13

Old Man Tate got the body out somehow. Dropped it in the river, I guess. I didn’t ask, and didn’t hear a thing about it. A lot of people never heard from again take that one last swim.

I got Morley and the triplets installed at Denny’s place. Morley thought it was a great idea. That being the case, I spent the evening hanging around his place, nicked by dagger looks from the breeds, hoping I would catch a flash to illuminate his eagerness to join a fool’s quest.

I didn’t catch anything brighter than candlelight.

All I found out was that I wasn’t the only guy watching.

You get a sixth sense after enough years. Mine pegged two heavyweights in the first fifteen minutes. One was human and looked like he could give Saucerhead a fight. The other was so ugly, and stayed in his shadowed corner so deep, that I couldn’t tell what he was. A breed for sure, probably with some troll and kobold in him, but more than that. He was as wide as he was tall. His face had been rearranged several times, probably for the better.

The bartender knew I had something going with Morley. He stayed civil. I asked about the men I had picked out.

“Don’t know them. The ugly one was in here last night. First time. Sat in that corner all night nursing a beer he brought with him. I would’ve thrown him out if he hadn’t bought a meal.”

“That would’ve been a show to see.” I took a pint of the water that passed for beer there and tipped him to take the sting out of the crack. “Think they’re the kingpin’s boys?”

“Not unless they’re from out of town.”

That was what I thought. I didn’t recognize them either, but they looked like trouble on the hoof.

Well, no skin off my nose. As long as they were not interested in me.

I gave it up at Morley’s place after the pint. There were better places to put an ear to the ground. I went and hung out in some of them. I didn’t find out a thing.

Curious.

I headed for my place wondering if the glazier had gotten started yet. I felt no shame at all charging the replacement window to Tate.

The new window was in place and lettered as pretty as a blonde in her birthday suit. But I strolled by without admiring it, putting a slouch in my shoulders and a shuffle in my walk.

Maybe I wouldn’t go home after all.

There were problems. One was that somebody was waiting in the breezeway beside the ratman’s; even without seeing the glow of his pipe I could smell the weed he was smoking. The other was that there was somebody waiting inside. Whoever that was had all the lamps burning, using up oil at a rate to curdle my liver.

I knew a heavy weed smoker. Another friend of Denny’s. Another old soldier, name of Barbera, who smoked so much that most of the time he didn’t know if he was in this world or the next. A pathetic case, he was always in trouble because folks could talk him into anything. He had been one of Denny’s charities.

No doubt Denny’s other pals thought it would be a giggle to hop him up and sic him on me.

I faded into a shadow down the block and took a seat against a wall that needed tuckpointing. The view of my place was as scenic as a garbage dump.

A lot of nothing happened for a long time. Unless you count the flares as my lurker lighted up, or the passing of drunks so far gone they were unafraid of the nighted streets. Only after we started getting some aromatic moonlight did anything interesting happen. And that was just a couple guys checking in with the weed man.

They passed me by without seeing me. But I got a look at them.

Vasco and Quinn, my old pals.

So they meant to do me dirty, eh?

I didn’t move, though I thought about knocking some heads. I was beginning to wonder about that lamplight. Vasco and Quinn had made no effort to talk to whomever was inside. So maybe that whomever wasn’t one of them.

Who, then?

My friend the ratman came home from his shift at the graveyard, drunk as usual. In my less charitable moments I’ve wished he would get lost in one of the graves he digs.

He shuffled up to my new window, glanced inside.

Whatever he saw, it was interesting. He watched for a minute. When he moved on he cast furtive looks around. He didn’t see anyone watching. That must have given him courage. He slipped over and tried the door.

It opened.

Barbera came blazing out of the shadows. He climbed all over the ratman. When he had him pounded down to about three feet high, he took off, headed my way.

A little message for me from Denny’s pals. Misdelivered.

I reckoned they needed an answer.

I stepped out of the shadows as Barbera lumbered past. He caught me from the corner of his eye. I said, “Hi, there,” and smacked his ear with my sap as his eyes grew big and he tried to turn.

He did not go down. But his knees got wobbly and his eyes glazed. I kicked him low, punched him high with my left, bounced the sap off his forehead.

He wobbled a little more.

They need a lot of pounding when they’re hopped.

I gave him all he needed, and then some, and when he no longer knew what planet he was on, I snagged the seat of his pants and walked him into an alley, where I gave him a few more taps with my sap. Then I took his pouch of weed. A while later I paid a half-dwarf half-goblin wino to deliver it to Vasco with the word that he had not gotten his money’s worth.

That taken care of, it was time to see about my intruder.

I didn’t do any seeing. When I got back to where I could see my place, a troop of Tates were going inside, stepping over the groaning ratman like he was something that fell behind the horse. In a moment they marched back out with an angry Tinnie.

So there you go. Exactly my kind of luck. If I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I’d break my leg running toward it and have to lie there watching some other clown walk away with it while I did my groaning.

I let the street clear. Then I went and got a bucket of beer and locked myself inside. Nobody disturbed me.