I drifted deep into the gloom, past sleepers of various tribes and sexes, careful to disturb no one. I'm a Golden Rule kind of guy. I don't like it when people bother me in my home.
I paused at a cross alley eighty feet in. The sunlight blazing in from the street dry-roasted my eyeballs.
I waited. I waited a little more. Then I waited some. Then, after I had done some waiting and was about to say oh well and give it up, a woman did come to the mouth of the Close. She was the right size, but her age was off by four generations. She was a slow, raggedy street granny propped up by a crooked cane. She peered out from under a yellow straw hat with devilish concentration, like she was sure some evil was afoot inside the Close. A woman her age could not have survived the streets without becoming constitutionally paranoid.
I like to think I'm a nice guy. I did nothing to frighten her. I just waited till she decided not to enter the alley.
To my utter astonishment the Goddamn Parrot never said a word. The Dead Man really had the muzzle on him.
Looked like my ploy had failed. A girl amateur had outwitted me.
I would keep that to myself. My friends ride me hard enough as it is. I did not need to pass out ammunition.
I eased back into the street. My luck turned no worse. No traveling brawl tried to suck me in. I went to a watering trough, used some green fluid to swab the muck off my shoes. I didn't mind making the liquid thicker. Provision of public horse troughs encourages the public to harbor horses. And horses are nature's favorite weapon when it comes time to tormenting guys named Garrett.
I had cleaned my left shoe and was trying to get the right off without getting anything on my hand when I spotted the redhead through a sudden parting in the crowd. Our eyes met. I gave her my biggest, most charming grin and a look at my raised right eyebrow. That combination gets them every time.
She took off.
I took off after her. Now I was in my element. This is what I live for. I would have called for foxhounds and a horn, but they would have brought horses along.
The Goddamn Parrot made some kind of interrogatory noise. I didn't catch it and he didn't repeat himself.
4
Again I noticed that curious phenomenon: guys didn't pay the girl any mind. Maybe my eyes were going. Maybe my run of bad luck was giving me a case of wishful thinking. Maybe those other guys were so happily married they never looked at pretty girls. Maybe the sun came up in the west this morning.
I ducked a swooping shoat and tried to catch up a little since I could not track the girl by the stir she was causing. The street was crowded like today was a holiday, but everybody was growling and snapping at everybody else. We needed some miserable weather to cool everybody down. A really hot spell might be like a torch to tinder.
I spied a familiar face headed my way, ugly as the dawn itself. Saucerhead Tharpe towered above the crowd. Nobody gave him any grief. He was a bone-breaker by trade, which meant prosperous times for him. He spotted me and hoisted a ham-sized hand. "Yo! Garrett, my man. How they hanging?" It is always good to have Saucerhead on your side, but he isn't overly blessed with brains or a flair for language.
"Low. You notice a cute little redhead about a hundred feet up? She's so short I can't keep track."
His grin broadened, exposing the remnants of truly ugly teeth. "You on a case?" Cunning fellow, he had an idea he could get me to hire him to help.
"I don't think so. She was watching my house, so I decided to follow her around."
"Just like that?"
"Yeah."
His grin turned into a horror show. "Dean come home? Or did the Dead Man wake up?" He winked at the Goddamn Parrot.
He was smarter than a rock, anyway. "Both."
Saucerhead chuckled. It was the kind of chuckle I get too often. My friends figure I was put here to amuse them with my travails.
"Look, Saucerhead, this gal is going to lose me if I don't... "
"Speaking of ones that got away, I seen Tinnie Tate yesterday."
Tinnie is one ex that my cronies won't let go away. "Great. Come by the house later. Tell me all about it."
"I seen Winger, too. She... "
"That's your problem."
Our mutual acquaintance Winger, though female, is as big as me and goofier than Saucerhead. And she has the moral sense of a rabid hyena. And, despite that, she is hard not to like.
"Hey, Garrett, come on, man."
I was drifting away.
"She had a good idea. Honest, Garrett."
Winger is chock-full of good ideas that get me up to my crotch in crocodiles. "Then you go in on it with her." There was a small thinning of the crowd uphill. I caught a glimpse of my quarry. She seemed to be looking back, puzzled, maybe even exasperated.
"I would, Garrett," Saucerhead shouted. "Only need somebody with real brains to get into it with us.
"That leaves me out, don't it?" Didn't it? Would a guy with real brains keep following somebody when it was evident that that somebody had decided that she wanted to be followed and was getting impatient with my delays?
Seemed like a good idea at the time. We have all said that.
I considered waving so she would know I was coming, but decided to keep up pretenses.
Saucerhead followed for a way, babbling something about my manners. I showed him my worst. I didn't answer. I trotted after my new honey. The crowds were thinning. I kept her in sight. Her passage caused no more stir than if she were the crone I had seen looking into Barley Close.
We were just past where Macunado becomes the Way of the Harlequin when she glanced back, then turned into Heartlight Lane, where some of TunFaire's least competent astrologers and diviners keep shop.
5
"Hey, buddy," I called to a stout-looking old dwarf lugging an old-timey homemade club. That tool was as long as him, crafted from the trunk and roots of some black sapling that had wood harder than rock. "How much you want for that thing?"
The price went up instantly. You know dwarves. You show interest in a broken clothespin... "Not for sale, Tall One. This is the world-renowned club Toetickler, weapon of the chieftains of the Kuble Dwarves for ten generations. It was given to the first High Gromach by the demiurge Gootch... "
"Right. And it's still got dirt on its roots, Stubby." The dwarf swung that club down hard enough to crack a cobblestone.
"Three marks," I barked before he gave me more details of the club's provenance or maybe demonstrated its efficiency by tickling my favorite toes.
"Not one groat under ten, Lofty." Even national treasures are for sale if you are a dwarf. Nothing is holy except wealth itself.
"Thanks for talking, Lowball. It was just an idea." I started moving.
"Whoa there, Highpockets. At least make me an offer."
"My memory must be playing tricks again. I thought I did make an offer, Shorty."
"I mean a serious offer. Not a bad joke."
"Three and ten, then."
He whined. I started moving.
"Wait, Tall One. Four. All right? Four is outright theft for such a storied weapon, but I have to get some cash together before you people run us out of town. I tell you, I'm not looking forward to rooting around in the old home mines again."
Sounded like there might be a tad of truth in that.
"Three ten and a parrot? Think what you could do with his feathers."
The dwarf considered Mr. Big. "Four." Nobody wanted the Goddamn Parrot.
"Done," I sighed. I turned out my pockets. We made the exchange. The dwarf walked away whistling. There would be tall tales told at the dwarf hold tonight, of another fool taken.