Angry Lead Skies Read online

  Mr. Relway will dwindle away to that point someday, no doubt. But it won’t be today. Today he still recalls that he’s just a man. An overly idealistic sort of man.

  “Shall I tell Singe?”

  She will learn of it anyway.

  “Tell Singe what?” Singe demanded, having entered the Dead Man’s room soundly equipped to avoid starvation for at least a generation.

  “That the Guard have attacked Reliance and several other leading ratmen. With the sort of acutely accurate intelligence you’d expect of Deal Relway. The Guard did it because Reliance has been keeping human slaves.” Though the slaves’ humanness shouldn’t have mattered. Slavery at its most blatant and obvious has been outlawed for generations, no matter the race of the slave.

  Today we have indenture and apprenticeship and several forms of involuntary servitude involving debtors and convicted criminals but nobody owns another intelligent being outright. In law. Sometimes reality can be pretty ugly.

  Acute and accurate intelligence? Then how come they hadn’t known about the slavery? Or had they?

  My cynical side quickly had me wondering if the raids weren’t just image-building stunts launched at this point only because somebody with a big mouth and an overly moralistic attitude now knew what the ratmen were doing.

  I told Singe, “The attacks have been remarkably vicious and violent.” Because the Guard wanted to make an unmistakable point. A major new power player had entered the lists.

  There would be truly big trouble if Relway ever got so overconfident that he went after the Outfit. Because there are a whole lot more of their bad guys than there are of his good guys. And those bad guys have far greater resources.

  “And this would be the insurance you were taking on my behalf?”

  There was no ducking the truth. “No Reliance, no threat from Reliance.”

  Singe did not get upset with me. What distress she did betray she directed at herself. She might not have willed disaster to devour Reliance but a disaster had occurred on her account. “You are right, Garrett. You are completely right. Life is a bitch.”

  “And then you die.”

  “Will Humility be all right?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to warn him. I hope he listened. I think he’s someone I could get along with. And what I do, it’s all connections.”

  “What we do, Garrett.”

  I started to speak.

  Might I suggest a level of caution usually reserved for speech in the presence of Miss Tate?

  He might. But that didn’t mean I had a whole lot of use for it.

  Singe continued, “I am part of this team, now. And I am not really asking for a salary, or anything.”

  “Nobody draws a salary here. But the more people there are around here, the more work has to be done to keep everybody in clothing and food. And the way you keep putting it away... You aren’t pregnant, are you?” All I needed was a horde of rat pups underfoot, atop the rest of the zoo.

  Not a smart suggestion, Garrett. Not a smart suggestion.

  He was right. I’d managed to offend Singe at last. And her main complaint was a sound one: I’d tossed off a remark like that without ever having bothered to learn enough about ratpeople to know that she couldn’t get pregnant unless she was in season. Unlike human women. And she hadn’t yet gone into season, except once, her first time, under rigorously controlled conditions, with her mother and some older sisters there to make sure nothing untoward happened.

  “After the first time any ratgirl with half a brain can manage her schedule. I go to the same apothecaries human women do. And the same hedge wizards.” Singe rolled up her left sleeve, showed me a fancy yarn amulet not unlike those worn by every human female I knew who’d passed the age of nine. This is a cruel, wicked, unpredictable, and exciting world. Bad things happen to good girls. Good things happen to bad girls. Nobody with any sense risks having her life shattered by chance joy or evil.

  Which isn’t to say that there aren’t scores of accidents happening out there every day. Common sense isn’t.

  “It is really easy. But a lot of males do not want females controlling their fertility. And very few ratgirls are as courageous as I am. It takes a lot of nerve to sneak away and get fitted for an amulet. Even though everyone knows where to get one.”

  “What happens if you get caught using one of those things?”

  “Basically, they get really unhappy with you but, mostly, they just take it away. Then they crowd you till your season comes on you. They believe that once a female has enjoyed a vigorous season of mating she won’t want to delay another one ever again.”

  “Is that male arrogance? Or is it true?”

  “I cannot tell you of my own certain knowledge. I have seen females little older than myself swilling an herb tea they believe will bring them into season sooner. At the same time taking other concoctions supposed to prevent pregnancy or to terminate one if it starts.”

  Sounded to me like love amongst the ratfolk could be as mad as it is amongst human folk.

  “It is a good thing to be a girl who thinks ahead,” Singe said. “So my older sisters tell me. They say a girl can futter herself blind for weeks on end if she makes the proper preparations and takes the right precautions.”

  I was beginning to get uncomfortable.

  Singe fluttered her eyelashes. “Weeks.”

  My luck was mixed. That didn’t go anywhere because Winger burst in. She started barking at the Dead Man and me. “You guys aren’t gonna stiff me, Garrett.”

  “A straight line I cannot resist —”

  “Don’t give me no shit, Garrett.”

  “Winger, why do you have to be a pain in the ass every day of your life?” She wasn’t, really. Most of the time she was good people. My directness startled her silent long enough for me to add, “I ought to hire the Rose brothers to follow you around with a couple of huge mirrors so every time you start in on somebody they can shove one in front of you so you can see what’s happening.”

