Red Iron Nights gf-6 Page 8

  "I'm not much on haunts and jinxes," I told him. "But if that coach is jinxed, you got any notion how come?"

  "Beats the shit out of me." He guzzled the other half of his beer. "Shit happens. Sometimes it don't make no sense."

  Playmate horned in. "Thanks, Mr. Atwood. Sure was good of you to talk to us." He nudged me with a knee, got up. I wondered why he was in a hurry, but I'd promised to follow his lead. I piled on my share of thanks and excused myself, followed Playmate into the rain.

  "What was that? How come the run-out?"

  "Atwood was getting glassy-eyed. In about a minute he was going to start in on his boys that didn't make it home from the Cantard. I thought you might want to get some sleep tonight."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah. You got to feel sorry for the guy. But that don't mean you got to go live in his hell with him. He's got to lay his own ghosts himself."

  True. But I was surprised that Playmate thought so. I pulled my cloak tighter. There was enough wind to make the night cold.

  "Past my bedtime, Garrett. Hope all that helped."

  "You hope? Hell, it cracked the thing. All I need now is to find out who's been using that coach." And how hard could that be? I mean, the Crown Prince's duties included running Karentine internal security. The TunFaire Watch were one obscure arm of the many he oversaw. And if what Block said was true, the heat on the Watch had good old Rupert behind it.

  "Come around more often, Garrett," Playmate said. "At least soon enough to let me know how this comes out." He strode off like he was late for a date with one of his mares. I stood absorbing some rain for a moment, startled, then shrugged. Playmate did these things. He didn't know he was being rude and unsociable.

  What now?

  16

  Morley's place, that's what now.

  It wasn't that far out of my way. I dropped by. My reception was no more charming than before. Maybe not as good. More people departed. The others seemed edgy, except for Saucerhead's pal Licks, who was at the same shadowed corner table stoned out of this world.

  Puddle gave me a huge scowl, glanced down at his keg. I told him, "That rat Sarge said he was going to blame it on me. Morley here?"

  Puddle already had a finger pointed skyward and an eyebrow up. I nodded to make sure he understood that I wanted to see Morley as well as to know if he was home. With Puddle you have to take it by the numbers. He don't fill in the gaps so good.

  He was the kind of guy who thought if you couldn't solve a problem with a right cross or a club, then it wasn't a problem in the first place and therefore didn't need solving. Ignore it and it would go away.

  Puddle grunted, growled at the speaking tube, fluttered a hand to indicate that I should go on up. Apparently Morley didn't have company.

  I climbed the stairs, tiptoed to Morley's door, listened before I knocked. I didn't hear anything. Usually there was scurrying as somebody's wife headed for cover. All I heard was Morley telling me to come in.

  I opened the door. Something zipped past the end of my nose. Morley was behind his desk, his feet up, leaning back, tossing darts. I didn't recognize the painted face serving as his target. "You doing the hoodoo voodoo on somebody?"

  "Not really. Found all that in a junk shop. Velvet painting of a guy who looks like my sister's husband." Zip. Wham. Another eye put out. "What's up?"

  "No company tonight?"

  "Too wet out there these days. Nobody's going to be seeing much company as long as this weather keeps up." Zip. Wham. Right in the end of the nose. "Want to get those darts for me?"

  "You're a bundle of ambition tonight."

  "Yeah. Long as you're doing my legwork, you see that creep Licks downstairs? So I don't have to go look for myself?"

  "He's there. Unconscious, I think. The smoke was pretty thick."

  He snagged his speaking tube. "Puddle. Toss that creep Licks out now. Don't leave him where he'll get run over." Morley put the tube down, looked at me. "I hope he gets pneumonia."

  "You have a problem with the man?"

  "Yes. I don't like him."

  "So bar him."

  "His money's as good as yours. Maybe better. He spends it here." That didn't get a rise, so he asked, "What's up? You look like you can't wait to get something off your chest."

  "I got a line on the coach."

  "Coach? What coach."

  "The one out front that they tried to drag Chodo's kid into. I found the man who built it. He told me where I can find it." I explained.

