’t have sense enough to be afraid of Chodo Contague.

“You be careful,” I told her. “Come by in the morning if you still want to talk.” I turned to head for home.

Damned if she didn’t try again. Barehanded.

The reflexes still worked. I heard her move, pranced aside, stuck out a leg and tripped her, grabbed her by the hair on the fly. “That’s twice, Winger. Even nice guys run out of patience. So knock it off,” I turned loose, started walking.

This time she listened to the message.

21

Dean almost got his marching orders when he went to get me up for my morning run. He’s worse than a mom about not buying excuses. “You started it, you stick with it,” he told me. “You’re going to run, you’re going to run every day.”

Grumble grumble grikkle snackfrortz. Go take a flugling fleegle at a frying forsk. I said something like that. I fought the good fight till he went for the ice water. Then my yellow stripe came out. He’d do it, the driggin droogle. I didn’t want to stay in bed that bad.

Carla Lindo was heating up the kitchen when I stumbled in. I grumbled a greeting.

“He always such a ball of sunshine in the morning?”

Dean told her, “This is one of his better mornings.” Thanks, old-timer. He plunked honeyed tea down at my place at the table. He had bacon frying, biscuits baking. The smell of the biscuits was heavenly. I gathered he hadn’t bothered to go home. Not much point. Wouldn’t have been much time to sleep.

His nieces were used to it. They’d know I was into something. Now, if they’d just forget to use him not coming home as an excuse to come hang around, cooking and baking and batting their eyes and uglying up the place.

I sipped tea and stared into a fog, nothing much else happening inside my head. Carla Lindo stared at me but didn’t say anything. She wore a teensy frown. Maybe her confidence was rattled.

You may suspect that morning isn’t my best time. You may be right. I’m waiting for some genius to figure out a way to do without it. The sad truth is, too often it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

“How do you feel this morning?” Carla Lindo finally asked.

“Black and blue. My bruises got bruises.” I hadn’t been a lovely sight when I got dressed. I’d seen corpses in better condition.

Dean took the biscuits out, set the baking sheet directly on a trivet on the table. “You ought to figure a way to trade with His Nibs. He could get out and run while you loafed all you want.”

He takes advantage of me mornings. Snipes away, knowing my brain isn’t working. The best I can do is threaten to send him Job hunting. A hollow threat if ever there was one. Crafty old dink don’t play fair. He made himself indispensable.

He asked, “Did you learn anything last night?” as he brought the bacon.

“Yeah. That Winger character’s only got one oar in the water.” I told him about it.

He grinned. “I didn’t think she killed that man.”

“World’s best judge of character,” I told Carla Lindo. “Somebody sent Squirrel to the promised land, Dean. That character Blaine, too.”

That got Carla Lindo. “What?” She looked stricken.

“Somebody did him. Busted his door down, tore his place up, left him dead.”

“The book!”

“I guess.”

“Damn it! Now she has it again.” She jumped up, started pacing. I wasn’t so far gone in the morning blahs that I wasn’t distracted. “What will I do? Father was counting on me.

“Take it easy, love.” My, wasn’t she a sight when she was excited, bouncing and jiggling and . . . “Whoever did it didn’t find the book. If that was what they were after. They were still trying when they were interrupted.”

“Then . . .”

“It wasn’t there to be found. Carla Lindo, my sweet, sit down. You’re doing things to my concentration. That’s better. You sure there isn’t something you haven’t told me? You been holding back something that would make sense of what’s been happening?”

Big-eyed, looking shocked and hurt, she shook her head. I doubted she was telling the truth. Well, maybe, by her own lights, she was telling her own version. But it sure felt like there ought to be something more.

Breakfast usually brightens my outlook. I had been known, recently, to go into my morning runs with a smile on my puss. This morning was going to be an exception. This morning my mood just got blacker. I didn’t finish eating.

I pushed back from the table. Carla Lindo was still shoveling it in. Where do those little ones put it? “I’m going to see Himself.” I walked out. Dean looked hurt, like I’d made some nasty remark about his cooking.

I was no bundle of sunshine falling on the Dead Man, either. I stepped into his room, grumped, “You awake?”

I am now, O Shield Against Darkness.

“Huh?”

An attempt, however futile, to cajole you away from your gloom. I abandon it forthwith. There is no hope. Review events of last night.

I reviewed events of last night. I spared no detail. I finished, said, “I’m open to suggestions.” My own best notion was to lock the front door and not answer it till the world straightened itself out.

Hardly practical, Garrett. Blaine’s death is a setback, yes. But, I agree, it seems unlikely his murderers obtained the Book of Dreams. Unless Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler were no telling the whole truth.

