Sweet Silver Blues Read online

  I knew a heavy weed smoker. Another friend of Denny’s. Another old soldier, name of Barbera, who smoked so much that most of the time he didn’t know if he was in this world or the next. A pathetic case, he was always in trouble because folks could talk him into anything. He had been one of Denny’s charities.

  No doubt Denny’s other pals thought it would be a giggle to hop him up and sic him on me.

  I faded into a shadow down the block and took a seat against a wall that needed tuckpointing. The view of my place was as scenic as a garbage dump.

  A lot of nothing happened for a long time. Unless you count the flares as my lurker lighted up, or the passing of drunks so far gone they were unafraid of the nighted streets. Only after we started getting some aromatic moonlight did anything interesting happen. And that was just a couple guys checking in with the weed man.

  They passed me by without seeing me. But I got a look at them.

  Vasco and Quinn, my old pals.

  So they meant to do me dirty, eh?

  I didn’t move, though I thought about knocking some heads. I was beginning to wonder about that lamplight. Vasco and Quinn had made no effort to talk to whomever was inside. So maybe that whomever wasn’t one of them.

  Who, then?

  My friend the ratman came home from his shift at the graveyard, drunk as usual. In my less charitable moments I’ve wished he would get lost in one of the graves he digs.

  He shuffled up to my new window, glanced inside.

  Whatever he saw, it was interesting. He watched for a minute. When he moved on he cast furtive looks around. He didn’t see anyone watching. That must have given him courage. He slipped over and tried the door.

  It opened.

  Barbera came blazing out of the shadows. He climbed all over the ratman. When he had him pounded down to about three feet high, he took off, headed my way.

  A little message for me from Denny’s pals. Misdelivered.

  I reckoned they needed an answer.

  I stepped out of the shadows as Barbera lumbered past. He caught me from the corner of his eye. I said, “Hi, there,” and smacked his ear with my sap as his eyes grew big and he tried to turn.

  He did not go down. But his knees got wobbly and his eyes glazed. I kicked him low, punched him high with my left, bounced the sap off his forehead.

  He wobbled a little more.

  They need a lot of pounding when they’re hopped.

  I gave him all he needed, and then some, and when he no longer knew what planet he was on, I snagged the seat of his pants and walked him into an alley, where I gave him a few more taps with my sap. Then I took his pouch of weed. A while later I paid a half-dwarf half-goblin wino to deliver it to Vasco with the word that he had not gotten his money’s worth.

  That taken care of, it was time to see about my intruder.

  I didn’t do any seeing. When I got back to where I could see my place, a troop of Tates were going inside, stepping over the groaning ratman like he was something that fell behind the horse. In a moment they marched back out with an angry Tinnie.

  So there you go. Exactly my kind of luck. If I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I’d break my leg running toward it and have to lie there watching some other clown walk away with it while I did my groaning.

  I let the street clear. Then I went and got a bucket of beer and locked myself inside. Nobody disturbed me.

  14

  I’d planned to surprise everybody by showing up at the Tate place at the crack of dawn, ready to travel. But I had a dream about Loghyr bones.

  Maybe it was the beer. That beer was green. But I knew better than to ignore it. It could be a summons from the Dead Man.

  The worst thing about going out in the morning is that the sun is there. It slaps you right in the eyes. When you go back inside you can’t see squat.

  Squat was what I saw when I went into the Dead Man’s place. It was as dark as a crypt in there.

  About time, Garrett. Did you come via Khaphé?

  “That wasn’t a dream, eh?”

  No.

  “What do you want?”

  I do not have the resources to follow all your adventures from afar. If you want my help and advice, you have to report to me occasionally.

  I figured that was as near as he would get to saying he owed me. I would take what I was given. “What do you need?”

  Details of what you have seen and learned since your last visit.

  So I gave it to him, without leaving anything out.

  He pondered awhile. Buy yourself some poison rings, Garrett. Carry a boot knife.

