Cruel Zinc Melodies (9 page)

“I suppose.”

“What happened to Saucerhead and Playmate?”

“They went down that alley over there. To check with a man about a mule.”

Together? That was a girlie thing to do.

“You heard from Alyx? Or the others?”

“Not lately. Why?” Eyes all narrow.

“You and Max should form a club. He’s also sure Alyx is in dire peril from the dread Garrett beast.”

“The beast isn’t that bad. But it better not get caught fondling any blondes. Of any kind.”

Kip’s mother and sister were blondes, last time I saw them. “Pretty draconian, wouldn’t you say? What?”

Her face had drained. Even the freckles had gone.

She was staring over my shoulder.

Before I ever turned, I told her, “Get in the coach. Lock any locks you find. And don’t come out till Play and Saucerhead get back. No matter what.”

20

There were seven of them. Teens, with the youngest just over the border but a decade older in his empty heart. The tallest was maybe five feet six. They were all pale brown, black of hair, empty of eye, the sons of refugees. And stupid.

They were up to no good. Obviously. In broad daylight. In an area that attracted Watchmen, though none were evident at the moment. They didn’t know who they meant to mess with and they weren’t carrying weapons. Not openly.

The leader announced himself with a short guy swagger. We locked gazes. He was dead cold inside, this boy. How do they get that way so young?

“Help you with something?”

“You ready to come across with the insurance now?”

“I'll be damned.” I couldn’t help laughing. “There just ain’t no limit to stupid in this burg.”

That didn’t sit well. “You calling us stupid?”

“Yeah. Do the math, kid. Did you bother to find out who you’re messing with? Or where you’re doing the messing? You’re going to try to run a protection scam on the richest man in TunFaire? He can afford to pay a thousand dorks just like you to scatter pieces of you from the north side all the way down to the delta. And he will, just to make sure word gets out not to fuck with him.”

The baby of the crew sneered. “This is Stompers’turf now, old man. Nobody does nothin’ here without they get our permission first.”

“This is the Tenderloin, baby boy. Combine territory. Folks a lot less forgiving than Max Weider. You boys go home to mama. Before you give her a reason to cry.”

These kids weren’t used to having somebody not melt in terror. Their particular combination of ferocity, ignorance, and don’t care if I see tomorrow could only mean they were children of the Bustee, TunFaire’s foulest and most dangerous slum.

The kid gangs of the Bustee all have names like “The Stompers.”

The seven spread out. Their captain was disappointed by my attitude. He planned to show me why they’d chosen their name.

Saucerhead and Playmate, back from haggling over a mule, came round the coach. Tharpe read the situation in a blink, snapped up two boys, and smacked them together so hard I heard a bone break before one started wailing. He threw the lighter kid up on top of the coach. Where the boy failed to stick. He fell back down, landing in a way that had to dislocate his shoulder.

Tharpe selected another victim.

Playmate, saddled as he is with a conscience, took time to assess the situation before he stepped in. His score was just one knockdown, plus dishing a second serving to one of the ones I put down when the kid tried to get back up.

Tin whistles tooted.

The leader of the pack was the only one who produced a weapon, a rusty kitchen knife probably stolen from home. He didn’t know how to use it. Yet.

He would, someday. If he survived.

The first Watchman arrived after the action. Four boys were hurt too bad to run. Two tried but had no luck. The littlest was the only one nimble enough to get away, crying as he went.

The leader’s knife hand was all crippled up. Somebody stomped it. He didn’t whine. His eyes didn’t get any less cold.

The first tin whistle to show was a guy I knew, Ingram Grahm. “What happened, Garrett?”

I told it. Tinnie backed me up. Ingram considered arresting me for having a disproportionately beautiful companion. Playmate and Saucerhead told what they knew. Ingram echoed my own thinking. “There’s no bottom to the reservoir of stupid, is there? These guys the reason you’re down here?”

“Maybe. Somebody’s been messing with Old Man Weider’s construction crew. He told me to make it stop.”

“Yeah? Take care. There’s probably a shitload more of these little peckerneckers. Their mobs run in the hundreds, sometimes.”