  Winger got a big, goofy look on her face. She isn’t deep at all. She’ll take that sort of remark literally, often as not. This time she cocked her head and thought about it for a few seconds before she decided it was just, somehow, some more of Garrett’s candy-ass, goody two-shoes, crapola, pussy philosophy. A category which included anything I ever said that she didn’t agree with or didn’t understand. She gave her hair a violent toss. “You guys ain’t gonna get outta giving me what I got coming.”

  “Oh, you’re going to get what you’ve got coming. One of these days.”

  Her blind, fool, drunk good luck has got to run out someday.

  Upon repeated advice from the Dead Man, in the face of my own deeply held principles, I sent Winger off with a little money in her pocket. She was happy to get it. She knew perfectly well that she didn’t deserve it.

  Now she’d go do some drinking, get into a fight with somebody who reminded her of her husband, maybe bed him if he survived the action. Then, while she was still drunk but already beginning to feel the bite of a hangover, she’d drag Saucerhead Tharpe out of bed and try to con him into helping her manage some criminal enterprise noteworthy for its complete boneheadedness. Like the time she got poor Grimmy Weeks drunk, bopped what little brains he had out, then talked him into helping her pilfer the Singing Sword of Holme Prudeald.

  That damned sword has no value whatsoever. It’s not fit for fighting and its only magical property is its ability to sing. Badly.

  The damned blade never shut up after they pinched it. Everywhere Grimmy and Winger went, it boomed out off-key operatic arias about henpecked top gods, brothers who plooked their sisters in order to create psychopathic, dwarf-murdering heroes who tended to forget that they were married to defrocked, doomed, and not very bright Choosers of the Slain. Which might not have been too bad if Winger hadn’t gotten a wild hair and tried to sell herself as the nimrod Chooser.

  They say it made great street entertainment.

  Winger pan
icked when she figured the sword’s owner would get word. She did a runner when Grimmy had his back turned, leaving the poor befuddled dope holding the scabbard, so to speak.

  I’m probably the only guy in town who bought Grimmy’s sad story about the big blonde who’d led him to his despair.

  If Grimmy survives four years of forced labor in the silver mines he’ll return to the street having learned a valuable lesson about getting to know your partners in crime before you begin to work together.

  She hadn’t even given him her real name.

  “Hey, Chuckles,” I said, popping into the Dead Man’s room. “What’re we going to do with Casey and the girls?” The male silver elf was too much trouble to keep under control. But if we turned him loose he would become dangerous. And he didn’t deserve to be turned over to the Guard. And I didn’t want to kill him.

  I have been giving that matter some thought. It is not simple. I have been unable to find a satisfactory answer yet. I will continue to reflect. Possibly Casey himself will present us with an idea.

  That didn’t seem likely.

  I was in my office. After our recent power spending our financial picture was no longer rosy. I scowled. That might mean having to take on more work.

  Evas eased into the room, cold and aloof and remote. Today she wore an unflattering tattered dress that had been handed down by one of Dean’s much heftier nieces. The dress wouldn’t have been flattering when it was new and on the form it fit. The weavers had strung a lot of ugly thread into the woof.

  Evas closed the door. Then she began to change into the very friendly Evas. “I... cannot... wait.” I got the sense that she was mildly ashamed of herself because she couldn’t control herself.

  After a while I managed to get away. The first tentacles of a marvelous idea had begun to stir in the darkened rooms at the back of my mind.

  Damned if it didn’t seem like Eleanor winked at me.

  Had to be a good idea.

  If I could survive the next few days...

  “How well do you know my parrot?” I asked. “Come on. You should get to know him.”

  70

  I made sure my crew were the first to arrive at The Palms. Even Dean came along, mainly to make sure Morley’s barbarians did things right. If there was much surprise at the appearances of Singe and Evas, Morley’s people hid it well. I’d left Fasfir behind. Fasfir seemed to have learned everything she’d wanted to know during her one protracted lesson.

  Quite possibly nothing could surprise them.

  One quick glance around and I asked Sarge, “What’s going on? I paid you guys good money. You were supposed to set the place up for —”

  “You jus’ go on up da stairs dere, Garrett. Puddle’s up top. He’ll take care a you.”

  Puddle could make that climb and survive?

  “Smart-ass,” Sarge said, reading my mind. “Dey’s gonna come a time when yer gonna have some slick pup mockin’ you fer havin’ stayed alive so long.”

  “Maybe so. I hope so.” If my luck shaped up.

  My manners were less than impeccable.

  I scurried up to see what was what, leaving Singe and Evas under Dean’s protection. Puddle pointed when I reached the top.

  I’ve been in and out of Morley’s place for as long as we’ve been friends. I’d been upstairs a hundred times. Morley has his office and living quarters up there. I hadn’t thought much more about that floor. Now I discovered a narrow hallway beside his office that, on previous occasions, must have been covered with a panel that looked like part of the wall. The hallway opened into a banquet room, complete with dumbwaiter to the kitchen.

  I suppose I should’ve suspected. The existence of the place seemed entirely reasonable once I saw it. There was a lot of room up there. It might be a major adjunct to Morley’s business.

  I wondered what went on there when he wasn’t renting it out to me.

