Dean.
'Reality catching up?' I asked.
'Not exactly. I noticed that Amalgamated is eleven days late with the quarterly dividend. We'll need that money if we keep pouring cash into this case the way we have been.'
I heard 'we' a lot but chose not to quibble.
She continued, 'Considering the season, the dividend ought to be strong. I will claim penalty interest.'
Her shoulders hunched like she expected me to take the company line against my interest as an investor.
I disappointed her.
I didn't know what she was talking about. I left that sort of stuff to her. She understood it. She reveled in it. She wallowed in it when she could.
Playmate joined us, trying to sub for Dean. He brought tea but was too shaky to manage pouring it.
Morley told him,'Sit your ass down, man! You look like hell.'
I said, 'He's two hundred percent better than when he got here.'
Singe fiddled with her papers, getting more restive by the moment. Finally, she snapped, 'Take it across the hall, boys. Take it next door. Take it anywhere but here. I have a ton of work. I need quiet to get it done.'
Morley flashed a killer grin. Playmate looked soulfully wounded. I said, 'As you command, so shall it be.' I collected the Bird's painting and Penny's drawings. We crossed to the Dead Man's room.
'Warmer in here,' Morley opined sarcastically.
Playmate planted himself in the best chair. 'The pain isn't a tenth what it was but I still don't got any energy.' He had brought the tea with him. He poured while sitting.
'That will turn around,' I said. 'Old Bones is totally confident. Mostly, it'll just take Dean to feed you up to your fighting weight, now.'
'Think he'll be out for long?' Playmate tipped a thumb at the Dead Man. 'I can feel the evil starting to grow again.'
'I don't know. He's unpredictable. The stuff Kolda brought isn't working?'
Playmate tapped a dusting of brown powder into his teacup. 'It's working smoky-ass miracles, Garrett. But it just slows the devil down. If I take it faithfully, obeying Kolda completely, it will take me three times as long to die.'
His tone was understandably strained.
Meanwhile, Morley studied the artwork like he was determined to commit every brush and pencil stroke to memory.
Playmate said, 'I think I've seen that man in the painting somewhere.'
I suggested, 'Year and a half ago? The mess at the World Theater?'
Playmate stared some more. 'I see what you mean. But that's not the same man. An older brother, maybe.'
'Barate Algarda was an only child.'
'I got it. Nat something. A long time ago. I was a kid. But. .' He frowned deeply.
'What?' I asked.
Morley blurted, 'You're right. He does look like that Algarda creep. But not the same. See the scar?' He pointed.
Playmate ignored him. 'The man I remember looked like this over thirty years ago. Scars and all.'
I enjoyed that pleasant feeling you get when you stumble onto something good, though I didn't really know if this was worth the stumble.
Playmate smacked himself upside the head. 'The drug is working already. I can't hardly remember anything. I know he was a villain. Who ought to be a long time dead.'
Playmate slurred. His chin dropped to his chest. Morley observed, 'That is some kick-ass knockout powder.'
'But of limited commercial value. Otherwise, Kolda would have a pot to pee in.'
'I don't like to speak ill of your friends, Garrett, but that Kolda. .'
Singe shoved into the room. 'Don't you hear the door, Garrett?'
'No.' I did so now only because she had the hallway door open. Door-answering isn't part of my special skill set, anyway. 'Who is it?'
'I suppose we would know if somebody answered it.'
The thumping suggested someone was getting frustrated.
Singe made an exasperated noise more appropriate to one of our recent young adult lady visitors. She stamped up the hall.
Morley said, 'If she was human I'd think Aunt Flo was winding her up.'
'It's about the same thing. She'll be over it soon.'
He said, 'I may have crossed paths with this guy myself, sometime.'
73
Singe brought Barate Algarda into the Dead Man's room. He was not in a good mood but he had shown up quickly. He wasn't wearing a mesh helmet. He wasn't going to hide.
Barate Algarda was a big man, Saucerhead size, ugly, and unkempt. He looked like a down-on-his-luck thug not getting much work because of Deal Relway's impact on the shadow economy. He nurtured that image. It left people unready for the real Barate Algarda. He was as bright and quick as his female descendants. His only talent for the magical, though, was a strong natural resistance to the Dead Man's mind probes.
Algarda was darker and wider than Strafa or Kevans. Strafa took after her mother, whom I had seen in ghost form, once upon a time. Kevans had gotten a little more from the paternal side. She'd never be a beauty.
Algarda barely glanced at the Dead Man. 'Well?'
Singe remained in the doorway, I suppose so she could jump in if Algarda became actively hostile. He had done so before, when he thought his daughters were threatened.
'Did Kevans explain what's been going on?'
'Honestly? Not really. I got the impression that she thought she was being hounded unfairly.'
'That could be.'
'She showed the same attitude when her bunch were breeding giant bugs.' He added, 'Gods, I'm glad they didn't do any spiders.'
I shivered. Me, too. 'You have to admit, Kevans has a sociopathic side.'
'Runs in the family.'
Indeed. 'So let me sketch some situations that turn out to be tied together.' I brought him up to speed.
'Bizarre. Where does my daughter fit?'
I started looking for the best words to indicate a warehouse owned by his mother.
'Not Kevans. The Windwalker.'
'Oh.' I gave it to him straight, leaving out the personal side.
'The Crown Prince, eh?' he interjected at one point.
'Yeah.'
Morley listened quietly. Playmate joined Old Bones in dreamland, only he snored. Curious Singe looked like my sanitized tale made her want to take a nap, too.
'Glassware, eh?' Algarda mused, out of nowhere. 'Unusual glassware. In a warehouse. In Elf Town.'
'Where Kevans lived for a year. A place owned by your mother.'
He seemed mildly surprised. 'A strange woman, my mother. She kept secrets.'
Why not just add another whole level of weird? Though the Dead Man would have cautioned me about jumping to conclusions based on prejudices.
I reiterated, 'There was evidence that Kevans stayed there. The Specials have that. She says she was there for a year. She knew about the place because her grandmother took her there when she was twelve.'
