Cruel Zinc Melodies (6 page)

“That kid Penny still running messages?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. But I don’t know how to get hold of her.”

“Figures.”

“You need a message carried?”

“I do. To Playmate.”

“There’s a new family moved in down by the corner. They have a boy who could do it. Joe Kerr. He seems like a good kid.”

I gave him the look. “You’re kidding.”

“What? How?”

“Joe Kerr?”

“Yes? So? There’s a problem with that?”

“Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me. Is he trustworthy?”

He shrugged. “I trust people till they give me reason not to.”

“I’ve noticed. But see if you can recruit him.”

“Me?”

“They very one. He knows you. He’d think I’m some pervert trying to pull him in.”

“I can see how he’d think that. You have that look.”

I speared a sausage and ignored him, except to say, “Round him up. As soon as you can.”

I met the kid on the stoop. He was nine or ten. There was nothing remarkable about him. Wild red hair. Freckles. Big ears and fat front teeth. Gray-green eyes. Ragged clothes. Nervous smile. I gave him two coppers, the message, and instructions on how to get to Playmate’s stable. “Three more coppers when you bring back an answer.”

“Yes, sir.” Off he went. He acquired an escort of three younger siblings before he got to the intersection with Wizard’s Reach.

12

Singe wandered into my office. “Playmate is here.”

“His own self? Already?”

“Yes. And yes. I’m off to get John Stretch. Close the door behind me.”

Instead, I closed the door behind me. Playmate couldn’t leave his coach unattended. A coach that wasn’t his to lose. He has a mildly disreputable penchant for borrowing vehicles left in his care. Sometimes to help me. We’ve been fortunate enough not to destroy one yet. But one time we did forget to take a body out.

Play brought the children back. The message kid met me with both hands out. I paid even though he hadn’t brought a message.

“What’s this?” I asked Playmate. Indicating the huge, burr-headed man leaning on the mahogany coachwork. Play hadn’t left the driver’s seat. “How you doing, Saucerhead? What’re you doing here?”

“I was over to Play’s when your message come. I didn’t have nothing to do. Any shit involving you usually gets entertaining. So I decided to tag along.”

Probably hoping to pick up a few loose coins himself.

Saucerhead Tharpe isn’t quite as big as Playmate. And not much smarter than the horses pulling that coach. But he is more social. Than both. And he’s handy to have around.

People don’t argue with Saucerhead. Not for long.

“I’m not hiring,” I said. “Not right now.”

Tharpe shrugged. His shoulders were mountain ranges heaving. He needed new clothes to cover them. A bath would contribute something positive, too. And a date with a razor would help. “Don’t matter, Garrett. I’m not working. Not right now.”

“You'll be the first to hear when I do need help.”

“Yeah.” He scowled. He knew where I’d turn first. “Thanks.”

I throw work his way when I can. He’s a good friend, long on loyalty but short on critical life skills. He never learned how to think about tomorrow.

“Tag along if you want. I’m just gonna shake some bugs out of a place Old Man Weider is building.”

“You in the extermination racket now?”

“Not quite. These are special bugs. Here they come.” Meaning Singe, John Stretch, and several of Stretch’s associates. Each lugging a clever wicker cage filled with quarrelsome critters. Up close, those were the nastiest rats I ever saw. Pit bull rats. Champion fighting cock rats. I grumbled, “Did you need to bring the ones that are foaming at the mouth?”

Singe countered, “There you go, exaggerating again. Hello, Mr. Tharpe. How is Grosziella?”

Grosziella? Who would that be?

“We broke up. I...” Saucerhead launched a tale told many times. The names change but he keeps connecting, and disconnecting, with the same woman. They could wear the same underwear.

John Stretch told me, “I thought you would want enthusiasm.” The last word arrived in a flurry of lisps.

“As long as they save it for the bugs. Everybody set? You bringing all these handlers?”

“Have to. Too many rats for me to manage alone.”

Singe said, “I need to run inside for a minute.”

I told John Stretch, “I don’t see how we can get them and the cages all inside the coach.” I watched Singe climb the steps. She’s worse than Tinnie, sometimes. And Tinnie must have a bladder the size of a grape.

13

John Stretch and his crew began unloading cages.

