Angry Lead Skies (36 page)

Manvil Gilbey caught my eye, projected the unspoken question: Was this something I’d laid on for Max? Max could not seem to stop staring at Cassie Doap.

I shook my head, mouthed, “But if it’ll help...”

Puddle showed the newcomers to their seats, near Playmate and Kip. Even he was having trouble breathing. There were far too many beautiful women in that room, each of them trying to one-up the others.

Tinnie let me have an elbow, putting plenty of force behind it. “That’s for what you’re thinking.”

“I apologize. I’ll never think of you as an object again. From now on it’s nothing but business. From now on you’ll be Mr. Tate in my every act and thought.”

That earned me a repeat stroke of the elbow. “I’d better not be.” The fickle woman.

Alyx said, “Look at Dad! I think the old bull’s in rut.”

Tinnie muttered, “Alyx, sometimes you’re
too
juvenile even to amuse me.”

I moved up to my place beside Dean, which was my signal that the evening was about to become serious. Those who weren’t in their official seats found them. Once everyone sat down there was very little room to spare. Morley had another place setting on each long side but it would’ve taken a shoehorn to get anybody in. I introduced everyone, including Morley as host, then Evas and Singe as they took their seats to the left of Dean and to the right of me, without explaining their presence. I thought they ought to stay mysterious. They drew stares but not even Lister Tate was gauche enough to demand information about them.

I let Morley know that we were ready to be served.

Kayne and Cassie both managed admirably during dinner. Tinnie was not amused by the regard they received. She was used to being the center of attention. But all the men at this banquet were related to her or had known her since she was a pup. Except for me and Dean and Kayne’s drooling baby boys. And she already had Dean on a leash and me wrapped around her finger.

Alyx was amused. She liked seeing Tinnie have to take second chair. Just to rub it in she kept right on flirting with me. Her father wasn’t worried about her anymore.

71

I tried not to cry when I thought about how much this evening was costing me. I tried to forget the fact that, if it didn’t work out, I might end up spending several years working fourteen-hour days just to get back to the point where I could afford to save money buying beer by the keg.

As a business convocation the sequestered evening at Morley’s place had to be some sort of precedent. The gang of us came out of there having created a company dedicated to the creation, production, and marketing of the fruits of the imagination of Cypres Prose, ingenious boy inventor. The Weider brewing empire would provide financing. The Tate family would handle the actual production. Kayne Prose and all her offspring would move into the Tate compound, where they would live much better than ever they had before, with no requirement that they do anything but be Kip’s support and inspiration. I myself would be the genius who held it all together. Having been the genius who had gotten it all together.

I had a feeling Kayne Prose wouldn’t have much attention to spare for industry. Not for a few months, at least.

When Kayne Prose met Manvil Gilbey it was lust at first sight both ways. All the rest of us had to be grateful that they didn’t jump on one another right there in the banquet room.

Kayne’s behavior wasn’t exactly a surprise. I had a feeling she seldom met a man she didn’t like. But Manvil Gilbey is as reserved as a wine butt normally.

The absolute absurdity of the universe is declared, in a bellow, once again, by the fact that Max Weider, age sixty, became infatuated with Cassie Doap, a completely ridiculous eventuation not unilateral in nature. Nor did either of those two seem conscious of the fact that Cassie was three years younger than Alyx Weider. And Alyx was the baby of Max’s five children.

Max told me, “Of course it’s stupid. But she’s a dead ringer for Hannah when I first met her.” And he was willing to play delusional games with himself in order to defy his pain.

More or less. Nobody cons Max Weider for long. Not even Max himself.

Cassie’s positive response, wholly genuine, was a good deal more puzzling. We knew already that neither Cassie nor her mother were out for the easy ride, bought with their looks and bodies.

There’re times when people do, honestly, connect on something besides the physical level.

That became one of the fine evenings of my life. One of those times when everything works out even better than you’d dared hope.

Sometime during the socializing, following the creation of the Articles of Agreement encompassing the founders of the new company, my good pal Morley Dotes and the silver elf Evas disappeared.

