Bitter Gold Hearts (10 page)

“But you mustn’t blame the gods. All is not lost, Bruno. I’m right here.” I stepped out of the shadows. He was too mad for preliminaries. He tucked in his chin and came after me.

I was in no mood for ego games myself. His first swing I tapped his wrist with my weighted stick. Then I whacked an elbow, putting one arm out of commission. Then I let him set himself up and dropped a couple of good thumps on his noggin. After he was down I put him in the shadows so the street kids wouldn’t find and strip him before he woke up. I doubted he would appreciate the courtesy. I hoped he wasn’t so stubbornly stupid one of us would have to get killed to end whatever was going on.

Lettie’s place was into the lull that comes between the businesslike gentlemen of the afternoon and the revelers of night. 1 got past the thug at the door without trouble. He didn’t know me.

I found Lettie where you always find her, in the back room counting the take. She was a grotesquely obese female of mixed but uncertain antecedents who made the Dead Man look slim, trim, and able to run like a deer.

“Garrett. You son of a bitch. How the hell did you get in here?”

“The sorcery of feet. I put on my magic boots and walked. You’re looking as lovely as ever, Lettie.”

“And you’re just as full of camel guano. What the hell do you want?”

I tried to look hurt by her remarks. “All right,” she snarled. “Out you go.” I clinked coins and showed the face of a dead king on a gold double mark. “I thought the motto of the house was no paying customer is ever turned away.”

Gold was talking big talk in TunFaire these days. She eyed the coin. “What do you want?” “Not what. Who. Her name is Donni Pell.” Lettie’s eyes narrowed, hardened. “Shit. You would. You can’t have her.”

“I know you don’t like me, and we’ll never run off to become shopkeepers and raise babies together, but when did you ever let personal feelings get in the way of making money?”

“When I was thirteen years old and in the middle of my first big love affair. That’s got nothing to do with it, Garrett. I can’t sell you merchandise that I don’t have in stock.”

“She’s not here?”

“You figured it out. With a brain like yours, why do you keep that heap of blubber in your front room?”

“Sentiment. And it keeps him off the streets. Where did Donni go?”

“You want her bad, don’t you?” “I want to see her. Don’t try to hold me up, Lettie. You’ve got employees who’ll tell me for silver.”

“Goddamned human nature. You would, wouldn’t you? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have Leo come in here and twist your face around so you’re looking out the back of your head.”

“This little crumb that fell from the sun.” I flashed the double mark.

“All right. You win, Garrett. What do you want?” “She’s gone, so the why, the when, the how, and the where. Then tell me about Donni Pell the person.” “The why is she got hold of a bunch of money. And that’s the how, too. She came in here three, four nights ago and bought out her contract. Not that she was in very deep. She said a rich uncle up north died and left her a fortune. Bull. If you ask me, she got her hooks into some half-wit off the Hill. She had the looks and manners and style for it. She claimed she was off to take over manag­ing the uncle’s manor. More bull. She couldn’t survive without platoons of men around.”

I raised the old eyebrow. Lettie liked me when I did my trick. I used it as often as 1 could.

“That woman was a freak, Garrett. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them hate men. She
loved
what she was doing. If she hadn’t been selling it, she would have been giving as much away for free.”

“A working girl who enjoyed her work? Unusual. She must have brought the clients in.”

“In herds. I wish I had a hundred like her. Even if she was a pervert.”

I gave her a glimpse at the other eyebrow.

“You know in this business you got to be tolerant and understanding, Garrett. But it stretches tolerance and surpasses understanding when a perfectly beautiful young human woman prefers ogres for playmates. Even ogre women don’t want anything to do with those creeps. I’d let a vampire or wolf man in this place before I’d open my door to an ogre.”

She was going good so I let her rant, using up her hostility on a target other than me, just once throwing in, “Well, there
are
the sexual myths,” just to make sure she got all the venom spent.

“Bullshit. That’s all bullshit, Garrett. You’re talking to an expert, Garrett.” And on she raved.

She wound down. I placed the double mark squarely in front of her. “That about the ogres was worth this. Come up with something more and you might get to see some of the old king’s ancestors.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s murder, isn’t it, Garrett? And a heavyweight client. I know that look. The paladin look. You’re after somebody’s head. You dumb, boy, you keep playing with the life takers.”

