Said gentleman continued exercising his shoulder. My door remained stubbornly unmoved by the brute side of the force. “You ready yet, Dean? Just point the business end between his eyes when he stops rolling.”
I stepped up to the peephole. Big Hairy was rubbing his other shoulder. He looked down at the man in the street. That guy nodded. One more try.
Saucerhead stood around awaiting events.
Big Hairy charged.
I opened the door. He barked as he plunged inside, somehow tripping on my foot.
My toy made a satisfying thwock! on the back of his skull.
The other two hairy boys started to charge, too, but became distracted as their pelts started to crawl with tiny people armed with tiny weapons. Really, really sharp little weapons. All crusty brown with poison.
Singe leaned down from the porch roof, poking around with a rapier. Its tip was all crusty, too. She’d picked up Morley’s wicked habit.
Saucerhead grabbed the guy in the street, slapped him till he stopped wiggling, tucked the guy under one arm, then asked, “What’re you into now?”
“I don’t got a clue,” I said. “You didn’t break that guy, did you?”
“He’s breathing. He’ll wake up. Might wish that he didn’t, though, when he does. You want to go clubbing tonight?”
“Can’t. I’ve got a command performance. Chodo’s birthday party.”
“Yeah? Hey! Is that tonight? Damn! I forgot. I’m supposed to.work security.” Tharpe started walking away.
“Hey!”
“Oh. Yeah. What do you want me to do with this guy?”
“Put him down and head on out. Relway’s Runners are coming.”
An urban police force sounds like a good idea. And it is. If it don’t go getting in your way. Which it’s likely to do if you spend time tiptoeing around the edge of the law.
Three Watchmen materialized. Two were regular patrolmen. The third was a Relway Runner. Scithe.
He recognized me, too. “You just draw trouble, Garrett.” He eyed my house nervously. The Runners are the visible face of the secret police, known by their red flop caps and military weaponry. They have a lot of power but don’t like getting inside reading range of mind-peekers like the Dead Man.
I said, “He’s asleep.”
Nothing lies more convincingly than the truth. My reassuring Scithe assured him only that the Dead Man was pawing through every dark recess of his empty skull.
He stuck to his job, though. “What were these guys up to, Garrett?”
“Trying to kick my door in.” He had to ask. I know. I have to ask a lot of dumb stuff, too. Because you have to have the answers to build toward more significant stuff.
“Why?”
“You’ll have to ask them. I’ve never seen them before. I’d remember. Look at those pants.” While we chatted, the patrolmen bound the hairy boys’ wrists. “There’s another one of those inside, guys. My man’s got the drop on him.” I moved toward the character that Saucerhead dropped. I wanted to ask questions before they dragged him off to an Al-Khar cell.
A patrolman called from the house, “This asshole won’t cooperate, Scithe.”
“Keep hitting him. His attitude will improve.” Scithe blew his whistle.
Seconds after, whistles answered from all directions.
I stirred the unconscious man with my foot. “These guys have a foreign look.”
Scithe grunted. “I can tell right off you’re a trained detective. You realized no local tailor would ruin his reputation that way. People! Gather round. What happened here?” He was talking to onlookers who’d come out to be entertained.
Amazing changes are going on. Astonishing changes. Several Karentines admitted having witnessed something. And they were willing to talk about it. The more traditional response, after the law caught and hog-tied a potential witness, would be protestations of blindness brought on by congenital deafness having spread to the eyes. In times past actual witnesses often could not speak Karentine despite having been born in the kingdom.
Relway was having way too much success selling civic responsibility.
My pixies were old-school, though.
Witnesses agreed that the Ugly Pants Gang just came up and started trying to break in, ignoring onlookers like they expected to do whatever they wanted, fearing no comebacks.
I tickled the down character with my toe, near his groin, in case he was playing possum.
“Garrett.” Scithe wagged a finger. “No, no.”
“The victim of the crime should be able to get a vague notion why somebody wants to bust up his place.”
“We’ll let you know what you need to know.”
“That’s comforting.” I didn’t have to decide for myself. The secret police would take the worry off my shoulders. They’d figure it all out for me. I just had to lie back and enjoy it.
I didn’t argue. The name Garrett is far too high on Relway’s curiosity list already.
Stuff happens around me. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m so handsome and Fortune hates a good-looking man.
I told the pixie sentries that I appreciated their nest’s help. “Dean’s got some baby cats inside. Tell him I said to roast them up for you.”
6
Saucerhead fell into step beside me. I said, “I thought you might not get far.”
“Smells like a job opportunity.”
“I don’t really have anything… Wait. There is one thing. A street kid who calls himself Penny Dreadful. Runs errands. Carries messages. You know the type. There’s a thousand of him out there. Looks to be about twelve. Might actually be a girl a little older. And might be connected to what just happened.”
“Want me to catch her?”
“No. Just find out what you can. Especially where to find her. She’s not real high on my list, though. I’m worrying about Chodo’s birthday party.”
Saucerhead grunted.
Tharpe is huge. For a human being. And he’s strong. And he’s not real bright. But he’s a damned good friend. And I owe him, so a made-up job when I can manage one is never out of line. Especially when he might turn up something actually interesting.
I couldn’t conceive of any connection with what had just happened. Nor could I conceive of another explanation. But TunFaire is overrun with people trying to find a new angle.
Still, there’s hardly a bad boy around who doesn’t know what happens if they get too close to the Dead Man.
That screwball fable about foreign gods had some oomph!
“I’m all over it,” Saucerhead promised.
I gave him what little I could, including a description so feeble that all Penny Dreadful had to do to disguise himself would be change his shoes. “Promise me you’ll stay away from Winger. My life has been nice lately. I’d rather go right on not having her underfoot.” Winger is a mutual friend. Sort of. Being mainly a disaster on the hoof.
She’s the most amoral person I’ve ever met, with the social conscience of a rock. And all of a rock’s obsession with making the world a better place.
Winger is completely unaware that there are real, hurting people in this world who aren’t Winger.
“I don’t figure she’s likely to be a problem, Garrett.”
“She’s always a problem.”
“She’s in a relationship.”
“Winger? She’s in love? With somebody besides herself?”
“I don’t know about love. There’s this little winky who’s so gaga about her that she don’t get much chance to get into mischief. He follows her all around. Everything she does, he writes it down. Creating her epic cycle.”
“All right.” As long as Winger didn’t pop up, trying to profit from whatever was happening. Which is her usual way of doing business.
“Where’re you headed, anyway?” Saucerhead wanted to know.