Deadly Quicksilver Lies (18 page)

No Ravens Went Hungry
was based on actual events that marinated in the oral tradition a few centuries before being recorded.

I hadn’t enjoyed it, partly because no likable people were involved, but more because the author had felt a duty to name every player’s antecedents and cousins and offspring and, likewise, those of everyone they ever murdered or married. After a while, it got hard to keep track of all the Thoras, Thoralfs, Thorolfs, Thorolds, Thords, Thordises, Thorids, Thorirs, Thorins, Thorarins, Thorgirs, Thorgyers, Thorgils, Thorbalds, Thorvalds, Thorfinns, and Thorsteins, not to mention the numerous Odds and Eiriks and Haralds — any one of whom could change his name any time the notion hit him.

“What now?” Slither asked, prodding me out of my thoughts.

Ivy looked over his shoulder, expectant. He seemed more disappointed than Slither about having missed a brawl. But he did stifle the Goddamn Parrot whenever that stupid harlequin hen started propositioning passersby.

“I’m going to go home, get me something to eat. That’s what now.”

“What good will that do?”

“It’ll keep me from getting hungry.” And it would set me up to get shut of him and Ivy and the parade that stretched out behind us.

I had plans.

37

I let Slither and Ivy make lunch. I retreated to my office to commune with Eleanor. Eleanor didn’t help me relax. My restlessness wouldn’t go away. Curious, I crossed the hall. The Dead Man appeared to be soundly asleep, but I wondered. I’d suffered similar restlessnesses before.

I didn’t feel up to dealing with him, so I gobbled some food, fed the boys a quick, plausible lie about ducking out for just a minute, hit the cobblestones. I lost the people watching me by using the density of the crowds. The streets were busier than usual. There were refugees everywhere. In consequence, every street corner boasted its howling mad bigot who wanted to run them all out. Or worse.

I sensed another crisis in the wind.

Sure I was running free, I headed for the Hill.

I strode up to Maggie’s door as bold as if I’d been summoned. I used that discrete knocker, over and over. Nobody responded.

Was I surprised? Not really.

I studied that grim, featureless facade. It remained grim and featureless. And uninviting.

I wandered the neighborhood for a while and wasn’t challenged. I didn’t stick with it long enough to press my luck.

I was halfway to Morley’s place when I realized that I was no longer without a tail. The inept guy was on me again. Say what? Maybe he had something going after all.

I walked into the Joy House. There sat my two best pals, Morley Dotes and Saucerhead Tharpe, making goo-goo eyes at my favorite fantasy. “Chastity! What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Morley gave me a look at his darkest scowl, the one he reserves not for victims but for guys who venture to hint that they might possibly think the Joy House is less than the epitome of epicurean paradises.

Saucerhead grinned. He is one great huge goof. I love him in a brotherly way. I noticed he was missing another tooth.

Chastity said, “I was checking up on you.”

“Don’t believe anything these guys tell you. Especially Morley. Can’t tell the truth when a lie will do. Just ask his wife or any of his seventeen demented children.”

Morley showed me a bunch of pointy teeth. He looked pleased. Saucerhead’s grin got bigger. He had teeth like yellow and green spades.

I figured it was time to check my shoes, see what I’d stepped in because my feet were whizzing past pretty close to my mouth.

Unlikely as it seemed, folks had been saying nice things. I sat down. “Puddle! I need some apple juice. Shoeleather leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”

Dotes and Tharpe kept smirking. Spud brought me my drink, like to dumped it all over me. The kid couldn’t keep his eyes off the lady doctor. I couldn’t fault his taste. She sure looked good.

I told her, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Why I’m here? Mr. Tharpe suggested we eat here before we go to the hospital.”

“We? The Bledsoe?” Mr. Tharpe hated the Bledsoe with a blind passion. Mr. Tharpe was poor. Mr. Tharpe had been born in the Bledsoe and had been forced to rely upon its medical care all his life, excepting during his years in military service, when he had discovered what real doctoring could be. I could not imagine Saucerhead going near the place voluntarily.

A lot of people will suffer almost anything before letting themselves be committed to the Bledsoe. Many see it as the last gate to death.

“I’m bodyguarding her,” Saucerhead told me.

“What? I thought...”

