‘‘My short hitch I was a cook. Division headquarters.’’
I raised an eyebrow. Figgie Joe didn’t look like a lifer. And wasn’t, of course. Not old enough.
The ‘‘short hitch’’ was your first voluntary re-up after you survived your obligated five. It lasted two more years. You gained all kinds of perks on account of you were there by choice now. It was a mutual tryout. If you completed your short hitch and still favored the soldier’s life, then you re-upped for the long hitch. Twenty years. For the rest of your life, in effect. Troopers who survived the long hitch are only slightly more common than frog fur coats.
I never figured it out but definitely don’t recall any shortage of lifer noncoms during my five. Of course, all the stupid and stubborn guys got weeded out by the Invincible early on. After that it was plain dumb bad luck that ended an individual story. That or getting too close to, or caring too much about, the new fish in your keeping.
I asked, ‘‘How’d you get into this racket?’’
‘‘You take work where you find it, slick. Ain’t a lot of jobs for mess cooks.’’
Ain’t a lot of jobs. Period. It will take years for the Karentine economy to adjust to the sudden outbreak of peace.
The Venageti, having lost the war, have it worse than we do here. The battles that settled it all gobbled up most of their nobles and sorcerers. The peace dividend down there has produced a crop of ‘‘flayers,’’ unemployed soldiers who survive by plunder and rapine practiced on their own people.
I told Figgie Joe, ‘‘You surprised me. You like cooking?’’ He went all shifty-eyed.
‘‘I’ll take that as a yes.’’
He didn’t think his pals would consider cooking fit work for a manly man. I told him, ‘‘I know a restaurant guy who’ll be looking for cooks pretty soon. I’ll drop your name. Hey, Head. Are you on a mission for Dean Creech or my athletically challenged sidekick?’’
‘‘I don’t follow.’’
‘‘It’s awful early to drag me out.’’
‘‘Tough. I told you. There’s work to do. Sooner you get on it, the sooner it gets done. And the sooner I got me a spot for one of my night guys to lie down.’’
I began to retail some routine protest. He cut me off. ‘‘Don’t matter if you are the guy what handles the payroll. There’s stuff that’s got to be done. Sharing my guard shack with management ain’t one of them. It’s just a courtesy.’’
I started to hand my plate and utensils back to brother Figgie Joe. He gave me a hard look. ‘‘There’s a couple barrels outside. The one with the yellow paint splash is for washing. Don’t use the other one. That’s for drinking.’’
Being management didn’t get me a whole lot from these guys.
They were my kind. But maybe I wasn’t theirs anymore.
68
‘‘You all right?’’ Luther the foreman asked. ‘‘You look all blurry-eyed. Like you got the hay fever, or something.’’
‘‘It’s this place. You think it’s bad when you’re here working, try staying overnight.’’
He composed himself, conveying the unspoken idea that he wasn’t interested in my whining. He had troubles of his own. He did stipulate, ‘‘It’s quiet today. The ghosts ain’t been taking shape. It’s like they ain’t got the oomph. Not one of these superstitious shits has gone bug-fuck and run out.’’
‘‘Good to hear. Lets me know I’m doing my job. Remind everybody that those spooks haven’t actually hurt anybody.’’
‘‘Not yet. Not physically.’’
Luther would find a way to contradict you, whatever you said. I hoped he was a better carpenter and foreman than he was a conversationalist.
‘‘Yeah. There’s always hope. Isn’t there?’’
Luther developed a puzzled look that turned suspicious immediately. He’d been mocked before.
My tone must have given me away.
I spent the next five hours prowling the World and its environs, attracting unfriendly looks and unflattering compliments on my choice of outerwear. I hoped Mr. Jan’s loaner coat wasn’t some priceless sartorial treasure handed down from antiquity. Because I was going to have to buy it. There wasn’t much left but rags.
Around the five-hour mark I noted that the dirty looks and unkind fashion reviews had become less frequent. And the men were working slower.
I felt a lassitude myself.
Curious.
Something was going on. But what?
One damned thing after another. One way of telling a story. And pretty much the plot for my life. I call it the barroom method. Starts out, ‘‘So there I was . . .’’ and you get on with it by inflating the facts geometrically. A trip across town turns into a high quest through the heart of darkness to put paid to the foul schemes of the Wicked Witch.
‘‘What the hell are you doing, Malsquando?’’
A principal subspecies of ODTAA is, somebody busts through the doorway swinging a blade, screaming someone else’s name. Or, as in this instance, just heating the place up because of natural-born talent. ‘‘She had gams that ran from here to there, all the way to the floor, and a voice like juniper smoke. She was the kind of gal that could get a dead bishop to kick the lid off his coffin.’’ That kind of thing.
But this redhead was only the forerunner of an invasion. They were all there. Alyx with the glint in her eye. Bobbi, breathing heavy. Lindy Zhang, in a cloud of smoke. Heather Soames, just exactly the wrong lady to be den mother. Then, tagging along behind, not attached, but looking every bit like she ought to be part of the wrecking crew, Furious Tide of Light. Looking especially delectable outside the shade cast by Barate Algarda.
‘‘Hallucinating, apparently. Because I can’t have died and gone to heaven,’’ I grumbled.
‘‘No kidding?’’ the redhead asked.
‘‘Because they ain’t gonna let your crew in there.’’
‘‘I’m thinking of converting.’’
‘‘Uhn?’’ said the quick-witted detective type.
‘‘I could get on as one of the seventy-two renewable virgins.’’
The survival instincts that got me through the war had kick enough left to stop me making any noise. I gave Tinnie a one-armed hug and a pat on the fanny, then slid forward to express my undying devotion to Furious Tide of Light.
Alyx blocked my path. ‘‘I have to admit you’re finally getting something done here, Garrett.’’
‘‘I’ve got the tradesmen doing their ever-lovin’ best just for sweet little ol’ you, Alyx.’’ I eased around her to get at the Windwalker. Which whapped Miss Tate right on the knob of her jealousy bone.
Quick calculation. Did I dare ignore the Windwalker while I tried to hammer information through Tinnie’s default stubborn disbelief? How long before Furious Tide of Light slapped me for the slight?
Inspiration!
It was my lucky day.
‘‘Ma’am. Windwalker. Welcome back. Might I introduce my fiancйe, Tinnie Tate, of the manufacturing Tates? Tinnie, the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light.’’
That left the fair Miss Tate with her mouth agape.
It didn’t stop the gasps and giggles of her henchwomen. The Windwalker never focused on us. She murmured, ‘‘Pleased to meet you,’’ vaguely, and drifted toward where the floor planking was being installed. The workmen tried hard not to pay attention. Right now she wasn’t firing their animal instincts. But they definitely remembered her from before.
Miss Tate remained tongue-tied.
The unexpected complication now coming through the main doorway might have explained that.
Furious Tide of Light had not come alone. I’d just gotten fixed on her having shown up without Barate Algarda to hover menacingly.
A representative selection of our most dread, dire, Hill-dwelling types had followed the pitiful waif. A half dozen alert, glowering, ready-for-anything secret masters. I recognized a couple. The interior of the World went quiet as the workmen recognized some of them, too.
That whole mob belonged to a class that no rational person wants to offend, whatever the circumstances.