Faded Steel Heat (50 page)

“Ask a foolish question. What disease? I’m healthy as a horse
 
—
No, healthy as something decent and sane. A randy thunder lizard, maybe.”

No one outside this house knows that. You have not been seen since the day you bearded Mistress Cardonlos.

“She’ll come because she worships you, Garrett,” Morley said, still wrestling with inner mirth. “She’ll come because she won’t be able to miss the opportunity to say good-bye. She’ll come because, despite what she’s heard, she doesn’t really believe in this glob of carrion you call a partner.”

“I don’t call him a partner. He does. Far as I’m concerned, he’s just —”

In the meantime Morley said, “Gleep!” and leapt into the air, goosed by the glob of carrion. He didn’t come down. The glob was not amused.

I grinned some, enjoying his predicament. I wondered if I could get him to take the Goddamn Parrot back in return for my good offices in getting his feet turned back around below his head and maybe even on the ground. “Chuckles, I don’t have a clue what you expect to accomplish tonight. Sounds like you’ve been spreading rumors that I’m dying. If I’m that sick, why do I want a bunch of people cluttering up the place?”

“You want to say good-bye,” Morley said. Hanging bottom up from the ceiling like some kind of pretty-boy bat evidently didn’t bother him much. “So you’ve asked some of the important people in your life to come visit one last time.”

“The pain and despair must be overwhelming me. I can’t remember why I’d invite Marengo North English and Lieutenant Nagit but not Saucerhead and Winger and Playmate.”

All my minds will be employed fully. I will have no attention left to monitor and prevent Miss Winger’s miscreances. Nor did it seem likely that invitations to your real friends would attract nearly so much attention.

“Which maybe tells you something about the crowd you hang with, Garrett.”

“A crowd that includes you, old buddy. Speaking of hanging around. Keep him up there, Chuckles. Dean, see if you can find a stick. We’ll let Morley be the piñata for this soiree.”

Dean had just come in with a disreputable-looking pair of chairs he must have found in an alley. He considered Morley. “I believe I saw something suitable in the cellar while I was recovering these chairs.” For once in his cranky old life he agreed with me.

Dean, our other guests will begin arriving shortly. Garrett, play along for the time being.

Morley turned over and drifted to the floor. “You should’ve let him have an extra gallon of beer last night. A hangover might help. Even in this light he doesn’t look like he’s dying. Though any honest tailor would be overcome by grief after just one glance.”

“What will I be going along with if I don’t go upstairs? What do you hope to accomplish, anyway?”

I wish to locate Miss Montezuma. I believe she is still in the city. And I suspect that Pular Singe knows where she is hiding. I believe that because she has broken her ties with Reliance, Miss Pular has been unable to take advantage of her knowledge. I believe we can form an alliance beneficial to all of us if we can draw her close enough for me to initiate negotiations.

Now I knew just enough to feel completely at sea. And I got to ask no more questions because the Dead Man’s guests began to arrive, very nearly in a rush. When Lieutenant Nagit came in, as starched as a parade-ground martinet, he was in animated conversation with the redheaded despair of my life. Tinnie scarcely spared me a glance and a feeble wave. Which was no way to treat a dying man.

Of course, she’d be in on the gag, somehow. She’d been to the house enough to know that my health crisis must be somewhat exaggerated. And since they weren’t loading me into a hearse, I was fair game for torment. Which explained Lieutenant Nagit.

Manvil Gilbey managed a timely arrival, accompanied by the expected brace of lovelies. Alyx looked as tasty as ever. But Nicks... Miss Giorgi Nicholas had made an effort. Miss Giorgi Nicholas must have left a trail of broken hearts all the way to my humble shanty. Miss Giorgi Nicholas looked like what the devil was dreaming about when he invented Temptation. And she’d thrown an extra log on the flirtation fire.

Tinnie ditched Lieutenant Nagit so fast his hair streamed in the breeze as she headed my way.

I suggest this as an opportune time to exercise extreme caution, Garrett.

“Go teach granny to suck eggs, Old Bones.” Tinnie arrived. “You look lovely tonight,” I managed to croak with one of my last few hundred dying breaths.

“I don’t want to see you even looking at that tramp.”

