'After I hit it about twenty times with your club.'
The woman was gorgeous and brilliant and evil, but she was no connoisseur of personal-use nonlethal defensive instruments. I carried nothing so mundane as a club.
'Why didn't you wake me up?'
'I hollered. You didn't even roll over. Then I was busy slamming the slime out of that damned thing.'
'You should've poked me with the stick.'
'I was distracted. I didn't think of that.' And that was right in character. She hardly ever asked for help, even when she had no choice. This thing with Morley was a wonderment.
'All right. Tell me how it happened. In order. Exactly.'
'I told you. There was this snake thing. I pounded on it till it pulled back. The shiny stuff is what it left. And, yes, I know we have to move Morley now because we can't totally protect him here.'
Morley made a noise. I thought he wanted to say something. I was wrong. He had a problem with phlegm.
'That's a good sign, isn't it?'
'I think so.' For a few seconds Belinda was the woman she could have been if she had chosen different parents and wasn't a flaming sociopath.
'You got anybody set up around here besides me?'
'Outside. You're my inside guy. You're the one I trust.'
Somebody tapped on the door. I couldn't help myself. 'What's the password?'
'How about 'Breakfast,' nimrod?' That sounded like DeeDee.
Belinda collected my head knocker and got ready to brain an intruder clever enough to mimic DeeDee's twang.
I cleared the bowl and pitcher off the nightstand. DeeDee parked the tray she carried. She turned on Dotes. 'It worked! He looks a thousand percent better. He's coming back. He's going to be all right.' She bounced and clapped her hands like a girl younger than Crush, then bolted out.
I asked, 'What's the story there?'
'I don't know. It may be best that I don't.'
I hadn't meant DeeDee's connection to Morley. I'd meant DeeDee and Hellbore. On reflection, though, there was no reason for Belinda to know anything about employees so far down the food chain that they dealt direct with the folks whose money fueled the Combine engine.
'She brought food enough for us and our childhood invisible friends. Let's do some damage.' I hadn't eaten since I left Macunado Street.
DeeDee came back with Crush before we were done. Crush jumped all over me. 'You weren't supposed to eat the cream of wheat!'
'The what?'
'The mush, nimrod! That was for him. The heavy stuff was for you.'
The invisible friends must have gotten that. I hadn't seen anything I considered part of a hearty breakfast. 'The nearest thing to a real breakfast. .'
Belinda squeezed my left elbow. She had some grip for a girl. 'Garrett, your job is to keep your mouth shut, look pretty, and break the legs of anybody who tries to hurt Morley.'
I could do two out of three blindfolded but the mouth thing has been a lifelong challenge.
'Belinda, silence is too hard.' I was always chock-full of words that want to be free. Some even coagulate into rational. . somethings.
16
Good thing Crush and DeeDee were dedicated to Morley's welfare. I was still wondering if I had what it took to feed him when they finished that and got to work dealing with the consequences of giving an unconscious man food and drink.
He needed bathing. His bed needed changed. I opened the window to the max during the process.
Belinda said, 'You have to get more water into him. He's hot but he isn't sweating the way he should.'
What would she know about dark elf fevers and sweats? Shrug. I have made a point, lately, of not hearing anything interesting about Miss Contague.
Some would say that I'd made a point of not hearing anything interesting about anybody who lacks red hair.
I wondered how Tinnie was doing.
I said, 'My gut is full. While you're all here I'm going to look around outside.'
Belinda gave me a dire look.
'Fear not. I won't make a run for it.' I reclaimed my stick and got out, just to stretch my legs.
Belinda's watchers were easy to find. They all recognized me. They had been with her when she collected me on Factory Slide. They had nothing to report. Two were so bored they would have talked about anything with anybody.
The last one, though, had nothing to say. He had seen something interesting. Something interesting had seen him, too. He looked like he was napping at the top of a stairwell to a cellar. He had been dead long enough to cool down.
A few years ago that would not have moved me. Back then every night produced its crop of corpses for morning harvest. But our great city is fraught, entangled in the throes of change. Casually created cadavers have become uncommon. Director Relway's winnows have been harsh.
I considered the scene with time-dulled mind and senses. This was not one of Belinda's coach crew. He had not died fighting so had not been alarmed by the approach of whoever did him in.
I crossed over to the wall beneath Morley's window.
That was redbrick. It glistened. There was dried something on the cobblestones, too. A pile of goat scat marbles lay a few feet south of the glisten. Flies were feasting.
I marveled at all the quiet. Senior management at Fire and Ice had to know the true names of some well- placed clients.
True names weren't just useful in the sorcery game, they were invaluable in politics and the blackmail game. Even the passive sort that assures localized maintenance of public works and a useful police presence. Or absence.
The streets were in perfect repair. Night lamps were in place and unbroken. There wasn't a red top in sight.
There wasn't anyone in sight. Which explained why a dead man could cool down without an uproar.
I made a second round of Belinda's watchers. Then I went back to report.
DeeDee and Crush had finished. I met them in the hallway. I found Belinda seated on the edge of Morley's bed, holding his hand. She started, pulled away, looked slightly guilty.
I ignored that. 'He does look like he's coming back.'
'You don't look good. What happened?'
'Somebody killed your man who was watching the window. You want to see, look to your right, far side, at the top of that cellar well about forty feet along.'
Belinda looked. 'Oh. I see him now. Looks like he's sleeping.'
'Which is why nobody noticed till I tried to wake him up.'
Belinda went from concerned to grim in a heartbeat. She nodded but just stared at the dead man. Bodies and parts thereof would begin skewing Director Relway's violent crimes statistics real soon.
'Let me guess. Those idiots never saw a thing.'
'No. They did. But I had to ask twice. They only thought they hadn't seen anything. Once they heard that a friend was dead they remembered an old woman with a goat cart passing through, headed toward downtown.'
'What's the kicker? I'm in no mood for guessing games.'
