Cold Copper Tears Part 8

Maya asked, "What're you going to do now?"

"Hire a specialist." I started walking. She caught up. I asked, "Doesn't any of this bother you?" She'd stayed cooler than Jill Craight.

"I've been on the street five years, Garrett. Only things that bother me are the ones people try to do to me."

She wasn't that tough, but she was getting there. And that was a shame.

17.

Sometimes it seems Morley's place never closes. It does, but only during those hours of the dawn and morning when only the most twisted are up and about. Noon to first light the place serves its strange clientele.

It had thinned out, but forty pairs of eyes watched us from the entrance to the serving counter, eyes more puzzled than hostile.

Wedge was behind the counter. Of all Morley's henchmen he's the most courteous. "Evening, Garrett." He nodded to Maya. "Miss." Just as though she didn't look like death on a stick and smell like it, too.

"Morley still up?"

"He's got company." The way he said it told me the company wasn't business.

"That resolution didn't last long."

Wedge flashed me a smile. "Were you in the pool?"

"No." They would, that bunch.

Wedge went to the speaking tube, talked and listened, talked and listened, then came back. "He'll be a while. Said have dinner while you wait. On the house."

Ugh.

Maya said, "That sounds great," before I could turn him down. "I could eat a horse."

I grumbled, "You won't eat one here. Horseweed, horse fennel, horseradish, horse clover, yeah, but..."

Wedge yelled into the back for two specials, then leaned on the counter. "What you need, Garrett? Maybe I can save you some time."

I glanced at Maya. She smiled. She knew d.a.m.ned well Wedge was being nice because I had a woman along.

How do they get that way so young?

"I need a stalker, Wedge. A good one. I'm trying to track a guy."

"Cold trail?"

"Not very. And he was bleeding. But it's getting colder."

"Back in a few. I know what you need." He went into the kitchen. Another human-elf breed took his place. He was younger. He plunked a couple of platters on the counter, tossed up some utensils, looked at Maya like he wondered if it was catching, and went to the end of the counter to take somebody's order.

"That one's no prince," Maya told me. "But the old guy was all right." She eyed her platter.

The special looked like fried gra.s.s on a bed of blanched maggots, covered in a slime sauce filled with toadstool chunks and tiny bits of black fur. I muttered, "No wonder vegetarians are so nasty."

Maya a.s.saulted her meal. When she stopped to catch her breath she said, "This ain't bad, Garrett."

I'd begun nibbling the mushrooms out of mine. She was right. But I wasn't going to admit it out loud, in front of witnesses. I muttered, "Wedge is no prince, either. He takes people out on the river, ties rocks to their feet, dumps them in, and tells them he'll race them back to sh.o.r.e. Tells them he'll turn them loose if they beat him. I hear some of them paddle like h.e.l.l all the way to the bottom."

She checked to see if I was joking. She saw I wasn't. Well, maybe I'd exaggerated a little, but Wedge wasn't nice people. Morley Dotes didn't have nice people working for him.

She was reading my mind again. "Aren't there any decent people anymore?"

"Sure. We just don't run into many."

"Name two," she challenged.

"Dean. Friend of mine named Tinnie Tate. Her uncle Willard. Friend of mine called Playmate."

"All right."

"Not to mention I have a fair opinion of myself."

"You would. I said all right, Garrett. Forget I asked. You going to finish that? I'll take it."

I pushed my platter over. Where was she putting it?

Wedge came back with the sleaziest ratman I'd ever seen. He had a lot of the old blood: long whiskers, a long snoot, patches of fur, a four-foot tail. He'd be a descendant of one of the less successful experimental strains of two centuries back, when the life magics were the rage and anybody who could diddle up a spell was trying to create new forms. None of those sorcerers are remembered today but their creations are with us still. They'd been inordinately fond of messing with rats.

I pride myself on my open mind and freedom from prejudice, but I've always found room to exclude rat-people. I can't help it. I don't like them and none of them have done anything to improve my opinion.

Wedge told me, "This is Shote, Garrett. As good a stalker as you'll find. And he's available."

I nodded to Shote and tried to shelve the prejudice. "Wedge tell you what I need?"

Shote nodded. "Forrow sssomebody whosss breeding."

I grinned. None of those guys were going to do any breeding. "Basically, I've got a solid starting point. Shouldn't be hard."

"Two marks frat fee, I take you to the end of the track. Arr I do is track. No fighting. No pottering. No nothing else."

"That's fine with me." I dug out two marks silver.

