Whispering Nickel Idols Part 13

Buy was awake. "I remember you. You tried to help."

"Yes, I did. Miss Contague asked me to make sure they're taking care of you. And to see if you need anything."

"They're treating me like a princess. Because they're scared s.h.i.+tless of what'll happen if they don't."

"Are you unhappy about that?"

"s.h.i.+t, no. I'm thinking maybe I'll just camp out here from now on. I got no f.u.c.kin' desire for my a.s.s to be some kind a symbol to them what thinks the ruling cla.s.s..." They must have drugged her as soon as I showed up downstairs. Just in case. She mumbled through most of that, then faded completely.

"Belinda put the fear of G.o.d in them," I told Morley as we left. "And how was your day?"

"The things I suffer for friends.h.i.+p."

"Bet you she cooks you a nice two-pound steak... What do you suppose these clowns are really doing?" We'd stopped to watch the men working on the Bledsoe's sad face.

"Looks like they're taking bad bricks out and putting in new ones."

"No. They aren't. I worked as a bricklayer's apprentice for about six months one week, back before I went in the Marines."

"You left an honest career for life as a tick on society's underbelly?"

"I got fired. I couldn't make them understand that the workday shouldn't start before noon."

"All right. You're an authority on bricklaying. What do you see that I don't?"

"They're fixing things that aren't broken. This place is still sound. It just needs the rotten mortar sc.r.a.ped out and new mortar tucked in. But they're making holes in the wall." I could see several places where bricks had been removed to create hollows.

"All right. I see that."

"Didn't your friend say most of the workmen didn't show up today?"

"She said the financing came from Ymber. I recall that."

"Why don't you pop back in and find out if those philanthropists had bad taste in trousers. I'll talk to these guys here."

Dotes looked sour, but he went. He had his own beef with the Ugly Pants Gang.

I strolled over to a hod carrier of fifteen summers who seemed to share my youthful lack of enthusiasm for clambering up ladders lugging ma.s.s quant.i.ties of bricks or mortar. "I'm trying to figure out what they're doing up there."

I got the right note of naive bewilderment into that. After an instant to decide whether the old guy deserved some att.i.tude, the kid grunted. "They're just tuck-pointing and replacing bad bricks." TunFaire is built almost entirely of brick. Everybody knows something about the upkeep of brick buildings.

"I get that. I did your job when I was your age, a couple hundred years ago. I never saw n.o.body pull good bricks out."

"Oh. That. They're making these niches. Usually, there's a lot more guys working. They put these metal things inside, then brick them up. Over there you can see where they've already done that about ten times."

"So you're, like, getting in on a slow day, eh?"

He chuckled. "This is the best day I've had since this job started. Aw, c.r.a.p! I had to open my yap. Now my old man wants me to bring up some mortar."

The boy stirred the mortar in a nearby mixing boat, splatted twenty pounds into a mortar hod, then went up the ladders and scaffolding like a monkey. I wasted ten seconds hating him for being that young, then drifted over to where the boy had pointed out some finished Ymber craftsmans.h.i.+p.

They weren't bricklayers by trade. Not even apprentice bricklayers.

Morley said, "You're psychic," from behind me.

"I've been accused of everything else. Why not that?"

"The philanthropists from Ymber brought a crew of volunteer workmen. Every single one wore filthy green plaid pants."

My new young friend spidered to the ground as Morley made his remarks. He overheard. I asked, "Would those be the guys who didn't show up today?"

"Yeah. And I ain't missing them, neither. I never seen such a bunch of useless a.s.sholes."

I tried to find out more, but somebody up top kept hollering nonsense about lollygagging and slacking. I told Morley, "Sounds just like the guy who fired me me fifteen years ago." fifteen years ago."

The kid said, "That's my old man. Don't worry about him. He's all hot air." But he got busy working the mortar boat. You don't, the mortar sets up.

22.

Morley seemed preoccupied.

I was preoccupied myself. Just what was going on at the Bledsoe?

Here it was, direct as a smack in the chops with an iron fist. The Green Pants Gang was underwriting renovations in order to install metal somethings inside the Bledsoe's outside walls. Dean was sure the gang was in town to catch Penny Dreadful and her kittens.

What would Penny say, if pressed? "We need to catch that kid who dumped the kittens on Dean."

"We do? Believe it or not, I do have a life outside my career as your sidekick. Considering Belinda Contague is involved, you might look into doing your own lifting and carrying."

"Ouch!"

"My point being, I don't need to catch something that's looking for you."

"Man. You're a pal, all of a sudden. Like Puddle or Sarge in a bleak mood."

"Could be. Life isn't fair. You going to try Harvester Temisk now?"

"Yes."

"Good luck. I'm headed home. Before one of those idiots burns the place down."

What suddenly made him want to get away fast?

Harvester Temisk hadn't resurfaced. He had, however, begun to interest somebody besides me. A minor, dim thug named Welby Dell was asleep across the street from Temisk's, in a spot well suited for lurking and watching. Dell was another a.s.sociate of Teacher White's. Being a thoughtful kind of guy, I toddled on without disturbing Welby's nap.

