"Can I have another drink?"
"As soon as you've earned it."
He sighed. "A man came yesterday morning. A priest. Said his name was Brother Jerce. He wanted Snow to do some work. He was a front guy, like, you know? He wouldn't say who sent him. But he brought enough money so Snow's eyes bugged and he said the Vampires would do whatever he wanted. Even when Doc tried to talk him out of it. He never went against Doc's advice before. And look what that got him."
"Yeah, look." I knew what it got him. I wanted to know what he did to get it.
The priest wanted the Vampires to keep tabs on me and a priest called Magister Peridont. If Peridont came to see me, the Vampires were supposed to make me disappear. Permanently. For which they would get a fat bonus.
Snowball took it because it made him feel big-time. He didn't care that much about the money. He wanted to be more than a prince of the streets.
"Doc kept trying to tell him that takes time. That you can't go making a name without the big organization noticing you. But Snow wouldn't back down even after word hit the streets that the kingpin was saying lay off a guy named Garrett. He was so crazy he wasn't scared of nothing. Hell. None of us was scared enough."
He had that right. They were too young. You have to put a little age on before you really understand when to be afraid. I gave him a small drink. "Better? Good. Tell me about the priest. Brother Jerce. What religion was he?"
"I don't know. He didn't say. And you know how priests are. They all dress the same in those brown things."
He had that right, too. You had to get close and know what to look for to tell Orthodox from Church from Redemptionist from several dozen so-called heretical splinter cults. Not to mention that Brother Jerce's whole show could have been cover.
I asked myself if any man could have been dumb enough—or confident enough—to have given these punks his right name and have paid them in the private coin of his own temple. Maybe it was just my dim opinion of priests, but I decided it was possible. Especially if Brother Jerce was new to all this. After all, how often does a job get botched up as thoroughly as the Vampires had done? I should have been dead and nobody the wiser.
I asked many more questions. I didn't get anything useful until I took out the coins Crask brought me. "Was all the payoff money like this?"
"The money I seen was. Temple stuff. Even gold. But Snow didn't make a show. I bet he lied about how much he got paid."
No doubt. I hit him with the big question. "Why did this priest want me hit?"
"I don't know, man."
"Nobody asked?"
"Nobody cared. What difference did it make?"
Apparently no difference if smoking somebody is just business. "I guess that's it, then, kid." I took out a knife.
"No, man! Don't! I gave it to you straight! Come on!"
He thought I was going to kill him.
Morley would say he had the right idea. Morley would tell me the guy would haunt me if I didn't, and that damned Morley is right more often than not. But you have to do what you think is right.
I wondered if surviving this mess would scare the kid off the road to hell. Probably not. The type can't see danger until it's gnawing their legs.
I moved toward him. He started crying. I swear, if he'd called for his mother … I cut the cord holding his right arm and walked out. It would be up to him whether he got loose or stayed and died.
I stepped out into another gorgeous evening.
I marveled at my surroundings. Once I got out of Black Cross Lane I saw elfish women sweeping and washing their stoops and walks and the streets in front of their buildings. I saw their men folk manicuring greenery. It was the evening ritual.
The elfish do have their dark underside. They have little tolerance for breed offspring. Poor kids.
13
It was thoroughly dark before I got home. I spotted several shooting stars, supposed by some diviners to be good omens and by others the opposite. One gaudy show-off broke up into lesser streaks.
Dean let me in. "Damn, that smells good," I said.
"It will be," he promised. He smiled. "I'll bring you a beer. Did you learn anything useful?''
"I don't know." What was this? He wasn't himself. "What are you up to?"
He gave me his kicked-puppy look. I think he practices it. "Nothing."
"What happened while I was gone?"
"Nothing. Except Maya came. In fact, she just left. When you knocked."
I grunted. She had obviously been working on Dean. "You'd better count the silver."
"Mr. Garrett!"
"Right. Any sign of Miss Craight?" Walking home I'd decided she wouldn't show. What was in it for her? I was pretty sure she was a gal who didn't take a deep breath without calculating her return on investment. Such a shame; all that beauty wasted.
"Not yet. She did say it would be a late dinner."
How late was late? "I'm going to freshen up." I went upstairs. A wash would help clean the body, but it couldn't do anything for the stains on my soul.
Jill was there when I came back down. She had charmed old Dean again. He was letting her set the table. Unprecedented.
They were gossiping like old friends.
I said, "I hope that's not me you're ripping."
Jill turned. "Hi, Garrett. Nope. You aren't that lucky." She smiled. There wasn't any more heat in it than in a forest fire. "Had a good day?"
"The best. Business was marvelous. And I talked to my friend. He apologized for the trouble he'd caused me. He hadn't expected it. He's taken care of it. I won't be bothered again."
"That's nice." I checked her over. I tried not to be too obvious. She could set dead men panting. Her fear had gone. "I'm glad for you. But poor Saucerhead will be brokenhearted."
Dean gave me a disappointed scowl. Couldn't I get my mind off that for five minutes?
Are you kidding? I'm not dead yet. But I took his hint. It wouldn't be worth the trouble, anyway, just to get turned down. Sour grapes.
She got along with him better than she did with me. For us it was one of those things where nobody could think of anything to say.
Garrett tongue-tied around a gorgeous blonde? That did wonders for my self-esteem. But Dean's ducks were so good they made up for the lack of crisp repartee.
The main trouble was that Jill Craight wasn't about to tell me anything about Jill Craight. Not about her now, not about her then. She was slick, changing the subject or just sliding away from it so smoothly I didn't realize what she was doing until she'd done it several times.
Giving up on her left me only one area of expertise where I could talk extensively: Garrett. And a little bit of Garrett goes a long way.
I guess the high point was the wine she'd brought. It was an import. It was almost good.
To me wine is just so much spoiled fruit juice. It all tastes the same, with rare exceptions. This was the rarest. It was as good as the famous TunFaire Gold, which meant I drank most of my gobletful without sneaking off to wash the taste out of my mouth with a slug of beer. The ice maiden was on holiday, but this thing wasn't going anywhere. I figured as soon as dessert was over we ought to put it out of its misery.
Jill was more a lady than I thought. She got us through the difficulties. We helped Dean clear the dead soldiers, then I walked her home.
We'd gone less than a block when I missed something you can't miss if he's in the neighborhood. "What's happened to Saucerhead?" It wasn't like him to wander off.
"I let him go. I don't need him now. My friend straightened things out."
"I see." Especially why she was willing to let me walk her home.
I didn't say much after that. I watched for shooting stars but the gods had closed the show. We said good night outside her apartment building, a refurbished tenement. Jill did not ask me in for a nightcap and I made no attempt to fish an invite. She gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek. "Thanks, Garrett." She marched inside. She never looked back.