I frowned at the World. Construction had stopped. “Am I missing a holiday? Did the weekend sneak up on me?”

I went looking for Handsome. I found a pair of Civil Guards instead. They were all shiny and self-important in the new, pale blue uniforms. They wore red flop hats and brandished tin whistles.

They ambled over. One eyed the rat cages, horrified. The other looked away. “Who’re you, ace?”

He tweaked that nerve. “Deuce Tracy. Who’s asking? And why?” I didn’t feel hard-ass enough not to fish out my note from the Boss, though.

The Watchman considered exercising his right to be obnoxious. He accepted the note instead. He looked at it upside down, then passed it to the man who could pretend to read. After surveying Playmate and Saucerhead, the red tops opted for manners. For the moment.

They did have those tin whistles.

Playmate and Saucerhead are intimidating just standing around picking their noses. Especially Tharpe. He looks exactly like what he is, a professional bonebreaker of considerable skill. One who wouldn’t scruple about busting the skull of a tin whistle if the mood took him.

The second Watchman said, “It do look like he’s got business here, Git. This is from Weider himself.”

I use Watch and Civil Guard interchangeably. There is a distinction, mainly of importance to Colonel Westman Block. The Civil Guard is supposed to be the new order of honest lawmen. The old Watch is supposed to wither away. When the new order gets as corrupt as the old, they'll hire some new thugs and change the name again.

Git rumbled, “Just trying to do the job, Bank.”

“Sure. So. Mr. Chief Security Adviser. We still need to ask you a few.”

“Fine by me. Right after you answer me just one. What’re you doing here? John, you guys go ahead. Get after it.”

Git answered for his partner. “There was a murder. We’re supposed to find something out. If there’s anything to be found.”

That startled me. “A murder? Here?”

Bank said, “An old man named Brent Talanta. Usually called Handsome. You knew him?”

“I met him yesterday. I came over after getting the assignment from Weider.”

“About?”

“You read it in the pass. He thinks there’s sabotage. I’m supposed to make it stop. What happened to Handsome?”

The Watchmen eyeballed Playmate and Tharpe. Not recognizing them, except as seriously dangerous.

Git said, “He got dead.”

Bank added, “Messily. How ain’t clear. Something tried to eat him.”

I lost my inclination to be disagreeable.

We watched the ratmen take cages into the World. I said, “That puts us on the same team. Did feral dogs get him?”

“That mean wild?” Git asked.

“Yeah.”

Feral dogs are a problem. They'll hit a corpse but I’ve never heard of them killing anybody.

“Definitely not dogs,” Bank said. “And what tried to eat him ain’t what killed him. There wasn’t no sign of a fight. But what tried to eat him could be in cahoots with what killed him. If he didn’t die in his sleep. Or commit suicide.”

We swapped questions for a while. Then Bank quizzed me on the financial side of being a freelancer. Grousing, “This racket ain’t what it was in my father’s day.”

I couldn’t help myself. “And that’s the point of all the reform.”

Neither Git nor Bank liked that. Which told me they were holdovers from the old regime. It also told me they must be reasonably honest guys or they’d be out looking for work in a bad postwar job market.

“Handsome dying the reason nobody’s working?”

Bank said, “You’d have to ask the people who didn’t show up.”

Which made sense. I’d get an employee roster if the case dragged on.

It shouldn’t. Though Handsome’s death could be a complication.

Time passed. We talked about the war. Git had done his five in the Corps, too. He hadn’t heard of me there? or here, either? but he’d heard of my outfit.

I did remember to ask what became of Handsome’s remains. In case I wanted a look later. They had him over at the Al-Khar, for now.

Saucerhead grunted, “Singe is coming.”

Playmate added, “She don’t look happy, Garrett.”

She didn’t. Sufficient unto the moment the ferocity thereof. I said, “Over there on that pillar by where they found the dead guy. There’s a mark the tin whistles missed. Take a look and tell me what you think.”

14

“What’s up?” I asked Singe.

“We need more rats.”

“Huh? They must’ve brought a hundred.”

“But not enough, John says. Not nearly enough. He needs some boxes, too.”

“We can handle that. I saw some around here yesterday. What for?”

“To put the evidence in. So you will believe him when he tells you what he has found.”