“Huh?” I was ready to get in there and mix it up with Puddle.

I suspect that Chodo Contague would be very interested in the Book of Dreams if he became cognizant of its capacity and function. Very interested, indeed, considering his personal circumstances.

“Huh?” Again. I was on a roll.

Think! A flash of impatience. We have discussed thLs already!

Yell, hell. Yeah. Shoot, fire. If Chodo knew what the Book of Shadows could do, he’d be after it like an addict ratman after weed. I’d bet tbere wasn’t a page in the whole one hundred that was a crippled old dink in a wheelchair. He could be young again. He could dance at weddings and funerals. Mainly funerals. He could chase girls and be able to do something when he caught them. Not to mention all the wonderful ways he could use it in his business.

Yeah, Chodo and the book were not meant for each other. “I got it, Smiley. I’m slow but I get there.”

Excellent. So. What you really came for was to get me to tell you what to do. To avoid the unwonted labor of deciding for yourself Very well. First, avoid contact with Mr. Chodo’s people as much as possible. Try to create the appearance of disinterest in pursuing the matter further. By way of establishing a foundation for that pretense, I suggest you visit Miss Tate. Assuming, as is probable, you find her mending quickly, you have your basis for proclaiming no further interest. See to that immediately after your morning run.

“What morning run?’ I had me a bad feeling here.

Off we went into a grand fuss about me maintaining my training regimen. He got in the last word. He usually does. He’s more stubborn, but that’s only because he has more time. He can argue for the rest of my life if he wants.

You must also reconnect with the woman Winger. An encounter with her principal could be most instructive.

“Fatal, too, maybe.”

We have no idea who he is or where he fits. His very existence lends credence to your ill-formed suspicion that there are more than two parties to the search for the Book of Dreams.

I can’t keep anything from him. Not in the long run. Hell. I’d thought I was covering that idea pretty cleverly.

I felt his gloating as he continued, There are two additional areas deserving pursuit. As time permits. The movements and contacts of the Blaine person before his encounter with misfortune. And the whereabouts of our friend Mr. Dotes.

I sensed a touch of concern for Morley. I was a touch concerned myself. Nobody had seen him for a while. He wouldn’t disappear. . . . Unless he’d gone under to do a job or was sincerely concerned about his health. If his health wasn’t gone already.

Seemed a little premature to start worrying, though. He hadn’t been gone that long. “He probably isn’t anywhere. He just hasn’t been at his place when I have. No law says be’s got to hang around waiting for me to drop in.”

Perhaps. Even so.

“I’ll check him out.” It looked like another full day. I looked forward to it with the same enthusiasm I look forward to arthritis.

Go. Do your running. Visit Miss Tate. Visit Mr. Dotes’s establishment. Be back in time for lunch. I will interview Miss Ramada in the interim and prepare additional suggestions.

He would, too. Probably suggestions involving trotting down to the Cantard and back.

Ah. Indeed. Thank you for reminding me. Do keep an ear open for news of Glory Mooncalled. I anticipate word of major events soon.

What? Had he figured some angle nobody else saw? Maybe. He’d anticipated Mooncalled’s mutiny, more or less.

Him and his damned hobby. Why couldn’t he collect coins or used nails or something?

Hell, I’d have to do the legwork there, too.

I went back to the kitchen for another cup of tea. Breakfast had started working inside me. I could appreciate Carla Lindo a little more. I indulged myself till Dean started grumbling about me being in the way. Never said a word about Carla Lindo, did he? Even though he hates having anybody help him because it disturbs his rhythm and routine.

“Well, I’m off on my campaign of self-torture.”

Nobody seemed very excited.

22

Once on the stoop, I paused to suck in a couple of lungfuls of TunFaire’s chunk-style air. Because of the warm spell, it was thinner than usual, what with nobody needing to heat their homes, Didn’t have much spice at all, actually. I didn’t miss it. I looked around.

Dang me. The sun wasn’t even up yet, hardly, and already I knew this wasn’t going to be one of my better days.

Winger was hanging out down the way, not hiding at all, just about ten yards beyond the Dead Man’s usual effective range. She must’ve gotten around to doing some homework.

She didn’t bother me nearly as much as did several other studious types hanging out trying to be invisible. There wasn’t a dwarf among them. They were all human, by courtesy. Not the type you want your daughter to bring home. Bent-nose boys, collective intelligence level about that of a slow possum. There were four of them. With Winger? I couldn’t tell. She didn’t seem to notice them. Nor they her. Chodo’s boys? They didn’t have that feel. Took me a moment to figure why.

