Cruel Zinc Melodies (41 page)

The drill gods are all-seeing. All-knowing. And pretty wise.

I did good after that one stumble.

If I let the red beast grab hold of me here, these guys would look at me the way those guys in my training company had. They knew I wasn’t right. It wouldn’t matter if this shirt really was made that way.

“You’re too smart for me. They thought I could sell it.” I named no names, nor revealed why “they” wanted the suggestion of a dragon planted. “Gods be damned!”

“Garrett? What?” Saucerhead looked like he was wondering if he ought to be scared. Garrett was acting weird today. Weirder.

“I just realized. I got jobbed.”

What I’d realized was that having people think there was a treasure-brooding dragon down there guaranteed disaster. Dozens of story cycles include a “hero” who separates a dragon from its treasure nest. That should be harder in practice than in fable. A dragon’s hoard could become a total metropolitan obsession, worse than an unreasoning lust to be one of the earliest to own a custom-built Prose Flyer three-wheel. Greed would drive this obsession, not mere envy.

This truth had to be guarded. And shaped. Else this dragon would be nudged awake. And then? Disaster.

I told Saucerhead, “I don’t know what the grift is. I do know I’m not half as smart as I thought.”

He grunted.

“This is where you’re supposed to jump in and give me some positive reinforcement.”

He grunted again. Probably trying to figure out what those big words meant.

“All right. Be that way.” I sulked. Selling that. Hoping word would now go out that Max Weider, ever clever, was salting a gold mine by having his cat? s-paw Garrett go round spreading bullshit about a dragon. Just, coincidentally, a dragon, and hoard, buried under a Weider theater due to open in a couple of months.

People would figure the giant bugs were part of the publicity scheme, too. And if they did, we’d get the Faction kids out of trouble easy.

Which, no doubt, would happen anyway. They were related to the right people.

I chugged around the circle of speculation. My own occasional special cynical conviction that there are secret masters got me wondering if the ghost problem hadn’t really been orchestrated by Max and Manvil.

Sounded dramatic enough. Ah! What a wonderfully psychotic reality that would be. But the notion failed two critical tests.

First, Simplest Explanation.

The simplest and most obvious explanation of any phenomenon is usually the correct one.

Second, the Stupidity Test.

It’s unnecessary to invoke complex, convoluted conspiracy theories where plain old human stupidity suffices as an explanation.

“I’m getting old, Head. The inside of my melon is starting to fill up with the kind of stuff old Medford is always spouting.”

Saucerhead knows my grand-uncle. He chuckled. “There’s a lot of that going around, Garrett. And not just because we’re getting old. The world is changing. On account of, peace broke out. And that means things can’t stay the same. Nobody likes it but it’s so plain even dummies like you and me get to thinking about it.”

I do believe my jaw dropped. That was the deepest I’d ever heard Saucerhead get.

If you hang around long enough, and pay attention, you see that even the dim people can work through to some amazing conclusions. It’s all a matter of speed.

My inclination was to pretend that I hadn’t caught any of this. Following trails well blazed by brigades of my social betters before me.

But Saucerhead Tharpe was standing right there, looking me in the eye, waiting. Smugly confident that I would disdain real reality for the preferred, officially predecided reality.

“You don’t know me as well as you think, big guy.” But we weren’t getting paid to save any slice of the realm other than this pimple of a theater. “So let’s look at what we’ve got. Quickly, because the money guys are going to ask me some tough questions real soon. We'll all be out of work if they don’t like the answers.”

“You’re nervous, aren’t you? You’re chattering.”

“Yeah.” Max was indulgent in the extreme. I’d done him a lot of good the last few years. But mine is a “What have you done for me lately?” line of work. Putting the Weider Empire out in front of the Hill mob might be a straw that Max would refuse to carry. “So, tell me what’s going on here.”

“A whole lot of nothing. It’s totally quiet. No bugs. No ghosts. No bad guys. No freaks. That I noticed.” Possibly implying that current company was questionable.

“No workmen?”

“Not so much their fault. Take that up with the tin whistles. They’re all worried about if they let those guys in they'll mess up the evidence.”

