Pixies, pixies everywhere, pestering biggies without prejudice.
Relway’s Runners and their fellow travelers had arrived but were waiting to see what developed.
I offered no evidence that my place was anything but deserted. The Watch knew better, but wouldn’t press the issue.
Only the Green Pants Gang were dim enough to keep on keeping on. They had to be clueless about the Dead Man.
I snickered at the prancing big guys as the pixies pestered them. Like a dance number in a musical play about an army field hospital.
I spotted Dean. The old boy did have sense enough to stand back.
I spied Penny Dreadful, too, across the street, to the left of and behind Dean. She couldn’t be seen by the big guys unless the one at my door turned and looked for her. She did well at being just another gawker.
The pixies pricked the big guys enough with their poisoned blades. They began slowing down. They just couldn’t get a handle on the fact that people might keep them from doing whatever they wanted. Ymber must be a strange town.
Whistles shrieked.
The Watch moved in.
They couldn’t wait anymore. My neighbors were getting restless. The Watch couldn’t let the situation deteriorate till witnesses began damaging city property. The property in question being the street itself.
When a TunFairen crowd gets rowdy it rips up cobblestones for ammunition. A grand brawl can strip an entire neighborhood of its pavements.
Relway’s boys didn’t have much trouble with the groggy bad guys.
The villains seemed less numerous when they were laid out like logs ready to be floated off to the mill. There were just four of them.
Some must have gotten away.
19
The next man to hammer on my door was an old acquaintance. And no surprise. Whenever anything interesting happens in my life, Colonel Westman Block turns up drooling official remarks.
I opened up. “You’re half vulture, aren’t you?” The door wouldn’t swing all the way back. I scowled grimly at its mutilated face.
Block surprised me. “Bring out your dead.”
“So what the hell is it now?” I grumbled. “Why’d Relway let those oversize morons go and sic them on me?”
“You’re a pip, Garrett,” the good colonel assured me. “But you won’t be selling me a bucket of your bullshit this time.”
“But it’s the good stuff. The only kind I’ve got. If you want a better grade of poo…”
“Can it. You’ve been mostly straight with me. Meaning I still haven’t caught you in a bald-faced lie. I will, someday. Meantime, I’ll remain confident that you suffer a congenital inability to tell the whole truth.”
“You want the truth? You can’t-”
“Save your breath. Let’s go in your office. I’ve been on my feet all day. While you’re walking, make up a good story about why those thugs were trying to bust into your place.”
“I don’t know. This stuff just happens. It’s like weather to me anymore.”
“But you have a notion or two, because you’re never as dumb as you make out.”
“I’m thinking maybe it’s time I moved on. To somewhere where everybody don’t think they know what’s going on inside my head.”
“Here’s a thought, old friend. Take a barge upriver and set up shop in Ymber.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Sure, you do. Those guys are all from Ymber.”
Being the villain he thought I was, I volunteered nothing. “Uhm?”
“There are ten of the big, ugly, stupid creeps in green pants, plus two normal-looking management types who run things. We think. We now have nine thugs and one normal clown in custody. It could take time for Deal’s specialists to make them explain themselves, though.”
So. Relway hadn’t turned anybody loose. He’d staked out my place so he could collect some more ugly pants.
Colonel Block’s nondescript face presented an expectant expression.
I saw no reason not to be forthright with the one man able to control Deal Relway. “I’m not real clear on this mess. It’s all Dean’s fault. He brought home this bunch of kittens and the kid who had the cats. I didn’t get a good look at him before he made tracks. Dean has a whole song and dance about priestesses and prophecies. You can squeeze the snot out of him when he turns up, if you want.”
Block grunted.
We have that kind of relationship. Half inarticulate noise.
“You really don’t have any idea? You’ve had part of the herd since yesterday.”
“They haven’t said much. Yet. They’re too stupid to connect their silence with the pain they’re exposed to.”
“You’ve got one of the managers. Officer types don’t usually stand up… oops.”
Block glowered. Being an officer type. “Oops again,” I said. “I get so comfortable with you I forget you aren’t one of my pals from down in the islands.”
“Move to the country, Garrett. You could fertilize a whole county.”
I shrugged. “It’s the times we live in.”
He wasn’t buying what I was selling, even though I was giving it away.
“I don’t get you, Colonel. I’ve always been straight with you. Ever since Prince Rupert made you the top guy at the Al-Khar. But you never believe me.”
“Because you never tell the whole truth, only what you think I’ll work out for myself.”
“So where do we stand?” I asked. “You aren’t half as dumb as you let on, either. You’ve got something on your mind.”
“Of course I do. But it doesn’t have much to do with those lunatics.”
“I love how you work to make me glad I was born when I was, in this time and place, when life was never better.”
“You might fertilize more than one county.”
“Even so.”
“Even so, I admit to a passing curiosity about what happened at Whitefield Hall last night.”
“You and me both, brother. Somebody tried to burn the place down with me inside.” I gave him a mildly edited story. Certain he knew the basics already. I left out unimportant details like pixies, rat-people, Chodo’s health, and people catching fire. “You can ask all the questions you want. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what was supposed to happen. I can’t explain what did happen. Despite what you may have heard, I was there only in a professional capacity.”
“Save the snow, Garrett. I’m just interested in what you picked up about the kingpin.”
Dirty trick. For sure the man wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“I saw him one time, right before the fires started. He was in a wheelchair. He didn’t look healthy. I didn’t hear him say anything. Then the situation went all to hell. Bam! Lamps exploded. Burning oil flew everywhere. I ran like hell.”
Block wasn’t happy but had no grounds to challenge me. He would’ve been all over me if he had anything. “Was the fire an attempt to get Chodo?”
“I never thought of that. Let me think about it. Man, it’d have to be somebody who wouldn’t care if he wiped out the whole Combine.”
Westman Block will grab any angle to nab an advantage. He never reveals all he knows despite deploring the identical attitude on my part. He won’t bore in hard. Giving you the benefit of the doubt. Meaning you can’t ever forget that he’s always handing you yards and yards of just enough rope.
“No. Chodo wasn’t the target. Not even Relway would wholesale it that way. I do think the fires were started by sorcery. Or something.”
“There’s no obvious evidence. Experts checked.” Block glared at Eleanor. “There any way I can buy that off you?”