“I saw your friend.” Chastity smiled. My best pals snickered.

“My friend? I’m beginning to wonder. She didn’t want the job?”

“Sent her on to me,” Tharpe told me.

That deserved some thought.

Morley asked, “Where are your buddies, Garrett?”

“Home minding the Goddamn Parrot. Slow roasting it, I hope. Why?”

“There’s a story going around about the three of you trying to rob some nancys out in the West End.”

I frowned. Strange that should be out already. “I was trying to get a line on Emerald. I never pushed that hard.” I told the story.

Morley soon developed a deep frown. He let me talk, but when I finished he asked, “You’re sure it was an old copy of one of the volumes of
No Ravens Went Hungry?
”

“It was
The Raging Blades
. You know something I don’t?”

“Do you know the story?”

“I read the book.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” He grinned. He recalled my troubles with Linda Lee. “Since you’ve read it, you know what happens at the end. Eagle is in his eighties, still hale except that he’s going blind. The women start pushing him around, probably getting even for the way he always treated them. He gets pissed off, grabs a couple of slaves, takes the treasure he’s stolen over the past seventy years, and heads for the boondocks. A few days later, he comes home alone and empty-handed and never says a word about what happened to the slaves or the treasure.”

“So?”

“So Eagle’s treasure is one of the big prizes treasure hunters yak up when they get together. One of their myths says the earliest version of
No Ravens Went Hungry
contains all the clues you need to find it. The copyists supposedly actually found the treasure, after they produced maybe five copies of each volume, but they murdered each other before they dug it up.” Morley touched the highlights of a tale of greed and double-dealing worthy of Eagle himself.

Tell the truth, Morley’s story sounded like one of those worth the paper it was written on. If he hadn’t had a certain familiar gleam in his eye, I would have ignored everything he said. But that gleam was there. I knew his gold sniffer had been excited. He believed. He was thinking of paying Wixon and White a visit that had nothing to do with mine.

“The second volume?” I asked, hoping to cool him down. “Why that one? It wasn’t until the end of the third that Eagle buried the treasure.”

Morley shrugged, smiled. Poor dumb Garrett couldn’t see the obvious. Chastity gave us a funny look. She knew something was going on but wasn’t sure what it was. Morley said, “You could be right,” which I assume he said to confuse everybody.

He knew something he didn’t want to tell. Like everyone lately. I shrugged and said, “I’m going to visit Maggie’s house. Want to come along?” His gold sniffer would respond to that, too.

He said, “Why not?”

Saucerhead got it, too. He gave me a dubious look but asked no questions. No need letting Chastity in on everything. Especially since she had friends in the Guard.

She knew we were closing her out. She didn’t like it, but she had a strong notion she wouldn’t want to know anyway.

I asked her, “You familiar with Grange Cleaver? He ever hang out at the Bledsoe?”

“I’ve seen him. More lately than in the past. He seems to be living in the city, now. He’s Board. Board are in and out all the time. The rest of us only pay attention if they start throwing their weight around.”

“I see. What’s he do there?”

“I don’t know. I’m a ward physician. I don’t fly that high.”

Morley was ready to go. He asked, “What’s he look like these days? He used to play around with disguises. Only his closest friends knew what he looked like.”

Perplexed, Chastity said, “How would a disguise do him any good? There aren’t many men that short.”

“He wasn’t always a man,” Morley told her. “He could be a dwarf if he wanted.”

“Or an elf?” I suggested.

“Never was an elf that ugly, Garrett!” Morley snapped. “Not that lived long enough to get out of diapers.”

I thought about the prince at the warehouse. Effeminate but not ugly. Just an unlucky gal fate stuck with the wrong plumbing. “Could you describe him, Chastity? I mean, besides as short.”

She did her best.

“Good enough for me. That’s the guy, Morley.”

Morley grunted irritably. Chastity looked perplexed again. “I’ll explain later,” I promised. I wondered what it was between Dotes and the Rainmaker.

Morley did have his share of feuds. I stayed out of them. And I figured it was just as well I didn’t know their details. I hoped he would explain if I needed to know.

I would keep my eyes open, though. He’d been known to wait a bit too long in the past.

“You going or not?” he grumped.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” I told Chastity.

“Promises, promises.”