  That was not the advice I expected. “Why?”

  Are you known for such things?

  “No.”

  Do the unexpected.

  “I hiked all the way over here for that?”

  It is the best I can do given the information you make available.

  Make it my fault. Just like him. I did him a few odd jobs, cleaned the place up some, and burned some sulfur candles to make the vermin’s lungs more robust. I wondered what Morley thought about breathing air. It’s kind of hard to inhale green, leafy vegetables.

  Then I took the Dead Man’s advice. I stocked up on lethal hardware. I even picked up a few sneaky-petes I recalled from my Marine days. Let them come after me now, I thought. I’m ready for anything.

  Horses. They are one of the little unpleasantnesses to be endured during any lengthy journey. Unless you want to walk. Morley Dotes had high praise for that sort of exercise, which meant it hurt. Personally, I have very little interest in voluntarily inflicting pain or discomfort upon myself.

  I went to an outfitter I knew, a black giant they called Playmate. He was human, but must have had a little mixed blood somewhere. He stood nine feet tall. The color-impregnated clan scars on his cheeks gave him a ferocious look, but he was a sweetheart, as gentle as a human being could be.

  Those gruesome features brightened when he spotted me crossing the yard of his place. He came at me with arms spread wide, grinning like I was going to rig out a battalion. I ducked his hug. He could crush you in his enthusiasm. Had he possessed the killer instinct, he would have made one hell of a professional wrestler.

  I had done him some good on a skip trace awhile back. My getting the guy to pay up saved Playmate from bankruptcy. So he owed some good fortune to me, but this greeting was not that much more warm than what he gave strangers who wandered in off the street.

  “What can we do for you, Garrett? Name it and it’s yours. On me. Long as you need it.”

  “I need a couple of horses and camping gear for five for three or four months.”

  “You got it. Going out to try your hand at trapping? Business that bad?”

  “I have a job. It’s taking me out of town.”

  “Three, four months is a far piece out and back. Where you going?” He was headed for his stable, where a whole clan of four-legged assassins awaited my advent with malice bubbling in their blood.

  “The Cantard.”

  Horses and I do not get along. I can ride, but just barely, when I have to. I’m a city boy and never saw much need to hang around with beasts that have it in for me.

  Playmate slowed down. He gave me one of those looks you save for your crazy cousin when he says something totally stupid. “The Cantard? Garrett, you’re a great man, and I have complete faith in you. If any civilian could get into and out of the Cantard alive, it would be you. But I’m not so confident of my animals.”

  “I don’t want you to give me anything, Playmate. I’ll buy what I need. No risk to you.”

  “Don’t give me that tone of voice, Garrett.”

  What tone? I didn’t intend the guy any grief.

  We entered the digs of their satanic majesties the horses. Twenty pairs of big brown evil eyes turned my way. I could almost hear them sizing me up in their secret language, plotting misery.

  “This is Thunderbolt,” Playmate said, indicating a big black stallion with wicke
d teeth. “A spirited animal. Partly battle-trained.”

  “No.”

  Playmate shrugged, moved on to a roan. “How about Hurricane, here? Fast and smart and a little unpredictable. Like you. You should get along great. Complementary personalities.”

  “No. And no Storm, no Fury, no nothing with a fire-breathing name to live up to. I want an old mare on her last legs with a name like Daffodil and a temperament to match.”

  “That’s disgusting, Garrett. Are you a man or a mouse?”

  “Squeak. Me and horses don’t get along. The last time I rode one he tricked me by turning around while I was getting on. Then he stood there laughing at me behind my back.”

  “Horses don’t laugh, Garrett. They’re very serious creatures.”

  “You hang around me, you’ll see them laugh.”

  “If you have a problem with animals, why make the trip overland? Catch a river barge down to Leifmold, then take a coaster south. It would save you six hundred hard miles.”