  Morley sighed, took his feet down. "Isn't that just like you? Here I am, having the time of my life, and you have to walk in and mess it up." He got up, opened a closet, dug out a raincloak and fancy hat that must have set him back a dozen broken bones.

  "What you doing?"

  "Let's go check it out."

  "Huh?"

  "Way I see it, that beats hell out of trying to get to see Chodo. You carrying?"

  "Here and there."

  "Finally started to learn, eh?"

  "I guess. What's the problem with Chodo? I thought you were tight. It's me that's on his list."

  "I don't know. I sent word I needed to talk. That it was important. I never got an answer. That's never happened before. Then comes a roundabout kind of hint that nobody out there wants to hear from me and if I'm smart I won't bother them ever again."

  "Odd." I couldn't figure that. Morley was an important independent contractor. Chodo owed him a listen.

  "Been odd ever since you and Winger went out there. And getting odder every day." We were headed downstairs now.

  I asked, "What's with the mustaches? That the coming thing?"

  "Huh?"

  "I'm seeing them all over. On you it don't look bad. On Spud it would look good if he could grow one. But on Puddle it looks like some damn buzzard built its nest on his lip."

  "He doesn't take care of it." Morley darted to the counter, spoke to Puddle briefly. I noted Licks's absence and Puddle's wet shoulders. Licks remained with us in spirit. The smoke was thick enough to slice.

  17

  When it rains and the wind blows, it gets real dark in TunFaire. Streetlamps won't stay lighted, though those lamps exist only in neighborhoods like the Hill and the Tenderloin, where the wraths of our lords temporal and lords criminal encourage thieves and vandals to practice their crafts elsewhere. Tonight the Hill was darker than a priest's secret heart. I didn't like it. Given my choice, I want to see trouble coming.

  Morley was as excited as a kid planning to tumble an outhouse. I asked, "What's your thinking on this?" I looked around nervously. We'd approached Lady Hamilton's place unchallenged, which made me just that much more anxious.

  I don't believe in good luck. I do believe in cumulative misfortune, in bad luck just lying back piling up interest till it dumps on you in one big load.

  "We climb over the wall, see if the coach is there."

  "You could give Glory Mooncalled lessons in innovative tactics." I didn't like his idea. We could get ourselves arrested. We could get ourselves hurt. We could get ourselves fatally unhealthy. The private guards on the Hill are a lot less inhibited than their public-payroll counterparts.

  "Don't get all worked up, Garrett. Won't be anything to it."

  "That's what you said the time you conned me into helping deliver that vampire to the old kingpin."

  "That time you didn't know what you were doing."

  True. But where would he get the idea I knew what I was doing now? "You're too optimistic to live."

  "Comes of living right."

  "Comes of eating horse fodder till you have the sense of a mule."

  "You could do with more horse fodder yourself, Garrett. Meat is filled with the juices of things that died terrified. They make you timid yourself."

  "I have to admit I never heard anybody call a cabbage a coward."

  "There they go. All clear."

  There who go? Were we hanging around soaking because he'd seen someone? Why didn't he tell me these things?

/>   He did have better night vision. One of the advantages of his elvish blood. The disadvantages, of course, started with a conviction of personal immortality. It isn't true, what you hear about elves being immortal. They just think they are. Only an arrow through the heart will talk them out of the idea.

  Morley took off toward the Hamilton place. I followed, watching everywhere but where I was going. I heard a sound, looked for its source as I jumped ten feet high, walked right into the Hamilton wall.

  "You must have been some Marine," Morley grumbled, and continued muttering about no wonder Karenta couldn't win in the Cantard if I represented the kingdom's best and brightest.

  "Probably a hundred thousand guys down there would be happy to let you show them how to do it." Morley wasn't a veteran. Breeds don't have to go. The nonhuman peoples all have treaties exempting people up to one-eighth blood. The nonhumans you see in the Cantard are natives or mercenaries, and usually both. And agents of Glory Mooncalled besides. Except for the vampires and werewolves and unicorn packs, who are out to get everybody.

