He returned but it seemed like he'd been gone for about twenty hours. He tied off the traces and clambered into the back of the rig. "Hoist him up here."
I hoisted. Morley pulled. When the cadaver was in, Morley set it up with its back against the driver's seat.
"People will see him."
"You just worry about driving. I'll handle this. I've done it before."
I had done my share of driving that day. Horses and I can enjoy an armed truce while they are in harness. But this was too grand an opportunity for that devil tribe to revert to the war rules. "You'd better handle the traces."
"I'll be busy back here. Get moving before somebody comes or the other one wakes up."
I climbed up and took the traces.
"We're just a bunch of guys out on the town. Don't hurry. But get us out of this section fast."
"Make up your mind!" I snapped. But I knew what he meant.
At first Morley sat back with his arm around his buddy slurring some song so thickly that Garrett could only understand about every third word. Later he started cussing the corpse out, telling him what a fool damned no-good he was for getting blasted before the sun even went down. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, what am I going to tell your old lady, how're we supposed to have any fun dragging you around? You ought to be ashamed."
Later still, once we were in an area where a bunch of drunks in a carriage were as unusual as eggs under a hen, Morley stopped rambling and asked, "Who were those guys, Garrett? Any idea?"
"No."
"Think it was a robbery?"
"You know better. The place, the timing, the behavior of that clerk, the disappearance of the guard from out front, all say it wasn't."
"Off the striped-sail ship? One of them went to the hall."
"I doubt it. Only a local could set up something like that so fast. We've obviously stepped on a toe somewhere."
"Why?"
"My guess is it was a warning whipping, a Saucerhead job. Pound us around awhile, then tell us to take the next boat home. But we blew up in their hands."
"That's what I figure. Then the real questions are who sent them and why do we make him nervous?"
"Him?"
"I don't think we need to count the Old Witch. Do you?"
"No. Nor the church people, probably. I guess we'll have to find out who Zeck Zack is."
"Too bad we can't ask this guy here."
"You checked him?"
"Dry as a bone. It's time we started thinking about how to break up the party."
"We can't dump him in the drink here. After dark Marines watch the shores like hawks in case Venageti agents try to sneak in. They never catch anybody, but that doesn't stop them." I did my share of watching in my time. I was very young and very serious about it.
My successors would be just as young and just as serious.
Morley said,"Find the busiest, sleaziest cathouse you can. We go in drunk with him between us. We find a dark corner in the waiting room, squat, order drinks for three, tell the madam not to bother our buddy because he's dead drunk, take our turns at the trade, then get out. They won't bother him till the crowd thins out because they'll want to roll him. By then they'll have forgotten us and he'll be their problem."
"Suppose we run into somebody who knows him?"
"There are risks in everything. If we dump him here in an alley, whoever sent him will know what happened. My way he'll have to wonder. That was blockshaush in the ring, wasn't it?" He used the elvish name for the poison. On our side of the line we call it black sauce.
"Yes."
"Good. By the time his boss finds him it'll be too late for even a master wizard to tell he was poisoned." He sounded very thoughtful. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering what other uncharacteristic surprises I had in store. He was thinking I was tight with the Dead Man, and that was probably why I was carrying poison. He was wondering just how much and what kind of advice the Dead Man had given me.
I figured a little worry would do him good. It might take his mind off his stomach for a while.
We ditched our friend Morley's way. I expected tribes of his buddies to swarm, but it came off smooth. The guy's boss would never really know what had happened.
Who was his boss? Why did he want to discourage me from doing my job?
26
I packed a lunch, knowing it would be a long day of runaround at the military city hall. Because they would not let Morley in, I told him to go find out what he could about Zeck Zack. The triplets I sent to watch incoming harbor traffic again.
"But be careful," I told Dojango. "They might decide to take you in to ask if you're Venageti spies."
"Actually, that possibility occurred to us yesterday," Dojango told me. "We've lived on the fringes of the law long enough to know when we're pushing our luck."
Maybe so. Maybe so.
I hefted my picnic basket and went to work.
First there was a clerk, then a senior clerk, then various sergeants followed by a couple of lieutenants who gave me to a captain who admitted he did not think I would have much luck before he dropped me in the lap of a major. One and all checked my bona fides before sending me on. Sometimes twice.
I kept a smile on my mug, stayed polite, and kept my tongue on a tight rein. I could play the game.
I figured I would earn every mark I would gouge from Tate for that day. Besides, it was all part of the plan.
Outlast the bastards.
The major was halfway human, and he even looked like he might have a sense of humor. He apologized for the shuffle and I offered to share my lunch.
"You packed a lunch?"
"Sure. I've dealt with the army before. If it was something complicated, I would have brought a blanket and an overnight bag. You get in the craw of the system and stay there, disturbing routine, somebody is going to go out on a limb, take a chance, tell you what you want to know or make a decision to throw you out, just to get you out from under foot. I get paid exorbitantly for letting people give me the runaround, so I don't mind."
For a moment I thought I had misjudged him. He was not pleased. Knee-jerk response. Give him credit. He gave it a think before he came back. "You're a cynic, aren't you?"
"Occupational hazard. The people I meet leave my faith in human nature mostly negative."
"Right. Let's try again, with the understanding that I'll be the man who ends your quest with an answer or by having you booted out. You want?"
"Some way of getting in touch with Major Kayeth Kronk, cavalryman, the only one of the woman's family of whom I have been able to catch wind. I want to ask if he knows where I can get in touch with his sister. The simple, obvious thing for the army to do is tell me he's out at Fort Whatever. I'd go interview him. But it won't work that way. The army will act on the perfectly reasonable assumption that the entire Venageti War Council has been holding its collective breath for years, waiting to discover the major's whereabouts. So any communications will have to be managed the hard way."
"You are a cynic."
"I'm also right. Not so?"
"Probably. What's your hard way?"
"I write him a long letter explaining the situation and asking him to meet me here or, if that's impossible, to respond to a list of questions. The weakness of the method is that I end up having to trust the army both to deliver the letter and to get the reply back to me. My cynical side tells me that that's too much to expect."
He looked at me from a face of stone. He knew I was setting him up for something and was trying to figure out how I was boxing him in. "That's probably the best you'll get. If that. It isn't the army's problem. But we do help with family matters where we can."
"Any help I get will be appreciated. Even if it isn't much help."