  Why not? It never occurred to me, that’s why not. Sometimes you stumble into a rut so deep you can’t see over the edges. I didn’t want to go to the Cantard, really, so I’d developed the habit of thinking about getting in and out fast. The quickest way from one place to another is usually the shortest. The shortest haul from TunFaire to the Cantard is straight overland.

  A ham of a hand slapped me on the back. “Garrett, you look like a man who’s just had a religious revelation.”

  “I have. And the first saint of my new church is going to be Saint Playmate.”

  “As long as the job don’t call for a martyr.”

  “Have faith, my friend. And make lots of donations. That’s all this church will ask.”

  “Most of them only ask for the offerings. I tell you I almost started my own church once?”

  “No.”

  “I was scoping it out when I thought I was going to lose the stable. I figure a man my size, tricked up in the right outfit, would make a hell of a prophet. And in a city as god-ridden as TunFaire, people are always looking for something novel.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought you so cynical.”

  “Me? Cynical? Perish the thought. Come back when you need a horse, Garrett.”

  15

  Morley and the triplets were sitting around looking smug when I showed up at the Tate place with my travel bag on my shoulder. “You guys earned your keep? Or are you just in practice for the next time the Grinning Death comes through?”

  Morley stopped gnawing a carrot long enough to say, “We thumped some heads this morning, Garrett.”

  Doris bobbed his head and chortled something in dialect. Morley said, “He just claimed he broke twenty heads himself. He’s exaggerating. There weren’t more than fifteen guys involved. I recognized some of them. Second-raters. Whoever hired them was trying to get by on the cheap. He got what he paid for.”

  I wondered if any of them had recognized Morley. “Did they get away with anything?”

  “A lot of bruises and a few fractures.”

  “I mean anything physical.”

  “That isn’t physical enough for you?”

  “Damn it, you know what I mean.”

  “Testy in the morning, aren’t we? You didn’t pay a bit of attention when I explained about fiber.”

  “Morley!”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “My travel gear. We’re headed out.”

  “Today?”

  “You have some reason to hang around?”

  “Not really. You just caught me by surprise.”

  That was the idea. “The arrangements are made. You guys are ready to go. We’ll head for the boat from here and hide out there till we pull out.”

  “Boat? What are you talking, boat?”

  Morley was ghost-spooked pale. The triplets looked green around the gills, which was something for Doris and Marsha, who were a lovely shade of pale lime to begin.

  “Boat?” Morley croaked again.

  “Boat. We’ll barge down to Leifmold, then catch a coaster headed south. We’ll stay with it as far as we can. Then we’ll put ashore and finish what we have to overland.”

  “We mix with water worse than oil does, Garrett.”

  “Nonsense. All the great navigators were elvish.”

  “All the great navigators were crazy. I get seasick watching the water-spider races. Which may explain why I can’t bet them worth squat.”

  “Probably not enough starch in your diet.”

  He looked at me with hurt puppy eyes. “Let’s take it overland, Garrett.”

  “Not on your life. I don’t get along with horses.”

  “So we walk. The triplets can carry—”

  “Who’s paying the wages, Morley?”

  He did nothing but scowl.

  “Right. The boss says we take boats as far as we can,then we do it the hard way. You have your boys pick up and pack up. We head out in fifteen minutes.”

  I went and hunted up Pop Tate and told him I’d be doing the job and would be leaving the city shortly. We dickered awhile about expense money. To end up with what I wanted I had to give him what he wanted, a pretty complete outline of my plans.

  I could change them, of course.

  I don’t like letting people in on everything. It subverts my reputation for being unpredictable.

  16

  The river barge Binkey’s Sequin reminded me of a shopkeeper’s wife. She was middle-aged, middle class, a little run down, a little overweight, extremely stubborn and set in her ways, needing masterful coaxing and cajoling to get her to give her loving best, but also faithful and warm and unsinkably optimistic in her care for her children. Morley hated her at first sight. He prefers them sleek, lean, taut, and fast.