He didn’t want the hassle of having to deal with a bunch of kid gangsters. He’d probably want to give them a lecture they wouldn’t hear, then tell them to drag their sorry asses home. In the pre-Relway era style of dealing with juvenile crime.

I said, “We’ve had two bodies turn up here in the last two days. You know Git and Bank?”

“Sure. This’s their beat. Today’s their day off.”

“They’re the ones dealing with that.”

“Kind of turns things around, don’t it?” Ingram eyeballed the teens hard.

I said, “Take a check of the back of that left hand. Somebody scratched that same tattoo into that pillar over there. Where the security guy’s body turned up. Whoever did it used a bloody knife. That kid there had him a knife. It’s around here somewhere.”

Saucerhead held it up and waggled it.

The gang leader showed the slightest strain. He knew enough about current events to understand that he didn’t want to catch the eye of the Civil Guard when murder was involved. You for sure didn’t want them thinking you was the one who done it.

I’d bet all my shiny new angels there was a nasty murder lurking in Deal Relway’s early memories. Something that galled his sense of justice. Potential murderers don’t fare well in Relway’s keeping. Even thugs who swim deep in the reservoir of stupid are catching on. Bad shit is waiting on the other side of what might seem like a good idea at the time.

Tin whistles continued to arrive. Ingram said, “I'll take that knife, Tharpe. We got a new forensic sorcerer who'll match it up if it’s the blade that killed the guard. Garrett. Any chance we could borrow a wagon? Some of these little bastards are too busted up to walk.”

“They aren’t mine to loan. You need to ask the teamsters.”

Playmate said, “Let the living carry the dead,” quoting scripture. Then rounded up a pliant teamster who didn’t mind hauling casualties to the Al-Khar. For a suitable tip.

“You do lead an interesting life, don’t you?” Tinnie said as we watched the city employees clear off. I was about to get a dose of stop this nonsense and get a real job.

“As long as you’re in it.”

“Do you think those boys murdered the dead men?”

“Handsome, yeah. Not the other one. Relway will get them to confess everything they’ve ever gotten into. Then he'll fix it so they never hurt anybody again.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Less than it would if they hadn’t planned to stomp the snot out of me.”

“You think they would’ve tried?”

“Absolutely. And they would’ve done. There were too many of them. And at that age they don’t know when to stop.” Handsome had been stomped before he was murdered.

“Guess that wraps the job up, then. Doesn’t it?”

“One angle. There’s still the bugs and the ghosts and the mysterious music, none of which those shitheads were bright enough to fake.”

“Here comes your first wife.”

“Smart-ass.”

“I’m not so smart. But I’m cute.”

Oh yeah.

21

Singe approached slowly. She sniffed the air and looked around nervously. “Are you all right?”

“They never laid a hand on me. Thanks to good timing.” I indicated Saucerhead and Playmate. I told it. That being the easiest way to calm her. Once she knew she wouldn’t lose her meal ticket, I asked, “What did you come up with?”

“They went to a house about a block past the theater. Down to that first corner, then turn left. It looks abandoned. Only we know there aren’t any abandoned buildings in TunFaire.”

The contractions came fast and furious today.

It isn’t strictly true that there are no abandoned buildings. But a place has to be nasty beyond belief not to accumulate squatters. “Same as what keeps them from sneaking into the World at night?”

“Could be.”

“Something you’re not telling me?”

“Only that I think there is a connection. The same smell is coming out there. But stronger.”

“You didn’t go inside?”

“Of course not. I am not that brave. The smell is that strong.”

“Bug smell?”

“Yes. But something else, too. Powerful and frightening.”

“Let me think about this.”

Three teenage boys. On the brink of the Tenderloin. But interested in a derelict building instead.

If the others were like Kip, that might mean something. Due to the overwhelming weight of shyness and fear of failure in front of friends.

On the other hand, if they were like Kip, they’d all be mad geniuses. Who didn’t have a clue.

Kip would be seventeen or eighteen now. And still desperately in need of Mom’s help to make himself presentable in public. He could come up with amazing things? like the three-wheel, the folding knife you carry in your pocket, and the drawing compass? but he hadn’t yet caught on how to deal with real, live people. Especially those special, real, live people who come equipped with soft curves.

