FADED STEEL HEAT.

by Glen Cook.

1.

It ought to start with a girl. The best ones always do. She ought to be kick the lid off your coffin gorgeous. She ought to be in hot water right up to her cute little...ears. She shouldn't quite know why, or maybe she just won't say why the guys with the bent noses are after her. She ought to have eyes full of mischief and not be afraid to get mischievous with the right guy.

That's the way it ought to be. But this time it started with three three darling gremlins, any one of whom could sprain a set of male eyeb.a.l.l.s at thirty paces. darling gremlins, any one of whom could sprain a set of male eyeb.a.l.l.s at thirty paces.

Oh. I'm Garrett, aka Mr. Right. Although a jealous acquaintance might lie about it, I'm six feet two inches of handsome ex-Marine. Yeah, sure my face has a few nicks and dings but those just add character. They let the frantic cutie in the deep gravy know she's found a stand-up guy. Or maybe, a guy too dim not to lead with his chops.

Dean, my cook and housekeeper and Door-Answerer General and (a legend in his own mind) majordomo, was out. I had to answer the tap-tap-tapping myself. It was noon. I'd been enjoying my first cup of tea. I was still a little tousled, wearing my charming rogue look. I had treated myself to a late nap in celebration of having survived an infestation of Great Old Ones, olden G.o.ds more like world-devouring termites than the woosie celestial accountants populating today's Dream Quarter.

What the heck. Real women like their fellows a little rough around the edges.

I put a bloodshot peeper to the peephole. The day looked better right away. "Eureka!" My stoop was overrun with lovelies cooked up from all the right ingredients. Youth. Beauty. Curve and flow and swoop to make drooling geometricians opt for a very specialized area of study. And right behind them hulked several ugly thugs who provided the element of menace.

I flung the door wide. "How lucky can one guy get?"

The blond was Alyx Weider. She gawked like she'd just seen something pop up out of its grave. She was five feet four and sleek as a mink but nature hadn't shorted her on the extras. "Garrett? Is that you?" Like I was wearing a disguise.

"You grew up." She definitely grew up.

The redhead said, "Stop drooling, Garrett." That was Tinnie Tate, professional redhead. And she took her calling seriously. My semi ex-girlfriend. "You'll get the floor all nasty. Dean will make you mop."

This was the first time Tinnie had spoken to me in months. Right away she had to start in on ch.o.r.es.

"You look lovely this morning, darling. Come in. Come in." I eyed the third woman, the brunette. She had done herself a cruel disservice by falling in with Tinnie and Alyx. She wore plain clothing and had taken no special care with her grooming. Tinnie and Alyx made her seem mousy. But only at first glimpse. The sharp eye could tell she was the most gorgeous of the three. I have an eye like a razor.

I didn't recognize her.

Tinnie said, "You're really working at the bachelor business, aren't you?"

"Huh?" Usually I'm armed with a rapier wit-well, actually, a gladius sort of wit-but when Tinnie comes around my brain curdles.

"You look like death on a stick, Garrett. Slightly warmed over." Tinnie has a way with words. Like the guy at the end of the chute at the slaughterhouse has a way with tools.

"That's my honey," I told the crowd. I backed into the house. "Ain't she precious?"

"You got a honey, Garrett, I don't think her name is Tinnie Tate. Unless there's more than one of us."

"Awk!" I said, stricken. "Impossible! You're unique."

"Did you break a leg? Or forget the way to my house? Or forget how to write?"

She had me. The slickest stoat that ever slank couldn't have weaseled out of this one. I'd done one of those things guys do, that they don't know they're doing when they do them and still don't know what they did after they're done, then I'd had the bra.s.s-bottomed gall not to rush right over with a public apology. Lately, I have begun to suspect that standing on principle is a strategic error of the first water.

"I think you didn't come here to bicker in front of your friends." I showed her a lot of shiny teeth.

She showed me a scowl that told me, once again, I had everything all wrong but she was going to let it slide for the moment.