“Which tramp would that be, my sweet? The lothario with the epaulets on his shoulders and the board strapped to his back?”

Exercise extreme caution, Garrett.

He did have a point. “Nicks does clean up surprisingly nice. But you’ll still outshine her on your worst day.”

Much better.

“I knew I should’ve worn my hip boots.” Peace had been declared. For the moment. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

“You’ll have to take that up with the resident haunt. I just found out I’m dying and you all are here to help me through it.”

“You look pretty healthy to me,” Alyx said, striking a little pose meant to test her hypothesis. To my destruction.

“Ladies, please. I’ve only got a few thousand heartbeats left. Don’t make me use them up in the next three minutes.”

Tinnie scowled at Alyx. Alyx remained oblivious. Maybe that was how she was getting by these days, by just not seeing anything she didn’t want to see.

Belinda made her appearance. She, too, had taken some trouble, though all that black still made her seem a gorgeous beast of prey. After a somewhat cool greeting for me she fell into conversation with Lieutenant Nagit, who had been worshipping Nicks from across the room... Where had
she
gotten to?

Gilbey edged close enough to observe, “You don’t appear to be in any immediate danger.”

“I’m having one of my good spells. Check me again after the ladies go home and I have nothing more to live for.”

That earned me a nail in the ribs from the handiest lady.

Once again I had to explain that I had no idea what was going on. Gilbey nodded but didn’t understand. “Should you go into remission Max wants you to oversee our interviews for replacement staff.”

“Huh?”

“He decided to fire everyone who had anything to do with the conspiracy. He wants to pick up some trustworthy replacements. To do that we’re going to have to go outside and take on people we don’t know. Max doesn’t want to get stung again. You’ll interview and you’ll background some of the candidates.”

All that time cruising on retainer was back to haunt me again. “How’d Skibber Kessel take it?” His nephew had been one of the villains in the stable, back at the start of it all.

“Thinks we let the boy off easy. Skibber is loyal and he hates politics. He hates anything that might interfere with his art.”

“Good for Skibber.” Most people should understand that brewmasters are genuine artists. The best brewmasters, anyway.

Dean showed Colonel Block into the room. At that point I discovered Morley missing. That made two of them, one of each persuasion, one of whom was a rake and a rogue and a ruffian. “Not in my house, you tailor’s dummy!”

“What?” Block had come over to offer his greetings. “If you’re as weak as rumor says, you shouldn’t be getting excited.”

I didn’t need to, anyway. Nicks came through the doorway lugging the Goddamn Parrot. Morley was right behind her but seemed chagrined. Was it possible his charm had failed him? I need to live forever because the wonders never cease.

Nicks had the oversize magpie perched on her left wrist. The bird basked in her attention. He didn’t say a thing. Was his behavior one of those projects that would preoccupy the Dead Man tonight?

I told Gilbey, “You tell Max to say when, I’ll be there. I don’t have anything else on my calendar.”

Gilbey glanced at Tinnie, sighed a little sigh to tell me I was hopeless, turned to accept a glass of wine from Dean.

Colonel Block told me, “We could always use your talents. Should you recover.”

“Righteousness don’t put food on the table. How’re my two favorite professional killers?”

“Not real good. They were in such bad shape we had to put them in the Bledsoe. Sadler died from his wounds. Crask passed, too, but he might have had some help.” Block looked Belinda’s way as he said that. “An interesting family. I’d like to get to know them better.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Miss Contague and Lieutenant Nagit seemed to be hitting it off.

The Dead Man, I noted, was not a participant in anything. He seemed to be sleeping. But I’d been around him long enough to sense that he was anything but. Right now he was totally focused.

I said, “I’ll be upstairs if anyone needs me. A dying man has to get his rest.”

Once I reached my room I lay down on my back, tucked my hands behind my head, and began systematically reviewing every encounter I’d ever had with Marengo North English. And my memory is very good.

110

There are ratpeople in the neighborhood.

I jumped. I must have dozed off. I listened. His dinner party certainly hadn’t gotten rowdy. Too many people with too many agendas for everybody to relax and have fun
 
—
especially since everybody down there assumed that I’d had some sinister purpose for inviting them here. I was confident that not even Morley really believed that the whole thing wasn’t my idea.

