Faded Steel Heat (3 page)

Miss Weider conceals a considerable affection for her brother although she does understand why others find him unlikable. She has an even stronger regard for Miss Nicholas. They have been friends from childhood. Miss Weider will not knowingly cause her pain.

For her part, Miss Nicholas does not care to hear evil of her fiancé because she plans to accept this marriage despite having no desire to do so. She will not disappoint the expectations of so many. She consoles herself with the certain knowledge that Ty Weider, although no Prince Charming, stands to be one of the richest men in TunFaire. And the wait may not be protracted if there is substance to the cluster of fears infesting Miss Weider’s head.

I glanced at Nicks, remembered Ty. Money sure can get the blood moving, too.

Tinnie seemed to be getting sour. I was too introspective to suit her today. That was a problem most days as far as she was concerned. “All right, Alyx,” I said. “The Call made a threat. They don’t have a history of that but there is a first time for every extortionist. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to stop them but I don’t think you could do that by yourself, so I don’t really know.”

“I can be pretty persuasive.” Usually with Morley Dotes and Saucerhead Tharpe helping me drive my points home.

Alyx didn’t hear me. She was too busy talking. “I guess if there’s anything I really need it’s for you to watch out for Dad. He was pretty blunt in public when he heard about the demands. Somebody might want to make him an example.”

Exactly.

Tinnie said, “The men who came to our compound did claim to be from The Call.” The Tate clan manufactures footwear. They got rich making combat boots during the war. “But I don’t think they really were. They were too nervous.”

The Dead Man sent,
I have compared the recollections of Miss Weider and Miss Tate and must submit the possibility that we have afoot several bold operators moving in where they believe they can score quickly by exploiting fear and hatred.

There’s nothing so holy some scroat won’t try to turn a few marks on it. “Somebody’s trying to scam the rich? They’ll have to stay way ahead of Marengo North English, then.”

And I kept right on having trouble getting my mind around the notion that a honey like Nicks would even talk to Ty Weider. Maybe I’d just always caught Ty at bad times. Maybe he wasn’t as hopeless as I thought.

5

“Have you done anything?” I asked Alyx. “Besides coming back here till you caught up with me? Did you talk it over with your dad? Or Ty? Or Manvil? Have they done anything?”

“I didn’t discuss it with them. Daddy would say it wasn’t proper for a lady to take an interest. But if I went to anybody, he’d want me to go to you. Ty, though, will get mad when he finds out. He doesn’t want outsiders around. He’s argued with Dad about you.”

Big surprise. But Ty’s likes and dislikes never were high on my list of concerns. “Think he’d cut off my supply of dark?”

Nobody got it. Not even the Dead Man, apparently. So much for a new career in comedy.

Ladies, you must excuse Garrett. The presence of so much loveliness in such tight quarters has disoriented him completely.

Sarky bastard.

Nicks jumped at the Dead Man’s first touch but settled down quickly. She had been forewarned.

Tinnie and Alyx showed the nonchalance of old hands.

His Nibs continued,
And I cannot say I blame him this once. I am overwhelmed myself. And I was dead ages before any of you were born.

What a sweet-talker. “Thank you, Old Bones. Maybe if I shut my eyes and pretend I’m not a robust, hearty, virile young man whose special lady has shunned him mercilessly...”

You might consider supplying shovels, high-top boots, and nose plugs, Garrett.

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth. My eyes are sealed. My breathing is almost normal.”

Nicks asked, “Is he always like this, Tinnie?”

“He’s pretty tame right now. Wait till he wakes up.”

“Not a tooth, teeth,” I grumbled. “Alyx. Did your dad take this seriously?”

“He’s worried. He’s been asking our employees what they think about The Call. He’s decided we won’t hire anybody but veterans.”

He never had. But that wouldn’t satisfy The Call. Although most human males are veterans not all veterans are human. And Weider never made a distinction. He wouldn’t now. He protects his employees like a she-wolf protects her young. Most give him complete loyalty in return. Me, I even drink his beer.

But there are always a rotten few who slip through any screen, or who are brought in by a big wormy apple already loafing in the barrel.