I suspect that couples who do that tell one another no one will notice but, secretly, don’t give a rat’s ass if anybody does because their minds are fogged by anticipation.

The capper came when Lister Tate proved he wasn’t a complete waste of flesh by, belatedly, providing a device for getting around the legal age problem, as well as the potential problem of a fatherly return. “Willard Tate can adopt the boy. The device goes all the way back to imperial times, when the emperors wanted to handpick their successors. It’s not much used anymore, except on the Hill, but the tool is there. Mrs. Prose can allow it. If nobody challenges right away only a Royal proclamation can reverse it. And we could argue against that that only an imperial edict is valid since the adoption went forward under a pre-Karantine law. I believe there are precedents.”

I told Tinnie, “Promise me you’ll keep Kip away from Rose.”

“I plan to keep him for myself. He has good prospects.”

“He’ll be your cousin.”

“Spice is nice but incest is best. Ouch! You meanie. I’ll bet he’s got stamina, too.”

“My prospects are looking up, too. I won’t need a business excuse to get my foot in the door at the Weider place anymore. Ouch! Alyx. She’s hurting me.”

72

Do you feel like a captain of industry?
the Dead Man asked.

I waved a hand in a dismissive gesture he couldn’t possibly see. “What I feel like is a guy dancing six inches above the ground because I have completely, thoroughly, irrevocably nailed Morley’s mangy hide to the wall. I have hoisted him on his own petard. I’ve spent months and months and months trying to map out some absurdly complicated revenge scam to get even with him for the Goddamn Parrot. And in the end a better answer just dropped her bottom into my lap. I just had to introduce Morley to Evas, let Morley be Morley, let Evas be Evas, and let Deal Relway be his own suspicious self.”

The Dead Man wasn’t pleased. Once I’d decided to point Evas at my pal Morley, I’d launched a companion scheme which resulted in her wanting to keep the feathered clown with her.

Evas couldn’t leave The Palms, now. There were too many watchers outside who reported to the Emergency Committee for Royal Security. It may be a long time before they tire of observing comings and goings at Morley’s place.

Oh, me! Oh, my! I love it!

I wonder how long it’ll take Morley to realize that he’s reaped the whirlwind?

No more Mr. Big, trying to get me stoned on the streets, following me everywhere, keeping track, nagging me. No more... “Gah!”

A ferocious squabble had broken out inside the front wall.

Soundless, almost gloating laughter seemed to fill the atmosphere.

Well, hell! He might not miss a step.

Still, I could cherish thoughts of Morley’s delicious plight.

Although Fasfir didn’t approve.

She had managed to establish communications with the Dead Man. She found it painful to be completely alone. When Old Bones didn’t make her feel better she joined me in my office. By means of notes, a few words spoken with difficulty, and my small ability to sense moods, she made it known how cruelly terrifying being alone and lonely was for her kind.

I told her, “Casey’s here.”

But Fasfir found Casey nearly as alien as she did me, and he was a lot less fun after dark. I could scramble her brains and push the fear away for a while.

“Huh? You worked hard enough but I never felt like you got much out of it.”

She informed me that she was much more diverted when I was with Evas and she was in Evas’ mind. Evas’ flesh responded more readily, thoroughly, and willingly than did her own. Though her problem probably existed entirely within her own mind.

Odd. Though she believed she had mental hang-ups she admitted to being every bit as enthusiastic as Evas. Only she enjoyed it best at second hand.

Life gets stranger by the hour.

This is TunFaire. That would be the taproot iron law. Things get weirder.

Ask the Dead Man what it was like in the old days, when he was young and callow. He’ll let you know that everything was normal and straightforward, way back then.

The written record, however, doesn’t support him. There may be cycles of less and more but weird is with us always.

Company is coming. Another Visitor.
He had concluded that our silver elves were identical to the strange people who had been called Visitors when he was a child. He’d found fragments in Casey’s head to confirm his speculation. So from now on we were going to call them Visitors.

