“What?”
“Stay out of trouble.”
“You’re a complete horse’s ass, Garrett.”
“But snuggly, warm and lovable.”
“Like one a them giant porkypine thunder lizard things.”
She is a woman. She will have the last word. Since they live longer, there was no point me trying to win out of stubborn. I made my getaway.
Jon Salvation wrote it all down.
28
There was a subtle difference about home when I got there. And it wasn’t all the loiterers from the Watch and Teacher White’s gang. Welby Dell and a sidekick. Welby’s partner was a six-foot-five albino so emaciated a little girl once called him Skelington. It stuck. They seemed unaware of the presence of the law. The law, on the other hand, was well aware of them.
There were Relway Runners all over. Mrs. Cardonlos’ place was busier than a termite mound.
I knocked. The door man obviously hadn’t come round yet. My key would be useless.
Pular Singe let me in. “Did you learn anything?”
“I’m more popular than I thought I could ever be. Fans by the legion are following me around. None getting in my way, though.”
Singe hissed. She saw something behind me. I turned, too late. “What?”
“One of those men with the obscene trousers.”
“So Relway hasn’t caught them all. What’s going on?”
“Unh?”
“Something feels funny.”
“John Stretch is in the kitchen.”
“And he wants something.”
“He wants to give you his report. Why don’t you come in so I can shut the door?”
Not a bad idea with a Green Pants goon around. He might own a sling and have a pocket full of rocs’ eggs.
On cue something whizzed past my right ear. Not a sniper’s effort, though. It was Melondie Kadare. She hovered momentarily, then headed for the kitchen, doubtless after hair of the mad dog. Where she got into it with Dean. Dean had no sympathy for her. The man has an attitude problem. He’s determined to call a hangover a self-inflicted wound.
Being a trained observer, I observed, “He’s in a foul mood.”
Singe said, “Things have not gone his way today.”
I sensed a story. She didn’t give it up.
John Stretch followed his nose from the kitchen to my office. I said, “I never noticed how long his snoot is before.”
John Stretch scowled. As much as a ratperson can.
“Just messing with Singe,” I said. I helped myself to a seat behind my desk. My lap had a cat on board almost instantly. Melondie Kadare whirred in a moment later. “He didn’t use a flyswatter on you. Puts you ahead of the game. So don’t go whining to me.”
John Stretch started telling me what his rats had seen at Whitefield Hall. I stopped him. “Hang on. I need to write stuff down.” He had much more than I’d expected. He had quotes from Belinda’s underbosses, some quite revealing of their thinking.
Before he finished I had an idea where every major player stood. I just hoped he wasn’t making stuff up because he thought I wanted to hear it.
“You’re a gold mine, John Stretch.” These nuggets would set Director Relway to singing and dancing. Plainly, Chodo’s appearance at Whitefield Hall had changed the underworld dramatically.
Unfortunately, none of it was of any use to me.
“Hang on,” I told the lord of the rats, figuring John Stretch so styled himself in his own heart. “Melondie, girl of my fantasies, I see you bubbling. You remembered something you haven’t told me already?”
Not really, it turned out.
“So, did anybody figure out how the fires started?”
No. All those eyes hadn’t seen a thing I’d missed.
“Was it some kind of sorcery?” Fire just doesn’t materialize out of nowhere. Does it?
Neither Melondie nor John Stretch had detected any obvious sorcery.
“Any speculations? The first victim was a rat. Then Buy Claxton. How did they catch fire? Nothing else in that kitchen was harmed.”
They had nothing.
It made no sense. Though it did look like Chodo Contague was the common denominator in a lot of incidents.
Damn! I wished I hadn’t sent Saucerhead to catch Penny Dreadful. He could go up north to do all the miserable but necessary legwork.
“I’d tell you if I could. If I knew!” Melondie Kadare snapped. “You’re special to me.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Eleanor seemed amused. Which convinced me immediately that things were about to get worse.
It began as I pulled the notion together.
Dean appeared with refreshments. His clock radiated the kind of smug, wicked look he gets when he knows that I’m inescapably in for a life experience involving a whole hell of a lot of work. Not because we need money but because, in his lame view, it’s good for my soul.
Somebody started pounding on the door.
Dean’s smirk deserted him.
He couldn’t avoid answering. The rest of us were busy. Plus, it’s his job.
Muttering, he headed up front. I poured tea. Singe and John Stretch hit the muffins, fattening up for the winter.
Dean returned, his sneer restored. “Mr. Tharpe is here, sir.”
Saucerhead filled the office doorway. He looked scared, an eventuality rare as rocs’ eggs. “You got a back way out, Garrett?”
“What’s up? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do nothin’ but what you told me. Which you owe me for. It’s all your fault.”
“Whoa, big guy. Put some blinders on that mule. And back the cart up to where it started.”
“You told me to go catch that Penny Dreadful kid. So I did. No sooner do I lay hands on her, though, than she starts yelping rape an’ sodomy an’ incest an’ all that shit.” Which didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that, “An’ people listened. You hear me talking, Garrett? People listened. An’ not only that, some a them come an’ tried to help her! An’ not only that, they chased me when I gave it up as a bad job an’ decided to go away.”
“That what the crowd noise out front is all about?”
“I don’t know. They’s probably getting all rowdy an’ shit because they want you to come out an’ teach them to dance the dublarfared. You being a famous dancer.”
I shook my head. I took a deep breath, sighed. I shook my head again. What was the world coming to? When did TunFairens start caring what happened to one of the city’s countless feral brats?
Saucerhead blubbered, “This is all your fault, Garrett! Ever since you got in this investigation racket you been doing the meek-are-gonna-inherit polka. An’ now half the burg is buying into your do-gooder crap.”
“It won’t last,” I promised, despairing of his ever grasping the do-gooder point. “Too much social inertia. Too many people too vested in the old ways. Especially up on the Hill. Just take it easy. They’ll get bored and go away. Dean. Did you get Belinda off all right?”
He admitted that he had. And that she hadn’t attracted any attention. Meaning the watchers outside figured her for one of my sleepover friends. Meaning, further, that I’d have some explaining to do once Tinnie got word.
She always does.
“Long as you’re all here and don’t have anything better to do. Listen to this.” I told the tale of my visit to Brother Bittegurn Brittigarn’s temple of Eis and Igory.
I hadn’t gotten BB pinned down about his own religious attitudes. Dean pointed that out. Smugly.
Singe wanted to see the roc’s egg.
They all did. I let them pass it around.
John Stretch said, “That priest pulled your leg, Garrett. This rock came out of a creek bed. You can get a thousand just like it at the arms bazaar.”