I am unable to penetrate a rat mind with sufficient finesse to remain undetected but I do sense at least three such minds out there, all interested in this house. I assume them to belong to Pular Singe and her confederates in defying the ratkind Uncle.

Some ratfolk call bosses like Reliance Uncle, presumably because the bosses treat everyone like favorite nephews and nieces as long as they behave.

I did not ask the Dead Man why he figured Singe would have accomplices. That seemed self-evident. Somebody had to be helping her stay hidden, had to be bringing her food and news and warnings. Fenibro would head my initial list of suspects. But I suppose he would receive the same honor from Reliance and thus would never be trusted by anyone as smart as Singe.

It is time for you to stop sulking and rejoin our guests.

“Whose guests? This ain’t my shindig. Chuckles.”

Come down here, Garrett. Your presence is required.

Well, if he was going to get nasty about it.

I drifted into the Dead Man’s room as unobtrusively as a servant who didn’t consider himself one of the family. Things seemed to be going fine without me though the merrymaking hadn’t turned into a rowdy kegger. On the way I had tested my office door and found it locked. Dean could do good work when he wanted. Following the meal Dean had broken down his makeshift table and left folks free to circulate around the ground floor.

The Dead Man must be a better entertainer than I thought. Nobody had pulled out. Yet.

I stood back and observed, not without company for long. Tinnie wriggled herself in under her arm. “You all right now?”

“I needed to figure something out.”

“Did you?”

“No. But that’s probably because of my personal prejudices.”

Soon afterward Manvil Gilbey developed a strong need to get back to the Weider mansion, dragging two unhappy young women with him. Alyx and Nicks had flourished under the gallantries of Lieutenant Nagit and Morley Dotes. They weren’t quite ready for the game to stop. Even Belinda had received some intriguing attention, cautiously from Colonel Block and, much less cautiously, from the amazing Mr. Gilbey, whose inhibitions may have gotten a little assistance looking the other way. So the evening was not a complete disaster despite poor sick old Garrett not having come floating belly up. It could’ve gone on indefinitely had not the Dead Man lost interest.

Next day the whole lot would be wondering what the hell it had been all about. And their confusion would be all my fault. Of course.

I offered Nicks another opportunity to take the wonder buzzard home but she passed. Again. “But you can bring him over to visit,” she suggested with husking voice and smouldering eye and just a hint of a mocking smile because the good ship Tinnie Tate, away momentarily refreshing her teacup, was closing fast, under full-dress sail, cutlasses flashing like lightning.

Morley overheard the part where I offered the Goddamn Parrot. He took the opportunity to remind me that parrots often live longer than human beings do, a fact which amused him greatly.

“I can see it now,” I said. “Me and the crow in the clown suit still together fifty years from now, living it up in Heaven’s Gate.” By then the bird and my so-called friends ought to have made me crankier than Medford Shale on his blackest day. “And a certain contentious old woman would come around every day to bang on the bars of the gate just in case I started to get comfortable or showed signs of beginning to enjoy myself.”

“You’d better not be talking about me, Garrett,” Tinnie declared. “I’m twenty-six, I like that just fine, and I’m never going to get any older.”

I was surprised she confessed she was that long in the tooth. Generally she admitted only to a half decade less. And pulled it off pretty well. “I’m glad to hear it. Maybe you’ll keep me young, too. Manvil, I need you to do something. Ask Max if he noticed anything unusual about North English when we saw him. Think about it yourself. Let me know right away if you think of anything.”

“What?...” Gilbey frowned suspiciously.

“It’s probably nothing. I’ve got a bee in my bonnet that’s driving me crazy. I’m eighty percent sure I’m wrong. But I’m just as sure that I shouldn’t be. I think that answer is in North English’s behavior, but the most unusual thing I can come up with myself is that he paid my fees without complaining. Ever.”

Still frowning, Gilbey nodded and resumed the difficult task of herding Alyx and Nicks toward the front door.

I turned to say good night to Lieutenant Nagit. “You overheard what I said. You’re around your boss all the time. You notice anything unusual about him lately?”