  The Cantard is a lot of fun.

  Morley squatted, cupped his hands. "I'll give you a boost." The wall was nine feet high.

  "You're lighter." I could toss him right over.

  "That's why you go first. I can climb up there without help."

  A point. Not one that fired me up to go first, but a point. This business was more in his line than mine. He wouldn't buy my plan which was to go pound on the front gate and ask to see the deadly coach. That was too prosaic for his sense of adventure.

  I shrugged, stepped into his cupped hands, heaved my reluctant bones upward, grabbed the top of the wall in expectation of getting my fingers ripped to hamburger by broken glass. Broken glass is an old trick for discouraging uninvited company.

  Oh, my. Now I was really disheartened. There was no broken glass. I pulled my chin up level with the top, peeked. Where was the trap? They had to have something really special planned if they didn't use broken glass.

  Morley whacked me on the sole. "Better move your ass, Garrett. They're coming back."

  I didn't know who "they" were but I heard their footsteps. I took a poll. Opinion was unanimous. I didn't want to find out who they were. Up and over I went. I landed in a small garden, gently, failing even to turn an ankle. Morley landed beside me. I said, "This's too easy."

  "Come on, Garrett. What do you want? You have a closed house here. Who's going to guard that?"

  "Exactly what I want to know."

  "You ever begin to sound optimistic, I'm going to flee the country. Come on. Sooner we do it, the sooner you're out of here."

  I grunted agreement. "Looks like the coach house there." I don't like sneaking, much. I still thought we should have tried the front way.

  Morley scooted to a door in the side of the coach house. I let him lead. I noted how carefully he moved, for all he did so quickly. Whatever he said, he wasn't taking chances.

  In his line you didn't get old taking anything for granted. My line either, for that matter.

  Neither of us had brought a lantern. You do dumb things when you rush. Still, there was light enough leaking from nearby homes to let Morley see a little. He told me, "Somebody was here before us. They jimmied the lock." He tried the door. It opened.

  I looked over his shoulder. It was blacker than the inside of a buzzard's belly in there, and about as inviting. Something made noises and shuffled around. Something breathed. Something a lot bigger than me. Always a courteous kind of guy, I offered, "After you, sir."

  Morley wasn't that sure he was immortal. "We need a light."

  "Now he notices. This the kind of planning you re going to do when you take over in the Cantard?"

  "I'll be back in five minutes." He vanished before I could argue.

  18

  Five minutes? It was more like twenty. The longest twenty I ever lived, excepting maybe a few dozen times in the islands when I was in the Corps, dancing the death dance with Venageti soldiers.

  He wasn't gone ten of those five minutes when, from my lurking place under a crippled lime tree—where I was trying to drown less speedily—I noted a light moving past a downstairs window inside the Hamilton house. Probably a candle. It had a ghostly effect, casting a huge, only vaguely humanoid shadow on a drawn shade.

  I gulped air.

  Damn me if my luck didn't hold. Somebody came outside and headed straight for the coach house. I heard muttering, then realized that there were two of them. The guy with the candle was leading.

  Closer. It was my old buddy with the bad stomach. He didn't look like much now, a sawed-off runt in clothes that had been out of style since my dad was a pup. He wore the kind of hat they call a deerstalker. I'd never seen one outside a painting before. He was bent and slow and shaky and a damned near perfect match for my notion of what a pederast ought to look like.

  Hunking along behind, having trouble navigating, was Scarface, the guy Saucerhead had bounced around so thoroughly. He moved slower than the old guy, like he'd aged a hundred years overnight. Saucerhead hadn't broken much but he'd left both of them with plenty of pain.

  Now what? Jump in and make a citizen's arrest? Accuse somebody of something and maybe get my own bones rearranged? Maybe cause the geezer another attack of dyspepsia and have him belch carnivorous butterflies all over me? Maybe just end up in court for assault? My mind wanders at such times, examining the dark side. I wish I had Saucerhead's capacity for lack of doubt.

