"Back to my old self. Able to best a Marine two falls out of three. Know where I could find a Marine who wants to wrestle?"
"You're turning into a forward little sweetmeat."
Morley made a face but kept his groan to himself.
"Sometimes you've got to be direct. When all anyone does is worry about whether you're planning to cut their throat. I'm no black widow, Garrett."
So she said. I had no trouble picturing her with a scarlet hourglass on the front of that dress, accentuating her already-enticing shape. She had no reputation for that sort of thing but there was ample precedent in her own father's treatment of her mother.
"I don't think you are. What I wish you weren't is somebody who twists my head into knots every time I see you because that really gets in the way when I try to do business with you."
She leaned against me. "Poor baby."
Morley sat there in absolute silence, showing no inclination to draw attention to himself. He had no personal relationship with Belinda to help shield him from her unpredictable wrath. He preferred by far to do business at a grand remove.
Belinda told me, "Tell me a little more about this case you're working." So I did. I could see no way that it would hurt. And there was always a chance she'd get a wild hair and do something that would help.
"How does that tie in with your rat girlfriend?"
"It doesn't, far as I can see."
"I'll look around."
In TunFaire it's far harder to hide from the Outfit than it is to hide from me or Colonel Block. The Outfit commands far vaster resources.
"This have anything to do with all those flying lights everybody's been seeing?" she asked.
"It might," I conceded, grudgingly, not really having considered the possibility before. There was no evidence to suggest it.
Belinda popped up, in a bright good mood suddenly. Her mercurial mood swings are another thing that makes her a scary thing. She's much more changeable than most women.
She planted another kiss, this time at the corner of my mouth. "Give my best to Tinnie."
"We're on the outs. This week."
"Alyx, then."
"Nothing going on there, either."
"There's hope for me yet. I'll definitely want you to come to Daddy's party." Out the door she went, bouncing like she'd shed a decade of life and a century of conscience.
Morley exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "You know what that means?"
"Belinda having a party for the kingpin?"
"Yes. He's not going to be sixty. Not yet. And I think his birthday really isn't for a couple of months yet, either."
"It means she's confident enough of her hold on the Outfit to roll Chodo out and let everybody see what his condition really is."
The purported overlord of organized crime in TunFaire is a stroke victim, alive still but a complete vegetable. Belinda has been hiding that fact and ruling in his name for some time now. Questions have arisen but the combination of Chodo's past propensity for bizarre behavior, a little truth, and Belinda's utterly ferocious, ruthless suppression of challengers have kept the kingpin position safely a Contague prerogative.
Morley said, "There're some old underbosses who'll revolt. They won't take orders from a woman, no matter who she is."
I sighed, too.
Chances were good Belinda knew that better than we did. Chances were good that Belinda was ready to retire those old boys, and might do it at this marvellous party.
I could figure that but they couldn't because they didn't know what I knew about Chodo.
"How many times have you saved her life?" Morley asked. "Several, right?"
"Uhm." He'd been there a few times.
"I think she's gotten superstitious about you. I think she's decided you're her guardian angel. That no matter how bad it gets, if she's in trouble good old Garrett will bail her out."
"That's not true."
"But she believes it. Which means you don't really have anything to fear from her."
"Except for her expectations."
A sly look flicked across Morley's features. "You think she bought your story about Singe?"
It took me a moment to get it. "You butthead."
35
I said, "I was afraid of something like this."
Another woman had just stamped into The Palms. She headed toward me and Morley, elbowing Morley's men aside.
Winger definitely survives more by luck than by any good sense.
"Winger." Morley's greeting was less than enthusiastic. I suspect he'd had a bad personal experience there, once upon a time. Which would teach him to pay attention to his own rule about not getting involved with women who're crazier than he is.
"The very one," she retorted.
Winger is a big old gal, more than six feet tall, and solidly built, though she's actually quite attractive when she bothers to clean herself up. If she was a foot shorter and knew how to simper she'd be breaking hearts wholesale just by looking the wrong way.
"Hey, Garrett," she roared. "What the hell are you doing sitting on your ass in this nancy dump? You was supposed to—"
"You don't listen too well, do you? Word went out that I got the snot beat out of me last night. To you, too. The man who told you is standing right over there. Meantime, I've got bruises on my bruises. I'm stiff all over."
"Yeah? How 'bout where it counts? Didn't think so. You're another one that's just all talk." She glared at Morley. "Get up and walk it off."
Winger is something like a thunderstorm and something like a female Saucerhead. Except with better teeth. And she's a lot more stubborn than Tharpe. It may take Saucerhead a while to work something out but he'll change his mind. Winger has never been wrong in her life. Unless it was that time she thought she was wrong but it turned out that she wasn't.
Big, blond, meaty, goofy, completely dangerous where your valuables are concerned, she's likely to be part of or taken in by the most outrageous scams imaginable. And yet she's one of my friends. One of the inner circle. One of those who'd take steps if something happened to me. And I've never figured out why we like each other.
"Come on, Garrett. Get up off that fat ass. Don't you figure you done left Saucerhead twisting in the wind about long enough?"
I did think that. But Saucerhead was getting paid. And he, too, had been told of my misfortune.
I asked, "Where's Playmate? You're supposed to be covering for Playmate."
"Oh, he went off somewhere this morning, before your messenger came. When I got bored I decided... "
I sighed. Morley shook his head.
"What?"
I said, "I'm sure you've heard the word ‘responsibility' a few times. You have any idea what it means?"
Chances were she did but just didn't care.
"What?" Winger demanded again.
"If you came over here because you're bored, who's minding Playmate's stable so the other crooks don't walk off with everything in sight?" It was really stupid of us to have left all of Kip's inventions unguarded. But the gods of fools had been with us. Word had come that Playmate hadn't suffered any losses. He had wonderful neighbors. "Who's getting paid to make sure that doesn't happen?"
"Other crooks? What do you mean, other crooks? Wiseass. Look, I'm actually here because I'm kind of worried about Play. I thought he was going off to meet you. I figured he'd come back when he heard you wimped out on account of you got a couple of bruises and a scrape."
I said, "Well, I've had all the fun here that I can take. I'm going home."
It took me nearly a minute to get out of my chair. Then I couldn't stand up straight. "Guess I'll have to look on the bright side." I looked left. I looked right. "So where the hell is it?