  Morley materialized. In his most ingratiating, oily manner, he asked, “Is it satisfactory, sir?” He’d noted the fact that I was nonplussed. He loved it. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  A double-width table array had been set up with seats for twenty people, eight along each side and two at each end. The settings were basic but correct as far as they went. Dean didn’t register any objection when he arrived, which eventuality occurred while Morley and I were talking.

  There was something else Morley could do but we’d get to that later. “No. This’s fine. Except you’ve got extra places set.”

  “Don’t give me that dark look. I’m not inviting anybody in. We’ve just found that setting extra places saves embarrassment when the invited guests decide to bring along someone you didn’t plan to have attend. People do that. Even though it’s terribly bad manners.”

  “I understand.” All too well. Dean had brought in a covered birdcage containing one guest I hadn’t wanted to invite. This one wouldn’t be getting his own chair. And, if I could avoid it, the cover wouldn’t be coming off his cage, either. He could be the Dead Man’s proxy without participating in anything.

  I remarked, “Your guys ran out on Winger at the stable the other day.”

  “And should’ve left an hour before they did. The woman is insufferable. And she keeps getting worse.”

  “She’s got a problem with you that she was taking out on them?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. So I asked, “You totally trust all your guys downstairs?”

  “Of course.”

  I tilted my head toward Evas. “Colonel Block has some high-level friends who’d love to sink their talons into her. We took a coach over here so nobody would see her on the street.”

  “If you need to keep her secret, why risk having someone see her?”

  “Her presence is an important ingredient for the success of my evening.”

  “She is a she, isn’t she?”

  “You’d better believe. Not extravagantly so, just to look at, but between us guys, don’t let that fool you. Her public attitude, either. The ice does melt. In fact, it goes straight to steam. A touch of wine helps. So she has an excuse for making Katie seem repressed and distracted.”

  “You didn’t. You know Tinnie will come with her uncle. She’ll figure that out before she’s all the way into the room.”

  The possibility had occurred to me. But the potential of the evening seemed worth risking Tinnie’s wrath. I mean, that would come down on me sooner or later, anyway. It’s like weather. Some days we’re going to have some.

  “She’ll notice Kayne Prose and Cassie Doap long before she notices Evas.”

  “You didn’t. You rogue.”

  “Rake’s the word, I think. But don’t go playing pot to my kettle, pal. It took a lot of arranging to get everybody here tonight. And I had to get away from the house for a while. At least none of them are married.”

  In general, Morley prefers women encumbered with husbands. Rich husbands are especially good. Their wives are much less likely to make demands he’d rather not meet. They have too much to lose. Besides, he’s a married elf himself. So he claims. I’ve never met his wife. He hasn’t seen her himself since he was a kid, supposedly. Or maybe she wasn’t a wife, just a fiancée.

  Arranged marriage. It’s an elven thing. And an everybody else thing, sometimes. When substantial estates are involved.

  I added, “The rules of our relationship, laid down explicitly by Tinnie herself, clearly state that neither of us has any right to demand anything of the other as long as the relationship remains informal. Which’s the way she wants it kept.”

  “Garrett, you’re thirty years old. Do you still believe in the tooth fairy, too?”

  “I’d say there’s a better chance of me running into the tooth fairy than there is of Tinnie actually living up to the letter of that.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Morley left us in Puddle’s care. He said he wanted to head downstairs so he could make sure my guests went the right direction when they ar
rived. Which probably meant he didn’t want those lowlifes mixing with his class clientele.

  I resisted the temptation to let the Goddamn Parrot get away.

  Dean assumed his post, the seat to the left of what would be mine at the table head. He laid out paper, pens, and ink, and a couple of Kip’s writing sticks. He’d try to record what got said accurately enough that there could be no arguments later. I was confident that others would do the same. I was just as confident that there’d be arguments over who said what and when later on. There’s always somebody who insists the records are wrong.

  Evas and Singe lurked behind the old man, both of them trying to read his notes as he made them. I wondered how much success they actually had.

  It was scary how fast Singe was picking up the art. Writing was giving her trouble, though. Her body wasn’t built to provide the necessary fine motor skills. I suspected she’d never manage anything but tedious block printing.

  Even that would make her unique.

  I separated Evas from Singe. “The man I was talking to was the one I told you about.”

  She showed an interest immediately. She’d reached the point where she was having trouble sustaining her public frost. She was obsessed. Which had been cute for a while but which had become disturbing once I found myself ambushed whenever I was alone.

  I thanked the stars or fates that Fasfir had needed to try her wings just the one time. It had been sweet enough work keeping up with Evas.

  I reminded her, “He’d be a better teacher than I am. Much better. Elves are known for their endurance.” If you could believe a quarter of what this particular half-elf said about himself. “He’s not bad looking, either. By our standards.”

  Near as I could read a silver elf’s face, Evas seemed thoughtful.

  I settled beside Dean. “All set?” He was studying one of Kip’s writing sticks, looking dubious.

  “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”

  “If you can’t get it word for word make sure you get the high points. Ah. Playmate’s here.”

  As I moved that way, Singe sidled up. “What are you trying to do with Evas?”