  There are advantages to being simple.

  While I tried to decide and wondered where the hell Morley was with the light, those two dragged their bruise collections inside the coach house. Light flowed through cracks as they lit lamps or lanterns. Talk continued, but I could distinguish no words.

  I crept to the doorway, still could make out nothing. I heard a horse snort, jumped. Boy, was I glad I hadn't gone in there before. They would've ambushed me for sure.

  It sounded like they were fixing to harness a team. The cussing level suggested that was difficult when you were all bruised up. Sounded like some impressive descriptive work being done in there. I wanted to hear more. I need to expand my vocabulary.

  I slipped my fingers into the gap between the door and its frame, pulled outward slowly till I had a crack through which to peek. So I could spy on a whole lot of horse stalls and tack racks doing a whole lot of nothing. Pretty dull stuff. I had the wrong angle.

  Someone had the right angle to see the door move inward. I heard one voice say something soft but startled. Heavy footsteps lumbered my way, like a stomping troll wearing stone boots. I thought about doing a fast fade but thought too long. I barely had time to duck aside before the door flew open.

  I couldn't run, so I did the next best thing. I bopped Scarface over the head with my listen stick. His conk thunked like a thumped watermelon. He sagged, looked at me like I wasn't playing fair. Well, why should I? That's dumb with his kind. I'd get hurt if I tried. I thumped him again to make my point.

  I bounced over Scarface, popped inside, charged the little character with the sour stomach and antique clothes. Don't ask me why. Seems plenty dumb in retrospect. Just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  He was trying to get the street doors open. I can't imagine why. His team were still in their stalls. He wasn't going to drive away. And he wasn't going to outrun anybody on foot either. But there he went, heaving away and spitting green moths.

  He heard me coming and spun around. For him a spin was a slow turn. His one hand dropped to a kind of frayed rope that served him as a belt, hitched his pants. His eyes started glowing green. I got there with my stick.

  One of his moths bit me. Stung like hell. And distracted me so the old boy could slide aside enough for me to whap his shoulder instead of the top of his gourd. He howled. I bellowed and flailed at bugs. His eyes flared and his mouth opened wide. I avoided his gaze and the one big green butterfly that flew from his maw. I flailed crosswise, catching him alongside the
jaw.

  I put too much on it. Bone cracked. He folded like a dropped suit of clothes.

  My juices were flowing. I bounced around looking for more trouble, so cranked the horses just backed up in their stalls and waited for me to go away. I checked Scarface. He was snoring, getting soggier by the second. I darted back to the old man...

  Who wasn't snoring. He was making funny noises that said he wouldn't be breathing at all pretty soon. I'd broken more than his jaw.

  A green giant butterfly crept halfway out from between his lips, got stuck. He held on to his crude rope belt with both hands, like he didn't want to lose his pants, and started shaking.

  I'm not in the habit of croaking people. I've done it, sure, but never really by choice and never because I wanted to.

  Now I was wound up. This was the Hill. Up here the guardians of the peace were no half-blind, unambitious Watchmen interested only in collecting their pay. If I was caught anywhere near a dead man...

  "What the hell is this?"

  I didn't quite leap into the hayloft. Just maybe ten feet. Not even a record for the standing broad jump. But I was out the door the old man had wanted to use, thirty feet into the wet, before I recognized Morley's voice.

  Still shaking, I went back and told him what had happened. The presence of a dying man didn't rattle him at all. He observed, "You're learning."

  "Huh?"

  "Case solved and wrapped in a day. You dig up your buddy Block, tell him where to find his villain, end up with your pockets stuffed with gold. You still have the luck."

  "Yeah." But I didn't feel lucky. I didn't know that that little old man had gotten his thrills carving on pretty girls.

  Morley closed the yard door, eased toward the street door. I said, "Hold it. I have to take a look around in the house."

  "Why?" He said that sharply, like he didn't want me going that way.

  "In case there's any evidence. I need to know."

  He gave me the fish eye, shook his head, shrugged. The notion of a conscience was alien to him. "If you have to, you have to."