I picked up a tail. He wasn't anybody I knew. He didn't care if I knew he was there. Meaning he was a Relway Runner.

I changed course, headed for the Al-Khar, where I asked to see Colonel Block. Naturally, the ground level of the bureaucracy made that impossible. So I asked for Director Relway. With identical results.

I trudged on home. Smug. Block couldn't accuse me of evading my civic duty. Dean was in the throes of creating chicken and dumplings. He can be a killer in the kitchen when he wants.

Melondie Kadare was on the table, still hungover, in a foul temper. Singe sulked because I'd taken off without getting John Stretch's report. Her brother had gone and come and gone again in my absence.

Dean was in a good mood. "Mr. Mulclar will be here to fix the door tomorrow."

"Good." I settled down to eat. A kitten climbed my leg and set up shop in my lap. Others prowled the kitchen. Singe held one. It wore the smug look of master instead of pet.

"Dean, talk to me about Penny Dreadful and these cats."

He started to hem and haw.

"Dean, this is serious. People are getting busted up. They're getting dead. The guys who keep trying to break our door down got into fights with Belinda's people, Morley's guys, and Relway's gang. More than once. And when they aren't picking fights they're doing exterior renovations on the Bledsoe. What's the connection there?"

Dean grimly said, "You'd better tell me the whole thing. I may have been too trusting."

"You think so? That's never happened before, has it?"

Singe said, "You do not have to be nasty, Garrett."

I resisted a temptation to insist that I had the right. I related the highlights. "I don't think the Watch has the whole gang. Colonel Block says there were ten guys in green and two more who were in charge. At the Bledsoe, though, I got the impression that there were more than that."

Dean sucked in a gallon of air, set it free. "All I know is, those men serve A-Laf, some kind of masculine devil G.o.d. His cult has taken over in Ymber. It's really aggressive and intolerant. The feminine cult of A-Lat was its big compet.i.tor. I told you what Penny had to say already."

"And because she big-eye-orphaned you, you swallowed her story whole."

"Admitted. Which doesn't mean she was lying."

"Don't mean she was telling the truth, either. How do we get hold of her?"

Dean shrugged. "That's up to her. I don't think she'll come back here. Not since she saw the Dead Man. That rattled her."

"I'll bet." Hardly anybody wants to be around the Dead Man when he's awake. If they know what he is. I have reservations myself. I continued. "Give me a guess about the connection with the Bledsoe. The Ugly Pants Gang is putting out a ton of money so they can put metal statues in the walls."

Dean looked bewildered. "I don't have any idea. This is the first I've heard."

Singe brought me a cold mug of beer, reminding me that we had business of our own to attend.

She made sure surly little Melondie got a tiny cup to nurse, too. Always thoughtful, my pal Pular Singe.

"So, darling junior junior partner. What do I need to know that n.o.body's bothered to tell me yet?"

Melondie Kadare piped, "You need to know that your G.o.dd.a.m.n superior friggin' att.i.tude needs a major adjustment, Biggie."

"Ouch!"

Singe said, "She is giving you att.i.tude because her tribe was most incompetent at gathering useful information. They were too busy stealing food, wine, beer, and small valuables to accomplish anything."

That started Melondie on a cla.s.sic rant. She sputtered and raved for eight or ten minutes. Her big problem was Singe's being right. Her tribe had demonstrated a decided lack of discipline.

"Do you have any idea how the fires started?"

"No. I was outside." She produced a fair picture of the encounter between the Ugly Pants crew and Playmate, Saucerhead Tharpe, and the drivers of sundry carriages. The good guys won by weight of numbers. Though Melondie thought the outlanders were sluggish, confused, and weak.

For no clear reason, and to his own astonishment, Dean announced, "It was dark, wasn't it? 'A-Lat' means 'Queen of the Night.' "

"Uh..." I mused. "I guess that's handy to know."

Not to be outdone, Singe promised, "John Stretch will have a better report once he gets his rats together."

"That's good," I said. Not believing for an instant. The rats from Whitefield Hall couldn't possibly remember details this long after having their brains scrambled by terror.

"It's been a hard day," I grumbled. "And it's getting dangerous out there. I'd better not go drinking. So here's my strategy. I'll do my drinking and thinking here, after you all go to bed."

Singe filled my mug. She refilled her own. Melondie tapped the rim of hers, an ivory thimble that came down to me from my mom.

23.

Dean said, "It's Colonel Block again."

"Uhm?"

"At the door? You just told me to answer it? Remember?"

"Sir, I have no recollection of those events." Making mock of a statement heard frequently in the High Court lately, as the Crown reluctantly prosecutes the most egregious disturbers of the peace involved in recent human rights rioting and minority persecution. The Crown Advocate's usual att.i.tude toward minorities is that they should expect to be treated like minorities. If they don't like it, they shouldn't come here in the first place.

Dean brought the Colonel to my office. I'd already settled in to sweet-talk Eleanor in fluent Drunkenese. I asked, "Don't you ever take time off?"

Block isn't married. He isn't engaged. He isn't the other kind, either. He has just one love. And she's blind.

He romances her continuously, hoping she stays blind.

He'll be sorry someday.