Dean was in a good mood. “Mr. Mulclar will be here to fix the door tomorrow.”
“Good.” I settled down to eat. A kitten climbed my leg and set up shop in my lap. Others prowled the kitchen. Singe held one. It wore the smug look of master instead of pet.
“Dean, talk to me about Penny Dreadful and these cats.”
He started to hem and haw.
“Dean, this is serious. People are getting busted up. They’re getting dead. The guys who keep trying to break our door down got into fights with Belinda’s people, Morley’s guys, and Relway’s gang. More than once. And when they aren’t picking fights they’re doing exterior renovations on the Bledsoe. What’s the connection there?”
Dean grimly said, “You’d better tell me the whole thing. I may have been too trusting.”
“You think so? That’s never happened before, has it?”
Singe said, “You do not have to be nasty, Garrett.”
I resisted a temptation to insist that I had the right. I related the highlights. “I don’t think the Watch has the whole gang. Colonel Block says there were ten guys in green and two more who were in charge. At the Bledsoe, though, I got the impression that there were more than that.”
Dean sucked in a gallon of air, set it free. “All I know is, those men serve A-Laf, some kind of masculine devil god. His cult has taken over in Ymber. It’s really aggressive and intolerant. The feminine cult of A-Lat was its big competitor. I told you what Penny had to say already.”
“And because she big-eye-orphaned you, you swallowed her story whole.”
“Admitted. Which doesn’t mean she was lying.”
“Don’t mean she was telling the truth, either. How do we get hold of her?”
Dean shrugged. “That’s up to her. I don’t think she’ll come back here. Not since she saw the Dead Man. That rattled her.”
“I’ll bet.” Hardly anybody wants to be around the Dead Man when he’s awake. If they know what he is. I have reservations myself. I continued. “Give me a guess about the connection with the Bledsoe. The Ugly Pants Gang is putting out a ton of money so they can put metal statues in the walls.”
Dean looked bewildered. “I don’t have any idea. This is the first I’ve heard.”
Singe brought me a cold mug of beer, reminding me that we had business of our own to attend to.
She made sure surly little Melondie got a tiny cup to nurse, too. Always thoughtful, my pal Pular Singe.
“So, darling junior junior partner. What do I need to know that nobody’s bothered to tell me yet?”
Melondie Kadare piped, “You need to know that your goddamn superior friggin’ attitude needs a major adjustment, Biggie.”
“Ouch!”
Singe said, “She is giving you attitude because her tribe was most incompetent at gathering useful information. They were too busy stealing food, wine, beer, and small valuables to accomplish anything.“
That started Melondie on a classic rant. She sputtered and raved for eight or ten minutes. Her big problem was Singe’s being right. Her tribe had demonstrated a decided lack of discipline.
“Do you have any idea how the fires started?”
“No. I was outside.” She produced a fair picture of the encounter between the Ugly Pants crew and Playmate, Saucerhead Tharpe, and the drivers of sundry carriages. The good guys won by weight of numbers. Though Melondie thought the outlanders were sluggish, confused, and weak.
For no clear reason, and to his own astonishment, Dean announced, “It was dark, wasn’t it? ‘A-Lat’ means ‘Queen of the Night.’ ”
“Uh…” I mused. “I guess that’s handy to know.”
Not to be outdone, Singe promised, “John Stretch will have a better report once he gets his rats together.”
“That’s good,” I said. Not believing it for an instant. The rats from Whitefield Hall couldn’t possibly remember details this long after having their brains scrambled by terror.
“It’s been a hard day,” I grumbled. “And it’s getting dangerous out there. I’d better not go drinking. So here’s my strategy. I’ll do my drinking and thinking here, after you all go to bed.”
Singe filled my mug. She refilled her own. Melondie tapped the rim of hers, an ivory thimble that came down to me from my mom.
23
Dean said, “It’s Colonel Block again.”
“Uhm?”
“At the door? You just told me to answer it? Remember?”
“Sir, I have no recollection of those events.” Making mock of a statement heard frequently in the High Court lately, as the Crown reluctantly prosecutes the most egregious disturbers of the peace involved in recent human rights rioting and minority persecution. The Crown Advocate’s usual attitude toward minorities is that they should expect to be treated like minorities. If they don’t like it, they shouldn’t come here in the first place.
Dean brought the Colonel to my office. I’d already settled in to sweet-talk Eleanor in fluent Drunkenese. I asked, “Don’t you ever take time off?”
Block isn’t married. He isn’t engaged. He isn’t the other kind, either. He has just one love. And she’s blind.
He romances her continuously, hoping she stays blind.
He’ll be sorry someday.
“Uh…” It never occurred to him to step away and relax.
“Go fishing.”
“I tried that once. I didn’t like it. But if you want to come along?…”
I flashed a yard of my most charming smile. “Pointtaken.” To go fishing you need to go out into the country. Where the wild bugs are, and the hungry critters, some of them as big as houses. I don’t go there, given a choice.
I did my time with the bloodsuckers and carnivores in the Corps. “You wanted to share something with me?”
“I was more hoping that you’d open up to me.”
“Naturally. You’re hoping I did Relway’s job for him and now, because I’m a civic-minded kind of guy, I’ll fill you in on anything that’s puzzling you. Like Relway don’t have a couple brigades of thugs to do his hoof work for him.”
“Good point, Garrett. But Deal isn’t on the inside. Deal somehow managed not to have even one friendly eye in the neighborhood when Belinda Contague held her summit at Whitefield Hall.”
I flashed another yard of charm. “I was you, I’d think about that. How could she flimflam the whole damned Watch? What did you do, all go roaring off to the far south side after a bunch of human rights nuts? Were there even any nuts down there?”
“An orchard full. They haven’t gone away. There was a bureaucratic screwup. The right hand didn’t keep the left posted. The people responsible have been reassigned to Bustee patrol.”
“And next time I visit the Al-Khar their identical twins will be sitting in their old seats.”
Block nodded, shrugged. “What can you do about human nature? We still have Watchmen willing to supplement their salaries by selling inside info or by doing favors.” He slumped like a jilted lover.
“That’s good. You can face the truth.”
“There’s a lot of wishful thinking at my shop. You’re right. But changes are coming.”
“I hope you’re right. Your guests in green say anything interesting yet?”
“Yeah. They’re gonna save the world from the Queen of Darkness.”
“Oh, goody! What’s that mean to us who aren’t religious wacks?”
“I don’t know. We’re looking for an expert on Ymberian cults. I want to know what’s really going on.”
That was why I admired Block. He understands that when people are involved, not much is what it seems at first glimpse. Though you never go wrong by suspecting the worst and working back.
Feeling generous, I talked about my thwarted visit to the Al-Khar.