I went back inside.
Belinda was at the door to my office. She had a pitcher of beer, a pot of tea, a small oil lamp, and appropriate auxiliaries on a tray.
“What’s up?”
“I didn’t feel welcome in there. And I don’t want them listening.”
“Let me get the lamp going. Damn!” I missed stomping a kitten by a cat’s whisker. I dumped another cat out of the client’s chair. It bounced onto my desktop, where it puffed up and hissed at the stone that had come another whisker short of braining me.
Belinda filled me a mug and poured herself a cup of tea, added cream and a hunk of sugar the size of a flagstone. She stroked the kitten that laid claim to her lap.
I asked, “So what’s up?”
She stalled. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk after all. She forced it. “Do you know where my father is?”
What? “No. Last I saw him, you were getting him out of the hall.”
“Oh.”
“Why? What happened? Did you mislay him?”
“Sort of. I got him out, got him into the coach, started to look for you. The coach took off and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Wow.” I found myself playing with the stone egg- in preference to the unhappy cat in my lap. In a leap of intuition I understood why folks were interested in Temisk. “Any chance one of the district captains grabbed him?”
“No. I’d feel my arm being twisted already. Instead, they’re running in circles trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“Maybe he decided to make a run for it.”
“What?”
“Maybe he’d had enough and made a run for it.”
“He was in a coma, Garrett.”
“You think? You’re sure? One hundred percent? He wasn’t just paralyzed?”
“You know better than that.”
“No, I don’t,” I lied. “You never let anybody get close enough to tell.”
She didn’t bother to argue.
I recalled Morley’s hypothesis that some guy named Garrett was the moral anchor and emotional touchstone of the spider woman. I didn’t want the job. Everybody knows what girl spiders do when boys get too close.
Maybe it was one of those deals where, you save a life, it’s your responsibility forever after.
You put the knightly armor on, and sometimes they don’t let you take it off.
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you’re a dangerous woman to be around. And I’m around you a lot.”
“Tinnie knows you pretty well, then.”
“Unfortunately. But my personal life isn’t what I meant.”
“You’re afraid of me?”
“There’s that. You’ve got a temper. But the real problem is, you swim with sharks. I expect jaws to clamp on me any minute.”
“With all your guardian angels?”
“Angels? Name two.”
“Morley Dotes. Deal Relway. Westman Block. Playmate. Saucerhead Tharpe. Not to mention your business partners. Max Weider is no angel. Neither is Lester Tate. And then there’s me.”
Made me feel humble. For maybe ten seconds. Then my natural cynicism got its second wind. Someday I should fake my own death and see how things shake out.
“So you lost track of your dad. Let’s slink on down to the bottom line. How come you’re in a state where you sneak off?… You aren’t just looking to hide out, are you?”
“No. I walk back out of here in the morning and be who I’ve been since the first time we met.”
“In the morning?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go tonight.”
I began to fiddle with that slingshot stone a whole lot more seriously.
“It isn’t like you don’t have other friends stay over.”
“You want to know the truth?”
“Maybe not, the way you’re looking at me.”
“None of those friends are as scary as you.”
Belinda went on petting that kitten, scowling because she’d heard something she didn’t like. She stared at my hands. “What the hell is that thing? What’re you doing?”
I explained. “I left it here before I went to the party. I don’t know. It relaxes me when I handle it.”
Belinda extended a hand. I let her have the stone. “You’re right.”
Dean stuck his head in. “You need anything before I go to bed?” He was lugging a brat cat of his own.
“I can’t think of anything.”
He scowled at Belinda but couldn’t get his heart into it. He sighed and went away.
Singe didn’t bother to check us out. Which meant she was sulking but didn’t have ambition enough to make anybody miserable.
Belinda poured herself a beer once she finished her tea. We played with kittens and let our hair down, talked like teenagers deep into the night, giggling at stupid jokes. I found out that she’d never had any girlfriends when she was younger. Never had the chance. Her role models were all the sort polite folk don’t invite to holiday dinners.
We drank a lot of beer.
25
Singe wakened me at some godsforsaken hour, chivied in by Dean, who couldn’t face direct evidence confirming or disclaiming the prurient imaginings slithering round the interior of his hard black skull. The fact that his imaginings were exactly that, and only that, meant nothing.
By the time we’d retired neither Belinda nor I was sober enough for anything more energetic than sleep.
Singe’s attitude was sour enough.
“What?” I snarled. The morning light at play on my curtains shrieked that it wasn’t anywhere near noon. In fact, it had to be closer to dawn, a time when only mad dogs and madmen got after the early worm.
“A messenger brought a letter from Colonel Block.”
A kitten crabbed out of the covers, stretched, hopped down, and stalked proudly out of the room. Belinda made “Leave me alone!” growls and burrowed deeper into the covers. “Do I need to sign or something?”
“No. It was just a letter.”
Then why was she waking me up now? “Then why are you waking me up now?”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Sure, you did.”
Feelings bruised, Singe left. I didn’t care. There is no courtesy and no compassion before noon.
I didn’t care, but I couldn’t get back to sleep.
When Belinda started snarling about the tossing and turning and threatened me with an amateur sex reassignment, I surrendered to my conscience and dragged on out.
I sipped black tea thick with honey. No help. I kept seeing two of everything. If I hadn’t spent five unforgettable years as a Royal Marine, I might’ve suspected double vision to be nature’s revenge on fools who believe rational behavior includes hauling out at sunrise in less than apocalyptic circumstances.
Singe bustled around, doing chores, so Dean could do even less real work to earn his board and bread. She was fanatically perky and cheerful. And her coconspirator had put the butcher knives out of reach.
“You are awful in the morning,” Singe declared.
Exercising maximum restraint, I chirped, “Yep.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“I could say, ‘Eat mud and die!’ But you’d get your feelings hurt. I have more consideration for you than that. So how about we get together with this critical communique?”
Dean and Singe installed me in my office with hot black tea, biscuits, and honey. I got started. More or less. Weighted heavily toward the less.
“What does the note say?” She’d tried to read the message but Colonel Block’s clerk had inscribed it in cursive. She can’t read that yet.
She’s a fast learner, though she’ll never teach Karentine literature. Which consists mainly of sagas and epics inhabited by thoroughly despicable people being praised by the poets for their bad behavior. Or passion plays, which are hot today, but which are moronic if you read them instead of watching them.