“All right. Let’s see if those boxes are still where I saw them.” Or if somebody creative had snagged them.

Saucerhead said, “Hang on, Garrett. You was right. Good eye. It’s a gang symbol. I don’t know what one. Whoever made it musta done it with a really dull knife. That had blood on it. You can see little specks where it dried. Come here.”

I went. Playmate was down on his knees studying the pavement stones. Tharpe showed me the blood. I asked Singe, “What’s your nose have to tell us?”

She sniffed for a few seconds. “Fear. I think they probably beat him before they stabbed him. There were several of them. Maybe as many as ten. Very unclean. But almost nothing more can be told because of the smell left by the bugs who came to eat him.”

“You wouldn’t be able to track the killers?”

“No. Because there are too many smells.”

Often a problem for her in this city. “Head, Play, how about you guys tell the tin whistles while Singe and I get the boxes for John Stretch?”

We weren’t twenty steps away when Singe murmured, “They are talking about you.” She meant my pals and the red tops.

“I’m sure they’re deciding what a right guy I am for not holding back what we found. Around behind these pillars. There were six or eight boxes that building stuff came in. They were probably saving them to put other stuff in.”

They were there, no longer neatly piled. “We might not... What is it?” Singe had stopped. Her whiskers were twitching.

“Call those Guards.”

I got it. “Bank. Git. Come here. We’ve got another one.” They arrived. Bank asked, “What?”

“Singe is a tracker. A pro. She smells something under those boxes.”

Behind was where it lay. A corpse. “Careful. Don’t bust the boxes. We need them.”

“You want them, you get them out of here.”

I got in and got, passing the boxes back to Singe.

Git said, “This one’s been here a while.”

“Lucky it ain’t summer,” Bank said. “You. Garrett. Take a look. See if you know this guy.”

I looked. Could’ve been anybody. The clothing was what every squatter in TunFaire wore. Rags.

It was not clear, even, that the corpse was male.

Half the flesh was missing. Chunks hadn’t been carved out or torn off. It was more like bits the size of gravel had been snipped away. Thousands of bits. “Here.” Git pushed something with his toe, out where we could all see.

A dead beetle. The little sister of the bug from the day before. Five inches long, black, with a horn and pincers on the business end.

“Holy shit,” Saucerhead said from behind me, in soft awe. “Lookit the size of that sucker.”

“Yeah. Wow,” Playmate added.

“There are lots more inside,” Singe told us. “That is why John wants the boxes.”

“Yeah,” Tharpe said. “You guys hand a couple of them back here. Me an’ Play will carry them in.”

I didn’t talk him out of volunteering, but I did say, “When you’re done with that, help Git and Bank look for gang sign. Though this don’t look like what Handsome’s thing was.” Then I said, “I’ve seen something like this before.” As Git and Bank dragged the body into the open. “In the islands. Soldier ants did it.”

The Guards kicked more dead bugs around. Git said, “This guy was alive when they got him. He fought.”

Bank grunted. “He crawled in here to get out of the weather. They hit him when he was sleeping.”

I edged closer. Old Bones would want every detail. Including the stink. “Where’s all the blood?” There should have been blood everywhere.

“Down some bug’s gullet,” Git said. “Bugs got gullets? How do they work?”

“Got me,” Bank said. “Gonna need some big boots to squish these bastards.”

Singe said, “Garrett, you need to come inside.”

Saucerhead and Playmate had boxes and were waiting. I grabbed one myself, toddled after the band.

The ratmen had gathered about where I’d talked to the carpenters before. Wicker cages surrounded them. John Stretch’s henchrats were scared. My dull human nose could smell it.

John Stretch said, “This is bigger than it looks, Garrett.” Producing some odor himself. “We need many more rats than we brought.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there are so many bugs. And because they are fighting back. No. That is not right. They do not think. Less so, even, than the beasts I am using to kill them. But they are not afraid. They are eating my rats. And each other, when the rats dispatch them.”

Good word choice, Pound Humility. “Dispatch.” Very neutral.

“There are a lot of bugs, then.”

“Thousands. And the ones that have surfaced are the smallest.”

“Ouch! That’s not good.”

“Very much not good. I would like to withdraw now, see what I can learn from the surviving rats, and develop a more definitive strategy.”