They weren’t neat. In fact, they were pretty scraggly. Chodo’s troops have to meet a certain minimal level of personal hygiene, dress, and grooming. These guys never heard of those words. Anyway, Chodo has more respect for me. He’d send Crask and Sadler.

Who, then? The Serpent? But she seemed to prefer dwarves and ogres and whatnot.

All that passed through my head in a couple seconds. I considered going inside and locking up and saying the hell with it all. Then I got mad.

All this time I was stretching and yawning and carrying on like I didn’t see a thing. I skipped down the steps and turned right, away from Winger, skipped around a little warming up, then took off running.

Fast. It caught them off balance. The two in the direction I was headed pushed off walls, then exchanged “what now?” looks. I was past the first before anybody made a decision.

Then I started flying.

Somebody else got into the game.

Three quarrels zipped past me, plunging bolts loosed from a rooftop across the street. I don’t know why they waited till I was moving to start sniping—though I wasn’t all that long getting started and maybe they had to wake up first. The best-sped quarrel passed a few inches ahead, high. I tossed a glance back, saw a little ball of hair duck out of sight atop the only flat roof on that side of the street.

I sailed past the second thug, heeling and toeing and whooping for all I was worth. People scattered like startled chickens. I bounded over piles of horse apples deposited since the ratmen passed through. The last watcher came pounding after me but it was obvious he lived a dissolute life. He couldn’t keep up for a block.

I zigged into a breezeway, zagged through an alley, leaped and dodged assorted snoring drunks and weed-puffing ratmen, scavenging dogs and hunting cats and even one crippled morCartha, zoomed into always busy Wodapt Street, and faded into the crowd.

Easy as that. No problem now till I decided to go home.

Well, it did take a minute or two to really blend in. For a while I was whoofing and puffing so bad everybody backed away.

I got mad all over again. What was this crap, dwarves trying to snuff me all the time? What did I ever do to them? I don’t have to put up with that. And Winger.

I had a mind to turn her over my knee. Only she was as big as me and that might take more turning than I could manage. But I’d had about enough. I was ready to start pushing back.

I ambled up to the Tate compound and spent an hour at Tinnie’s bedside. She was mending fine. Full of fire and vinegar. We had us a good little spat, and because she wasn’t in any shape for making up, I went away grouchier than ever.

Barely past breakfast time and already it was a memorably lousy day.

One of the innumerable nephews caught me before I made good my escape. ‘Uncle Willard wants to see you, Mr. Garrett.”

“Right.” Just what I needed. A fuss with the head Tate. No matter how rotten I felt, I couldn’t get my heart into an argument with him. He’d suffered so much sorrow in the time I’d known him, unearned, that it just didn’t seem right to give him any grief.

I went peaceably, ready to absorb whatever aggravation he wanted to give me.

He was at his workbench. Where else? He’d told me once that the family had a touch of elvish blood. I wondered if he hadn’t fudged a little and it was really dwarfish. He was addicted to work.

He gave me the fish-eye, face unreadable. “Sit if you like, Mr. Garrett.” Maybe I wasn’t high up his list after all.

“Something on your mind?” I sat.

“I understand you’re looking for the people responsible for what happened to Tinnie.”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean? Sort of.”

I explained. I wondered how many times I would have to tell the story, in how many versions, before the dust settled.

Tate listened closely. I know he picked out those points where I slipped past something I wanted to keep to myself. He said, “I see.” He reflected for half a minute. “I’d like to meet the person who sent that man to kill Tinnie, Mr. Garrett.”

“It was mistaken identity. Had to be.”

“I realize that, Mr. Garrett. Even so, Tinnie was hurt. Badly. She would have been killed had not you and your friend been nearby. Had you not intervened. I’ve given this considerable thought. I want to meet the person responsible. I’ll pay well for the opportunity.”

He’d have to get in line, but why not? “I’ll find her. Or him.”

“Him? I was under the impression you believed this witch . .

“The Serpent? Seems likely. But, like I said, as time goes by I become more convinced there’s another party involved. Somebody working against the Serpent. And anybody else who gets in the way.”

“The blonde woman.” He nodded. “You might question her.”

“Yeah.” Like she was going to let me. “Speaking of her, she says her principal’s name in Lubbock. Mean anything? Ever heard the name?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Lubbock Crister, tanner. Lubbock Tool, drayage. Frith Lubbock. Wholesale greengrocer. Yon Lubbock Damascen, shipping agent. All men I’ve done business with, one time or another. Surely there are others. Historically, you have Marshall Lubbock, the imperial general. You have Lubbock Candide, the sorcerer, and his daughter Arachne, who were so blackhearted and vicious mothers still use their names to frighten children.”