Singe said, “I remember what that smell is. We smelled it that time with the shape changers.”

“I didn’t want to hear that.” That had been a rough time, chock-full of horrors, wonders, and amazements. Max had lost his wife and several children. I’d met Singe. The Dead Man had left the house for the first, last, and only time. And we’d all learned how nasty shape shifters could be. And how hard it is to kill them.

“Not the monsters. The smell around them. That yeasty, beer-making smell.” She preened.

Tinnie observed in silence. Her having no opinion became distracting. Tinnie Tate always has an opinion. Whether she knows anything or not. All Tates come that way.

“Max makes good stuff at reasonable prices. So why would those boys try to make it when they can buy it ready made, cheaper? Boys their age think work is a curse word.”

“I did not say they were brewing beer,” Singe growled. “I said the smell suggests fermentation.”

“There you go again.”

“Can I ask a question?” Tinnie said.

“As long as you understand that I might not give you an honest answer.”

“Why fuss about that creepy kid making beer when your mission is to make sure the World Theater is finished on time, in budget, so Alyx and Bobbi and me have a place to show ourselves off?”

I grinned.

“Oh gods!” she burbled. “Don’t you dare even think what you’re thinking.”

I kept grinning. “But, darling! Light of my life. Why not be generous and give you my second floor to strut your stuff?”

“Garrett.” That was Playmate, distracting me by pointing out another bunch of teenagers. Unfortunately for them, the tin whistles were lurking. The little thugs got rounded up before they knew what hit them.

For Relway’s mob probable cause can be as improbable as they like.

Impatient, Singe asked, “Do you plan to do anything but crack wise and take up space?”

Tinnie chimed in, “Here comes something about sharp snake’s teeth, hen’s teeth, frog fur, or some other folksy observation about how unfair we all are.”

So. Once again it was teak on Tommie Tucker season with Mama Garrett’s baby boy starring as poor, sad Tommie. The damned horses pulling Playmate’s coach were ready to join in.

Horses are all out to get me. Some just fake innocence better than others.

Singe said, “Response please. Take up space? Crack-wise? Or?”

“All right. Show me the damned house.”

22

“Damned” wasn’t far off the mark.

The place Singe showed me was one spring storm shy of collapse. Its upper-story windows were empty eyes. The wooden parts of its stoop were gone, taken for firewood. Bricks had begun falling off. There was no door in the doorway.

But the structure remained upright, for now, fifteen feet wide and three stories tall. A squatter’s delight. But there was none of the trash or stench found where outsiders put down roots. There were no filthy toddlers underfoot.

“Sorcery,” Saucerhead opined. Having tagged along uninvited, accompanied by Tinnie and Playmate.

“You could be right. I already think sorcery is the root of the bug problem.”

“You smell it?” Singe asked.

“No. I’m human, sweetheart.” I climbed the stone steps to the doorway. They wobbled underfoot. Why hadn’t they been carried off? And the brickwork, too. Bricks are valuable.

There was an obvious line beyond which scavengers had not dared venture. Chips of decomposing brick lay on one side, close in. Nothing lay farther out.

Even small chips of brick are salable at the brickworks. The brick makers crush them and add them as tempering when they make new bricks.

I walked inside the line.

“Place looks empty,” I said. I reached in with the tip of my left foot, testing the flooring. It creaked. But it was still there. Not yet plundered. Mostly. Without squatters to explain its preservation.

“Sorcery,” I whispered to myself. In case myself had missed that point before.

Of my companions, only the natural-born coward, the ratgirl, joined me on the stoop.

“I smell something now,” I told her. “Not fermenting beer, though.”

“There are several odors. Combined. The wort smell is the loudest. The others are unfamiliar.”

Something clattered down below. It sounded like a thin board falling onto a hard floor. Someone cursed, in a “He done a dumb thing” mode instead of “Damn it, I just hurt myself!” I waved Singe back, retreated myself, watched from a respectful distance.

Singe asked, “Why did we run away?”

“I don’t know. Maybe me thinking about that dead line. Why didn’t scavengers pick up chips on the other side?”