This visit was no surprise except in its timing. The ladies had been around to see me before, while I was otherwise preoccupied saving the world. Alyx's daddy had problems. She thought I could unravel them.

Tinnie knows the hours I keep. Bless her s.a.d.i.s.tic little heart.

Old Man Weider owns the biggest brewery empire in TunFaire. That's because the clever rascal brews the best brew. The first time he hired me I saved him from an inside theft ring that was devouring his business like a raging cancer. He's had me on retainer ever since. He wants me to work for him full-time. I'm not interested in a real job. When you're your own boss you don't have to please anybody but yourself. Though that arrangement doesn't leave much room to pa.s.s the blame.

In exchange for my retainer I make frequent surprise visits to the brewery. Random appearances make it difficult for organized villainy to take root again.

In the old days Alyx was a scrawny kid barely threatening to become a heartbreaker. Her older sister, Kittyjo, was a lot more interesting.

Time trudges on. Sometimes it plays a pretty melody.

I tried again. "Let's not argue, Tinnie. I can't possibly win."

"If you know that how come..."

"I didn't say you were right." d.a.m.n! I knew I'd blown it before I finished saying it.

"Garrett! I..."

2.

"Quiver me heart!" a voice squawked. "Feast yer glims, mates! It must be heaven! Where do we start?"

"Is that the infamous parrot?" the new girl asked. Alyx and Tinnie glowered into the small front room. They put enough kick into it to freeze water and crack gla.s.s. The room opens off the hall to the right just inside the front door. I hadn't remembered to close up before admitting the ladies.

"That's Mr. Big, yes. Trash beak champion of the universe. Ignore him. Otherwise, he'll get excited."

"Excited?"

"He's restraining himself right now."

Tinnie observed, "Garrett calls him the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot."

How did she know that? The feathered mosquito didn't arrive till after her famous parting tizzy.

Of course. Her effort to twist my mind around till the last sense-juice leaked out didn't mean that she didn't see Dean. And Dean thinks Tinnie is the next best thing to immortality. He's her enthusiastic mole in the garden of my life.

I said, "I'd call him kitty food if I could wring his neck without offending the guy who gave him to me." Someday I'll get even with Morley. But it's going to be tough.

"He's kind of neat," Alyx decided, changing her mind on the fly. "But I wouldn't take him to visit my Aunt Claire."

"Come here, Sugar," the bird squawked. "Awk! Check them hooters! I am in love."

I muttered, "The only G.o.dd.a.m.n bird in the world with a vocabulary and he uses it up being obnoxious."

"Before you pop trying to find a safe way to ask," Tinnie told me, her finest taunting smile prancing across her lovely lips while she leaned against me and looked up with total green-eyed innocence, "this is Nicks. Giorgi Nicks for Nicholas."

"Hi, Gorgeous Nicks for Nicholas." Whoops! That slip earned me a pinch.

The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot sang the praises of Alyx Weider in language that would embarra.s.s stevedores. But it was hard to fault his eye.

Tinnie kept looking up and pinching, the devil in her eyes. "Guess what, lover? She's taken."

"Lucky guy. Mr. Big will be devastated." That foul-beaked jungle buzzard had spied Nicks now. Nicks winked at me. She had an incredible smile and eyes as blue as a cloudless sky.

She said, "I'm only engaged, Garrett. I'm not dead."

Alyx whistled. "Nicks!" Tinnie laughed but her eyes narrowed wickedly.

This looked like a good time to run down the street and see if Dean needed help with the groceries.

Nicks said, "Whoops! That didn't come out right. Are you the Garrett Tinnie brags about all the time?"

"Last time I checked that was still the name. I'm not sure about the brag part."

That earned me a fingernail in the ribs from the nearest beautiful redhead, who observed, "It's going to be mud if you're not careful."

"Just don't put me in the middle of anything, darling."

Alyx said, "Nicks is just being Nicks. She can't help it."