  Master Arbanos, her skipper, was an oversize gnome of that ethnic minority the ignorant sometimes confuse with hobgoblins (though any idiot knows hobgoblins don’t come out in the daytime because the sunlight would broil their eyeballs). After he got us settled in what, with a smile of self-mockery, he called the cabin, he pulled me aside and told me, “We won’t be able to sail till morning. Hope that don’t throw you off schedule.”

  “No.” But being naturally nosy and suspicious, I wanted to know why.

  “Cargo’s late. Best part, that is. Twenty-five cask of the TunFaire Gold, that they don’t trust nobody but me and my brother to get down the river unbruised.”

  TunFaire Gold is a premium wine with a reputation for traveling poorly.

  “So here I sit,” he complained, “with eight ton of potato, two ton of onion, three ton of pig-iron billet, and forty hogshead of navy salt pork turning to mold while I wait for them to baby that spoiled grape juice down from TagEnd. If I didn’t get paid more for hauling that than the rest put together, I’d tell them what to do with their TunFaire Gold poison! You bet I would.”

  Cargo manifests. How thoroughly exciting. “No problem for us. As long as we get there in a reasonable amount of time.”

  “Oh, won’t be no problem with that. We’ll get there almost the same time we would have.”

  “We will? Why?”

  “We’ll be going out with the tide, with an extra five knot of current running where the river is usually slowest. I just thought you might be in a hurry to move at this end, what with the way your friends are keeping out of sight down with the codfish smell. The way I hear tell, you landsider don’t favor fish odor too much.”

  I had not mentioned the stench, being the naturally courteous guy that I am. But, “Now that you bring it up . . . ”

  “What?”

  “Wait.”

  One of the Tate cousins or nephews was limping down the dock, checking ships with mad eyes. He was covered with dried blood. People stepped out of his way and stared after him.

  He spotted me, staggered faster. I went to meet him.

  “Mr. Garrett! They got Tinnie and Rose! They said if we don’t give th
em Denny’s papers—”

  He collapsed. I caught him, lifted him up, and carried him aboard Binkey’s Sequin. Master Arbanos gave me an appalled look. Before he started complaining, I tossed him a couple of marks. His personality shifted like a wolfman’s under a full moon. You would have thought he was the boy’s mother.

  A draft of brandy bubbling in the gut got the kid into a state to tell his tale.

  Rose and Tinnie, as was their custom, had gone out to do the afternoon marketing. Lester and the usual cousins and nephews and some kitchen help had accompanied them, again as was customary. When they were returning with the servants and two boys lugging vegetables and whatnot, disaster had struck, in the form of Vasco and a half-dozen thugs.

  “They grabbed Rose and Tinnie before we could drop the groceries and get our weapons out. Uncle Lester was the only one who was able . . . They killed him, Mr. Garrett.”

  “You all do them any damage?” The kid wouldn’t have been in such bad shape if they hadn’t tried. I needed to know how much blood was in it to tell if the women had a chance.

  “Some,” he admitted. “I don’t think we killed anybody. We had to back off first. That’s when they said we could have them back if we gave them Denny’s letters and notebooks and stuff.”

  Well, they had no real reason to commit murder. The blood was balanced. One of their lot for Uncle Lester. A trade could be made. The problem was, they would find out I was headed south if I had much to do with the exchange.

  I grinned.

  “Sounds bad to me,” Morley said.

  “Thought you were staying out of sight.” I wondered how long he had been sitting on that sack of onions listening. Not that he had heard anything he shouldn’t.

  He shrugged.

  “They tell you where to get in touch?” I asked the kid.

  “Yes. The Iron—”

  Old Man Tate himself materialized. I thought he never left the family compound. He stormed aboard, shaking all over. He was winded from his hike and so damned mad he couldn’t do anything but sputter.