Morley arrived. He leaned on the counter beside me. He looked at Maya. "Picking them a little young, aren't you?"

"This is Maya, my self-appointed a.s.sistant and understudy. Maya, the famous Morley Dotes."

"Charmed." She eyed him. "He a friend of yours, Garrett?" She'd know the name.

"Sometimes."

"You going to invite him to the wedding?"

She had set me up and cut me off at the knees.

Morley had to ask. "What wedding?"

"Him and me," Maya said. "I decided I'm going to marry him."

Morley grinned. "I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it for a barge loaded with gold." I've seen toads with straighter faces than he had on.

I bet they heard my teeth grind all the way to the waterfront.

"Maya Garrett?" Morley said. "It does have a ring." He looked at the ratman. "Shote. How you doing? I thought you didn't have anything going, Garrett." He was having a h.e.l.l of a time keeping from laughing.

"I didn't. Now I do. Somebody offend Pokey Pigotta. I want to ask them why."

That took the grin off his clock. "You taking it personal?" He thinks I take everything personal.

"I don't know. Pokey was all right, but he wasn't really a friend. I just want to know why he turned up dead where he did."

Morley waited for me to tell him where and when. I disappointed him. I asked Shote, "Are you ready? Let's go."

Maya downed the rest of my celery drink and pushed away from the counter. She grinned at me.

Morley asked, "Mind if I tag along?"

"Not at all." He'd be useful if we walked into something.

18.

I expected the dead man's friends would have collected him, but when we reached that death-trap alley, there he was, taking it easy, like a drunk sleeping it off.

"They left this one where he croaked," I said. "At least one more was bleeding when they left."

The ratman grunted and started sniffing around.

"Morley, I want to show you something." I had Maya hold the lantern while I pantsed the dead guy.

"What are you, some kind of pervert?" Morley asked.

"Just take a look. Ever seen anything like this?"

Morley looked for a long time. Then he shuddered and shook his head. "No. I've never seen anything like that. That's sick. Crazy sick. How did you know? What have you gotten yourself into?"

"This is the fifth one today. All cut bald." I didn't go into detail.

Morley said, "Why would anybody let somebody do that?"

"There are a lot of crazies in this world, old buddy."

"I didn't think there was anybody that crazy."

"That's because you think with yours."

"Ha! The pot calling the kettle black."

"If you're ready?" The ratman sounded offended.

"Whenever you are," I told him.

"One man went on from here. He was wounded, as you surmised." Put me in my place. He led off, dropping to all fours so his legs folded up like a gra.s.shopper's hind legs. That hurt just to see but didn't bother him. He snuffled and muttered and scooted along, growling at Maya to douse the d.a.m.ned light.

The trail turned south, headed across town a mile, a mile and a half into a better part of the city, not wealthy like the Hill and the neighborhoods clinging to its skirts, but definitely middle-cla.s.s.

I began to get the feeling I'd missed something important. I suspected I knew something I didn't know I knew. I tried going over everything.

I should know better than to force it. That never works. Thinking just confuses me.

The stalk turned out to be a giant anticlimax. We caught our quarry in another alleyway. "Dead as a wedge," Shote announced. "Been gone a couple of hours."

"He was alone?" Morley asked.

"Did I tell you he was alone? I told you he was alone. He was alone."

"Touchy, touchy."

Maya searched the body. I hadn't done that with the others, except cursorily. I expect it would have been a waste of time. Maya didn't find anything.

Morley said, "I didn't know old Pokey had it in him. He was always a talker. He could bulls.h.i.+t his way out of anything."

"I don't think he had time to talk."

Maya asked, "What do we do now, Garrett?"

"I don't know." My inclination was to go home and sleep. We'd hit a dead end here. "We could keep going the way we were headed, see if we run into anything that bites."

Morley said, "There's nothing ahead but the Dead Zone, the Dream Quarter, and the Slough of Despond." Those were vulgar names for the diplomatic community, the area where TunFaire's religions maintain their princ.i.p.al temples, and the tight island where the city maintains two workhouses and a jail, a madhouse, and a branch of the Bledsoe charity hospital. The Slough is surrounded by a high curtain wall, not to keep anyone in or out but to mask the interior so as not to offend the eyes of pa.s.sersby headed for the Dead Zone or the Dream Quarter.

There was a lot more to the South End, including industry, fairgrounds, s.h.i.+pyards, acres and acres of graveyards, and most of the Karentine Army's city facilities. But I thought I caught what Morley meant.