The ladies babbled on but I got nothing out of them. I turned to the Dead Man. He sent:
They are frightened. Time is passing. Nothing has been done to disarm or appease The Call. Apparently there is a deadline unknown even to Miss Alyx.

Miss Alyx now, huh? I watched the Goddamn Parrot nibble out of Nicks’ fingers. “You want that critter, Nicks? Take him. Call him my wedding present.”

Alyx broke into laughter.

So maybe I’m not a complete bust as a comic. But it would help to know why they laugh.

“Sorry,” Alyx said. “But I had this picture of Mr. Big kibbitzing Ty and Nicks on their wedding night.”

That would be something. Unless they tied the bird into a gunnysack and hung the sack out a window. I glanced at Nicks.

She wasn’t smiling.

She looked like a young lady who didn’t believe in her future at all.

I couldn’t disagree with her. But I had that deep prejudice against Ty Weider.

She is an excellent actress, Garrett. Perhaps inside as well as out. Perhaps able to fool even herself. Even I see something different each time I look at her. I have to remind myself to recognize the surface.

“Interesting.”

Save your interest for Miss Tate.

“That was my plan.”

Stick to it. This matter will become complicated enough without adding the machinations of women scorned.
He does not have a high estimation of the fairer species.

Tinnie, I noted, seemed to be daydreaming. Which meant she was communing with the Dead Man. He can do that. He has several distinct minds and can go several directions at once.

I asked Alyx, “Could there be trouble on the shop floor?”

“There’s always sympathy for The Call, anywhere you go.”

“I doubt they cheer The Call much in Ogre Town or Dwarf Fort or the elven neighborhoods. I haven’t seen many ratmen or pixies carrying banners in The Call’s parades.”

“Well, they wouldn’t, would they?”

Maybe there was some rightsist sympathy right there.

From the sounds of it somebody nonhuman was being real unsympathetic to human rights out front right now. The neighborhood attracts more than its share of political debates.

“Alyx. The guys who brought you. They going to hang around?” Some situations can’t be managed with cute and beautiful, a wiggle and a giggle.

“They went to lunch. They’re supposed to wait out front afterward.”

“Good. It’s starting to sound excitable out there.” The Dead Man evidently wasn’t interested in what was going on. He didn’t bother to report.

“We could stay till it quiets down.” Alyx winked.

“I couldn’t stand the heat. I’m about to melt down into a puddle of tallow now.”

Garrett.

“Garrett!”

“Ah, Tinnie me love. My hottest of flames. You’re awake after all.”

Tinnie gave Alyx a look of exasperation. How was she going to get me trained if even her friends encouraged my delinquencies?

Nicks stayed out of it. She concentrated on the Goddamn Parrot.

Except that when I glanced at her she winked, too.

Help.

They do it just to watch you crackle and fry like bacon left too long in too hot a pan.

6

The ladies departed, headed not for the brewery but Tinnie’s family compound. The Tates had to be hurting. The recent outbreak of peace had to be terrible for business.

That’s the trouble when some darn war goes on too long. Life begins to revolve around it. We live and die by it at home as much as do the soldiers on the battlefields. Now that the fighting is over, except for mopping-up exercises against the last of Glory Mooncalled’s raggedy-ass republican partisans, regiments are demobilizing as fast as the navy can haul them home.

These days many jobs belong to nonhumans because we humans went off to war and only a fraction returned. Today’s soldiers come home to find there’s nothing to come home to.

The door closed behind those three luscious behinds. I returned to the Dead Man’s room and settled into my own chair. The seat was still warm. A clash of perfumes hung in the air. I asked, “What’s your boy Glory Mooncalled up to?”

Years ago Mooncalled entered the war as a mercenary captain on the Venageti side. Though a successful campaigner, he failed to have been born into the ruling clique of sorcerers and nobles and so was treated badly. He resented that so much he changed sides. He spent the next decade embarrassing and picking off the men who had injured his pride.

His treatment by Karenta’s overlords was not much better. He got paid on time but received few honors, however dramatic his victories. He defected again. This time he collected the tribes of the Cantard under the banner of a republic that rejected both Karentine and Venageti territorial claims. He provided spankings to armies from both kingdoms.

