firmly under my thumb. You don’t have a child. Your brother has no child.”
“I’m too old for that now.”
“Your brother isn’t. And he is still alive.”
I left her then, to think, her mouth hanging open.
I considered seeing Narayan Singh again, decided I would seem too eager. I was too tired, anyway. You do not treat with a Deceiver without full command of your faculties. Sleep was the lover whose arms I needed to wrap me up.
42
I was playing tonk with Spiff and JoJo and Kendo Cutter, an interesting mix. At least three of us took our religion somewhat seriously. JoJo’s real name was Cho Dai Cho. He was Nyueng Bao and, in theory, One-Eye’s bodyguard. One-Eye did not want a bodyguard. JoJo did not want to be a bodyguard. So they did not see much of one another, and the rest of us saw as little of JoJo as we did of Uncle Doj. JoJo complained, “You’re just ganging up on the dumb swamp boy. I know.”
I said, “Me get in cahoots with a heretic and an unbeliever?”
“You’ll ambush them after you finish picking my bones.”
I had been having an unusual run of luck.
Everybody resents it when their favorite mark gets lucky.
I said, “I can’t get used to this not having to go to work.” JoJo discarded a six I needed to fill to the inside of a five-card straight. “Maybe this is my day.”
“Be a good time to get out and find you a man, then.”
“Goblin. You’re still alive. As mad as Soulcatcher was last night, I figured she would have you for a midnight snack before you got halfway home.”
Goblin gave me his big frog grin. “She’s gonna walk funny for a while. I couldn’t believe she actually stomped on it.” His grin faded. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe nailing her that way was a mistake. I could’ve led her somewhere where we could’ve got her in a crossfire-”
“She would’ve been looking for that. In fact, her suspecting something like that was probably one reason she didn’t keep chasing you. You want to sit in?”
All three of my companions glowered. Goblin was not One-Eye but they did not trust him a bit. They knew with the confidence of ignorance that Goblin was just more clever when he cheated. The fact that his history was one of losing more than he won was just a part of the cover-up.
You might have noticed that the human animal is fond of forming and clinging to prejudices, remaining their steadfast curator in the face of all reason and contradiction.
“Not this time.” Goblin could take a hint. He would also take them some other way sometime and laugh himself silly behind his hand. And it would serve them right. “Got work to do. I’m already getting complaints from everybody about a ghost that was all over the warehouse last night. Got to scope it out.”
I had a losing hand. Or foot. I tossed it in. “He’s making me feel guilty for loafing.” I collected my winnings. “You can’t quit now,” Kendo grumbled. “You proved your point. Women can’t play cards. I stay here much longer, I won’t have a copper left to my name. Then you wouldn’t get a birthday present this year.” “Didn’t get one last year, either.”
“I must’ve played tonk with you then, too. So many of you do it, I have a hard time keeping track of which ones of you guys keep beating up on me.” They all grumbled now.
Goblin said, “Maybe I can sit in, just for a hand or two.” “That’s all right. You better help Sleepy, Or Sleepy can help you.” The grumbling stopped till we were out of earshot.
Goblin chuckled. So did I. He said, “We ought to get married.”
“I’m too old for you. See if Chandra Gokhale can fix you up.”
“Aren’t those two like a couple of starving rats?” Gokhale and Drupada were at one another constantly. Their squabbles had not yet devolved into anything physical only because they had been warned in the strongest of terms that the winner of any fight would be punished terribly.
“Maybe one of them will kill and eat the other one,” I said. “If we’re lucky.”
“You’re a dreamer, for sure.”
“What’s your opinion on this ghost?”
He shrugged.
“You know it’s the girl, don’t you?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“You think she’s going through the same thing Murgen did when he started? Falling through time and everything?”
“I don’t know. There’s a difference. Nobody ever saw anything with Murgen.”
“Can you stop her from doing it?”
“Spooking you out?”
“In the sense that I’m scared she’ll go out and get help, sure.”
“Ooh. I didn’t think about that.”
“Do think about it, Goblin. What about the white crow? Could she be the white crow?”
“I thought Murgen was the white crow.”
He knew better. “Murgen’s here, being Sahra’s recon slave.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time Murgen was in the same place, looking at things from two different times.”
“He tells me he can’t remember being the crow.”
“Maybe that’s because he hasn’t done it yet. Maybe it’s a Murgen from next year or something.”
I did not know what to say to that. That possibility had not occurred to me. And Murgen had done that sort of thing before.
“On the other hand, personally I don’t think it’s Murgen or the brat.” He grinned his big toad grin. He knew I would stub my toe on that.
I did. “What? You little rat. Who is it, then?”
He shrugged. “I got a couple ideas but I’m not ready to talk about them yet. You got the Annals. All you need to follow my reasoning is right in there.” He began giggling, pleased with himself for stumping the Annalist at her own game. So to speak. “Ha-ha.” He spun around, dancing. “Let’s go beat up on Narayan Singh. Whoa. Look who’s here. Swan, you’re too damned old to wear your hair that long. Unless you’re going to comb it all up on top there to kind of cover the thin spot.”
I held a ringer above Goblin’s dome, pointing down. He had not had a crop come in during my lifetime.
Swan said, “Kind of looks like your widow’s peak is sagging back a little, too. Probably comes of banging your head on the bottoms of so many tables.” Swan looked at me, an eyebrow raised. “He been in the ganja or something?”
“No. He just hasn’t gotten over the fact that he went toe to toe with your girlfriend and came out ahead on points.” Swan had suggested a good point indirectly, though. With hemp such a common weed, it was a wonder that Goblin and One-Eye had not gotten in on the entertainment side of that crop.
Goblin understood what I was thinking without me saying a word. He told me, “We don’t have anything to do with it because it screws up your head.”
“And that water-buffalo urine you brew back there doesn’t?”
“That’s pure medicine, Sleepy. You ought to try it. It’s chock-full of stuff that’s good for you.”
“My diet is just fine, Goblin. Except for the fish and the rice.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We take up a collection, buy us a pig... never mind what Sahra says. There ain’t nothing sweeter than some fatback and beans-”
Swan had invited himself to accompany us in our seventy-foot trek to Narayan’s cage. He said, “I’ll kick in on that myself. I haven’t tasted bacon in over twenty years.”
“Shit,” Goblin said. “You’re going to kick in? Man, you don’t even have a name anymore. You’re dead.”
“I could run up to the Palace, dig around under my mattress. Times haven’t been all bad for me.”
