Gilded Latten Bones

46

I shut the door behind Dollar Dan. He would come back later, to sit with Morley while I was upstairs snoring.

'And snoring it had better be,' Singe told me, remembering the woman smell. She did not like Furious Tide of Light today. I wasn't sure why.

I can't quite work out how Singe decides who she likes and who she doesn't, nor why she will change her mind overnight. Her brain doesn't work like mine. I'm sure her sense of smell has something to do with it.

I settled in near Morley, a pot of tea at hand. The Dead Man filled me in on what he had learned from our visitors, including tidbits from the elders who had come for Brother Hoto. Of interest was the fact that Winger and the Remora were drifting apart, the drift mainly hers. She couldn't handle his success.

We do not know much more about the threat to the city. We do know who has been warned off it. We have eyes and ears watching and listening, now. We know we will get Mr. Dotes back. Additionally, we have set in motion actions that offer a chance of rescuing Playmate from the natural monster devouring him.

That was good news. 'Did you get anything from the Windwalker?'

Vague amusement, presumably at my expense. That woman is the most simple-minded, empty-headed genius I have ever encountered. She can focus her entire being on the moment. You could do far worse.

'Excuse me?'

As a practical matter. She would provide all the fireworks-and more-with none of the drama of your Miss Tate.

'Uh. .'

Miss Algarda is ready to grant her devotion. That would be unreserved and absolute. She considers you an ideal candidate. Although she is an immense and formidable power, and a genius professionally, her emotional world is simpler than that of Deal Relway.

'That's scary.'

It is. She does not grasp nuance or shades of gray.

The answer to why me might be tucked inside what he had sent. A different kind of sociopath, she would not need time to work things out. Is/is not, with nothing in between. 'She would be clever enough not to push me, wouldn't she?'

You could be right in considering her a special kind of sociopath. She is smart enough to show the behavior she has seen in courtships. But she will not be resilient if she is mislead, mistreated, emotionally abused, or blackmailed.

'I believe I get the idea.'

Good. You are staring into the eyes of a big responsibility.

I had an uncomfortable notion that I knew what he meant.

Dotes' First Law. Keep your hands off a woman crazier than you are. Which I observed in the breach. Furious Tide of Light would be, 'You Touch It, You Bought It.'

But I didn't believe she was crazy. Not the way girlfriends usually are.

Her head worked different, sure. She had grown up sheltered from life. She coped now because she didn't go out much. When she did she dealt with people she scared so bad they couldn't imagine messing with her.

Hers was a unique emotional realm but it was the only one she knew.

Part of me did find her damned intriguing. It hunted loop-holes in Dotes' Law.

That was the part exhausted by squabbling with Tinnie.

'What do you think, Old Bones?'

I think it is none of my business. I think you are an adult now, and I should not tinker-unless, as was the case with Singe this morning, you start running your mouth with no thought to the consequences.

I was stunned. By making that carefully neutral statement he had told me something I'm sure he did not intend. He had doubts about Tinnie. After all this time.

I would have expected him to endorse the redhead and reject the Windwalker. I wasn't in her class and she came with a whole different drama. (I wasn't in Tinnie's class, either, but a different definition of class was operative there.)

Maybe he was tired of the drama, too.

Still, I carefully reviewed his communications since he had labeled Furious Tide of Light an empty-headed genius. I got a strange impression that he did prefer the Windwalker but would be careful not to say so.

Off I rambled into my own internal drama land, wondering what it was about the beautiful but weird sorceress that made her a preferable mate.

Morley tried to say something.

47

Morley was awake.

His eyes were halfway open, fluttering. He wanted to say something.

Having been in his position myself, I told him, 'You're at my place on Macunado Street, being watched out for by me, Singe, the Dead Man, Belinda, John Stretch, the Civil Guard, and the godsdamned Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light. Somebody really wanted to close you down, buddy. Oh. You've been out for more than a week. They tried to poison you, too.'

In retrospect, that actually helped. His wounds healed a lot while he was unconscious.

He tried to sit up. He got nowhere. His wounds were not healed enough. He felt them, too. And now had no strength left.

'Water!' was the first word I understood.

Then Dean was there, not only with water but with warm chicken broth. Singe was only a moment behind. She helped lift Morley so Dean could deliver the water and liquid chow.

After the stress level declined and the broth began to work, Morley croaked, 'Tell me.'

'Be easier for the Dead Man to. .'

'You tell.'

I told my part and what I knew to be true with the precision I used reporting to the Dead Man.

Morley did not seem much interested in who had stabbed him. He was intensely interested in all the whos and what happeneds after he went down. Singe and I added what we had heard from unreliable sources.

Everything given him, I moved on to my own curiosities. 'What were you doing in that part of town, anyway? Not that you don't have a right to go wherever you damned well please. But, unless things changed lately, you don't have much to do with those people.'

Sometimes I think he was embarrassed by his ethnic background.

He was not yet in any condition for real talk. He eyed me in disbelief. Then his handsome face collapsed into despair. 'I can't remember!' Moments later, 'He couldn't root it out?'

'No. Unless he didn't recognize it because it didn't connect with everything else.' That was my theory. Morley had been involved in something else entirely when he walked blind into something deadly.

Morley frowned. I took that to mean he wanted an explanation.

'Sarge thinks you were up there paying off your fiancee's family.'

Morley looked puzzled but I didn't feel any honest emotion behind that. I didn't pursue it.

Old Bones could fill me in later.

I did ask, 'How do you justify Belinda Contague against Dotes' First Law?'

'There are twelve kinds of crazy, Garrett. Romantic attraction is the worst.' His first complete statement,