was going on.
I tried to kiss Tinnie. She wouldn't have it. I backed away. 'I do love you. But you can't own me.'
She managed to keep from saying something really awful.
I got in. The coach rolled before I settled the back of my lap on the plush opposite Belinda.
Time had been kind. She was as striking as ever. Her best feature was her long, glossy black hair. It accentuated her pallor and the red she used to paint her lips.
But today her hair was unkempt, stringy, in need of washing. Her complexion had gained a sickly yellow- green cast-though maybe that was the light. She did not wear any of her usual makeup, crafted to create a vampire look. And she had given little attention to her clothing.
I guessed she hadn't changed in days. She had that air.
Being an accomplished observer, I sensed that she was deeply upset. 'Talk to me.'
'Somebody took a run at Morley Dotes.'
'You said.'
Morley had been my best friend for so long that I couldn't recall when he hadn't been. Well, not before the war. But almost forever. I hadn't seen much of him lately. Tinnie didn't approve. Her disapproval was not ethnic, or social, but intellectual. Morley Dotes had the capacity to distract her special guy from what she wanted him focused on: Tinnie Tate.
I appreciated the courtesy of being informed but wondered why Belinda would involve herself in Morley's affairs. Maybe because she was the silent money behind his very successful restaurant enterprises.
'I'll tell you what I know. Three nights ago he staggered into one of our knock shops on the edge of Elf Town. He was full of holes but not so full of blood. The backstairs crew was turning out his pockets when somebody recognized him and decided to keep him alive till they tracked me down. I went there the night before last. He was six inches short of dying. I waited around but he never came to.'
'What was he doing up there?' And why had she gone running to a cathouse when she heard? 'Rhetorical question. Thinking out loud. I have no idea what he was up to these days. We don't get together much anymore.'
'I understand. Red hair.'
I doubted that she did. She had no one special in her life. She couldn't possibly know. . 'My god!' Could it be? It couldn't be.
Morley's First Law is, never get involved with a woman crazier than you are. But. . There it was, between the lines. Something was going on between the Queen of Darkness and my best pal.
'What do you need from me?'
'Stay with him. Make sure nobody helps him spring any more leaks. When he comes around, find out what we need to know.'
Which meant, find out who to hurt.
'All right.' She was saying plenty without stating it direct. There were ears up top and she wasn't in a trusting mood. She counted on our shared experiences to convey what she wanted me to know. For example, that she couldn't count on her own people to protect a boyfriend they didn't approve. 'But I have my own problem.' I told her about my visit from Butch and his brother.
'Tit for tat. I'll look out for Tinnie. Any way I could get my hands on those two?'
'What for?'
'To ask if there's a connection.'
Stranger connections have turned up in my life. 'They're inside the Al-Khar. You could ask General Block but I don't think he'd cooperate. Go after Jimmy Two Steps.'
'Two Steps?'
'That's the name they gave up. You know it?'
'I don't. But there are too many of them to keep track. TunFaire is like a dead dog and they're like flies.'
'There was mention of Raisin's Bookshop.'
Belinda frowned. In that light, doing that, she looked much older. 'A bookstore?'
Carefully, I said, 'Think back to when we met. That was one of the places.'
She had been hard at work committing slow suicide in the worst dives TunFaire boasts. The Bookshop was one where I interfered with her self-destruction.
'I must've been all the way to the bottom. I don't remember it at all.'
'It's bad news on wheels.'
'Not part of the family enterprise?'
'It wasn't, then. I doubt there's been any reason for that to change.'
'It's a place to start.' She thumped the wood behind her head. 'Marcus!'
A panel slid aside. A guard showed his face. 'Ma'am?'
'How much longer?'
'A minute. Two, tops.'
'Excellent.' Of me, she asked, 'Do you know a place called Fire and Ice on the north side?'
'No. I've been weaned off any such useful knowledge.'
'You'll find it. Take the Grand Concourse north. Stay with it after it turns into an ordinary street. When you get close to Elf Town, ask. Somebody will know it.'
'I'm going there because?'
'That's where Morley is. I don't want to move him till he can do it under his own power.'
He was my pal. I ought to be all over this. But I wasn't sure I was getting the whole truth.
Belinda understood. 'I'm not working you, Garrett. You take care of Morley. I'll take care of Tinnie. And her family if it's a trade dispute.'
That hadn't occurred to me. There were magnates capable of such shady tactics.
The coach stopped. 'We're here. You need anything up there, you tell them. They'll handle it. I'll see you as soon as I can.' Before I could protest her presumption she opened the door and gave me a shove.
Belinda is one of those people whose expectations become unspoken commands.
7
I turned an ankle, not badly, when I landed on the cobblestones of Macunado Street in front of my old house. It was still my place, I just didn't live there anymore and had not been around to visit for a while.
The place had gotten a face-lift: paint and some tuck-pointing. The cracked window pane on the second floor had been replaced. There were new curtains up there. And there were planters on the front stoop with unstolen flowers in them.
The siege of law and order had become quite epic.
I stood there considering, wrestling a dread that when I went inside I would be entering a foreign country. I climbed the steps. I didn't feel the Dead Man.
I dug in my pocket for a key I wasn't carrying, then knocked my personal 'I'm not here at knifepoint' knock. I waited. I examined the brickwork to the right of the door frame. The hole into the voids inside the wall had been sealed with mortar and a chip of brick. Which explained why, on a fine, warm day, I didn't have pixies swarming around me.
I'd have to get the story there. Melondie Kadare and her mob had been handy friends, if a little rowdy and unpredictable.
The door opened. The lady of the house stepped aside so I could enter.
Pular Singe had matured. She had put on a few pounds and was both better and more carefully dressed. I had nothing ready to say. 'How's business?'
'There has been a slowdown. That is Director Relway's fault. But we get by. Dean is making fresh tea. Come into the office.'
Her office was what we had once called the small front room, in the front of the house on the right side of the