“What evidence? What happened in here was mostly illusion. The real shit went down outside. In front of witnesses.” Few of whom had produced reliable statements, I was sure.

Saucerhead shrugged. “I’m just reporting.”

“Yeah. I got that.” I went back outside.

The red tops were holed up in Saucerhead’s guard shack, concentrating on not freezing to death. They were a lot colder than the men they had dispossessed. They had used up all the fuel. I wasn’t going to buy any more. They had one candle burning, providing weak light and a futile defense against the cold.

“You guys need to come inside the big place. It’s warmer.” And I could give them their due ration of shit without freezing my own favorite bits off.

Some didn’t want to go. But it was seriously cold. Their one candle was all that stood for the memory of summer. They quickly found the limits of their motivation.

We all sat around the floor of the World, telling tall tales and outright lies. I’d been tempted to close a few vents to raise the temperature. That temptation I could resist more easily than the one involving a tall, smoldering, apparently willing blonde sorceress. Who could well just want to use me for something less exciting.

Of all unlikely creatures on the gods? frozen earth, Pular Singe wandered in. Only she wasn’t wandering. She was in a damned big hurry, despite being bundled up till she could barely move.

This couldn’t be good. Disaster was about to sweep me up and chunk me into the dustbin of misery.

Singe cut me out of the crowd. Another bad sign. “What’s up?” I had to force the words.

She made sure we were too far away to hear, and that my back was to anybody who might read lips. “A man came from that Mr. Jan.”

“The tailor?”

“I don’t know that. Presumably, since you went to him for a fitting. The man said get word to you that Mr. Jan needs you back as soon as possible. That it’s urgent. He will refund the price of that thing you were wearing if you get there before the bells toll four.”

“What’s going on, Singe?”

“I don’t know. The messenger said it was urgent. The Dead Man told me to get you, fast as I could. He would not tell me what he saw inside the messenger’s head.”

“Why send you out? Why not that Joe Kerr kid?”

“Because you would not take the boy seriously.”

Probably not.

The fact that Old Bones wanted me to take this seriously meant I ought to do exactly that. Despite the comforts of the World. Such as they were.

“And that’s really all you can tell me?”

“That’s all. Except for the sense of urgency. Speaking of. I have an urgency of my own. Where can I?”

Excellent question. “The construction guys use the honey buckets behind those screens. Or they take it into the alley out back. Saucerhead has a garderobe attached to his shack.”

Damn! I’d just found Max a whole new problem. I’d been over the World top to bottom. The architects hadn’t provided any personal relief facilities. Something would have to be done. The high-end punters weren’t going to have their wives or mistresses go squat in the alley during intermission.

Hey. This might be another business opportunity. I could take over one of those places across the way and turn it into a pay-per-pee facility.

Singe told me, “Never mind. I have to get back home. They need me there.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing to concern you. Go find out why your tailor needs to see you.” Trailing a huge, put-upon sigh, she headed for the front door. Starting to develop a little attitude, that girl. I might lose her to the Faction.

“What was that?” Saucerhead asked when I came back over.

“One of those? got to do it right now, this minute, I don’t care if hell
is
freezing over? missions from the Dead Man. I’ve got to go, guys.”

Tharpe’s people all smiled and waved. They’d just gotten paid.

Before I hit the big cold white I opened the other, larger case so its contents could breathe.

83

The blizzard had worsened. In the falling snow parameter. You couldn’t see twenty feet. It was warmer and less windy. The snow came down in big, sloppy, slow flakes. The walk to Mr. Jan’s place was less miserable than I’d anticipated, though my calf muscles did ache from having to slog through snow in places already a foot deep. I gave a lot of mind time to a hope that it would melt before my turn at the shovels came again.

I thought it might. This blizzard had the feel of Winter’s last forlorn effort.

I didn’t proceed with battlefield caution. It was a storm. Bad people would be scarce. The reason most of them are bad is, they can’t stand the stress and structure of honest work. Or they’re too stupid.

Stupid were the kind who would be out looking for victims in this.

Still, my pace slackened ever more as I neared the tailor shop.

Something was off.

That old thing about it being quiet. Too quiet.

