77

I lost Chaz at the Bledsoe. I don’t know why. Maybe, emotionally, she chose to blame me for what had happened to her father.

Her medical skills hadn’t been adequate.

Whatever the reason, the magic failed that night.

It was not one of my better nights. I blew the rest of it retailing explanations. Seemed anyone who’d ever heard of me or Grange Cleaver wanted all the dope. I was actually pleased when Relway materialized.

He was a magic man was Relway. People vanished in droves.

“It’s all straightened out now, Garrett,” Colonel Block told me. I was visiting him again. After having been allowed another ten hours of cell time to ripen. I’d had to do my time with the Goddamn Parrot, too. “Weren’t nearly so many bodies this time.” He looked at me expectantly.

I tried not to disappoint him but kept it short and got out. He wasn’t much interested. Didn’t even ask much about the Tops. He was preoccupied with the racial strife.

I headed for home. I didn’t manage to leave the bird of doom behind. For no obvious reason, that breathing feather duster didn’t have much to say. Even while we’d been locked up he’d held it down most of the time.

Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had some terminal bird disease. I couldn’t be that lucky.

Dean didn’t respond when I pounded on my front door. Irked, I used my key, went in and stomped around hollering and cussing till I was convinced the old boy wasn’t there after all. There was no sign he’d come back.

Huh? How’d the bird get loose?

Add another puzzle. Why hadn’t Emerald taken advantage of my extended absence? The kitchen suggested that she had visited several times and was less than fanatical about order and cleanliness. But she hadn’t tried to bust out.

Strange.

Stranger still, T.G. Parrot went to his perch without a squawk.

That was more than strange. It was suspicious.

“Justina? I need to tell you something.” It wasn’t going to be easy.

She was seated on Dean’s bed. She looked at me without emotion but with what seemed too-knowing eyes.

Straight ahead seemed the best way. I told her.

She continued to look at me, apparently unsurprised.

But she did love her mother—despite knowing the truth about Maggie Jenn and Grange Cleaver. She broke.

I held her while the tears flowed. She accepted that but nothing more and never said a word, even while I led her to the front door and told her she was free to go.

“Chip off the old blockhead,” I muttered, a little put out, as I watched her fade into the crowds. “Oh, but she was beautiful, though.”

I was in no way pleased with the case. I don’t like unhappy endings even though they’re the most common kind. And I wasn’t certain that much had been settled or wrapped up.