“I’m after a hooker named Donni Pell who might be able to tell me something I need to know.”

“You got the works already, Garrett. All I can give you for your money now is a kiss for luck.”

“Background her. Her people. You know them all. How long was she here? Where did she come from?”

“She don’t have any people. They died in the plague four years ago. That’s why I didn’t believe the story about the uncle. She was here for about three years. Sometimes more trouble than she was worth on account of stunts she pulled on her Johns. She didn’t tell a lot about herself but lies, like all the rest, but I usually get their real stories out of them on the bad nights.”

“I know you do.”

“Her people were country folk with a good-sized free­hold up around Litchfield somewhere.”

I muttered, “I’ll bet I could go right to it without missing a turn.”

“What?”

“Nothing. That chip looks lonely sitting there by itself. What more can you tell me about Donni?”

“You got the load, Garrett.” She reached for the coin.

“What about Raver Styx’s men folk? The two Karl’s.”

Her eyes glazed. “Somebody killed one of them?”

“Not yet.” I saw she needed to see some color to keep her momentum. I showed her another double.

“The kid was one of Donni’s regulars. She said she felt sorry for him. I think she halfway liked him. He treated her like a lady and he wasn’t bashful about being seen with her. The father visited her sometimes, too, but with him it was strictly business. I don’t think I want to talk about that family anymore, Garrett. That woman is poison.”

“She’s out of town, Lettie.”

“She’ll be back. You got what you came for. Get out. Get out before I start remembering and yell for Leo.”

I put the second double mark down beside the first. “We wouldn’t want to interrupt Leo’s nap, would we?”

“Out, Garrett. And don’t show your ugly face around here anymore. You’ll get it broke.”

She loved me, that fat old Lettie.

__XVII__

I went by Playmate’s stable and smithy yard and told him to send a buggy to the house in a couple of hours, and to load it down with one of every kind of tool he had. He gave me a look but knew better than to ask. I might tell him something he wouldn’t want to know. Old Dean thought he was going to bribe me. He still wasn’t talking but he laid on the best spread I’d seen in months. I did right by it. When I went in to see the Dead Man, I was waddling. I didn’t expect another decent meal for days.

Garrett! Dismiss that creature at once! Get him out of my house.

“Good to see you back to your normal cheerful self. What creature? Why?”

That Dean. The fiend brought not one, not two, but three women in here. Get rid of him, Garrett. Throw him out.
So. A fantasy meal explained. Dean wanted me to see what I didn’t have to be missing. Him and me, we were going to have to have a little talk, man to man, and get things straight. Real soon now. I settled in my visiting chair, sipped some beer, then cut loose. The Dead Man sulked and pretended to ignore me, but he took in every word. He had to have some­thing to distract himself while he waited for Glory Mooncalled to prove out his hypothesis. I talked for two hours nonstop, with good old Dean keeping my mug topped. He enjoyed a little vicarious adventure. And his coming and going showed just how little depth there was to the Dead Man’s animosity. I finished my report, having spared no detail.
There is something missing, Garrett.

“I know that. Either that or I know too much and I’m getting distracted.”

You are not getting distracted.

“I keep thinking I’ve got the kidnap side figured out. Three different times I’ve decided that Junior kidnapped himself. Then I find myself up to my ass in ogres again, with them perfect for the villains. And if the kid did kidnap himself, why did he come home? He and his sister want out of there so bad they can taste it. The way it went down, with no direct exchange, all he had to do was take the gold and hike and leave his mommy wearing weeds.”

The ransom money was paid?

“Willa Dount scrounged two hundred thousand and delivered it to somebody. Junior came home next day. Amber is digging on that for me. The deep-down root thing that bugs me can be tied up in one bow. Why did Amiranda have to die? Real kidnapping or fake, with her in on it or not, why did she have to be killed?”

/
am certain you will unmask the reason. You have allowed yourself to become emotionally entangled. Again.
I saw him sizing up one of his favorite hobbyhorses, getting ready to mount up and ride. Dean had gone to answer the door a minute before. I got up. “My transpor­tation is here. You mull it over while you’re killing time. Maybe you’ll spot a connection I’ve missed.”