Even for the middle of a snowstorm, where it’s always quiet.

The quiet was the wrong sort.

I saw nothing. But there was something. I felt it.

I sniffed. And sniffed. And sniffed some more.

There was nothing in this air but heavy, resinous smoke. Every working stove and fireplace was trying to hold off the cold, mostly by burning cheap dangerous softwoods.

Maybe I was overly sensitive.

I crept up to Mr. Jan’s door without having anything creep up on me. Wondering if this was one of those deals where the genius bad guy tells you all your questions will be answered if you show up at some remote place, all alone, and don’t tell anybody.

That must have worked at some point, once upon a time. Else why would villains keep trying the blatantly stupid and transparent?

Inside. The bell jangling. Still nothing suspicious. But I had my weighted oaken headknocker deployed. My left hand, in my coat pocket, had fitted itself to brass knuckles cast in our own manufactory from a design suggested by Kip Prose. Just twelve had been produced before I enjoyed one of my few successes as self-appointed company conscience.

There really is no legitimate use for brass knucks.

Mr. Jan popped through the curtains closing off the back of his shop. He carried Jokes Leastor’s special coat. “Ah. You’re here. I didn’t expect you for a while yet.”

“My associates are fast. And have been known to be lethal.”

That went over his head. Musingly, he observed, “They would be, wouldn’t they? Come on back here.”

I leapt and caught him. Not only my associates are fast. He yelped, startled. “Tell me, Mr. Jan. Where did you get that coat? It’s only been a few hours since I traded it for what I’m wearing now.”

The little man gasped, “Back there. In back.”

He wanted me to go to the back. Into shadowy tight places where his fabrics were stored. Where villains by the dozen might be lurking.

“I'll be right behind you.” I poked him with the end of my stick. Thoroughly put out, he pushed through the curtains. I stayed close enough to grab and use him as a shield.

The back of the shop was a surprise. It was spacious and lighted. Mr. Jan’s fabric bolts hung on wall brackets where the cloth could be unrolled as needed. The floor was given over to cutting tables and manikins of varying size, most wearing apparel in some stage of construction.

“Ah. Sergeant Garrett. You have me at a disadvantage for the moment. I hadn’t entertained the ghost of a hope that you would arrive so soon.”

The other thing gracing Mr. Jan’s back room was His Royal Highness, Prince Rupert, Lord of This, Count of That, Duke of Something or Other Else. Hell. There I went. So up on my Royals that I didn’t know which titles Rupert preferred. A failing unlikely to garner positive reviews from His Grace. Though not that unusual down on the street, where who is what doesn’t make a lick of difference, day to day.

I tried to recall the rituals you’re expected to pursue when entering the presence of someone so exalted. “I apologize, Your Grace. I’ve never been taught the appropriate obsequies.”

“Never mind. There’s no one here to see.”

There was Mr. Jan. But he had recovered his aplomb and was back at work on a larger, gaudier, new and improved version of the coat he had built for Jokes Leastor.

I had a sinking feeling.

Clown coats would be all the rage by the time winter rolled around again. Had to be if it was what the most popular Royal was wearing.

Mr. Jan hummed softly as he cut and pinned.

He could see that future.

He’d be a made man this time next year. He’d have squadrons of employees. After all those years in the trenches he’d be an overnight success.

The reason the prince felt at a disadvantage was, he was in his underwear. The tailor was using his exquisitely made outerwear to get the refined measurements needed to make sure the new coat was a perfect fit.

84

“Take a seat, Sergeant Garrett. Forget everything else. We have business to attend.” He had a jerky way of speaking that was unsettling.

Prince Rupert conjured a couple of chairs, placed them beside an empty cutting table. I didn’t protest his use of a rank I no longer wore. I avoid contradicting princes whenever I can.

I sat myself down, wishing I’d had the foresight to strap on my chastity belt this morning.

You need one when nobility invites you to come be one of the boys.

“You’re skeptical and suspicious,” the prince said. “And nervous. Good. Your mind doesn’t freeze up when presented with sudden, unusual circumstances. But relax. Let’s talk like professionals, here away from everyone else.”