“All right. All right.” I’d never heard of any of them but the last two, but he had a point. “There’re plenty of Lubbocks out there. And this Lubbock probably isn’t named Lubbock at all. Could even be the Serpent under an assumed name.”

The little old guy nodded again, his hair floating around his head. He picked up his TenHagens, perched them on his nose. The interview was over. He was going back to work. “Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Please do keep me posted, when you have the odd moment. And do make time to visit Tinnie. She hasn’t many friends.”

“I will.”

“Leo!” He called for one of the nephew horde. “See Mr. Garrett to the gate.” Just to make sure I didn’t get lost somewhere along the way.

I hit the street feeling oddly relieved, like I’d taken care of an unhappy duty, comparable to a visit to an unpleasant maiden aunt, and now I could get on with work that mattered. I didn’t much like me when I recognized the feeling. Tinnie was no old lady turned to vine~ gar in her solitude. I would have to examine my feelings toward her more closely.

I stopped walking, leaned against a wall, started the process of self-examination while considering my next move.

23

I don’t figure I set a record for the standing high jump but I did go up like I had wings.

“Garrett!”

I came down facing Winger, knowing I’d have been dead if she’d wanted me that way.

This was a free one. The gods wouldn’t hand me another chance to get away with napping on the street. “Hey, Winger.” I hoped my voice didn’t quaver too bad.

How had she found me so fast?

Homework. I’ll bet she took my advice and did her homework. There was hope for her.

I looked around. I didn’t see the guys who’d chased me. “Where are your brunos?”

“Huh?”

I’d forgotten she was from out of town. She wouldn’t know the argot. Brunos are low-grade hired thugs. “The hard boys who were with you outside my place.”

“They weren’t with me. I didn’t know they were there till you took off and they went after you.”

“Oh?” The gods shield fools, all right. “Maybe you better think about getting into another line of work. You aren’t going to stay alive long in this one.”

She shrugged. “Maybe not. But if I go, I’ll check out doing what I want to do, not worn out from pulling a plow and making babies.”

She had a point. One of the reasons I do what I do is because I get to be my own boss, not a creature caught up in a web of commitments and responsibilities. “I got you.”

“It’s tomorrow, Garrett. And Lubbock is getting impatient.”

Tough, I thought. I said, “All right. Lead on.”

She headed toward the Hill. I let her lead and set the pace, kept my mouth shut. She walked like she was still behind a plow. Kind of a waste. If you took time to look her over, you saw she wasn’t a bad-looking woman at all, just put together on a large scale. Way too big for my taste. I figured she would clean up pretty nice. If she wanted.

I asked, “You happen to get a look at those clowns who were sniping at me off that roof?”

She grinned. “I did better than that, Garrett. I ambushed them when they came down. Kicked their butts and broke their toys.”

“All of them?”

“There was only four of them. Little hairy fellas. Stubborn. Trick with them is, stay in too close for them to use them crossbows but don’t get so close they can reach you. Work on them with your feet.” She skipped, kicked a foot high. I hadn’t seen boots like those since I got out of the Marines. Those would do a job on somebody. If you had the strength to lift them.

“How come you did that?”

“They was horning in on my game. You ain’t no good to me full of them little arrows.”

“I wouldn’t be much good to me, either. Wish I knew where they came from.”

“Them fuzzballs?”

“The very ones, Winger. That makes three times they’ve come after me.” Recalling that I started watching my surroundings with more enthusiasm.

We were headed toward the Hill. Her principal had to be a stormwarden or firelord or . . . I tried to recall which of our sorcerer elite might be in town. I couldn’t think of a one. Everybody who was anybody and old enough was down in the Cantard helping hunt Glory Mooncalled.

If I was the political type, I’d figure this was a great time for an uprising. Our masters hadn’t left anyone to keep us in line. But I’m not a political type. And neither is anyone else. So we’ll just keep going on going on the way we’ve always gone on—unless Mooncalled pulls off his greatest coup yet and arranges it so none of -them come home.

After deliberating, Winger told me, “I don’t know where they come from, Garrett. But I got a good idea where they went.”

“Ah?” Turn up the charm and cunning, Garrett. Shuck and jive this rube right out of her socks.

“Twenty marks. Silver. After you see Lubbock.”

I’m nothing if not adaptable. “I’ll give you three.” I wasn’t carrying much more than that.

“It’s your ass. You don’t figure it’s worth twenty marks, I’m not going to argue with you.”

Some of these rubes have a certain low cunning and a nose for sniffing profit out of disaster. “Make it five, then.”