But fate wasn’t kind. Karenta got some breaks. The Venageti collapsed. Karentine forces began exterminating the republicans.

The peoples of the Cantard immediately began migrating into Karenta, and especially to TunFaire, where their presence only adds to the social stress. Something I stumbled over during a recent case made me suspect that Mooncalled himself was now in TunFaire.

The Dead Man seemed disgruntled.
In all likelihood he is fomenting disorder under the illusion that his past popularity still assures him support amongst the lower classes.

“You seem disappointed.”

Perhaps heroes are best kept at arm’s length. Up close their flaws are too easily seen.

The Goddamn Parrot had taken station on his shoulder. Nicks’ fault. She’d put him there. I hadn’t been able to talk her into taking the flashy little vulture with her.

The bird started to relieve himself.

He ended in a tangle amongst the mementos on the Dead Man’s knickknack shelves. He was so startled he could hardly squawk in parrotese. He got his feet under him, shook his head, took a tentative step, fell off the shelf, and smacked into the floor.

If that thing fails to survive please extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Dotes.

“Wow! What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of it before? I’m slow but I’m brilliant. I’ll tear him apart in here and blame it all on you. I’ll have Morley come over, see all the feathers and parrot shit, he’ll just shake his head and forget it. He won’t go getting into a feud with you.”

Very creative. Try it and I will hang you by your bootlaces from the rooftree. That bird is far too valuable even to joke about.

“Valuable? You can’t even eat those damned things unless you’re so hungry you already ate up all the snakes and buzzards and crows.”

I mean valuable as a communications tool.

“Not to me.”

Silence!

“I was only going to
 
—”

We are about to have company. Strangers. Receive them in your office. They do not need to be made aware of my existence.

Dean beat me to the front door but got a silent warning from the Dead Man. He peeped through the peephole, backed off frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like the looks of those two.” He retreated to the Dead Man’s room. The Goddamn Parrot flapped into the hall when he opened the door. It landed on my shoulder. “Argh!” I started to swat him. Dean came out of the Dead Man’s room, lugging the chairs back to my office.

Easy on the bird, Garrett. Dean, when you finish, shut the door to this room. Do not open it again while those people are in this house.

“Put a kettle on, too. For hospitality’s sake.”

Dean gave me the look that asked what I thought he should do in his spare time.

The pounding resumed. It had started polite. Now it seemed impatient. I used the peephole myself. “Do I really need to talk to these guys?” The two men on the stoop looked just like the guy Dean wanted me to be when I grew up.

It might be of value. Or instructive.

“To who?”

That would be
whom,
Garrett.

“I’m beginning to get it already,” I grumbled, starting in on Dean’s battery of latches. He was done moving furniture.

The Dead Man would stir the sludge inside their pretty gourds, ever so discreetly, while I sat through some kind of sales pitch.

Those two were selling something. They were so squeaky-clean and well groomed that I feared their scam would be religion. I’d have trouble staying polite if they were godshouters. I’ve suffered an overdose of religion lately.

I changed my mind as soon as the door opened, before anybody cracked a word. The erect postures and humorless mouths said they were selling a true belief that had nothing to do with pie in the sky by and by.

Both were five feet six and unreasonably handsome. One had blond hair and blue eyes. I wish I could report that the other had blue hair and blond eyes but he didn’t. He was a pretty hunk of brown hair and blue eyes. Neither had visible scars or tattoos.

Clerks, instinct told me.

“Mr. Garrett?” the blond asked. He had perfect teeth. How often do you see good teeth? Never. Even Tinnie has an incisor that laps its neighbor.

“Guilty. Maybe. Depends on what you want.”

Nobody smiled. The brunette said, “A friend gave us your name. Said you would be a good man to see. Said as you were a bona fide war hero.”

“I could throw bricks with my eyes closed and hit a bona fide war hero eight tries out of ten. Anybody who made it home is a hero. Which Free Company are you guys with?” They wore clothing as though they were headed for the parade ground. Like appearance wasn’t just part of being a soldier, it was the whole thing.