I said, "Huh?"

"Nicks flirts. She's been doing it since we were seven. She can't help it. She doesn't mean it. She doesn't realize she's sending come-on signals. Nicks, for heaven's sake. You can get in real trouble out here in the world."

Alyx was right. There's always trouble if a woman shows she's willing when she's not.

I asked, "Did I miss something? Did you spend your whole life in a harem, Nicks?" That isn't a Karentine thing but the rich do have strange ways. Alyx had been incredibly sheltered as a child.

"Practically." The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot flapped over, settled on her wrist like a falcon in a clown suit. "My father has strong ideas about saving me from the world. The Weiders and a few other families are the only people I've ever met. Till recently."

Alyx said, "She's staying with us, now. Daddy isn't the big ogre he used to be."

He never was with his baby. Alyx always got anything she wanted with just a cute pout.

Nicks used a finger to stroke the top of the jungle chicken's head. The little monster went along enthusiastically. He tilted his head back so she could get a finger under his chin. I'd never seen him take to anyone so wholeheartedly.

I looked to Alyx. I didn't get anything. What was she doing out of the family fortress herself? Old Man Weider must be losing his grip.

h.e.l.l, I knew that already. Didn't I? Wasn't that why the toothsome threesome had come? If Max was on top of everything he wouldn't need help and his baby wouldn't be out looking for it.

I shrugged. "I'll find out what I need to know as we go. Let's visit His Nibs, get comfortable, and talk about it."

Tinnie stepped back. She glared at me. "Shouldn't you get dressed first?"

My gal Tinnie, always looking out for my best interest. "Not a bad idea, sweetheart," though I was perfectly happy dressed the way I was. So what if I was a little rumpled? That was part of my rough charm. "Be right back, my lovelies. If you want tea or anything, you'll have to help yourselves. Dean's out shopping. Tinnie, you know where everything is."

Sneaky Garrett. He will get fresh tea brewed by the very viragos who think they' ve got him in a clean pin.

I trotted upstairs before Tinnie caught on.

3.

I descended the stairway wearing my clotheshorse best only to discover skinny old Dean newly returned. He wrinkled his bony nose, shook his bony head, proceeded into the kitchen. Alyx's blue eyes twinkled. "You don't waste much time picking out your clothes, do you?"

Tinnie was in the kitchen. Dean brightened right up. "Miss Tate! This is a pleasant surprise. May I observe that you are looking particularly lovely today?"

"Mr. Creech! You rogue. Of course you may. Somebody ought to notice. Let me help you with that."

I leaned into the kitchen. d.a.m.n! The old boy was being victimized by a hugging redhead.

Life ain't fair. Not even a little. Me she pokes and pinches.

A crackling sense of amused antic.i.p.ation grew around me. Somehow the ladies had both wakened my partner and put him in a good mood. That filled me with foreboding. Eclipses and planetary conjunctions are less common than the Dead Man awakening in a good mood when the house is infested with females.

I took a deep breath.

Here we went again.

I led the ladies into the Dead Man's room, which takes up most of the left-side ground floor of my house, excepting the pantries off the kitchen.

The cuties made themselves right at home. Without asking they dragged chairs out of my office, which is an ambitious closet across the hall from the Dead Man's room. Tinnie perched on the guest's chair. Nicks claimed the comfortable one that belongs behind my desk. I would cherish the warmth forever. Meantime, Alyx decorated the chair I usually use when I'm in with the Dead Man. The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot still perched on Nicks' hand, nibbling bits of something she offered him. He cooed like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned turtledove.

You might reserve that admiration for Miss Tate. If you were a gentleman. That was my partner, shoving unwanted advice directly into my head. That was my partner, shoving unwanted advice directly into my head.

"But I'm not. She's told me so lots of times." I glared. Alyx and Nicks smiled as though enjoying a private joke. Maybe Old Bones had shared his remarks with the three heartstoppers, not just me.