She didn’t say anything, just led me on toward the Hill. All right. She’d come around. Five marks was a lot of money to a country girl.

A couple of dwarves ambled across an intersection ahead. I blurted, “Ten.” And they hadn’t even looked our way. Hell, they never did. They were just a couple of short businessmen.

Winger ignored me.

All right. I know. I gave myself away there. But I was nervous. You’d be nervous if you had dwarves trying to poop you every time you stuck your head out of the house.

Dean doesn’t let me do the marketing, either.

I didn’t let up on keeping a lookout. Not for a second. I didn’t see anything disturbing, either, except once I caught a glimpse of a guy who could have been Crask, but he was a block away and I couldn’t be sure. I did grin, though. That might be something to bargain with.

24

I stopped, studied our destination.

“Come on, Garrett. Quit farting around.”

“I want to look it over first.” The place looked like some nut’s idea of a haunted castle, in miniature, a hangout for runt werewolves and vampires too limp of wrist to fly. It was a castle, all right, but no bigger than the surrounding mansions. About quarter scale. All black stone and dirty. “Cheerful little bungalow. This where Lubbock lives?” I’d seen the place before but hadn’t paid attention. Just another hangout for some nut on the Hill. I knew nothing about it.

“Yeah. He owns it. Only, tell you the truth, I don’t think his name is really Lubbock.”

“No! Really?”

She gave me a double dirty look.

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s in metals smelting. That’s his business, I mean. Royal contracts. Very rich. I picked that up keeping my ears open. He’s a little peculiar.”

“I’ll say.”

“Try to keep a straight face.”

I started moving again. Slowly.

I expected zombie guards at the gate. Maybe gnome zombies, since the place was so shrunk down.

Black steel bars covered its few windows. A toy drawbridge spanned a toy moat five feet wide. Nonhuman, fangy skulls hung over the gate. Smoke dribbled out of their nose holes. Oily torches burned in broad daylight. Somewhere a group of musicians played spooky music. A dozen morCartha perched on the battlements, living gargoyles. I’ll say somebody was peculiar.

A guy who goes to live on the Hill usually buys or builds his dream house there

I stopped, considered the morCartha. They seemed lethargic beyond what was to be explained by the fact that it was daytime. Winger said, “Let’s don’t stand around in the street.” She crossed the drawbridge without a qualm. “You coming?”

“Yeah. But I’m beginning to wonder if this is such a bright idea.”

She laughed. “Stop worrying. It’s all for show. 1-fe’s a crackpot. He likes to dress up and play sorcerer but the only magic he can do is make food disappear.”

Probably so. If he had any real talent, he’d be in the Cantard trying to outwaltz Glory Mooncalled.

A cadaverous old guy met us. Without a word he led us to a small, spooky receiving room. The walls were decorated with whips and chains and antique instruments whose function I didn’t even want to guess. By way of art there was a rogue’s gallery of demonic portraiture. Also a couple of real people I probably should have known, did I pay much attention to history. They looked like they’d shaped our past.

Lubbock joined us.

He made the Dead Man look slim and trim. He had to go six hundred pounds if he went a stone. He wore a silly black wizard’s outfit that looked like he’d made it himself. It had enough material in it to provide tents for a battalion. The powers that be got wind of it, they’d have him up on charges of hording.

Lubbock smiled a smile that got lost in the ruddy landscape of his face. It made me think of the wax dripping down around the top of a candle. “Ah, Winger. You’ve managed to get the man here at last. Pay her, Pestilence.” A woman who looked like she might be the old guide’s grandmother brought Winger a small leather bag. Winger made it disappear fast.

“Mr. Garrett.” Lubbock tried to bow. I tried to keep a straight face. Neither of us was completely successful, though I managed well enough.

That old boy had one spooky voice. It sent chills scampering around my back. I bet he spent hours practicing to get that effect. “I had begun to wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake employing you.”

I thought she’d made the mistake, taking him on as an employer. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep body and soul together. I asked, “How you doing, Lubbock?”

He threw up his hands and crossed his wrists in front of his heart, palms toward me. He made fists but left his little fingers standing. He waggled his pinkies furiously. He had nails almost two inches long. I guessed that was some kind of sorcerer’s move. I think I was supposed to be impressed.

And some people I know say I belong in the Bledsoe cackle factory because I don’t have a firm grasp on reality.

Winger whispered, “At least pretend to be courteous, Garrett.”

“I asked him how he was when I don’t care, didn’t I? What more do you want?” Blame it on nerves. When people give me the creeps, I get flip. “Get him talking.” I wanted answers from Lubbock but had the heebiejeebies bad enough to think of walking.