Saucerhead gave me a look that told me, yes, he would look out for her. I wouldn’t suggest it because it was a big sore spot with him. Once upon a time, I asked him to guard a woman and he didn’t come through. She died. He slaughtered a whole herd of villains and came within an inch of death himself, but all he saw was that he’d failed. There was no talking him out of thinking that.

Chastity was as safe as it was possible for her to be.

38

“Hey, Garrett! How about you do away with the goofy grin and the glassy eyes long enough to let me in on the plan?”

“Jealous.” I wrestled with the grin, got the best of it. “We’re going to take what I call the Dotes Approach.” We were nearing the Hill. Soon we would be on patrolled streets. I had to get my grin under control, stop daydreaming about remarkable blondes. The thugs up there had no patience with happy outsiders.

“The Dotes Approach? Dare I ask?”

“You ought to know. You invented it. Straight ahead and damn the witnesses — we’ll just bust in.”

“One time. During a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Talk about exaggeration.”

I didn’t grace his protest with a reply. I told him, “There’s an alleyway runs behind those places. Used for deliveries and by the ratmen who haul the trash away.”

“Haul the trash away?”

“A novel concept, I admit. But it’s true. This alley is cleaner than the street out front. I never saw anything like it.”

“Almost unpatriotic, what?”

“Un-Karentine, certainly. High weirdness.”

“A conspiracy.”

He was needling me, probably because I was running the inside track with Chastity.

“That thing about a wife and kids wasn’t playing fair.” He glanced back casually.

“Sure it was. You’re just sore because you didn’t try the gag first. They still back there?”

“Stipulated. Maybe. She is worth a trick or two. They’re still there. A whole parade of potential witnesses. This one is a first-class lady, Garrett. Don’t mess up the way you did with Tinnie and Maya.” Before I could object, he added, “You do attract it, don’t you?”

“What?”

“You said it. High weirdness.”

“I can’t argue with that. Though this one is only weird because it doesn’t make sense, not because I’ve got guys walking through the sky or refusing to stop committing murder just because we’ve killed and cremated them. I haven’t seen any shapechangers and nobody is going around biting anybody’s neck.”

“There is an occult angle of some kind.”

“I think it was planted by Cleaver. I think Cleaver has the girl. The occult crap is to throw Maggie off the trail.”

“You going ahead anyway?”

I’d been considering. “For now. For them back there. Might be interesting to see who does what once they figure out what we’re doing.” We were on the Hill now, strutting like we were honest. Act like you belong, who notices you? Even on the Hill there’s plenty of legitimate traffic. The local guardians didn’t dare roust everybody. I remarked, “Someday these clowns will recall their training and set up checkpoints and start issuing passes.”

Morley snorted. “Never happen.” He didn’t think much of the Hill brunos. “People who live here won’t tolerate the inconvenience.”

“Probably right.” That’s the problem with public safety. It is so damned inconvenient.

“You counting on those people back there being as crooked as you are? That would be as bad a bet as counting on everyone to be honest.”

“Crooked?” I protested, but I knew what he meant.

“You know what I mean. One might be secret police.” The secret police were a new problem for TunFaire’s underworld. Always flexible, though, Morley seemed to be having no trouble adapting.

“Might be.” But I didn’t believe that and doubted that he did. The Guard were less shy than these people. Even Relway’s spies.

Morley did have to say, “Winger could have that kind of connection.”

Damn! “Yeah. If there’s a profit in it.” I wondered. Could Winger turn up the closest thing she had to a friend, just for money? Scary. I couldn’t answer that one.

I said, “You gave me some advice one time: never get involved with a woman crazier than I am.”

“And I was right. Wasn’t I?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”

We turned into the alley that passed behind Maggie Jenn’s place. Luck had given us clear sailing so far. Not one patrol even came into sight. We were as good as ghosts in the official eye.

“Be careful with Winger, Garrett. She is crazier than you.” He stared down that improbably clean alleyway. “Though not by much. It isn’t closed off. Anyone could walk in here,” He sneered, unable to believe the arrogant confidence that showed.
Nobody
lives so high on the Hill that they’re immune. Even the great witches and wizards, the stormwardens and firelords, who set counts and dukes to shaking in their boots, get ripped off.