Fasfir whipped past me as I eased into the hallway. She hurried to the front door, then stood there baffled by all the mechanisms. I nudged her aside, looked through the peephole.

A very small, scruffy, nervous brunette was on the stoop. Homely enough to be related to Dean, she was poised to knock but wasn’t sure she was ready to commit. She looked around to see who might be watching.

She flickered.

I lifted Fasfir up so she could look. “Is that your other friend?”

Fasfir nodded.

I opened the door, which startled the Visitor because she hadn’t yet announced herself.

Fasfir revealed herself, slithering around me as lithely as a cat, before the ill-favored little woman could run away.

I shut the door and left the ladies to their reunion.

I went to the Dead Man’s room. “You been eavesdropping?”

I got the equivalent of a mental grunt in response. I noted that Casey, who seldom strayed from the Dead Man’s room, was lapsing into sleep. Again. By the time he left my place Casey was going to be years ahead on his sleep.

“Finding anything interesting? Like why this one is running around loose when she ought to be a captive of the Masker contingent?”

Given fewer distractions I might exploit the present moment of emotional vulnerability to unearth those and further significant answers.

I pinched my lips closed.

We can call this woman Woderact. She seems to be what we would call a sorceress. She would be the most socially reserved of the female crew. She is not an adventuress. Yet there is about her that same intense suppressed hunger that characterized Evas.
Some not so suppressed amusement.
The Maskers kicked her out because she was of no use to them. She would not cooperate. Also, the Maskers may have thought she could lead them to Fasfir and Evas, either of
whom might know something that would help them repair their ship.

These Maskers seem to be more hardened than are the other Visitors.

“Except for Casey.”

Except for Casey. I do believe that it is just marginally possible that Casey could do direct, willful physical harm to another being. None of the other Visitors seem able to entertain the thought.

Ah! The excitement of the reunion has begun to ebb. Fasfir’s thoughts are no longer accessible. And there goes the new mind. Ha!

A vast miasma of amusement wrapped itself around me.
My metaphysical side seems to be asserting itself. I have suffered a psychic episode. You are going to have to teach night school at least one more time.

“I can lock my door.”

But you will not.

No. Being an empathetic kind of guy, I probably wouldn’t. Not for a night or two.

Please move the women out of the hallway, now. We are about to suffer another caller. It would be best that the Visitors are not seen.

73

I looked out the peephole as someone knocked. I saw a lean beanpole of a man all dressed in black. He had a black beard and wore a wide-brimmed black hat. I didn’t recognize him.

Dean came into the hallway, started to go back when he saw that I’d reached the door first. I beckoned him forward, to answer while I eavesdropped and covered him from the small front room. The stillness and emptiness in there were sweet. With luck the parrot smell would fade away eventually.

Dean followed instructions but didn’t fail to stomp and employ his full arsenal of disgusted expressions.

The man on the stoop asked, “Is this the home of the confidential operative known as Garrett?”

Sounded to me like he knew the answer already.

Dean thought so, too. “Yes. Why?”

“I have a message from Miss Contague.” Sounded like he was talking about a living goddess, the way he said that. “For Mr. Garrett.” Making sure.

He went away without saying anything more.

“That was strange,” Dean told me, handing me a vellum document folded and sealed with a red wax seal as ornate as any used by the nobility. “That man had a voice like an embalmer.”

“She chooses her henchmen to ornament her own epic. Which she rewrites as she goes along.”

“It’s a crying shame. Such a lovely young woman to be so twisted. I blame her father.”

“So do I. But however cruel Chodo was, he never put a knife to her throat and forced her to do evil. She made the choices.” When first we’d met Belinda had been trying to kill herself by slutting it up down in the Tenderloin. At the time that had been fashionable amongst unhappy young women from wealthy families.

Even now Belinda seemed determined to bring about her own destruction. Except that these days she wanted to go out in a flashy orgy of violence. So her pain could be seen and shared by everyone.