He got himself started. “Mr. Garrett,” again. “Good day. I have awaited our meeting anxiously.”

“Pleased to meet you. Whoever you are.” See? Courteous. I could have said whatever you are.

Another smile tried to break through and died young, smothered by fat. “Yes. As you surmise, my name is not Lubbock. No sir. That is merely wishful thinking, the heartfelt desire to walk the same path as the great Lubbocks of centuries past.”

He rolled his fists over heel to heel with their backs toward me, looked at me between raised forefingers that, more or less, made the ancient sign against the evil eye. “Unfortunately, my dream is denied me by harsh reality.”

I recalled Willard Tate mentioning a couple of dead double nasties named Lubbock. Sorcerer types. This guy obviously had less talent than I do. His harsh reality. So he was playing some whacky game.

If you’re rich enough, you’re allowed

“As you surmise, sir,” he repeated, “my name is not Lubbock. Hiding the truth from a man of your profession would be foo(ish. You need but poll the neighbors to learn that madman Fido Easterman lives here.”

“Fido?” People don’t even name their dogs Fido anymore.

“It means Faithful, Mr. Garrett Yes sir. Faithful My father, rest his soul, was an aficionado of imperial history. Fido was an imperial honorarium. Rather like a knighthood today. Though it could be bestowed upon anyone, not just those nobly born. Yes sir. The man whose name I took in vein, like a momentary domino, my kinsman Lubbock Candide, attained that very distinction. He was an ancestor of mine, you know. The glittering star atop my family tree. Yes sir. But the power in the blood failed after his daughter, Arachne. I know I abuse the gods for that jest.”

Man. This clown was a one-man gale. “What’s that got to do with me?” Trying to get to the point. “Why am I here?” I tried to figure the color of his eyes. I couldn’t make them out behind all that fat

“Patience, my boy. Patience. One never hurries the headsman.” He chuckled wickedly. “Just my little joke, sir. Just my little joke. You are in no danger here.”

Like hell. Wouldn’t take too much of this to get me foaming at the mouth and talking to little men who weren’t there.

I kept an eye on the staff. They came and went in the background, eager to see their boss in action. He was a real three-ringer They all wore costumes and spooky makeup. Easterman could afford to pay people to pretend that he was bad.

Hell, maybe he was. In a more mundane way. Amongst the remote voyeuis I spotted one of the men who had chased me away from my place

Don’t call him crazy, though. The Eastermans of the world are never crazy. When you have money, you’re eccentric

“Fido Easterman, yes sir “ He put all his fingers together and made a spider doing push-ups on a mirror.

Then he pulled his hands apart slowly, as though he was pulling against tremendous forces. His fingers shook like he was coming down with a disease.

“I’ve been hearing rumors about a marvelous book, Mr. Garrett. Yes sir, a masterpiece. I wish to obtain that book, sir. I will pay very well indeed to obtain it. Winger has been doing my legwork for me, searching. As you can see, I am not cut out for strenuous effort, however much I might wish it to be otherwise. She has been hunting diligently, of course hoping to separate me from a substantial portion of my wealth. But fortune has not been kind to her. Her only success has been to discover that you may have some knowledge of the book’s whereabouts.” He beamed at me Before I could get a word in, he continued, “Well, then, sir, from what I have learned of your situation, it’s likely you could use a substantial sum. Paid in the metal of your choice.”

“I sure could. I wish I had something to sell. I don’t know where she got the idea I know anything about any book.”

“Come, sir. Come. Let us not play games with one another. Let us not bandy words I have said that I will pay well to obtain that book, and I will. My word is good, as any fool can discover by posing a few questions in the ores and metals community. But if you do go asking about me there, you will also discover that I have a reputation for getting what I want.”

I didn’t doubt it a bit “All I can tell you about the book is that it exists, maybe, supposedly incomplete. But I don’t have the faintest idea where.”

“Come, sir. Surely you don’t expect me to . .

“I don’t expect you to do anything but stay out of my hair.”

“Sir . .

“I told you I don’t know where it is. You did some checking on me, eh7 I tefl the truth? The truth is, I was looking for it myself. For a client. I succeeded only in finding the man who stole it.”

“Ah, sir. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“We’re getting nowhere The guy was dead.”

He chuckled. “Unfortunate. Most unfortunate.” I got the feeling this wasn’t news.