I didn’t doubt that he had seen one or two already but didn’t feel obligated to point them out. Neither of us had a real money interest here, and he had no emotional investment, so whether he saw something or not he would just let me exercise my own genius.

I visited the armory. Unlike Saucer head I don’t figure my hands are my best defense. I tossed a bundle into the buggy, under the seat, and was about to flick the traces when Dean came stumbling out of the house with a hamper.

“Mr. Garrett. Wait.”

“What’s this?”

“Provender. Victuals. Rations.”

“Leftovers?”

“That too. A man has to eat something. What were you going to do out there?”

Hell. I’m a city boy. I don’t think about food. “I was going to borrow a page from Morley Dotes and live off roots and bark, but rather than injure your feelings I’ll just park that hamper up here beside me and suffer.”

He smiled smugly as I pulled away. For however long I subjected myself to this rustication, every bite would remind me that I needed a feeder and a keeper, and the fodder would, for certain, be the best of the best cooked up by his nieces.

The man was obsessed. That is all I can say. He had worked for me long enough to know I wasn’t the kind of catch you’d want your female relations stuck with. But he persisted.

Karenta is a kingdom at war. You’d expect some sort of watch to be kept on the entrepots to one of its most important cities, in case some enterprising Venageti com­mander decided to try something imaginative. But the war has been going on since my generation were kids, seldom spilling out of the Cantard and the adjoining seas. Any guards who were awake when I left were too busy playing cards to step out and check my bona fides. But our lords from the Hill want the ordinary folk to seethe with fervor against the enemy.

It’s a lot easier to seethe against Raver Styx and her ilk. They profit no matter how the fighting goes. I used the route Saucer head and Amiranda had fol­lowed. The moon was now full. The team didn’t mind night travel, even with me at the traces. And the nation of horses has been out to get me ever since I can remember. It was a smooth, quiet ride with very little to see. The only traffic I encountered was the night coach from Derry, half an hour ahead of schedule and just lumping along with its two or three somnolent passengers and load of mail. Guard and driver tossed me friendly greetings, which showed how worried they were about the night. I suppose, theoretically, that I should have had one hand on a silver blade at all times. There
was
a full moon. But there hadn’t been a confirmed wolfman inci­dent this close to the city since before I went into the Marines.

Once I did unravel a murder that had been dressed up to look like a wolfman’s work. It’s a hell of a way to make sure your old man doesn’t get the chance to write you out of the will. I reached the dire crossroad about the same time Saucer head had. I gave it a look around as it stood, considering the fact that there was more moon than there had been that night. I didn’t see or get a feel for any­thing, so I loosened the horses’ harnesses, made sure they couldn’t run off, climbed onto the buggy’s seat, and napped. I did a good job of snoozing, too. I thought first light would waken me, but the honor went to a ten-year-old who shook my shoulder and asked, “Are you all right, mister?”

I counted my hands and feet and purse and discovered that I hadn’t been murdered, mutilated, or robbed. “I am indeed, son. Except maybe for a case of premature senility.”

He looked at me funny and asked a few kidlike ques­tions. I tried giving reasonable answers and asked him a few in turn. He was on his way somewhere to help somebody with farm chores, but he let me buy him breakfast. Which goes to show how tame it really is around TunFaire these days, for all we city people put down the country. No city boy would have risked hang­ing around with a stranger. The real monsters of today live in the city’s shadows and cellars and drawing rooms.

He didn’t tell me one thing even remotely useful. Acting on the premise that it is never wise to put temptation into the path of an honest man, I led my team into the woods opposite the area I intended to explore. I made sure the beasts wouldn’t have the pleasure of de­serting me, returned to the diamond, and checked to make sure they and the rig were invisible, then went across and started looking through the bushes. It wasn’t hard to find where the dead and wounded had been thrown into hurried concealment. The brush was torn and trampled. The corpses had been cleared away but their drippings had been ignored, at least by the cleanup crew. The flies and ants had come and gone. The bloodstains were now the province of a gray-black, whisk­ery mold that described perfectly every spot and spill. Which didn’t tell me anything except that a lot of people had done a lot of bleeding.