"I see. Only I don't mind telling." I told her about my family, none of whom are alive. I told about my years in the fleet Marines I tried but couldn't really explain what I was doing on the boat. Not in terms she understood. "As for kids, I like them fine but I think I'd make a lousy father. I still have some growing up to do myself, at least by the accepted standards."
"That ain't fair, Garrett
"Hey, I was just passing the time. You don't have to tell me anything."
"We going to be friends, Garrett?"
"I don't know. Could be. Hasn't a lot gotten in the way so far."
She chewed that some, leaned back, spat over the side, turned to check our tail, laid down again. "How old you figure me for?"
"My age. A little younger, maybe. Twenty-eight?"
"You're more generous than most. I'm twenty-six. I do have a kid. Be almost twelve now. I couldn't handle that life. I walked. It's usually the man leaves the woman with the brats."
I didn't say anything. Not much you can say when somebody tells you something like that. Nothing that doesn't sound judgmental or insincere.
"I lug around a lot of guilt. But no regrets. Funny, huh?"
"Things turn out that way sometimes. I've been through some of that."
"Like this little jaunt?"
"Huh?"
"You don't hide so well behind the smart mouth and weary attitude, Garrett. We ice this Chodo, you're going to take on a shitload of guilt."
"But no regrets."
"Yeah. And you know something? That's why I wanted in. The money and the rep I can use, but it wasn't just for that. It's ‘cause I figure you for one of the good guys."
"I try." Probably too hard. "But when you get down to it, there isn't much difference between the good guys and the bad guys." I used some of my cases to illustrate.
She told me how she'd become a bounty hunter. Mostly by accident. Right after she'd left her family she'd killed a much-wanted thug who'd tried to rape her. She traded the remains for a reward and had found herself with a reputation for having more guts than sense and a big chip on her shoulder
"The rep's the thing, Garrett. You build it right, you nurture it, you save a lot of trouble. You take this Chodo. Nobody bucks him because of his reputation."
"He backs it up."
"You got to do that. Ruthlessness is the key. You, now, your rep is wishy-washy except for keeping your word and not letting people mess your clients around. You might be tough, but you ain't hard. You get what I'm saying? Somebody hires you to get him out from under blackmail, you don't just go cut some bastard's throat and have done with it. You try to finagle it so nobody gets hurt. Lot of people figure you for soft in the center, you go that way. Figure they've got an edge."
"Yeah." I understood. But I didn't make any sudden New Year's resolutions.
"I figure you'll waste this chance. You off Chodo, you'll never let anybody know."
"You're beginning to depress me
She laughed. "You heard the one about the nuns, the bear, and the missing honey?" She told the story. It was about what I expected. She followed it with another. She kept telling them. She knew every bad, off-color joke ever invented and this world, with all its tribes, offers plenty of absurd possibilities.
"I surrender," I said "I won't be depressed if you won't tell any more stories."
"Great So now let's figure out what we're going to do about that other boat."
I glanced downriver. I still couldn't tell anything. "Skid. Can you run inshore and let us off without them back there knowing?"
He reflected. "Around Miller Point, up ahead. Be out of their sight maybe twenty minutes. But I thought you wanted to go to the Portage."
"You go ahead upriver after we get off. Lead that boat along with you."
"You're paying the freight. You heard the man, lad-dies. Cut it close going around the point. Lucky for you," he said to me "Channe"s close in there."
When the time came, we did it fast. It worked. Skid headed upriver Winger and I heard the second boat creak past as we worked our way through the dense growth beside the river. She punched my arm, grinned.
We started our hike cross-country. My body kept threatening to put a curse on me for mistreating it so.
42
I guessed it was just past midnight. We were a mile from Chodo's place, which was easy to see. "Party must be roaring," I observed. "Either that or there's a forest fire over there."
"We're coming in from the north, we better head over there, move in closer later."
"Yeah. Better stay behind this ridge, too. Never know who might spot us if we don't." We were in a vineyard. There were grapegrowers' houses nearby.
"You said that already."
"You said that about heading north three times, too." "You nervous, Garrett?"
"Yeah. You?"
She seemed cool. "Scared shitless."
"It doesn't show
"You learn
The sky went berserk toward Chodo's place. I said, "Sounds like the morCartha brought their show to the country." We couldn't see them, light or no, with the ridge in the way. We decided not to go over and look. Everybody at the kingpin's place would be out gawking.
We found us a comfortable jump-off place fifty yards north of Chodo's property line. The morCartha were still at it, off and on. "Those flying rats could wake the dead," I grumbled.
"We got time to kill. We're ahead of schedule." The plan was to wait for Crask and Sadler to draw the thunderlizards around front once they gave up on me and decided to take their best shot. Then we'd move, hoping my amulet still worked.
"Yeah." I tried making sense of the racket. "I don't like that." I stood up. Standing, I could see the occasional dot swoop through the light over the kingpin's house. A deadly battle over there, near as I could tell. "Why did they bring it out here?"
"Oh, sit down and sweat blood like I am."
If there was no attack by Crask and Sadler, or none we could detect, we would move about three o'clock, the coolest hour of the night, when the thunder-lizards would be sluggish. With them slow and maybe ignoring us on account of my amulet, we'd only need to worry about dogs, armed guards, booby traps, and whatever I didn't know about.
Winger laid back and stared at the stars. "Be enough light, anyway. I can handle the dogs. Better hope those morCartha clear off, though."
I grunted. Dogs make me nervous. Not afraid, just nervous.
"You got a special woman, Garrett? That little Sparky, hanging around your place?"
"Sparky?"
"The carrot top. I put the name Sparky on her in my own head."
"Oh. Yeah. I have one or two."
"One or two?"
"Tinnie Tate. The one who got stabbed. And one named Maya I kind of like. I haven't seen her lately."
"I heard some about her. People talk. Besides them two. Anything going? You got kind of a rep that way, you know."
"Highly exaggerated, I'm sure. Those things have a way of getting blown out of proportion. Nah. Nobody else special. Except maybe Eleanor."
"That Sparky?"
"No. The blonde on my office wall. She's a good listener."
"Nothing going with Sparky, eh?"
"Just wishful thinking. Why?"
"No reason. Just wondering. We got time to kill
What? "Oh." Sometimes I'm real slow. I started fumbling for excuses that wouldn't leave any hurt feelings. "I don't know. Condition I'm in .
Boy, howdy! Who'd a thunk it... ?
Winger started grabbing stuff. "Somebody coming. And we're running late."
No lie. Me, the mission-oriented old Marine, forgot why I was out in the middle of a grape orchard freezing my aching body in the wee hours. You betcha. My weakness again. When that Winger decided to be a woman, she popped and sizzled Sparky...arla Lindo had nothing on her then.
Amazing. Utterly amazing