I spotted another of those guys who had chased me. It finally sank in. Here was my third force. This nut and his brunos. Those guys probably sent Blaine to the promised land. Maybe they’d done the same with Squirrel. I said, “I don’t want anything more to do with this book. It’s gotten a bunch of people killed already. It’s got the Dwarf Fort dwarves on the warpath. It’s got Chodo Contague out for blood because one of his men got cut.” That got a small reaction. “It’s got a witch called the Serpent and a bunch of renegade dwarves running around the city sniping with crossbows. I don’t need to get in the middle of any of that.”

Easterman closed his eyes and started talking. Actually, he made some kind of speech, but it wasn’t in Karentine. I’d guess Old Forens, which is still around as a liturgical language amongst some of the more staid of TunFaire’s thousand cults. I don’t know ten words of Old Forens but I’ve heard it used and this had that cadence.

Good old Fido was a linguist like he was a sorcerer. But what he lacked in talent he made up in enthusiasm. He howled and foamed at the mouth.

I’d come with Winger hoping to ask some questions. Now I didn’t care. All I wanted was out. Things were sane outside. There were thunder-lizards in the air for the first time since TunFaire’s founding. There were thunder-lizards at the gates. There were centaurs in the streets There were saber-tooth tigers and mammoths and morCartha and gnomes. My friends had disappeared. Crask and Sadler were acting spookier than ever. But it was sane out there. I could survive in that world out there I told Winger, “I’m thinking about becoming a bricklayer Bricklayers don’t have these problems.”

She shrugged, kept staring at Easterman like he was a genius revealing the secrets of the universe. Maybe she understood him. She was a little bit twitchy herself.

I gave up and more or less went to sleep on my feet, paying Just enough attention so nobody walked up and bopped me with a battle-ax without me noticing. I stayed only because Winger wasn’t ready to leave. I couldn’t leave her with this spook. He might hold a virgin sacrifice, figuring, hell, she used to be and maybe that was close enough Also, she knew something I wanted to know.

Easterman finished having his fit. “Well, sir. Well,” he said, not the least embarrassed. “Do we have an understanding, then?”

      ‘His people did manage to be embarrassed But they covered it and didn’t walk out. I suppose he paid very well indeed. He’d have to.

He looked puzzled. As much as he could with all that fat to mask expression “I thought I made myself crystal clear, sir.”

“If you made a lick of sense somewhere, I missed it in the smoke.”

“Garrett!” Winger cried

Easterman smiled again. I think that was a smile back in there “Very well, sir. In words even you will understand, then. I want that book. I mean to have that book. I get what I want. Those who help me to obtain it will be well rewarded. Those who attempt to thwart me will not be so fortunate. Is that clear enough?”

“I got it.” I returned his smile. “I’ll pass the word to Chodo Contague and the Serpent if I run into them I’m sure it’ll set them to shaking in their boots so bad they’ll scurry out of the way so you’ll have an open field.” Threat and counter. All very friendly, with knives held behind our backs.

Winger started apologizing for my barbarism. The more I saw of her, the more I couldn’t figure her out.

“No matter, child. No matter. The man has an image to maintain. As we all do, of course. As we all do. Very well, sir. I think our business is quite concluded We understand one another. I was about to dine. Will you join me? I do set a fine table.”

I pleaded press of business. I didn’t warn to see what kind of table this creep set. Could be hazardous. Wasn’t lunch time, anyway.

“Very well, sir. As you will. I hope to be seeing you again soon, in circumstances profitable to us all. Plague.”

He gestured at the cadaverous old man. “Escort our guests, if you will.”

The old man bowed, then led me and Winger to the castle gate. I kept a sharp eye on the old boy. I didn’t need to get pushed through any secret doors. I tried making conversation about his boss. He wasn’t having any. Maybe that wasn’t smart for a guy in his position.

Winger took up the slack. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“I’m disappointed in me a lot, too. What did I do to break your heart?”

“That guy is a ripe fruit.”

“A whole orchard.”

“Worked right . .”

“I couldn’t take the clown. He could probably tell me something I need to know, but      d like to hold his toes in a fire for a while.”

“Garrett!”

“You got yourself tied in with a loony, Winger. He’ll get you killed. I’ll take your word you weren’t working with those guys who chased me a while back. But I noticed some of them were there, hanging around in the background. You better keep your eyes open.” I had a feeling they’d been dogging her since Easterman hired her. A character like him would use a tactic like that.

I had no sympathy for Fido. I didn’t owe him squat. And now I had an idea who’d done Squirrel. I’d pass it on next time I saw Crask or Sadler.

We got out of that bughouse. I didn’t look back. “Winger, you know anything about the book?”

“Only that it’s supposed to be about so by so and weigh fifteen to twenty pounds. The pages are brass.”

“Brass. Brass shadows. It’s what the dwarves call a book of shadows. Each page has a character described on it. Whoever reads the page can become the character written there.”

