Morley suggested, “Why don’t you visit Mrs. Claxton?” Reminding me that I had a mission. He swung the charm beam back to the volunteer. Who admitted she was a Mrs., too, but wasn’t fanatic about it.
“Right,” I said. “Why don’t I go check on her while you hang around here?”
“Absolutely perfect, my friend.”
Enjoying the therapeutic aroma of the Bledsoe, I climbed two flights of stairs to one of the hospital’s celebrity suites. The crooks in charge are clever enough to keep a few available in case somebody with lots of money stumbles in, bleeding. Belinda’s father had used one occasionally when he was younger and got into those sorts of situations.
Buy Claxton’s physicians had betrayed their normally hidden competence by making her pain go away, then followed up by doing mysterious, wonderful things to reduce the damage caused her by burns. Their respect for the Contague name led them to bring in a wizard with a strong healing talent.
I don’t doubt that they found gentle, unobtrusive ways to pad their fees.
Buy was awake. “I remember you. You tried to help.”
“Yes, I did. Miss Contague asked me to make sure they’re taking care of you. And to see if you need anything.”
“They’re treating me like a princess. Because they’re scared shitless of what’ll happen if they don’t.”
“Are you unhappy about that?”
“Shit, no. I’m thinking maybe I’ll just camp out here from now on. I got no desire for my ass to be some kind a symbol to them what thinks the ruling class…” They must have drugged her as soon as I showed up downstairs. Just in case. She mumbled through most of that, then faded completely.
“Belinda put the fear of God in them,” I told Morley as we left. “And how was your day?”
“The things I suffer for friendship.”
“Bet you she cooks you a nice two-pound steak… What do you suppose these clowns are really doing?” We’d stopped to watch the men working on the Bledsoe’s sad face.
“Looks like they’re taking bad bricks out and putting in new ones.”
“No. They aren’t. I worked as a bricklayer’s apprentice for about six months one week, back before I went in the Marines.”
“You left an honest career for life as a tick on society’s underbelly?”
“I got fired. I couldn’t make them understand that the workday shouldn’t start before noon.”
“All right. You’re an authority on bricklaying. What do you see that I don’t?”
“They’re fixing things that aren’t broken. This place is still sound. It just needs the rotten mortar scraped out and new mortar tucked in. But they’re making holes in the wall.” I could see several places where bricks had been removed to create hollows.
“All right. I see that.”
“Didn’t your friend say most of the workmen didn’t show up today?”
“She said the financing came from Ymber. I recall that.”
“Why don’t you pop back in and find out if those philanthropists had bad taste in trousers. I’ll talk to these guys here.”
Dotes looked sour, but he went. He had his own beef with the Ugly Pants Gang.
I strolled over to a hod carrier of fifteen summers who seemed to share my youthful lack of enthusiasm for clambering up ladders lugging mass quantities of bricks or mortar. “I’m trying to figure out what they’re doing up there.”
I got the right note of naive bewilderment into that. After an instant to decide whether the old guy deserved some attitude, the kid grunted. “They’re just tuck-pointing and replacing bad bricks.” TunFaire is built almost entirely of brick. Everybody knows something about the upkeep of brick buildings.
“I get that. I did your job when I was your age, a couple hundred years ago. I never saw nobody pull good bricks out.”
“Oh. That. They’re making these niches. Usually, there’s a lot more guys working. They put these metal things inside, then brick them up. Over there you can see where they’ve already done that about ten times.”
“So you’re, like, getting in on a slow day, eh?”
He chuckled. “This is the best day I’ve had since this job started. Aw, crap! I had to open my yap. Now my old man wants me to bring up some mortar.”
The boy stirred the mortar in a nearby mixing boat, splatted twenty pounds into a mortar hod, then went up the ladders and scaffolding like a monkey. I wasted ten seconds hating him for being that young, then drifted over to where the boy had pointed out some finished Ymber craftsmanship.
They weren’t bricklayers by trade. Not even apprentice bricklayers.
Morley said, “You’re psychic,” from behind me.
“I’ve been accused of everything else. Why not that?”
“The philanthropists from Ymber brought a crew of volunteer workmen. Every single one wore filthy green plaid pants.”
My new young friend spidered to the ground as Morley made his remarks. He overheard. I asked, “Would those be the guys who didn’t show up today?”
“Yeah. And I ain’t missing them, neither. I never seen such a bunch of useless assholes.”
I tried to find out more, but somebody up top kept hollering nonsense about lollygagging and slacking. I told Morley, “Sounds just like the guy who fired me fifteen years ago.”
The kid said, “That’s my old man. Don’t worry about him. He’s all hot air.” But he got busy working the mortar boat. You don’t, the mortar sets up.
22
Morley seemed preoccupied.
I was preoccupied myself. Just what was going on at the Bledsoe?
Here it was, direct as a smack in the chops with an iron fist. The Green Pants Gang was underwriting renovations in order to install metal somethings inside the Bledsoe’s outside walls. Dean was sure the gang was in town to catch Penny Dreadful and her kittens.
What would Penny say, if pressed? “We need to catch that kid who dumped the kittens on Dean.”
“We do? Believe it or not, I do have a life outside my career as your sidekick. Considering Belinda Contague is involved, you might look into doing your own lifting and carrying.”
“Ouch!”
“My point being, I don’t need to catch something that’s looking for you.”
“Man. You’re a pal, all of a sudden. Like Puddle or Sarge in a bleak mood.”
“Could be. Life isn’t fair. You going to try Harvester Temisk now?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck. I’m headed home. Before one of those idiots burns the place down.”
What suddenly made him want to get away fast?
Harvester Temisk hadn’t resurfaced. He had, however, begun to interest somebody besides me. A minor, dim thug named Welby Dell was asleep across the street from Temisk’s, in a spot well suited for lurking and watching. Dell was another associate of Teacher White’s. Being a thoughtful kind of guy, I toddled on without disturbing Welby’s nap.
I picked up a tail. He wasn’t anybody I knew. He didn’t care if I knew he was there. Meaning he was a Relway Runner.
I changed course, headed for the Al-Khar, where I asked to see Colonel Block. Naturally, the ground level of the bureaucracy made that impossible. So I asked for Director Relway. With identical results.
I trudged on home. Smug. Block couldn’t accuse me of evading my civic duty. Dean was in the throes of creating chicken and dumplings. He can be a killer in the kitchen when he wants.
Melondie Kadare was on the table, still hungover, in a foul temper. Singe sulked because I’d taken off without getting John Stretch’s report. Her brother had gone and come and gone again in my absence.