“Say what?”

We were safely away, without any tail I could spot. I led her to the steps of a public building. They still consider public buildings public here For now. Subjects gather on the steps. Sometimes they live there in good weather We could plant ourselves and talk without getting bashed over the head and told to move along by the hired thugs who police the 1-fill’s streets. “Think about it, sweetheart.”

“About what? 1-low?”

“Say a guy has a dream. No matter how crazy the guy or how insane the dream. Eh? Then all of a sudden he gets a real chance to grab it. Eh?”

“You lost me, Garrett.”

I didn’t think she was that slow. I played it out, explained a little more about what the book was supposed to be. “That creep Fido wants to be a wicked wizard more than anything in the world. But he doesn’t have the talent it takes to trip over his own feet. He’s so bad at what he wants it’s almost easy to feel sorry for him. Almost. But I can’t when it comes to the Book of Shadows. A nut like him gets it . .

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Oh. Yeah. You got it. But he doesn’t have the book. Yet. We know that for sure because he’s so crazy he’d be taking his wicked-wizard act all over town if he did.”

“Let me think about this, Garrett.”

“You know him better than I do.”

“I said let me think.” Her face furrowed up exactly the way Saucerheads does when he concentrates. I had a feeling she was like Tharpe in ways other than size. She’d be one of those who think slow but steady, sometimes getting there more surely than those of us who are quicker of wit.

After a while I said, “He must have been in touch with Blaine sometime. Else how would he know about the book?”

“Yeah. Blaine did offer to sell it to him, I think. But something happened. He backed off.”

“And got killed for his trouble.

“My fault, probably I found Blaine for Lubbock.”

“Huh?”

“I told you, I’m a manhunter. He wanted Blaine found, I found Blaine.”

I glimmed Easterman’s hangout. It wasn’t far away. Not far enough. Somebody was up top trying to lure a flying thunder-lizard down. I guess Fido wanted to catch him his very own dragon.

“But he didn’t get the book.”

“I guess not. I don’t know why. Unless Blaine spotted me and guessed who I was.”

Curious. Blaine hadn’t had the book when they’d killed him, logically. But he’d had it earlier, and had tried to use it, because he’d been Carla Undo when he’d stumbled into my house. The Serpent couldn’t have it any more than Fido did, else she wouldn’t be trying to kill me. She’d be headed out of town.

Gnorst? I’d seen no evidence he was even looking. I’d guess he didn’t have it, either.

So where the hell did it go?

Why should I care? Tinnie was going to be all right.

I asked, “You think anybody ought to have that kind of power?”

“Me, I could handle it. But I don’t know nobody else I’d trust.”

“And I don’t know about you.”

“How much you pay me not to find it?”

“What?”

“I come to the city for the money, Garrett. Not to save the world.”

“I like a straightforward thinker. I like a girl who has her priorities straight and knows what she wants. I’ll give you a straight answer. Not a copper. You don’t have a glimmer where it is.”

“But I will I find things real good. Tell you what. When I find it, I’ll give you a chance to outbid Lubbock.”

“And the Serpent? You maybe ought to think about that some. While you’re at it, think about what happened to Blaine.”

“That’s no problem.”

“Look, Winger, it’s stupid not to be scared. There’s some bad people in this town. And you got some of the baddest looking for you. On account of Squirrel. If they catch up with you, you can kiss your tail good-bye.” I mentioned it because once again I’d glimpsed somebody who looked like Crask.

“I can take care of myself.”

“I saw, when you tried to jump me.”

“Damn it, Garrett, I’m not your responsibility. Back off”

Something about the way she flared there, and her choice of words, made me wonder if the Winger I was seeing was the real Winger. “All right. All right. Tell me where those dwarves went.”

“Twenty marks.”

“Mercenary bitch. You’d sell your own mother.”

“If the price was right. Two marks. To cover expenses. Won’t do you much good. She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, she’s still breathing. She’s just been dead from the chin up for the last thirty years. All she knows how to do is whine and bitch and make babies. Sixteen, last time I counted. Probably a couple more by now. Her almost bleeding to death having the fourteenth, then keeping on pumping them out, was what made up my mind I didn’t want to be like her”

“Twenty marks.” I didn’t blame her. Peasants live short and ugly lives, uglier for the women. Maybe she didn’t have anything to lose, considering. “But I don’t have it on me right now.”

“I’ll trust you. They say your word is good. Just don’t get yourself croaked before I can collect.”

“So talk to me. Where are they?”

“You going there right now?”

“Yeah. If you tell me.”

“Mind if I just show you? Might find me something interesting, too.”